3 – Soak
The first rays of dawn light, albeit choked by clouds, were a welcome sight to Rachel. Jordan had gone to sleep some hours ago, but she could not have slept. The pounding rain had not let up at all during the night and not a lot changed with the morning light. Rain was still teeming down onto the roof of the lighthouse, and the shattered window let in an awful draft. She got to her feet and went outside into the rain.
The sound of the rain beat her ears in a steady monotone, punctured every now and again by a rumble of thunder. The steady drops of rain stung her skin, but she barely noticed. She crossed the narrow plank leading over to the ship and made her way up to the telescope. She peered through it for a minute, but nothing had changed since yesterday. Still just rocks and the very top of the lighthouse. Being stranded on a peaceful island was one thing, but stuck on a broken ship impaled upon a jagged rock was another thing altogether.
Ship... impaled on a rock...
Rocks... stone... ship... The cogs in Rachel's brain were whirring up to speed now. The shock of ending up here so suddenly and the unpleasant sensation of whatever you would call the way she left Myst so suddenly and was landed here had messed with her brain temporarily, but now she was beginning to make connections. Turning on her heel, she ran back down the rock towards the lighthouse.
"No, I did not decide that I felt like a quick swim!" shouted Rachel five minutes later, icy water still dripping from her hair. "I slipped on the rock, all right?"
Jordan had been just waking when Rachel had fallen into the freezing ocean, which she very quickly discovered was nothing like the calm waters of Myst. He had hastened outside to help her out, but could not resist making a few of his infamous bad jokes once he had pulled her out, brought her back into the lighthouse and wrapped her in his jacket. Although she had only been in the water very briefly her toes had turned blue and her teeth were chattering. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was warmer.
"All right, all right..." said Jordan, still fighting down laughter. "So what should we do now?"
"Well," replied Rachel, teeth still chattering, "as it's raining I would suggest we go and examine that umbrella more closely. There were some buttons under there, remember?" With that, they left the lighthouse back into the pouring rain.
The volcano loomed dark and menacing up ahead. Maddy glanced briefly up at it, before continuing her trek across the parched desert. Her car was thoroughly useless past the end of the road, which was a good kilometre from the volcano compound.
Maddy was 17, six months younger than Rachel and with a crop of hair that had earnt her the unpleasant nickname "Mop" from a number of people in the town. Nobody had seen Jordan or Rachel for the past few days, which was unusual because Jordan was in town practically every other day (he was always running out of bread, for some unknown reason). Maddy had decided to pay them a visit, to check that everything was all right.
The desert was flat as anything, so the walk was relatively easy and there was no chance of losing her way, as the volcano was easily visible even from the road. Maddy reached the large, flat-topped rock which marked five hundred metres and stopped for a short rest.
"I bet," she muttered to herself, "that whatever those two are doing they are not nearly as warm as this."
If only she knew.
After the unpleasant experience of a dip in the ocean, the thoughts that Rachel had had whilst up by the telescope had been temporarily driven from her mind. Now, however, as circulation began to return to her toes, she remembered why she had come running down the rock in the first place, and told Jordan quickly before she forgot.
"This place is like that place described in that journal you were reading back on Myst. The Stoneship Age, or whatever."
"But there were supposed to be people there," replied Jordan. "This place is deserted, at least as far as we know." He pressed the leftmost button under the umbrella almost absent-mindedly.
A slight buzz of electricity hummed through the air and a low rumbling, sucking sound came from the ship. Jordan pulled his hand off the button. It was glowing a dull yellow.
Cautiously, Jordan walked back over to the ship. Everything seemed the same, until he looked down at the passage leading to the innards of the ship. Five minutes ago, when they crossed over to get here, the passage was flooded. Now, the water had drained away. Still walking on eggshells, Jordan crept down the passage towards the door at the bottom.
Rachel, still standing near the buttons, suddenly felt very cold and sick. Putting her hand out to steady herself, she bent down with her stomach churning. Whether it was hunger, something rotten she'd eaten or the effects of the link finally catching up with her, it wasn't pleasant.
Over the pounding rain, she heard a buzz, rushing water, a shout and running footsteps. Jordan came pelting out of the passageway.
"What are you playing at?" he shouted over the pump and the rain.
Confused for a minute, Rachel soon realised that she had put her hand out to steady herself and pressed the middle button accidentally. Apparently the pump could only drain one area at a time. She couldn't help laughing.
Jordan, after seeing the funny side of what had just happened and having a bit of a laugh as well, noticed that the tunnels leading down into the rock had drained this time. "I'm not going down there, it's dark. What about the last one?"
Rachel pressed the rightmost button and Jordan discovered that this had drained the lighthouse. Rachel crossed back to the ship and together they went to examine the lighthouse.
The gate was unlocked. Maddy pushed it open and walked inside the volcano compound. Nothing seemed different from the last time she was here, except for some new dunes over by the volcano. All was quiet except for the occasional cry of a bird.
Maddy quickly made it to the house. She knocked on the door, but there was no reply.
"Perhaps they're out walking together again," she murmured. "Cuties..."
The lower level of the lighthouse, now that it had been drained of water, yielded nothing but a large chest, locked tight.
"There was a key bolted to the floor up on the walkway," said Rachel, "could we get it up there?"
Jordan pushed at the chest, but only succeeded in moving it an inch. They heard water sloshing around inside.
"Hey, there's a valve on the side!" Jordan exclaimed suddenly, and bent down to turn it. A lot of water rushed out, but nothing else. He closed the valve again looking disappointed.
"This is all very depressing," he muttered darkly.
Rachel hugged him. "We'll pull through."
The innards of the ship were very dark. Rachel had opened the door at the bottom of the passageway, stepped in and suddenly discovered that there was more stairs on the other side of the door as she fell down them. Then it was her turn for a hug.
She and Jordan emerged back into the light, Rachel nursing a large bruise on her head. Jordan glanced over at the lighthouse and suddenly pointed over at it. "Look!"
Rachel looked. The chest that they had found was floating on top of the water, right next to the key on the floor. She blinked. It wasn't a hallucination. The water that they had drained out of the chest, she reasoned, must have been keeping it down. Now it was airtight and buoyant.
They hurried over to the lighthouse, as fast as they dared in these conditions. The key bolted to the floor was attached to a chain, and the chain was just long enough to reach the key over to the chest. Jordan unlocked it and the lid sprang open. He and Rachel peered eagerly inside. There was absolutely nothing there except a large key.
Jordan glanced from the key to the locked hatch at the top of the ladder leading up into the top of the lighthouse and chuckled. He picked the key up, climbed the ladder quickly and unlocked the hatch. It swung open with a swift creak, and he climbed up into the upper room, Rachel following quickly behind him.
The top of the lighthouse was surprisingly warm. The faint rays of the sun, although still choked by the clouds, warmed the room pleasantly, and although they could hear the wind whistling through the hatch leading back down, it did not reach them. The room was empty except for what looked like a small hand generator and a small battery pack. A gauge on the side of the batteries showed that they were thoroughly dry.
"Stand back," murmured Jordan, and he reached for the handle on the generator. Gingerly, he turned it once. It rumbled slightly, and the tiniest drops of power were shown on the battery gauge, but nothing else happened. He continued turning it, and the gauge steadily filled until it was full.
"So," said Rachel, "what did that do?"
Jordan pointed out the window at the tunnels in the rock. Lights were now flickering inside them, lighting up the crudely cut passages.
After waiting for half an hour, Maddy had started to walk around the volcano compound looking for Rachel and Jordan. As far as she could see, they were nowhere to be seen, but they could still easily be hiding amidst the dunes, down in the cleft or up on the volcano.
She paced the dunes for ten minutes, until she was thoroughly satisfied that they were not there. This was thirsty work, and she had left her water in the car. Annoyed now, she cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted.
"Guys, this isn't funny any more! If you're somewhere around here, will you please come out now?!"
No reply. Employing a few choice swear words and massaging her now parched throat, she turned to the volcano.
Rachel stepped into the room at the bottom of the tunnel. It was clean and very neat, with a sharply made bed, a desk and numerous drawers. Jordan had said to search the rooms top to bottom, so she did. Under the bed, through all the papers on the desk, through the desk drawers and finally the chest of drawers against the wall. She pulled open the top few drawers. One was filled with coins, one with various fabrics (one of which looked vaguely familiar), one with what looked like drugs and poisons. The next drawer was empty. But in the next drawer there was a red piece of paper with incomprehensible writing all over it. There was no doubt in her mind that this was one of the pages connected with the book in the Myst library. She put it in her pocket and left the room. Halfway up the stairs, however, she noticed a small panel bearing a red square on the wall. She pressed on it and it slid up into the wall, revealing a small passageway. She crawled cautiously inside.
Jordan took one look at the shabby, unkempt room at the bottom of the second tunnel and grimaced. There was not an inch of the room that was clean. The bed was unmade with filthy sheets, and there were ribcages hanging from the wall. He took a few deep breaths and started to search the room. On top of one of the chests of drawers he found a strange imager that showed a rose turning into a skull, but inside the drawers he found half of a piece of paper that bore some sort of instructions. He put it in the pocket as he had seen something on it about marker switches. Glancing over at the bed, he suddenly noticed that there was another piece of paper on the bed. This one was not torn and was dull blue – almost certainly, he thought, a page from the book in the Myst library. Putting this in his pocket as well, he left the room, but part way up the stairs he noticed something he hadn't seen before. There was a panel in the wall marked with a red square. H e pressed on it and it slid up into the wall. He crawled inside, holding his breath.
The room in the middle of the rock was small and round, with two passages leading off it. Rachel emerged from the left passage, and at exactly the same time Jordan emerged from the right passage. Both caught sight of each other at exactly the same time, yelled and jumped backwards into the passages, before realising who they had seen and bursting out laughing.
"So what did you find?" Rachel asked Jordan.
"Well, there was this," he said, extracting the torn note from his pocket. "I thought it might be useful. And there was this..." (he pulled out the blue page) "...which I'm sure will be useful."
"So will this, I'm sure." Rachel pulled the red page from her pocket and they both smiled.
"Now, what's this room?" The room was dominated by a large compass surrounded by buttons, thirty-two to be exact. Rachel crouched down and examined it.
"Well, one of these has to do something," she said, and before Jordan could lift a finger she had pressed the button at due north.
The effect was instantaneous. There was a click, and the room was plunged into darkness. Dim blue light flashed from the passages and an alarm began to wail loudly.
Jordan and Rachel ran down the left passage a bit too fast, leapt out into the tunnel and fell down the stairs, landing in a large heap just inside the room that Rachel had searched, which was rather strangely still lit.
"What happened?" said Rachel, now nursing a second bruise, this one on her elbow.
"I don't know... the battery might have blown up when you pressed that button... or," Jordan added hastily, as Rachel had given him a scathing look, "it might just have discharged, which is probably more likely..."
They felt their way up the tunnel back into the welcome light of the surface and hurried to the lighthouse. Jordan's prediction – the latter one – proved to be correct when they discovered that the batteries were indeed intact, but dry, and a few turns on the generator charged them back up again.
"One of those buttons has to help us a bit, but we can't just try all of them, we might damage the battery, and we can't afford that," reasoned Jordan, more to himself than to Rachel. "There must be something that would help us work out which one it is. Did you see anything in that room you searched?"
"Nothing," replied Rachel.
"Well, we'd better sit down for a bit," said Jordan, "and get our bearings on this situation."
"Hang on a minute..." Rachel said suddenly, "Bearings?"
She leapt to her feet and scrambled down the ladder. Jordan followed her, reminding her not to run on the rocks. Within a minute they were up by the telescope.
"Look in there," said Rachel, "and tell me what you see."
Jordan looked. "Rocks, rocks, rocks, a bit of the ship, the top of the lighthouse, and rocks."
"Right. What's the bearing of the top of the lighthouse?"
"Hang on," said Jordan, and he checked again. "One thirty-five. This is supposed to help us, I suppose?"
"Yes, it is. Because on a compass, a bearing of one hundred and thirty-five degrees is exactly south-east."
Her feet aching, throat parched and sweat forming on her brow, Maddy climbed down into the cool shade of the cleft. She made immediately for the small fresh pool on the ground. The water tasted rather earthy, but was drinkable and soothed her throat. With renewed energy, she stood up.
"I know you're here somewhere," she muttered, "and when I find you, I swear..." She didn't complete the sentence; instead preferring to start searching the cleft.
Returning to the now properly lit room in the rock, Rachel stooped over the compass again.
"I hope this works," she muttered, and pressed the button at south-east.
The room, rather than going dark, brightened suddenly. Rachel straightened up and saw that large underwater lamps had gone on outside the room. She smiled, knowing what this meant, and went to rejoin Jordan in the lighthouse.
The cleft was empty. Swearing again, Maddy emerged back into the desert sun and returned to the house. She tried the door handle. It wasn't locked. She went inside. She couldn't think of anywhere else they could be. She started to search the small house from top to bottom.
The kitchen was last. Maddy stepped into the kitchen and noticed something sitting on the table. It was a large, rather old looking book.
The innards of the ship were not dark any more. The underwater lamps had lit the room up so that it was easy to see that they were in the main cabin of the ship. Cautiously, Rachel and Jordan went inside, down the stairs towards the bottom.
There was nothing there, nothing except a large wooden table.
Jordan muttered darkly under his breath. "I thought for sure that there would be some sort of way out down here." He leant on the table.
A hiss like escaping air sounded suddenly. Jordan leapt like he'd just been stung, even as the table started to change shape. A large rectangular lump was now forming in the middle of the table. Even as they watched, dumbfounded, it solidified and changed colour. It was now grey, sitting on top of the table.
Rachel cautiously approached it and looked down at it. It was a small book, weathered with age, but with one word still clear on the front cover – Myst. She opened it. It was filled with page after page of incomprehensible script, and on the back page...
She smiled at Jordan, and laid a hand on the page. The room gave a jolt, blackness enveloped her, and the next thing she knew she was standing in a rather familiar room. The chandelier cast a twinkling light over the burnt books on the wall, and outside, the clock tower was silhouetted perfectly against a setting sun.
A soft ringing pierced the silence, the air next to her shimmered vaguely and Jordan stepped out of nothing next to her.
"Well, we made it," he said, "and I think we've earnt a rest." Before they could even sit down, however, the softest sound pierced the air again – a now familiar ringing.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes," replied Jordan. They ran from the room and down towards the dock. Before they had even passed the observatory, however, it was clear that there was something – or someone – there that was not there when they left.
In seconds they were on the dock, crouching over the unconscious shape. It looked familiar to both of them, and as Rachel surveyed the figure's head, the hair was a dead giveaway.