6 – Rendezvous

Brittany limped towards the elevator. While the others were away, she'd been busying herself in Atrus' workshop. At first, she was trying to get Atrus back on the crystal viewer. After several attempts, she had started examining the device itself. It really was astonishing – they had, of course, first seen it nearly twenty years ago on Rime, which Atrus had written for the express purpose of experimenting with the crystals, since they required some very cold temperatures in order to function. But very recently, he said in his journal, he had managed to create a sort of cooling unit for the viewer, allowing it to function in Tomahna.

The sound unit on the viewer was also new. A clever idea, Brittany had thought, reading about it in the journal, capitalising on the interference that Atrus had noticed was messing with the viewer. And Atrus' latest planned improvement to the viewer, Brittany had read, was a sort of "moving eye" attachment. This, however, was still just an idea, it seemed.

The elevator docked at the station near Atrus and Catherine's bedroom, and Brittany stepped out slowly. She paused. Her ankle might have been broken, but her wits were not, and she was sure she'd left the moving bridge directed from the kitchen over to here, not down towards Yeesha's room. This was -

Crash. The unmistakeable sound of breaking glass echoed up from Yeesha's room. Brittany's brain snapped into action, considering the situation. She had a broken ankle, was unarmed, and whoever it was that was down there was unlikely to be friendly. So, she had two options. She could confront whoever was down there, or she could make a tactical withdrawal. Based on the situation, and based on the fact that she saw a shadow moving towards the door of Yeesha's room, she chose the second option, and stepped backwards into the elevator. The door slid closed with perfect timing. She peered cautiously through the window on the door.

The figure standing on the wooden dock outside Yeesha's room was rather tall – certainly too tall to be anyone she knew. It was holding something in its hand. As she watched, it held the object out over the lake and vanished.

That, thought Brittany, was kind of anticlimactic. Still, she was grateful for that. She opened the elevator door and proceeded cautiously down to Yeesha's room.

The room was an absolute wreck. Chairs were upended, the bed was unmade, books littered the floor and one of the glass cabinets under the bookshelf had been smashed. Brittany couldn't see anything missing, but then she hadn't been down here all that often.

There was the sound of running footsteps, before Rachel burst into the room, followed closely by Maddy.

"Britt! What's going on? We saw someone – what the hell happened here?" exclaimed Rachel with one breath.

"Someone's been in here," replied Brittany. "I don't know who. All I saw was someone come out from here with a book and link out."

The discussion proceeded as Jordan and Jane arrived. The book that the intruder had used to escape, they determined, had landed on the small dock under Yeesha's room.

"So was anything actually taken?" Maddy asked. "Jane?"

"Um..." Jane looked around the room, and her eyes settled on the broken glass cabinets underneath the bookshelf. "Yeah. I think so. There was a book… under there." She pointed to the leftmost cabinet, which was now empty except for a few shards of broken glass.

"A journal?"

"I don't know," replied Jane. "But I don't think so. She kept her journal… there." She pointed at the bed. The pillow had fallen to the ground, and underneath was a small green book.

"Wait," said Jordan, "she does keep a journal? That could be useful."

"You really think we should read her journal?"

"If it helps us find her," replied Jordan, "I don't think she'll mind that much." He picked up the green book and thumbed through it. It was a colourful book, with pictures meticulously coloured with bright reds and yellows. More interesting to Jordan, however, was the constant mention of an age called Serenia.

Rachel was reading over his shoulder. "Serenia. I've heard that name before. I think… yeah, Catherine mentioned it to me once. Just in passing. She said that Yeesha had been spending a lot of time there."

"Oh yeah," piped up Jane suddenly. "She told me that's where she got her necklace."

"I think," said Jordan, "that we ought to pay a visit to Serenia. Jane? Do you know how we can get there?"

"No," said Jane simply.

"I wouldn't mind betting," said Brittany, "that the book down on Yeesha's dock will help us with that problem."

"You might be right there," said Jordan. "If whoever used that book is looking for Yeesha, they'd be working along the same lines as we are."


Damned chair! He's starting to get very annoyed here. This was working perfectly before! Why… is… it… not… working?

The girl is still struggling at her restraints, although she's being much quieter about it now. Still, he must be running short on time by now. Perhaps he needs to take a break from this for a little while. Go harvest the globes, maybe? It'll be no use getting the chair working unless he's got some globes.

Yes… good idea. It'll take him a little while to get the globes. Without a word to the girl, he stalks off down the stairs and out into the light.


"How's it going?"

Jordan and Rachel turned around as Maddy and Brittany came into the room.

"Well… near as we can tell, it's the classic bookshelf combination. Press a series of books in the right order and something happens."

"That's pretty vague." Brittany limped over and looked at Yeesha's journal.

"Well, there's this line here…" Jordan picked up the journal and ran his finger down the page. "Here. She says that she changed the code recently. And she says that she won't forget who's older than who any more."

"Hm." Brittany mulled this over in her mind for a second. "So what are the books?"

"Well, you'd be better qualified to answer that than we would," replied Jordan. "The covers are written in D'ni."

Brittany looked at the shelf. The titles written down the side of the books were all single D'ni words. She frowned as she scanned the shelf slowly, translating in her head and muttering under her breath, until she came to one interesting one.

"Hold on – here." She indicated one of the books. "That says 'Atrus'." She continued looking. "And that one there… that says 'Yeesha'."

"Oh, I think I get it," said Rachel. "We have to press the books corresponding to the members of the family, in order of their ages."

"That makes sense," said Maddy. "So, Yeesha's the youngest, obviously. But what about the rest?"

"Um… Atrus is older than Catherine," said Rachel.

"Okay… and I think Achenar is older than Sirrus," said Jordan. "Achenar calls Sirrus 'little brother' in his journals."

"Right. So do we go from youngest up, or eldest down?"

"Dunno," said Brittany. "We'll just have to try one and see." She stepped forward. "So, let's see… Yeesha, Sirrus, Achenar, Catherine, Atrus." She pressed firmly on five books. Each one slid backwards about an inch. The result was somewhat anticlimactic – all that appeared to happen was that the books slid back out.

"Must be the other way, then," said Brittany. She pressed the same books in the reverse order. After she pressed the last book, there was a distinct click. After a second, the entire bookshelf slid smoothly downwards into the floor. A small panel of wood flopped down and covered the shelf, revealing a small round hole in the floor behind and a ladder leading down.

"Right. This won't take a sec." Brittany ducked under the slightly low arch of the opening left by the bookshelf and climbed down the ladder. As she did so, the bookshelf slid back up, clicking into place quietly. A few seconds later, the shelf slid down again, and Brittany came back up the ladder with the book clasped under her arm.

The four of them headed back up to the kitchen, where they found Jane raiding Atrus and Catherine's pantry. After Rachel told her off, they regrouped around the book.

"So… should we just go straight through?" Rachel, ever the cautious one, had spotted a small problem.

"If there's no return book on the other end," she continued, "we could be in trouble."

"True," replied Maddy, "but really, do we have much choice?"

"We could find a spare book and take it with us just in case."

"Well yeah, but where does Atrus -"

"Where's Jane?" Brittany suddenly broke in. All four of them looked down at the book on the table.

"Um -"

"Hi guys." Jane bounced across the bridge and sat down.

"Where did -"

"There is a book there," said Jane, apparently oblivious to her mother's growing annoyance.

"We were still -"

"I know."

"It could have been -"

"I know."

"What if -"

"Give up," interrupted Brittany, "and just be glad there was a book there."

Rachel paused, seemingly unsure, then decided this was good advice. Brittany winked at Jane, who grinned back.

"Come on then… let's not waste any more time."


The morning air was cold, but that didn't bother Anya. She walked briskly towards the Hall of Spirits. It was early enough that none of the others would be there.

Things weren't right – she could feel it. The strangers hadn't yet arrived, and they had been expecting them yesterday. Had something happened to them?

And – something else. Something… sinister. Things were going to turn bad very soon.


They linked into a small cave that looked out onto a serene forest. It wasn't a conventional forest, mind you – the trees were tall and thin, and they were interspersed with large stones. Just ahead of them, a smaller stone was venting a plethora of water bubbles into the air. Behind them, the large stone pedestal that looked very much like it should have held a book was empty, and the ground next to it that looked very much like it should not have held a book did.

"The book was there when I came through," said Jane. "It must have been knocked off for some reason."

"Hm." Maddy picked up the book. "It seems… kind of weird. I mean… unless someone deliberately dropped it on the ground, it must have been knocked off. Right?"

"Yeah, I suppose -"

As Jane laid a hand on the cold stone of the pedestal, she was interrupted by the now almost familiar chime of Yeesha's necklace. Almost instinctively, she touched it.

She's surprised. Her reflexes are sharp. She lunges for the book. But he's quick too. He's right behind her. Grabs her. The book flies off and lands open on the ground. She cries out. Struggles. But it's no good; he's too strong…

Jane shuddered – she still wasn't used to seeing these memories. She relayed the memory to the others, who were waiting with baited breath.

"So Yeesha did come here," mused Rachel. "Well, we're on the right track, anyway."

The five of them proceeded cautiously along the path leading through the stone forest. As beautiful as this age was, they'd learnt long ago not to take such surface beauty for granted – they still couldn't tell whether or not this was indeed Serenia, and it was impossible to tell what they might encounter next.

As they neared a small wooden bridge, Rachel, who was in front, stopped dead and threw out her hands, gesturing for the others to stop as well. After she listened for a minute, she gestured for them to crouch down behind the nearest stone, which they did. As they watched cautiously, a tall, well-built, scruffily-dressed man stalked along the path beyond the bridge. From his demeanour, they gathered that he was probably not friendly.

"Who was that?"

"I recognised him from somewhere," muttered Jordan.

"So did I," said Jane. "Wasn't that Achenar?"

There was a brief pause. "Yes…" Jordan said slowly. "Yes, that's who it was."

"What's he doing here?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's bound to be dodgy." Maddy, ever the brave one, stood up. "I bet he's got something to do with Yeesha."

They continued through the forest, both marvelling at its beauty and jumping at its noises. Only once did they see anything interesting, though – they had rounded a corner, passing by a strange wooden structure, and off to the side was a smallish round pool of water, rimmed by a stone basin. Inside the basin was what appeared to be a fountain; a spout of water was spewing into the air, about as tall as Jane was. When they looked a little closer, though, it appeared to have the faint outline of eyes within the water. Before they could get a proper look, the water spout suddenly dropped back into the water and the pool became still very suddenly.

"Yeesha had written about something like that in her journal," muttered Jordan. "Something about a – what was it? A spirit, or something."

"Spirit guide?" said Jane. "She was talking about spirit guides at some point."

"That might have been it, yeah. If it was, it probably means this is Serenia."

By this point they had reached the edge of the forest. The path they were on sloped gently down a flight of stairs before meeting a wider stone path. To their right, the path wound back into the forest, but to their left it curved down towards a large stone arch. Having already seen much of the forest, the five of them proceeded towards the arch.

As they rounded the bend in the path, they caught sight of a tall woman under the arch. She turned to face them. Clad in long loose-fitting robes, with a necklace similar to Yeesha's around her neck and a painted dark blue line from her forehead down to the bridge of her nose, her features were friendly and she seemed to radiate an aura of calmness. The five strangers stopped, but all of them were intuitively aware that this woman was not a threat.

"I was starting to worry about you."

This was not the introduction any of them had been expecting. The woman smiled very slightly and moved slowly towards them, out from under the arch.

"In the dream, you always arrived before third bell." She bowed slightly. "Welcome to Serenia. I am Anya, one of six now serving as Protector here."

"We're in the right place, anyway," muttered Jordan.

"You are," said Anya. "You will probably not believe this, but my sisters and I dreamed that you would be coming."

"Um…"

"You're searching for Yeesha." For the first time, a shadow of worry crept onto Anya's face, and she touched her necklace lightly. "I fear she may be in trouble."

"We think so, yes," said Rachel somewhat hesitantly. This conversation was not going the way it had gone in her head, particularly the bit about dreaming they were coming.

"Yes… but, we have not seen her since we gave her the necklace two weeks ago."

Rachel sighed. "We were sure she'd come here…"

"We believe she may have done," said Anya. "I will gather my sisters in the Hall of Spirits, and we will try and find out more. In the meantime, you should consult the Memory Chamber. She always knows more about what's going on in this land than we do."

Anya directed them towards the Memory Chamber, then walked away, leaving them rather confused. They were standing in the middle of a large bare courtyard, with four paths extending out from it. Behind them lay the stone forest, and ahead of them lay the rest of Serenia, including the Chamber they had been directed to. To their right, a small path extended out to a serene gazebo overlooking a shallow pond. But the most imposing feature of the courtyard was to the left – a steep flight of stairs led up to the door of a massive stone building, covered in intricate engravings and standing at least three times as tall as Jordan and Rachel's house in the desert.

Eventually they decided that they should probably pause for a moment and work out what was going on. They went over to the small gazebo and sat down on the stone benches inside.

"So," said Maddy, "where are we at now?"

"We know we've made it to Serenia," said Rachel. "We know that – for whatever reason – that woman knew we were coming."

"She said that she – what was it? She dreamed we'd be coming?"

"I think I've heard about this," said Jane. "Yeesha's been talking for weeks and weeks about 'learning to dream'. I think these people have some way of communicating with their ancestors, which they call 'dreaming'."

"What, you mean like necromancy?"

"Er, I don't think so. The way Yeesha talks about it, it sounds sort of like they enter some special sort of sleep and speak to their ancestors like that."

"That's… okay. Yeah. Whatever works." Brittany frowned slightly. "And they think Yeesha came here?"

"But they haven't seen her," qualified Rachel. "So what do we do now?"

"Our best bet is probably to go see this Memory Chamber," said Jordan. "If that woman thought it could help us, it's probably worth going and having a look at least."

They made their way down the path that Anya had indicated. At the bottom of a steep flight of stairs, the path curved to the right around a large deep pool of water that had several cables reaching down into its depths. As they watched, however, the cables started to move, bringing a squeaking, rattling sound with them.

"Should we move?" muttered Maddy.

"I think we're okay," said Jordan, "this place seems pretty safe."

Before they could continue their discussion, a large submarine-like structure emerged from the pool, winched upwards by the cables they had seen. There was a small glass window in the front, and through this the five strangers could see a man standing with a small blue globe in his hand. As they watched, he started to gather more of the blue globes into a small sack, before he paused and looked up, directly at them. All five of them drew breath sharply – they recognised the man now as Sirrus. His eyes widened as he saw the five strangers watching him, and he immediately began to gather the globes with added haste. He pulled open a small hatch on the other side of the capsule and clambered out. As he did, he turned and threw something back into the capsule before vanishing.

A high-pitched noise split the air. Maddy recognised the sound immediately and pushed the others down onto the ground.

"What -"

A blast of green light shone from the capsule window, and a small explosion rocked the area. When they got back up off the ground, the window that had been in the front had vanished, presumably dropping down into the depths of the water. As they walked around to the other side of the capsule, they saw that the rear hatch that Sirrus had presumably exited through was lying on the ground, torn from its hinges, and had landed on a small control box near the hatchway, rendering the levers on it broken and unusable.

"Wow," said Jordan. "I hope that wasn't important."


He steps inside the old chamber and locks the door behind him. That was too close. He'd always known that using the Harvester would be risky, but if anything he'd been expecting to be caught by one of the Protectors. But them! How did they -

Gah! He knows this is starting to turn against him. Got to hurry, while he still has the advantage. Got to get the transfer done. Got to get the chair working.