6 – Drain

Rachel, Maddy, Jordan and Brittany stumbled down the long wooden platform onto the ground. They looked around frantically to work out where they were.

It didn't take them long to realise that they were back on the Jungle Island. Behind them, the massive idol of the fish-come-whale which they had just emerged from was closing itself up again. Ahead of them, the well-worn path leading up through the jungle curved away from them. Even though the jungle had become rather familiar to them from their last visit, they sensed that something had changed. Everything looked the same, but somehow something was different.

Rachel, who was in front, turned to the others and whispered to them hurriedly. "Something's not right; I can feel it. You three hide yourselves in the trees there whilst I go for a walk. If I'm not back in five minutes, get back into that idol and back to the Plateau Island. Press on the top of that pillar there to open the idol."

"Rachel, you can't go up there by yourself!" hissed Maddy. Jordan and Brittany nodded agreement.

"Oh yes I can," murmured Rachel in reply. Here's how I look at it – Gehn almost certainly doesn't want to kill us – not yet, at any rate. If they capture me, you three will still be able to continue on."

"But Rach -"

"No buts, Jordan." Rachel paused for a moment longer, then turned and walked off down the path.

Maddy made to follow her, but Brittany caught her arm. "Don't bother, Maddy. Rachel's made up her mind."


The small group of guards crouched in the bushes near the entrance to the clearing were beginning to get sick of this.

"I need to relieve myself," grumbled one of them quietly to another. "How long does Tinen want us to stay here?"

"Either until we see the strangers, or until dark," the other man replied.

"Can't they -"

"Shh!"

Soft, careful footsteps were approaching along the path from within the jungle. The guards fell silent as a young woman approached. She appeared to be seventeen, maybe eighteen, with short brown hair and a very cautious look on her face.

The guard who had spoken earlier glanced at the other and mouthed silently, "Is that one of them?" The other guard nodded in reply.

The girl was a few metres from the gate now, past where the two of them were hiding. She was concentrating on the clearing beyond the gate, and didn't notice the two of them slip out from the trees and raise their weapons. At least, she didn't notice until she turned around and froze, staring at the two of them.

"Put your hands in the air," said the first guard, in Rivenese.

"I'm sorry?" said the girl, in English.

Unfortunately, the guards did not speak English, and the girl did not speak Rivenese. The rather more competent guard (the one who had spoken) sighed, and made a number of hand gestures that quite clearly said "hands up".

This time the girl got the message. She raised her hands, looking very worried.

The two other guards emerged from the bushes on the other side of the girl. Guild Master Tinen emerged from behind them as well. He walked over to look at the girl, then he spoke.

"She doesn't speak Rivenese?" Tinen said (in Rivenese) to his guards.

"No," replied the guard (in Rivenese).

Tinen turned back to the girl, then gestured to the guards. "Take her to the prison cell above the gallows. I will inform the Lord Gehn immediately."


Guild Master Tinen stood in front of the idol and called loudly in Rivenese.

"To the other three strangers, if you can hear me: I suggest you listen, if you can understand."

Jordan, Maddy and Brittany crouched in the bushes, fairly close to Tinen. Brittany was translating as best she could in a whisper.

"The Lord Gehn," continued Tinen, "will decide what to do with your friend. I will call off my men and give you a fair chance to escape or mount a rescue operation, whichever you wish. But be warned – we have no intention of letting your friend go, and we won't let you go either if we catch you.

"I am going now. I will call off all the guards. You have my word that you will not be captured if you come out. Goodbye."

Tinen turned on his heel and strode back up the path, shouting to the guards in Rivenese.

Jordan, Maddy and Brittany waited in the bushes and listened to Tinen's shouting growing fainter, until finally it stopped.

"Do we trust him?" breathed Maddy.

Brittany shrugged. Jordan, however, stepped out of the bushes and stood in front of the idol. Nothing happened.

"We absolutely have to find where they've taken her and get her back," said Jordan. Maddy and Brittany nodded agreement.

"They took her to the prison cell above the gallows," said Brittany.

"And you know that how?" cut in Maddy.

"I heard that Guild Master say so. He's gone to get Gehn, by the way."

"So, where are the gallows?"


Gehn clambered up the old iron ladder and walked over to where Grand Master Neil was standing with Grand Master May outside the prison cell. Neil looked very frustrated, whilst May was muttering to himself in Rivenese. Both of them jumped to attention as Gehn approached.

"My lord, we're having difficulty communicating with her. She speaks no Rivenese."

"My son sent her," replied Gehn, "did you actually expect her to speak Rivenese?"

Without waiting for a reply, he strode past the two Grand Masters and peered past the bars into the cell where the girl sat, staring out at them.

"So you don't speak Rivenese?" said Gehn in Rivenese. "Well, I'm sure we can find something that you do speak."

"My lord -"

"Not now, Grand Master May. Let me think here." Gehn paused for a minute, then spoke to the girl again, this time in D'ni. "Maybe you speak D'ni, then. What about D'ni?"

The girl remained silent, just looking at Gehn quizzically.

"Hmm," muttered Gehn to himself in D'ni, "let me see..." He paused a little longer, then made another attempt.

"English, perhaps. What about English?" he asked in fluent English.

The girl raised her eyebrows. "Yes," she replied, "English will be fine."

"Good, good," continued Gehn. "Now perhaps you can enlighten me on a few points here. I assume that my dear son Atrus sent you to rescue his wife?"

"Yes, he did," replied the girl.

"Very clever of him, not to come himself," mused Gehn. "I suppose he stayed behind to continue holding this world together?"

"Yes, he did," repeated the girl.

"But of course he would have given you a linking book. Perhaps you would be nice enough to give that to me?"

"I'm afraid not," replied the girl, "you know full well that it was stolen by the rebels."

"Very good," replied Gehn. "Now, one more thing... where are your three friends hiding?"

The girl's face creased into a frown. "If I knew, Gehn, I wouldn't tell you."

"Well, that makes little difference," replied Gehn. "We have called off the Maintainers, but rest assured that you will be well guarded. Your three sentimental friends are bound to mount a rescue mission, and when they do, we'll have them as well. Then, depending on whether I'm in a good mood, I might execute you, or I might not. But don't worry," he added, as he stood up to leave, "I'm not going to kill you just yet. I might accidentally forget to feed you tonight, but I won't kill you."


Jordan, Maddy and Brittany stood on the weathered but really rather magnificent platform on the base of the gallows. Having closed the floor over the gallows, they reasoned, they could ride the mechanical noose back up to the top and get at the prison cell.

"I hope we're not too late," muttered Jordan, as he moved into position to grab the noose, "it has been three days."

"I don't think Gehn would have wanted to kill her, Jordan," replied Brittany in a reassuring tone of voice. "He would have kept her alive so he could get to us."

Jordan considered this for a minute, then gripped the noose with renewed confidence. After a few seconds, the mechanism far above them rattled quietly and hummed as it pulled Jordan up.

It was slow going, but eventually Jordan reached the top and he was looking out across a short wooden plank to a pathway attached solidly to the rock wall. Set into the rock wall at the other end of the plank was a large round barred door, and sitting next to it was a single Maintainer, sound asleep.

Jordan climbed quietly off the noose and peered down at Maddy and Brittany. He motioned silently for them to not come up yet and to be quiet. Turning away from the two of them, he crept silently across the plank to the metal pathway. He glanced quickly inside the barred door and saw Rachel slumped against the stone wall, asleep but clearly still alive.

Having assured himself that this was not all for nothing, Jordan turned his attention to the slumbering Maintainer. Jordan moved silently around to stand in front of him, made a fist with his right hand and let fly. With Jordan's fist on one side of his temple and the solid rock cliff on the other side, it only took one punch for the Maintainer to slump over, out cold.

No longer worrying about making noise, Jordan hurried back over the plank to the gallows and beckoned Maddy and Brittany up. He then hurried back over to the round door and tapped on the bars lightly. Rachel stirred.

"I've told you already," she muttered, "I don't know where they are. Go away."

"You do know where they are now," replied Jordan.

Rachel's eyelids sprang open and she looked directly at Jordan.

"Jordan!" she hissed, getting to her feet and going over to the door. "Get this door open! The controls were down there," she added, pointing down along the pathway.

"I'll get them," said Maddy, who had appeared behind Jordan. She walked down the pathway and found a small iron wheel on the rock, bearing Gehn's classic symbol of a pentagon with a strange symbol inside it. It turned with a squeak, and the barred door slid open quietly. Rachel climbed out of the cell.

"I just had the most bizarre dream," she said rather hoarsely. "I must be delirious or something. I don't remember all of it, but I remember I saw five symbols, five shapes, a wooden eye, this cell, a room of stones, a book, and a statue of daggers. That's all I remember. What do you think it means?"

Jordan and Maddy shrugged. Brittany, however, did have an idea of what it meant.

"You say you saw this cell in your dream?" she asked Rachel.

"Yeah," replied Rachel as Brittany climbed into the cell. "So what?"

"So..." Brittany was running her hands over the wall. Fairly soon she seemed to find something, and traced a large shape in the wall.

"I think this part of the wall is supposed to move," she said.

"Brittany," said Maddy, "are you delirious as well?"

"Listen, Maddy," replied Brittany, "Jordan and I read in Gehn's journal that whenever he captured a rebel, he'd put him in this cell, go to get the Maintainers, and when he came back the rebel would be gone. Now, what better way would there be to have that happen than to have the entrance to the rebels' hideout here, in Gehn's prison cell?"

"Do you know, Brittany," said Jordan, "you might be right. But if that wall is the opening, how do we get in? It looks fairly solid to me."

"There must be a switch or something," muttered Brittany, surveying the cell. The only thing in the cell other than the (empty) plate on the floor was a small drain filled with brown slime.

Brittany, never really afraid to dip into the unknown (so to speak), flicked the cover off the drain and stuck her hand down into the drain. The other three recoiled from this action, but it wasn't long before Brittany gave a cry of victory and yanked a narrow handle up out of the sludge. It gave a soft click, then the section of wall that Brittany had pointed out earlier began to slide backwards with an unnerving grating sound.

The four of them crept into the newly-opened pathway silently. Fire-marble lamps glowed along the walls, and it wasn't long before they came to a large room dominated by a large circle of stones.

"This is the next thing I saw in my dream," said Rachel in an awed whisper. "Do you think -"

"That this is the entrance to the rebel hideout?" finished Jordan. "Yes, Rach. That's exactly what I think it is, and I'd guess that to open the hideout we have to press a certain few of these stones in a certain order."

"Well, it must be something to do with..." Brittany trailed off, and her mouth opened slightly as she started to remember something.

"Do you recall what we saw in that classroom on the lake?" asked Brittany, after she had come out of her trance. "We saw that toy with the people being eaten by the fish. When we spun the wheel, it showed a symbol like the ones on the back of the eyes. Then whichever of the little people's turn it was would lower a few steps towards the fish. The number of steps it lowered was different for each of the symbols. I think the symbols must be numbers."

"Of course!" exclaimed Rachel, then massaged her throat, wincing, before continuing in a more measured voice. "So the symbol on the one near the tram, the frog, was... two?"

"No, it was three," corrected Jordan, also remembering. "The beetle noise, the one in the stone pool, was two."

"And the one at the base of the knife, the sunner creatures," added Maddy, "was four."

"The one in the rocks, the whale-fish thing," continued Brittany excitedly, "was five."

"Which leaves the last one, which Gehn says was in the lake," finished Rachel, "as one."

"So what creature goes with that?" asked Maddy. "We didn't get to listen to the sound."

"I think," said Brittany, "that if it was in the water it would make a bubbling noise. Like a fish. Like this fish, in fact," she said, indicating the stone Jordan was standing next to, which had a silhouette of a fish on it.

Jordan pressed on the stone. It slid down into the ground easily, making a low grating noise as it did so.

"So the second one was the beetle," continued Jordan, "which would be over there."

They continued finding the silhouettes until finally they had four of the five pressed down in what they were sure was the right order and were standing in front of the fifth stone, bearing the image of the whale-fish.

"Would you like to do the honours, Rachel?" said Brittany, gesturing to the stone. "It was your delirious dream that led us here, after all."

Rachel smiled at Brittany, stepped forward and pressed on the stone.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, however, the room suddenly grew inexplicably hotter. The water in the channels on the wall bulged, flowing down the channels to surround the door, leaving the far wall blank but for the plaque with the dagger symbol. Even as the four of them watched, the plaque slid smoothly and silently up into the rock and a small slab of rock slid out from underneath it.

Cautiously, Rachel approached the wall and looked down at the slab of rock. Sitting on the rock was a book, charred and burnt around the edges but still intact. The left page was blank, but sitting on the right page was a small slab of some sort of translucent crystal. Through the crystal Rachel could see a slowly shifting image of a huge dark crater with a lake in the bottom of it. The lake was dominated by a huge hive-like structure with lights on in it.

Still cautious, Rachel laid her right hand on the translucent crystal, and the now very familiar ringing hum of a link sounded in her ears as the room of the stones vanished into swirling blackness...


Atrus put his pen down and wiped the sweat from his brow. That was a close call. If he hadn't noticed that mistake in time, well... he didn't want to think about it, really.

He looked at his watch. "My friends must be making progress by now... I hope."


The cool twilight air of the crater dock was a welcome change from the humid climate of Riven, Maddy noticed as she stepped out of the air onto the dock in what they now all knew must be the rebels' world. The huge hive-like structure dominated their sight, but they saw no way over to it.

The four of them turned around. There was a large cave behind them, bare except for a large statue at the far end. The statue had dozens of daggers piercing the sides of it, and was holding a book in its outstretched hands.

As they approached the statue, they saw the slowly shifting image of the room of stones that they had just left shining through the translucent crystal on the book.

Maddy gave a sudden cry, slapping her hand to her neck and slumping to the ground unconscious. Before any of the other three could do more than look at her vaguely, Brittany clapped a hand to her neck and fell to the ground as well. Jordan and Rachel spun around.

Standing behind them were two rebels – one dressed in white, one in red and black. The one in red and black was holding a blowgun in his fingers. He blew hard again, and Jordan collapsed to the ground next to Rachel. Before she had a chance to react, she felt a sting on the side of her neck, then she began to feel very dizzy very quickly. The cave and the two rebels blurred out of focus and suddenly she was falling down a long, dark tunnel...