1 – Marble

Rachel opened her eyes. She was standing. Well, she thought, that's a good start.

Jane was sitting on the ground, or rather the wooden planks that made up the ground, near the water's edge, reaching out for the wooden mast poking up from the water. Rachel reached down quickly and picked her up before she fell in the water, then straightened up, went over to the stairs and up to the cog plateau to survey the island. Considering the fact that virtually nobody had set foot on the island for ten years, it was in relatively good condition, though definitely showing signs of age.

She darted back down the stairs and walked slowly across to the clearing, up the path and into the library. The intricate panelling of the room was visible under a thin layer of dust. Rachel could see slight marks in the dust, indicating that someone had been here fairly recently. On the shelf opposite the door, two open books sat. One was covered in dust, with only the small square of light shining through the dust on the right page showing that it still linked to Antares, the harvest world that Atrus had written during his imprisonment. The other book was not covered in dust, and the panel on the right page showed a brightly lit sunroom.

"Seems dustier than I remember," said Jordan, as he entered the library with Maddy and Brittany behind him.

"Very much so," replied Rachel. "It might be worth spending a bit of time in the future getting the place cleaned up. Right now, however, we should get to Tomahna and see Atrus. He's probably dying to show us around."

Atrus was dying to show the five of them around Tomahna, and began by trying to show them the kitchen, the main bedroom, his study and Catherine's lab all at the same time. Fortunately Catherine managed to restrain him slightly, whilst greeting Jordan, Rachel, Maddy, Brittany and Jane, all with Yeesha cradled in one arm. Rachel was in awe.

Eventually the eight of them bundled into the kitchen and sat down to catch up on what they'd missed over the past years over a few cups of tea brewed by Catherine.

"The Guild of Stonemasons helped us construct Tomahna," said Atrus, "even though it didn't involve carving things out of stone, which is what they normally do all day."

"They know a lot about making things stay up in the air," added Catherine. "Plus, a lot of this is nara, which is useful but has to be handled properly."

Seeing the questioning looks coming from his guests, Atrus explained. "Nara is sort of like a D'ni alloy. It's made of basically lots of old rocks poured into a big machine, which melts them and then cools them down to make nara. It's quite lightweight, but very strong."

"That does sound useful," said Jordan, giving Rachel a sideways glance. It was obvious that she, too, could remember the sheer strength of the gates in Riven's Gate Room, and remembered wondering what it was made out of.

"Oh, it is, it is," said Atrus enthusiastically. "You can make buildings, machines, parts of machines, vehicles, signs..." Rachel's attention wandered off for a while, coming back in time to hear "...plates, cups, cutlery, floorboards and windows."

"Windows?" That last one had confused Rachel a little.

"Yes, well, if you want to be able to see out the windows then it's not such a great idea, but down in the cavern where there's not a whole lot of light anyway they're quite good."

Rachel laughed, hoping this was intended to be a joke. Atrus smiled. Jane did not smile, but made a protesting noise and began poking Rachel repeatedly, who sighed.

"She's hungry. Excuse me for a minute, will you?" Rachel stood up, picked up Jane and retreated into Atrus and Catherine's bedroom.

When Rachel returned, she put Jane down next to Yeesha. The two of them looked at each other for a few seconds, then began to giggle. Rachel looked up at Catherine.

"Best friends," said Catherine, and Rachel laughed.

The six of them sat and talked for hours, and Jane and Yeesha talked to each other as well. How it is possible for two infants, one month old each, to talk to each other for many hours, Rachel would never know, but it was interesting catching up with Atrus and Catherine after so long. As Atrus said, ten years is not long in scope of the D'ni history, but in the lives of people like them it was quite a while.

Eventually it started to get dark, and Yeesha and Jane both decided it was time for dinner. Atrus and Catherine insisted that Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany stay for dinner. By the time they had had dinner, though, they discovered that it was going to be a bit difficult to get back to the volcano compound in the dark. During the day, Atrus had said, the volcano was visible on the horizon, albeit a long way off, but at night they couldn't see where to go.

"Well, you'd be welcome to stay here," Atrus proposed, and Catherine agreed. Brittany, however, could see the logistical problem with this idea.

"There's not a whole lot of comfortable places to sleep here, you know," she put in. "If there was only one of us, it would be fine, but as there's four – sorry, five," she corrected herself hastily as Rachel smiled and lifted Jane slightly, "it might not be so comfortable."

"You've got a point there, Brittany," said Jordan. "I think we ought to go to Myst... we'll be perfectly comfortable there."

Atrus and Catherine attempted to protest, but they saw the sense in what Jordan and Brittany had said. Atrus dug out the four sleeping bags and lamp that they had used ten years ago, but said that he would rather not come with them, if that was all right with them. It was painful enough going there on salvage missions, he said, let alone for something... well... something like this.

It was amazing how well matches kept even if you left them locked in a safe for ten years, Maddy had thought as she lit the furnace, and considering the rather cold temperature on Myst tonight, she was glad of that. With the furnace now roaring and the crashes from the tree outside having subsided, she, Jordan and Brittany settled down for the night. Rachel was still in the library (Jane had demanded a bed-time snack), so they set up her sleeping bag as well. When Rachel returned, they took the time to discuss the events of the last few days, and how nice it was to be back on Myst, before sleep overwhelmed them and they dozed off.

At two in the morning Jane woke up and decided that everyone had slept long enough.

Saavedro popped a berry into his mouth. He chewed it, slowly, thoughtfully, then burst out into maniacal laughter, having no reason to restrain himself. Nothing could go wrong, he thought. Nothing! I planned this to perfection. I had twenty years to think up my revenge. Granted, I was insane for most of it, but still...

Tomorrow... tomorrow I shall see you again, Atrus, my old friend. Tomorrow you will know the pain that I've known for these past twenty years. Just you wait...

When Brittany stepped out of the air of the Tomahna sunroom, she was greeted by Catherine cradling Yeesha.

"Atrus was just going to grab something for your trip to Releeshahn," Catherine said. "He shouldn't be too long... unless he decides to check over the whole house first, in which case... well, he could be hours." By this time, Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Jane had all materialised behind Brittany. "Perhaps you should wait in his study."

As they were going inside, Catherine touched Rachel on the shoulder. "You look exhausted, Rachel. Why don't you leave Jane out here? She and Yeesha will keep each other amused."

Rachel smiled. "That would be great, Catherine. I really appreciate it."

Catherine also smiled. "Just because I'm Rivenese doesn't mean I don't know what you're going through. Yeesha has been enough of a handful."

Atrus' study was a strange place, if only because it was so orderly in comparison with the rest of Tomahna. Behind his desk on the far side of the room was a large grey book bearing a D'ni number five on the cover. Across from that was a small glass dome lit by an orange fire-marble.

Rachel walked slowly over to the glass dome. Inside, sitting on a small pedastel, was a large book, bound in red and locked with a glinting nara padlock. Emblazoned on the cover was the word "Releeshahn".

As the four of them looked down at the book, some muffled voices floated in from the sunroom, then the door opened and Atrus came in, wearing a light brown coat.

"Ah, my friends, I see you found the Releeshahn book. Catherine tells me you've been here for some time... I'm sorry if I kept you waiting. Since we'll be gone for a few days, I needed to secure some of my things..." He pulled a thin book out of his pocket. "I also wanted to bring you this. It's a journal I kept whilst I was writing Releeshahn. I thought you might find it interesting to read about what I'd hoped to achieve and compare it to what the Age truly is..." He paused, and Jordan took the book from him. "Well... just let me get my keys to unlock Releeshahn and we'll be off." He wandered over to his desk. "And I'm interested in hearing more about what you've been up to recently..."

It was all going so well. A visit with Atrus, Jordan was thinking, that didn't end up with something going bizarrely wrong. He should have known it was too good to be true.

The air near the Releeshahn book shimmered, and reformed itself into the shape of a man, tall but stooped over slightly, wearing an interesting assortment of tattered rags, his hair all over the place but mainly stretching down to his shoulders. His eyes widened slightly as he saw the people standing in the room, looking at him in shock, but his maniacal smile did not waver as he grabbed the orange marble from beside the book and hurled it towards the curtains and tapestries.

The marble shattered, and the curtains caught fire instantly. Atrus ran back around the desk, trying in vain to contain the fire. Whilst the five of them were distracted by the flames, the man pulled a small leather-bound book from the folds of what remained of his clothes and brought it down on the glass dome shielding the Releeshahn book. As Jordan, Rachel, Maddy, Brittany and Atrus spun around as one, he lifted the Releeshahn book from the shattered dome, flicked the small book open and raised a hand in the air, then paused. Jordan lunged for him, but stumbled over the flaming curtain as the man planted his hand resolutely on the small book and vanished, leaving the air shimmering and ringing. The small book toppled to the floor, still open to the last page, where the panel glowed invitingly.

Whilst Atrus was consumed with the flames that were consuming his study, Jordan stumbled towards the book lying open on the floor with flames licking their way across the carpet towards it. With no thought in his mind except that of the Releeshahn book, he barely felt Rachel's hand catch his shoulder as he stretched his arm towards the open book...