The Gateway Image, also known as linking or descriptive panel, is an animated panel appearing in a Linking or a Descriptive Book. A person travels to the Age of the Book by touching it. For sake of convenience, the panel is usually placed on one of the first pages, but it could theoretically be anywhere in the book. The manual for the original game Myst stated that the panel was on the last page, but this has since been corrected.

In the different games of the Myst franchise, the panel shows different properties:

• In Myst they are mostly an endless, looping flyby of the location described in the book, but in closed places, the 'camera' is still, only spinning around around itself. Exception is the Myst Island flyby sequence at the start.
• In the later games, the Image is not looping endlessly, but after the flyby sequence, it fixes on the link-in place and rotates around it.
• In Uru, all Images are stills. This probably has more to do with the technical limitations of the game engine than the properties of the actual Linking Book.

It is not known what the Image normally shows. It has been theorised that sometimes they show:

• The 'current' state of an Age.
• The past state when the Age was lastly visited.
• The Age at a certain point in the past.

However, in Myst the player was able to talk directly to Atrus through the Linking panel of a normal book (the D'ni book) (although this may have been use of artistic license on the part of the creators - see below). Furthermore, Atrus stated in Riven that he would have been able to see a signal from the Age of Riven if the image weren't so distorted. This indicates that the linking panel shows the current state of the Age.

It is believed that the above variations are dependant on the writing. The behaviour of the Image could somehow be 'programmed' in the book by its writer.

It is known that the Gateway Image could, with some writing tricks, be deceptive. This was common for Prison or Trap Books, the panels showing rich worlds, but in reality linking to desolate Prison Ages. This is how Atrus trapped Gehn, using a Book, the Panel of which showed that it was a linking book to D'ni.

It is made clear in The Book of Atrus that the Image is not formed until the Age is linked to for the first time. When Atrus wrote his first age, Inception, the Image was a black swirl until he first linked. This indicates something about the quantum nature of Ages - the link is not fixed to a particular Age until it is "observed" by linking.

Communication via the Image

There has been some debate about whether sound or light can pass through the panel: In the Myst game, this property is essential, since this is the way Sirrus and Achenar communicate with the Stranger: When the Stranger opens the books, the Gateway Image is occupied by the face of the trapped person who can talk to him and give him instructions. The game-over sequence shows that from the other side, the trapped person sees outside through it as a window.

This is also the case with the book to D'ni. When the book is opened, Atrus somehow sees the Stranger, and he can talk to him through it, like a screen, and gives him the final hints. However when the Stranger is in D'ni, he sees nothing when Atrus is supposed to open the book, before linking back. Indeed in other cases, it was obvious that there is no way for a person to see the face of someone who opens the book of the Age he is in.

Cyan explained that all these were indeed impossible according to the D'ni canon, and these properties were artistic license to facilitate gameplay.