Flames of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  “What songs?”

  “Any songs. They always sing of the swamp being putrid and stinking of gas, but I don’t smell any of that.”

  Naia laughed. “We’re not deep enough. I promise, you’ll know it when you smell it.”

  “I read in the Tomb that the swamp drains out to a southern sea,” Amri said. “But the maps never go that far, and no one’s ever come back with records.”

  “It gets very wet if you go much further south than Great Smerth,” Naia replied. “Come to think of it, even the Drenchen don’t go that far. All our hunting grounds rotate north of Great Smerth, where the game is. Further south and it becomes a lake-land, but the water is brackish and stings after a while. It would make sense if the lakes become the sea there, but I’ve never gone.”

  “It’s all so fascinating,” Amri mused. “Long ago, the Gelfling were explorers. Travelers. Bards, like Gyr, or adventurers like Jarra-Jen. But now we stay where we’re put. In our little regions, separated from one another. And it’s been that way for so long, it’s almost as if we’ve forgotten as a people how to go outside our own caves. Or swamps, as it were.”

  “Or fields,” Kylan said. “We’ve become cut off from one another. Even those clans that meet to trade, or that share borders. The Skeksis had a part in it, but the seven clans went along with it on their own. It’s easier to remain where you know the land, where things aren’t unknown or scary . . . but it’s caused us to be in this predicament, too. Where the clans don’t trust one another, or even seem to know how to travel beyond the land they know.”

  “It’s changing, now,” Amri said. “Finally. A Spriton from the plains has crawled through the caverns of Grot. A Grottan from Domrak has sailed from Ha’rar across the Silver Sea. A Drenchen has touched the waters of the Dousan Wellspring, in the middle of the dry-as-bones desert!”

  Now here they were, a group of Gelfling working together, not because they were of the same clan but because they all had the same goal. Because they agreed what was important and worth protecting. And now they had all grown so close, Naia couldn’t imagine a day without them by her side.

  She looked up when she realized Amri and Kylan had stopped, both staring straight ahead.

  “Whoa,” Amri said.

  Two huge trees seemed to materialize out of the swamp mist, branches reaching out to one another. They looked almost like Gelfling clasping hands, except the apeknots were two of the oldest known in the swamp, wide and tall, their tops growing straight through the canopy.

  Naia showed them the step-way carved into the bark of one of the trees, made trine upon trine ago by her Drenchen ancestors. She and Amri and Kylan followed the long line of Drenchen as the party climbed up, emerging at the top on a network of walkways and paths made of tree limbs bound by vines and thick rope nets. It had been so long since Naia had been up in the arms of the apeknots that when she reached the landing, she paused to look down across the swamp. Amri and Kylan looked with her, taking in the undulating emerald and turquoise.

  A whisper brushed Naia’s ears, like the echo of a long-ago moan. It reminded her of Vassa, skekSa’s ship. It wasn’t a sound in the ear, though, she realized as her eyes landed on a dark spot in the swamp near a toppled tree. It was a sound in her memory. The phantom moaning of the darkened Nebrie, whose tusks had snapped the ancient apeknots as if they were saplings. The dark spot near the tree was just a pool of water, but when Naia peered closer through the mist, she could see white bones breaking the surface.

  “The Nebrie?” Amri whispered.

  Naia shivered and nodded. The Nebrie’s skeleton had been pecked clean by animals of the swamp, most of its body sunk into the mud and silt below the water’s surface. Animals died in the swamp all the time; it was the natural cycle of life. No different were the Gelfling, who were born of the earth, lived of the earth, and when they died, returned to the earth. But the darkened Nebrie that had broken Tavra’s wing and nearly killed Naia’s father had been forced out of that cycle. Enraged by the darkening in the crystal veins that spanned in interconnected lace beneath every pool and bank of peat.

  And not just the swamp. Everything in Thra thrived when it was connected, died when it was broken apart. Radiating with life when whole, but fractured by even the tiniest of cracks.

  Naia looked away. Ahead she could see Gurjin and her mother, crossing the foot-paths further into the swamp. She waved to her friends and the three of them followed together. The day went by overhead, and the swamp faded into a cooler evening.

  Just as the moss on the trees began to glow, Naia caught sight of warm firelight below. The branch beneath their feet ended, the path continuing on a wooden walkway of planks and rope. The walkway creaked and swung as they walked across it, but Naia didn’t need to hold on to the hand-rope like Kylan and Amri.

  Her pace quickened and she broke away from them, walking swiftly toward the sound of drums and Drenchen voices. Firebugs danced in the air, and the scent of smoked blindfish wafted up from the hearth fire below.

  The apeknot canopy gave way, and Naia’s heart burst at the sight of the enormous tree in the center of a torchlit glade. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she took in the tree’s whorled, twisting bark and sturdy branches, holding the wooden and carved Drenchen homes like clusters of bird nests made of wood and net.

  The day had finally come. Naia had returned to Great Smerth.

  CHAPTER 19

  The drums stopped a beat when the Drenchen playing them saw who had returned, a moment later striking up into the most energetic and resounding rhythm Naia had ever heard. It was a victory march. A return song for Naia and her mother as they descended from the trees toward the Glenfoot, a wide pavilion at the foot of Great Smerth in the center of the Drenchen village. Built of planks and mud brick, the Glenfoot had served as the meeting place for the Drenchen for generations. Naia felt the weight of her ancestors more than ever as she arrived, on foot beside Maudra Laesid, who sat perched on Chapyora’s mighty neck.

  “My Drenchen! We return, and with Naia and Gurjin, safe and well. I have beheld the fires of resistance which we have heard of only in song. The Spriton fire, and the Grottan. Only two fires remain, and it will be the Drenchen whose torches join the resistance next.”

  A volley of cheers and shouts erupted across the Glenfoot. Maudra Laesid beamed and clucked her tongue, taking her spear again as Chapyora lowered her head so she could dismount. Without looking back, Maudra Laesid headed for the carved gate that led inside Great Smerth.

  Under her breath, in a voice less proud, she said, “Come, my children. We will find your errant father.”

  Just as Naia made to follow her, Gurjin caught her arm. A tickling in her mind, like a bug crawling across the back of her neck, felt as if it was about to bite.

  “Wait, Naia. Before you go in. There’s . . . something I haven’t told you,” he said, words stilted between rigid teeth.

  As much as Naia wanted to know what had been on Gurjin’s mind, his sudden confession still didn’t end with whatever it was that he was keeping to himself. Naia waited for it to come, but it didn’t. Despite their fight and their silent agreement to move past it, there was still space between them. She still didn’t know exactly who Gurjin was.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I know. I guess I’m going to find out.”

  The great hall filled the belly of Smerth, lit by luminescent moss and a dozen small torches. The heartwood that had housed the big chamber was ribbed and carved with the faces of creatures of the swamp: the tusked Nebrie, the flying muski eels, the swoothu. Maudra Laesid approached the round table that spanned the length of the room. Seated at the far end, in his own chair beside the maudra’s empty one, was Bellanji. Naia’s father, whom she’d last seen bleeding of a terrible wound in his side.

  When he saw Naia, he leaped up, footsteps like thunder as he swept past Laesid, snatching Naia up into a hug so big,
she felt like a childling for a moment. She hugged him back, trying not to let the emotion of seeing him again overcome her. It wouldn’t do to cry in front of all the Drenchen, not even for happiness.

  He set her down again, and she saw he hadn’t shown so much restraint, his cheeks glistening. “My little Naia. Not so little anymore. Welcome home,” he said.

  Their reunion was brief, interrupted by Maudra Laesid seating herself.

  “Bellanji. We need to talk.”

  “I assumed so, since you’ve returned. Are you ready to apologize?”

  Naia arched a brow. She had seen her parents argue before; in a Drenchen household, hard-talk was the way of it, and although Laesid and Bellanji often agreed in the end, the path there was not always a smooth one. Still, the pained look on her father’s usually jolly face seemed different, as did her mother’s pensive, hard eyes. This was more than a common debate or disagreement. Was this what Gurjin had been trying to tell her?

  “Maybe,” Laesid replied. “Sit down. Gurjin, Naia. Kylan the Spriton and Amri the Shadowling. Sit at my table so we can discuss what will become of the Drenchen. Kipper, call in Eliona and Pemma as well.”

  One of the Drenchen guards nodded and scampered off. Naia went to her chair, beside her mother’s, while Gurjin took his spot beside Bellanji. It was the chair Eliona had often occupied, after Gurjin had left to become a guard at the castle. Naia wondered if Eliona would ask for her seat back when she arrived, or whether she’d taken the next one down.

  “Your sisters?” Kylan asked from where he sat beside Naia. She nodded. Before she could say any more, Kipper came back with them. Eliona, Laesid’s middling child, had shot up like a sapling since Naia had left, now nearly as tall as their mother. Pemma, the youngest, stood beside her, and Naia sighed with a tiny regret. Pemma’s wings had blossomed, the color of fresh lake grass dappled by morning shadows. While Naia had been away, she had missed her youngest sister growing up.

  “Naia!” Pemma exclaimed. “You’re back!”

  “We can catch up later,” Naia said before her two sisters further delayed their meeting, though she ached to shower them with hugs and kisses. “We’ve important news to bring everyone and important business to complete.”

  “Indeed,” Laesid said. “As I said to the others on the Glenfoot, Bellanji: We witnessed the Spriton turning against the Skeksis. Maudra Mera rallied her clan, and a great fire ignited in the Spriton hearth. Moments later, the fire shone again, and we got news that a similar fire had been lit in the Grottan caves by Rian, Gurjin’s friend from the castle.”

  “We’ve been traveling to the clans lighting the fires, since Mother Aughra told us it was the way to resist the Skeksis,” Naia explained. She didn’t know how far and fast news had spread of their travels, so she quickly told her parents and sisters of their journey to Cera-Na, the Dousan Wellspring, and Ha’rar. All listened keenly to her telling, which, although not nearly as eloquent as one of Kylan’s songs, still got the job done. At the end, Laesid rubbed her chin between her thumb and forefinger.

  “It would seem the fires are a sign from Thra, of our connection to the eternal flame which binds all life of the world,” she said. “They ignite, and our connection to our sister clans grows stronger.”

  “When we lit fires before, we could see glimpses through to the other fires. But we weren’t able to speak through them. Not until this time, with Rian,” Naia said.

  “The more fires light, the stronger the link becomes,” Kylan murmured. “Could this be the reason we’re supposed to light the fires? Aside from merely bringing the word to all the clans and compelling them to unite with one another—is the purpose of the fires so we can communicate between the clans across the distance?”

  “If that’s the case, it could be that once all the fires are lit, the seven clans will be able to make a proper plan,” Amri said. “Without the Skeksis knowing. If we were to convene in one place physically to have such a meeting, surely they would find out. But if we can speak through the fires of Thra, we might be able to make a plan without them finding out.”

  “Yes,” Naia said. “The clans have been separated and in rivalry for as long as I can remember. Never full war, but certainly ebbing and flowing tides of animosity. Now we know this is not the natural order, but the Skeksis’ will. These fires of resistance are the antidote to the Skeksis’ segregational meddling. The fires bring us together, as one, as we are perhaps meant to be.”

  For the first time, it felt real. It felt like the truth. Like something that was right, that made sense, and most importantly, was maybe even possible. As Naia spoke the words inside the great hall of her Drenchen home, she felt, for the first time, like a real leader.

  “Which brings me to our next challenge,” Laesid said. She looked across her shoulder to Bellanji. “How fare you who stayed with Great Smerth while the rest of us took up arms to protect our clan? Is your plan working, or have you admitted failure and come around to my way of thinking yet?”

  “No,” Bellanji replied. “In fact, we are far from failure. Eliona and the other healers have found success where you promised we’d find none.”

  Laesid’s eyes widened in surprise. Naia looked back and forth between her mother and sisters, then to her father, whose thick brows were drawn tight and resilient against her mother’s blunt sarcasm. What had happened since she’d been gone?

  “Success?” Laesid asked. “How so?”

  “We’ve been trying different approaches, Mother,” Eliona said. She, like Bellanji, had a stubbornness to her claim, though now that Naia looked closer she could see weariness across her younger sister’s brow. “At first, as you guessed, it didn’t work. But we didn’t give up. And now, with hard work and perseverance, a few of us have managed to slow down the darkened vein that runs below Great Smerth.”

  Naia’s heart banged once, like a Drenchen drum. All her confidence fell away like leaves from a tree in winter.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked numbly.

  Suddenly all eyes were on her. All eyes except for Gurjin’s, which intently studied the whorled lines in the wood of the council table.

  “You didn’t tell her?” Laesid asked her only son.

  “I was going to,” Gurjin replied, crossing his arms and twisting his ears back. He flinched when Laesid struck the table with her fist.

  “Then tell her now!” she cried.

  Gurjin gulped, brows knotting and unknotting. Naia held her own hands in fists. It was the only way to keep from shaking, to keep herself contained while she waited for her brother to speak. Wait for the dreadful words she could almost hear, though they hadn’t yet been spoken.

  “When Mother and I left for Ha’rar,” he began, “in response to the message from the windsifter that the All-Maudra was dead. My plan was always to part ways with her when we got to Ha’rar and go looking for you. I know we agreed that we should split up, because the Skeksis wanted us together and alive, but something had happened in Sog that was more important.”

  Light flashed in Naia’s mind, but it was tinged with darkness. The crystal cluster in the Mystic Valley, bruised and bleeding. The vein under the swamp bed where she’d encountered the darkened Nebrie. In the Crystal Sea desert, poisoning flocks of Skimmers.

  “The darkening,” Naia whispered. She couldn’t let the word go unsaid any longer. “It reached Great Smerth. It reached . . . home.”

  She had traveled nearly the entire Skarith region and never crossed a place that hadn’t been affected by the blight. She had been naive to think it would not come here. She needed confirmation, but the only acknowledgment was that no one replied. Her mother looked more grim than ever, her father’s beard-locs quivering with a turbulent mix of emotions.

  “We tried to heal it,” Gurjin continued. “But not even Mother’s vliyaya was able to cleanse it. The veins that run below Great Smerth have been blighted
.”

  Naia looked up, into the big cavern carved into Great Smerth. The enormous tree she’d been born in, grew up in. Lived in every day of her life, surrounded by the warm gold heartwood, until she’d left.

  “We knew it was only a matter of time,” Laesid said, stern and quiet. “When the darkened veins reached the heartwood, we knew it was over. Great Smerth is dying, and there is nothing we can do to stop it except take our fight out of Sog, cross the plains, and attack the Skeksis while we still can.”

  “Or so your mother thought,” Bellanji replied.

  “I was not—and am not—about to waste our time trying to heal something which cannot be healed!” Laesid boomed. “This is a blight of the Crystal, Bellanji. I told you before, and I’ll tell you again. It cannot be cured at this extremity. It must be stopped at the root. Though it breaks my heart to leave Great Smerth, who has protected the Drenchen for generations, we may have to. If we do not join the other Gelfling and find a way to heal the darkened Crystal, all of the great trees will die. And the lesser trees as well. And everything on Thra!”

  “But Eliona slowed down a part of the darkening with Kipper,” Pemma said. “I saw it!”

  Naia wanted to hush her sister, to keep her from entering the water that was heating between their parents. But she was still reeling from the news. How long did Great Smerth have? How long would it be before the branches withered and died, its heartwood rotting? Its bark falling in long, blackened strips like the apeknots at the edge of the swamp? She recognized it now, should have recognized it before—the silence and the groves of ailing trees. The darkened veins below the mud were ripe and toxic, sapping the essence out of the swamp that had given her life. Though Naia’s mind spun like a ship on the waves of a whirlpool, every time she looked up, all she saw was Gurjin, sitting across from her, arms folded.

  “We went to the vein in the blindfish cellars,” Eliona said. “Kipper and I tried healing it with a blue stone cudgel. We cracked the vein and tried healing it at the place where it splintered.”