Flames of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  skekSa yelped as one of the vines grew so fast it tangled around her foot. She bashed the growth away with a claw, but it was soon replaced with another. Rapid as spring came after winter, the apeknot where she stood burst into life, tangling around her with vines and roots and leafing, blossoming apeknot shoots.

  “No!” skekSa snapped, suddenly coming alive with panic and confusion. “No! What is this? No!”

  But it was not enough. Even the combined efforts of the Drenchen healers could not grow the tree fast enough to bind the Skeksis. She tore through the feeble foliage, tangled but not stopped. It was only a matter of time before she ripped herself free.

  Laesid’s attacks eased when she saw what was happening. As the growing plant life overtook skekSa, binding her arms and legs in its quickly strengthening forms, she slipped off the Mariner’s shoulder.

  “What’s she doing?” Gurjin grunted, brow streaked with sweat.

  “Do not stop, my Drenchen,” Laesid called. She stood before skekSa, leaning on her spear, body filling with light. Her calm composure did not break when skekSa’s claws burst out of the growing tendrils, plunging around Laesid’s neck and torso.

  “Continue this and she dies!” skekSa bellowed, shaking every tree in the glade.

  Do not stop.

  Her mother’s voice was in Naia’s mind. In the air. In the trees and the water and the earth below the lake. Despite skekSa’s claws piercing her breast and back, Maudra Laesid held up a hand bursting with silver-blue light. Naia felt tears on her cheeks as she understood.

  “Mother . . .”

  Laesid pressed her hand against skekSa’s gnashing beak. The tree that fought to come alive around the Skeksis exploded with life, hundreds of stems and boughs rising and flowering at incredible speed. They tethered skekSa’s legs and bound her beak, twisted around her arms even as the blood from Laesid’s wounds dripped upon the leaves that sprang open by the dozens.

  Within moments, a new tree stood where there had been none. skekSa the Mariner was no more.

  “Mother!”

  Naia leaped into the water, swimming faster than she ever had before to reach her mother on the opposite side of the lake. Despite his injuries, Gurjin jumped in after her, reaching them moments later.

  The infant apeknot had not consumed Maudra Laesid. Its tender branches cradled her, lowering her gently to the soggy peat when Naia and Gurjin got there. She pulled her mother’s head into her lap, tears mixing with the lake water as both streamed down her face. Warm blood soaked through her mother’s beautiful gowns and into the thick moss that sprawled across the toughening roots of the new apeknot.

  “Mother, be calm,” she said, though Laesid was already much more calm than either she or Gurjin were. “We’ll heal you. You’ll be all right.”

  “You can heal these wounds, but I will not survive,” she said, nearly silently. There was no fear in her voice. “I gave my life willingly. What happens with it now is up to Thra.”

  Naia felt as if she would be overwhelmed by the emotions inside her, hope and fear, worry and pride—and worst of all, the dreaded sensation of loss that was already taking over though her mother was not yet gone.

  “But . . . you can’t . . . ,” Gurjin began, but stopped. She could, and had.

  “My children. My gentle, kind, fierce children . . .” Laesid put a hand on each her children’s cheeks. Naia leaned into it, though the heat was fading already from her fingertips. “The two of you will light the world with your fire. The new fire of the new generation of these changing times. It is the proudest legacy I could have wished for. The old trees may not survive the darkening. But the forest is everlasting.”

  As the last words escaped her lips, her eyes closed and her hands dropped. The tree above them trembled with a last surge of energy, straining toward the sky and coloring as white and blue flowers opened along its branches. Maudra Laesid was gone.

  Naia closed her eyes as she breathed in the scent of the blossoms, the still and quietness of the entire glade. She could not even hear skekSa within the thick wood of the tree.

  “Naia . . .”

  Gurjin sounded far away, though he was right beside her, cheeks wet and eyes red. She, too, felt as if she were underwater. Everything was blurry, even as the sky lightened. Somewhere, a bird sang. Cautiously and nervously, a single note calling through the swamp as if to say I am here. Am I the only one?

  Across the lake, back on the Glenfoot, Bellanji stood with Kylan and Amri and the rest of the Drenchen. Many of the warriors had fallen to their knees, laying down their spears as they saw what had happened. Chapyora reared, spreading her fins, but Bellanji caught her mane before she could dive into the lake again to join them. And as for Naia’s father himself, there was no hiding the naked pain on his face, falling like the cold light of the oncoming morning.

  “You’ve got to say something.”

  Gurjin was right. They were all watching. Waiting. Needing. Behind them all, Great Smerth’s body was blackened from root to vine, bare of leaves on many limbs, creaking in the early wind like a charcoal skeleton.

  Naia gently lowered her mother to the soft moss that covered the apeknot root where she’d died. Gurjin held her there, bowing his head as Naia rose. She gazed across the lake to the Drenchen. Stood below the youngest tree in the swamp. One strong enough to bind a Skeksis, though it would be trine upon trine before it rivaled Great Smerth in size.

  But even if the tree grew. Even if the shard could be found and the Crystal could be healed. Even if the darkening were stopped, and Thra could recover, one thing could never be brought back. Naia’s mother was gone.

  She opened her mouth, but no words came out. In the deafening silence that followed, she heard her own heart breaking in her chest. Tears rushed forward before she could stop them, plain for everyone to see. She tried to speak again. When she failed the second time to drag up the reluctant words from her belly, she couldn’t face them any longer. Those waiting faces, all wrecked by grief, looking to her for comfort.

  Lost in her own pain, Naia had no solace to give. She turned away and ran.

  CHAPTER 24

  Naia fled into the apeknot canopy, every step feeling heavier with guilt, but she didn’t stop. Her feet found a familiar bough and she leaped, fluffing her wings enough to soften her landing on the rear sill outside her mother’s chamber.

  Her mother’s chamber. The chamber where the Drenchen maudra kept her medicines and the sacred scrolls, and met with her private council. It was where Naia had always found Laesid before, since she had been a childling. Where she’d run to when she’d gotten hurt exploring the swamp, or when Neech had broken a fin. Where she’d come when she’d first seen Tavra coming through the Swamp of Sog, so many unum ago.

  Now it was cold and empty, part of the wall blackened from fire. The wood medallions that bore the ancient symbols carved and dream-etched by elder Drenchen were scorched, some beyond repair. It pained Naia to see, but all of that could be mended, with time. What brought her to her knees in grief was knowing that she would never find her mother waiting for her in the chamber again, no matter how much time passed.

  Naia wept. More than she ever had before, as if the tears were unending. As if she might never be free of the sobs that gripped and shook her entire body. Alone in the chamber smelling of wood and smoke, while the triple suns’ light brightened the wide balcony outside. To the suns, it must seem like just another day. The spheres of the sky cared little for the lives of the Gelfling. After all, it was the suns whose conjunction had brought the urSkeks, and whose light had given birth to the Skeksis. If the Three Brothers cared at all, they would have taken the awful creatures away, or maybe never allowed them to arrive in the first place.

  She heard steps and tried to press the tears from her face the way she might try to wring a cloth of water, but quickly gave up. There was no hiding it. The collar of her
tunic and the wood below her hands were soaked with the salt water. Gurjin stood in the doorway of their mother’s chamber, one hand on the frame and the other wrapped tightly around his waist where the worst of his injury been healed by Eliona and bandaged.

  Mother’s chamber. The thought came to Naia again, dry and brittle like a last leaf clinging to a branch in autumn. She sighed and the leaf blew away. My chamber, now.

  Gurjin didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. Once he knew she’d seen him, he entered and sat beside her, his own eyes red with mourning.

  “How’s Father?” Naia asked. “And Eliona? Pemma?”

  “The same as us,” her brother replied. “Same as everyone. Marley had to take Chapyora under lead and away. She kept attacking the tree where skekSa is . . .”

  Naia swallowed. At least there was that.

  “And it’s holding?” she asked. “And urSan?”

  “The tree is holding. urSan says she can sense skekSa inside, but she won’t be escaping anytime soon. Great Smerth and Mother saved us, even despite all that’s happened to it.”

  Naia shook her head. Great Smerth had endured so much, and with the darkening, still had much left to survive. And if the darkening ever overtook the new tree, its hold on skekSa would weaken. If they didn’t heal the Crystal, it was only a matter of time.

  But now she knew there was hope. She grabbed Gurjin’s hand and held it tightly in hers.

  “I’m sorry I pulled away from you,” she said. “I felt like we were growing apart, and I was afraid of that.”

  He squeezed her and said, “Me too. And I’m sorry for keeping things from you. I was trying to protect you. Or I thought I was. But in a way it wasn’t much different from what you were doing.”

  Naia chewed on her lip. “You mean not telling me about Great Smerth? And . . . Amri?”

  “Yeah.” Gurjin groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. It was the same thing Naia did when she was distressed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about Rian and Mira. He was so attached to her, and she was attached to him. And after she died, it just . . . destroyed him. You love so strongly. You love our home and you love your friends. I couldn’t bear to see you break if they were to be taken away. Not when you’re so strong. But now I know that’s why you’re strong. And now I know that’s what you need most to be maudra, both to the Drenchen and the rest of the Gelfling.”

  Maudra.

  The word was so familiar, yet felt so strange. It was her mother, not her.

  “Gurjin, I don’t know if I can do it. Go down and face them. They’re going to want me to tell them everything is going to be all right, but how can I tell them what they want to hear when I don’t know it for certain? How can I be strong for them when I feel like I’m breaking on the inside? I’m not Tavra or Ethri. What if I’m not ready?”

  He held her by the shoulders and looked straight in her eyes. She could see the same uncertainty deep inside him, could feel the slight tremble in his hands.

  “You are,” he said, shaking her gently. “You’ve as much training to be maudra as either of those two.” When Naia didn’t answer, he lowered his voice and added, “Mother made sure of it.”

  Gurjin dropped his arms when Kylan and Amri appeared quietly near the entrance to the chamber. Naia recognized the iridescent black garment folded carefully in Amri’s arms. Her mother’s cloak, sewn in the shape of beautiful Drenchen wings, laced with shining ribbons and glittering beads.

  “Your father has taken her to be prepared for burial,” Kylan said softly. “The rest of the Drenchen wait on the Glenfoot.”

  Naia couldn’t take her eyes off the cloak, feeling as if she might be overcome with grief all over again. She had longed to wear the beautiful thing ever since she had been a childling. She had never thought what it would mean on the day she put it on.

  Amri stepped forward, holding the cloak with plain and clear reverence, eyes on Naia.

  “Go on,” Gurjin said.

  Kylan and Amri took hold of either clasp of the cloak, and Naia turned her back toward them. Gently, the two placed the maudra’s cape across her shoulders, holding it so her wings could peek through the slits sewn for them. It was light, made of woven fabric that would not weigh her down while gliding or hold water long after swimming—barely a whisper on her shoulders, yet it felt heavy as the world. With a practiced certainty and confidence, she stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the Glenfoot.

  The Drenchen had gathered below, some standing, though many were sitting, holding their faces in mourning. As the day grew and filled the glade with light, the ruined state of the place became more evident. Blackened boughs and roots still smoked, filling the air with the musty, damp, burned smell of Great Smerth’s injuries. Fallen debris, branches and the like, floated listlessly in the lake. Where the ancient tree had broken open, darkened veins were exposed, making Great Smerth’s other, greater illness more obvious.

  Faces turned up when she stepped to the edge of the balcony where her mother had stood so many times, Naia lingering back in the chamber. Wondering when her time would come to be the one to stand before their clan. Now was that day, and she tried not to regret that it had come about like this.

  “Drenchen,” she said, her voice sounding weak and tired. She clenched her teeth and gripped the carved rail of the balcony, trying again with more force: “Drenchen!”

  “Better,” Gurjin said, and she smiled. She let go of the rail and let out a breath, addressing the Drenchen clan that waited below.

  “A traveler came to our swamp from the furthest reaches of the north. The next day, I left Great Smerth and Sog to find my missing brother.”

  It felt like an old song when she told it that way with all the Drenchen listening with quiet faces. Yet there was no other way to tell it. That was what had happened. That was the day that everything had changed for her, though in the lifespan of Thra and against the lifetimes during which the Skeksis had ruled, it was so very late. In the end, though, it was why she had left the Swamp of Sog—and how she had returned.

  “Since then I’ve traveled across the Skarith Land. Through the Spriton Plains to Stone-in-the-Wood. Climbed the Grottan Mountains, all the way to Ha’rar. I’ve seen the Crystal Sea and the Dousan Wellspring, my toes have tasted the salt waters of Cera-Na on the Sifan Coast. One by one, five of the seven Gelfling clans put down their weapons, their anger, and their fear. One by one, they held one another instead. Each time at the end of a great speech given by an even greater maudra. Yet here I am, standing before you, with no great speech to tell and so much sadness in my heart.”

  Even the birds quieted. Down below, one of the Drenchen elders held his hand to his mouth.

  “We miss her, too, Naia,” he said, and Naia tried not to lose control of her flighty emotions when he added, “but we also believe in you.”

  “As Laesid believed in you,” added another.

  “And as Gurjin and your father believe in you,” said yet another.

  “You don’t need to make a great speech to light this fire.”

  Naia looked over her shoulder as Bellanji joined her at the balcony, face wan with grief and the ribbons stripped from his locs in mourning. She tried to stay strong as he stood beside her, though seeing her father transformed into such a somber character made her feel like a stone sinking into the deepest part of the lake. If he couldn’t smile, then how could she?

  “Father . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  Like the clouds parting after a storm, the smallest of comforting smiles bent the edge of his lips. He thumped her on the shoulder and pushed her forward.

  “All you need to do is say who you are, and what we shall do next.”

  Naia stood at the precipice of the balcony, toes curling over the edge. It was almost dizzying, though she knew that if she were to fall, her wings would ease the descent, and the Drenchen be
low would catch her.

  Golden light caught her eye. Across the lake, visible from her high vantage on the balcony, was the new tree. The sapling apeknot, flourishing in the bright sun. New and green, both fragile and resilient.

  It was that tree Naia set her sights and heart on. Believed in it, as it had believed in her. She gathered all of her strength up in one breath, then let it out, as big and fierce as she was able.

  “I am Naia, new maudra of the Drenchen clan. And on this day we lay down our spears and hold one another—”

  She took the dagger from her belt and hurled it over the heads of the Drenchen. All eyes were on it as it twirled, sparkling, before disappearing into the deep water of the lake below the Glenfoot. Fingers spread and palms empty, Naia held her hands aloft so all could see.

  “We join the resistance. We will protect Thra. We will heal the Crystal.”

  “Blue Flame Naia!” cried Gurjin, throwing his fist in the air. He grabbed Naia’s hand in his other. As their knuckles pierced the sky, glowing blue, the Drenchen roared her name again and again.

  “Blue Flame Naia!”

  Sparks flew from the smoldering hearth on the Glenfoot below.

  The Drenchen gathered around it, holding out their hands, eyes alight with focus and unstoppable intent. Naia held Gurjin and stepped off the balcony, alighting with him on the scorched Glenfoot among their clan before the hearth.

  Drenchen found one another, and when the last palms touched, the hearth burst into light. Gasps of shock and awe hissed against the rushing of the hot flames as the story of the Drenchen fire was dream-etched, hot and cosmic, into the Glenfoot and across Great Smerth’s ash-coated body. Naia and Gurjin’s return to the glade. The darkened veins beneath Great Smerth. Their confrontation with skekSa, and Maudra Laesid’s last sacrifice.