by J. M. Lee
“They’re here!”
The two words spread like spring rain, first in pairs and then across the entire square in a hushed pitter-patter of whispers. Every Gelfling stared eager-eyed and ears-forward, watching the gate at the Thicket’s entrance. The band started up with a ceremonial processional, and Maudra Mera stood solemnly at the end of the main road, hands folded around the neck of her staff. At her left and right were two youngsters, her children, ready to partake in the welcoming of the lords—just as Naia had partaken in the welcoming of Tavra of Ha’rar.
Naia held her breath as ten Spriton guards bearing leadway torches entered in two rows. In the center of the well-lit aisle lumbered two big riding phegnese, resplendent in their brilliant azure plumage. The ground shook under the heavy plodding of their three-toed feet, each with black nails as big as Naia’s arm. Their wedge-billed faces were masked and reined, driven by a single Gelfling each, seated where the big birds’ necks joined with their lean shoulders. The Gelfling attendants wore light armor, violet cloaks, and adorned helmets, for they were guards from the Castle of the Crystal. Behind, on the saddled backs of the phegnese, were what looked to be crowned heads protruding from an extravagant mound of lush brocades, velvets, furs, and feathers. They were beaked, with bald heads and narrow-set otherworldly eyes: the Skeksis Lords, Two of Twice-Nine, holders of the castle and protectors of the Crystal.
The Spriton crowded forward with cheers and praise, and Naia lost sight of the lords and their mounts as she fell to the back. Instead, she found a bench and climbed atop it, watching from farther away but higher up as Maudra Mera beckoned the lords to the square.
“Scroll Keeper Lord skekOk! Census Taker Lord skekLach!” she cried. “Come, come! Welcome to our humble Sami Thicket! Please, we have prepared—”
The maudra was interrupted by a harsh resounding guffaw that burst from Lord skekLach’s barrel-thick body. As sturdy as it was, his phegnese was strained from bearing his weight, no small portion of it made up of the beautifully crafted armor and dazzling adornments he bore on his hefty broad-shouldered body. He kicked a leg over his saddle, and after he dismounted with a thundering BOOM, the riding bird nearly toppled in the opposite direction from relief. The second lord, skekOk the Scroll Keeper, remained atop his steed. Unlike his companion, Lord skekOk was thin, his face pointed and narrow, almost like Neech’s. He was robed in a bright magenta brocade accented with an extravagantly frilled white-lace ruff. Finely crafted metals were bent and soldered in complicated spirals around gems bigger than Naia’s eyes that glittered on the bangles and cuffs up the lord’s wrists.
Lord skekLach threw his cloak back into what appeared to be a plume of red and black, seeming to double his already massive size. There he towered, the village falling still as he cast his gaze upon them, panning slowly to take in every Gelfling face. Then he raised his beak and took a harsh, hard inhale, scenting the thick aroma of the prepared feast. He exhaled and immediately drew breath again, sweeping his head through the air and giving a deep hungry rumble of satisfaction.
“Something,” he said, “smells delicious.”
“Come,” Maudra Mera said, leaping into action. “Will the lords take sup at the head table? This way, this way!”
Lord skekLach grinned broadly, knocking his cloak back at the elbows. His companion, fingering the rim of the shining spectacles perched on his pointed nose, finally dismounted as well, and the two of them followed Maudra Mera to the front of the square. Until this moment, all Skeksis had looked alike in Naia’s imagination, but now she saw they were quite distinct from one another. Where Lord skekLach was wide and powerful, Lord skekOk was narrow and shrewd; where one had a beak blunt like a boulder, the other’s snout was fleshy and straight. Together they made quite the pair, approaching the head table surrounded by mounds of Spriton offerings. Maudra Mera seemed like nothing but a skittering crawly, zipping back and forth between them, barely avoiding a heavy squishing.
When they finally reached the table, Lord skekLach threw himself into the fat bench prepared for him, skekOk taking a more calculated seat beside him. With great ceremony, Maudra Mera gestured over and over to her sons who stood nearby with a large dish of squash. At her bidding, they hurried forward and placed the offering before the two lords.
“Sweet cherry-squash, my lord,” Maudra Mera said, bowing yet again from lack of another position to take. “A specialty of the Spriton tribe. Sweet, in thanks for the kindness the lords have shown us, and sour, for the sharp strength of our loyalty to the castle!”
Both lords leaned forward to smell the platter. Though skekOk made a cluck of disdain, turning his head away, skekLach found the roasted vegetables more appetizing. Without further ceremony, he grabbed a fistful of squash, shoveling it into his hooked maw.
The Spriton fell quiet as they waited for his review. Maudra Mera stood before them, hands wringing one another, with every Gelfling in the square holding their breath. The air grew hot and tense in anticipation, and Naia felt an ugly chill crawl up her back. Lord skekLach plucked a final wedge of the stringy vegetable meat, and Maudra Mera tried to hide a tremble while the last wet sounds of Lord skekLach’s feasting echoed through the silent square.
The silence was broken when skekLach let out a thundering roar. Naia’s heart plummeted in fear. Was he unhappy? What would this failure entail? How might Maudra Mera and the Gelfling of Sami Thicket atone for the displeasure of a Skeksis Lord?
“GWAAAHHHH-HA-HA-HA!”
With a gulp, Naia realized the terrible sound was laughter. Following a collective sigh of relief, the Spriton band started up, and Maudra Mera turned away, wiping her forehead with her sleeves. The reception had passed, and the feast had begun.
Chapter 9
Naia sat alone on one of the many benches in the square, eating carefully with a pronged fork that a Podling had offered her. She ate slowly, though she wanted for all the world to scarf it down by the handful in her hunger. No one joined her, and that was fine, or so she told herself. She fed small pieces of food to Neech, but he spit them out, finally gliding free of her shoulder and off into the night to find prey more to his taste. For Naia, the Spriton food was palatable, though she longed for a sliver of fish or wort beetle. For the others—even the Skeksis Lords—it seemed scrumptious. Even well into the night, the two lords continued to call for more platters of food and goblets of wine. She watched them from the far end of the square, determined to stay out of their attention for the duration of their stay in Sami Thicket. This was Maudra Mera’s affair. If it were somehow spoiled and Naia was within the village bounds, there would be no hearing the end of it from her parents.
After supper, the children and the Podlings collected the dishes in a barrel of water for rinsing in the river. Naia tried to help, ready to carry a barrel to the river herself, but she was greeted only with cautious glances, so she surrendered her dish with a quiet thank-you. Turning back to the square, she saw a long line of Spriton had formed, leading up to the head table where the two lords were still seated. The platters of food had been cleared and replaced with only a large decanter of wine. Lord skekOk placed before him an enormous stack of paper, bound together with sinewy twine between two heavy leather covers. She’d heard of books before, but this was the first one she’d ever seen. He split it open to some page near the center and, when one of his castle attendants offered them, took a quill and pot of ink and set them to his right. From the distance, Naia watched as each Gelfling stood before him, one at a time, speaking to the lord as he moved the quill across the paper, staining it with a long stream of black ink. Naia jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder. Maudra Mera had joined her.
“The lords are taking count of all who live in Sami Thicket,” she said. “Since you do not live here, my little soggy pet, you needn’t join the line.”
“Why does he take count? The lords have never taken count in Sog.”
In fact, Naia wasn�
��t sure the lords had ever visited Sog, let alone taken count. The question was probably inappropriate, diving into the Spriton’s business, but Naia asked it, anyway. The maudra could always refuse to respond. She touched one of Naia’s locs absentmindedly, as if she’d never seen a thing like them before.
“It’s only worth counting what’s valuable,” she said, and Naia swallowed the jumble of words that rose in her throat. The maudra went on to smooth her cowl, arranging it and setting her black braids just so at her shoulder. “Now, listen, dear. I’ve put up a cot for you in my chamber to sleep the night. It’s a bit cool now, but Mimi will get the fire started soon enough. You’re welcome to turn in at any time. But, but, I thought you might like to know, Kylan always tells a song after sup.”
In the deepening evening, Naia saw the pointed roof of the dwelling Maudra Mera indicated. Though she wasn’t particularly interested in hearing a song, she also wasn’t a child, ushered off to bed so early in the evening by her mother.
“Thank you, Maudra,” she said. “I’ll just need to find Neech, then I’ll be over. I don’t want him to get lost.”
“That eel?” Maudra Mera asked. When Naia nodded, the maudra sighed but shrugged. “Yes, yes, of course . . . Well, we will see you soon for bedtime. Good night, my soggy dear.”
Maudra Mera took her leave, returning to Lord skekLach’s elbow as he continued his interviews with the Spriton. As the line dwindled, the children and Podlings came back from dishes duty. Naia walked the perimeter of the square, whistling and calling quietly for Neech as the little ones gathered to sit on the wide walking stones near the hearth where the cooking fires had died down to glowing red embers. With Lord skekLach’s earthshaking voice and Lord skekOk’s tinny wobbling one as the backdrop, the children whispered among one another with excitement, and Naia couldn’t help but pay attention when a slim Gelfling boy her age approached. It was the boy who had been staring at the split seed-nut when she’d arrived. He held a lute in one hand and took a seat on the bench facing the audience.
It figured such a strange one would be a song teller. Song telling wasn’t popular with the Drenchen. Weaving fantasy stories was a waste of time, according to her mother, who favored hard-talk and action. Stories were only good for distractions. While Naia peeked in between houses and in bushes for Neech, Kylan the Song Teller stood on the hearth and faced the Skeksis Lords, giving a deep well-practiced bow before taking a seat and tuning his instrument. Before long, he launched into a melodic overture on its thin harmonic strings. It was nothing like the Drenchen drums, but it was still beautiful, and he played well.
Naia finally found Neech draped from a small potted tree beside a hut’s doorway, crunching on some night bug with happy snaps of his jaw. She gave him a kiss and let him take his place on her arm, making ready to spend the night as quickly as she could in Maudra Mera’s home, out of the gaze of the census-taking lords and, as much as possible, out of the maudra’s as well. With the lords to entertain and their very important people to be counted, Maudra Mera had little time for Naia and that was fine enough. She would accept the hospitality for what it was and say her polite good-byes on the morrow. In the meantime, though, she felt more alone in Sami Thicket than she had in the wild field beyond it.
Well, it’s to be expected, she thought. They are Spriton, not Drenchen. Their maudra was very different indeed, so of course their clan was as well.
From the hearth, along with the melody on the stringed instrument, Kylan began to sing:
Let me tell you a tale of Jarra-Jen
Who flew Thra once over and back again
Met a four-armed monster with half a heart
Jarra-Jen and the Hunter, and the Leap in the Dark
Naia paused to listen. The words sounded peculiar coming from his otherwise gentle voice. The awkwardness that had guarded him before, when she’d spoken to him first, had vanished, and now when he spoke, his tone was alive with energy and confidence. Even the Skeksis Lords turned their heads, Lord skekOk tilting his beak until it was pointed almost straight at the shining Sisters in the night sky.
Now the Great Sun is waning as the Rose One takes chase
Thra’s Winter ninet as it drifts us through space
The nights long and chilly, the days short and shy
The Brothers scarce seen all three in the sky
Now traveling by foot through the Dark Wood alone
Making way through the bramble to Stonewood, his home
Fair footsteps fall firmly as he fasts through the fen
Lightning-born, Gelfling hero, our brave Jarra-Jen!
Now Jarra-Jen, by the Skeksis, was truly adored
And this eve he was laden with gifts from the lords
Thanks for telling them tales of his travels abroad
From Ha’rar to the North all the way South to Sog
Now the Three Sisters rising, two bold and one meek
Light the way for our hero as he reaches Black Creek
But the cold wind dies still and he hears in the dim
Monstrous breath heavy through pointy-toothed grin!
Now Jarra-Jen, yea, he turns and he peers through the dark
To see writhing black shadows in the tangled tree bark
And out of the night hover two burning eyes
The wicked horned mask that’s the Hunter’s disguise!
Now the Hunter, he laughs with a hook-beakéd smile
Picking his teeth with a bone all the while
He steps closer and closer! Stars shine on his face!
Jarra-Jen crouches ready–now the Hunter gives chase!
Now through the Dark Wood, Jarra-Jen, yea, takes flight
’Twas not in his plans to be dinner tonight!
And the Hunter’s sharp maw snapping close at his heel
Snatching with claws bent to make him his meal
Now to the high hills of Dark Wood they fly
Jarra-Jen, thinking fast, up an incline he’ll climb
Now his toes at the edge of the cliff into black
Seeing nothing below him, he—panting—looks back
Now the Hunter waits behind him
Jarra-Jen, he looks before him
Knowing not what lies below him
He looks to the stars above him
Now holding his breath, Jarra-Jen drops his pack
And slowly, before the dark Hunter attacks
He handfuls of treasure and gifts from the lords
Flings over his shoulders and into the gorge
Now his bag has run empty, and the Hunter comes forth
Jarra-Jen, his ears straining, now prays for his worth
Eyes closing, mouth smiling, “I’ve heard you!” he breathes
Now jumping outward, into freefall he leaps
Splash!
Up ahead now, above him, the Hunter cries “No!”
Jarra-Jen, yea, he cheers up from far down below
Drifting down the safe landing for which he’d prayed
Where he’d heard treasure falling on calm river waves
Naia hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly and drew another one in. The song was over, and the Gelfling and Podlings alike threw their hands in the air and cheered for the triumphant Jarra-Jen. Even the Skeksis Lords had listened with keen interest, their counting finished. Lord skekLach had his big meaty hands steepled on the table before him, exchanging glances with Lord skekOk and finally giving a low guttural chuckle.
Kylan turned and gave another flourishing bow to the head table where Maudra Mera stood with the lords, then gave a littler bow to his audience of children and Podlings. He handed his lute to one of the youngsters to play with until the children were, one by one, called home by their parents. With as sharp an eye and ear as they had listened to Kylan’s story, the l
ords at the table watched the children disappear in singlets and doublets, ready to be tucked in by their parents within their warm and cozy huts. When the square was nearly clear, with only Kylan and the single hearth keeper’s dark silhouettes against the nighttime fire, Kylan packed his lute on his back and approached the head table.
“We counted this one, hm?” Lord skekOk said, leaning toward his fellow as Kylan stood before them with another formal bow.
“Thank you for your ear. I’m honored that . . . ,” Kylan said. Some of his confidence had escaped, but Naia couldn’t blame him. Even her own courage suffered some withering in the presence of the Skeksis Lords, and she wasn’t even the one standing before them.
“With the mother-family, yes,” Lord skekLach said, as if Kylan hadn’t spoken at all. “Just two, just two in his old house.”
“Yes, my lords,” Kylan said. “My parents were taken by the Hunter when I was young.”
Maudra Mera, standing near the end of the table, stiffened and grabbed the sleeves of her cloak, quickly shuffling forward to take Kylan’s shoulders in her hands and begin escorting him away from the gaze of the Skeksis Lords.
“I’m sorry, my lords, he’s—”
Lord skekOk held up a hand, the ruffles at the end of his sleeve flaring like webbed quills. He leaned forward so the tip of his needly nose nearly touched Kylan’s. Naia felt her whole body tense, imagining herself in Kylan’s place.
“This . . . Hunter. From song,” the Scroll Keeper said. “A myth? Some story, made by Gelfling?”
“It’s not a myth,” Kylan said, but Maudra Mera laughed nervously and clutched his shoulders tightly.
“A story, yes,” she added. “To teach the children not to leave their homes after the Three Brothers have gone to bed. You know, they listen to the song tellers more oft than they do their own parents!”