Shadows of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  “And when the King wouldn’t burp for his part, Jarra-Jen tickled backward and King let out a big—”

  Naia burst into laughter, unable to contain it. The story wasn’t even that funny, but she hadn’t laughed since leaving home, and the feeling was so good, she didn’t want it to end. It was like a friendly fire, growing stronger with every round. She knuckled the laughing tears from the corners of her eyes, chuckled some more, and kept walking.

  This time, Kylan didn’t follow, seeming as if he’d finally gotten the message. He stood there, quiet and solemn, holding the straps of his pack and looking forlornly after her. Just when he was about to disappear on the trail behind her, she stopped and turned back with a little sigh.

  “Well, Song Teller?” she called. “We’re still a long way off. We don’t have time to stand around like sticks in mud!”

  His head popped up, ears pointing to her, and she saw a grin grow on his face. He quickened his long-legged gait to meet her, and then, elbow to elbow, they were off into the rolling golden hills.

  Chapter 11

  Kylan was quiet while they traveled, holding the straps of his pack and looking left and right, constantly absorbing the scenery with an active focus. It made Naia feel more comfortable in her own keen curiosity. For her, their surroundings were foreign, but out of pride she tried not to seem too interested. Together they watched the clouds spiral in the sky, the hills crawling with grasses and roaming shrubs, the wind come alive with the voices of the prairie creatures. True to his word so far, Kylan kept pace with Naia on his skinny legs, breath never growing short, never once complaining for rest even after a long day’s journey. It wasn’t until much later that he finally broke the silence, and then only with a question.

  “How do the Drenchen fly?”

  The question brought Naia’s gaze out of the clouds down to Kylan’s inquisitive green eyes.

  “What do you mean? With wings, like all Gelfling.”

  He nodded to her pack, held tight on her back and shoulders by two arm straps. Naia’s cheeks warmed. If she had wings, wearing a man’s pack like her father’s would make it very difficult to use them indeed. She was glad for her dark skin, imagining how bright her blush would have been had she a complexion more like Tavra’s.

  “This is my father’s pack,” was all she said.

  “Oh.” She half expected him to pursue the topic, but instead, he simply asked, “Your mother is the Drenchen Maudra Laesid, the Blue Stone Healer?”

  Eager to change the subject, Naia nodded. That Kylan knew her mother’s name endeared him to her, though she hated to admit it.

  “Yes. I’m the eldest of her daughters.”

  “So when your mother retires, you would become the maudra.”

  “Yep,” Naia said, wondering what he was getting at. “That’s how it works.”

  “Doesn’t that scare you?”

  She laughed. “My family has been the maudren for as long as there have been Drenchen. I’m learning vliyaya, and I’m trusted with a spear and bola. I know Sog blindfolded, above water and below. What’s there to be afraid of?”

  Kylan shrugged.

  “Maudra Mera often laments the matriarch’s burden. She struggles to maintain order in Sami Thicket and the other nearby Spriton villages. I suppose if it’s not so difficult in Sog, it wouldn’t be such a trouble.”

  “There are plenty of difficulties. When I was young, I didn’t understand, but in my training, I’m learning. Being maudra is a responsibility and a blessing. I always wished I had been able to explore Thra—see the Silver Sea, the Caves of Grot—but . . .”

  Naia trailed off when she realized what she was saying. Kylan was thinking the same thing, nothing but a smile on his thin lips. She snorted and waved the idea away, changing the subject yet again, taking her turn asking questions.

  “Have you traveled beyond the Spriton lands before, Kylan the Song Teller?”

  Kylan shook his head and pointed. Up ahead, on the horizon between them and the mountains, was a growing dark line that Naia took to be a huge expanse of wood.

  “No farther than where the wood begins,” he said. “The trail till then runs easy, but the Dark Wood . . .”

  Tavra’s warning about the Dark Wood tickled the back of Naia’s mind, and Kylan’s nervous unended statement did nothing to calm her worries. It didn’t matter, though. All they had to do was skirt the wood as much as possible. If it were too dangerous a route, Tavra would have said so.

  “Isn’t there a way to the Black River without going through the wood?”

  “Yes. There’s a trail that leads above it, through the highlands,” Kylan said. “And it’s just a forest, after all . . . But I always think of the songs.”

  “Jarra-Jen and the Hunter? Aren’t those just songs? I’d never heard of the Hunter before I left Sog, but everyone’s heard of Jarra-Jen.”

  “Songs carry truth,” he replied. “Jarra-Jen was a real hero, and the Hunter is a real villain.”

  Naia remembered what Kylan had said to the Skeksis Lords about the Hunter and his parents.

  “So . . . you’ve seen him?” she asked quietly. “The Hunter?”

  He clenched his hands into fists.

  “Yes,” he said. “No one will believe me. Everyone thinks he’s just a tale to frighten children. Maudra Mera thinks my parents were taken by a hungry forest creature while they were in the Dark Wood—or that they fell in the Black River and were swept away. She thinks I imagined it—the four-armed shadow with the bone mask—but I know what I saw. Even after we dreamfasted, she doesn’t believe, and saw only darkness in my memories.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Naia breathed. She imagined herself in Kylan’s place, how alone it would feel to have lost her loved ones and then have no one believe. It was hard for her to think that a monster as terrible as the Hunter he’d described in his song could possibly exist, but the Dark Wood was no small thicket. There was no telling what lurked within its mysterious depths.

  “I dreamed the song of Jarra-Jen and the Hunter afterward,” Kylan said. “Maudra Mera lets me tell it because it keeps the children entertained. She likes the idea of the Hunter as a story, but she’ll never admit he’s real.”

  “So you’re going to Stone-in-the-Wood to prove it?” Naia asked, completing the circle. “Are you going to find him and try to avenge your parents?”

  “I don’t believe in vengeance,” Kylan replied. He looked up. “But I don’t want what happened to my parents to happen to anyone else. I don’t know what I’ll do when I reach Stone-in-the-Wood, but someday, I’d like to find the Hunter and stop him.”

  Naia smirked.

  “You’ll have to learn to throw a bola if you ever want to do that,” she said. “Or find one big enough to hide under.”

  Kylan didn’t respond to the lighthearted tease, probably thinking about the Hunter and his parents, so Naia left him alone. She hadn’t given the Hunter much thought, but now . . . did she believe Kylan, after what he’d told her? She thought of asking him to share the memory with her in dreamfast—but she didn’t want to ask him to relive the moment he lost his parents, whether or not it proved the existence of the Hunter.

  “Maybe if you don’t find what you seek in Stone-in-the-Wood, you can come back to Sog with me,” Naia chirped, hoping to lighten the mood. “I could teach you to throw a bola there, in the apeknots where I taught my younger sisters. You could tell songs at the drum feasts . . . It would be a rare occasion!”

  Naia smiled in relief when a bounce returned to Kylan’s step.

  “You don’t have a song teller in your clan?” he asked.

  “Not really. We keeps songs of historical importance, of course. Mesabi-Nara’s first steps into Sog, the founding of Great Smerth. That sort of thing. But we don’t waste time and breath with fanciful stories every night ’round the hearth.”

 
“I see,” Kylan said. “Ah, Mesabi-Nara is the Maudra of the Deep, is she not? Blue stone Gelfling, born in the sea, with lungs as well as gills to breathe?”

  “You’ve heard of her?” Some of that clan pride crept into Naia’s voice, whether she liked it or not. Kylan nodded, and a big smile warmed his face now that he’d gotten even a little excitement out of his otherwise quiet companion.

  “Of course, the first Drenchen, the inventor of healing vliyaya! Oh, you must tell me the songs you know. I’d love to hear them. I’ll sing them at the hearth . . .” This time, Kylan was the one who let his sentence wither. He glanced over his shoulder, back down the path, though the Spriton town was long behind them.

  “You can still go back, you know,” Naia said. “No one will even notice you left if you turn back now.”

  She stopped when he did, wondering if their companionship would end so quickly after it had begun. If he went back now, maybe she would miss him—no, that was silly. She’d hardly even gotten to know him—but it didn’t matter, either way. Kylan shook his head and turned toward the north with a stern grunt of decision, walking ahead. Naia followed him, and that was the last either of them said on the matter.

  The mountains seemed just as far-off as ever, even by the time the sky darkened. Naia wondered if they were only an illusion. They made camp in the lee of a boulder, shedding their heavy packs. Kylan made a fire—quickly, at that—and Naia took up a couple bola and her knife. Neech was waking, every quill alert, gliding nearby in short swoops before resting on Naia’s shoulder again, ready to hunt for supper. Nighttime critters rustled in the tall grass, all around, and before too long, she struck one with her bola and called for Neech to find it. He did. It was a furry little shrub beetle with six jointed legs. Naia picked it up by the hair on its back and carried it back to camp. Kylan yelped and recoiled when she pushed it at him, slowly squirming legs and all.

  “Dinner!” she declared.

  “How do you know we can eat it? What if it’s poisonous?”

  She held it to her nose and gave it a big sniff. It smelled earthy and a little bit like grass. Her stomach grumbled.

  “Anything you sniff and still want to eat can’t be poisonous,” she said. “Drenchen motto: Trust your gut. Anyway, weren’t you saying you were a good cook? A good cook should know a great dinner when he smells it.”

  Kylan assumed a stern expression for the first time since she’d met him, a little bossiness creeping into his voice at her challenge.

  “What if smelling good is just a trick? Or what if something smells good to one person, but terrible to another? What if it’s not just poisonous to eat, but poisonous to touch?”

  “Well, what do you expect me to do?” she asked. “It’s the best I could catch. Would you rather just go hungry? There’s no other way for us to know.”

  He held up a finger, and the fire glinted in his eye.

  “There is another way,” he said.

  Naia sighed and held the wiggling shrub beetle while he dug through his pack. From its bulk, she’d thought it to be full of traveling gear or rations, but now she saw it was mostly papers and papyrus, scrolls, and books. Kylan withdrew one of the folios and paged through it, carefully turning the sheets of thick paper with two fingers.

  “Ah! Here, it says this is a burrowing noggie, and it’s safe to eat if we shuck off the outer shell. Often prepared roasted and seasoned with herbs.”

  “That’s what I said: safe to eat. This gut doesn’t lie!”

  Kylan snorted and snatched the noggie. “It says here that if we don’t shuck off the shell, we’ll be bedridden for a week, and smell of lumproot for twice that. Did your gut tell you that much?”

  Naia grinned, taking her own turn at feeling a bit sheepish, but enjoying seeing a bit of assertiveness from the Spriton boy. She sat by the fire while he laid the noggie down on a flat area of the boulder nearby, killing it with a swift blow from a smaller stone. When he set the rock down and closed his eyes, Naia did so as well, taking part in the solemn silent prayer they offered in thanks to the noggie that had given its life for their supper.

  Afterward, Kylan shucked the shell as it instructed in his book and prepared it for the fire. They sat in silence while supper sizzled, the creature’s under-shell popping every once in a while under the heat. The smell of the roasting noggie meat was woody and savory. Kylan sat with the book on his lap, smoothing the pages and looking upon them in the flickering firelight.

  “How did you learn to read?” Naia asked, impressed.

  “I learned from Maudra Mera, so I could read all the tales of Jarra-Jen,” he said. “Our tribe doesn’t have a dream etcher, and since I’m no good at anything else, she thought maybe I could take that place . . . I suppose her efforts are wasted now that I’ve left.”

  “You know writing vliyaya?” Naia gasped. Reading was one thing, but dream-etching . . . “Words that stay?”

  In answer, Kylan spread his hands above the book, where the picture of the noggie was already etched alongside rows and lines of swirling, intricate markings. Naia sidled closer to watch.

  “Maudra Mera is stern and often cranky, but she is a dream etcher, and she taught me after my parents died. Even when I tried her patience. I practice whenever I can.”

  He stretched his slender fingers and held them over the book, focusing. His hands brightened with a gentle blue fire, and as he moved his hands, delicate spirals, lines, and dots lit the air in the path his fingers took. The shapes he drew settled into the pages, smoldering into deep lines of charcoal black. The enchanted shapes flowed from his fingers like music from his lute, all intertwined in long lines across the pages. It was like an intricate tapestry and so mysterious, for Naia could tell that the shapes were not only beautiful but meaningful.

  When Kylan was done, he pointed to a string of intricate swirls and loops, straight lines, and dots.

  “I wrote about the noggie, where we found it and how we prepared it. That way, if someone else reads it later, they’ll have our experience to learn from as well. And that’s your name. Naia.”

  He pointed to a special shape among all the others. Naia tried to memorize it—the shape of her name, right there for anyone to see, long after she’d gone. She traced over the drawn words with her eyes, afraid to touch lest she smudge them.

  “What did you write about me?”

  “I wrote your words,” he said. “Always trust a Drenchen’s gut!”

  Then he winked and Naia laughed.

  “None of our people have mastered dream-etching vliyaya,” she said. “Long ago, our elders did. They left behind some tablets, and some old things written in Old Smerth’s halls . . . but we only remember the meaning.”

  “The Drenchen are known for their words and feats of strength,” Kylan said. He looked upon the etching. “I suppose the Spriton are known for their spears and bola, but . . . if I could choose, I would like to be known for this.”

  “I get the feeling you will be,” Naia said. She smiled and, in return, got a smile out of her companion. From the mouthwatering aroma, she could tell their dinner was done, and pulled the skewers from the fire. She handed one to Kylan, and when he sniffed it, his stomach gave a loud growl that made them both giggle.

  “Trusting my gut,” he said, and took a bite.

  She grinned and picked a twig from the ground and poked at the fire with it, letting loose a pop and a flurry of twinkling sparks. Content, with bellies full, they watched the embers dart back and forth on their way into the night sky.

  Later, after a rest much more restoring than her previous night in Maudra Mera’s home, Naia packed while Kylan snored a little while longer. She rekindled the fire to dry the dew from their packs, and by the time she’d just about finished preparing to put out the fire, Kylan finally stirred. He rolled onto his back and stretched.

  “Time to go?” he asked.

&
nbsp; “Unless you want to travel on your own, stick-bug,” Naia chided. She kicked him playfully, and he sat up. He carefully folded his sleeping roll. She expected him to complain and ask if they would need to maintain such a schedule every morning, but all he did was dutifully pack his things until he was standing beside her. Together, they pushed dirt on the fire and headed back to the trail. At first it was quiet, and Naia reveled in it, watching the Rose Sun join the Great Sun on the horizon, adding its pink hue to the palette of the cloudless sky. The air was full of flitting bugs and territorial calls of fliers and crawlers. Kylan walked off the path, meandering behind and to the left, behind and to the right, carrying a twig in hand and poking at grass and the occasional shrub or animal. Naia took the more pragmatic route along the flattened earth, hardly interested in any of the wildlife that surrounded them until it was time for dinner.

  “May I ask about your business in Ha’rar?”

  Kylan’s question, interrupting the silence, was innocent enough. Still, Naia pressed her lips together, thinking. There wasn’t anything wrong with telling Kylan about Tavra, was there? After all, it was Tavra who had come to Great Smerth looking for Gurjin. It wasn’t as if Naia had anything to hide. Still, she didn’t feel like telling Kylan that her brother had been accused of treason, fled, and left her to stand trial in his place.

  “I’m looking for my brother, Gurjin,” she said instead. “He’s a guard at the Castle of the Crystal and he’s gone missing. The All-Maudra is looking for him, too.” And then there was the darkened Nebrie, and the crystal veins in the mud . . . “I have a message for her from one of her soldiers.”

  Kylan stood straighter at just the mention of the All-Maudra, though her land was farther away than even the mountains ahead.

  “I didn’t realize . . . ,” he began. When he looked at her this time, a new respect had settled on his features—chased by a worried wrinkle to his brow. “Is something wrong?”

  Telling him no would be a lie, but Naia didn’t particularly want to tell him yes, either. After all, she didn’t know exactly what was going on. Even Tavra had been surprised by the Nebrie, though from the urgency with which she’d sent Naia to Ha’rar, it seemed the All-Maudra’s soldier might have an inkling as to what it meant.