Shadows of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  “What is that?” Naia asked.

  “The Black River’s Spine. Were you not expecting it? That’s where we’ll meet the river that will lead us to Stone-in-the-Wood . . .” Kylan’s voice faded as he realized what Naia was just understanding. Her cheeks warmed, and he said it, out loud. “You didn’t think we were traveling all the way to those big purple mountains, did you? Those are the misty mountains! It would take unum to get there if we didn’t ride the river!”

  She pressed her lips together and gave him a sock in the arm.

  “I’ve never been this far north! How was I supposed to know one ridge of mountains from another?”

  Kylan held his arm and laughed. It wasn’t mean-spirited, though. He was only enjoying not being the embarrassed one for once. She let him have the moment. Even if she felt silly now for thinking the mountains were their midway destination, the relief of knowing they would reach the prickly ridge within the day was worth it. They might even touch toes with the legendary Black River in the evening. Naia’s mouth watered, thinking of the swimmers that they might roast for dinner and how much Neech would enjoy the well-missed moisture of running water.

  “We could reach the river by evening, I think,” Kylan said, and Naia agreed, picking up her pace in anticipation.

  The great Spriton plains began to give way to a more arid region, though nestled against the Black River’s Spine, Naia could make out a dense line of lush trees. The clouds were full of white sweeps and vapor as the humidity from the Dark Wood beyond fell in sheets of rain and rainbows, leaving little left as the winds blew south. Naia was ever thankful for the shoes Maudra Mera had given her. As the grasses gave way to drier weeds and shrubs, the earth became salty and golden. Walking it barefoot, or even in her first set of bark sandals, would have made the journey near impossible. Even the little Pod people had worn shoes, she reflected. It seemed Sog might be the only place in the Skarith Land where shoes were more a burden than a blessing. Then again, Naia had never seen a Podling before she’d left. Perhaps shoes were common to all but the Drenchen.

  “Are there many Podlings in this area?” she asked, and Kylan brightened at the question, eager to share the overflowing trivia he had stored in his mind.

  “There used to be dozens of communities, all throughout the area. But their numbers have been dwindling, and many families end up living with Spriton communities when their colonies become too few. Some say it’s poor crops.”

  From the abundance of wildlife around them, both in the wide grasslands and even here in the deepening highlands, it seemed strange to hear of failing crops. Although Naia was used to the bounty of the swamp, even she could tell there was plenty to eat and build and live off in the Spriton plains. How were they struggling in a land of such natural wealth? The answer was what Kylan wasn’t saying, which was that the troubles the Podlings were facing might not have to do with crops at all.

  “I believe the Hunter hunts more than Gelfling,” he said quietly. “Though Maudra Mera would not have it said aloud.”

  Naia shivered.

  They ate lunch on foot—dried fruit and the tender sweet cores of thick red grass. By the onset of evening, the ground began to slope upward into the smooth, layered rock of the ridge highlands. There, the path split: one way down into the wooded valley and the other ascending into the ridge. Up they went. Between boulders and steep cliffs, their path narrowed until only one of them could fit abreast, winding through carved stone arches and along wide steps that took them higher and higher. At first, Naia worried about Kylan slipping and falling, but he fared well, occasionally more nimble even than she. Though he couldn’t throw a bola, his balance was keen, and the two of them made their way through the warm reds and oranges of the ridge, overgrown in places with woody vines and tangled overgrowth. As they climbed higher into the steppes, Naia marveled at the forest teeming with foliage and the calling and squabbling of fliers and buzzers. Once, when she set a hand down to steady herself, a tentacled shrub leaped up in alarm, rapidly rolling away and down the slope before disappearing into the wood below.

  When the Great Sun eased downward, they paused to watch its vibrant descent. Clouds mottled the sky, heavy with rain that reflected the wash of colors with added iridescence. From the high spot where they stood, Naia could see south across the huge area they had already crossed. The plains so wide, Sog was not even a spot of black on the horizon.

  “There,” Kylan exclaimed, grabbing her shoulder and pointing. “There, see that?”

  Up ahead, to the west, a sparkle of reflected sunlight glittered amid the dense wood. Naia strained to follow it, and as the Great Sun’s last light struck at just the right place, she could see it: a snaking line of dark water that carved its way through the shelves of the highlands. Rushing from its origin in some spring high in the ridge, the river flowed to its—and Naia’s—final destination to the north.

  “The Black River,” she said. A smile came over her face. “We’re so close! We’ll build a raft and ride it all the way to Ha’rar. Are there any falls?”

  “Ha! How would I know?” Kylan asked. “This is new to me, too.”

  “No songs about Jarra-Jen and the Black River?” Naia was teasing, but when he shook his head, she felt some disappointment even so. She knew how to build a strong raft, but no raft would be strong enough to carry them over a waterfall. She sighed, dreaming of how easy it would be to reach Ha’rar if they could simply float there on the easy current of the river. She’d be before the All-Maudra in no time.

  “Not aside from the one I already told, back in Sami Thicket.”

  “I guess they’ll tell songs about us, then,” Naia teased. “Come on!”

  Energy renewed by the sight of the river, the two treaded on, using the numerous bulky roots and branches that tangled with the earth as hand- and footholds. The large viny growths were all of the same green-brown color and rough woody texture, though they were covered on top and in every nook and cranny with other plants, flowers, and grumbling, crawling, squeaking critters. The huge vines snaked up from the forest below like tentacles, gripping the highlands and rocks as if the wood itself were climbing over the ridge. It reminded Naia of an apeknot, in a way, and she hummed to herself as she hopped over the roots with a hand and a gentle jump.

  Their path abruptly ended, some way down the ridge. The highland dropped off in a steep cliff, the opposite side much more than a leap or vault away. The constant thick vines that wrapped around every corner of the bluffs ended here, too. Though one large branch, big enough for two Gelfling to walk side by side, jutted out over the ravine just a few steps before it ended in jagged, broken splinters. Across the ravine were the remains of the other end of the branch, broken just the same, the length of the branch dangling at the break by the last remaining fibers of old wood.

  “It was a bridge,” Kylan said as they stared at it. “But . . . it’s not anymore.”

  Naia stepped closer to the cliff, out onto their side of the broken branch path. The valley below, between them and the other side and so, so far down, was flooded with dense forest, so overgrown, she could only see the tops of the trees. The calls of fliers and other wildlife echoed through the red stone ravine, carried along by the face of the cliff and the steady buffeting wind.

  “We have to cross to get to the river,” she said. “I can’t believe this! We’re so close, I can practically feel the river’s water on my toes. I wanted to make it there by night.”

  Kylan curled his lips in, quiet. There was nothing to say, anyway. Naia kicked a pebble over the side of the cliff and tugged at her locs. If only she had wings! Yet there was nothing at her back but soreness and a heavy traveling pack that would probably weigh her down too much to make the crossing, even if she had been able to fly. And what would become of Kylan, then? She pushed down her frustration and turned away from the broken branch pass. Heading back from the direction they’d come, they s
earched for a way down the side of the cliff.

  Backtracking led them eventually to the fork they’d passed much earlier, and Naia swallowed any words about the time they’d wasted. She stopped when Kylan’s footsteps halted behind her, turning to see him standing before a flat boulder face and holding out his hands. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he showed her. The blue dream-etching vliyaya lit from his fingers, burning words that stayed into the face of the rock. When he was done, he stepped back to inspect his handiwork before jogging to catch up.

  “Warning any other travelers about the pass,” he said.

  Naia held her tongue, though she wanted to remind him no one else was likely to come this way any time soon, and even if they did, most Gelfling could not read. Then she realized there was no harm in it and she was only frustrated with their unexpected detour. The bridge wasn’t Kylan’s fault, nor was it anyone’s, really, and so as they began their descent, Naia left her frustration on the cliffs of the highlands.

  By the time they reached lower ground, the vines had grown thicker and taller, sprouting up into leaved trees in more and more places. In the darkening evening, the forest was alive with the hoots and hollers of nocturnal creatures, resounding with the song of night. Neech coiled again and again on Naia’s arm in anticipation as they stood where the trees grew in a weaving line, dividing the bluffs from the wood. Though their eyes had already adjusted to the night, Naia stooped and went into her pack, drawing a pouch of glow moss. She held it out to Neech, who devoured it eagerly. After a few moments, the glowing green of the moss saturated his oily skin, the light shining from his body brightly enough to illuminate their path. Kylan watched with delight; she was sure he would record it in his scrolls later.

  Tavra’s warning about the Dark Wood and its dangers came once more to Naia’s mind, but she pushed the words away. She couldn’t afford to lose more time after their day-long detour.

  “Ready?” she asked. Kylan met her eyes, and she saw memories in them. Memories of his parents and the Hunter and all the songs of the Dark Wood. But though she saw fear, she also saw courage.

  “It’ll be all right,” she assured him.

  “I just wonder if it would be better to go during the day. You know, once the Brothers are out and it’s not quite so . . . dark.”

  Naia looked back into the wood, her friend’s words changing how she saw it. It was dark indeed. The Dark Wood had certainly earned its name. Though she wasn’t afraid of the dark, she knew the wood could be dangerous if they entered it carelessly . . . but even so, she was no stranger to wilderness and they had wasted too much time.

  “Just think what Jarra-Jen would do,” she suggested.

  “I don’t know if you were listening, but the Dark Wood at night is when Jarra-Jen met the Hunter and was chased until he had to leap off a cliff into the Black River,” Kylan retorted. The huffiness crept from his words into his posture, and he put his hands on his hips. Naia grinned. That was the attitude he needed. Sometimes, a little confidence was all it took to chase away uncertainty.

  “But wasn’t he also alone? That isn’t the case for us.”

  Kylan peered into the wood for a long time. Naia waited, watching his ears rise from a wary flatness to a more determined form, pointed forward. She smiled. Though she had been eager to write him off as a soft-talking song teller in the beginning, she was glad she had let go of the thought. He had a spark of courage in him, and she was pleased to see it.

  “I guess if I never see him, I can never confront him,” he said with a resolute nod. “Let’s go.”

  And so together, using the two rising Sisters as guides, into the Dark Wood they went.

  As a Drenchen and a Spriton, and of course as Gelfling, neither Naia nor her friend were unfamiliar with forests. Still, the density of the trees was unlike anything Naia had ever seen. The strong pillars of ebony bark and dark turquoise leaves were interrupted only by thick brush, shrubs, spiny rocks, and flowering land corals with huge white night blossoms. The earth was padded with layers and layers of leaves and moss, rippling over the forms of the ever-present roots that sometimes arched from the land in swooping forms that created hoops and arches under which they walked. Though Neech’s body, glowing with his dinner, lit the way, there were other night flowers with their own sources of light, breaking the darkness with dreamy spots of blue, white, and green. Though it was beautiful, Naia reminded herself, it was also dangerous, endless in its mysteries. A twig snapped nearby, and Naia looked—but nothing was there except shadows and quiet.

  “Do you know the name of these large vine roots?” she asked quietly as they made their way through the bramble. Kylan ran his hand along one of the big hulking trunks, shaking his head.

  “Maybe you could ask?” he suggested, nearly whispered, as if there were someone listening—and in the wild wood, there probably was. “Have you always been able to dreamfast with creatures beyond other Gelfling?”

  “I don’t know. It’s never happened until recently . . . Until the Nebrie in Sog. Though sometimes I have trouble controlling my dreamfasting. Makes for some embarrassing encounters with soldiers of the All-Maudra, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “I envy you. I’d love to be able to share dreams with the trees, with the furry beasts and the scaled ones. See what they’ve seen—share what I have! But I guess I’ll have to settle with learning as many languages as I can.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Naia replied. “At least you won’t touch minds by accident.”

  “Oh, plenty of things are said in language by accident—”

  Naia was going to laugh and tell him he had a point, but a low eerie moan interrupted her first, as if the earth below their feet had heaved a deep pained sigh. The chirping and chattering of the night critters ceased at the sound of the cry, and then all in the wood was silent. The only thing Naia could hear was the wind tickling her ears—but then the moan came again, reverberating through the wood of the big root she was leaning on to guide her steps.

  “What is that?” whispered Kylan.

  The glowing flowers were closing up, lights dipping into darkness one by one, the ethereal beauty replaced by inky blackness. She snatched Neech from the air, hiding his glowing body in the front folds of her tunic. In the heavy silence that followed the chilling sound, she felt an itch at the back of her neck, as if she were being watched. Yet everywhere she looked, she saw nothing but shadows—shadows that could be hiding anything, she thought with a gulp, her heart beating a faster rhythm. Her skin crawled at another spindly snick! of a branch, this time much closer than before. Kylan edged closer to her, eyes wide and ears twisting to and fro.

  “Could it be—”

  “Don’t say it,” she said, shushing him. “Don’t . . . say it.”

  Something definitely moved to her left, something long and heavy that slid along the ground and rustling branches. Naia put her hand to Gurjin’s knife but did not draw, hoping she wouldn’t have to, but crouching just in case. The creature’s serpentine body bent aside bushes and rocks as it pushed through the earth, coiling around them in a broad arc. Kylan backed up against Naia and they stood together, breathing in sync. When Kylan’s fingers snaked around Naia’s wrist, she tried to brush him away.

  “Don’t grab me now. I need to be able to move.”

  Kylan jumped, moving away from her, though the warm grasp on her wrist only tightened. Voice piqued with surprise, he said, “I’m not . . .”

  Naia looked to her arm just as she was suddenly yanked to the side. Instead of a hand gripping her, she saw a cluster of tendrils encircling her arm and gathering in mass, dragging her through the brush, and then she was in the air, tossed upward, Kylan’s shouting voice dropping away from her. When she began to fall, responding to the call of gravity, a shivering, shaking rustle of plant life exploded from the canopy of overgrown trees, another tangle of vines darting out to catch her,
only to swing her and release again, carrying and launching and throwing her through the maze of the wood. She could hear Kylan’s voice, sometimes farther, sometimes very near, in yelps of dismay that echoed her own.

  The journey ended as abruptly as it had begun. The grasping vines loosened, sending Naia tumbling to the earth. No sooner had she regained her footing than she heard something rushing toward her. She ran as roots and branches lunged for her, scratching her arms and legs in their attempt to catch hold of her once more. Her ears burned as a flock of hollerbats burst from within a knotted old tree trunk, screeching and flapping their clawed wings as they thrashed past, but she couldn’t stop to curse them. She knew she was running deeper and deeper into the wood, but she had no other choice. If she stopped, she would be caught, devoured by the Dark Wood. Tavra had been right—it had been foolish to come at night, and now she was paying the price.

  The vines suddenly disappeared, slinking back into the canopy and the brush, though she could sense them all around her. She slowed, laboring to catch her breath and hoping perhaps the wood had grown tired of chasing her. Kylan was nowhere to be found, and she couldn’t find Neech, no matter how many pockets of her pack and clothes she checked. She could only hope he was with Kylan, and that his keen sense of smell would bring him back to her soon.

  “Hello?” she asked quietly, into the night. “Kylan? Is anyone there?”

  Someone was there, of course: hundreds of trees and fliers and buzzers and crawlers, but none answered. Wherever Kylan was, he was not close enough to hear her, and so she straightened herself and tried to get her bearings. The Dark Wood felt infinitely darker now that she was on her own, and she wondered at how foolish and impatient of them it had been to attempt the journey to the Black River at night. Every bit of movement caught her eye and caused her a moment of alarm as she reoriented using the glimpses of the moons she could see through the crowded trees. If she could make it to the river, she could meet Kylan there eventually, she hoped.