Shadows of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  “You’re connected,” she gasped. “For every one there is another—you’re connected to urVa . . . You are one . . . with him?”

  The world heaved as skekMal screamed, throwing his hands in the air and taking Naia with them. He held her above, craning his head back, terrible jaws spread so wide in hysterical wailing that she could see down his pink and purple throat. She gripped the bone shard in her hand, trying not to lose her fight despite knowing in seconds she would be plunged into that toothy maw—she would fight until the end, she would, cutting him open from the inside if she had to.

  “NOT ONE WITH NOTHING!”

  A spray of spittle and a gnash of teeth exploded as something crashed into skekMal’s face. He dropped Naia, and she rolled to her feet, stunned, trying to regain her balance. Before her, skekMal thrashed, clutching his face with two of his hands as his screams became frenetic gurgles. Behind him was Kylan, still frozen in post-throw position after loosing the bola that had struck skekMal straight between the eyes.

  For a moment, Naia’s body charged with fire, and she readied to attack while she had a chance—but then she thought of the scar on the Skeksis’s hand, the scar he shared with urVa by whatever mysterious link connected them. What would happen to urVa if she drove the bone shard into skekMal’s exposed torso? What if it reached his ugly heart and killed him? She couldn’t bear the thought, and so, when she finally found Gurjin pulling himself to his feet nearby, she ran to him and helped him up.

  “Run,” she said, and Kylan joined them. “Let’s run. Let’s get out of here.”

  So they ran, Naia helping her brother, and Kylan dashing ahead, leading the way. Naia could only hope his sense of direction was true enough to guide them to the river; after being chased by the Hunter and with the storm clouds still thick above, she had no idea where they were or which way the Black River lay. The only thing she knew was that skekMal was behind them, and they were fleeing as quickly as they were able.

  skekMal’s distant screams stopped, leaving a swell of silence.

  “He’s coming,” Gurjin said. “I told you . . . we can’t outrun him. If he has prey, he will chase it.”

  Naia wanted to resist the idea. She wanted to believe the Black River was just ahead, that any moment they would reach the Landstrider and ride it to safety. skekMal was fast, but surely the Landstrider’s long legs were faster. But the heavy crashes of raging footsteps came from behind, growing nearer. skekMal was on their trail, and though he was disoriented and wounded, Naia had neglected the opportunity she’d had to finish him off. Now they were paying the price. She hoped it was worth it.

  “If only we could distract him somehow,” Kylan panted. “It’s still a ways. I don’t know if we can make it!”

  “We have to,” Naia said. “If we don’t, there’ll be no one to tell the All-Maudra—no one to warn the others!”

  She nearly lost her footing when Gurjin suddenly pushed away from her. The haze that had been heavy upon him was nearly lifted, though she knew it would be many days before he was back to his old self—if ever. Even so, when he fixed her with a steady gaze, she knew what he was going to say.

  “Gurjin, no—”

  “I can’t run. I’m slowing you down. Even if I survived, I'd never be cured. The Skeksis—they won’t be able to find you, if you can just reach Stone-in-the-Wood.”

  Naia grabbed her brother’s hand and tugged, but he would advance no farther. Kylan stopped ahead, waiting, though she could see every muscle in his body wound tight. skekMal’s labored grunts and screeches were drawing closer—even with his injury, he would find them soon enough.

  “Gurjin, stop it. We’re getting out of here together. Together or not at all!”

  “I’ll be with you,” he said. “When we dreamfasted—I showed you everything I know. More than what you saw . . . you’ll see it, someday. When you need me. I’ll be with you. Find Rian. He has the vial—he has the proof.”

  Naia shook her head, grasped his hand and then his sleeve when he turned away, heading toward the oncoming sounds of skekMal’s rampage.

  “Run and live,” he said. He gave a last glance back. “For both of us now.”

  The shadow that was skekMal erupted from the wood, sending a flurry of smaller trees crackling and flying every which way. Kylan grabbed Naia, and they leaped into the brush, rolling and tumbling out of sight.

  “GELFLING!” skekMal cried. “WHERE THE ONE WITH WINGS?”

  Naia felt tears streaming down her cheeks as Kylan pressed his hand over her mouth to keep her cries from being heard. He apologized to her, over and over, silently and in dreamfast. She heard Gurjin’s voice—he coughed, then chuckled wryly. Controlling herself despite her panic and grief at what Gurjin was about to do, she peered through the nettles. Gurjin stood before skekMal, back straight, moving slowly away from where she and Kylan were hidden.

  “Gone,” he said. “Gone far from here, and you’ll never catch her.”

  “Lies,” skekMal growled. He crouched down, following the Drenchen, leaning on his front two arms, spiny hackles on the mantle of his cloak rising like quills. “It lies. skekMal smells ’em, closer. Closer. What says Gelfling if skekMal snatches it up and eats it here? Gelfling wings comes fluttering out to save it!”

  “Better not,” Gurjin muttered, shifting his stance. “Rather, Gelfling wings fly her to Ha’rar and tell the All-Maudra about all of this. See how many Gelfling skekMal smells then, eh? Without Gelfling essence? How quickly will skekMal shrivel up and die?”

  skekMal let out a bloodcurdling cry and swung a claw, striking Gurjin with the force of a falling tree and knocking him into the air. He struck the hard trunk of a tower-tree and then fell, face forward into the leaves and dirt, and did not move. skekMal admired his handiwork only a moment longer before snarling an uneven laugh. Just as Naia thought Gurjin had met his end, he stirred. Climbing to his feet, he gave another laugh.

  “skekMal kills this one, then it kills the others,” skekMal snarled.

  “She is already gone. You can’t stop her now.”

  The words were loving, resolved. As much as Naia couldn’t stand to leave him, she knew that if she stayed, his sacrifice would mean nothing. No one would know of the Skeksis’ betrayal if their journey ended here. No one would know that the Crystal was broken, bleeding its despair into the veins that reached every part of the realm of Thra. Her heart broke with the knowing of what she had to do.

  To save her people, she had to let go of her brother.

  “No,” she said, but the truth had already taken root.

  She felt other words on her lips, though they were silent—thank you, I’m sorry—and then Kylan’s hands on her arms, taking her away, and she went without protest. Leaves and branches scratched her cheeks and shoulders, still wet like everything else—the ground half mud, the plants slick with blooming algae, and Naia’s cheeks with tears that left a trail of vanishing saltwater behind them on their escape.

  The underbrush broke and gave way to a familiar sight—the Black River, as peaceful as ever, winding through the Dark Wood on its way north. Waiting beside a tree was a Landstrider. Tavra’s Landstrider, it seemed, as it was still saddled and bridled with gear. The sight of the beast shot Naia full of fresh remorse for its rider, still within the Skeksis’ grasp at the Castle of the Crystal, if she was even alive. Naia let out a cry of anguish, feeling pain take hold of her heart as she thought of the Gelfling in the tower, withered and weak and drained of their essence, their whereabouts unknown to anyone.

  And Gurjin . . .

  “Up,” Kylan said. He was standing on the reins to the Landstrider, climbing high up to its back. “Up! We have to go!”

  “Gurjin,” she said, but that was all she could say, the rest of her sentence lost in grief. Unable to climb as the feeling overwhelmed her, all she could do was cling to the reins as Kylan pulled her up behind him. S
he couldn’t stop the oncoming tears, pressing her face against Kylan’s back as he shook the reins, and muffling her sobs in the thick hood of his cloak. With an escalating lope, the Landstrider headed off along the riverbank under a sky slowly brightening with the rise of the Three Brothers.

  Chapter 27

  Naia dreamed of a blue and open sky suddenly split by a shock of blinding fire. It cut through the heavens like a flaming sword, and it was only because she was dreaming that the heat of its light did not burn her eyes from her head. Above, in the zenith of the sky, the white, rose, purple light of the Three Brothers pulsed as they fell in line, one in front of the other, merged—one—and then they fell, quickly, as if knocked from the sky by one another. They split in their descent, each sinking below its own horizon with a green flash. Then the sky grew darker and darker still, and instead of thousands of stars within its arms, Naia counted only seven, laid out in the hoop of Yesmit, Aughra’s Eye.

  It was a memory, she felt instinctively; but she wasn’t sure whose. Was this a dreamfast with Kylan, a glimpse into one of the many colorful songs he had stored in him? Maybe this was what a song was to a song teller, this sublime, awesome spectacle . . . Or maybe it was a dreamfast with Thra itself, the living earth below and all around them, a memory imprinted into the life force of all that came of it. These questions went unanswered, but the meaning was clear: Night was coming, the inevitable, and darkness would soon be upon them.

  When she woke, she saw thick branches supporting a thatched roof overgrown with woody vines and flat three-pointed leaves. Spiraling tendrils and clusters of berries dangled from the green foliage, reminding her, foggily, of home. Her head was half-sunk in a soft pillow, and a quilt hand-stitched in forest greens and reds was folded carefully around her shoulders. It was morning—or day, perhaps. How long had she been sleeping? Trying to think back, all she remembered was the cold ride on the back of the Landstrider, and her throat and chest ached from the hundreds of apologies she had whispered and hundreds more tears she had shed. After, that she remembered nothing.

  She heard voices and sat up, holding her forehead when her vision swam from the movement. She had bandages here and there, and her body throbbed from dozens of bruises and little cuts, but for the most part, she was in one piece . . . or more so. Folded gently against her back, her wings rested like a mantle, tender in their new state but already more developed than when they had first appeared. She stretched them, feeling the foreign sensation.

  A wood crate took up most of the cozy room, upon which the remains of her belongings were laid out with care. She had left Sog with her father’s pack, full of supplies for the long journey to Ha’rar. Now, here she was, nowhere near the northern home of the Gelfling All-Maudra, with only a pair of Spriton shoes and the bone shard she’d broken off the Hunter’s—Lord skekMal’s—mask. That was all—not even the tunic she’d left in was to be found, probably discarded after all the stains and tearing it had taken. Naia felt tears coming again, and she put her face in her hands when she realized Gurjin’s knife was gone as well, lost somewhere deep at the bottom of the castle moat, and with it, the last of her brother she would be likely to see. But, like Gurjin, she had lost the dagger so that she might survive, as much as she wished it could have been otherwise.

  She pulled open the heavy window curtains and gasped. Outside, she saw dozens—maybe hundreds—of gray stone dwellings with pocketed windows, arranged in a crescent around a clear indigo lake. Naia had never seen so many homes in one place, nor seen Gelfling dwellings of this type. Many bloomed at the roof with flowers as big as two hands together, red and pink and orange; some even jutted from the lake itself, all grown over with dense forest foliage. Between, beside, and even growing out of the center of some, huge trees wove in and out of the dwellings and narrow streets. Their upper canopies cast safe shade from above, decorated with lanterns and climbing ropes and ancient engravings within the bark. The homes were one with the trees, the village one with the forest. There was only one place they could be.

  There was a light knock at the entrance, and she straightened the pale shift she had been clothed in before calling for the visitor to enter.

  “Kylan!”

  Naia embraced him as soon as he entered, holding tight to let him know how much his safety meant to her. Her tears began anew when she saw the furry slippery form perched on his shoulder. Neech, quivering with joy, wound up and down her arms and showered her with a mix of chirps and friendly nose- and whisker-kisses. She held him and kissed his ears, falling back to the bed in relief.

  “I was so worried I’d lost you, too, little eel. Rotten spithead! Making me worry.”

  “He caught up with us after we crossed the river,” Kylan said. He dipped his hand into his sleeve and withdrew a small cloth-wrapped parcel. “With this.”

  Naia knew what was within, but the sight of Gurjin’s dagger brought a last tear to her eye regardless when she revealed it. It seemed like such a stupid thing to care about, especially after she had been resigned to having lost it. She had carried it so long in resentment—or in faith?—that she hardly remembered whether it had been more lucky than not in the end.

  “Kylan,” she said. “You brought us all the way to Stone-in-the-Wood?”

  Her friend folded his arms and looked at his toes.

  “I wouldn’t be much of a song teller if I couldn’t find the way to the home of Jarra-Jen, would I?”

  They sat in silence, and Naia looked at her reflection in the freshly polished blade of Gurjin’s knife. She missed him. That was all she could think in the dull aftermath. She had just managed to save him, and now he was gone. It was a pain she couldn’t really comprehend, something bigger than she was, too big to hold on to in a way that she could control. The most she could do now was hope it wouldn’t grow so big, it would overwhelm her. Gurjin had given his life for her, willingly, and that was all that kept her from dissolving into tears of remorse. She would not regret his sacrifice.

  “Thank you . . . Where are we? I mean, I know this must be Stone-in-the-Wood, but whose house is this? Do they know who we are? Are we safe from the Skeksis?”

  Kylan answered her question with a smile and a nod. He was excited about something, but he was holding back. It was almost as if he didn’t want to tell her.

  “Yes,” he finally said. “This house . . . is Rian’s.”

  “Rian? You already found him?”

  Kylan held up his hands to calm her. “No, no! It’s his family’s house. I found them when we arrived last night. He’s not living in Stone-in-the-Wood, but he’s made contact with his family. He told them everything, and they believe him. He told them to wait for Gurjin. When we got here and I told them you were Gurjin’s sister, they helped. They told me where Rian is. I was going to meet him later today.”

  Naia crossed her arms and felt her wings flick with suspicion.

  “If you know where Rian is and we’re going to see him today, then why do you sound sad?”

  Her friend looked out the window and tugged on a braid. He wasn’t sad, she realized. It was reluctance. He confirmed it when he spoke.

  “You lost your brother,” he said. “And you lost your friend Tavra. You’ve been through so much. I don’t think it’s fair that you have to do all that one night and keep moving the next afternoon. You deserve time to mourn . . . I was thinking you might want to go home, to Sog.”

  Naia thought of her hammock and her parents and sisters, the warmth of Great Smerth. The secluded, isolated safety of the heart of Sog. She wanted it all, to be surrounded in it, to close her eyes and be taken away from what she had seen in the Dark Wood, the Castle of the Crystal—in her dream. She wanted to pull her own blankets above her head and hold on to the memories of before Gurjin had left, before Tavra had appeared. Before she had known what was going on in the world outside the swamp. Before she had seen the tall black shadows cast by the Skeksis Lords of
Thra.

  She opened her fingers and placed her hands in her lap, palms up. As much as she wanted to go back, to hold tightly to the days of the past, it would not stop the seasons, nor the Brothers or Sisters. And it would not stop the Skeksis from their plot. The only way to be sure she could return home again, the place that had sheltered her for so long, was to let go of what had been and take sight of what could be.

  “I do want to go home,” she said, straightening her back. She felt her wings flutter with her determination and knew she was making the right decision. “But I left Sog to meet with the All-Maudra. Tavra charged me with relaying a message—and she was captured protecting me and the rest of our people. I don’t want her sacrifice, or Gurjin’s, to go to waste. Our people are still in danger.”

  Naia took Gurjin’s knife and slid away from the warm comfort of the bed to stand beside her friend. Her feet were sore, but she would bear it. She had good Spriton shoes, after all. There was no way she could have made it this far in her sandals made of tree bark. She suffered to think how miserable and impossible it would have been.

  “I want to go home, and I will . . . but not yet. So, let’s get packed and meet Rian, and figure out what we’re going to do.”

  Naia held out her hand to Kylan. He was still reluctant, but something about his smile was relieved, too. He took her hand and squeezed.

  Over Kylan’s shoulder, Naia glanced at her shoes atop the crate, satisfied with the wear they had admirably endured. They had seen fields and highlands, tripped through bramble in the Dark Wood, and muffled her footsteps within the Castle of the Crystal. All that and still in one piece, and for that Naia was glad. It would be many more leagues before they could retire.

  GLOSSARY

  bola: A Y-shaped length of knotted rope with stones tied to each of the three ends. Used as a weapon, the bola can be swung or thrown, enabling the wielder to ensnare prey.

  daeydoim: Six-legged desert-dwelling creatures with large dorsal scales and broad hooves. Frequently domesticated by desert nomads.