by J. M. Lee
He stepped back, trying to see how high the wall rose, or how far it extended on either side. But it was infinitely tall. Infinitely wide, stretching endlessly into the shadows. He touched the wall again, trying to listen to its hidden voice. But there were no trembles, no vibrations. Not in this place, it seemed. In this place, there was nothing but the wall.
Amri sighed. Of course this would happen. The first thing he shouted out to Thra was to ask it how to defeat the Skeksis. If Thra cared about the Gelfling, and knew what to do, then wouldn’t it have told them already? Through the Sifa Far-Dreamers or through the stars. Through the Crystal. Or through Aughra, the Helix-Horned witch who lived on the High Hill. Thra had endless mediums, but when Amri asked it a direct question, this silent wall was its response.
What am I supposed to do with this? he asked of the empty dream.
The wall’s surface warmed under his fingers, and Amri jumped back. Fire had blossomed below, seeping out from the foot of the wall as if it were a door closed shut on an inferno. He stumbled away as the fire grew, blazing red and gold, stinging his eyes with its hot light as it lapped at the wall with greedy, hungry tongues. He turned and ran from it as the flames lunged upward, burning heat washing across the dream, casting its orange light upon the darkness.
The gold changed to silver. Amri stopped running when he felt the heat subside from his back, turned to see what had happened.
The fire had engulfed the wall, but where it had been ravenous and red, it was now blue as the midnight sky. The wall itself had crumbled in places from the teeth of the fire, and where the rock had fallen away, Amri saw shining light. Crystal veins, white as starlight, bared as the wall crumbled, bit by bit. And revealed in the light of the crystal were words. Images. Figures . . .
Then he was back on the boat, his hands clammy against Onica’s and Naia’s.
“What was that?” he asked, nearly breaking the circle. The dreamfast still bound them, like a blanket, and despite what he had seen, he was loath to believe it.
A wall, Naia said. You saw it, too?
I think we all did, Kylan replied softly. With the blue flame . . . What does it mean?
None of them, not even Onica, had any answers. Or at least that was what Amri took the silence to mean. He felt Naia hesitate, tensing her fingers around his and almost pulling away. She hadn’t asked her question yet, though after what they’d seen and how little it made sense, Amri didn’t blame her for being unsure.
Onica took in a breath. Let it out.
Ask, Naia, she said. Ask your question.
What remained of Naia’s hesitation vanished. She clasped Amri’s hand and said,
Please, tell us where we can find Rian.
Amri felt the chill of the mountains before he saw them. A carriage raced through the snowy wood, drawn by two rolling armalig slugs. It was of Skeksis design, with sharp edges and angular, nearly grotesque sculpting along its sides and canopied top.
Amri looked from the carriage to the mountains that surrounded it on either side. The snowy backs of the rocky ridges were familiar, as if he’d seen them very recently. As if he’d tasted the scent of the trees just that day. This dream was not of the distant past, he realized as he caught the angle of the three suns. They were not witnessing the memory of a pink petal, nor was this a strange and puzzling message. This was a vision of now, of something that was happening not far from them.
The dream suddenly died as Naia pulled her hand from his, jumping to her feet and drawing her dagger as if she would stab a Skeksis with it right then and there.
“That’s back where we were!” she exclaimed. “That was a Skeksis carriage!”
“Rian must have gotten to Ha’rar and run into the Skeksis,” Amri said. “But what are we going to do? If that’s a Skeksis carriage, then that means—”
“Then it means we don’t have any time! We’ve got to go rescue him!”
Naia barged out of the cabin door and sprinted across the deck, leaving them all behind as she charged back toward the cliff.
The sword at Amri’s hip felt unbearably heavy. Had they left Domrak behind, ruined by skekLi and the spider race, only to find the Skeksis were still a step ahead? Only to find that the All-Maudra in Ha’rar might not be trustworthy, despite how hard they’d worked to reach her?
It didn’t matter now. If Rian was in danger, they had to save him. He had the vial, after all. The proof of their message. The proof they weren’t the ones who had betrayed the Gelfling.
Tavra caught Amri’s sleeve as he stood with Kylan. She crawled up his arm and he resisted the urge to swat her away. Even if she was a Silverling in her mind, her body was still a creeping crystal-singer spider.
“Naia’s right,” she said in his ear when she reached his shoulder. “Hurry. Onica, please wait here. If something has happened to Rian, we’ll need a place to hide him.”
Onica followed Amri and Kylan out onto the deck. Naia was long gone, rushing at her unstoppable pace back up the side of the cliff toward the other side. Kylan struggled out of his heavy traveling pack, leaving it on the deck of the ship. It would only slow him down. Amri’s heart pounded in anticipation of the tough race they had ahead of them.
“Be safe,” Onica said. “Those trees we saw, near where the carriage was headed. The fluttering pines.”
Amri nodded to her. “Thanks.”
They sprinted across the beach, trying to retrace their footsteps back to the winding path. The seafarer’s lanterns led the way, but even once they reached the cliff, Amri knew it would take them far too long to go up the way they had come down.
“Take your time, I’m going up,” Amri told Kylan. Without waiting for a reply, he ran straight for the sheer rock, ignoring the footpath and taking hold of the first lip in the stone. It would have been easier if he hadn’t been wearing the sandals. Even so, within moments he had left Kylan behind him. He might even be able to catch up with Naia, he thought, if he kept at it.
His foot slipped, his toes unable to grab through the soles of his shoes, but he clenched his teeth and hoisted himself over the last ledge. The passageway between the misty coast and the snowy wood was up ahead, and he thought he could even see the snow kicked up from Naia’s feet as she ran toward the ravine where they’d seen the Skeksis carriage in the dreamfast. He chased after her, Tavra’s legs pricking his shoulder when she said, “The fluttering pines. Quickly. Right here, up the incline!”
A small path broke to the right, branching away from the rest of the rocky land that began the steady descent down to the ravine. As they passed under the snowy boughs, Amri realized that it wasn’t just snow that coated the trees. Fluttering clusters of unamoths gathered on the emerald needles, flitting between the flakes of snow drifting from the clouds.
The trail transformed gradually into a ridge, overlooking the ravine. Within moments he could see Naia below, running with her dagger in hand. And up ahead, where Naia’s path connected to the ravine, he could just make out the snowy commotion of the Skeksis carriage.
“Just a bit more. This trail follows the main way from above. We’ll be able to get the drop on them . . .” Tavra trailed off. Taking a high path was good and all for a girl Gelfling with wings, but it wasn’t going to do him any good. The Vapra swore.
“Eel-feathers. Stone-weighted boy!”
Amri pointed ahead. “I see the carriage!”
They neared the edge of the ridge for a better view of the bulbous, filigree-encrusted carriage. It wasn’t going fast on the ice and snow, but it was steady. If they stopped even for a moment, they’d fall behind.
“There’s Naia!”
Naia had mounted the ridge on the other side of the carriage trail. As they caught sight of her, she threw back her cape and launched herself with a surge of speed. Her wings spread, rippling rainbow light against the black and indigo, catching the wind as she dived for the
carriage. She landed and plunged her dagger into the canopy and dropped down inside.
“Help her!” Tavra cried.
A Skeksis scream curdled the air, high-pitched and nasal. A moment later, Naia and another Gelfling crashed through one of the carriage windows. The carriage tipped, the armaligs squealing in distress at the disturbance. Amri’s lungs burned from effort but he didn’t stop running.
“If only I had wings!” he cried.
“The fallen tree up ahead—you can make it, can’t you?”
He saw the tree. It had fallen over the ridge cliff, its roots barely holding on to the earth while its top pointed down, its long inverted body like a slide into the ravine below.
“I hope Kylan tells a nice song at my funeral!”
Amri leaped for the tree, landing and sliding down at an impossible speed. As he slipped and nearly fell, he jumped again, aiming for a snowbank below as the carriage swerved wildly and collided with the rocky wall of the ravine. He landed in a pile of soft snow and as soon as he could, got to his feet. He shook off the snow just as Naia and a Stonewood Gelfling with dark brown hair surfaced from another bank nearby. They watched as the armaligs dragged the carriage against the unforgiving rock until the last of the rigging poles broke.
The spooked beasts abandoned their post, rolling away in a spray of snow and ice.
“The vial,” the Stonewood Gelfling said. Amri recognized him from the blue streak in the hair above his eye. “He has the vial!”
“Rian, wait!” Naia chased after him, but he broke away from her and ran toward the carriage.
“Who?” Amri panted.
They were about to follow Rian when the ruined door of the carriage flew open. Amri froze as cold as the trees and rocks around them.
Out of the carriage, coughing and swearing and spitting, came a Skeksis. He emerged, reptilian snout first, like a black bird from an egg, almost too big for the door. His feather-lined cloak squeezed out, then billowed as he stepped into the snow, rising to his full height. His eyes smoldered beneath his prominent purple brow, black pupils tiny and livid as he cast his gaze upon them.
“Gelfling,” he said as if it were a curse, spittle spraying between his wicked teeth. Next, he saw Naia. “. . . Drenchen. The halfsies one. So you live. Hmmmm.”
“Give me the vial, Chamberlain,” Rian said. The confidence in his voice was impressive; Amri’s stomach felt like it was wrinkling into a tiny ball in front of the Skeksis Lord. The Stonewood soldier stepped forward, holding out his hand. “The vial!”
The Chamberlain glared, then reached back to fluff the black collar around his neck so it framed his face.
“The vial? The vial? After ruining our carriage—MY carriage? Stupid Gelfling. Stupid Rian. After all we’ve done for you, you stand there and defy us. Defy me.”
Rian’s hand wavered where he held it out, but he didn’t back down. Naia stomped up, flicking her wings so the snow shook free, and took a place beside him.
“Give it,” she said. “Or we’ll take it by force.”
Amri shifted his weight and tightened his grip on Tavra’s sword when the Chamberlain jerked his hand, but he was only flipping his sleeve back. He reached into his cloak and slowly, as if teasing, withdrew a tiny glass vial of blue liquid.
“The vial . . . this vial?” he asked.
Amri had never seen the vial in person. He had only heard about it from Naia, and seen it in Kylan’s dream-stitched petal. The tiny thing and its contents were the proof of what Rian had seen in the Scientist’s laboratory. The thing only Gelfling could give, and the thing the Skeksis had betrayed them for. Life essence.
Gelfling essence.
“Give it!” Rian repeated, voice shaking. He started to step forward, but the Chamberlain pulled the stopper out with a sickening, wet pop.
“Stop where you are.”
The command wasn’t the whining, nasal sound it had been a moment ago. Now it was dark and heavy, roiling with deep-seated fury. The Chamberlain looked between the three of them, darkness filling the hoods around his beady eyes. He held the vial as if he would pour it out into the thirsty snow, and Rian stopped short.
“You think you can command me?” the Chamberlain asked, a low growl growing in the back of his throat. “You, puny Gelfling? Giving me orders? A Skeksis? One of Twice-Nine? You dare to command me?”
“The Skeksis won’t rule the Gelfling much longer, not once we prove to them what you’ve done,” Naia said, brandishing her dagger. “To the Crystal, and to our people.”
“So hand over the vial before we make an example of you,” Rian said.
He leveled his eyes at the Chamberlain. An uneasy silence followed. Hot clouds puffed between the Chamberlain’s uneven teeth as he regarded the three, clutching the open vial in his talons. His eyes darted back and forth between them, and Amri tried to still the struggling fear in his heart.
“I’ve always wondered,” the Chamberlain began, “how Vapra tastes.”
Then he tilted his head back and emptied the vial down his toothy maw.
“No!” Rian cried. “Mira!”
“Rian, don’t!”
Naia tackled Rian as he threw himself at the Chamberlain. They rolled to a stop in the snow and watched with Amri in horror.
The Skeksis had gone motionless, hands outstretched as he closed his eyes and sucked in a long, deep breath. He shivered violently from his balding crown to the tips of his claws, dropping the empty vial in the snow.
“OH YES. SWEET AND BRIGHT AS SPRING SYRUP! Mmm-MMMM!”
The terrible words echoed off the cold cliffs. The Chamberlain’s back straightened, and what feathers and spines remained on his serpentine neck filled with long-lost luster. His head tilted down, and when he looked upon them this time, his ancient yellow eyes had a spark of lightning within them.
“Now,” he said. He threw back his cloak and drew a short, sharp blade, smiling at them with a mouth of razor teeth. “What were you saying about making an example of me?”
“Amri, raise your sword.”
Tavra’s voice was like a snowflake in Amri’s ear. He did as she said. He didn’t know how to use it, but he couldn’t stand by and do nothing while Naia pulled Rian to his feet. The Stonewood could barely stand, shuddering and stiff with rage.
“Rian, we have to go,” Naia urged. “We have to go.”
“No—the vial—Mira—”
Amri stepped before the Chamberlain. It took every muscle in his body to keep from crumbling under the Skeksis’s heavy, terrible gaze.
“Widen your stance,” Tavra directed calmly. “Do not look away from his eyes—”
His eyes.
Amri lowered his sword and reached into his belt pouch.
“What do you have there, little Vapra?”
As the Chamberlain drew nearer, Amri threw the sachet of fire dust. The tiny packet struck the Skeksis in the snout and exploded in a cloud of red spice. Snow fell from the trees and the mountaintops above when he screamed.
“MY EYES! AHHH!”
“And I’m not Vapra!” Amri shouted. Then, to Naia and Rian: “Run!”
Even revitalized by the Gelfling essence, the Chamberlain dropped to his knees, shoving clawfuls of snow into his burning eyes and nose. Without waiting to see how long the effect would last, Amri and the others ran, leaving the Skeksis Lord’s gurgling screams behind them.
“What are we going to do without the vial?” he panted. “That was our proof!”
“We can’t worry about that now,” Tavra replied. “Keep running!”
In the cold air, Amri’s head started to spin. He tried to shake it off, hoping they could escape from the Chamberlain before he recovered from the burning dust.
The wood passed them, white and silver. As if the sky were looking after them, it suddenly began to snow. Amri whispered a quiet tha
nks, hoping the big, fluffy flakes would cover their footsteps as they escaped. They climbed the foothills until they could no longer hear the Chamberlain’s bellows, nearly to where the air smelled of ocean.
The vertigo returned, and Amri stumbled, then leaned against a tree as the world spun. In every swirl of snow, every spot of shadow, he saw Skeksis faces. Phantoms, rising out of his worst fears. His throat felt tight, locking air out of his lungs.
“I don’t feel great,” he tried to say.
“What’s wrong? What’s—”
Tavra’s voice fell away, and all Amri could hear was . . . humming. An intense droning, a chant, coming from deep in the earth and high in the heavens at the same time.
Rian pressed his hands against his ears. “What is that sound?”
If anyone replied, Amri didn’t hear it. Blinded by the dazzling snow, deafened by the cyclic chant pounding inside his head, Amri could barely get one foot in front of the other. What was happening? Was this some sort of spell or hex—some evil Skeksis magic? He wondered where Kylan had gone, if he had ever made it up the cliff. He could only hope the song teller was safe.
The three of them stumbled to a slow walk, though Naia tried to push on.
“He’s coming . . . We have to keep going . . .”
The drone vibration sharpened, and Amri heard words. Coming from the earth. From the stars. From the suns and the moons. It drowned out the cold and the bright light. It chanted in time with Amri’s heart, in time with the pulse of the world. Of Thra.
Deatea. Deratea. Kidakida. Arugaru.
The voice was familiar. A voice present through the lore and songs of the Gelfling people. His mind awoke with a moment of clarity as he recognized it—
And then the world vanished.
CHAPTER 4
Deatea. Deratea. Kidakida. Arugaru.
The chant had been imprinted in Amri’s heart long ago. Before he was born, he imagined, as he floated in nothingness. It was the sound the wind made blowing against the mountains. The song of the Black River winding through the Dark Wood. The cosmic sound that fell from the sky in the form of sun and rain and snow, and the earthy rhythm that rose up from the depths of the world as plants and creatures and Gelfling.