Flames of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  “And then there’s Amri! I felt like we were, I don’t know. Connecting. I thought maybe he . . . But then he said we were just friends. I feel like everyone is pulling away from me.”

  “We all handle emotions differently, especially during difficult times,” Tavra replied kindly. “You and Gurjin may be twins, but you’ve had very different experiences. You cannot walk the same path forever, but that doesn’t mean you are alone. And as for Amri, well. Perhaps you should look a little closer.”

  Naia coughed, cheeks warming. She wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “Anyway. You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Ah, yes.”

  Tavra’s ears twisted backward, her cheeks coloring. She shook her head, sighed. All the usual fidgets that she used to make when she struggled to speak the truth. She had been trained from a young age to be a soldier, and the daughter of the All-Maudra. She put her duties first and her own feelings second. It wasn’t the truth that was difficult for her, but speaking from the heart.

  “When we first met, I thought you were a naive and brash little thing,” Tavra said finally. “You never did as you were told. You were stubborn and self-centered.”

  “Thanks, I think,” Naia said with a snort.

  “But I came to believe in your strong will. I came to understand that your brashness and naivete were a garden in which bravery could grow, unbridled by the restraints of the outside world or the worries about what other people might think of you. In that garden has grown the truest, purest courage I have ever seen.”

  Naia’s cheeks burned. She said nothing, and Tavra continued.

  “What I mean to say is, I am so very proud of you, Naia. I am so proud of all you have overcome, and how you continue to grow. It is something I have meant to tell you for a long time, but now that our paths lead apart for a time, I wanted to be sure I told you. It is something I wish I could have told others before my chance was gone.”

  “You mean Seladon and Brea?” Naia asked. Tavra’s sisters.

  Tavra hung her head and closed her eyes, ears angling back. For an instant, her image wavered, and Naia saw a tiny, crystal-bodied spider. But the vision returned, and Tavra sighed, spreading her hands so her palms filled with the sunlight of the dream-space.

  “I may never be able to speak with either of my sisters again,” she said. “Just as my mother will never be able to speak to any of her daughters again. Because of the Skeksis, and because of the era in which we now must survive, time has become so precious. More precious than I anticipated. We must hold close those we love, more now than ever before.”

  A tug came from deep within Naia’s heart, like a ribbon had been tied there and someone was pulling on it. Without thinking, she threw her arms around Tavra’s shoulders and squeezed her as tightly as she could. In the dreamfast, it was if she were really there. Warm and solid, breath caught in surprise—then strong and protective when she put her arms around Naia and returned her embrace.

  “You’ve changed, too,” Naia said when she leaned back. “I used to think you looked down on all us lowly non-Vapra. I thought you couldn’t possibly have anything to teach me. But we were both wrong, and I’m not ashamed to say it. All I know is I’ll miss you, Silverling.”

  Tavra put her hand on Naia’s cheek. Naia could hear another sound, coming from the waking world. It was Kylan’s firca, joining the Mystic musician near the fire. The dreamfast faded, and with it, so did the memory of Tavra’s touch. Naia opened her eyes to the spider standing in her hands.

  “But we’ll meet again,” she finished. “When we lead the Gelfling of all seven clans to victory, torches burning bright.”

  “We will certainly try,” Tavra said.

  The others rose when Naia and Tavra returned. They all knew it was time to say farewell. Tavra held out her hand, and one at a time they linked fingers around wrists.

  “We go to light the fires within the hearts of the Stonewood and the Grottan,” Tavra said. “Amri, please give us your trust as we make our way to Domrak. We will find your people and do whatever we can to ensure the safety of those who remain.”

  Amri nodded solemnly. “I believe in you.”

  “We will meet again, when the torches emerge from the darkness,” Onica said, fixing Naia with her ocean-green gaze. Though the others could sound as confident and sure as they wanted, there was something invincible about the Sifa Far-Dreamer. Something undeniable about her reassurance. “We will resist, though we may not know what that means. If we continue to seek the light, I believe we will endure. Good luck, Naia. Kylan. Amri. Gurjin.”

  “And to you, Far-Dreamer,” Naia said.

  With that, their goodbyes were over. Tavra put the map in her belt where a sword had once been. Naia watched the two Gelfling wave a last time, then head off to the northeast, hand in hand.

  She looked over her shoulder at the three boys who waited for her. Though she would miss Tavra’s knowledge and skill with a sword, and Onica’s warmth and sage wisdom, she realized it was the female companionship that she would miss the most.

  “We might as well get going, too,” Gurjin said. “Sog’s still a long way off.”

  It felt odd, to leave just like that, but then again they had never intended to arrive in this peaceful, quiet valley at all. Naia took a last look, capturing the vision in her memory. As she did, her eyes landed on the gentle hands of urSol the Chanter, who had stood sipping his ta the whole time they’d been discussing.

  “I will tell the others that you’ve gone,” he said.

  Naia bowed. “Thank you. And please give my thanks to urSan, when you see her next. For rescuing us, and her hospitality. And to Master urSu for his wisdom. And please take care of urVa—know we won’t hurt the Skeksis. Not anymore.”

  Naia felt like a child with so many little things to say, so quickly, one after the other. And at the end of it all, she didn’t even have a solution. Not even as they prepared to leave the Mystic Valley. Continuing along the path they’d made for themselves, though the goal Naia had once been so sure of was now a cloud changing shape in high wind, nearly dissipated altogether.

  “We’ll find another way,” she said. “We’ll have to.”

  urSol’s nod was as long and graceful as a tree bough bobbing in the wind.

  “You will,” he said, and turned away.

  CHAPTER 10

  Naia stretched her arms and legs as they walked. Her strength was returning, and her limberness, even after all the time asleep, and the world didn’t feel as if it might suddenly fall out from under her. The journey to Sami Thicket, and then to Sog, would not be as difficult as traveling through the highlands or the mountains, and especially not so harrowing as the freezing bluffs that surrounded Ha’rar. But now that the Skeksis knew the Gelfling were rebelling, nothing would be easy. Not anymore, not even a long walk through the open Spriton Plains.

  A few times, she tried to summon the blue light to her hands. To mend broken blades of grass, or soothe the wing of a hopping bug that landed on her sleeve. But whenever she tried, the light flickered and went out—or never came at all. After a while, she stopped trying.

  It was strange to travel south, back into territory Naia knew better and better the farther they went. For so long she had been forging ahead into places she’d heard of only in songs. Always relying on others for directions, hoping they could find their way from landmark to landmark. Never knowing exactly how far things might be or what dangers might lie in between. Each Gelfling clan knew their own little world, but few traveled far beyond it.

  Once, Naia had been no different. But now that she had seen the blue Grottan caves and the wintry Ha’rar bluffs, she could understand why. Thra was vast and full of life. But while precious, life was not always safe. It took only one misstep or misunderstanding for a moment of wonder to become one of terror, whether it was getting lost in the depths of the Dark Wood or
blundering into the strangling grasp of mountain finger-vines.

  The trees thinned until they receded altogether. Naia and the others crested a hill and stood at the top, looking down into the vast plains that rolled before them like the waves of the sea at low tide. A herd of furry creatures grazed in a flock a ways off while great gusts of wind swept across the gentle hills. Naia listened to the grasses sliding against one another, took in a deep breath, smelling the sweet scent of wildflowers.

  “How does it feel to be back?” Amri asked Kylan.

  The song teller’s black braid moved with the wind, his collar ruffled as he gazed out on the land that was his home. “I don’t know,” he said. He lowered his hand so the tufts of the tall grass touched his palm. “It’s bittersweet.”

  Amri swiveled his ears, looking back and forth between Kylan and Naia.

  “What do you mean?”

  Kylan shrugged. “This land is where I was born and grew up. But it’s also the land where the Hunter took my parents, and where I could never fit in with the other Spriton in Sami Thicket . . . I ran away. I suppose I never told you that.”

  The confession came out with an odd confidence. When Kylan had run away from Sami Thicket and joined her, he’d been a different person. Awkward and clumsy, a musician who was more interested in song-telling than throwing a spear like the rest of the Spriton his age. He’d left because he had felt he had no other choice, resisted thinking of it as running away.

  The way he said it now, claiming what he’d done, made Naia smile. He was no longer the nervous, timid boy who came to life only when his hands played his lute and the songs of lore came singing from his lips. That courage had grown in him. Now he wielded it against darkened creatures. Against Gelfling-eating plants and Arathim. Even the Skeksis Lords.

  “Maudra Mera will be surprised to see you,” she said. “How far do you think it is to Sami Thicket?”

  Kylan held up a hand, shielding his eyes and scanning the land. He pointed to a distant spot, almost obscured by the hills and the wisps of low-lying clouds.

  “That’ll be it. There will be plenty of streams and places to rest along the way.”

  “Fine,” Gurjin said. “But we won’t be resting long. We’ll stop to fill our waterskins, but we need to keep our pace.”

  It seemed like a thing Naia should have said, as the leader. But he was right, and it wasn’t like she disagreed.

  They walked the better part of the day across the plains, passing through meadow rife with nectar-sweet flowers and thick fields of tall, whistling stalks that swayed over their heads. When the suns reached their highest, Amri pulled on his hood and walked with his hand on Kylan’s back for guidance. Naia tried not to wonder why he hadn’t asked for her shoulder, when he always had in the past. Tried not to worry about why it mattered or why she cared when it was all the same in the end. Friends helping friends.

  While they walked, Kylan told Gurjin the song of all they had done. As she listened to him recall their adventures leading up to meeting Gurjin again aboard skekSa’s ship, Naia felt almost as though he were telling the song to a stranger. Gurjin, her brother, with whom she’d been raised side by side. Her other half. Until the truth about the Skeksis had come out, anyway. Now she felt as though she hardly knew him. Was it because of everything that had happened to them since then? Dangerous, life-threatening things—beautiful, life-changing things, too. Kylan sang of those things even now: While Gurjin had been held captive at the castle, Naia had found her wings. While he had returned south to Sog to warn the Drenchen, Naia and her new friends had traveled as far north as Ha’rar. Those great moments had happened to them separately.

  It was all a part of growing up. And in doing so, perhaps it was inevitable that they would grow apart.

  When evening came, they found a little creek and set up camp for the night. The breeze calmed as the air cooled. Between the smoke from the fire and the quiet bubbling of the creek, it seemed like it might be a perfect night.

  “What’s Maudra Mera like?” Gurjin asked as he poked at the fire. Amri shed his hood and picked up one of the spits, spearing a fruit from their traveling pouch and propping it over the flames. “I mean, I’ve heard a bit about her from friends at the castle, but what should we expect? How easy will it be to convince her to join us?”

  Kylan put his own fruit in the fire and watched the rind crackle and smolder, popping open so the sweet juice inside bubbled out.

  “Not very,” he said. “After my parents died, Maudra Mera looked after me herself, so I got to know her very well. How she is both in private and when she stands before the Skeksis. I know that she fears them, more than anything. Fears their power and their strength, and believes the best way to protect her clan is to do whatever it takes to maintain the Skeksis’ favor.”

  “Tae told us what happened when the six maudra gathered in Ha’rar to bless Seladon as the new All-Maudra,” Amri added. “It was the Skeksis that killed All-Maudra Mayrin, and the Skeksis who put Seladon in charge. Maudra Mera blessed Seladon’s ascent, so in a way, she’s already sided with the Skeksis.”

  Kylan nodded slowly, then changed his mind and shook his head. “That’s not really fair. Seladon is the oldest of Mayrin’s daughters. She would have become All-Maudra whether or not the Skeksis were the ones behind Mayrin’s death. Just as Naia will become maudra of the Drenchen, no matter the circumstances of her mother’s retirement.”

  Naia shifted her weight. “Let’s try to avoid thinking of those two things in the same thought,” she said. She had always known that would be her future, but she didn’t want to think about it happening so soon, and she certainly didn’t want to be lumped in the same sentence as Seladon. Naia had never met Tavra’s older sister, but her reputation as a keeper to the old ways preceded her. If what Tavra said was true, Seladon—like Maudra Mera—would do whatever it took to be sure the Skeksis treated the Vapra well.

  Kylan sighed and said, “Maudra Mera will be difficult to convince, if only because she has been so loyal to the Skeksis for so long . . . and because for so long, it has worked.”

  “Save the Spriton at the sacrifice of Gelfling from other clans,” Naia said. “The last time I was here, she was only nice to me because she wanted favor with my mother.”

  “Don’t forget that Maudra Fara was the same in Stone-in-the-Wood,” Kylan replied. He was right; Maudra Fara had been more cordial about it, but the fact was she’d cared more about the Stonewood Gelfling than she’d cared about Naia and Kylan—or even Rian, who was one of her own.

  “All of the maudra seem to care only about their own clans,” Amri murmured. “Even Maudra Argot. Everywhere we go, the maudra are preoccupied only with how to save their clan. They don’t care about what happens to everyone else . . . It can’t stay this way if the Gelfling are going to survive.”

  “I think that’s part of lighting these fires,” Gurjin replied, staring into the crackling flames of their own little campfire. He leaned back. “Back at the castle, the guards came from all over. But even so, the Skeksis always had these ways of drawing lines between us. After Mira went missing, the Skeksis started telling everyone it was a Stonewood that did it. Sure enough, even though we all acted like friends the day before, everyone turned on Rian and the other Stonewood. Like they were all waiting for a reason . . . like we’d been taught to think of each other as different, even though we’re all Gelfling.”

  “What about you?” Naia asked. “You’re Rian’s best friend, aren’t you?”

  “After Mira, maybe,” Gurjin chuckled, though it was sad. “When the Skeksis told everyone it was a Stonewood, yeah. For a moment I wondered if maybe Rian had done something. Stonewood are supposed to be stubborn and aggressive, and Rian’s not exactly the opposite of that. It took his dreamfast to make me believe.”

  “It wasn’t until the Skeksis came that we were divided and learned to think of ourselves as diffe
rent,” Kylan sighed.

  “And it was the Skeksis who ordained the All-Maudra,” Naia added. “And who chose the Vapra.”

  The picture was growing clearer, like a reflection in urSu’s bowl of water as the ripples slowly stilled. The image of a fertile land, Gelfling growing like sprouts. One breed of flower with seven varieties, growing in a million beautiful colors. Then the light of the Great Conjunction split the urSkeks. The Skeksis, whose wise, cruel minds knew how to make the most of the Gelfling, their new loyal subjects. By plucking one of the flowers and declaring it the most beautiful of all.

  This was the history of the Gelfling and the Skeksis. The Skeksis had charted the course and laid out the trail, and the Gelfling had followed it without even knowing. For almost a thousand trine, it had been this way. Now it was finally time for their ways to converge.

  “Even if Maudra Mera fears the Skeksis, and even if she’s sworn loyalty to Seladon as the All-Maudra, we’ll find a way to persuade her,” Amri said. “She fears the Skeksis because she wants their protection. She wants their protection because she loves her clan.”

  “It was the same with Maudra Ethri, who wanted to sail away from the Skeksis to save the Sifa,” Kylan added.

  “Yeah! She wanted to run because she loved her clan, and it was that love that gave her the courage to stay and fight. Remember?” Amri caught Naia’s eyes eagerly with his, then blushed as if it were an accident before he pulled his hood down again.

  “Remember . . .”

  Ethri and the Sifa. Periss and the Dousan. Even Tavra and the Vapra. She set aside her doubts. About the Skeksis and how to endure them. How to heal the Crystal and Thra. If she fixated on the mystery of the stars and never looked down, it was only a matter of time before she tripped. It was her friends that were right in front of her. Not the Skeksis or the Mystics or the broken Crystal. They were relying on her to find the path and lead them down it, and she would not fail them.