Flames of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  “We’re going to find a way,” Amri said.

  “We don’t know how to give up, do we?” she asked, letting the warmth reach her lips where it came out as a smile. He chuckled.

  “I think that’s mostly you . . . But it’s probably the thing I love most of all.”

  It got quiet between them.

  “You mean as a friend, of course,” she said hesitantly. She was unsure, particularly about one specific word he’d used. “Because . . . we’re friends.”

  She waited for him to say Yes, of course. As he might as well have, when they’d stood at the top of the ridge in the Mystic Valley, looking out across the entire world.

  Amri shifted nervously. “Oh. You mean that thing I said back in the valley—”

  “I just want to know,” Naia blurted. “I don’t understand. I thought up until then that we . . . But then I woke up and you were all different. And then you started to warm up again, but you never . . . And now you almost drowned trying to save me, and . . .”

  “That’s not what I—” he choked out. “Naia, there’s—”

  “I thought maybe you just didn’t think there was a difference between like and—”

  “Of course I think there’s a difference!”

  She shut her mouth, realizing they were yelling right into each other’s faces like she and other Drenchen used to do as childlings. Amri was no Drenchen, but there under Great Smerth, soaked in lake water, he’d found his voice.

  “Of course I know the difference,” he repeated, softer. “Naia. I really like you. You know, as more than a friend. But after you got hurt . . .”

  He was still hiding something, but at least he wasn’t lying.

  “Tell me. Please?”

  He let out a big, guilty sigh. Before he spoke, she realized what had happened. His hesitation to reveal the truth gave it away. She remembered the voices she’d heard in her dream of the river. Remembered someone who hadn’t wanted Amri to come south with them.

  “What did Gurjin say to you?” she asked, plainly enough that it left little room for Amri to try to make up another excuse. He sighed. All the pretenses rolled away from him, like when he’d taken off his cloak as they’d entered the wetlands. Finally, the truth came out, and he was her Amri again.

  “He just told me that now wasn’t a good time,” he said. “He said you had other things you needed to do, and that I shouldn’t be jeopardizing our mission by distracting you.” He shrugged. “It’s not like he threatened me or anything. It made sense. And it was my fault you were so badly hurt. So I went along with it . . .”

  Amri trailed off when a trembling rumble rolled through the swamp beyond the curtain of darkness. Naia twisted her ears, straining to hear it. It sounded like a boom and a crash, like a tree toppling. Silence followed, and she thought maybe it was nothing—but then it came again. And again. Amri cleared his throat.

  “Are those normal swamp noises?” he asked.

  As much as she wanted not to be bothered at a time like this, Naia couldn’t deny the bad feeling in her gut.

  “No. We should go back.”

  Naia wiped her cheeks. They stood, and Amri followed her back up to the Glenfoot. The Drenchen sentries had drawn their spears, lighting new torches.

  “What’s going on?” Naia asked as she and Amri reached the gate.

  “We don’t know,” answered one of the guards. He turned to his fellow and ordered, “Ring the alarm. Call the maudra and Bellanji.”

  As the other sentry scampered up the rope ladder to one of the lookouts on a branch above, the entire Glenfoot shuddered with a high-pitched whine. Naia turned toward the sound, chills racing up her back as she tried to see through the shadows.

  Naia’s parents joined them within moments of the alarm bell clanging, Bellanji with his long spear and Laesid on Chapyora’s back. Lights flickered throughout the glade as the Drenchen awoke.

  “What comes?” Laesid demanded. “Who trespasses in my swamp?”

  Amri grabbed Naia’s arm, clutching her tightly as his Grottan eyes pierced the night. Naia already knew, deep in her belly, who it was, but it wasn’t until he said her name that every muscle in her body tightened.

  “A Skeksis Lord,” Amri said, gulping. “skekSa, the Mariner.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The Drenchen came out onto the Glenfoot as the rumbling grew. The smooth wood of the platform shivered under Naia’s bare feet, as if Great Smerth were drawing itself up for battle. Kylan and Gurjin came running from within Great Smerth. Naia exchanged glances with her brother; whatever troubles were still between them, they would have to wait.

  “The Mariner!” Bellanji cried. “What is she doing here? And how?”

  “She’s after me and Gurjin,” Naia said.

  “She’s riding something,” Amri said, peering into the blackness beyond the torchlight. “I think it’s a creature. Long legs . . . It looks like it’s running on the water!”

  “Arathim?” Kylan asked.

  Bellanji let out a tense huff of air from his nose. “There are big crawlers in the deep south of the swamp that skate atop the lakes and gobble bogs,” he said. “If that’s so, we’ll have to kill that skating swamp-mucker, too.”

  Maudra Laesid drew her spear. “Drenchen, ready yourselves. Anyone without a spear, unfurl your nets. Prepare to take this underwater if we can, where we have the advantage. Tonight we kill a Skeksis.”

  Lightning bolted down Naia’s back, urSan’s face flashing in her mind’s eye. She grabbed her mother’s sleeve. “Wait, Mother—”

  “Here she comes—”

  Saplings at the perimeter of the glade toppled as a large nine-legged creature burst into the torchlight. It was as big as an armalig carriage, with a spiny shell and nine segmented legs ending in wide bubbles of skin, keeping it afloat on the water despite its weight and the burden of the Skeksis that was crouched over its knobby thorax.

  skekSa the Mariner stood atop the giant skater when it slowed, floating across the rippling water that pooled around the Glenfoot. In one of her three claws she clutched a rein of leather and chain, fastened to a muzzle of iron that held the skater’s barbed mandibles like a cage. She yanked on the reins, and the skater let out a strained hiss like steam from a kettle.

  The scales on her face glittered green in the torchlight, feathers streaming from the crest on the back of her head. She had lost her hat somewhere during her journey from the north all the way to the south, her black cape littered with swamp mud and foliage instead of sea salt, but she was no less intimidating as her gaze settled on Naia and Gurjin.

  “Found you at last,” she growled.

  Many of the Drenchen had never seen a Skeksis before, and the silhouettes of their spears quivered as they beheld her monstrous form, her hooked beak, and her ancient eyes. They were brave, though unsure, despite their advantage of numbers and terrain. Even Naia’s parents were uncertain. Unlike Naia and her friends, they had never faced a Skeksis in battle.

  Nevertheless, Maudra Laesid was fearless. She called on Chapyora to rear up, leveling her spear. skekSa’s skater fidgeted under Chapyora’s shadow, held barely under control by the chains in the Skeksis’s claws.

  “Begone from my swamp, skekSa,” Maudra Laesid said. “Or we’ll make fish food of you.”

  “Mother, we can’t,” Naia said. “We can’t kill her. If we do, a friend of ours will die. Someone who’s helped us—”

  “Then the Lord Mariner should surely give up her mission to kidnap my eldest children, shouldn’t she?” Maudra Laesid boomed. “So that she doesn’t force me to end her life tonight!”

  skekSa’s smile split her beak.

  “Oh, I love a good threat,” she said. “You are not kindhearted at all, little Gelfling! Not at all, when it comes down to it.”

  “Mother, please,” Naia hissed, but Maudra Laesid’s spe
ar did not lower.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, Naia. But she will kill many more friends of yours tonight if we do not kill her.”

  “But this isn’t right!”

  skekSa drew the blade at her hip. It was a different sword from the one she’d used in Ha’rar, probably taken from her stash of treasure. Where were the rest of those jewels and metals and artifacts now? At the bottom of the sea, or had Vassa finally rid itself of the Skeksis that had been living in its belly?

  “Now!” Bellanji cried.

  A net came down from the canopy, fast from the rocks tied to its ends. skekSa roared when she sensed it, leaping from the back of the skater in time to avoid being caught in the web of rope and rock. The skater screeched, free from the Skeksis’s hold on its reins but immediately entangled in the net. The rocks hit the water and sank, dragging the struggling creature in a spray of thrashing legs and swamp water. Naia watched it go under, spirit straining along with the poor thing that had never wanted to be there in the first place.

  So much senseless violence . . .

  “Look out!” Amri shouted as skekSa reached into her cloak.

  Too late. skekSa hurled a volley of round black eggs up over the Glenfoot. They struck and exploded in balls of green fire, blasting huge portions of Great Smerth’s outer bark into splinters. The fire that curled out of the places where the thunder eggs struck was hotter than torch fire, catching on even Great Smerth’s ancient, water-filled body.

  “Put out the fire!” roared Bellanji. “Put it out before the tree comes down!”

  Maudra Laesid called upon them from the other side: “Spears! Bola! NOW!”

  skekSa was a blur of feathers and claws, leaping with extraordinary speed through the heavy smoke that pooled across the Glenfoot. Despite their renewed courage, the Drenchen scattered away from her when she landed.

  The Drenchen split, some rushing to draw water in a vain attempt to quench the green and yellow flames. Others picked up their weapons and came to Laesid’s side, surrounding the drenched Skeksis as she caught her breath, claws spread and fangs bared. Naia strained to find Gurjin and Kylan and Amri in the commotion.

  “Naia.”

  skekSa straightened to her full height, knocking back her cloak. Naia reached to her belt as the Skeksis approached, but there was nothing there. No bola. No dagger.

  But she wasn’t alone. Amri had found a sword from one of the Drenchen, brandishing it like Tavra had taught him, with his body angled with the blade raised as he stepped up beside Naia. The Mariner glared at him.

  “Get out of my way, little apothecary. You are smarter than to get between me and my prey.”

  “Nope,” he said, eyes bright with fearlessness. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m not going to let you hurt Naia, either!”

  Naia breathed again when Kylan stepped beside her. And then, on her other side, Gurjin. He pushed his dagger into her hand, bracing himself with a long spear when she took the familiar blade from him.

  skekSa brought her sword down at Amri. He swung his own, catching her blade from the side and twisting. His entire body shuddered from the impact. There was no way his thin sword could withstand the blow, and he knew it. As his blade broke, he sprang deftly away, slashing out with what remained of his shattered sword. Looking back, he saw a deep gash across the back of skekSa’s hand.

  skekSa grunted and swore, swinging a claw at Amri and knocking him off his feet and into the water. Ignoring Kylan as he leaped off the Glenfoot to help Amri, the Mariner pushed past the Drenchen armed with pointed spears until she towered over Naia and Gurjin. She barely flinched when Gurjin thrust his spear at her, catching it in her free claw and breaking it at the shaft with a terrible SNAP.

  “No! Stay back!” Naia commanded as the other Drenchen stepped forward, finally finding their courage. She held out a hand to her mother and Chapyora, begging them not to attack. The billowing firelight rippled off every quill and feather of skekSa’s furious visage, as if her entire body were boiling with rage.

  “I’d wear your twin skins on my coat tonight,” skekSa growled, raising her sword. “I’d roast the two of you on the hot coals of this ugly old tree. But lucky you. I fear the Emperor’s wrath more than I desire revenge—”

  A shadow darted from the canopy, diving at skekSa’s face with a stream of angry, chattering squeaks. skekSa squawked in surprise, thrashing with her claws as the flying eel bit and scratched. Feathers flew from skekSa’s brilliant plumage until she finally stumbled away. The eel took one last chomp before zipping away, flying to Naia with a puff of victorious fur.

  “Neech!”

  Naia hugged the eel and bit back a tear. But they had no time for a lengthy reunion. Maudra Laesid ordered sharply, “Now! Pin her traitor bones to the bottom of the lake!”

  Naia’s protest was drowned by the battle cries of the roaring Drenchen.

  For every spear tip that touched skekSa’s armor, six broke in her claws. Naia’s hand sweated against her dagger as she waited for an opening. One would have to come eventually—after all, it was her that skekSa wanted. Not the other Drenchen warriors, led by her father, who threw themselves upon her with a renewed vigor. Not her mother, who swung a poison-spiked bola at her shoulder as Chapyora circled to attack.

  Gurjin tugged on Naia’s arm. Kylan and Amri, soaked with swamp water, were struggling back onto the Glenfoot. Naia and Gurjin hauled them up, protecting them while they coughed water and weeds.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  Amri looked at her. “Could be better—”

  A dozen Drenchen leaped from the trees, each with the loop of a net in hand. The net swallowed skekSa, dragging her flat against the Glenfoot dais. But not for long. With an ear-numbing roar, skekSa shredded the net with her claws and sword. She hurled the remains of the net, and its weighted stones crashed across the Drenchen and knocked them in a tangle into the lake. skekSa whirled, finding Naia again, shoulders heaving with snarling breaths. Her bellow shook every plank of the Glenfoot.

  “I don’t have time for this!”

  Naia braced herself as skekSa rushed at her. Drenchen drove their spears at her as she passed, but only two touched and neither stuck. Maudra Laesid’s poison-thorn bola smashed down, striking skekSa in the shoulder and cracking off a piece of her armor in a spray of metal and black blood, but it didn’t stop the Skeksis monster charging toward Naia.

  “Naia, get out of there!” her mother cried.

  Naia didn’t budge. She pushed her foot into the solid wood beneath her heel, bracing every muscle. She didn’t know how to stop skekSa. She didn’t know how to muffle the roaring flames that consumed Great Smerth overhead. She didn’t know how to stop the cycle of fear and hate and violence. All she knew was that she had to protect her friends. Kylan. Amri. Gurjin. Great Smerth and all the Drenchen.

  A tiny blue light glowed in her hand, hidden by the hilt of the dagger.

  “What . . .”

  Water erupted from below the Glenfoot. A gray-and-silver form arched out like a leaping fish, slamming into skekSa and sending them both rolling in a grappling tangle of weeds and cold droplets, hands and claws, feathers and mane and tails.

  “What is that?” exclaimed Laesid. “What’s going on?”

  “urSan!”

  Amri called her name right as the two big creatures split apart, blood streaming from both of their shoulders, urSan’s wound mirroring skekSa’s where she’d been struck by Laesid’s devastating thorny bola. Though skekSa’s dark skin hid the effects of the poison, urSan’s pale skin showed that it was already taking hold: green tendrils shining with fluid as the poison set in.

  The injury didn’t stop her from standing between skekSa and the Drenchen, though none of her three hands held weapons.

  “There is no going around me,” urSan said calmly, though her breathing came heavier and heavier. “Y
ou will have to go through.”

  skekSa tightened her grip on her sword. “I searched for you all this time. How convenient that you appear now. My bonded other. Oh, it’s all too rich, that you should be the one to try and stop me when it is our shared destiny I am trying to improve.”

  “I will not allow you to take Naia and Gurjin. They have a task yet to accomplish. I will not allow them to become ingredients for skekTek’s wicked experiments, nor droplets in skekSo’s decanter. If you continue your aggression here, I will put an end to us both.”

  “And if I do not continue, we will both find our end anyhow,” skekSa replied coldly. “skekZok betrayed me. He told the Emperor that it was my fault we lost the twins. That I’m a traitor! Now I have no choice but to bring them back to the castle, or skekSo will call for my head. Mine, and also yours, as we all now know.”

  skekSa glared over urSan’s festering shoulder at Naia, eyes burning like fires. How long ago was it they’d met on the beach of Cera-Na? That Naia had questioned whether all the Skeksis were as evil as skekMal the Hunter or skekLi the Satirist? They had all been so cruel, so single-minded, until skekSa.

  But now . . .

  “Why do you not leave this land behind?” Naia asked. “Travel the seas that you love. The world goes on into the horizon, far away from skekSo and the other Skeksis.”

  skekSa raised herself up, holding her rotting shoulder while her sword drooped. She laughed and spat with such disgust, Naia was surprised her saliva didn’t scald the wood it landed on. She coughed and vomited, shuddering from her oozing wound. Drenchen surrounded her on every side, and she fell back upon a knee.

  “I wanted to! All I wanted was to be rid of this wretched landlocked place, travel the sea, and find my fortune—but you betrayed me! Just like everyone has betrayed me. urSan, the Sifa, the Gelfling—skekZok. Now I’m truly alone. Ah, urSan. At least if I die here, I’ll have the pleasure of seeing you die, too.”