Song of the Dark Crystal #2

by J. M. Lee

  “But if the Skeksis come to get skekLi, they’ll have to defeat urLii, right?” Amri asked. He held up two fingers in parallel. “But if they defeat urLii, then won’t skekLi also be defeated? Right?”

  “Either way,” Kylan put in hastily, “urLii stayed behind by his own will. He seemed confident he could contain skekLi safely. We have no choice but to trust him. We have our own journey. Right?”

  Naia nodded, slowly at first, and then more firmly.

  “Right.”

  In no time, they exited the tunnel onto a moss-covered landing. The mountains here were soft and undulating, not jagged and rocky. The air was clear, blowing flurries of leaves and sometimes white and pink petals by, and Kylan thought he heard the sound of chimes. It was beautiful and gold and green, but the scene left something to be desired. Kylan frowned deeply. Their belongings were back at the entrance to Tide Pass, including the Book of Raunip, the pearl amulet, and Tavra’s sword. The others were quiet, too. No one wanted to be the first to bring up the subject, but it was too important. They couldn’t just leave their things, not with the journey they had ahead.

  As he was about to say something, Naia let out a loud sigh that dissolved into laughter. She trotted forward through the tall serpentine grass. Sticking out of the ground cover was a long arrow shaft, decorated with a string of bells. Kylan recognized it as one of urVa’s, and when they reached it, they found their traveling pack and the silver Vapra sword hidden safely in the grass.

  Kylan stooped and opened the pack. They drank from the water gourd, and he found the book, turning the pages until he found those that described Gyr’s firca. As he read passage after passage in Raunip’s scrawling hand, he felt the rest of the world drift away. He forgot the caves and the spiders, swimming in the pitch-dark and holding his breath until his lungs burned. He forgot the fear when he had seen Naia’s wound and worried he had lost her. He forgot skekLi, unbroken even in his defeat, and his frightening promise of what would face them in the days to come. He even forgot, just for the moment, Naia, Tavra, and Amri, as they gave him space and silence in which to work.

  All he saw were the sketches of the firca and the hope it had to offer. It was like every other firca he’d ever seen or played, with one mouthpiece, which split into a fork. The pipes on either end of the fork were carved with three finger holes, one for each finger when held properly in two hands. Firca were made out of many materials, each with a slightly different voice. Most were carved from a single piece of wood, though many were made from forked reeds. The Sifa were even known to make theirs from the prongs of welhorn shells, and their firca’s voices came with the ghostly roars of ocean waves. The firca was the most common Gelfling instrument, and perhaps one of the simplest, yet the many materials used in its creation also made it one of the most varied. It could play single notes as well as harmonies, while still being small enough to dangle around one’s neck.

  Kylan took out the bell-bird bone and laid it on the open pages of the book. It was already forked, a bit bigger than a standard wooden Spriton firca, but in one unbroken piece. They were lucky that Amri had been able to find the thing—fortunate that not only were there any bones left at all, but that the one Amri had found was in the perfect shape. A single bone might have worked as a pipe, but Kylan wondered whether it would not have had the same impact. He remembered joining urVa and urLii’s song with the firca. The third part had given the song power, though he suspected it was the urRu’s connection with skekLi that had been mostly responsible for holding him.

  No, a pipe or flute would not have been the same. The firca was special. It could play two notes at once, leaving room for a third. What that third voice was, Kylan didn’t know, but he felt instinctively that it had to do with the legend of the bell-bird. The birds that sang and the mountains sang back. Perhaps, if the bell-birds sang with two notes, it was Thra itself that sang the third part. Perhaps the firca was so valued by the Gelfling because it left a place for the very voice of Thra.

  Kylan picked up the bone and turned it around, inspecting it from every angle. He did not even have tools to sand or carve with. The location of the finger holes had to be precise as well, or their tones would not play in harmony. If he had been asked no more than a trine ago how he might craft the firca that could well change the fate of the Gelfling, without any tools and from an ancient bone, he would have laughed. Now there was no time to laugh. He had to do it here, and now, and with what he had. He had no other choice.

  He knew that if he hesitated too long, he might lose his courage, so he took a breath and ran his thumb along one of the flute ends of the fork. He willed the heat of dream-etching, just in the surface of his thumb. As the blue light shone, fine white smoke rose from where he touched. The vibration of the etching heat made the bone sing in a high, resonant key.

  He had to work slowly and with great care. In the end, he lifted his thumb and looked. The edge where he had etched was smooth, as if beveled with a sharp knife by a practiced whittler. It was pure and white, as the rest of the bone, and no longer jagged where it had broken from the rest of the remains. It was hot to the touch, but cooling, and he let out a breath. It was possible, then. He could do this.

  It took all afternoon and into the evening. By the time he heard Naia return with her catch for dinner, Kylan’s forehead and the hair at the nape of his neck were slick with sweat, his brow sore from bunching in concentration. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, gently squeezing to get his attention, he let out a little laugh and looked up.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Naia looked over his shoulder, and he opened his hands. Lying in his lap was a white firca, sculpted and smoothed to the finest detail. He hardly remembered making it, or at least, he recalled none of the moments. As his head cleared from the focus, he realized he had gone into a kind of trance. His fingers were blistered and sore, but the product of his dedication was perfect, as if he had transformed the bell-bird bone into the instrument it had always been meant to be.

  “It’s beautiful,” Naia said.

  Tavra, perched on Naia’s shoulder, traveled down her arm to get a closer look.

  “Indeed,” she said. “I wish I still had Gelfling ears to hear you play it.”

  It was bittersweet. He didn’t dare play it so close to her; it had paralyzed her when it had been just a bone. It was sad, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  “I’m still sorry. If I hadn’t trapped you in that spider’s body . . .”

  “If you hadn’t, I would be dead. And I would not have had the chance to see the two of you succeed as you have. For this, I am only grateful . . . Stop berating yourself for doing the things your heart calls you to do. Now! You’d best eat after your hard work these past days. I’m sure Naia agrees.”

  Naia’s stomach rumbled.

  “I am pretty predictable,” she agreed.

  Kylan joined them at the fire. Naia had caught several fish, and Amri had them roasting directly in the fire so their scales blackened and smoked. He had put a paste on it from one of his mysterious bottles, though luckily this one smelled much better than the salve he’d used on his feet. Naia leaned and whispered, “I told him I’d let him cook. I’m sorry in advance.”

  “I may have trouble seeing in the daylight, but my hearing is impeccable,” said Amri.

  Whether or not it was intentional, the blackened fish was salty and filling, with a satisfying flavor that reminded Kylan of mushrooms and berries.

  After supper, while they sat around the fire, he found some cord and hung the bone firca from his neck. It was now his most precious possession. He refused to lose it.

  “So, I have a question,” Naia said in between licking her fingers. She tossed the skewer into the fire and watched it crackle and pop. “When you made your plan to corner the crystal spider, you gave Tavra a note. Whatever was written on it fooled the spider. I want to kno
w what it said!”

  Kylan felt his cheeks warm, though he knew no one could see the blush in the dancing light of the fire.

  “Oh. It doesn’t matter . . .”

  “I have it right here!”

  As if by magic, the piece of paper appeared in Amri’s hand, smoothed and folded as it had been the evening Kylan had given it to her. He reached for it to take it back and get rid of it before anyone else read it, but Amri jumped away with it.

  “Dear Tavra,” he began to read. Kylan interrupted in a hurry, hoping to drown out Amri’s reading.

  “I guessed that whatever was controlling Tavra couldn’t read. That it couldn’t read the note on the rock wall, so it had the spiders try to conceal the message—”

  “. . . I write to you on behalf of Naia, and Gurjin, and those others whom you have helped since leaving Ha’rar on an errand for the All-Maudra . . .”

  “—I had to test it, so I used—”

  “I know it must be very difficult for you, having been betrayed by the Skeksis in the most painful ways. I wanted to let you know that we all care for you and that, should you need us . . .”

  “So I used what I had on hand . . .”

  But there was no stopping Amri, so Kylan put his face in his hands and waited for it to end. Amri stood before Tavra, Naia, and all the stars and moons above, reading for all to hear:

  “. . . simply call on us. For especially I admire your courage and your loyalty to all that is good and right, and even if I’m unable to put these sentiments into words to say to you directly, I wanted at least to give to you this promise in words that stay. Your friend, Kylan.”

  It was very quiet after that. Kylan counted to nine before looking up to see if the coast was clear. Undoubtedly proud of himself, Amri folded the note back up and put it in his pocket, sitting back down beside Naia. With night’s dark around them, his eyes were open wide and bright, shining with laughter. Naia was grinning, too.

  “I hope one day you’ll write me something as sticky-sweet as that,” she teased. “I’d learn to read just so I could read it. Every night, before I went to bed!”

  Kylan patted his cheeks, trying to cool his embarrassment.

  “Listen. I—I was trying to tell her in person, but I couldn’t get it right. So I wrote it down. When I saw Krychk talking to the Skeksis, I had . . . I had to make sure it wasn’t Tavra, before we trapped her. Tavra can read, but it seemed like Krychk couldn’t. I knew that if she didn’t react . . . to that note . . .”

  “That I was not myself,” Tavra finally spoke up, from her current place on a rock near the fire. Her little sapphire body shone, the dream-stitching symbol that had bound her soul to the spider’s body glowing softly. “A clever plan. I am glad it succeeded.”

  “When he showed it to me, I knew something was wrong,” Amri added, nodding with self-important pride. “There’s no way a Silverling princess would be illiterate.”

  Naia’s smile hadn’t faded. She leaned her chin on her hand and grinned, but it was soft and happy.

  “And now here we are, with the firca. Gurjin will arrive in Sog soon . . . and Rian must be almost to Ha’rar. I’m so glad we will be able to meet him there and have good news to tell. Even if there is some not-so-good news as well.”

  Tavra waved a foreleg. Despite his conviction that she would have reacted to his letter had she been able to decipher it at the time, the All-Maudra’s daughter showed no reaction now. Kylan wasn’t sure which he preferred.

  “That is the price of success,” she said simply. “And there are more prices to be paid. We can only hope that in the end, we will have riches enough to exchange for our freedom from the Skeksis and the situation in which they’ve placed our people.”

  Kylan was glad of the shift in words, even if it was to something so serious. At least, for the time being, he could offer something positive and encouraging. For once, he could point out a bright star to guide them, if only for a short while.

  “Tomorrow I will play the firca,” he said. “urLii reminded me of something in the Tomb of Relics. Dream-stitching. Binding a dreamfast, or the thoughts of the mind, to writing. Not all the Gelfling race can read, so I’ve been thinking. We can’t just write a message with the firca, no matter how large or widespread. Only some would be able to read it, and that includes the Skeksis.”

  “So you’ll bind a message in dreamfast?” Amri asked. His teasing face became serious and he clenched his hands into excited fists. “That’s brilliant! Then the Skeksis won’t be able to decipher it, even if they catch one of the notes!”

  “They’ll surely be able to guess what it says, if it’s written at a time like this,” Naia said. “I can’t read, but if I were a Skeksis and saw something like that, I would assume it was a warning to the Gelfling people. Will that really make a difference?”

  Kylan shook his head.

  “I’ll disguise it. I’ll use a symbol that means something else, but when a Gelfling hand touches it, the dreamfast will happen. Maudra Mera began to teach me, but I left Sami Thicket before I mastered it. I always thought she only taught me because I was bad at other things. But I think I did it to Tavra. I stitched the dream of her mind to the spider’s body.”

  It wasn’t a strong enough statement to pull the pensive mood from the air, so Kylan reassured himself and gathered the words he wanted to say. There was only one way to succeed, and it was to take control of his destiny.

  “I will deliver the message that begins our fight against the Skeksis.”

  That night, they slept under the stars. Kylan watched their slow spinning and listened to the warm wind in the grass. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he would be able to sleep in peace. He rested his hands on the firca, over his heart. Though he wanted nothing more than to play it, he waited. He would wait until tomorrow, and until then, save the anticipation and longing. It would make the final song that much more powerful.

  A blade of grass moved to the side near his cheek. It was the only sign that Tavra had joined him, silently picking her way across the tips of the grass as he might hop along the pathway stones in Sami Thicket. She said nothing, balancing on the stalk of a grassflower like a tiny, delicate acrobat.

  He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. There was simply a shared quiet—an acceptance—and then she left, not one word spoken.

  CHAPTER 29

  In the morning, Kylan took care to let the others sleep as he left for the nearby hillside. More of the pink petals flitted by, and as one landed on his tunic, he remembered seeing one similar, all the way back in Stone-in-the-Wood. The wind had carried it there, and the water of the Black River, and then to all of Thra.

  That was how he wanted his message to be carried. And so up he trudged, striding over the bowed grass and clusters of flowers, until he found the tree that was the source of the petals drifting across the mountainside.

  The tree was tall and handsome, gnarled like an elder’s hand with many knots and joints and ankles. Its leaves were filled with blossoms in peach and pink and red. When the wind blew through it, the petals released in flurries, flying out over the Dark Wood and, he hoped, across the rest of Thra. So dense were the flowers and leaves that even after a strong gust, it never seemed it would ever run dry. This was the tree that he would sing to with the bone firca.

  He sat before the tree and placed his hands on the flute. In every dream of the previous night, it had called to him; in every dream he’d felt bonded to it, as if he belonged to it and it to him. It was as if the spirit of the bell-bird was inviting him to bring its song to life after so many ages of silence.

  Now, finally, he lifted the instrument to his lips, and without thinking, began to play.

  He lost himself in the song. The sound of the firca was perfect, its tone in a key Kylan could not quite identify. When he played, it was as if the very dome of the sky sang back to him, as
if the mountains themselves were coming to life and humming in harmony. He closed his eyes and brought up memories while he played: the journey that had brought him here, and the hardships and joys that had followed. He remembered skekMal, the Castle of the Crystal. Naia and Gurjin, and Tavra the All-Maudra’s daughter. He called upon the memories of what Naia had told him, what she had seen in the castle—what Rian had seen, too. Though he could not project their dreams into his, he could remember what he had felt, and remember that he had known the truth. He recalled the fear that had struck them beyond the Tomb of Relics, the fight with Krychk the crystal spider. With a little tremble, he brought into his mind the terrible black eyes of skekLi, and his forewarning words about what was to come.

  When the song finally ended, his lips and fingers were numb. His mind both spun and was blank, like the endless rushing of water in a fall. When he looked up at the leaves and petals of the tree, his vision throbbed. It looked as though the tree was glowing blue, each leaf and petal inscribed with a sacred symbol: a circle enclosed in a triangle, enclosed in a final circle. This was the dream-stitching: a dream that would stay. Their message to the Gelfling people.

  His friends had joined him while he had been playing. Even Tavra was there, alert from her post on Naia’s shoulder. The song had not harmed her, as it had when he had played it against the spiders in the Sanctuary. He did not know how long they had been listening, but both Naia’s and Amri’s cheeks were streaked with tears.

  “That was . . . ,” Naia began, but did not finish. A rustling of wind washed up the mountainside toward them, and Amri gestured at it excitedly.