Shadows of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  When they reached the other side of the gorge, urVa stopped alongside one of the streams and placed his two top hands upon his bow.

  “If you follow this stream, it will take you to the river,” he said. “There are falls, down into the deeper wood, but Gelfling should be able to climb on foot. After the falls, the river flows through Gelfling Stonewood, then onward north.”

  Naia committed the directions to memory, clasping her hands and bowing.

  “Thank you, urVa. And for showing us the way to the river.”

  “May we meet again,” urVa replied. “Even be it in a different form.”

  Then Naia and Kylan waved their farewells as urVa turned, vanishing into the forest from which they’d come. The wood folded around him so completely, it was as if he had never been there, just another ghostly projection of the Dark Wood.

  “What do you think that meant?” Kylan asked.

  “I don’t know. He seems very wise, but what good is wisdom when it can’t be understood? I didn’t understand half of what he told us this entire time.”

  “Maybe it will make sense later,” Kylan suggested. “Sometimes it can take a lot of time before things come together, but when they do, there’s no missing it.”

  “It was about time you said something like that, Song Teller,” Naia teased. “Now come on. Most of urVa’s words were in riddles, but his directions to the Black River certainly weren’t. If we hurry, we can make it before sundown.”

  Chapter 18

  They walked for another quarter day before the light pattering of rain started. Though it was gentle—hardly there—it did not let up and was only a warning of what type of storm was to come. Instead of taking shelter, Naia and Kylan did their best to stay close to the gorge cliffs, avoiding most of the rain and the occasional buffet of strong wind. There was no sign of the figure they’d seen on the ridge, and Naia hoped it would stay that way.

  “Hey, Naia?”

  She stopped and looked back to where Kylan stood behind on a boulder. She faced him and waited, though she half expected it to be nothing, or close to nothing, as it had been in the past. He huffed a sigh and skipped down a few steps, nearing her so he could speak without raising his voice. When his words came, they were serious, and full of the weight of respect.

  “When we dreamfasted, after we saw the ruffnaw in the Podling burrow. I could tell you held back. But in the forest—I heard . . . things.”

  Naia shivered, looking back at him, searching his face in an attempt to know exactly what things he’d heard. The same things she’d heard? She didn’t know what she might do if those echoes, preserved forever in time by the Cradle-Tree, had reached his ears. Kylan stepped closer, keeping his voice gentle.

  “I know it was probably just my imagination, and things made up by the tree in its darkness, but I . . . I was wondering if you’d tell me. Whether or not what I heard was true . . . that your brother has betrayed the Skeksis Lords.”

  So he’d heard it after all. Naia’s heart sank in dread, but she couldn’t escape it, or Kylan. That wasn’t the honorable thing to do, and anyway, no matter what Gurjin had done, his actions were his, just as Naia’s belonged to her. As she read the loyalty in Kylan’s face, she knew she could trust him. Especially after the journey they’d undertaken so far.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally. “The truth is, the All-Maudra sent a soldier to my clan looking for my brother because he had been accused of treason by the Skeksis. After they accused him, he suddenly went missing, which only made things worse. Now I don’t know whether he really is a traitor, or whether something bad has happened to him. That’s why I’m traveling to Ha’rar . . . to represent my clan before the All-Maudra, and also, I hope, to learn the truth.”

  Her confession brought nothing but a nod from Kylan.

  “So the voice I heard in the wood . . . the one that sounded like a soldier saying . . .”

  “Saying those awful things about the Skeksis?” Naia finished, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know! I asked urVa, and all he did was tell me more riddles. This and that about how the Cradle-Tree only echoes words that were truly spoken—but then he went on to say words don’t need speaking to be true. All I wanted to know was whether Gurjin said those things or whether he’s been falsely accused . . . all I want to know is whether he is really a traitor or not.”

  “Words don’t need speaking . . . maybe he meant words of the heart,” Kylan said. “But then, whose words? The fears of your heart?”

  “Or spoken words from Gurjin’s mouth, said somewhere in the wood? The Castle of the Crystal lies within the Dark Wood, just as Stone-in-the-Wood does. There must have been days or nights when Gurjin spoke near a branch of the Cradle-Tree. I just don’t know, and I can hardly stand it.”

  Naia grunted and kicked a rock, sending it bouncing down the path ahead and into the creek. The sound of it was hard, hard, hard . . . and then soft. They had nearly reached the bottom of the highlands. Spongy turf crept up between the rocks, blanketed with moss and vines, spiked here and there with tube-shaped red flowers full of sugar-tipped pistils glistening in the daylight. She left the topic behind and so Kylan did, too. There was no use in talking it over and over. The longer Naia thought about the dilemma—the truth about Gurjin—the more she knew there was only one way to find out, and that was to find him herself.

  It wasn’t long before Naia could hear the sound of water, slow-moving but deep, and she could smell the cool earthy scent of the riverbed. Beyond the nearer plunks and brrr-blunks of the raindrops falling on the river was a distant white noise, growing ever closer—the falls urVa had mentioned. Naia’s pace quickened in excitement, and she pushed back the circle-shaped fronds of the lusher riverside plants. As the leaves gave way and the scaled tree bark tightened away from her, the view became clear. A sparkling obsidian river moved steadily to the west, where it poured over the last of the highlands to a frothy lake far below.

  At the sight of it, Naia let out a whoop of joy and, despite their tense words earlier, threw an arm around Kylan and gave him a hug so tight, he laughed. They had arrived at the Black River.

  They stowed their shoes in their packs and rolled up their leggings, wading into the strong cool current. Along the bank, the riverside was carved with pockets of shallow water and smoothed stones, full of speckled green and blue swimmers. Each faced up-current, swimming in a lazy S shape, seeming perfectly still, though in reality they were in constant motion to avoid being swept down the river to the falls. Neech zipped out from Naia’s pack and dived, dipping into the water and resurfacing with a spray of water droplets, one of the swimmers thrashing in his jaws. He landed on a nearby rock and gulped the swimmer in two bites, shaking drops from his fur and chattering happily.

  “It’s beautiful!” Kylan exclaimed while Naia filled her cupped hands with water and took a fresh cold drink. Though the river appeared black from far away, up close she saw that it was the hard black gravel and stone that lined the riverbed and gave it its midnight color. When the sunlight hit the bottom of the river, she could see thousands of diamond-shaped facets glittering with dark blues and purples. Even the silty sand at the shallow portions was black. A handful of the stuff looked like the night sky, twinkling with silver speckles when the light hit it just right. Naia poured some into one of her empty water skins, hoping to gift it to her parents when she eventually returned home.

  Their meeting with the river added some necessary levity. For a moment, Naia forgot all she had before her and could instead appreciate how far she’d come. They dried their feet and put their shoes on before carefully making their way down the jutting rocks that comprised the front of the falls. The rocks were damp from the rain and spray from the falls, coated in a thin layer of slippery algae that made finding a safe handhold more difficult than it would have been otherwise. Still, the drop was not too far, and before long they had reached
the basin, all sounds drowned out by the thundering of the falls. The air was thick with mist and the dark flickering shapes of bats darting in and out of their roosts within the cliff face. Naia gave the highlands a last glance, and then together, she and Kylan headed into the dense forest.

  “Let’s follow the river a ways. Then we’ll need to make a raft . . . and from that point, we can rest.”

  “Jarra-Jen once made a boat from half a shell of a giant skorpus,” Kylan said. When Naia gave him a sidelong glance, he grinned and for a moment held her gaze with just a smile. Then he broke away and said, “But I think we can do with logs.”

  Before Naia could come up with some teasing response, they heard an approach from within the depths of the wood—quick and loud and coming closer. Before they could take cover, a tall white beast burst into the clearing. It reared before it trampled them, wheeling around with a whistling trumpet as Kylan cried out, falling back. Naia held her arm in front of her face, standing between the long-legged animal and Kylan, but there was no need. A familiar voice called out over the din of the beast’s cry, “Doye, doye—at last, I’ve found you!”

  At the call, the creature turned, planting all four hooves on the soft ground and snorting with an agitated gurgle. Naia lowered her arm and took in the creature’s large gray ears and wrinkled pug-nosed face punctuated by a long red proboscis. It was indeed a Landstrider, a creature she’d only heard of and then glimpsed along the wide Spriton plains. Seated on its gray-furred shoulders, arm in a sling and sleek silver hair flowing between her folded wings, was none other than Tavra of Ha’rar.

  Chapter 19

  “Doye,” Tavra shouted again, but it was more to calm the Landstrider than anything. She soothed the beast with a pat on the shoulder, and it grunted, the pink in its ears fading. With an agile leap, she dismounted, wings outstretched just enough to ease her landing to nothing more than a soft step.

  “Naia,” Tavra said. “Thank Aughra you’re safe.”

  Though Tavra looked relieved to see Naia, her mouth remained a tight pale line, and her eyes and ears were alert. Her broken wing was on the mend, held in place with a light splint. The Landstrider, outfitted with a Spriton riding harness and a saddle strapped with traveling bags, moved away to take a drink from the river. So this was the one that had been following them! Naia wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved.

  Tavra nodded at Kylan with a quick tilt of her chin.

  “This is the dream etcher? I saw his words on the stone near the bridge and knew you’d come this way.”

  “Yes,” Naia said. “He’s accompanying me to Stone-in-the-Wood. We’ve come from Sami Thicket together . . . So much has happened since I saw you. Is my father well?”

  “Indeed. When I left him, he was still bedridden, but your mother is unmatched in healing vliyaya.” Tavra looked both ways, up and below, then leaned in and lowered her voice. “We need to speak, and quickly. First, you’re truly unharmed? Were you within the wood at night? Did you meet anyone, or anything—did you hear anything?”

  The questions were rapid, wary, and instead of bringing answers out of Naia’s throat only made her hold on to them more tightly. What was Tavra worried about? Maybe she was merely concerned for Naia’s well-being, but maybe it had to do with the echoes of Gurjin’s voice in the wood. Naia felt every muscle stiffen as a thought crossed her mind. According to Tavra, the Skeksis had only accused Gurjin of spreading traitorous lies, but they had not stated what exactly those lies had been. Did Tavra know the truth? Did she know something she wasn’t telling?

  “Yes,” Naia said, choosing to answer only the first two questions. “We traveled the wood overnight, but we survived safely.”

  Tavra’s eyes narrowed. “As I was tracking you in the wood, I saw prints from another. Were you with someone?”

  “We were following the tracks, hoping they would lead us to the river,” Naia said. Again, it was half-true. If she told the soldier about urVa, she wondered if she might be putting the riddle-ribbing old mystic in danger. Why was Tavra so intent on knowing if they had been alone? The Silverling leaned back slowly, every feature on her face tight with suspicion.

  “I told you to beware the creatures of the Dark Wood,” she said quietly. “Even those that seem good are connected to those that are not so good. Connected in ways we don’t understand.”

  “For every one there is another,” Naia said. As little sense as it made to her, the words had an impact on Tavra, who sighed.

  “Listen. We received a message by swoothu in Sog. Gurjin is alive, but he’s been taken captive.”

  “Captive?” Naia repeated, just to make sure she’d heard the news properly. Alive was good, but captive was not. “Captive by who? Where?”

  Tavra shook her head.

  “That is not for you to know. I have orders from your parents to send you home to Sog. They asked me specifically not to tell you any more than I have.”

  “Because if I know where he is, you know I’ll go to him,” Naia huffed. “He’s my brother, Tavra! I’m not a child—let me go with you to rescue him!”

  Tavra’s eyes flashed and her jaw was set.

  “You will return to Sog,” she repeated. “And that is the end of the matter.”

  “But I’ve come all this way! I’m not about to turn around and go all the way home, not when I know my brother is being held captive somewhere. I don’t need you or my parents protecting me!”

  “Naia—”

  “I’ll have you know, I saved this wood,” Naia said. “It was under a curse—it had looked into the blackness of the crystal veins, deep in the earth. But I healed it by dreamfasting, without your help or my parents’ protection. Something is terribly, terribly ill in Thra—something that started somewhere in the Dark Wood—and it’s related to all this with Gurjin. I don’t know how, or why, but I feel it in my gut. And”—Naia dropped her voice to let Tavra know she was absolutely serious—“I know what Gurjin was saying. I know what he said about the Skeksis.”

  Naia’s words had hardly any effect on the Vapra soldier. Tavra leaned in, her expression so stern, it was as if she were truly made of silver.

  “If you know what he said, then you’ll understand this is much more dangerous than one Gelfling can handle alone.”

  Naia knew then that what she had heard echoed by the Cradle-Tree was true. Somewhere in the Dark Wood, Gurjin had spoken high treason against the Skeksis.

  “You are under the orders of your parents and myself to return to Sog,” Tavra added. “An order from a soldier is an order from the All-Maudra, so I hope you’ll take it seriously.”

  It was all Naia could do to lower her chin in half a nod.

  “I understand,” she whispered, knowing that arguing with the Vapra would get her nowhere.

  Tavra took in a big breath and let it out slowly, then pinned the same stern gaze on Kylan.

  “That goes for you, too, Spriton,” she said. “You’ll take my Landstrider, both of you, and fly from this place as quickly as it can take you.”

  “What about you?” Kylan asked Tavra. He had been quiet during the entire exchange, though Naia was confident he’d made out every word of it. Anger boiled in the Drenchen’s stomach, though she tried to hide her feelings. How long had she known about Gurjin’s treason? Tavra had acted as though she knew nothing when she’d arrived in Sog.

  “I’ve traveled many paths by foot,” Tavra replied. She walked the Landstrider to Naia and pushed the reins into her hands. Naia took the heavy straps, immobilized by frustration and betrayal. She held her tongue, though, knowing the soldier would not be swayed. As if in apology, Tavra put her hands on Naia’s shoulders.

  “I will find your brother,” she said. “And I will do the right thing.”

  Naia could only find the restraint for three words, and so she said them, as calmly and evenly as possible. “As will I.”

/>   Tavra met Naia’s eyes for a moment, as if trying to dreamfast without dreamfasting. Then, with a grim but understanding nod, she strode quickly into the wood.

  Naia waited until the sound of Tavra’s steps had faded before she dropped her pack to the ground with a bitter huff and started pulling out only the essentials—rope, bola, food, water. After checking that Gurjin’s knife was still strapped to her belt, she bent to tighten the laces on her shoes, her sore shoulders and back appreciating the stretch.

  “What are you doing?” Kylan asked. “You can’t get back to Sog without your pack—it’s got your kindling stones and such.”

  “I’m going to the Castle of the Crystal,” Naia said.

  “But you just promised Tavra—”

  “That I would do the right thing. And I am. Don’t you see? The castle can’t be more than a day’s journey here, so of course she can make it on foot. She didn’t deny what we heard of Gurjin’s words. There is only one place she could be going.”

  “The castle . . .” Kylan reached out and caught her sleeve. “Wait, Naia. You can’t be sure of that. And she’s trying to keep us safe, isn’t she? Don’t you think that if she’s worried, you should be, too? What do you think you can do that Tavra can’t? And she said your parents want you to come home . . .”

  Naia pulled out of his grip.

  “You heard the same words in the wood that I did! Were they lies or not? No one has the answers—no one will tell me! Even when I thought I’d heard it from Gurjin, I couldn’t be sure. So now the only way is to find out myself.”

  “Even so, we shouldn’t go barging into the Castle of the Crystal—”

  “You want me to just give up?”

  “No, but what you’re planning is reckless, and dangerous. There has to be another way!”