Shadows of the Dark Crystal

by J. M. Lee

  Towering on the other side of the bridge, magnificent black against the backdrop of the electric storm, was the spire-capped Castle of the Crystal.

  Chapter 22

  Naia gave the Dark Wood a last glance before gladly escaping it. Her shoes echoed on the drawbridge as she crossed it, the thick planks and heavy draw-chains lending a well-missed sense of safety to the night. Any moment, she half expected the masked monster—she dare not call it by the name she wanted to, lest her imagination run wild with fear again—to lunge from the shadows and drag her back into the wood, where she might be lost forever. But it didn’t. If it had followed her to the castle, it stayed away, and soon she felt the warm heat of the blazing torches that were lighting her way across the wide cobbled path that met her feet on the far end of the bridge. The path was made of more carved stones, some with writing and others simply with pictures, many bearing a strange similarity to the inscriptions in urVa’s den. Over and over, she saw the circles within the triangle, though it took different shapes and characters. The path of engravings snaked around the warped castle base, below the extended leg-like buttresses until it finally arched in again, leading to an enormous set of thorny doors that made Naia feel like nothing but a fly at the mouth of a gate made for giants.

  “Oh—”

  Tavra stood in front of the closed gate, in her silver cloak. Naia’s heart dropped into her gut. But her presence here confirmed what Naia had guessed—that her destination was the castle—and that Gurjin must be there, too. . . although she had not expected to find the Vapra soldier waiting at the gate. Naia wasn’t sure, after her trek through the wood alone, that she was prepared for a confrontation so soon, but there seemed to be no getting around it. The only explanation that wouldn’t sound completely ridiculous would be the truth, but Naia withheld even that, determined to make her stand no matter what Tavra thought. She was here for the truth, and if that meant facing Tavra—or even the All-Maudra—over punishment, then so be it.

  Instead of getting angry, though, Tavra only paled in the bright gold torchlight. Her eyes widened, and she gripped Naia’s shoulders.

  “Naia, in Thra’s name, what have you done?”

  The urgency and fear in Tavra’s voice took Naia by surprise. Then came a thunderous groaning sound as the gates drew open, pulled slow and wide like the wings of a giant beetle. The two Gelfling were showered in light from the hundred-flame chandeliers that hung within the main entrance hall. From inside, Naia heard cacophonous music and crowing, laughing, cackling voices, and saw a looming, lumbering shadow that danced along the lit side of the massive doors. Lips pressed thin, Tavra put her hands against Naia’s cheeks, holding her face firmly and locking eyes. Naia knew it was for a dreamfast, for Tavra to tell her the truth, so instead of accepting the fasting, she simply said, “I want to hear it from Gurjin myself.”

  “They’re coming,” Tavra whispered. “You need to go. Now.”

  “But the Skeksis Lords—”

  With a gasp of desperation, Tavra made to dreamfast once more, but they were interrupted as the bearer of the enormous ornamented shadow appeared at the gate. Seeing the creature sucked the breath from Naia’s lungs. Although she had seen Lord skekLach and Lord skekOk in Sami Thicket, it had been from a distance. Now, tall and decorated, here was another standing before her, so close she could smell the musty sweet perfume that saturated his robes and oily skin. His cloak and mantle were propped high above his head with a complex structure of ribbed boning, adorned with jewels and shining metals. The cloak itself was crimson red with beaded patterns in black, studded here and there with furry black kiznet tails. Protruding from the mass of shining fabrics and extravagent ruffles, the Skeksis Lord’s pale-eyed face dangled off a long muscled neck, sinewy lips pulled back in a wide smile as he took in the Gelfling standing before the gate. Whatever Tavra had been trying to say was lost in the moment as they stared up at him. The silence was broken when Tavra fell into a kneel before the lord, yanking Naia down with her as she bowed her head.

  “Chamberlain Lord skekSil,” Tavra said. Bowed, her face was hidden from the lord’s gaze, but from the side, Naia saw her furrowed brow and pensive frown. “I have come from Ha’rar on behalf of the Gelfling All-Maudra for your council. This is Nadia, my . . . retainer.”

  Naia watched the pleats at the hem of Lord skekSil’s cloak as he rustled it around, leaning far down and inhaling deeply over the both of them. When he spoke, his voice was high and bleating, almost in singsong as it resonated through his hornlike face.

  “Katavra!” he cried. “Daughter of Mayrin! Come, come! Retainer, yes! Bring, bring! Everyone in!”

  Daughter of Mayrin?

  Tavra passed Naia a last urgent glance before Lord skekSil grasped the back of Naia’s tunic and lifted, barely giving her time to pull her feet under her before moving briskly inside, half pushing, half dragging with his clawed hand. On his other side, he jostled Tavra forward with playful, rough shoves. Was the soldier really the All-Maudra’s daughter? Maybe she had only told the Skeksis so—no, now that Naia looked closer, she saw it: the silver hair and fair cheeks and, now that the Vapra was standing within the halls of the Castle of the Crystal, there was even a fine silver circlet on her brow, finished with a single pearl drop above the bridge of her nose. There was no doubt—all along, Tavra had been no mere soldier of the All-Maudra.

  Naia swallowed the realization and her surprise, falling in line behind Tavra—Katavra, one of the many Daughters of Mayrin—as a retainer might do. Ahead, Lord skekSil weaved back and forth in eccentric zigzags, as if his two feet had differing minds of their own, in a constant battle to dominate his trajectory.

  “Always, Vapra from Ha’rar, oh yes, yes, come! Tasty! Feast! Food! Welcome!”

  Naia’s eyes couldn’t widen enough to take in all that lay within the castle gate. The entrance hall was vaulted, carved in arches and curved beams, winding and lit by torches and chandeliers covered in melted, dripping wax. Every wall was adorned with some kind of carving or relief, astronomical shapes connected by lines and dotted paths pigmented with dyes or round gems. Chamberlain Lord skekSil bustled between them, his shuffling steps kicking his skirts and robe hems out in frantic waves as he hurried down the hall and sharply to the left. As soon as he disappeared from sight, Tavra reached for Naia’s hand—but caught only her sleeve before the Chamberlain was back, clutching their shoulders with a loud shreiking sigh and walking them swiftly through a set of double gabled doors. Whatever Tavra was trying to tell Naia was lost again, and then Naia’s senses were overwhelmed with the scene that lay before her.

  Two long tables were arranged in a cross formation, draped in gathered silk sheets and dozens of runners and linens. Metal platters overflowing with squirming savory-smelling delicacies were lined up, one on top of the other, barely leaving room for the goblets of wine and glass decanters that poked out of the banquet settings like saplings. Banners and curtains in gold, red, coral, navy, ivory, and white dropped from the high vaulted ceiling like sails, drawn and bunched in an array of textures and colors with braided, tasseled cords and chains. Seated at the banquet table, in feasting thrones resembling the hands and fingers of the castle itself, were the purple-skinned razor-beaked Skeksis.

  None looked up when Lord skekSil and the Gelfling entered. They were too engorged in their feast, most elbow-deep in one dish or another, stuffing their shining scaly beaks full of fatty noodles and scurrying whiskered crawlies. Naia looked from one lord to the next—each was garbed in an elaborate mantle, each structured in a different shape and decorated with a different ornament. One had feathers, thick and glossy, and another wore armor, his cloak more of a cape and the plates of his shoulder pieces clanging together as he wrestled with a piece of his dinner that had not been fully cooked. Yet another wore bronze and leather, and a headpiece barbed with half a dozen viewing lenses held by tiny metallic arms.

  No music played within
the hall, so it was filled only with the gurgling and grunting of their feast, punctuated by the clanging of their knives and skewers as they attacked their food as if it were prey still on the run. Two Gelfling soldiers stood at the door, silent. Had Naia not been looking for them, wanting to see those that shared her brother’s duties, she doubted she would have noticed them at all.

  “Gelfling! Gelfling! Silverling and Sogling!” cried Chamberlain skekSil. He held their shoulders and shook them slightly, as if giving them motion would attract the attention of his brethren. “Daughter of the Silverling!”

  “Daughter?” shouted one of the lords, finally taking notice. His face was blunter than the others, with long black whiskers sticking out of his muzzle like spines. “Here?”

  “Now?” asked another, fourth from the left, with a needle-narrow beak and squinting eyes. With a start, Naia recognized Lord skekOk, his claws and arms nearly covered inch to inch in jeweled bands, a tattered stained napkin shoved down the front of his ruffled collar. “Why?!”

  “Shut up!”

  All went quiet at the voice of the last, which came from the lord seated at the center of the table arrangement. He was not the largest of the Skeksis by size, but the immediate response his sharp voice garnered carried more weight than any of the others were willing to contest. Atop his head was a spiked crown, its metal nearly hidden beneath the faceted gems inset into the band. Hanging from his neck were more jewels, clustered in tripart configurations and dangling from his neck to the table, where they currently were half submerged in a gourd of thick chunky stew. When he rose, the broth from the stew dripped from the amulets onto his robes, where the color was lost in the dark crimsons and burgundies.

  Tavra bent at the waist in a stiff bow, and Naia followed her lead. Her cheeks burned under the gaze of the lords, now that there was only silence and all eyes were on them. She had expected to speak to attendants or servants—even Gelfling guards, perhaps, or a retainer to tell her that Gurjin had been proven guilty, that she might see him, but she had never expected to be standing before the sixteen Skeksis Lords so soon after stepping foot within the Castle of the Crystal. And now here she was, coated head to toe in mud, bruised and battered from her race through the wood, with Tavra desperately trying to impart some message to her.

  Skeksis Emperor skekSo—for that was the only person the lord at the center could be—cleared his throat and leaned with both claws on the table in front of him. His neck craned forward, drilling down on them with a leveling gaze that had surely brought even the proudest Gelfling to their knees. Yet when he spoke, his voice sounded almost cultured, his accent in the Gelfling tongue much more perfected than the stilted broken phrases of the Chamberlain.

  “Katavra,” Emperor skekSo said, his voice now the only sound echoing in the hall. “What might the All-Maudra’s daughter-soldier be doing here at the Castle of the Crystal, yes? And so late? What’s this green thing, a Sogling? Ahhh!” The Emperor shot a look at the Chamberlain. “Is this the one, here, at last?”

  Naia looked at the floor, clenching her fists at the accusation, but she knew better than to speak back to one of the lords, especially at a time like this. Did the Skeksis know their guards so little they mistook her for her brother? He’d hardly acknowledged her, much less looked at her long enough to realize she was a girl. The Chamberlain made a humming noise, but Tavra answered first.

  “No, Emperor,” she said. “This is not one of the guards you asked my mother to find. We have still not been able to confirm his whereabouts.”

  “The guards? . . . Oh. Yes, of course—the guards. Then what are you doing, wasting time here? Gelfling need to find them. Gelfling need to punish them. Get out, get looking!”

  “I wished to directly report to you, Your Greatness, the status of the assignment with which you have so honorably endowed us.”

  “Waste of time!” Emperor skekSo repeated, so harshly the spines along the sides of his head jutted out like quills on a muski. “Gelfling are the ones causing problems, so Gelfling the ones that do the fixing! However long it takes, search Skarith, search all of Thra—we care not, just make it clear that Gelfling causing problems for us, Lord Skeksis. Now, get out! Leave! Back to work!”

  It didn’t seem right to Naia, how focused the Emperor was on finding and punishing Rian and Gurjin. If they were traitors, then the rumors they were spreading were just lies—certainly nothing worth being so defensive about! Yet it seemed the Emperor wanted nothing more than for Tavra and Naia to leave the Castle of the Crystal, leading the Gelfling on a vicious hunt for their own people.

  Judging from the heavy reservation in Tavra’s next words, it seemed the Vapra was of the same mind.

  “We will resume our search, of course, my lord. But there’s a storm tonight, making travel difficult. I’m sure the All-Maudra would be willing to extend our search efforts if she knew we had the support of the lords of the Castle of the Crystal.”

  While Tavra spoke, Emperor skekSo watched her intently, at one point with such directed intensity, Naia wasn’t sure he was even listening to her words. The tip of his tongue, a pink and gray thing twitching between his upper beak and lower jaw, ran along the edge of his teeth and then disappeared with a soft clack.

  “We see,” the Emperor said. “Well then! We hope you plan to leave in the morning, post-haste. To Ha’rar, to the Silver Sea. To wherever, and for however long it takes to find the traitors. Let all Gelfling know they are nothing but lies. We love Gelfling, we do, we loves them, of course, but traitors . . . No one loves traitors, Silverling . . . No one.”

  The hall fell quiet again, this time with a backdrop of ambient murmuring among the Skeksis, one of them even letting out a quiet little snicker. The Chamberlain, still standing behind Naia, steepled his claws and shifted from foot to foot. She could hear his skirts rustling against the dry stone floor.

  Tavra held her chin up. She really did look like the All-Maudra’s daughter then, and Naia felt stupid for never having guessed.

  “Indeed,” Tavra said. Then, with a weighty glance, she said to Naia, “Find me a chamber and have it prepared for me by the time I arrive. I would like to enjoy our lords’ hospitality for a spell—alone.”

  Tavra cleared her throat forcefully, and Naia realized it was not out of contempt that she was being dismissed. She met Tavra’s eyes again, and as their gaze lingered, she felt someone else watching her. A familiar watching, like holes burning into her back. At the far end of the room, one of the lords was poised with his claws laced together, chin resting on his thick bony knuckles, red eyes fixed on her. His cloak and garb were all in black, giving him a countenance that seemed too wicked to befit a lord, or perhaps it was just the way he watched her.

  “Guards! One! Show the Sogling to the All-Maudra’s guest chambers!”

  One of the guards stepped forward, standing at attention near the door. Though her stomach ached and she didn’t fully understand Tavra’s reasons, in that moment Naia would do anything to escape the black-clad lord’s awful gaze, and she nodded, bowing first to the soldier and then again to the Emperor. Then, with all the restraint she could muster, she fled, feeling the weight of the Skeksis’ stares on her shoulders even after the doors to the banquet hall had closed.

  Chapter 23

  Naia stood with the Gelfling guard, wringing her hands. The tall hallway was curved and empty, with only the faint sounds of footsteps coming from some far-off floors. Gurjin had often described the castle as bustling, busy with guards and servants going about their duties of cleaning, preparing for the Skeksis’ daily rituals, cooking, and the like, but Naia saw no evidence of any such activity. Even the single guard she now stood with was quiet, gesturing sharply with one gloved hand before walking down the hall. Neech, quiet and tense, wound tightly around her arm beneath her sleeve. Naia followed, feet still aching. Though she wanted nothing but to sit, rest, and quench her thirst, it was obvious Tav
ra had been trying to get her out of the chamber as quickly as possible.

  Was it because she was here to incriminate Gurjin on behalf of the All-Maudra, or was it something else? If only she knew what had Tavra been trying to say!

  “Does the All-Maudra’s daughter visit frequently?” Naia asked the guard, who walked a couple of steps ahead of her. He was a little older than she, with thick reddish hair pulled back in a braid. He made no sign of recognition at the sound of her voice. At first she thought maybe he hadn’t heard her, but when she asked again and he made no response, she realized it was intentional. Neither of them said a word until he finally stopped before a new set of doors, pushing them open to reveal a guest chamber more elaborate than Naia’s mother’s own hearing chamber.

  She stepped inside when the guard indicated. Turning around and standing across the threshold from him, she finally got a look at him, and what she saw turned her hands cold and clammy. His face held no expression, no life. There was no spark of animation in his wan features. When he spoke, the single word that came out was no more than a further creaking of the chamber doors.

  “Stay,” he croaked.

  Then he pulled the doors shut in front of her, and she was alone again.

  What was wrong with the guard? She had never met a Gelfling so reluctant to speak—and his eyes! Anxious, Naia paused only to wipe the dirt and mud from the wood off her shoes—leaving a stain on the textured woven rug that sprawled across the main area of the chamber floor—before pressing her ear to the door. She waited until the guard’s footsteps faded then gently pushed it open. The hallway beyond was bare and silent. She knew the answers to her questions lay ahead. Counting first to eight, then straightening her tunic and calming her nerves, Naia slipped out of the chamber and headed deeper into the castle. When a distant scent of food reached her nose, she followed it. Hot food meant cooks. Cooks meant Gelfling attendants, she hoped, and someone who might point her toward wherever her brother was being held captive.