The Dark Crystal (20 page)
Authors: A. C. H. Smith
Along corridors and up staircases Jen ran. Glimpses of the Crystal through archways that he passed sustained his sense of direction. Outside a large door he encountered another squad of Garthim and tiptoed past with trepidation. When these did not move either, Jen wondered if his fight in the Garthim pit had in some way served to immobilize the force. Nevertheless, his heart pounded each time he passed another squad.
Ascending every staircase he saw, he finally ran up a short flight of steps to find himself on the high balcony. The vision of the huge Dark Crystal in the air, so close in front of him, was awesome. And there, exactly where the fresco at the Gelfling ruins had pictured it, was the gash in the Crystal, the wound at the core of being. Like the shard in his hand, it seemed to be throbbing with longing to be healed. For one brief moment, Jen wondered if his shard would magnetically lodge itself in the wound were he just to throw it where it belonged.
Gazing downward, he knew he could not risk anything so hazardous. Almost directly beneath him he could see the upper opening of the shaft that he had partly climbed; from inside the shaft it had not been possible to appreciate how far short of the Crystal itself it terminated. If the shard hurtled down there, into the lake of fire, the world would be irreversible.
With his eye, Jen measured the distance between the balcony and the crystal, and reckoned he would not be able to jump it. What was also difficult to gauge was how he would cling to the polished, sloping facets of the Crystal long enough to restore the shard. As for where his feet would find the purchase to launch him back to the balcony again, that was no concern of the spear in flight.
Spread out below him was the triangular chamber, with the elaborate, spiral pattern filling the floor. At present it was deserted, but he supposed that it would not be so for much longer. Above the Crystal, the portal in the roof was open, and in each corner of it stood a sun. The event that Aughra had prefigured with her eye looking through her brass triangulum – pupil, iris, ball concentering – must soon be due.
H
aving failed to find her way back to the tunnel where Jen was buried, Kira had hidden herself in a niche behind a tapestry on the wall of a corridor. There she had rocked herself in a misery of despair beyond tears. No Jen, no shard, no village to return to – nothing, nothing remained. Now she almost regretted that she had ever met Jen. Until then, she had lived without hope. There had been no need for hope, nothing to hope for. Her life had been contentment, the daily, seasonal round of Pod existence. This, she had assumed, was how it would always be, and she had made no mental picture for herself of how it might otherwise have been. True, she, like Jen, had sometimes indulged in a fantasy, born of her infant trauma, that other Gelfling might one day appear. She had seen the marriages and the couplings of the Pod People, and understood that, in a different world, she also might have bred children. But the spirit of the Pod People’s life took as little heed of the future as it did of the memoried past, and nothing encouraged her to think that her fantasies might paint possibility.
aving failed to find her way back to the tunnel where Jen was buried, Kira had hidden herself in a niche behind a tapestry on the wall of a corridor. There she had rocked herself in a misery of despair beyond tears. No Jen, no shard, no village to return to – nothing, nothing remained. Now she almost regretted that she had ever met Jen. Until then, she had lived without hope. There had been no need for hope, nothing to hope for. Her life had been contentment, the daily, seasonal round of Pod existence. This, she had assumed, was how it would always be, and she had made no mental picture for herself of how it might otherwise have been. True, she, like Jen, had sometimes indulged in a fantasy, born of her infant trauma, that other Gelfling might one day appear. She had seen the marriages and the couplings of the Pod People, and understood that, in a different world, she also might have bred children. But the spirit of the Pod People’s life took as little heed of the future as it did of the memoried past, and nothing encouraged her to think that her fantasies might paint possibility.
And then Jen had appeared. It was the truth, what she had told him, that her first impulse, in the swamp, had been to run away, silently. She understood why. Jen represented hope; and hope, she instinctively knew, would always be shadowed with pain, just as her despair, now, in the niche behind the tapestry, was shadowed with something like the opposite of pain – a numbed uncaring, an acceptance of the thrall of death, almost a fervent wish for it.
Almost. But when she heard the sound of many feet and voices approaching along the corridor and felt her body tense, she recognized that, beneath her wishing and regrets, the oldest and deepest ordinance of all, the will to survive, was what was causing the tension. If she could escape from the castle, she would. But she had no idea how to escape.
The approaching feet were heavy, but the voices were predominantly light ones, singing a monotonous processional. Very carefully, Kira peered around the edge of the tapestry. Coming toward her were eight Skeksis, followed by a choir of Pod People.
She shrank back behind the tapestry, trembling, while the bodies of the Skeksis lumbered past. Such a formal procession, she reflected, was likely a preparation for some important ceremony connected with the Crystal, quite probably related to the Great Conjunction of which she had heard tell. By following the procession, she ought to find her way back to the Crystal. If Jen ever did escape from the tunnel, he would surely try to find his way there as well. And if not – well, wherever the procession led her, it could not be a place of greater despair than where she was now.
She could hear that the Skeksis had passed, and now the Pod choir was just on the other side of the tapestry. She peered out again. From their eyes, she knew they were unredeemed slaves. She could not expect them to do anything for her or to feel anything. But she could hope that they would simply disregard her if she joined them surreptitiously.
Kira stepped out among the chanting slaves, keeping her body slack, her head down, so that she was of similar height. She walked along with them, and they took no notice at all of her. If she kept herself shielded behind her erstwhile friends, she might go undetected by Skeksis or Garthim.
And then, just ahead of her in the procession, she recognized a figure she had known all her life. At once her heart leaped up – it was Ydra, beyond any doubt. With a little sigh, Kira worked her way forward until she was by Ydra’s side. She tapped her foster mother on the arm and smiled.
The face that turned to her was Ydra’s face, but it wore no expression. The eyes stared milkily at Kira, then were turned forward again.
“Ydra,” Kira whispered, “oh, Ydra. It’s me, Kira. Don’t you know me?”
Ydra’s etiolated eyes flickered in her direction, and for a moment the old woman faltered in her singing. Kira realized that by continuing to address her in the tongue of the Pod People she might effect the liberation in Ydra that she had achieved with the wild animals in the Chamber of Life. Deliberately she kept silent. For the present, in this perilous situation, it was better that Ydra, and all the other slaves, should remain as they were. Later, if the opportunity of escape arose, Kira knew that she could give them the will to seize it.
At the head of the procession, the Skeksis turned through a grand doorway, followed by a number of the slaves. The majority, however, including those around Kira, continued along the corridor, past immobile Garthim, and ascended a staircase. At the top, Kira found herself once again in the balustraded gallery overlooking the Crystal Chamber.
Her eyes were drawn upward to the Crystal and, above it, to the open portal in the roof. The sight of the three suns was oddly encouraging. She knew it portended that something would shortly happen to leave the world altered, utterly. In the winter of hope, the mind craves change.
Around her the Pod choir had formed into rows and was chanting a pompous, triumphant anthem of great monotony. It sounded bizarre sung in their piping voices. Below, on the floor of the chamber, other bands of slaves were marching into position along the walls.
The Skeksis, meanwhile, led by their strutting new Emperor, were parading in a ring beneath the Crystal, croaking harshly in unison with the choir. Following the Emperor, the Ritual-Master and the Chamberlain marched, each trying to wedge his shoulder in front of the other’s. Next came the Slave-Master, his unpatched eye glowering around the chamber to warn his helots of the consequences of error. The Ornamentalist followed, glaring at the choir to sing louder. The Treasurer, the Scroll-Keeper, and the Gourmand completed the procession. All of them were at a pitch of excitement. The ceremony would serve a twofold purpose: ritually, it would celebrate and confirm the barbaric power they had over the world; physically, it would recharge their wills so they could continue exercising that power.
The Garthim-Master ascended the dais, the Chamberlain hastened to stand at the right arm of the throne, and the Ritual-Master took up his accustomed position facing the new Emperor. Between them, looks were exchanged – still no sign of the Scientist. Where was he, with that Gelfling? the Garthim-Master puzzled. Vigorous with vliya, would he swoop in at some critical stage and attempt a coup? He could scarcely forego the ceremony altogether. Rejuvenated his body might be, but it still needed the potency that only the tenebrous rays of the Crystal could supply. The Garthim-Master had his Garthim ready, just outside the chamber.
The three suns had started to move toward the middle of the triangular portal in the roof, filling the gleaming Crystal below with dark translucence. Beside it, on the high balcony, Jen could hear that the Crystal was also emitting a sound that was slowly growing louder. It was not the same sound as the shard’s response to his flute but a single, deep note; and it seemed to be generating a series of sympathetic tones, very faint, distant. The walls, perhaps, were remembering a decayed chord.
Jen was crouched behind the parapet of the balcony when the Skeksis had entered in procession, beneath him. In response Jen had shrunk back into the shadows. He could still see most of the chamber floor, where the bands of Pod slaves were marching about. When the choir assembled in the lower gallery, across the chamber, Jen watched them without attention while he contemplated what he had to do.
And then, among the Pod slaves, his eye singled out Kira. He stifled an involuntary shout of joy. He dared not attract her attention by calling or gesticulating. Hoping to exploit the channels of dreamfasting, he concentrated his gaze on her and willed a silent message to reach her. “Kira, Kira,” he whispered intently.
The Ritual-Master raised his pious hands to commence the formal ceremony.
“Khavekh,”
he intoned,
“Khavekh, Khavekh, Orkhasstim.”
“Khavekh,”
he intoned,
“Khavekh, Khavekh, Orkhasstim.”
The Ritual-Master’s solemn words were still reverberating when suddenly they were drowned by a profane riot of barking. Fizzgig had found Kira at last. He had been wandering the corridors and passages, dodging out of sight of Skeksis, grimacing at Pod slaves, sniffing in corners for a trace of her. On a staircase he had picked up her scent and followed it to the gallery. Now, in an ecstasy of barks, he was romping around her, delighted to see her again and waiting for her to share his joy.
Kira grabbed Fizzgig and tried to stifle his barking. She was too late. The noise had echoed all around the chamber, piercing the thin harmonies of the Pod choir and the intermittent grating of the Ritual-Master’s invocation.
The Garthim-Master glared up at the gallery and saw Kira as she strove to silence Fizzgig.
The Garthim-Master bellowed.
“Kelffink!”
“Kelffink!”
The Garthim outside the chamber door rumbled up the staircase toward Kira’s hiding place among the choir.
From the high balcony Jen saw what was happening. Breaking cover, he leaned on the parapet and screamed, “Kira!”
The Garthim-Master glared up again. His eyes popped when he saw the second Gelfling. “Garthim!” he shrieked.
“Teen Kelffinkim!”
“Teen Kelffinkim!”
A second detachment of Garthim stampeded through the castle corridors.
Jen’s shout had transfixed Kira. She stared up at him with bewildered joy. Even when the Garthim entered the gallery where she stood and started to hunt for the Gelfling among the Pod People, Kira remained where she was. She had to see what happened to Jen. In any event, flight would have been futile.
Her body thrilling, she watched the tiny figure of Jen clamber onto the parapet railing.
He knew it would be only a matter of moments before the Garthim irrupted.
When they did, Jen had no decision to make. His one escape from the Garthim was to jump from the balcony, and the only place to jump was onto the Crystal. Behind him, the Garthim hugely filled the balcony, claws bristling, but they could not follow Jen’s example.
Jen landed on the rhombohedral shoulder of the Crystal, all four of his limbs spread, like a frog, grappling for a hold on the shiny geometric planes. His fingers managed to cling, but only at the cost of releasing the shard from his hand.
Like a spinning sliver of light, the shard fell, hit the patterned floor, rebounded in a glittering arc, and came to rest on the very lip of the shaft directly beneath the Crystal.
In the stunned silence on the floor of the chamber, which was only intensified by the continued piping of the Pod choir above as the Garthim ransacked through them, the Ritual-Master was the first of the Skeksis to recognize what the shard was and how appallingly close the prophecy had come to being fulfilled. In an ear-scouring screech, he delivered his awful warning,
“Klakk smaithh Skwee Kreh!”
“Klakk smaithh Skwee Kreh!”
From high above them, Jen, sick with failure, gazed down and saw what happened next.
Kira jumped from the gallery and fluttered down on her spread wings. Fizzgig, seeing her leaving again, raced down to the chamber floor by way of the staircase. Meanwhile, all of the Skeksis moved toward the shard.
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