 
The Dark Crystal: Plague of Light

by James Comins

Published on Smashwords

Copyright 2014 James Comins

Based on characters created by Jim Henson, Brian Froud, and Joshua Dysart

Used with kind and explicit permission of the Jim Henson Company

Cover art featuring the work of Jim Henson and Brian Froud copyright 1982

Used with permission

Crystal texture by  Maliz Ong, public domain

Wood texture by  Daniel Smith, public domain

This eBook may not be excerpted or used for commercial or noncommercial purposes without written permission of the author and the Jim Henson Company.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

**Table of Contents**

Beginning

Glass

Tree

Crabbits

Brin

Parthas

Spritons

Yrn

Riddles

Climbing

Dreamthing

Ending

About the Author

Acknowlogies and Apoledgements

Other books by this author

Visit his Smashwords page

Lenna and the Last Dragon

Lenna's Fimbulsummer

Lenna at the All Thing

The Stone Shepherd's Son

Casey Jones is Still a Virgin (for older readers)

13 Stories to Scare You to Death

My Dad is a Secret Agent

Where the Cloud Meets the Mountain and the Mountain Disappears

for Lauren

*** * ***

Gobber hocked up a lungful of something nasty and spat it like a fruit pit off the side of his cart. Admiring the splat it made, he nodded to himself and scuffed his rag-wrapped feet up the dark road toward Crystal Castle.

The night was bad. Oo, it was bad, rotten, thick, and smelled like Skeksis. Smelled like coins, too, though. Skeksis always had yenti to spend.

The thing that fell out of the sky shone like a baby sun. It landed, showering golden dust and gray rainwater where it struck. He shook the twig cage where Lemny lived.

"Rightso, rightso, wake up there, Lemny."

The Perpetual Storm was dripping faintly on Gobber, and he pulled the cart's rickety awning over himself and slipped on a third pair of torn fingerless gloves. A snore from the cage. He bobbled it and battered it and finally shouted "LEMNY, YOU GREAT BUG, WAKE UP," and the occupant stirred.

"Too early," Lemny said, sneezing and adjusting his mismatched nubs of antennae. "I should be hibernating, I should. Autumn. Nearly Vorember, isn't it? Don't like this road. Why'd you wake me up for?"

Gobber considered his next words and ran his gloved hands over his lips.

"There was a fing," he said, "in the sky."

Lemny bent his neck up and peered into the Perpetual Storm. "Not much there now, is there?"

"It fell. Fump," said Gobber.

"Flying snoutfish, I'd reckon. Balgertown had a run of snoutfish fallin' from the sky. _Portentous_ , that is," said Lemny.

"Wasn't fish. It was a lump," Gobber said. "Went fump. Didn't go splat. Fish'd go splat."

"They would, they would," agreed Lemny. "Best take a gander at it, then."

* * *

Cory's mother was done with his talk of the future. Just done with it, do you hear me? He was becoming more unmanageable by the day. Closing his eyes when they should be open, and staring up at the ceiling all night when his eyes should be shut. Why, it was enough to drive a mother batty!

Well, Mother Master would put a stop to it. There was no place for prophecy in a Gelfling's life. The littels and tamtails needed feeding, the flowers needed weeding, and father was sick in bed. And where was Cory? Daydreaming. A daydreaming boy. Mother Master would swat that out of him.

Where was he, anyways? That boy. Probably chasing dancerflies in the farmer's breadcorn again. Or hiding. What a boy for hiding from his mother. Always curled up with that meditation globe in the rafters, and always just when she needed him.

Enough to drive a mother batty.

Where else do you think she found him, after two whole tolls of the Quillpine town bell? On the roof of the mounder stable with that hocus-pocus ball he always carried around like a--like a glass pet! Well, she got him down from there, got him by the ear, and took him straight to Aughra Mother Master.

* * *

Loora's father had had it up to here with the girl following him around, asking how things worked. Carrying his toolchest for him? Trotting on his heels, asking what he'd be fixing next? Taking things apart and putting them back together? It was enough to make a father clobber his head with a hammer.

What, were her dolls not dressy enough? Her dancing lessons not graceful enough? Why did she insist on getting her hands dirty? Loora's mum was sick in bed with this Light Sickness, and the last thing he needed was the girl chasing after him with his toolchest instead of doing the housework.

Rumpha, grumpha. That's all he had to say to her these days. He'd stick his huge belly out at her, let it bounce, and tell her rumpha, grumpha. That's what.

Enough to make him clobber his head with a hammer.

Finally he'd begun organizing a different plan in his head. A plan to _do_ something about this--this _menace_ of a girl. She wanted to work with her hands, didn't she? Well, he invited her to visit the new glassworks the Company was building outside Balgertown.

Naturally she accepted, bouncing around in a suspiciously boyish way.

Next morning he'd gotten up early, but Loora was already awake with a gummy stew she'd made. They looked in on mum, whose light was turning a brighter blue, and each gave her a kiss. Then he took his daughter directly to Aughra Mother Master.

* * *

The Storyteller folded her clawed hands and spoke to the assembly in the wood. This is what she said:

The land is divided. The good has been pushed out, and the bad flexes like a muscle.

The land is sick. Storms cause floods and drought, floods and drought kill the breadcorn fields and the gardens, and the people become hungry.

And in the center of the divided, sick land, the Skeksis feast.

Stories say that long ago there was balance, like two feet on the ground. The Great Crystal held the good and bad in place like sturdy boots, its soft glow teaching all things to stay in the middle. And then into the land of Thra came a bad dream. A dream of power.

The dream crept on dream legs from house to house, castle to castle, burrow to burrow, looking to inspire someone. It came to the Gelfling towns by the rolling rivers and tufted flower fields. It examined the delicately beautiful faces, the innocent minds, the shining hair, the primeval ways, looking for a way in.

But the Gelflings had no desire for power. They were happy, and why not? Life is good when there are flowers and fields.

The dream traveled to the pod dwellings of the Podlings, with their four sticky fingers and wide mouths. In their communal seed homes the Podlings sniffed at the dream with smelly noses, then gobbed a snoutful of something nasty at it and went about their business. Podlings don't hold much with big dreams; they keep their heads down and their noses low and stay out of the way of trouble, unless there's a coin or two to spare.

The dream visited the black insects called Crabbits, who step through the mud on dainty leg clusters and four claw-ended arms. But it found nowhere to alight, because Crabbits cannot dream.

The dream came to the long-limbed ur-Mystics, who inhabit ancestral caves and woolly robes. It spoke to them in their haunting language, whispered to them in the low chants they use to stir the energy in the land below them. The dream told the Mystics of the many strange uses for the Great Crystal, of its limitless power. Some of the haughtier Mystics listened, talked to each other about the dream, and brought the bad dream before the Council of Mystics. There they scratched in the dirt, wove patterns in the air, sang their tolling rolling melodious chants, and saw the darkness that lay ahead. They rejected that future. And so the dream flitted on its way.

The dream came at last to the sullen land of Skarith that surrounds Crystal Castle, where the Skeksis make their homes. If you've never met one, the Skeksis have sharp fingers, beady eyes, and hunched shoulders. They fancy their arched beaks the most handsome and stylish beaks in the world, never mind any snubnosed unbeaked people like Gelflings and Podlings.

The Skeksis are proud. Proud of their skek-names. Proud of their skek-faces. Proud of their flowing skek-cloaks and their beaky skek-ornaments and their ornamented skek-beaks and their decorative skek-pajamas and their draping elbow-tassels and their enormous dinners and their elegant plumes of feathery hair that hardly ever get infested with insects. Proud, proud, proud.

When into _their_ chambers the dream slithered, they gathered to listen. And the dream told them _wonderful_ things.

* * *

Aughra didn't care much for looking after Gelflings. Undignified. Hardly worth her time. An old thing she was, by their estimation, but Aughra still felt young, at least when she wasn't looking in the mirror. She adjusted her beak, polishing the shining surface with a fist. Worth the lot of these flat-faces put together, Aughra was. Yes she was. She knew things. She was industrious. Why, just look at the glass windows she'd smelted! Clear and green as the sea. What did the Gelflings have? Curtains and reed shutters! Ha, primitive.

Funny they never seemed dissatisfied. Aughra was always dissatisfied! Why, just look at the state of her alchemy kitchen. Bottles all out of order. Alphabetical, yes, but the wrong alphabet! New labels. Yes, that's what her day would be. Choosing a better alphabet. Star alphabet, moon alphabet, ur-Mystic alphabet, extra-secret ur-Mystic double sunrune alphabet, green pig-beetle click alphabet, bunny thump alphabet . . . choices. Too many choices! Dissatisfying. Aughra belched, since no one was there to hear it, and began to rewrite her labels.

Then from outside, right there in the early morning--before breakfast even!--came a pair of Gelfling voices. Quibbling, greeting, chattering, bothering. Ha! Hardly worth a listen. Just like children, these Gelflings. Just like children.

A knocking at her door. From the ceiling, her hanging herbs and creature skeletons started shaking, and the pungulates she kept in the rafters started hissing. She'd better get the door, yes she should, before the pungulates started shedding--and wouldn't that be a mess?

Swinging the door wide open, she gathered up her voice for a big screech.

"Mother Master!" interrupted the two Gelflings. Behind them, a second, smaller pair cowered. Children, the lot of them, whether young or grown. No respect for sensitive animals like pungulates, who were nearly ready for tasting. Mmm, that sugary hair!

Aughra peered out at the four assembled on her doorstep. Slight and simple creatures, Gelflings, with flat faces and wide-open eyes.

"Not Mother Master," she said. "Just Aughra. Nice of you to be polite, but I'm nobody's mother today and nobody's master at all. It's just Aughra!"

She swept back her draping purple hair with a prim snort and adjusted her beak.

"Whaddya want?" she added.

A big-bellied Gelfling with a wisp of manly beard growing out of his neck took three steps into her house and spun to face her.

"She," he began, pointing to the girl-Gelf, "has spent the past _month_ following me around, carrying my toolchest and being a _nuisance_. She says her dolls do not interest her, her dancing lessons are boring, and she wants to _make_ things instead of being respectable. She even," he whispered conspiratorially, "wanted me to take her in to work. She thinks she can help out." The man began laughing out of his sagging chest, laughing rather fakely, Aughra thought. Then the man stopped laughing and bounced his belly at her, then waited for her response.

"So?" Aughra said.

He mulled this over.

"So what am I supposed to do with her?"

"Take her in to work," Aughra replied. "Let her make things. Skymother knows I wish someone useful would help _me_ make things. Hmp! Good problem to have."

"I'm useful," the girl murmured.

The big-bellied Gelf sputtered, aghast. "But a traveling construction company is no place for a--a--a _girl_! What a thought. What a thought! Enough to make a father clobber his head with a hammer."

Aughra thought she heard the boy-Gelf mutter something like, "might do him some good," but it could have been the pungulates.

"Mother Master, I insist you do something about my daughter. She's almost entirely unreasonable."

"Useful," she said again, scowling.

"And my SON!" the other Gelfling parent exclaimed. The woman bustled into the house and stamped her feet. "He'll be the death of me, Mother Master, just the death of me! Father sick in bed, a houseful of chores, and what's he doing? Telling the future with a marble on a stick! Oh, what's a poor mother to do?"

"Tells the future, does he?" Aughra said, stepping outside, grabbing the boy, and pulling him inside. His hands did in fact clutch a very plain meditation globe. "Well, we'll see about that."

"Indeed we will!" the woman exclaimed, crossing her arms and nodding primly. "Indeed we will. Mother Master, I expect you to switch those thoughts right out of him! Indeed!"

Aughra's long, slender, be-ringed finger touched the boy on the chin. A dim light shone, and she drew him into the room. Up the wing stairs he came, following her forefinger past the spinning orrery and around the banister to the great balcony overlooking Aughra's front room. The others waited below. Aughra observed the boy's mother, who was setting her jaw and waiting for Aughra to start hitting. Ha! The very thought.

The boy followed Aughra's finger to the center of the balcony and stood beside her.

The Future Font was made of granite. The rough stone was sedimented with sheets of quartz and was supported by a wide iron curlicue frame. The basin of the font was filled with black water. Within the black water swam silver shapes that twisted the mind into taffy. Only a very special mind could stare into the waters of Black River without going googly . . .

Aughra took the meditation globe from the boy and threw it. Blue glass shattered against a far wall. The boy gasped and cried out, but Aughra touched him on the chin again, and he went silent. Below, his mother nodded in quiet satisfaction.

"See the future, do you? Hmp! Show me, little Gelfling. Doesn't look like there's too much inside here." She tapped his noggin. "Prove me wrong. Tell the future!"

Following Aughra's pointing finger, the boy peered into the black water. Aughra waited. Was he going to go googly?

"I see . . . I don't know what it is. Made of metal. Some kind of knife? It looks like--wait, it's changing." The Gelfling peered closer, his nose nearly touching the murky water. "Machines. Gears and levers and wheels, and it's all dirty. Greasy. There's someone caught in the gears! Someone's got to . . . got to get him out--" The Gelfling lad covered his face and turned white as bone beneath his fur, an anti-blush. "He--he didn't make it out," he whimpered. "It's changing again. It's . . . Aughra, I saw that poor whatever-he-was . . . he didn't make it out . . ."

"What do you see?" Aughra snapped. "Keep telling me what you see."

"A crystal--"

"Crystal?" Aughra exclaimed. "What's a tribal nitwit like you know about crystals? Hmp! Describe it."

"Taller than I am. Purple. It's . . . damaged. Somebody's there . . . hitting it with something, but it isn't changing. It's useless, it's not breaking, they're not--they're angry. Angry at it. Aughra, they're so angry! They're--"

A whump of anger blasted out of the font, sending black water spattering everywhere. Silver shapes splashed down the walls and fizzed away to bubbles. A lingering anger filled the room, and Aughra and the four Gelflings shivered. From somewhere above, a red snowfall of sugary hair drifted down.

"My pungulates!" Aughra exclaimed, scowling at the boy. "Well, now you've done it. Now you've really done it." She grabbed him by the ear and twisted, led him back downstairs to his mother. "Sees the future? I should say! Sees a little TOO well, yes indeed. Well, there's only one thing to do with this unruly pair."

"Yes?" answered the two parents together with prudish iron in their expressions.

"I'll take them both. That'll be two yenti coins each for the service, please."

* * *

"Well, burn me bootstraps and boil me buttons."

Gobber and Lemny peered down through the slobbering rain at the dent in the soft ground. The Crabbit leaned out over the floor of the twig cage and folded his antennae flat against his black forehead. Rainwater had filled the crater and was spitting back up with a low hiss as more drops landed in the sunken puddle.

The Podling pulled his coats tighter around his shoulders. He ran a stubby finger around the inside of his glove fingers, stretching them, and cracked each knuckle on his good hand. Bending, he stuck his arm into the foul water and pulled something out of the base of the crater.

"Looky there, then." Gobber smacked his wide lips and stepped back under the tattered awning. "That's a fing, it is. Right enough. Deffitly a fing."

"Don't keep it to yourself, what've you got?" Lemny said, twisting against the twigs. Gobber held the thing up to a hanging hurricane lamp. In the flickering light of the old oil candle inside, they both got a good look at it.

"Wossit?" asked Gobber.

"You were right, you were," said Lemny. "It's a thing."

The thing had a thin handle that looked like it was designed for a large-fingered hand, with two odd prongs halfway down. The handle was hard as bone, and seeing how yellowy-white it shone when Gobber wiped the crater-mud off on his coat, that's probably what it was made of. The other end was sharpened, but wasn't a knife exactly. That end was all metal--nasty brassy lustery metal. Wasn't gold, though. Lemny could spot gold anywhere. There was a scoop to the metal end, an asymmetrical scoop, like a split bean pod.

" 'Sa shovely, trowely sort of fing," said Gobber, turning it in the light.

"Don't know the gardener who'd want it. Be like working in the garden wif somebody's finest porcelain," Lemny replied.

"Is it a giant seashell, do you fink?"

Gobber rotated the thing through the waving shadows. It was day out, but the Perpetual Storm made it darker in the outer swamp than any night. Night's got moons and stars in it, at least. Candlelight lit up the concave underside of the thing. Ancient words were carved there . . .

As the candlelight lit up the metallic letters, a violent violet glow burned out of them. The poison purple congealed into a sharp lightning bolt and shot up past Gobber's blunt nose into the Perpetual Storm. Hastily dropping the thing, the Crabbit and the Podling stared up at the boiling sky as the purple bolt bounced from cloud to cloud, getting bigger with each strike. The clouds began shrinking, like the bolt was wossyoucallem, _absorbing_ them, Lemny thought. The light of the three suns even broke briefly through the Storm like golden arrows before being swallowed again in clouds. The purple bolt continued shocking its angry way across the sky.

Then it struck the Castle of the Crystal and set the tallest tower on fire. Purple fire.

"Well, fly _me_ to the sky," Gobber murmured. The two shared a look, and Lemny shook his head. "Mm. Better yet, don't."

"Best cover that up, so's it doesn't do it again," Lemny said. The Podling obliged, wrapping the thing in an old bit of burlap and wrapping the burlap in a pair of trousers too shredded to wear anymore. He pushed the thing under his wares, down to the very bottom of the cart, and exhaled. Then he hefted the handles and pulled the two cartwheels out of the sucking ooze of the swamp.

" 'Shovel o' Doom,' I'd call it," he muttered, and walked on.

* * *

SkekTek waddled as fast as his stubby, stiff legs could move. Down the castle's tortuous, messy corridors, corridors bending in every direction but the one he wanted to go, he strode. His arched beak bobbed as he went, and he wrapped his robes tighter around his exposed front pair of arms.

Which way? Which way? Such a nuisance--he had things in mind he'd like to do to the architect of this place--oh, his old, stiff legs--where was a window? A staircase?--hopeless, it was all hopeless--here! At a bare face of wall, he pulled a lever disguised as a decorative spiked candelabra, scowled as he nicked himself on a jagged point. Foolish thing to disguise a lever as. Bah, so many things in his way. It was all in his way! A perfectly tuned incisive mind, able to calculate the energies of the Dark Crystal to the twentieth nano-frequency, and he couldn't find his way to a window when he needed to.

Things were in his way . . .

Hobbling into the Chamberlain's bedroom, he passed the snoring lump and the silent house slaves and bustled across the room and threw open the shutters. Curses, these new glass windows didn't open! SkekTek unscrewed the nearest bedpost, hefted it, and smashed the glass panes with the new wooden club. Shards showered down into the chasm beyond. Behind him, the sleeping Chamberlain snuffed and said, "hmmmMMm!"

SkekTek leaned out the window, coughing in the fresh air. The smell of sour rain and the distant nidor of swamp drifted to his beak.

Purple light in the darkness. An explosion. The room shook and the stone ceiling let out a sift of crystal mortar. A flicker of purple flames.

"I could feel it," skekTek muttered to the sleeping Chamberlain. "Something large. Something quite very large. Quite very." When the Chamberlain failed to respond, even after the shuddering stopped, skekTek clubbed him in the gut with the bedpost and repeated his words to the dazed busybody.

"Is it the revolution?" the Chamberlain cried in alarm, springing to his feet on the bedcovers. "Has it begun?" Flinging the sheets aside, he wrapped himself in a shawl and, noticing skekTek's weapon, pried the other bedpost off, holding it up to defend himself. The bed broke, landing on its corner, and the Chamberlain slid down the mattress to the floor. The house slaves stood impassively on either side of the entrance. The Chamberlain brandished his bedpost at them, ready for war.

"No, you dolt, there's been an unprecedented release of power!" skekTek snapped. "All my instruments went crazy. It was like nothing I've ever seen! A source of power . . ."

"Then what--what--" blithered the Chamberlain. _"What are you doing in my room?"_

"It was the closest place to observe the energy discharge," skekTek sniffed, and waddled out, muttering to himself.

The Chamberlain looked around at his shattered bed and smashed bedroom window and scowled. Dropping the bedpost club, he instructed his attendants to find a carpenter and SkekLach the Glazier and then get to sweeping.

He'd fix things with that skekTek, he would. Punish him. The Chamberlain excelled in only one thing in all the world: plotting.

* * *

"Well, what are your names, then?" Aughra demanded as Loora and the boy carried buckets of clean water and washcloths and got to scrubbing the oily Black River water off the walls, ceiling and everything else.

"Cory."

"Loora," said Loora. This was not the sort of work she'd been looking forward to this morning.

"Now, why don't you tell me why you were causing so many problems? The sky hasn't gone black and the trees haven't fallen down and our dreams are still juicy and the world is full of life and _Aughra's important work is being interrupted by Gelflings_! Tell me why, you two--and _don't lean on the orrery,_ thank you, Cory."

The boy removed his elbow from a slowly turning sun and began sheepishly scrubbing the wall with the sopping washcloth. He was very thin, as light as a leaf, Loora thought. The black water glared up at her as she scrubbed. It still seemed to hint at danger with every driplet.

"I don't mean to cause _anybody_ any problems," Cory said. "It's just . . . the future seems so full of things to think about, and--"

"What's wrong with now? Is _now_ so small a place, that only the future is big enough for you?" Aughra asked. "Do you even know how wide Thra is, or what it's full of?"

Cory shook his head.

"Or is it something else?" she said, hustling over to them and looming over them with her long purple whiskers. She made Loora feel smaller than she was. "Is there another reason?"

Cory cringed and kept scrubbing.

"Hmm?" said Aughra, leaning in.

Cory sighed and turned to the old woman.

"Everybody can see what's happening _now_ ," he muttered, wringing out black water into the bucket. "But I'm the only one who can see the future--"

"Is that what you think?" Aughra snorted.

"Well, the only one in Quillpine, anyways," he said, shrugging. "And I guess it makes me feel . . . special, to be the only one."

Loora swung around the base of the orrery to observe Cory more closely.

"Nobody even believes me," Cory said, tossing the washcloth into the bucket, sighing, and pulling it back out. A green face seemed to peer for a second from the puddle of water, but it was just a reflection from the green glass windows, Loora figured. "Nobody believes I can see the future."

"I believe you," Loora said.

"That's really nice of you," Cory said, rubbing the back of his head, "but I kind of prefer being alone. I feel safe being the only one who even knows that the future is out there. People are fine to be around, I suppose, but they're never really on your side. If I can live in the future, then nobody can find me _now_. Does that make sense?"

"And what happens when people in the future can see you back?" Aughra said.

But it didn't matter what Cory might have said to that, because at that moment a persistent hammering came at the door. The second time before breakfast. Aughra hmped and told Loora to answer it.

Loora rose and hopped down the steps to the door. The bolt slid back with a squeak. She'd have to oil it later, she decided. That was something even her dad let her help with. Turning the wavy brass handle, she pulled on the heavy door just as the hammering began again. Wide open it swung.

Up the hill from Quillpine, following along the edge of Dark Wood, came a procession. Into Aughra's house marched all those too-respectable elders who lived in the Chiefly Grand-Gelf's longtree. They were all awful. They ignored Loora's family, kept to themselves, and primly discussed matters too important to share with the rabble. Elders, notaries, notables, dignitaries, aldermen, celebrants, and other famous Gelflings pushed ignorantly past Loora into the front hall, assembling into neat standing rows.

On two gilded litters they carried the supine Chiefly Grand-Gelf and her husband. Blue light shone from their hearts.

"Aughra!" came a sonorous voice from the center of the crowd. "Mother Master! We have need of you."

The procession continued to press in, filling Aughra's house and lining the stairs.

A long puff of purple hair and a white beak appeared above the empty Future Font. Aughra leaned over the railing, peering down at the assembly.

"Yes?"

"Mother Master," the sonorous voice said, "our village is in peril. Disease has struck, a disease most terrible, responding to none of our medicines. Twelve of our citizens have become afflicted, including our Chief and her consort. They will not awaken." The voice took a deep breath and shouted, "Please, DO something!"

"Quiet down," Aughra replied. "Who is that? Is that young Simoon, Frann's son?"

The sonorous-voiced Gelfling stepped forward and took off a small hat. "Um, yes'm. Granny Bee's holding a public speaking class." He took a deep breath and, in a very deep and impressive voice, said, "Forsooth and to be sure, 'tis it not the very breadcorn that provideth for us? Saideth not the Skymother that the raineth falls and the snoweth sweeps--"

"Very nice, very nice, Simoon. Yes. Exemplary. Now, all of you, _out of my way_!" Aughra bustled down the wing staircase and stood over the litters. She peered into the prone faces of the Chiefly Grand-Gelf and her husband, pried their eyelids apart, opened their mouths, and tapped their knees with a stick. Muttering to herself, she pressed an ear to the blue light coming from their hearts. "Well, they're living," she said. "Loora, fetch me brainbane and tonguewort from my cupboard, would you?"

Loora pressed ineffectually through the crowd--she wished she were more imposing, but she wasn't--and got to Aughra's herb cupboard.

"I can't read any of the labels," she said. "They all just say 'thump thump thump thump thump.' "

The old woman shoved Loora aside and retrieved the herbs herself.

Taking a good pinch of herb from each, Aughra chewed them together into a pair of soggy lozenges, dipped them in spiderhoney and pushed them into the lolling mouths of the two sick Grand-Gelfs.

"That should wake 'em up," the old woman said.

A roomful of breath fell, and a waiting silence descended. Cory hurried over from the far side of the mezzanine with a wet washcloth and started to ask what was happening, then said "oop" and stopped talking as the vast crowd came into his view. Loora took his hand and led him to the back to watch.

The Grand-Gelfs let out a matching pair of groans. Two sets of eyes opened.

The blue lights in their chests went out.

A cheer went up from the assembled Gelfs. Simoon took an official-sounding deep breath, and said, in his most respectable baritone, "On behalf of the assembled, the Chiefly Grand-Gelfs, and myself, thank you, Mother Master for--" but his voice cracked and he squeaked, "saving us from this plague." Embarrassed, he covered his mouth and saluted, then spun and marched out.

One of the elders asked Aughra to prepare more of the lozenges. She stuffed the whole jars' worth of the herbs into her mouth at once, chewed as hard as she could, spat them back out and handed the mush to the elder, who took it reluctantly.

As the assembly filed out with the awakened Grand-Gelfs on their litters, Loora stroked the cheek of the Chiefly Grand-Gelf.

Eyes turned to her. Loora squeaked and stepped back. The eyes had enlarged pupils like bottomless pits, and the irises seemed . . . different. Jagged. As if black stars were emerging from inside the eyes.

* * *

K _choo!_ Gobber wiped his nose on his sleeve and shivered violently. "Din't do me a bit of good, getting me gloves wet." He rapped on the Crystal Castle's front door with a short stick. "Caught a bad 'un this time. Caught a bad 'un indeed." He rapped on the door again, harder.

"There's a bit of ruttidge by your foot," Lemny said. "Skeksis eat it. Pull it up, they'll give you a quarter-yenti for it. Ignorant buzzards."

Gobber stooped and pulled the mustard-smelling flower bush up by the woody stem. He shook the blighted black dirt from the roots and tossed it on the cart. The day had gone cold, colder than bones. Luckily the rain was blowing away from the castle entrance and . . . k _choo!_ A bit drier, anyways. That was good. Good to get out of the rain--and then out of this place.

"Like to sell somewhere it never rains at all, next," he muttered. "Desert, maybe. Crystal Sea." Then, after a moment's thought: "Lemny? How'd you spot the ruttidge? Candle's gone out."

"Just saw it, is all. Must be the castle. Got its own wosscallems, _refractive properties_ , hasn't it?"

There _was_ a faint light in the vicinity of the door. Gobber shrugged and called out, "Open this door before we catch our deaths, you miserly stenching featherbellies!" He clocked the door with the stick twice and waited. The door creaked open and two eerie attendants admitted him.

"Blind me, it's good to get indoors," Gobber said, dragging his cart up the clunking steps and into the hall. " 'ere, what's your story, then, my fine friend?" he asked the nearest attendant as he wiped his mudcrusted feet on the carpeting.

"I serve the Skeksis in whatever capacity they desire," the Podling answered tonelessly.

"Well, whatever suits. This is Lemny, I'm Gobber, we've got a fing or two to sell." He and the Crabbit shared a quick look, but didn't hold it. Not wise to let on too much, not when those shining coins were still outside of their tatty pockets.

The attendants bowed and pivoted and went to speak with the Skeksis.

"What d'you figure? A whole tinker's turn this time? Twelve yenti, even?" said Gobber when the hall was empty.

"Let's not get greedy," Lemny replied. "I've a bad feeling about this place."

"Why's that?" said Gobber.

"Too purple," Lemny muttered. "Too purple, too much of the time. Unnatch'ral color. Bruises is purple."

"So's cabbage," Gobber said.

"Unnatch'ral. Unhealthy. Gives me the leaping willywogglers."

"It's the smell I don't like," Gobber said. "Smells of tiny jumping things wot live in your hair."

"As it happens, my thoughtful friend, I AM one of those tiny jumping things, an' I resent that," Lemny sniffed, adjusting his nubby antennae.

A huge shadow filled the chandelier-lit entryway, and the hunched, high-collared form of a Skeksi appeared.

"Hmmmm! Why hello," the Skeksi said, shuffling forward. "I am the Chamberlain of the Castle. Won't you follow me?"

As Gobber lifted the cart's handles once again, Lemny whispered, "Wants to get first crack, in case we've got anything good."

"What was that?" the Chamberlain asked.

"Said, erm, how good it is to be back, your magnificence," Gobber said, bowing quickly, which made the lantern and Lemny's cage swing. The Chamberlain smiled accommodatingly and led the way to an interior chamber. As the cart came to rest on its wheelbarrow-posts, the Chamberlain rubbed his feathery hands together and cackled.

"Let's see, let's see." The Chamberlain practically leapt into the cart, scattering fake jewelry, tailor's discards, cured skins of half-animals Gobber'd eaten on the road, inedible bundles of herbs that Lemny'd taken the tasty seeds off of (except the ruttidge, which he hadn't gotten to yet), a few unidentified glass vials and stoppered ampules they'd sifted from an abandoned workshop, innumerable amber-colored beads that Lemny rolled from sticky plant sap and flower parts when he was bored, a length of new rope Gobber had spent each night weaving before bed from the abundant ropeweed, lumpy clay bowls he'd palmed together and kilned ineffectually over the campfire, a few bones (bleached by setting them on top of the cart's awning under the suns), stone knives with sharp knapped blades and handles sopped out of plant latex and heated to gummy rubber, a glass lens-- _whoop,_ the Chamberlain let it slip and smash on the floor in his haste, one big chunk and a powder of broken glass--

"That'll be a yenti and a nick, under our 'you break it, you bought it' policy," Lemny said politely.

The Chamberlain's eyes flicked to Lemny, then spotted the ruttidge and lit up. "Haven't had ruttidge soup in months!" he remarked, stuffing the end of it in his mouth and sucking the flavor out.

"Likewise, half a yenti, I'm afraid." Gobber and Lemny shared another glance.

"And what's _this_?" he asked, pulling the Shovel o' Doom out and unwrapping it.

"Um, I'm afraid that's not for sale," Gobber said quickly, covering it back up with burlap. "Not cheap. I mean not yet. Erm, it's for someone special. A gift--"

"A gift for _me_?" the Chamberlain said, with malicious wonder in his voice. An evil glint appeared in his eye as he slid the metal object out of the rags and held it up to the light. Both of the merchants flinched, expecting another purple blast, but the object seemed completely inert. "But you _shouldn't_ have."

"Er, not to be too specific, as it were, but we didn't," said Lemny. "That piece, um, if we were to let it go at all, would have to be--"

"A gift for me," the Chamberlain repeated to himself in a stage whisper, nodding. He tucked it into his robes. "Now then. I'll give you a yenti for the rest of it. Bring it to my room."

Gobber began to breathe heavily. He preferred the last time they came by, when they'd bargained with a bright-eyed young Gelf warrior for hours, winding up with eight yenti and nick for nearly half a cartload of odds and ends. This talking to the Skeksis directly business was giving him the writhing gullivers. Didn't play fair, Skeksis. Hardly be able to restock on a single yenti, let alone turn a profit.

"Begging your pardon, but you've already spent nearly two, your munificence," Lemny said. Gobber gave him a ghost of a glance, but Lemny knew from fair.

"Have I," the Chamberlain whispered, his tone changing.

"No, your hyperbolic sizeness, no, a yenti will do very nicely indeed. If you wouldn't mind paying up front, and perhaps providing a warm bed for the night, we'd be happy to unload it in your room--"

"Warm bed," the Chamberlain hissed. "Provide you a _warm bed_. My _room_." A particularly nasty glare appeared, with a hiccup of a snarl beneath it. The snarl faded into a cruel smile. "Oh, it won't need unloading, I think. I'll take the cart, too. Mmmmm."

"Now wait just a minute," Lemny exclaimed. "We've had this ol' thing since time imminterial. Thick and thin. Up this fine land of ours and down it. If you think we're prepared to sell it, after you've--you've--"

"Careful," Gobber hissed.

"After you've--" said Lemny.

" _Careful_ ," Gobber said again.

"AFTER YOU'VE STOLEN OUR SHOVEL AND SMASHED OUR GLASS THING AND EATEN OUR FOOD AND STIFFED US ON THE LOT, IF YOU THINK YOU'RE GETTING OUR--"

"Stolen?" interrupted the Chamberlain carefully. "I, a thief? I think not. Hmmmm! I distinctly recall hearing the word 'gift' from you two. Did I not? But," he continued, "if you're going to throw around _accusations_ \--"

"Nope, cart's yours, cart's yours, we were just going," Gobber said. "Er, about that one yenti? No, you're right, it'd be an _indignity_ , it would. All a gift, and we'll be right on our way--"

Long fingers gripped Gobber by the collars of his coats, lifted him up, up, up into the air, and brought him face to face with the sharp beak of the Skeksi, who smiled.

The Podling was flung into the doorway. He landed hard and groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. On impulse, he kneeled, shaking.

"I'll take the bug, too," the terrible voice snapped. A yenti coin landed in Gobber's lap. Gripping it in four sticky fingers, the Podling turned and ran.

*** * ***

"Fancy yourself a builder, do you, Loora?" Aughra said as Cory swept up the leaves that the Woodland Gelfling Council had tracked in. "Like to work with your hands? Hmp! Come with me."

Finally they were gone, and Cory was alone with his thoughts. There wasn't anything to ponder _into_ , since Aughra had destroyed his meditation globe, so he swept and sang very softly to himself. Cory was no great singer, so he only sang loud enough to hear himself. Everyone told him he was awful, told him not to sing, and he knew they were right. But nobody else seemed to know the songs he knew, and nobody would ever sing to him, least of all his parents.

"Time sweeps on," he sang as he swept,

"Through every leaf and twig and branch and limb,

Time runs through us all

From morning's shine to twilight's dim,

There's nothing on Thra that doesn't change with time--

Me or you," he sang, "her and him,

Time sweeps all of us on."

He bent down and took handfuls of leaves from his pile and threw them out the door. A zephyr swept them over his head and back into the room. Sighing, he turned and started again.

"The only truth that we all know

Is that nothing ever stays the same.

Boats on flowing water, moving slow

Past the lonely shores of life

Time takes us farther than we want to go,

All we can do, from day to day,

Is let time sweep us on."

Brushing his pile of leaves and dust and forest mud out the door successfully, he observed the nice view out the front door, the clean and leaf-free front hall, nodded, sighed, and sat crosslegged in front of the closed door to meditate.

Harder to focus without the glass. His head was so full of pictures. Couldn't clear them away without distraction. Something to ponder about . . . the Grand-Gelfs, laying side by side, blue light shining from them . . . his father, laying at home in bed . . . Light Sickness . . . the blue light . . . an illness that touched both the greatest of the elders and a lowly village gardener . . . people who've never met each other . . . how did it spread? . . . people were connected somehow . . . what connected them? . . . yes, the focus was coming . . . the future surrounded him . . . he let it fill his mind, pushing aside his swarming thoughts . . .

Gelflings, tens of thousands of Gelflings, filling the rolling prairie between the edge of Dark Wood and the arid outer reaches of the sparkling Crystal Sea Desert . . . Tents set up, pavilions, strange wheeled landships and long-legged landstriders and sunstained faces and tall hooded Gelflings and slender shining Gelflings and crabwalking bent Gelfs and pets and steeds and horns and flags . . . The reddish-maroon dying sun setting and the great and rose suns already down as evening precessed in the late season . . . An obscene roar of voices, unending . . . the seven tribes . . . a great machine in the center, ready to end life, ready for war . . . shouts of fear, an absolute fear, a fear consuming and throbbing and deathly . . . fear growing like the welling thoraxes of biting insects . . . fear . . .

Cory flew backward, tumbling over himself leaflike through the open door of Aughra's house. But he had closed it, he thought briefly as he fell and clunked onto the steps and slid down them.

What had happened? Why were these reactions so strong now? None of his visions had ever lashed out at him before, he thought, brushing himself off and finding his feet on the slanted steps. Must have been that black water. It had done something to him; that must be it. If only his mother had left him alone, if only he hadn't come here, if only Aughra hadn't poisoned his beautiful future . . .

As he climbed the last steps back to Aughra's house, he looked up and found the door had closed again. Trying it, he found it barred. Someone had gone in.

Should have barred it himself, he thought. Now a robber had slipped inside when he was distracted and had locked him out. A few determined shouts of "Aughra" and "Loora" earned no response. The windows were solid green glass. Cory glared at the leaf pile he'd just swept outside the door and kicked it, irritated. He hoped whoever had snuck in didn't mean to hurt anyone. Really wasn't his business.

There wasn't any comfortable place to sit and wait, so he began circumnavigating the thin dirt and stone rim around the outside of the observatory, pushing through leafy and spiny limbs of trees at the very edge of Dark Wood, feeling much more alone out here than he had indoors. Being alone didn't feel so comforting out here. It wasn't safe, being locked out of some stranger's house after he'd been practically bought by her . . .

Cory slipped.

Vertigo spun as his feet went out and he went down. Slipping, falling, headfirst. A series of slopes, plateaus. Leaves gathered behind his black hair as he fell through, and a layer of dry gray soil skittered past as he plunged into Dark Wood. His hands scraped as he tried to slow his progress, and he called out, to nobody and to nothing. The slope transformed from dry and leafy to moist and rainforested the deeper he slid, and he skipped through streams of spraying waterfalls and into ferny plants he'd never seen before, flew past burls of golden-trunked trees whose bark let off a filmy light, into a low stratum of fog that made Thra wet and white, emerging upon a deep valley and shooting over a short cliff where he managed to get himself facing right-side-up before skidding into open space, free falling at high speed over the open vale, a thousand green leaves covering the sky, landing on a leaf so wide that houses could be built out of it, ships folded from its lance-tipped green shape. He tried standing, but the leaf was bending on its stem from his weight and--oh no it was going down--he slid down the central vein and fell onto another leaf, which tipped as well, again and again, a cascade of leaves, each larger than the last, until they were wide enough to fit Aughra's entire observatory but so sensitive that they folded at his miniscule weight and he fell, and fell, and there was the ground coming closer, and he was going to--no, this leaf didn't fold, it held his weight, bowing and springy, and he sat uncertainly and was, at last, at rest.

The Woodland Gelfling Clan never came this deep into Dark Wood. _Nobody_ came this deep. The inner wood was unoccupied. The canopy meant that light only filtered through in jagged grids, leaving the depths gloomy and still and as hot as boiled oilbread. Echoes of flapbirds and cragraptors high above. Drips of captive water. The leaf bounced as he tried to rise, and he flinched as he lost his footing, expecting to fall again. But it held his weight, bouncing unsteadily. Green as--well, leaves, he supposed. Yellow at the curled tip.

Alone.

* * *

SkekTek stood facing the blinding purple flame which played across the eastern tower of the Castle. Over his eyes were wraparound darkglasses made of layers of clear crystal with a variety of light-diffusing chemicals sandwiched between them. One can never be too careful with the unknown.

What he saw amazed him. Skektek frequently wished he had someone equally intelligent to share his discoveries with, but none of the other Skeksis cared for his experiments and there was no one else here, so he talked to himself instead. His was the only opinion worth his time. So what if a few slaves overheard?

"It came from the Dark Crystal itself," he murmured. "Yes, it quite certainly did. The same frequency, wavelength, and resonance. Came from the Dark Crystal. But how? Perhaps the Crystal has been emitting a low-level charge that built up somewhere until it reached a threshold. Static? What's the cause? And can it be duplicated?"

The house slaves did not answer.

"Can this discharge be stored?" he said to himself, pacing. He took a small piece of shattercite and carefully approached the purple flames with the ordinary Thra crystal extended.

A terrifically painful, exotic electric ringing filled his ears. Grimacing, he kept the shattercite cluster tight between two fingers. He couldn't open his eyes, but something was quite definitely happening. Quite definitely. The noise was at the high reaches of his hearing, grinding like cut glass. It persisted, then ended with a shocking pop.

The shattercite had become a violent purple and seemed to vibrate in his hand. Lucky it didn't have inclusions or caries, it might have burst. Instead it was a perfect receptacle. Of course it was. The flames were gone completely.

Such a genius, you are, skekTek, he told himself, bringing the charged shattercite down the stairs toward his lab to see what it could do.

The castle was a maze, a tangle. The sandstone interior blacked out the light of the crystal exterior, and flaming sconces in twisted braziers were tended by slaves with bellows. A less noisy light source must be found--a single beam reflected into crystals, perhaps--

In one of the middle corridors, he heard, "Hmmmmm." And, "Put that light out, you lunatic! I'll go blind."

SkekTek smiled to himself and continued toward his lab, failing to put away the glowing crystal.

"Did you hear me?" the Chamberlain shouted, coming up the hall.

An odd croaking creaking squeaking sound, and "Wouldn't you reconsider, kind sir? It's only that, you know, fair's fair, and I know from fair, and couldn't you at least let me out to stretch me legs, I'd only be a moment, be hardly a flick of your fingers, kind sir, only I meant no offendin', and I can see I've said something wrong and I'll take it back and recant the whole thing only I've got to be on the road, d'y'see, Gobber'd be expecting me--"

Through the slightly watery brown-red glaze of the darkglasses, skekTek saw the Chamberlain dragging a filthy cart through the corridor, leaving muddy tracks behind him.

"What have you got?" skekTek asked, smiling as the Chamberlain flinched from the powerful light of the shattercite.

"None of your affair. Hmmmm! What have _you_ got?" the Chamberlain asked him.

The two stood facing each other in the narrow hall. There was no way to get past the Chamberlain's cart, and skekTek was certainly not going to backtrack just to let the cart pass.

"WILL YOU PUT THAT THING OUT?" the Chamberlain snapped. SkekTek closed his hand around the shattercite. Both the busybody and a small beetly creature in a cage uncovered their eyes.

"Why not just tell a slave to unload that for you?" skekTek sneered.

"Thieving lot, Pod People. Hmmmm! Everyone knows that."

"They've not been adequately conditioned, I've told you."

"Tell it to skekNa. Now. Out of my way," the Chamberlain said.

"Er, kind sir, would it be so much to let me out of this cage? I was not actually for sale, ack'shly, being the one doing the sellin'."

That was said from somewhere within the depths of the filthy cart.

"What," skekTek asked, "is that?" He peered in at the creature, with its small claw-like hands and bug face. "Looks like dinner."

"Belongs to me," the Chamberlain said. He swept his wide sleeve over the cart.

SkekTek stepped into the Chamberlain's personal space, intending to brush past and continue on his way. Instead he heard, "You'd best ask him about the golden shovel he bought off me, my grand feathery compatriot. Seems the sort of thing a smart one like you 'ud want to know about." The Chamberlain squawked for him to be quiet, but the words had rather caught in skekTek's ear.

"Golden?" skekTek murmured. "Something golden?"

"Oh yes, gold azza rising great sun, and believe you me, I know from gold. Took it like a common thief."

"Quiet!" the Chamberlain howled.

"But seeing as you're clearly a Skek of some learnin', I'd say that if you'd gotten your fair pick of our goods, you'd of taken one look and thought, 'That's a shovel for me,' you'd have thought."

"Would I really?" said skekTek. He was not susceptible to flattery, or course, being of an objective scientific bent, but he was not adverse to some . . . _recognition_ of his intellect. That was a different thing entirely.

"It's up his sleeve, if you want to know," the bug said.

"Ha!" SkekTek unclasped his hand and shone the charged shattercite at the Chamberlain. As the busybody shielded his eyes, skekTek lunged and rummaged in the ornamented sleeves and pulled out something metal wagging in a hidden pocket.

"No fair. I'll let you _rent_ it from me for three yenti. For one day," the Chamberlain said, cringing in the potent purple glare.

SkekTek cared very little for money. Bothersome practice, not at all like the bartering and stealing of yestertrine. He found a single old coin in his own sleeve. "I'll take it for a _week_ ," he said. Reaching into the cart, he pulled out a handful of amber beads, the shard of glass lens, and took the Crabbit cage from its hook. "And these are necessary for my experiments." He flipped the coin to the Chamberlain, who scowled, and skekTek pushed past him, knocking the cart sideways and spilling everything.

* * *

In the beginning, the Storyteller told her audience, there was friendship. The Skeksi and the ur-Mystic. The Gelfling and the Podling. The cragraptor and the fizzgig. All lived in harmony, as if they were one being. Then the Dream infected the Skeksis, and disruption spread. The Skeksis began to look more carefully at their friends. Friendship with the Podlings and Gelflings provided stability, but how much more stable if they were controlled utterly? Friendship with the Mystics meant balance, but how much nicer to be _unbalanced . . ._ in your own direction? Friendship with the animals meant safety, but how much safer if animals were blindly obedient to the Skeksis? Better to enslave them, to take without giving. How much happier the Skeksis would be if everyone did what the Skeksis wanted!

And they had an advantage. Control over that which controls all else: the Great Crystal. They had long since driven out the Mystics and had the Castle of the Crystal to themselves. So much power within the palm of their scaly hands, the heart of Thra itself in their grasp. And for so long they had left that power unexploited.

No longer, the dream whispered. It was time to use that which was Skek. And all the world was Skek, if only they wanted it.

Oh, how they wanted it. They just didn't know it yet.

* * *

"Yes, that's the way. Heat it again before you attach the handle. Don't let it rest, keep turning it, elsewise it'll go flat as it cools. Yes, almost done. Now keep it perfectly round until it loses the fire's glow."

Loora's hands were too small for the gloves really, but she kept a tight grip on the tongs as she turned the meditation globe. Not a plain blue globe like Cory's smashed one. This was a glittering wonder. She had a knack for glassworking, she could feel it. It would be perfect. There: finally the liquid orange had faded to sparkles. It could be posted upright in the stand without fear of it becoming lopsided.

"One last finishing touch. This'll really give it pizzazz."

The strange old woman departed from the glass furnace, took a ladle from a hook, and marched down to the front hall.

Loora heard a faint, unfamiliar voice in the distant front hall. The splash of spilled water. After some time, a scowling Aughra returned with a rag and squeezed black water out onto the cooling meditation globe. She chucked the ladle into a corner irritably.

"What kept you?" Loora asked. "It's already cooled."

The strange water dripped over the globe. Very little of it actually melded into the cool glass. The result was far less than satisfactory, Loora thought, dark and splotchy, but perhaps Cory would like it anyway. She wished Aughra hadn't altered it. It'd be nicer to give the gift just as it had been.

"What's your beak made of?" Loora asked, reaching to touch it. Aughra swatted her hand away.

"Why's it your business, I'd like to know?" the woman snipped. "I'll look the way I want to look."

"Mother."

The word came from a few feet away. It was not Cory; not at all.

The two turned and saw who it was.

Who it was was shorter than Loora. Bluish-black skin was covered in a tunic of patchy furs. Long brown ears were tilted up, shaped as if carved from some very exotic wood and tufted with bluish-black hair. The face was assymmetrical; one eye bulged orange while the other seemed miniscule in light purple. A watery grin, and behind it, a thousand teeth like a snapping karock ready to feed.

Loora had to fight the urge to run and hide. It was, she thought, a killing animal who had been taught to stand upright and wear clothes. No wise or loving thing wore such a face.

"I'm here, Mother." The creature with the mismatched eyes breathed heavily. Aughra was screwing up her mouth in disgust.

"Why?" Aughra said. "Why have you come home? Raunip, you've made your choices."

"Do you know how far this disease spreads, Mother?" the imp asked.

"Cured it this morning," Aughra said.

A nervous, shaking laugh came from the gangly creature. Rather than ceasing, Raunip's crackling laughter grew, spinning into a manic fit of uncheerful giggles. "Have you not seen the eyes, Mother? As black as night shadows, and lifeless." Raunip's long arms wrapped around his own shoulders. He walked, pacing as Aughra and Loora watched. "And there is no return from that pit. I have lived by the sea these four hundred trines past, learning the medicines of fish and shells, and the disease can be delayed only by a week or two before its final descent. Brainbane, tulip-conch, lorrin, oil of greenscale. Two weeks, with a large enough dose. No more."

"Two weeks," croaked Aughra.

"And here you are, forging _glass_ ," he sneered. "My _mother_. And you once lectured me about our responsibilities. Mother, you are blind."

"I've heard enough of your words," Aughra said, pointing an accusing finger. "Enough of your reproaches. Hmp! I see enough to know the importance of Cory's sight. He needs a good globe to see what needs seeing. Maybe not so useless, forging glass!"

"And where is Cory?" the imp said.

Aughra hesitated for only a moment before brushing past Raunip to the front room. She called Cory's name twice before shouting for Loora to bring the globe-- _very carefully_ \--and together they sprinted, leaving home behind them.

* * *

His goal now was to avoid ripping the leaf off. There wasn't a good way to lean over the edge, and he couldn't see how far away the ground was from where he stood. It could be centrors to the bottom. Wished he were a girl. Not the first time. Wings would make this easy. Instead, one false step might mean a sticky splat.

No good chancing a walk to the tip of the leaf. Better to get to the trunk, where he could maybe climb his way down . . . or back up. There was a faint mist. Through it, he could see bark that looked like folded black bread dough, ruffled in stacked layers, as if squashed by its own immense weight. Good thing he had practice climbing to the roof and up trees to meditate. Edging closer, he could feel the thin leaf stem bouncing as he leapt--

A thousand camouflaged brown tendrils sprang from the trunk and grabbed him.

"Food for the floggs and fliers, no doubt, food for the skitters and slugs. Perhaps even a mouthful for me."

The world bent upside down and Cory was lifted aloft, sliding heavily through his clothes through the wrapping tendrils . . .

"Open for me, shake your bark, let me out, by the Sacred Spark!"

As Cory slowly rotated, captive in the grasp of the marbled umber vines, the folded layers of bark groaned and bulged, decompressing. A window appeared in the trunk, although the tree shook with the exertion of holding it open.

"Now let's taste the juices, shall we?"

A few taps on the tree from inside, and Cory found himself shoved in through the small gap. Once he was in the dark space inside, the tree relaxed, shutting the window and snapping through the camouflaged vines.

"A good day for a fine meal."

There was just enough light to see by, although it wasn't clear where it came from. The air was sweet-smelling, like a pollen-choked garden, not at all woody or leafy, and felt stiflingly warm and close. A nose nearly an armlength long uncurled and began sniffing toward Cory. The face and body behind the nose were lumpy and hidden by an inky cowl.

"Hello," Cory said.

"Tasty, yes, very tasty."

The nose didn't seem to spot him right away, even after he'd spoken. A lumbering heavy body wrapped in dark shawls began creeping forward. Standing and shaking off the snapped vines, Cory tiptoed around the room in a circle, staying out of reach of the slow-moving prehensile nose.

Cory's eyes adjusted. The interior of the tree was nearly as wide around as Aughra's house. The walls were a shiny petrified gray, lit only by a sullen-looking blue furry animal sitting in a washbasin. Blue light shone from its heart--the Light Sickness.

In a circle around a central table, a single path of floor was revealed, worn away by pacing feet. On all other surfaces were small wooden dishes filled with sap, which dripped from the ceiling in several colors and collected into hardened resins.

"A bit of flogg legs to go with our syrups, yes."

The cowled nose turned toward Cory, sniffed once, and began to lumber toward him.

Cory sprinted to the opposite side of the room and pressed himself against a wall. He was trapped and they were going to eat him.

The fuzzy blue animal picked up a wooden spoon and tapped it deliberately, rhythmically against the basin. The sound traveled resonantly through the tree, and the nose stopped and pressed against the floor, listening. The spoon tapped out some sort of code language.

"Not a flogg? Well, what is it? How's it taste, do you think? Soft? Crunchy? Slimy?"

Cory picked up a bowl of some green liquid and sniffed it. Smelled like the candied lea-li leaves that his grandmother used to make. Medicinal, but still sweet. He was tempted to taste it--

"Perfectly nutritious," a voice said. It was, in fact, the voice of the fuzzy glowing animal, gesturing with its spoon. Its voice wasn't clearly male or female.

"Excuse me? You can talk." It was, Cory decided, a dumb thing to say. "Who's that?" he added, pointing to the hooded creature with the long nose.

"I can probably convince him not to eat you," the fuzzy animal said.

"And what are you?" Cory added.

"Perfectly safe in here."

That was not, Cory decided, a useful answer to the question.

"Where am I?" Cory said, hoping the creature had something more meaningful to say.

"In here with me."

The fuzzy thing reluctantly got to its feet and leapt out of the sink and onto the floor, narrowly missing the piles of sap-filled bowls. Half its body was ultramarine, brighter than the Light Sickness, and the other half a dull brown.

"Orright, I can see you're not a complete amminal, you can talk some sense and you're not fee-rocious or trying to bite us apart." The creature began pacing around a central table with its arms thoughtfully behind its back. The dim blue light moved with it, reflecting off hundreds of colored syrups. The hooded, nosey person muttered to itself and paced in the opposite direction. Cory did his best to keep the table between both of them. "But I'm becoming concerned you're not in, let's say, the highest tier of conscious umber'standing. You're in. A tree. In Dark Wood."

"I know that," Cory said irritably. "What I want to know is, how do I get out of the tree and out of Dark Wood and back to civilization?"

"Civilized-ation, he calls it," the fuzzy creature said, sidestepping the hooded muttering thing as it circled. "People eating other people. Wars being fought because of other wars. One tribe arguing with the next for reasons they can't explain even to themselves. Yes, I remember civilized-ation."

"Can you open up the tree again? So I can get back?" Cory asked.

"Not wise to ask too much of the old bessie," the fuzzy creature said, patting a nearby wall. "She's opened up once this week already, twice might do her in. Now listen. What you have with us is a society of more enlightened beings. We're above the fray. Can't be dragged down to the level of mere 'civilized' beasts as yourself. It's our purpose to ponder the deepermost reaches of life on Thra."

"I'm kind of a ponderer myself." Cory ducked under the table as the long-nosed person came around the side again.

"Really? On the enlightenmink path?" said the fuzzy creature. "So what have you pondered, exacticately?"

"I can see the future," said Cory.

"Future, is it? He can--" the creature paused and tapped its spoon on the table. The hooded person stopped to listen.

"See the future? Who?" came muffled from under the hood.

The fuzzy animal rolled its eyes and tapped out a new message.

Two long-fingered hands lifted the cowl, revealing a bulging, misshapen head almost completely wrapped in thick black cloth. Only the nose stuck out. A hand located the end of the fabric and began unwinding. Cory was poised to run, although he didn't know where, if it turned out to be made of teeth or dripping disease or had scabby skin or . . . something.

_Something_ was definitely revealed.

It was a flouse, small and white and fuzzy and mostly trunk-nose, balanced on the end of the broad flat-topped nose of an ur-Mystic. The flouse unrumpled its fur and straightened its ears with pink fingers. It reeled in its enormous trunk into a spiral and hopped down to the table.

"Oh, we have visitors!" the Mystic said, clapping once and smiling at Cory. "Why didn't you say so?"

* * *

"Bit of a nice place they've got here," Lemny said aloud, swinging idly from a hook in the ceiling. It's one thing to be in a cage because that's the one place on the cart where you're not going to fall onto your vulnerable back and slide off unnoticed into the Swamp of Sog, he thought. It's another thing to be, well, _in a cage_. Gobber wasn't a _jailer_ , he was . . . a bit of company on the road. _And_ he'd done all the walking for the two of them. Never even complained, leastwise not about being the only one who had legs that reached both the ground and the cart.

Probably be a week or more until Lemny could talk his way out of here and catch up with Gobber. Lemny had hunches about these things. Meet at that one shady trailtree on the outer road. That's right where Gobber'd be. Waiting, cartless. Those thieving Skeksis.

A week to talk this new Skek into letting him out.

Hours went by in silence. That arrogant Skek was in another room, messing with the glowing purple rock. Lemny's eyes were still dazzled and sparkly from the rock's light, even after all this time.

This corner room was dank even by Lemny's low standards. Water was condensing on the ceiling and the floor was unswept. There was a round fizzgig in a cage, shivering on untended filthy straw. There were a number of passageways leading to other rooms, their surfaces carved with those weird alien shapes that Skeks seemed to admire--assuming it was them who put the carvings there. There were a variety of implements that Lemny sincerely hoped weren't for use on living things. There were snacks shaped disconcertingly like people Lemny might be related to, some dried and some still alive. They didn't have much to say, however, other than a low, preintelligent cry for help. A few soothing words quieted them down. All lies, natch'rly. There was nothing soothing about being trapped with the Skeksis. Still, got to keep the spirit up, right? Something would present itself.

This was exactly the sort of tedium where Gobber'd find him some raw material to work. Amber and a coal from the fire, stone to whittle patterns into. _Artistic_ , Lemny was. Merchanting was just on the side. Someday, with the right tools, Lemny would find himself a cave and turn it into a palace of carven stone. When the money was right and he had the time. Got to dream, you do, got to make it all lead up to something. Life's got to be important, or what's it for?

The fizzgig didn't speak any kind of sensible language. Probably responded to 'stop, boy' or 'go get 'em, boy,' but you couldn't make a conversation out of that. Be like talking to dancerflies, Lemny thought. Dancerflies'd give you a more intelligible answer, 'cos you could pretend you were talking to yourself, making up the answers. A fizzgig'd just fill the air with barking, and then where were you?

Sometime that interminable day, the Skek came in and dragged the pacified fizzgig out by the scruff of the neck and didn't bring it back.

The cage wouldn't budge. Protected him from that one persistent cragraptor, this cage did. Lasted him nearly as long as the cart. Funny to think he'd die in here. Die of starvation. Getting hungry already.

Love to have half a lea-li bush in bloom. When the flowers were past bolting and you could peel off the outer leaves and they had those green fruit pips, just a hint of sour, not yet hard and red and crunchy . . . Takes hours to get through the lot, but what a pleasant way to spend the hours! Sun out, breeze in the trees, fresh lea-li buds and maybe a chewy triluly bulb dug up from a Pod garden when they weren't looking . . . No Skeksis, nothing going fump into the Swamp of Sog, no nasty ruttidge and certainly no being separated from the outside world by his own twig house. Lemny braced his cluster of hind feet against one side of the cage and pushed as hard as he could against the other side. But if the cragraptor couldn't rip the bars open, then what chance had he got? These were titanroots, safe as sawdust an' twice as familiar. Mum's house was titanroot. Almost, wosscallit, _womblike_ , this was. Safe.

Lemny was perfectly safe.

* * *

"Tracks. Here. Quickly, before the wind blows them away."

Loora was taking charge of the search. Holding the glass globe aloft, trying not to get distracted by all the pretty colors, she watched her feet as she sidled around the narrow tree-lined ledge outside the observatory. Dark Wood didn't seem so thick when you were right up against it. It seemed spacious, broad-leafed, and oddly hollow between the dense high canopy and the stacks of hillstones erupting with forest-floor undergrowth.

Aughra strode behind Loora, occasionally bracing a clawed hand on her shoulder, impatiently urging the girl on. Loora wasn't exactly a natural tracker, but every Gelfling had a sense of the land. Cory's tracks were slow, pacing, probably daydreamy, she figured. Here; here's where he stopped. She pressed the globe handle into Aughra's hand and dropped from a short round plateau to a ledge below the treeline. Stabilizing, she took the globe back and helped Aughra down. The gruff woman skidded on the loosened layer of scree, and Loora took her arm until she had her feet again.

"Sure-footed," Aughra said approvingly. Loora squared her shoulders and nodded.

The tracks turned into a scraped slide down the hill. It was obvious what had happened: Something had come up out of the forest and grabbed Cory. Something toothsome and predatory. He'd gone out for a walk and found himself face to face with something incredibly dangerous. With luck he'd fought it off, fashioned a weapon, found his warrior spirit and--no, he was probably monster chow. She steeled herself against this inevitability.

"I'm going to fly down," she said. Aughra grunted assent. Scrambling down the wide-open interior of the forest, taking the globe and keeping it close to her heart, Loora shrugged her morning coat off her shoulders and flew.

Good thing Dark Wood was uninhabited. The lace of her wings buzzed softly in the filtered light, and a delicate dust of split seeds and fallen leaves spun up from the ground as she drifted past. As the forest floor grew denser, the mountain faded and she was skyly sliding between the trunks of impossible trees. Mist lit up like ghostly clouds. The track Cory and the monster had left was clearly visible; you could see how they had struggled. A lonely place for a fight. For nearly a toll of the village bell she let herself down through fog and light, and in the moist warmth of the underlevel, at the lip of a cliff, the track stopped.

Worth waiting for Aughra? Cory might be anywhere, might be eaten. Landing, Loora scanned the area for signs of--

The sight gradually resolved in her blinking eyes. Shading with a hand under her short hair, she saw--

A tree.

It filled the valley. The trunk had probably once been straight, she imagined. It had probably once been brown. It had probably, centrines upon centrines to the wildest limits of memory ago, once been a sapling grown from a sensible seed dropped by a now-long-vanished mother tree.

The tree was this way no longer.

A leaning crooked fat pillar, it impaled the sky. Grown in slow, season-spanning circles of the three suns of Thra, the bole had formed tight uneven spirals. The suns had baked the lower trunk black, which graded to gray at the middle and tree-trunk-brown at the uppermost limbs. Weight had pressurized all but the spreading canopy into something akin to stone; petrified. However, through the outer surface of the stonified colossus, fresh alive branches broke and bloomed with leaves wider across than most trees are tall. At the base of the valley, hundreds of seed pods rested, dropped spheres dotted with circular openings.

There was no sign of Cory. Nothing.

Descending further, hoping to find a track or a clue, anything, Loora heard distant music.

"Despicable, isn't it?"

Shrieking, Loora defended herself with the globe. As she swung it, the black patterns caught her eye and she lost her momentum. The imp ducked under the impromptu attack, and Loora stumbled, and she stared at the black and sparkled pattern, and she felt her eyes cross as the dark water captured her mind.

The dark water . . .

Lost in shadow, a pit of forever, lost . . .

Loora was gone, replaced by forever . . .

A song, lost . . .

Scabby fingers closed around hers, and an anti-song rose up in her mind. Coming down to her from the farthest stellar spaces. A sound of now, of life, of celebration . . .

Her fallen morning coat appeared in the imp's hand. He tossed it, smothering the black and silver shapes that coated the bright colors of the globe. Loora returned, her eyes not quite focusing but not yet googly.

"Ought to keep such a powerful thing covered," Raunip told her. "You'll lose your mind inside it."

Lose your . . . ?

Mind. Voice. Eyes. Thought. Song.

Loora felt her mouth moving, wondered why she could hear nothing except Raunip's stellar noise. Oh, it was because she wasn't saying anything. Nobody was speaking. She was just opening and closing her mouth. The anti-song continued, and the song from the Gnarled Stonetree drifted up from the valley.

Mouth. Voice.

"Um." That was a start. That was a good start. Both her hands were wrapped around the stem of the meditation globe. Good thing the handle was wood, not glass. Her tight grip would have shattered it.

"What are you?" she said. As her mind returned to order, she saw Raunip and his mismatched eyes and said, "Oh. I didn't mean--I meant _who_ \--"

"Aughra is my mother," Raunip said. "I am her son."

"Right. What is--" She gestured to the globe.

"The water of Black River binds the mind and corrupts the thoughts. Only an already-corrupted mind can see it clearly."

"But that would mean--"

"Despicable sound," Raunip said again.

Following his gaze down the valley to the enormous black-trunked tree, Loora heard a living song coming from the roots.

"Worshippers of the Gnarled Stonetree," he said. "They think the tree is the heart of Thra. So little they know." Raunip sniffed and bared his sharp teeth, once, then turned. "If old age is the only thing to venerate, then my mother and I would be queen and prince of Thra. We aren't."

"Mother." A thought stirred. "You said--Does my mother really have two weeks to live?" Loora said.

A demented purple eye peered up at her.

"Do not hope," said Raunip. "Just work. Work as hard as you can."

Do not hope. Loora understood him.

"Do you know where Cory is?" she asked him.

"If he came this far, the Worshippers will know."

A head of black-purple hair began a descent toward the base of the tree. Loora followed.

*** * ***

The Storyteller adjusted her cloak, stretched, stoked the reaching fingers of the fire with more kindling.

What can be said of the Pod People? Good-natured, well-intentioned, they care nothing for power. They celebrate what's there, and should we not all do the same? After all, what value is there in pining for the impossible? Better, say the Podlings, to take delight in the lives we are given to lead. These are the things that are: Here are plants, stems of the land's own virtue pushing up through the surface. Here are animals, as wise and as foolish as the rest of us, to be provided for and befriended. Here is sky, blue and purple and unlimited. Here is love.

Only a fool could look at these and remain unsatisfied, the Podlings say!

Perhaps they are right.

Yet here there is a Podling wandering from village to village, asking for stories. There we see a Podling who delights in creating foreign-sounding music on non-traditional instruments. One might discover a Podling who has found a mountain in the desert and has built a lonely house on it. Why should this be? Why should even this most mild of all Thra's races develop these unsatisfied minds?

Perhaps all life remains unfinished. Perhaps they are driven by the crawling dreams that infest us. Perhaps it is the endlessness of the mind.

Here then, a village has been built from the seed pods of the Gnarled Stonetree. Hollow stone branches are chimneys. Fallen leaves wick rainwater into basins as roofs. Stonetree-nut-oil lanterns illuminate the night. Blocks of stone-hardened charcoal produces heat for an entire trine and then some.

What do the Worshipper Podlings do, in their houses beneath the Stonetree?

They believe.

* * *

"We really are very sorry, but there isn't going to be a way out of here for at least a week." The ur-Mystic patted Cory's hand, patronizing. At least there hadn't been any real need for Cory at Aughra's, he thought. He could probably even get some good meditation in while he was here. Maybe these three ponderers could teach him to control those bursts of emotion that came through.

"Why do you wrap your head?" Cory asked the Mystic.

"Keeps the sights and sounds out," the Mystic replied. "Important to have silence. Important to be alone. Keirkat here keeps me informed in case there are big developments. She says you smell like food." The Mystic indicated the long-nosed flouse, who cheeped apologetically. "And Pafaul mostly keeps house."

"Sometimes the drips migrate," the blue-glowing furry thing named Pafaul said. "And someone has to knock down inconvenient sap stalactites."

"What does the sap do?" Cory asked.

"Oh, it's highly informative," the Mystic said. "From here you can keep an eye on the entirety of Dark Wood. Everything seeps down to the bottom of the valley and up again through the sap. For example, these--" The Mystic indicated a nearby pile of ooze-filled bowls--"are from the area at the base of the tree, where the Worshipper gardens grow. The Worshippers are growing eflic this season, along with sweet tubers and shady broom. This--" he lifted a large tureen of slippery liquid--"tells me the state of the breadcorn fields--"

" _Our_ breadcorn fields?" Cory murmured.

"Your fields--?" The Mystic rubbed his eyes. Some crusty stuff fell off his eyelids. "You're a Gelfling!" he exclaimed. "Haven't seen one in person since the last Conjunction. Forgot what you look like. I remember when you were waving sticks around and whooping in the woods. A Gelfling--marvellous! What an opportunity. Sensitive to the subtle energies of Thra. Here, taste this."

A bowl was thrust into Cory's hand. Dipping a finger in, he tasted a sour-sweet red liquid. Something about it made Cory think of rotting fruit.

A blue beam of tightly concentrated light shot from his heart, then stopped.

"Ooooh," the Mystic gasped, clapping in excitement, "data! Something in the Spriton garden causes a burst of the blue light! Fascinating. Now this."

It seemed like Cory always wound up doing what he was told. Sighing, he obeyed, dipping his finger into another bowl he was presented with and putting it in his mouth. A kelpy taste, salty and oceanic. The dusky blue-lit room briefly appeared sharper and clearer, as if his vision were focusing to cragraptor amplification.

"Look at his eyes," Pafaul said.

"Why? What's happening to my eyes?" Cory asked.

"That one came from a patch of saltwater lorrin at the Black River Delta," the Mystic murmured. "Now this one."

"Boss, I'm not sure it's wise," Pafaul said as the ur-Mystic climbed up on a countertop, scattering syrup bowls in his wake, and retrieved the distantmost bowl from a distant petrified-wood cupboard shelf. "He's not a walking laboratory, he's a _person_. At least he acts like one."

"We've got to know, got to know. Information. As much as we can find." The Mystic brushed dust and a dried-up crawly from the filmed surface of a blackish-purple liquid and proffered it to Cory.

"That doesn't look . . . _healthy_ ," Cory said. It smelled like sweet decay.

"Important data, my Gelfling friend. We need all the data we can find."

Reluctantly, Cory inserted his forefinger into the desiccated surface, felt the liquid's filmy skin pop unsettlingly, and found his finger in something that burned faintly like spicy food.

He tasted.

"That's not good," Pafaul said.

The Mystic gasped and began rummaging through his syrups.

"Boss, that's not good at all."

The flouse began cheeping and tried to hide its nose under its small hands.

"Something feels funny," Cory said.

It did. It felt bad.

"Boss, we need to get him out of here," Pafaul said.

"The lorrin, where's the lorrin?" the ur-Mystic cried, scattering slime and oil and sap as he overturned crusted dishes.

"I've got it--" said Cory, lifting the green-stained bowl.

"As much as you can get down, my boy! And quickly!"

Cory got a handful of the kelpy green stuff and swallowed it. It was less tasty when eaten by the handful, and gooey.

"Not enough!" Pafaul said. "Keep going!"

In his reflection in the green bowl and dozens of others, Cory saw a blinding blue light pour from his chest and funnel up like river rapids into his black dilating pupils, which were slowly consuming the whites of his eyes. He licked the lorrin sap directly from the bowl, and felt himself collapse.

"The source of the blue light is the Great Crystal itself," the Mystic murmured.

* * *

"Your majesty, permit me to tell you something of the utmost value."

The only replies were the guttural snorts of Skeksis pouring food down their throats by the plateful, splattering rare beverages down their dinner outfits by the flagonful, crunching small living things between the sharp edges of their beaks, and generally enjoying themselves.

SkekTek was not joining in the evening's gluttonous merriment. Preoccupied, his hands held a good-sized piece of glass that had once been part of a lens from the merchants' cart. It was attached to a length of cord. Up his voluminous sleeve was the still-bright shattercite crystal.

The Emperor had an entire live plucked flapbird in his beak and was slowly stripping it of flesh.

"Your majesty--"

The Emperor stopped with the bird's guts dangling and turned his head. The flapbird writhed; vague squawks echoed down the Emperor's throat. Irritated, he pulled the bird out of his mouth. It hopped off the table, bleeding, its guts dangling, and pulled itself onto the floor, where it was caught and held by the neck by a nimble house slave. The bird gave the slave a sorry look, and the slave returned it. Grimacing, the Podling flicked both wrists, and the creature stopped moving.

"Speak, skekTek," the Emperor roared irritably.

"If I may demonstrate a technique I've been perfecting? I think your august majesty may be amused."

"Good. Entertain me. Slave! Bring that piece of meat back."

The Podling shuffled forward with the dead flapbird's neck in his grip. It handed the bird to the Emperor.

"WHAT? This one's dead now!"

"It was the slave," the Chamberlain clucked. "Hmmmm! I saw it, your majesty, yes. Felt sorry for it, I believe."

"You snivelling slimefaced slave! Someone fetch my punishment club!"

"Your majesty," SkekTek interjected, "this slave may in fact be a suitable specimen for my demonstration."

A grunt of anger and malice belched from the Emperor. "Make it good," he exclaimed.

Leaping down from his seat, SkekTek got a finger in the slave's steel collar and dragged it before the high table of gluttony. The Podling shivered in his grip. Smirking, SkekTek took out the lens and pulled it down over one of the Podling's eyes, securing it like an eyepatch with the cord. Obediently the slave kept its nervous hands at its sides, clenching them and cracking its knuckles. SkekTek stood in front of the wretch and cupped his hands like a cone around the shattercite crystal.

A flood of purple light filled the eating chamber. Narrowing his grip, SkekTek directed the glare into the lens, which bent it further, focusing it into the slave's brain.

"I don't see anything entertaining!" the Emperor roared.

"It takes about four minutes to complete the process on a fizzgig," SkekTek said. "It may be as long as eight for a semi-intelligent creature like a Podling."

" _Semi_ -intelligent?" the slave moaned. SkekTek slapped it.

Four minutes passed. The Emperor scowled and began chewing the dead flapbird. Several Skeksis continued to shield their eyes from the purple glare. The Skeksis grew restless as the seconds passed. Patience was a quality the great SkekTek cultivated, but it was not shared by these ignorami.

Another four minutes. The slave was shaking now, its body moving to some unseen frequency, its muscles flexing and twisting inside its body. Luckily it wasn't able to look away. A side effect of the Dark Crystal's power, SkekTek figured. It enraptured the eye of the weak.

Twelve minutes now.

"Well?" the Emperor shouted.

SkekTek closed his hand around the shattercite and secreted it away in his pockets. He took the lens off the slave and stood aside.

The slave's right eye was pure, undiluted white. Its body shook and its muscles skittered inside it. Its mouth hung open, lolling.

"On all fours and bark like a fizzgig."

"It would never!" skekNa the Slavemaster called out. "Too much pride."

Mindless yapping filled the hall from knee-level.

"Roll over!" commanded SkekTek.

The Podling spun and spun, coming to rest against the foot of the Slavemaster, who kicked it.

"Stick a crawly up your fat nose!" SkekTek shouted.

Without hesitation the milk-eyed Podling went to the cabinet, took out the snack cage and retrieved a tiny, twelve-legged creature with four rows of snapping teeth. Up it went. The Podling stood at attention as the thing burrowed inside its face and hid there.

From every corner of the room, Podlings ran. Pulling on their collars, crying out, they scattered in every direction. Breaking from their posts, they dove through doors into corridors.

"After them!" the Emperor called. "Not you, Slavemaster. Nor you, skekTek. The rest of you--retrieve them! Don't let them leave the castle!"

The feasting hall cleared.

Once the other Skeksis had begun their Podling treasure hunt, the Emperor faced skekTek. "Order that one to fetch my punishment club," he snarled. SkekTek merely snapped his fingers and the white-eyed Pod slave stumbled to the back room and retrieved the spiked bar, its nose twitching the whole time.

"You worthless thing," the Emperor hissed to the cowering Slavemaster. Detached, SkekTek observed the Slavemaster's behavior with satisfaction. "One task in the world, and you provide slaves with inferior conditioning!" Finding his grip on the punishment club, the Emperor swung.

* * *

"It sounds like the whole world is hidden inside the music," Loora said.

"Never had a taste for such sounds," Raunip replied. They trotted down a last grassy incline together to the outskirts of the Worshipper village. The Gnarled Stonetree rose up above them like an overcooked hand.

"You don't like music?" Loora said. "I'm not even romantic and I love it. It makes me feel awake."

"That must be why I don't like it," Raunip answered sourly. "I'm already awake."

Loora kicked a treecone at him.

From the round doors of the pod-houses, charming faces appeared, but they doured and dampened and went scowly, all except for the youngest Pod People, who were innocently pleased. The adults became unwelcoming, sharing knowing looks. The music stopped. Children were pushed inside and rainshutters slammed and latched. In moments the pod town was shut.

"Not very welcoming, are they?" said Loora.

"Perhaps we're dishonoring their tree with our presence," Raunip snipped. "Useless fools."

A sonorous string instrument tone seethed through the ground around them, an alarm. At once a central pod's doors burst open, and two Podlings with dangerous-looking spearbolt bows emerged. They were very small people, Loora thought, but seemed strangely fierce when armed with needle-tipped weapons.

"As tempted as I am to speak my mind to them," Raunip told Loora, "I fear death. Would you be my emissary?"

"Me?" Loora squeaked. The drawn spearbolts were tipped with heart-shaped seeds carrying points like daggers. She faced them down. Raunip began stepping slowly back until Loora was clearly in front. "I'm not a diplomat, I'm a mechanic," she hissed.

"Speak or we're dead," Raunip whispered, not at all in an encouraging way.

Two killing bolts aimed straight at Loora's throat. The cringing imp curled up behind her.

"Gelfling," one Worshipper warrior muttered to the other.

"Have you come to apologize and beg for mercy?" the second warrior said.

Loora felt the dizziness from the blackwater globe re-arise, and grew nauseous from nerves.

"I've come looking for my friend," she said, wincing at each word. "He was attacked at the top of the hill and maybe came by here. Have you seen another Gelfling--a boy my age?"

The guards eyed each other. They really were very small.

"A Gelfling spy, already dwelling within the shadow of the Sacred Tree," one hissed.

"Spread the word. He must be found," said the other.

Loora felt she was supposed to say something useful here.

"He's really nice," she told them. This sounded insufficient to her. "Aughra thinks he's important," she added.

"Aughra couldn't think much of anything," a guard told her. "She's been dead for centrines untold."

"She lives at the top of the hill," Loora said, indicating the hill. "It took me only a toll and a half to fly down. Just climb up and knock on her door."

"We People of the Boughs never leave the tree's sacred shadow," a guard said. "No one who enters her shadow may ever leave. Nor will you, nor your spy-brother, nor that crooked one behind you."

Behind her, Raunip made a series of flowing gestures and slid into the topsoil. When Loora spun to him, he was gone.

"The spies can hide inside the ground itself," a guard said. "Walking inside Thra. Slicing the Sacred Tree's roots. Killing it." They shared a terrified look.

Small hands took Loora's arms and drew her into the central pod.

* * *

More than once, the yenti coin slipped from his grasp and sent Gobber scrambling through the darkness looking for it. Each time, it seemed to shine up through the gloom at him. Under the rapid roaring roiling flames of fear that gripped his mind, he imagined a future where he returned to the castle and traded the yenti for Lemny. Perhaps that old Woodland Gelfling guard still patrolled late at night, and was fair, and could be bribed for a single coin. Or maybe there was a Skeksi who hated the Chamberlain and could be bargained with--no, thought Gobber wildly, no more Skeksis. Never again. Never, never again. Not for a _sack_ of coins.

At the outer edge of the Perpetual Storm, a rise led up toward the junglelands at the edge of Black River. In the distance the Swamp of Sog could be seen laying on the far side of Skarith, the prickly scrub forest that surrounded the Castle of the Crystal. As Gobber looked out at the purple crystalline spires, shivering, he resolved never to set foot in the Castle's orbit ever again. _But to rescue Lemny--_

The road to the castle ran alongside the swamp, but if ever he had to visit the castle again, he'd make the climb up the dry cliff way in the lee of the rain.

The shady trailtree's longest limb hung horizontally, tipped with bundles of withered fruit, a bowed head. Gobber took himself up and lay across it, hidden under bursts of summer leaves, and held himself in his small arms until the shaking stopped.

* * *

"No time. Pafaul, what else will heal him?"

"You're the Herbalist! I don't know!" Pafaul shouted, flinging bowls aside with its paws, searching.

"Don't get them out of order! My sense of smell isn't quick enough to sort them," the Mystic said, shuffling the bowls around absentmindedly. The flouse cheeped helpfully. "Yes, my dear! Brainbane and sour kithrin."

The long nose unraveled and sniffed out a pair of bowls. Keirkat wasn't able to lift them, so Pafaul stumbled through the syrups, retrieved the bowls, and gave them to the Gelfling through the channelled blue lightning. The Gelfling got his hands into the sticky liquids and ate.

Slowly, slowly the panic and blue blaze fell away and calm arose. UrNol breathed easier. The worst was over. And so much information!

"Light's gone," said Pafaul.

"I can't see."

The Gelfling's hands began circumnavigating his face and the surrounding room. He looked, the ur-Mystic thought, very much like a Verduran Three-Handed Fern caught in a high wind.

"Pafaul, do we have anything that cures blindness?" the Mystic said.

"Again, I hesitate to say it, but I'm not the herbalism expert here."

"Right you are. Eyebight, perhaps!" he exclaimed, extending a long pair of left hands to the corner of the room and waggling them. The flouse retrieved a smallish bowl and handed it to the Gelfling, who swallowed from it.

"Didn't help," the boy murmured, sounding . . . well, the Mystic _thought_ he sounded sad, but that was hardly his area of expertise.

"Not to worry, m'boy, blindness can be a blessing! It can teach you to rely on others, to develop other skills and senses, and my, but it heightens your sense of smell! Especially when you have a flouse to help you. Yes indeed . . ."

"I don't want to be blind," the Gelfling said. Sadly, the Mystic thought. Definitely a sad tone.

"Oh, but think of the data we have now! We've located the definite origins of the blue light! A cure can't be that far away now. Granted, it might not be here in this room, but . . ."

"But you can't open this room for at least a week. A week of blindness . . ."

"You're not dead, at least," Pafaul said encouragingly.

"Exactly," said the ur-Mystic. "Since none of us are dead, let's sit in a circle and ponder. When you hear the tree go _tut-tut-boing_ , that'll mean it's ready to open again, and then we'll find my sibling urIm. He'll make you right as ruttidge."

The Gelfling sat, accepted the furry paw of Pafaul, and joined urNol in pondering.

After some time of pondering, the boy said, "The future is gone."

* * *

"Greetings an' salutations, your superiorly-intelligent majesty," the bug was saying to him. Odd that semi-intelligence apparently granted one the ability to recognize superior intelligence.

SkekTek wrapped the new robe around himself. It was a quite fine fit, a quite fine fit indeed. The Grand Emperor was pleased with skekTek's work. The Ornamentalist's embroidery was very nice. SkekTek burst with recognition.

"Er, not to be indiscreet, your wisdom, but is there anything for dinner?"

SkekTek's gaze did not stray to the insect. Still too much to learn. The new slave's one white eye and infested nose were still twitching. Curse that Chamberlain for shattering the lens, it could have been divided to create a matching pair. Did the unprocessed eye retain normal intelligence? Well, vivisection should provide the answer. SkekTek ordered the slave to bring the scalpels to the operating table and to lie down beside them.

"Have you a moment to spare for a poor merchant who might be able to acquire for you a, ah, variety of irreplaceable items?"

SkekTek's eyes flicked to the smashed smidgen of lens in his hand, then to the bug.

"This came in with you," skekTek said to the bug, holding up the glass.

"After a manner of speaking, granting me more of wosscallit, _agency_ , seeing as I myself brought it," the bug replied. "With my partner, of course. Pity that fat Skeksi was so clumsy as to smash it so small, I was just saying."

"You could find me another one," skekTek murmured.

"Acourse I could, acourse I could. Not from here, obviously, I'd need to be, er, at my liberty."

"Partner," skekTek said. "You say you have a partner. What's your partner look like?"

The bug seemed to shudder slightly, but recovered and said, "Bit like the fella on the table, only dressed in, shall we say, a number of less-than-pristine coats. Used to carry a cart, but that's gone now."

SkekTek ignored the resentful tone. Tone was immaterial.

"Your friend will trade a second full-sized lens--no, two of them--for you." SkekTek did not pitch the words as a question.

"Sure he would, sure he would--"

Lurching out of the room, skekTek summoned a pair of Gelfling guards with recurve bows and ugly attitudes and ordered them to search the Skarith chaparral and the main road alongside the swamp for a Podling in less than pristine coats. Saluting, they departed. He returned to his laboratory and strode toward the processed slave lying on the operating table.

"Er, your precision, could you find me something to eat? Nuffing too fancy, mind--"

A long pin that had of late held a pair of hæmostatic forceps against the wall was easily pried out and stuck through the bottom of the twig cage.

"You'll be fed," skekTek slithered, "when I feed you. Now. Silence."

He tore a piece of his old, non-honorific robe off, flung it over the cage, and tied it around the pinhead. A vague quiet sobbing came from under the robe.

SkekTek went to the operating table, secured the slave's hands and feet, pinned his eyelids open with more pins, and began.

* * *

"Dig up the gardens. Take off the first layers of topsoil. Expose all the roots. We need to find them."

The two Worshipper warriors standing at the center of the dwelling saluted and spun. They flanked a very old Podling in a bark dress. She held a scepter of wood strips woven together and sat on an upturned root-end like a splintery throne. One of the warriors departed through the open door to spread the word. The other remained, guarding Loora.

"Raunip's not a spy. Neither is Cory. And Cory WON'T be hiding under your garden," Loora said.

"That, my poison-tongued infester, is exactly what spies say when confronted," the Podling on the throne said.

The old Pod woman was more gnarled than the root she sat on, Loora thought. She also thought: This diplomacy business did not suit her. She hoped Aughra would make it down here soon, and wondered how Raunip had kept pace when Loora had flown down the mountain.

"I promise you, you won't find anything."

"So strongly you protest. I begin to think we may find something after all. Earthworks, sappers, soil-salters . . . You're all trying to wrest our Sacred Tree from us. Poisoning us with your Gelfling diseases. Invading our pods. Desecrating our air." The ruler of the Worshippers curled up around her scepter. "The sorrows of having so much rightness concentrated in one place. Everyone wants to take it from you."

"Honestly, keep it. Just help me find Cory and let me get back to Aughra."

"That name." The Worshipper queen (or whoever she was) began squeezing the scepter with two veiny hands. "Abandoner," she muttered to herself. "Deceiver."

She drew her legs up and sat on them, becoming even smaller and yet younger-seeming, like a little girl with a wrinkled face.

"Yes, I remember the stories of Aughra. 'Mother of Thra.' 'Protector of nature.' Such pure and special lies." The Worshipper cradled the scepter and rocked it like a mother's child. Her eyes did not turn to Loora as she spoke. "Do you know the stories of the Mother of Thra, young thing?" The queen (Loora decided she must be one) did not wait for her to respond before continuing: "Here is one story. I may tell it to an innocent and sweet spy like you."

Loora sat crosslegged and listened, setting the meditation globe beside her, covered carefully. The warrior abided.

"A time they tell of, the one named Mother Aughra officiated a wedding between Land and Sky. Every mindful being attended the wedding. The flowers of the world each produced one new bloom never before seen on Thra. The stars dropped from their attendant posts and danced for the wedding party. The mountains bowed and the seas sang. Mother Aughra orchestrated everything.

"For ten days and ten nights the procession carried Sky forth toward the wedding. At a set time, out from behind a veil of cloud did Land reveal herself. And Aughra spoke the words of union, and Land and Sky consented and declared their love, and all things celebrated the meeting of Land and Sky.

"But Mother Aughra, seeing such pure happiness, found herself invaded by a new feeling, a sick and venomous dream--a dream named Envy. For Aughra herself had no one and nothing for herself _but_ herself. Buried in her dream of Envy, Aughra's judgment fell clouded. She plotted to take from Land and Sky the very happiness she had granted them. If she could not be happy, why should they?

"Thus did Mother Aughra dream a fog and rain so wide and deep and long that Sky could not see Land, nor could they meet as they were accustomed to. Sky despaired. Desperate to reunite, Sky threw into the fog and rain pieces of herself, in hopes the pieces might reach the Land. But through her subtle powers, dreamsick Mother Aughra caused the pieces of Sky to be swallowed up utterly by the fog and rain. For ten days and ten nights did Sky plunge into the fog and rain, to no avail, until Sky had thrown all of herself down, and was gone utterly. And Land was alone utterly.

"And Land called to Mother Aughra, asking where Sky had gone. And Aughra told her that Sky had left her forever, that Land was abandoned, as no married one should be. And Land tore herself once, twice, three times, until the scars were so deep they could not be undone. This was named the Great Sundering, and every mountain and valley on Thra was born from it.

"And when Mother Aughra's fountain of Envy was spent, she dismissed the fog and rain. Even when released, Sky was gone--no longer a mind and body and face and life, but an emptied expanse. And to this day, Land mourns and cries for her wife, and to this day she finds no solace, and the rivers bleed into the sea, and wells well with tears, and the Land weeps with each breath. All from the Envy of Aughra."

The warrior Podling wiped a tear away. Loora rolled her eyes. Folktales.

"That's such a dumb story," said Loora. "She's just a nice old lady. The sky never had a face. It never happened."

"Did," croaked a voice at the door. As they turned, Aughra shuffled in and leaned too heavily on Loora's shoulder. In the old woman's other hand were bundles of plucked healing herbs. "It was long enough ago that the memory grows dim. Gelflings were not more than animals then."

"Gelflings were never animals," Loora said.

"And the urSkeks had not visited, nor become as they are now. And a great deal of learning was still to be done."

"Mother Aughra passed from this world a thousand cycles ago," the Worshipper queen murmured, smiling and gripping her scepter with both withered hands. "Thus you are no more than an evil vision brought upon us by the enemies of the Tree."

The Pod warrior drew his bow. "Then a spearbolt will fly right through her!" he exclaimed in a voice too fearful and high-pitched. His hand shook on the draw of the bow.

"Ah, let us trust it would. Have you not faith in the work of the Sacred Tree, and know that its enemies cannot defeat Her?" The aged Worshipper queen relinquished a hand from her staff, leaned girlishly over the edge of the root and gripped the spearbolt. The warrior let her take the bolt from the bow, though he stared mercilessly at Aughra as she did. "Let us hear the honeyed words sure to drip from her vaporous, insubstantial mouth."

"I know you. What've you done to these Podlings, Pressela? I can feel their confusion trors outside the village," Aughra said.

"You dare speak that name," the Worshipper queen hissed. "I've relinquished it, ghost. My name is Brin now, and I'm Great Priestess of the Sacred Tree. See how outsiders lie to us, my warrior?"

The Podling warrior nodded vigorously, his empty hands itching to draw his bow.

"Now, let us find the remaining two intruders and pass appropriate judgment on them. If we cannot bury them, for fear they should swim through the soil, then perhaps they will inhabit a cage suspended from the Sacred Tree's branches. One for each, do you suppose, or one large cage? No reason to burden ourselves unnecessarily on a sentence of death. Warrior, prepare one large cage for our guests to starve in."

Glum yet determined, the warrior nodded vigorously and departed, abeying briefly to ask whether Brin was certain she'd be safe by herself. She waved him away. He was gone.

"They are so pliable. Trusting. Believing," Great Priestess Brin said when he was gone. Loora felt ice on her neck, though there was nothing there. She rested a hand on the meditation globe's stem. After losing herself to that song of darkness, the globe was not especially reassuring.

"You know I'm not a spy," she said to Brin.

"I keep that one around--" Brin indicated the departed warrior--"because of his enormously trusting nature, his willingness to do strange tasks without question--and his very useful tendency to _gossip_. In an hour, the village will know he has seen Aughra, and will therefore refuse to believe Aughra even exists. As for you? I'll hear your last rattle of a gasp on your last day on Thra."

"Why?" whispered Loora. "What have I done?"

"I've long told these folk that the People of the Boughs are the only ones left in a desolate world. They live their lives believing there's nothing else, no other way. So they stay, and obey, and kill or banish intruders, and sweat over their little gardens, and from their breath and their sweat comes essence."

"Essence?" said Loora.

"The essence of life," the Great Priestess continued, curling up again comfortably. "Every living thing possesses a drop or two, but these Podlings contain a very resilient regenerating dose. Merely breathing their exhalations and eating their cultivated eflic berries and turblaroots will slowly, slowly prolong my life. It isn't much, but it's enough. Stories of friendship with the Gelfling will encourage them to go off." Brin's hand fluttered toward the door. "Away. Out there. Looking for Gelfling friends. And one by one, my sources of essence will flit off on stubby feet and I'll not have enough to live on. And slowly, day by day, I will die."

"Hmp! Not much of a life. Pretending to tell them the truth. Draining them of their ability to think on their own," said Aughra.

"They're Podlings. They prefer not to." Brin flicked her last wisps of aqua-blue hair and chuckled.

"Who are you, really?" said Loora.

"Aughra can tell you the story before you die."

"I'd rather hear it from you," Loora said.

Brin adjusted herself and laid her scepter across her lap. "You'd rather hear it from me. Close the doors and windows and come closer. They'll know to knock. I'd rather they did not overhear."

Considering this, Loora rose, closed off the room, and sat before the Great Priestess. She was nearly taller sitting on the ground than Brin was on her root throne.

"Closer," said Brin.

Loora looked over her shoulder. Aughra stood patiently, looking over her white metallic beak, and nodded lightly. Loora scooched closer to the throne, so close that Brin could whisper in her ear. The root pressed against her knee.

"The story," the Great Priestess began. "I was once a sea creature. I separated the water in a small space, about this very size." She indicated herself. "I was not very intelligent." Brin chuckled again. "Less intelligent than a fish, if you'll believe it. But I lacked the fear that drives fish to flick their tails madly. I was a creature at peace, in the light of the ocean. Until the sky broke open and a beam of light came down into the Great Crystal."

"The Conjunction," Aughra murmured.

"Through the beam came many things from other worlds. Vibrations. Beings called urSkeks. And terrible, terrible dreams. Deep dreams, which no sane person could ever conceive. Thrilling and impossible."

Loora felt her breath go thin as fear crept over her.

"Yes, feel fear, my Gelfling. When a wild dream pursues you, swim how far you may, there is nowhere to escape to. I could not escape, though I felt it coming for me. It followed me through the water, whispering its mad-wise gibberings, until I lost the strength to run the more and gave in. It took me." Brin touched Loora's chin, just as Aughra had led Cory with a finger.

A flood of images rushed into Loora's mind. Colors, frightening colors spattered with insidious meaning--eyes and eyes and teeth, and strong, screaming emotions--desires for safety from the crawling madness of the outer reaches--desires for centrines upon centrines of stable mindlessness, an eternity of a thousand sunsets--stasis and the safety to dream hideously--flew through Loora like a tamtail through piles of fallen leaves.

Brin withdrew her hand.

"You can dreamfast," Loora said, shaken.

"No, dear Gelfling, I cannot. Only a _dream_ can dreamfast. For that is what dreamfasting is--one dream touching another. And every Gelfling is born from a dream, and bears the dream in her heart." A finger nudged Loora's chest. "And so I cannot have Gelflings coming and going beneath my tree, lest my dream grow polluted with another's. Pity you must die; you're quite a good listener."

"Will you really put us in a cage until we starve?"

"Oh yes, we must. My dream grows disquieted at your breath already, and at the touch of your skin. And the Podlings must be taught to fear the Other."

From inside the wisened Podling face, a blueish-green watery slime poured, nose and mouth, forming a faceless tentacle. From its center cracked a mouth.

"Yes, sweet Gelfling. You will die."

*** * ***

The Storyteller leaned into the firelight.

Let us speak, my audience, of the creature named _Crabbit_. Wisest and most loving of all insects, the Crabbits have long since advanced past the stage of digging tiny tunnels through sand, past the stage of mindless obedience to a queen, to a more developed state. In their elaborate mud caverns among the architectural roots of the titanroot tree, the Crabbits raise families and live in peaceful society. The Crabbit is a fountain of warmth.

The only great irregularity of this mindful beetle is its inability to dream. Imagine, yes. Sleep, yes. But Crabbits have no dreams, nor the ability to see images or hear sounds as they sleep. A Crabbit sleeps in a coma, and wakes wide-eyed and refreshed. A quirk, perhaps. Or evidence of the wisdom of Thra. By virtue of their dreamlessness, Crabbits are never misled. Their eyes see all things clearly. Intentions, purpose, meaning--all are clear to the Crabbit. The Crabbit knows only truth.

The Storyteller hummed a single tone and permitted a pair of lovewings to alight on her upraised arm. She cooed to them, and away again they departed, leaving behind one faintly-pink feather.

To dream, as each of us knows, is to live briefly inside our own crazy minds for a time. If we do not let our insanity out, it boils slowly over, a kettle lowly simmering. Only a creature with no madness in its soul at all may go for a lifetime without dreaming. And between lifetimes? Let us not speak of _between_ lifetimes. No doubt we all dream our deepest dream in death--even Crabbits. But within our lives?

Clarity is the world of the Crabbit. Clarity like pressed ice.

* * *

"Hold off! What're you thinking? I've a good mind to-- _oof_ \--give you a word or two off the bottom of my mouth, I do-- _OW_!"

Gobber's wrists were tied. Two of the fiercest-looking Gelflings he'd ever seen--scars up and down their faces, missing teeth, and unassuaged hate in their eyes--bore him like a small sack of grain on their shoulder toward the Castle.

This was it. Should've kept moving. Now they were going to do all those nasty Skeksi-ish things to him that he'd so narrowly avoided with the Chamberlain. They'd--they'd-- _trounce_ him, prob'ly. Poke him with somefing sharp. Force him to _exercise_. Whatever they did to those two maître d's at the door, the ones who said they did whatever they were told. Didn't bear finking about. So of course it was all he _could_ fink about.

At a knock, the doors parted and Gobber was dragged down a crooked staircase to a pit. No, it wasn't a pit, Gobber fought, it was more of a dungeon, or perhaps what you might call a _chambers_ , not to say a _boidoir_ , mind--

"Ahhh," said a voice that put the chill of rotting death into Gobber's heart. "The partner."

Into view stepped a long-legged humpbacked filthy Skeksi wearing some sort of woolly wintry robe. Fine cloth. If only he could get a piece of--Gobber stopped his merchant's line of thought when he realized that the Skeksi's wintry robe was in fact made of material he'd sold to the Chamberlain earlier that day. Work quick here, they do, he figured.

"Gobber? Is Gobber here?" came a muffled voice.

"Lemny!"

As Gobber raced past the Skeksi, his movement was arrested by two long-fingered left hands.

"Ah, I propose a simple trade, merchant. I need two clear glass refracting lenses. The Chamberlain smashed the old one. I will trade you this--" The Skeksi flung back a piece of cloth--"for them."

Beneath the cloth, Lemny's dear shell had been pinned to the ceiling of the twig cage by four vicious needles. Looked cracked--oh Skymother, he'd had his shell cracked by these beasts! Gobber fell backward at the sight, caught himself on the leg of a workbench. They'd cracked his shell, oh my love, they'd stabbed right through the shell.

"Lemny," Gobber murmured, turning to the cold dead eyes of the beaked monster whose fingers still curled around his shoulder.

"Gobber, it doesn't hurt, he hasn't hurt me, only get me out!"

The Podling's mind cleared and he repeated, "clear glass refracting lenses. Two. Have 'em before you can blink, your greatness."

" 'ats it, Gobber," Lemny called. "Try the distiller's, they've got those nice windows now, they know some 'un who can work glass. Or the observatory--"

Still gibbering slightly, Gobber noticed a pair of glass windows in the door to the dungeon chambers. "P-p-pardon, my lord an' greatness, but haven't you got glassworkers here?"

"Another smart one," the Skek snarled. "I'll tell you why I need you, you pathetic creature. Only SkekLach can forge glass of this quality, and _he demands payment_. Whereas I have payment enough for you right here." He jostled the twig cage, and Lemny let out a very worrying sort of sound that suggested he might not have been telling the whole truth about it not hurting him.

"Yessir, yessir, I unnerstan' completely. I'll be on my way, won't take but a week or somewhat. Before you can count on both hands, that is. Or all four hands, or--"

"One week. Then the bug starts getting more of these." A fistful of pins was held up for Gobber to see.

Gobber's mind skipped ahead, plotting a course. Without the wagon it'd be a day to the edge of Skarith, then the road to--no, the Podlings of Balgertown didn't have glass, neither did the Dousans of the Desert. "There won't be time," he moaned. "The Observatory's through the Swamp of Sog, an' I can't rightly squelch through it in a week one way, let alone both. An' that's taking the surefire route."

The Skeksi seemed to consider this, then nodded, deciding something. "Then take the Nethercroft." A gesture, and the Gelflings began dragging Gobber away. As he called out for Lemny to wait, to not be afraid, that he'd make it back in time, he caught a glimpse of a distant operating table with a scene on it he couldn't quite make out but desired never, never to see again.

* * *

"Clean up the whole room, by yourself, without any of your weak-headed slaves to help you!" the Emperor roared as he hung up the red-stained punishment club and departed the dining chamber.

SkekNa the Slavemaster was not someone who misunderstood. Meekly piling cups and plates on filthy serving platters, he took the dishes to the scullery and began scrubbing. The lines of pain down his back and flank were reliable motivators. Every living thing needs motivation, orders, someone to obey, a reason to obey. Find the reason and give it to them and you have a slave.

Obedience. Absolute, unquestioned obedience. That was SkekNa's life. Finding it, enforcing it. And now that preening monster Tek had bested him at his own game.

"MmmMMmmm."

SkekNa's hands felt the slime of soap against them as he scrubbed flapbird blood off pewter. He did not turn around as the Chamberlain slunk in.

"Come to gloat?" he snapped, not pausing his cleaning in case the Chamberlain was spying for the Emperor.

"Hmmmmmmm."

To think he was reduced to sullying his feathers in the kitchens. Blackened-brown water twirled from his arms down the drain in unclean rivulets. Soiled. Soiled!

"That was quite a performance by our _dear_ colleague. Hmmmmm!" the Chamberlain whispered.

The Slavemaster was inclined to tear out the Chamberlain's throat as he repeated that musing-pandering-toadying-obsequious humming sound. "You have something important to do. I don't know what it is. Go and find it." SkekNa's voice was guttural and soulfully displeased.

"Mmmmmm. I _do_ have something important that I _have to do_."

The Chamberlain stood almost silently. He was watching skekNa stack cups like a Podling child, making that unctuous sound of . . . whatever his sounds meant. The Slavemaster found an old broom and returned to the high table with it. The Chamberlain scampered after him, staying right at his heel.

"Am I entertaining you?" SkekNa roared, sweeping.

"What I _have to do_ is to make our colleague SkekTek as unhappy as possible, my dear SkekNa. Very unhappy. Hmmmmm!"

For almost a full second, the Slavemaster stopped sweeping.

"You want to make Tek unhappy."

"Would that put us on the same agreeable side, do you think?" said the Chamberlain.

Furious at his own disobedience, SkekNa resumed sweeping. "Then go make Tek unhappy," he said. "I'll reward you."

"YOU TWO COWARDLY WORMS ARE PLOTTING BEHIND MY BACK!" screamed the voice of the Great Emperor, who ducked out from behind a pillar. His strides were loping and his pinhead eyes were narrowed under his crown. He was using his big tone of voice. The Slavemaster despised it.

"Your majesty. I was not," he said decisively. SkekNa did not lie to the Emperor.

"Oh, but please, your greatness, I was merely _advising_ my friend here about a--er--mutual acquaintance, not _you_ , your most handsome-beaked majesty," the Chamberlain added.

"YOU WERE PLOTTING."

"Yes, your majesty. But not against you," said the Slavemaster.

"LIES! Prove your obedience by . . . LICKING UP THE MESS THE ENTERTAINMENT LEFT BEHIND!" the Emperor roared.

There was, in fact, a sticky oily patch on the floor where the light show had taken place. From a place outside of conscious decisions, SkekNa hurled himself at the ground and began to lick at it. It tasted salty and dusty and--there was another taste--

"What's happening to him?" cried the Chamberlain, backing away.

"HE'S--" but the Emperor stopped shouting and watched.

From the sandstone floor, a purple light gleamed and poured into the Slavemaster's calculating eyes. His body shivered around him, and an angular warmth began to grow. Muscles that had not loosened in a hundred trines became soft, forgiving, supple, unclenched. His brow seemed to unknit and became a forehead of relaxation. His feathers straightened, and the slimy residue of soap nearly jumped off him as his body shed its ratty unkempt feather-hair and regrew it, sleek and shining and unwontedly fashionable.

"WHAT JUST HAPPENED, YOU MISERABLE CLUCK?" the Emperor screeched, tugging the Chamberlain up by his collar.

The Chamberlain merely babbled. The Slavemaster answered instead: "Your majesty, I've just discovered the true secret of that purple crystal. The fool SkekTek thought he'd found its use. He didn't. I did. Just now."

"USE?" roared the Emperor. "WHAT USE DOES IT HAVE?"

"The purple light squeezes a liquid out of the Podlings. The liquid provides eternal youth."

* * *

"Aughra--"

"Better not to speak."

And so Loora found herself wordless and shrinking as the cage around her rose along the black trunk of the Gnarled Stonetree. The shapes of camouflaged insects became apparent as she peered across the surface of the trunk, and a patch of furry red moss--

"Ah, a good source of pungulates," Aughra said, reaching out and plucking a handful of red fur from the moss.

"What are they?" Loora asked.

"Better not to speak," Aughra repeated, crunching some red fur into her mouth. She offered Loora some, but Loora didn't want any. She had other things on her mind. Gritting her teeth, she watched the ground depart. As they gained height, she wondered whether it was true that the land below her had once been married to the sky, and whether Aughra--no, it was absurd. Aughra was a nice old woman with a funny nose, and the ground didn't cry, and the watery tentacle that had spoken to her had no business being inside a Podling, and she'd get herself out of this cage before a littel could make that gurbly sound they make.

Idly, Loora wondered whether Raunip had escaped. He didn't seem to be on very good terms with his mother. Would he climb up in the night and cut them free anyway?

The rope snagged as the ring at the top of the cage struck the branch. The cage began swinging, then stopped rising, and Aughra was silent, and Loora was also silent. A strange bare spot on the tree peered through where bark had been cracked or stripped away in a perfect rectangle.

"Hmp! We've got them just where we want them!" said Aughra. "Now. Little fixer of things, please _unfix_ this cage."

* * *

"Through here."

Gobber was shoved feetfirst down what he was certain was a garbage chute. The last thing he saw before facing the dark was a mess of Gelfling scars and a face lacking some teeth. Then a hatch shut and . . .

As he slid down the sticky steep flume, a distinct blue light reflected back at him from the near surface. It almost seemed to be coming from--but a wave of dizziness struck him, not at all related to the slide, and sleep seemed oddly near for someone who was about to land on a . . .

Yes, sleep . . .

"It's changing again. It's . . . Aughra, I saw that poor . . . whatever-he-was . . . he didn't make it out . . ."

An image of a young Gelfling's face appeared for only a tick in time, then Gobber snapped awake, completely invigorated, just as he landed with a clunk on a flat silvery metal surface. A layer of assorted trash and debris had accumulated. It WAS a garbage chute.

". . . and levers and wheels, and . . . greasy . . . there's someone caught in the gears!"

Random words. Sounded like an echo, and not a very good one. Like calling into a rusty bucket, it did. Who was caught in gears? Didn't make any . . .

Oh.

The metal floor tilted and Gobber flatly fell through an opened pair of metal doors. Poured out of this box onto a clockwork tangle, he saw a thousand spinning gears, their sharp steel gear-teeth grinding apart a few pieces of trash that had fallen with him, the gears birthing a sound like the destruction of joy. His flailing hands grasped at anyfing that'd keep him above the--

The word from his brief dream echoed around in Gobber's skull-- _greasy_. Greasy! It was too greasy to--

In the split of an instant, just before his hands lost their grip on the filthy, greasy metal ledge, Gobber pushed off and landed on the largest of the gears below him and began running and it was oily and black and scudded-through with bits of trash and just behind him was a dropoff where thousands of remorseless jaw-blades met and crushed and shredded, a metal mouth. Surrounded by darkness, fighting this unplaceable sleepiness, Gobber pushed his small frame into heavy motion and dashed to the top of the gearwheel and stepped off the slick driveshaft and jumped directly to one horizontal drivewheel after another, the discs extending in every direction without walls or ceiling, his short body turning on flat turntables, and he repeatedly faced his only means of egress in the symphony of clockwork, which was a wall of vertical wormgears, spinning by what force he did not know. Dizziness grew. There were gaps between the skinny grooved posts, and beyond the wormgears lay a stable platform, but the squeeze would be tight. He took a moment to inhale, spinning on the turntable gear, the blue light from his chest painting the naked metal blue, and he huffed a mouthful of mental bravery and squeezed through--his coats were snagged!--pinned like poor Lemny, caught against the sharp wormgear teeth--tightening as they pulled his coats into their slow rotations--couldn't rip the coats off, his arms were both caught behind him at a funny angle and in moments his arms'd be torn right off his shoulders and then where would he be?--struggling, couldn't brace his feet against the gears or his shoelaces would catch, that'd be no improvement, a crawlyweb's no better than a flyswatter to an absent-minded dancerfly, that's what Lemny always said--he had to survive for Lemny's sake, he _had_ to survive--no one was coming to save him, there was no one to save either of them, no one would ever come this way--his arm pulled back suddenly, and then there was nothing else for it, he put his feet up against the wormgear, felt his shoelaces thread into the grooves and catch, and, remembering how greasy it was, propped up both feet and _pushed_ \--

Gobber heard the sound of fabric tearing away. Lucky his coats were so threadbare. He quickly tore them off with his no-longer-pinned arms, he was free, and now for the shoes, shut like an angry fizzgig's jaws, no time to untie, he shoved but his feet weren't coming free, the laces were tied tight to keep the cold out, he had to cut them off, somefing sharp, somefing sharp, _come on Gobber fink_ \--what was in his pocket?--junk, soft squishy junk--the edge of the coin, yes, it was sharp and cut straight frough the old leather and worked as a shoehorn as well and _ow_ cut his arch but the shoe was off and here the other one slipped off and Gobber fell like a wrinkly trailfruit onto the platform behind him, breathing like he'd never breathed air even once before in his entire life.

The platform snapped open and he fell straight frough it, howling all the way down.

* * *

"Calm down, Gelfling, there's no need to panic. Here, take Keirkat on your shoulder, she always makes me feel better."

The flouse jumped onto Cory's shoulder and wrapped her nose around him. He tried to calm himself down. Panic and the sense of unreality at his new blindness had become anger, seething rage, a desire to smash everything. They had killed his ability to see out of his own eyes. It wasn't fair! It wasn't right. His vision was the only thing that gave him joy. There was nothing else. Just the future, the _seeing_. That was his joy. That was his whole life. Nothing else even mattered. He had nothing else. And--

"You did this to me!" he screamed. "You and your data! You and your poison sap! This didn't have to happen."

As he thrashed, Keirkat made a flousy sound and hopped nervously off him again. Cory stormed through the black void that surrounded him and there were things in his way and he kicked them and the Mystic voiced some "now really!" noises and Cory couldn't find a place inside of himself to care what this Mystic thought about him. He didn't need anything from the person who stole his eyesight. Wrathful words he wanted to say bounced around in his head. Words like--

"Open for me, shake your bark, let me out, by the Sacred Spark!" he shouted.

"Oh, gracious, you can't do it just like that. You need to run a finger up the--"

Before the Mystic could finish, Cory had stumbled to the wall, run his finger up the side, and repeated the spell.

"No, you flying fool, you gullible old Mystic, you can't just tell him how to--" barked Pafaul from somewhere to Cory's left. "Now it's done, and he can't take it back. You've--"

A groan deeper than valley canyons resounded through the floor and walls and ceiling, and Cory heard an unbearable crunching and snapping and somehow didn't care that he'd--

"You've killed the tree," murmured Pafaul with sadness and wonder in his voice.

Shuddering ran up from the floor into Cory's spine. Pushing forward, stepping into a sticky bowl, he discovered that the wall was starting to open. A window in the trunk, just as when he'd been caught by the vines. Clear fresh air came through. He braced himself on the windowframe, but in seconds he could no longer find the top of the window. The groan continued. His hands explored the space around him. Ebbing evening suns'shine warmed his face, probably from the dying sun. The great and rose suns must have already set. Then:

"Cory!"

"Loora?" Her voice had come from somewhere to the left.

"The whole tree is caught on our rope, but not for long! Help us down before it all comes apart!" she shouted to him.

"I can't see!"

"Aughra, why can't he see?" Loora asked.

"No time. There's no time! Grease your hands and slide down the rope!" said Aughra's voice.

"Cory, throw us one of those bowls!" she said. "I'm right here. I'm a good catch."

He found a bowl and aimed it. "Just don't swallow any," he said with acid in his voice.

" _It was an accident!_ " came the ur-Mystic's voice indignantly.

The first bowl missed. "Further left, but take a step to the right so it doesn't hit that big splinter!"

The groaning was accelerating, and Cory threw three bowls blindly in rapid succession. Behind him, the Mystic was complaining and Pafaul was saying something to calm everyone down, but on the fourth throw--

"Caught it! Aughra, you first."

"Guide Cory down, girl. He'll need to slide, it'll be too high to climb. AND YOU THREE, COME DOWN AFTER!" she called past Cory to the Mystic, Pafaul and the flouse, who cheeped.

"We're quite happy where we are--"

"Go!" shouted Loora.

"Whoohoooo!" Aughra whooped as she slid, whirr, down Loora's rope.

"Cory, get your hands slick so you don't get ropeburn, then I'll guide you to the exact spot. I can fly down myself. I'll try to catch you if you miss, but let's not count on it. Pretend you've only got one shot. And whoever else is in there with you, come down before the whole tree does!"

With a series of "rights" and "lefts," Cory followed Loora's voice. "Jump about six trors forward to the rope. Overshoot it and it'll snag you right in the belly--quick, the tree's moving. Not too quick! Take enough time to get it right."

On impulse, Cory took his shoes off and threw them. His bare feet hung over the edge of the tree, its surface not a clean window ledge but splintery and torn. Finding the area he had to work with, almost glad he couldn't see the ground, he swung his arms, cursed the blindness, and leapt.

* * *

"There's no food," Lemny murmured. He'd gotten used to the pinpricks, which didn't go through anything vital, and it didn't feel too bad if he didn't move his arms. Any attempt to struggle made his clumsy body swing back and forth, cracking his shell a little at a time, prying it open.

Lemny was staying very, very still.

"Gobber's on his way," he breathed to himself. "Be a few days and I'll be a little worse for wear, and then they'll let us go--"

A door opened.

"Heard you talking," snapped a harsh voice. It was not a Skeksi.

Footsteps. Lemny didn't turn his head; he'd tried it earlier, and it made his shell creak.

"Both of us here against our wills. Bet you've got a name," the harsh voice said.

"Yeah, er, I have one at that. Care to let me down?" Lemny asked.

"Go against the wishes of skekTek? Be like taking my life in my hands. I'm Rian. Some people consider me a friend."

"Do the Skeksis?" Lemny asked.

"No."

The Crabbit risked a look over his shoulder and found a scarred Gelfling face. Rian's cheeks had been torn in ripples down one side, the cuts too regular to be an animal scratch. His hair wasn't quite black. Down one side of his ragged hair was tied a series of short ponytails; on the other side his locks hung loose and wild. He was dressed in animal leather, layers upon layers stitched into a hardened scale-like surface. Rian was not well-fed, and his cheeks were sunken and concave, but his hands were steady and moved with precision.

"A friend," said Lemny, "might call me Lemny. An emmeny might not. Although they might. Haven't had any emmenies before, so I don't know what they call people. Maybe emmenies call everyone 'chumbly' or somesuch, I wouldn't know."

"Enemies strike. They don't talk," said Rian.

"Rightly, rightly. _You're_ talking," Lemny added, squirming slightly as his shell squeaked.

"I am. I haven't got salvation to offer you, but I'll listen to your story."

"My story?" Lemny sighed. "Not so much to tell, Rian, my friend. Me an' my mate Gobber are merchants. Here an' there, y'know? He's the talker, mostly--quick on his toes. But me, obviously I'm not much for talking my way out of things. Not my talent. Cause you see, I'm not so much a salescrabbit as I am an _artist_. I've got a gift. I can turn anythin' into somethin' else, given enough time and the right tools." He took a moment. "I--I have this idea, d'y'see--not to say a _dream_ \--"

Lemny waited, but Rian did not interrupt.

"There's a cathedral, sort of thing, that I can see in my mind. Doors shaped like faces, windows circled by rings of color an' laid out like the wings of dancerflies, a roof of tiles shaped like the wings of littels, each one perfect an' unique. Faces an' wings. And I've conceived this one great spiral balcony like a whirlpool, made of carved-up wood rails, and in the right light, in the right time of day, as the three suns come up in the morning, the light passes through the balcony banisters in just such a way that it comes off as there's a thousand autumn leaves falling through the window, only, if you plan it right, as the day goes on, the leaves look like they're returning to the tree, falling _up_ in a spiral, as if nuffing really ends, but only returns to where it started. It'd be, wosstheword, _symbolic_ , y'see? And all down the inside of the walls is these pillars, there is, each of them with motifs of sky an' clouds an' such, as if you're living _in_ the clouds, knowwhatImean? An'--"

Again, Rian seemed content to listen. There were no other sounds in the laboratory but Lemny's own voice and a low everpresent hum from a long shut door.

"An' everything in my cathedral reminds you that life is precious, and that the world is beautiful, and that there's a place inside of us where the true world lives, a world without lies an' such, a place where you can trust every livin' thing to keep you safe an' not eat you or nuffing. I can see it so clearly, when I close my eyes, and if you could see the carvings I make on the road--well, if I had the land an' the materials an' enough time, I could make my cathedral real. You could walk up an' down it and see just a little of the perfect world you've got inside you, which, I hasten to believe, doesn't look so diffrink from the perfect world I've got inside me. Maybe it's even the same world, a world on the other side of us, and we all share it, like we share this one."

Lemny coughed and felt his shell crack just a little more.

"Anyway, that's my story, friend Rian." His shell suddenly scratched its way down one pinhead, and he clenched his shoulder as best as he could to keep it from moving any more. He possessed no tear ducts, but he heard his voice become more plaintive. "Tell me yours."

* * *

"BRING ME SKEKTEK'S CRYSTAL!"

The Chamberlain turned and nudged the Slavemaster. "You've done it, you've done it. We've got him now. I'll probably even get my gift back."

"Your majesty, I will bring you skekTek's crystal," the Slavemaster said and departed.

Such a simple creature, the Slavemaster. How strange to do what you're told. The Chamberlain sidled up to the magnificent arched robe of the Emperor and placed a hand on his majesty's shoulder.

"Hmmmmmm! Aren't you glad you followed us, your greatness? Some might say you have as much wisdom as you have luck. Clearly you recognize loyalty, yes. But may I speak to you of our little friend, skekTek?"

The Emperor reached out and pulled the Chamberlain closer. So simple to manipulate, those who only understand brute force. The Emperor lowered his voice: "You think skekTek knew about this." It wasn't a question.

"Indeed, your gloriousness, how could he not? The only explanation is that he wished to give you the slaves while he kept the real power for himself! He betrayed you and humiliated the Slavemaster and now he has the secret to eternal life."

"He knows the secret. But it will be easy to reproduce. I will entrust you with the crystal. Learn to use it and deliver the liquid to me."

" _Yes_ , your majesty, _yes_."

It always went the Chamberlain's way. Planning ahead. His brilliance was obvious.

* * *

"It has armssss and legssss like usss."

"It breathesssss."

"It wears clothessss . . . though they are ssssullied and untidy."

Gobber opened his eyes. The darkness was not absolute; as his pupils adapted to the dimness, he found himself in an enclosed space. An arched brick ceiling dripping with evaporation. A hard floor of stone and puddles. A trio of faces. Far down a corridor was a flick of blue-burning light, and there was no other illumination, other than the reflection off the water.

"Is--is this the Nethercroft?" Gobber gibbered. Unable to stand, he pressed his back to the algae-draped wall and curled his knees to his chest. His body ached, limbs and rump and head, from the hard landing.

"It talkssss . . ."

"Nethercroft, yess. Netherlingsss, one name we are given," one of the faces told him. "Under-Gelfss, say othersss. We are Grottan, amongssst ourssselves."

"What," another face asked, "are you?"

"Er, Gobber. Podling. Come from Nander, left home under extenuating circumstances I'd prefer not to repeat. Traveling salesman. Skeksis stole my wares, or I'd sell you sumfin'. Stole my best friend, too. Crabbit, name of Lemny. Got to rescue 'im. Need refracting lenses. Flying suns, but I don't want to move."

"Fell through the grrrrinder, you did."

Gobber exhaled, nodded, coughed wetly, and plunged into weeping, weeping as long and as hard as he ever had wept. He buried his broad nose in his hands and swept water from his eyes again and again. Three faces stared at him as he slid onto his side and hid, embarrassed, though he wasn't sure what he had to be embarrassed about. His face hurt, and his tears made ripples in the greenish puddles that covered the uneven floor.

"Stop staring!" he shouted as the Grottans crowded around him.

"Water from itssss eyessss . . ."

"Yes water from my eyes! Fieves stole my cart an' kidnapped my best friend and I fell frough a grinder like a piece of trash and I've lost everyfin' and I've still got to walk all the way frough the Swamp of Sog to the Observatory an' back in a WEEK an' get refracting lenses to trade for Lem an' I have a single yenti to pay for it an' I've got no time to spend _feelin'_ 'cause Lem's _dependin_ ' on me an'--" His voice got louder and more piercing to his own ears as he went on.

A faint blue glow became newly visible, reflected in the water. Gobber put his hands to his chest and found the glow shining off his palms.

"Wot's this?" he murmured, and found himself asleep.

* * *

Despite having wiped some sort of gooey sap on his hands, Cory found his palms heating up as he slid almost a centror down the sturdy rope. He got a leg up, trying to take the pressure off his burning hands, but with his feet bare (and how stupid was he to kick his shoes off?) he merely got fiber-burns on his toes as well.

Lacking any way to tell how far away the ground was, Cory didn't have a chance to slow down before he hit, and his legs seemed to shoot a tror up into his belly. Hopefully nothing was broken, but he was instantly sore, and he said some nasty things about Mystics and crawly-infested sap and camouflaged vines and about not being able to see ever again . . .

"There they are! They've invaded the Sacred Tree!" shrieked a narrow, pin-shaped sort of voice.

" _Don't even think about it_!" roared Loora from just over Cory's head.

On the leafstrewn grass he gripped the taut rope in his hand, needing a signpost, a sense of where he was, but the long peg that held up the rope (and why was the rope there, anyway? Was it really to hold up the tree?) tore out of the turf, straining diagonally, until with a pop it ejected completely. A hellish groan was the unmistakable sound of the tree tearing its roots out and falling.

It went gradually, a slow devastation, turning the ground to shivering jelly, and it was completely, completely, completely his fault.

It was Cory's fault.

"They've destroyed it!" a small but heartsick voice cried out. A chorus joined in, followed by, "High Priestess Brin! You said the tree couldn't be defeated. But--but the tree--they--"

"My fault, my fault, terribly sorry," the Mystic called out from somewhere above. "All a misunderstanding, really."

"Don't tell them that!" Pafaul moaned from somewhere behind Cory. "Can't you see they're pointing bows at you?"

"You've been so negative recently, Pafaul," the Mystic said, a little nearer. He must be climbing down the top side of the falling trunk. "I really think you should try to keep on the brighter side. I mean, look at all the new friends we get to meet." The Mystic's voice called out to the gathered crowd of Worshippers: "Hello, friends!"

The tree, so long in bending, finally struck the ground and shattered remorselessly.

Cory heard an angry susurrus from all around him. Then Pafaul's voice:

" _You fool Mystic_! You gullible, naïve, childish Mystic. That was my home! There was none of this weaponry and anger and hatred in there. We were safe. We were free from warfare, from hunters. There were no knives in the tree. No bows. There was no one waiting to stab us in the dark of the wood. I was alone, you fool Mystic, without a family, and I found a home, and friends, and I was safe from the knives! And now they'll come. They'll skin me. They'll cut me apart."

"Pafaul . . ." said Cory, turning toward the nearby voice.

"My mothers. Palauna and Piruna, my sisters. They're--they're all--it'll start again, it'll happen to me next--"

His irritability became undercut by sympathy, and Cory reached out a hand toward Pafaul's voice and rested it on thick fur.

" _Don't you try to share your big heart with me!_ " Pafaul screamed and pushed Cory away. "You did this. You did this to _me_. You tore down my home. You and that old fool."

The chirping sound of the flouse nearby.

"You choose, Keirkat. You're my only friend. Will you stay with me or go with that bumbling herbalist?" shouted Pafaul.

The sound of the disheartened flouse departing. The blue creature wept.

"You--you chose the Mystic . . ." said Pafaul faintly.

Now Loora's hand was in Cory's. Cory stood, surrounded by his blindness. The hand led him forward. The smell of wet garden dirt was raw in the air.

"Who are they?" Loora whispered as they stepped forward together. "Those three?"

"I thought they were my friends," said Cory. "Maybe they were. Maybe they thought I was their friend. They had a herbalism lab. They asked me to taste some kind of rare sap, and it gave me the Light Sickness."

"The blue one must really have loved the tree," Loora said.

"I think he really did. Or she? And it was my fault. I just--I had to get out. I felt so trapped in there. They told me the tree couldn't be opened for a week, and I--"

"You wouldn't have survived," Loora told him. "Aughra's son told me you'd have two weeks with the right seashells and stuff, but you wouldn't have had any seashells inside a tree."

Cory stopped walking. Loora tugged on his hand. "You _do_ have the right seashells and stuff to cure me, right?" Cory said.

"We'll get them. First let's get to Aughra and figure out a way out of the circle."

"Circle?" he replied, walking forward.

The point of a spearbolt touched his shoulder.

"You really are blind," Loora murmured, and squeezed his hand.

* * *

"If anyone asks, I'm telling them _you_ pulled them out."

Lucky thing Crabbits don't have nerves in their shells-- _oo_ , well, almost no nerves. A four-fingered hand held him just off the floor of the cage as pins slid out and dropped to the floor.

"This one's in tight. I can't get it."

One pin was loose from the cage but was stuck into his shell. Lemny, now released from the top of the cage, bent the pin irritably with his pincer and squashed the point firmly under his carapace where it wouldn't snag on anything. Fancied it looked rebellious, pin in your shell.

"Where's skekTek?" bellowed a dark voice from the stairwell.

Rian spun and pressed himself over the cage. "Nothing!" he called out.

"Where's skekTek?"

"It's the Slavemaster," Rian hissed to Lemny.

_"Slave_ master? Since when do Skeksis have slaves?"

_"_ He's thick and simple. Pretend you're stupid. Dumb, I mean. Don't talk."

A Skeksi in a brutish-looking square robe framed in steel marched into the laboratory. In his hand was a hook-bladed weapon on a pole. His black marble eyes searched side to side for the scientist. Avian nostrils flared.

"He's not here," Rian said.

This statement notwithstanding, the Slavemaster continued steadily forward into the low-ceilinged chamber. He eyed Rian. "You're mine. Son of Reuel. Where's skekTek?"

"He's--oop," said Lemny.

"Haven't seen him since breakfast, sir." Folded behind Rian, Gelfling fingers squeezed the titanroot branches until one of them snapped.

"Find skekTek. Bring him to the kennels."

"Right away," said Rian. "Last seen him near the roof. I'll look there first."

The Gelfling hustled out of the room, leaving Lemny alone with this blunt, thuggish Skek.

Keep quiet. That's the trick. Wise people don't tangle their mouf with too many words, that's what Gobber says. Pretend you're stupid, or wise. Silence, that was the way out. Just keep your mouth shut, wait until this galump trots off, pretend you're just a mindless bug, then you've got room to wiggle out and make your way out of the castle. Wait at the shady trailtree, Gobber'll catch up. Or at the entrance, in case he comes in the back way. He'd want to hurry, he would, just _keep your mouth shut Lemny you tamtail-brained Crabbit_ \--

"So strange," the Slavemaster said aloud, continuing to pace forward through the sandstone laboratory. "This is where he lives." The Skek was talking to nobody, to himself. Pointed hands turned a capstan wheel shaped like a white mushroom with kindling spokes and a long door began to slide open. "Here he can look out on the central point of the whole world." The long door made its scratchy way into the wall, revealing a purple light that made Lemny distinctly queasy. "His alone. We who are great and powerful stand in halls far above, while he, who is weak, dwells beside its light."

The Skeksis didn't usually seem to be this philoflossical, did they? Not thinkers, surely. The opening door stopped short, and the Slavemaster gave the capstan wheel a savage twist. The door resumed its slow progress opening.

"Always underground, always hidden. What right does he have to keep the Crystal to himself? What are his purposes?"

Just keep quiet, he's a fruit basket, a looniac, a crazy Skek who wouldn't know a bit of sunshine if it shrivelled his mangy face all up, just _stay silent there's nuffing to say to him don't give in he'll put those pins back in, or worse_ \--

"Such a, a _purple_ thing it is, to shine such light on a weakling like him. What's the word for things that look nice?" the Slavemaster said to himself. "Rrrm. Pretty? Nice-looking? A pretty nice-looking purple light."

The Skek seemed to be trying to think, and it visibly bothered him. Ha. They're certainly thick, Lemny thought, but it was all a bit _poetical_ for a Slavemaster. Ignorant buzzards. Slimy, ignorant, hairy--

"I think I'd like some of its light for myself. Yes, where's that glass eye he had? More of the light for myself." The Slavemaster, walking very oddly, traversed the room and took the lens and its strap from a workbench and returned to the light. Pulling the lens over his bald head, he stared into the wide doorway.

Lemny couldn't see exactly what the Skek was staring at, but he certainly seemed transfixed. Seemed far less wosscallit, _enthusiastic_ , about locating skekTek, now that he'd found this pretty nice-looking purple light. More like he'd got hisself a new hobby.

"More light," the Slavemaster breathed. "It's good. It's good. Almost as good as that juice. It's--I must have a way to come in here. To bathe in the light. I will not rest a night without it. I must _live_ in the light of the Dark Crystal."

"It's not the Dark Crystal, it's the Great Crystal," said Lemny knowledgeably.

And the steel-framed Skeksi spun, slipped the lens from his forehead, lowered his hooked weapon and charged.

*** * ***

"Even in spirit form, she possesses incredible power," Great Priestess Brin whispered. Bowstrings were tensed, and not merely by the guards, either--every Worshipper, even the children, pointed a deadly-looking spearbolt at Loora and Cory and Aughra and the three oddballs from inside the tree. "The tree can be replanted. They have broken its upper boughs, but that is nothing. As for these spies--"

"But we're the People of the Boughs!" the gossipy guard sobbed. "What are we without the boughs?"

"The boughs will regrow," Brin said. "The roots are as alive as ever. Until we've replanted the tree, let us be the People of the Roots. Now as for these spies--"

"All our gardens, dug up," one old Worshipper said. "Winter is not so far away. Will there be food?"

"The Sacred Tree has ever provided for us," Brin told him. "A year of hardship would not go amiss in our valley of perpetual plenty. It will make us strong. Now. This team of spies must be--"

Thwark.

A bowstring, drawn too tightly by too weak an arm, loosed.

A sound of intense pain. Aughra buckled to her knees and clasped her face. Loora ran to her, took her arm, lent strength, kept the old woman from failing completely.

Squaring her shoulders, she gently lifted Aughra's hands from her face.

The woman's white metallic beak slid out in her hands. The beak had a thin handle that fit inside her flat, misshapen nostrils, and prongs held it in place. The beak was not perfectly symmetrical, but slightly curved like a beanpod. The metallic-white surface was only a façade; underneath, Loora could see a handful of clear crystal shards that had been wedged together. Where the careless arrow had struck, the prongs had sliced into Aughra's true nostrils, leaving bleeding scratches. Loora put pressure on the wounds and found a long kerchief from the pocket of her morning jacket to bind the wound, tying it around the back of Aughra's head.

So her father's insistence that she carry around this dressy girl stuff hadn't been completely pointless after all.

The bandage was secure.

"I asked you what this was, before," Loora said. "May I ask again?"

"Important, is what it is. Maybe the most important. Hmp! Crystals are very special. Cory saw it. Some crystals more special than others! Keep them close to you when you find them. Where you'll never lose them. Don't let children have them. Always lose things, children do. All Gelflings are children." Snatching the false nose back from Loora, Aughra considered it, then held it by the bloodstreaked handle. "Can't let Pressela-Brin have them," she whispered to Loora. "Need a plan to disguise them. Hide them."

From behind Loora, a familiar sick voice: "I can't give you an escape, Mother. But I will take them for you and protect them."

"Raunip!" Loora exclaimed. He stepped out of the ground as if he were climbing stairs.

"You," Aughra sneered, "expect me to trust you? You who caused the breach? You who led wars on my friends the urSkeks? You who persuaded the Gelflings to abandon peace for weapons? You who shattered the simple tranquility of the Podlings? You who turned our world tizzy-top-turvy? Why should I trust you?"

"Because Pressela approaches," said Raunip. "I will protect it, and I will return it to you."

Loora saw that the Great Priestess was indeed hobbling forward. "I trust him, Aughra," she said.

The Worshipper priestess looked the white beak up and down and appraised Aughra's bandaged face. "How vain," she simpered. "A false nose. You escape from our prison as easily as your creature escapes into the soil. I should have bound your hands."

Aughra handed the white beak to Raunip. He sank and vanished.

"Pressela," she said wearily, "I cannot see the future without assistance. But I don't believe you'll be able to keep these Worshippers captivated by your words much longer."

"Be silent, ghost. Guards! Execute her."

Four Worshippers stepped tentatively forward, their bows ready, looking squeamish.

"Won't our bolts fly straight through her?" the gossipy one asked. "If she's a ghost . . ."

In the center of the circle, Aughra tore the redsoaked kerchief from her face and held it up for the guards to see.

"Ghosts don't bleed."

* * *

"Orders of the Slavemaster. Sorry," said the guard, manhandling skekTek through the upper corridors of the castle and down shallow stairs toward the lower reaches. SkekTek struggled and dragged his feet.

"I don't answer to the Slavemaster. I only answer to the Emperor."

"Well, I answer to the Slavemaster _and_ the Emperor, only the Emperor doesn't stab me in the face when I don't do what I'm told. SkekNa does. And he told me to bring you to the kennels, so to the kennels we go. Stop wiggling, you're worse than a sock full of fizzgigs. Just follow me and take up your quarrels with skekNa when he gets there."

The kennels! SkekTek, dragged to the kennels by a mere servant on the orders of someone who had no power over him! It was quite intolerable. Quite intolerable.

SkekTek had never been to the kennels before. The Slavemaster's rooms were at the same depth belowground as the laboratories, only to reach one from the other, one had to follow a circuitous route to the upper floors and back down again. SkekTek had no idea what happened in there; it was rare for any sound to breach the crystal walls. Their resonant properties tended to wick sound away.

And here he was, facing the uttermost substrate of his world.

Much of the kennels was unlit, and the few braziers here glowed green instead of red. A vague prickle as SkekTek realized he had designed the green fire braziers himself some trines ago and had forgotten them.

A heavy pair of doors required a complex passcode, tapped out on six tubular bells. Naturally, SkekTek memorized the pattern immediately. As the doors fell open, the sound of wailing fell out, echoing down the outer corridors.

SkekTek was not at all averse to managing living things. In his lab, a dozen small cages held live subjects for experiments. He was quite very proud of the technological advancements he'd made. The obedient fizzgig, the six-legged tamtail he'd sewn together, the study of eyes, the vivisections . . . these were perfectly ordinary uses of living things.

The kennel was a tunnel of horrors.

Lit low by pale green fire, the shadows of Podlings and Gelflings in domed cages were flung large against the red walls. Implements hung from hooks. Weeping ran like rain. Detached voices called for loved ones. The smell of burnt hair ominously matched the irons sticking out of flaming braziers.

"Wait here. He'll be by," the guard told skekTek.

"Do you--" skekTek said.

The guard raised an eyebrow, as if he had better things to do.

"Do you visit here . . . often?" skekTek asked.

"Do I visit here often," the guard repeated in an approximation of good-naturedness. "If by that you mean, was I dragged here along with my beloved Mikethi as a young man in love, separated from him, forced to watch as he was thrown into a pit from which there is no escape and permitted to feed him gruel once a day and told that if I ever disobeyed, his feed slot would be sealed shut with cement, then yes, I'd say I visit here often."

"People live here," skekTek murmured. "In this place."

"Yeah, for example that family of Podlings you see? Was brought here from the outskirts of Balgertown a quartrine ago." The guard indicated a huddled family in a twisted cell. "Taken right out of their homes. Your colleague the Hunter works quick. No word to any extended family. These five protested pretty loud, but the propaganda machine pinned some unsolved and possibly uncommitted crimes on them and Balgertown happily sent word that they were to serve their sentence. Even sent _documents_ , if you can believe it. Once the Chamberlain's got his hooks into a town, there's nothing but the kennels for any citizens he chooses. This is their home now."

"The Chamberlain comes here," skekTek said.

"Well, not so much in person, but you might say his aura permeates. Prefers to keep his hands clean. Works with words. Closer to the Hunter than to the Slavemaster, not that it's for me to gossip or anything. Slavemaster keeps to himself."

SkekTek's mind was not made for keeping track of these social matters. He too kept to himself. But he could smell the Chamberlain's sticky slimy manipulative fingers all over his detention here in the kennels. The guard turned to leave, but skekTek stopped him. The guard rolled his exit into a posture and salute and waited for skekTek to speak.

"Why would the Chamberlain be close to the Hunter?" he said at last.

"Well now," the guard said. "An interesting fact about the Hunter is that he's not much for castle intrigue. And an interesting fact about the Chamberlain is that he's made of mush and tamtail fluff when it comes to fighting. So they've got a system. Each covers for the other in their respective areas of expertise, and both pretend they don't. Now," the guard said, bowing elaborately, "if you'll dismiss me I have other affairs."

SkekTek did not dismiss the guard. The guard spun and departed anyway.

There was much to think about.

* * *

"Let me make you a deal AHHHthatwasclose. No, please, if you would DON'TSTABMEDON'TSTABME I can find you a very good bargain on SHARP VERY SHARP I know I was eavesdrabblin' but it was well-meant NOT THE ANTENNAS."

The bent blade of the weapon was not made for jabbing through the narrow bars of a titanroot cage. Strictly speaking, it was almost certainly made for show, more for nudging and slapping than slicing. But when you have it thrust directly at you, you don't really _appreciate_ that it's all for show. Far easier to accept that it's a sharp piece of metal and far too close.

"Eliminate . . . the . . . witnesses," the Skeksi said.

"I could help keep your secret," Lemny said, dodging another jab.

"It . . . saw . . . our . . . secret," the Skeksi said. "It . . . knows."

"I could be persuaded to forget," Lemny said quickly. "For a price."

"Price." The Skeksi considered this. "Price is death."

The blade lodged in the twig that Rian had cracked. The Skeksi grunted and tried to pry it out, but the metal was caught between two levers of titanroot and the hook was hooked on and it wouldn't quickly budge.

"Ah," said Lemny, "permit me to take this opportunity to express to you my heartfelt apoggolies for having uh heard more than was wossname, _discreet_. But. I shall make you the deal of a lifetime, a deal far better than, um, any deal Gobber would make you, were he here in my place. Here goes. You take me out of the Castle of the Crystal and let me out of the cage. I, in turn, will commit never to repeat what I've heard here, never to come back to the castle, and above all, never to open my big mouth indiscreetly ever again. Act now an' I'll throw in a fresh ruttidge plant. Or possibly a pair of lenses if Gobber hurries up."

The Slavemaster struggled with the captive weapon. He seemed to consider the flurry of words. "Ruttidge," he repeated. They really were slow creatures, weren't they?

"Yes! I'll throw in--"

"Bug's making fun of us." A twisted expression of anger, and the Skeksi began rocking the cage violently, trying to pull the blade free. The loop attaching the cage to the ceiling dropped loose suddenly, and Lemny was aloft and freefalling. The twig cage was still wedged onto the blade, however, and the Skeksi's wild gesticulations sent the cage soaring around the room, propelled by the long handle of the spear. Roaring, the Slavemaster tried to shake the cage off. Lemny got a sturdy grip on the twigs and held on as he careered into the low ceiling and in circles around the wide room.

A light.

The thrashing paused.

Something changed.

Lemny could see nothing different, but he shivered involuntarily, as if a draft of freezing air had slid past him.

The weapon and the cage hit the floor and lay there. Lemny, loosed from between the bars, landed on his leg clusters. He flinched, expecting violence, but none came.

Tranquility. The Slavemaster seemed to report back to his own head. In the relative peace, Lemny tried the snapped twigs and found them still squeezed tight around the blade without room to wiggle past. The Slavemaster struck himself in the back of the head a few times, as if dislodging water from his ear or a troublesome thought from his head. Then he spun, faced the open door of what Lemny very much suspected really was a Dark, rather than a Great, Crystal, and turned the capstan gear as quickly as he could. No words were spoken; the sickly purple light faded as the door shut.

At last the Slavemaster took his weapon, which lay haphazard on the floor with the cage wedged on the edge of the blade like an axhead on an ax. A stinking boot on the cage held it in place, and the now-silent Skeksi withdrew the blade with a swift tug. The Slavemaster exited the laboratory.

The cage was still largely intact, and it took Lemny the better part of a toll to squeeze his tender shattered shell past the single split bar. In the end, the crack in his shell turned out to be what Gobber would call a surprise blessing; it was only by folding his shell along the crack that he managed to slide through.

As he was setting his foot clusters on stable land, feeling unfettered and breathing with a relieved whistle through his six miniature nostrils, he rubbed the split patch of his shell.

The whole thing fell off in his claw.

*** * ***

"Why? Tell me why, you vapor, you shadow. Why should I not kill the six of you and replant the tree and permit the memory of your existence to fade into the world's past?"

Before Aughra could reply to the sharply scraping voice, and before Cory could come up with anything clever to say, Loora's voice filled his blind void.

"Tell me," Loora began in a sly, conversational tone. "Do any of you Worshippers have blue light coming from your chests?"

"She's trying to draw attention away from her crimes! Do not answer her," the sharp voice snapped.

"Do they fall asleep and not wake up?" Loora went on.

A young Worshipper voice piped up: "Just Mam. She won't even swallow broth anymore." The voice was shushed.

"Do you know how long she has to live?" Loora went on, finally digging in the metaphorical dagger. Cory took a step forward and found Loora's hip, then her hand, and took it. He couldn't see the blue light spreading out of his chest through his clothes, but he guessed it was still there. A sleep of death seemed to linger around him, as if he were being pulled toward the center of Thra, as if he had his own occult gravity.

"Great Priestess Brin says it's just a long daydream," a Worshipper said.

"Two weeks," Loora said immediately. "She has two weeks to live."

To this, nobody had any response. Aughra's crooked breath was just behind Cory's shoulder; the old woman's hand moved past him, landing on Loora's arm, and they were all connected to Loora.

"Two weeks to live?" the Herbalist exclaimed. "No wonder the Gelfling wanted to get out of the old bessie."

"We are on a quest to heal the sick," Aughra said.

The sharp voice called Brin sputtered, but the Mystic interrupted her.

"I recognize that voice. Why Mother Master, I haven't seen you since I left the Conclave. Hello," said the Herbalist.

"Enough!" cried Brin. "Gabebal. Kill them, one by one."

"B-b-b-but Great Priestess," a pitchy-voiced Worshipper stuttered. "They know about the Blue Daydream. They must have seen it elsewhere. B-b-b-but if they've seen it elsewhere, there must be more people like us out there. Where did they see it if there aren't more people like us? And if there _are_ more people like us . . ."

"Don't dare finish your thought," Brin hissed.

Another Worshipper did dare finish the thought: "If there's more Worshippers, then you lied to us," a little Pod girl said.

"That child will be our yearly sacrifice to the tree. We will plant her blood and bones to ensure a successful replanting. Isn't that right?" Brin said.

As one, the Worshippers sighed, "Yes, Great Priestess." Resignation haunted their tone.

"She's a child," Loora said.

"She's a sacrifice," a Worshipper corrected. A murmur of whispered agreement.

Cory heard Pafaul raise her or his voice: " _Nobody is going to be killed in this village_!"

The voice was earnest, carrying, commanding. It grew as it went, gathering courage like foraged forest food piled in a basket: "Listen to me, Podlings and Gelflings and other friends. I come from the Forest Depths, where Dark Wood grows darkest and most tangly. It's a place my family believed we'd be safe from the dangers of the world. It's full of caves and hollows and hiding spaces. Thickets so deep that you can climb between the briar branches for hundreds of trors, up and down and sideswise without finding open air. Pools of clear water that disguise the openings to cave systems where air and water filter through inf'nitely and people can live without coming up for breath. Trees with trunks that clot together into tall vertical houses where thousands of beetles and their children can happily swarm, all the way from beneath the forest floor to the leaftop level. That's where I come from, near the leaftop of the beetle trees.

"My people, the Parthim, have fur the Skeksis like to wear. Everybody knew it. Then came rumors that Parthim were being hunted for our fur. So we protected ourselves.

"Our house was inside of a larantine tree, with an entrance hidden within the roots. The tree was one of thousands just like it, with stinging plants surrounding the entrance, preventing anyone larger than a beetle from getting through unless they had our protective fur. There was no way in, we thought. But the Hunter came.

"The birds announced it, and the voices of the tornbark trees announced it, and the swarms of beetles announced it: there was a creature full of hate in the Forest Depths. The hate-creature carried knives, one for each of its four hands, and each knife had a different hateful use. One was for cutting throats. One was for cutting ankles and ham'springs and legs, so prey couldn't run. One was for skinning. And one was for pulling meat from bone.

"The Hunter's arms are swifter than the eye can follow. His spiked shoes can take him up trees to the leafmost in moments without relinquishizing his knives. He can run for hours without tiring. He trains strange bats to sight from above, and he teaches thumping worms to tell him what's underroot. They say his eyes can see the shapes of hidden things, through walls and behind trees. They say he smells beating hearts and tastes fear.

"We had no more than a quarter-toll of warning. The beetles told us the Hunter was coming, and by then it was too late to leave. Some families chose to run anyways. He caught those first, the beetles told us, sighted them and caught them as they screamed, and he skinned them of their fur and cut the muscles off their corpses and cooked them to eat. My aunts were among them. I saw the skins." Pafaul stopped speaking, Cory couldn't see why. After a shaky sound, Pafaul went on: "Then he left, taking their furs with him. It was only a week before he returned. We should have run then, but we were scared and di'n't have a place to go. He began hunting deeper into the Forest Depths, scything through the vines, tearing through the meat of the greenery with his knives to find us. My parents and sisters made no sound. We stayed inside our tree. There was no indication that we were there. A family of beetles kept watch for us, and there's no way the Hunter could have spotted them--they're camouflaged.

"Then the screams began, and the screams kept coming closer. The first day we heard fifteen screams, some close, some distant. Then it was night, and we had no way to keep warm without creating light that the Hunter might see. It was so cold. The only sound we heard inside our tree was the clicking of the beetle family keeping watch. We stayed up that night, tolls and tolls of sleeplessness, and heard two more cries in the dark as the Hunter stalked us and killed our people. That was how we knew there wouldn't be any ecks'cape--the Hunter di'n't sleep as we do, but kept vila'gint for those who tried to ecks'cape in the night. In the morning we took turns trying to sleep, but there wasn't no sleep for any of us--every sound outside resonated within the trunk of our larantine: the stamping of wild feet running, the beetles speaking to each other through their clicking legs, the voices of birds getting harassed by huge bats clustering against the treetops and swooping down on anything that moved. We were pinned, and so we stayed inside and hoped he'd abandon his hunting and take what he had.

"There were twelve screams the second day. We rationed our food. Parthim eat mostly sugar, and we mostly go out to find it each day. It's our joy to find wild nectar in forest flowers. We had stored three days of invert--three days if we were eating it normally, I mean, but we thought we could stretch it to six or seven days if we were careful. My sister Piruna was too young to know better, and stuffed herself on her private stash of candied lea-li that second day, when we first spoke of rationing. _I don't want to go hungry, so I ate my food and now I'm not_ ," she said. It might have stretched the food to nine days, but it was gone.

"That night was very bad. We decided we shouldn't speak, and Piruna took that hard, especially after my mothers lost their self-control and shouted--that was after Piruna had told them the stash of candy was gone. She was angry with Ata and Pata but we all couldn't speak for fear that the Hunter was near. It got worse about halfwise through the long night, because the beetles abandoned us. No, it wasn't like that, they di'n't abandon us. It was--the beetles are simple folk and they became overwhelmed by the bats, who came by the hundreds and began to eat the beetles. They were right outside our tree, and the outscouts began disser'pearin', including some valiant veterans who kept going out to get the word out for our family. For hours they relayed constant updates to us, and the five of us stayed close to hear the relays--eventually it got so that we could interpret the clicks as they came in. I'm still grateful. I remember how they kept flying out, even after reports of the bats came in. They were so brave. Eventually links in the relays stopped sounding, and they sent out the greenhorns to fill the gaps in their communification chain, but the greenhorns was less experienced and di'n't know how to evade the bats. Once the bats found the chain, it didn't take long before the greenhorns were gone and no one would go out."

A small sob.

"And all I remember about that night was pressing my ear to the wood, listening for the clicks, and then seeing one greenhorn after another being sent out into the open dark. Just for our protection. One after the other. At the end of the night, the chain was gone--the beetles had no connection to the outside. They stopped clicking, in case the bats found a way in. Then it was just silence.

"The third day there were eighteen screams. Ata-Mother told Pata-Mother that it was a bad sign. It meant the Hunter had found a way to locate hidden Parthim like us, she said. I don't know if that was true. We discussed all kinds of options--splitting up, finding the nearest cave system, escaping into the canopy, digging holes inside the roots to hide in. But we all knew about the thumping worms--you could hear them, although even the communification beetles couldn't figure out their code. So the ground beneath us was even more of an enemy than the sky full of bats. And now we had no way of knowing whether the Hunter was right outside our larantine, ready with his knives.

"That night Palauna fell asleep. It was the first real sleep any of us'd had. She had a nightmare, and . . . she screamed when she woke. Oh. I don't know if I a'splained that before: Parthim have a scream that we scream only once in our lives, always at the very end. It's our death-scream. To make it, our hearts squeeze all of our blood into our throats, to produce one final warning. Normally we make it at a very old age, and it's more of a sick groan, but it's much louder when you're younger. It's to warn of danger. It carries for miles. But if you make it before you have to die, like my--my sister--" Pafaul made a sound that cut into Cory's chest--"then the scream crushes your heart, it's automatic-like, and your heart can't be restarted because the blood's squeezed away. Which isn't to say Ata and Pata didn't _try_ to restart Palauna's heart. They tried. They tried for tolls. But a Partha's last scream is final.

"So my sister was dead in her bed. Finally safe, really. I could tell you so many stories about Palauna, she was such a baby, I could tell about the way she accused everyone of cheating at games whenever she lost, and how we forgave her, or about the way she'd twirl her finger in the air after she burped, like she'd won a prize for it, or about the way you could make her laugh and she couldn't stop and she'd keep laughing nearly all night, but . . . We drew a curtain around her and left the funeral for when the Hunter was gone. But now me and Piruna and probably our mothers too all imagined, what if we fell asleep and had the same nightmare? I'd never heard of Parthim dreaming themselves dead before. None of us had. But the pressure was getting to all of us, the silence and the solitudin' and the sounds that came through now that the beetles had stopped, and we all kept ourselves awake all night, in case we broke down in our sleep and screamed.

"I don't know if the Hunter heard the scream or knew what it meant, but sometime on that day, it was the fourth day, after my sister--after she had screamed, I found myself waking up--I think we all finally lost our will to stay awake indefin'bly--and Palauna's body, which we'd left in her bed, was gone. I di'n't know what to make of that. Had the Hunter found our home, taken Palauna, and then left the rest of us alive? Had our mothers buried her in the night? Had the thumping worms broke'd through and dragged her away? I di'n't know. I asked where my sister was, but she di'n't know and Ata wouldn't say and Pata just cried, and I didn't want to hurt my mothers by asking again. I never found out where Palauna went.

"By the fifth day, the screams had dropped to about four, but they were spaced out, so we didn't get two tolls in a row without one. Ata started to flinch at every sound from outside, and Pata held her hand all through the day. We were very low on invert by then, and we'd taken to chewing the crusty gum that forms on the inside of the jars, which doesn't taste like anything but takes your mind off the hunger. Ata told Pata she was sure that when she fell asleep next, she'd scream. Pata told us all to sit in a circle and hold hands and we all said goodbye to Ata, just in case. We told happy stories, and both my mothers cried, and we tried to find peace in losing her in case we did lose her, but I didn't see any peace anywhere. Pata said that she'd rather risk running from the Hunter than wait for Ata to scream in her sleep, but Ata told her there was no reason to risk all of us running, that she'd go out alone.

"And she did. Without looking back, my Ata walked down the larantine's steps, slid through the stinging ferns and out into the evening. Pata grabbed Piruna and me and held us close, and told us to stay absolutely silent, and told the beetles to stop all their noises, not that they were making any anymore, so we could listen for Ata's last scream.

"What we heard instead was the bats. As soon as Ata left, a thousand shrieks worse than death began shaking the branches of our tree down to the rootmosts, and the bats swarmed, and we waited.

"Pata di'n't have to worry. We all heard Ata's last scream."

* * *

"The Emperor has commanded me to take your shiny little crystal from you."

"Let the Emperor tell me in person," skekTek replied.

The steel frame around the Slavemaster hovered close. SkekTek could not endure his fear and fumed wanly as the knuckles of skekNa took his new, ornamented robe and held it. Another set of knuckles, cracked and scratched and scabbed and healed and re-scabbed, began to sort through the disguised pockets in skekTek's vast sleeves. The scientist smiled grimly as one of his spring defenses snapped shut on the Slavemaster's knuckles, giving him a newly broken hand. The Slavemaster withdrew it, turning skekTek's pocket inside out as the mechanism pulled on the fabric around it. The Slavemaster sprung the trap and took back his hand. Still-powerful purple light tumbled to the floor, not quite blinding them both. SkekTek was not wearing his darkglasses, and shielded his eyes.

"You were ordered to turn over this stone," the Slavemaster said, reaching for it, giving it a brief, unsquinting look and pocketing it. "Instead you resisted. You will be punished."

" _Try it_ ," skekTek snarled.

A nasty metal implement leaped to the Slavemaster's hand and came down without warning onto the bridge of skekTek's beak. He cursed and would have bent double if the hard hand of the Slavemaster had not kept him upright. His new robes tore, however, and the fine cloth frayed at the Slavemaster's blow.

"My task is completed," skekNa told him. "Return to your duties."

"I'll do whatever I like with my time," skekTek snapped.

The Slavemaster tapped out a complex code on the tubular bells just inside the heavy double doors, and the doors unlocked. Again, skekTek memorized the pattern.

"Leave here," the Slavemaster told him.

SkekTek departed swiftly from the kennels. He was, however, certain that there were secrets here that might be used against the Slavemaster. A nasty sensation in his forehead burned and rang and nibbled and tore at him. Pressing a hand to his head, skekTek found an ooze of orange blood. First he would close the wound, then he would monitor the Slavemaster, and then he would infiltrate the kennels and pry the secrets out.

* * *

"How did you escape, Pafaul?" Cory asked, as gently as he could.

The furry blue Partha was not far from him. She said: "I need to tell you other things first. After Ata screamed, the bats began to coggin'regate around our tree. They make a high-pitched shriek which is maybe creepy an' unnerving from a distance, but when it surrounds you . . ." Pafaul made a fearful sound. "There were dozens on each side of the tree, and they _would not stop shrieking_. My sister Piruna began to hyperventilate, and Pata began to eat scoopfuls of the very last of our invert nectar to calm her nerves. Imagine being closed in on every side, no way to get out, and now the enemy was shrieking, wailin', less than a tror away, right through the walls. And where was the Hunter? We didn't know. We knew nothing.

"Piruna fell asleep on the loft floor, curled up beside her bed. She was shivering. I sat beside her, and the minute she started to sweat I woke her up, silently, by throwing her stuffed animals at her. When she woke, she let out a gasp that sounded like her heart was starting to give out. She said she'd had a nightmare, where it was years from now and the Hunter still prowled outside, day and night, and we had all gotten old and were starving and as thin as twigs with fur, and Pata had grown into the chair at the dinner table, like solidified almost, but she was still alive, waiting for Ata to return, with cobwebs and lichens growing on her. Turned to stone, like the Stonetree. And then, in the nightmare, she said she knew the Hunter had finally found her, after years of searching. She could hear him breathing. And she knew that if she looked out through the tree-knots even once, there would be a pair of pure white eyes waiting for her.

"I held Piruna as she told me that, and she told me that she was never going back to sleep again. Then she yawned. And I kissed her. And I told her goodbye."

Loora's thin rough hand took Cory's and squeezed it.

"Piruna made it through that night without falling asleep. But on the seventh morning, she went to scrape the sides of the invert barrel and didn't come back for a full toll." A breath. "My sister screamed just as I was planning to go in to check on her. I was, I'm not lying, I was going to go in to check on her.

"And then it was me and Pata. She kept telling me that she didn't say goodbye to Piruna because she wasn't ready. I believe her; she wasn't ready. And the bats kept shrieking. There wasn't any way out. To pass the time we combed each others' fur, talked to the beetles as quietly as we could, and tried to come up with some way to find out what was happening on the outside. Piruna's body stayed in the storage room. Neither of us could manage to look at it or move it. Funny how it stopped being my sister after she died." Pafaul's voice took on a very different, meditative tone. "Maybe it's just how Parthim think. I'm sure there was nothing inside the body. Just dead fur. I think that if I were honest, I'd have been happy to give the bodies of dead Parthim to the Skeksis, if they'd died naturalwise. I know some people care about dead bodies, you Gelflings do, but my people don't. Didn't, I guess. But the Skeksis didn't even ask for our fur. Never spoke to us. Did nothing except hunt us.

"Anyways. There were three screams that evening. It rained, but you can hear Partha screams through the rain. We was out of food, and neither of us could go into the storage area to scrape the sides, 'cause, I mean, we didn't even talk about the idea, but the hunger was still manageable. I tried to convince Pata to tell me stories, but she didn't have the heart in her to talk. So I tried telling stories, but Pata stopped me anytime I mentioned anyone we knew. I'm not much good at making up stories. There was an old Partha in our woods who told stories--they all took place in a flying city she invented, in a world where Parthim had wings like birds--but I couldn't remember them much. I tried, though, and it took Pata's mind off for a little while. But not for very long."

"So how did you--" Loora said.

"I'm getting to it. It's important. You'll see why. Pata finally got hungry--Parthim run through food very fast, since we're mainly sugar-eaters--and she told me to wait while she rolled the empty barrels in.

"Moments later she came running back in. She wrapped herself around me. I figured it was just nerves from seeing Piruna, but she held onto me the way she used to hold onto Ata and walked me over to see what had happened.

"Piruna was gone."

The Worshippers and their snippy-voiced leader all seemed to be holding their breath, listening. Cory stood still and felt Loora's arm against his.

"Where did she go?" Loora asked.

"I don't know. Neither did Pata. We couldn't even talk about it, but I was sure that what happened was, the Hunter wasn't even killing anyone. He was just waiting for us to scream from fear, just from the idea, then taking the corpses away. If that was true, then he already knew we was here. He knew where our tree was. He had been inside the larantine, here with us. That was why the bats was surrounding us. They were trying to play with our minds, to scare us into screaming.

"Pata told me, and I remember her exact words, 'Our tree has his footprints in it.' She told me that the beetles must have did it, must have taken Piruna's body away, taken her to Him, to the Hunter, that they were all traitors, that they were conspiratin' with the bats. She shouted at them in beetle-language that the beetles were the ones who had killed our family--the same beetles who had lined up so bravely to sacker'fice themselves for us. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told Pata to stop, that she was saying hurtful things, that the beetles was our friends and always had been, but she had lost her sense and wouldn't stop. Shouting and shouting until that beautiful language started to sound like the language of hate. She told them all to get out. But with bats all around us, there was no way for the beetles to leave. Some of them did what she tole them, and the bats got them. The rest were too scared to move.

"And Pata climbed the walls of our home, reached the open tree-caverns of the beetles, and began to eat them."

Pafaul's voice cracked once again.

"Those brave beetles. Our friends--for generations, our friends. And they was all too scared to move, couldn't fly away or run or anything. And Pata--my own mother--stuffed them into her mouth in handfuls and smashed them in her teeth. I think she had been driven insane by her hunger. Older Parthim eat much more than younger ones. I don't know whether it was hunger or fear. But I do know that when she had climbed the topmost shelf of the beetles' homes, she began tossing the frightened beetles down to me. As if she wanted me to--to--"

Loora pressed her face into Cory's shoulder. Cory didn't feel anything.

"And then she fell. From the top shelf, thirty or forty trors up the insides of the larantine. Fell onto the rug where I woke Piruna from the dream that was about to kill her. The sound she made when she hit--I thought she was going to scream, but she didn't. She had broken bones, but couldn't tell me which ones. I managed to pull Pata onto Piruna's bed, an' I left her there. I sort of started to--but I can't say that. She was just so afraid, and hungry.

"I was sure I had it figured out now. If the Hunter heard a scream, he'd come in and take away the corpses. But if I left, without any fear, without screaming or running? If I just walked out of the Forest Depths? What then? My fear had been burned out of me. I didn't feel afraid, and after what Pata had done, I didn't feel anything else, either. So I rolled up a starchy sunshade as a megaphone, aimed it at the empty barrel, and faked the loudest scream I could.

"It was only a second later when I heard Pata say my name. And then she screamed. 'Pafaul.' _Scream_. It was just like that. And that--that was my Pata.

"All I wanted to do was survive, then. I knew the Hunter was coming for my mother's body. I was sure he knew exacticately where Pata was. So what I did was to lift my mother's body and pull her out of the larantine into the open air. The bats began to divebomb me, but I grabbed a bouquet of stinging ferns and held them over me and Pata. They're not easy to hold even if you have fur--when I was very young, leaving the tree was usually the only bad part of the day, 'cause you'd get stinging stickers in your fur. The pattern the bats made was just like the way the beetles formed their command chain--one after another they dove straight down at me, then flew back up, thousands of them, so there was always a V pointing down at me. That's when I knew I'd been right, that they were signalling the Hunter. But I had a plan.

"I made my way through the Forest Depths, which were silent for probably the first time ever, to a clearing where I used to play, close to a burnbog. I always used to lose toys, puffrollers and chancies, by rolling them into the bog, and once they fell in, the bog's burn-stain wouldn't never come out. I set Pata's body down next to the bog and waited, swinging the stinging ferns at the bats.

"Mists rose in the Forest Depths then, like smoke from kindling. It always does that in the early mornings. That was when the Hunter showed himself. He was a black shape in the white mists, a silhouette of deathmakin'. Four silver shines reflected from his knives. His face was cloaked in black cloth. Over his shoulder were the pelts of my family. I knew I couldn't kill him, but I hoped I could live. It was all I had left.

"As he came closer, I lifted my mother's body over my head and waded into the bog. The bats threw themselves at me, but with a flash from his blades the Hunter called them off. For nearly a quartoll we stood facing each other. He was waiting for me to give up on life.

"I found it hard to breathe, but not because of the cold or the hunger or even the bog's burn. On the other hand, I could see his breath through his cloak because it puffed the white mists aside. Then I took a deep breath and I said, 'You can have my mother if you let me go. Otherwise I'll drop her.' The Hunter looked down at the burnbog and at me all covered with the staining brown oils. His eyes were as black as the sky between stars. I only heard one word from him: 'Go.' I threw my mother's body to land and climbed out and ran. I expected him to follow, but he didn't. I guess after getting stained my pelt wasn't valuable anymore."

Pafaul took a deep breath.

"So here's how it is. I survived. I'm going to keep surviving. I don't know if I'm the last Partha in the whole world or what I am anymore. But I'm going to keep surviving. Right now I feel unsafe. I need a safe place to live, where I'll be protected from the Hunter, where no one will ever know about me. I need to know that no one is going to die on my account. I need that.

"So you Worshippers need to promise me that no one else will die here. Point those bows someplace else."

Cory heard one of the Worshippers raise his voice: "But we have to make an annual sacrifice. It's the only thing keeping the Gnarled Stonetree alive."

Loora's warm hand unclasped from Cory's. She said, "Is the life of the tree really more important than the life of your people?"

Aughra snorted in what Cory thought was an approving manner.

"The fuzzy girl should live with us," said the Worshipper child who had scolded the Great Priestess. "We could keep her safe."

"Gabebel," Brin's piercing voice said, "shoot the animal first. Its story is a lie. They are vicious creatures, Parthim, and numerous, and they chew trees from the inside out. Do you see the cavern it made inside the bark?"

"Actually, that was me," the Mystic said, not as cheerful as he'd been before Pafaul's story. "Only a little at a time, mind you, and I didn't _hurt_ the tree."

"Great Priestess," said a Worshipper, "I don't want to shoot anybody."

"The tree is dead," Aughra said. "It cannot be replanted to be as it was before." Her voice was nasal and hoarse.

"Lies. She lies to you! Kill them quickly, and we will begin the replanting process. If need be, we will plant a sapling in its place."

"Podlings," said Pafaul, "I'll make you a deal, the same way I made a deal with the Hunter of the Skeksis. Tell your Great Priestess to leave. Let me live with you. Please. I can't teach you any fancy rituals like hers, but I'll be a friend for life. We can be safe here, safe from anything that might hurt us. And happy. But there can't be any more sacrifices, not ever again. I need you to promise you'll never sacrifice another living being."

A woman's voice spoke up, blazing with heart-anger: "I gave my son to be sacrificed, Partha. I held him down in the sacrifice pit as they cut his throat. My son did not die in vain. We will kill you and replant the tree and live under its shade once more."

* * *

"Happy to see you made it out, Lemny, my friend, even if you didn't make it out in one piece." Rian gave the Crabbit a fierce grin, lifted the bug, who clung to a black hemisphere of broken shell, and set the leg clusters on his shoulder. "What are your plans now?"

"Hide me," Lemny said quickly, feeling exposed. "Take me straight outside. Then I'll run. Don't s'pose you know where the Nethercroft is? That's where they said Gobber had gone."

"The Podling? Yeah, I took him there myself. On orders, of course. Nasty place. And too dangerous to visit. I'd give him even odds not to have made it past the gears."

"Take me there."

"No point. The only entrance is down the grinder. Then it's through whirling blades, and after that, the Trashlings will pick over your corpse. They might use your shell for a hat."

"Said take me. I have to catch up with Gobber."

"If I was you, and sadly I'm not, I'd aim to meet the Trashlings in the Swamp of Sog," said Rian.

"See these legs?" Lemny flexed them. "I can't climb through the swamp with these."

"You don't need to go through it. Go _under_ it. Here, I'll show you."

The sound of Skeksis humming to themselves came warbling up the corridor. The Crabbit dropped from Rian's shoulder and hung down his back, supported from the leather coat collar by strong claws. SkekTek came into view, looking sour even by Rian's own standards.

"Your strengthness," Rian said perfunctorily, bowing and backing against the wall without squeezing the shell-less Crabbit, but hiding him from view.

"Strengthness," grumbled skekTek to himself. "Without the light from the discharge I can't determine the--" skekTek noticed Rian, who was keeping his eyes down to avoid notice. " _You_."

"Just a servant of the Castle, your eminence."

SkekTek pulled close, nose-to-nose, bending slightly to make himself a comparable height, still looming nevertheless. His voice was whispers: "The Slavemaster had you drag me to the kennels," he said.

"Yessir he did."

"Why?" skekTek asked.

"None of my affair, your greatness, I don't ask. I just do my job."

"And if I were to REQUIRE you to speculate as to why he needed me taken _there_? Rather than simply having you steal my shattercite yourself?"

Rian's lips mooshed one way, mooshed the other. The Skeksi's breath was hot and stenching.

"Hazard me a guess, servant of the Castle," skekTek said. "You know him."

"Why didn't skekNa order me to take your crystal. Ehm. In my capacity as a slave of the Slavemaster, I'd say whatever reasons he had are probably vicious, callous, and hate-spirited."

"Was he just following the Emperor's orders, do you think?" said skekTek closely.

"This may be trending into gossip, your mightiness, but I'd reckon the Emperor would prefer to humiliate you in person, rather than have skekNa do it privately in the kennels. The Emperor chooses not to visit the kennels. Thinks they're beneath him. They are, too. Small joke."

"So," said skekTek, sidling closer still, "you think he had another reason for sending me down there."

"Couldn't say, your wonder. But the idea is one that might occur to, shall we say, a more _speculative_ individual than I am."

"Thank you, slave. Dismissed." SkekTek began humming to himself. It was, Rian realized, the pitch-perfect pattern of the kennel doors. The whole pattern. Standing orders were to report any incidence of the pattern appearing outside the kennel, so it could be changed quickly. Pity, Rian would've liked to see skekNa get his . . .

He turned and continued down the corridor . . .

"Incidentally," the Skeksi remarked, turning one last time to face Rian, "I--wait, slave. Isn't that _my_ insect?"

* * *

"Replant your tree," Loora shouted. "Kill all your citizens. Do anything you want. But let us go so that we can find a cure to the Light Sickness. Why do we matter to you? Believe whatever you want. We'll happily leave you alone again to practice your craz--your religion the way you want to. But why can't we just leave the way we came?"

"Saboteurs," Brin hissed. "They'll be back as soon as we replant it. They desire only its destruction."

" _I have had enough of you_!" Loora shouted. "You know what she admitted to me, you Worshippers? You know what she said? She told me that she's _infected_ with an evil spirit, and the evil spirit inside her makes her want to control people. She invented a whole set of bizarre rules for you to follow just to make sure you never leave the village. But there's a whole world full of people out there, and I bet that if you didn't have these made-up rules to follow, you'd like to explore that world. Wouldn't you? And you!"

Pointing an accusing finger, Loora brushed past Cory and in the thin twilight marched away from Brin toward the Worshipper who had sacrificed her son.

"Maybe your son did die for nothing! Maybe it _was_ all lies. Maybe you really did destroy a--a _life_ \--for absolutely nothing--"

The woman drew her spearbolt back, smiling a smile of absolute hatred. "I'll do it, Great Priestess. I'll fix this."

Stepping forward beside Loora, bracing a tentative four-fingered hand in front of him, was Cory. He passed her, stumbling toward the hateful Worshipper woman's voice. Loora touched his shoulder, but he didn't stop. He found his way to the Worshipper, blindly facing the wrong angle, and spoke.

"It's okay, miss. You can shoot us if you need to. I understand. But please make sure you shoot me first, so I don't have to hear my friends die."

Cory couldn't see the spearbolt bow swinging to him and then lowering, Loora knew. He couldn't see the shame rise on the small gray-green face of the hateful Worshipper, or the instant rage on Brin's face. He didn't know that he wasn't going to die.

"Jevlin," said the gossipy guard Gabebel, "let's let everybody live."

"Cory," hissed Loora, "I know you're being brave, but come over here and be brave where I can hold your hand and lead you around."

As Cory made his way to her, the shame-faced woman called Jevlin followed him. She permitted the bow to fall from her hand, but stalked after the boy over the spade-riven garden, practically breathing down his neck. He faced her with pure black eyes: iris and pupil and sclera.

"Gelfling," the Pod woman called Jevlin said, "how old are you?" Her voice had an edge in it so sharp it seemed to cut. Loora wondered whether Cory could feel it too.

"Fourteen, miss."

"My son." The woman rested two hands on Cory's face, and Loora was ready to spring to defend him, but the woman merely looked over the face, as if it contained deep new mysteries. "My son would be nearly that. He helped the tree grow as tall as it did." A slow wandering trail of weeping coursed her face without sound. "I would the tree had grown taller."

"Me too. My father is a gardener, miss--"

"Jevlin," she corrected. "You may call me Jevlin."

"My father is a gardener, Jevlin. He specializes in grafting. He's a genius with plants. He can probably save the tree--part of it, at least. But he has the Light Sickness. If we can find the cure, I promise I'll bring him here and he'll show you how to replant it. Um, thank you for not shooting me."

"I'm ashamed of my words. They were hasty." She exhaled, and tears tracked down her neck. "My son would be happy to know we did everything we could to save the tree. And he'd be happy to know you are risking your life to save your father. Be welcome now, find your cure, and return with your father."

"I will."

The circle of deadly points lowered. The tension seemed to sift away until there was no longer a fear of death in the clearing. Loora relaxed and looked around.

Shovels lay scattered like fallen branches. A vast black stone stump remained, while the distant fallen upper block of the tree was an oval wall that blocked out the evening. From the night, stars. Out of nowhere, lanterns of nut-oil in translucent seed-wrappers came alight. Worshippers drifted back to the circle after tending the lanterns.

"Worshippers," announced Aughra in a carrying, wounded, honking nasal voice. She still pressed the bandages to her face, and Loora still found it hard to look at the flat, skull-like, bleeding nose without wincing. "Podlings, you may stay here. You may go! You may do precisely what you like. You may worship the tree. You may travel the world. You can stand on your head, if that's what you want to do. But," the strange purple-haired woman said, "you must see who it is you have been worshipping. Mystic! Come here."

The Herbalist shuffled forward, his six limbs embarrassed, his long brown beak moist with tears of his own, his bright and foolish eyes mournful.

"Sing with me," Aughra told him.

The tone began low, a single note sung by two voices. The two voices rose together, touching each note briefly, permitting the sounds to arise and depart. Loora closed her eyes and squeezed Cory's palm, which was cold in hers. The song returned to the same three notes several times, recursive. The ground beneath Loora's feet began to hum the three notes, down up over, down up over, again and again.

A tragic scream. A shattered split.

Two things happened at once, in tune with the song. Opening her eyes, Loora saw Great Priestess Brin caught in the lanternlight, her feet a tror above the ground, held aloft. Levitating. The wrinkly Podling body writhed, thrashed, and the line of her back twisted and bent. White sparks began to play across Brin's hands and shine through her robes.

At the same time, the black stone stump of the Gnarled Stonetree cracked. The same white sparks draw a white vertical line down the opening fissure. Deep inside the stone trunk shone a line of living green, a hidden vein of the Gnarled Stonetree.

Brin writhed. The tree split. The three tones rang.

The Mystic continued the song. Aughra let it depart her, and spoke: "You worship the tree, Pressela? Hmp! Prove it. If you really want the tree to come back to life, reinforce it with your essence. Or don't! Let the tree die and show everyone how much it means to you. Either way, let the dream go. Push it out of your two bodies. Send it back to the stars. One body and one mind are enough for you."

The voice was nothing but screams: " _I will not go_ ," came strangled from Brin's body.

The Worshippers stared. Pafaul crouched on the still-singing ground. The flouse cheeped.

"I don't want to go."

Blue liquid poured from Brin's mouth, snaking forward until no more than a single strand connected it to the old Podling body, which shook violently. Then the strand snapped. The body dropped lifeless to the ground. Pafaul curled herself up in a tangle of paws, moaning something about no more killing.

"Give the dream inside you to the tree, Pressela. It is not you," said Aughra.

The scream continued, a blazing scream, a wind-wild scream.

"Give me one more day. Give me one more second. One more second as queen of everything. Just one more moment. Just one more. I want another chance. Another chance to be worshipped."

The floating ball of blue liquid began to bubble and shake like a lake in a storm. Aughra resumed singing, and the three repeating notes made the blue liquid take three squirming shapes: twisted spiky stretched, twisted spiky stretched.

"Put the dream in a place it cannot harm you anymore."

"One more--"

One last great scream. A blast of light shot from the ball of liquid and funneled into the gaping wound in the stump of the Gnarled Stonetree. The blue liquid stopped writhing and became clear. White sparks shot out from the Stonetree, and the black stone fell away to either side. From the bright green stem that remained, a pair of broad leaves unfolded, striped in fiery and insane new colors. Frightening colors spattered with insidious meaning.

"Thus," said Aughra, "it is renewed." She closed her eyes and exhaled. The Mystic's voice released the song, and the clearing grew still. In the light of the burning nut-oil, the clear blue liquid landed placidly on the turned soil.

"Go home, simple Pressela. Return to the sea," said Aughra.

The liquid sank into the land and was gone.

* * *

"Not much use to me _escaped_ , are you?" skekTek said, gripping the insect by the thorax.

"Ew," the Gelfling guard exclaimed, "was there a bug on me this whole time?"

"My bug."

Claws detached from the collar, one two three four.

"I'll bring it down to the lab for you, your pride," the guard said.

SkekTek did not respond to this. What he said was, "I have not adequately examined my golden object. Not that it's real gold, is it, gullible insect?" No response. "Lucky you found me, aren't you? The Chamberlain would simply have eaten you. Crunching each of your legs, one by one, in his beak. Or perhaps _twisting_ them off and sucking out the morsels inside. Whereas I have an interest in prolonging your life."

The insect made sounds that were not words.

Ignoring the guard, who added a few polite and respectful remarks, skekTek lurched back toward the labs, carrying the squirming insect. The old cage was broken--the twigs were evidently little match for the serrated black claws--but luckily skekTek had a variety of secure metal cages which were far less likely to get cracked by an insect. With a click, the bug was restored to the lab and skekTek's attention turned back and forth between that heavy not-gold object and the possibility of invading the Slavemaster's kennels. No, he'd need some time to study the Slavemaster's habits, when he left his rooms and when he arrived . . . Yes, it would be best to begin examining the properties of the metal thing, whatever it was. Locking the outer door to prevent any more outlandish interruptions, skekTek lifted the thing from where it lay on one of his workbenches.

"Erm, not to be much of a bother," the insect said aloud, "but you might examine that spinning handle thing that opens the big door."

SkekTek's eyes turned reluctantly to the bug, and a drip of orange blood appeared in the corner of his vision. Oh, yes. The wound that the Slavemaster had given him was still weeping, untended. Odd that the guard hadn't mentioned it--almost as if he'd been distracted. File that thought away, along with the bug's suggestion about the door to the Dark Crystal. First, some sort of bandage. A brief probe of the forefinger showed that his beak was punctured. Cloth wouldn't do the job. Something stronger, then. Rummaging in his scraps, skekTek found a likely piece of shredded steel and a pair of barbed pins. Holding the tiny metal plate against his wound, he sized it, braced it in a vise and cut it to length with a single muscular snip of enormous shears. Laying the newly fitted plate on a workbench, he struck two holes, top and bottom, with a nail and mallet. A fine file buffed everything smooth. Sitting before a mirror, he squeezed the steel over the savage cut into the keratin of his beak and took a deep breath.

The sensations of the body are nothing. Only the mind matters.

A gargled sound, and another, as two long barbed pins broke the hard but giving material of his beak and caught inside his flesh. Then it was done.

He _would_ punish the Slavemaster for that. A beak wound wouldn't heal, not completely.

"That other Skeksi had a real interest in the purple thing behind the door. Talked funny too, not funny to laugh at, you unnerstan'. Talked about a _Dark Crystal_ , he did," the bug said. "But I always heard that it was the _Great_ Crystal."

What was that? A slow realization bloomed. "Other Skeksi," skekTek hissed, approaching the cage. "Had an interest in the Dark Crystal. Did he wear a steel frame over his robes?"

"Yeah, he did," the insect said.

Sprinting, skekTek turned the capstan and wrenched the door open, peered into the light of the Dark Crystal. The frequencies were the same. The crack was the same. The color was the same. Nevertheless, skekTek felt a distinct sense of violation, as if a thousand dirty wings were buzzing throughout his space.
"You saw all this," he murmured. The bug lifted his antenna stubs expectantly. "I," said skekTek, "would like quite very much to know if my _colleague_ should return. Or anyone else. Should you choose not to escape again, and keep track of anyone entering my labs, you may find me willing to overlook past errors, and perhaps even repair your carapace."

The bug glanced down at the two pieces of shell in its claws and faced the unyielding bars around him.

"No more pins?" he asked.

"Hm. None," skekTek answered with a certain pleased smile.

The bug flicked the cracked shell pieces with a claw. "Yeah, well, seeing as I'm not occupied with much else." A puff of a sigh. "No pins."

"Excellent." An unexpected problem, spun into solutions. Engineering a new guardbug. Perhaps, skekTek mused, this slavery affair was not without its . . . practicalities. No matter.

The brassy blade consumed all of his attentions now. What was it? What did it do? It was unusually heavy. Its shape . . . familiar . . . yes, oddly familiar. Could it be? . . . but no. No, that was quite improbable. A likelihood that did not even register. A partial impossibility.

And yet. SkekTek's long fingers rotated the blade and its handle and prongs. Words were written underneath. It was not a language he recognized. The temptation was to show it, to share it with someone who knew the language, but the Skeksi who was best with languages was . . . the Chamberlain, naturally. Thus the risks of specialization. Best keep it to himself. Yes.

Upon closer inspection, the yellow metal appeared to have been smelted directly onto the odd, misshapen blade. Materials, materials. Taking a file, he removed a small fragment of the off-white stuff of the handle. Turning on a grindwheel, he took off a quick wire's worth of the metal and brought them both to a small forge in a dank backroom of his shop.

Reagents. Reactions. Strange, stranger, and again strange. And increasingly suspicious.

*** * ***

"How long have you been hiding there?" Loora shouted.

"Who? What's happened?" Cory whispered.

He lurched forward, drawn by his arm as Loora pulled it. The lingering sound of Worshippers making all kinds of shocked noises and chattery conversation continued, but Cory stumbled past their voices, past the low crackle of burning nut-oil, to a frigid world outside the circle. His eyes saw nothing; however, the sounds, the temperature, even the smells had already started to solidify around him. Loora drew him beyond the thing that had been screaming. Probably they weren't too far from the cliff he'd shot past, now, or maybe they were. Hard to say. He was really just inventing landmarks in his mind to still the nervousness.

"How'd you know we were here?" spoke a completely new but oddly familiar voice.

"Who--?"

"Cory, shoosh. You bunch have been watching us from the edge of the forest since we arrived. You helped Raunip escape, too. Twice now. He doesn't really have any magic stuff. He's just got _friends_. Who are you?"

A rustle, as if hoods or masks or robes were being unveiled.

"Oh," exclaimed Loora. "You're from a different clan, aren't you? You don't seem too different--"

"We ARE very different so," said a young female voice. It was almost . . .

"Gelflings?" Cory asked.

"Spritons are invisible until we choose to be seen," a male Gelfling said.

"No you weren't. I saw you," said Loora. "You were just wearing a big hat."

"You didn't see us, you just saw the hat. Maybe you're a good hat-spotter, but if we put hats on all the trees and hid among them you'd have no _idea_ which one was us."

The ground moved, and Cory plunged straight down, letting out a vague "guh." He stopped short with his feet suspended inside loose, sucking soil. Some kind of giant worm had him by the ankle. The Hunter was coming--

"Sorry there, sorry there, didn't think anyone was above me!" a muffled voice said. A firm force shoved Cory back to the surface. A moment later, the soil broke beside Cory's feet and an elderly male voice, no longer muffled, said: "Ho there, young Gelflings! Or transpassers, I'm supposed to say. Yes, that's right. Hold, child varmints, for you walk the woods of the Spritons! Nobody wh--Skymother's sneezing stormclouds, what's got into your eyes?" he exclaimed.

Cory blinked and faced the voice. "I'm blind," he said.

"But we're going to fix him," Loora said quickly. "I'm Loora, he's Cory. He can see the future. You let Raunip trespass," she said abruptly, accusingly.

"No need to take me too personal, miss, we've had to tiptoe around the Worshipper village ever since Brin became Great Priestess. I was young when it happened, if you can believe it." The elderly man laughed a charmingly elderly chuckle. "Am I right that the Priestess is gone?"

"Is that what happened?" Cory whispered to Loora.

" _Of course_ that's what happened. Just stop. Cory, I wonder about you."

Cory felt hurt and lost even as the old Spriton chuckled along and murmured, "Wonderful, wonderful! Been too long. Hope we'll all be friends. And is that--? Aughra! My stars and planets, it's been trines untold!"

The powerful hand of Loora pulled Cory backward, and the blindness provided him no sense of where he was stepping. She stopped and her arm encircled his chest and she was right behind him, pressing against his back; he felt her breath on his shoulder and he still felt like she had hurt him, just a little, and he was mad at her touching him, especially when he had no one else to rely on.

Aughra's voice: "Uncle Embling. You're taller than you were when you were Nephew Embling. Not going to raise a fuss about the Woodland Clan marching around your land, are you?"

"Me? No, not for friends of yours. And a welcome to you. Hope you'll be pleased with our progress, Madam Aughra. We've gotten quicker in our landswimming since the last time you were here. Learned fast. Glad you taught us."

"Mm, my landswimmers. Yes! Getting better. Brought Raunip with you, Loora said? You can bring others underground with you now?" Aughra asked.

"Yes!" one of the younger Spritons said. "I brought him out. He's back at the village--or was, when I dropped him off."

Loora's face brushed the back of Cory's hair. Her hand held his arm, a controlling force. He felt, he wasn't sure why, both very safe and very frightened by her. They'd hardly spoken, really, didn't know each other from the village, but she'd led him out of the tree and guided him around since then, and she seemed to be pleased to be near him, but he still preferred solitude to her company. There was something unsettlingly electric about Loora and the way she was comfortable being in charge of things.

"How deep can you travel now?" Aughra asked conversationally.

"How deep--well, we haven't been practicing for _depth_ ," Uncle Embling said. "More for distance. How deep do you need to go?"

"UrNol?" called Aughra.

Somewhere to the back, the chastened voice of the Mystic was approaching: "We must travel to the Netherway, and from there to ur-Kalivath, to attend the purifying song of my brother urIm, the Healer."

Uncle Embling smacked his lips nervously. "Netherway? I can't do it," he said. "The outer leg of the Nethercroft ends twenty thousand trors from here. Almost straight down, through rock. I can go about fifty trors on a good day, if the soil's plush enough. Meter?"

"Not me," the Spriton boy said. "I can landswim a thousand through soil, and I've been practicing. Ormellia?"

"I think we should ask Skeleton Kid," the Spriton girl murmured without much enthusiasm.

* * *

It is a rare secret indeed that never goes uncovered. The uncovering can happen many different ways. Sometimes it's uncovered by curiosity--the curiosity that plagues all thinking creatures on all thoughtful worlds. Other times, a secret desires to be found, almost as if secrets themselves have voices. Such secrets can call and call until they find an uncoverer.

Rarest of all is a secret that locates the one who will find it and pursues. Then there is little you can do except follow the course laid out for you.

Pebbles must fall together to begin a landslide. Drops of water must gather to form a cloud, and more still to make the rain fall. Many hidden things must gather to push a big secret to the surface.

The Storyteller lifted her hood and revealed her face. It was blue and furry. The skin under the fur was stained brown in places, especially around her legs, but the blue fur was fierce and alive. Her eyes were black with still-large whites.

Things pull together. Not even the strongest can hold things apart forever. Secrets always come revealed. And we grow.

* * *

The Chamberlain took no time in learning to use the shiny purple crystal. He knew there was a piece of glass that was needed, so he purchased a small rectangular piece of glass from skekLach and tried holding it over the eyes of a Podling slave whom the Slavemaster furnished him with. As the trick progressed, the Chamberlain noticed that there was much less of that mess on the floor than he was expecting. Scraping it up resulted in a slightly orange slime, hairy, since he was testing it out in a filthy hallway, and only a drop or two came out at a time from the slave's underarms. He imagined it was a matter of patience. SkekTek seemed to have oceans of spare patience. The Chamberlain was busy, and standing still holding a rapidly dimming purple rock in front of a worthless Podling was not of any interest to him. Impressing the Emperor, on the other hand, was. So he persisted: a toll and a half of shining the light, a minute to scrape up the slimy drips from the floor, and then another toll of shining the light. Every three tolls he shouted for the Podling to bark like an animal, and each time the slave shivered and tried to make itself small and refused to bark. The eyes didn't change, either, and this worried the Chamberlain. It was all very frustrating.

There was also the nagging suspicion that, if he couldn't imitate the good success that Tek demonstrated, there would not be an opportunity to insist on the return of his metal gift thing. The Emperor would not be pleased with failure, nor with a grubby cup of floor-slime, no matter how rejuvenating. Patience. Another three tolls of this, and maybe there would be some real results. SkekTek's results only took a quartoll, but he'd had practice, obviously. Oh--and he'd only covered one of that slave's eyes. The Chamberlain instructed his slave to hold the glass rectangle to the side, then waited. After another four tolls, there was a grubby half-cup of slime scraped off the floor, and the purple light had faded so much that it was just raw crystal. Conked out.

Broken. Failure. Tek had obviously used some kind of trick. This shining stone was nothing now.

Scowling, the Chamberlain took the skittish but still rebellious Podling by the collar and walked the winding ways down to the kennels.

"Look," he squawked nasally to the Slavemaster as the sound-locked door slid open. He didn't even feign being in control of himself. The Chamberlain presented the unlit crystal chunk, the cup of reddish-yellow slime, and the scowling slave. "It didn't work. Tek did something. He's trying to humiliate us."

A slowly cresting rage began to grow on the Slavemaster's face. He grabbed the slime and dipped a finger in and tasted it. Twitching once involuntarily, he threw the cup aside and struck the Chamberlain. "You were told to produce rejuvenating liquid!" he roared. "This is just Podling sweat. There's hardly a drop of that precious, precious essence in it. The Emperor will skin you. _Skin_ you." A gargled roar of raw hatred boiled out of the Slavemaster.

The Chamberlain thrust the crystal and the slave into the Slavemaster's hands. "You try. HmmmMmm. It's your responsibility now. We'll see how well you do," he sniffed, and exited.

He had been defeated by Tek's clever self-draining crystal. Humiliated. Unable to decipher these technologies or the industriousness or the precision. But the Chamberlain had something that skekTek would never have: connections. Friends with power. Ways to control, manipulate, persuade. And even if the Slavemaster was no longer his best connection, there were others. There were always others.

Others.

His feet shuffled him away from the kennels and toward the outer doors.

The Castle of the Crystal's front hallway was crooked, angular, and full of looming bright radiances: chandeliers, braziers, sconces, all creating a thousand crooked shadows. The high doors opened at his gesture, and limpid light poured through to the cracked ridge of the road and over the solid bridge that crossed the narrow moat. The candlelight fell through, fighting the dark that soured the land beneath the Perpetual Storm. It lit the black filth of the Swamp of Sog, it cut jagged fingers into the moat's fog and mist and steam. The light was limited, and vanished just a few dozen trors beyond the front hall. Wishing briefly that he'd thought to bring several layers of extra warmth with him, the Chamberlain marched onto the sunless road out of the castle.

* * *

"Hurry up."

In the near distance, the Spriton village was laden with garlands, laurels, blossoms, leis, wreaths, long strands of boughs and flowers, all circling a concourse of woven huts of varying heights and widths. It was not deeply camouflaged, but was set within a cloud of moist forest. Bare limbs of trees were tied into a second roof above the huts, and rivulets of condensed dew dripped down currents carved into the branches. The village felt much more festive than Quillpine, Loora thought. This was a town of perpetual holiday. Smaller, too, and the homes were closer together. Loora found herself liking the Spritons. They seemed much more direct and far less interested in who was famous or important than Woodlanders were.

Cory was hanging off her arm, barely keeping up. She kept an eye on his feet, pointing out exposed roots and layered erosion steps that the Spritons liked to set into the topsoil. This new village was far more interesting to look at than Cory's feet, however. Loora was consumed. The weaving and knotting techniques that kept the houses together were new to her; the roofs had spiral posts at the corners, like the horns of mounders; and the people! Coming out to greet the newcomers, smiling, sarcastic, with bright accessible expressions and no Woodlander pomp or arrogance at all. They didn't take themselves seriously at all.

She was too shy to speak to the adults, even the adults she'd yelled at earlier. It was different, now that she'd met them. Funny how things change when you know someone personally. And the kids here were wild, running, crazy, bothersome, even the ones close to her age, and she held herself apart from them, too. Her hand guided Cory, and the other was thrust into the pocket of her heavily pocketed workpants. The globe--oh! It was still in Brin's pod throne room.

"Cory," she whispered.

"Mm?"

"I have a--" but for some reason she scowled and couldn't make herself say _a present for you_. It just sounded . . . it sounded like something she was not going to say aloud. She required a different angle, she decided, an excuse to give the globe to him. Maybe as a reward for regaining his sight. Or no, not a reward, just as a celebration of his getting healed. Hopefully in the meantime the globe would stay safe and unbothered on the floor of the pod, under her morning coat.

"Yes?"

"I have a question. Who dragged you away from the ledge outside Aughra's house? We saw the path where you got pulled down--"

"I didn't get pulled anywhere, I just slipped."

" _You just slipped_? Slipped? And everything after--the tree cracking? Brin? Aughra's nose getting shot off? Because you _slipped_?"

"Don't yell at me," Cory said.

"I--I'm not yelling, it's just--"

"Please?" Cory added. "Please don't yell at me. I get enough of it at home."

Loora growled and made claw-fingers and stamped her feet up a log step, which Cory proceeded to trip over. Loora closed her eyes and moaned, " _Cory_ . . ."

He let go of her hand and pushed her away even as she grabbed his arm again. Wrenching himself free, he stumbled toward where Aughra was chatting with Uncle Embling. She watched as Cory tried tapping his feet as he went, listening to his surroundings, acting like he didn't need her, shuffling forward, still tripping on everything in his path. As Cory kicked the back of Aughra's feet on accident, the old woman looked over her shoulder once at Loora with a baleful glance, then proceeded forward through the village toward this Skeleton Kid the Spriton girl mentioned, with Cory tailing behind.

"Why do you like him?" the girl--was it Ormellia?--asked, rising physically through the ferny ground beside Loora.

"Must you?" she groaned, stepping aside even though it wasn't necessary.

"Landswimming. It's our gift," the girl replied. "Don't your people have one?"

"Two. Self-confidence and privacy."

"Liar. Bet you don't have either one. So, you and skinny blind boy, huh?"

Loora lifted her eyes to the Skymother. "No. And he wasn't blind yesterday, and yesterday we weren't--I mean, I hardly knew him. Know him. It's just--his mother and my father--it's a long story. Please go away."

"Wasn't blind yesterday," the Spriton girl repeated in a distinctly sassy tone. "Was it that Brin lady? Did she put a spell on him?"

"No," Loora told her. "And there aren't any spells, just songs. Why don't you know anything?"

Ormellia seemed to catch a whiff of Loora's dislike, flashed a hurt look, not dissimilar from Cory's and Aughra's hurt looks, and drifted away.

Everyone was gone. They all hated her. Yay. Loora scowled at the lovely village, nearly imploded with anger as a splash of leaf-dew dripped on her hair. The boy called Meter knocked on a door far ahead and slipped through as it opened. Embling and Aughra followed, holding the door open for Cory. Loora was not actually going to go in, she decided. Other people could deal with Skeleton Kid. She was, in fact, going to sit on the mostly dry walkway just outside the door and sulk. Maybe she'd even sneak around the back and--but no, there was a wide porch area with windows and awnings and hanging U-shaped tree boughs for seats. So she found the most hidden part of the wall and slid down with her back against it and her knees up. She wished there were words that could communicate to everyone just how angry you were. But there weren't.

Just songs.

"The lights are out in Quillpine

The houses all caught flame

The children all have run away

And the parents are to blame.

I told them how the fires would come

And burn the world away.

But no one ever listens to me

And now they have to pay.

They begged me to quench the fires

They told me they'd all die.

I replied I didn't mind,

I want to watch them cry."

Loora shivered and started crying. Somehow it had been easy to deal with everything that had happened while it was happening--misplacing Cory, getting kidnapped and put in a cage by Brin, the tree shattering while she was up it, the near-miss with the spearbolt--it had all seemed easy at the time, when she was in charge and had important stuff to do. But now? The anger and fear had grown deaf to her strength, to her protestations, to her toughness. Like cold wind they blew through her, starting in her shoulders, and grew too big for her, and everyone else was inside the hut and she was alone and nobody was coming out or inviting her in or even paying attention to her and Cory was angry and now she silently promised herself she would never admit that it was her fault, no because it was _his_ fault he couldn't take her bossiness, and she vaguely realized she'd been half expecting to marry Cory, it had almost seemed preordained, she'd just expected that after Aughra found a cure for the Light Sickness the two of them would marry and study with the old woman and learn all her wisdom and maybe carry on teaching and healing for the rest of their lives and--

"Loora," Aughra said quietly, peering around the door of the hut.

" _What_?" Loora snapped.

"Cory has died."

"What?" she said, her thoughts tossed.

"Raunip spoke truly. Once the eyes go black, there are only hours left. UrNol's corrupted syrups sped the process. It was only the healing counteragent that kept the boy alive this long. Come inside."

Nothing much of the next few tolls really stuck. None of it fit. It didn't make sense.

An image of Cory's body lifted halfway, offering no resistance to Embling's hands, returning to the plank floor, burned itself permanently into Loora's mind. The smell of flowers tossed onto a moss fire. The feeling of pushing through a green garland draped off the roof on the way in and out the croaking-hinged door while getting fresh air, returning inside, leaving again. A low cough-moan that Aughra repeatedly made. The Spritons she'd met, bustling around her in a consoling way. Meter repeating the words, "He just dropped," over and over. Meeting a boy whose left side was damaged somehow, and whose bones showed through in some places. Skeleton Kid, she remembered that, that part made sense. Then some kind of big meeting between the families of the village, conducted not in a great hall but by word of mouth, lines of Gelflings standing along the narrow walkways between the huts, since there weren't any huts big enough to hold everyone. Messages passed in whispers like Pafaul's beetle communification chains. In the darkness of night, networks of standing Gelflings holding small glowglobes and speaking with sympathy about what to do.

Loora slept and dreamed of Cory, who jumped from a window in a tree but did not land.

* * *

I am Pafaul. The Storyteller. A woman of the long-dead Partha race, I may be the last of my species. I know more than most of dealing with grief.

This is how to begin it.

First. Will we speak of our grief? Is it worth speaking of? Is it worth enough, wide enough, to admit, or should we hide it? Will we speak of healing, or pretend there is nothing wrong? Will we ignore our wounds? Will we let them fester? And what if our wounds are larger than we are?

My audience, I say this to you: what is, is. What happens, happens. Do not hide from reality. Say the truth, just as it happened, without permitting your mind to create lies that comfort you. Here is my truth: My people have died. Most or all of them were not killed by knives or bats or groundworms. They were killed by fear. Their own fear. Let us admit it. It is impossible for me not to blame the Hunter for creating this fear. When my people were dead, he took their fur and flesh. I want him to be a monster completely. But inside the deepest honesty I can find, I will say that stronger-hearted creatures than Parthim would not have died in the Forest Depths as we did. Stronger-hearted creatures would have lived.

I feel shame. I feel shame in saying this truth. But it is a truth.

Thus I admit the truth as it truly is. This is our first step to surviving grief.

Our second step:

Whose fault is it that we are wounded? Who has done this to us? Who do we blame? Will we hurt them back?

Do we look for revenge against those who took our loved ones away? Should I hunt the Hunter, punish him for what he did, destroy all Skeksis for destroying all Parthim? Should we rage against our injustices? Do we reclaim lost lives by ending others? Do we hurt those who hurt us? Does that make us stronger?

I have not hunted the Hunter. I have killed no Skeksi. Does this dishonor the lives of my people, or does this prove Parthim to be superior to those murderers?

Parthim value life. That is our strength. That is our gift. We share life and joy with everyone we meet. And we make no exceptions, we see no differences between good lives and bad lives. We celebrate all life. Thus do I explain my decision not to seek revenge, not to unleash my anger, and thus do I honor the dead.

Keeping our anger tamed in our hearts. This is our second step in dealing with grief.

Here is our third step:

Are there ways around grief? Are there ways to close our wounds before they're formed? Are we granted another opportunity to spend time with our loved ones? Can we hear their voice again, one more time? Can we draw their picture? Can we touch their skin? Can we go back to when they were alive, in real life or in our memories? Is there even a scrap of them left in the world, something to reconnect with? A talisman, a memento?

Do we let them go?

* * *

"Find him for me, kThhrayahaya," the Chamberlain said.

Huge brown wings spread along the bulbous yellow branch of the gooey succulent stub scrub shrub. Dried sap covered the bat's feet, and a strange laser of white light glowed from its chest. This was the fourth time the Chamberlain had visited the Hunter in the field, sent this toothsome animal to locate him, and that first original twitch of fear that had burrowed into his heart continued to subside.

Flinging light in rhythmic pulses from its chest, the bat rose into the sky and winked away.

The Chamberlain, now removed from his life and his responsibilities, alone in a patch of new desert, waited. He was aware of himself, the Chamberlain. A beaked reptile, dressed ornately in a colossal robe, his hump-shape bare against the thin, streaked light of the sunset. His body merged with that of strange plants and cactulus and succulent drippers and flanged half-trees and barbed hateloves and one extra-large shadow produced by a shady trailtree upon the ridge. He cast his own dwindling shadow, saw it stay (just for a second) immobile, a momentary evidence of his existence. He was there. He was standing on the land. Behind him, the Storm broke, but the rain slunk away into the swamp, leaving the desert to collect moisture from the sodden air only. The Castle of the Crystal was a far memory, a hooked and clawed trap, a wasteland. The Chamberlain grew so large in his own mind that he cast a shadow over the entire castle. It became small to him, and he dreamed he might lift it in his palm and carry it in his sleeve.

Swarms of fishflies hummed through the evening. The Chamberlain waited for the Hunter.

* * *

"It's day, Loora."

She sneezed and a gasp-cry burst from her at the same time. She wiped her stuffed nose on whatever cloth was at hand and pushed herself out of a wicker platform bed suspended from the ceiling by four twisted branches. Aughra's noseless face was not far from her, and Loora laughed without a reason, then coughed a weep away, and then she found the covers and curled back up in them even though there was sneeze stuff in them.

A quartoll later, she uncurled herself and slid down from the hanging bed and stood on the floor. The suns beamed through the wicker window. Loora pressed a hand to her heart and spoke the three sun prayers:

"May the rose sun rise,

May the dying sun set,

May the great sun grow,

May it happen forever."

It had been trines since she had said the prayer--sun celebration had never been her thing, and working Gelflings like her family had never been invited to the Partial Conjunction ceremonies in the Celebrant Hall. Sigh. But there was something to be enjoyed in recognizing that the world was spinning between suns, and the spinning went on forever, and the events on Thra were small, and the world continued.

Cory.

Again she wanted angry words to let out what she felt. Words of anger and unfairness and incomprehension.

Instead she found her feelings inside her and screamed them out wordlessly, powerfully into the now-empty hut, just a single bark, barely caring whether anyone heard.

What happened next was very peculiar.

From the next hut over, shouts. "They're awake!" came from a Spriton. A relay of happy voices. Embarrassed at having barked out her feelings, Loora tiptoed out the hut door to look.

Bursting out of a neighboring door at the same time were a pair of Gelflings, not too old, who had a faint blue glow in their chests and black stars just emerging from their pupils. The two gazed around in the morning sunlight and smiled. Behind them shuffled a pair of caretakers. Aughra came around the corner from the other direction.

"Miss Aughra! They've woken up!" a caretaker called.

"Is there food?" one of the sick Spritons mumbled.

"Who made that sound?"

"I'll get some!"

In moments, huts were bursting open and the Spriton villagers was greeting the awakened ones. Smiles, joy. Welcome. Reuniting.

Cory was not here. He did not wake up. His body was presumably lying in state in the village, unless they'd already gone to return it to Quillpine for a Woodland Gelfling closing ceremony.

Aughra's wood-like hand landed on her shoulder. "Tell me," the woman said. Loora ducked into the hut and Aughra sat beside her.

"I was angry," Loora said. "I screamed."

"And they woke up," Aughra mused.

"Mm-hm."

"Interesting. Tell me more. You were angry."

"Cory--"

The knobby hand squeezed her shoulder. She flinched but didn't push it away.

"Cory is gone," said Aughra. "No power in our world may bring him back. That is death."

Loora's voice was much smaller than she wanted it to be: "Was there anything I could have done?"

Aughra sighed and swung an old leg onto the hanging bed beside her. "Gelfling. Ah. Here is what can be said. My son and I." She paused, scowled. "Hmp! I don't listen to him, and he doesn't listen to me. If we were closer, he might have told me what he knew of this sickness earlier. I might have told the ur-Mystics and they might have begun the search for a cure sooner. I might not have been so consumed with the idea of Cory's gift--" Vast eyebrows and trailing whiskers shut in despondency--"that I let him leave my sight while we made that amplifier to his future-seeing, now useless. Such a beautiful talent, gone. So much is lost in death."

Loora reluctantly put her arm around the old woman's shoulder. Aughra bowed her head.

"No more sight. No need for a meditation globe. Now we have no way to know what will happen. Less need for me to visit the Mystics. Less? MORE reason, now that I know what this Light Sickness can do! We have much to finish, you and I, if we want to save the rest of the sick from this blue death. But we have clues. Your scream of sorrow? Woke two of the sick--but not all of them. This? A clue. Hmp. UrNol the Herbalist told me he'd located the source of the sickness. The Great Crystal. A big clue. We will visit it before the end. Learn from it. Find the truth. Now? Two options--visit the Castle of the Crystal, or visit ur-Kalivath, the Valley of the Mystics. Both choices? Very, very dangerous."

"But the Mystics aren't dangerous--"

"Hmp! Fat piece of smarts you've got. Skeksis? Easy to manipulate. They have simple desires. Give them their desires? Do anything you tell them. Mystics are different. They will not do what you tell them. They'll listen, but their designs are subtle, thin to the eye. Sometimes they choose to preserve life. Other times? End it, to preserve other life. All life is not equal in their eyes, and above all, they want balance. Balance is nonsense. Only the good should be, and the bad should not. Mystics don't agree. Thus, Mystics are enemies to us half the time. Very dangerous indeed." The old woman snorted.

"Aughra?" said Loora.

"Mm?"

"Where is Cory? I'd like to say goodbye."

"You already did. Many times. Last night. They've already taken him back to Quillpine."

"Oh." Loora held her feelings in place, to keep from screaming. "I forgot." A sapped breath. "He's really gone, isn't he? Bet his parents will be mad at you. I didn't mean to say that." She squashed her face into her hands and tried to wipe her feelings off her forehead.

"Rest. I will decide what we will do next. Yrn may join us."

"Yrn?" The word was new, a surprise. Eern, it sounded like. It wasn't a Woodland-style name at all.

"The boy they call Skeleton Kid. Yrn is his name. It means 'rot' in the old tongue. His body is infested with a death-dream. Half of him chose to die within him. His cells in the left side listened. Cells in the right side were strong and overcame it. He is a boy with . . . talents. Obsessions. We will see what can be done with him. Hmp. Rest. I will call on you soon, and we will travel."

Loora rolled up the snotted sheets and pushed them onto the floor, then curled up in the hanging bed again, feeling a little rotted and a little dead herself.

* * *

"Pin in your shell, pin in your shell . . . More like _lockpick_ in your shell . . ."

* * *

"Old memories, stranger than time," skekTek murmured. He felt . . . exhilarated. Wonders of technology from a time that time forgot . . . what potential, he breathed to himself, what waiting potential . . . glorious . . . ecstatic power, a thousand directions at once . . . a metal known only to the ancients, a crystalline stone that was so nearly bone that one might construct bones from it . . . build a new life and give it structure . . . an opportunity like no other on Thra . . . it was his, it was here, it was nearly unlocked within his trembling hands . . . a faint line of drool, wiped away . . . his sight faded, clouded, again and again . . . a desire, unfamiliar and yet deeply felt within his fingers and toes and behind his eyes, to stare deeply into the light of the Dark Crystal . . . what was this feeling? Had it been there always, and had it just now crept to his conscious mind? . . . a vision of stars voyaging through blackness, a beam of pure light, a guided journey . . . yes, the Dark Crystal . . . he opened the door, crept into the musty chamber, and peered in at the light of the cracked heart of Thra . . .

Wildness . . .

SkekTek awoke. He sat facing his workshop with his back pressed against the half-open door to the Dark Crystal. His new robes were torn open like a cracked tamtail egg, and his twisted torso and vestigial arms were exposed, black and naked and uncouth, to the room. He was doused with cold-blooded sweat. The outer door to the lab was locked, he remembered vaguely. He had locked it so no one could enter. His memories were in a snarl and he was uncertain of them. His naked hands pulled his robe shut. SkekTek was aware of his breath.

"Bug," he whispered into the room. His voice was shallow and too small. A piping "yessir?" answered. "Bug, has anyone entered my laboratories?"

"No, your skekiness." The bug coughed. "Been just you an' me." A note of hesitation.

"How did the door open?"

"Uh, you mean the big door?"

SkekTek patted the surface behind him, and realized that the bug was expecting an answer. "Yes," he rasped, "this door."

"Um." The bug scuttled around its cage. "You opened it, sir. When you--"

"When?" said skekTek.

"Prob'ly wasn't quite a toll ago."

Memories. Stirred strangely, skekTek received a memory of orange light, purple light, brotherhood and sisterhood, feelings . . . bah, it was gone.

What had his current project been? A blind hand slapped at the ground and came up with the brassy object. Yes, that's what he'd . . . ugggh. Deep breaths. He'd been contemplating the materials that comprised this object, and dreaming of . . . of their practical applications. Yes.

Breathing, skekTek braced himself and stood. Breathing.

The brassy outer metal was called athertine. He knew this now. He had not known it before. Athertine was alloyed from copper, bismuth and the corrosive sap of the larantine tree. He knew how to make it. He did not know how to make it before. Before . . . before now, anyway. He knew how to reproduce athertine.

The pasty-colored material inside was called bonestone. It was made by melting the thick bones of tamtails in larantine sap and purifying. It possessed a variety of properties, including an ability to store and transfer the energies of Thra. The energies of the Dark Crystal.

SkekTek did not know what bonestone was, before. He now knew what bonestone was. A feathery hand clenched the capstan gear. His eyes trained on his hand, flicked to the open doorway. Then down.

There were words carved into the athertine surface, revealing the bonestone beneath. A dazzle of inspiration. SkekTek could read these words. They were childishly simple. Written in the old tongue.

"EXTREME DANGER. KEEP AWAY FROM LIGHT."

Holding up the brassy athertine-covered object, turning it over in his hand, he aimed the words carved in it at the Dark Crystak. A nearly infinite beam of purple light shone from the handle and across the laboratory floor. A curse of "point that someplace else!" whimpered from the steel cage.

Bonestone could store and direct the energy of the Dark Crystal far better than shattercite. Yes. It was clear. So clear now, quite clear, quite very clear. He could still outmaneuver that Chamberlain and his Slavemaster lackey. All he needed was a good source of larantine sap and tamtail bone, plus purifying agent.

Larantines grew in the Forest Depths. Some other Skeksi had gone there, he remembered, knew the region, and perhaps he--

The Hunter. What had that guard said? A friend of the Chamberlain. Maneuver carefully, skekTek. Don't let it come back to you. He'd get the guard to arrange it--yes, that was the way. And then infiltrate the kennels, and then the Emperor--yes. It was all going skekTek's way.

*** * ***

"I can only bring one person with me."

His skin, Loora saw, was strictly green from forehead to ankles, except along one hand and arm, where it faded to a healthier skin-brown. He was bald, and a purple bandanna was wrapped around his head, concealing his left eye like an eyepatch. As he moved, which he did patiently, deliberately, without any fidgeting, she glimpsed an empty socket behind the covering.

Half of his face was peeled away, creating a long, muscley smile of unnaturally exposed teeth. His damaged mouth pointed like a spearhead to a missing ear. One shoulder was white bone and yellow tendon, sunken in and knotted, a flesh landscape of hills and crooked valleys. The left arm was withered and was bound to his torso. It moved, creaking, as he moved. White ribs pushed through green skin, and white wrappings went up his slender body, holding in ribs beneath a large pale vest of pouches and pockets full of bandages and tinctures. An articulated wooden web-frame shaped like a leg, with thigh and calf and squeaky brass knee, stuck out from an angled men's skirt. Tall shoes.

Yrn's one open eye stared unblinking at Loora as she steadied herself. There was an awareness that she had met him before at the Spriton gathering, but the memory was shaky. She sat on a polished slice of root, and Aughra was there, and Uncle Embling.

"Is there no way to bring Loora and I to ur-Kalivath together?" Aughra grunted.

"The song that splits stone uses up my breath," said Yrn. His voice, despite the rotting of half his body, was very clear and warm to hear. "The stone will close behind me as I breathe. If I had months to practice, with poppets to try it out on, so that if something went wrong . . . but to get there on the first try? No, I'll need to be bound to the person, to limit how much I need to sing. I know my limitations."

Aughra sighed. "Inconvenient. Hmp! But perhaps it will save us time. Take Loora to ur-Kalivath. She will tell the Mystics everything. I will travel to the Castle of the Crystal and examine the Great Crystal with urNol. Much to be learned."

"These herbs," Uncle Embling said. "They--they won't be enough, will they? The boy--"

"Speak of it when fewer delicate ears are listening, Embling. No, they won't last forever, but they may sustain life for long enough. Hope. Hope is how the heart sustains itself. Let's prepare for our twin journeys, Loora. Are you willing to--?"

"Yes," Loora spat.

"Anger in your voice. Let it out! Don't let it boil."

"Not here," said Loora.

"Yes here! Why hide it? You'll be travelling to dangerous lands with Yrn. Better to let him see your feelings. A tricky song he'll be singing, don't want to interrupt it."

Loora squeezed her eyes shut and clawed her fingers and then let them unclench, placing them deliberately to either side of her. Uncle Embling, hunched slightly and bearing a wisp of white-black hair, staring with his too-large eyes; Aughra, her skull-nose still unsettling to Loora, her right eye forever held shut and the other two, left and forehead, buried under wrinkles; Yrn, his mind and body still, his one eye knowing.

"Cory. He never told me he was--he never said goodbye. He was being a jerk and if I--I might have--my scream woke up others--he was poisoned in that tree--I saved his life--he can't ever try out our globe. He never even saw it." She hated saying these things instead of holding them in, hated Aughra for making her say them. "Why are we all getting sick?" she asked. "It isn't even just Gelflings. The whole world is sick. My mother. Cory's father. The grand-Gelfs," she said. "Why did I have to be born when the world is poisoning us? Why couldn't this have gotten fixed already? Why haven't you solved it for us? You're the Mother Master!" she said. "You can summon rain and fog and you can marry the sky and land and you could probably spin the suns around the wrong way if you wanted to. How can this--why is this still happening? Why haven't you fixed this already?" she said and sighed hard. "Cory," she added.

Her anger seemed to spread to Aughra, but in a puff of emotion, the old woman instead bowed her head in sadness.

"I will show you something," Aughra said. The whiskers, the bold purple hair, and the deep lines faced Loora. All three eyes closed. Then, for the first time Loora could remember, all three eyes opened, snap.

Where the right eye should have been was an image. It was burned onto the eye, onto a black pupil spread so wide that the whole eye was permanently black.

The image was this:

Stars. Black night space. Void. In the center, a pillar of funneled light was so glorious and majestic that Loora herself shied from looking at it too closely. It was a light too beautiful to endure.

Drawn in, repelled, pulled, pushed, Loora found herself dissolving into the image. A tower of light, leading beyond infinity. She became aware of a circle of faces emerging, faces made of light, stretched and distorted and yet angelic, utterly alien, foreign, outworldly. The faces possessed the sort of intelligence that a Gelfling might never know nor believe in. Intelligence to be worshipped, intelligence to throw yourself prostrate before. Angels descending from a beam of light.

And below, competing against the light's brilliance, a crystal exposed to the stars. The Great Crystal. Violet, native, a portrait of Thra and its people.

Until the eye closed, replaced by folds of brown eyelid, Loora saw nothing else.

"Always I see it," Aughra whispered. "Eyes open? Eyes closed? Always the light of the Conjunction. The arrival from the stars. Down from the sky to our Crystal. That one perfect light, when our world joined with others through the light of our suns. Our world? Just one connection of a thousand connecting worlds. Thousand? Maybe a million. Is it the endworld, or only one of many? Hmp! I don't know." A thick sigh. "The light is blinding to me. Distracting. Once I knew only Thra, its vibrations, its ways, its people. Now there is always the knowledge of other worlds. So many others. Our Thra still important! But there is so much else out there. How can I be content? How can I attend to our simple ways? The stars . . ."

"So there might have been a way to save him," Loora said sullenly, "if you weren't so blind. That's what you're saying."

"Let out the anger," Aughra said. "Hold nothing in. No good packing feelings up."

"Only a few hours passed between the tree falling over and Cory doing the same," Uncle Embling creaked sympathetically. "You wouldn't have had much time anyway."

"Fine. Fine! Then let's save my mother--and Cory's father, the gardener. I can help Cory keep his promises to that woman who was going to shoot him, at least."

"Send you off as soon as Yrn is ready. First I'll tell you what to say to the ur-Mystics. Words very important. Meaning? More important!"

And Loora sat beside Yrn, not touching his broken dream-dead body, and memorized the words Aughra gave her.

* * *

"Your grandness," Rian said, stepping aside as the Chamberlain shuffled in through the open front doors of the castle.

A pair of sly satisfied eyes slid to look at him. Rian stood at attention just beside the Podling slaves who tended the door. He kept his eyes forward, staring through the Chamberlain in the vacant manner of distracted guards everywhere. The Chamberlain seemed to read his face for clues, and finding none, clumped off into the guts of the purple fortress. Then Rian was alone with the sniveling Podlings.

"Shouldn't speak to 'em," one of the slaves muttered. "Encourages 'em."

"Skeksis don't care whether you speak to them or not," the other Podling said. "I never said a word to them, and they still knew who I was and where I lived and what wheels to turn in Nander to convince the whole town to turn me in. I'm a herbal pharmacist. They said I'd been selling unlicensed medicine. Told them all the licenses were in order. They come in, have a look around. Pulled a box of sumpin' I'd never heard of from under a floorboard that was never loose. Asked where I'd got it. Said I hadn't. No one listened."

"Tell me the whole thing later--" said Rian.

"Tell 'im the whole thing later, says Scars here. He won't be back. Volunteer, he is, isn't he, and--"

Rian grabbed the Podling by the steel collar and lifted him. "You can say many things to me, Plantsprout, but don't you say I'm a volunteer. Open the door."

As he finally stalked out of the castle, Rian was pursued by some nasty words on the subject of "touchy, touchy." He declined to press the issue, or to point out that he'd released the collar's pudgy lock with his sharp squeeze, and tripped across the drawbridge into the night.

The Hunter could be found most often in his mobile outpost in the mouth of a captive cave-eater. They camped together on the ridge overlooking Skarith. While the metal hinge that held the cave-eater's mouth open was painted a tactical brownish-black, there were two spots where the paint had been worn away by a pair of long stalactite-incisors, and if you whistled, the cave-eater would stretch his mouth open a little more, and the starlight would glint off the exposed metal, and a sharp eye could see where the Hunter was camped.

Rian whistled. A grumble and a glint.

The climb up the cliff scrub involved a lot of strain to the thighs, plus several places where he had to trust his weight to a dried dead bit of tree, as well as two overhand climbs to a higher ledge. The cave-eater was staked down to the top of the ridge, a triangle peak grumbling softly to itself. Rian caught one of the stakes with a boot and pulled it free as he passed. Stony jaws remained pried apart on springs, however.

The Hunter dropped from the immobile upper lip of the cave-eater, landing in near silence. Four knives stayed dark, held in shadow.

* * *

"You're shaking."

She was, but it wasn't the green skin or torn mouth or the exposed ribs she was being tied to that was making her shake. Loora had found herself waiting for Cory to get ready, waiting for him to walk around the side of the huts to the landswimming pit to join her and Yrn on the next leg of their adventure. Then the unbelievable reality would return to her repeatedly, like the first verse of a round, and she was shaking.

Cory was gone from this world and would never return.

"Yrn? Can you see the future?" she asked.

"No one can see the future," the half-dead boy replied. His good iris seemed perfectly transparent, with a faint leaf-color lighting their inner depths.

"Cory could," said Loora.

Yrn didn't speak further. The three Spritons who were binding her to his body hummed in a way that made her flinch. Her wrists were knotted, and her ankles were crossed around his real leg, and she scowled and didn't want to be touched really, but there was work to be done, and she was willing to do it. Just grit your teeth and get the job done, Loora. It will be over soon.

Yrn smelled of medicine and open wounds and bandages. It was, somehow, a sweet smell, though not exactly pleasant.

"Ready?" said Yrn as the three Spritons tugged the bonds one last time and stepped away. Loora's face was pressed into the boy's good shoulder and her legs straddled his non-withered leg. The Spriton assistants wrapped gauze over her nose and mouth to keep dirt from getting in.

"As I'll ever be," she said, muffled, and they descended like a drowning boat into the soil.

"Take a deep breath. It will have to last," Yrn whispered as their shoulders plunged beneath the surface. She gulped like a river fish, and then it was darkness.

Inside the soil, there was no light, no Light Sickness to illuminate the space, and no real way to know where they were headed or how fast. There was, she felt, no way her breath would last all the way there--maybe they'd come up for air every few centrors? If not, this trip was going to end much worse than it started.

It seemed like they were staying almost still, or maybe they were tilting to face down into the soil.

Yrn's voice was very clear, pristine, almost feminine, but contained not a trace of self-doubt. It was a voice of absolute knowledge, and it said words in a language she had never heard, strains of foreign clipped syllables, building a tower of alien song, preparing a mechanical force, blocking off one direction after another, telling the earth to part ahead of them and push behind, his voice held their position like a bow and bolt, tensed, aiming toward here, closer to there, precise and angular, and--

A crescendo of song-syllables.

A keystone word falling into place.

Loora was barely able to control her shriek as the two of them shot into the soil at incredible speed. The soil peeled out of their way, groundworms bent their bodies abruptly, and air hissed down from the surface and surrounded them, creating an arrowhead of breathable air. Testing it briefly, Loora found it oven-hot but bearable.

After the initial acceleration, Loora relaxed and closed her eyes and endured the shot-fired speed. Yrn's skin was cold next to the steaming air. His blood seemed to pump reluctantly, as if half his heart wasn't willing. It gradually became clear that there would be no quick end to the journey, and she found her mind drifting.

Backtracking mentally, she tried to tease apart the feelings of the past day: captive, then flying alongside Cory down the cage's rope, when she had first learned he'd gone blind. It was exciting, then. It hadn't seemed fatal, then. It seemed no more strange than the rest of Aughra's flurrious, furious daily life, then. Flying down after him, which stressed her wings, the way flying always did, especially when she dove after him and slowed him as he neared the ground, just before he hit. She became his guardian after that. She'd decided it. She needed to protect the poor flimsy daydreaming boy, keep him facing the right direction in life. He'd hardly acknowledged to him how far out of her way she'd gone to--

Yrn's song-voice started up again, this time booming unnaturally into the hard clay ahead. The sound became distorted, warping, as it ricocheted through the land, and Loora decided that it truly was alien, that the voice must come from that death-dream Aughra had mentioned, that it had come down that glorious beam of light at the Conjunction of the Suns in Aughra's blind eye and that it possessed some sort of strange commanding power. His voice _was_ power, pure and unnatural, and it could, she imagined, order anything to do anything he wanted. What he wanted, it seemed, was for the increasingly solid base clay to liquefy--and she heard the slithery sound of clay soaking up water from miles around, and the arrowhead of air burned into an arrowhead of water and together air and water screamed past her shoulders as she plunged further down and farther away through the clay of Thra.

Her arms curled around the fraying, gummy cords of Yrn's neck.

Cory hadn't had the slightest idea that she was interested in his prophecies. He hadn't known that she'd listened to every word he'd said over that black water, hadn't known she was fascinated he had such vision. He didn't know she'd worked so hard to produce a shimmering globe to help him see, or that she'd gotten angry at Aughra for smashing the old one that he'd obviously really liked. She hadn't told Aughra she was angry, either. Nobody knew anything about how she felt. She didn't have time for feelings. She had work to do.

Yrn began inhaling with a slithering hiss, like an old man sipping hot lea-li tea. She could feel his broad chest and narrow, narrow waist expand with breath. The heat around her was starting to burn, to scald, but Yrn stared straight ahead, his head bent up to look into the diverging plummet of fanning stale dusty air and churning water. A hum came from his throat, followed by a single detonated syllable that sounded deeper than stone.

"Stay close," he whispered as clay broke open and bedrock split in a totally non-liquid way. They were a double bullet of life in the middle of a song-powered earthquake. Far beneath the surface now, they continued plunging further into the shattering shale. Loora had her own kind of power; she was the chieftain of not making terrified whimpers as she rocketed forward inches away from solid stone. She could pretend she wasn't scared. The temperature was breathtaking.

Closing her eyes, she tried to distract herself by reconstructing the events after her angry song outside the Spriton hut. Aughra had come out to tell her Cory was dead. Then she . . . what? Did she stand up and go in to look? Must have. She tried to visualize the appearance of her clothes . . . her long, lightweight gray morning coat. A heavy long-sleeved patterned work jacket, brown and orange with black stitched shapes. A man's dull blue undershirt that covered her tummy. Baggy two-legged skirt tucked under her shirt, since only dresses were appropriate for a little lady. Sitting in one of the narrow walkways, her back against that sturdy wooden hut. Knees up, hands clasped together under her knees. Did she look up at Aughra or straight ahead? Not sure. Her next memory was of Cory's unresisting head lolling in the hands of Uncle Embling. No, it wasn't Embling, it was that boy, what was his name, Meter who had lifted the head. No, it couldn't be, because he had said, "He just fell," across the room, so it must have been Embling. Or Aughra, but why would she? There was no way to get a fix in her memory on who had lifted Cory's head. All she could remember was the flick as it fell, the shut eyelids motionless and yielding. She couldn't remember who had lifted him . . .

The memory was gone. It was as if her mind had stopped recording for awhile. It had shut off. Empty.

But as she began delving further back in her memories, she found all the images of Cory--his facial features, his clothes--starting to dim, to fade. What shape was his nose? What color was his shirt? All of her memories were disappearing, as if sapped by saboteurs. Cory . . .

Gone.

Somewhere in her breast, she found a shard of love. It was all she had of Cory. And she despaired.

Exploding mortared stone busted into a black room, followed by steaming clay-water and she and Yrn and a vacuum-release of thickly powdered vapor. Loora and Yrn both struck their heads on stone and Loora felt her whole body and neck shiver with the impact. It hurt. The room she had shot into was freezing, puddled and wet and utterly lightless. Yrn seemed shaken by the hard landing, and Loora groaned and began extricating herself from the tangle of limbs. As dust and the faintest of friction-light faded, she breathed and slowed herself and began untying her wrists and ankles.

"More ssssstrangerssssss . . ."

Falling back, taking the bindings and Yrn with her, Loora screamed.

* * *

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NOTHING CAME OUT?" the Emperor roared.

The Slavemaster stood his ground. In a disciplined mind, a mind where tasks were either done or undone, there was no room to be intimidated. The Chamberlain failed in the task he was given. The Slavemaster told the Emperor so, adding that the purple crystal no longer shone. Predictable fury followed. The Slavemaster stood still and accepted a beating from the punishment club. There was, he knew, nothing he could do to improve the situation, so he absorbed the Emperor's anger in silence.

"FIND ANOTHER SHINING CRYSTAL," the Emperor screamed.

"Your majesty--there isn't--only skekTek--"

"FIND ANOTHER SHINING CRYSTAL," the Emperor repeated.

"Yes, liege." The Slavemaster didn't hesitate to depart.

There was only one other shining crystal that the Slavemaster had ever seen. Somewhere in the black twist of his memory, in the places he had prudently closed off, the places where the screams he had created became unnecessary and unsatisfying, in the utter swamp of his soul was a memory of purple light. The purple light tasted the same as that liquid Podling essence he had licked off the floor. There was a dark curtain over the memory, as if it had only been a dream, but the source of purple light--the Dark Crystal--skekTek--bug--his Blade of Dominance--some sort of vicious dance--the Slavemaster shook himself and hurried back to the kennels. He needed to sit, to clear his mind, where he would not be observed.

Reuel's son was returning from his rounds. The Slavemaster stopped him and brought him to a leather-walled room-of-silence and began to speak.

"The emperor has ordered me to enter skekTek's chambers with a Pod slave and force it to stare at the Dark Crystal. You will perform this task. Use something to focus the light. No one must observe. Use the small one from the Balgertown harvest. It's expendable."

"Yessir. If skekTek should protest . . .?" said Reuel's son.

"See that he has no opportunity. I'm sure you'll find a way."

The Slavemaster ran an admiring hand over the systematic scars on the Gelfling's face, then sent him away. From out of the room-of-silence, skekNa sidled to his unadorned bedchamber, laid across the broad wooden plank he used as a bed, and rested his head on the cupped stone he used as a pillow.

SkekNa dreamed of screams both satisfactory and necessary.

* * *

"Just about got it."

Click.

Doesn't matter how long it takes, iffn you get the fing done, Gobber'd say.

Time to get away from these screaming maniacs.

* * *

"Larantine and tamtail bones . . ."

SkekTek returned to his labs. He imagined a tripwire made of light; it would permit him to know precisely when the Slavemaster left the kennels and could be calibrated to differentiate between wandering guards and the Slavemaster himself. Probably too complicated; the simplest solution was often the best. Perhaps he would send the remains of his white-eyed slave to watch over the entrance and beat skekNa at his own game. Yes. It would require some eye surgery, of course, but that would be simple enough. SkekTek assembled his tools and bolted the slave back to the vivisection table. Soon he would know all of the Slavemaster's rhythms. And he would strike.

* * *

"Woss . . . woss . . . I fink I heard someone shoutin' . . . woss . . ."

Hadn't left this puddle-muck tunnel yet, had he? Sittin' on somefing bouncy. Gobber sat up and peered into the darkness. His eyes weren't adjusting right. Still dark, although there was a bit of that worrisome blue light shining out of his _chest_ , why--

"Lemny!" he exclaimed and tripped on some sort of _stick_ \--

"It ssstaysss ssstill, we carry it to a glasssssmaker, we know where. The Netherssssspiral."

That didn't mean much to him. His head hurt like scamperin', whooo. A glassmaker, yeah. He needed to find a glassmaker. Two clear refracting lenses. A week to save Lemny.

Gobber looked down at a pair of crouched shuffle-footed Gelflings who were carrying him on a canvas stretcher. Nice of them to bring him closer to a glassmaker, even if they gave him the bleatin' scallywaggles with their crouchin' and shufflin'. Had a good nap, now back to the search--

"Sssstay on the litter, ssssave your sssstrength."

Their eyes were enormous, bigger than the palms of their white-pale hands. Like two watery moons lookin' up at you. The words began to filter through. Save his strengf? He was as strong as a dozen Gelflings, he'd walked far'ver than the legendary Wandering Pod-Planter of Arlebat-Grim in his day, he was--

He was getting tired just keeping his eyelids open.

"You'll--you'll take me to a glassmaker, will you? I'd be much in your debt. Iffn I had a bit more strengf I'd--"

"The Starblindnesss takes your sstrength. We will ressscue the Crabbit if you fall."

He tapped the litter beneath him. "How can I fall--"

"Shhh, ssstill your voice."

Gobber closed his eyes and immediately felt stronger. Sleep was still near, but he felt as if he'd been sleeping for monfs on end, and didn't eck'specially want to drift away again.

A voice from down the corridor: "Tasfrasss, bring the ssick one. There are more vissitors."

"They causssed the explosion?" one of the litter-bearers called out.

"There isss a break in wall buttress 983, but it can be closssed. Dusst everywhere."

"Who broke the wall?"

"Ssstrange ones."

* * *

"Best be quick, urNol. Each toll is a toll lost to us."

"I'm still not sure what use a herbalist is supposed to be at the Castle of the Crystal. The land around it has been drying up for trines. There hasn't been any sap for months. There may not be any plants left."

"Always plants. Thra renews itself."

"And those awful brutes will probably tear me to stalks and stems if they find me--"

"They can't tear you to anything. There is a connection. Walk faster, we're almost close enough."

"Motion has never been good for me, Aughra--"

"Here."

The flouse held onto urNol's forehead. Aughra and the Mystic broached the treeline and stood on a ridge overlooking the rich valley of Lost Vale. The far end of the valley led up to a misty wetland in terraces; waterfalls poured unclean brown water down from the rim of the Swamp of Sog. A road--hardly call it that!--blundered down along one leg of the terraces, intersecting them. By foot it would take athletic days to climb.

The Herbalist sang a low note. Aughra sang a higher note. The flouse cheeped. As the rock ridge rippled and faded and rumpled and transformed, Aughra wondered whether Raunip had secreted the crystals somewhere safe. Patting her flat, unsatisfying face, she and the gentle Mystic and the flouse stepped onto the new patch of unstable turf and surfed perilously down into the Vale.

* * *

"Rian!" Lemny hissed, peering around the corner of the labs and carrying his shell in two claws. "Open the door, Rian. Bloom it to blossoms, where are you?" The weight of his shell was not small, but his back felt free and floating. Now that the shell had snapped off, there was no real strict need for it, but he felt naked and raw and exposed, plus sentiment, nostalgia, call it what you will, well . . . he wasn't throwing it away, not when he had a chance to slip away quietly, repair it, just a few doors to open, perhaps that buzzard hadn't locked this one . . .

"Rian!"

Leaving his shell on the floor, Lemny began mountaineering up the face of the door, finding no easy lever to pull, only a simple bar handle and a lock not dissimilar to the one that he'd just spent tolls unlocking. Muttering something about leverage and bigger creatures discrimmalatin' against smaller creatures, he braced a leg cluster on the wall and held himself up with his claws and tested the lock. The door moved a fair distance at his pull, but that clever engineer Skek had built a mechanism that pulled it right back shut again. Needed someone of size to get past the mechanism, even though it wasn't locked.

Rubbing his small eyes in misery, Lemny stepped just outside the path the door would make when it opened, and waited.

There was a small stone on the floor, unswept, and Lemny took it and passed the time carving the sandstone walls.

* * *

"Billows of . . . and the stars . . . blinding . . . invaded by skekNa, I've been invaded . . . larantine sap . . . twenty measures to one gallon of rendered . . . melting point of resin . . . it's in my way, it's all in my way, quite very . . ."

"HmmmmmMmm."

The Pod slave stood motionless at his side, its eyes sealed behind crystals, so that it could see some light and color and motion. SkekTek's fingers teased the recently sewn-up neck of his reward robes and found his beak still moving by itself. Mental strain, it must be. The Chamberlain came into skekTek's view.

The slave's head trained on the Chamberlain, drawn to the Skeksi-shaped blockage in its light intake. SkekTek had already prepared it for its task. The Chamberlain would probably confuse it, skekTek imagined. His eyes met the Chamberlain's.

"So sad to hear you're no longer among the Emperor's favorites," the Chamberlain mused, smiling oilily and clasping his long hands.

Knew nothing of this. Said so. Quickly to the kennels, past him, strike him, melt away, make excuses!

Mental strain . . .

"Hmmmm. Yes, he's disappointed in you. For your little bright thing to go out like that--?" the Chamberlain clucked his beak disapprovingly. "It was only strong enough to enslave this one here."

"Little bright--the crystal. Gone out. You had it stolen from me," skekTek said. Strike him! "Gone out," he repeated.

"Preoccupied?" the Chamberlain asked. "Are you maybe angry that you've failed our Emperor? Angry--or satisfied? Plotting against him, are you? Hmmmmm. I know that look VERY well. Plotting against our Emperor. I'll have to let him know, of course. It would be treason not to."

SkekTek's throat seized and he lost his breath and nearly lost his feet beneath him, but he suppressed this and coughed harshly, as if he had meant to. Then he said, "Good. Tell him. You're sure to arouse only the deepest suspicions." Momentarily blind, skekTek stumbled past the Chamberlain, shoving him quite unnecessarily, and blundered forward down the corridor, tripping and regaining his feet more than once. The slave hurried after, occasionally bumping into walls.

The kennels. Quickly! Stop waiting. Punish him. Punish the Slavemaster! Do it now! Never permit him to re-enter the labs. He will take it away from us.

The light. The glorious, sizzly, beautiful light.

Liquid life.

* * *

Somewhere in a newly opened clearing in Dark Wood, at the base of a valley, a sapling twined up with insane colors glittered once in the shafts of sunlight that had broken through the canopy for the first time in centrines.

A point of consciousness, reawaking.

Sister.

* * *

"We're looking for ur-Kalivath, sir," Loora said. She was still less than thrilled to be a diplomat rather than a mechanic. Talking. Grr.

Water dripped from sodden moss on the ceiling. There was no light this far underground, excepting a vague blue glow in the distance, far fainter than a candle. Light Sickness in the dark.

Cory was dead. Loora's hands shook, once.

The person she was talking to was low to the ground, probably very short, and had a hissy lisp. Sounded Gelfen, or she'd have guessed it was a Crabbit or some other short, chatty creature. None of these crouching Gelflings had the Light Sickness themselves, so who did?

"Conclave of the Myssstics. Not far from here, side to sside, but up, up, up."

"Yes," said Yrn. "I couldn't change direction once we departed, so we aimed here." He still seemed wobbly and unsteady, and leaned on Loora, who had finally taken all the bindings off. He placed his one working hand on her shoulder, the same way Cory used to. It was tempting to shrug him off and be alone, but Yrn wanted support.

"How does it travel through ssstone?"

"Landswimming," Loora said quickly. "Can you show us how to get to the--"

"Netherssspiral is the way up. We go there oursselves. You have no blue light."

"We're lucky," said Yrn.

"We essscort a Beanface who pourss water from his eyess. He has the Sstarblindness. He will die ssoon, we can ssee it."

"Take us up," Loora said sharply. "We can maybe save him."

"Only hoursss away," the crouched figure hissed. "Sstill, we'll take you up. Take the Beanface to ur-Kalivath. Sswiftly enough and we might give him a chance to live."

The blue light broached a corner, revealing a sagging white canvas rectangle lit blue. On it a lumpy flogg-faced Podling reclined. He wore several torn black coats, several ragged black pants, and a small flat black hat. The blue light leached through the holes in his clothes, casting fuzzy-edged splots of light.

" 'ello," said the Podling, opening his star-rimmed eyes sleepily.

Faces of four foreign Gelflings also came into focus: eyes like white pairs of moons, thin mouths, ears like drinking cups, wrapped in colorless cloaks. They were bent double, their legs squatting and deeply muscled, and the two who were not carrying the stretcher kept their thin arms crossed under their cloaks, making them look strangely armless.

"You're Grottan," sniffed Yrn. "Trashpickers. Nasty practice."

"Funny," one of the crouched Gelflings said, "we think picking trash off trees isss far more disssgusting, Missster Ribcage."

"Yrn, don't reply. Sir, where are we going?" said Loora.

"Only a few buttressessss away. Come."

* * *

"Tomorrow you will report to the labs and repeat everything you saw. In the meantime, stay quite very silent and do not let them see you."

A strange mood filtered into skekTek's thoughts. It was a mood he could not recall feeling ever before in the centrine and more that he could remember. It was a new mood, and his calculating mind began processing it carefully, deciding whether he had room for it within his intellect.

Impatience.

A dour, demanding impatience. An inability to concentrate, a pacing-around, a neediness for--for--for whatever it was that he needed. Somehow skekTek wasn't sure what his brain was asking him for.

He paced in the green light outside the heavy door to the kennels, glaring at the angled beige walls that came to a trapezoid at the low ceiling, checking the secreted camouflaged slave with its glittering faceted eyes standing motionless except for difficult, blistered, sniffing breathing. Oh yes, it had a crawly chewing its face from the inside. SkekTek positioned the slave further back into the narrow alcove, so that shadows would cover its flickering, gemmed-shut eyes, one black and one green. The eyes glittered anyway. SkekTek scowled and felt impatience unfurl like a new sheet of rolled metal. There was no time! He had to--to--

Shaking his head, as if knocking a drip of rainwater from his ear, skekTek found himself standing in a green-lit--yes, the Slavemaster--he was trying to--where--

SkekTek hurried out of the winding corridors, up shallow steps and through a gallery whose long row of narrow, pinched windows overlooked the red tapestries and stone throne of the Great Hall. Hopefully he would not be noticed--

"SKEKTEK!" roared the Emperor.

Pop.

SkekTek touched his wounded, socketed beak with a sharp finger and winced. The echoing voice of the Emperor had torn one of the barbed tacks loose. Couldn't be seen with a flange of metal sticking out. Tugging, he found the metal bandage was lodged firmly on one side, loose on the other. Yes, he would punish the Slavemaster. He needed patience. The Chamberlain . . .

Ducking out from the gallery, skekTek bowed broadly and approached the stone throne.

The Emperor's head was surmounted by a huge blue five-spired miter of beautiful ultramarine Partha fur torn from the bodies of the Parthim by the Hunter. It was twined with gold wire and bearing a cragraptor skull on each point. The throne spread around him menacingly like a pair of wings.

The Chamberlain stood in attendance, humming softly. The Glazier and the General observed from balconies.

"You," the Emperor told him, "have been accused of SEDITION! My Chamberlain attests that you have kept the secret of eternal youth to YOURSELF! You are ordered to share this knowledge IMMEDIATELY!"

SkekTek blinked. This was a trick. It was obviously a trick. SkekTek slowed himself down, looking for the source of the trickery, trying to pin the complexities of this little palace drama in place so he could research them, but there was no time. Furthermore, his carefully ordered thoughts seemed disordered, a filing system with the labels reversed. His brain was not tidy. He blinked again and examined the smug smile the Chamberlain wore, and began to speak:

"Your majesty is easily persuaded." SkekTek smiled in a patronizing way. "Ah, the foolishness of the unscientific. I have no doubt that our dear colleague has told our majesty many stories about my brilliant studies. Indeed, I should think that such an _objective_ lump of _raw intelligence_ \--" he indicated the Chamberlain--"would be quite astonished at the advances I have made. However, the ridicule-worthy notion of eternal youth? Ha! Such a concept lies within the realm of fancy _. Not_ science."

"SEDITION!" screamed the Emperor.

"And what's that on your face?" the Chamberlain hissed.

SkekTek ignored the Chamberlain. "Your majesty, such a notion is completely contrary to our current theories on--"

"SEDITION! GIVE ME ETERNAL YOUTH!"

"Your majesty, no such discovery has been made--"

"I'VE SEEN IT! BRING IN THE SLAVEMASTER!"

This was all spiralling out of hand far too quickly. Far, far too quickly. There was no alternative but to wait for the Slavemaster to be brought. SkekTek felt a certain curiosity about this business of eternal youth; surely the Chamberlain was playing tricks. That's all this was. Still, skekTek was surprised that the humming oaf was able to come up with a way to invent the outward appearance of eternal youth. Perhaps he'd put cooking oil in the Slavemaster's ragged hair and remarked on how glossy it looked.

The steel frame and bandaged, broken hand of skekNa turned the same corner that skekTek himself had rounded a few minutes ago. There was no sign that he had spotted the Podling slave. That was reassuring.

"Tek," the Slavemaster said perfunctorily. He bowed rigidly to the Emperor and stood at attention.

"SkekNa!" the Emperor roared. "Show Tek what that liquid did to you!"

"It's--it isn't--it's gone--" gibbered the Chamberlain, pointing.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S--"

"Your majesty," the Slavemaster said. "The new hair fell out a toll ago."

"SHOW HIM THE ETERNAL YOUTH YOU FOUND FOR ME."

"Your majesty, there is nothing left of it," the Slavemaster said, standing at military attention. His breathing was rough and sore, skekTek noticed. He looked no more youthful than usual.

"I DEMAND ETERNAL YOUTH! YOU HAVE BOTH HUMILIATED ME! BRING ME MY PUNISHMENT CLUB!"

"Yes, your majesty, punish them. Hmmmmmm," said the Chamberlain.

But the Emperor swung at the Chamberlain, then the Slavemaster, and skekTek hurried back to his labs, feeling like hateful eyes were following him.

* * *

"You got out," said Rian as he pushed through the door to the labs.

"Not far enough out, not by a long centror and a half and another half. Quick, take me to the front gates. Every second here's a second too long."

The big hands of the Gelfling reached down. Lemny rapidly found himself on Rian's shoulder. His broken shell wound up in a leather pocket. At Rian's side, trembling, was a Podling child wearing a long shirt and tiny manacles.

"Got a job to do. I'm on a timeframe. It'll only be a moment."

"I don't like this," Lemny murmured as he was taken, once again, into the guts of the labs. "I really, really--"

"Neither do I. Let's get in and out, before we're noticed," Rian said.

"Before we're noticed? Are you up to something, then?"

"Just following orders. Like always. Let's see how fast I can--"

He began turning the capstan that opened the door to the Dark Crystal.

"Sticks about halfway down," Lemny hissed.

It stuck about halfway down, but Rian managed to slip inside anyway, carrying the squirming child into the long, violently violet chamber.

"Miss," Rian said, "you've been ordered to stare into the light."

"I don't like it," she said. "It makes me feel sick."

"Frankly don't blame her," Lemny said. "At least you've got eyelids."

"Look, don't be difficult. Stare at it, we'll see what happens."

Lemny noted that Rian himself did not stare at it. He turned away and kept his eyes closed. Lemny could only block so much of the light with his claws, but huddling into all four of them, he was mostly shielded.

"I--I don't like it--" the child said.

"What's this thing?"

The Gelfling picked up the yellow metal nose object from the floor and turned it over in his hands.

"I wouldn't touch it, myself. Likely to go off, that thing is. It's not safe," Lemny hissed.

As the carved-in words came into view, a spear of light shot once again from the handle.

"Look," Rian said, running a nervous hand over his scarred mouth, "boss says I need to focus the light into your eyes. Sorry about this."

"It's okay," the girl said, squirming.

Lemny didn't turn around, but he did hear some sounds come out of the girl that a Podling child shouldn't be making. It sounded like she was crying, but not a regular cry. A hurt, gasping cry. And then the sound stopped.

"Oh," said Rian. "Oh no."

And that is where Lemny was when skekTek returned.

* * *

"How much fur'ver have we got? Not that I'm the one doin' the walking, I'm not complainin', by any wise, Skymother knows I've walked far enough in my day, but--"

"The Netherssspiral hass four thousand sstairs. We've gone eight hundred twenty-sseven," said the Grottan ahead of him, carrying the stretcher.

"Right. What's your name?"

"We don't name each other," the Grottan Gelfling said. "We're satisfied with our identities."

"Odd. Well. Saves room in your remembery for other fings, I s'pose."

"Numbersss."

They went on.

The Netherspiral (Gobber took the spare ss's out, mentally) was a staircase. Each step was taller than it was long, and there was no light. The angle of ascent of the stretcher made Gobber feel like a ball balanced at the top of a hill--the slightest push and he'd slide down into the gangly arms of the nameless Gelfling behind him. His hands lacked grip, but he clung weakly to the litter's frame.

He couldn't open his eyes. Breath came loosely, wetly, and his nose grew dry and scratchy and hurt when he sniffed it. The two non-crouched Gelflings, the new ones who'd blown a hole in the Nethercroft, scurried ahead, talking between them, led by a third Grottan. They were out of chatting range, and seemed in a great hurry.

"You gennelmen seem to know a fing about this Starblindness," he said to the Grottans who carried him. "Does it--will it take long for me to get better, d'you fink?"

The Grottan did not answer.

"Um, chums, do I--oh. It isn't. I'm not?" There was no reply. "You fink I'm not going to _get_ better. No, you're wrong. You've got it all wrong about me. I'm a _survivor_ , I am. I could take on a hundred sniffles like this one. Barely slow ol' Gobber down. Made out of, out of _stuffing_ an' _shingles_ , is ol' Gobber, and you can't scratch shingle. Or stuffing. Try to scratch stuffing, see how far it gets you. No, I'll get better. You just watch me get better. 'Still your voice,' he says to me. Well, you just--"

And no dreams came.

* * *

"I don't like this, Aughra, I don't like this at all . . ."

A pair of wild shrieks--one free and happy, the other miserable and nauseous--echoed into the Vale as the surfboard of enchanted land slashed across a muddy lake at the bottommost gully and swung back up toward the other side. The song slowed as it climbed the scabby road up toward the Swamp of Sog, and the Herbalist breathed easier. It was, he thought, not unlike being a fussbluster seed pod swooping away from the billwing plant that hosts it. First it drops, then it spins back up to drop again, farther--don't make yourself sick, urNol, you're thinking about motion again--

The grind up the plateau took almost a toll. Twice Aughra resumed singing, and the Herbalist covered his face as the ground beneath his feet sped up, zipping past angled terraces of summer-tangle fern forests whose green denizens he'd very much like to examine in more detail, if she could just stop the ride for a minute, Aughra, or maybe longer than a minute, certainly long enough to catch his breath and stop this up-and-down feeling in his belly. Why look, a yellow starfinder, they produce gum pods that are the exclusive food of a very rare species of gumshoe, they must be repopulating the Vale, he really did feel very ill . . .

The purple crooked towers of Crystal Castle began to rise over the lip of the valley, glowing faintly beneath the black sky. UrNol felt something stir in his throat, a feeling of loss. Why did he remember this place? Where did the memories come from? A haze in the back of his complex mind where the oldest memories lived. He couldn't reach them.

Cresting the sloshing mud, the surfboard landed in the Swamp of Sog. Keirkat made a nervy song in the pit of her throat. UrNol barked a word and stopped.

"We cannot waste time," Aughra hissed.

"Look," said urNol, stretching his long draping sleeve ahead to the rotting land.

Just as once, now long ago, he had looked out over the ocean and saw blue echoed between sky and sea, so now did urNol see dead black reflected between the Perpetual Storm and the black mud of the Swamp of Sog. The Castle lay in the center of a basin rounded by mountains, the plain of Skarith. The Swamp drained into the valley they had so unpleasantly traveled through. An alluvial blot of mud stained the rocky rim they stood on. On the other side of the Castle, high wind pushed the water away, turning half the basin to dry sand. Only a few cactulus stands, brunospires, jawbone-elms, and shrivelled hateloves remained.

"Weeds," urNol murmured to himself. "Crusties and dead things. Not a drop of sap comes from any of them, Aughra. The few drops that seep through their grasp are poison. Poison! All living things die from tasting those syrups. It drains the self of its juice if it touches you. Poor lad; if I had known, if I had witnessed it first! Brunospires, do you see? Their roots twine all the way around the roots of everything they touch, choking the water out of them. Cactulus juice will briefly blind you if you look too long at it. And the sixbuds? Create whirlwinds, trying to whip all their competitors out of the topsoil. This place is sick, Aughra. The land has been riven. The air breathes too slowly. I believe this plain will die if the Mystics don't tend it. If I don't tend it."

"And in the center, the heart of Thra," Aughra said. "The Great Crystal. Let us go to it, urNol. Hmp! Fix this mess. Heal the land."

"I don't know much about crystals, of course, but I'll know if I see the source of this sickness. The sickness doesn't have a song, Aughra, its voice is silent and its arm is long." UrNol tickled Keirkat under her nose. "Let's go."

* * *

". . . tell me about his visions," Yrn was saying. "I'd like to know if there was any truth in them."

Somewhere inside Loora's heart lived the cold-scalded slice of ice that was Cory.

"He--the vision was short, only in pieces. He said something about someone falling into gears, and about someone trying to break a crystal. And a knife. A metal knife. I don't know if it's important. I don't know if any of it's important, or even true." Jogging up the steep steps, Loora found herself tiring and worked on keeping her breath steady as she talked. "Aughra was sure it was, though. We made a vision-globe for him, so he could see his visions better while we--well, while we cured the Light Sickness. It was a basin full of this oozy water that--"

"I have seen into the Black River," Yrn said. "Chalo took me. I saw visions. I saw myself growing up healthy. Climbing mountains, swimming, dancing around bonfires, singing songs of suns' life with all the other kids. That's how I know you can't see the future. It's all a lie. Do you know if any of Cory's prophecies came true?"

Loora scowled. Somehow she didn't want Yrn to use his name. A feeling of irrational possessiveness rose up in her chest.

"I don't know anything, okay?" she snapped. "It probably _was_ all lies. Probably none of them came true. Aughra's wrong about everything and nothing matters and there really isn't any point to us going and talking to the Mystics because it'll just be the wrong thing to do anyways."

"You're much more interesting when you're angry," Yrn said.

Scratching her short hair, Loora said, "I don't care."

The hunchedGrottan ahead of them said, "The bridge hasss fallen out. We will use the Leaper. Sstand here."

From nowhere, a dimly glowing yellow starfire appeared in her hand. In its light, Loora saw a chasm stretching across a rectangular low-ceilinged stone hall. Once, an arch had stretched across. Now it was a stub of rock pointing to the other side.

A mechanism of slate platforms sat on tricky gears carved out of some kind of strong, whitish material. The mechanism was attached to a counterweight cube of iron large enough to fit everyone Loora knew inside of it.

"Once, we used a smaller weight. It required precissse calibrations," the Grottan said. The litter was approaching, scratching on the walls as it rounded the spirals. "Then we thought, 'why not travel fassster, with lesss work?' Climb on, I will stay to operate it."

"It isn't safe," Yrn murmured.

A slash of white light as the Grottan smiled. "What issss?" she replied. A lever went _tunk_ and Loora's legs seemed to crush beneath her as the Leaper shot her over the death-yawn of the pit.

* * *

"Out of your cage?" skekTek whispered.

"N-n-you'd unlocked it when you, ah, that is, when that odd _screaming fit_ took you--" the bug said. "When you were hitting the ah, ah--"

"And you," skekTek said, standing several trors higher than Rian. "Assigned by the Slavemaster to _infiltrate_ and _needle_ and _irk_ me, no doubt. Yes, I think I know what I want from you. Always have access to the kennels, yes, to feed your precious Mikethi, do you not?"

Rian cursed himself for revealing so much. "Yessir," he said. _The beast-buzzard should've been gone for tolls!_

"And who is this?"

The Podling child didn't answer. One eye was milk-white, and she stood more still at attention than any castle guard ever had.

"On a mission," skekTek slithered, "to identify the source of the enslaving light, were you? And how did you do it, may I ask, Gelfling?"

Rian gulped. No use lying--

"With, with this metal thing. It was, it was shooting out a beam, and I thought--"

"Yesss," skekTek said, "you did, didn't you? Clever. Very clever. An assistant clever enough to--hm, I rather think I'll keep you. Tell me, Gelfling, if I were to take this Mikethi from the Slavemaster, then you'd need to do what I say, wouldn't you?"

Mikethi. Brighteyes. His songbird, his heart. The feeding slot was angled, and they hadn't seen each other eye-to-eye in--Skymother, it was nearly the first anniversary of the raid. Rian found his hand touching his scars, remembered the first sight of the kennels, the smirk of the Slavemaster as he devilishly extracted the name of Rian's beloved. He remembered the slow healing of his wounds, remembered watching as they brought Mikethi in and built the cell around him, mortar and black concrete. The feeding slot, a long metal grate.

"I suppose I would."

They could speak, sometimes. Mikethi would shout through the slight gap in the concrete and Rian whispered back when no one could hear. Gotten so feeble lately, Mik's voice, and he could no longer sing. One of Rian's scars was earned by speaking to his brighteyes. Worth it, though.

"If you keep him where I can see him," Rian said carefully, "I'll be your assistant willingly, rather than unwillingly."

Willingly.

His father had vanished from the village too, and as a boy, Rian had wondered where he'd gone. The grave was no more than a box in the Castle's Subcroft with a name scrawled over it. And now he was following in his father's footsteps. Sometimes he wondered what the Skeksis had used to control Reuel. No answers.

"You will get me into the kennels. You will assist me in punishing the Slavemaster. I will take this Mikethi out with me. You will spend your life defending me and assisting me and guarding my lab, since this--" the Skek grabbed Lemny and squeezed, "has failed me _so decisively_." Lemny made a sound, and Rian gritted his teeth in sympathy. "Are we clear?" skekTek finished.

"Clear, sir," said Rian, breathing faster than a tamtail chasing leaves. "Um, the cell is made of concrete. How will you--?"

"That," said skekTek, "is not your concern."

*** * ***

"I feel a kinship with you. Would you hold my hand?"

A green arm and mottled brown hand reached for hers. Instead Loora walked faster, and Yrn's wooden leg creaked as he struggled to keep up.

"I understand why you recoil. When I look in the mirror, I can see that in my necrotic flesh I reflect the future deaths of everyone I meet. I am a reminder that we all die--"

She spun. "No. You're a chatterbox, and you get really touchy-touchy with me, and I'm--" _I'm in love with a dead person_ , she didn't say. "I'm busy trying to save the world from the Light Sickness. Hurry. Up."

A scratchy sigh. Yrn creaked after her.

Another _tunk_ and the Leaper launched somewhere behind them. _Hope that little Podling stays on his stretcher_. How far would it be to ur-Kalivath?

It was not as far as she had imagined. What happened was that the tunnel kept straight for more than a hundred trors. The only light came from far behind them, Light Sickness light and the shine of the yellow gem held by a Grottan. The blue and yellow intersected, producing brief green shapes and elongated black shadows.

Twin spearbolts spat into the Nethercroft's walls and stuck into the stone, _pongggg_.

Loora squeaked and dove into Yrn's arms, bowling him into the wall and squashing him into the fluted surface of a silver spearbolt. Placidly Yrn examined her like a nurse watching a sick person sleep. With a quick shove, he popped his withered arm back into its socket.

A voice spoke:

"Appears when rest is over

Fills with truthful sights

Then curls up into nothing

And is forgotten in the light."

Yrn and Loora exchanged glances. The voice was slow and resonant and traveled down the corridor from a long way away. The Grottan, Loora noticed, were gone. The sleeping Podling--she hoped he was just sleeping--was lying on his litter on the soppy-damp stone floor.

"Oh," said Yrn. "A riddle. Appears when rest is--a dream, obviously."

He tugged his purple bandanna down as a bright light tore through the hall and blinded both of them. Loora shielded her eyes with an arm.

"Dreams don't appear when rest is over, they appear when rest _begins_ ," said Loora, wincing. "No, it's--hm. Filled with truthful sights? If you're right about prophecies being lies, then the only truthful sights are the ones you see in person, when your eyes are open. Like Aughra and that beam from the stars. Hm. The next line--then curls up into nothing--curls up like death, maybe? Is it life? But life isn't forgotten in light, unless it's your life and you forget because you've died? Does that make sense?"

"One rest," the slow voice called down the tunnel, "is in the womb, or the egg, or the seed. And one light is the light that comes down to the dying."

"Right," said Yrn, and advanced a step. "Life."

_Ponggg_. The silver shaft quivered through his sandal, between two of his toes.

"No," said Loora. "No, the riddle-teller's right. The seed is still alive during its rest _and_ after. But what appears when rest is over? After you're born--a mind!"

"A mind appears after the great rest in the womb, and after the smaller rest of sleep. A mind curls up into nothing in the bright light of death, and the smaller light of dreams. Take a step now, safely," said the voice. They were leaving that little Podling behind.

"Knows not the words with which she speaks

Knows not the grass beneath her feet

Knows not the sky above her face

Knows not the customs of the place."

"Knows not the--a stranger," said Yrn.

"Mmm. One answer. The easy answer. But this is the second question, and the wise know there is a second answer underneath the first," came the slow voice.

"An answer underneath. Okay. Who doesn't know the words they're speaking?" whispered Yrn.

"Someone babbling? A baby," said Loora.

"A-ha, quickly said! And who's to say they are not the same? Is a baby not a stranger to our world, and the stranger not a baby to the land she visits? Take a step closer."

Drawing forward, Yrn put his hand on Loora's arm just like Cory used to, only this time it was Loora who was being guided. She did not like it, she did not shrug him away, and she felt like crying.

"There are three.

One shines brightest white,

One slowly grows weaker,

One glows red in the best light."

The bright light shining down the corridor prevented Loora from seeing much. Yrn's serene expression darkened, and he winced. "I imagine," he said, "that it isn't the Three Suns. That would be too easy."

Laughter from the archer with the spotlight. It wasn't scornful, she thought, but sympathetic. "The third question. Three answers. You have the first."

"What else are there three of?" said Yrn.

"Aughra's eyes. But they don't glow red. Are there three spikes on Crystal Castle maybe?"

"I don't believe they glow red either."

"Seas? There's the Crystal Sea, the Shining Sea . . ." said Loora.

"Wait. The sea reflects the brightest white of the moons, the air grows weaker because . . . because we breathe it? And the land glows red in the best light, at sunset."

"No," Loora said, "the sky glows red at sunset, and the sea shines white, and the mountains erode, growing slowly weaker. The parts of Thra."

"Ah," called the Archer. "Three parts of Thra. Land, water, and sky. The second answer."

"What else are there three of?" Yrn muttered. "What slowly grows weaker?"

"Me. I'm exhausted."

"You," repeated Yrn. "Your body grows weaker as you get older."

"I suppose the heart glows red at its best, _metaphorically_ ," said Loora. "When it feels love."

From down the corridor: "Not always a metaphor. A heart full of true love glows red. And the third?"

"I've never heard of anyone saying their mind was glowing white," Yrn said.

"Not the mind, then. The soul. Body, heart, and soul. The self."

"I don't believe in that. Didn't he say the mind shines white at death? Maybe that's the brightest white," said Yrn.

"But it isn't the mind that's shining. It's--I don't know."

The archer's voice: "At death, we witness our connection to the outer universe."

"So it's the connection to the outer universe that shines brightest white," said Loora excitedly. "And our connection to the one we love that glows red. And what connection slowly dies?"

"Connection to dreams, when we wake?" suggested Yrn. "Connection to our bodies?"

"Maybe our connection to illusions, as we grow wiser," said Loora.

"And now that some of your illusions have grown weaker," the archer of silver fluted bolts called, "you may enter ur-Kalivath. Bring the dreaming bean."

* * *

"Bring me the Podling in the alcove just outside the kennels, assistant."

The new Gelfling slave hopped out the door, and skekTek was alone to plan.

Information regarding the Slavemaster's movements would soon be available. There was time to fabricate a concrete cutter.

A material strong enough--the Slavemaster's cells might be reinforced with iron, probably not steel--a concrete cutter made of steel, then, would be strong enough--use kinetic energy, yes, a spinning blade, but not a solid mass that could shatter--perhaps many discs, anchored to a central hub--hard to say how deep it would need to cut--no more than a forearm's distance, probably, the Slavemaster wouldn't waste material on ten-tror-thick walls for a minor prisoner--cutting blades in a circle with a radius of a tror and a half, need a large motor to maintain rotational speed--the Dark Crystal's light could easily power it, but there wasn't a network connecting the light, the larantine hadn't arrived yet, drat that Hunter, slow and unreliable no doubt, no doubt at all, bah!--yes, use the bonestone object to store a charge, it would only take a coating of metal over the words and the handle, such a strange design, whatever could it have been made for?--no time, skekTek, no time, begin fabricating the blades--

Some tolls later, most of the scrap steel was gone and a spoked spinning wheel on a sturdy rod axle was surrounded with razor-edged chunks of metal. Satisfied, skekTek began heating a simple liquid resin and dipped the laser-shining object, coating it opaque. Next for the engine--how to translate the power?--shattercite stored it and shone in back out in all directions, but perhaps carnicite? Yes, it heated, becoming too hot to touch. A few angled thermal conductors and triumph! An exquisitely spinning motor. Oil it well, it will keep accelerating until the charge is spent--ah, wise to charge up the bonestone with a needle-hole facing the Dark Crystal, easy to do and foresightful--

Now to fit the bladewheel to the motor, oil everything again, strengthen all joints, weakest link yields the kink, work the kinks out ahead of time, skekTek, and you'll have none later--the bladewheel might burn right through the steel, better add a heatsink to the surface, aluminum and lunicite to draw out the heat and direct it harmlessly into the air--yes, it was prepared.

Check, double-check. Tempting to try it, probably WISE to try it, but the concern of the device flinging an infinitely torquing bladewheel at his face--a safety mask, just a precaution--yes--protect the eyes and beak--

As he pulled on the mask, he touched his damaged beak--quite forgotten, quite forgotten--a better bandage--

Yes, a more secure rivet--no use puncturing his beak a second time--

Keep the bug where he wouldn't get out--

And now, the Slavemaster's punishment.

A toll later, all was prepared.

* * *

"M."

No squirmin' out of this one.

Bands over his mouth, around his leg clusters, and around all four of his claws. Upside-down, hung from a hook. All-too-real iron. His shell gone, the pin gone, no locks anyway, just metal shut like vises over his limbs. Couldn't even speak. A blank wall to look at.

Going to take more than a week to get out of this one, Lemny my lad, and that's if Gobber would get a move on. Probably five days before he gets back in the best case.

Getting hungry. Ignore the gurgle, there's no help.

Don't fancy this mess.

Stay afloat, Lemny, just stay above the tides. At least there's no pins, find the good in it, you'll be fearless when you're out. Make a new shell out of clay, bake something shiny into it. Good as new.

The hook rotated slightly, then back, and he found himself turning in the brazierlight.

Lemny, what _have_ you gotten yourself into?

* * *

"Answer it!"

Blossoming bruises covered the Chamberlain's shoulders, and his arched robes were torn in several places. The Hunter had not yet entered the castle, there was no news, and he'd been utterly beaten, possibly in more than one sense. The Hunter would not be hammering on the Castle's outer door like this visitor, whoever it was, or like that infernal Podling merchant and his insect friend. No, he would be entering stealthily, silently, without notice. And he hadn't. This was, this was _completely unbecoming_!

As the castle door swung open and the knocking person revealed, the Chamberlain felt his day grow worse. A primal revulsion twisted his stomach.

That woman.

His eye twitched.

Her.

She was as bad as those "mothers" that lesser, mammalian creatures had. Or "daughters." Females. Unpredictable, manipulative . . . Males of any species did what they were ordered to do. This was the male way. But females . . .

The Chamberlain was just fascinated enough at gender to be horrified at the idea.

Far superior to be above such divisive binary distinctions.

"Have you been outside, Chamberlain?" Aughra squawked. "HmmmmMMMMmmmm," she added, grinning. Mocking him! The Chamberlain's club-inspired backache was sending claws of pain up his crooked neck to his small head. "There's something wrong out there, old friend, in more ways than one."

At least she had come alone. At least that snickering misfit she called a son wasn't with her. His return to the Castle of the Crystal would be, would be _unbecoming_.

The Chamberlain arranged his face. " _Welcome_ , Aughra, _welcome_ ," he said. "Yes, you are most welcome. Come in, the Emperor will be pleased to see you again. And may I say how _pleasant_ your natural, beakless nose looks? It is perfectly _flattering_ , Aughra."

She wiped a hand across her face and scowled. "I'd like an audience. Everyone together. We have some important matters to discuss. The land of Skarith is dying. The people are dying. Hmp! Needs work. SkekSo should be working on it! Show me in."

"Of course, Aughra, of course. Hmmmmm."

The Chamberlain slid his grimace to one side as he broached the throne room's great arch and announced the new arrival. The Emperor still clutched his punishment club, and the Chamberlain tore his eyes off it and stood sourly at the periphery, wondering why the woman had returned. Probably wanted to talk about nature.

"Emperor skekSo!" the woman called. "Call the Skeksis! I need to speak to everyone at once."

"Chamberlain! Summon them! We honor the Mother of Thra!"

As the Chamberlain shuffled out, feeling his bruises with every step, he could nearly have sworn that he heard Aughra muttering something about _hurry up_ , but it was less than clear.

* * *

"The first step is often the longest. We begin a song of friendship and renewal. Gelfling girl, Gelfling boy, be welcome to the valley of ur-Kalivath. Step with heart, that our home may remember and record your visit, the first dreamkeepers in ur-Kalivath since before the Forgetting."

The Archer was an ur-Mystic. He was as thin as an arrow; his long tail was tipped with a wedge of inscribed silver. Another silver shield covered his angular nose, and thonged gloves stretched over his four forearms. An asymmetric bow of peculiar manufacture was slung over each shoulder, and along his straight, muscular back was strapped a quiver with a hundred or more of the solid silver spearbolts.

Yrn said, "You know about my dream?"

"You are Gelfling, are you not?" the Archer said with a sympathetic smile. "Is dreaming not the gift of the Gelfling?"

"Is it?" Loora asked. The Archer shared his smile with her.

The stretcher was not at all heavy, and Loora watched the closed eyes and faint breath of the ragged Podling. His eyes were so tiny, and the light from his heart had grown so bright.

"Through dreams of Thra, the Gelfling expresses the deepest soulwell imaginable," the Archer whispered over his shoulder as he lumbered down the corridor. "Action and thought are both native to you. We Mystics are restrained from action by our natures. Gelflings, though--ah, there is no mind or voice with more possibilities."

The deformed boy seemed swallowed in rage. "Not all of those possibilities are to my liking," he said in his strict, philosophical voice. Loora was becoming quicker at telling Yrn's moods.

"No? Are you not gifted in your way, Gelfling?"

"It isn't always a gift."

"To be dissatisfied with your inner self! There are paths that lead to change, child, although those who discard their dreams do not always thank themselves. Sometimes it is a dissatisfying dream that sustains us."

The hallway broke into a long redstone chasm over which a narrow bridge arched. It was identical to the fallen bridge beside the Leaper. This chasm went into darkness below, but pursued the sky upwards, and natural light filtered dimly down through red badlands of eroded stone. It was day.

"Are you saying I have a dream, too?" Loora said.

"It would be an unusual woman who did not," replied the Archer as he began the precarious crossing. The bridge's shifting rocks did not reassure Loora. "Have you never accomplished something larger than yourself?"

"Larger than myse--what, like the globe I made? Does that count? Papa doesn't let me do the work I'd like to do, so until the other day I hadn't done anything at all."

"One day you're forbidden from working, the next day you create. This is the way of dreams. They wait."

More feelings fell out of her:

"I also helped negotiate some kind of peace treaty. And I might have fallen in love."

Yrn fired his razor-gaze into her. Shocked. "The boy who died? In the roundhouse," he said. She mmhm'd.

"Creating. Negotiating. Love. The many folds of a dream, like threads in a bowstring. In many ways no intelligent being is just one person. We are many, spun together. With care, we may unwind the threads and come to know ourselves. Through here."

Three red doors were barred. "The final test," said the Archer. "How will you enter ur-Kalivath?"

"Tests," muttered Yrn. "I bet it isn't any of the doors. If I were defending the Valley of the Mystics, I'd put up three doors like these, but I wouldn't make any of them lead inside. I'd put mazes behind them that would always loop back to the beginning, and I'd put a secret door to one side, and that would be the real door."

"A very clever defense," said the Archer. "How would you enter ur-Kalivath, Gelfling girl?"

"I don't think you need any extra defenses," Loora said. "I think your arrows are plenty. I bet they trust you to defend ur-Kalivath, and all the doors lead right inside."

"Very flattering of you," said the Archer, bowing. "Try, then."

She set down the stretcher and went to the center door. The bar on the door did not move. "Yrn, help me lift it," she said. Three strong arms together failed to budge it. "Hopeless," she muttered.

"Let me look around," Yrn said. They were standing on a not-circular platform with dry gullies on each side. The bridge was behind them. Redstone was carved roughly into an anteroom around the three doors, and through the ceiling, the blazing blue sky could be seen. Cragraptors called distantly through the sedimentary striations that cut vertically into the valley. Yrn felt around all the walls with his good hand, even tried singing softly to the stone, but found no hidden doors.

"And if we wished to keep only the foolish out?"

Loora faced the three doors. They were made of stripy redstone and set with silver studs. The studs were not any kind of pushbutton, Loora found. The bars were of solid gray stone.

"Oh," said Yrn. He pulled a small ring in the ceiling and pushed on the middle door, behind the bar. The bar remained, and the door swung inward behind it on a recessed hinge.

"A brute can bother that bar for hours," said the Archer, ducking under, "and never notice that which is right in front of him. It was designed for Skeksis."

Ur-Kalivath was steps and terraces of raw red rock. Above, barely held in place by contortions of angles and gravity, a high dome of arched boulders made the central bowl feel like the inside of a clay pot. The arches cast a shadow like a crawly-web over the steps. Hidden halfway up, in darker shadows, were a network of private caves. Several ur-Mystics crouched in the central bowl and wove shapes in the air. The sound of singing resonated. Around the rim of the valley, waterfalls fed short swamps, and from the swamps grew towering curtains of vine. A vibration of life seemed to glow out of the stones, as if the rock itself might mutate into living faces at the Mystics' command.

The Archer climbed down the terrace steps. Loora and Yrn followed, carrying the glowing Podling on the sheet of canvas. The gathered ur-Mystics seemed to hardly notice their approach. _Dangerous_ , Loora thought. And: _remember Aughra's words_.

"Dreamers," said a dark voice. "All of fallen heart. Approach."

The speaker wore red robes. His hair draped black around his long neck. His voice was haunted.

"The road to ur-Kalivath is a secret way. It is kept from childish eyes. None have spoken of your coming," said the red-robed Mystic.

Loora cleared her throat. Somehow she worried that Yrn might try to speak first, or speak for her. But the Archer's words gave her confidence that she was, at some level, capable of being a diplomat. A thread of her soul. She and Yrn placed the sleeping Podling on the ground before the cluster of Mystics.

"A weakness has risen from the intelligent hearts of Thra," she recited. "It burned away some of Thra's souls and has threatened to spread. Will you heal the land?"

Don't mention me, Aughra had told her. And don't call it a disease.

"Thra is crystal and song," said the red-robed Mystic. "Its voice sings ever in our ears. A weak song we hear, fainter than yesterday, and tomorrow it will be fainter still. We conceive of weak crystals as well. It is our hope that the weakness comes from the veins of crystal that flow thither in five directions from their heart in Skarith. A fault in the old lunicites? Or perhaps the Skeksis have dug a mine and torn the crystals to sundering? Such a break could well disrupt the voice of the land. We will test the veins. We have no further need of you. Leave now. Leave this songweak one here. We will renew him."

That was all. That was the mission. The quest. She had delivered the message. And now she should leave.

And yet . . .

"Mystics," said Yrn, bowing. "We have shared the message we were given. But I have a question, and I'd like to ask it before we follow the very long road back."

Three other ur-Mystics exchanged glances. The Archer perched on the ledge behind Loora and Yrn. The red-robed Mystic sniffed.

"The question you want to ask is not for me to answer, sick one, for I speak not on behalf of dreams. It is urGoh the Weaver you must visit. I, Speaker, grant you permission to entreat him. Leave here and go there."

And the Archer leapt down and led them across the central basin of ur-Kalivath and up into the caves.

* * *

"Hide it, quickly! They've requested your presence at the throne room."

SkekTek's weak arms let the huge wheel and its vast motor mechanism slip onto the floor, clunk. A balancing system--wheels, perhaps? Later. First, to find out what the babbling king needed of him. He ordered Rian to close the Dark Crystal's wide door and put the bladewheel away discreetly.

He was close now. So close. First to resolve the Emperor's foolish needs (and was it not a mere toll ago that he had been falsely accused and then dismissed in the Great Hall?) and then to punish the Slavemaster and then on to more important things. Replace all the fixtures in the castle with bonestone, channel the Dark Crystal's energy into . . . what? Shattercite for lights, then carnicite for heat, and then to refine this simple motor into far more complex systems. And the slaves, yes . . . the lenses . . . it might be time to learn to work glass and take that monopoly away from skekLach . . . patience, perhaps the merchant would return . . .

The sight of outlandish carvings at bug-level just outside the door did not go unnoticed. Bad things were coming to that bug.

A broad astonishment--the entire castle was assembling in the Great Hall. Skeksis whom he hadn't seen in almost a trine were drifting in. SkekLach, still wearing fogged smelting glasses. The Ornamentalist, wearing blue and purple robes inlaid with dried tamtail eyesockets. The Poisonmaster, smelling of sweet herbal draughts and smiling thinly.

Where was . . . ?

"Where is the Hunter?" roared the Emperor as sixteen cloaked forms collected like a clot before the throne.

"Your immeasurability, he has not been seen," the Chamberlain whimpered.

"I ORDERED EVERYONE TO--"

"SkekSo," said--ahhhh. That would explain the summons. The wise woman had returned. It would perhaps be worth milking her for information regarding larantine sap--or no, she may become suspicious, defensive. The Hunter would retrieve what was needed, ally of the Chamberlain or not. "This assembly satisfies me, Emperor. Hmp! Very respectful. Good sign for Skeksis. Now, I'll speak! Just try to stop me." The woman paused and was not interrupted. "Hmp. I speak of Skarith. Land of the Castle. Home of the Skeksis. Hmp! _Your_ home. All of you indoors. Watching and waiting. But right outside? The land is split. One side too wet? One side too dry! Plants are dying. Storm blocks out the sun. Mud pours over into Lost Vale. Isn't this _your_ kingdom, skekSo?"

"Mine!" the Emperor roared. Sad fool, skekTek could tell that something clever was happening beneath the woman's words. She would arrange for the Emperor to resolve these issues; she had ways. SkekTek might not be an expert on palace drama, but he knew intelligence when he saw it.

"Then tend it!" the woman exclaimed. "Skarith needs work. Suns not shining down through the storm. Skeksis have ways to bring the suns back. Very clever, Skeksis. Know many powerful secrets. Use them! Break through the clouds. Let the suns shine on Skarith. Let plants grow! Or is it too difficult?"

"SkekTek!" the Emperor boomed. "You failed me once today. Break through the Perpetual Storm for the Mother of Thra. SkekNa! _Invite_ Podlings and Gelflings to grow plants of the Mother's choosing. Aughra, is this to your liking?"

"Indeed. Appropriate!"

"Then EVERYBODY BACK TO--"

"Not so fast!" the wise woman snapped. "Rare thing for Skeksis to gather away from their private rooms. Maybe a very good thing. Aughra has questions. Many, many questions. Everyone get comfortable. I expect answers!"

From his place near the back of the assembly, skekTek said, "With your permission, I will begin work on a way to diminish the Perpetual Storm."

"You first!" barked the woman. "Build machines. All you care about. Why not build machines that plant seeds, or fly people through the air, or bring clean water from garden to garden?"

A drip of suspicion fell from skekTek's dense mind. Suspicion. Something in her words. It was not, he thought, the water or the seed that drew his attention. It was--

"What need have I to fly through the air?" he murmured. "What need have the Skeksis to imitate a simple flapbird? Are we not visibly superior in intellect to mere animals? And where, woman, would you like us to fly?"

"Skeksis don't need to fly!" Aughra said. "Gelfling needs to fly! Gelfling travel is limited. But they are very good at finding things Skeksis need. _Trade_ them technology for what you need. Hmp! Economics."

"I have what I need," said skekTek.

"Yes," exclaimed the Emperor, "we have what we need! Why give away our secrets for things we can get already?"

The wise woman's two open eyes flashed. She was preparing to unleash her hidden purpose, skekTek thought.

"Ah, but great majesty, Skeksis lack in one important area."

"Yes?"

"Gardening!" The wise woman bounced once. "Let's say you want . . . larantine sap." Her moustaches flicked too knowingly at skekTek. "I need sap, someone says. Cut down all the larantine, you say! Hmp. Good idea, isn't it? Then all the larantines are cut down, and you take the sap, and there isn't enough! Now what? No more larantine. Never again. Plants all dead. Trees all dead. Then you could travel all over Thra and no more sap. What will you do?"

The Emperor met skekTek's gaze. "And what would the Mother of Nature suggest?"

"Don't cut them down. _Harvest_ them. Hire Gelflings to collect the sap. Gelflings understand gardening. Plant more larantine here in Skarith! Take the sap with spigots instead of axes! Much more reliable."

"Aughra, oh Aughra, I've seen enough and we can go now. Oh, and Keirkat found this for you. She said it looks like that nose the Worshippers shot off--"

"UrNol, _run_!"

* * *

"The pain is not so great. A wizard is made of heart, and inner strength endures."

In a cave-den filled with woolen fabric, surrounded by mountains of brown yarn and colored thread, the bruised body of an ur-Mystic reclined on a many-webbed hammock. Cloaks like rugs covered the long torso, but left raw red wounds exposed. A second ur-Mystic dabbed a white grease from a mortarboard onto the wounds.

"Who did this to him?" Loora asked at the entrance to the Weaver's den.

The Healer answered: "If the Skeksis desired to injure us, then more of us would be injured. The intent to harm is difficult to stem; only by kindness is kindness found. Thus, we imagine that these marks are an accident."

"But all those defenses--" said Yrn.

"Ah, defense," said the Healer, picking up more balm with a soft cloth and circling the sores. "A rare defense it is that can deflect a self-inflicted wound."

"Self-inflicted . . . ?" said Loora.

"Speculation, speculation. There are deeper threads beneath what you know how to see, dreamer, a hidden universe, and much remains to be uncovered. I know only my mind, not any other, and yet there are thoughts that arise to me unbidden. Who can say where they come from or who has delivered them to me? Little use is it to guess."

"Dreamer?" the supine Weaver groaned, attempting to sit up.

"Yes, urGoh, they are Gelfling. And they are here because . . . ?"

Yrn knelt on the plentiful spun blankets and took the hand of the Weaver. "They say there's a way for me to become whole," he said.

The Weaver's eyes opened. "I can hear the rattle of the torn cloth of your dream," he said. "And I see the death in you. A death not far from overwhelming you. Only a moment of weakness stands between you and your last journey to the stars. Yes, the cloth is torn. It is still tearing. No less than a relooming will recover your dead half, Gelfling." The Weaver sucked in a painful gasp of air and grimaced. "And you will need a place to root your dream where it will do the rest of us no harm."

"Put it in a Skeksi," said Loora.

The Healer smiled sadly and gestured with his mortarboard at the wounded torso of the Weaver. "Grave consequence," he said.

"Then where could you put such a crazy dream? Aughra put one in a tree--" and Loora clapped both hands to her mouth and felt like such an idiot. She'd been told not to mention--

The Weaver nodded solemnly. "That," he said, "sounds very much like Aughra's mind. And what if the tree is struck down? A dangerous consciousness now adrift. If you should find a being willing to accept death in life, or willing to become consumed by death, then it wouldn't be impossible to transfer this one's death-dream. But when that one dies, as any weak being would? Then the dream becomes free once more, and another victim would be claimed. One by one, this dream will consume the mindful beings of Thra until none remain."

"Is there nothing that could hold it forever?" Loora asked.

"Permit me time to consider, dreamer, for my thoughts dwell in my wounds today."

* * *

"Let me get you down from there."

The Skeksi had had a stronger grip than the guard, and it took the Gelfling the better part of a toll to peel away the six strips of metal. Lemny dropped to the ground, exhausted but alive.

"Lifesaver, you. Hope you're as lucky at rescuing your Mikethi."

Breath began to refill Lemny's filter-lungs, and blood no longer ran to his head. The dizziness was still extreme, but was diminishing. "Have you got a bit of a flashing in your eyes?" he mumbled. "Or is it my brain losing what little sense I've got left?"

"Wait, you saw that, too?" said Rian. "It's like I've been staring at a bright light for too long. I figured it was nothing."

"Funny."

They were at the door to the labs. The sculpted surface--Lemny couldn't resist--

"If you take a peek on your right as we exit this moral disaster area, you'll see just the merest glimpse of what I--"

But they were both bowled over by the bursting, too-rapid arrival of a whiskered woman with three eyes, followed by an enormous lumbering sparkling half-invisible form with a small fuzzy thing on its shoulder. Lemny sprang away, fearful of getting squooshed, and clung with his leg clusters to his stone etchings. Rian regained his feet and picked up Lemny, and a stampede of Skeksis bowled them both over a second time.

"Remove yourself from the Crystal!" the Chamberlain screeched. "Emperor, it's an invasion! The ur-Mystics are returning, with weapons! Look at this horrible device!"

That odd razorwheel that skekTek had spent all day building got held up and passed around between the skeks. Ugly brutes. Lemny noticed that skekTek did not take the time to claim ownership of the object.

"And Aughra's nose!" gibbered the Chamberlain, pointing at the Shovel o' Doom, lately installed on the whiskery face.

Oh. That's what it was. It was a nose.

"MOTHER OF THRA!" a skek roared. "HAVE YOU BETRAYED US? EXPLAIN YOURSELF."

"Nonsense," the whiskery woman snapped. "Put me down. Hmp! A lot of hullabaloo. I'll explain."

"MY EYES!" howled a Skeksi.

"If you don't want to go blind, then don't look at me," said a new, milder voice.

"Blindness and blades!" the Chamberlain wailed. "Weapons beyond our understanding! The overthrow of the Skeksis! Our doom has come upon us, a plot to destroy everything we have! Doomed! We're all doomed! Everybody RUN!"

The Chamberlain grabbed the arm of that horrible Slavemaster and shook him. This outburst was followed by an embarrassing, motionless silence. Ignorant lumps, all of them.

"I'll explain," said Aughra. "This is my friend, the, mm, Crystal Technician. Hmp! That's who he is. Here to examine the frequency of your crystal. You DO have the Great Crystal here, don't you?"

"Oh, it's certainly here, Aughra," the mild voice of the Crystal Technician said. "I can hear its song. It's very close. Even from here I can tell you something's very wrong. I wanted you to see it for yourself--"

Lemny hardly knew what the skeks were gibbering about. He poked Rian and gestured at the door. Nodding decisively, Rian began backpedaling away from the confrontation, towards the door.

"Emperor skekSo! Show me the Great Crystal at once! My Crystal Technician needs to--"

Rian was out the door. Lemny was on his shoulder.

*** * ***

"Yrn, may I ask you a question?"

The parallel stripy layers of red sedimentary stone were surprisingly warm beneath her hand, and were polished smooth. A thick rug from the Weaver's cave was beneath her legs, and beside she and Yrn, a thin waterfall poured like thoughtful rain along a groove into a pool.

"You may."

She brushed her hair aside, so that her ear stuck out. "You're always in control of yourself. Are you ever able to let go?"

The green-shaded face nibbled the good side of his lip.

"I should tell you what it's like to be touched by this dream," he said.

"You should."

"You breathe, right?" Yrn said.

"Yyyyes?"

"How often do you think about it?"

"I don't. I don't ever think about it," Loora said.

"I do. Every second I think about it. Every breath. If I stop concentrating--" and Yrn stopped breathing and went funny and his eye went bug-eyed and he choked down a gasp--"then I stop breathing. When I was young, there were whole weeks when I couldn't sleep, because every time I tried, the dream would stop my breath. And then my heart. Some days I have to use this--" and from one of his vest pouches he took out a large tourniquet of flexible branches--"to keep it going. My whole body feels like it's being squeezed by a dark hand. Right over my shoulder. Every second. And I can pour all the medicine in the world into my body, and it stays alive, but the dark hand is beside me, squeezing as hard as I do."

"So you're a fighter," said Loora.

Yrn looked away. "In the village, none of the kids enjoy my company. They say I'm too frightening or talk too specifically or they're worried they'll catch what I have or they say I'm not any fun, and--well, some days, the dark hand of death is my only company. I used to collect dead animals and sing to them, to see whether there was a song to their deaths, the way there's a song for mine, but they never answer. Their songs are gone. I don't know why I'm different."

Loora blinked. "You have to keep yourself breathing," she said.

"If I want to live. Loora, you haven't said anything about the way I look--"

"I don't care," Loora said. Somewhere in her head she felt like she wasn't saying this in the right tone of voice, but she also wasn't sure how she meant to say it. There was a recurring emptiness inside her.

"Loora. Once the Light Sickness is cured, however it's cured, would--would you like to--?"

"Let me stop you there." Loora leapt off the Weaver's rug and paced along the redstone step. "I--" but somehow talking about Cory wasn't a thing she could do, and her feelings--I mean, she'd only known him _well_ for two days! Almost a stranger--How could Cory have--he had, it was like he, he had _invaded_ her _heart_ and now he was all she could _think_ about, and yet she kept trying to push him away because he was _gone_ and somehow that made it worse, and she--

"I'll be back later," she said, and began walking.

She didn't own anything that had ever belonged to Cory. No talisman, no romantic lock of hair, no indication that he had ever existed. He hadn't given her anything--he hadn't even liked her! It flooded back. He'd been irritated with her and she'd been bossy and she'd managed to push him away and now she'd never be able to tell him how she--it hadn't even been two days, really, a day and a half--

Her feet sped her ahead. An awareness that she had no idea where she was. Yrn--he had stayed behind on the rug on the ledge, his one bright eye following her. The amphitheatre of ur-Kalivath could be seen through gaps in the stone, lit by large yellow and maroon crystals with white jagged streaks. Mystics were singing over the form of the Podling, a low tonal sound that resonated. Blue light still shone out from the little guy's ratty clothes.

Singing. She wanted to sing a song of her own, but she didn't want Yrn or anyone else to hear it.

The valley didn't have any clear exits--a circle of natural stone walls surrounded the valley, topped with the balanced roof of huge stones. A thick canyon sliced across the far side. Ivy-vines grasped a cliff of red steps. Loora took off her work jacket and began to climb.

The air grew colder as she scaled, although the stone remained warm. The ivy had suckers that stuck to the staggered walls, and every time one of them popped off, she heard a moan from the plant. The moans ceased when she let go. Each step was taller than the one below it, and after scrambling over ten or so, she saw the sheer wall that separated ur-Kalivath from the outside world.

The ivy continued up. She continued up, too. Pop, moan, and faint apologies to the plants. Far below she saw Yrn looking up at her. Her hands felt powerful as she pulled herself up the surface.

And the top.

On a square ledge overlooking the valley far below, a view: plateaus, green quilts of forest, wiggly rivers, the wide soaring shapes of cragraptors, and clouds larger than planets. Sitting sandwiched between two megaliths that came together to form the first corner of the web-shaped partial roof, Loora sang:

"It isn't fair to be alone.

I want to hold his hand,

Tell him life isn't always planned,

Tell him I understand . . . him.

It isn't fair to be alone.

I want to understand

How he's blown away

When I needed him to stay

When I wanted a friend.

I want to understand.

When I wanted a friend

You had already shaken free

It isn't fair to me

You weren't there for me

When I wanted a friend."

Loora felt a sting of anger. Instead of singing her last verse, she muttered it:

"Don't want to love you anymore

Don't want ghosts over my shoulder

Maybe when I get older

I'll finally understand."

And a bath of hatred for Cory began to burn, and she felt entirely departed from the real world, and then she began to wonder how she was going to climb down.

She sat overlooking the world, feeling too much.

The rocks of ur-Kalivath began to roar and sing a tone of despair. She had caused the entire valley to light up with her feelings. She--

But no, it kept going, a rocksong that shook and quaked, a moan of no, and she scrambled to the edge and slid down the cliff, and Yrn called up to her, and she saw that all the ur-Mystics were gathering in a circle. The land quaked.

The light in the Podling's chest had gone out.

* * *

"Run! We'll outpace them! Let's chase the sunset!"

The black bug clung to the top of Rian's head, and Rian ran from a screaming riot that seemed to be following him around each turn. He couldn't be seen running, or it'd look like he was trying to escape. And then bad things would happen to Mikethi. Enough bad things had happened already. Running . . .

The awful, droning cry of despair that the sparkling invisible creature had made (was he an ur-Mystic after all?) had changed something in Rian's gut. A new feeling. Despair that drove him to . . . what was the word?

Escape. He needed to escape after all.

He'd get Lemny out, get Mikethi out, and then . . . escape. Lemny first. Then Mikethi. Escape.

But the primal moan of despair had changed the Skeksis, too. After the sound faded away and the assembled Skeksis had recovered, a new heat rose up from them. Their leader began screaming for someone to throw the woman and the invisible person in prison, using words like _betrayal_ and _rebellion_ and _defiance_ , and then the whole crazy skek crew had flown from the labs and began following Rian.

A small fuzzy thing with a long nose began scampering ahead of the pursuers and wound up clinging to Rian's leg armor. He hoped it didn't bite. Bet it didn't want to get put in a cage or wrapped up in iron like the bug. Couldn't blame her, really.

The huge outer doors loomed ahead--

"Oh, look who it is," a Podling in a steel collar said. "Ready to hear the rest of the story, is you, then? Happy to tell it, nuffing else to do. Look at my job. 'Open the door,' they sez. 'Close the door.' Like I haven't even got a name."

" _OPEN THE DOOR!_ " Rian barked, sprinting through the angular front hall.

"There they goes," sighed the other attendant. "Might as well call me Plantsprout while you're at it. Give me a slap, too, it's me birthday."

"Care and consideration. That's 'ut makes it all worthwhile." The first one bumbled to the door and took the handle. "I especially like the word 'please,' reminds me I'm a real person. Is it nearly dinnertime?"

"I hear," the second attendant said, "that gruel's on the menu tonight."

"My favorite--"

Rian flung the two Podlings aside, followed by the doors.

"Well, I like that, I don't."

Flicking the steel collars, which fell from their shoulders, Rian grabbed the grumbling plantsprouts and skittered out into the night--

Face to face with--

"Leaving?" said an odious voice.

* * *

"Aughra, this isn't my fault."

When the Skeksis had dragged them in, they had passed by several empty lunkwood cages in favor of a sturdier cage of steel. UrNol and Aughra sat on the steel floor. The light was corrosive in this underground place. Poisonous, unnatural. The wrong shade of green.

"Well, we're here, and my mechanic isn't here to get us out. So. Spend some time telling me what you saw."

"The Great Crystal, Aughra. It's--oh, words, I've never been good at words--it's dying. Dying completely. It's going out."

"Great Crystal can't go out. Heart of Thra renews itself."

"I don't know, I don't know! I can only tell you what I heard in its song, and what my eyes have seen. It isn't being renewed, Aughra. It may--yes, yes! I know what this blue light disease is. It's quite clear. Yes--"

"What?" said Aughra.

"The Great Crystal is cracked. It's gone Dark," he said. "And it's draining Thra of its Essence, trying to sustain itself. If it isn't restored, it may drain the whole world of its life. And everywhere it will be cactulus and sixbuds. And the winds will fly dead across the dead plains, and the trees will go black, and even the rot will stop as the Dark Crystal sucks the scavenging mosses dry of life. And Thra will go still, and our world will die."

The old woman grimaced. "How long do we have?"

"Those who have the will to stop the death of the Dark Crystal will all be dead before the next moontrine ends."

"One cycle?" she murmured.

"One cycle," he agreed.

Aughra shook the steel bars, but they were steel.

* * *

"Loora!" came Yrn's voice up at her as she slid down the top step, scratch-streaking her workshoes, and began leaping from stone to stone, landing hard on her long legs. "The Great Crystal is dying! Something's wrong!" but she knew that already. The despair that had coursed through the stones had left an impression like a thumbprint in clay. The Mystics had surrounded the Podling, waiting for her and Yrn to alight. Taking Yrn's hand as she passed him, she swept up his lightweight frame--most of the weight was in his artificial leg--and carried him bodily down the remaining steps, over the cave mouths to the open center of ur-Kalivath.

"Blind me blue, I fought me life was all over. Hallo, you two."

"You're still here," Loora said to the Podling as she set Yrn on his mismatched feet.

"Don't fink we met proper. Name's Gobber--"

"Gelflings," interrupted the Speaker of the Mystics. "Podling. From afar, the great voice of our brother-sister urNol has proclaimed what is. The Great Crystal, heart of our planet, has begun to die, to go Dark. In its Darkness, it has begun to reabsorb the essence that it once granted to the dreaming beings of Thra. Soon, all those possessed of a dream will die. Without dreams, all life will follow to their ends."

"Then stop it! Fix it!" Loora shouted.

"Would that we could. It is not in us to leave ur-Kalivath. It is not in us to risk a confrontation with the Skeksis. Our purpose lies only in finding understanding. We begin our understanding by searching out the reason why the Dark Crystal is dying. UrNol spoke of a crack in the Crystal, a strike of baleful anger that--"

"Cory told me about this!" Loora interrupted. "It was one of his prophecies!"

A circle of long sorrowful faces turned to one neighbor and then the other.

"Speak to us of this prophecy," said the Weaver.

"Loora," said Yrn, "it wasn't really--"

But she thought back to his face--and she could see Cory peering into the sinister black water, and she realized that Cory's prophecy WAS something he'd left to her, something of his that she and she alone had kept--and the words became clearer than they had ever been.

"He spoke of a metal knife, first. Then gears and machines, and they were all--"

"Greasy," the Podling said. "Saved me life, that did. Would have slipped in."

"How did you--? Oh, Aughra said that sometimes the future looks back at us. But if you're here, then that prophecy must have _changed_ the future. Cory said that you didn't make it out alive. I think he saw you fall in."

"Glad I didn't. Closer to that pit than a bucket to the water it carries, I was. Where is this prophet of yours, anywhat?"

"He died," said Loora. Yrn took her hand. This time, she let him.

"Then we must hear the rest of the prophecy. Already we see the shards of truth in it," said the Weaver.

"The only other thing he saw was a purple crystal. He said it was damaged, and that someone was hitting it with something. He said--"

"If the eye of urNol is still precise," said a Mystic, "then the crystal was not cracked recently but long ago. A centrine's course must have passed from the moment of the cracking to the present day before the high energies which sustain it could have--"

"Rightsy and rightso, my chattery friend, let's get on wif it. So they hit the Crystal long ago to turn it Dark, now they're hitting it again. Am I right in finking that the Skeksis wouldn't be too dismayed if everybody else in the world was dust an' bones?"

"Once all dreams are dead, no one except we Mystics would be left to grow food. Even the lack-minded Skeksis would not willingly choose starvation," said the Speaker.

"And yet," the Healer broke in, "urNol's voice came to us from the Castle of the Crystal. I conceive that they may indeed let the world die, with urNol as their farmer, for is he not now their prisoner?"

"Speak the rest of the prophecy, dreamchild."

What had Cory said, just before the water burst from the font? "He said the Crystal wouldn't break, and he said they were angry. And I saw the anger push through his vision into the real world, and splatter this water from--what did you call it? The Black River?--all over the room."

"No one can look into the waters of Black River. The presence of the Endlessness within it--" said a Mystic.

"Cory could," said Loora.

"We may take comfort that the Dark Crystal was not damaged further, then. We must confer--" the Speaker of the Mystics said.

"Forgive the loudness of my voice," the Weaver said quietly, "but I now know precisely what must be done."

* * *

"Too close," said Lemny as Rian sprinted across the narrow bridge and into the chilly desertlands of Skarith. "What _are_ larantines, anyhow?"

"Big trees. Tek wanted someone to bring him a load of them, I can't dream why. I'm sure the Hunter is happy to leave the woodcutting to less important people."

"But you'll have to go back," Lemny said. "For Mikethi."

"Yeah. I will. If I see your partner, Gobber? Where should I send him?"

"I can get to Balgertown from here. The mounders know me, they'll give me a ride. Or I could wait by the trailtree on the ridge and pick trailfruit till he gets here. But Rian. I can't speak for the flouse, or for Gobber's distant relatives here--"

"Distant? He's me aunt's eldest, he is," said one of the Podling attendants.

"You know Gobber?" said Lemny. "But at the door--"

"Why, was ol' Gob here? I'm second shift, the first shift's on for mornings. They're a glum pair from the Worshipper village. Say life ain't'n't worf it unless they dwell within sight of the Gnarled Stonetree. Sure that kind of attitude does 'em lots of good. Always a joy to talk with, those Worshippers."

"Gobber's my partner," said Lemny. "Be good to see him again. He'll make a new shell for me, soon as rainfall."

Rian took out the split shell and handed it up to Lemny, but he waved it away. "Might as well let it go. Worth cobs an' flowers to me now, as Gobber'd put it. No, listen, what I was going to say was that I'd like to help you rescue Mikethi. You'd done more for me than you should, and if there's anything--"

"There isn't, friend. He's mine to save, and there's nothing you could do except break my heart when they capture you again. I'll take you four to the trailtree, and then I'll leave for the Forest Depths. If it were on the way I'd drop you off at Balgertown, but it isn't."

Lemny rubbed the back of his head and nodded. "All right. Are you Podlings headed for Balgertown, too?"

"Best not," one of them said. "There's paperwork against us in Nander. They'd not be happy to hear I'm out of the castle."

"Skeksis," sniffed Lemny, and no one disagreed.

*** * ***

"Through here."

"Oh! Aughra has a workshop just like it," said Loora.

The construction took almost six full tolls. The Weaver introduced her to the materials not in his cave of cloth but in a rooftop glassworking workshop hidden within the upper reaches of the cliffs, secreted beneath a glass dome. Most of the materials seemed like glass, too, but the Weaver struck one of the glass-like chunks with a heavy hammer and laughed as the hammer's handle split.

There were fifteen large chunks of the unbreakable crystal, blue and off-green and almost black. The crystal smelter went down a centror into the mountainside and was heated by four ur-Mystics singing at a block of stone inside until it melted to magma. Following the Weaver's guiding voice, she clasped one chunk at a time in a chain of some rainbow-reflecting metal that never melted and dipped the crystals into the vat of magma. Counting aloud (twelve seconds for the blue crystal, fifteen for the off-green, and twenty-two for the almost black) she withdrew the now-red crystals and took the first to an anvil.

Yrn was told to stand with his hands above his head. The Weaver placed a finger on the boy's heart and sang high-pitched syllables to him. He flinched as his good arm and leg twitched in different places according to the sound of the notes, and he cried out in pain as his strapped-down withered arm and braced artificial leg pulsed with some transformative energy at a set of lower-pitched syllables. Finally the Weaver permitted Yrn to lower his hands.

The Weaver drew a pattern into the sand. It went like this: First, a perfect circle. Inside, a star of rigid lines that became a spiral. At intervals, several isolated loops. And what looked like a circular cage in the center. The Weaver explained that the object would be flat, except for the circular cage, which would open like a fishing net.

Loora pulled the crystal through metal forming rings, stretching it from a rumpled chunk into a thick, ducted wire. The first attempt at a perfect circle went loppy, and Loora grumbled and dipped the slowly cooling crystal back into the lava. It took four tries to form a perfect circle, and another two before the ends lined up and fused seamlessly. She twirled the now-perfect hot-red-blue frame with tongs until the material cooled to blue-blue, and the first piece was done. Memories surfaced of Aughra squawking at her to turn the glass globe, "elsewise it'll go flat as it cools."

And then the second piece stuck to the first piece and glooped onto the floor and then became too cool to work and the first piece and second piece were both ruined.

"Snotblisters!" she cursed, and wrapped the unmeltable chain around both the crystals to dip again.

The more patience she mustered, the more smoothly the work went. There was no stopping, every piece needed to be warm enough to forge a bond, but as she breathed in and let her breath out, wiping sweat from her arms and out of the flanks of her clingy shirt, a joyful and glorious exultation swept over her. Just practice, was all. With practice she could create objects of unlimited power.

Objects that could forever imprison a dream of death.

For toll after toll she built the straight lines of the starspiral, then the small loops that held it together, and then the pinched shellfish-shaped cage in the center. Between the perfect circle and the net, the object became two concentric circles held apart by stellar infinity. Somehow this matched the demented dream that possessed Yrn.

There were two more disasters. The last disaster was so close to total completion that she uttered a string of words she hoped her father would never hear her say. However, coming up behind her, the Weaver deftly struck the blazing object with the rainbow chain, and the central cage popped out whole, salvaging four tolls of work.

Another two tolls and the cage was stable and cemented in the middle. Again she turned it and turned it until it became solid, and then the Weaver directed her to take it out of the domed workshop and into the open air of ur-Kalivath.

Carrying the still-scalding crystal in her lucky pair of tongs, she noticed that the heat of the magma had reopened the ur-Mystic's sticky weeping wounds. How did he endure it?

The Mystics had once again gathered, and the Podling was blissfully dangling his bare feet into a nearby pool and flexing his muddy toes. Yrn approached her from behind, and she examined the hand that was coming perilously close to perching on her shoulder. It retreated.

The cool air of ur-Kalivath hit the two-tror-wide crystal object like wind across a stringsing, yielding delicate musical noises that resonated up the tongs and into Loora's arm. The object began vibrating as the cold air met the hot crystal. An immense sound. The object tore the tongs out of her hand and flew straight up with them. After most of a wide parabola, the circle-dream-cage-thing struck the arch of megaliths that roofed the valley and plinked like a raindrop to the ground far below.

Loora thundered down the steps to where it landed.

The object had shrunk. It was now the size of her palm, stony black, cold as snow, and perfectly intact.

Dreamthing, she named it.

* * *

"Bring me Aughra's nose."

It took only a toll for the Podling slave to return with the athertine object. How the gem-eyed slave slipped in through the notelocked kennels door was a mystery, one that skekTek hadn't any time to dwell on. How the Podling retrieved the object from the wise woman herself--well, he did so. No reason to complain.

And where was the Gelfling guard, for whose loyalty he was going to all this trouble? No matter. Levers were being usefully pulled.

A last few adjustments before the assault. A few straps of tough mounder leather and the enormous bladewheel and its reinstalled engine system hung like a prosthetic belly.

Everything was ready.

The kennels were most easily reached through the great hall, but just as there were secret places to see a purple fire in the outer towers, so were there ways to reach the kennels without being seen. SkekTek brought the black- and green-eyed slave to open the door for him.

Hidden corridors twisted through the underways of the Castle, veins in a hardened crystal heart. SkekTek's steps clanked, and the razorwheel turned freely in the still air. The slave hopped mindlessly after him. On skekTek's back was a bag with punishments inside.

A white sconce clicked and a patch of wall swung open. The bladewheel slid through the gap. Green light soaked through from the kennels braziers.

"Open the door," skekTek told the slave. A new pattern of pongs and dings later, the door opened. Wise not to open it himself.

The shadows were deep and barely cut by the emerald braziers. Hmm. It seemed that the light of the kennels was lower than it had been before. But the same cages held the same Pod families, differing only in the large and newly occupied steel cage in the distance, where the wise woman waited.

Where was the Slavemaster?

SkekTek took each step carefully, keeping a thumb on the latch that would release the Dark Crystal's energies. First, though. From the bag on his back, skekTek took his Incapacitator and held it in front of him, smiling grimly. Superior intellect . . . humiliations, theft . . . yes . . . these dark and sickening halls held all the keys to his vengeance . . . all the upcoming projects could wait, would benefit the others as much as himself . . . but this . . . and a new assistant, no reason to discount all the things to be gained . . . a flare of impatience began to grow in his breast, a hazardous feeling . . . the voice of that wise woman . . . stars, fire, void, the three suns . . . the voice of tens of thousands of Gelflings filling a vast plain . . . the screaming horns of fierce war . . . the voice of that wise woman, louder, louder . . . gone . . .

From above, an odious voice, filtering through the haze . . .

* * *

"SkekTek!" she hollered. "He's right above you!"

Four blades flashed faintly green and bright silver as a black shape fell.

UrNol pressed his brown face to the bars, observing as much as possible through the shuttered darkness.

A whine like the whiproots of sixbuds thrashing though the air. Several things happened as the dark shape landed on the Skeksi and his huge metal device. First, the razorwheel began spinning. Jangling, whistling, and steadily increasing in speed, the giant wheel carved through the air. Second, a flare of yellow light went off, deafening urNol briefly with a song that seemed to suck his brains out. Aughra collapsed, and he lifted her back to her feet, and together they watched the black shape curl into a ball on the floor.

The Skeksi set the whirring wheel down and knelt. With a wild, unnatural wail, he pulled metal thing after metal thing out of his sack and then bent over the black shape. Cries of _distraction_ and _meddler_ and _betrayer_ and the black shape groaned and did not rise again.

"Poor urUtt," urNol muttered. Aughra shushed him.

The Skeksi lifted the howling wheel back to his chest and began stalking through the kennels, paying most of the occupants no attention at all. Ducking into a side room, the Skeksi began causing some sort of auditory nightmare as the wheel touched something unyielding and spat out grinding death. The terrible sound endured, and prisoners from every corner of the kennels began screaming. He must be grinding them all up. Oh, still such thoughts, urNol, it isn't within your power to save them. Turning, the ur-Mystic hid his ears in his hands and sat with his back to the screaming.

Minutes of grinding and screaming passed. Aughra nudged him. "See," she said.

First out of the side room was the wheel, a neon white-hot sparking circle that shot long sheets of blue flame out each side of the axle, a foul pulsar.

The Skeksi marched behind it, a look of gleeful insanity on his face.

And behind him came no less than fourteen bone-thin Gelflings in tattered waistcloths and sunken, sucking ribs.

The white wheel bit into cage after cage, and Podlings scrambled through lunkwood doors and streamed out of the kennels. Backlit in the locking doorway waited a motionless Podling with one black eye and one green eye and a twitching nose. The Pod families pushed past to freedom.

Eyes of madness shone above the wheel. The Skeksi approached the steel cage in the back.

"I care nothing whether you are free or captive," the Skeksi said in a husky voice. "But this creature wishes to hurt another creature, and this delights me."

"Hello, !'rm%htht'4@th*'blr@m," said Aughra, "I know your sister."

UrNol flicked his eyes between the two. Who--what was? Oh, it didn't matter what was going on, as long as they weren't cooked flapbird meat . . .

"Does she live?" the Skeksi asked, his voice changing still further, becoming higher-pitched, like a talking insect.

"Yes, we've preserved her. She dwells within the Gnarled Stonetree. Good place for her. But there's death for dreams afoot. Hmp! Coming too close. Would you help us to save your life?"

The wheel tore through the steel bars, and the bars fell hard, bleeding sparks.

"What do you need?" the Skeksi said in the unnatural insect-voice.

"Tell anyone you meet that the Dark Crystal is being drained of its essence," said Aughra, stepping out past the red-tipped stubs of steel bar. "And it's draining dreams of their essence in turn, to stay alive."

"My sister and I both have felt it," the thing inhabiting skekTek said, "and we each have found ways to stay alive."

"Hmp! Won't be forever."

"Is there a greater source of essence than the Dark Crystal itself?" skekTek's mouth said. "I can deliver such a message to the Skeksis. They don't listen, but they will obey the Emperor."

"Find me tomorrow, !'rm%htht'4@th*'blr@m. The Mystics will have found the answer by then."

UrNol flinched as the white wheel finally snapped through its axle and carved a flaming ditch through the floor of the kennels before exhausting itself halfway through a wall.

* * *

"Ready?"

"A new life is waiting for me," Yrn said, inhaling one last breath.

"Bargain me buttons, you're sinking into the--I'm sinking into--help!" Gobber moaned, staring at his disappearing feet.

Together they plunged into the stone, which spat pebbles into the air, and Loora braced a hand over the Dreamthing and the two refracting lenses she had made in their three individual bags as she, Yrn, and Gobber again rotated underground to the angle that they needed to point, but--

"It's too steep. We'll shoot over the--" Loora shouted.

"Wotyoumean 'shoot over the--?' "

"Over the canyon!" and in a familiar rush of tension they shot up through the rim of the valley and over the canyon. Clouds of batwinged insects flapped from the orange walls of the canyon, and rennfeets bellowed up from the canyon floor at the trio plummeting across the air and into the stone wall like hugging drills.

They slowed, and Yrn brought them to a stop inside the solid rock. Loora's breath began to fade out, helped not at all by the sensation of weightless flight. Twisting, Yrn turned them toward Crystal Castle, and an elastic feeling pulled at Loora's feet until she was nearly dragged away from Yrn and into the shattered rock, and--

Like lightning through air, they shot through stone.

Steaming breaths came in gasps. The Dreamthing remained tight in her hand.

"I'd rather be a Skeksi's lunch," Gobber shouted. "Matter of fact, I'm apt to lose mine--" but only a watery belch came out of him. "My tongue's gone numb, and it smells like those spots you get on your feet."

The roaring continued.

"Were we in such a rush that feet weren't good enough to travel wif?"

"We could drop you off here," Yrn said.

"Sourmouths, Gelflings, I've always said it."

And nothing more was said. The stone became clay, the clay became dirt, and the dirt became dry dirt and the three of them launched into the damp air at a thousand trors a second past the Crystal Castle and directly at the forehead of a cave-eater whose mouth was propped open with a metal spring.

"Grraauuughhnnar!" the cave-eater roared.

"Don't eat me!" Gobber roared right back. "I'm filfy, and I'm too young besides. Taste like dustmoats an' old string, I would--"

"Cllldn't eat ou if I 'anted oo," the cave-eater mumbled through the latch around its teeth. "S'artled me is allll."

"Fank anyone fankable for that," said Gobber. "Didn't see you the last time I was here."

Loora was starting to like the funny little bean.

"Na'ural camou'hlage," the cave-eater mumbled. "H'say, ould oo hmind remoo'ing zis? Can hard'hy thsay ood orning."

Wiping rock chunks off herself and checking that the Dreamthing was on its rope around her neck and the lenses unbroken in their pouches, Loora slid down the broad nose of the cave-eater, found the end of the spring, and began uncoiling it. Since the cave-eater didn't have hands, he couldn't do it himself, poor thing. Must have gotten himself tangled up in this old metal . . . whatever it was . . .

"Grrraaaaauuuuthank you," the huge mouth roared as the unbalanced spring catapulted the metal frame down the mountainside. Shaking the three of them off, the cave-eater rolled its huge head to the ground and began chewing. In seconds, only a cave was left.

"Nice enough sort," said Gobber. He took the two lenses and clutched them. "Let's take care of business, then."

* * *

"I appreciate the ride. Share my thanks with the family."

And the mounder lumbered away on its four heavy limbs.

* * *

"Do you think the Weaver's plan is really going to work?" said Yrn as they trotted down the stony ramp of the foothills toward the desert.

"Pessimistic," said Loora. "They're wiser than anyone else in the world. Of course it'll work. We transfer your dream to the Dreamthing, and then we transfer the Dark Crystal's sickness to you, and we travel back to ur-Kalivath. Crazy but easy."

"Sounds like mumkins and tamtail droppings to me," said Gobber. "Mystic mumbo-jumbo. Now for me it's yentis and a warm dinner. That's all I've ever asked for."

"Yrn, I want you to stay optimistic. Who knows? Maybe without death hanging around your shoulders you'll be happy, the way you deserve to be. Don't look at me like that. I think you deserve to be happy. Your skin will turn normal, and you'll meet someone you love, and everything will fall into place."

"What's wrong with my skin?" Yrn said, and Loora covered her mouth, mortified, but Yrn grinned at her and she scowled and punched him. He seemed, she thought, to be harboring a glimpse of optimism.

They walked the desert in silence. Strange bats shuffled across the storm-black sky, and scrawny insects chittered from cactulus stands.

The doors to the Castle of the Crystal rose above them like the world's tallest pair of teeth. "I'll do the honors," said Gobber. "I've got business here." He rapped on the door, whose crystal surface yielded an echo.

A forebidding silence replied.

"Always like this, those door-attendants. Don't care a cob or a trice for people waitin' out in the cold. OPEN UP, YOU OVERGROWN FLAPBIRDS, I'VE GOT MATTERS TO RESOLVE." He pounded his small fists on the resonant surface.

Nothing.

"Give 'em a second, is all," Gobber added.

Nope.

"Try the handle," said Yrn.

"Wouldn't do anything, they always keep it locked," said Gobber.

But Loora tugged, and the door swung like breadcorn in a strong breeze.

Inside, the braziers of the front hall had blown out, along with most of the candles of the chandeliers. No one was there. The three of them were alone.

"Somefing's happened," murmured Gobber, treading softly into the anteroom. "There's always guards. Attendants. Servants. Got uniforms on. Where is--?"

There was no one in the front hall. The three pushed on beneath shadowy, dripping chandeliers and the faint purple glow of the walls to where a second great pair of interior doors waited.

All the surfaces were alien and unnatural.

"We're saving my mom," said Loora, looking up at the shut doors. "And Cory's dad."

The doors were locked. She knocked.

"THEY'VE BROKEN OUT INTO THE ANTEROOM!" screamed a guttural voice from inside. The door blasted open and a beaked monster rushed out and lifted Loora into the air.

* * *

"Well," said Aughra, "you got here. What did the Mystics say?"

It was so close now. The end to a lifetime of nonstop concentration, of deformity, of loneliness. Inches away and all he had to do was face the Dark Crystal while bearing Loora's Dreamthing in his hand, a single word . . . And yet the Skeksis had placed a cage between him and his future.

"They told me I need to see the Dark Crystal," he told her.

"Through that big door," she replied, pointing.

An impromptu cage had been built inside some kind of demented laboratory. A Podling with a glass eye stood in the center of the room, motionless, while Skeksis scurried in and out, bringing Podlings and Gelflings in and shoving them into the newly built and very cramped cages. No one paid any attention at all when Loora shouted at them about a mission to save the people of Thra.

"Why are all these people here?" Loora finally asked Aughra.

The woman sighed. "The Skeksis have been taking slaves from the villages. Now that urNol and I have seen what horrors take place inside the Castle? Very unlikely that we will be allowed to leave. In the meantime, the Dark Crystal drinks from the hearts of everyone on Thra. Hoped they'd put tomorrow's survival above today's little pleasures. Hmp! Shows what I know. Shouldn't have come."

"The Light Sickness--" Loora said as she tried to disassemble the cage.

"The sickness is in the Dark Crystal itself," said an ur-Mystic squeezed into a cage beside Aughra. He smelled of cactulus. "It's wasting away. Soon we'll be gone, and then all of Thra will follow."

"The Mystics have a plan," Yrn said. "All I have to do is get to the Dark Crystal, and we can heal it."

"Sounds simple," said the Mystic. "Aughra, do you think that weird dream can convince the Skeksis to--"

"I am here," a reedy voice said. "I have been waiting. Permit me."

A gasp, and a Skeksi wearing a steel frame released a struggling Podling from his grasp and marched to the capstan.

* * *

As the bars fell away, Loora stepped out and stood beside Yrn, who was facing the rancid light of a purple crystal twice as tall as she was.

"It's just the way Cory described it," she said. "Except for the part about someone hitting it."

"Let's finish this." Yrn tore his vest open and took the Dreamthing from Loora. He held it over his green-skinned heart with both hands and recited the one word, _renew,_ and it began--

The Dreamthing lit. At the same time, a red glow surrounded Yrn's body. Loora realized it was streaming out of her own heart, but she didn't feel--

No. No, it didn't come _from_ her heart, it was flowing _into_ her heart. From Yrn's. Somehow, under all his obsessions and pessimisms, he felt love--

The Dreamthing seemed to wake fully, and its star-shaped interior filled with a receptive white light. The Weaver had calculated its shape to be activated by the frequencies from the Dark Crystal. Yrn's lovelight poured out of him into Loora, who felt a new warmth inside her own chest, not her own love but his, pouring out, a connection--

What she felt instead, somehow, was Cory, etched into a sunlight that she saw as vividly as a dream, and she reached for him, as if he were really there, and then Cory's face twinkled like a sky of stardust, and as her reaching fingers touched Cory's, a dark shape flitted between them, and she felt her heart stop.

* * *

"Loora!" screamed Yrn as she fell.

Other voices called out from where the dream-enchanted Skeksi had opened the mass of cages, but Yrn didn't hear anything, not really. Only Loora's lifeless body was real. He wrapped himself around it, feeling his withered arm twitch and pulse with useless new blood. Breath soared back to him, but Loora was gone and the dream of death would return to him, it might even have the strength to begin infecting the entire world, burning out lives one by one. The Dreamthing--it was the only thing that might--but Loora convulsed and went limp and a dark shape flicked from her eyes and Yrn held up the black amulet that might contain it, but the flicker seemed to bounce away, and--

A violent bolt of purple light crackled out from the Dark Crystal and encircled the flicker of dark.

The dark hand of death slid through the purple light into the crack in the Dark Crystal, and entered the light, and the purple flared and then dulled and burned darker and darker until its purple was the color of sick soot.

Yrn lifted Loora's limp body and took her to Aughra. "Help me save her," he breathed.

"Put her down."

The fragile body splayed like an armload of kindling on the sandstone floor.

"Now," Aughra's bitter voice said, "lift _that_ instead."

She pointed to the Dark Crystal. It had become the color of old wine and sparked angrily with flashes of black.

Yrn's withered arm wasn't strong enough to support anything, but he wrapped his now completely healthy and muscular arm around the narrow base of the Dark Crystal, breathed, flexed, and heaved, and the Crystal shifted onto his shoulder.

When he turned, balancing the Dark Crystal with each perfectly measured, perfectly balanced step, he saw blue light flaming off of the chests of everyone in the laboratory: tiny blue sparks from the Podlings, and gouts like rivers from the Gelflings.

"Up!" Aughra snapped, pointing to the door. Three blue circles seemed to quaver in front of her heart, but they didn't funnel into the Dark Crystal. She grimaced and dashed toward the stairs, waving for him to follow.

Through high doorways and around winding staircases Yrn carried the Dark Crystal. Skeksi-shouts were matched by Aughra-shouts, and somehow the way was cleared for him. Into a great hall without windows he traversed, step by deliberate step, his strong arm straining under a weight he could not have lifted yesterday. The Dreamthing still hung around his neck, and when--if--when he revived Loora-- _however_ he revived Loora--he would give the black amulet back to her, and she would know he loved her, and someday they would be married--

The enormous throne room housed eighteen screaming, squawking, manic, beaked creatures roaring their displeasures and their petty thoughts. Aughra parted the way and pointed to a statue of the Emperor. After some angry words, the Skeksis snorted and hissed and finally knocked the statue off its bronze legs. Yrn placed the Dark Crystal between the crooked feet, which remained behind like the ruin of an ancient city.

"Our last chance," Aughra roared. "Open the porticos!"

Surrounded on all sides by murderous Skeksis, Yrn collapsed at the rim of the pedestal. Twenty windows began to open in the ceiling and darkness streamed in.

"No use!" Aughra screamed as the three blue lights in her chest grew brighter. "No sunlight! Storm blocking it out. Not even a glimpse. All life--done!"

"D'you need to break frough the Perpetual Storm, then? That fing you've stuck on your nose could do it. Jus' shine a light on it--I seen it! Oof, might be naptime--" and Gobber fell and said nothing else.

Aughra pinched the prongs inside her odd-looking false nose and pulled it out gooily. "Just shine a light on it," she murmured, and took a small yellow crystal from her sleeve. Shaking it, a yellow beam glowed--

Nothing.

There was nothing. Yrn observed as Aughra began dying.

And yet--

She scratched an oily resin away with a thumbnail--

Purple spat like a bleeding sneeze. Circling the Dark Crystal, the purple rammed into the nose and upward through the windows, shattering glass outward from the Castle's roof. The burst of purple light was followed seconds later by black light channeled from the Dark Crystal into the false nose, up and out.

"And so the weapon that first cracked the Crystal," murmured Aughra, "restores it to the suns' life."

Shocks of lightning began to crackle within the Perpetual Storm. As the Dark Crystal's poisoned power shot up, the Dark Crystal seemed to grow faint, as if the dark hand of death inside was overpowering it . . .

The lightning storm burned across the sky, its electric weight dwarfing the world below it.

And at last, at last, golden sunlight poured down in thin speckled dusty beams through the twenty porticos and into the Dark Crystal.

An ear-rending convulsion, and the darkness left the Dark Crystal. Yrn saw the dark shape flit toward him, but a new blackness--the dark shape changed direction--

*** * ***

"I can feel it!" the Emperor roared. "Eternal youth! It IS possible! SkekTek! Ensure that this sunlight always shines on me!"

The skinny Gelfling leapt to his feet. SkekSo shielded himself, terrified of the menacing creature, but all that happened was that the Gelfling pulled Aughra's nose from her hands and stared directly into the black-purple beam.

"Your dream, Yrn!" the frightening woman cried. "Where's your--"

Around the circle, each of skekSo's subjects cried out, then collapsed. A barely visible dark flicker entered through their eyes, then departed again.

As the flicker reached skekSo, the Emperor scrabbled at the air, shut his eyes, ducked, began running out of the circle, but stumbled and felt the bottom drop out of his life. His mind stopped communicating to his feet, and the world tipped into him, and he curled his four arms around himself and shouted "DON'T LOOK AT ME!" and felt shame overtake him.

But the shame was overwhelmed by a deathly fatigue. The Emperor felt his strong, glorious, powerful limbs shrivel and shake. His rule would pass to another, lesser subject, and his name would be spoken of alongside insects and grubs and groundworms and other pathetic, weak things--

A cry of war, and the Emperor dismissed the dream--

The punishment club came to his hand, and he began striking without looking--

From afar, one word:

"Conclude!"

* * *

"UrNol--sing!"

The voices of Aughra and the Mystic carried through the great hall of the Skeksis. Yrn held up the black amulet. Receptive white light once again strung between the spokes. The song grew, filling the sunlit room.

The dark flicker roared. It struggled against the song, but the three descending notes--

"Yrn! Hold !'rm%htht'4@th*'blr@m!"

Two flickers now, tangled, howling high-pitched howls of two different insanities.

The words made no sense. Yrn hunched in the shadow of the Dark Crystal and pulled his bandanna off. His empty socket was warm with life, and crusted skin was flaking off, replaced by new brown skin tufted with fur. His dream was there above him, but without it he felt cheerless and empty. It had been his reason for fighting. For living.

The Dreamthing's white light caught long strands of dream from the two thrashing flickers, dragging them both inside. Disinterested, Yrn held up the amulet on its short string around his neck and watched. The two voices continued, and the two dreams fought, and Yrn felt nothing.

Loora was dead.

A barking snap. The Dreamthing shuddered and began to spin like a potter's wheel until the rope's twists started climbing up his neck. Hurriedly he pulled the choking string off and set it down. He watched along with the assembled, moaning Skeksis as the Dreamthing burned a black ring in the surface of the floor.

Two colors, magenta and death-black, fought inside the spinning cage. Optical illusions swirled.

A last howl of rage.

The magenta was extinguished. The cage filled with death-black.

"And it is over," Aughra said, lifting the now-silent Dreamthing and its angry black occupant.

The blue lights no longer shone from the old woman's chest, nor from Gobber's. Both seemed awake and more alive than Yrn had ever seen them. The Dark Crystal shone beams of light--not healthy light, but living light--from its facets.

"Is--is the Light Sickness cured?" Yrn said, squeezing sweat from his bandanna.

"It is," said Aughra, dropping the Dreamthing into her pocket. "And you Skeksis? See! See that troubles of Gelf and Pod are not always unimportant to you. Hmp! Keep your eyes open. You see a lot more that way."

"And Loora?" said Yrn.

Aughra's eyebrows folded together. "Wherever Cory went," she said, "Loora has followed. Hmp. Not in vain. Not at all in vain."

"Loora's dead," said Yrn.

"And you," Aughra said to him. "You are alive. More alive than you've ever been. Alive enough for two. Is the village of the Spritons where you will stay, Rot?"

"Everyone my age has someone to love already," he murmured. "I loved Loora, she loved Cory, and none of us were old enough to marry. No, I think I'll leave. Raunip spoke of a village beside a Shining Sea. Boats that sail over oceans to other places that might as well be on other worlds. Boats with no limits. With only skies holding you down. And without skies, perhaps we'd fly."

* * *

"Well, boys," said Lemny, spitting out a cluster of barnfruit seeds. "I'd say you have a bit of a dilemma there."

A few trines had passed.

"Right under the field, too. The land's useless now. Useless! Just caves for miles. No telling what'll collapse next."

"I've give you four yentis for the land," said Lemny. "That'll be enough to start your breadcorn up down the way, wouldn't it?"

The farmer spat and nodded. "Busted my plow, though. Not much more'n a bunch of chisels, these scraps are--"

"I'll take the scraps, too."

Climbing into the stone caves, Lemny began to carve.

* * *

"Need someone to look after the new tree?" urNol asked cheerfully.

"You're welcome to help," a Worshipper said, patting a mound of ground-up stone bark over a turbla-seed. "But we already have a first-class gardener." The Worshipper pointed.

UrNol found the Gelfling gardener at the foot of the stem, shoveling mulch mixed with spit.

"Looks just like him," murmured the Mystic, and went to help.

* * *

"Just like children!"

The Song of Mourning finished, and the solemn procession moved from the heady highroads of Quillpine to the foot of Aughra's observatory.

"On this day, the one hundred twelfth of the Second Conjunction," a melodious deep voice began, "we honor the lives lost in the time of the Plague of Light, and the lives of the hero and heroine who--"

Aughra shut the window. Something cold was inside her heart, and old tears were threatening to scuttle down her flat face. The bonestone nose remained in a hidden drawer, and she had no desire to pull it out and wear it. No desire at all. Vain. Vanity, hmp! Dissatisfying. Aughra removed her hand from the secret latch and left it unopened.

Somewhere, still lost to her far-seeing eyes, the other nose remained in the bogplant-purple claws of Raunip. Someday she would need the bundle of crystals inside it.

But not today. There would be other stories, someday. But not today.

* * *

"It's been a long time, Keirkat."

Gobber tickled the long nose as the flouse climbed onto his shoulder.

"Good to see you again, my sniffy girl. And where've you been?"

The flouse cheeped.

"Have--have you?" said Gobber. "Is--are things--?"

Again the flouse cheeped.

"Show me. Where is he?"

Gobber left the cart behind him, left the yentis, left his little gallery-maullery of nonsense and odds.

Gobber ran, and the flouse ran ahead, to a cathedral in caves.

* * *

And so, my friends, my audience, our story ends here. If there is grief, let us feel it, and if there is joy, let it grow. Our world is filled with stories small and large.

Let us live them.

Blue fur vanished under the cloak, and with a glitter of tossed crystal sand, the fire was snuffed.

Above Pafaul the Storyteller, three suns rose in morning.

And the attentive dancerflies took to the air, finished with the story.

**About the Aughra Author**

James Comins is a fiery blaze of a thousand snarling suns. Actually, he made that up. He's terribly tall, startlingly handsome, and sometimes he lies about stuff. Do not trust him to tell you stories. He lives in Denver with a houseplant named Bernice.

**Acknowlogies and Apoledgements**

First, a big shoutout to my friend Lauren, who got me started writing this book. Second, a big shoutout to the Jim Henson Company for holding the Author Quest contest and to Anna Jordan for allowing me to share my entry.

I have chronic fatigue, and I decided it was high time I wrote a story about the experience. The Dark Crystal: Plague of Light is first and foremost a story about a disease. It's a story about not knowing what's wrong with you or what you can do about it, and it's the story of a disease whose primary result is suicide. People with chronic fatigue are twenty times more likely to commit suicide than the general population, and the drive to keep living despite an inability to live the life you had in mind is something all the protagonists of this book have in common.

Obviously, the world of the Dark Crystal is inspired by the movie. But there are a few other influences as well. The idea of dreams that get loose and have to be tended is loosely inspired by both a Neil Gaiman story called "The Sweeper of Dreams," and a Stephen King movie called _The Langoliers_ , in which there's a world that gets left behind as time moves ahead, complete with a gradually fading reality.

Cory's personality is fairly similar to my own. Loora is inspired in part by my friend Lauren, and in part by a girl I once dated who was a mechanic.

Yrn is, in part, inspired by the protagonist of Gene Wolfe's fantasy classic, _The Book of the New Sun_ , one of the finest books ever written. One of his speeches in this book is fairly similar to a speech that the protagonist gives to Dorcas about not wanting to marry a scary person.

Gobber is a little bit Gobo from _Fraggle Rock_ , a little bit Wilkinson, the rat in the fedora from Neil Gaiman's _Sandman: A Game of You_ , and very much like Corporal Nobbs from Terry Pratchett's _Discworld_. As far as I can tell, Lemny is mostly my own.

Telling the story from the point of view of two minor characters comes from Shakespeare.

The Skeksis are essentially as they are in the movie. Most of the ur-Mystics are, too, although urNol the Herbalist borrows somewhat from Beauregard, the bumbling Muppet Show janitor.

The cave-eater is probably inspired by the rock giant from _The Never-Ending Story_ , which may well be influential in other ways, too.

The story of the Parthim is my folk retelling of _The Diary of Anne Frank_. Parthim, of course, reproduce through parthenogenesis.

Raunip belongs to the authors of _The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths_.

Cory's vision of the future is probably influenced by David Lynch's _Dune_. The second moon . . .

