The Dark Crystal (18 page)
Authors: A. C. H. Smith
F
rom her cage, amid the chaos of freedom, Aughra watched Kira run out. “Go, Gelfling,” she muttered to herself. “Go find your friend. Go find your death.”
J
en was gripping the shard so tightly that his knuckles were white and his wrist ached. He would do it, he
would
accomplish what he had come here to do, and he would not surrender to despair, that deathly face that beckoned so comfortingly to him. He would set aside his fear. And, hardest of all, he would not be discouraged by thinking of Kira’s fate. There was nothing, he told himself, nothing he could do for Kira now. Were she here, she would be urging him to concentrate solely on restoring the shard; He gripped it even more tightly and swore that that was what he would do. For her, be she dead or, miraculously, still living.
en was gripping the shard so tightly that his knuckles were white and his wrist ached. He would do it, he
would
accomplish what he had come here to do, and he would not surrender to despair, that deathly face that beckoned so comfortingly to him. He would set aside his fear. And, hardest of all, he would not be discouraged by thinking of Kira’s fate. There was nothing, he told himself, nothing he could do for Kira now. Were she here, she would be urging him to concentrate solely on restoring the shard; He gripped it even more tightly and swore that that was what he would do. For her, be she dead or, miraculously, still living.
Behind him, as he trod stealthily along the new tunnel, Fizzgig had started to bounce and squeal again. “Quiet,” Jen said, turning to him. “We must be quiet, Fizzgig. Ssssh!”
Jen turned and took another step forward. As his foot landed, the ground gave way beneath it. Reaching out desperately for something to cling to, he found nothing. He plummeted down through a hatchway and landed on an earthen floor.
His body was so battered by now that he gave little thought to additional bruises. His only concern was whether he had disabled himself. He stood up, testing his limbs, and they seemed no worse than before. What was worse was his situation. Fizzgig was looking down at him from the open hatchway above, and Jen could see it was too high for him to jump back up. Was there some other way out of this pit? It was coal-black except for the exiguous light from the hatchway – and, Jen noticed, a mild glow from the shard. Was this the effect of bringing the shard into proximity with its mother crystal somewhere in this vast castle?
He held the shard up above his head like a faint torch. It enabled him barely to descry huge dark shapes around the walls of the pit.
And then an ominous clicking noise started up. By the shard’s glow, Jen could see purple eyes switch open in the darkness. The clicking quickly accelerated, growing louder, and the entire Garthim pit came to life. The recently returned raiding party, instructed to seek out and destroy Gelfling, had been reactivated by the shard; and now each one of them lurched into motion, descending upon Jen, their claws snapping at him.
He had no time to think, to plan; nowhere to run. His actions were dictated by a blind surge of self-preservation. Holding the shard out before him as though it were a saber, and venting a wild yell of determination, he charged at the nearest of the Garthim.
Two of them simultaneously lunged at him. As he stopped short, they cannoned into each other, rebounding with a thunderous clang. Jen dodged them as they parted and attempted to pursue him. But the two Garthim were off-balance and, colliding again, they collapsed on top of each other.
Swift annihilators out in the open, the Garthim were clumsy and ineffectual in the confined space of their own pit. The two bodies on the floor, struggling with each other in an attempt to rise, brought down others that wanted to swarm over them to seize the Gelfling.
Jen, meanwhile, had come to a wall at the far end of the pit. He could see no door in it. The only exit seemed to be the hatchway he had fallen through, and there was no hope of reaching that. “Once, ages ago, we Gelfling could really fly,” Kira had told him. But no more. He clutched the shard.
A huge claw swung at him, snapping shut. Jen ducked, and, though it missed his flesh, it closed on the back of his tunic. The claw swung out again, taking Jen off his feet and whirling him into the air. His tunic ripped, and he flew across the pit, yelling, thrusting out his free hand for anything he could grab on to in order to stay his fall.
He landed on the back of a Garthim and seized hold of some antennalike thing sprouting from its head. The Garthim reacted violently, weaving and twisting to shake this Gelfling off its back or to wrap a claw around it. Jen stabbed at its eyes with his shard, and one of them went out. The shard emitted a rich resonance and seemed to glow more brightly.
Other Garthim were swarming in on the one to which Jen clung. There were too many of them. They collided and trampled over each other, and such blows as they could deliver rained down on the Garthim beneath the Gelfling.
One mighty swipe missed completely and hammered into the wall of the pit. The tremendous force broke off a chunk of rock, leaving a hole through which a dim light filtered. Jen realized that a fissure had been made to somewhere outside, somewhere he did not know but somewhere that was not the Garthim pit. Leaping from the monster’s back to the cleft, Jen hung there, one hand gripping the sharp new ledge. The other hand was still holding the shard; he thrust it back into his ripped tunic and clung to the ledge with two hands.
Garthim had wheeled and were converging on him. He dragged himself up onto the ledge and found he could twist his head and shoulders through the fissure.
What he saw on the other side of the fissure was a wide and very high vertical shaft. At its foot, so far below that it seemed halfway through the planet, there was fire, bubbling and crepitating. In the rough rock walls were ledges that might offer him some hope of climbing the shaft. A claw snapped behind his feet. He had no choice. Holding on to the friable rock curtain beside his head, he wriggled his body rapidly through the fissure and found a narrow ledge for his feet. Behind the fissure, the barrage of fierce hammering sounded like a volcano erupting. The rock wall on which Jen dangled was reverberating.
Above him he found a handhold and started to climb. Looking up, he now saw that high above the shaft a great wine-colored Crystal was poised in somber splendor. A beam of violet light shone from the crystal straight down the center of the shaft to the fire below.
As he inched upward, just underneath his feet the fissure was converted into a gaping hole by the impact of a giant claw, which remained protruding into the shaft, blindly snapping for its prey, while the violet beam scorched a smoking hole clean through it.
T
he Garthim-Master squatted on the front of his throne, a dumbfounded expression in his bulging, baleful eyes. He could not believe what was happening to him. Just when he thought his masterly coup had accounted for the Ritual-Master’s pretensions, the situation was deteriorating markedly.
he Garthim-Master squatted on the front of his throne, a dumbfounded expression in his bulging, baleful eyes. He could not believe what was happening to him. Just when he thought his masterly coup had accounted for the Ritual-Master’s pretensions, the situation was deteriorating markedly.
First, he had followed the Chamberlain to the tunnel. What he had expected to find was a Gelfling with enough expiring life in it to yield a plentiful supply of vliya. What he had found instead was a pile of rubble, accompanied by a great wringing of hands on the part of the Chamberlain and a string of lame excuses.
However, he could still anticipate a flaskful from the other wriggling specimen, the one he had entrusted to the Scientist. He had entered the Chamber of Life, intending to imbibe the vliya’s rejuvenating powers. Instead, from the doorway he had beheld the spectacle of flocks of wild animals, quite unrestrained, wreaking havoc or escaping through shattered windows, while Aughra sat rocking on her haunches, cackling wildly. Of the Scientist there had been not a sign, nor had he yet reappeared in the ceremonial chambers. Neither had there been a Gelfling or a flask of vliya. It was obvious what stratagem the Scientist had devised. Having released the animals to create a diversion, he was sequestered somewhere enjoying the vliya he had distilled and hoarded for himself. Soon, looking impressively younger, he would swagger in and no doubt lay claim to the throne. It would end in
Haakskeekah!
Haakskeekah!
The Garthim-Master could not tolerate it. After the ceremony of the Great Conjunction had been completed, he was resolved to take the unprecedented step of setting the Garthim upon a brother Skeksis. He was confident they would not disobey him, although it was a task for which they had not been trained. The Garthim-Master felt quite justified in his decision. It might even increase his popularity among the other Skeksis, but in any event it would make him more respected.
At once the Ritual-Master had assessed matters and started to capitalize on them. Mincing up and down the chamber, he stuck his beak into the ear of any Skeksis that would listen and reminded him that he had been for the immediate sacrifice of the Gelfling. The Garthim-Master caught the eye of the Ritual-Master, who was urgently whispering to the Treasurer as he fingered his knife and looked toward the throne. The Treasurer nodded.
The Garthim-Master leaned forward and groaned. The old Emperor had never had to contend with this sort of factioning. What could he do with the Great Conjunction imminent?
T
he Garthim-Master would have been even more astounded if he could have seen outside the castle entrance. The urRu were approaching the end of their trek.
Since the division after the Great Conjunction eons ago, the Skeksis had left the urRu to themselves in their valley. They had to: the object and its mirror image could not be combined except in cancellation of both. In any case, the Skeksis never had needed the urRu: impractical, old, chanting visionaries, obsessed solely with their collective inner life, their values diametrically opposed to those to which the Skeksis ascribed.
Shortly after the division, the Skeksis had discovered that by breaking the Crystal they could entrap malevolent energies that, on the molecular level, were visible as the dark coloring it took on. After some research, the Scientist had explained that the Crystal had a spiral linkage in its molecular structure from which it derived the property of rotating the plane of polarization of a beam of polarized light. When the three suns were conjoined directly overhead, such a polarized power emanated from them that it would untwist the spiral linkage, clear the crystal of color, and produce a focused beam of the most intense concentration. But once the Crystal had been broken, its spiral linkage could not be untwisted. The light of the Great Conjunction would irradiate the Skeksis with energy, but a left-handed energy only, darkly colored, rich in malevolence.
Other books
Tempestuous Relations by Amanda Young
Intercepted by Love: Part 2 (Playing the Field #2) by Rachelle Ayala
The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line by Millard, Adam
Beauty and the Werewolf (Entangled Covet) (San Francisco Wolf Pack) by Kristin Miller
Goblin War by Hines, Jim C.
The Eleventh Year by Monique Raphel High
Caterpillar Without A Callsign by Isaac Hooke
In Our Control by Laura Eldridge
Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
Full House by Stephen Jay Gould
