A/N: {"…"} indicates dialogue in Podling language.
Chapter 3
The two Gelfling struggled in vain. Whoever their captors were, they were each strong enough to lift a Gelfling across their shoulders. With their heads covered and their hands bound with heavy ropes, Jen and Kira could only wait, blind, as they were carried away.
The sound of metal on stone came again. The bag muffled all sounds (and smushed his pointed ears uncomfortably), but Jen listened as best he could. Their captors - there seem to be three of them - were talking in a language that wasn't Gelfling, Podling, or the primeval Thra-speech Aughra sometimes used.
They seemed to be debating something. Whatever it was, it ended with Jen feeling himself being carried down.
Even with almost every inch of his skin covered, he could feel the air growing warmer as they descended. He and Kira found themselves deposited (none too gently) on a stone floor, and then hauled to their knees by those heavy clawed hands.
Last of all, the bags were yanked away.
The Gelfling found themselves in a low-roofed cave. The mottled gray walls were too smooth and angled to have formed naturally; here and there, cut marks remained on the ceiling where stalactites had been removed. A series of strange devices ran along one wall: disks of thick, clouded glass, each holding a metal coil that glowed a soft yellow and gave light to the cave. Lines of copper cord connected each disk, and stretched away into a tunnel further down.
Jen had never seen such devices before, and he gave them only the barest glance now. His attention was on Kira, kneeling beside him in the grip of one of their captors.
"Kira! Are you all right?! Please," he looked up at the creature, "don't hurt her!"
"I'm fine." Kira spat out a lock of blonde hair that had gotten in her mouth on the ride down. "Who are you?" she demanded of her captor. "Why are you doing this to us?"
The creatures were about the height of Gelfling, but more sturdily built. Their skin was as gray as the walls around them, and their faces were flat, with wide mouths and small, deep-set eyes. Like Podlings, they had two fingers and a thumb on each hand; unlike Podlings, though, their claws were enough to make the two Gelfling wary.
"We don't mean you any harm," Jen insisted. "Please, we're travelers. We came looking for other Gelfling."
The creatures looked at each other, clearly unsure. They conversed among themselves, but the only word Jen recognized was 'ghelflainnk'.
He tried again, more slowly this time. "Do you speak Gelfling?"
The creatures watched him, frowning. Either they did not speak Gelfling, or they disliked the thought of talking to one. Or both, Jen thought ruefully.
Seeing that he was having no luck, Kira took a chance. "Apopiapoiopidiappididiapipob?" She couldn't imagine how these creatures living under a frozen island would know Podling, but it was worth a try…
Their captors perked up in immediate surprise. They conversed again in their own tongue, and then the biggest of the three took off down the tunnel.
"Well, that did something. " Jen looked over at his beloved. "Are you sure you're not hurt?"
"Yes, I'm fine." In spite of their current circumstances, she smiled. "And so is the baby."
They shared the fearful, unspoken thought: for now.
It didn't take long for the third creature to return. And when they did, they were not alone.
Behind them marched an old Podling man. Like the creatures, he wore a loose gray-brown tunic and a battered leather hood - camouflage to match the rock around them, Kira now realized. Tufts of messy gray hair stuck out from under the hood. His face was lined with age and old scars, but his eyes were still wide and bright, and they grew wider when he saw Jen and Kira.
{"I don't believe it!"} He hurried over to them. {"Gelfling, actually showing up here! And you're so young!"}
{"We came here to look for other Gelfling,"} Jen explained again. After seven trine of living with Kira and her family, he'd learned a great deal more Podling language than 'fala vam', though he still lagged behind Kira when it came to expressing anything deeper than day-to-day conversation. {"We did not know anyone else was here."}
{"Please, tell them to let us go!"} Kira insisted. {"I don't know why they did this to us, but we don't mean them any harm!"}
The old Podling shook his head. {"I'll ask them, but I can't promise anything. The Gruenaks don't have a good history with Gelfling."}
He looked up at the much-taller creature behind him - a Gruenak, Jen and Kira now understood - and said something in their language. Although the Gelfling couldn't understand him, his reassuring tone and shrug of his shoulders meant it was probably along the lines of 'these little ones aren't a threat, you can go easy on them'.
The biggest Gruenak tilted their head, and looked the two Gelfling over curiously. The two still holding the Gelfling on their knees, however, were unmoved; when they spoke to the Podling, their answers were short and their voices curt.
{"Tell them we are the last Gelfling in the world."} It was a risk, Jen knew; if the Gruenaks disliked Gelfling so much, they might see this as a chance to wipe them out once and for all. But on the other hand, if their captors did want them dead, why had they gone to the trouble of taking them prisoner at all?
We came on this journey to make friends, he thought. Even if they aren't Gelfling, we have to try.
The old Podling looked grim at Jen's words, as if he was hearing something that he had already feared being confirmed. He turned to the Gruenaks again, and his voice grew both pleading and forceful. As he spoke, he gestured for emphasis, and his sleeve slid down.
Jen and Kira's eyes widened. Some time in the past, the Podling's left arm had been amputated just below the elbow. A metal cap covered the stump, and fixed to it, in place of a hand, was a carved driftwood spoon.
The two Gruenaks were nearly twice the Podling's size, but they seemed both touched and intimidated by his words. With no further prodding, they untied their captives.
Jen and Kira embraced, each reassuring themselves that the other was safe. Comforted (but still wary of what might come), Kira gave the Podling a warm smile. {"Thank you very much, friend. I am Kira, and this is my mate, Jen. What's your name?"}
The old Podling gave a courtly bow. {"Hup, at your service."}
With their new friend acting as interpreter, Jen and Kira told their tale to the Gruenaks. How they had each grown up believing they were the last of their kind, how they had found each other and journeyed to the Castle at the moment of the Great Conjunction, and how they had healed the darkened Crystal and witnessed the reunion of the urSkeks - and had seen them depart Thra, with no sign they would ever return.
In turn, they learned the story of the Gruenaks. The ones living here under Tel-Ataq (there were eleven of them, they discovered, not counting the three eggs currently in their communal nursery) were, as far as they knew, also the last of their kind. Many generations ago, their people had refused to submit to the Skeksis. Gruenak society, they explained, had no hierarchy or designated leaders; they made all decisions for their people as equals, and they were not about to follow the will of a foreign emperor.
So Emperor skekSo had sent his best warriors - and their Gelfling allies - to destroy their race. One by one, their underground settlements had been purged, the survivors hunted down. It was all depressingly familiar to Jen and Kira, and it was all the more horrible to learn that their own people had helped in the slaughter.
"No wonder they took us prisoner," Jen now understood. "They thought we were here to kill them."
Once the Gruenaks understood that the two young Gelfling truly hadn't known about the bloody history between their races, they treated them more gently. The older ones, who still had memories of hiding from Sifa sailors, remained wary, but the younger ones were more open, and curious about the new captives-turned-guests.
The big one who had first fetched Hup introduced herself as Roor Lenev. {"Gruenaks always knew about Tel-Ataq,"} Hup translated for her. {"They helped build it, long ago, before the Gelfling turned on them. When the Garthim War started, these ones came here, up through the tunnels."}
{"But how did you end up here?"} Kira insisted. {"I never heard of Podlings living this far north."}
Hup's face fell - it was clear he wasn't looking forward to this part of the tale. {"You might not believe it, but I used to be a paladin under the Gelfling All-Maudra."}
Kira gaped. {"You were a warrior? "}
The idea was startling. Among the people she had grown up with, fighting in anything but immediate self-defense was abhorred. It was all right to take down Garthim and Crystal Bats, which weren't really alive anyway, but living creatures were to be left in peace. For a Podling to seek out battle as a chosen way of life was very strange.
Hup, however, sounded proud. {"Yes. And I fought with the Gelfling resistance for as long as I could. Even when a Garthim took my arm,"} he held up his prosthetic spoon, {"nothing stopped me."}
His tone grew grim again. {"But it wasn't enough. The Garthim kept coming. I lost … so many friends. In the end…"} He hesitated. Whatever the memory was, it was clearly more painful than the rest. {"One of them left me with a last request. But I failed. I couldn't bear to stay after that."}
He sighed. {"Some of the last paladins decided to look for help across the Silver Sea. I went with them, but we ran into a storm. A dark storm."} His tone made it clear what he meant. {"Our ship went down. I washed up here, the Gruenaks found me, and I've been here ever since."}
Jen hesitated. {"And … in all that time, no other Gelfling have come here?"}
Hup shook his head. {"The storms only got worse. Trying to sail would've been certain death."}
{"But the storms have stopped now, yes?"} Jen went on. {"Seven trine have passed since we restored the Crystal. We have seen it - the Darkening is gone. Thra is healing."}
Jen still knew little about the Darkening, that corrupting force that had once nearly killed their world. Growing up in the valley of the Mystics, their magic had kept it at bay, and he and Kira had been lucky enough not to encounter it on their quest. But he'd seen the dying wasteland the Bah-Lem Valley had been, and he'd heard the stories of powerful, unnatural storms and animals driven mad as their eyes glowed purple.
{"You do not have to stay here. The world is … defended-"}
{"The world is safe,"} Kira corrected him.
{"Right, the world is safe. You could go out and see it."} He looked up at the Gruenaks, making it clear he was addressing them directly. "You too. You would be welcome."
Even if they did not understand every word (the older Gruenaks, Jen had been told, still knew a smattering of Gelfling language), they clearly got the gist of what he was saying. The gathered Gruenaks conversed among themselves, apparently debating his offer.
Finally, Roor Lenev stepped forward, and spoke in halting Podling. In the time Hup had lived among them, the learning of languages had evidently not been one-sided. {"You eat with us. We talk, and we decide."}
They gathered for dinner in a bell-shaped cavern, lit by more of those glowing disks connected with wire. Jen, curious, made the mistake of trying to touch one, and received a burned finger for it.
{"Careful!"} Roor Lenev spoke up. {"These take power from fire deep in Thra. Turn into light and heat."}
Jen pressed his finger against the cool stone to soothe it. I wish you'd told me that to start with.
To Kira's disappointment, there were no ruva nuts at the meal. With no plants left on the island, the Gruenaks lived by collecting seaweed and shellfish from tidal caves. Together with the mushrooms they farmed, it made for a soup that was thick and nourishing, if more than a bit salty.
In between eating with his spoon-arm, Hup went on talking with the Gelfling - mostly Kira. It seemed to bring him comfort when she told him how the Podlings were still growing strong, and rebuilding after the ravages of the war.
{"It would be good to see my own people again. And I wouldn't mind one last adventure while I'm still young,"} he joked. {"I think I will go with you."}
{"We'd be glad of your company,"} Kira said with a smile.
The Gruenaks had been talking among themselves, but at last, Roor Lenev set her bowl down and turned to their visitors. {"I go too. I want to see Thra. See Crystal. If is … safe, I tell others, and more go."}
The murmurs from the others suggested they didn't all agree with this decision, but they made no sign of stopping her.
Jen smiled. While he might miss having so much time to be alone with his mate on their travels, he knew the journey was only going to grow more difficult and dangerous as Kira's pregnancy went on. The more friends they had to help them on the way, the better.
"All right. Together, then."
The sea-tortle had swum away during the night, so Roor Lenev proposed another way back.
Down at the bottom of the caves the Gruenaks called home, she showed them where the carved-out passages gave way to natural tunnels in the earth. {"These go all through Thra. We come through when I was childling, to island. Now we go."}
Jen, remembering when Hup had said the Gruenaks arrived on Tel-Ataq, did some quick mental math, and realized this meant she wasn't much older than himself and Kira. {"Roor Lenev-"}
The female Gruenak gave a little smile as she raised her finger, correcting him. {"Lenev. I am Lenev. Roor is name of place where I hatch and grow. Place of …"} She glanced at Hup, stuck on the right word.
{"Place of clan,"} Hup offered. It wasn't an exact translation, but it was clear enough for the Gelfling.
{"Then, you weren't born here?"} Kira asked. {"Where did you live before that?"}
{"We live on big land, near sea. When I was egg, Gelfling come. They take my … parents,"} she hesitated, unsure of the word. {"Other Gruenaks run, take my egg. We stay in tunnels after."}
Kira exchanged a look with Jen. {"And … you don't hate Gelfling for it?"}
Lenev shrugged. {"I never see Gelfling before you come. Only stories. You are not Gelfling take my parents. Life is more … important, than hate."} With a wry look, she added something to Hup in her own language.
The old Podling said something in return that was half fond, half scolding, and then translated. {"She says, 'And it's hard to hate the Gelfling anymore, now that we outnumber them'."}
As they followed their new companions into the depths, those words hung heavy on Jen and Kira.
Seven journeys, to the farthest known corners of Thra. Seven trine of searching, of hoping. And now, it seemed, it had all been for nothing.
They truly were the last Gelfling in the world.
With no suns or moons to watch, the travelers had only the rhythms of their bodies to measure time by. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they grew weary. It was a strange way to live, and Jen could scarcely imagine what it must be like for Lenev, to have spent her whole life underground.
They left the Gruenaks' strange disk-lights behind early on, but Lenev had brought something like them: a ball of glass on a thick copper rod, that gave light when she cranked a handle. It was a noisy, cumbersome thing, and Jen was glad his eyes had adjusted so quickly that he seldom needed it.
The journey was dark, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as he'd expected. The air stayed warm, which was a nice change from the past weeks. When gusts came up through the tunnels, they smelled of hot stone and steam - alive, almost, like the breath of a living thing.
And there was other life, too. Even down here, far beneath the planet, creatures burrowed, flowered, and lived their lives among the veins of rock and crystal. Some were pale and blind, while others glowed like underground stars, but they all knew the song of Thra. Whenever Lenev was unsure of what turn to take, Kira spoke to the small crawling things around them, and they would guide her towards fresher air.
When their route had begun to turn perceptibly upwards, Hup came across a vast patch of glow-moss. {"We must be getting near Grot now. This … this is a garden. Or it used to be…"}
He trailed off, and Jen and Kira realized the old Podling was crying.
When they rested later, after collecting some of the fresh glow-moss, Hup told them what had come over him.
{"I told you about the Gelfling friends I lost in the war,"} he said, as the other three gathered around. {"One of them, Deet … she was my best friend. My everything. She was one of the Grottan clan, and she taught me about glow-moss."}
From what Jen could tell, it sounded like Hup's feelings might have run deeper than friendship, but he did not push the subject. He kept his tone gentle as he asked, {"What happened to her?"}
{"The Garthim didn't get her, if that's what you're thinking."} Hup sounded bitterly proud of this. {"She and her mate, and some of the other Gelfling leaders … they decided to make one last attack on the Castle. Deet wasn't a warrior, but she had this … power."} He huffed. {"It was a curse more than anything, but she thought it could stop the Skeksis for good. But it didn't. And she and the others never came back."}
Kira chose her next words carefully. {"I don't mean to be rude, but if you were a warrior, why didn't you go with them?"}
{"I wanted to, but Deet gave me another task. She and her mate … they had a son. He was just a baby at the time. She asked me to look after him. And I did, until the Garthim came again."}
Hup scratched his spoon-arm against the ground. The memory was bitter, but he made himself tell it. {"We were in a Gelfling village. I left him with some of them while I went out to fight the Garthim. When I finally made it back … everything was in ruins, and he and the others were gone. The Garthim took them all."}
{"And that's when you left on the ship."} Jen could tell there was much the old Podling was probably leaving out of the tale, but this part had clearly been painful enough. As curious as he was to learn more about the long-ago Gelfling resistance, now wasn't the time.
{"Yes,"} Lenev chimed in. She put a large, comforting arm around Hup, and he leaned into the hug gratefully. {"I was child when Hup come to Tel-Ataq. He was sad, but, he was nice. Teach me Podling. Teach me to fight with spoon. Be my parent."}
{"Yes, that did help."} Hup's expression warmed as he remembered. To Jen and Kira, he explained, {"Gruenaks don't form families the same way Gelfling and Podling do. They raise all their children together. The young ones know who their egg came from, but that's not always the ones who take care of them the most. Or who they care for the most."}
{"I understand what you mean."} Kira smiled as she scooted in closer. {"That's how I feel about Ydra. I remember a little of my Gelfling mother, but Ydra was the one who raised me, and taught me about life. When I think of 'parent', I think of her."}
Jen was the last to speak. What he wanted to say was too much for his limited command of Podling to express, so he switched to Gelfling, and hoped Hup still remembered enough to understand.
"I don't remember anything about my Gelfling family. Sometimes I think I do, but sometimes I think it might just be a dream, or something I wish had happened. But I remember my master, urSu, and the other Mystics. Even though we were so different, I remember how loved I felt when I was with them - urSu most of all." Jen swallowed. "I never called him 'father', but that's what he was."
And I still miss him, and the others.
They sat together for some time, four people who had each lost one family, but gained another. And, for that time, they each felt a little less alone.
To Be Continued ...