Chapter 7
In a realm both of and yet outside Thra, Jen opened his eyes.
He was standing on a barren, rocky patch of land. The light around him was the cool dimness of twilight, but there was a faint violet tint to that murky light. He recognized it at once, faint though it was: the same hue as the darkened Crystal.
The air was dry and cold, and so still that it felt almost like blasphemy to disturb it. A heavy curtain of gray-violet fog hung all around him, so thick that Jen could barely see more than an arm's length in front of him. When he reached out and waved his hand through it, it swirled briefly around him, but he felt no dampness or sense of temperature. It was like trying to touch a mirage.
And that's what this place is, he thought to himself. It's like a dream. My spirit may be here, but my body is still back in the living world. As long as Kira and the others watch over me there, I'll be safe.
He hoped he could keep believing that.
When Jen looked up at the sky, he could only see more of that murky gray-violet twilight. There was no hint of the suns or moons, only endless fog. Nothing by which he might get a sense of his bearings.
Aughra said to find the one who sang out to her. But how am I supposed to find him? She didn't even give me his name.
Well, he'd never find anyone if he didn't start somewhere. Looking ahead into the curtain of fog before him, Jen started to walk. The craggy stones and pebbles that littered the ground should have slid under his feet, but they stayed as unnaturally still as the air itself.
Nonetheless, someone heard him.
Jen had barely gone more than a few paces when he heard whispering, hissing voices in the fog. He froze, trying to make out the words.
"Kelffink?"
"Kelffink ekem?"
"Zai Kelffink ekem?"
"Deestitoc?"
"Makhun kim!"
Even separated from his body, Jen felt a cold shiver down his spine - the fear of a prey creature who now knows he has become prey. Out of the fog, he could see two figures approaching.
They were Skeksis, he knew that immediately. But just as immediately, he knew they were different from the living Skeksis he'd seen. All the ones he'd encountered had buried themselves in layered robes (even the ragged Chamberlain had made an effort to cover himself), while these two were naked. They moved almost on all fours, stalking like animals, and their bodies were lithe and strong and covered in dazzling coats of fur-like plumage. The brawnier one was a rich auburn shot with streaks of black and gold, while the slimmer one was an iridescent white like the Pearl Moon.
If they hadn't been hunting him, Jen would have been impressed at their beauty.
Trying to keep up his courage, he raised a hand in greeting. "Um, hello. I don't suppose either of you sang out to Aughra recently?"
He knew it was a mistake even before he'd finished the words. These wild creatures had not been the ones Aughra spoke to. They could barely talk at all, let alone sing.
Worse, they clearly recognized Aughra's name. And they did not like it.
"Rakhash!"
"Krakweekah!"
Forgetting Aughra's words for now, Jen turned and ran. It was easy for her to say the dead could not harm the living; she was the spirit of Thra itself, while he was just another Gelfling. A very frightened one, with two savage predators after him.
He scrambled up the largest boulder he could find, fingernails scratching at the stone. Behind him, he could hear the two Skeksis chattering to each other as they drew closer. He still couldn't understand them, but it was easy enough to guess: they were deciding what to do once they caught him, and it would not be pleasant.
Too late, Jen realized he was trapped atop the boulder. Behind him, he could just make out a dark cliff wall, too far away for him to reach or climb. Below him, the two Skeksis circled, savoring the moment before the attack…
All three paused.
A light was approaching through the fog. It was faint and ghostly, reminding Jen of the swamp-wisps he and Kira had seen on their journey to the Sog a few trine ago. As it drew closer, though, he began to see that it was a familiar shade of gold.
An urSkek, here in this place?
At first, he thought one of the eight must have followed him somehow. But as the alien figure drifted closer, he realized he was wrong. The urSkek's corona, while still visible, was weak and scattered, like light filtered through clouded glass. Whoever this urSkek was, Jen understood, he was dead too.
The ghostly urSkek headed straight for the three of them. When he spoke, it was in the same tone Jen had often heard Kira use when she scolded Fizzgig: annoyed, but fond all the same.
"SkekYi! SkekHak! What kind of way is that to treat a visitor?"
The white Skeksis snarled at him, and the auburn one gave a swipe of his talons. They passed through the urSkek's robes like smoke.
The urSkek shook his head. "More than a thousand trine, and you still haven't learned. Well, if you're not going to help, both of you get out of here. The Gelfling and I have much to discuss." When they made no move, he waved a long arm impatiently. "Go on! Go back to your aimless wandering."
Grumbling, and with one last glare at the tall, glowing figure, the two Skeksis paced off into the fog.
"Thank you!" Jen exclaimed. He slid down off the boulder, landing lightly on the smaller stones below. "You saved me."
"Nonsense. They couldn't have laid a hand on you, even if I hadn't shown up. They've been dead for an Age and more, and you're still very much alive." A small smile touched the urSkek's mouth. "But you're welcome, all the same."
In spite of his recent fright, Jen returned the smile. "It was you, wasnt it? You're the one Aughra's been speaking to."
"That I am. It took some practice to send my voice to the other side, but then, there's no shortage of time here. When you don't have to eat or sleep, why not spend your time singing?"
It wasn't something Jen had ever formed an opinion about, so he just shrugged. "I suppose. My name is Jen, by the way. What do I call you?"
The urSkek's corona glowed with joy. "After far too long, you can call me GraGoh."
Jen had to think for a moment to place the name. In the Castle's library, he recalled, there had been a few mentions of a skekGra. Very few, though. As best Jen could tell, that Skeksis had committed some unspeakable crime, so terrible that the others had tried to erase his name from their history, if not their own memories.
Part of him wondered if he should still be afraid. But GraGoh had come to his rescue, and had made the effort to reach out to Aughra for help. And it wasn't as if the other Skeksis had been known for their healthy sense of morality.
"Then I'm glad to meet you." He approached the urSkek, looking up at him. "Please, tell me, are there others here like you? Have any of the other dead ones become one again?" Aughra said SoSu was still divided, but did she know for certain?
GraGoh's smile faded. "I wish I could tell you yes."
"... Oh." Jen's ears flattened, and he felt suddenly ashamed for having asked. There was still much he did not understand about what had happened to the Twice-Nine, and he hoped he hadn't offended GraGoh somehow.
But he still had to find answers, if he hoped to save his world. "If I may ask, why did it happen for you and not the others?" What made you different?
"Oh, that part is simple," the urSkek declared. "I wanted it. When my shards found themselves here, with no crude flesh to keep their souls divided anymore, all it took was a willing embrace, and two became one again." His corona grew warm, then flickered as he added, "Of course, I was still dead afterwards. It would've been nice to find a way to unity without that part."
"I'm sorry."
Sorry for what, he didn't know. Jen saw no way he personally could have changed GraGoh's fate. But it was all he could think of to say. He remembered the moment of the Great Conjunction: how the Skeksis, full of silent screams and existential terror, had needed to be dragged (literally) into becoming one with their counterparts. For a Skeksis (and a Mystic too?) to have truly wanted that moment, and to have been denied it, seemed deeply unfair.
GraGoh shook his head, his ghostly thalli making swirls in the fog. "Not your fault. You weren't even born then, and the Gelfling already did far more than their share to save Thra." His corona brightened once more. "And that's why you're here, isn't it? You're trying to save Thra again."
"Yes! The other urSkeks, they said there's some dark force circling through the heavens, destroying worlds with Crystals. They called it the Devouring."
"SoSu called it the Star-Shadow when I told him about it. I have to admit, I like 'the Devouring' better."
"When you told him about it?" Jen perked up in intense interest. "Then you were the one who discovered it?"
"The first hint of it, yes. This was thousands of trine ago." As he spoke, the urSkek began to move his long, spindly hands through the fog. When he had gathered a small cloud of it (apparently, a trace of the urSkeks' otherworldly powers still remained in death), he concentrated, and moving images began to form inside the cloud.
They were GraGoh's own memories, Jen quickly realized, shaped into a story. Watching it wasn't like the times when he dreamfasted with Kira; the images were abstract, like beautiful drawings given life, rather than what he would have seen through GraGoh's own eyes. If anything, it reminded Jen of the scrying-bowl urSu had used sometimes.
He saw the urSkeks on their own world, a place of shining, pristine towers very like the restored Crystal Castle. He saw one urSkek - GraGoh in his prime - gather with a handful of others in front of a Crystal much larger than Thra's, their coronas all bright with excitement.
"In those days, I was GraGoh the Surveyor, tasked with scouting and charting new planets for possible colony sites."
The dead urSkek moved his fingers into a new pattern, and the scene in the cloud changed. As Jen watched, the long-ago urSkeks entered the Crystal willingly. Light danced as if refracted through countless prisms, white to rainbow to white in an unending pattern. This, Jen realized, was the closest his Gelfling mind could come to comprehending what it was like to travel between Crystals the way urSkeks did.
But instead of emerging on another living world, the paths of light cast them out into the void of space. They drifted, confused, shining specks in a sea of infinite darkness.
"When my team and I came to an empty place in space where we'd calculated there should be a Crystal-bearing system, I hoped we'd simply made an error. When it happened twice, then thrice, I knew something was deeply wrong."
GraGoh's light dimmed. In the cloud-image, Jen saw the Surveyor standing before a massive pyramid-shaped platform of glittering stone. Nine other urSkeks floated above it: one at the summit, and the other eight at lower points along the sides. As the past-GraGoh spoke to them (Jen could not hear words, but from the colors and ripples of his corona, he seemed quite passionate), the highest eight turned away, but the urSkek at the lowest point glowed brighter, clearly taking an interest in the Surveyor's tale.
"I went to our Council of leaders, but only SoSu listened."
Last of all, GraGoh showed the image of his past self following that Councillor, SoSu, among the spires of the urSkek world. Jen watched as the two of them entered a shadowed chamber where other urSkeks had gathered. Before he could learn any more, however, GraGoh spread his hands, and the cloud evaporated back into the fog.
"That was how I came to join him. He believed my story, and he decided we should take action."
"It's SoSu I've come to see now," Jen said. "If he's still divided, I can at least talk to urSu the Master." Curious, he asked, "Has he ever spoken of me?"
GraGoh did not answer that. He looked over his shoulder into the fog, his corona gray. "It'll be easier to understand if you see for yourself, Jen. Come, I'll show you the way."
Jen followed the ghostly urSkek deeper into the fog. They crossed over more of the barren, rocky ground, until the rocks began to grow larger, gathering into an upward-sloping mound. To Jen's eye, the stones looked wet, but he felt no moisture when he touched them.
"Up this way." GraGoh beckoned, drifting higher.
As he climbed (and wished the urSkek might've lent him a hand), Jen tried to figure out why this spot seemed familiar. A memory nudged at him, but surely he couldn't have been here before…?
The fog thinned ahead of them, and he gave a small gasp.
He had only seen them once, but he remembered them well: the Teeth of Skreesh. The monstrous fanged face that had once decorated the sewer outlet where he and Kira first entered the Castle seven trine ago.
"It's the Castle," he started to say. "But how…"
Jen trailed off as he saw they were no longer alone.
Under one of the massive stone claws that framed the gargoyle face, a Skeksis sat crouched on the mounded rocks. She was visibly older than the two he'd seen earlier, her thin, ragged plumage gone the blue-gray of the sea under a winter sky. From what Jen could tell, she had once been large and strong, but her frame had withered under the torn brocade coat she wore. Her rose-red eyes were fixed low, on the trickle of water that flowed from the Teeth of Skreesh.
And across from her, in mirrored position to the Skeksis, crouched an urRu. Equally old and ragged, her indigo hair gone equally thin and gray, and her eyes fixed just as desperately on the same trickle of water.
"Ah, skekSa, urSan," GraGoh addressed them. "Look! After so many trine, we have a visitor. Care to let us past?"
The Skeksis waved one hand dismissively, not bothering to look up. "I can't stop you."
"UrSan…" Jen brightened as he recalled the name. "The other Mystics spoke of you! They called you the Swimmer. They said you knew the waters of Thra better than anyone. And you," he turned to the Skeksis, "you're skekSa the Mariner! I read about you. The first to ever tame a sea-tortle -"
"For all it mattered in the end," skekSa growled. Her voice sounded low and hoarse, too tired to even be angry anymore. "I'm no Mariner here. This," she gestured with a talon, "is the only water that's left. Vassa turned on me, the Gelfling turned on me, the others turned on me, and now I'm nothing."
"And I'm no Swimmer." UrSan's voice was barely more than a whisper. She reached out and tried to dip a fingertip in, but the unnaturally still water did not so much as ripple at her touch. It was an eerie thing to watch. "One cannot swim in an echo of memory."
GraGoh looked as if he wanted to say something to both of them, but he glanced at Jen, and simply dimmed his corona sadly. "We should keep going."
As he stepped past the mouth of Skreesh, Jen looked back at the two ghosts. The Skeksis were monsters, he knew that well. They had ravaged Thra for an Age, killing and draining without remorse. They had destroyed his people, and countless others. Surely if anyone deserved to be trapped in this empty place, they did.
But the sight of skekSa, so old and broken, dooming herself to gaze helplessly at that rill of foul, ghostly water forever … and the innocent urSan trapped with her …
A wave of pity filled Jen's heart, and he swallowed a lump in his throat.
They hadn't gone far into the catacombs when Jen saw the first Gelfling.
There were three of them, two men and a woman, all dressed in dark capes and the same style of gray-brown armor. One of the men bore a few age lines and strands of gray in his hair, but he still looked fit and hale; the other two were about the same age as Jen himself.
For a moment, he simply stared at them. Until he had met Kira and shared her memories, he could not remember ever seeing another Gelfling. Even in the memories of his parents (and he still did not know if those were real, or only dreams), they were barely more than shadows hovering over his smaller self. To see these ones so clearly now was like having his old daydreams in the valley come to life.
Except they hadn't come to life. They were dead, and trapped here just as Aughra had said.
The three Gelfling were just as amazed to see him. "It can't be," the older male gasped. "How did you come to be here?"
"How are you here and still alive?" The younger male reached out a hand, trying to touch Jen's tunic, but his fingers only passed through the living Gelfling. Jen could see now that in this realm, even traveling in spirit, he himself was still brighter and more solid than the shades around him. More real.
"It's a long story," Jen answered. "Please, I need to get into the Castle."
"Rian!"
They all looked up at the cry.
A fourth Gelfling shade came running down the tunnel: a young female, with braided snow-white hair and freckled golden skin. She wore the same uniform armor as the others, but her cloak was gone, leaving her glittering wings free.
"Rian, how did you get here?!" she gasped, surprised and hopeful. "I always believed in you, but I never imagined you'd come this far to…"
She finally got a close look at the living Gelfling in front of her, and her face and wings fell.
"Oh. You're not Rian."
"I'm sorry, Mira," GraGoh spoke, his voice gentle. "I know the resemblance is strong, but Rian returned to Thra a long time ago."
Jen wished he could comfort the disappointed Gelfling girl. "I might not be Rian, but maybe I can still help. My name is Jen. I'm here to speak to urSu, wisest of the Mystics."
"Have you come to free us?"
More Gelfling were appearing from the darkness, drawn by his light and the sound of his voice. A few wore more of those dark cloaks and uniforms, but many others were clad in their clan colors and styles of armor. Even more were peasants in simple but lovingly made homespun - they had not been warriors in life, but farmers, crafters, and other peaceful folk.
"Did Mother Aughra send you?"
"Is there a way out of here?"
"Can you save us?"
Jen looked from face to face. All the Gelflings' eyes were on him, full of desperate hope.
Oh Thra, he hadn't come here for this. His task was to find his old Master, ask him for answers about the Devouring, then return to the world of the living. Aughra had said there were Gelfling souls here, but she hadn't prepared him for what to say to them.
Maybe she thought I'd know what to say on my own.
"...Yes." Jen stood straighter, forcing confidence into his voice. "I don't know how yet, and there's something else I have to do first. But I promise, once that's done, I'll find a way to get all of you out of here." He breathed deep. "I'll find a way to return you to Thra."
Whispers of joy spread through the crowd. But from the edge, a voice called out, "Don't listen to him!"
The speaker was a young Gelfling man with nut-brown skin and black hair. He wore the same armor as Mira and the others, but unlike them, he still wore the crested helmet that went with it, and his pale green eyes were narrowed under it. "Don't you understand? There is no way out of this place. Thra sent us all here for a reason! We failed it in life when we listened to the Skeksis, and now this is our punishment. We deserve to be stuck here forever."
"Maybe you do, Tolyn," one of the other uniformed Gelfling spat. "But I fought the Skeksis to the end. If this fellow can lead us out, I'll be the first to follow him."
"He bears the name of Jarra-Jen," said the first uniformed female. "It's a sign, it has to be!"
GraGoh watched the gathered Gelfling as they talked, his face impassive and his corona still. Finally, however, he addressed them, "Whatever his name is, he still has far to go. Be assured, I'll guide him."
"So will I," Mira declared. She took up position on Jen's other side, like the guard she had been in life. "I'd be honored to escort you."
GraGoh's corona flickered with uncertainty, but he did not object.
The crowd of Gelfling ghosts parted before them, leaving a clear path further into the Castle. Jen smiled at his two companions as they continued on, but inside, he felt cold and uneasy.
I hope I can prove worthy of their honor.
They passed more and more Gelfling as they made their way through the Castle's depths. The Skeksis had not taken essence from every Gelfling they murdered, or even most of them, especially after the prophecy came to light and they had ruled it was too dangerous to spare any even for a brief time. But they had still drained enough lives to fill these spectral halls with hundreds of lost souls.
Faces gazed at Jen and his two companions from all seven of the lost clans. Some were no more than children, while others were aged but still hearty, but most looked to be in their prime; the Skeksis had not wasted time draining those with most of their life already spent.
Hundreds of lives, all cut short. And now, as a final cruelty, denied their chance to return to Thra.
"I wish you hadn't said that back there," GraGoh whispered as they moved upward through a dark, narrow tunnel. "You have a kind heart, Jen, but promises that can't be kept are no better than lies."
"But I will keep it," he insisted. "There has to be a way to free the Gelfling. You were able to reach the other side with your voice, so there must be some way through." A little desperate, he added, "Surely Thra doesn't want them to be here forever?"
"What Thra wants can be difficult to understand. Hundreds of trine ago, it gave my shards a vision to embrace unity, and a warning of the consequences if they did not. They thought the answer was in bringing our divided kin together." The urSkek's voice grew distant and regretful. "They were wrong. The answer was in the Gelfling, and bringing them unity. And even when that came true, most of them still died."
Jen thought of Hup's stories of the resistance; all the names and deeds the Podling had told. "But they didn't die for nothing. They found the lost shard. Because of them, Kira and I were able to heal the Crystal. If part of Thra is still out of balance, it's my responsibility to make it right." He turned to Mira. "Back there, you called me Rian. Did … did you mean the same Rian who helped lead the resistance?"
Mira gave a bittersweet smile. "I never got to witness the time of resistance. I found myself here before it began. When the others started arriving, they told me it was my death that sparked the flame. They said Rian told all the clans what the Skeksis did to me, and that they had listened, and followed him to war."
Jen nodded. "I met an old Podling recently, named Hup. He told me the same story." Curious (and a little awkward), he asked, "Then, Rian was your lover?"
"Yes." Mira's smile grew. "When we were both guards in the Castle. I was a Vapran and he was a Stonewood, so I doubt our families or maudras would've approved if we'd thought about marriage, but I like to think that wouldn't have stopped us." She watched Jen closely, looking him over in the darkness. "It's not just the looks, you know. You feel like him. I can't explain it any better than that -"
The three travelers stopped. From the tunnel up ahead of them, a deep, rough chuckle rumbled down. It sounded more like an animal's growl than the laughter of a sentient creature.
"You mean you can't tell?"
Jen's eyes widened. In front of them, silhouetted against the tunnel's exit, was the most terrifying-looking Skeksis he'd seen yet. Bones of strange, fearsome creatures were fixed to his tunic and trousers in a kind of barbaric armor, and a ragged fur cloak covered him like the folded wings of a bird of prey. His face was bare, his eyes focused directly on Jen.
The dead cannot harm the living, Jen tried to remind himself, the dead cannot harm the living…
Mira, however, didn't seem frightened at all. She looked at the bone-clad Skeksis with mild curiosity, as if he were no more than a Gelfling child who'd said something odd. "What are you talking about, skekMal?"
More memories from the library came back to Jen. SkekMal, the one they called the Hunter. This is the one Aughra sacrificed herself to save? Then how did he still come to be here?
SkekMal frowned, his sharp teeth showing. "Seems pretty clear to me. This one," he pointed a talon at Jen, "is Rian's whelp. I can smell it on him." He narrowed his eyes at GraGoh. "You must've sensed it too. You knew Rian in life."
GraGoh hesitated, glancing at Jen and Mira. Although his expression barely changed, the urSkek shade radiated unease. "...Yes, I could tell."
Jen wanted to shout, And you weren't going to tell me?
How many more ancient beings were going to insist on keeping secrets from him?! Perhaps there was some knowledge a Gelfling truly couldn't understand, but he could've handled this!
He had always wondered who his Gelfling family had been, ever since he was old enough to understand he was different from the urRu. He hadn't loved urSu and the others any less, but it was still a missing line of the song of who he was. As he grew up and came to understand just how utterly the Gelfling had been destroyed, he'd accepted that he'd probably never find out, but the wondering had never completely stopped.
Now, to be told he was the son of Rian, hero of the Resistance…
Another time, it would have brought him joy and pride. But here, in this gloomy place on the other side of death, it felt like another burden laid on top of the others he'd already shouldered.
And that's probably why GraGoh didn't tell me, part of him reflected. But his anger only faded a little.
And poor Mira! She was staring at him with new eyes, her face full of hurt and confusion. For her to find out her beloved had moved on, had found a new love and fathered a child with them … that must ache, no matter how many trine had passed.
"Maybe I should go on alone," Jen said to the two of them. "Mira, I'll understand if you don't want to follow anymore."
But the Gelfling shade shook her head. "No. I said I'd escort you, and I will."
"And I promised I'd guide you," GraGoh said. "There'll be no more secrets, I promise that too."
"... All right." Jen stared ahead of him, where skekMal still stood in the tunnel exit, watching them. "I came here with a quest to complete. I'm going to save Thra, and you aren't going to stop me."
SkekMal remained motionless and silent. Jen had expected him to make some threat, or perhaps draw one of the many knives he still wore, but instead he seemed…
Defeated, was the word that came to mind.
Just like skekSa, Jen realized. He's no Hunter anymore. He can't harm me, or anyone in this place, and he knows it.
He stepped through the mouth of the tunnel, and passed directly through skekMal's form as easily as he might walk through a shadow.
At last, after a long and silent passage, they came to a place Jen knew well.
This spectral echo of the Crystal Chamber still looked much as it had during the reign of the Skeksis. The portals in the ceiling were still closed, the walls still covered in panels of dull stone and arcane symbols marking the floor. But the shaft that should have led to the fire at Thra's heart was dark and cold, and above it, where the Crystal should have been…
The only way Jen could describe it was a hollow place in the air. It warped the faint light and mist around it by its absence, and it hurt his eyes to look at it. Seeing it was somehow worse than having the Crystal simply not be there.
Gathered around it, backs to the darkened shaft, heads down and arms folded in meditation, were the urRu.
Jen recognized urSu at once, and urTih beside him. Two others, with colorful manes and young, unlined faces and bodies (he could tell this because the two weren't wearing a scrap of clothing) must be the other halves of skekHak and skekYi, who had died on the first day of division. The remaining three he did not know; the Mystics had told him the names of their lost brethren, but he did not know which name might belong to which ghost.
And at the moment, he didn't care. His attention was on urSu.
"Master!" He ran toward him across the chamber, leaving GraGoh and Mira behind.
UrSu's eyes opened. Slowly, his head rose on his long neck. "...Jen?"
"Master, I'm here! Oh Master, I never thought I'd get to see you again."
He reached out with both arms, trying to embrace urSu, but his touch only passed through him.
The Mystic was not smiling as he looked at the Gelfling. To Jen's eyes, he looked even more old and weary than when he had been on his deathbed, if such a thing was possible. "Jen, you shouldn't be here. I never would have wanted you to see this place."
"But Master, it's all right! I'm still alive. I came here by my own choice, so I could see you."
There were so many things he wanted to tell him about. The healing of the Crystal, his life and travels with Kira, the baby they were expecting - Jen's heart nearly burst with them all. It hurt to hold them in, but Jen called on the patience he had learned from urSu himself, knowing that his task must come first.
"Master, the others have come back to Thra. They say the …" what had GraGoh said SoSu named it? "the Star-Shadow is coming. They say you alone have the knowledge of how to stop it."
UrSu looked away sadly. "They are mistaken. All I have are dreams, from a life that is no longer mine."
Jen's ears flattened. "Master, this isn't the time for riddles. Thra is in danger, and so is your old world."
"We have no world anymore," urSu whispered, still not meeting his eyes. "Save for this one. My place is here, with my brothers."
"You're not making sense. Master, the others told me it was your idea to first take action against the Star-Shadow! Don't you remember?"
"He doesn't." GraGoh's voice was soft and sad as he drifted to Jen's side. "That's what being divided does to us. We hold some memories from the time when we were one, but they're faint and incomplete. Like dreams from someone else's life."
"But you remember them!" Jen insisted. "You told me all about your life before!"
"Because I did become one again," GraGoh gestured to himself. "All the memories came back, dark and bright alike. What was fractured became whole."
"Then…" Jen looked at urSu, who had bowed his head in meditation again. "If his halves -"
If GraGoh could still draw breath, he would have sighed. "Jen, I spent trine upon trine trying to make them see that. Even when his shards came here and saw that I was whole again, and happier for it, it wasn't enough to convince them. Unity after death doesn't require the power of a Great Conjunction, but that also means it cannot be forced."
Jen remembered the urSkek's earlier words: I wanted it.
"Master, I don't understand. Why don't you want to be whole again?" Jen looked up, addressing the other urRu. "Or any of you! Why are you keeping yourselves like this?"
"Because this is the burden we must bear," urSu replied gravely. "For setting our dark halves free, and leaving them to ravage Thra. If we cannot truly destroy them, we may at least keep them imprisoned in this realm, where they can harm no one."
"It is a penance we deserve," agreed a scrawny urRu dressed in green, his mane cropped short under a floppy linen cap.
"Only by this can we bring peace," a large, heavyset urRu with wilted flowers in her mane intoned.
"We must always remember the harm we have done," said a third, particularly ragged urRu who seemed to have glow-moss growing on his coat.
The two young-looking ones said nothing, but bobbed their heads in assent.
Last of all, urTih spoke up. His tone was kind, but as tired and sad as the others. "It doesn't matter what we want, Jen. Our other halves do not want to be rejoined."
The once-Alchemist turned his head slightly, looking at Jen with his good eye. The Gelfling stared at the glass one, and the wooden arm and leg that were still part of urTih's shade. As a child, Jen had once asked him who hurt him so badly, and he still remembered the Mystic's sorrowful answer: "Someone who did not love himself."
Before he could ask any further, another Skeksis entered the Chamber. He was skinny even by the standards of their kind, with a narrow head and beak covered in thin, black-brown feathers that stood out against his tattered, colorful silks and ruffled white collar.
"So it is true!" he laughed. "A live Gelfling has graced us with a visit! Finally, something interesting happens in this place."
GraGoh's corona flickered dark with displeasure. "What do you want, skekLi?"
The shade of skekLi clucked his tongue. "No need to be rude. I came to invite our new guest to the Emperor's court." He smirked. "He wants to see him."
GraGoh floated forward, placing himself between Jen and the Skeksis. "No. SkekSo's done enough to Gelfling already."
But Jen walked past him. "GraGoh, it's all right. I'll go with him. The Emperor's dead, just like the others. He can't harm me."
"Not by his hand, perhaps," urSu whispered, his head still bowed. "But my dark half has not lost his voice. Words can sometimes do more harm than any weapon."
Jen faced his old Master, trying to keep his voice steady. "I know that. You taught me that. But if you won't listen to me now, I'll have to try someone else."
He saw urSu bend his head further in sorrow, and Jen immediately wished he could take his words back.
But there wasn't time to apologize now. If he had any chance of getting answers from skekSo instead, he had to try.
With GraGoh and Mira still beside him, Jen followed skekLi out of the Chamber and down a grand hall. Even before they arrived, Jen knew where they were headed. He had never personally seen the Skeksis' imperial throne room while it was in use (after the healing of the Crystal, the Podlings had turned it into a gathering hall for meals and celebrations), but he'd glimpsed it in Kira's memories. Some months after the Conjunction, when she could look back on the ordeal without nightmares, she had dreamfasted to him what happened to her after the Chamberlain took her captive.
This echo of the throne room looked as Kira had shown him, but colorless and gloomy, swirling with more of that gray-violet fog. As he started to step through the entrance arch, Mira hesitated - for the first time since Jen had met her, she looked afraid.
"Thank you for escorting me," he whispered, wishing again that he could comfort her. "I can go the rest of the way on my own."
She nodded, relieved, and stepped back into the shadows.
With GraGoh still beside him, Jen approached the massive, claw-like throne. SkekLi stood nearby, joining the three other Skeksis in attendance. Two were unknown to Jen - the bulky, armor-clad one and the short one sporting what looked like some nasty pustules - but he recognized the one closest to the throne. He'd seen him in Kira's memories too; there was no forgetting that glowing, swiveling mechanical eye.
And there, seated on the throne, was the one Jen had come to see.
SkekSo, the dark half of his Master. The one who had unleashed the Darkening, and led the genocide of the Gelfling.
"Ah, here you are." SkekSo looked down at Jen, his fang-filled mouth curved in amusement. "The last Gelfling, who eluded us long enough to fulfill the prophecy. And now, let me guess. You're here on some new quest to save the world?"
"I'm here because of the Star-Shadow." Jen forced himself to stay calm and show no fear. It was getting easier. "I've come seeking your help, and urSu's, to stop it. If we don't, it'll devour the urSkeks' world soon."
SkekSo laughed darkly. "Good. Let it."
"How can you say that?" GraGoh demanded, his corona brightening in his anger. "You, the only one of the Council who wanted to take action? Your most loyal followers have come back to Thra just to seek your wisdom!"
"They have no loyalty to me," skekSo growled. "No more than you do, Heretic. They turned from me before I was even dead. No sooner were my ashes cold than they forgot me for a new emperor."
He shot a pointed look at the Skeksis with the mechanical eye, who immediately cringed and cast his eyes down. "Forgive me, Sire," he pleaded, his voice raspy and weak. "Had it been within my power, you would have lived forever!"
SkekSo gave a brief nod of approval at his answer, and turned his cold eyes back on Jen. "Why should I save the ones who turned their backs on the empire I worked so hard to build? And why ever would I want to save the world that cast us out to begin with?"
He gestured with the scepter he still carried in death, swinging it in a wide arc as he indicated the ghostly throne room around them. "Here in this place, age and death cannot touch us. Here, I have my most devoted followers by my side," he gestured to the four Skeksis, who smiled at his praise, "and I know they will always remain so. Here, at last, I am Emperor eternal!"
The moment he had laid eyes on skekSo, Jen had known there was something in his appearance different from the other Skeksis. Only now, as he gestured and roared, did the Gelfling realize what it was.
The other four all looked old and worn, just as skekMal and skekSa had - the way they must have looked at the time they died. But although skekSo had died at the same time as urSu, who had been so ancient and so sick, he still looked young now. His imperial robes were rich, his sickle-shaped headdress gleamed like a crescent moon, and his plumage was lush and glossy, shaded with all the colors of nightfall.
How can that be? Jen thought. What magic is he drawing on?
"Your quest has failed, Gelfling," skekSo sneered. "Go back to the world of the living, and give the Star-Shadow my regards."
To Be Continued...