Chapter 8
Back in the living world, the night stretched on.
It was late enough for the first Sister to have set, but Kira still hadn't moved. She sat cross-legged at the edge of the fiery shaft with Fizzgig by her side, and her eyes were fixed on Jen's still and silent form lying beneath the Crystal. The blue glow that had come over him when he drank Aughra's brew had faded, but his body had not moved. His spirit was still separated, in that unknown realm where Kira could not follow.
Her back and knees were aching, but she paid them no mind. "Are you sure he's still all right?" she asked UngIm again.
"Yes." The Physician kept his tone patient as he assured her for what felt like the hundredth time. He held out a spread hand towards Jen as he went on, "All the cycles of his body are still in balance." Then, after considering for a moment, he turned to AyukAmaj beside him. "He does need some more hydration, though."
"My pleasure." With his corona glowing softly, the Culinarian levitated a glass jug in his right hand. The broth inside was almost as clear as water, but rich in nutrients the urSkek had formulated; as he made circles in the air with his left hand, a small amount floated out. A touch of telekinesis opened Jen's mouth, and the broth flowed through the air in a delicate stream, past his lips and down his throat.
"You don't need to worry, Kira," AyukAmaj said. It was a relief to all the urSkeks to finally have learned her name. "He won't suffer any harm from hunger or thirst while I watch over him."
Kira did not answer, or turn her eyes from Jen. She knew the urSkek was trying to be comforting, but watching him manipulate her beloved's seemingly lifeless body was disturbing - like watching his corpse be prepared for burial.
"You would benefit from some rest yourself," UngIm added, holding his spread hand out to the Gelfling woman as he read her vital signs too.
Kira shook her head. "No, I'm fine."
"He's right," Aughra spoke up from where she was still sitting nearby. "You should get some rest. You won't be doing Jen any favors by exhausting yourself." She gave Kira a pointed look. "Or the baby."
Kira's shoulders tensed, and Fizzgig looked up at her with a worried whine as she raised her voice. "No. I promised Jen I'd watch over him. I'm not leaving."
Hup approached her with a gentle smile. {"Don't worry. I'll watch over him tonight. On my honor as a paladin,"} he raised his spoon-arm, {"he'll be safe."}
She hesitated. For all she spoke Gelfling so much these days, Podling was still the language of her childhood, and the sound of it brought her comfort where words alone could not. {"Will you come get me if he wakes up?"}
He gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. {"I promise."}
{"... All right."} She got to her feet. "Fine. Since you all seem to know so well what's good for me, I'll go to bed! Fizzgig, teymah!"
Part of her regretted the angry words as soon as she said them, and part of her was embarrassed to turn on her heel and stamp away like a childling after a tantrum. But neither part stopped her from doing it.
The anger and worry did not ebb away as she made her way up to her and Jen's bedchamber. She changed from her summer dress to a loose sleeping gown, and invited Fizzgig up onto the bed with her; Jen preferred not to share their bed with him, but he wasn't there to object, and she needed the furry creature's comfort. She tried to settle under the covers, but the churning feelings in her heart would not let her rest.
She feared for Jen, and missed the warmth of him in the bed beside her. She feared the dark force that the urSkeks had described - it was hard for her to imagine such a thing, having grown up with folk who seldom thought beyond their own planet and its seasons, but it was all the more frightening for its strangeness. And, perhaps more than anything, she feared the urSkeks themselves.
She hadn't witnessed the reunion of the Skeksis and Mystics (seeing as she'd been dead at the time), but Jen had dreamfasted the moment to her in the days afterward. She remembered the awe she had felt when she opened her eyes and drew breath again, and had seen the shining, ethereal beings depart Thra on the light of the Great Conjunction.
When she'd learned that those wondrous beings were the same Skeksis who'd terrorized her and her family for as long as she could remember, that awe had faded quickly.
The fact that they were also (somehow) the kindly Mystics she'd seen in Jen's memories didn't change that. Kira had never met the Mystics; she had no happy memories of them of her own to counter the evil of the Skeksis. The urSkeks had seemed sincere enough in their tale earlier, but whatever Jen and Aughra might say, Kira still did not trust them.
She tossed and turned a while longer (it didn't help that it was getting too uncomfortable to sleep on her stomach), before she finally accepted that sleep wasn't coming. Pulling on a light cloak over her gown, she left the bedchamber, and made her way out into the night. After a moment (and with a sleepy grumble), Fizzgig followed at her heels.
The covered walkway that encircled the tower was still warm from the heat of the day. Kira followed it until she came to an open balcony where the breezes flowed freer. Adjusting her cloak, she spread her wings to enjoy the feel of the air on them, and climbed up to sit on the edge of the parapet.
From the moment her wings had first started to grow, Ydra had warned her that it was dangerous to fly too much, lest she attract the attention of Crystal Bats. Even so, she'd tried to practice when she could - jumping from high banks, or between the branches of trees, trying to catch the wind the way instinct urged her. But she'd never been able to achieve more than a barely-controlled glide. Even now, after seven trine of being able to fly without fear, she could not keep herself aloft under her own power for long.
Why, she wondered. Was it part of the mixed legacy she'd now learned she came from, or just some malformity she'd been born with?
She didn't know, and might never know. Another thing the Skeksis had taken from her.
Still, gliding could be fun on its own, and spending the energy might bring her some peace now. She gave Fizzgig a reassuring pat, and stretched her wings to their full span.
Before she could drop from the balcony, however, Fizzgig gave a nervous growl, and started to bark. Kira looked, and saw a too-familiar golden light approaching down the walkway.
She turned to the urSkek. "What's wrong? Is Jen all right?"
"Jen is fine." The urSkek dimmed his corona a little as he drifted closer. "He still walks in the other realm, but no harm has come to him. It is you I wish to speak to, Kira."
She frowned. "Which one are you?" They might have different voices, but except for NaNol, with his missing eye and fingers, all the urSkeks still looked the same to her.
"My name is SilSol. They call me the Cantor." Then, as if thinking she needed another way to remember him, he raised his right hand. On the back, marring the ivory skin, was a small gray-brown scar: the same place where Jen had cut skekSil's hand with the Crystal shard, and unknowingly spilled urSol's blood at the same time.
Kira's frown deepened. So, you're him.
"What do you want?"
He moved closer, until he was beside her. Kira resisted the urge to glide from the balcony just to get away from him.
"... No apology can undo the harm my kind have done," he said, after a long and weighted pause. "But I want to offer one anyway. Kira, I'm sorry. I'm so terribly sorry. Not just for what my dark shard did. For everything."
Kira lowered her wings, her shoulders tensing as she looked up at him. "And what? You want me to say I forgive you?"
SilSol did not answer, but the way his corona flickered suggested that was exactly what he'd been hoping.
"Well, I don't," she snapped. "You've done nothing to deserve forgiveness. You killed people, you ruined our world, and as soon as you were one again, you ran away and left Jen and me to clean up your mess."
His corona dimmed abruptly. "That was never our intention. We feared bringing more harm to Thra if we stayed! We believed you were the rightful guardians of your world's Crystal."
She thought of the ragged, wheedling Skeksis who had confronted her and Jen, desperately insisting he only wanted peace. How, as soon as it was clear they wouldn't fall for his lies, he had tried to murder Jen and had given Kira to the others to be killed. "Did you truly believe that? Or were you just too afraid to face what you'd done?"
"Would you have wanted us to stay?" His tone was still calm, but there was an edge to it.
Kira's eyes narrowed in anger. "You could have at least done something. All you did was go home and try to forget everything." She didn't know this for sure - it was a guess based on their earlier story - but from the way SilSol's corona turned gray, she knew her words had struck a nerve. "And you're only here now because your own world's in danger. You don't care about Thra, or any of us."
"That is not true!" The glow in his eyes brightened like a flaring ember. "You are not the only one who worries for Jen now, Kira. I may have been skekSil the Chamberlain, but I was also urSol the Chanter. I raised Jen with urSu and the others. I loved him like my own child, and I still carry that love now. I want to save Thra not merely because it's right, but because it means saving him!"
Kira hesitated. She wanted to believe he was still lying, but the passion in his voice felt more genuine than anything she'd heard from his Skeksis half.
But she wasn't ready to let go of her anger. "Fine. But what happens after that? You said you broke the laws of your world by coming here. They already banished you once. What if they don't let you come back this time?"
"... I have considered that," he admitted. "If our Council exiles us again, we will not remain on Thra if you do not want us. We'll find some uninhabited world to serve out our exile, where our presence will harm no one."
Kira, who knew that so-called uninhabited places usually still teemed with living things, was not convinced.
She looked down at the Bah-Lem Valley, spread out below them in the night. The smell of the river wafted up, rich and full of life, mingling with the scents of warm earth and flowering summer crops. "I don't understand why you wanted to go back so badly anyway."
SilSol tilted his head as if she had asked something nonsensical. "Because it is our home. Wouldn't you want to return to Thra, if someone forced you to leave?"
"Of course I would!" She kept her eyes on the valley as she spoke. "But no one on Thra ever wanted me to destroy part of my soul."
His eyes flashed. "How do you know about that?"
"Aughra told us. She said your people made you leave because you wouldn't follow the same ways as the rest of them, and you thought the only way they'd let you come back was if you burned away the dark parts of yourselves." Kira shook her head. "A world that would make someone do that to themselves doesn't sound like any world I'd want to be part of."
SilSol was silent for a long moment. Kira's words had brought back a memory from over a thousand trine ago, when another of Thra's people had said something very similar.
"... We were wrong to do that. We all know it now. But our darker selves are dangerous. To master them is supposed to be the duty of all urSkeks, but some evils are better destroyed than allowed to survive. Surely you, Kira, can agree with that?"
She shook her head again. "The Podlings believe that even the darkest parts of us can become our strengths, if they're tempered by a good heart. Biting tockweed has oily thorns that give you a rash if you touch them, but those thorns keep its flowers safe until the zamba-flies come to pollinate them." She looked down at Fizzgig, who was sitting backed up against the parapet and watching SilSol warily. "Or Fizzgig! He doesn't trust anything strange to him, but his fear's warned me of danger and saved us both many times." Turning around where she sat, she reached down and lifted the graying furball into her lap.
A tiny smile crept across SilSol's mouth as he watched them. "You know, I have a companion of my own, back on our world. A species we call bohrtog."
In spite of herself, Kira was curious to learn about an animal from another planet. "Really? What do they look like?"
"Imagine a vast water-serpent, with the face of a bird and six finned wings. They fly through the air by their own magic, and they live for thousands of trine." His corona glowed softly, with clear fondness. "Mine is the deep blue of the sky at dawn. When I was exiled, he was no longer than the span of my arms. Imagine my surprise when I returned to find he had grown to be one of the largest of his kind."
Kira tilted her head. "What's his name?"
SilSol's smile grew. "That is my secret to keep. Bohrtogs share their true name only with the one they bond to, and to hold onto it is part of that bond."
Kira stroked her pet's fur. "I named Fizzgig after I learned the Gelfling word for his kind. If I'd been a little older, I might have tried something more creative."
"I think it serves him well." SilSol was silent for a moment, as if weighing something in his mind … and then, cautiously, he held out a hand to the furry creature.
Fizzgig gave a loud warning growl, and at first, Kira thought he was going to bite the urSkek. But he quieted as SilSol kept his hand still, and simply stared at him, yellow eyes wide. Finally, he gave the pale fingers a cautious sniff.
He found the smell odd, judging from the way his nose wrinkled, and Kira didn't blame him - up close like this, she could smell the urSkek, and his scent was sharp and full of energy, like the air after a thunderstorm.
But other than that, Fizzgig did not seem bothered. He cocked his round body in curiosity ... and then, standing up on his paws, he briefly touched SilSol's hand with his nose.
SilSol drew back his hand in surprise. The feeling of that warm little nose had been strange, but nice. In fact, he was tempted to pet the creature, but knew that would still be too much after all that had happened.
"Every world has its imperfections," he said. "But there are still parts of mine that I love. My bohrtog, my fellow musicians, the city where I first learned to sing … if what we have done in coming here means I will never see them again, it will hurt, but it will be worth it to know they are safe. Just as it will for Jen, and all of Thra."
As Fizzgig settled back into her lap, Kira kept her eyes on SilSol. She still wasn't ready to forgive him or his kind for all they had done, and she would absolutely never forget it.
But if he truly was willing to risk so much to save them, then maybe she could risk just a little trust.
Down in the Crystal Chamber, Aughra shook her head. It had been a while since Kira left, but her departure still weighed on all their minds. "Poor girl. So frightened and full of anger. Right to be frightened, but that doesn't make it any easier."
"I don't blame her." UngIm looked down at the still-unconscious Jen. "It isn't right for him to have to do this alone. He may have the best chance of any of us at reaching SoSu, but there ought to be something the rest of us can do."
"Indeed!" Aughra turned her eye on ShodYod, who was stationed on the far side of the shaft. "You said you knew where the Devouring was now. Why didn't you go investigate yourself? Or any of you!" she barked at the other urSkeks. "Could've tried to go find your own answers, instead of trusting the dead to have them all!"
ShodYod hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "When there isn't a path between Crystals, it takes time to travel through space. Even the fastest particles of light can take centuries to cross the void. I feared wasting time on such a journey when I did not know what I might find."
"Hmph! And feared for your own neck too, no doubt." The words were unkind, but Aughra didn't bother holding them in. "Well, too late to change what's past."
She looked up through the open triangular portals, where the stars spread out above them. "Curse it! If I still had my orrery, I'd go take a look at the thing myself. Never had to waste time crossing the void in body when I could project my mind where I wanted. But no," she snarled, pointing her walking stick at UngIm, "your crab-brained soldiers had to destroy it! All burned up, all ruined, and all for nothing! Didn't even get the Gelfling you were looking for!"
UngIm dimmed his corona. "I amsorry for what I took from you, Mother Aughra."
It wasn't only the loss of the orrery she grieved for, he knew. That place on the high hill had been Aughra's home long before the urSkeks arrived. It was where she had lived with Raunip when he was young, and kept the memories of him. UngIm hadn't been Aughra's closest friend among the urSkeks (that honor had belonged to TekTih and MalVa), but they'd still shared a bond after he healed her from the burns she received in the first Great Conjunction, and he could imagine how much his final betrayal must have hurt her.
Hup still sat at the end of the crystal bridge where Jen rested, guarding him. Lenev, who had watched the urSkeks from a wary distance throughout the day, had finally worked up the courage to come closer, and she sat beside the old Podling now, ready to support him through his vigil.
When she'd decided to join Hup and the two Gelfling on their journey, Lenev had expected to see strange new places and creatures, but never something like this. She'd grown up hearing stories of the Skeksis from Hup and her Gruenak elders, and she'd understood that these were the same terrible beings now returned. But her fear of them hadn't been enough to overcome her love for the Podling who had been like a father to her, or the curiosity that drove her to seek out the Crystal in the first place.
She listened now as Aughra and the urSkeks conversed. Thanks to whatever magic connected the ancient sage to Thra, she could understand every word - but one was new to her.
She spoke up now, and asked Aughra in the tongue of the Gruenaks.
"Hm?" Aughra turned to Lenev, surprised. "What is an orrery? No, guess you wouldn't have seen one before. It's a great moving model of the heavens. Shows all the paths of the suns, moons, and stars. Lets you know where to find anything in the universe."
Lenev cocked her head, and asked again.
"A machine? Well, yes. Still takes some work on my part to send my awareness through it, but the orrery itself was a machine."
Lenev asked one more question, and Aughra's good eye widened.
"... Make another one?"
The Gruenak nodded eagerly. Gesturing as she spoke, she suggested that the new orrery need not depict all the celestial bodies, only the ones Aughra would need to guide her to the place in space where the Devouring could be found.
"... Yes!" Aughra stamped her walking stick on the floor. "Wish Aughra had thought of that herself! Trust a Gruenak to be mechanically minded." She looked up at ShodYod. "You helped build it last time. What she says, would it work if we made such a thing?"
The Arithmetician hesitated again, his corona gray. "It … should. But I only helped with the calculations and scaling. TekTih designed most of it."
"And I remember that his design would have been useless without your calculations," OkAc chimed in, drifting closer. "EktUtt was right, you need to have more confidence in yourself! Even when we were divided, with so much of our knowledge forgotten, urYod knew the stars better than anyone."
"Maybe. But I do not know all the materials that were used, or how TekTih balanced the mechanisms against the angles of eternity."
The Chronicler's corona brightened. "Perhaps I can help with that. When you and TekTih were building the orrery, I kept a record of it, as I did for all our works in those days. It may still be in the archives." He looked at Aughra. "Is the library still intact?"
Aughra frowned. "Yes. No knowledge is gone from there that you did not destroy yourself."
OkAc's corona rippled in offense. "I admit, my dark shard was … not always objective in what he chose to preserve. But I remember every one of the urSkek records I removed from the collection, and that wasn't one of them. The orrery was no secret, so there was no need to fear the knowledge getting out."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Aughra gestured with her walking stick. "Quickly! Off to the library, both of you!" As she turned to go with them, she paused, and laid a hand on Lenev's shoulder. "You come too. Still going to need someone who understands machines."
The Gruenak perked up, undeniably excited to join the new project, but she hesitated as she looked at Hup.
With a smile, the Podling shook his head. {"I'll be fine. You go with them."}
He added one thing more in Gruenak language. Lenev nodded fiercely, and threw her long arms around him in a tight hug.
Watching them, Aughra smiled. The same magic that let all the creatures of Thra understand her also let her understand them, and she knew exactly what Hup had told Lenev.
Save our world.
To Be Continued…