When they emerged at last, the air tasted strange in Jen's throat.
The Gelfling tried to raise a hand to rub his eyes, but MbasMbet's telekinetic clutch still pinned his arms at his sides. All he could do was blink furiously as the afterimages of light cleared from his vision.
They were on a flat, smooth hilltop that gleamed like glass. Vast spires and arches of rock and crystal covered the slopes of the hill, forming a natural maze. The open sky above them had a golden tint that did not exist on Thra, and when he caught a glimpse of the smallest sun, it was a dark bronze color.
Jen found that he could still move his head, and he turned to glimpse the Crystal they had just emerged from. Just as GraGoh had shown him, it was more than twice the size of Thra's Crystal, and it towered over each of the urSkeks as they emerged from it. Its shape was slightly different too; more layered, with different facets and geometry.
Two urSkeks had been hovering above it, channeling the largest sun's rays onto it with a focusing disk held between them. As the last of the Eight emerged with his Enforcer escort, they laid the disk down, and the Crystal's golden glow returned to its natural white.
MbasMbet and her second in command levitated the immobilized Jen and Kira with them as they approached a trio of urSkeks at the edge of the hilltop. One of them, Jen saw, wore robes with the same symbols as MbasMbet's. The other two were more elaborately garbed, their front panels covered in a multitude of symbols urZah had never taught him, and crafted with material so blindingly white that it seemed almost blue.
Jen recognized them from GraGoh's vision. They were part of the Council, the leaders of all urSkeks.
At the sight of the Gelfling, the trio's coronas flickered in surprise. "Commander," the one marked like MbasMbet demanded, "explain this. You were instructed to apprehend the targets and return, not to collect specimens."
MbasMbet's tone was stern and unapologetic. "My instructions were to bring the Fallen back by any means necessary." She looked away from her fellow Commander FerLhar, toward the two Councilors. "They refused to come willingly, and resisted us with violence. To minimize harm, I was forced to use an alternate means of assuring their compliance."
SharSet stared at the two Gelfling, her white eyes narrowed as she scrutinized them. Jen tried not to shudder under her gaze. "Curious. Do they really care so deeply for these beings?"
"They did spend two thousand trine isolated from their own kind," KalPol pointed out. "It is not surprising they would have formed other, unnatural attachments in that time. A symptom of their corrupted natures. And all the more reason why we must do this."
The hilltop around them was not empty. Eight towering crystalline formations had been raised out of the smooth ground. They formed a circle around the Crystal, curving toward it like the fingers of a giant grasping hand. Jen could see cables of black metal twining through the core of the nearest one, and not far away, several other urSkeks were laying more cables into the next one - molding an open channel through the crystal, then smoothing and sealing it closed.
Set into the base of each structure was a flat-sided pillar of crystal slightly taller and wider than an urSkek.
"... Yes." SharSet turned from the Gelfling, and beckoned to the Enforcers and their prisoners. "Escort them all to the Western Tower. We'll contain them there until the time comes."
"And the alien creatures?" MbasMbet's second in command asked. He jerked Kira up through the air for emphasis, making her cry out in brief fear.
SharSet considered. "Bring them as well. The xenobiologists have had nothing new to study for an Age. They ought to find them interesting."
Kira's face went pale with terror. She didn't know exactly what a xenobiologist might be, but she could tell what the urSkek meant. "No! Let me go!" She tried to struggle again, her whole body trembling as she fought with all her panicked strength, but she could do nothing in her captor's invisible grip.
The eight captive urSkeks had been floating along limply, their heads bowed down by the weight of the nullifying collars. At the sound of Kira's terrified cries, however, SilSol looked up sharply. His eyes darted frantically between her and Jen, then to the other urSkeks, and finally up to the open sky.
He threw his head back, and a warbling, echoing cry rang out from his throat.
KalPol's corona flared. "How is he doing that? The nullifier should have silenced him!"
FerLhar muted his corona in a way that suggested he thought the young Councilor had said something stupid, but was too respectful to say so. "Nullifiers prevent the wearer from projecting energy and thoughts. They do not prevent them from making noise by more primitive means."
Jen saw that the urSkeks who had been setting cables had paused in their work, also puzzled by SilSol's action. Faintly, he heard one remark to another, "I did not know we could do that."
SharSet heard them too. "Enough of this!" she declared. "It means nothing. Take them to the Western Tower, immediately!"
As she and KalPol led the Enforcers and prisoners down from the hilltop, SilSol kept turning his head to the sky, sending out that warbling call again and again.
"What does he hope to achieve by that?" KalPol complained. "He sounds like an animal."
After passing through the rocky maze, they emerged onto an elevated road of silver stone that shone like a mirror. Jen had seen the ruins of a stone bridge once - this was like one, but longer than he had ever imagined a bridge could be. It stretched out into the distance before them, spanning high above a peninsula covered in golden sand and pale, billowing grass. Where the peninsula joined the mainland, the city of OmPhaben spread out along the coast on either side, drawing the Path of the Crystal into its heart.
The images GraGoh had shown him had not captured the magnitude of it, Jen thought. It was as if some impossible power had raised up Thra's entire Crystal Desert and shaped it into a city. Glittering spires and domes reached for the heavens, connected by delicate bridges of glass and white metal. He and Kira had visited the ruins of Ha'rar in their first trine of exploring, and Jen guessed that the Gelfling capital - the largest of all their people's lost cities - would have covered only a small fraction of OmPhaben.
It's like the Crystal Castle a hundred times over, he thought as the urSkeks carried them into the city. Maybe a thousand times over. Maybe more.
For all its vastness, however, OmPhaben seemed curiously empty. Jen would have expected the city to be teeming with urSkeks going about their lives, the way the Podling villages were always bustling with chatter and activity. But the streets were nearly deserted; the few times he spied a passing urSkek, they swiftly flitted away in silence, or cloistered themselves in the nearest building as quickly as possible.
"Something weird is going on," he spoke to Kira. "They're all afraid."
"I'm afraid," she answered back. "This place feels wrong. It's so colorless and barren. Why doesn't anything grow here?"
She was right. As they passed down exquisitely polished streets and under the shadows of buildings that sparkled like titanic jewels, Jen did not see a single plant.
Their captors brought them to a colossal, faceted tower crowned with spires that fanned out like an urSkek's thalli. It would have dwarfed the Castle if they stood side by side, and as a floating platform carried them to the upper levels by means Jen could not see, he had a dizzying view of the city seeming to fall away below them. For that moment, he was glad to have MbasMbet holding him in the air.
Finally they came to a vaulted chamber near the summit of the tower. Unlike the rest of the crystalline building, the walls here were opaque white stone, etched with geometric symbols and abstract images that caught the light in strange ways. The only glimpse of the outside world came through an archway that led to an open balcony, overlooking the city below and the Crystal hill and ocean beyond.
KalPol addressed the nine lesser Enforcers. "Well done. Your duty is complete, and the Council must now speak with your Commanders alone. We will summon you when it is time to move the prisoners."
"Shall we take the creatures to the research center?" one asked.
KalPol flickered his corona thoughtfully. "Not yet. They may still be of use in influencing the Fallen."
He stretched out his hand to a blocky glass table nearby. It stretched and molded, changing shape into a jar-like container. "Put them in there for now."
Jen and Kira only had a moment to brace themselves before the urSkeks dropped them inside. KalPol telekinetically shaped the container again, trapping the Gelfling under a glass dome just barely tall enough for them to stand up.
FerLhar's corona grayed in disapproval. "Councilor, are you sure that is wise?"
"They are shielded from spreading any contamination," KalPol replied dismissively. "And even if containment fails, how would they escape from this room?" He glanced out at the balcony with a smug glow. "There is no way out except down."
Jen and Kira held each other fearfully inside the small dome. They did not try to speak - the strange-tasting air was hot and thick, and they did not know how long it might last. Would the urSkeks even notice if they started to suffocate?
The Eight were mutely herded into a row, with FerLhar and MbasMbet flanking them on either end. Jen's ears flicked as he heard the two Councilors speak again.
SharSet's corona glowed with a cold, sorrowful blue tinge. "I recently told you," she said, "that I truly had hoped you would achieve unity with our kind again. I know now that that hope was in vain. Your deviance runs too deep. You cannot be allowed to remain among us, and exile has already proved no solution. There is only one course of action left."
Jen saw UngIm's eyes widen, and the Physician's entire form grow paler.
"But have some comfort," KalPol chimed in. "Your fate will serve a higher purpose! You will not need to worry about the Star-Shadow anymore."
"I did say the Council had a plan in place," SharSet went on, sounding much less gleeful than her junior Councilor. "To destroy an interstellar object of this scale will require a tremendous amount of energy. The sort of energy that can be produced by the dissolution of an urSkek."
"Tomorrow morning, when all three suns rise," said KalPol, "we will take the eight of you back to the Crystal. I'm sure you saw the preparations being made. With the Crystal's power enhanced, your corporeal forms will be dissolved forever. Every molecule will be transformed into energy, and that energy will be channeled and unleashed against the Star-Shadow." His corona brightened. "Your sacrifice will save us all."
Seven of the prisoners stared at their people's leaders, their nullified forms ghostly pale. ZokZah in particular, Jen saw, wore an expression of horror and betrayal.
But SilSol's gaze was turned to the balcony. He gave that warbling, animalistic call again, one final time.
"Can you not silence him?!" KalPol snapped at the Commanders, irritated that the Cantor seemed to have ignored his speech.
"Very well." MbasMbet's corona gleamed orange. "If he insists on sounding like a beast, perhaps we can muzzle him like one …"
She stopped.
From the open sky outside, an answering voice was singing back. The call was rich and melodic, and one of the most beautiful things Jen had ever heard.
As he stared out at the balcony, he could see something approaching up in the gold-tinted sky. It half-flew, half-swam through the air: a long, rippling shape with bright blue skin and six fin-like wings …
Kira gasped. "It's the creature he told me about. His companion. The bohrtog."
SilSol smiled.
KalPol's corona flared dark red. "Is there no end to your schemes? Commanders! Drive that beast off. Kill it if you have to!"
FerLhar hesitated - a fully-grown bohrtog was a formidable creature, and this was the largest one he'd ever seen - but MbasMbet charged into the fray. She reached out, gesturing with both hands, trying to lock her power around the creature's throat.
The bohrtog struck back, buffeting her with bursts of telekinetically-enhanced wind from its wings. As she tried to strike at its eyes, it spun around in the air. The coil of its body caught MbasMbet's corporeal form, and with a sharp cry of surprise, the Commander was thrown from the balcony.
FerLhar didn't waste time trying the same mistake. He sent a pulse of red light from his aura into a vein of smoky crystal along the wall. The vein glowed red, and an alarm signal vibrated throughout the tower.
SilSol called out to the bohrtog again; a different pattern this time. The creature reared up, and unleashed the full power of its song into the chamber.
The whole room seemed to shake. Jen and Kira flattened their sensitive ears, cringing. To their amazement, a web of cracks began to spread through the glass dome.
Now Kira understood. "Jen, cover your eyes!"
The two Gelfling shielded themselves just in time as their prison shattered around them.
SharSet spotted them immediately. She reached out, trying to seize them from across the room. But SilSol, who had broken from his place in line in the chaos, threw himself in her path. His nullifier rattled as her telekinetic grip caught him instead.
"Go!" he shouted. The memory of speaking the Gelfling tongue came back to him, now that he had no other choice. "Go now! Fly!"
Kira caught Jen's hand. They raced for the balcony, barely noticing as shards of glass dug into their feet. Before any of the urSkeks could stop them, they were through the archway and under the open sky.
The bohrtog was still there. But MbasMbet had caught herself in her fall, and she hovered in front of the creature now, fighting back, keeping it from drawing any closer to the tower.
There was only one way for the Gelfling to reach it.
Kira wrapped her arms around Jen. Together, they leapt from the edge of the balcony.
Her wings flared out from where they'd lain hidden under the back panel of her dress, unseen by the urSkeks. They caught the wind as it rushed around them, slowing their fall.
Kira pumped them furiously. She forced more power into her wings that she ever had before. It wasn't enough to glide safely down this time - she needed to fly.
And, with new strength born of desperation, she did. She climbed through the air, carrying Jen with her, up toward their only chance of rescue …
The bohrtog dove down to meet them. Together, the two Gelfling landed on its smooth back.
They could not stay long. Red veins of alarm were still pulsing through the tower. More Enforcers would come, and the bohrtog would not be able to fight them all. But it lingered all the same, with one last look at SilSol.
The Cantor met its eyes, and gave one final desperate, insistent call. Kira did not need to understand the language to know what he was saying.
Leave me. Save them.
The bohrtog soared higher, up past the tower and into the clouds. It sped off into the distance, the wind whipping its passengers' hair as it flew far away from the city.
Beyond the outskirts of OmPhaben, the land gave way to a ridge of stony hills stretching north along the coast. Swaths of forest and meadow covered them, painting the gray-gold rock in alien shades of green, brown, and rose. Here and there, a stream flowed down to the sea, and more of that pale, billowing grass tracked its path across the sands.
At last, when the city was no more than a faint glimmer far to the south, the bohrtog came to land at the mouth of a small river. It stretched its serpentine body out on the sand, and Jen and Kira stepped down easily onto the beach.
"Ow!" Kira gasped, wincing. She curled one bare foot in pain, and Jen remembered the glass shards they'd run across.
"Here, I've got you." He let her put an arm across his shoulders and wrapped his own around her waist, offering her support as he helped her toward a large, smooth boulder sticking out of the sand. Once she was resting against it, he knelt down to examine her foot.
To his relief, the cut wasn't deep. If they'd still been on Thra, it would have been a simple matter of finding the moss for a poultice.
But they weren't on Thra. All the plants here were strange. The best Jen could think of was to soak the edge of his tunic in the cold ocean and wash the cut with that. UrIm had told him once that saltwater could sometimes help wounds - it stung, but it was better than nothing.
"Are you sure you're not hurt otherwise?" he insisted, while Kira tore a strip from the hem of her dress and bandaged her foot.
She shook her head. "No, I'll be all right. But what about you?" she asked, worry clear in her hazel eyes. "Did they hurt you?"
"No, I'm fine." He took a deep breath. "Seeing you in danger was worse."
"I know what you mean."
She reached out for him, and he pulled her close. For some time, they stayed like that; holding each other in silence, still trying to come to terms with all they had been through in such a short time. The thrill of escape had ebbed - now they were only two small Gelfling, exhausted, stranded far from home, and deeply afraid.
But not alone, at least. The bohrtog was still nearby. It moved lightly into the shallows, waves lapping against its blue sides as it dipped its beaked head underwater and came up with a mouthful of seagrass.
Looks like we won't have to worry about it eating us, Jen thought, only half-joking to himself.
While the bohrtog ate, the Gelfling looked out at the ocean. Evening was approaching, and the planet's largest sun was sinking below the horizon. It had a faint blue tinge, they noticed, making it seem colder than Thra's yellow Greater Sun. Another reminder of the home they'd been taken from.
"I hope Hup's all right," Jen said softly. "He … he didn't move after that urSkek threw him."
"Dermag will take care of him." Kira tried to convince herself even as she said it. "He's a good healer."
They were silent for some moments longer, watching shadows lengthen along the beach as the Primary Sun set. Suddenly, a line of ripples in the water caught Kira's attention.
A score of small arthropods, disturbed by the bohrtog's feeding, marched up from the water. Their bodies were rounded and upright, and they walked on clusters of tiny legs, with two grasping claws held out in front. Their beady eyes glinted in the blue sunset.
Kira felt a chill run down her spine. The biggest of the creatures wasn't much larger than her fist, but their form was unmistakable. "Jen," she whispered, "they look like …"
He nodded, shivering a little. The creatures' segmented shells were greenish-brown, but in the twilight, it was easy to see them as black.
They did not seem interested in approaching the Gelfling, at least, and Kira was grateful for that. They scuttled along the beach, seeking out bunches of seaweed that had washed ashore. When one of the larger ones grabbed a small grub-like creature in its claws, Kira swallowed, and looked away quickly.
"Jen, what are we going to do?"
She remembered the Garthim raids of her childhood. When warning came from the lookouts that Garthim were coming and there were too many to trap or divert, the Podlings would scatter, fleeing the village in all directions. A lone Podling could hide better than a group - the Crystal Bats could not track them all. And if, by misfortune, some of them did get captured … well, it was better to lose one or two than to lose everyone.
When Kira had been a small childling, Ydra would carry her with her when she fled the raids. There was no shame in running from an enemy you could not defeat, she had told her daughter while they hid in thorn-filled thickets and muddy nebrie burrows. Sometimes all you could do was keep yourself and your family alive. Sometimes, just reaching tomorrow had to be a victory.
Jen looked away from her. He turned his eyes south, toward the distant light of OmPhaben. "We have to go back."
She stared. "What? No! You heard what they wanted to do to us!"
"I also heard what they want to do to SilSol and the others!" He faced her again. "Kira, they're going to kill them! Drain them somehow …"
A dark, angry voice whispered in the back of Kira's mind: Good. That's just what they deserve.
She remembered the enslaved Podlings, with their milky, empty eyes and shriveled faces. She remembered her horror when she saw Ydra among their number.
SilSol might have called the bohrtog to save them, but one good deed did not make up for all the harm the Skeksis had done. As she glanced at the arthropods on the beach again, the fading light stretched their shadows over the sand, making them seem almost as large as Garthim.
"Jen, there's nothing we can do. We were lucky we escaped. Even if we did go back, we couldn't do anything against those other urSkeks."
"We have to try! I know we can't fight them, but," he hesitated, "maybe we can reason with them. They might listen."
Kira frowned. "Didn't you see the way they treated us? They're like the Skeksis. Worse, maybe. They don't even think we're people. They're not going to listen."
"But the Skeksis did listen." He breathed deep. "When I was in that other realm, I got them to see that if we all worked together, we could open a way out. The urSkeks … they're afraid. They know the Devouring is coming soon. They must be desperate to stop it. If we can convince them there's another way to do that, they won't have to kill anyone."
She sighed. "You have such a good heart, Jen. But-"
"Kira, I have to do this!" Jen stared desperately into her eyes. "I know what they've done. I know they probably deserve to be punished. But … Kira, they're my family. I still love them! I can't just let them die!" Tears welled in his blue eyes. "I can't lose them again."
Kira bit her lip. All the hate and fear she'd felt for the Skeksis welled up inside her. It fought against the love she felt for Jen, like an ocean wave crashing against the face of a cliff, storming and warring inside her …
But in the end, the storm calmed. The hate ebbed away, and the love remained, strong and steadfast.
"... All right. We'll go back and save them."
He hugged her close.
The wind off the ocean was chilly, and so was the hard sand under them. Kira snuggled into Jen's embrace, seeking his warmth. The bohrtog had eaten its fill, and as if sensing what the Gelfling needed now, it coiled itself protectively around them and the boulder, its raised wings sheltering them.
"The Councilor said they'd bring them to the Crystal tomorrow morning when the three suns rise," Jen said. "We can meet them there. It's probably our best chance to speak to them all in one place, and out in the open."
He looked discouraged. "I wish I had my firca with me. It helped get the Skeksis and Mystics to listen; it probably couldn't hurt now. But I left it back in our bedroom. And I can't dream it into existence this time."
"You don't have to," A warm, sweet smile spread across Kira's face. She reached into the loose bodice of her dress, and pulled out Jen's firca.
"I worried about you when you were in that other place," she explained as he beamed in surprise and relief. "When I woke up and saw your firca on the shelf that first morning, I started carrying it next to my heart. It reminded me that you'd promised to come back."
"And I kept that promise. I'm back, and I never intend to leave you again."
He took the firca, and caressed her cheek. As they leaned in for a gentle kiss, Kira suddenly gasped, "Oh!"
Jen's ears perked sharply. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's not that." She stared down at her belly with wide eyes. "The baby moved!"
He stared too, excitement written on his face. "Really?"
"Yes! Here," she took his hand, "see if you can feel it."
He pressed his hand to her rounded stomach. A moment later, he felt it - the faintest flutter of movement. It was only for an instant, but it was there, proof that their child still lived and grew.
As she felt the tiny life stir inside her, Kira reflected that they had no other choice but to face the urSkeks. No matter how far they might run to escape, the Gelfling wouldn't survive on this planet on their own. The bohrtog might protect them for now, but they had no idea what foods were safe to eat, or how to tell a safe firewood from one whose smoke might poison them. Even the strange, alchemical taste in the air was a constant reminder that they did not know this world.
For them and their child to have a future, they had to get back to Thra.
She still didn't share Jen's optimism that they could convince the urSkeks. But right now, it was their only hope of getting home. For the sake of her mate, and her child, she'd ignore all her instincts, and stand against an enemy she could not defeat.
Just like the last All-Maudra, she thought, remembering Hup's story. If she really was my mother, then she and her sister sacrificed their lives for me. I can't give up now. Jen's right, we have to try.
Until then, the night lay ahead of them. The breakfast they'd shared with Ydra and Hup still sustained them for now, but it would not last. The air grew colder still, and above them, the stars spread out in alien constellations.
"We should get some rest," Kira said. She tilted her head up at the bohrtog, wondering if it could understand her. "You will stay with us, won't you?"
The bohrtog's eyes shone like pearls. It gave no sign that it understood her words, but it showed no signs of leaving, either. Kira supposed that would have to be enough.
With their strange new guardian watching over them, and the sound of the sea all around, the last two Gelfling huddled together in the shelter of the rock. Sleep eluded them for a time in the darkness, until at last they took each other's hand, and drifted together into dreaming.
To Be Continued...