The Dark Crystal (11 page)

It was too dark for them to see that the Crystal Bat was hovering just a little way upriver, reflecting in its spy crystal every step they took.

They were making their way through the underbrush of the wilderness when two Pod People jumped up in front of them, holding out long staffs in a challenging gesture.

“It’s all right,” Kira cried out quickly in Pod speech. “It’s me, Kira. I have a friend with me.”

At once the Pod guards lowered their staffs and joyfully ran up to greet Kira. Jen clearly puzzled them but they were willing to take Kira’s word that he was a friend.

Preceded by the guards, Jen and Kira emerged from the bushes into a clearing. In the center of it were several long houses. The convex outer shell of each house was formed from the seed pod of some gigantic plant, split down the middle and laid flat to the ground, thus raising a striated dome. Doorways, windows, and chimneys had been neatly carved out and framed in wood. Through these apertures a cheerful firelight shone from each house. Everywhere, people could be seen bustling around, within and between their houses.

Fizzgig bounced on ahead of them, barking enthusiastically. The peasants looked up, peering into the dusk. When they saw Kira, they ran up to greet her, whooping with delight in their babbling, lilting speech:. Then they stopped short, hesitating, crowding together in confusion.

“They can’t believe their eyes,” Kira said, “seeing you.”

“Will they welcome me?” Jen asked.

“Oh, yes. When they see that I am happy with you.”

From the largest house an old woman came running out past the others, who were still hesitating. She threw out her arms and embraced Kira.

Again, Jen knew at once who it was: Ydra, Kira’s foster mother. But he felt he ought to wait to be introduced, nevertheless. It was going to raise a few ticklish questions, this dreamfasting.

Ydra greeted Jen with a warm smile when Kira introduced them, but the old woman was clearly as confused to see two Gelfling as they themselves had been on meeting each other in the swamp. After Aughra, then Kira, and now Ydra, it was obvious to Jen that the whole world had hitherto assumed that only one Gelfling still lived on Thra. If there were two, might there not be still more in some other corner of the planet? It was thrilling to think so.

At the doorway of the largest house, the Pod People surrounded the Gelfling. Jen was solemnly welcomed over the threshold. Leaf, twig, root, and fruit were extended for him to hold. Then, at Kira’s bidding, he was required to drop each one to the ground, where the pattern they made with each other on falling was examined for auguries. Since everyone went on being jolly, Jen hoped that the prospects looked encouraging. One step over the threshold, he was again bidden to pause while he chewed and swallowed a seed they gave him, and drank from a gourd – kainz juice, he recognized. The Pod People laughed at how thirstily he drank from their loving cup. The truth was he was famished again.

Ydra wanted Jen to follow her. She led him to the head of the table, where two chairs with arms had been set, side by side. Ydra motioned to him to sit down. Jen looked at Kira. “Go on,” Kira said. “You are the guest of honor tonight.”

“Sit down with me at the same time,” Jen asked.

“All right.”

Grinning, they took their seats. The Pod People joined them; sitting on stools that had been placed along each side of the long table. A small band struck up a merry tune on reed pipes and gourd drums. Loud chattering and laughter filled the house as the cooks served the soup. Jen looked at Kira and thought he had never been so happy in all his life. She did not need to take his hand to acknowledge that she felt the same way.

Hoping not to betray quite how ravenous he was, Jen started to eat. The Pod People had been waiting for the opportunity to learn about their visitor. With Kira’s help as translator, and picking up a few words of Pod speech as he went along, Jen managed to tell them a little about himself. It seemed they had never heard of the urRu. When Jen first described them, the Pod People began to seem fearful of him. “Shkekshe?” one of them asked. Jen shook his head firmly. Kira explained to them that the urRu were indeed as huge as the Skeksis but a peaceful race. The Pod People nodded, partly reassured.

He brought out the shard to show to the Pod People. Though they found it pretty, it too held no meaning for them. Jen was disappointed. He had hoped that they might give him a clue to the mission he was supposed to accomplish with it.

Between conversations with the peasants, and the eating and drinking, he took in the interior of the house. It had been furnished with absolute simplicity. Nothing was decorative; everything served a purpose. The furniture was solid. What beauty it had was the beauty of both usefulness and usage. The chairs, the tables, the platters and spoons, all were made of wood, and shone with the rich patina of age and handling.

As the evening wore on, the music grew faster and noisier, and some of the peasants started to dance to it. Jen was fascinated. He had never seen anything like this. The dancers began by energetically bouncing about on their own. Then they linked hands in groups of four or five and leaped around in circles. Gradually the circles were linked to each other, and eventually all the dancers were holding hands in one great, bounding ring. When the music reached a climax, the ring broke at one point and the line of dancers coiled themselves inward to form a tightening spiral. At the finish they were all packed close against each other, jigging up and down so enthusiastically that the old house shook.

“What’s it all for?” Jen asked.

“Dancing?” Kira replied.

“Yes.”

“What a funny question. I don’t think it’s for anything. It’s just fun.”

Jen nodded, no wiser.

“You know how to dance, don’t you, Jen?” Kira asked. “You just sing with your body.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “The urRu didn’t teach me about dancing.”

After a brief pause for refreshment, amid much laughter, the band struck up again, more wildly than ever.

From her pouch, Kira brought out a length of string and made a simple cat’s cradle on her fingers. Then she transferred it to Jen’s, pulled out more loops, took it back, and transferred it again, all the time making it more complicated. With beaming faces, the Pod People watched them. Fizzgig had fallen asleep at Kira’s feet.

Jen looked at Kira as she frowned thoughtfully at the cat’s cradle. “How long may we stay here?” he asked.

“As long as we want,” she answered, pulling out two more loops.

“Then I don’t ever want to leave.”

She paused and looked up at him. “What about the crystal shard?”

Jen closed his eyes. “Whatever it is that I am supposed to do with the shard, it cannot make me as perfectly happy as I am here. With you.”

One of the peasants, grinning, leaned over and asked Jen
“Lyepa Kira?”
Others around heard him and giggled.

“What did he say?” Jen asked.

Kira smiled but would not tell him.

Fizzgig had woken up. His face was alert, listening. He gave a little growl.

Kira looked down at him fondly and scratched him between the ears. “I don’t think Fizzgig approves of you now,” she smiled. Then her expression became more serious. “Jen, it was only because of your quest that you and I ever met each other. That in itself should give you the courage to go on with it.”

Fizzgig growled again, more loudly.

Jen was thinking about Kira’s remark when the band struck up again, with more vigor and noise than ever. Ydra came up to the table and invited Jen to dance with her.

“Go on,” Kira bade him. “You can do more eating afterward.”

Jen grinned sheepishly. “Is it so obvious how hungry I am?”

He stood up. Ydra took his hand and led him to an area of the room where several Pod People had already started to dance again. Everybody clapped when they saw Jen take the floor.

Guided by Ydra, he found he had no trouble at all in stepping and skipping to the changing rhythms, up and down, round and round. Those Pod People who were not dancing crowded in to watch, cheering, beating time, and tossing seeds and fragrant petals. Ydra began to sing a wordless song, a lively version of the one Kira had sung in the boat on the black river. Jen, in turn, played his flute, along with the raucous band.

Soon the whole room was dancing. Only Kira, Jen saw, was still at the table. The cat’s cradle was on her fingers, but she was not attending to it. She had her head cocked in the air as though she were straining to hear a sound from outside the uproarious room.

In vivacious celebration of their happiness, the Pod People were shouting and clapping and stamping their feet to a climax. The din was such that nobody heard Fizzgig barking very loudly.

And then a hideous noise of cracking lacerated the room as one side of the shell house was smashed in. Splinters flew among the crowded dancers.

A great hole had been torn in the wall, and through it came a huge black claw.

It withdrew for a moment, then gashed a larger breach. A Garthim battered its way in. Others trampled through after it.

In the panic stampede, the Pod People skittered in all directions, crashing into furniture, howling with terror. Some escaped through the door or out the windows. Some were seized in Garthim claws and crushed to death instantly. Others were picked up by their heads or arms or feet and stuffed into round wicker cages that the Garthim carried on their backs. In the chaotic din of destruction and death, Jen ran desperately toward the table where he had been sitting with Kira. It had been overturned onto its side, and Kira was crouched behind it, with Fizzgig. On the floor beside her lay her cat’s cradle, a mere tangled bunch of string.

Jen crouched down with her. “It’s us they’re after,” he gasped.

Kira nodded. “That Crystal Bat, on the river.”