The Story of the Dark Crystal
The Darkened World
From the Dark Crystal there came no more songs. The Suns shone as before, but dimmer; the trees grew as before, but twisted. Strange beasts moved in the woods.
The Skeksis held the castle; the urRu fled when the Harmony was broken. They were filled with sadness, and made their way to the Valley of the Stones. There they could shelter and meditate concealed. They chose that twisting valley, home of mists, for that it resembled the world they had left to come to us; water flowed from abundant springs, caves filled the rocky slopes. They made it fit for their use. I helped, I chose stones and guided the stones to allow themselves to be shaped. There the urRu made stone circles of power, the framework of the valley, everlasting protection.
Within that protection I learned what the great design of the urSkeks had been, through woven knots, through chants of prayer. They had hoped that by submitting themselves to the light of the Crystal they would purify their divided selves, that everything in them that was less than perfect would be burned away. They had not understood the balance of their souls; they had thought there could be light without darkness, stillness without motion. Instead of perfection they had achieved division, dark from light, force from virtue, Skeksis from urRu.
I learned in dreams the urSkeks had been outcasts in their former world, where no evil was tolerated even when mixed with good. Their stars showed me their full name, the Fallen urSkeks, and I think they were driven out, they were hated so deeply; but to them I always spoke of their departure as if they had left freely.
But the Skeksis felt no grief, triumph rather, for in the castle they reigned in glory. The darkness of the Crystal seemed to them an eternal refreshment. And in their first days they still shone with a fire that could deceive the eye, dazzling like flame on sharp-edged swords, full of daring wit and bold experiment, but with ice at their hearts and a thirst for blood and darkness. Yet their speech was still like music, their ways enchantment. They knew best of all arts the skill of flattery.
Many Gelfling fell to their lures.
For from the castle and the darkened Crystal within it they spread out evil like a cloud, power that no longer led to Harmony. The light of the Suns lost its brilliance; the song of the Crystal was deadened. And as one standing in a mist on a mountainside forgets the sunlight, forgets the path and the world and all outside the shifting greyness, so in all creatures that cloud of evil led their hearts to confusion.
Brian Froud, The World of the Dark Crystal [ISBN: 1 86205 624 2]
Henson Organization Publishing / Harry N. Abrams, New York 2003
Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1982
