Characters
skekTek the Scientist
To betray is to break the circle of trust. The Skeksis came to betray all friendship, without reason, without need. The end of my friendship with skekTek the Scientist is still bitter to me. Before the Division, TekTih of all urSkeks gave me most, then his divided soul became Alchemist and Scientist alike. When the urSkeks first came to our World, he taught me all the movements of the skies and designed the great Observatory. And in return, I gave him all my knowledge of the rocks, even to the secrets of the metals.
skekTek kept some real power of thought, but in truth he had become only a juggler of ideas, of memories from his previous life. Then he had studied the light of the Crystal and used it for the Division; now he studied the wounded Crystal, and by that light he saw his way to acts of darkness. Two great evils I charge against him. First, that he learned the art to make beams of light from the Dark Crystal, which he burned into the Pod People's eyes to make them living ghosts, his perfect slaves. After the light had struck them no light lived in their eyes, but they obeyed; that was all.
And the second worse evil was to use dark light to draw the essence of life, to drain it from the living to make a drink for the Skeksis, above all for the Emperor. This essence gave them back their youth and vigor for a while, only for a little; but many Gelflings were victims forever.
See also The Pod People
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
