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The Crystal Chamber

The shaft below the Crystal opens to a vast ceremonial chamber, triangular in shape. The design of the floor is a spiral maze. An eye tracing it would eventually return to the point of the pattern from which it had started, except that the maze, being spiral, would appear to flow into a third dimension. It had no end and therefore no beginning, yet it progressed. Thus it was timeless, infinitely present, and so could be taken to be a representation of time, which cannot be pictured by those who imagine themselves linear subjects to it. The pattern of the spiral maze, subtly varied, connecting the floors of all the ceremonial chambers of the castle.

The triangular walls of the Crystal Chamber, rising to meet at the open portal high above the Crystal, were fashioned by fine masons, honest to their craft. Throughout the reign of the Skeksis in that place, ugly embossments had been added, grotesque carvings made in the stone, symbols defaced, gaudy cloths and painted insignia hung, all emblems of power: the pentacle, the nine-pointed star, the four phases of the secret moon of Thra, the tetraktys, hexagrams, pyramids, tetrahedrons, double helices, left-handed and right-handed spiral swastikas, the alchemical symbols of the four elements and the three principles of nature, and, most obsessively picutred, a triangle containing three concentric circles, the icon of the Great Conjunction.

A balcony is built into the rock high up beside the Crystal. This houses the controls for the cover that slowly opens and closes the triangular portal at the summit of the Castle's tower.

A gallery overlooks the triangular chamber with a balustrade.

Shortly after the division, the Skeksis had discovered that by breaking the Crystal they could entrap malevolent energies that, on the molecular level, were visible as the dark coloring it took on.  After some research, the Scientist had explained that the Crystal had a spiral linkage in its molecular structure from which it derived the property of rotating the plane of polarization of a beam of polarized light.  When the three suns were conjoined directly overhead, such a polarized power emanated from them that it would untwist the spiral linkage, clear the crystal of color, and produce a focused beam of the most intense concentration.  But once the Crystal had been broken, its spiral linkage could not be untwisted.  The light of the Great Conjunction would irradiate the Skeksis with energy, but a left-handed energy only, darkly colored, rich in malevolence.

The Crystal is rhombohedral in shape with shiny geometric planes.  It is probably composed of a high quartz.  The "spiral climbing through its heart" would then refer to the asymmetric arrangement of molecules which, as well as lying at the heart of all life, would give the Crystal powers of selectively absorbing polarized light that could excite the rarer elements and cause the Crystal to shine.

The floor pattern of the Crystal Chamber of the Skeksis was originally urSkek work, but it sustained far more damage and repair during the Skeksis misrule.  The symbols of the eighteen original urSkeks can still be seen arranged between the inner and outer rings.  Between them they constrained the central Lake of Fire, over which the Crystal hangs suspended.  The elongated isosceles triangle is a common element in urSkek work, referring to the constant blaze of energy of their coronas.

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This is an unofficial DARK CRYSTAL website.  THE DARK CRYSTAL, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of The Jim Henson Company.  © 2001.  Artwork by Roy Carnon.  Visit the official website at www.henson.com.