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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 form virtue, Skeksis from urRu.
I learned in dreams that 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 the best of all arts the skill of flattery.
Many Gelfling fell to their lures. The Gelfling were earth and spirit, masters of song and shaping. They carved wood and stone to set free the shapes that lay hidden in them; they molded metal to exult in its new form.
Before the Darkness, when I placed my hand on the carved rocks, the rocks sang to me and I shared their song with the Gelfling. I watched the Gelfling as they traveled through their lives; I made dwellings in the rocks for their empty bodies, and the rocks will care for them as long as the World remains. But the Skeksis stole the Gelfling with force and fear.
For from the castle and the darkened Crystal within it there spread out evil like a cloud, power they 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.
Only in the protected valley was there peace, and among the quiet plants of the Pod People. These did not foresee the evils they would suffer from; they felt only the joy of abundance of their plants and the herding of their Nebrie grubs. They tended all things that grew, above all the giant Pod plants in whose vast seed-pods they made their villages; there they though only of laughter, food, and music. Their music stayed simple and unchanged -- alas, the only joy left in our suffering World.
In the beginning I moved freely between the Skeksis in the castle and the urRu in the valley; but as the Skeksis fell into worse evils I visited the castle no more. And in the valley the urRu lived their gentle lives and died their quiet deaths: beautiful, peaceful, and without strength against the growing evil of the Skeksis.
I am of rock; I stand firm. I left the urRu and went to watch the stars and Suns, in hope that they would reveal some better change.
Thra
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