"The Skeksis joined nothing except to make new combinations of evil. SkekSo the Emperor in the first days of his glory proclaimed otherwise; he held court not only over the Skeksis but over many Gelfling that went to serve in the castle. They shone in his glory; they carved and sang and painted and danced from the pleasure of the court. On all the days of feasting the Emperor led the processions and the dances of life and pleasure; his voice heard above a multitude; and always in the tournaments he bore down all rivals. In those days the Skeksis were still radient with energy, never still. But that radiance diminished as their true nature showed and worsened; none was more terribly changed than the Emperor. His power he kept till the end; no other Skeksis held ascendancy other than through skekSo's favor, easily withdrawn. But his vigor lessened, his suspicions grew, his sight weakened, ulcers burst from his skin. He sought elixers and enchantments to restore his rotting body, never more than a few days success. All awaited his death; his courage never failed. skekZok the Ritual-Master       SkekZok the Ritual-Master thought to hold all control of the life of the court in his own hands. He had the ear of the emperor, whose wishes were absolute; none could hope for sucess save through skekZol. The other Skeksis he sought to control through the prophecies he invented, the false apparitions he conjured. Too late he found that the Emperor raised favorites only to enjoy the pleasure of their fall, caring for them not at all; and that the other Skeksis all practiced their own secret divinations, which they trusted above his. skekUng the Garthim-Master       Strongest of all for brute force, after the Emperor, was skekUng the Garthim-Master. Torment was his pleasure, though his urSkeks original had been a healer and continued so in his urRu form. Hidden in that tall, shining urSkeks was one who, ages later, could find pleasure in tearing apart the gentle Gelfling. The urSkeks knew this evil was in them and tried hard to burn it out. The sould driven by strong forces is weak, and the soul without strength is helpless. Wisdom and compassion have their roots in the same soil as violence and hate; the strong being allows them to fight within him, to recognize that his strength of will must control the evil he could do. That the urSkeks did not understand this and violated their nature was the ruin of our World. They looked and spoke like superior beings, but they too were capable of error. skekSil the Chamberlain       Between skekUng the Garthim-Master and skekSil the Chamberlain there was bitter rivalry, for skekSIl hoped his smiling poison and suspicious craft would lead him, not skekUng, to succeed to the Emperor's glory. Both were deceived. skekTek the Scientist       To betry 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 lif. 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 ways to acts of darkness. Two great evils I charge against him. First, that he learned the srt to make beams of light from the Dark Crystal, which he burned into 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. Thiss essence gave them back their youth and vigor for a while, only for a little; but many Gelflings were victims forever. skekAyuk the Gourmand       Nor did the feasts prepared by skekAyuk the Gourmand and his teams of harrased slaves satisfy any appetite for long. Hot spices, sweet liquers, cream-rich sauces, were his delight; and he boasted he had a different menu for every feast. skekNa the Slave-Master       Between meals the Skeksis went to skekNa the Slave-Master for scraps to appease the raging hunger they always felt. SkekNa was purely and openly evil from the beginning, but without him the work of the castle would never have been done. skekShod the Treasurer       SkekShod the Treasurer counted gifts, not time. None dared approach him without some offering; yet his desires were so inordinate and his powers of speech so limited that he knew no other way to get his will other than extravagent bribery." skekOk the Scroll-Keeper       SkekOk the Scroll-Keeper kept the record of the Skeksis; he was the smallest, finest-featured, least honest of them all. He wrote and rewrote his accounts, and kept changing them to please one or another of his shifting allies. The truth was soon lost. skekEkt the Ornamentalist       And skekEkt the Ornamentalist made clothes, above all for himself, rich fabrics that dripped jewels, the death of a hundred birds for one cloak. He first discovered the art of anointing the skin with a paste of clotted blood and diamond powder, to restore the sparkle of youth. Text from The World of the Dark Crystal by Brian Froud, Henson Organization Publishing/Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1982 OUT-OF-PRINT Back    Home