Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal Author Quest Read Online Free PDF

harvest? How could such evil torment a race whose mere chants Thra obeyed? It comforted him to know that he would be home the next day. While the other members of the Spriton clan lacked the close relationship with the Skeksis that Kairn’s family had, they respected his family’s service to the castle. Kairn recalled returning to Hallis each summer: Gelfling bounded out of their homes and servants blew the horns. Women stared longingly at his father, a widower since Kairn’s birth. Kiff feigned modesty, but even as a child, Kairn knew that his father lived for the attention.
    Still, even the anticipation of this homecoming did not feel right. On the one hand, Kairn craved the warmth of his own community. He felt confused, alone, dismissed. On the other hand, the Podlings’ disappointment had filled him with self-hatred. He couldn’t imagine receiving adulation, no matter how impressive he looked in his handsome armor.
    By afternoon he had passed the fertile Podling fields and entered the barren land between Greggan and Hallis. High red rocks rose on both sides. The Spriton clan lived in caves, but the caves in this abandoned territory seemed sinister. Perhaps the stories about the dangers in these borderlands were only legends, or so Kairn hoped. Perhaps they were just the tales Woodland guards told on the castle walls to stay awake on long, late-night watches. Still, he passed the entrance to each cave with his sword drawn, peering into the black and reminding himself again and again that no one he knew had ever been attacked in the caves.
    That knowledge comforted him little. Although the Podlings’ accusations against the Skeksis had to be rubbish, Kairn did not doubt that Podlings and Gelfling had in fact been disappearing. Whatever terrible creature was abducting innocents would likely hide out in these caves. The tall shadows left the area cold; an outlaw could conceal himself for many trines in the maze of midnight tunnels connecting the caverns.
    To one side of him, Kairn heard a heaving breath and a quickly swallowed yelp. He paused and leaned toward the noises. They did not appear to come from a cave, but rather a large hole. He stared into the hole, but saw nothing and heard nothing. Perhaps he had imagined it in his fear. He started to walk away, but he was embarrassed. He doubted his entire education as a warrior. The only true combat he had ever seen was with the Sifa clan against the Thrakars, but they were a pathetic bunch. They were almost emaciated. They had become dangerous to Gelfling only out of hungry desperation. Kairn had felt sorrowful hunting them; he felt more like a herdsman putting down sickly Landstriders than a warrior saving a village from murderous monsters.
    â€œI will find out whoever is doing this, and I will slay them with the sword made for me by the Skeksis. On that I pledge my family’s honor.”
    He recalled those words. He had taken an oath to the Podlings to find whatever was terrorizing them. He shouldn’t hear breaths and yelps in this dead borderland. He had to discover their source.
    He slid into the hole before his legs would have the chance to fail him. He could see nothing, and he had no torch. Kairn drew his sword and spun it around him. He was in a tunnel; he felt the narrow walls on each side of him. Keeping his sword in front of him, he gently pressed his fingers against one of the cave’s walls to guide himself and moved forward noiselessly. After several minutes of slow, tense steps, the wall stopped. Kairn put his hand out and felt stone on three sides. He was at the tunnel’s end.
    A footstep echoed. Kairn checked his own feet, as if they might have moved without notifying him, as if he could even see them. He looked around but there was only darkness everywhere. The sound’s source was unclear. He turned back toward the hole through which he had entered. A small beam of light beckoned from the hole. Kairn thrust out his