Discovering Worlds Inside Crystals: The Darkness Before the Dawn Chapter 7

This chapter starts ugly and ends somewhere incredible. The emotional range is wild. You go from a relationship falling apart to one of the most mind-bending discoveries in the whole series.

The Fight

So that argument from the end of last chapter? It gets worse. Way worse.

Kayan calls Jedra out on their class differences. He was a street kid. She was a templar’s assistant. On Athas, those aren’t just different jobs. They’re different worlds. A street kid eats whatever he can steal and sleeps wherever he won’t get killed. A templar’s assistant has a roof, regular meals, and access to education.

Kayan isn’t being cruel. But she’s being honest, and sometimes honesty cuts deeper than cruelty. Jedra grew up in survival mode. Kayan grew up in a system that was awful but at least had structure. Romance doesn’t erase where you came from.

Kayan Leaves

Kitarak is already gone on his journey. And after the fight, Kayan decides she’s leaving too.

She packs up and walks into the desert. Alone.

Just think about that for a second. She would rather face the Athasian wasteland by herself than stay in a hidden canyon with food, water, books, and shelter. That’s how bad the fight was. She’s choosing possible death over staying in the same space as Jedra.

But the desert has its own opinion about her plan. A massive sandstorm rolls in. Not the regular wind-and-grit kind. A serious storm, the kind that buries entire caravans and scours flesh from bone. Kayan has no choice. She turns around and comes back.

Jedra Watches

Here’s the part that got me. While Kayan is out there fighting through the storm, Jedra is watching over her psionically. He’s tracking her mind the whole time. Making sure she’s alive. Ready to go after her if she goes down.

He doesn’t tell her he’s doing this. He doesn’t hold it over her head later. He just does it because the idea of her dying in a sandstorm is unbearable to him, even after the worst fight they’ve ever had.

That’s the difference between Jedra the street kid and Jedra the person he’s becoming. The old Jedra would have let her go. Her choice, her problem. The new Jedra can’t let go even when he’s hurt and angry. He watches over someone who just told him they’re too different to work.

When she comes back, there’s no dramatic reunion. No apology. Just an uneasy truce. The storm forced them back together. Not resolution, just proximity.

The Crystals

While all this relationship drama is playing out, Jedra has been spending his alone time doing something productive. He’s been experimenting with those mysterious crystals they found among Kitarak’s collection.

And what he discovers changes everything.

The crystals contain entire worlds.

Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Actual worlds. Complete pocket dimensions created by ancient immortals. When Jedra reaches into the first crystal with his psionic awareness, he finds himself standing in a paradise. Forests with real trees. Rivers of clean water. Green grass stretching to the horizon.

On Athas, these things barely exist anymore. Most people alive today have never seen a forest. They’ve never touched grass. Water comes from wells if you’re lucky and from merchants if you can pay. The world Jedra finds inside that crystal is what Athas used to be before the sorcerer-kings and the defilers stripped it bare.

Yoncalla’s Creation

The paradise world was created by an immortal named Yoncalla. She built it inside the crystal as a refuge, a preserved memory of what the world was before the collapse. Everything in it is her creation, shaped by one being’s will and sustained by power that’s lasted for millennia.

Think about what this means. Psionic power can create entire realities. Not just move objects or read minds. Create worlds. Tiny universes contained in objects you can hold in your hand. And they’ve been sitting on a shelf in Kitarak’s workshop next to the cold-box and the well pump, like they were just another interesting artifact.

What This Changes

If an ancient immortal could create a world inside a crystal, what else is possible? And more importantly, what happens when people who “lust for power” (as Kitarak put it) find out these things exist?

The crystals are a miracle and a potential disaster. Depends on who’s holding them.

And right now, they’re being held by a heartbroken street kid and a woman who just tried to walk into a sandstorm. Not exactly the safest hands on Athas. But maybe the most honest ones.

Title: The Darkness Before the Dawn | Author: Ryan Hughes (Jerry Oltion) | Series: Dark Sun, Chronicles of Athas #2 | ISBN: 0-7869-0104-7

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