The Crystal lay hidden in the mountain, but all the creatures of the World knew it was there.  When a Sun shone down the shaft © Henson Productions/Arwork by Brian Froud of the Crystal, all would touch rock and feel the trembling from the Crystal.  The Crystal sang quietly at the lesser conjunctions of the two Suns; but at the Great conjunction, for which the World waits nine hundred and ninety-nine trine and one trine, the song of the Crystal resounded through the rocks and all life rejoiced.

AUGHRA: On the day I gave one eye to see the splendor of the Three Suns, a new joy came to the World.  I lay on the mountain above the Crystal and saw the Three Suns move close together.  I lay under rocks with one eye open to the light, and for one moment and forever I saw the Eye of the Three Suns shining down upon me.  Then from that light my eye darkened, and in that moment of light the urSkeks opened the door in the Crystal and entered our World.  The pain of my lost eye was joined once to the joy I had in the urSkeks, but bitter, sour, poisoned rock is that joy to me know.

In the days of their first coming there were eighteen urSkeks, and they were full of vigor and the will to change and build.  They hollowed out the mountain around the Crystal and built a castle of lesser crystals around the great Crystal.  The urSkeks were upright and tall, with an inner light of beauty that streamed from them always.  I had from them the understanding of many things; from them the Gelfling learned to sing new songs.  Each moment was rich and full, yet the coming of the shining strangers changed our World and our lives forever...  The thought of the urSkeks was formed in triangles and pyramids, with circles and spheres placed within them; the castle was built as a poem to these shapes, and the movements of the Suns that shone through the protal completed the Harmony.

urSkek © Henson Productions/Arwork by Brian Froud

But in the hearts of the shining urSkeks there stuggled two beings living within one body- and for them all things were divided so.  Light and dark were for them the opposing spirits of the Universe; a mirror held to light should reflect dark, a mirror in the darkness should give light.  In the heart of the castle they had made a trap for light, a net of crystal and golden mirrors.  They caught the light that had passed through the Great Crystal, the light that fell to the Lake of Fire deep in the World.  They placed carved mirrors in the beam of light, they shone it into the Chamber of Life.  For nine hundred and ninety-nine trine and one trine they made ready, from the moment they arrived until the moment of the next Great Conjunction.  The Three Suns moved over the Great Crystal, the Eye looked down, and the shining mirrors of the urSkeks sent a path of trapped light through the chamber.  Then, one by one in long procession, they walked into the brightness. They entered the bright light each as a single being; but as they left the path of light, each had become two: to the left, the Skeksis; to the right, the urRu.  The Great Division of the urSkeks had been achieved. On that day, the Harmony of the World shattered.