The Crystal Crab is a legendary entity of Alexandria, “a creator of worlds”: a gigantic floating crystal crab said to lie under the Lighthouse, its magic mirror set where the Lighthouse itself should be. It creates villages and demiplanes in which armies have been lost.
| Type | Entity |
| Epithet | ”That protector of Alexandria” |
| Spanish entry | Cangrejo de Cristal |
Description
Wholly mineral, formed from “a small particle of crystal”, with a single eye and flesh “a mixture of insects and fungi”. Fungus grows on it; it has grasping, constricting tentacles and is iridescent, like “something that may have come from space”. It floats rather than walks. It wears “a kind of conical hat”, “a little mirror hat”, holding a magic mirror. Its size is given only as “enormous”.
The mirror
It lies under the Lighthouse, its mirror exactly where the Lighthouse should stand. The underground halls “that were not known” and that disappeared are attributed to it. The mirror is the point of the conjunction, “a point of magnetic attraction” “beyond Euclidean geometry”.
Powers and abilities
- It manipulates reality and creates villages and demiplanes; it “could project rooms inside where they could lose that army”. Armies that entered were lost, not killed; things “could get lost there until suddenly appearing under the sea”.
- It rarely fights, with “violent electricity” striking everyone within sixty feet.
- Electricity does not touch it, magic partly slides off it, and it “is partly fortified”.
Lesser crystals
Ordinary crystals exist: “a silicon that connects with a star”, emanating an electric frequency, obtainable in four or five days. Singular ones include the courtyard crystal, once in six parts, now reunified; one that reddens and bleeds when activated and holds “the werewolf in miniature”; one that teleports whoever breaks it outside; and Moni’s Crystal Ball, used for clairvoyance and to prepare the Bengala. Whether they relate to the Crab is not established.
Conflicting accounts
- One account places it under the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
- Another places it in Kumal, guarding the Bengala, with statues.
- Two appearances, two creatures, or a relocation. It is distinct from Aqualord.
Open questions
- What conjunction the mirror sets, and what it attracts.
- A garbled passage links it to interstices of reality, “the old platforms” and rooted wood.
- Whether it can die; no one lost in its demiplanes is recorded as returned.