The Hollow Kingdom (17 page)
Total darkness surrounded them. Kate closed her eyes and hid her face in the goblin King's chest, preferring to deal with a blindness that she caused and understood. After a few more seconds, the horse slowed down. Soon he was cantering and then walking, blowing from his run. She could feel the goblin relax, too, straightening up and loosening his hold on her. Kate cautiously opened her eyes. Polished rock walls and hanging lamps met her frightened gaze. She was back underground.
They came to an iron door just like the one she had come through with Seylin, though this one opened for the King without any questions. Beyond it was a wide room lined with horse stalls. Thaydar swung down from the saddle, cursing in goblin at Seylin, who had shredded his waistcoat. Emily could hardly stand up, so frightened had she been by the trip underground, but she was already asking questions. Marak lifted Kate to the ground, and their steaming, lathered horses were led away.
They emerged in a palace hallway. On one side was a line of doors; on the other, tall windows without glass displayed a spectacular view. They were high above a wide, bowl-shaped valley far larger than the one through which she had originally come, its space
defined in the darkness by thousands of twinkling lights. Past the windowsill, she could see what must be the back of the palace, forming a straight wall down for several hundred feet. A large town nestled at the bottom of the palace, and across the valley, more towns were defined by other gatherings of lights. Between them were open areas crossed by lighted roads or canals.
Emily and Seylin leaned out a window farther than was safe, asking and answering in a chatter that wearied everyone but themselves. Marak walked over to the unlikely pair. "Seylin," he said, "take M to get something to eat. I don't think she's been fed at all today." Kate immediately felt guilty for not having thought of this herself. "The cooks will be at the ceremony, so you'll need to find something on your own, and then you can bring M back up to the pages' floor to pick an apartment. There should be some with windows free, and she'd better have one with a really good writing area like yours."
Kate found this statement interesting, but Emily thought it was hilarious. "You can write?" she asked the big cat incredulously. "How do you hold a pen?"
"Not with his paws, although he's tried," answered Marak with an exasperated sigh. "Seylin, you've been a cat long enough for now. Change back, and this time stay changed for at least one full day."
Seylin's ears, head, and fluffy tail went down in total dejection. "Change back now?" he yowled pitifully. "But they'll laugh at me."
"Or perhaps your King didn't just give you an order," the goblin remarked.
There was a heartfelt sigh, and then a shimmer, and a tall boy in a black tunic and breeches stood where the cat had crouched. Kate and Emily stared. If they had expected anything, they had expected a goblin or a human, but Seylin was neither one. His neat black eyebrows curved upward where a human's curved down, and his small
ears pointed at the tips. His thick black hair curled in luxurious ringlets, his large black eyes were shaded by long, dark lashes, and his pale skin had a fine, silvery texture. Seylin was an extraordinarily handsome youth about thirteen years old. Except for the fact that his striking features wore an unusually glum expression, he could have been an angel in a painting by an Italian master.
"You see, they didn't laugh," observed the goblin King. "Now, go, and if you want to show M your new trick with the colored flames, do it somewhere away from low ceilings so you don't leave a scorch mark." The two turned and went off together, a little bashful at first, but Kate noticed that before they reached the end of the hallway, they were again deep in conversation.
"I never saw such a beautiful boy," she murmured in complete amazement.
"Don't ever let Seylin hear you say that," Marak said. "He'd never forgive you. He's a throwback, of course, almost pure elf, and in one of our finest high families, too, a goblin-goblin marriage. The parents were devastated. It hasn't been easy for him, as you might well imagine. He tends to avoid the other children, but I've kept him close by, and he's proved exceptional at magic. He's very sensitive about his--well, I suppose you'd balk at the word
abnormality
--his difference, and since I taught him how to change shapes, he's been a cat as much as possible." He chuckled. "He seems to feel that if he's a cat, people will forget that he's not much of a goblin."
Kate pondered this odd speech as they started off again down corridors and stairs. Her head was buzzing with bizarre sights and strange ideas, and she was very tired. It seemed to her that they walked for a long time without speaking, always going down. The windows vanished, and the halls became rougher, more like tunnels than hallways. Eventually Marak ushered her into a small cavelike room. It was lit by a lamp hanging high in the rounded ceiling. A table-high
ledge stretched across one end, and before it protruded a chair-shaped hunk of stone, the simplest of furnishings left behind when the room was hollowed out.
Kate found the room too dim for her human eyes and stopped right inside the door to adjust. Marak crossed to an inner door and talked in goblin to someone beyond. Kate sat down on the stone seat and studied the ledge in front of her. Four golden circles lay there, along with an oddly fashioned golden drinking goblet that held some sort of dark liquid. She suddenly felt very nervous.
Marak put a shallow bowl of water and a towel in front of her. Then he laid his hands on the door they had come through and spoke aloud. It shuddered and clanked, and Kate jumped. "It's all right," he remarked, seeing her startled face, a hint of his normal amusement glinting in his serious eyes. "It's purely ritual. I've just locked the door with magic. It was important in the old days when a King's Bride might have hundreds of hysterical and highly magical kin storming the doors to rescue her before she could be made the King's Wife. That's a problem we're not likely to face at this ceremony."
He took a small bag from his pocket and threw a pinch of powder into the bowl. Taking her right hand in his left, he pushed both into the water and dried her wet hand on the towel. "Of course, I did wait until you were locked in before removing the Leashing Spell," he admitted with a sigh. "You don't have kin storming the doors, but sometimes I think you don't need them. You do make me nervous, Kate."
Kate looked uncertainly from the locked door to the odd assembly of items on the table. Was she trapped in this little room forever? There being only one chair, Marak sat down on the table, pushing his striped hair back with a big hand and studying her distressed face intently.
"Couldn't the ceremony wait for just a little?" she begged. "I'm so tired; I'm used to sleeping at night. Just another few hours?"
Marak chuckled, his eyes lighting up with admiration as he looked at her. "Kate, what you could do with another few hours, I'd be terrified to see. You'd slip right through my fingers like a ghost. I promise you can sleep right after the wedding, sleep for days if you want to, but the ceremony's critical, and it's always done immediately." Kate hung her head, discouraged.
"In our world, there's nothing more important than the marriage of the King because that's where the new King comes from, and that's how the magic of the race continues. The ceremony tests the bride for certain qualifications, it makes indications about the future, it ensures that she stays underground where she'll be safe, and it protects her against every kind of harm. The King's Wife ceremony is completely practical and, therefore, largely unpleasant," concluded the goblin with a resigned shrug.
Kate considered this information unhappily. Then she brightened.
"But I might fail some test, then?" she pointed out.
"Don't get your hopes up, Kate. You're ideal." He watched her crestfallen expression with a smile. "But it goes beyond tests and protections. The point is that once it's over, you're one of us. Now, that doesn't thrill you, but it does thrill my people. I don't think you can understand what it means to them. Goblins are a close-knit, gregarious society. That's our strength. The King's Wife doesn't become a goblin, of course, but she's tremendously important, so the goblins are fascinated by her. If she waves her hand about in a certain way when she talks, all the goblin women copy her. If she prefers a certain color, everyone wears it. If she has a favorite flower, every goblin who goes outside tries to bring her one, and they adore her if it's at all possible. Everyone adored my mother--my father, most of all." Kate pictured Adele in this same room, years before, and wondered how she had felt.
Marak picked up one of the golden circlets and rolled it in his hands for a moment. "Enough about life beyond the ceremony," he said with a sigh. "We both have to get ready. Kate, the King's Bride is a captured bride, stolen, hysterical, weeping and wailing. That's what usually happens. But you weren't stolen; you came here willingly. You made a promise, and now you're carrying it through. That's very important," he said seriously. "You need to remember that. Don't kick up a fuss. Don't make anyone drag you around. Keep up your dignity. It'll help.
"The entire ceremony presumes a desperate captive woman of great magical powers. During the ceremony, she is shackled both magically and actually. No one speaks to her in a language she understands, and she herself is wordless. She is taken where she needs to go, and she has no control over what happens. Which means that you have the easy part. Everyone else does all the work."
"But I don't have any magical powers!" protested Kate. Marak glanced at her sharply.
"I don't know how you could have," he admitted, "but it makes no difference. The ceremony is always the same. If there's no need for the precautions, we'll never know. If there is need of them, they're always in place." Kate could see the rather brutal logic of this.
"At the end of the ceremony, it no longer matters whether you have tremendous magic or hordes of relations. No power on earth, including my own, can make you back into what you were before. You're the King's Wife from that moment on until one or the other of us dies, and you're underground forever."
Kate stared numbly at the gold circle in his big gray hands. As she watched, he clicked it open into two halves. Reaching down, he closed it again on her wrist. She lifted her hand in the dim light but could see no seam in the metal. An inch-wide golden bracelet followed the contours of her wrist as closely as if it had been
designed just for her. Marak was already putting one on her other wrist. Then he knelt down and began unfastening her shoes. Feeling embarrassed, Kate did it herself, and he put the other bracelets on her bare ankles.
"Now, drink this," he ordered, retrieving the goblet and setting it in front of her. He watched her carefully, both amused and a little irritated as her expression turned mutinous.
"What does it do?" she demanded.
"It takes away your words," he said patiently. "Most magic depends on the right words, so this will block you from attempting defensive spells and charms. I know, I know, you can't work spells and charms, but you have to drink it, anyway."
"What if I don't?" Kate asked mulishly.
"Do you see this?" Marak asked. Part of the cup rim was shaped like a metal whistle. "I grab your hair, and I yank your head back, and I wedge this between your teeth. Then I pour the drink down your throat. It's not that hard, really." Kate glared indignantly at his impassive expression.
"Kate," said the goblin, "remember what I told you. You offered to do this. This was all your choice. It'll help you to think about that. It won't make any difference in the outcome of the ceremony, but you'll feel better about it, and you'll keep up your courage."
Kate lifted the goblet and took a small sip. Then she paused. What if I just refuse to swallow? she thought stubbornly.
Marak grinned at her. "It's already worked. It just needs to touch your tongue. You can spit it out if you want to." Glowering desperately, Kate swallowed with an effort. "That's it, then," he said, turning toward the inner door. "You're all set to go to the women now and get ready. Remember, they won't talk to you, and you can't talk to them. And any frantic flailing around you do is sure to be palace gossip for years."
"How perfectly barbaric," Kate sneered. At least, that's what she intended to say. What she actually said was, "Aaah."
"Exactly," said Marak approvingly. "I'm locking this door behind you, so your magic spells won't work, anyway. The only way out is at the other end of the women's chamber, and that's where I'll be waiting when you're ready."
Kate drowsily watched the monster women at work on her. Here I am, she thought bitterly, being hustled into marriage just like those poor Sabine women who were dragged away by the Romans. She wondered how many of those Roman men had been old, or ugly, or deformed. It didn't matter because the captive women had to marry them anyway, but she doubted that a single one of them had a husband more ugly than hers.
She thought about the goblin King, with his gray skin, his big, bony head, and those eyes like different-colored coals glowing out of their deep sockets. Her father had taught her that her husband would be her closest companion, her comfort and guide, the guardian of her honor and virtue. A husband and wife belonged to each other body and soul. Husbands kissed their wives, just as Romeo had kissed Juliet. They slept together in the same bed; the stories were very clear about that.
She thought about the poems she had read, about that glorious love shared by man and wife that transformed the poorest people into cherished treasures in each other's eyes. What a mockery of love this was, she thought with a sinking heart. She imagined Marak's wiry arms around her, his awful brown lips kissing hers. When Eve left Paradise, she left with handsome Adam, but Kate was leaving with the snake.