In The Coils Of The Snake (31 page)

“You’re
probably right,” said Hunter, relenting. “We shouldn’t
be rude. I suppose we could bring ourselves to
eat a little goblin fare.
Here, Sika.” He handed her an apple.

Miranda was happy to
discover that the Daylight Spell worked underground. She wished it could keep
her asleep night and day.
The months since
she had left home had been a series of painful sore
rows and shocks, and
this last setback had put her beyond feeling
altogether.
She wasn’t even unhappy. She just felt worn out and list
less. After all, she reasoned, she wouldn’t be
able to see Nir anyway.
He was still on his trip. She couldn’t face even
imagining how she might feel when she knew the elf lord was back home.

Hunter
took Miranda on walks with him and fed her his elf food until it ran out, but
his attitude completely baffled her. He hated the
subterranean prison intensely, and he had lost all of his
old compan
ions, but he
was much more cheerful than she was. She didn’t realize
that
elves were naturally optimistic and didn’t ordinarily worry, as Nir had pointed
out. Hunter wasn’t really happy, but he didn’t see any reason why that should
interfere with his fun.

In Miranda’s room
was a shelf of books, and a couple of nights after their arrival she came
downstairs deep in the tale of Robinson
Crusoe.
Hunter was examining a buttered croissant suspiciously. Tat
too dozed on a mat nearby. Lonely and homesick for
goblins, Tattoo
spent as much time with the two of them as he could.

“That’s not
elvish,” commented Hunter, looking over her shoulder at the book as he
ate. “Is it goblin?”

“It’s English,”
she said absently. “A story.”

“Oh, chronicles,”
said the elf.

“I can read it
to you if you like,” offered Miranda. “It’s about a man who suffers
shipwreck at sea.” Then she thought that Hunter
might not understand this. “His ship, his boat, sinks in the
middle of
the sea — that’s like a
huge lake. And the man has to live all alone on
an island and find
everything he needs.”

“I didn’t know
your family knew how to do that kind of thing,
Sika,” admitted Hunter, considerably impressed. “Nir says we
elves
used to go fishing in boats made of hides, but no one in my family
knew anything about it. My father fell
through lake ice, though, and
drowned.”

Miranda
was puzzled by these remarks, but Tattoo was a veteran
of
Kate’s English classes and spotted the confusion at once. “That
man on the island isn’t Miranda’s relative,”
he said from his comfortable position on the mat. “He isn’t anybody’s
relative; he’s just made
up. Imaginary, like a dream.”

Hunter
was astounded. “You’re learning the history of a man who
didn’t
exist?” he demanded. “Why would you bother to do that?”

“Because
it’s interesting,” said Miranda. “When I think about
his
troubles, I forget mine for a while.”

“You want
imaginary troubles to forget real troubles?” asked Hunter. “I don’t
have to read a big long chronicle for that. I’ll just imagine I have a
stomachache.”

He rolled around on
the floor, moaning and holding his middle. Miranda was disgusted. She headed
back to her room to enjoy her book in peace. Hunter sat up laughing as she
passed.

“Wait! My
stomachache’s gone!” he exclaimed. “I feel wonderful.” But she
marched up the stairs without looking at him. “She’s
mad at me,” he sighed. “Now we’ll never
find out what happened to
the man who didn’t exist. And what will we do
for fun now that we
can’t tease Sika? I
know,” he suggested, giving the goblin an apprais
ing glance. “Do
you know how to play knucklebones?”

• • •

Miranda was glad to
have normal food again, and she thought that Hunter would like it as well, but
the poor elf simply hated it. He couldn’t reconcile himself to his new diet at
all.

“I can’t get
over how horrible it is,” he insisted to Tattoo one evening before Miranda
came down. “Like this brown stuff. What do you call it?”

“Chocolate
cake,” answered Tattoo, glancing at the wedge
Hunter
was waving about in the air.

“This chocolate
cake,” continued Hunter. “I can’t even begin to guess what it’s
trying to taste like.”

“Like
chocolate?” suggested Tattoo, helping himself to a slice of
his
own. Hunter gave him a pitying glance.

“I
don’t know how you ever got to be so big and hulking on food
like
this,” he remarked. He rummaged in his pack for a minute. “Here,”
he said, handing Tattoo a piece of dried meat and taking a piece for himself “The
last of my stock. just wrap your silver lips around that.”

Tattoo
tore off a shred and ate it. “Haven’t you people ever heard
of
salt?” he demanded.

“Now, that’s
food to savor!” exclaimed the elf, brandishing his
“My own kill, too, the night before we got locked in here.”

Tattoo looked more
interested, and gnawed at the meat again.
“My
father used to hunt with the old goblin King,” he said, “but
I’ve
never hunted, myself.”

“You’ve
never hunted?” cried the elf. “At your age! Where does
your
meat come from, then?”

“Mostly
from sheep,” replied the goblin.” Sheep walk right up to
you
if they know you.”

“Oh,
you’ve missed so much!” exclaimed Hunter. “There’s noth
ing
like it, your own food running wild, beautiful, and carefree through the
forest. And you find it and follow it, bring it down and
bring it back home, and you feed your whole camp
with your efforts.”

Tattoo watched the
animated Hunter, mildly impressed. The
goblins
didn’t respect the pretty elves, but this was an achievement he
couldn’t
boast of.

“Why, you take
that deer you’re eating now,” said the elf. “I
didn’t even have my hunting partner that night. I
had to stalk her
and bring her back alone.”

Tattoo choked and
swallowed with an effort.

“Her!”
he
shouted. ‘And now I’m
eating
her! Oh, you people are just barbarians!”
He flung the rest of the meat onto the ground and
stomped off down the cavern. Hunter watched him go, more bewil
dered
than offended.

“What’s
wrong with him?” he wondered as Miranda came down
the
stairs. She had heard the last of the conversation.

“Goblins
never eat female animals,” she said. “They think
mothers
are sacred.”

“Now, that’s
funny, Sika,” remarked Hunter. “He just called me a barbarian. Doesn’t
he know that goblins are the barbarians?”

• • •

A
few nights later, Miranda sat staring at the fountain, despondently
wondering where Nir
was.

“Miranda,”
whispered a soft voice. She looked around in surprise. A large, fluffy black
cat crouched on the stairs that led up to her room.

“Seylin!”
she cried. The black cat flattened his ears and switched
his
tail.

“Do you mind
keeping your voice down!” he hissed. “I don’t want Tattoo to know I’m
here.”

“It’s
all right,” she said. “Hunter talked Tattoo into going swim
ming
with him. He didn’t want to, but Hunter teased him and made fun of him until it
was just easier, I think. Why don’t you want him to know you’re here?”

“I didn’t just
come to cheer you up,” replied Seylin. “I need information. Within
the last two months, something completely
unexpected
has happened: a healthy band of almost seventy elves has
returned to their ancestral homeland. But almost
immediately, things
have started to go wrong. They’ve lost arguably
their most magical
female to a goblin
marriage, and they’re about to lose their most mag
ical male as well. The
band doesn’t have very many descendants of the noble families. I’m afraid they
won’t survive it.”

“Catspaw
promised me that he wouldn’t kill Nir!” exclaimed Miranda. “Why are
the elves going to lose him?”

“The
goblin King means to keep his promise, but that won’t save
the
elf lord for very long,” opined the cat. “The lord has already caused
enough harm to get himself killed several times over, and I very much doubt
that he means to stop.”

They went upstairs.
With a shimmer, Seylin changed back into
his
regular form and pulled from his pocket a pen, a bottle of ink, and
a
small scroll. He unrolled it, and Miranda saw that it was blank.

“Recent
events have shown me just how little we understand the elves,” he said. “I
have to find out why the elf lord keeps doing these
irrational
things, and you’re the only one I can talk to.”

“I’ll tell you
anything that will help,” she promised. “But why would Tattoo care
that you’re here?”

“He
won’t, but he’ll tell the guards, and they’ll tell Marak Cats
paw,” answered Seylin. “The King’s mind is
already made up about this, and he’s happy with his conclusions. He’s already
forbidden me
to discuss this with Arianna. If he
knew that I had been here, he might tell me not to come see you again, and I
would have to obey him. That would limit my choices in a very critical matter.”

Miranda
had not been able to talk to anyone about Nir since the day she had met him.
She talked about life in the elf camp for hours. Seylin
was
a good listener, and he surprised her by taking frequent notes,
unrolling the small scroll farther and farther as
the night progressed. By
the time he ran out of questions, the scroll
was several feet long.

Miranda lay on the
bed with her hands over her eyes. The talk
had
stirred up her battered feelings, and her heart was aching. Seylin tapped his
pen against his knee, looking back over his copious notes.

“I
still don’t understand it,” he remarked. “The more I know, the
less I understand.” He rolled up his notes into the
same tiny scroll as
before. “And
here you are, at the center of a fight between the two
greatest lords of our day. I suppose you could consider that an honor.”

“I
wouldn’t say that they’re fighting over me,” protested Miranda
gloomily, staring at the stone ceiling above her. “Catspaw
certainly
tossed me aside without
a fight. Now Nir will come home in a week and find out that he has to give me
up, too. He’ll just pick one of the elf girls to marry. It won’t be hard, they’re
all beautiful.” She sighed.
“And now I know
that I haven’t even saved his life.”

“That’s not
true,” observed the handsome goblin. “The elf lord would definitely
be dead tonight if you hadn’t struck your bargain
with Marak Catspaw. You bought him time and more important,
you bought me time as well. Maybe I can find the
key to this puzzle
before it’s too late.”

“I’ll
go downstairs and get rid of Tattoo for you,” she said.
“Come
back and visit me again, Seylin. I’ll be glad to talk to you.”

She found her guards
playing knucklebones by the fountain.
“Let’s
take a walk,” she suggested, and the three of them started off.

As
soon as they were out of sight, a large black cat crept out of the
shadow
of the stairway. He froze in concentration for a second. Then
he leapt into the
fountain’s wide basin. No splash sounded, and no ripples rose as he hit the water.
The black cat simply disappeared.

• • •

Miranda
spent the next several days in her comfortable room, read
ing
and rereading her books. Meanwhile, the two guards killed time
below.
Hunter was growing restless, trapped inside day and night.
He was missing howling winds, autumn storms, and
the leaves cas
cading from the trees. It began to wear on his temper.