The Hollow Kingdom (16 page)

"Do come, Em," piped Seylin, putting his paws up on the couch. "I'll show you all the magic I know."

"That's fine as far as it goes," interrupted Kate sternly, "but you'll have to marry one of those goblins someday, Em. You're just saving them the trouble of stealing you." And she glared indignantly at the arrogant goblin King.

"Your sister is right," Marak said to Emily. "I'll bring you into
my kingdom under two conditions. First, you do have to marry a goblin when you're old enough. But you can marry any goblin you like; I'll leave you the choice. And second, if you come, no changing your mind later. You won't be allowed to leave."

"I don't mind marrying a goblin," promised Emily with all the blithe disregard of a child for the future.

"You know perfectly well Em's not old enough to understand what she's losing," Kate cried angrily. "How dare you try to lure her underground after I made my promise to you! You know I intended her to stay up here and--and be a human!"

Emily started to argue, but Marak stopped her with a gesture. He came to Kate's side and took her hands soothingly. "By all means," he agreed, "we can leave little M behind. And in whose care are you willing to leave her?"

Kate ran quickly through the available choices. Her great-aunts? No, they had already failed her. Besides, after this horrible experience, Kate wondered whether they would even take Emily back in. Father's nephew had already declined. If pressured, Kate suspected that he would do it, but he certainly wouldn't love her.

"Surely you don't think," said Marak, "that your guardian is particularly unusual? A young human girl alone, with land, is going to be quite a target. Or are you proposing that I sally forth every few years to rescue her from whatever new menace she encounters?"

Kate looked up. The goblin's pallid face was calm and cruel. He knew she had no choice. He must have realized right away that he could rescue Emily and still get to keep her. Kate jerked her hands free. As he let her go, she saw the brown wound on his thumb. That had probably been the only moment of her entire life when she would get the better of him.

"Don't you realize what you mean to M?" added Marak more kindly. "If you love her enough to give up your world for her, don't
you think she would want to do the same for you? She wants to be with you, and it won't be as hard for her, I think. She'll have a happy life with us. We'll appreciate her."

Kate nodded reluctantly and looked away. Her eyes met her guardian's, and she felt a rush of anger. She forgot her promise not to speak to him. "This is your fault!" she cried, helpless and furious. Her guardian glared back at her. He didn't look particularly contrite.

"Indeed it is, Kate," Marak agreed. "It's time to plan your revenge. Goblins just adore revenge." He grinned. "Do you have anything in mind?"

Kate was taken aback. "Revenge is wrong," she told him solemnly. "Vengeance belongs to God."

The goblin put his head to one side and watched her through narrowed eyes. "You won't even give God a little help?" he asked softly.

Kate thought about what her guardian had done. He had made her promise to lose her freedom and marry a monster. Hallow Hill belonged to her, but she would never live here now. She'd never even see it again. But it was hers, and no one else's, so it wasn't wrong to demand this one thing.

"I don't want him living here," she said firmly. "I want him off my land."

"Oh, good," Marak said with relish. "I thought of that one, too." He walked over to her guardian. "It seems Kate doesn't want you on her land," he announced cheerfully. "And I'm bound to say, cousin, that I don't want you here, either."

The big man stared up at him in alarm. "I didn't do anything!" he insisted. "I never even touched her, and her sister's fine."

"It's true that you didn't kill or imprison her," agreed Marak, "although I don't think you deserve much credit for that since you were certainly trying to. But no, we'll set that aside. Kate's revenge is for what you actually did do.

"Kate isn't at all like her sister. She has no desire to be a goblin's pet. She tried everything she could think of to stay out of my reach, and she did quite a remarkable job. She went to you for protection, for the help that you had promised to provide, but not only did you not help her, you actually drove her to me. Kate is the first King's Bride I know of who had to promise away her own freedom in exchange for the goblins' help. Thanks to you, she'll be lost to her own race and locked away from this land that she loves. She'll never see the sun or stars. She'll never be outside again. She'll raise just one child now, and he'll be a goblin; she'll cry for days after her first sight of him. And she'll be married to a creature she finds so frightful that I have to leash her to me with magic to keep her from running away even now."

A profound silence fell over the study. Kate stared down at the carpet, so overcome with homesickness and grief that she didn't understand how it could fail to show. There should be a physical injury to cause such pain, some wound over her heart, gushing blood. The goblin King studied her grimly. Then he turned toward Hugh with a philosophical shrug.

"It's not my problem," he said. "I have to protect my people. Kate's suffering is the price paid for the goblin race to continue. But," he added sternly, "you were supposed to protect her. You chose to become her guardian, and that makes her suffering
your
problem.

"I don't think you'll spend much time on Kate's land, anyway. The Stamp of Truth is a permanent charm. The doctor, here, will wake up never even knowing he was asleep. He'll ask you why you look so upset, and you'll tell him all about it. It's going to be very amusing, your descriptions of us all."

Hugh's anxious eyes widened as he realized what this would mean. Kate looked at the sleeping Dr. Thatcher. He was far too well educated ever to believe in goblins, especially goblins right in the
room with him and somehow escaping his notice. She imagined his interested look as her guardian related his incredible tale. Hugh Roberts would soon be in the asylum himself.

"But when Kate ordered you off her property," concluded Marak, "I don't think that she wanted to wait, so from this moment forward, you are forbidden to set foot on her land."

Hugh Roberts stared at him, completely baffled. "I'll do my best," he promised shakily. "I give you my word."

"Oh, I think you'll surprise yourself," the goblin King murmured absently. "Bulk?"

The great ape seized Hugh by the head and arm. Thaydar came up and caught the other arm, stepping down firmly on Hugh's feet. Marak reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny jar. Kneeling, he held it close to the floor, upside down. He removed the stopper, but nothing dripped out. Then he positioned the bottle below Hugh's arm and turned it quickly upright. A drop splashed upward onto the man's arm.

Before Kate's astonished eyes, the terrified Hugh began to tilt. As Thaydar stepped back, Hugh's feet slipped out from under his chair and flipped up over his head. In a few seconds, he was entirely upside down, balancing in the air, screaming and twisting. Bulk still held the other arm. He extended his own feathery arm as far as he could, pushing the man higher and higher into the air. Then he let go. Hugh whizzed through the air like a great bat and flopped grotesquely onto the ceiling.

Marak crossed quickly to Kate, who clutched the fireplace in an attack of dizziness. He put an arm around her and stared up at Hugh Roberts crawling about on the ceiling like a wasp. The big man pushed himself upright, feet stuck on the ceiling plaster and head pointing straight down. He stood swaying, goggling down at them, his round face frantic with terror. His wig didn't even fall off.

"You're not allowed to set foot on Kate's land," Marak reminded him evenly. "Well, actually, any land. Now, I understand that the doctor here is fascinated by preternatural forms of insanity. Kate tells me he believes the mind can perform impossible feats when it gives way to madness. Things not explainable in the everyday world." He paused, watching as Hugh Roberts scrabbled about above him. "You should exceed his wildest expectations."

The big man gibbered down at them, clawing at the walls, and then, making a rush across the ceiling, he tangled himself in the chandelier. Kate couldn't bear it any longer. He looked like some huge cockroach. She put her head down and stared at the floor as Marak shepherded her from the room. The quiet goblins filed out of the house, Hugh Roberts's screams echoing down the hall behind them.

The goblins left by the front door. Kate stumbled, dazed, down the wide steps, Marak's protective arm holding her upright. She could still hear her guardian's screams behind them, and she put her hands over her ears to block out the sound. The chilly night breeze revived her a little as they crunched along a gravel walk. They were filing down one of the tree-lined edges of the Hallow Hill green, leaving the Hall and forest behind.

Kate glanced up at her strange companion's implacable face. He knew exactly how miserable she was at the thought of the life he had planned for her. He even knew how miserable she was going to be about things she hadn't thought of yet. She shivered, thinking of a hideous goblin baby. She wondered if Adele had cried for days at her first sight of him.

The goblin King knew all this, and he could just shrug it off, completely pitiless, but he could exact an appalling price for her misery from a human who he thought should have tried to prevent it. Kate cautiously pulled her hands away from her ears. She couldn't hear her guardian's screams anymore, but she had a swift image of him flopping about on the ceiling, and she shivered again. Marak paused in their walk, frowning, to pull his cloak around her slight shoulders.

But then, Kate considered, her father would say to be fair. It was true that the goblin King had been trying to capture her, but it was
also true that he hadn't succeeded. She had walked in unannounced and promised to be his wife, and she had set the condition herself. He had immediately marshaled his forces to meet the terms of the agreement. He had taken her along to watch him accomplish his part, and she had promised to go back when it was done. She had even picked the revenge herself, although she'd had no idea what her simple statement would become in the hands of a magical monster.

They came to the end of the gravel walk. On the field beyond the green, the goblin groom waited with their horses. Kate stepped out of the shadow of the trees into bright moonlight. As she tilted her head to look at the full moon, she felt the grief of her loss sweep through her again. The goblin King had said she would never be outside after their marriage. Kate didn't think she could endure it.

Marak was issuing orders. Seylin raced back toward the house, and Hulk and Bulk climbed onto two big draft horses and trotted off. Emily wandered over and took her hand. Kate looked down at her little sister. Her thin cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with excitement. With Emily's love of drama and of animals, she would enjoy every bit of goblin life. It was all so exaggerated, from the bright colors and rich decorations to the deformities of the creatures themselves. At last, life would hold all the variety Emily wanted.

After several minutes, Seylin came back at a run. "They both woke up well," he reported to the King. "The man woke up in the middle of a sentence, and he looked around for a minute before he could find Roberts on the ceiling. Then I had to go wake up the woman. The bell was already ringing to call her to the study, so I don't think she'll notice that her tea was cold."

They prepared to ride home. Kate noted that it was all happening pretty much as it would have a few days ago, and she wondered drearily if the extra time had been worthwhile. Thaydar boosted
Emily up and then swung up behind her. Seylin sprang on behind Thaydar and wrapped his paws around the burly goblin's waist.

"Listen to me, you occasional cat," growled Thaydar, "there'd better be no claws this time, or you walk home! I don't care if you fall off--I won't be a pincushion."

"Ready?" asked Marak, and he boosted Kate up onto his gray hunter. For a few seconds, she was alone on the horse. She wanted to seize the reins and dash away, but she realized that the magical bond that tied her to the King would pull her from the horse's back. By the time she thought of this, he had already mounted behind her.

"Really, Kate, my own horse!" said the goblin reprovingly, just as if she had been speaking out loud. "I don't think he'd have done it, but I'm glad you couldn't try." He glanced down at her face, raised in silent appeal to the moon. She didn't seem to notice him at all. She couldn't see anything but the moon and the stars near it, calling her across the vast gulf of darkness. They seemed to know her name, she thought sadly. If only she knew theirs.

Marak took one sharp look at the white face of his bride and urged his horse into a gallop. The horses raced through the silvery fields, running flat out. They cleared fences and crashed through bushes, throwing up a cloud of dust and small rocks in their wake. Emily, clinging to Thaydar, thought they were going to die, and Seylin forgot all about the warning not to use claws. But Kate knew nothing of the hair-raising ride. She saw nothing but the moon and stars. They seemed so close. Surely they could help her. She could almost hear words like the chimes of bells as they told her what she needed to do. She could see the moonbeams reaching down to her like silver hands, catching at the fleeing horse. Marak leaned down low, pulling her with him, and called for more speed.

Kate felt them shift as if the horse had stumbled. She took her eyes off the pursuing moon and glanced ahead. They were on a level
field, but the horse's racing feet were sinking into it as if it were quicksand. He was not slowing his gallop; if anything, he was running faster, his legs invisible below the earth. In another few seconds, Kate's feet were gone, too, and just as if the field were a mist or sea, only the horse's head plowed along above it. Waving grass stems and dirt clods raced by the edges of Marak's black cloak. Now the horse's head was gone, and the ground was rising up around her, lapping at her without waves until it reached her chest and then her neck. She screamed in terror, the goblin's arms clamped tightly around her as she threw back her head for one last glimpse of the moon.