The Hollow Kingdom (23 page)

She saw clearly what he had refused to tell the others, that he didn't think the goblins could save themselves without him. The sorcerer would come back, and he would enslave the rest. Seylin would be occupied with the Kingdom Spells, and no one else had the magic to stand against the sorcerer. One by one the goblins would fall asleep until there was no one left but her and the dwarves. Marak would eventually die, and the goblins' magic would be lost forever.

Kate had never really wanted that son he had longed for. She hadn't wanted to cry over a goblin baby and its awful deformities. But now she would be thrilled to know she was going to have a hideous goblin baby. He would be the hope of his people, and he would be Marak's son and hers. She smiled in bitter amazement at her own stupidity. How had she ever thought she could cry at the sight of Marak's son?

Night came, and the lights flickered out. Kate's dwarf made diamond bracelet flared to brightness. In its magical light, Marak
looked as if he were already dead. Kate couldn't stand it any longer. We don't have a King or an Heir to save us, she concluded firmly, but I'm not going to spend the rest of my life down here feeding potions to a sleeping husband. If he can fight for his wife and son, then I can fight for my husband. That sorcerer's outside in the world I know. I'm not afraid of monsters, I'm not afraid of magic, and I'm certainly not afraid of him.

She got up and went to find Agatha.

"Kate," called a voice behind her, and she turned to see Emily with a lantern in her hand and a goblin baby in each arm.

"Em, what are you doing here?" Kate asked.

"The pages volunteered to watch the children whose parents are asleep," said Emily. "I have six babies up in my room right now. But Mongrel and Lash wanted to kiss their mommies and daddies good night, didn't they?" she baby-talked to the little goblins. "Actually Mongrel gave his mother more of a lick," she confided. The fuzzy, floppy-eared goblin looked up at Emily with his big brown eyes and gave her a swipe on the cheek. "That's my boy." She smiled down at him. "Aren't they the cutest things?"

"Yes," murmured Kate, ruffling Lash's feathers. "Em," she said, hesitating, "I don't know--nothing may happen, but I may--"

"You're going to go bring them back, aren't you?" said Emily.

"How did you know?" gasped Kate.

"I already told all the pages you would," she said. "You've never been afraid of anything. Besides, you already know your way around Liverpool; you were there once for three days."

"But, Em!" spluttered Kate. "It's hardly that simple!"

"I never said it was," replied Emily carelessly, "but I know you can do it. Good luck." She kissed Kate on the cheek, and Mongrel stretched up to give her a damp swipe on the chin. "Bring me back a box of that almond brittle like you did last time. Now, let's go find
Lash's mommy." And Emily walked off, leaving Kate to stare after her in stunned disbelief.

Agatha was bustling about the darkened banquet hall with a pot of Marak's concoction in one hand and a lantern in the other. Her wrinkled old face was wet with tears.

"Agatha," Kate said urgently, "I have to talk to you." The dwarf woman motioned her to sit down on a pallet.

"Old Mandrake won't mind," she sighed.

"I must go after the sorcerer," Kate explained. "No one else can. I know that world, it's my world, and I can travel in the daylight. I'm well protected, too. Marak said once that I was better protected by my charm than he was by his magic."

Agatha stirred the concoction for a minute while she considered this plan. "You're right, my lady," she said. "You're the best one to go. You've a powerful lot of magic in you, as I should know better than most. You used it on me once to get away, and oh! was Marak mad at me!"

Kate remembered the meeting in the forest when the old dwarf had glued her feet to the ground. "I didn't use magic at all," she protested. "You just gave us a sporting chance."

"Be sporting to the King's Bride!" Agatha chuckled. "You know better than that. There's nothing sporting about it, dear, nothing at all. No, you worked a fine persuasion spell on me, and being mostly dwarf, I fell for it right away." She sighed again. "The King always used to do it, too, when he wanted to get out of his lessons. No, you're right, you must go, dear. What a day it will be when the elves save the goblins after all!"

"But I can't get past the door," Kate pointed out. Agatha turned to look at her, black eyes thoughtful.

"You'll have to talk to the snake," she decided.

"What snake?"

"That one, dear," said Agatha, pointing to the golden coils above her neckline.

"Oh!" said Kate, dumbfounded. "It can talk?"

"Yes, but not many know it. It only talks to the King ceremonially, but sometimes a King's Wife comes along that it'll talk to. I don't even know if the Kings know."

"Marak never mentioned it," murmured Kate, "but then, he only brought it up to tease me because he knew how much I hated it. How do you know, Agatha?"

To her surprise, the little woman began to chuckle. She rocked back and forth in quiet mirth. "Oh, because of the King's mother, Adele. She got in more trouble! If you told her she should try flying, she'd have jumped out a window just to see. She wore that poor thing out. And they talked. I used to hear them sometimes when I was looking after the baby. It's terribly old, that snake, and it's seen everything. If anyone can get you out and save the King, it'll be the snake."

"But how do I talk to it?" asked Kate, nonplussed. "It's been nothing but paint for the last year and a half."

"I don't know," said Agatha slowly. "The only time I know it wakes up is when you're in real, right-now danger. If you do something dangerous, that'll wake it up."

"But then it'll bite me," Kate pointed out in alarm.

Agatha sighed. She picked up her spoon and stirred the pot again. "I don't know, dear," she admitted finally. "It's your snake."

Kate thought about this. "All right," she said gloomily. "I'm off to stab myself. If it bites me, you can put me down here next to Marak and feed us both that nasty concoction until the King wakes up and renders judgment. Which he may never do, but I don't think I have much of a choice."

"Good luck, my pretty lady," said Agatha, patting her on the hand, and she went back to her work as Kate stalked out of the hall.

A few minutes later, Kate sat at her dressing table, staring at herself by the light of her bracelet. She had taken a small knife out of Marak's workroom, and she looked at it nervously. How much danger was enough? What if the snake bit her? Would she sleep, too, or would she still be awake even though she was paralyzed? Kate shuddered. Best get on with it before I lose my nerve, she thought. She lifted the knife and moved it slowly toward her chest.

Kate heard a metallic zing, and the head of the golden snake reared up before her face. She dropped the knife, staring into those golden eyes.

"Don't bite me, don't bite me!" she begged.

The snake studied her face, weaving back and forth. It flicked its golden tongue out as it gazed regally at her.

"What are you doing, King's Wife?" it hissed softly. "I have guarded one hundred and sixty-seven King's Wives before you. You are the one hundred and sixty-eighth. Fifty-four King's Wives have tried to kill themselves. You are the fifty-fifth."

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," gasped Kate. "I'm in danger."

"You put yourself in danger," hissed the snake. "You had a knife. Twenty-eight King's Wives have tried to kill themselves with knives. One, with a two-headed battle-ax."

"Ugh." Kate grimaced. "I wasn't going to do anything with the knife. I just wanted to talk to you."

The snake twined down Kate's left arm and turned from her wrist to get a better look at her. "If you wanted to talk to me," it hissed, "why didn't you just do it?"

"Well," began Kate, and then realized that she had no answer. The snake studied her.

"I have guarded one hundred and sixty-eight King's Wives," it hissed. "Sixty-four of them were unintelligent. Two of them were so stupid they didn't know their own names."

"I see," said Kate a little coldly. "But wait! I need your help. The King has been enchanted by a sorcerer. I know where the sorcerer is, and I need to go find him, but I can't get out the door."

The snake studied her for another long moment, weaving slightly. "I must see the King," it hissed. "Only eight King's Wives have left the kingdom. Four of those were on the migration. For two more, the Kings erased the Door Spell. Your King," it said softly, "has not done that."

"He ran out of time," Kate answered unhappily. She walked back to the banquet hall, explaining the last few days' events on the way. She stopped at Marak's pallet, her heart sinking at the sight of his motionless form.

The snake uncoiled almost all the way in order to glide back and forth across the King, keeping only the smallest loop about Kate's wrist. At last it returned, twining quickly up her arm and rearing its head above her shoulder.

"The King is not here," it hissed very quietly. "He is far away. Too far for me to find."

"I know where he is," said Kate decisively. "I need to go free him. Unless he comes back, there won't be another King. Or," she added wickedly, "a one-hundred-and-sixty-ninth King's Wife."

The golden snake looped itself about her neck and slowly traveled down the other arm. Kate didn't exactly care for the feeling.

"Even if there is another King," it hissed, "he will not be King for long. The sorcerer will enslave him, too, and there will be no more King's Wives. I think you must take me to this sorcerer. He is a danger to my Wives."

"Can you make the door open?" asked Kate.

"No," it whispered, "I would not make the door open to let out the King's Wife. It would break. There would be no door, and there is no Guard. We will leave by the water mirror."

"Really?" asked Kate excitedly. "Can you make it work?"

"No," hissed the snake. "You can."

Kate stared. "Of course I can't!" she said indignantly. "I can't do that kind of thing."

"You're an elf woman," said the snake, buzzing slightly. "Ninety-nine of the King's Wives have been elves. You can certainly operate the water mirror."

"Even if I have elf magic," Kate protested, "the King says it's locked fighting the Door Spell."

The golden snake twirled gracefully, studying the red burn on her forehead.

"Why do you need to fight the door?" it asked softly.

"Because I never wanted to be here," explained Kate. "I wanted to leave."

"We are leaving," hissed the snake, "but not by the door."

"Oh," breathed Kate in discovery. The snake surveyed her with its slitted eyes.

"Sixty-four of the King's Wives have not been very bright," it whispered. "The last one was a blithering idiot."

"Yes, I think you told me that already," said Kate, tight-lipped. She squeezed Marak's cold hand good-bye and headed to the water mirror.

The snake explained that Kate must think of a place on goblin land and spread the scene on the water like a blanket. She tried and tried, but nothing happened. A couple of times, the water changed color, but that was all.

"Twelve of the King's Wives have had trouble with their magic," said the snake softly. "One of them set her own hair on fire trying to light her tiara with a sparkle charm."

"Good for her," snapped Kate. She was getting tired and very frustrated. But she noticed that in spite of her frustration, her burn didn't hurt her at all.

"Do you know the land above ground well?" hissed the snake. "You must be able to see it exactly as it is."

"I didn't live there very long," she admitted. "Maybe I just can't picture it clearly. Wait!" she said. "I know what I can picture." She went to the workroom to study the star charts, comparing the charts to the stars' positions in her mind. Then she hurried back to the mirror. Hand outstretched and eyes closed, she pictured the stars above goblin land, and when she opened her eyes, there they were, rippling in the lapping water. She could see the half-moon and the great jewels of the planets. With a happy cry, she sprang at the mirror to escape the underground, ignoring the snake's warning buzz. She felt the cool bubble of the water surface stretch against her and then break.

Something was horribly wrong. No ground was under her feet. She was ice-cold and she could barely move. She opened her stinging eyes, and there were the stars, still rippling and shining. Bubbles poured out of her mouth. They rose toward the stars, and Kate struggled with all her might to follow them.

In another instant, she broke the surface of Hollow Lake, splashing and gasping. She just had time to glimpse the village lights not far away before she went back under. She bobbed back up to the surface, thrashing frantically.

"Hold your breath!" buzzed a voice in her ear. Kate gasped in a great breath and held it. This time, when she went under, she didn't go down very far. "Now go limp," directed the buzzing, "and look at the stars." Kate rolled onto her back in the water, staring at the stars, and a rope around her neck began to tug her along. It was the snake, swimming furiously, throwing itself back and forth across the water and filling it with bubbles.

Kate stared up at the night sky, unaware of her danger or of the supremely annoyed snake who was saving her from it. She couldn't look at the stars enough. After a minute, she had to let out her
breath, but this time she didn't panic, and she was ready to take in another breath when she bobbed back up.

After several more breaths, the snake buzzed ungraciously, "You aren't in danger anymore, King's Wife. You can walk now." It drooped about her neck as she splashed around, feeling for her footing. "I have guarded one hundred and sixty-eight King's Wives," it buzzed like an enraged bee. "I have saved ten of them from drowning. I saved one Wife from a bucket. I saved another from the Flood. But I never saved a single one from walking into the middle of a lake before. You are the very first. When you operate the water mirror and use stars to guide you, please be sure you are seeing them as they look from dry land and not as they look under ten feet of water."