The Hollow Kingdom (27 page)

The wolf jumped into a low pen across from the door and laid herself down among small puppies, but only one emaciated pup crept to his mother. The other three lay stiff, insects crawling over them. Holding up her bracelet, Kate discovered that the room was filled with cages of all sizes. Animals growled, hissed, and banged the bars, and the floor was covered in waste and filth. She didn't think she could stand it.

"I can't destroy this place now, Charm," she said, aghast. "I can't burn these animals alive."

"I have seen them," whispered the snake. "Many of them you can simply release. Some of them would be a danger to the King's Wife. I can bite them, and you can leave them to the fire. But if you
do not want to burn them alive, you will have to kill them yourself. My bite does not kill."

This, Kate decided sadly, was the only thing she could do. She retrieved the sword from the jumbled workroom and forced herself to look into one cage after another. Many animals in the cages were long since dead, and living animals crawled over their rotting comrades, quarreling with each other for the bones. Kate released a tide of mangy rats, stepping back quickly as they poured toward the open alleyway. She let out three young foxes and a number of kinds of birds. The bear, one eye gone, roared desperately at her, and she had to force herself to stab the poor brute. Charm whizzed busily about the cage of poisonous snakes, biting its living copies faster than they could react. Then Kate cut down the middle of the cage, dividing the motionless bodies.

She came to the cage of a small monkey and opened the door gingerly, hoping as much for its sake as hers that it wouldn't try to bite her. She expected it to run to the alley, and she felt unhappy about it, knowing that such an exotic creature could never survive in the cold and damp. But the monkey hopped to a nearby cage and opened the door, reaching in. A white mouse crawled onto the monkey's paw and let itself be carried out to freedom. The monkey squatted down by the cage, cuddling the little mouse, who snuggled against the brown fur and curled its tiny tail around its body. Kate noticed with a sick feeling that the little white mouse had only one front paw. The other had been severed neatly at the elbow, doubtless for some special spell.

As they approached the last cage, Charm whispered, "This one is no danger to the King's Wife." Kate peered into the cage and almost fainted. A baby girl pulled herself up by the bars and looked out at Kate, giggling in delight. She was round and rosy, her black hair and bright eyes shining in the light from the bracelet. She stretched up toward the sparkling light, waving one hand through
the bars. Kate bent down, and the child caught one of her fingers and held it firmly in her fat little fist.

"How can we possibly find her mother?" breathed Kate, kneeling by the cage. She saw, revolted, that the cage already contained other sets of small bones and rags.

"Are you sure she still has a mother, King's Wife?" hissed the snake. "The child's dress is stiff with blood."

Kate stared for a long moment at the baby in its simple, threadbare dress. She imagined a mother, young like herself, struggling with the sorcerer as he fought her for her child, falling, fatally stabbed, but still clutching the baby close as her eyes glazed in death. Or perhaps--Kate's heart stopped at the thought--perhaps a goblin servant had pulled away the baby. Perhaps her own husband had wielded that deadly knife.

She headed purposefully toward the workroom, the baby in her arms. As she left the room, the mother wolf rose and picked up her puppy in her mouth. The little monkey glanced up and scampered after them. When Kate reached the door of the workroom, she looked back in surprise. The monkey rode on the wolf's neck now, clinging to its long fur, and the tiny white mouse rode on the monkey's shoulder.

Kate went to fetch the candelabrum burning by the cage of the dead Hulk. But now the huge body glowed with a multicolored light, covered with bright patches of smoke, the freed goblins who had stayed to protect their dead comrade from the insects. The sight blurred before Kate's eyes, and a lump rose in her throat. Marak had said that goblins stayed together. That was their strength.

"Burn the body," Charm whispered, "and the goblins will leave it. They will know there is nothing more to be done."

Kate brought paper and books to the cage and spilled candles over them. Then she tossed the shriveled little hand onto the pile, the child's voice wailing in her ears. Once lit, the paper went up quickly,
and the candles melted in the heat. One by one, the colored smokes streamed away.

She hurried down the hall and dropped a candle in the workroom, igniting that sea of papers. Then she started a fire in the room of cages. Smoke was already pouring out the wide door as she stepped into the alley, and she could hear behind her the crackling and roaring of flames. Holding the baby, she walked off into the damp night. The wolf trotted behind her, the monkey clinging to its neck.

 

The next morning, Kate was riding back home in a carriage with the baby on her lap, the wolf and pup at her feet, and the monkey stroking its little mouse on the cushioned seat across from her. "Charm," she called, and the snake awoke with a zing. The baby screamed in excitement and clutched the golden coils with both hands. "You did a great thing last night, Charm," said Kate. "You saved the kingdom, the King, the King's Wife, and the Heir."

The snake considered this as well as it could while being tugged about. "I have always saved the King's Wife," it pointed out softly. "The rest was important only insofar as it saved my Wives."

Kate pried the baby's hands loose. "I've decided to name her after you," she announced, "because you saved her life."

"You wish to call her Charm?" whispered the snake. "I will never know which of us you are talking to."

"Oh," said Kate, taken aback. "I didn't think of that." The snake examined the child curiously as she bounced up and down on Kate's lap.

"I am sensible to the honor you do me," hissed Charm. "Perhaps you would let me name her. I would like to call her Matilda, after one of my favorite King's Wives."

"Matilda," said Kate experimentally. "That's nice, Charm. We'll call her Matilda. But," she added wickedly, "I didn't know you had any favorite Wives."

"I have guarded one hundred and sixty-eight King's Wives, and fourteen were favorites," hissed the snake. "Their names are Ada, Merneith, Dara, Hesione, Olwen, Clodia, Unna, Kala, Matilda, Eleanor, Kiba, Madge, Adele, and Kate." Kate smiled at the last two names. Matilda worked her hands free and grabbed for the snake again.

 

The next evening, Kate stood before the iron door that led into the goblin kingdom. This trip underground was quite different from the one she had made before. Then, Marak had brought the unwilling Kate inside by force as she gazed longingly back at the stars. This time, Kate barely noticed the night sky as she hurried inside to see her husband. All that the guards could tell her about the King was that he was gravely ill. She shifted the baby nervously from one arm to the other as she looked up at the massive iron door.

"Hello, door!" she called out. "Let me back into the kingdom!" It rattled in consternation.

"King's Wife!" it boomed. "What are you doing outside? I didn't let you out."

"No, you didn't," said Kate. "Quick, let me back in. I need to see the King."

There was a pause. Perhaps it wasn't a long one, but to the anxious Kate, it certainly seemed to be.

"I can't open for the King's Wife," explained the door.

Kate started to reply, but a metallic zing made her pause. "Listen to me, little door!" buzzed Charm ominously. "You are endangering my King's Wife with your stupidity. If you do not open immediately
and without further discussion, I will twine myself through your lock and your hinges and throw you down twisted and broken, and the goblins will put in a new door that understands its obligations."

The door creaked open, rattling sulkily as Kate swept in with the baby, the golden snake twining majestically about her shoulders and the wolf with its pup and riders marching behind.

"I never knew that snake could talk," muttered the door.

Kate hurried to the banquet hall. She peeked in anxiously, and her heart stopped. Of all the pallets she had left here a few days ago, only one remained, and she knew whose silent figure lay upon it. She ran pell-mell across the hall, the wolf galloping behind her.

"Marak, Marak!" she cried, dropping down onto the pallet and staring, heartsick, at his still face. "Please wake up! You have to wake up now!"

"All right," he agreed in an amiable whisper, and he opened his unmatched eyes to smile up at her. Looking into those eyes, Kate realized that she had lied to that loud woman after all. Of course she had lost her heart to him right away. For two days she had been thinking of things to tell him, but now she couldn't think of one. She just stared at him, her heart full.

Marak freed one arm from the blankets and reached up to touch the cut on her cheek.

"I remember that," he said softly. A metallic zing sounded, and the golden snake was with them once more.

"Oh, King," hissed the snake ceremonially, "I have bitten a man. He lies in the city of Liverpool, awaiting the King's Judgment. I bit another man, too," Charm continued with an unhappy buzz, "but he no longer requires your attention."

Chapter 14

 

Marak was ill for months, exhausted from fighting the sorcerer. Unable to go to court, he took care of important matters from his bed, and he continued to rely on Seylin's help for some time to carry out the Kingdom Spells. He sent Thaydar out to deliver the King's Judgment on Bingham, but Thaydar returned with the news that the paralyzed coachman had already been killed. Marak was disappointed. The goblin revenge that he had chosen for the young man would have been considerably worse than death.

It was in part Marak's desire to work the Kingdom Spells that kept him bedridden for so long. Given only so much strength, he preferred to spend it on useful magic rather than on walking. Always practical, he embarked on a review of the King's Wife Chronicles as a way to use his convalescence. Kate spent hours every day reading to him in her stumbling goblin while the wolf and pup slept by the bed and little Matilda played on the floor beside them. The dwarves were already making her elaborate baby toys, but Til enjoyed playing with the wolves more than anything else. She pulled their fur and disturbed the King's rest with her laughter until the servants came and took her away.

As soon as he had the strength, Marak erased the Door Spell, judging that he had no right to withhold freedom from someone who had braved such dangers to free him. He asked only that Kate wait until their son's birth before using her newfound liberty and
that she confine her outside visits to the goblin lands. Before, Kate would have been wild at the long wait, but now she was resigned. She had seen enough horror outside to feel content in the goblin kingdom for some time. But she did go often to visit the front door. "I am the King's Wife," she would call. "Open up." And the poor door would have to open. It didn't try to argue with her anymore.

"Thank you," Kate would say, "but maybe another time." And she would walk back to the palace again, leaving the door rattling back and forth in frustration.

Emily was disappointed that Kate had forgotten her almond brittle, but the gift of the little monkey made up for everything. "I never had a pet who had a pet before," she said wonderingly, watching her monkey cuddle the one-armed mouse. Emily had rather ordinary human looks, but when she went about in bright silks and satins, with her hair done up in ribbons, her hands, arms, and neck covered in jewelry and the monkey and mouse riding on her shoulders, she went as far as an average human could toward attaining a bizarre goblin presence. Certainly, Kate had misgivings when she saw her little sister thus and wondered what their father would say if he could see her.

The wolf mother refused to be given away to anyone. She never left Kate's side if she could help it, trotting behind as Kate went from place to place and lying down on her feet the minute she stopped. This achieved two important canine goals. First, Kate always knew that someone loved her devotedly, and second, every bright gown received a generous sprinkling of coarse gray hairs. The thin pup grew into a handsome beast in time. Having spent his early months at the side of the convalescing Marak's bed, he formed a strong attachment to the goblin King and followed him everywhere. Kate, dipping into her educated past, tried to name the pair Helena and Constantine, but Marak persisted in calling his companion Dog, or, when they were both in the room together, Your Dog and My Dog.
Kate decided rather disgustedly that this was to be expected from a husband who shared his own name with one hundred and sixty seven of his predecessors.

The goblin King was well by the time the Heir was born. As he had long ago predicted, the birth was a very hard one, and it took all his attentive magic to get Kate through it. "And very lucky you are, little elf, to be married to a goblin," he told her firmly, "or you'd have gone the way of your mother, her grandmother, and the grandmother's own mother, I expect." Kate, pale and sweaty, didn't open her eyes to acknowledge this smug remark. After the last twenty-four hours, she didn't feel lucky to be married at all.

"A new Marak!" announced Agatha, bringing over the goblin baby. Kate heard the old Marak give a cry of delight. She reminded herself decisively that she was ready for this moment. Nothing about the son she had had with her beloved husband could possibly upset her. Opening her eyes, the exhausted Kate took one look at her baby and promptly burst into tears.

She didn't cry because the baby, larger and longer than a human baby, was staring at her steadily with one green eye and one blue eye. His skin was more silvery than Marak's, and his lips were considerably closer to a rosy color. She didn't cry about the hair, lying in silky locks around his high forehead, although that was a bit of a disappointment. As the King had predicted, the baby had his mother's golden hair, but marbled among the golden curls were soft locks of Marak's own beige. No, it was the right hand, or rather, the lack of it that had the weary and somewhat hysterical Kate bawling into her pillow. From the shoulder to the elbow, the right arm was a chubby baby arm, but from the elbow down it was the forearm and paw of a tiny lion cub.