The Kingdom - Clare B Dunkle - Hollow Kingdom 01 - The Hollow Kingdom
Marak was studying the sleeping Kate. He glanced up and grinned at her. “A little young, aren’t you, to be a goblin bride?” he teased. “All ready to have your hair turn white in those dripping caves underground?”
“But you said—” Emily began as Marak chuckled. “Anyway,” she concluded unhappily, “she’s all the family I have. I just don’t want to be left behind.”
The goblin stopped laughing. “Agatha’s right,” he remarked. “You have a lot of pluck.” A small silence reigned. He was watching the unconscious Kate narrowly, the way the cook watched rising bread or baking pies. Emily wondered what he was looking for. She thought about the dwarf woman and what she had told them.
“Agatha says there aren’t any more elves,” she told him sadly. “Did the goblins kill them all?”
Marak didn’t look up from the sleeping Kate. “They destroyed themselves,” he answered absently. “They didn’t want to survive. We goblins stole elf brides, of course, but that was a good thing for the pretty elves. It gave them unity, something to strive against. Otherwise, they were likely to just wander off in all directions. They always were a little too good for this world.” Somehow this didn’t sound like a compliment.
“Their last King didn’t bother to find a new wife when his first wife died childless. Then he died unexpectedly, and that was the beginning of the end. My great-great-grandfather met with the elves on this very spot and offered to take them in with us. There’s a colony of dwarves like that who live under my command. But they said no.” Marak snorted. “Catch an elf living underground,” he said scornfully.
“We hunted the elf women tirelessly after that, to get the good of the blood before it was all gone. Oh, an elf would tell you quite a tale of woe, with sadness written all across his pretty face. But it wasn’t our fault they died out. They did it to themselves. Batty stargazers,” he added with relish.
Emily stared around in amazement. Elves and goblins had met right here. She tried to imagine them, beautiful and ugly, tall and short, noble and frightful. No wonder she loved this magical place. The goblin King watched Kate closely, laying his big hands on either side of her face again. He turned in abrupt decision.
“What I want to know is—” Emily began, but Marak leaned forward swiftly and put his six fingers on her brow. Then he caught her as she toppled and laid her down gently in the grass.
“What you want to know is almost everything,” he remarked to her sleeping form. Then he turned back to her sister.
Long, dreary hours passed while Kate tossed in unhappy dreams. Finally she sat up in bed with a jerk, jarred out of sleep. She stared around futilely at the thick blackness of the room. Not one ray of light crept in past the curtain. Kate stumbled through the gloom, clutching the furniture, because the room was so dark that she couldn’t see where to step. She tried to light her candle, but not even a spark broke the inky darkness around her. Moving by feel, she quitted her room and edged down the hall. She crept into Emily’s room and shook her sleeping form.
“Em, wake up!” she begged, shaking and shaking, but Emily just flopped limply in her arms like a giant doll. Another fruitless attempt to light Emily’s candle and another hideous trip through the dark. She thought she heard a chuckle as she stumbled across the hall. She wrenched open Prim’s door and slammed it shut behind her, but Aunt Prim lay like the dead in the darkness, not even breathing. Kate stood in indecision, afraid to touch her. Was that tapping at the window? A twig, or fingers? Kate fled the dark room, leaving her aunt’s body behind in the night.
Out in the hall again, she was sure she heard a whisper. It came closer and closer, but no footsteps came with it. Kate began to sob in panic and strike out against the blackness. Clinging to the banister, she sank down on the stairs. The whisper was coming close again, and she couldn’t get away. She hid her blind face against her arms and huddled on the stairs, a hunted, trapped animal, all alone in the dark.
“Kate, look at me,” Marak said in a commanding voice. He took her hand in his, kneeling beside her. Kate closed her eyes tightly in dread, throwing out a hand to catch at the banister and drag herself away from him. Instead, she felt soft grass, a tree trunk. She opened her eyes. White moonlight flooded in, and the blackness was gone, but the nightmare was still very real. He was bending over her. He had caught her at last.
“Look at me,” Marak ordered again, and Kate looked up into those odd-colored eyes. He knelt close by her, holding her hand in his strong, knotted fingers. Kate closed her eyes to block out the horrible sight, drawing in shallow breaths.
“And did we have a pleasant sleep?” he inquired sweetly. “Nice dreams?” Kate shivered and kept her eyes tightly shut. “No, not a nice dream,” the goblin remarked with satisfaction. “So you spent a little time stumbling around in the dark. And no worse than you deserved, either, for smacking yourself into a tree. What a fool stunt, Kate.”
Kate’s breathing slowed, and she began to remember where she was. She sat up a little unsteadily, pulling away from him. She was free of the nightmare, and her mind was beginning to work. She frowned as thoughts began to connect themselves.
Marak studied the sullen face. “No gratitude at all?” he asked. “Not one kind word for patching you up after you tried to batter your brains in?” Kate’s hand rose to her forehead, and she felt about for a bump. Then it traveled to her hair and encountered the dried blood. She retraced the track of blood. No break in the skin. No pain, no soreness. She stared at the goblin, eyes round with surprise.
“Kate,” he told her seriously, “that was a stupid thing to do. What if I hadn’t been here? What if you had died? I lie awake worrying about what’s happening to you out here. You could be falling down a well, or breaking a leg, or catching a fever. What if you need my help, and I can’t come in time?”
Kate continued to prod her forehead, feeling rather foolish. If he hadn’t been here, she certainly wouldn’t have run into the tree. Need his help? Why would she need his help? She couldn’t imagine wanting him anywhere near her, broken leg or not.
“And what were you doing, anyway, wandering around the woods at night? I wasn’t expecting that,” he admitted. “I thought you’d be barring yourself in your room or maybe locking yourself in a wardrobe.” He chuckled at the thought. “What happened?” he asked, grinning at her. “Did you come looking for me?”
“Of course we weren’t looking for you,” Kate said warily, moving a little farther away from him. She spied Emily lying in the grass, and her heart almost stopped.
“What did you do to her?” she cried.
“I answered her questions,” Marak said carelessly. “Almost all of them.” He leaned back contentedly against a tree trunk. As Kate began to shake her sister, he added, “Leave her alone. She’ll wake up when I tell her to.” He laughed. “Did you know that she wants to be stolen by goblins? She actually asked me.”
Kate’s heart sank. The world was going horribly wrong. A few weeks ago she had been sitting with her sister in this very spot under the stars, perfectly happy. Now a grotesque monster was haunting her and menacing her with a terrible future. Poor Em lay motionless, locked in his magical control. Kate looked down anxiously at her sleeping face. They had to find some way to escape.
“We found out what really happened to Adele Roberts,” she said quietly.
“Oh, really?” asked Marak, interested. “Well, don’t look so tragic about it,” he smirked as she raised her sad eyes to his. “My mother’s life was happy enough.”
Kate gloomily thought about the unlikely possibility of Adele having had a happy life. What terror and loathing she must have felt, captured by freakish monsters and locked away in a dark cavern far below the earth! An airless tomb, thought Kate in horror. A living tomb from which that bright, brave girl was never able to escape.
“I’m not going down there!” she cried desperately. “I won’t go down into those dark caves away from the light, away from the stars. I won’t live underground in some ghastly hole, sealed off from the air under mountains of rock.”
The goblin King crossed his arms comfortably and smiled in wry amusement. “Kate,” he remarked, “your ignorance is colossal.”
Kate stared. How typical! He was just making fun of her. He was threatening the loss of everything she loved, and he didn’t even care. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and continued calmly, “If that’s what you think my kingdom is like, I certainly know not to ask you to come.”
Hope swept through her. “You won’t?” she gasped.
Marak opened his eyes again and frowned at her eager expression. “Of course not.” He shrugged. “I’ll just take you there. No sense in asking.”
Kate felt her stomach lurch. Her pulse began pounding in her temples.
“No!” she declared emphatically. “I won’t let you take me away.”
The goblin put his head to one side and grinned at her through his rough hair.
“You won’t let me? How are you going to stop me? After all,” he teased, “you can’t bash your head in every night. What if you’re too far from a tree?”
Kate jumped to her feet and began to pace, beating her hands together. “There’s a way out, I know there’s a way!” she cried. “I have to find out what it is.”
Marak watched her attentively. “Sit down, Kate,” he said.
“After all,” she observed, stopping and pointing a finger at him, “you don’t have me yet.” She sat back down on the grass nearby, not even noticing her own obedience. “You haven’t been able to catch me,” she declared excitedly. “I’ve stopped you so far.”
Marak shouted with laughter.
“You stopped me?” he whooped. “Stopped me from doing what? Did you lead yourself home when you were lost? Did you tell yourself to go to sleep from the other side of the mirror? You haven’t stopped anything. I stopped myself. I didn’t want to upset you too much. Human minds are fragile. They don’t come back from that kind of shock.”
A feeling of despair washed over Kate. She looked down, struggling against tears.
“I could have put you kicking and screaming on my horse that very first night,” he pointed out cheerfully, “but I’m very glad that I didn’t because you interest me. You’re so terribly determined. I never know what you’ll do next.”
“So this is all just a joke to you,” she cried savagely. “A cat-and-mouse diversion. I never heard of anything so cruel!”
“Careful,” the goblin advised, holding up a bony hand. “Don’t forget logic. If I’m cruel to be patient, what would I be if I had put you on the horse that first night? Compassionate?” He chortled. “Kindly?” Kate glared at him.
“I think you’re hideous,” she said forcefully. “You’re mean and hateful, making a game out of someone else’s misery.”
The goblin King stopped laughing and studied her pale face. “Do you know, Kate, I believe you’re right,” he declared. “I am being cruel to you. You seem to be taking this very hard. You’re starting to lose sleep and fret about the future, and you’re listening to all sorts of ridiculous tales. This kind of delay isn’t good for you, either. The sooner it ends, the better.”
Kate paused, alarmed. This was not the point she had been trying to make. She didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. In fact, she was making things worse.
“But I don’t want to marry you at all!” she shouted.
“Of course not,” Marak agreed. “I never thought you did. There aren’t any volunteers to my kingdom, but we try not to let it discourage us.” He rose and walked slowly to the center of the tree circle, studying the clear night sky.
“I hope it won’t offend you if I leave you now,” he remarked pleasantly. “Several matters still need my attention tonight. Since you consider us enemies, I’ll guarantee your safe arrival at the Lodge, and since I consider us engaged, I’ll provide you with an escort. I’m not going to let you come to harm while you’re still outside.” He knelt by Emily’s sleeping form. As he took her hand in his, she sat up, speaking.
“—how it got to be a truce place, anyway.” She looked around. “Oh, hello, Kate’s up.”
“Yes, and I’m leaving now before she heads for another tree,” Marak teased. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. Seylin will see you home.” Then he was gone between the huge black oaks. They heard him give a quiet whistle and speak in a low voice. They heard his horse coming unhurriedly toward him, blowing out its breath. Then came the creaking of leather, the jingle of metal, and hoofbeats moving away.
Chapter 6
Kate realized that she had been sitting in the same position for some time. She climbed stiffly to her feet, terribly tired.
The huge black cat moved silently through the trees to join them. “Hello,” he piped in a thin, reedy voice. “The King says I’m to walk you to the Lodge.” Kate jumped and gasped, feeling abruptly that she did have weak nerves, but Emily yelped in delight.
“Oh, Seylin!” she cried. “You clever cat! You can talk!”
The large feline sat down. “Well,” he said in an abashed tone, “I’m not really a regular cat.” He turned his round eyes with their huge black pupils on Kate. “Are you ready to leave now?” he trebled politely.
Kate swung her arms, hesitating. It was still nighttime, or at any rate very early morning. She hated to leave the safety of the tree circle.
“I don’t know, Em,” she said cautiously to her sister. “Maybe we should stay here until the sun comes up.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Seylin assured her earnestly. “I just look like a big cat, but I can protect you with magic. The King wouldn’t have made me your escort if he didn’t think I could handle the job.” Kate detected a note of pride in this last statement.
“Yes, well,” she demurred, trying not to think about the extreme peculiarity of debating courses of action with a giant cat. “I’m not questioning your ability to protect us from ordinary dangers. I’m more afraid of your King than of anything else out there.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear him say he was going back to the Hill?” said the cat. Kate had a swift mental image of Marak sitting on some rough-hewn rock throne, maybe with spears crossed over it, presiding over a drunken revel of hooting goblin warriors.
“But what if he didn’t really mean it?” she said warily.
There was a tiny silence. The huge cat’s pupils contracted in surprise, the round golden eyes full on her.
“You think the King lied?” Seylin asked in a horrified squeak.
Startled, Kate opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again. She thought of her goblin tormenter as her own private nemesis to rail against and loathe, almost like a monster she had invented herself. The idea of his having an outside existence, a reputation, and loyal friends had simply never occurred to her. She felt very peculiar.
“I—I—well, why don’t you lead?” she stammered apologetically, and then fell into an embarrassed silence as they walked away from the old oak trees.
