“But Aganir U-Sakar and his bride were not happy for long. The amnesia drink of the later elf Kings’ Wives is blamed for the destruction of the kingdom, and it played its evil part in this romance. It found favor with the proud, sensitive Kings because it forced their human brides to love them. Yet this adoration came with a childish dependence since their empty lives held nothing else, and the elf Kings found that their vacuous wives had nothing interesting to say. Every King who used the amnesia drink on his bride soon abandoned her, and the pain this caused the poor human women, who had lost every other possession, was a sad and touching spectacle to see. The other elves tended to avoid the intruders as well, and so these humans led a tragic life, with no place at all in the only world they knew, and no memory of the world where they belonged.
“But Belinda surprised her husband in two ways. First, and most important, she bore him no son. The whole reason for the bothersome marriage failed to put in an appearance. And, second, Belinda didn’t adore her royal spouse. She didn’t belong to him body and soul. Belinda had found a little golden locket shining in the grass. She thought it very beautiful but tremendously puzzling, for it held her own name and the picture of a man she had never seen. The elf King’s Wife hid this precious find, and she looked and looked for the man who matched the picture. He remained a mystery, but he loomed very large in her life.
“The elf King soon realized that his wife didn’t love him. In fact, he never tried to win her love. But he contrasted her expression as she looked at him with the look of love she had given her William, and the proud King began to grow resentful. Devastated by his loss, the master of Hallow Hill walked the grounds of his estate, a silent and stricken figure. The elf King came sometimes to watch the unhappy man, and he burned with angry jealousy. He had everything poor William had ever wanted, but the human man still held Belinda’s heart.
“One night, the elf King’s Wife was roaming the forest, singing to herself, and her human sweetheart heard that dear voice and followed it to his lost bride. Belinda never saw her lover because the elf guards saw him first, and they brought him back to camp as their prisoner. Face to face with his adversary, the elf King gave way to his injured pride and resolved upon a magical revenge. He changed the master of Hallow Hill into an antlered stag and hunted the beast himself.
“Close to dawn, the elf King returned to camp, bearing his fresh kill. ‘See how well I’ve hunted for you,’ he called to his wife. Belinda came obediently, delighted at the attention because her husband didn’t often speak to her. While the King talked with his elves, she examined the dead stag politely. It soon held her complete attention. High on its neck, under the hair, she saw a locket shining. Within the locket was a man’s name, William, and beside it was a picture of her.
“What happened next will always remain a mystery. Perhaps the Amnesia Spell broke, and Belinda remembered her old life, or perhaps she just guessed enough of it to find the truth. And no one knows how she did what she did because she was protected by powerful magic. But Belinda dusted off her hands and walked to the elf King’s side. As her husband watched, well pleased with his night’s work, she pulled his knife from his belt. She stabbed it between her ribs and into her heart, and she was dead before he could even stop smiling.
“The elf King raged at the shallow ingratitude of this woman whom he had favored with a royal marriage, and he refused when his advisers begged him to choose another. Within the year, he met with misfortune and died childless, and the race of elves died with their last King.”
Seylin glanced up as he spoke the final words of the story and came back to the present with a jolt. In this room were five examples of the death of that race: rude, half-starving, helpless, disfigured, hateful, ignorant elves. Seylin looked at their puzzled faces, their filthy, pathetic clothes, the unremitting, harsh labor that kept their rough hands busy. They wouldn’t even be able to speak to the old elves: they didn’t know their own language.
“I don’t believe that story,” blurted out Rowan with a thoughtful frown. “The elf King would be a half-breed if his mother was a human, and I can’t believe the elves would have a half-breed King.”
“It isn’t like that,” said Seylin, “because the King’s magic makes his marriage different from the others, and without—”
“I don’t understand what the fuss was,” interrupted Irina carelessly. “Wasn’t the elf King handsome? Any elf would look better than her stupid human. I think she was just mean. She should be happy he brought her a deer.”
“Maybe she had to butcher it,” suggested Thorn, winking at Rowan.
“Maybe she couldn’t stand the thought of butchering one more deer,” prompted Rowan with a grin.
“Oh,” said Irina. “I guess that makes sense, then. But don’t you know anything like the good old stories, Seylin? You know, like the one where the goblin King kills the elf King?”
“What?” cried Seylin. “That’s not possible! The goblin King can’t kill the elf King—at least, not in a fair fight.”
“Sure, he does,” she said. “I can’t believe you don’t know that one. See, the goblin King was sneaking around the camp at night disguised as a huge black cat with eyes of fire, sucking the life out of the little elf girls. And the elf King caught him. And there was a big battle, and the goblin King killed him, and then, while they all watched in stunned amusement, he disappeared in a ball of flame.”
“Stunned amazement,” said Willow. “Irina, you’re so stupid!”
“Oh, shut up, brat,” she replied calmly. “It’s all the same thing.”
Seylin could have pointed out that not even a goblin King could sneak into a properly protected elf camp because the Camp Spell allowed only elves to enter freely. He could also have mentioned that the last thing a goblin King would wish was the deaths of little elf girls, who would otherwise grow up to be useful goblin brides. But, instead, he fixed on one small detail of the story.
“A huge black cat?” he demanded, rather startled.
“With eyes of fire,” Irina assured him happily. “Doesn’t it sound just horrible?”
“A goblin couldn’t have eyes of fire,” argued Willow. “If he did, he couldn’t see.”
“Seylin?” It was Sable’s voice. “Tell us about the goblins.”
Seylin looked at her, completely thunderstruck. How could she possibly have guessed?
“Now, why do you want to know about goblins, you witch?” jeered Thorn. “Goblins are just a tale to frighten children.”
“No, he’s seen them. Haven’t you?” she demanded.
Seylin glanced around in dismay. The other elves were studying him with curiosity. Had he really seen goblins? What did they look like? Irina already had her mouth open to ask. But, fortunately for him, and unfortunately for Sable, Thorn lost his temper.
“Shut up, or I’ll shut you up!” he roared. “I don’t care if he has seen goblins! I don’t care if he’s a goblin himself! He brings home food, and that’s a far sight more than you’ve ever done. You just sit around and eat it and give the rest of us indigestion. Goblins would just love your nasty face. I hope they come and take you off my hands, you ugly hag.”
Sable cowered down over her sewing. Taken by goblins! There was no worse threat. Never to see the moon and stars again, never to be free. Endless torment, horrible experiments, and dying to bring a monster into the world. Surely not goblins! Nothing so horrible as that.
The elves were silent and morose after their leader’s outburst. They didn’t speak for the remainder of the night. Thorn stayed angry and irritable. At the morning meal he gave Sable the smallest strip of bread to eat, and he glared at her so fiercely that she didn’t risk scraping the stewpot. As soon as the meal was over and chores were done, he walked to the door of the cave and gestured to her.
“Go sleep somewhere else,” he ordered, pointing at the door. Sable glanced back toward her tent and hesitated. “Now!” snapped the elf leader. She walked to the door. She had no tent, no clo
ak, and no blanket.
Seylin jumped up in a fury. “Where is she supposed to go?” he demanded.
“Wherever she won’t wake me up screaming like some insane owl,” said Thorn. “She can’t go far enough.”
“But she’s not safe out there!” insisted Seylin heatedly.
“Well, she’s not safe in here,” retorted Thorn. “Screaming day after day! I’m going to throttle her if she wakes me up again.”
Sable looked from one to the other of the two angry men. She couldn’t imagine any good outcome for her, regardless of the conclusion of the argument. She went through the door, and Seylin’s heart sank. How could he do anything for her if she didn’t want his help?
“Wait,” he called. He took off his cloak and gave it to her. Then he stood and watched the black-haired woman walk purposefully into the dawn. She must have some shelter in mind. This must happen fairly often. Thrown out into the daylight! And she wouldn’t even have had a cloak for warmth or shade from the sun if he hadn’t been there. Seylin heaved a sigh and turned away. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand this place.
Marak stood in the workroom in front of the maps, his unmatched eyes shrewd and thoughtful. He’d checked three times last night, and Seylin was still in exactly the same spot. Either he needed some sort of help, or he had found what he was looking for. Marak’s eyes gleamed at the thought. Elves. Elf brides. If only he had! Finding new elf brides in this day and age would be the most important event of his whole reign.
The goblin King took the ring he had made out of Seylin’s hair and walked to the big cave that held his water mirror. Then he tossed the ring against the liquid wall. It floated on the water, raising no ripples on its dark surface.
Marak sat down on the hard floor of the cave and leaned against the stone wall, reaching up to the floating object. He put the index finger of his right hand through the ring, the other fingers curling around it. His fingers felt cold in the frigid water. Only the index finger did not. It felt instead the soft locks of Seylin’s hair as he lay asleep in his tent in the elves’ cave. Marak concentrated on the sleeping form that was so far away. Then he closed his own eyes in sleep—or at least in something very like it.
Seylin dreamed that morning that he was back home again. He was sitting with Marak in the library, and he was telling the goblin King all about his travels. He described the five elves and their horrible life, their appalling ignorance, their pitiful clothes, and their struggle to find food.
It felt so good to be back home, talking over his troubles with a real friend. Marak listened carefully and asked him endless questions. Particularly about the women. Most particularly about Sable.
“She doesn’t know any magic at all, you say,” the King mused. “But it sounds like none of them knows very much. A camp lord’s daughter! One of the high families. Tell me, does she have dark eyes?”
“No,” said Seylin. “They’re blue like Kate’s, but her hair is black.”
“Oh,” said Marak, disappointed. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the line has lost its strength. Black hair, though. I wonder what her parents looked like. No father; no mother, either. For any of them, come to think of it. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
“The life must be too hard,” said Seylin. “They must not live very long.”
“Maybe so. And she’s never been married, you’re sure about that. Why not? What did they say about it?”
Seylin frowned. “Thorn said she was a coward. He said she wanted to stay a child.”
“It takes courage to marry?” asked the goblin King. “What is that supposed to mean? What sort of life does a child have that would be worth keeping? That other girl’s still a child by their standards, and she works as hard as any of them.”
“I think it must be some sort of insanity,” said Seylin, “to cause an injury like that to her face. I’ve never seen such massive wounds in my life. I’m surprised she survived it.”
Marak combed his hand through his shock of striped hair, remembering his first wife.
“There are all kinds of insanity, I suppose,” he reflected, “but the insanity I know doesn’t match this case. Sable’s patient under abuse, and she’s using a good brain to observe and draw accurate conclusions. That goblin comment is remarkable! You’re not fooling her at all. Truly insane people are not pleasant to be around, and they’re a lot of work to care for. No, Sable’s useful to them, that’s why they keep her alive.”
“Poor Sable,” sighed the young man, shaking his head. The goblin King glanced up in sudden interest.
“Poor Sable?” he echoed. “Have you taken a fancy to that one?”
Seylin grimaced at the bluntness of the question. “She’s really ugly,” he protested.
The King studied him thoughtfully. This from someone who had grown up with goblins. “She probably doesn’t have to be,” he suggested calmly, but Seylin didn’t look enthusiastic. “All right, what about the other one?”
“Irina?” asked Seylin. He grimaced again.
Marak continued to study his young subject. Perhaps all elves were this squeamish, he considered. No wonder their marriages were arranged years in advance.
“Never mind,” he said. “Things are bound to improve. You’re just getting to know them, after all. Maybe they’ll grow on you.”
The young man lapsed into silence. The goblin King watched him. “Was there something else, Seylin?” he prompted. “Anything else you wanted to tell me?”
“Not really,” Seylin replied. “Only, just—I just wondered…Marak, how is Em?”
The goblin King grinned affectionately at that miserable face. Then he broke into an amused chuckle.
When Kate walked into the water-mirror cave a minute later and shook her sleeping husband, he still had a pleased smile on his face. He opened his strange eyes and focused on her slowly, squinting up from his hard resting place. He pulled his six-fingered hand from the surface of the mirror. Water dripped from five fingers, but the sixth was completely dry. He continued to smile absently as he flexed the fingers. They were so cold. He was so stiff. He’d been there for a long time.
“Marak,” said the astonished Kate, kneeling beside him, “what on earth are you doing on the floor?”
Elves, thought the goblin King in satisfaction, looking at her. Pretty things, elves. Particularly this elf. Life is good, he thought.
“Kate,” he said agreeably, “some spells are harder than others.” He winced as he shifted on the stone floor. She watched him in concern.
“It’s time for my magic lesson,” she reminded him, “but do you want to wait until later?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, climbing slowly to his feet and leaning on her as he limped to his workroom. “I don’t have time for lessons right now.”
He pulled Seylin’s ring from his finger and studied it fondly. Then he took Emily’s ring from its hook and laid them together in the palm of his hand. He cupped his other hand over them and whispered softly for a minute.
“I need to meet with Thaydar immediately on a military matter,” he explained to his wife, hanging the two rings back up on one hook. “Besides, I can’t risk you trying to kill me today, you mad elf. As tired as I am, you might succeed.”
Meanwhile, Sable curled up beneath the sheltering bows of a yew tree and pulled Seylin’s cloak over her face. She lay awake, thinking about that new elf and Thorn’s wish, and winced and shifted on the bare ground. Taken by goblins. A goblin’s bride. Please, nothing so horrible as that!
Life is good, she thought fervently, rubbing her cold hands to warm them. Please don’t let the goblins come. Please let me stay up here where there are stars.
Chapter Nine
Another boring night was almost over. Seylin studied his map to pass the time. He wanted to read the camp chronicle, but he didn’t want Sable to start talking about goblins again. He needed to find a time to ask her about that when no one else was nearby.
Rowan opened the door, letting an icy
draft in with him.
“We got that doe,” he said to Thorn. Irina let out a groan.
Seylin followed the elves outside into the frost and found his little doe, dead. Rowan and Willow had already tied her feet up to the tree branch, and Sable was capably gutting her into a tub. Seylin struggled against his feelings of horror and sadness. That poor little mother, carrying her unborn fawn!
“Good work,” said the blond elf to the two hunters. “We’re eating well this winter. Get over here, Irina,” he barked as the petite elf girl came slouching up.
“Oh, Thorn, do I have to?” she whined. “Why is it always me?” Seylin noticed that it was always Sable, too, but the scarred woman knew not to argue.
“I’ll help, Irina,” said Seylin. Thorn shot him an irritated glance as he walked away.
Seylin didn’t know what to do, so Sable had to tell him, and that made Irina giggle. She couldn’t imagine not knowing how to butcher. She’d been doing it her whole life.
“I guess you weren’t ugly where you came from, either,” she concluded. “I wish you were. Then I wouldn’t have to butcher anymore, or haul the kindling, or burn the bones, or empty out the guts tub. We always have to do that kind of stuff because we’re the ugliest.”
Seylin studied her bright, pretty face, her green eyes and golden, if dirty, hair. “Irina, what’s wrong with how you look?” he asked. “What’s ugly about you?”
Irina’s face clouded over with the unaccustomed effort of thought.
“Oh, you know,” she said vaguely, “ugliness. But, anyway, I’m not as ugly as her.” She gestured at Sable, who rolled her eyes and kept cutting. This reminded him that he needed to talk to her.
“Sable, why did you ask me about goblins?” he demanded. The black-haired elf paused.