In the Coils of the Snake Read online

  In The Coils Of The Snake (The Hollow Kingdom #3)

  by Clare B. Dunkle

  Prologue

  “But why do you have to die tomorrow?”

  The great round throne room was empty. No crowds thronged its floor, and the paving tiles of rose, cream, and serpentine marble displayed their dizzying patterns. The polished walls of red and green porphyry gleamed vermilion and olive in the light from the chandeliers, and the eighteen colossal black granite columns that held up the golden dome glittered with countless flecks of silver mica.

  Only two people occupied this room that could hold hundreds, this vast chamber designed to contain the business of a realm. An old goblin sat on the throne that stood upon the dais, and a human girl of seventeen knelt before him, their voices damped into whispers by the expanse of space and the velvet and brocade curtains that hung before alcoves and doors. He was ugly and bony, with dull straight hair that fell to his shoulders, and his unmatched eyes gleamed like coals, one green and one black. She was statuesque and beautiful, with brown eyes and auburn hair, and her delicate pink skin contrasted with his gray fingers as she clasped his hands tightly in hers.

  “Why tomorrow? Why so soon?” she asked. “Couldn’t you die next week?”

  Marak just smiled at her.

  “Catspaw has waited his whole life to be King,” he said. “I’ve ruled for more than half a century now, and it’s time I passed the power on. There will be new advisers, new projects, the bustle of retirements and appointments, new fashions, too, I wouldn’t doubt. There will be energy in this room again, with a young, dynamic King — mistakes, quarrels, absurd plans — I can hardly wait to die and set it all in motion.” He didn’t mention his inability to eat and sleep now, his failing magic, his labored breathing. These things, he thought, were entirely beside the point.

  “Miranda.” The young woman looked up at him, her eyes full of pain and grief. By the Sword, she was magnificent, he thought proudly. He had trained her from the cradle to take her place in his underground kingdom, and she would not disappoint him.

  “Miranda, three months from tomorrow will be the ceremony that makes you a King’s Wife. I’ve thought it best to keep you and Catspaw at a distance, but you’ll find him to be a gifted ruler and a good man. He doesn’t have my temper. He’s more like Kate. And he’s completely devoted to those he loves.”

  The young woman listened gravely. “I like Catspaw,” she whispered.

  Marak nodded his approval. “Ruling a kingdom is hard, especially at first,” he continued. “The new King will need your encouragement. And your people will watch everything you do. They’ll look to you for help, for comfort, for a thousand different things. You’ve grown up knowing this, and I’m sure you’ll meet your obligations.”

  “I will,” she promised softly. A tear sparkled on her eyelashes before slipping down her cheek. Marak watched it with idle interest. He thought it made a very pretty effect.

  “Can I stay with you?” she asked, but the old goblin shook his head.

  “The time I have left belongs to Kate. You need to leave now, but I want you to come to the crypt in the morning so that I can say good-bye.”

  Quiet, unmoving, in an agony of suffering, Miranda stared at the gray hands holding hers. Her guardian had always been there to guide her. Now, in less than a day, he would be gone. All that learning, all that brilliance lost, like galaxies disbanding. Like a universe collapsing into dust.

  “I want to come with you,” she said miserably.

  The goblin King’s eyebrows went up, and he chuckled at this absurdity. “But, Miranda, I don’t know where I’m going!”

  “I don’t care,” she said quickly. “I want to be with you. All my life, I wanted to come home with you, and you always made me wait, but you promised that I could one day. And then, when I finally did, it was for such a short time, and now—” She stopped herself with an effort.

  Unperturbed, Marak gave her hands a little shake. “Catspaw will be all that to you,” he said. “I certainly didn’t raise you to escort me to the grave. You’re going to be a King’s Wife in a thousand, Miranda! What a pity I won’t be here to see you.”

  The lovely girl mastered herself again. She even managed to smile. Then she turned and left him, crossing that empty desert of colored marble under the great golden dome.

  Chapter One

  The goblin King had not planned to raise a human bride for his son, but when the opportunity presented itself, he grasped its possibilities at once. Grasping possibilities was Marak’s special genius.

  Jack, the human boy whom Lore Master Ruby had raised in the goblin kingdom, knew that he would have to leave when he grew up because no woman in the kingdom could marry him. But Marak’s foster daughter, Til, always wanted what she couldn’t have, and she spent years daydreaming about this forbidden man. She was in love with Jack before she ever even saw him.

  Marak was not particularly impressed by her tears and protests of undying devotion. The stormy Til was always distraught over something, and he decided that she would soon forget her sweetheart. But the more he thought about the matter, the more he liked the idea. Why not let Til marry Jack? The young human was shaping up to be a fine businessman, and he could arrange the selling of their dwarf-made goods without the need for goblin trading journeys. The neglected estate of Hallow Hill had recently gone up for auction. Kate’s distant relatives had fought over it in court, bankrupting her inheritance, and it had changed hands several times since then. If Jack purchased the land with Marak’s wealth, the goblin King could build safeguards into the legal documents, protecting the goblins’ borderlands from human misuse.

  But there was a reason for allowing Til and Jack to wed that was far more compelling than these simple practical concerns. The clever goblin savored the chance to launch one last great scheme. His son would not end up bound to a madwoman, as he had been for fifteen years in his first marriage. Instead, he would permit Til to marry Jack and demand a daughter from them in exchange. He would leave her with her parents to develop her human nature fully, but the child would be his from birth. No other goblin would visit her; he would raise her himself, and she would have the benefit of all his wisdom and magic. The child would be extraordinary, his greatest and best achievement, a King’s Wife down to her bones. If Til loved Jack before they ever met, Marak loved their daughter Miranda long before she existed, from the moment he first planned out her life.

  Little Miranda adored her strange guardian, who sincerely cherished her and praised her for all her childish accomplishments. The goblin King was a huge secret in her life: he visited Hallow Hill only after the sun went down and everyone else was asleep. No one but Miranda and her parents ever saw him, and they were magically forbidden to mention goblins to anyone.

  It was Miranda’s love of Marak that led to her greatest misfortune, many years before she was old enough to understand it. Til never forgave Marak for choosing one of her children to marry the prince. Her hatred of Catspaw ran very deep. She could do nothing to harm her nemesis; Catspaw was out of her reach. But the young Miranda was sensitive, and Til took out all her harsh anger on the child. The entire household, to one extent or another, followed the mistress’s lead. It was far better to stand with Til than against her.

  The goblin King didn’t force Til to be fair. Instead, he taught his ward to be brave. He was not at all displeased that his little girl had such a bitter opponent in her life. Humans measured themselves by adversity, he reminded himself. Miranda would be the stronger for her misfortune. And her attachment to goblins would be all the greater for her unhappiness in the human world.

  But the cruelest thing young Miranda had to deal with was one of her own beloved M
arak’s ideas. He decided to teach the child goblin. This difficult language required years of study and practice, and because she could never explain to anyone how she learned about it, even the kindliest members of the community decided that Miranda was unwell. Goblin divided her from everyone else and kept her from having friends. The more the others taunted her for her efforts, the more fiercely proud and aloof she became in the face of all their ridicule.

  And so Miranda grew up with only one source of comfort: Marak became everything to the lonely child. Between the formidable personalities of her mother and her guardian, the young girl was molded and shaped, like hot iron between the hammer and the anvil.

  The one great wish of Miranda’s wretched heart was that her childhood would come to an end. When she grew up, she could go with Marak to his realm and escape her unhappy existence at last. Then she would always be with someone who loved and appreciated her. She would live the life of a queen, surrounded by admiring crowds, and no one would ever treat her disrespectfully again.

  But Miranda had come into the goblin caves only weeks before, and now her beloved guardian was leaving. She stood in the hallway outside the throne room, trying to comprehend what this meant. The few people Marak had allowed her to meet in the kingdom couldn’t begin to replace him. He had been her whole world from her earliest years, and tomorrow she would have to watch him die.

  • • •

  If a goblin King lived long enough, his magic told him when his strength was almost gone. Then he had to make a choice. Either he could lie in bed with his face to the wall, hoarding that strength for several days, or he could arrange a few final meetings, bid farewell to his court, pass once more through his solemn people as they lined the path to the Kings’ crypt, walk on his own two feet to his tomb, and lie down within it. That was what Marak chose to do. He led the way, moving more rapidly than he had for months. Why shouldn’t he? He would be resting soon enough.

  The crypt was a long cavern deep underground, completely silent and bitterly cold. No monuments lined it, and no elaborate carvings marked its walls. Only the goblin King’s family came there, along with the dwarves who had charge of the place. They guided the sober group down the narrow path between smooth rock formations that seemed to drip and flow. The torches the dwarves were holding flickered, as if the light couldn’t settle on anything. Darkness waited outside their feeble circle, steady and final.

  Miranda walked at the back of the little procession, just in front of the last dwarf, her thoughts chaotic and trivial. The goblin King’s sister-in-law, Emily, walked before her with her handsome husband at her side. Ahead of Emily walked the goblin King’s Wife, Kate, small and slender, her long golden hair gleaming in the torchlight. Taller than the others, the prince walked with his mother, blocking Miranda’s view of the goblin King.

  The quiet group assembled by Marak’s tomb, a shallow coffin chipped into the rock. Its lid rested on the cave floor beyond them, waiting to be fitted on. Once Miranda had seen it, she could make out the other lids nestled into the rocks, their outlines betrayed by the narrowest of cracks. Goblin Kings lay entombed all around her.

  Marak went from person to person, saying a few words to each. Miranda couldn’t hear what he said to the others, his voice was so low. Now he was in front of her, saying good-bye to her, a parting that would never end. She hugged him tightly and wouldn’t let go, keeping him alive as long as she could.

  “I want to come with you,” she told him, just as she had at the end of every visit.

  “Be brave for your King,” he whispered. Then he pulled away.

  When Marak came to his wife, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he gazed at Kate with that look he had just for her, as if it were a comfort and a joy to see her. Kate’s blue eyes were bright, and her expression was untroubled. She refused to ruin his last moments by crying. The petite woman was descended from the greatest of elvish warriors, and she called upon their courage to sustain her. It worked. She saw his relief that she was taking it so well. He had no idea what the effort cost her.

  “Marak,” she said in a low voice, “no wife ever had such a King.” And the smile that he gave her in return was worth all her pain.

  He kissed her and looked at her for a few seconds, stroking that beautiful hair. Then he turned away. As he did he worked the Protection Spell on her, the most cherished of all things he had to leave. Kate didn’t even know what he had done. She had no idea that she was the reason he stumbled and almost fell into the tomb. Marak had planned and weighed his strength down to the last. He had used it all.

  Once a goblin King lay in his tomb, he lost the power of breath. His son was there to help his death be peaceful. Catspaw laid his paw on the King’s striped hair. Marak’s unmatched eyes closed in sleep. The golden snake around Kate’s neck awoke and flowed smoothly down to the floor at her feet. Then it stretched out and shuddered and became a sword once more.

  There was no ceremony. Catspaw knelt for a few minutes, watching over his dead father, thinking about the reign that was ending, the reign that was beginning. When he stood up, the dwarves were ready with the coffin lid. They lowered it with a click, and Marak was gone.

  Miranda stared at the plain rock surface that hid her guardian from view, conscious of nothing but a feeling of numb stupidity. Beside her, Emily burst into tears, and she fought down an answering whimper. Violent emotion alarmed Miranda. She had spent too many years hiding her feelings.

  The new goblin King came to put his arms around his mother, and Kate looked up at him with a reassuring smile. That was how a King’s Wife acted, thought Miranda, watching her. They shouldn’t indulge in tears. Catspaw glanced toward her, perhaps to put an arm around her, too, but Miranda quickly turned away. She didn’t know him. He was a stranger to her — now, more than ever before.

  Instead, she edged closer to Seylin. He and Emily had looked after her for the last few weeks, so she could have accepted sympathy from him. But Seylin had his arms around the sobbing Emily, his face buried in her hair. Miranda realized with a shock that the man was crying. She stared at the ground as they started up the path again. The world had become a place in which she was alone.

  Inside the safety of her own rooms, she could cry at last. She sat in the small apartment, desolate, filled with sadness and dread. The stylish furnishings fit strangely in the stone rooms, and the place was dim and gloomy. The whole underground world was full of shadows, she thought, a twilight on the verge of eternal night.

  She hadn’t minded as long as Marak was there.

  • • •

  A member of the Guard summoned Miranda to the new King. She followed the grotesque creature into a formal reception room. Around the low dais hung green brocade curtains, looped back in elaborate scallops. The goblin King sat upon it in an elegant armchair of gilded wood.

  Marak Catspaw’s two lieutenants stood beside him. He had appointed Seylin, his former tutor, to be his chief adviser, and the streetwise Richard to be his military commander. They made an eerie trio. The elvish Seylin’s black hair and eyes and stately bearing made him look nothing like a goblin. He was dressed in English fashion, and his trousers, waistcoat, and frockcoat of gray matched his dignity and reserve. Richard was wearing the King’s Guard uniform of black shirt, breeches, and boots. As goblins went, he wasn’t hideous. His long hair was white, and his eyes were an arresting pale green, but his face and build were reasonably normal. One of his fangs had been knocked out during a boyhood fight, so the dwarves had made him a false fang of gold.

  Catspaw was a big man, larger-boned than his father. He reminded Miranda of a Viking. His face was striking, not handsome: the jawbone was too pronounced, giving him a stubborn appearance. But he wasn’t particularly ugly, either. His short hair, marbled with streaks and blotches of dark blond and pale tan, was not entirely unattractive, and his eyes, one blue and the other green, were rather interesting. He could almost have passed as a very unusual human with grayish skin if it were not for the big lio
n’s forearm and paw that served as his right hand. Having grown up with Kate’s expectation that he be a gentleman as well as a goblin, he favored impeccable jackets and trousers of dark green or blue cloth, white linen shirts, and a well-knotted cravat. He stood politely for Miranda’s entrance, and she appreciated the gesture. A King, she knew, had no need to stand up.

  Catspaw had already found his fiancee to be a self-possessed young woman. Although her eyes were red, she wasn’t crying, he noticed with relief; he had grown up with Miranda’s mother, Til, and his foster sister’s constant dramatics had given him a distaste for emotional displays. Miranda was wearing a midnight-blue gown that formed a pleasant contrast with her auburn hair and rosy complexion, and the new King thought her quite lovely.

  “I concurred with my father’s plans to bring you into the kingdom as my bride,” he began. “I have known of your work together, and I could not imagine finding a better King’s Wife.”

  Miranda blushed a little and inclined her head courteously to acknowledge the compliment. At least this stranger shared Marak’s high opinion of her. After enduring years of ridicule from her family, she didn’t take such things for granted.

  “The King’s Wife will be the most important person in my realm, just as she was in my father’s day,” he said. “I would like you to begin accompanying me to the banquet hall and taking your place by my side in the King’s Gallery. Starting today, I will have a member of the Guard posted outside your apartment. You may use this guard to send me messages, and you may ask to see me at any time, for any reason.”

  Again, Miranda gave a gracious nod at this recognition of her value. She felt steadied by it. Life was falling into its proper pattern.

  “Allow me to make you a small gift,” Catspaw continued, “on this official inauguration of our engagement.” Seylin opened a small box for him, and the King withdrew a golden bracelet. Then he stepped forward and placed it around her wrist. Miranda watched curiously, wondering how he would manage to clasp it since the big tawny paw was so clumsy, but he did it with his normal hand and magic.