The Hollow Kingdom Read online

  “What are you doing?” she demanded in surprise, seizing the bars.

  “I’m going to kill you,” rasped the man. “You’re obviously a powerful sorceress, and I’m not going to give you any more time to do your work.”

  “I certainly am not!” said Kate indignantly, wondering how she would get out. When Charm bit him, it would have to locate the key and release her. “My coachman tried to kill me, and I was trying to find help. I saw a man walking this way, and I followed him.”

  The sorcerer turned at the doorway, holding up the candelabrum. Those red pupils glowed eerily from that comfortable face.

  “If you weren’t powerful in magic, your coachman would have succeeded in killing you and saved me the trouble,” he growled. Kate reflected unhappily that this was true. “Perhaps you can explain why you were snooping about my property with magical lights, but I doubt it. Not that it matters; I’d kill you, anyway. I can use your hair and your liver, and I think I have a spell that calls for your left ear, too.” He turned and went out.

  “Charm,” called Kate quietly, “why didn’t you bite him? Don’t tell me he’s not a danger to the King’s Wife!”

  Charm glided up from her sleeve and peered out through the bars at the gloomy space beyond. “You are in terrible danger, King’s Wife,” it hissed softly. “Only three King’s Wives before you have been in more danger. I cannot bite this man. He is what Thaydar was, a manifestation of the spirit. He can kill you, but if I try to bite him, I will seem to be biting the air.”

  Kate glanced around her long, narrow prison in dismay. “But what can we do? How can I escape?”

  “His body is elsewhere, like the King’s,” whispered Charm. “I must have a body to bite. You are the one hundred and sixty-eighth King’s Wife I have guarded, and you may be the last.”

  “If his body is elsewhere,” said Kate firmly, “then you have to go find it. Surely he wouldn’t leave it too far away.”

  Charm hissed for a few seconds and then unwound itself, gliding down to the floor at her feet. Now that she was finally rid of the snake that she had detested for so long, Kate felt horribly unprotected.

  “Look everywhere, Charm. You have to save the kingdom,” she called. “Don’t worry about what happens to me.” The magic snake stopped and reared up to look back at her. It seemed like a long, thin bar of gold.

  “I do worry, King’s Wife,” it hissed. “You are carrying the Heir. If you die, there will be no more Kings, and that means no more King’s Wives.”

  “The Heir?” gasped Kate. “Charm! What are you talking about?”

  “Your son, of course,” buzzed the snake. “Yours and the King’s. Stay alive until I return.”

  “Wait!” cried Kate, but it whisked under the door and was gone.

  Kate paced up and down for some time in the cell, turning this news over in her mind. So she was going to have a baby. Wouldn’t Marak be thrilled! She couldn’t wait to rescue him so that they could talk about it. I wonder what the baby will look like, she mused. Maybe my hair and Marak’s eyes. I’m not going to cry when I see him, she thought happily. And that sorcerer had better not try to hurt my baby!

  A click at the far door told Kate that the sorcerer was returning. Bulk sidled through behind him, carrying a large, curved sword. Kate stared at him in astonishment. Although the goblins had a well-stocked weapons room, none of the King’s Guard carried anything but a knife. They relied on magic to subdue enemies.

  “You were so interested in the dead goblin,” said the sorcerer, “that I thought you would enjoy being killed by his twin.”

  “But how can you be sure he’s a goblin?” asked Kate. “He just looks like a funny monkey to me.”

  The sorcerer turned to look at the pale ape, who crouched with the sword in his huge hands. “Oh, he’s a goblin. They all look different. I have sixty of the horrible monsters now, and they carry out any command. You would think, to look at them, that they were designed just for hell. They don’t even have to kill on their errands. People run at the sight of them.”

  This speech made Kate absolutely furious. Bulk was not a horrible monster, and neither were any of the other goblins. They would have scorned stabbing a woman in the back, as the handsome Bingham had tried to do, and they certainly wouldn’t kill a guest in order to use her left ear. Kate glared at the avuncular sorcerer. How happy she would be to live with horrible monsters if she could only get away from him!

  “That’s fascinating,” she said coldly. “How did you even know they existed? Did you just meet one by accident?”

  “We’re wasting time.” The sorcerer hesitated. “But it’s such a good story, and a few minutes won’t matter.” Kate fervently hoped that he was wrong. “My brother is a doctor, and he wrote me a year ago, very excited about a new patient of his. This madman claimed he’d been enchanted by goblins, and you’ll never guess what they did. They stuck him to the ceiling! I couldn’t believe it when I saw him. I’d give anything to learn how to do it.”

  The sorcerer couldn’t have wished for a better audience. Kate stared at him openmouthed. So he had learned about goblins from her very own guardian. Wouldn’t Marak be furious with himself when he learned that his revenge had endangered the whole kingdom!

  “That fat man skittered back and forth across the ceiling like a bug,” continued the sorcerer, “telling me all about the goblins who stole his wards. Of course, no one but me believed him. Everyone was sure he had killed them himself. I wasn’t about to let another magician profit from his excellent information, so I killed him before I left. And you’ll never guess how I killed him!” Kate couldn’t speak. Her guardian, dead?

  “I hanged him, of course!” The sorcerer burst into a loud, raucous laugh. “There he hung, neck snapped, feet dangling, but they dangled toward the ceiling! That big body twisting to and fro on the rope, pointing straight up into the air. What an unbelievable sight!”

  Kate stared at the man, horrified beyond words. Hugh Roberts had meant real harm to his wards, but she could never have wished such an end for him. She remembered how he had looked crawling around on the ceiling and closed her eyes with a shudder.

  “Well, time to kill you,” the man said abruptly. “I’ll be able to try something new tonight with that ear. Do you command that bracelet to light, or does it light by itself?”

  “I don’t really know,” Kate said, gazing at it. “I don’t think I do anything.” In answer, it flared a little brighter. The sorcerer looked annoyed.

  “Go ahead,” he told the feathered ape hoarsely, handing him a key. “Unlock the door and then kill her.” Bulk shuffled forward, head down. He turned the key in the lock, and Kate stepped through the open door. Bulk looked up at her, his yellow eyes strangely darkened, and shuffled back a step. Kate walked out into the room, stepping over the flat fur thing, and he moved farther away, looking at the floor.

  “Now what’s happening?” growled the sorcerer. “Are you working a spell on him?” He crossed to the ape and stared at his face, slapping him a couple of times. Kate was surprised that his hand didn’t go right through. Maybe spirits could hit each other.

  “Go kill her!” he demanded, pointing at Kate. The ape shook his head pitifully. Bright flames engulfed the feathery body, and he howled silently, writhing in torment. “Go kill her now!” But Bulk crouched down and hid his face.

  “I can’t believe this!” The man eyed Kate uneasily. “I think he’s afraid of you. They lose their memory, voice, and hearing, so their fears are almost the only thing they have left. But why you?” Kate considered the question herself. Bulk must be afraid of being bitten, she thought. Every goblin was raised to know what the King’s Wife Charm could do.

  “I’ll fetch another one,” the man muttered. This time he didn’t lock her up in the cell; in fact, Kate noticed that he gave her a rather wide berth as he headed for the door. Bulk disappeared after a minute. Kate hurried to try the two doors out of the large room, but both of them were locked. What a shame
, she reflected bitterly, that this powerful sorceress couldn’t work a simple Unlock Spell.

  The sorcerer came back with Sayada and Tinsel, a giant of a goblin with thick, corded silver-gray arms. Adele had named him for his hair, which fell like bright tin threads around his face. Neither goblin would approach Kate at all. The sorcerer bullied them and burned them, but they refused to lift their swords. The gray-haired man wiped the sweat from his face and studied the slight, pretty girl with real alarm.

  “I can’t imagine what they think you’ll do,” he complained. “It’s times like this that I wish they could speak.”

  “Maybe they’re just gentlemen,” Kate suggested calmly. “They certainly look like gentlemen to me.” The sorcerer stared at her in astonishment and turned to study the two phantoms. He had been sure she would scream at the sight of the one without a nose, but she gazed at the freakish creature as serenely as if she saw it every day. He hesitated, taken aback, trying to think what to do. Then he snapped his fingers in sudden inspiration.

  “I know which one will kill you,” he said gleefully, turning to leave. “He’s the best one, the very best, and he’s not afraid of anything.”

  Unlike you, thought Kate in disgust. You can take on helpless things without a qualm, but you’re afraid of one mysterious girl. She glanced up scornfully as he returned, his plain, comfortable face wreathed in smiles. Then she gasped. Right behind him was Marak, eyes on the ground, curved sword in his six-fingered hand.

  “Oh, so you’re afraid of this one, eh?” The sorcerer turned to look at the silent goblin. “That’s funny, I don’t think he’s so bad. A little grotesque, but nothing compared to those nose holes, I would have said.”

  Kate stepped forward quickly. “Marak,” she called out in goblin, “look at me. I’ve come to help you escape. Can’t you work any magic at all?” The goblin King didn’t even move. His face was shielded by his impossible hair as he leaned on the curved sword.

  “No working spells on him!” barked the sorcerer. “I don’t want you damaging him! Now, kill her,” he commanded the goblin. Marak swung the sword up and stepped toward Kate without hesitation. She reflected bitterly that the sorcerer had been right to pick him out. The goblin King had nothing to fear from the King’s Wife Charm. He would never be bitten, no matter what he did. If only he would look at her!

  “I wasn’t enchanting him, I was talking to him!” Kate said indignantly, stepping away from her husband’s advance. “I just said hello. Why didn’t he answer?”

  “What, you know him?” shouted the man in disbelief. “Wait a minute,” he ordered, and Marak stopped at once, staring at the ground. “He only hears and knows what I hear and know. If I were out of the room, he’d hear nothing at all. What language was that? How do you know about goblins? Why are they afraid of you?”

  “His name is Marak, and he is the King of the goblins,” she said, ignoring the questions. “He is a great magician, much greater than you will ever be, and he protects his people with his magic. He doesn’t need to carry around candles like you do. He lights the entire kingdom with his spells. And I asked him why he had a sword in his hands. He doesn’t need a sword. He kills with magic.”

  The sorcerer looked excitedly at the motionless goblin King. “What a shame he can’t speak or remember! Have you watched the spells? Do you know the words?” Kate’s heart gave a leap. As the sorcerer talked, she saw Marak make a movement of his own. He was fingering the sword thoughtfully as if he were thinking about her last statement.

  “The goblin King’s magic wouldn’t work for you,” said Kate coldly. “No human could work it. No human can ever work magic. They talk the demons into working it for them.”

  The sorcerer flinched, and his pupils glowed bright red. “Kill her!” he roared angrily. Marak raised the sword again, but this time he didn’t step forward.

  “Marak,” cried Kate desperately, “I know you won’t hurt me. You never did, unless it was very important,” and she held out her scarred hands. “I know you won’t kill me because the lines say a long life. A long life for both of us.”

  “Stop! Where did those come from?” The sorcerer studied the magical lines with interest, and Marak put down the sword. This time Kate thought he was looking at her, but she couldn’t be sure because his hair was still in his face.

  “They’re from the wedding ceremony,” she explained. “From the magic worked to protect the King’s Wife. Nothing matters to the King as much as his wife and his son. Remember, Marak? Your wife and son!”

  The sorcerer stared at her, amazed. “You’re his wife?” he demanded. “You’re married to that monster? A pretty girl like you and a freak like that!” He bellowed out a laugh. Behind him, the goblin dropped his head once more.

  “He’s not a freak!” cried Kate in indignation. “Goblins are strong, not pretty, and he’s worth a hundred of you! Marak, you have to come home,” she begged. “You’re asleep right now in your own palace, and you have to wake up!”

  The sorcerer turned to look at his servant, and the goblin turned to look at his master. Marak hesitantly reached a hand up to push the striped hair out of his face.

  “Stop that!” cried the sorcerer. “You know you can’t move on your own! That’s enough of your magic!” he snarled at Kate. “You came here to kill me, but you’ll be killed instead by your own precious freak.” He whirled back to the goblin. “Kill her right now, and be quick about it!”

  At the command, Marak advanced decisively, sword up. When he looked at Kate, she saw the same distant expression he had worn when he cut her hands open. She didn’t think he knew her at all.

  “Fight for us, Marak!” she begged. He raised the sword in his right hand and brought it slashing down, but at the same moment he shoved her as hard as he could with his left hand. Kate sprawled onto her back in a filthy puddle as the blade flashed past.

  “Stop trying not to kill her!” the sorcerer screamed. “Kill her, and this time really do it!”

  Kate tried to scramble away, but the goblin stepped on her arm, pinning her to the ground. His impassive gaze showed only the faintest flicker of unease, the faintest hint of puzzled recognition. He swung the sword up to chop off her head, and she couldn’t get away.

  “Marak,” Kate whispered in goblin, “I’m going to have a baby.” Then she closed her eyes tightly as the sword came slashing down again. She felt a burning pain and reached up to touch her face. A shallow cut stretched across her cheekbone, but the weapon clattered to the ground.

  “My wife and son!” Marak cried. “Kate, our baby! Do you mean it?” He looked around in surprise. “What are we doing here? Where are we?” And he reached down to help her up out of the puddle. The sorcerer glared at them both, beside himself with fear and horror. A dog started howling somewhere below them.

  “The watchdogs!” the sorcerer spat at Kate. “This is all your fault. Sixty monster servants, and I have to kill you myself!” He snatched up the sword and raised it, but Marak wrapped his arms around the furious man. Kate stepped back from the struggling pair, unsure what to do. “Let me go!” howled the sorcerer, his eyes like red lamps. Marak was wreathed in flames now, his face twisted in agony, but he held the sorcerer in a tight grip. An unearthly keening came from below, joining the howling dog.

  “The wizards! The wizards!” shouted the frenzied sorcerer. “Let me go!” As the stricken Kate watched, Marak glowed brightly all over like molten metal. He collapsed onto the floor, still glowing, and the sorcerer broke free, charging straight at Kate and swinging the sword wildly. One second she was staring at his livid face, mouth open, spit flying, weapon swung back to kill her. The next instant she was staring at the dim room beyond as the sword toppled onto the ground. She seized it and looked around frantically, but there was nothing to see. The room was completely empty.

  Holding the sword, Kate moved to the center of the room, gazing around in bewilderment. She reached a hand up to her cut cheek and wiped away the blood, staring at the silent,
dingy space and listening to the water drip from the rafters. She remembered the howling and the keening. Now there was no sound at all. A golden flash caught her dazed attention, and in another second Charm twined rapidly around her arm until its head reared up before her face. As she blinked at the snake, it bared fangs in an exultant grin.

  “I have just bitten a man,” hissed Charm triumphantly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kate picked her way carefully down the rotted wooden stairs underneath the warehouse building, still clutching the sword. She was beginning to regret having asked the golden snake to show her the sorcerer’s body.

  “Charm, did you know all along that I was going to have a baby?” she asked.

  “Yes, I knew, King’s Wife,” hissed the snake.

  “And you let the baby and me leave the kingdom?” demanded Kate in amazement.

  “The kingdom was not safe. The sorcerer could reach inside it to bring harm to you and the Heir. I needed to come to the sorcerer to protect my Wives.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairwell. Two large gray wolves were chained there. One of them was long dead, rolled onto its back with its legs out stiff. The other one appeared to be sleeping. Its beautiful fur was matted with filth, and the gray coat wrapped a desperately thin body.

  At the end of an unlit hallway, Kate came to a thick wooden door, splintered and twisted from its hinges. She stepped cautiously past it and caught her breath sharply. At her feet lay two hideously desiccated human corpses wrapped in dirty bands of cloth. Their dark brown skin was tough and leathery, stretched taut over the bones beneath. One was missing a hand, and the other had no lower jaw. The upper teeth stuck out into the air, yellow and uneven.

  “When I was here before,” hissed Charm quietly, “these two were awake. I did not bite them because they did not try to stop me. I am only a magical charm, and they are here to combat the living.”