In the Coils of the Snake

by Clare B. Dunkle

  Using a generous amount of salve, the goblin King healed the burns. Like most magical tools, the salve increased in strength with the magical power of its user.

  “That criminal!” he exclaimed. “He has complete control over her now, and he knows there’s absolutely nothing I can do. But why? To use the Seven Stars — that’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of!”

  “I’ve been puzzling over what he wants with her all the way back,” admitted Seylin. “I can’t think of a single precedent for it. Of course, there’s no precedent for Miranda herself”

  “He means to use her against us, that much is plain,” declared the King. “She’s a weapon now. Maybe he wants to force us into a situation where I have to choose between her life or a guard’s.”

  “You don’t suppose,” said Seylin cautiously, “that he could intend its original use?”

  “No. I don’t, and neither do you,” his ruler replied. “That could only mean he’s insane.” He sat in sober thought for a few minutes. “There’s no way to break the spell, we’re sure of that?”

  Seylin shook his head. “The stars give him control over her until he dies.”

  “Now, there’s a tempting thought,” said Catspaw grimly.

  He said good night to his lieutenant and tiptoed to his bedroom, but he found the door half open. He heard a slam, and Seylin hurried back into the room.

  “She’s gone!” exclaimed the King.

  “She’s overpowered the guards,” said Seylin. They went to the doorway of the royal rooms. The two guards lay in untidy heaps on either side.

  “Look at Mongrel,” directed the King. “You can tell he was completely unprepared. I told you,” he said admiringly, nudging the unconscious goblin with his toe, “that Arianna’s s not afraid to use her magic.”

  They both spoke the Tracking Spell, spotted the small footprints, and followed the running track. It led them down many flights of stairs, through the echoing grandeur of the empty Throne Room, and out of the palace entirely, into the gigantic cavern that contained the ornamental gardens. It finally ended in the part of the artificial forest that represented winter. The elf girl lay curled up on the snowy white stone at the foot of a slender metal tree. She was sound asleep.

  “I brought her here today,” said Catspaw softly, reaching up to touch the delicate crystals that hung from the silver branches. “I suppose it reminded her of home.” He studied his sleeping wife with a puzzled frown. “She’s a strange girl,” he remarked.

  “You could carry her back,” suggested Seylin, but the goblin King shook his head.

  “She’s finally resting well,” he observed. “I don’t want to risk waking her up. I’ll stay here with her. Go tell the Guard to post men at the edges of the grove to keep everyone away in the morning. And lend me your cloak,” he added without much enthusiasm.

  As Seylin walked off, the goblin King stretched out on the hard stone by his wife. He shifted uncomfortably. It was going to be a miserable night.

  Chapter Nine

  Miranda awoke suddenly as the enchantment released its hold. She felt damp and sweaty. With a sigh, she rolled over to find the elf lord already awake. Sitting cross-legged on his pallet, head bent beneath the sloping cloth, he was cutting his arm with his own knife and then healing the cuts. She watched him sleepily for a minute, not particularly surprised. The goblin pages had done it, too. It was the only way to practice healing spells.

  The elf lord gave her a wary glance, trying to assess how she might be feeling. She had been so upset that morning, and she was so unpredictable, ready to argue over the most ordinary things. This was something Nir wasn’t used to. None of his elves argued with him at all.

  He cut himself again and carefully healed the cut. Miranda picked. up the knife that he had set down and examined it curiously. The handle appeared to her ignorant eye to be some sort of antler or bone. It had a pebbly texture and varied in color from gray to white. The blade was quite remarkable. Single-edged and about seven inches long, it was of no metal she had ever seen. It was white and shone like satin.

  She fingered the blade thoughtfully, but when she wanted to test the edge, she found that she couldn’t, and the stars at her wrists lit briefly. Nir glanced up in time to see them and took the knife away.

  “If you want to know whether it’s sharp or not, just watch me,” he said, cutting himself again. “It’s an elf knife,” he continued as he stopped the bleeding. “This one was my father’s. We still don’t know how to make them. I hope we can learn from those books the goblins are bringing us.”

  Miranda picked up the knife again. It was very pretty as knives went. Nir paused to watch.

  “It’s said that the last elf King’s Wife killed herself with a knife just like that one,” he told her. “No one knows how she could have done it.”

  “What is it made of?” she asked, not particularly interested in elvish history. “It doesn’t even feel like metal.”

  “That’s because it’s not,” he answered. “We never use metal if we can help it. No metal, and no fire; they belong inside the earth, like the goblins. I don’t know entirely what the blade is made of, but deer bone makes it white. I can guess that because the Slaughtering Spell powders most of the bones, ready for making knives like this.”

  Miranda watched him as he studied his arm with a frown, prepaying to make another cut, and she thought about all the times she had done the same. As long as the stars lasted, she wouldn’t be cutting herself again, and she felt a little relieved that this man would never know what she had done. He would be horrified by it, she was sure; he would doubtless identify it as yet another sign of her childishness.

  And Miranda decided that he would be right. There was something immature about hurting oneself in the hope that someone else would come along to stop the pain. It belonged with begging for presents, with daydreaming about a glorious future. It belonged to her past. She was done with hoping for better things to come; she was ready to face life as it was. At least this man didn’t try to. entice her with stories about how wonderful things were going to be.

  When it was time for the evening meal, the elf lord once again brought her food. Miranda supposed that he was just treating her like a child, but her dignity didn’t object to being waited on. She reached out to take it, but he held the napkin away as he sat down beside her.

  “Tonight you need to ask me for your meal,” he said. “You need to ask like an elf. Ninda — `bread,”’ he explained, and he held up her half of the flat circle.

  “Ninda, please,” said Miranda doubtfully, studying the bread he handed her. She didn’t think ninda was a very good word for it.

  “Dunabi means ‘please,’” he corrected. “Shar,”’ he continued, holding out a radish.

  “No, you can keep those,” said Miranda, and her face lit up with a smile. Nir looked at her, rather taken with it. She hadn’t smiled at him before.

  “I’ve hunted for your share, and I don’t want anyone else to eat it,” he observed. “In the wintertime, you’ll be glad to have these.”

  “Shar, dunabi,” she said, shrugging, and he handed her the vegetables. As they ate, he pointed out things to her, saying their names.

  “Why do you want me to speak elvish?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t allow English in my camp,” said Nir. “You live with us now, and you have to learn to be like us.”

  Already depressed about the darkening night, Miranda felt that this was rather too much. “Do you know how many years I spent learning goblin?” she demanded angrily. “Days and nights of practicing, drilling, reading, writing. Years and years, while my whole family laughed at me!”

  “What a sorry waste of your time,” remarked the elf lord sincerely. “Igira is finished making your clothes. She still needs to fit them to you, so she’ll take you back into the woods where you won’t be disturbed.”

  “Into the woods to change clothes!” At the sight of her horrified expression, Nir’s eyes grew
bright.

  “I assure you,” he said, “that it will be perfectly decent.”

  Igira was an amiable woman, blond and blue-eyed like her daughter. “She doesn’t speak English,” observed the elf lord, “but I don’t think you’ll have trouble understanding each other. During this fitting, I order you to carry out her commands as you would mine.” This really wasn’t an order to Miranda but an order to the Seven Stars. Miranda glared at him for it, but when Igira took her hand to lead her away, she had no choice but to go.

  It turned out to be a good thing that Nir had invoked the stars. Miranda had gone through countless fittings in her life, but never one in the semidarkness out in the open woods. Igira helped her undress, absolutely astounded at the quantity and variety of clothing she hauled around, and Miranda wasn’t in the least happy about parting with it all.

  Elf women wore only two garments, an under-dress and a dress. Igira pulled the dark brown under-dress over Miranda’s head and went about adjusting it. It had a scoop neck and no sleeves, and it extended to her knees. It was unlike any garment she had ever worn. The cloth was knitted in some way, and so it was very elastic, staying close to her body. Miranda felt as if she were wearing a giant sock.

  Igira made sure that the top fitted snugly. As she pinched material between her fingers, a strip of cloth came away as if it had been cut off, but the cloth left behind stayed whole. Miranda surveyed one side after Igira had cut some cloth out of it, but she couldn’t even find a seam.

  When the under-dress fitted to her satisfaction, Igira brought out a knitted belt. She wrapped this around Miranda right below her breasts, pulling the bodice of the under-dress tight and anchoring the belt under each arm. She had Miranda hold the ends over one another for her. Then she produced a thin leather lace and quickly laced them together.

  Next, Igira pulled the dark brown elf dress over Miranda’s head and began to fit it to the girl just as she had fitted the under-dress. Not as stretchy as the under-dress, and more substantial, it had no collar and no sleeves. This felt strange: Miranda wasn’t used to having her arms bare to the shoulders. It had no fastenings, either. The simple round neckline stretched just enough to pull over her head. Snug to the waist, the dress widened out into a full skirt, the thick, heavy material draping and rippling gracefully as she turned. It didn’t extend much past the knees.

  Miranda had seen the elf women walking and dancing in their short dresses, but she hadn’t really thought about wearing such a garment herself It was a drafty arrangement after all her petticoats. She took a few experimental steps. The under-dress, hugging her legs, felt strange in contrast to the loose folds of the dress. She expected it to begin creeping up, but it stayed where it belonged, and the dress slipped easily over it. She could move much more freely, and nothing about her new garments caught at her or dug into her: life in a pair of socks was very comfortable.

  The elf woman gathered up the pieces of cloth and picked up the myriad garments that Miranda had worn. Then she led the girl back to camp. The elves gathered around to admire the simple brown dress that suited her brown eyes and auburn hair, the form and shape that made her into a member of their world. The women walked beside her, smoothing or twitching the dress approvingly, and the men called out comments as she went by. It was just as well that she couldn’t understand elvish because most of it was teasing. “Here comes the morning star!” they said, referring to her bright bracelet. “It’s the fox with her paw on fire!”

  The sensitive elves had been horrified by the goblins, depressed about Arianna’s s loss, and reserved and uncertain over Miranda’s own appearance in camp. They had sensed their lord’s concern and dismay over her, and they had attentively observed all the arguments that had taken place, arguments ordinarily being rare in an elf camp. Now they felt that they had achieved a victory. Their lord had kept the poor, unhappy girl that the goblins had wanted back, and he had changed her into something like an elf. They surveyed their new companion and found her pretty, and so they were ready to celebrate her transformation, as wholeheartedly pleased with themselves as if they were the ones who had personally dragged her out of a wretched captivity.

  Igira sat Miranda down on the grass. The minute she did several women came over and began combing Miranda’s hair. Miranda didn’t know what to do about the unwanted grooming, so she just endured it with a shocked face. The women exclaimed over the fascinating color, lifting tresses and watching them glisten in the light. They were very happy. They had been wanting to get their hands on that unusual hair ever since her arrival.

  Motioning for Miranda to extend her feet, Igira pulled off the girl’s slippers and propped her ankles up on a thick log. Then she cleaned her feet just as the elf lord always did while several more men and women drifted over to watch. They passed the goblin slippers from one to another, laughing over them and making faces as they knocked on the hard soles.

  With elf hands in her hair, elf hands on her feet, and elf hands passing her property about, Miranda decided resentfully that she couldn’t call herself her own. But Igira, glancing up and catching her eye, gave her a friendly smile. Then, as she worked, she told her enthralled audience all about the excruciating clothing that the goblins had forced the girl to wear.

  Igira walked away into the darkness and returned with a small white pot. Reaching into it, she plastered some warm, wet goop onto Miranda’s feet, shaping it carefully until it looked as if the girl were wearing dark slippers. At last, when the stuff was thick and even enough to satisfy her, she motioned for the girl not to move.

  Miranda was just wondering whether this was some outrageous joke when the elf lord appeared out of the dark and sat down beside her. Her hair-combing crew broke up and left at his approach, leaving Miranda glad of his company.

  “What is that?” she demanded, pointing at the cold, soggy slippers.

  “Those are your felt inner shoes,” he told her. “They have to dry on your feet, so you’re going to have to stay still, but you can watch me give a magic lesson. That will take everyone’s mind off you.”

  What Miranda watched, she decided, didn’t resemble a lesson. It was more like a riot. Elated over Miranda’s rescue and thrilled with the healing spells, the elves turned cutting themselves into a new form of entertainment for the pleasure of making the cuts disappear. They inscribed messages and drew pictures on their arms; they played highly unsafe forms of catch-the-knife; and Hunter staged a mock swordfight with a companion that gave both of them plenty of cuts to practice on when they were done. A young man pretended to cry, holding out his hand for his shy fourteen-year-old fiancee to heal. Miranda thought that the whole undignified display was perfectly ridiculous.

  “I’ve never seen grown men carry on like that,” she said in amazed disapproval to the elf lord when he returned to sit beside her. She had a vague feeling that he should share her disapproval, if only because his own dignity was so remarkable. But the handsome and stately lord just watched his elves with a pleased smile.

  “I have,” he commented. “Many times.”

  When the inner shoes were dry, Igira peeled them off and handed them to her. They were something like the felt that she knew, but there was a springiness to them that normal felt didn’t have, and they were amazingly tough. Nir helped her up, but she had to walk barefoot to the shoemaking elf. Her goblin slippers had completely disappeared.

  Galnar was the oldest man in the camp, but Miranda had no idea of that. He didn’t look particularly old; he just looked kind. His hair was so blond that it was almost white, and his green eyes and shrewd smile reminded her painfully of Marak. He had exhausted his fun with the healing spells and was playing his violin softly to himself when Miranda walked up with the elf lord, ready for him to make her shoes.

  Elf slippers were made of just two pieces of leather, the large one wrapping under the foot and the smaller one covering the top, and in order to get a good fit, the leather was stitched with the foot already inside it. Miranda stared breathl
essly as the curved bone needle, unguided by any hand, flashed through the leather almost faster than the eye could see, pulling the pieces tight around her feet. She was sure she felt the stab of that needle at least a dozen times.

  When the Stitching Spell was over at last, Miranda took a few steps, surprised to find that her new shoes, with no hard soles, let her feel the ground beneath her feet. They were more like gloves than shoes, she decided. Then she realized with an unpleasant shock that she had almost a death grip on the elf lord’s hand. During the spell, she had squeezed it so tightly that now it was slippery with sweat. Uncomfortable about this, she tried to free herself, and the stars at her wrists began to sparkle. The elf lord noticed them and let her go.

  “That’s the first time you’ve been glad of a hand to hold,” he said quietly. Miranda was too embarrassed to reply.

  • • •

  The goblin King had come to the end of a trying day. It had started long before dawn, when he had had to sleep on the cold stone of the metal grove beside his runaway wife. Not that that had done much good, he reflected. Even though he was sure he had been unable to do more than doze, she was gone again when he awoke. This time, her lengthy, wandering trail had ended in the green banquet hall’s jam closet.

  By that time it was morning, so he had roused her from her nest behind the pickle barrels and jars of brandied fruit and had kept her with him all day, walking through the valley under the waters of Hollow Lake. He was sure that she had enjoyed visiting the flowers, but he couldn’t persuade her to say a single word. Now he was exhausted from the long nights and hard days, and he was sure that she must be exhausted, too. With her penchant for roving, she was sleeping much less than he was.

  If the day had been a trial, he couldn’t complain about its ending. He was lying in his own comfortable bed with his nomadic wife beside him. She sat on the bed with her legs folded under her and her silky black hair around her shoulders. Slowly, gracefully, she was combing out the tresses, watching him all the while.