In the Coils of the Snake

by Clare B. Dunkle

  “What’s the worst thing that your magic made you do?” she wanted to know. She doubted he would answer the question, but after a second’s hesitation, he did.

  “The worst thing,” he reflected. “I’m not sure. Bringing Arianna here to give her to the goblins was a horrible thing to do, but that wasn’t the worst thing that my magic did. It killed my wife, Kara, and I didn’t know in time to stop it.”

  “You were married?” exclaimed Miranda in astonishment, her feeling of empathy vanishing abruptly. She certainly had no experience to match this.

  “Kara and I were married for years,” he replied. “She was Hunter’s sister. They were the first elves I found. Kara was heartsick that we never had any children. I didn’t mind, but she said that I should have a son to be lord after me, and because she was a commoner, she thought that I shouldn’t have married her.

  “When I made trips to gather elves, I usually took my wife, but one time, my magic told me to leave her behind. She was sure that my magic was getting rid of her, and she said that she didn’t mind, that she was glad to go. But she cried and cried. She couldn’t bear to say goodbye, and I couldn’t find any way to reassure her. When I left, she walked beside me, crying, until she was in danger of not making it home to camp before day. Then I stopped and kissed her and ordered her to go back, and I never saw her again. Hunter told me she was dead in our tent that evening. My magic must have killed her somehow, but I never would have left if I had known.”

  What a terrible burden to live with, thought Miranda in amazement, even worse than losing Marak and all of his promises. “Was Kara as beautiful as Catspaw’s wife?” she asked, and then regretted the question. Of course she was, you fool, she told herself. All elves are beautiful.

  “No,” said Nir. “Arianna was more beautiful, but that didn’t mean I loved her more. An engagement can seem short or long. I only had to wait five months for Kara, but I thought I’d go mad. I had already waited four years for Arianna, and I could have waited another four. I would have been happy not to marry her if I’d known she was happy with another elf. The thing that haunts me,” he said moodily, “is the thought of that monster kissing her lovely face.”

  The statement reminded Miranda of the depth of her own miss fortune.

  “It haunts me, too,” she said, feeling wretched. “When Catspaw kissed me, I never would have believed that he would kiss anyone else.”

  “He kissed you?” asked Nir, thoroughly shocked. “You don’t mean that, surely, not a real kiss. just a kiss on the forehead, perhaps. You’re too young to know the difference.”

  Miranda gave him a scornful look. She might not have been married for years, but that didn’t mean she was a complete baby. “Catspaw kissed me many times,” she replied crisply. “And, yes, I do know the difference. Not,” she concluded in a sad undertone, “that they meant anything, in the end.”

  The elf lord was beside himself with moral indignation.

  “That freak-eyed pervert!” he declared angrily. “Kissing you like that! Taking advantage of his guardianship to ruin your childhood! No wonder you wanted to kill yourself when he didn’t keep his promise of marriage. No wonder you keep insisting you’re not a child!”

  The stupefied Miranda just stared at him. “But I liked it when Catspaw kissed me,” she said.

  “Of course you did,” he remarked, eyeing her with pity. “It made you feel important to the revolting beast. You can’t possibly understand his abusive assaults.”

  “That’s not fair to Catspaw,” insisted Miranda, quite upset. “He was always very thoughtful, and I truly did want to marry him.”

  Nir looked at the expression of pain and confusion on the beautiful young face, and his heart went out to the poor girl.

  “It’s all right,” he consoled her. “We won’t talk about it anymore. You shouldn’t have to think about it.” He put a comforting arm around her, sighing as the startled Miranda tried to pull away and the stars flashed their warning.

  “You see,” he observed, touching the stars, “how badly he damaged your nature. You’re afraid of every touch, even when the women comb your hair. You can’t tell the difference between ordinary kindness and some sort of dangerous, twisted attention. You’re always trying to decide what’s decent. It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” said Miranda blankly. The stars winked out.

  “If I’d known about this before I put the spell on you, I don’t think I’d have had the heart to do it,” he continued. “That explains why you were so frantic. You must have been terrified! I know you thought that I was a monster, too, but you know I wouldn’t do a thing like that, abusing a defenseless child.”

  Miranda looked up at him. His face was only a few inches above hers, looking at her very kindly, his black eyes sad and sincere. She thought that he was undoubtedly the most attractive man on the face of the earth, and what she wanted more than anything in the world, she realized, was that he would kiss a defenseless child. The kiss wouldn’t be a thing like Catspaw’s kisses, she was positive of that. It would be worth an entire lifetime of darkness.

  “I’m so sorry for you,” he said earnestly. “You’ve had such a tragic childhood, and now I’ve trapped you in a world that looks like a goblin’s cloak. I just wish there was some way I could make it up to you.”

  It was time for the morning meal, so they walked back to camp. Nir thought, not for the first time, that humans made a tremendous racket in the woods. Miranda wasn’t paying attention to anything. She thought she floated.

  The bread that went with their everlasting deer-meat stew had berries embedded in it. Nir tried to teach her the word for that, but his quick-witted pupil was rather slow tonight. She was probably still upset, he concluded. Of course she was. That monster!

  Miranda decided, watching him, that he looked even more noble when he frowned.

  The next evening, the elf lord announced to his band that he had learned why the human girl was so afraid to be touched: the goblin King had tortured her for his own sordid pleasure. She didn’t even understand this, he went on wrathfully. She had been taught that this treatment was normal. They would all have to be particularly patient with her so that she could learn to trust people again.

  Miranda didn’t understand what he said, but she knew that it concerned her, and she could tell that the other elves were appalled. Even the children stared at her in horror. But Galnar came to sit beside her. Smiling, he pulled out one of his deer-bone pipes and began to play. And Hunter threw himself gracefully down on the ground before her and produced a pair of shiny sheep’s knucklebones.

  He and the boy Tibir spent the next couple of hours teaching her to play the ancient game. They played it elf-fashion, wherein both bones had to land on the wrist or the back of the hand to score. Miranda proved hopeless at it, having none of their dexterity, so Hunter thought up elaborate handicaps to make the play even. This entertained the three of them much more than a regular game of knucklebones would have.

  The elf lord was amazed at the change in his human captive. She began trying to speak elvish, she gathered flowers with the women, and she played games with the children in the meadow. He took her on long walks, explaining elf life to her, and she asked endless questions. She smiled readily now, and from his work at the writing desk, he often heard her laughter.

  It all went to show, he thought to himself, what a little kindness could do.

  • • •

  It would doubtless have pleased Nir to learn that the goblin King had not yet kissed his new bride. Such a perverted assault was out of the question: Arianna was far too distressed. Marak Catspaw tried to treat her with consideration, but he made no progress at all. He held true to his promise not to lock their door, but he had to locate her several times a night. She turned up in all sorts of odd places and became the talk of the kingdom. The sophisticated ruler found his wife’s strange antics embarrassing.

  Marak’s scheme to raise a b
ride for his son now turned into a real liability. Catspaw was the first goblin King in history who had not been properly educated for dealing with a reluctant spouse. He felt upset and annoyed by Arianna’s mysterious behavior. Over and over again, he had to remind himself to be patient.

  As the days went by, Arianna began to decline. She was sleeping very little and eating even less. Her beautiful face became worn, and she was no longer lively and graceful. And one morning, when Catspaw found her sleeping in a corner of the tailors’ storeroom behind a block.ade of bolts of cloth, the golden snake around her neck awoke.

  “Goblin King,” it hissed, “your wife is losing strength. Soon she will become very ill. Twenty-three King’s Wives have become ill in this manner, and six of them have died. See to this matter at once.”

  The irate King called in his chief adviser and informed him of the ominous warning. “What should I do?” he demanded. “Why does she keep running off like this? Where is she trying to go?”

  “I asked her that the other day when you were in court,” said Seylin. “I pointed out to her that she couldn’t escape. ‘I know,’ she answered. ‘But at least I’m safe for a little while.”’

  “Safe from what?” asked Catspaw.

  “That, she wouldn’t tell me,” replied his adviser. “But it’s obvious. She’s safe from you.”

  “What does she think I’m going to do?” wondered the King. “Maybe Sable will have some idea. Arianna’s talked to her, I know. Guard, come!” he called, and Tattoo walked in. “That’s another thing, Seylin. She talks to you, Mother, and the elves, but she won’t talk to anyone else. She hasn’t said a single word to a normal goblin.”

  “She’s talked to me,” interrupted Tattoo, and then immediately wished he hadn’t. In the surprised silence that followed, he could hear his commanding officer’s voice: A door guard protects the King’s counsel and respects the King’s privacy. Never mention what you hear, and never speak unless you are addressed.

  “What did she say to you?” asked Seylin with interest. The King said nothing, but his icy glare spoke volumes.

  “Oh, not — not much,” stammered the unfortunate Tattoo. His silver skin couldn’t blush, but the tips of his ears darkened. “Just a couple of words `thank you’ — or maybe one word — I can’t remember, is ‘thank you’ one word in elvish or two?”

  “Get out,” ordered Marak Catspaw emphatically, and Tattoo rapidly obeyed. He stood outside the door, listening to his sovereign’s raised voice. “She spoke to him? She spoke to him! And all the time, she watches me like a rabbit!” Meanwhile, the miserable young goblin called himself every name he could think of and wondered how he would break the news to his mother when they kicked him out of the Guard.

  “That’s just it,” explained Seylin. “For some reason, she’s terrified of you. It has nothing to do with goblins in general. She doesn’t seem worried about anyone else.”

  “Then I’ll confine her to bed,” decided the goblin King, “but I’ll stay away from her so she can rest. And we’ll have the elves sit with her in turns and try to get her to talk. Maybe she’ll tell them what’s wrong.”

  The poor worn-out elf girl watched in tears as he worked the magic that kept her from leaving her bed. It wasn’t hard after all to be patient with her, he decided with grudging compassion. He explained as kindly as he knew how that he was only trying to make sure she got some sleep and that he himself wouldn’t disturb her unless there was some good reason. Then he left her alone with his mother and went off to court.

  Kate sat in an armchair by the bed with a book of Keats’s poems, keeping a worried eye on their patient. In spite of her mania fest state of fatigue and the silence in the room, Arianna still wasn’t resting. She was shifting nervously from place to place on the bed, trying to find some weakness in her invisible prison. The air hummed and crackled as she tested her limits with magic, trying to batter her way out with spells.

  “I understand how you feel,” volunteered Kate, trying to distract her. “When I first came, I hated to be locked up, too. I used all my magic to try to break free.”

  Arianna stopped her efforts and looked at Kate, her face white and her black eyes glittering as if she had fever. “Were you really the old goblin King’s Wife?” she asked. Her voice was husky from lack of use.

  Kate smiled and held out her hands, revealing the scars. Arianna studied them, glanced down at the scars on her own palms, and then buried her hands in her lap. “Yes, my husband died just a few months ago,” said Kate. “I miss him terribly.”

  The elf girl was silent for some time, thinking about this. “I don’t understand why he didn’t treat you like a normal goblin King’s Wife,” she said finally. Her soft voice sounded bitter.

  She must know, decided Kate, that I can go outside. She thought about how hard it had been for her in those early days to know that Emily could leave the kingdom. “I was like you at first,” she explained, “but not long after I came here, I saved my husband’s life.”

  “I wish you hadn’t!” said the elf girl fervently. “Or I wish I could do something like that, too. Now I just have to wait.” Her feverish gaze swept the room as if she were looking for executioners. “I almost wish it were over,” she confided. “I think it’s almost worse than the change.”

  “What change?” asked the puzzled Kate.

  But here the patient seemed to feel that she had said too much. She went back to her magical escape attempts and spoke no further. At last she must have concluded that the effort was hopeless. She stopped and bowed her head. Then she crept over to the side of the bed where Kate was sitting.

  “Do you have any idea,” she whispered, “or did he ever say… anything… about what I’m going to look like?”

  The astonished Kate met her tortured gaze and finally understood. “Oh, good heavens!” she exclaimed. “You can’t think that my son would — would—” But her command of elvish seemed to have vanished. She dropped the book of poems and started to her feet. “This is horrible! I have to tell Catspaw!”

  “No!” shrieked the elf girl, making a grab for her. She was stopped at the end of the bed. She lifted her magic hand, whispering words, but Kate, on her way through the door, made a quick gesture of her own. Kate wasn’t aware of the duel, and she was entirely unaware of the danger, but it was a very good thing for her that her magic was military.

  Left alone, Arianna was in the grip of her greatest fears. Once the goblin King knew that she understood his ghastly plans, he would realize that it was useless to wait for her to accept them. Then he would doubtless begin the work at once. Half crazed with panic, caught in a trap, she reached out with all the magic she had. She called for help to save herself from him, and everything in the room that belonged to her world responded. All the objects that had once been living plants sprouted and started to grow.

  From the linen bedsheets sprang up a tall, thick stand of flax, burying her within its reedy depths. A bowl of fruit on the bedside table exploded into activity, young pear and apple trees jostling each other for room, and the grapes erupted into a snarl of vines that uncurled like a nest of green snakes. From Kate’s book shot up a pine tree, already bearing cones, and a pressed rose between two pages sent out a thorny cane. The crackle and rustle of rapidly forming leaves joined with steady thumps and bumps as ripe apples hit the ground, split open, and rose up as young saplings of their own. A pine cone burst, scattering its seeds with a report as loud as a gun shot.

  Deep in her nest among the flax stems, Arianna heard that peculiar metallic sound, and the golden snake once again faced her. “What are you doing, King’s Wife?” it hissed quietly. Its elvish, she noted, was flawless.

  “I’m making sure he can’t find me,” she whispered back, too caught up in her battle with the goblin King to see it as an enemy, too. The snake surveyed the dense mat of living plants as well as it could: a mesh of grapevines, weaving itself together above their heads, was rapidly blocking out the light.

 
“You are the first King’s Wife to practice agriculture in the King’s bedroom for the purposes of defense,” it hissed proudly. “I see no danger here.” And it collapsed into sleep once more.

  Marak Catspaw and his mother hurried to the door. He turned the knob, and they both stood and stared. A dense, dark thicket of young trees blocked their way, twined with prickly, rose-covered canes. The impromptu forest rustled and stirred in the continued effort of growth. With a hum, a young grapevine whizzed past the doorway, unrolling large green leaves in its wake.

  “Mother, get out of here!” exclaimed Catspaw, and she turned and fled. Then he held up his lion’s paw. “Stop!” he commanded loudly. The noise ceased, except for the occasional thud of a juicy pear. But a very formidable barrier faced him.

  The goblin King began to make his way into the dim, green depths. Something solid cannot be turned into nothing at all: Catspaw had to change each plant into something else. One by one, he touched tree trunks, changing the saplings into wisps of fog. He changed rose canes into ice and broke through their shining cylinders with a tinkling crash. He had to work very carefully because Arianna might have masked herself under an illusion. He tested each separate plant before destroying it to make sure that it wasn’t his wife.

  Slowly and laboriously, the goblin King made a tunnel-like pathway to the bed. Then he vaporized the heavy knots of grapevines. He parted the flax plants, and there was the elf girl, curled up like a field mouse in hay.

  Before she could make a move to escape him, Marak Catspaw seized her right hand and held it to his paw, draining away her magical strength. Arianna cried out and struck at him: the spell hurt, and the more resistance it met, the more painful it became. It was a shame, he thought grimly, to fulfill her worst ideas of him like that. But he couldn’t risk her killing anyone who might come to the door, and in her current state, she almost certainly would.