The Hollow Kingdom

by Clare B. Dunkle

  “I do love the workroom,” she said softly. “What do I hate about my new life?”

  “Being locked in,” he answered. “Being stared at, being teased.”

  “If you know I hate being teased,” she asked, “why do you always do it?”

  “Because that’s one of the things about your new life that I love,” he chuckled. That made her smile. “And I write about the milestones that the Kings look for their wives to pass. The first time you spoke to me—that was when you met me. The first time you called me by name—that was the day after you came here. The first time you smiled at me—that was a week after you came here, but the first time you smiled because you were really glad to see me—that was only a month ago. The first time you were happy when you woke up in the morning, full of plans you wanted to accomplish…” He fell silent.

  “When was that?” Kate wanted to know.

  “That one hasn’t happened yet,” he admitted. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  Kate shifted in his arms and laid her head against his chest. “Maybe so,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  One day, a year and a half after her marriage, Kate was sitting with the older pages and hearing their English lesson. Marak had asked her early on to help the pages improve their English because the most human-looking goblins, posing as Gypsies, made frequent trading journeys outside the kingdom to sell watches and jewelry. This allowed them to buy silks, laces, and other luxury items, including the excellent tea that Marak enjoyed.

  Kate’s father, overseeing her education, had instilled in her a deep love of literature. Since the older pages already had an excellent grasp of English, she had decided to have them read some of that literature with her. Today one after another was reading out loud from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, their grotesque faces solemn over the plight of the star-crossed lovers.

  She looked up to see a member of the King’s Guard at the door, and she dismissed the pages. The guard’s round eyes were large with concern, and he was clacking his beak in agitation. “Hulk is missing,” he told her, “and the King needs your help at the water mirror.”

  Kate considered his news as they hurried along. The feathered ape was so large that she couldn’t imagine anything harming him. Surely it wouldn’t turn out to be serious. She entered the big cavern to find Marak, his lieutenants, and a number of the Guard already there.

  “I need to find Hulk with the water mirror, Kate,” the King said, “but it’s too bright for me to see now that the sun is up. We need you to look with your daylight eyes and tell us something about where he is.” Then he turned to the lapping sheet of water and held out his hand. The room blazed with light, and the goblins shielded their eyes. Kate squinted at the unaccustomed brightness, her own eyes now more used to the twilight than the sun, but she could see more than they could.

  “It looks like it might be a closed wagon or carriage,” she said finally. “I think those are horses at the front. It’s moving, and the land around it is flat. I think there’s water by the road. A big river, maybe. Not a lake. It’s very blurry.” She looked away as the mirror went dark again, her eyes watering.

  “It’s blurry because it’s far away,” said Marak. “It’s well past the edges of my land. When I looked for Hulk earlier, I couldn’t see him at all because something was blocking or hiding him. Someone has kidnapped him, probably with a trap because Hulk’s too big to take by force. I suspect that magic was used to hide him, and the trap that caught him must have had some magic built into it as well. And now he’s being moved in daylight when we can’t counterattack. Who has him and why? Has anyone new been on the land?”

  “No one has been in the Hill area,” said Sayada, who with Thaydar was one of the two lieutenants. Sayada, although man shaped, had hands that looked like bird talons. He had no nose at all, just two holes in his face. “No one has come or gone from the estate grounds in the last several days. It may be that the intruder stayed in the Hollow Lake village. We don’t monitor the traffic past the three roads there. Hulk was patrolling the lakefront last night, so he would have been close to the village.”

  The goblin King thought for a moment. “Bulk,” he said, turning to Hulk’s brother, “do you think you could fly in the bright light?” The ape, yellow eyes anxious, nodded quickly. Both apes could change to a bird form that could stand the daylight. Seylin was another who could venture outside at any time, his cat eyes suited to either daylight or darkness. “Good,” said Marak decisively. Turning to Kate, he asked, “Are you sure there were no hills? That the land was flat?”

  “I think so,” she answered hesitantly, “but I couldn’t see very far. There may have been hills farther away.”

  “Probably the Liverpool road,” suggested Thaydar when Marak shot him an inquiring glance. “But if that’s the case, they’ve been traveling for hours and making good time.”

  “I was afraid of that,” said Marak grimly. “My guess is that they started moving Hulk well before his watch was over. By the time we noticed him missing, he was probably at the edge of our land. Bulk, I can put you on the outskirts of the Hollow Lake village. Follow the Liverpool road as fast as you can to see if you can catch them. If you do catch up, stay with them as a bird. If you don’t come back at twilight, we’ll follow you. I should be able to track you as we move. Hulk will probably be hidden again after sunset, just as he was on our land. That’s difficult magic,” he added absently, eyes distant for a moment.

  Bulk shimmered as he turned into a large, ugly bird, and Marak stepped to the water mirror.

  “Kate, I need your help again,” he said, taking her hand. “You’ll have to tell me what I’m doing.”

  The mirror blazed, and Kate squinted into it. “It’s the crossroads by the inn,” she reported, and then, as it shifted, “we’re following the lakeshore road away from the Hill. We’ve passed all the houses. Now the road is leaving the shore. There’s a large oak tree on the right side.”

  “That’s it,” said Marak, one hand shielding his eyes. “Bulk, if you can’t find them by the time the sun starts westering, come back so you can report at twilight.” With a clack of his beak, Bulk took off into the mirror. Kate watched him soar into the sky over the road.

  The mirror went dark again, and the goblins turned back to their King. He had done all he could for the moment. Now he pondered his next move, running his fingers through his striped hair as he turned the details over in his mind.

  “I need Thaydar and Brindle to go to the inn tonight and find out who’s been through. Thaydar, see if you can get Harry Bounce to drink with you back in the stables. He knows all the gossip. And if Hulk was caught in a trap, I would suspect that several were placed and that the enemy may have left the others behind. It would help tremendously if I could see one, and they’re a constant danger till they’re found. Turn out all the Guard to hunt for traps in a wide sweep of the lakeshore from the village around to the Hill.

  “Sayada, we’ll need a fast and magical force ready if Bulk doesn’t return at twilight. I think it had better be you, me, Katoo, and Dibah. Two horses for each goblin, and light packs. I leave their contents up to you. Plan for a pursuit of four days. Thaydar, if you learn something interesting, follow us. We’ll stay with the road, pitch tents at sunrise, and leave markers if we take a turning. Bring the trap with you if you find one.

  “All of you spend today sleeping,” he concluded, “and if you can’t sleep, send word to me. I need you ready for tonight. Thaydar, on your way to your rooms, tell the pages to gather the Scholars in the library.”

  The sober goblins filed out. Marak continued to stand by the water mirror for another moment. “Do you know, Kate,” he said thoughtfully, “the Guard should never come in so close to dawn. We don’t even find out someone’s missing until the sun’s about to rise. It gives us no time to react. We should be doing cross-checks of the guards at regular intervals throughout the night, and they should come in at least an hour earlier. I do
n’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  “Has a guard ever been missing before?” asked Kate as they walked toward the library.

  “No,” said Marak, “that’s just it. No member of the King’s Guard has been attacked in my reign. We’ve gotten sloppy now that the elves are gone. Well,” he amended, glancing at her, “almost gone.” He gave a wry smile. “I think the guards felt they were mainly out on bouquet detail.”

  The Scholars began filling the library. There were eight goblins, five female and three male. Several of them were very old, but not all were, and none of them showed their years. Goblins didn’t usually age. They simply grew up.

  “Aside from skirmishes with elves,” Marak asked the assembled Scholars, “has a member of the King’s Guard ever been kidnapped before?”

  There was silence while they considered this.

  One Scholar had long fangs, like Thaydar, and was clicking them with a fingernail while he thought. “About two hundred years ago,” he said, “a goblin guard changed to wolf form was caged for a local hunt. Does that help?”

  “Not really,” answered Marak. “We have a member of the Guard kidnapped in his regular goblin form by an enemy who has used magic to hide him and probably used magic to help trap him. Now the enemy is moving him rapidly away from our land in the daylight and across fields. I want to know if anything like it has ever happened before.”

  “During the day and across fields,” one commented thoughtfully. “That rules out any elves we may not know of,” and she glanced in Kate’s direction. Kate frowned. She didn’t like being thought of as an elf.

  “Yes, it’s not elves,” said Marak patiently. The Scholars always rethought things that he had already told them, but he tried not to let it annoy him. He knew they worked better when they didn’t feel rushed.

  “In my time there were a number of kidnappings,” said a very small goblin, almost a gnome. “But none involved magic.”

  “There was something like it in my time,” said another. “That was in the reign of Marak Horsetooth. A sorcerer from Rome who had studied texts from Egypt kidnapped a goblin using magic. The King freed him and turned the sorcerer into a toad. Then he stepped on him.”

  Kate winced. She had never cared for goblin revenge. She didn’t really understand it.

  “I’d like to see that text,” said Marak. There was another moment of silence.

  “I believe I remember something useful,” said a quiet goblin. Her skin was a light silver-gray, and she had white hair. Kate liked her because she always spoke so gently. Marak could have told Kate that she was just identifying with another strong elf cross.

  “In the old country,” continued the elvish goblin, “there were pagan priests who used magic to hunt goblins. That was one factor, along with the elf migration, that led to our leaving the land.”

  “Hunting,” mused Marak. “How? And why?”

  “I believe with traps,” she answered. “They used the goblin blood to work magic, to lure the demons and buy favors. I’ll show you the texts as soon as I find them.”

  “Blood,” echoed Marak pensively. Deeply distressed, Kate thought of Hulk. He always looked so sad and patient, and he never spoke. He had brought her water lilies just last week. Perhaps he had stepped into a trap trying to reach one for her.

  “Kate, I need you to help me with ingredients,” the goblin King said as they left the library. In the workroom, he walked to his spell books and ran a finger across their spines.

  “If Bulk doesn’t come back, I have to take whatever I’ll need with me. I think I’m facing a human adversary, but that also means a demon adversary, according to my training. The human thinks he controls the demon and has him as a servant. Really, the demon has made promises to the human in exchange for certain payments, and he collects the human’s soul upon death.

  “My problem is how to fight the two of them,” declared Marak. “The demon is quite beyond my abilities. Demons are very powerful, and they love destruction and pain. They would enjoy making a goblin suffer. But this one wants his sorcerer’s soul. If the man dies soon enough, the demon will be satisfied, so I need spells that kill, and kill quickly.”

  Marak brought several books over to the writing desk and made a list of the desired spells. Kate could read goblin pretty well now, but she didn’t look at the list. She didn’t want to know what the spells would do.

  All that day Kate found, measured, and pounded ingredients. Meanwhile, Marak copied and learned the spells. Late in the afternoon, he mixed the ingredients she had prepared into the potions he needed. Then he finally lay down to rest up for the night ahead. But Bulk came back at sundown. He had flown for so many hours, Marak had to treat his arms with salve, but he hadn’t found the wagon that held his brother.

  Kate woke the next morning to find Marak already up. The Guard had returned with a trap, and the Scholars were examining it. To Kate, it looked like an ordinary wolf trap with symbols on it, but Marak was very grim. He refused to touch it with his bare hands.

  “The writing is Egyptian,” he told her. “You’d think we’re far enough from the old lands to be safe from their spells, but more and more humans are traveling back and forth these days.”

  Thaydar reported that a man had come from Liverpool to do some hunting, bringing a closed wagon and two drivers with him. Harry Bounce said the drivers didn’t know much about their employer, but he had hired them to drive him in shifts without resting along the way, renting fresh teams of horses to avoid slowing down. He had left very early the previous morning, and everyone agreed that he had been terribly peculiar, but they were sorry he was gone because he had spent a great deal of money. “Liverpool,” sighed Marak. “Such a grimy place. It’s enough to put you right off humans.”

  At twilight, the small band of goblins prepared once more to embark, and Kate was with them in the stable room to see them off. Marak gave Thaydar a long list of instructions. Kate realized, listening, that it was a risky thing for a magical kingdom to have its greatest magician leave. Now the group was standing idle and waiting impatiently for Sayada. He had not arrived with the others, and they had sent Seylin after him. They were wasting time, and Kate could see that Marak was becoming angry. His hands were clasped behind his back, something he often did when he wanted to be sure not to work rash magic.

  Seylin came racing into the stable in cat form. His black fur was standing out, and his tail was puffed. “Sayada is sick!” he shrieked. “He’s asleep!”

  “Asleep?” echoed Marak, staring. “Asleep where?”

  “I found him in his rooms,” squeaked the cat, “and he was lying in the middle of the floor, sleeping. I couldn’t wake him up.” Marak didn’t comment. He was still staring into space, thinking hard.

  “But that makes no sense,” growled Katoo. “He knew we were waiting for him.”

  “The sorcerer is home,” murmured Marak. “Poor Hulk. I can’t leave now, and I don’t think I’d be in time anyway.”

  Sayada didn’t seem asleep, thought Kate unhappily when she saw him. He seemed dead. He was barely breathing, and he didn’t move at all. Marak examined him carefully.

  “He isn’t asleep,” he said quietly. “He’s been called away. His spirit is enslaved, and his body’s been left behind to take care of itself. Seylin, run downstairs and have the Guard called in. Tell them no one is to go outside.”

  Back in his workroom, Marak leafed quickly through book after book, gritting his sharp teeth impatiently.

  “Are you looking for a way to break the spell?” Kate asked.

  “No!” he told her with a short, bitter laugh. “I can’t break that spell, not without breaking Sayada, too. I’m looking for a way to keep him alive.” When Kate left him to go to sleep, he was still looking, but he woke her in the morning and held out a book triumphantly.

  “I’ve found it!” he said. “We have something to feed them. We can keep them alive.”

  “Them?” she echoed, sitting up.

&nb
sp; “Them,” said Marak. “The count is up to twelve.”

  All day the count rose, and they put the sleepers on pallets in the banquet hall. Thaydar and Bulk both slept there now, along with most of the Guard, and Marak could do nothing to stop it. He spent a hectic morning shifting assignments as people fell asleep and teaching the cooks how to prepare the special concoction that would keep the sleepers alive. By the afternoon, the count was up to fifty.

  “Sooner or later, the sorcerer will have to stop calling goblins away,” Marak told Kate. They stood in the banquet hall, looking at the sleepers, goblins hurrying to and fro ministering to the quiet forms. “When that happens, he may come back for another goblin to use, and we can catch him. But if he doesn’t, we can go after him once we’re sure he’s not going to enchant someone on the road.”

  “Why will the sorcerer have to stop calling goblins?” Kate asked.

  “Because he’ll run out of blood,” Marak said harshly. “He’s using Hulk’s blood to call our blood and bind these goblins into slavery. And he’s taking my best!” he snarled in a rage. “The highest families, the most magical, the most goblin!” He glared out over the silent crowd in an agony of frustration, his horse tail hair beginning to blow about his face in a wind of its own. Kate put her hand into his, and the wind gradually died down. He stood looking at his enchanted subjects and idly running his thumb up and down the King’s Line scar on her palm. Suddenly he squeezed her hand so tightly that she cried out in pain.

  “The skip, Kate!” he shouted. “The skip!”

  He whirled on the ministering goblins, barking out orders faster than Kate could decipher them. Goblins began scattering in all directions, running. Agatha showed up in a minute, and Seylin a moment later. Marak beckoned them to his side.

  “I expect to be one of the sleepers soon,” he said. “I hope I’m wrong, but if I sleep, you know what will happen. The lights will go out and the weather will change. Our kingdom will be destroyed. Seylin, you’re the most magical one left, and I know he won’t enslave you”—he hesitated—“because you’re not goblin enough.” The boy flinched as if he’d been struck. “Seylin, I need you to work the Kingdom Spells while I’m away. Dayan will bring you the book, and she can help you with the schedule. Don’t keep the lamps lit during the night anymore, and don’t try to light the valley. Don’t try to work the Rain Spell every three days, either. Every six days will be fine. Gauge yourself, Seylin. Don’t wear yourself out. I don’t know how long you’ll have to do this, but I know that I can count on you.” Kate looked at the young elf. Seylin had grown taller this year. His face, pale at first from the insult, went still paler at the commands.