The Kingdom - Clare B Dunkle - Hollow Kingdom 01 - The Hollow Kingdom

“—how it got to be a truce place, anyway.” She looked around. “Oh, hello, Kate’s up.”

“Yes, and I’m leaving now before she heads for another tree,” Marak teased. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. Seylin will see you home.” Then he was gone between the huge black oaks. They heard him give a quiet whistle and speak in a low voice. They heard his horse coming unhurriedly toward him, blowing out its breath. Then came the creaking of leather, the jingle of metal, and hoofbeats moving away.

Chapter 6

Kate realized that she had been sitting in the same position for some time. She climbed stiffly to her feet, terribly tired.

The huge black cat moved silently through the trees to join them. “Hello,” he piped in a thin, reedy voice. “The King says I’m to walk you to the Lodge.” Kate jumped and gasped, feeling abruptly that she did have weak nerves, but Emily yelped in delight.

“Oh, Seylin!” she cried. “You clever cat! You can talk!”

The large feline sat down. “Well,” he said in an abashed tone, “I’m not really a regular cat.” He turned his round eyes with their huge black pupils on Kate. “Are you ready to leave now?” he trebled politely.

Kate swung her arms, hesitating. It was still nighttime, or at any rate very early morning. She hated to leave the safety of the tree circle.

“I don’t know, Em,” she said cautiously to her sister. “Maybe we should stay here until the sun comes up.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Seylin assured her earnestly. “I just look like a big cat, but I can protect you with magic. The King wouldn’t have made me your escort if he didn’t think I could handle the job.” Kate detected a note of pride in this last statement.

“Yes, well,” she demurred, trying not to think about the extreme peculiarity of debating courses of action with a giant cat. “I’m not questioning your ability to protect us from ordinary dangers. I’m more afraid of your King than of anything else out there.”

“Oh, you didn’t hear him say he was going back to the Hill?” said the cat. Kate had a swift mental image of Marak sitting on some rough-hewn rock throne, maybe with spears crossed over it, presiding over a drunken revel of hooting goblin warriors.

“But what if he didn’t really mean it?” she said warily.

There was a tiny silence. The huge cat’s pupils contracted in surprise, the round golden eyes full on her.

“You think the King lied?” Seylin asked in a horrified squeak.

Startled, Kate opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again. She thought of her goblin tormenter as her own private nemesis to rail against and loathe, almost like a monster she had invented herself. The idea of his having an outside existence, a reputation, and loyal friends had simply never occurred to her. She felt very peculiar.

“I—I—well, why don’t you lead?” she stammered apologetically, and then fell into an embarrassed silence as they walked away from the old oak trees.

Emily walked beside the huge cat, admiring his thick black fur. “I had a cat where we lived before,” she chattered, “a big tabby one. He was wonderfully fluffy, like a soft winter blanket. I miss him terribly. He had green eyes. I hope he’s happy with the cook. She always gave him butter because she said it was good for a cat’s coat. Is it? Could you always talk? Do all goblin cats talk?”

“I think butter’s good for everybody,” Seylin avowed seriously. “I have a cat, too, a white one with blue eyes. She spits at me when I try to talk to her in cat. Cats can’t really talk, at least I can’t understand them when they do, except when they say things like ‘feed me’ or ‘get away.’ Some of the real cat goblins act like they can understand more. Oh!” he said as Emily tripped on a tree root. “I forgot you can’t see well. Here”—and rearing back on his hind legs, he made a motion with his right paw. Kate was amazed to see a small silver orb appear in the air. It cast its faint radiance like a captive moonbeam on the shadowed path around them.

“Oh, Seylin, you can do it, too!” Emily cried, enchanted with the reappearance of her favorite trick. The cat reared back on his hind legs again and gently batted the shining globe from one paw to the other, clearly enjoying the attention. The light threw silver ripples down his thick, sleek coat as it bobbed back and forth in the air.

“That’s elf magic,” he said proudly. “The King taught me how to do it, and nobody in the whole kingdom can do it but me and the King. Isn’t it pretty? It’s a little moon. Of course, it’s not good for much when the moon’s just a sliver because it’s a sliver, too, and you don’t get anything at all when the moon is new. That’s how elf magic generally is. It’s pretty to look at, but it doesn’t really get you anywhere. I know lots. Do you want to see some more?”

At Emily’s enthusiastic confirmation, he winked out the globe, and black shadow swallowed up the path. “I did that because this looks better in the dark,” he explained. The huge cat held out his paws and swiftly tapped the path before them, shrilling out a few words of command. Nothing happened for a second. Then a soft glow emanated from the ground at Seylin’s feet as a tiny silver plant broke through the earth. Gracefully unwinding and arching through the air, it grew rapidly into a bush with shining silver leaves. Buds formed at the ends of its delicate branches and blossomed into a mass of shimmering golden lilies. The leaves rustled musically in the night breeze, and as the lilies swayed to and fro they tinkled like a carillon of tiny bells. Kate and Emily stared openmouthed, completely captivated by the plant’s beauty.

“That’s my best one yet,” piped the cat. “The King says I do it even better than he does, but they don’t always turn out this good. It must be because the moon’s close to full. Elf magic generally strengthens with the moon. That’s sort of silly if you think about it because you can’t really count on the moon.” The cat waved his paw through the unearthly apparition, and the glorious plant disintegrated into a sparkly snowfall. In a few seconds, its shining particles vanished with a quiet whisper, and they were in darkness again. The cat relit his tiny moon and started down the path, the silver globe bobbing along just above his right shoulder.

“I can do more than elf magic, of course,” he added, padding along. “I’m good at goblin magic, too. It’s lots more practical, like if you need to fight somebody or open a locked door. But I can’t do any dwarf magic. Dwarf magic depends on stones, and they can tell if you’re not dwarf. I’m not dwarf at all. The King can do some even though he doesn’t look dwarf. Agatha does dwarf magic a lot, and the real dwarves do it without even thinking. It’s how they carry their loads and do their building and making. They’re such little people, but they can do more with stone and metal than any giant ever could. They can just make the earth do anything.” Kate remembered Agatha bolting them to the ground, sticking them into place as if they had grown roots.

“Couldn’t you teach me how to do a little magic?” Emily begged as she trotted to keep up with the cat. Seylin laid his ears back a little.

“I don’t think so,” he said apologetically, “not if you’re just human. Humans don’t have any magic. Agatha says they don’t need it. They live just like cattle, chewing up the land and raising herds of babies. Everybody knows they’re God’s favorites; they already get everything their own way. Elves and goblins got their magic from the First Fathers, and dwarves say they’re related to rocks, so they just know how to ask rocks to behave. Agatha says there’s some humans who talk with the devils and get them to do things, but she says that’s not magic, that’s stupid, because devils always make sure they get paid better than they work.”