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

They came to the end of the gravel walk. On the field beyond the green, the goblin groom waited with their horses. Kate stepped out of the shadow of the trees into bright moonlight. As she tilted her head to look at the full moon, she felt the grief of her loss sweep through her again. The goblin King had said she would never be outside after their marriage. Kate didn’t think she could endure it.

Marak was issuing orders. Seylin raced back toward the house, and Hulk and Bulk climbed onto two big draft horses and trotted off. Emily wandered over and took her hand. Kate looked down at her little sister. Her thin cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with excitement. With Emily’s love of drama and of animals, she would enjoy every bit of goblin life. It was all so exaggerated, from the bright colors and rich decorations to the deformities of the creatures themselves. At last, life would hold all the variety Emily wanted.

After several minutes, Seylin came back at a run. “They both woke up well,” he reported to the King. “The man woke up in the middle of a sentence, and he looked around for a minute before he could find Roberts on the ceiling. Then I had to go wake up the woman. The bell was already ringing to call her to the study, so I don’t think she’ll notice that her tea was cold.”

They prepared to ride home. Kate noted that it was all happening pretty much as it would have a few days ago, and she wondered drearily if the extra time had been worthwhile. Thaydar boosted Emily up and then swung up behind her. Seylin sprang on behind Thaydar and wrapped his paws around the burly goblin’s waist.

“Listen to me, you occasional cat,” growled Thaydar, “there’d better be no claws this time, or you walk home! I don’t care if you fall off—I won’t be a pincushion.”

“Ready?” asked Marak, and he boosted Kate up onto his gray hunter. For a few seconds, she was alone on the horse. She wanted to seize the reins and dash away, but she realized that the magical bond that tied her to the King would pull her from the horse’s back. By the time she thought of this, he had already mounted behind her.

“Really, Kate, my own horse!” said the goblin reprovingly, just as if she had been speaking out loud. “I don’t think he’d have done it, but I’m glad you couldn’t try.” He glanced down at her face, raised in silent appeal to the moon. She didn’t seem to notice him at all. She couldn’t see anything but the moon and the stars near it, calling her across the vast gulf of darkness. They seemed to know her name, she thought sadly. If only she knew theirs.

Marak took one sharp look at the white face of his bride and urged his horse into a gallop. The horses raced through the silvery fields, running flat out. They cleared fences and crashed through bushes, throwing up a cloud of dust and small rocks in their wake. Emily, clinging to Thaydar, thought they were going to die, and Seylin forgot all about the warning not to use claws. But Kate knew nothing of the hair-raising ride. She saw nothing but the moon and stars. They seemed so close. Surely they could help her. She could almost hear words like the chimes of bells as they told her what she needed to do. She could see the moonbeams reaching down to her like silver hands, catching at the fleeing horse. Marak leaned down low, pulling her with him, and called for more speed.

Kate felt them shift as if the horse had stumbled. She took her eyes off the pursuing moon and glanced ahead. They were on a level field, but the horse’s racing feet were sinking into it as if it were quicksand. He was not slowing his gallop; if anything, he was running faster, his legs invisible below the earth. In another few seconds, Kate’s feet were gone, too, and just as if the field were a mist or sea, only the horse’s head plowed along above it. Waving grass stems and dirt clods raced by the edges of Marak’s black cloak. Now the horse’s head was gone, and the ground was rising up around her, lapping at her without waves until it reached her chest and then her neck. She screamed in terror, the goblin’s arms clamped tightly around her as she threw back her head for one last glimpse of the moon.

Total darkness surrounded them. Kate closed her eyes and hid her face in the goblin King’s chest, preferring to deal with a blindness that she caused and understood. After a few more seconds, the horse slowed down. Soon he was cantering and then walking, blowing from his run. She could feel the goblin relax, too, straightening up and loosening his hold on her. Kate cautiously opened her eyes. Polished rock walls and hanging lamps met her frightened gaze. She was back underground.

They came to an iron door just like the one she had come through with Seylin, though this one opened for the King without any questions. Beyond it was a wide room lined with horse stalls. Thaydar swung down from the saddle, cursing in goblin at Seylin, who had shredded his waistcoat. Emily could hardly stand up, so frightened had she been by the trip underground, but she was already asking questions. Marak lifted Kate to the ground, and their steaming, lathered horses were led away.

They emerged in a palace hallway. On one side was a line of doors; on the other, tall windows without glass displayed a spectacular view. They were high above a wide, bowl-shaped valley far larger than the one through which she had originally come, its space defined in the darkness by thousands of twinkling lights. Past the windowsill, she could see what must be the back of the palace, forming a straight wall down for several hundred feet. A large town nestled at the bottom of the palace, and across the valley, more towns were defined by other gatherings of lights. Between them were open areas crossed by lighted roads or canals.

Emily and Seylin leaned out a window farther than was safe, asking and answering in a chatter that wearied everyone but themselves. Marak walked over to the unlikely pair. “Seylin,” he said, “take M to get something to eat. I don’t think she’s been fed at all today.” Kate immediately felt guilty for not having thought of this herself. “The cooks will be at the ceremony, so you’ll need to find something on your own, and then you can bring M back up to the pages’ floor to pick an apartment. There should be some with windows free, and she’d better have one with a really good writing area like yours.”

Kate found this statement interesting, but Emily thought it was hilarious. “You can write?” she asked the big cat incredulously. “How do you hold a pen?”

“Not with his paws, although he’s tried,” answered Marak with an exasperated sigh. “Seylin, you’ve been a cat long enough for now. Change back, and this time stay changed for at least one full day.”

Seylin’s ears, head, and fluffy tail went down in total dejection. “Change back now?” he yowled pitifully. “But they’ll laugh at me.”

“Or perhaps your King didn’t just give you an order,” the goblin remarked.

There was a heartfelt sigh, and then a shimmer, and a tall boy in a black tunic and breeches stood where the cat had crouched. Kate and Emily stared. If they had expected anything, they had expected a goblin or a human, but Seylin was neither one. His neat black eyebrows curved upward where a human’s curved down, and his small ears pointed at the tips. His thick black hair curled in luxurious ringlets, his large black eyes were shaded by long, dark lashes, and his pale skin had a fine, silvery texture. Seylin was an extraordinarily handsome youth about thirteen years old. Except for the fact that his striking features wore an unusually glum expression, he could have been an angel in a painting by an Italian master.

“You see, they didn’t laugh,” observed the goblin King. “Now, go, and if you want to show M your new trick with the colored flames, do it somewhere away from low ceilings so you don’t leave a scorch mark.” The two turned and went off together, a little bashful at first, but Kate noticed that before they reached the end of the hallway, they were again deep in conversation.