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

“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.

“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.”