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

Kate was struck by a sudden thought. “Charm,” she said, “the King told me once that if you had to bite me, you would go find him to report that I had been foolish.”

“That is quite right,” whispered the snake. “I do not leave the King’s Wife unless I must, but if she is where she will not quickly be found, my bite endangers her. Then I myself seek the King for her. I have had to leave eighty-seven King’s Wives alone. It is never good. They are not safe without me.”

“Then does your magic tell you where the King is?” asked Kate.

“Yes, if he is close enough.”

“Charm, we are in the city of the sorcerer,” said Kate, “and the King will be with him. Is he close enough for you to find?”

The golden snake twirled slowly up one of Kate’s arms and down the other. Then it wound itself around and around her neck, climbing into her hair. Finally it dropped back to her shoulder, hissing like a boiling teakettle.

“Yes,” it announced grandly. “I have found the King. He is very near.”

Kate left the paralyzed coachman lying in the alley by his carriage, his dark eyes following her as she walked away from him. Her magical bracelet lit up puddles and weeds as she picked her way along the filthy streets lined with vacant warehouses. Kate had never seen such a disreputable place. All her instincts told her to run away as fast as she could. But the King’s Wife Charm rode her shoulders like a stylish piece of jewelry, and her husband lay somewhere ahead, held prisoner by powerful magic. Kate sighed. Her childhood friends probably never had days like this.

Charm hissed and tugged her into the shadows. A few seconds later, a thickset figure plodded silently past them, not even looking their way. “That was Thaydar!” said Kate. She hurried up behind the burly goblin, but he didn’t turn around. When she tried to tug on his coat, her hand passed right through him without encountering anything solid at all, but in another second, the dematerialized goblin reached a door in a crumbling brick building and jerked it open decisively. He might be air, but his grip was as strong as ever.

Kate caught the closing door as Thaydar went through it and stepped into a narrow, leaky hallway lined with brick walls. The ground was covered with wet paper and decaying trash. Beetles skittered softly along the walls and among the moldy papers, fat, sleek, and smoothly black. Her attention caught by the large bugs, Kate tugged her gown off the floor. Then she realized that she was alone. Thaydar had come through this door just seconds ago, but now he was nowhere to be seen.

Kate stepped gingerly down the nasty space, trying to avoid the puddles and insects. A large gray rat hurried along the wall beside her, intent on business of his own. Charm watched him closely, but he made no threatening moves. As Kate neared the end of the hallway, she saw a door to her left. She was reaching for its handle, feeling very concerned about what might be beyond it, when a small child burst out crying practically in her ear. Kate jumped and whirled around. Charm whisked out of sight, hugging her arm tightly, but its coils didn’t collapse into a resting state. Kate approved of its judgment. This was no place to rest.

The child continued to wail pathetically. Kate looked up and down the hallway and held her bracelet toward the stained and spider-hung wooden rafters, but she saw no sign of it. In another minute, the door swung open beside her. Kate turned, almost falling as she slipped on a fat bug. A man stood in the doorway.

“Welcome, my dear!” he said in a gravelly voice. “Always a pleasure to have pretty callers. You’re looking for the baby, aren’t you? Why don’t you hold your magical jewelry a little higher and look at the wall there?”

Feeling that her lighted bracelet was rather unfortunately conspicuous, Kate nevertheless did as he suggested. At first she recoiled, seeing what appeared to be a large spider on the wall. Another moment’s examination and Kate felt distinctly sick. A shriveled, skeletal little hand was nailed into the brick beside her. Kate dropped her arm and turned back to the man, completely disgusted.

“Isn’t it clever?” he rasped. “Isn’t it an interesting bit of magic? It cries whenever a woman walks by because it’s still looking for its mother. Rather impractical, I’m afraid, since it won’t cry when a man comes in, but must we always be practical? Some things we do just for their own sake.” The man beckoned Kate into the room, and she walked in, but in another second she gave a loud cry and jumped back into the hall, the baby’s voice wailing once again beside her. “Oh, don’t be alarmed,” called out the man in his hoarse voice. “Come right in, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Kate stepped slowly back into the small room, her hand over her mouth. In a large iron cage lit by two candelabra lay the decaying body of Hulk, his insides distended with gas. The tiny room was full of the most unbearable stench, and Kate could see that the large body was teaming with bugs and worms. She choked, sure she would vomit in the close space. The sorcerer came to stand beside her, gazing down at the dead feathered ape.

“Who says monsters don’t exist, eh?” he inquired gruffly. “You never expected to see such a sight in your life, and you’ll never guess where I found him. Not the Himalayas, no, not even the Andes, but right here in our own British Isles! He’s a goblin, my dear. They do exist, you know. Isn’t he a beauty?”

Trying to control her stomach, Kate concentrated all her energy on studying the sorcerer. The man was unremarkable in every way. He was of medium height and build, gray-haired and slovenly. His ordinary face might have belonged to any grandfather of Kate’s experience. But when he turned toward her, she discovered that his pupils were ruby red. She had seen many an unusual eyeball in the last year and a half, but every single one still had black at the center.

“Come along,” he said hoarsely, picking up one of the candelabra and leading her through a door at the other end of the small room. Kate found herself in a very large, low room, the original warehousing space of the building. The dancing lights of the candles and her own diamond bracelet could not illuminate its dim corners. The floor was littered with the remains of smashed boxes. She hooked her dress on a piece of packing crate and had to stoop to work it loose. When she turned around, the sorcerer was waving her courteously through a narrow doorway. She stepped through, trying to avoid a flattened bit of fur that looked as if it had once been alive. As she did so, the sorcerer pulled a door of iron bars out of the wall. He slammed it shut with a clang, and Kate was a prisoner.

“What are you doing?” she demanded in surprise, seizing the bars.

“I’m going to kill you,” rasped the man. “You’re obviously a powerful sorceress, and I’m not going to give you any more time to do your work.”

“I certainly am not!” said Kate indignantly, wondering how she would get out. When Charm bit him, it would have to locate the key and release her. “My coachman tried to kill me, and I was trying to find help. I saw a man walking this way, and I followed him.”

The sorcerer turned at the doorway, holding up the candelabrum. Those red pupils glowed eerily from that comfortable face.

“If you weren’t powerful in magic, your coachman would have succeeded in killing you and saved me the trouble,” he growled. Kate reflected unhappily that this was true. “Perhaps you can explain why you were snooping about my property with magical lights, but I doubt it. Not that it matters; I’d kill you, anyway. I can use your hair and your liver, and I think I have a spell that calls for your left ear, too.” He turned and went out.