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

“Charm!” said Kate indignantly. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”

“Eighteen of the King’s Wives have been powerful sorceresses,” hissed the snake. “Five of them were powerful when young. But only one other King’s Wife besides you was powerful, young, and pretty all at once.” Kate sighed and gave it up.

Confident now of obtaining the goblins’ freedom, she pried open jar after jar, releasing smoke of every color. Some almost exploded. Others streamed out more calmly. They all headed resolutely for the door and vanished, one after another, down the hallway.

Kate saved Marak’s jar for last. When she had counted the others to make sure no one was missing, she pried up the lid of the half empty jar. Nothing came out. She tilted the jar, and the dark green smoke poured out like water, collecting in a swirling puddle upon the floor. As she watched, almost in tears, it rolled slowly toward the door. She could have walked beside it and kept up.

“Oh, no! Charm, what have I done? How is he supposed to get home like that?” wailed Kate. The golden snake twined around her waist, bending low to study the rolling cloud.

“The King isn’t looking well,” it hissed quietly. They watched in silence as the cloud vanished into the dark hall.

“And now I have to burn this place!” cried Kate, still distraught about her husband. “Oh, dear, the wolf! I can’t burn it down around her ears.”

The wolf danced and yelped frantically at the end of her chain. The golden snake bared its fangs in anticipation, but she only pawed Kate, whimpering pitifully. Kate unfastened the buckle on her tight collar, and the gray form barreled past her and whisked up the staircase, running toward the back of the building.

Kate followed the wolf down another bug-filled hallway. She emerged at one end of a long, unlit room filled with rattles, squeaks, and roars, clapping her hand over her nose and retching at the hideous smell. Beside her in the short end of the room was a large, wide door. Unlatching it and pushing it open as far as she could, she stepped into the alley beyond. She stood outside for a minute in the drizzling rain of the late night, breathing in the sweet, smoky air.

The wolf jumped into a low pen across from the door and laid herself down among small puppies, but only one emaciated pup crept to his mother. The other three lay stiff, insects crawling over them. Holding up her bracelet, Kate discovered that the room was filled with cages of all sizes. Animals growled, hissed, and banged the bars, and the floor was covered in waste and filth. She didn’t think she could stand it.

“I can’t destroy this place now, Charm,” she said, aghast. “I can’t burn these animals alive.”

“I have seen them,” whispered the snake. “Many of them you can simply release. Some of them would be a danger to the King’s Wife. I can bite them, and you can leave them to the fire. But if you do not want to burn them alive, you will have to kill them yourself. My bite does not kill.”

This, Kate decided sadly, was the only thing she could do. She retrieved the sword from the jumbled workroom and forced herself to look into one cage after another. Many animals in the cages were long since dead, and living animals crawled over their rotting comrades, quarreling with each other for the bones. Kate released a tide of mangy rats, stepping back quickly as they poured toward the open alleyway. She let out three young foxes and a number of kinds of birds. The bear, one eye gone, roared desperately at her, and she had to force herself to stab the poor brute. Charm whizzed busily about the cage of poisonous snakes, biting its living copies faster than they could react. Then Kate cut down the middle of the cage, dividing the motionless bodies.

She came to the cage of a small monkey and opened the door gingerly, hoping as much for its sake as hers that it wouldn’t try to bite her. She expected it to run to the alley, and she felt unhappy about it, knowing that such an exotic creature could never survive in the cold and damp. But the monkey hopped to a nearby cage and opened the door, reaching in. A white mouse crawled onto the monkey’s paw and let itself be carried out to freedom. The monkey squatted down by the cage, cuddling the little mouse, who snuggled against the brown fur and curled its tiny tail around its body. Kate noticed with a sick feeling that the little white mouse had only one front paw. The other had been severed neatly at the elbow, doubtless for some special spell.

As they approached the last cage, Charm whispered, “This one is no danger to the King’s Wife.” Kate peered into the cage and almost fainted. A baby girl pulled herself up by the bars and looked out at Kate, giggling in delight. She was round and rosy, her black hair and bright eyes shining in the light from the bracelet. She stretched up toward the sparkling light, waving one hand through the bars. Kate bent down, and the child caught one of her fingers and held it firmly in her fat little fist.

“How can we possibly find her mother?” breathed Kate, kneeling by the cage. She saw, revolted, that the cage already contained other sets of small bones and rags.

“Are you sure she still has a mother, King’s Wife?” hissed the snake. “The child’s dress is stiff with blood.”

Kate stared for a long moment at the baby in its simple, threadbare dress. She imagined a mother, young like herself, struggling with the sorcerer as he fought her for her child, falling, fatally stabbed, but still clutching the baby close as her eyes glazed in death. Or perhaps—Kate’s heart stopped at the thought—perhaps a goblin servant had pulled away the baby. Perhaps her own husband had wielded that deadly knife.

She headed purposefully toward the workroom, the baby in her arms. As she left the room, the mother wolf rose and picked up her puppy in her mouth. The little monkey glanced up and scampered after them. When Kate reached the door of the workroom, she looked back in surprise. The monkey rode on the wolf’s neck now, clinging to its long fur, and the tiny white mouse rode on the monkey’s shoulder.

Kate went to fetch the candelabrum burning by the cage of the dead Hulk. But now the huge body glowed with a multicolored light, covered with bright patches of smoke, the freed goblins who had stayed to protect their dead comrade from the insects. The sight blurred before Kate’s eyes, and a lump rose in her throat. Marak had said that goblins stayed together. That was their strength.

“Burn the body,” Charm whispered, “and the goblins will leave it. They will know there is nothing more to be done.”

Kate brought paper and books to the cage and spilled candles over them. Then she tossed the shriveled little hand onto the pile, the child’s voice wailing in her ears. Once lit, the paper went up quickly, and the candles melted in the heat. One by one, the colored smokes streamed away.

She hurried down the hall and dropped a candle in the workroom, igniting that sea of papers. Then she started a fire in the room of cages. Smoke was already pouring out the wide door as she stepped into the alley, and she could hear behind her the crackling and roaring of flames. Holding the baby, she walked off into the damp night. The wolf trotted behind her, the monkey clinging to its neck.

The next morning, Kate was riding back home in a carriage with the baby on her lap, the wolf and pup at her feet, and the monkey stroking its little mouse on the cushioned seat across from her. “Charm,” she called, and the snake awoke with a zing. The baby screamed in excitement and clutched the golden coils with both hands. “You did a great thing last night, Charm,” said Kate. “You saved the kingdom, the King, the King’s Wife, and the Heir.”

The snake considered this as well as it could while being tugged about. “I have always saved the King’s Wife,” it pointed out softly. “The rest was important only insofar as it saved my Wives.”