Close Kin (17 page)

"The young master, William, and
Belinda, his betrothed, were
deeply in love
with each other. They had not yet exchanged marriage vows, but they had already
sealed their promise of love with a pair of
golden lockets. While their
friends danced, William and Belinda wandered together under the moon, lost to
everything else. As they
talked about the
lifetime of happiness they would share, the elf King watched them from the
shadows of the forest. He studied that lovely
young face, alight with joy, and his proud heart was satisfied. After
years
of stubborn waiting, he had found what he wanted. Here was a human woman whose
looks would not disgrace him.

"The elves stole Belinda on the
night before her wedding, and her new bridegroom was displeased at the bitter
tears she shed. As
the women led her away
to prepare her for the ceremony, she begged to keep her locket, but the King
just laughed and assured her that she
wouldn't
want it long. After the ceremony, he gave her the drink that
would take away her former life. She cried as she
drank it but stopped
when she put
the goblet down. New Moon's face was the first thing
she saw, and she remembered
nothing else. The elf King took her hand and danced with her among his court,
and Belinda shed no more tears for her lost William.

"But Aganir U-Sakar
and his bride were not happy for long.
The
amnesia drink of the later elf Kings' Wives is blamed for the
destruction of the kingdom, and it played its evil
part in this
romance. It found favor with the proud, sensitive Kings
because it
forced their human brides to
love them. Yet this adoration came with
a childish dependence since their empty lives held nothing else, and
the elf Kings found that their vacuous wives had nothing interesting
to
say. Every King who used the amnesia drink on his bride soon abandoned her, and
the pain this caused the poor human women, who had lost every other possession,
was a sad and touching spec
tacle to see.
The other elves tended to avoid the intruders as well, and
so these
humans led a tragic life, with no place at all in the only
world they knew, and no memory of the world where
they belonged.

"But
Belinda surprised her husband in two ways. First, and most
important,
she bore him no son. The whole reason for the bother,
some marriage failed to put in an appearance. And, second, Belinda
didn't adore her royal spouse. She didn't belong
to him body and
soul. Belinda had found a little golden locket shining
in the grass. She thought it very beautiful but tremendously puzzling, for it
held her own name and the picture of a man she had never seen. The elf
King's Wife hid this precious find, and she
looked and looked for the
man who
matched the picture. He remained a mystery, but he
loomed very large in
her life.

"The elf
King soon realized that his wife didn't love him. In
fact, he never tried to win her love. But he contrasted
her expression
as
she looked at him with the look of love she had given her
William,
and the proud King began to grow resentful. Devastated by his loss, the master
of Hallow Hill walked the grounds of his
estate,
a silent and stricken figure. The elf King came sometimes to
watch the unhappy man, and he burned with angry
jealousy. He
had everything poor William had ever wanted, but the human
man still held Belinda's heart.

"One
night, the elf King's Wife was roaming the forest, singing to
herself, and her human sweetheart heard that dear voice
and followed
it to his lost
bride. Belinda never saw her lover because the elf guards
saw him first, and they brought him back to camp as
their prisoner.
Face
to face with his adversary, the elf King gave way to his injured
pride and resolved upon a magical revenge. He changed
the master of
Hallow Hill into an antlered stag and
hunted the beast himself

"Close
to dawn, the elf King returned to camp, bearing his fresh kill. 'See how well
I've hunted for you,' he called to his wife. Belinda
came obediently,
delighted at the attention because her husband didn't often speak to her. While
the King talked with his elves, she
examined
the dead stag politely. It soon held her complete attention.
High on its neck, under the hair, she saw a
locket shining. Within the
locket was
a man's name, William, and beside it was a picture of her.

"What
happened next will always remain a mystery. Perhaps the
Amnesia
Spell broke, and Belinda remembered her old life, or per, hags she just guessed
enough of it to find the truth. And no one
knows
how she did what she did because she was protected by pow
erful magic. But
Belinda dusted off her hands and walked to the elf King's side. As her husband
watched, well pleased with his night's work, she pulled his knife from his
belt. She stabbed it between her ribs and into her heart, and she was dead
before he could even stop smiling.

"The elf King raged at the
shallow ingratitude of this woman
whom he
had favored with a royal marriage, and he refused when his
advisers begged him to choose another. Within the
year, he met with
misfortune and died childless, and the race of elves
died with their last King."

Seylin glanced up as he spoke the
final words of the story and
came back to
the present with a jolt. In this room were five examples .
of the death
of that race: rude, half-starving, helpless, disfigured, hateful, ignorant
elves. Seylin looked at their puzzled faces, their filthy, pathetic clothes,
the unremitting, harsh labor that kept their rough hands busy. They wouldn't
even be able to speak to the old elves: they didn't know their own language.

"I
don't believe that story," blurted out Rowan with a thoughtful
frown.
"The elf King would be a half-breed if his mother was a
human, and I can't
believe the elves would have a half-breed King."

"It isn't
like that," said Seylin, "because the King's magic makes
his
marriage different from the others, and without--"

"I don't understand what the
fuss was," interrupted Irina carelessly. "Wasn't the elf King
handsome? Any elf would look better than her stupid human. I think she was just
mean. She should be happy he brought her a deer."

"Maybe she had to butcher
it," suggested Thorn, winking at Rowan.

"Maybe she couldn't stand the
thought of butchering one more deer," prompted Rowan with a grin.

"Oh," said Irina. "I
guess that makes sense, then. But don't you
know
anything like the good old stories, Seylin? You know, like the
one where
the goblin King kills the elf King?"

"What?"
cried Seylin. "That's not possible! The goblin King
can't
kill the elf King -- at least, not in a fair fight."

"Sure, he does," she said.
"I can't believe you don't know that one. See, the goblin King was
sneaking around the camp at night
disguised
as a huge black cat with eyes of fire, sucking the life out of
the little elf girls. And the elf King caught him. And
there was a
big battle, and the goblin King killed him, and then, while
they all watched in stunned amusement, he disappeared in a ball of flame."

"Stunned
amazement,"
said Willow. "Irina, you're so stupid!"

"Oh, shut up,
brat," she replied calmly. "It's all the same thing."

Seylin could
have pointed out that not even a goblin King could
sneak
into a properly protected elf camp because the Camp Spell
allowed only elves to enter freely. He could also
have mentioned that
the last thing a goblin King would wish was the
deaths of little elf
girls, who would
otherwise grow up to be useful goblin brides. But,
instead, he fixed on
one small detail of the story.

"A huge black
cat?" he demanded, rather startled.

"With eyes
of fire," Irina assured him happily. "Doesn't it sound
just
horrible?"

'A goblin couldn't have eyes of
fire," argued Willow. "If he did, he couldn't see."

"Seylin?"
It was Sable's voice. "Tell us about the goblins."
Seylin
looked at her, completely thunderstruck. How could she possibly have guessed?

"Now, why do you want to know
about goblins, you witch?"
jeered
Thorn. "Goblins are just a tale to frighten children."

"No, he's seen them. Haven't
you?" she demanded.

Seylin glanced
around in dismay. The other elves were studying
him
with curiosity. Had he really seen goblins? What did they look like? Irina already
had her mouth open to ask. But, fortunately for him, and unfortunately for
Sable, Thorn lost his temper.

"Shut up, or I'll shut you
up!" he roared. "I don't care if he has seen goblins! I don't care if
he's a goblin himself! He brings home food, and that's a far sight more than
you've ever done. You just sit around and eat it and give the rest of us
indigestion. Goblins would just love your nasty face. I hope they come and take
you off my hands, you ugly hag."

Sable cowered down over her sewing.
Taken by goblins! There
was no worse threat.
Never to see the moon and stars again, never to be
free. Endless torment, horrible experiments, and
dying to bring a monster into the world. Surely not goblins! Nothing so
horrible as that.

The elves were silent and morose
after their leader's outburst.
They didn't
speak for the remainder of the night. Thorn stayed angry and irritable. At the
morning meal he gave Sable the smallest strip of
bread to eat, and he glared at her so fiercely that she didn't risk
scraping the stewpot. As soon as the meal was over and chores were done,
he
walked to the door of the cave and gestured to her.

"Go sleep somewhere else,"
he ordered, pointing at the door. Sable glanced back toward her tent and
hesitated. "Now!" snapped
the elf
leader. She walked to the door. She had no tent, no cloak, and
no
blanket.

Seylin jumped up in a fury.
"Where is she supposed to go?" he demanded.

"Wherever she won't wake me up
screaming like some insane owl," said Thorn. "She can't go far
enough."

"But she's not
safe out there!" insisted Seylin heatedly.

"Well,
Well, she's not safe in here," retorted Thorn. "Screaming day
after
day! I'm going to throttle her if she wakes me up again."

Sable looked from one to the other of
the two angry men. She
couldn't imagine any
good outcome for her, regardless of the conclus
ion of the argument. She went through the door, and Seylin's heart
sank.
How could he do anything for her if she didn't want his help?

"Wait,"
he called. He took off his cloak and gave it to her. Then
he
stood and watched the black haired woman walk purposefully into the dawn. She
must have some shelter in mind. This must happen fairly often. Thrown out into
the daylight! And she wouldn't
even have
had a cloak for warmth or shade from the sun if he hadn't
been there.
Seylin heaved a sigh and turned away. He wasn't sure how much longer he could
stand this place.

∗ ∗ ∗

Marak stood in the workroom in front
of the maps, his unmatched
eyes shrewd and
thoughtful. He'd checked three times last night, and Seylin was still in
exactly the same spot. Either he needed some sort
of help, or he had
found what he was looking for. Marak's eyes
gleamed
at the thought. Elves. Elf brides. If only he had! Finding
new elf brides in this day and age would be the
most important event
of his whole reign.

The goblin King took the ring he had
made out of Seylin's hair
and walked to the
big cave that held his water mirror. Then he tossed
the ring against the
liquid wall. It floated on the water, raising no ripples on its dark surface.

Marak sat down
on the hard floor of the cave and leaned against
the
stone wall, reaching up to the floating object. He put the index finger of his
right hand through the ring, the other fingers curling
around it. His fingers felt cold in the frigid water. Only the index fin
ger
did not. It felt instead the soft locks of Seylin's hair as he lay
asleep in his tent in the elves' cave. Mara
concentrated on the sleep
ing form
that was so far away. Then he closed his own eyes in sleep--
or at least
in something very like it.