In The Coils Of The Snake (26 page)

• • •

Marak Catspaw was
strolling with Arianna in the ornamental gardens of the palace. They passed the
lamplit fountains and flower
beds filled
with creations that the dwarves had made from precious
stones.

The
elf girl gazed at the colored rocks carved to look like living plants, their
stiff, cold forms a travesty of nature. “Oh, I don’t like it
here,”
she sighed.

“I
know,” said Catspaw sympathetically. “What would you
change
if you could?”

A little color came
into Arianna’s thin cheeks as she thought
about
this. “I’d open up the cave so that the stars could shine in,” she
declared.
“I’d throw away these rocks and grow real flowers. I’d bring in rain and
wind and snow, and foxes and deer.”

The goblin King
contemplated this untidy wilderness in his
pleasant,
orderly kingdom. It made him feel a bit gloomy. “And
you’d change
me for that elf lord, I suppose.”

Arianna
considered the suggestion. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
“You don’t?”
asked the astonished King.

“You’re ugly,
and he’s not,” she pointed out in justice. “But you don’t scare me
anymore, and he still does.”

That
blackguard, thought Catspaw grimly to himself Of course.
I
should have known. “What did he do to you?” he demanded.

“Nothing,”
answered the elf girl. “Nir was always very kind.”
She stopped, hoping that he would change the
subject, but he
didn’t. “It’s
just that he wasn’t like US,” she went on slowly. “He was
always so worried and sad. He didn’t control his
magic; it controlled
him. We never knew what it would tell him to do — even
he didn’t know.

“He was kind,
but his magic wasn’t,” she confessed in a low voice. “I was afraid
about marrying him. They said that he actually killed his own wife.”

The goblin King held
his peace and smiled reassuringly at her, but that evening he broke the news to
his lieutenants.

“Richard,”
he said, “Miranda is definitely in danger. We have to
get
her away from that madman. Ask Sable to risk contacting her
again to tell her about the goblin spies near
camp who can help her.
The dwarves have been modifying the old elf
prison; she can stay there until she’s free of the stars.”

“Until?”
asked Seylin sharply. “The end of the stars means the death of the elf
lord. You know how important he is!”

“I
think, adviser,” said Catspaw in an even tone, “that you
should know how important Miranda is. She meant the
world to my
father, and she means a great deal to
me. When that vindictive elf
enchanted the
goblin King’s ward, he placed his life in balance with
hers. Which life
do you think I value more?”

The elves moved to their autumn
camp, a thick patch of pine forest
nestled against steep bluffs that blocked
the biting wind. A brook
came springing
down the nearly vertical slopes, jumping the rocks
in waterfalls and
rapids. At a level with the tents, it became calm water and gurgled along its
way again.

The elves were still
wearing their sleeveless green clothes, but
now
they wore their green cloaks as well. Igira had made Miranda a
new outfit in preparation for winter. The dress
had long sleeves and a
longer skirt, but her legs were still bare. In
the winter snows, the women wore brown leggings, but it wasn’t time for them
yet.

Miranda
wasn’t used to being outside in cold, wet weather. She
had enjoyed walking in the summer rains, but the autumn
rains were
another matter. She wore her winter
clothes while the elves wore their summer clothes, and she still found the
lengthening nights uncomfortable.

Soon
after they had settled into their new home, Nir went hunt
ing,
and Sable hurried into camp.

“Miranda, you’re
in danger,” she said. “We’ve learned that the
elf lord is insane, that he killed his own wife. He controls you comp
letely with those stars, and there’s no telling
what he means to do.”

“That’s not
true!” protested Miranda. “Nir didn’t kill Kara, his magic did. He
was terribly upset about it.”

“What
difference does it make if he or his magic killed her”
inquired the elf. “He thinks that he’s kind and
good, but the people around him suffer. The Guard is watching the camp, and
they’ve noticed that you can go outside the boundary with the women. The next
time you go, the Guard will help you escape.”

“Nir always
orders me to stay near one of the others,” observed the girl.

“Then point her
out, and the Guard will capture her. You can follow her back to the kingdom.”

Miranda
shook her head. “I won’t do it, Sable. I know you’re not
lying,
but I don’t believe that Nir would hurt me.” She hesitated. “I
might as well tell you the truth. I love him, and
I want to stay here.”

“You
love an elf man?” exclaimed Sable. “Miranda, you’re noth.
ing but a slave! You
don’t mean a thing to that lord!”

“That’s not
true,” replied Miranda steadily. “He feeds me and
hunts for me; he shares his tent with me. He
spends more time with
me than he does with anyone else.”

“Charming,”
said Sable coldly. “But that will stop in another
two weeks, when the full moon comes back. You don’t
understand.
To the elves,
you’re a child right now, so you have to live with some
one.
You don’t have a fiance to live with, so the elf lord is keeping you with him.
But as soon as you’re eighteen, you’ll be a woman: you’ll live like a widow and
have a tent of your own. Then the elf lord won’t have to worry about you
anymore.”

Miranda felt
stunned. Nir couldn’t just cast her aside. After all,
she mattered to him. She reminded herself, heart sinking, he had
said that she was important to the elves. She
just wanted to think that
she was important to him.

“Why can’t I
stay in his tent?” she asked in dismay.

“You’ll be
ready for marriage at the full moon,” said Sable. “If
you stayed in the elf lord’s tent, that would mean
you two were mar
ried, and he’s not about to marry you. Elf men never
marry human women. They can’t even have children together.”

Miranda thought
about that, and her world became a bitter, cheerless place once more. It wasn’t
that she expected Nir to marry
her. She had
just thought that he would always spend time with her.
But of course he was just looking after her,
taking care of a home
less child. It was like him to be that considerate.

“I
understand,” she sighed. “I know I’m a slave. But I don’t
believe
he’s insane, and I love him. I want to stay here.”

“Did you know
that he’s turned you into a weapon to kill goblins?” demanded the elf. “If
you held a goblin’s hand long enough, you’d burn right through the bones. You
need to give up this pretty
dream, Miranda,
before his ‘magic’ kills you, too. Try to find a rea
son to leave camp.”

• • •

Nir returned from
the hunt to find the human girl in tears. “That
goblin elf was here again! What did she say to you?” he demanded.

“Nothing
that matters,” Miranda assured him. She tried to smile,
but
her eyes were miserable, the way they had been when she had
talked about being cursed. Nir was too upset to
stay and look at them.

He stalked out to
the south guard post. Hunter stood there,
whistling
quietly, having just relieved Sumur. Nir felt his skin crawl
and mentally located the unnatural rat crouching in
the bushes
nearby. How he hated goblins!

“We need to
hunt again tomorrow night,” he said. “I won’t be able to take my next
turn. Tell Sumur that he and Willow can hunt for us at the three-quarter moon.”
He felt the rat sit up in its hiding place at this news, its whiskers quivering
with excitement. “I can’t stand it!” he exclaimed passionately. “It
makes me positively ill. Don’t tell me you can’t feel that!”

“Feel what?”
inquired Hunter, looking around.

“That!”

A great, twisted
shape erupted from the bushes directly in front
of the blond elf Hunter had a confused impression of round eyes
and long floppy ears before the creature loped
away through the trees.

“Oh,
that!” he gasped once his heart restarted. “Of course I
noticed
that.”

“This forest is
full of goblins now, night after night,” said Nir grimly. “The treaty
means nothing at all. They’ve talked to Sika again, and now she’s crying. The
goblin King must have realized
why she’s
here, and he means to turn her against me. If we give that
monster another month, the elves will be finished.
I have to find out
what to do!”

“Just
out of curiosity,” said Hunter, “why is the human girl here?”

But
the elf lord wasn’t listening. He stood motionless, eyes closed,
rapt in the deepest concentration. After a minute, his
right hand
grew
incandescent, brightly skeletal. The bones shone as if they
were
made of light, the skin that covered them glowing dusky pink.

Nir opened his eyes
with a joyful laugh. “I can stop them!” he
cried. He reached out to clasp Hunter in an ecstatic embrace, but the
blond
elf stepped back nervously.

“Good
— good for you,” he stammered, eyeing the luminous hand.

“We’ll be rid
of these monsters once and for all,” Nir continued
in excitement. “I tell you, Hunter,” he added, shaking a
finger at the
elf, “they’ll see who they’re dealing with!”

Hunter
shied sideways and then turned to see the boulder that he
had
been leaning against transform itself into a spiky mass of deep blue
delphiniums. “I say,” he said anxiously, “do you mind terribly
not waving that hand at me?”

“Did you want
something?” asked Nir with absentminded good humor. “I’m sorry. It’ll
have to wait.” And he disappeared between the trees in the direction of
the retreating goblin guard.

The night was cold
and blustery. Depressed, Miranda retreated to
the
elf lord’s vacant tent and curled up on her pallet, reading his spell
book by the light of her diamond bracelet. She
didn’t know all of
the words, but the
goblin that she had learned was not a sorry waste
of time after all. The
magical characters shared by the two races apparently had the same meaning.

Lying
on her stomach, she paged through the big old volume.
A
spell for preventing
worms in deer. A spell for preventing cough in humans.
Wonderful,
she thought dully. I’m one of the livestock.
A spell for pr
oducing
apples in winter.
Not that they’ll cook those apples into anything
tasty,
she reflected. Their food is simply terrible.
A spell for traveling by
cloak.
By cloak? Mildly
cheered, Miranda thought of climbing onto one and using it as a flying carpet.
A
spell for keeping humans inside the
boundary.
Her heart fell into her toes once
more. She shut the book and
pulled her own cloak around herself, closing
her eyes.

Much later she became
aware that someone was shaking her. “Sika, wake up,” said the elf
lord’s soft voice. “I need your help.”

Miranda sat up,
blinking. It was dark in the tent. It was always dark, she thought sadly. The
only thing that brightened her endless night was the elf lord’s stunning
appearance. He knelt by her, his
beautiful
black eyes shining in the light of her bracelet. “Sika, I need
your
help against the goblins.”

She stumbled after
him through the windy forest. Her cloak whipped behind her and caught on passing
bushes. “Against the goblins?” she asked, her brain foggy with sleep
and misery. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing that
will harm you,” he replied, walking rapidly and guiding her awkward
progress.