In the Coils of the Snake

by Clare B. Dunkle

  Nir looked at Miranda. “My mother was from a large family,” he said softly. “She loved my father, but she was so unhappy. She tried to smile for him, but when he was out hunting, she would cry and cry. My father always thought that if she could just have a daughter, she wouldn’t miss her sisters anymore. But she never had a daughter. Only me.

  “When my father died, I released my mother from the spells so that she could return to her people. She tried to convince me to come with her because she said I was half human, but she and I both knew that wasn’t true. My people were the elves even though I didn’t have any people. I watched my mother walk away into the dawn, and the next evening I started searching for elves.”

  “Which I did, too,” remarked Seylin. “But I didn’t have your knack for it. just imagine, goblin King,” he continued enthusiastically, lapsing into his old tutor’s role, “we always tell the Kings that they embody the magic of their race, and then we teach them so carefully that they never have to rely on it. But here was a young King, completely untaught and completely alone. He had nothing of his heritage but his language and his name. And within twenty years, he had found every scattered survivor of his race and restored their ancient way of life. It’s all completely intuitive. He even keeps moving to the sites of the King’s Camps, although I’m sure he doesn’t know it.”

  He proffered the other of the two books to Nir. “This, Aganir Ash,” he said, “is the next spell book we should loan you.”

  Nir took the slim volume and studied its title. “The Spells of the Elf King” he read.

  “It has only scholarly interest for us,” said Marak Catspaw. “No one but the elf King can work them.”

  Nir paged through the book for a minute. Then he looked up at them with a smile. “It doesn’t have much interest for me, either,” he said. “I already know most of these spells. Here’s the Border Spell. That’s what I’ve been working since the new moon.”

  “So I guessed,” replied Seylin. “Miranda described it to me because you tested it on her, the spell that kept getting her lost. The Border Spell used to protect the elf King’s forest, and every new King had to walk the border and renew it. It was the decay of the Border Spell that made the elf harrowing possible. Once it was gone, the goblins could sweep through and attack the elf camps as they pleased.”

  “You can’t do that now,” said Nir, his dark eyes shining. “I passed the north side of the truce circle and left you the strip of forest between the lake and the human mansions. I don’t think you’ll be sending your spies to watch my camp anymore.”

  “Spies!” sighed Seylin. “That was our huge mistake. The elf King should never come face-to-face with the goblins’ captive elves, but none of us knew you were the elf King.”

  “Now I know what you did to Mother!” exclaimed Marak Catspaw. “When you tested her, you put the Call of the King on her, but Mother can’t leave us to follow you.”

  “And we’ve wondered what would happen if a goblin disobeyed his King,” Seylin remarked. “Since goblins — elves, too — are brought to the King and Called right after birth, they’re incapable of disobedience. Your mother isn’t the only one to find the Call profoundly unsettling. Marak said that Richard here cried like a baby when he was Called. Sable must have had an instinctive fear of it: she had never touched or even looked at the elf King. He caught her working against him, and then he put the Call on her. The only reason she didn’t fall dead at his feet was that he gave her an errand to do.”

  “Dead?” echoed Nir, considerably startled.

  “Dead,” confirmed the goblin King. “She delivered your message to me, and she fell dead at my feet instead. We’ve kept her body working by magic, but nothing I’ve tried has restarted her heart.”

  “I thought that was just a lie you told to trick Sika into leaving,” Nir admitted, deeply troubled. “I never meant to harm that elf, only to banish her. If I see her, maybe I can bring her back.”

  “Then come with me,” suggested the goblin King. “Not inside. I’ll bring her out.” And turning to Richard, he ordered the Guard to return to the kingdom.

  “It only remains to confirm the treaty,” declared Seylin as the goblins trooped past. “Do both of you agree to honor the old covenant between the Kings?”

  “Yes,” answered Nir, “provided that the goblins will respect my marriage.”

  “Oh, by all means,” replied Catspaw. “I can’t fight a prophecy, especially one my own father made. I hope you’re happy with your King, little sister. If you ever find yourself in trouble that he can’t help you out of, just send a message along to me. And don’t believe everything the elves tell you about us. They have some shocking ideas.”

  “Thank you,” said Miranda. She said it a little stiffly. But then she remembered Marak and all his love and pride in her. “Catspaw,” she said hurriedly, and then stopped, a lump in her throat. “Catspaw, I’m still glad that I was raised by a goblin King.”

  “Well, of course you are,” he said with a smile.

  “Miranda, you may go,” said Seylin. “And thank you for your help.”

  Nir walked her to the edge of the circle. “Sika, go back to camp with Hunter now,” he said. “I’ll be there soon.”

  “Can’t I stay with you?” she asked in a low voice. “I don’t want to leave. What if this is another of Catspaw’s tricks?”

  Nir’s dark eyes danced. “Then he can try to kill me again.”

  • • •

  Half an hour later, Marak Catspaw walked out of the cliff face that was the entrance to the goblin caves, carrying a bundle in his arms. He knelt on the grass and laid it down, propping it across his knee. As he unwrapped the blanket, Nir’s heart sank. There lay the elf who wasn’t an elf, pitifully emaciated and shrunken. Her long black hair, coarse now, straggled across her hollow cheeks.

  He knelt down beside her and took her hand in his. “Come back,” he commanded softly.

  The elf woman stirred and opened her eyes. There was fear in them, all the fear of a bullied slave whose bare survival had been bought with tremendous pain. Nir looked into those eyes and read her past, a past as dark as any he could imagine. Her past, and the past borne by thousands of elf women like her. Terrible suffering, countless deaths, which had brought his people down to a handful. It could all be laid at the door of his own family — vain, foolish Kings who had cared nothing for others and everything for their own petty pride.

  “What do you want of me?” whispered Sable in terror. The elf King bowed his head.

  “Get well,” he answered gently. “Be happy with your goblins. You don’t owe me your allegiance. I wasn’t there to save you when you faced certain death. You had to face it alone. I wasn’t there to free you when you lived in a slavery so profound that the goblins’ captivity seemed like a blessing. The goblins were there, and I’m glad they were there, and I understand that you love them. But, Sable, don’t hate your own people.”

  Tears stood in those sunken eyes, and Sable wrung her thin hands. “When has an elf ever been kind to me?” she asked bitterly.

  “Never,” sighed Nir. “Kindness died in your elf band when the mothers died. But it isn’t the fault of the dead mothers that they failed to teach their children love, and it isn’t the fault of the orphaned children that they failed to learn it.”

  “You could have taught me,” muttered the gaunt woman. “You showed me no kindness.”

  “I should have,” admitted Nir. “And I never meant to harm you. But you caused suffering, too. You told lies that damaged my wife’s trust in me and undid all the kindness I had shown her.”

  “Miranda, your wife?” wondered Sable. She stirred uneasily against Catspaw’s knee. “Oh, I understand now,” she whispered. “I know who you are. Your wife. Miranda wanted that. I was furious because you broke her heart.” And her dry lips twisted into a little smile.

  “I’ll try not to,” promised Nir, smiling back at her. “Don’t give up on your people yet. Go to sleep now, and
wake up when you’re rested.” He watched her face grow peaceful. Then he looked up at the goblin King. “Thank you for keeping her alive for me,” he said.

  “I certainly didn’t keep her alive for you,” retorted Catspaw with a frown.

  “She’s had her children,” the elf pointed out. “She won’t do anything more for your bloodlines and pedigrees.”

  “For pity’s sake!” snapped the goblin. “She’s my faithful subject and my mother’s closest friend! I don’t know what you think we goblins are a race of heartless cretins, obviously. You wouldn’t even have that forest you’ve just walked if my father and my great-grandfather hadn’t walked it first. They placed the Ax Spell on the border trees to keep them safe from logging.”

  “Why would goblins do such a thing?” asked the puzzled Nir.

  “They did it out of respect,” growled Catspaw, “and that’s a word you could stand to learn. My father respected the memory of his brother Kings and the elvish race.”

  Nir pondered this as he watched Marak Catspaw tuck the blanket around the sleeping Sable. He was surprised at the gentleness of the action.

  “How is Arianna?” he asked cautiously.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” answered the goblin King proudly. “She’s terribly brave. just last week she gave me a smile because I brought her some branches of holly. What she likes best is to sit on our balcony with Mother, Irina, and Sable, and they work on one of Irina’s projects together, and they sing. They can sing for hours sometimes, and it cheers her up tremendously. It hurts my ears,” admitted Catspaw with a grin.

  Nir smiled to think of this tiny group continuing their elf ways in the goblin kingdom. “That’s what Arianna’s magic is for,” he said. “Her magic that you admired so much relates to music. Galnar has her harp now, but I’ll send it along to her. I didn’t think that you would let her play it.”

  Marak Catspaw scowled at this last remark, but then he relented. “I’d have given a great deal to see Miranda married to someone else,” he confessed.

  “You’d have given my life, for example,” observed the elf bitterly.

  “Absolutely,” agreed the goblin. Nir was amazed that he could be so direct. “I’d have given much more important things than that. Miranda’s welfare matters to me.”

  “Miranda — what a name for her!” Nir grimaced. ‘A lie of a name. I used to hate it because it means ‘in the coils of the snake,’ but now I hate it because it means ‘seeing.”’

  “Seeing?” asked Catspaw in surprise.

  “Yes, in some language that humans speak,” sighed the elf King. “I can’t think of a worse name for someone who’s blind at night.”

  The goblin King studied his rival for a long minute. “There’s a spell for that,” he pointed out.

  Nir looked up, his dark eyes gleaming with excitement. “I have to have that spell,” he declared emphatically. “That is — please share it with me,” he added.

  “Certainly,” promised Catspaw. “I’ll send it over tomorrow night. Do you know, I’m glad there’s an elf King again. Life has been terribly dull: nothing to plan for, nothing to defend against, the King’s Guard out picking flowers. It’s a shame we signed that treaty, isn’t it, brother? But our sons will have a thrilling time. And they’ll tell stories about us, too. They’ll begin, ‘In the reign of Marak Catspaw and Aganir Ash, the elf King named Alone.”’

  • • •

  It was early morning by the time Nir walked back to his camp, and he paused on a rise to study it. The elves were delirious with joy. Every single one of them was dancing. Mothers were dancing with their babies in their arms, and Galnar was dancing as he played. Even the elves assigned to prepare the morning meal were dancing along with the rest. That meant no bread, and the stew was doubtless stuck to the pot. Other races held feasts in celebration, mused Nir, but elves always burned their meals when they were happy.

  But the elf King didn’t join his delighted elves. He spotted a light roving the boundary line back in the shadow of the trees. He walked out of the darkness into the circle of that light, and there stood the worried Miranda, keeping watch. The anxious look in her eyes changed to relief as she caught sight of him, and he took her into his arms and kissed her.

  “You’ve done more crying than laughing in the goblin caves,” he observed, “and it’s your marriage moon, and you’re not dancing by its light.” He sat down with her right inside the boundary line. “We’ll have to dance tomorrow night instead.”

  The elf King studied his young wife. Now that he understood the riddle of his own existence, he understood her role as well. He realized why the plans of the First Fathers had placed this stranger among his deferential people. She was a captive, but she was freer of him than any elf ever could be. The patterns of her mind were beyond his understanding, and her secrets were hers to keep. Her human heart would be the only one he would have to earn.

  The elf King realized that his weak forefathers had rejected this challenge. They had found their one truly free companion to be a burden not worth the bearing. They had emptied their wives’ minds and forced their devotion because they didn’t want to earn their hearts. But those pitiful, subjugated women were still free to hate their worthless husbands, still free to reject a race that could inflict such cruelty. And an unmagical human, bound mind and body into slavery, had studied this strong, magical race and accomplished its devastation. She had deliberately destroyed thousands of beautiful, powerful elves so that some other human girl, her sister in mind and heart, would remain free and not endure the ghastly slavery that she had known.

  Miranda looked up at him, her brown eyes very grave. “What did your magic tell you about me when you met me in the truce circle?” she asked. “The secret that made you feel so sorry for me? The one that would bring me no comfort in my life, except that I had a special destiny?”

  “It told me that you had to marry me,” he said. “It told me you were the mother of my son.”

  Miranda smiled at him and shook her head in disbelief. “And you felt sorry because of that?” she exclaimed. “I can’t imagine that there’s a woman alive who wouldn’t want to marry you. You must never have seen your face in a mirror!”

  He could have argued the point. He could have explained that his father’s good looks hadn’t made his mother any less lonely and wretched, or their meals any less meager, or their nights any less hard. But he held his wife close instead.

  “As long as you want to marry me,” he said, “I don’t care about mirrors. Your face is the one I’d rather see.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next night, the goblin King sent over the spell that he had promised, and with it a blank volume. The following message fell out of the book: “It took me all afternoon to enter last night’s events into the Kings’ Chronicles, brother, and I send this so that you can start a Kings’ Chronicles of your own. Your lazy ancestors fell out of the habit, but Kings should record their own reigns. Just remember not to write down all those nasty grudges you have against me. This is an important record for the Scholars. Particularly for the goblin Scholars, once your kingdom crumbles and we take away all your books again.”

  The next night the elf King sent over Arianna’s harp, and with it this message: “Thank you for the book, brother. I have put it to prompt use. I am sure I was as flattering to you as you were to me. You’ll have to be patient for those books since you can’t barge around my land anymore. If you feel like hunting in your little scrap of forest, let me know so that we can chase a few deer your way. It’s the least I can do to show my respect for my brother King.”

  A few nights later, Hunter and Tattoo met beside the truce circle.

  “Oh, hello,” said Hunter. “It’s good to see you again. I’m on border patrol tonight, walking the edge between our lands and keeping an eye out for goblins.”

  “I’m assigned to border patrol, too,” said the goblin, “keeping an eye out for elves.”

  “Great!” declared Hunter. “We
can walk together. We won’t take our eyes off each other even if we bump into a tree.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to run into you,” said Tattoo as they started off. “I still have to give you back your pipe.”

  “No, keep it,” answered Hunter. “I’ll make another one.” He thought for a minute, and his expression softened. “I’ll tell you what, give it to the goblin King’s Wife for me, and tell her Hunter misses her.”

  • • •

  The process of changing Miranda’s eyes took months. The darkness slowly rolled back, and colors emerged for which she had no name. The stars steadily increased in brilliance and magnificence until she realized that they were something more than pretty, and one moonless night she stood with the elf King on a high hill and saw everything that he saw.

  When that night came, Nir removed the Daylight Spell, but Miranda didn’t go to the meadow to watch her first sunrise in over a year. Instead, she lay in the tent with Nir’s cloak pulled over her eyes to protect them from the blinding glare of the day.

  “Are you sorry to lose the sun?” he asked her as she squinted against the dazzling whiteness.

  “No,” she said. “The moon is more beautiful.” And the elf King was happy.

  Marak Catspaw and Seylin agreed that an untaught ruler was more dangerous and unpredictable than a properly educated one, so Seylin embarked on the astonishing career of tutoring a second King. He spent weeks at a time in the elf camp teaching Nir history, strategy, and magic, as well as the scintillatingly beautiful elvish mathematics that had struck Marak as so absurd.

  Both Kings marveled at the friendship that continued between Miranda’s old guards. Hunter taught Tattoo to stalk deer, and Tattoo taught Hunter to ride a horse. Their friends became cordial with one another, organizing gatherings and competitions, and the military commanders even encouraged mixed patrols.

  Hunter came into camp one night with a letter for the elf King’s Wife. “Tattoo and Celia had their baby,” he told her. “Do you know what? They named him after me!”