Close Kin (2 page)

"I've been
wanting to talk to you, too," declared Emily with
some force. "Ever since you came back from that
trading journey last
spring,
all you do is stand around and goggle at me. You hardly say
five
words, and if I look like I'm having any fun, you glower at me just like an old
governess."

Seylin was
glowering now. He tried to make himself stop.
"That's not what I want to talk about," he
protested. "What I
wanted to say is
that I won't always be a guard--"

"Nothing wrong with the
Guard," remarked Emily breezily. "Thaydar told me last night he thinks
the Guard's never looked better. Sweetie, we'd better run you to the
potty," she added, standing up with the tiny goblin.

"So Thaydar was
here again!" snapped Seylin.

"Not now," called Emily,
hurrying off and leaving him free to
glower
unobserved. Thaydar, the cat-eyed commander of the
Guard, was his most
serious rival for Emily's affection. Thaydar
made
no secret of the fact that he wanted the prestige of a non-goblin
bride,
and he was one of the most important men in the kingdom.

To
make matters worse, he was Seylin's commanding officer. Seylin
had spent many
evenings on patrol duty knowing that Thaydar was keeping Emily company back
home.

After a few
minutes of gloomy contemplation, Seylin wandered
back
into the apartment to find Emily breaking up a fight between
the two children. Each of them had one of Talah's
arms and refused
to let go.

"No monkey for either of
you," said Emily, prying them loose. Talah bounced into Seylin's arms, and
he sat down on the couch with her.

"Em, I
don't want to be a guard all my life," he continued
earnestly. "There's nothing to guard. It's so boring.
I don't want to
be a lore master,
either, teaching the Unlock Spell over and over to crowds of pages, and I don't
want to be a scholar. They just study things. I want to live stories, not read
them."

Emily was pouring drinks and barely
paying attention. She had heard all of this before. The little boy promptly
dumped his cup down his front. She carried him over to the couch and sat down,
scrubbing him off with a towel.

"Did I tell
you that Jacoby was here last night," she said, "and he
choked on a piece of caramel? I had to whack him on the
back for a long time before it went down. I've learned something, Seylin. Gob
lins with beaks shouldn't eat chewy candy. They don't
have any way
to chew it."

"Why do I
ever try to talk to you?" cried Seylin. "You never listen
to a word I say!"

"I'm
listening," she protested. "You don't want to be anything."

"Right," he confirmed,
trying to ignore the fact that the little girl was staring at him fixedly with
her hypnotic snake eyes. "Right, I won't always be a guard, I promise.
I'll be something more. I know I
don't have
much to offer you right now," he continued as the little
girl
dragged Talah from his arms. "But I think I will later."

"Thanks, I
don't need anything," answered Emily absently.
"Did you see Jacoby's new sister? Isn't she
adorable, with those little
pink bird
feet?" Seylin gritted his teeth, glaring at his heedless
beloved. Here he was, sitting right next to her,
and she might as well
be a thousand miles away.

"Kitty,
kitty," giggled Brindle's daughter, patting his knee.
"Very
good! Kitty," said Emily encouragingly. "Seylin, change into a cat
for her."

"Em, I am trying to have an
important conversation!" shouted Seylin. "I will not change into a
cat!"

Brindle's
daughter drew back and buried her face in Emily's lap.

"And I suppose it's more
important than making a little child happy," said Emily angrily, stroking
the girl's hair as she cried.

"Yes! Yes,
as a matter of fact, it is," declared Seylin, breath
ing
hard.

"Well, go have it somewhere
else, then," ordered the righteous young woman. "I don't want to hear
it."

"No, you
don't, do you?" exclaimed Seylin, beside himself "But
you want to hear Thaydar, don't you? You drink in every
word
he says!"

This wasn't true.
Thaydar spent as much time holding babies
and repeating himself as Seylin did. He was just more
philosophical
about it.

"Thaydar isn't
rude," Emily replied tartly.

"Rude?
I'm rude? You never even listen to me, but that's not rude."

"I heard
every word!" cried Emily. "You want to talk, you won't
be
a guard, you don't want to be anything, and I don't care. All you ever do is
complain. Thaydar never does."

"Well, why
don't you just marry Thaydar, since you're so fond of
him?"
he demanded.

"I certainly wouldn't marry
you," declared the wrathful Emily. "Not if you were the last goblin
on earth."

Seylin stared at
her, his anger evaporating.

"Do you mean
that?" he asked incredulously.

Emily was still
furious. "Of course I do," she snapped, rising
and
catching the little boy as he made a dash for the terrace. Seylin
stood up and stared after her for a minute, but
she didn't turn around
to look at him.

"Fine,"
he said bitterly. "Marry Thaydar, then." And he stormed
out
of the apartment.

∗ ∗ ∗

Seylin found the
goblin King in his workroom, giving his wife her magic lesson. The young man
stopped in the doorway to watch, bending down to give Kate's drowsy dog a pat
and exchanging a quiet greeting with the guard on duty in the hall.

The goblin
King's Wife had required years of convincing before
she had agreed to learn magic. She always felt uneasy
about what her
father would have
said about it. Kate had been raised a perfect English gentlewoman, and she had
been shocked to learn that her great-great-grandmother was an elf. Even though
she was technically an elf-human cross, she was so strongly elvish that the
goblins called her an elf, too.

Kate no longer
noticed that her husband looked alarming, but the
first sight of Marak had been enough to startle her into
hysterics. The
goblin King's body
was powerful and bowlegged, with long, wiry
arms
and big, knotted hands. His magic hand had six fingers. His
face was broad and bony, with sunken temples and
deep eye sockets,
and the eyes that gleamed brightly from under his
bushy eyebrows
were two different colors,
one green and one black. Marak's skin was
pale gray, and his lips and fingernails were a rather gruesome shade of
dark
tan. His hair was as coarse and straight as a horse's tail.

Kate still
noticed that hair. It fell in an unruly shock to his shoul
ders
and into his eyes, and he had the habit of running his hands
through it as he thought. Most of it was light
beige, but a black patch grew back in a cowlick above his green eye, sending
strands of black
hair falling over
the pale hair in what looked like long stripes. Kate dis
approved of anything so untidy and kept their
young son's hair short
as a
precaution against his developing his father's taste in hairstyles.

For this lesson,
Kate was learning how to heat an elvish cooking
stone.
The nocturnal elves saw perfectly well in the dark but were
blind in the dazzling day. Their eyes were even
more sensitive than
those of the
goblins, so they cooked on special stones that gave off no
light. The dwarves had made such a stone for
Marak, flat and about
a foot square.
It lay now on the floor at Kate's feet, and a small metal
pan full of
water sat on it, waiting to be heated.

"You
remember what I taught you about heat spells," Marak
said,
catching sight of Seylin and motioning for him not to disturb Kate.
"They're based in Nameshda, the Warrior constellation, and
they focus on the Foot Star. Find the
constellation in your mind and
point to it." Kate, eyes closed,
pointed toward the floor by the writ
ing desk.
"That's right, it hasn't risen, so you need to get a good connection even
though the ground is in the way. Reach to the Foot Star
with one hand
and with the other toward the stone as you say the
spell. You should be able to feel the heat move by you on its way into
the
stone. Don't try to do too much. Less is better than more."

Kate nodded and moved her other hand
into position. Marak watched as her lips moved and then looked down to examine
the pan of water.

Seylin saw
several things happen almost at once. Marak stepped
back, throwing out his hand and giving a shout. All the
water in the
pan rushed up in a cloud of steam and
whirled toward the King. When it reached his outstretched hand, the cloud
splashed against an invisible wall and became a sheet of ice that fell to the
floor and shattered. The metal pan melted with a sigh onto the stone, which was
turning an alarming shade of cherry red.

Marak shouted again, but Kate stood
oblivious, hands still outstretched. With a zing, the painted golden snake
around her neck awoke and looped itself about her arms, jerking them to her
sides. Marak bent and touched the stone, instantly chilling it. It cracked
into several pieces, and the melted pan
solidified into a flattened disk
with the handle still extending from
its side.

"What happened?" asked Kate
curiously, opening her eyes.

Marak didn't look up. He was studying
the wreckage of the
cooking stone and pan,
running his hand through his impossible
hair. The golden snake twined
back up to her shoulders and surveyed the damage, too.

"Forty seven King's Wives have
tried to kill the King," it whispered calmly, "but only eight have
tried to kill the King with elf magic." Seylin noticed a hint of
complacent pride in the snake's sibilant voice.

"Charm, you know perfectly well
I didn't try to kill the King!"
said
Kate in dismay. The snake looped around to study her innocent
blue eyes. Then it let out a gentle hiss and
collapsed back into painted
sleep.

"Oh, yes,
you did, you bloodthirsty elf," replied Marak. "It's the
Nameshda
spells. Every time you've attempted a spell centered on the Warrior
constellation, you've done some kind of damage. We don't need to wonder what
your family did for the elf King, Kate. They were high ranking military lords
who devoted their lives to butchering goblins. When you make contact with the
Warrior constellation, your proud elf blood burns, and you want to wrap your
hands around the nearest goblin throat you can find."

"That's
completely ridiculous!" exclaimed Kate. "Isn't it?" she added
uncertainly.

For answer,
Marak pried the pan off the shattered stone and held
it
out to her.

"Do I lie?" he pointed out.
"No more Nameshda spells for you.
Seylin,
you can see why the King has to be the one to teach magic to
outsiders.
They can be very unpredictable and dangerous."

He put the pan
on his writing desk and studied his petite, golden,
haired
wife for a minute. She certainly didn't look dangerous.

"No defense spells of any kind,
Kate -- they'll only strengthen your warrior tendencies. It's risky when the
magic begins teaching itself like that. No more lessons this week, and we'd
better calm down your right hand for a few days to prevent accidents. Your
magic is excited now, and it will want more blood."

He took Kate's hand in both of his,
the two right hands palm to
palm, and stood
motionless for a minute, frowning in concentration.
After a few seconds,
Kate tried to pull away.