Close Kin (23 page)

"And, lo and behold," said
Thaydar with a grin, "there did turn
out
to be a scuffle. Even if Richard hadn't provoked hostilities, Tin
sel and
I had thought up some nice ways to start a fight. A blast of
snow in the face of the right elf as you walked
by, or that horse's hal
ter rope breaking, and him trotting off after
you. Now, don't get upset," he added as Seylin started to speak. "We
knew we weren't
supposed to contact the
elves. But a little snow's not really contact, is
it? And some military
commander I'd be if I couldn't bring home a couple of elf brides to my
King."

Seylin surveyed the happy gleam in
Thaydar's eyes. Marak was
right: it was best
for the kingdom that his lieutenant marry one of the
brides. There was
absolutely no way the clever Thaydar would go out on an errand of such personal
and professional importance and come back to the kingdom empty-handed.

"Just look at her," gloated
the fanged lieutenant, cradling the blond girl. "Isn't she the cutest
thing you ever saw?"

"Thaydar," said Seylin
irritably, "don't you think you ought to revive her?"

"Oh, I did," growled
Thaydar cheerfully, "but she passed right
out again. So now I think, best to let nature take its course,
eh?" He
beamed at the disheartened Seylin and walked off, carrying
the insensible girl with him.

Sable was standing up now, and the
monster was only holding her with one hand, but she still couldn't get away. He
was doing
something to her hand, some sort
of magic, and she kept waiting for
it to hurt. He was talking again,
probably to her. Maybe she could
learn some
clue that would help her escape. She studied his moving lips, but she couldn't
seem to hear him. His lips were metal colored,
too, and she wondered if
they were cold like metal knives.

"Leash ... ten
feet ... walk on your own ..." he was saying. " ...
Would you like that
better?" He stopped talking, and she stared
at him, tense with fear.

"Sable, do
you understand?" the monster asked. Yes, she under,
stood. She was captured, trapped, she couldn't get away.
He was still
watching her, expecting some sort of
answer. She cringed, afraid that he would yell at her, and nodded her head
nervously.

"All right," he said a
little doubtfully, and he released her hand and took a step back.

Sable felt
giddy. She was free. It must be some sort of trick. She walked cautiously by
him, expecting him to reach out and grab her,
but
he didn't. Two more steps, one more step, and she was out of reach. She made a
dash for the nearby woods. Her hand flew back, and she whirled, off balance,
caught by some invisible force. Then the force released her, and she fell
facedown into the snow.

Stunned by the fall, Sable lay
without moving. In another sec
ond, his
hands were on her again. She closed her eyes tightly, expecting yelling,
beating, a slap across the face. Sable didn't open her eyes
as those
hands lifted her out of the snow. She had been hit many times. She knew what
was coming.

Dismayed, Tinsel picked up the
unresisting elf woman and brushed the snow from her face.

"Are you
all right?" he asked worriedly, using the Locating Spell.
No
injuries, but she sagged in his arms as if she had fainted. Tinsel carefully
propped her up against a tree.

"Are you all
right?" he asked again, deeply concerned.

Sable opened her eyes and winced at
the sight of the monster's face, but those hands hadn't hit her yet, and that
deep voice still
wasn't yelling at her.
"I'm so sorry," it was saying, quiet and worried.
"I
should have known you'd do that. If I were in your place, I sup
pose I'd have done it, too. We'll just sit here
for a few minutes. You
can rest until the others are ready to go."

"Come show
us where this one belongs, Seylin," called Katoo
as
he and Brindle shuffled by, carrying the sleeping Willow bet
ween them. Seylin and Emily went into the cave,
and Seylin
pointed to Willow's tent. The two goblins slung the elf boy
into it and pulled his cloak over him. Then they went back outside to get
another elf

"What a
pigsty!" exclaimed Emily, looking around. She glanced
back
up to find Seylin looking at her and blushed unexpectedly. Seylin thought about
how miserable he had been thinking she was someone else's wife. She had been
right about his behaving like an old governess. He had acted self-important and
priggish.

"I didn't like
living with elves," he said. "I was a fool to leave."

"Hmm,"
said Emily noncommittally. "You weren't the only
fool.
Did you know I actually made my peace with Ruby?"

"With the
old lore master? You two?" Seylin laughed. "Em, you
have
to be lying."

"No."
Emily's eyes danced. "For once, I'm not lying. And if
you hate elves and I like Ruby, it must be the start of a
new world."

"Our
world," said Seylin. "Yours and mine." And he put his
arms
around her, drew her close, and kissed her.

∗ ∗ ∗

Seylin retrieved his
pack and brought it back into the cave.

"I want to leave Rowan my
knife," he said, laying it beside the
sleeping
elf, "and I want to give Willow my spare cloak because his
is just
a rag," he added, remembering the poor boy's delight over a
warm coat. Then he put his extra winter clothes in
Rowan's tent and
dumped out the summer clothes as well. They had so
little, he
reflected, and they wouldn't turn
up their noses at his clothes, which
were proper elf colors.

"You're not going to leave this
poor horse here to be eaten, are
you?"
demanded Emily as they came out of the cave. "I don't see why
you
should. You paid for him."

"Of course
not," Seylin assured her. "They have plenty of meat." He untied
the horse from the tree and led him up to the group. "Now
we
just need to think of a good name for him."

"Let's call him
Dinner," suggested Emily.

"We could load him up as a
packhorse," proposed Katoo, but Brindle shook his head.

"Marak
said the comfort of the brides comes first," he reminded
them.
"Thaydar, since your bride is too upset to walk, I'd recommend that you
ride."

Irina had awoken shortly before and
was shrieking and sobbing
under Thaydar's
fond gaze, making poor Dinner rather jittery. When
they hoisted her up
onto the horse, she took one look around and fainted again.

Sable stood
silently, holding on to her composure with a supreme
effort.
How long, she wondered, before the goblin caves? Where were the others, and
when would they start the torture? Were they like humans, who kept their
animals in little cages until they were ready to enjoy the slaughter? Now the
monster was talking to her
again. "... keepsakes
... anything you want ... won't be coming
back ... " He stopped
talking and looked at her. She stared at him helplessly. What did he want her
to do?

"I don't think she can
understand me, Seylin," said Tinsel thoughtfully. "This has been too
much of a shock. Do you know if there's anything she might want to take with
her?" He looked at the
elf woman
doubtfully as he said this. If her stained and ragged
clothes were typical of the rest of her
possessions, they should all be
burned as soon as possible.

"Sable!
Your father's book!" exclaimed Seylin, and he went
back
into the cave and returned with the old camp chronicle. "I'll keep it for
you. You can have it whenever you want."

They set off
into the night, following Brindle's lead, and walked
the
hours away. They soon left the elves' little forest behind. Sable watched the half-moon
rise. They were on a snowy trail along the ridge of a hill, and the white
fields around them were completely bare of trees. She had never before left her
network of groves, and the enormity of the landscape unsettled her. It allowed
her to see
more of the stars that were
appearing and disappearing in the cloudy
sky, but it made her feel very unsafe. Tinsel watched her frightened
face
and could imagine what she was thinking. He knew from his page classes that
elves never left the cover of the trees.

"I know you'd rather be in the
forest," he said to her in a low
voice.
"But we're going this way because we'll be home faster. We'll
be in the kingdom the night after tomorrow night,
and then we'll be
married. I know you
don't want to marry a goblin, but I'm not
so bad."

Sable continued to stare at the
fields as if she hadn't heard. She
wished
that she hadn't. Her shock was wearing off, and the fear that they were about
to cause her horrible pain was slowly ebbing away,
but the reality of her situation was becoming
clearer. She was finding
it harder to ignore the bizarre shapes of the
goblins and the strange new landscapes that they were walking through. She
couldn't help understanding now the things that they said. And, worst of all,
she had come to realize that she wasn't being dragged off to be bred to
monsters, but to this monster, the one that had her by the hand. It
wasn't just, as Thorn had always said, a story to
frighten children.
It was true, and this monster kept talking about it.

So did the other monster, the one
that held Irina on the horse.
Poor Irina,
she was so terrified. He looked simply frightful. He had
two long white
teeth at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were
like a cat's. His voice was loud and gravelly, and he boomed when he
laughed.
Sable winced, looking at him and at the other outlandish shapes, at the sharp
teeth, the long ears, the claws, the big twisted
bodies. Golden cat-eyes, green cat-eyes, dark orange eyes with no
white
to them, like a bird's. It could have been one of them holding her now. She
shivered a little.

At least the goblin that held her
hand was quiet, and he didn't
look like they
did. He was a strange color, but he had normal hands, normal teeth, and normal
ears. She tilted her head to look up at him,
and those blue elf-eyes looked down into hers. He smiled at her seri
ous
face, and she looked away again quickly.

Shaky from the shock
and terribly tired, she watched her feet
stepping and stepping into the snowy tracks made
by the others. The
monotony of the endless motion dragged on her low
spirits, and she
stumbled along, half
asleep.

Irina had almost cried herself out.
Earlier in the night, she had
alternated
between screaming and fainting, and the fainting had
been a real relief for the poor girl. Later, she
had alternated between
shrieking and
crying, but neither of them had proved as satisfactory as the fainting. Now she
was sobbing rather listlessly. It was begin
ning to occur to her that none of the methods she had tried so far was
really
improving the situation.

"What are
you crying about?" growled Thaydar cheerfully. "No
one's hurting you. No one's being mean. What's the
matter, anyway?"

"I don't like
horses," sobbed Irina. "Not except to eat."

"Well, don't you worry,"
said Thaydar. "You can walk if you want to. And once we're home and
married, you won't ever have to see another horse as long as you live."

"I don't
want to marry you!" wailed Irina, rubbing her hand
across her eyes. She was starting to see halos around
everything, she
had cried for so
long.

"Sure, you
do," answered Thaydar with such confidence that
Irina felt confused. "Why wouldn't you want to marry me?"

"Because you
look so scary," she sobbed.

"But that's
good," Thaydar told her serenely. "I'm a goblin.
We're supposed to look scary." Irina thought about
this. She decided
it
was probably true. "Don't worry, you'll get used to me in no time,
and
then you won't think I'm scary anymore."