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."Are you sure the goblin King will let me marry you, Tinsel?" she asked anxiously."I'm positive," said Tinsel."He wants you to be happy.""I don't know why he would want that," said Sable suspiciously."Not if he's the goblin King."The goblin King figured very prominently in the elves' scary stories.Human slaves had modified many of these from the ghost stories they knew in order to entertain the little elf children.The goblin King acted in some like a ghost, in some like an ogre, and in some like the devil himself.What he almost never acted like was an authentic goblin King, but Sable didn't know that.Tinsel knew perfectly well why the goblin King would want her to be happy.Marak had reminded the whole party about it before they had left.The First Fathers of the two races were tremendously intelligent, but they were something like amateur experimenters.Neither elves nor goblins reproduced with the careless ease of the human race.Elf women didn't have the problem of sterility that goblins often had, but they were terribly sensitive to their surroundings.Unhappy elf women bore only one child, whereas happy ones bore three or four.Marak needed as many children as he could get from these last remaining elves to shore up his magical high families, and he had made very sure that his goblins understood this.The party had been skirting forested hills for some time, and Sable could tell by their excited chatter that the goblins were nearing home.Now they left the forest to cross rolling fields again, and she felt a little relieved.There couldn't be a cave out here, she thought.But she was wrong."Close your eyes," warned Tinsel."I don't want you to be frightened." Faint with dread, she felt them walking down a long slope.When Tinsel uncovered her eyes, Sable gasped.They weren't in a field anymore.They were walking through a long, thin cavern, and her sky was now black stone.The light was very bright, and she could see that not one thing lived here, not a plant, not a field mouse, not a bug.They came to the end of this cavern, and a metal wall faced them.They were trapped, thought Sable in a panic.They would die here in this dead place."Welcome, elf brides!" boomed a massive voice, and Sable cringed in fear."It's so nice to see pretty elves again." The iron wall swung forward, and the party walked through.Then it shut with a clang."Do come see me sometimes," it invited, "even though I can't let you out."The next cave was large, and horses lived in it; Sable could see their long faces poking out from little rooms on the sides.But the ceiling of this huge room seemed so low, she felt as if it were pushing down to crush her.She felt sick, and she found that she was shaking from head to foot.From the stable they entered a suite of rooms designed for the reception and marriage of elves, where the goblin men removed the Leashing Spell at a large basin of water.They stopped in a big square waiting room decorated with lavish magnificence, the walls and ceiling covered with golden mosaics of the design that the dwarves liked best.To please the other races, dwarves sometimes made stone plants and flowers, but they never understood the point of making a rock look like something it wasn't.Their own art aimed at bringing out the natural beauty of stone and metal in intricate progressions and patterns of different colors.Sable blinked in the bright light and studied the ceiling right above her, dazzled by the glittering tiles.She longed for the simple clutter of the forest, with its living creatures, its gentle movements, and its high, high ceiling of stars.When she looked down again, a new goblin was standing before them.He was hideous, with eyes of two colors and stiff hair that rustled and moved like a living thing.His lips were brown, as if they were smeared with dried blood; his teeth were like sharp metal knives; and his skin was dreadfully pale, as if he were one of the walking dead."Welcome, elf brides, to my kingdom," the corpselike wraith said pleasantly."And while I understand that you aren't yet glad to be here, you may rest assured that I am very glad to have you here.An especially warm welcome to Sable," and those eyes slid to her face."It's been many a long year since we greeted a lord's daughter in this room." The bicolor eyes, brilliant in that deathly paleness, bored into her like coals.Sable shivered and hid her face against Tinsel's chest."During the journey," continued the voice, "you have had some time to become acquainted with the bridegrooms I picked out for you.I don't expect you to be pleased about your marriages, but if you have any specific objections to make about your bridegrooms, I will be happy to listen to them and see what I can do.Irina, please come with me.Thaydar will wait for you.We'll talk for a few minutes in the next room, and then you'll come back here."Marak walked into a small room that was decorated as lavishly as the larger one.Against the far wall stood an elaborate stone throne that was carved out of one block.Before the throne was a stone table, its gray-veined surface highly polished, and on the other side of the table was a simple square stool of stone protruding from the floor.Marak crossed to the throne and sat down on it, considering the elf girl before him.Less sensitive than Sable, Irina was also better prepared [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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