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.The parents were devastated.It hasn’t been easy for him, as you might well imagine.He tends to avoid the other children, but I’ve kept him close by, and he’s proved exceptional at magic.He’s very sensitive about his—well, I suppose you’d balk at the word abnormality—his difference, and since I taught him how to change shapes, he’s been a cat as much as possible.” He chuckled.“He seems to feel that if he’s a cat, people will forget that he’s not much of a goblin.”Kate pondered this odd speech as they started off again down corridors and stairs.Her head was buzzing with bizarre sights and strange ideas, and she was very tired.It seemed to her that they walked for a long time without speaking, always going down.The windows vanished, and the halls became rougher, more like tunnels than hallways.Eventually Marak ushered her into a small cavelike room.It was lit by a lamp hanging high in the rounded ceiling.A table-high ledge stretched across one end, and before it protruded a chair-shaped hunk of stone, the simplest of furnishings left behind when the room was hollowed out.Kate found the room too dim for her human eyes and stopped right inside the door to adjust.Marak crossed to an inner door and talked in goblin to someone beyond.Kate sat down on the stone seat and studied the ledge in front of her.Four golden circles lay there, along with an oddly fashioned golden drinking goblet that held some sort of dark liquid.She suddenly felt very nervous.Marak put a shallow bowl of water and a towel in front of her.Then he laid his hands on the door they had come through and spoke aloud.It shuddered and clanked, and Kate jumped.“It’s all right,” he remarked, seeing her startled face, a hint of his normal amusement glinting in his serious eyes.“It’s purely ritual.I’ve just locked the door with magic.It was important in the old days when a King’s Bride might have hundreds of hysterical and highly magical kin storming the doors to rescue her before she could be made the King’s Wife.That’s a problem we’re not likely to face at this ceremony.”He took a small bag from his pocket and threw a pinch of powder into the bowl.Taking her right hand in his left, he pushed both into the water and dried her wet hand on the towel.“Of course, I did wait until you were locked in before removing the Leashing Spell,” he admitted with a sigh.“You don’t have kin storming the doors, but sometimes I think you don’t need them.You do make me nervous, Kate.”Kate looked uncertainly from the locked door to the odd assembly of items on the table.Was she trapped in this little room forever? There being only one chair, Marak sat down on the table, pushing his striped hair back with a big hand and studying her distressed face intently.“Couldn’t the ceremony wait for just a little?” she begged.“I’m so tired; I’m used to sleeping at night.Just another few hours?”Marak chuckled, his eyes lighting up with admiration as he looked at her.“Kate, what you could do with another few hours, I’d be terrified to see.You’d slip right through my fingers like a ghost.I promise you can sleep right after the wedding, sleep for days if you want to, but the ceremony’s critical, and it’s always done immediately.” Kate hung her head, discouraged.“In our world, there’s nothing more important than the marriage of the King because that’s where the new King comes from, and that’s how the magic of the race continues.The ceremony tests the bride for certain qualifications, it makes indications about the future, it ensures that she stays underground where she’ll be safe, and it protects her against every kind of harm.The King’s Wife ceremony is completely practical and, therefore, largely unpleasant,” concluded the goblin with a resigned shrug.Kate considered this information unhappily.Then she brightened.“But I might fail some test, then?” she pointed out.“Don’t get your hopes up, Kate.You’re ideal.” He watched her crestfallen expression with a smile.“But it goes beyond tests and protections.The point is that once it’s over, you’re one of us [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]