The Goblin Market (Into the Green) (28 page)

One of those great tentacles cracked forward like an unfurled and unfriendly flag and looped around Him’s waist several times before it plucked him up out of the water and held him overhead.

Her scream burned like fire in her throat, “Him!”

“Go!” He bellowed over the roaring water that bubbled furiously around them. “You promised, Merry! Go!”

But she hadn’t promised, just as he had never promised that one day when the journey was done they would live happily ever after. Her mind reeled through images of the two of them, their bodies in the subtle, earthy darkness, the smell of his skin and the taste of his kiss in her mouth. She had never known such wonder or passion, such perfection in all her life, and just as quickly as it had come to her, it was leaving her again.

“No!” That one word rang forever through the air. It echoed off the walls and only further angered the furious beast.

Meredith pulled at her sinking legs, the suction drawing her further into the nether, but she struggled willfully against it, and commanded herself to move. For the first time in her life she prayed. She prayed to whatever gods held power over those lands, and promised them her life for his, but she was already bound to the safekeeping of one life—the life of her sister, and the gods rarely intervened with that deemed as destiny.

In the storm of his rage the Ancient One stirred the waters with his many arms, once more raising such waves that there was no chance either of them would survive. The waves came then in a set of three, the first one barely broke against Meredith’s body, but it was enough to free her legs from the stickiness below. She was about to charge forward to try and save Him, but the second wave slammed into her and she tumbled once more into the deep.

Despite feeling the shock of its force against her body, Meredith remembered to curl herself into a ball, and just as the third wave was crashing in, it tossed her on its tips, and then carried her toward the shore.

While sailing atop the wave, Meredith was given one last glimpse of her beloved friend. The monster had already started to return to its depths, its great body lowering, tentacles still thrashing like whips against the silver sky. She saw Him there, and though he must have known what was to become of him, his face was serene.

His hand reached out to her, as if to say goodbye, and then a sharp stab of pain surged through her head, as her body smashed down upon the shore.

The darkness came to carry her weary spirit.

CHAPTER TWENTY

When she came to know the darkness inside her own mind, there was a very real moment in which she wanted to just give up and give in to that velvet rich blackness that covered everything she had ever known. It was comfortable not knowing anything at all and there was great peace in simply existing inside the dark. She suspected that was how an unborn baby must feel while still protected inside its mother’s womb.

Was she a baby?

But surely she had been born once; she had existed before that moment.

Did that mean she was dead?

Wonder occupied her thoughts, holding her suspended over the distinct and scuttling sound of stones and lapping wet tongues of water. She was near water, yes, and that was the only thing she was certain of.

And just as she grasped that one certainty, a sizable stab of pain met inside her head.

Pain… an uncertain indication she was definitely still alive—still a physical body capable of knowing agony.

Meredith reached up first, even before she opened her eyes, and touched fingers to the tender goose egg on her temple. She cried out, her eyes flashing open to reveal the swift flow of dark, tormented clouds against a silver painted sky. She blinked several times, as though each time she came off of the blink and opened her eyes again she expected the world around her to make sense, to somehow reveal itself to her memory.

It did not.

“Majesty should not touch it,” a creaking and uncertain voice spoke from just beyond the boundaries of her unmoving feet.

She tried to lift her head in the direction of the croaking voice, but the pain was white hot behind her eyes.

“Surely there will be a nasty, nasty bump before too long.”

A shadow moved beside her, then fell across her line of vision. She wasn’t sure what her basis for comparison was, as she could not remember but vaguely what she looked like herself, but she was sure the creature that stood before her was the ugliest thing she had ever, or would ever lay eyes on.

Round black eyes misted over with age started out at her from a wrinkled suit of gray skin that stretched too tight across his forehead, but hung loose from his cheeks and neck. Was it a costume? Surely the body before her could not actually belong to creature that lived and breathed. When it loomed forward to touch her with long fingers dripping with strange black water, she trembled and tried to back away as though he were some monster.

Meredith edged herself away from the creature, digging her elbows into the mud and stone-laden embankment beneath her and ignoring the scrape of rock against her skin. Half-seated now, and despite the pulsing agony behind her eyes, she noticed the shore she was on sat at the edge of the most peculiar black body of water. It slowly trembled in foaming white peaks, the water itself mirroring starlight.

“Where am I?”

“On the Nether Shore, Majesty, just a stone’s throw from the castle.”

Majesty? She rolled that word around in the bank of her mind for meaning and then coupled it with the word castle.

Was she a princess? A queen?

She couldn't remember, no matter how deep she dug into the muddy thickness of her memory. Obviously she was someone of great importance to have a servant—even if he was a hideous thing to behold. But how had she come to lay upon the shore of that hideous lake with a goose egg, and what happened to her memory?

Had they been accosted on their way home? Had she been robbed and left for dead? How had she come to know the horrible pain in her head, and did it have anything to do with the unbridled emptiness that seemed to poison her mind?

 “The castle,” she said. “Yes,” she licked her lower lip. “Yes, the castle. I must get home to the castle. Only I’m not sure if I remember the way.” She braced herself on a rock and tried to stand up.

“Oh, Majesty, perhaps it is not yet time for you to stand.” The creature held his hands out to stay her, but she ignored him and rose anyway.

She stumbled a little, her head swimming with dizziness and agonizing pain. Dark green and orange flashes pulsed inside her skull, blinding her for a moment from behind her eyes. It took everything she had to steady herself, and once her vision cleared, she looked down over her drenched, torn clothing.

 She felt violated, and very afraid of all she could not remember about, and the harder she pressed against the spongy boundaries of memory, the more villainous the doom and dread that rose against her until she longed to shrink back inside herself and hide like a coward.

 “You must take me there straight away,” she decided. It would be the first step toward answering the uncertain question of her identity. “To the castle, I mean.”

“Lady, please,” its grating voice trembled. “Her majesty is not well, I think.” His misshapen face twisted into a frown. “Maybe Majesty should sit down and try to come back to herself before we approach the castle.”

She gawped at him with wide, angry eyes and he shrank away from her in confusion and dismay. Her stare arced up and back before rolling down again to survey him. His ragged attire was still dripping into oily puddles around his feet, much like her own clothing, but he was clearly a servant, and when servants didn't obey their masters... She scowled at him, forcing him to back up even further.

“I need rest, and perhaps to see a healer, which is why I need you to take me home at once.”

“You mean to the castle,” he corrected her.

“Yes,” she wavered, holding her hands out at her sides to steady herself from falling over. The creature surged forward to hold her up, but she pulled away. “I need you to take me home to the castle.”

“Oh, dear,” he shook his head and turned aside to contemplate in privacy. “From the moment I met Majesty I only ever wanted to please her, but now I want no part of her bossings.”

“You will do as I command, or else I will…” She paused in reflection and tried to remember what was within the range of her power in such a situation. “Else I will…”

“Turn me into a toadstool, Lady?” He offered the first suggestion that came to mind. “That is what Sire would do.”

“Yes,” she turned up her nose indignantly. “Yes, indeed. That is precisely what I will do then. As soon as I remember how to turn you into a toadstool that is.”

“But Majesty…”

“How dare you
but Majesty
me?” she flared with all the pomp and prestige of a life-long queen who was unused to being denied her own wishes. Despite the physical agony that wracked her entire body, it felt good… and natural.

“My apologies, Majesty.” He ducked his head down low, sad eyes rising up so that they never left her face. “If her Radiance would only follow me, I would be happy to show her to the castle.”

She was quite pleased with herself when the ghastly little creature picked up his soggy feet and started off ahead of her, trudging barefoot through the slowly drying muck of the waterside.

She began to follow, taking dainty steps and turning up her nose at the idea of getting any filthier than she already was. The sound of muck squishing and sucking under their feet was almost enough to make her ill.

With every step, she tried to recall some memory of her life before those initial moments. She searched for the castle inside her mind, but found nothing. She probed inside for some kind of image of the man her escort had called Sire, but there were no faces in her memory, only that dark sense of foreboding and layer upon layer of emptiness.

They closed over the last few feet of lakeside and approached the gated stairway to the castle. Beyond the vine-bedraggled and rust-coated gate, broken, cracked and decrepit stones paved the long, winding staircase.

“I feel as though I have died and come home to a place I barely know,” she fretted.

Gorigast reached a trembling hand to unlatch the gate, which swung forward with a piercing scream.

Meredith hesitated, even when her escort began climbing the crumbling stones toward the terrifying castle on the hilltop. A wave of dread tingled beneath the surface of her skin, and she shuddered as her foot came in contact with the first stair.

There was not a single soul in sight when they stepped through the gates. Meredith gave a startled leap when they swung closed behind them, and took several quick steps to catch up with her servant.

She followed close, taking everything in with quick and desperate glances. It was a hopeless and deserted place, the fortress empty of soldiers, as they trudged onward and upward, stepping carefully around slippery, moss-coated and broken paving stones.

Whispers of wind moaned around them, the desperate howls chilling Meredith to the bone. A large gust lifted pieces of debris, tumbling down the stairs.

All of the watchtower windows were boarded up, or broken, hanging on rusted hinges that wailed as they swayed against the current.

“Where are all the people?” She asked.

Her companion glanced sniggered, “People?”

“People, yes,” she repeated. “Where are the guards? This place is perfectly empty. Am I the queen of an empty kingdom?”

“Oh, no, Majesty,” he shook his head. “Your subjects are many, and everywhere, hiding mostly, in fear.”

“They fear me?”

“Yes,” he hissed that one word so softly she hardly heard him. “None so fair as you has ever come so far, or even walked these streets. Since you have come at last, they know now that everything will change. It must change. It has no choice.”

“I don’t understand.” She lifted a hand and closed her eyes for a moment of rest.

"You will," he said.

Inside, the lids of her eyes blazed in white, angry pulses of agony. She felt dizzy again, and when she staggered forward, her companion caught her once again.

 “Majesty?”

She opened her eyes to see his alien face twisted into fear and concern. His distress disgusted her, and ignoring the pain, she hardened herself again and pressed on.

“Let us hurry on,” she bit the inside of her cheek to distract her mind.

In silence they treaded upward, following the never ending staircase.

Her mouth was so dry it felt like her tongue stuck fast to the roof of her mouth. The smell of distant smoke made her stomach roil and turn, and she was sure she was going to vomit if she didn’t soon lie down.

She bit back hard on her own nausea and summoned her determination. Surely when they reached the castle everything would make sense again, and she would come to understand why she felt so out of place.

For the moment, however, nothing made any sense at all, and the harder she tried to grasp at her memories, the thinner her mind became, until nothing was left but anguish and the rising veins of thinning smoke from the impending castle as it circled toward the silver sky.

*****

From his vantage point in the castle Kothar rested his chin between the stretched v of his opened thumb and forefinger. He watched with a sense of certain triumph as that useless elf led the future of his kingdom toward the castle.

Worn down and broken after the great ordeal that brought her toward his shores, she had never been more beautiful to him. Her defeat was humbling. Her lack of memory enchanting in its infinite possibility.

He'd known all along that the girl’s determination would eventually bring her all the way to the castle, but he had never expected in a million years that by the time she arrived, she would have no memory of who she was or why she had come at all.

She actually believed she was coming home, and while her loss of memory would bode unfortunately for the girl's sister, Kothar had no intention of revealing the past to her.