The Goblin Market (Into the Green) (32 page)

"Of course." Kothar stepped back. "Enjoy the fresh air and gather your thoughts. When you return, perhaps we can dazzle our guests with a dance before our wedding?"

"I would like that," she turned over her shoulder and smiled.

Kothar reached out to touch her face before retreating into the shadows, and disappearing back into the hall.

Alone for the first time in hours, Meredith's mind spun. She wasn't sure how much more she could take of this strange life she'd had thrust upon her. A chill breeze cooled the heat on her face, and she tilted her head back to accept droplets of water carried by the wind onto the veranda. She shuddered inside the stiffness of her gown, and drew her arms tight around her chest.

"What if I never remember who I am?" She wondered out loud. "Will I just fall into place, queen of this strange world I don't remember? Become the wife of a man who intrigues, yet terrifies me?"

The excitement of the party just beyond the doors shuffled out to draw her back inside to the party. Merriment, the obnoxious laughter of a Lady Swinebank who snorted and reeled at every joke more raucously than anyone else in the room.

Meredith’s mind quickly roamed away Lady Swinebank, and settled on her meeting with Kothar. For a moment she closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it might feel to dance in his arms. There was no doubt in the comfort and familiarity of his presence, but it was a wary comfort, an uncertain gladness that she scarcely trusted.

If only she could just remember…the booming sound of Kothar's laughter echoed onto the veranda, and she started toward the doors.

“Majesty?” A squeaking whisper called out from the dark. “Majesty, is that you?”

“Who goes there?” She shrank away from the dark and drizzle, and clung to the desperate orange flicker of torchlight beside her.

“It is me, Majesty, your loyal servant Gorigast.” In a flash of the light she caught sight of his pale countenance when he stepped forward.

"Gorigast?"

“I have been here waiting for you so I might make things right again.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The dim light from the lantern behind Meredith enhanced the shadows in his gaunt face and neckline, making him appear ghastly and sinister.

“Gorigast,” she recognized the name, a momentary flash of imagery that teased the outskirts of memory, then drew quickly back into the darkness. “What are you doing, skulking in the shadows? The ballroom is no place for a servant."

"Majesty, if you would only listen, there are things…dark things afoot here, and I fear your life is in great danger."

"What are you talking about? You brought me here yourself to be married to the king."

"I made a mistake."

"A mistake?" She turned her eyes downward and squinted in the dark to study his face. "The only mistake I see here is that it is hardly proper for a lady to meet with her servant in the shadows. Speak quickly, or I'll call for the guards."

"Your mind is quite lost, Lady," Gorigast said. "The Nether Lake… It stole your companion and broke your spirit. Your mind… It hides from the pain of the truth."

"My companion?"

There were brief interludes of tentacles, dark waves rising up to claim her, hands reaching, a voice calling out to her amidst the crash of water. "Go, Merry! You promised."

"The Hunter," Gorigast hung his head low, thin, straggling pieces of hair falling like a veil into his face. "He was taken into the Nether. I went back to try and find him, but he is gone."

Her voice trembled. "I don't know what you're talking about."

But she did, didn’t she? Some distant part of her remembered the oily starlight blinding her eyes, the close tuck of her body as she floated through the night sky of another world.

Shaking her head, she refused the thought. It was madness. No such places existed.

Gorigast lifted the satchel he'd found on the shore toward her. His hands shook so hard he feared he might drop it and damage the pretty trinket inside. "Pieces of the raft…all splinters on the shore. But I found this, Majesty. I found your treasure."

Meredith hesitated, reaching out, but not taking the bag from him at first. Still damp from the water, it glistened with an oily sheen against the jumping orange light behind her. "What is it?"

"A mask," he said. "Ancient, powerful." He shoved it forward again, gesturing for her to accept it. "It's yours."

She accepted the satchel, the leathery fabric cool to the touch. She opened the drawstrings and peered inside, but at the bottom of the bag the contents were nothing more than a shadow. A careful hand entered into the bag, fingers caressed the deeply carved object at the bottom, wrapped around the edge and drew it out into the light.

"I..." Owl feathered, trailing with elm leaves, gold and silver beauty radiated in the night. "I know this mask," she whispered.

Once more, images leaped through her mind, taunting her with revelation on the verge.

“Why…” She took fragile mask into her hands and for a moment there was complete and total understanding, but as quickly as it had come to her, it left. “I know this mask, I do."

“Yes,” Gorigast hissed.

“And strangely fitting you should give it to me here at this masquerade where I am the only one without a disguise.”

It tingled in her fingers, ancient energy drawing toward into her body, but then the doors behind her clamored open and Gorigast slinked back into the night, leaving her alone there on the veranda. A throng of voices clashed with the silence, and then the doors closed them inside the hall once again.

"I've brought you a glass of water," Kothar approached her from behind.

Meredith swallowed and turned to face him, the mask in her hands quickly hidden behind her back. The urge to hide it from him, and so she kept one hand behind her back, the other reaching for the goblet of water he offered.

“I fret the wine went to my head," a quick grin flashed upon her mouth. "Water will surely clear my muddled senses."

"The color has returned to your cheeks," he said. "The night air must have worked its magic on you."

"Indeed," she sipped from the water. "I am feeling much refreshed. In fact, I feel like dancing.”

“Dancing,” his face lit up. “Shall we cue the musicians?”

“As you wish, Sire."

He held his arm out for her, and she stepped up quickly to join him. In her other hand, she managed to hide the golden owl mask inside the folds of her dress, but she wasn’t sure how long it would hold there. She needed to hide it just until she had a moment alone to put it on, but now that she had already excused herself, what excuse could she possibly find to break away from Kothar long enough to put it on?

With no more than a gesture of Kothar’s hand, the music began and he turned inward to face her. He lifted that same hand and confidently clasped her own, his long fingers curling over hers. He lowered his other hand onto the curve of her hip and drew her near.

The dance floor opened up to honor them. Meredith's face grew warm again when she realized all eyes were on her. Whispers fluttered through the ballroom on wings, envious maidens with contorted faces gawping at their future queen in desperate loathing.

Kothar stepped forward to the music, and Meredith stepped back, their bodies in perfect time to the rhythm.

He was unmasked for the moment, and when he looked down the length of his nose at her he offered a playful smile. The scar that marred his eye turned it milky white behind the puckered flesh, but something about that scar made him all the more beautiful. He was an obvious warrior, and she wondered about the battle in which he'd won that scar. One day she would ask him, when they were married and familiar and he would deny her nothing.

He held her gaze as they waltzed before the crowd, and then leaned close to whisper, "When I was a younger man I dreamed of holding you in my arms this way."

A series of chills rippled the curved length of her spine, and when she momentarily attempted to pull back and gauge his face for meaning, he gripped her tighter, holding her in place. The squeezing of his fingers around hers sent spasms of pain through her hand and into her wrist. Meredith gasped, and as if calling himself into check, he loosened his grip.

She did not draw away, but kept her composure and continued to dance.

"I'm sorry, my love," he whispered. "My anxious emotions got the best of me. I meant you no harm."

"Of course not," she forced a smile onto her lips.

Beneath the fabric of her gown, she felt the cool metal of the mask she was hiding. It tingled against her skin as if resonating with her energy. Her mind swam with confused emotion and misplaced imagery.

For a moment she heard a voice inside her head.
You did not love him, but you loved your uncle very dearly, and you understood court politics and the need for such arrangement.

"It was my uncle who sent me here," she could hardly stop the words before they escaped her.

Kothar's grace faltered and he stopped in mid-sway. And then he drew her in close and dipped her back over his forearm. He hovered dominantly over her, his lips drawn in a breathtaking sneer.

Who was this man who swept her nearly off her feet, and yet held her at bay as though waiting for her to betray him? Was he man at all, she wondered, and then glanced back over her shoulder in distraction, her eyes taking in the masquerade of bizarre reality that flurried and swam all around them.

“You are an elegant dancer,” he noted. “So light and free in your movement. I feel as though I could sweep you away from this place."

Meredith anticipated his next move and yielded to the sway of their bodies in circular motion as he drew her back upright. “As are you, my king.”

Upright again, she looked back into the amalgam of odd masks and faces that crowded onto the dance floor.

“This world is filled with such color and peculiar wonder. I am amazed by this place, and somewhat frightened.”

“Frightened?” He tossed his head back, a tumble of laughter spilling from his parted lips as he lowered his face back to hers. “There is nothing here to be frightened of. In scarcely a few hours all that are here will bow before you, their queen.”

“I beg your pardon, Sire…”

“Do call me Kothar,” he insisted.

“Kothar, you must forgive my strange behavior,” she explained. “It is not this place, nor these people that frighten me, simply the overwhelming nature of it all. Becoming queen in a strange kingdom. If only I could remember…”

“What is there to remember?" He asked. "You're here now. That's all that matters."

 He leaned in closer, so close that their bodies were no more than a whisper of fabric apart. Meredith could feel his skin’s warmth beneath the silky material of his shirt, and the solidity of his frame in position with her own, the power of his arms and chest.

When he bent down to whisper the remainder of his thought there was a flicker of familiarity inspired by the suggestion of intimacy and her knees buckled just a little so that she pressed even closer to him. “I will take good care of you. I promise.”

She glanced away from his compelling stare and watched the mixture of uncanny characters swirl and loop about the dance floor.

"It's just so overwhelming."

“Of course it is, my dear one." He lamented her emotion. "It’s not every day a young woman such as you comes along who is both brave enough and generous enough to see beyond the hideousness that is my domain.”

“Hideousness,” she gasped at the way he insulted his own people and skirted away from the real matter at hand: her memory. “I fear you misunderstand my woe.”

“Then by all means, you are free to explain."

“I won’t deny I was shocked and in some instances appalled by the physical appearances of your subjects, but they are living beings just as you and I, are they not?”

“I suppose in their own right they are,” he lifted a casual shoulder. “But that is hardly the point. There are few who can stomach this kingdom, few who even dare to try. It is a strange and ugly place, especially when compared to the worlds outside my kingdom. You are the first to ever defend their repulsive appearance, to see them as they truly are, living things, and that is why you were meant to be my queen.”

His reference to seeing things as they truly were reminded her again of the mask tangled loosely in the folds of her gown. Her conscious awareness inspired her to fret over it, to fear that at any given moment the wrong movement would disentangle her secret and send it clattering to the floor. She stiffened a little, which caused the sharp edge to jab into her skin, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out.

The dance floor filled once more with the jabbering and excited subjects they spoke of, and Meredith watched with curious eyes as a pair of rat-masked dancers glided past them, completely and totally oblivious to the world around them. There were other strangely masked creatures, snake faces and bird faces and the faces of at least a dozen or more other animals she could have identified if she gave herself the time, but Kothar had swept in closer to her, and she could feel the warmth of his cheek lingering closely to hers. Being so close to him was intoxicating, and she breathed him in, completely oblivious to the danger of his proximity.

“You were meant to rule beside me here, Meredith.” He leaned inward to whisper those words, his voice no more than a zephyr against her cheek. She shuddered at the implication, and tilted her face into his. “Your compassion and wonder will reinspire my entire world, this entire kingdom. I can feel it in my blood.”

She moved back from him and asked, “And is that what you had hoped for? A queen who might redefine your kingdom?”

Kothar arched his brow and grinned devilishly as he asked, “What good is a king’s law without the conflict of his queen’s compassion? You will bring balance,” he said. “Perhaps even peace.”

“How can you be certain then that your laws will not buckle under my compassion?” She wondered aloud. “That your rigid kingdom will not become soft and supple to a lady’s touch?”