A Thief of Nightshade(45)

Now, with bruised shoulders and an aching side, he sat tied with chains to a large metal contraption that he was fairly sure meant a rather untimely end. But, more than his own well being, he worried about Aubrey.

Grotesque little creatures milled about, carrying tools that sent chills down his spine, and he tried the strength of his bonds for the thousandth time, to no avail.

“Where’s your companion?”

Aislinn turned to see a dumpy, brownish gray lump of a goblin standing to his left. “What companion?” he asked innocently.

The goblin stabbed at Aislinn’s arm with a blazing hot poker that he’d failed to see.

He growled, half in pain and half in fury. “Slimy, deformed piece of—wait until I get out of these chains. We’ll see how that poker looks shoved up your—”

The goblin laughed at him and poked again, this time sending Aislinn into a screaming fit.

“She won’t get far anyway. Besides, His Majesty already has what he was looking for.”

Aislinn glared at him, his breath coming in gasps. “Where is she?”

The goblin reached a table beside them and exchanged the poker for a

shining serrated blade. “You’ll see her soon enough. We’ve got some ...

adjustments to make first.”

In Jullian’s tale, Goblin Keep was as drab and dark as the cell she’d just left. As they emerged from the underground prison, she found that Koldavere itself was as she’d imagined it; dreary and unrefined, sludge coating everything from the stone streets to the rudimentary dwellings that flanked the narrow road that led to the castle.

The goblins’ slimy, knotted hands dug into her arms. She fell a couple times and was pulled inelegantly to her feet in their haste to bring her before the King.

She could sense their enjoyment and it bothered her perhaps more than anything else. What if an audience with the King meant sudden death? Just because it couldn’t be refused didn’t mean it was a positive thing. Hadn’t Jullian said that what he told her was a watered down version of the real thing? She’d laughed at that comment then, but wished more than anything she’d pressed him to tell her more.

How could I possibly have known that he wasn’t kidding?

She wasn’t finished regretting her choice when they finally reached Goblin Keep, and just like Koldavere, it seemed like a giant rotting corpse of a building.

She cringed as they walked through the doors, closing her eyes while they progressed through several terrifying halls, full of shouting and hissing, until she was announced and left standing alone.

“Surely you didn’t demand an audience with the King just to stand here with your eyes closed.”

Aubrey slowly opened her eyes and was floored. The room was resplendent, not like the medieval grandeur of Tabor’s throne room, where the woodwork, the furniture and the tapestries made drab walls look impressive. Here, even the ceiling was painted with glittering colors and the walls were complete with murals of beautiful, peaceful scenes. And, as Jullian had said, it was full of sculptures, but these, too, were unexpected. In his tales, they had been crude reproductions, giving the impression that a child had played at being a master artist, but the figures she saw could have reached out and touched her. She looked around for the face that went with the dusky voice, but no one stood near her. No one living, at any rate.

She reverently swept her fingers across the immaculately carved guests, marveling at the detail and the grace with which each figure had been rendered, as though a host of living creatures had come and simply been frozen in place. She touched the face of a young maiden and the hand of a small boy as it held the leash of his dog. She searched the aged lines of an old man and then, caught by the shine of his armor, she paused at the breastplate of a knight, his face partially hidden by a silver mask. He wore a deep red velvet cloak that was pulled over his head and pooled at his shoulders.

With her hand resting on the knight’s chest, she asked the anonymous voice, “And what if I have?”

A voice suddenly called out behind her, “Pity, with such beautiful eyes, that you would close them again.”

She dropped her hand and turned around, but there was no one there. “Will you not show yourself?” A hand fell on her shoulder then and she screamed.

“If you wish.”

Aubrey turned to see that the knight had somehow come to life, his mouth upturned in a grin. He withdrew his hand and gave her a partial bow. She didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t a teenage boy, as Jullian’s story had indicated, nor was it a goblin—indeed this was a flesh-and-blood man. She stumbled backwards a little, catching herself before she fell completely. “How did you...?”

He stepped out of his place and motioned toward the wall behind her where his voice had come from.

“Throwing one’s voice is easy enough.”

He stepped in front of her and asked in a soft and gentle tone, “Now, why have you requested an audience with me?”

She genuinely didn’t know what to say. She’d quickly come up with a handful of witty remarks for either a young boy or a gruesome creature, but she had nothing to say now. “You aren’t a goblin.”

“And you aren’t from Avalar.”

She looked down at her mud-soaked clothes and felt terribly out of place. “No.

I’m not. We were taken prisoner, my friends and I. You must let us go, we have to make it to the Winter Court before the coronation.”