Wintersong

  “And so I did, my dear. So I did. Your sister is perfectly safe. She is whole, intact”—he placed a slight emphasis on the word intact—“and hale. My subjects were under orders not to touch her.”

  It had not seemed that way the night before. I remembered a bevy of fawning swains, illicit kisses, and inappropriate touches.

  “Very well, then.” I would not show him any sign of relief, any weakening of my dignity. “I shall collect her and go.”

  “Oh ho ho.” The Goblin King conjured himself a chair and table and sat to face me. “We are not finished. We’ve but just played the second round.”

  “Which I won,” I reminded him. “I am here in your domain now.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said softly. “You are here at last.” There was an inviting edge to his words, an edge that caressed.

  “Here at last,” I agreed. “Soon to be gone.” I spread my hands flat on the table between us. “And so the final round begins. What are the rules?”

  The Goblin King laid his hands on the table as well. His fingers were long, slender, beautifully articulated, and—I saw with relief—with the proper number of joints. Our hands were where we could both see them, an old gesture to prove we were laying down honest wagers. Our fingertips brushed. The whisper of a memory touched me.

  “The rules are simple,” he said. “You found your way in. Now find your way out.”

  “Is that all?”

  He smirked, smug and self-satisfied. “Yes. If you can.”

  “I found my way Underground; I shall find my way back to the world above,” I said. “‘For we walk by faith, not by sight.’”

  The Goblin King raised an eyebrow. “Are you confident,” he asked, finishing the verse, “and willing to be absent from the body?”

  I was startled. I had not expected a king of goblins to recognize words from the Scripture.

  “I am willing,” I said in a low voice, “to do anything that is required of me.”

  A slow smile spread over his face. “What will you play, Elisabeth?”

  I had no answer. I had given him my music; I had given him my all. I did not know what else I had left.

  “You first,” I said instead. “What will you lay down on the table?”

  He watched me closely. “Shall we call each other’s reckoning then?”

  I swallowed. “If you wish it.”

  “Then what would you ask of me?”

  He was laying a vast amount of power at my feet. He was Der Erlkönig, magic and myth and mystery. I could ask him for anything I wished. I could ask for riches. I could ask for fame. I could ask for beauty.

  “My music,” I said at last. “I am not greedy, mein Herr. I will ask only for what was mine to start.”

  He studied me for a long time, so long that I thought he would refuse me. “That is fair,” he said with a nod.

  “And you?” My scalp tingled, and an ache began at the base of my spine, fear or eagerness, I did not know. “What would you ask of me?”

  His eyes held mine. “I would ask the impossible.”

  I struggled to let the Goblin King hold my gaze as heat stained my cheeks. “Bear in mind that I am no saint,” I said, “and cannot work miracles.”

  His lips twitched. “Then I would ask for your friendship.”

  Startled, I removed my hands from the table.

  “Oh, Elisabeth,” he said. “I would ask that you remember me. Not as we are now, but as we were then.”

  I frowned. I thought back to our Goblin Grove dances, to the simple wagers we had made when I was a little girl. I struggled to find the truth hidden within my past, but I was unsure which was memory and which was make-believe.

  “You do remember.” He shifted closer in his seat. There was something like hope in his voice, and I could not bear it.

  The Goblin King lifted his hand. The table beneath us vanished, swallowed up by the earth once more.

  He placed a finger against my temple. “Somewhere within that remarkable mind of yours, you kept those memories safe. Too safe. Hidden away.”

  Was the Goblin King the friend I had imagined—remembered—as a child? Or was he truly the Lord of Mischief, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality? I was restless and itchy within my own mind.

  He left his seat and kneeled before me. His hands rested on the armrests of my chair, but he was careful not to touch me.

  “All I ask, Elisabeth,” the Goblin King said, “is that you remember.” His words were a bass, their notes resonating in my bones. “Please, remember.”

  I shrank from the longing in his voice. “I cannot give you that which cannot be given,” I said. “I could more easily cut off my hand to give you than my memories.”

  We stared at each other. Then the Goblin King blinked and the tension that quivered tight between us snapped.

  “Well,” he said, drawing out the vowel. “Then I suppose we shall have to make do.”

  I nodded. “What would you claim of me?”

  His eyes glittered. “Your hand in marriage.”

  The blunt proposal hit me harder than a blow. “What?”

  The Goblin King crossed his arms and leaned back, his pose insouciant, a smile quirked to one side. Yet somehow his eyes seemed sad.

  “You asked, I answered,” he said. “The answer is you. What I want is you—entire.”

  I swallowed hard. The air Underground was suddenly hot, close, suffocating.

  “What of Käthe?” I whispered.

  For a moment, the Goblin King seemed confused, but then he laughed. “Ah well,” he said. “A bride is a bride. You or your sister, it matters not to the old laws.” He leaned closer. “But if either of us had the choice, would we not rather it be you instead, Elisabeth?”

  I would. But I threw myself upon that thought before it was fully formed, stuffing it back into my heart’s compartments, shutting it firmly closed. “A poor choice you have given me,” I said. “My life, or my sister’s.”

  He shrugged. “All you mortals die in the end.”

  His callousness was a chilling reminder that the Goblin King was not my friend. That despite the soft-eyed man I yearned for, he was still Der Erlkönig, ruthless, indifferent, immortal.

  I’d had enough. “All right,” I said. “The stakes are laid. Is there anything else you need from me, mein Herr?”

  The Goblin King shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “Just know this: you have but the days of winter to escape. The barrier between worlds is thin, but only until the year begins anew.”

  “What will happen if I don’t?”

  His face was grim. “Then you are trapped here forever. My power is great, Elisabeth, but I cannot change the old laws. Not even for you.”

  I took his warning for truth. I nodded and rose to my feet.

  The Goblin King inclined his head at me. “Pfiat’ di Gott. Godspeed, Elisabeth.”

  “I had not thought goblins believed in God.”

  A small wrinkle appeared between his brows. “They don’t,” he said. “But I do.”

  THE BRIDE

  “Well?”

  I blinked. I was back in my barrow, whisked there before I could finish my next thought. Twig and Thistle waited for me, perched on my bed.

  “Well, what?” I asked.

  An unholy glee painted both their faces. “Was he angry with you?”

  My mind was still in the Goblin King’s chambers, even as my body stood in my own barrow. Humans were not meant to be whisked to and fro like this; my grasp of time and space was simple, linear, uncomplicated.

  I shook my head, more to regain myself than to respond. “No.”

  My goblin attendants’ ears pricked up with interest, their knobby fingers reaching for my skin. I shrank from their inquisitive touch.

  “No,” I said in a firmer voice. Twig and Thistle pushed closer, their sharp-pointed teeth twinkling beneath the fairy lights. “He was not angry with me.”

  Their ears drooped with disappointment. “He wasn’t
?”

  I minded that these goblin girls were not my friends; they, like the Goblin King, were my enemies in this wearisome game.

  “He was not,” I repeated. “And I do not appreciate your little tricks, putting me in that position.”

  “So calm,” Twig remarked, running a shiny black claw over the back of my hand. I snatched my hand away, wrapping the bedsheet tighter about my body. “So calm despite the passion shimmering beneath this fragile, mortal skin.”

  “Mmm,” Thistle agreed, her long nose disconcertingly close to the crook of my neck, where my pulse fluttered erratically. “I like this one better than the other one. This one could sustain us for a very long time.”

  The other one. Did they mean Käthe? I needed to find her, and soon.

  “Enough.” I pushed Twig and Thistle away. They both retreated with a snarl, disappointed by my composure. There was something unsettling about their … eagerness for me. It looked like desire, but felt like hunger. I shuddered, still feeling their ghostly fingers crawling over my skin. “Find me something to eat, something to wear, and take me to my sister.”

  My attendants exchanged glances, their inky eyes blank.

  “I wish you would find me something to wear and I wish you would find me something to eat.”

  A sour expression crossed both their faces; I had said the magic words. I allowed myself a triumphant smile as the goblin girls faded away, leaving nothing but scattered leaves behind.

  After they left, I studied every inch of my barrow, but my room stubbornly remained windowless and doorless. How did goblins travel? Did they simply wish themselves to and fro? I laughed.

  If only our wishes had power indeed.

  Within a few moments my attendants returned, Thistle carrying a dress, Twig carrying a cake and some wine. The dress was a gaudy confection, more suited to a public salon than workaday practicality. The cake looked appetizing, but I remembered the “treats” from the Goblin Ball and did not trust it.

  “No,” I said. “Go back and find me something more suitable.”

  Thistle looked mutinous. “And what do you consider suitable, mortal?”

  I rubbed the fabric of the gown between my fingers. Silk. It was beautiful, but the hoops and panniers and corsets Thistle had brought along seemed more trouble than they were worth, especially if I were to go traipsing Underground with my sister.

  “Something simple,” I said. “None of this silk and satin frippery. Nothing that would take a bevy of servants to sew me into. Something practical.”

  “So boring,” Thistle pouted.

  “Yes.” I didn’t deny her. “And if you can’t find me a dress, bring me a skirt and blouse and I shall make do.”

  Thistle crossed her arms. “I don’t understand. The other mortals loved all the pretty dresses we could find for them.”

  “I am not my sister.” I paused. “The other mortals?”

  “The other brides, of course.”

  I knew that the Goblin King had taken other brides. Constanze was a veritable fount of cautionary tales about women who were too bold, too intelligent, too beautiful, too different. Yet jealousy pricked me with its needle-sharp sting; I was none of those things, and the Goblin King had made me believe he had wanted me—me entire, me alone.

  “What, jealous?” Thistle grinned.

  “No.” But my flush betrayed the lie.

  “Look how pink she is now!” Twig said with delight.

  “What happened to the other women?” I was determined not to let my attendants get the better of me. “What happened to the other brides?”

  “They failed,” Thistle said simply. She went about the business of dressing me.

  “Failed?” I was too surprised to swat her away. “What do you mean, failed?”

  “Stand still,” Thistle growled, trying to lace me into the stays and panniers. The matter was clearly of no great import to her, but the game had changed somehow. I felt I had turned a familiar corner to find a completely different path than the one I expected. Constanze’s stories had never mentioned this.

  “What do you mean, failed?” I repeated the question to Twig.

  The taller goblin girl lifted her bushy brows. “They failed to escape,” she said. “What else would we mean?”

  “Escape the Underground, you mean.”

  Twig shrugged. “Der Erlkönig, the Underground, Death. They are one and the same.”

  “Stop wriggling!” Thistle pinched me with her sharp little claws, and I yelped. “If you let me dress you, then you can go see to your sister. I can tell you she’s already dressed in whatever her retinue have put out for her, and eaten of whatever they have brought.”

  Was she trying to guilt me? I bit back a laugh. If I started laughing, I would cry.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll get dressed. But not in this. Find me another dress.” My stomach rumbled. “And bring me a loaf of bread and some water. Some sausage if you can find it. None of these fairy-made sweets. I will not have my senses clouded by your magic.”

  Twig and Thistle opened their mouths to protest. I glared at them. “I wish…”

  They disappeared without a word, leaving behind nothing but the echoes of a disgruntled sigh.

  * * *

  Once I was properly dressed and suitably fed, I felt much better equipped to face whatever was to come. After questioning both Twig and Thistle, I discovered that the world underground had corridors and thresholds, but no windows or doors. Goblins had no concept of privacy, and there had never been a need to shut an entrance. My barrow room had been sealed for my comfort. Orders of the Goblin King.

  “Can you also conjure things from the earth?” I asked my goblin girls.

  They nodded.

  “Then conjure me a door. With a lock on it.”

  It was a while before they understood exactly what I needed. Thistle and Twig took my descriptions and fitted me with a circular door, odd but satisfactory. The lock was a strange device of their own invention, but serviceable. We three were the only ones with a key.

  My barrow opened into a corridor. Like my room, it was a mixture of natural and unnatural elements: dirt-packed floors and wrought-iron decorations. Goblin art was both frightening and beautiful; it emulated human art with an extraordinary degree of skillful imitation, but the subjects were not lofty. They were entirely terrestrial. The sconces along the wall were carved not into the shapes of flowers and angels; they were grown from tree roots into the shape of an arm clutching its torch. The paintings on the wall did not depict the traditional scenes of grandeur and glory; they were mostly landscapes. Woods and mountains, streams and brooks, rendered with such precision they seemed like windows to the world above. It alleviated the sense of being trapped underground.

  Thistle and Twig led me along the corridor to a grand hall. Like the ballroom, this space was a cavern of stone with tall, arched ceilings and dripping icicles of glittering rock. Above, the fairy lights danced like stars in the night sky. But I saw not a single goblin, not of Twig and Thistle’s ilk, closer to the earth than humankind.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Working,” Twig said, as though it were the most obvious answer in the world.

  “Working?” I had not thought that goblins worked; at least, not in the way humans did in the world above. It made me wonder: where did goblin food come from? Where did their clothes? Their furniture? Did they have goblin farmers? Goblin craftsmen? Constanze’s stories never told me much about the Underground itself, only what happened when its denizens trespassed into the world above. Always fighting, always tricking, always stealing, the goblins always sought to take away what did not belong to them.

  “What,” Thistle said sourly. “Did you think all this was created by magic?” She waved her long, many-jointed fingers about the great hall.

  “Well, yes,” I admitted. “Couldn’t you just … wish this all into existence?”

  The goblin girls laughed, their cackling giggles echoing up the walls l
ike skittering roach feet.

  “Mortal, you know nothing about the power of wishes,” Thistle said. “What the old laws giveth, they taketh in return.”

  I thought of the careless wishes I had thrown around, and a whisper of foreboding touched me.

  “All must be in balance,” Twig explained. “Ever since we were sundered from the world above and driven Underground, we were granted the power to travel as we wished. But nothing comes for free, mistress, and we built this kingdom with our own hands. Now, you must excuse us, mistress,” she said. “We have other duties to which we must attend.” She pointed above our heads. “The fairy lights will guide you to your sister.”

  I looked up at the ceiling. A shower of bright motes began to fall about me like snow, resting lightly on my shoulders and hair. I laughed; magic or no, it was enchanting. It tickled. The fairy lights spun about me before resolving into a golden stream of light. I followed the path down the hall and into another corridor.

  Käthe’s barrow room was on the other side of the great hall. The corridor leading to her room looked very much like mine, but the human touch on this side of the Underground was stronger. The paintings hung on the walls were similar to what we might see in the gallery of a great estate: portraits and pastoral scenes, all showing the Goblin King.

  At first I was inclined to dismiss them as yet another self-aggrandizing display of Der Erlkönig, but as I walked farther down the timeline of portraits, I noticed something curious. The fashions and artistic hand changed and shifted through the centuries—as to be expected—but so too did the sitter.

  I did not notice the changing faces at first, for each successive portrait showed kinship with its predecessor. Yet there were subtle differences between them all that one could not simply attribute to differing artists. They all shared similar features—the long, elfin face, high cheekbones, preternatural and relentless symmetry—but the slope of the jaw, the set of the eyes, as well as the colors of the irises, were each as distinct as a snowflake in a storm. They were all different men, and yet, at the same time, they were all Der Erlkönig.

  Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes, gray eyes, but none were the mismatched wolf’s eyes of my Goblin King. I walked up and down the gallery, studying each face, looking for the pair I knew.