Silver Sona 2-2

SILVER SONA [2/2]


"Silver Sona, tell the goblins to leave their hills."

"Silver Sona, the army must be hidden before the Men of the Long Ships arrive."

"Silver Sona, don't you want Egg to be a grand city?"

At last, sick at heart, she went to the oldest and most gnarled willow in the forest where her father labored. She laid her head against the bark and called upon the fairy godmothers.

When she turned, dawn was breaking, and a fairy sat on a great red toadstool with a cup of tea. She looked as if she might be cross, but had decided to wait until she heard all before she made up her mind.

"Well?" she said.

Silver Sona bowed until her hair touched the ground in front of her, for that is how one greets a fairy. "Do you recognize me, godmother? You gave me the gift of getting out again from whatever I got into."

At once, the fairy looked less cross. "Ah, Silver Sona! How could I recognize you with those tears turning your face so thin?"

"Godmother, I have gotten myself into something from which I cannot get out again. Last evening, the first sails of the Long Ships came up over the horizon. Rajid needs to hide the army of the King of the Red Hills in the Goblin-King's mines. My oldest and best of friends will not come when I call him. I must beg him to move the goblin-folk, although he will curse me for it and take his friendship away."

"I know the old pumpkin-head," said the fairy. "He has a wicked and wild temper. He will never forgive your asking."

"Yet I must, because Rajid has asked this of me. I cannot refuse him, though a crack runs through my heart at the thought."

The fairy threw her cup into the air, where it turned into a soap bubble. "What have you come to ask of me?"

Silver Sona trembled, looking into the fairy's wrinkled white face. "Tell me why I cannot get myself free from this."

"Why, child, no one can get free from love. There, the laws have no more power."

"Is there no way out?"

"You could always break a heart," the fairy said, "although you will find it less easy than climbing out of a well."

Silver Sona thought this matter over for a long time, and the sun climbed high into the sky. "If I have fallen into this through love, then love must get me out again," she said at last. "I will dare the Goblin-King's anger for the sake of Rajid."

---

She went to the old gray hills, though they lay grim and silent. She climbed down the goblin-shafts and through the twisting tunnels, and came to the vast cavern under the earth where the goblin-city lay glittering beyond any human imagining. The Goblin-King's people had always smiled to see her, but now they looked strange and wild in their armor.

She passed through them without pausing, and came to the Goblin-King's court, where he sat on his great twisted throne with the crown of thorns around his head. There she knelt before him, where she had always climbed up to take his hand.

"I know why you come to me, little Sona," the Goblin-King said, speaking oh, so low. "My army is prepared to fight alongside your red-headed soldiers, if you ask it, and they will not leave a single man for the Long Ships to carry home. Then we will leave these hills and go beyond the sight of any mortal eye and the reach of any mortal foot. This is my answer. Now, ask of me what you will."

Then the crack in Silver Sona's heart widened, and she heard the echo of it breaking in the Goblin-King's breast, where she had never heard Rajid's.

She did not ask. She rose and went out again from the goblin-city, through the ranks of the army under the earth.

She returned to Egg as the twilight fell, as white-faced as any fairy, and on the horizon the sails of the Long Ships grew larger. Red-headed Rajid stood waiting for her on the edge of town. He wrapped his cloak about her and kissed her cold hands. "Silver Sona, you look ill."

"I have been to see the Goblin-King," she said. "He has agreed to hide the army of the King of the Red Hills in his goblin-mines."

"Then I shall tell my commander—"

"No, Rajid. First come and speak to him yourself; for you are more polite than the rest, and more cunning, and he knows you are dear to me."

She led him, not into the hills, but into the middle of town. All the folk of Egg had closed their shutters and hid their valuables; all the soldiers of the King of the Red Hills lay in their tents, sharpening their swords. "This is not the way," Rajid said.

"There are goblin-shafts and goblin-mines all under this country, more than most folk imagine. One lies at the bottom of this well, just above the waterline. I have climbed down here and out again many a time. Tie this rope around your waist and I will lower you down."

"Can you bear my weight?"

"I am strong for a woman." So he let her lower him to the bottom of the well.

When he felt the water rise around him, he shouted up, "No further! I cannot find the entrance."

Silver Sona nodded to herself, and tossed the other end of the rope after him. "By your right hand, you will find a ledge," she called back. "You will not drown if you keep good hold. If I live through the day, I come back to set you free."

"Silver Sona, you are a false and black-hearted woman!"

"I am true," she said, although her head sank upon her breast. "By this, Rajid, I keep you safe. If climbing out of this well is too much for you, then pity me for my own struggle. You have always been kind; be so again, and forgive me one day." And she put the cover over the well, so no one would hear him shouting.

She went down to the sharp black rocks of the shore, where the surf rushed like wicked laughter, and climbed out as far as she could go. The tide rose, the clouds covered the moon, and she stayed, looking not out to sea and the ghostly moonlit sails, but inland to the specter of the old gray hills above the town of Egg.

---

When the morning came, the hulls of the Long Ships hissed over the shore, and the men who sailed them leapt out with wild whoops and cries. They had seen the tents of the unhidden army, and would not be surprised. The red-headed soldiers of the King of the Red Hills came out to meet them, fierce and bold.

Before the first resounding ring of sword on sword, a voice rang out across the shore, and every man stopped and listened. Did it come from the red-headed soldier trapped at the bottom of Egg's well? Did it come from the old gray goblin-hills? Did it come from the mouths of the carved dragon's head at the prow of the Long Ships?

No: it came from Silver Sona, standing in the curl of the waves.

"Lay down your swords and shields," she cried. "You soldiers of the King of the Red Hills, leave this town and return to your red castle. Men of the Long Ships, leave these shores behind for your own lands, and never turn this way again. Go forth in peace. And learn to farm and feed yourselves."

And they went, leaving the shore covered in the silver of abandoned shields.

When all had gone, Silver Sona walked back across the rocks, although they were slick with foam and she was nearly blind with tears. She walked back through Egg without a word, although the townsfolk crowded around her with cheers. She went to the well, where Rajid still clung to the ledge, and she carried him out with his arms around her neck.

"Where are my comrades?" he asked, when he saw the empty tents.

"They have gone home to where they belong—as you shall, as well. Go now. I keep the best of you in my heart."

He did not understand—but Silver Sona's father stood by, holding out Rajid's pack and sword.

"Silver Sona, where did the Men of the Long Ships go?"

"Silver Sona, why do you look so pale and sick?"

"Silver Sona, what have you done?"

She stumbled, but before she fell, long bony arms reached out to catch her. The folk of Egg fell back, speechless with shock. The Goblin-King himself stood there in the broad light of morning, with his thorny crown black around his head and a wrinkled, parchment-skinned fairy at his side, who barely came up to his waist. He lifted Silver Sona in his arms as he had when she was a small child lost in his mines.

She gazed on him in no less wonder than the rest. "You said you could never stray from your goblin-kingdom," she said.

"Little Sona, you who dared to question a fairy to her face, have you forgotten her answer so quickly? The laws have no power over love."

The fairy said, "Child, my brother offers you all of his city, and all of his palace, and everything in the goblin-kingdom under the earth. Are you not afraid now that you will not get out again?"

Silver Sona put her hands up and removed the jack-o'-lantern mask, and saw his true face underneath. "I can leave the goblin-city," she said. "It is the heart of its King from which I could never free myself—and of that, I have no fear."

And he kissed her, and carried her back to the old gray goblin-hills in the sight of all of the folk of Egg.



THE END