Close Kin (32 page)

"You do
this."

Marak looked up. Irina was pulling
fine brown yarn out from
under her cupped
hand, just as steadily and easily as if she were hid
ing a spool beneath
her fingers.

"Yes,
that's what you do," murmured Marak, watching her.
"Kate
and Sable, you try now."

After a few
false starts, Sable got a sort of string going, but it kept
getting
fatter and thinner. Kate produced crumbled leaves stuck together in a long
line, and Sable's string tangled and broke off.

"Keep
trying," said their teacher. "It's not an easy spell." The
two
women looked at each other and then at Irina. A fist-sized pile of perfect yarn
lay by her rapidly moving fingers.

"Marak, I
need more of that stuff," Irina announced happily.
"I've
run out."

Kate had never
found a magic class so long before. After quite a
bit
of work, Sable could produce a rough yarn, but Kate's efforts continually
frizzed or clumped back into plant bits.

"You'll
notice that we've been working on brown yarn, for winter
clothes,"
remarked their teacher. "In order to make green yarn, you add
nisakha,
'of
spring,' to the end of your spell, making it 'voices
blending in a single melody of spring.' I'd like you to try making
green yarn for next time. Kate, why don't you stay for a few minutes. I'll help
you practice."

By next class, Sable had a tolerable
brown yarn to exhibit, but
her green yarn
was more of a brown-green tweed. Kate shamefacedly
exhibited a handful
of rough twine. It was dark gray, speckled all over with pale wool fibers.

"Did you make
green yarn?" Marak asked Irina with interest.

"Oh, yes," she answered
readily, reaching into her bag. "First I
made
green for a while," and she pulled out a neat skein of beautiful,
soft
green yarn. "Then I went back to brown again," and she pulled
out another skein, of lovely brown yarn. "But
then I got tired of
green and brown," she confessed. "They're
so boring. I started to
play with the
spell, and first I made black because that's a melody of
the night, you know," and she pulled out a
handful of jet black yarn.
"And then I made red because that's a
melody of the heart."

Marak picked up the
skeins and studied them carefully.

"That's wonderful, Irina,"
he remarked. "I've never read of any
elf
using the spell this way before." At the end of class, he asked them
to continue working on their brown and green yarn.
"But, Irina," he
said,
"I'd like you to see how many different colors you can make."

For the next
three days, Irina could be seen at work on her yarn,
sitting in the hall staring at a particular mosaic tile
or looking out the
window at the deep
blue color of the lake valley sky. When class
came
again, she had fifty-six different colors to exhibit, including a
bright,
metallic yarn that she had modeled on Tinsel's hair.

Marak showed
them how to make their yarn into cloth, a process more like knitting than
weaving, so it produced a stretchy fabric. He
assigned them to try it for homework. Sable had a modest
swatch of
green cloth to exhibit on the
appointed day. Kate produced some
thing that
looked like a rag for scrubbing dishes, and her eyes dared the goblin King to
comment. He didn't, of course, but he was aware of its history. He privately
felt that it would have turned out better if
she hadn't flung it against
the wall so many times.

When called upon
to exhibit her cloth, Irina pulled out a beauti
ful
tunic of blended green and blue yarn.

"This is
for the prince," she explained. "I got the idea because his
eyes are green and blue. I used two yarns at the same
time as I worked
the spell, and that
makes the whole thing so much more interesting because sometimes you look at it
and see the green and sometimes the blue."

"But,
Irina," said the goblin King, stunned, "I haven't taught
you
how to make the cloth into clothing yet. I haven't taught you
how to join the seams." Irina's tunic had
perfect elf seams, which is
to say,
no seams were there at all. The garment appeared to have been
made all
in one piece.

"Sure, you
taught me," said Irina carelessly, and when he shook
his
head, she giggled. "You're always joking," she observed.

"Marak,"
asked Kate plaintively that evening, untangling her elf
cloth, which kept knitting itself into a ball, "if
Irina's so bad at
magic, how can she
be so good at this?"

"Most
magical people have a special talent," he replied from the
checkers
game he and Catspaw were playing. "Almost all of Irina's magic is
concentrated in this one talent. She has an astounding gift for textiles. Other
elf women doubtless had it, too, but because of
their upbringing, it never would have occurred to them to make
cloth
that wasn't green or brown. Irina's mind is open to new ideas,
so she's trying all sorts of things. I can't wait
to see her final project."

Marak had asked
them to make any item of cloth or clothing they
would like as their final project. Kate glanced down
unhappily. She was making a scarf It was useless in the goblin kingdom, but it
was
the easiest thing she knew.

"I'm supposed to have all this
magic," she said with a frown, "and Sable outdoes me about half the
time."

"It's a shame I
can't teach you defense magic," murmured the
goblin King. "Your attack and dismemberment
spells would astound the class." He made a motion with his hand, and his
checker jumped
one of Catspaw's
checkers. Then it seized the unlucky checker and ate it.

"I don't want
to dismember anyone!" exclaimed Kate in horror.

"You just
think you don't," remarked her husband absently. "But
I'll
bet you enjoyed beheading the sorcerer." Catspaw's checker
jumped one of his. Then it jumped up and down on
his checker
until it was tiny bits.

Kate thought
about that, smoothing out her snarled brown
cloth.
Almost seven years before, when her husband and half the King's Guard had been
enslaved by a human sorcerer, she had left the kingdom to rescue them, and
while that sorcerer lay before her, helpless and paralyzed, she had beheaded
him with one blow of a
sword. She enjoyed
thinking about how she had saved her little girl,
Til, from that horrible man, and she enjoyed
thinking about liberating the goblins. But she never, ever let herself think
about the satisfaction she had felt when she saw the sorcerer's head roll
across the
floor. Ladies didn't enjoy doing such things. She felt
supremely annoyed at Marak for bringing it up.

"What's your special
talent?" she demanded. "You never have a problem with any
magic."

"That's
different," chuckled Marak. "I'm a King. I have as
much
magic as about twenty of you, maybe more. Besides, not all
magic is as easy for me as you think. I really
have to concentrate on
my dwarf spells."

"I'm so
sorry for you," said Kate bitterly. Her elf cloth rolled up
and fused itself into a solid mass. Marak waved his hand,
and one of
his checkers
reached the last row. It blossomed into a golden crown
and
did a small victory jig.

Class time came
again, and Kate produced her brown scarf. It
looked
as if it had already been worn for several years, perhaps by a
cart
horse.

"Very
good," said the goblin King.

"Don't
start," warned his wife.

Sable produced
a tunic and breeches that she had made for Tin
sel.
She had spent a humbling afternoon with Irina learning how to make black cloth
and getting help on the seams.

"Beautiful!" commented
Marak. "Nice, even color, very well made. He has my permission to wear
this on duty."

Sable glowed
with pleasure. "But he doesn't have to," she
protested
modestly. "I like Tinsel in black anyway. It goes with his coloring."

They turned to Irina. She had been
very secretive about her
project, and not
even Sable had managed to pry loose a clue. Now she
reached into her bag and unrolled a tapestry
about three feet square.

"This is the
lake where we had our summer camp," she
explained to her dumbfounded audience. "It was
always my favorite camp. I was born there. You see this little grove of birches
here, but most of it is oak and ash. The full moon shows up twice because it's
high enough to shine in the water, and I never really saw
a stag on the
hill like that, but I put him in
because deer are just so pretty, don't you think?"

"This is an amazing
achievement," said Marak, putting his arm
around her. "After lunch, I'd like to introduce you to two of our
best
weavers. You'll think they look funny, but they're very nice, and
they're the strongest elf-cross weavers I have. I
hope that you'll agree
to work with them."

"Oh, good,"
said the elf girl, beaming up at him. "Are they
going
to teach me how to weave?"

"No,
Irina," said the goblin King thoughtfully. "I'm hoping
that you can teach
them."

As the months
passed, all three of the marriages that came from the
elf
quest prospered. Marak was satisfied that the elf women were happy, and he
wasn't surprised that his own wife was happier, too. Kate had found a real
friend in Sable. The two women spent lots of time together, studying their
lessons or just talking about life.

Sable did have
a moderate talent for healing, but she didn't pur
sue
it. The suffering she had been through made her nervous and
unhappy around those who were in pain, and it
soon became apparent that her heart and a large share of her magic belonged to
mathematics. Poring over the old texts in the King's library, she mastered
all that was known of elvish math and went on to
develop it in ways
that no goblin had ever considered.

Always ready to exploit a resource,
Marak asked Sable to work with the dwarves on their building and decorating
projects. Ordi
narily, these two races had
nothing to offer each other: the dwarves
suffered from a kind of reverse claustrophobia if removed from their
mines
and tunnels, and the captive elves of past days had always longed for the
outside world and the sky. But Sable's interest in mathematical patterns
matched the taste of the dwarves who had a
talent
for architecture. Together, they renovated some of the palace's
most
important spaces.

Irina, caused a sensation in the
goblin world. Without a doubt, she was the most imaginative elvish dress
designer who had ever lived, and her bold use of color and texture made her a
celebrity
among the fashion-conscious
goblins. Impossible to imitate, difficult
to obtain, an original Irina
gown was the finishing touch to any
special
occasion. But money and prestige were not enough to secure one. Irina's clients
soon learned that the amiable elf woman enjoyed
company. Those who
stopped by her busy workroom found their
projects
moved to the head of the list. Thus the awkward, unwanted
tag-along girl from the elf camp days soon found
herself in the center
of an adoring throng.

Only one person in the kingdom
disliked the newcomers from the very start, and nothing could change her mind.
Kate's human
foster daughter Til had been
the leader of an exclusive clique among
the pages, but Richard's coming had wrecked it. The foundling who
knew how to pick pockets and survive in the
daylight world seemed
to be everyone's darling. He could tell stories
about scary human
criminals and smoky
London alleys, and he mesmerized the impres
sionable pages. Richard
rapidly developed into a favorite in the
guardroom
as well. With his streetwise smarts and easy, likable nature,
he was
equally at home in a gathering of grownups or children. People stopped taking
notice of the infuriated Til.