Chapter 43
Avalina took her time cleaning every last speck of dirt off Mitternacht she could find, before attacking all the imaginary bits she may have missed.
She never rushed when she brushed him down, but the fact that she would have to go into the castle sooner or later did not speed her up one bit.
Wiping his haunches down with the palm of her hand, she was pleased to see that he was as spotless and glossy as a precious stone.
Tossing the dirty brushes into the box, she grabbed some clean ones and kept going, still singing and humming the same song over and over again to herself she had been singing when she arrived.
Briefly, she wondered what the Horned King had thought, if he had even been watching. She had been pretty sure he had, but whether he had heard or not was another thing.
As she scratched Mitternacht's neck in that place he really liked, Avalina couldn't decide if the Horned King hearing it was a good thing or not.
Most of her sincerely hoped he hadn't, but deep inside her heart, the tiniest part of her wondered if he had.
It had been rather dull the last three days.
With no one in the castle besides the goblin and the Invisibles, the Horned King had been stuck with nothing to do except re-read all the books he had already re-read a thousand times concerning the Black Cauldron.
Much more of this and he'd have the blasted things memorized.
The Invisibles were back to their old antics, doing everything short of actually destroying something.
They were infuriating, but with the girl gone they were also the only action and movement the castle had.
The morning after Avalina had left, the Horned King had nearly been flattened by a serving trolley that had came flying down the stairs.
The same set of stairs the goblin had sent his trolley down.
When he had demanded to know what they were doing, they replied that they were trying to duplicate what the goblin had done so skillfully.
They had moved furniture, wadded up rugs at the base of the steps, and did everything but turn the room upside down, experimenting with direction, speed, and obstacles.
The worst part of it had been that the other two Invisibles had hounded him out of his own chambers and all the rooms at the back of the castle so they could clean there, so in every single room the Horned King had frequented while he waited, (Rather impatiently) he could plainly hear the trolley going down the steps, above or below him, it didn't matter.
Constantly.
Ceaselessly.
This went on for three hours.
Wondering how in the name of all the gods they could do it so frequently (To the point that it truly sounded like catapults crashing stones into the castle. . .metal stones) , he had visited the balcony to see just what they were doing, and to tell them to shut up.
What looked like every single kitchen trolley in the entire bloody castle was lined up on death row on the balcony above the steps, going down one right after the other with not even a second between them.
One Invisible was gleefully kicking them off, the other was pushing in another line of them from the kitchen.
And they were both yelling.
He saw three trolleys on the steps at once for a couple seconds.
The constant vibrating shook the floor under his feet to the point it was infuriating.
Overturned trolleys covered the entire floor from the bottom of the steps, several feet deep, nearly reaching the door.
Give it another half hour and the whole floor would be covered. . .
And the noise. Great gods the noise.
If it were possible for an army of steel horses to exist, the Horned King was sure that this is what they would sound like.
The constant, violent cacophonous noise, coupled with the constant echoing from the old walls and the nonstop screaming and shouting from the Invisibles, blocked out any other noise that may have dared to make so much as a peep inside the castle.
The Horned King couldn't even hear his own voice when he roared at them to stop, and either they ignored him or they were oblivious to his presence.
Swearing something darkly under his breath, his eyes blood red, he marched out the door he had came in by and went to the highest room on this side of the castle, calling them everything under the sun and wishing for the billionth time that he could wring their necks.
After another grueling hour and a half of listening to the nonstop yahoo going on downstairs, the Horned King was in a temper unlike anything he had been in since that Pig-Keeper had destroyed all his plans.
Thinking of the boy did not improve his rage.
After some time, he realized the noise downstairs had stopped.
How long it had been stopped was another question entirely, as his ears were now constantly ringing and he could barely walk.
He could hear the bellowing before he even got close.
From what he could gather, some of the Invisibles were yelling bloody murder at the others.
Easing himself down to the balcony and pushing open the door, the sight that met him made him suddenly wish he had stayed upstairs longer.
Serving trolleys covered every inch of the floor, door to steps, and everywhere in between.
The pile filled the entire room, so much so, that the Horned King only counted five steps leading down to the main floor from the balcony.
He had been certain there was originally thirty.
The fireplace and furniture were nowhere to be found.
It was an endless sea of metal trolleys.
After staring for the longest time, he calmly turned and walked to his chambers, gritting his fangs together tightly.
The only good news of the entire day was that from his chambers (which had been cleaned spotless from top to bottom, except for cobwebs that hung in odd places where there hadn't been any before) he couldn't hear them yelling at each other.
He would let them sort it out.
This time.
Ordinarily he would have roared at them himself, but his head currently hurt far too much for him to make any noise.
The third day, the Horned King stayed by his window, watching the treeline where Avalina had disappeared.
'She's not going to come,' a tiny voice niggled at the back of his mind.
'She will,' he reassured himself.
'After all the things I threatened her with, she'll come.'
As the hours dragged by, however, he began to wonder what she was doing.
Morning turned to noon, noon turned to afternoon, and there was still no sign of her.
Realizing that he was digging his claws into the sill, he forced himself to relax his grip.
'What is that girl doing?!'
He thought, beginning to get angry. If he had to come and get her himself, it would be no trouble.
Carrying out all the things he had told her he would would be no trouble either.
It was the fact that she had lied to him. She had promised him, to his face, that she would come back.
The Horned King did not appreciate being lied to.
Right as the sun touched the horizon, he was about to leave and fetch her, when a small blob of black appeared on the edge of the treeline.
Reaching his hand to his left, he demanded, "Spyglass."
The Invisible wordlessly handed it to him.
It was so far away the glass had trouble picking it up, but as they drew closer he could make out a big black horse and a young girl in the saddle.
Something he noticed, was that the girl was neither slowly walking her horse in dread and defeat, nor galloping in fear or alarm, she was trotting.
Just trotting.
The horse came along easily, at his own pace, and the rider did nothing to alter his gait, despite the fact that the sun was slipping below the horizon rather swiftly, and they weren't inside his courtyard yet.
The Horned King narrowed his eyes.
This was not how he imagined she would return.
By the way she had galloped out three days ago, he had expected her to walk her horse back as slowly as absolutely possible, head down, defeated.
And she came now like a soldier, her head held high, her horse trotting along. . .the image of brave resolve.
Something tickled vaguely against the Horned King's eardrums, something faint, blowing in on the breeze.
Gradually it got louder.
It was high, clear, and light. Like a fresh mountain breeze over a crystal, dancing brook.
Narrowing his eyes, he concentrated harder. . .
And realized it was coming as Avalina and her horse approached.
She was making that noise.
Then it clicked.
'She's singing,' he realized as his brow ridges came up.
'She's singing.'
This was. . .unexpected.
'Why is she singing? She has nothing to sing about!'
He watched her carefully, trying to listen.
From what he could tell from this distance, the first line was on one key for the first half of itself, rose for the second half, and stayed there for the next three lines, before sinking down to the first line's original key, with variations to each verse.
The chorus was the same as the beginning of the verses.
It was a lilting, upbeat tune, yet at the same time it sounded rather melancholy, almost mournful, as if longing for something no words in the world could quite describe.
He could not hear the words from here, but the tune came to him easily on the wind.
It had been centuries since he had heard a single note of music. He had almost forgotten what it was anymore. He had heard no songs, no tunes of any sort. . .nothing.
And this tune. . .this song. . .stirred something deep inside him that he could not name.
He didn't think this feeling had a name.
It was something that he had not felt in nearly a thousand years.
Suddenly, that amount of time seemed inconceivable.
He could only watch and listen as she came inside and the drawbridge closed behind her.
He could faintly hear her singing under the rattle of the chains, but the by the time the bridge was raised, she had stopped.
Gingerly, he touched his chest, looking down at himself, trying to decipher what this unknown feeling was.
Although the song was no longer sung, he could still hear those notes tinkling about in his head, slowly fading into his memories, vanishing when he mentally tried to snatch them.
Carefully composing himself, he heard the Invisible say behind him.
"The sun is now set, Sire. She came back on time as appointed."
The Horned King only gave it a dismissive nod as he continued to stare down into the empty courtyard.
"You are dismissed."