Goblin Quest (2 page)

Prince Rhind of the Woolmark was not often right about things, as Skarper and his friends would realize when they came to know him better, but he was right about that. Things had changed and changed again at Clovenstone. Once, long ago, it had been the castle of an evil sorcerer called the Lych Lord, who had used his goblin armies to try and conquer the whole of the Westlands.

Now his high black keep was gone, and the goblins who remained, living in the ruined towers of the Inner Wall which used to ring it, couldn't really be bothered with conquering anybody. Indeed, the previous summer, when the dwarves of the north had tried to do some conquering of their own, it had been the goblins who helped to defeat them. People in the Westlands were starting to realize that goblins were not all bad, after all.

The cloud maidens' cloud trailed after Prince Rhind like a lovestruck balloon as he followed Skarper up the roads between the ruins, towards the gate that led through the Inner Wall. “It is not
entirely
what I was led to expect,” Rhind admitted, glancing at the giant molehills which the dwarves had left behind. The huge skull of a diremole grinned down at him from the wall above the gate as Skarper heaved on the knocker and shouted, “Open up!”

“Who is it?” yelled a sleepy goblin voice from one of the windows high above.

“It's Skarper, you idiot.”

“Well, why can't you come in the underneath way, the same you went out?”

“I've brought a guest,” said Skarper, pointing at Prince Rhind. “Guests come in the front way, that's polite.”

“Oh, all right,” said the voice, a bit peevishly. “Hang on. I'll come down.”

Skarper and Prince Rhind stood outside the gate and waited. After a few moments Prince Rhind said, “The person I really need to see is your queen.”

“We haven't got a queen,” said Skarper. “There used to be a king – King Knobbler – but we laughed at his pants and he had to go off and live in Coriander. They don't laugh at people's pants in Coriander. Well, not so much.”

Rhind's handsome forehead was creased by a princely frown. “My court sorcerer told me that Clovenstone was ruled by a wise and kindly lady who would help me on my quest.”

“Oh, he must mean Princess Ned,” said Skarper, and his ears drooped. Ned had been wise and kindly, and although she had not exactly ruled Clovenstone – she was more interested in gardening than ruling things – all the goblins had looked to her for guidance. Also for scones. But Ned was dead. She had died quite unexpectedly the previous year, at the end of that business with the dwarves, and there had been nothing that the goblins could do for her except to tend the flowers that grew upon her grave in a corner of the pretty garden she had made inside the Inner Wall.

“I see grief on your face, goblin,” said Prince Rhind. “Don't tell me that the Lady of Clovenstone is dead?”

“All right,” said Skarper. “But I 'spect you'll hear all about it sooner or later.”

Rhind's frown grew approximately fifteen per cent frownier. “That is sad news indeed. I had looked to her to aid me in my quest, you see.”

“There's always Fentongoose and Dr Prong,” said Skarper. “They know all about quests and stuff. I 'spect they'll help you.”

A noisy rattling of keys and undoing of bolts had begun behind the huge gate, and at last it creaked open a little way. An ugly head poked out through the gap and looked the visitor up and down. The head belonged to Libnog, Skarper's batch-brother (which meant that he had hatched from the same batch of eggstones, coughed up like hairballs by the magical slowsilver lake beneath Clovenstone).

“What do we have to be polite to him for?” Libnog asked.

“Because he's a prince, you ignorant goblin!” shouted the cloud maidens, who had been hovering about above, writing CLOUD MAIDENS + RHIND LOVE 4 EVER on the gatehouse wall with icicles. (They had a thing about princes.)

“He's Prince Rhind and he's come all the way from somewhere called Woolmark on some sort of quest,” said Skarper.

Libnog looked Rhind up and down again. Then he tried looking him down and up. Goblins aren't easy to impress, and Libnog wasn't. “I suppose he'd better come in then,” he grumbled.

 

And so it was that Prince Rhind of the Woolmark came to Clovenstone, striding through the dank and dripping tunnel behind the gate and out into the broad central space on the summit of the crag called Meneth Eskern. Once the Lych Lord's Keep had stood there, safe in the circle of the Inner Wall and the six and a half goblin-haunted towers. Armouries and guardhouses stood there still, but all that remained of the Keep itself were mounds of shattered masonry. Among the dark stones, Ned's little garden shone like a trove of treasure, jewelled and gilded with the flowers of spring. The bluebells that grew so thickly there had been planted by Ned herself. They were the magical bluebells of Oeth Moor, and they thrived in the soil of Clovenstone, so rich in slowsilver. Each time the breeze stirred the flowers they actually rang with tiny, pretty, tinkling notes.

Prince Rhind stood listening a moment, then sniffed.

“Why is there a smell of cheese?” he asked.

“That's from the cheesery,” said Skarper. “Didn't I tell you? We make cheese here at Clovenstone now. It gives us something to do, now that we've all stopped fightin' each other all the time.”

“It is most … pungent,” said Rhind, wrinkling up his nose. “In the Woolmark we eat only the cheese of sheep, which does not smell quite so … interesting.”

By that time, the news that a visitor had arrived was spreading fast. From doors and windows all around, the ugly figures of the goblins came creeping. Prince Rhind looked at them nervously. They were not waving weaponry or shouting war cries, like the goblins that he'd heard about in stories, but they still looked pretty ferocious with their fangs and claws and beady eyes, their spiky armour and their studded leather jerkins. He started to wonder if it had really been such a good idea to accept the cloud maidens' offer of a lift and leave his travelling companions to make their own way to Clovenstone.

Then he saw humans pushing their way through the goblin throng – two old men and one young one – and that calmed him a little. The young one stepped out in front of him and grinned. “Welcome to Clovenstone, stranger!”

“I am Prince Rhind,” said the Prince, drawing himself straight and tall again, as if he was posing for his own statue. “You must be … Fentongoose?”

“No, I'm Henwyn,” said the young man. He shielded his eyes against the sun and peered up at the cloud that was hanging overhead. “Hello, cloud maidens!”

“Whatever,” muttered the cloud maidens. They had been very taken with Henwyn once, but that had been before they found Prince Rhind. Henwyn was handsome enough, but he was only a cheesewright who had blundered into Clovenstone seeking adventure; he wasn't an actual
prince
.

“I am Fentongoose,” said the less shabby of the two older men, squeezing between two fat goblins to stand at Henwyn's side. “And this is my friend and colleague, Dr Quesney Prong.”

“Greetings,” said Prong – who was not just shabbier than Fentongoose but taller, thinner and sterner looking.

“What brings you to Clovenstone, Prince Rhind?' asked Henwyn. “I heard the goblins saying something about a vest?”

“He's on a quest,” said Skarper.

“Oh, a
quest
? That makes a bit more sense, now I come to think about it. What sort of quest?”

Rhind frowned quite hard. “I was supposed to speak of it only to the Lady of Clovenstone. But your goblin Skarper tells me that she is no more.”

Henwyn hung his head sadly. Prong and Fentongoose looked glum. Some of the goblins burst into tears.

“Alas,” said Henwyn, “Skarper spoke the truth.”

“Then I am not sure what to do,” said Rhind, scratching his head. “Perhaps I should wait for my companions to join me, so that I may seek their counsel.”

“There're more of you?” asked Libnog.

“Oh yes! My sister Breenge, my cook Ninnis, and my sorcerer, the wise and mighty Prawl.”

“Prawl?” Everyone perked up at the mention of that name. Even the goblins who had been most upset by the reminder of Princess Ned stopped sniffling and blew their noses with loud trumpety sounds on one another's sleeves.

“Prawl?” said Fentongoose. “Not
the
Prawl? From Coriander? Youngish fellow with spectacles and sort of sticky-out ears? Why, he was with me and Carnglaze when we first came to Clovenstone, foolishly believing that we could awaken its old power. I wondered where Prawl had got to! So he travelled all the way to Tyr Davas, did he? But what's all this wise and mighty business? Prawl is not a sorcerer! He's no more a sorcerer than I am!”

“Then this must be a different Prawl,” said Prince Rhind coldly. “For my Prawl is a great and learned sorcerer, wise in the lore of the Westlands.”

Faintly, above the chatter of the goblins and the tinkling of bluebells, the sound of a far-off horn came echoing over Clovenstone from the south.

“Aha! I expect that will be them now!” said Rhind.

“It sounds like they're at Southerly Gate,” said Skarper.

“Then let us go and meet them,” Henwyn declared. “We'll soon find out if this wise and mighty Prawl is
our
Prawl or not!”

It was almost five miles from the towers of the Inner Wall to the crumbling Outer Wall which ringed all Clovenstone, but quite a procession set off down the old straight road through the ruins to meet the new arrivals. Nothing much had happened since Ned's funeral, and the goblins and their softling friends were all eager to see these travellers who came from a land so far away that few of them had even heard of it.

“The land of Tyr Davas, also known as the Woolmark, lies east of Hindhaven and south of the Forest of Croke,” explained Dr Prong as they went tramping south through the ruins. “It is a wide and rolling land of green hills, and the folk who live there are famed for their skill with sheep. The Sheep Lords, men call them. Their king, Raun son of Efan, rules over flocks ten thousand strong from his golden hall at Dyn Gwlan.”

Dr Prong was very keen on educating the goblins, but as usual none of them were listening. They hurried along with the cloud maidens' cloud bobbing above them, and Henwyn went ahead with Prince Rhind because he felt that, now Ned was gone, he was sort of responsible for Clovenstone, and he wanted to stop the goblins from making too bad a first impression on these visitors if he could.

Near the edge of the woods which filled the southern portion of Clovenstone they met with Zeewa, the girl from Musk who had come the summer before to cure herself of a curse and stayed on partly because it was too cold to travel home and partly because she had grown to like the old place and the people who lived there. She did not seem too pleased to see them now, however. The chatter and clatter of the approaching goblins had scared away the deer she had been stalking. She waited, leaning on her spear, at the place where the road plunged into the trees, and called out, “What's happening? Are we under attack?”

“Just welcoming some visitors,” said Henwyn. “Come with us!”

So she did. She was as curious about the newcomers as any of the others, although she did not much like the look of Prince Rhind. Too proud and sure of himself, she thought. She had been like that once herself, for her father was Ushagi, King in the Tall Grass Country west of Leopard Mountain. Her curse, and the curing of it, had changed her, and she thought the change had been a good one. She hoped this snooty-looking young princeling would find something at Clovenstone that would change him, too.

Down the long stair to the River Oeth they all went striding, tramping, scampering. Carefully, carefully they crossed the old stone bridge – but they need not have worried. The troll who lived beneath it was away upriver, hunting with his new friends, Torridge, Cribba and Ken. He had been showing those three urban trolls how proper trolls hunted in the wilderlands, and in return they had persuaded him to stop trying to eat anyone who set foot upon his bridge.

Henwyn and Rhind had just reached the top of the long stairway on the far side of the river, and were waiting there for the others to catch up, when they heard a silvery horn-call. Henwyn saw the bright clothes of the travellers and the harnesses of their horses shining among the trees ahead. He had assumed that they would wait at Southerly Gate, but the goblins who had been on guard there must have fallen asleep or gone off hunting rabbits as usual. The Sheep Lords had ridden straight in, and were making their way up Clovenstone's main road as bold as brass.

When they saw the big crowd of goblins swarming towards them they grew a lot less bold. The two riders reined in their horses and drew swords, and a plump woman who had been strolling along beside a little brightly coloured wagon leaped up on to its seat and made ready to defend herself with an outsized frying pan. Henwyn hurried to meet them, shouting, “Don't be afraid! Welcome to Clovenstone! There is nothing to fear!”

And from amid the little bunch of worried riders a voice replied, “Henwyn! Henwyn! I say, it is me, Prawl!”

So it
is
our Prawl
, thought Henwyn, as the former sorcerer slithered down off his horse and came running over to hug him. He looked very different from the shabby conjurer who had arrived at Clovenstone two years before. He was splendidly dressed in robes of purple felt, with a travelling cloak to match, all embroidered with stars and moons in gold and silver thread. His greyish hair had been trimmed and curled and oiled by someone who knew a lot about trimming and curling and oiling. Henwyn might not have recognized him at all had it not been for his ears, which still stuck out like jug handles, and the pair of spectacles he wore, two little windows in a horn frame, which flashed cheerfully in the sunshine.

“So it's true!” said Henwyn. “You are working for the Sheep Lords now?”

“Oh yes,” said Prawl, waving at Fentongoose and at those goblins whom he recognized. “I set off by sea for Barragan last spring but a storm drove my ship ashore near Molscombe, on the coast of Tyr Davas. When the good people there heard that I was a sorcerer they took me straight to their king at Dyn Gwlan. He was looking for a new wizard, you see. The previous one had accidentally blown himself up when one of his spells backfired. There was nothing left of him but two smoking boots and an unfortunate stain on the ceiling.”

“But you're not a wizard!” said Fentongoose, shaking his friend's hand. “You're no more magical than I am! Ow!” he added (for Doctor Prong had just kicked him on the shin). “What did you that for, Prong?”

“All sorts of strange things have been happening in the world since that Slowsilver Star passed by,” Prong whispered. “It is quite possible that your friend with the ears has developed magical powers. And if he hasn't, and he is just tricking these Sheep people into believing that he is a sorcerer, then I don't suppose he wants you shouting about it all over Clovenstone.”

“Oh!” said Fentongoose. “Fair point. Er, Prawl, allow me to present Doctor Quesney Prong, and Zeewa, from the Tall Grass Country, and … well, you already know Prince Rhind!”

“Greetings, brother,” said the other rider, also dismounting. Pulling off her hat and shaking out her long, fair hair, she revealed herself to be a young woman – a rather hefty young woman, wearing the same sort of felt clothing as Prince Rhind. It was she who had been blowing the horn they had heard. It hung at her side on a crocheted baldric, the long, curling horn of a prize ram. A long bow was slung across her back, and a quiver of arrows with felt flights hung from the saddle of her horse.

“That's Rhind's sister, Lady Breenge, shield maiden of Dyn Gwlan,” whispered Prawl. “She is not just a pretty face. She is a bold warrior, and her bow has slain many a sheep rustler on the borders of Tyr Davas. Don't you think she's the most beautiful girl you've ever seen?”

“Er…” said Henwyn, who hadn't realized that Breenge was a girl at all, she was so big and tough looking. (The goblins, of course, could barely tell male softlings from female ones at the best of times.)

“I am in love with her!” confessed Prawl, blushing. “I was going to turn down King Raun's offer of a job until I set eyes on her, and then I just knew that she was the one for me.”

“And does she return your feelings?” asked Fentongoose.

But it didn't look as if the shield maiden of Tyr Davas did, because she scowled at Prawl and said, “What are you whispering about, sorcerer?” Then, before he could answer, she spoke again to Rhind. “I am glad to find you here, brother. When those sky creatures made off with you, I feared it was all a trick, and that we might never see you again.”

“We're not creatures!” shouted the cloud maidens from above. “He was far safer riding through the sky with us than plodding along behind you on that horse.”

Lady Breenge glanced up at the cloud, which quickly rose a bit higher, in case she threw something at it. It seemed that she did not like the cloud maidens. (Not many people did.)

Prince Rhind, who had not heard anything that Prawl had said, introduced his sister, who nodded briefly at Henwyn and the others. Then he quickly named the third of his companions. “This is Mistress Ninnis, my cook.”

Ninnis was a jolly-looking person, as round as a robin and with the same bright eyes. She put down her frying pan and waved at the goblins. She bobbed a curtsey and beamed. She seemed delighted to meet them.

“Now, Prawl,” said Rhind, “it seems we have a problem. When we set out on this noble quest of ours, you told me that we should seek the help of the Lady of Clovenstone and that she would give me … that which I need to complete the quest. But it turns out that she's dead.”

“Dead?” Prawl looked shocked. “Princess Dead, Ned? I mean, Princess Ned—”

“As a doornail,” said Rhind, who cared far more about the inconvenience to his quest than about some dead princess he'd never even met. “Stone dead. Popped her clogs, turned up her toes, pushing up the daisies. Well, bluebells. The point is, can we trust these friends of hers? Goblins, strange old men, a Muskish wench and, er…”

“He's a cheesewright!” called the cloud maidens helpfully, seeing him pause and look at Henwyn.

“Trust them?” Prawl had still not come to terms with the sad news about Ned. His ears flushed pink with emotion. “Of course we can trust them!”

Henwyn decided that enough was enough. He didn't like this Rhind, and he wished that he and his sister and his cook would just hurry up and go off on this quest he kept banging on about. But he didn't want them telling everyone they met along the way that they had received no help or welcome from the goblins of Clovenstone.

“Why don't we all go back to the Inner Wall?” he said. “You can rest your horses, and we'll have a feast, and you can tell us what it is that you are questing for.”