by Terry Jones
Erik turned to Thorkhild and said, ‘Have you ever seen such a thing?’ But Thorkhild shook his head. Then Ragnar Forkbeard reached out his hand and touched it.
‘It is quite warm,’ he said. ‘This is something I have never seen before nor even heard tell of.’
Then some of Erik’s men were filled with fear. ‘We don’t know what it is nor what it may do to us …’ they said. ‘Let us attack it and send it back down to the bottom of this lake from whence it came.’
But Erik said, ‘It has done us no harm. Let us leave it in peace, since we can find out nothing more about it.’
But even before Erik had finished speaking there was a fearful CRACK! that echoed over the lake, and Erik and his men threw themselves to the deck. Then there was another loud CRACK! and another. Then silence. Erik looked up and saw the great orange globe opening up like a four-petalled flower, and there in the centre sat the strangest creature. It was all spiky and knobbly, but it had a great smile on its face, and it said, ‘Follow me!’
Then it got astride a golden fish, and Erik and his men rowed after it in Golden Dragon. They travelled like this for several miles across the glowing lake, deep into the painted cave. At last the creature stopped and pointed to an island in the middle of the lake.
‘Go to the island,’ said the creature. ‘You will find my master there,’ and it turned the golden fish around and started back.
But Erik said, ‘Wait! Before you go, won’t you tell us who or what you are?’
But the knobbly creature just grinned and said, ‘Ha! I like that! You mean to say you don’t recognise me?’
‘I’m sorry,’ replied Erik, ‘but I’ve never seen you before in my life.’ And the others shook their heads in agreement.
‘But you all made me what I am!’ it said. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Erik.
‘Deary me!’ said the creature. ‘Where are you lot from? Do you mean to say you didn’t know that that was the Fourteenth Orb?’
‘What’s that?’ they asked.
‘Well, the Fourteenth Orb is different from the rest,’ said the creature.
‘The rest?’ asked Thorkhild.
‘The rest of the twenty-six. Don’t you even know about them?’
Erik and the others shook their heads and the creature looked at them in amazement and said, ‘Kobold put them in the lake …’
‘Who is Kob …’ began Thorkhild but Erik kicked his shin and the knobbly creature went on, ‘Some of the orbs are to keep out foes. Some of them are to welcome friends. But the Fourteenth Orb is different from all the rest. Whatever comes out of it is just like whoever finds it. If they attack it, a terrible monster leaps out and attacks them … If they are friendly, a friendly creature shows them the way. You were a bit of a mixture, which is why I’m like I am: knobbly but friendly.’
‘I see,’ said Erik. ‘But one final question: who is Kobold?’
At this the creature burst into laughter and the caves echoed all around. ‘You’d better ask Kobold that!’ it said, and it sped off back across the lake on its golden fish.
Erik and his men looked at each other, and then made their way to the island that stood in the middle of the shining lake. As they landed, they heard a tapping noise, and found a short man in dirty leather breeches at the bottom of a hole he was digging.
‘My goodness me!’ he said. ‘Visitors! I wasn’t expecting any visitors for at least another three thousand years!’
‘We are looking for the master of the Secret Lake, whose name is Kobold,’ said Erik. ‘Can you take us to him?’
‘Well, fancy that!’ exclaimed the little man. ‘Imagine going to all that trouble just to visit old Kobold!’
So Erik explained who they were and how they had come there and how they wished to return to the world above to continue their quest. And the little man nodded and nodded until you’d think his head would have fallen off. Then he said, ‘Well! How d’you do! How d’you do! I am Kobold. I made all this …’ and he pointed round at the painted cavern and the bright lake.
‘But it’s a weary time now,’ he said. ‘Look at this hole. Not much of a hole and yet I’ve been at it for six hundred years now. I think I’ve lost my touch. Why, when I built this whole cavern, it only took me a week and six minutes to paint it! Ah, those were the days,’ and he leant sadly on this spade.
‘But can you tell us how to get out of here, Kobold?’ asked Erik. And Kobold looked at Erik out of the corner of his eye and said, ‘Get out of here? Why? Don’t you like my cavern?’
‘Well … yes …’ said Erik, ‘but we must get on with our quest.’
‘All in good time,’ said the little man, ‘all in good time. Let’s eat first.’
And he led the way up a small hill in the middle of the island and disappeared down a hole in the top. And Erik and the others followed after.
They found themselves going down and down through winding passageways, and all the time the little man in leather breeches skipped and hopped in front of them. Eventually they came out in a vast hall, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling of which were lacquered with shining blue enamel. A long table was set out in the middle, laid out with all the good things to eat you could think of. And pretty soon they had all fallen to it, for they had not eaten for many days.
When they had finished, Erik turned to the little man and said, ‘Kobold, show us the way out.’
‘All in good time,’ replied Kobold. ‘First you need to rest,’ and he opened up a trap-door in the floor and led them all down a flight of sky-blue stairs into an azure chamber laid out with beds. There they slept as soundly as they had ever slept anywhere.
How long they slept, none of them knew, for there was no sun to rise in that underworld. But when they awoke, Erik once more found Kobold and asked him once more to show them the way out. But Kobold replied, ‘Today is a very special day! It is my birthday! Won’t you do me the honour of attending a banquet tonight in celebration?’ And they could not refuse.
The next day Kobold was too ill to show them the way out. And the day after that he had some urgent business to do. And the day after that there was another reason, and so on the next day, and the next day.
And so time slipped by in Kobold’s cave. Until at length Erik went to Kobold as he sat in the little hole he had been digging for six hundred years and said, ‘Kobold! You sit there pretending to dig your hole. But you are still no deeper than you were when we first met you, or than you were six hundred years ago. And I know why.’
‘Why?’ asked Kobold. ‘Tell me and I shall show you the way out at once.’
‘The reason you cannot finish digging that hole, Kobold,’ replied Erik, ‘is that you don’t want to. You have spent your life making this palace underground, and you know that if you ever finish it, you will have nothing else to do … no purpose …’
A dirty tear formed in Kobold’s left eye and he sighed and said, ‘You are right.’
‘But we do have a purpose, Kobold,’ said Erik. ‘We seek the land where the sun goes at night.’
‘Why?’ asked Kobold.
‘Because I once swore I would never sleep in my bed again until I had sought it.’
‘That doesn’t seem a very good reason to me,’ said Kobold.
‘Well, we’re not asking you,’ said Erik. ‘Just show us the way out of here, will you?’
And then Kobold looked even sadder than ever, and a dirty tear formed in his right eye and rolled down his cheek, and he said, ‘I can’t.’
‘What!’ shouted Erik. ‘But you built all this and dug out these caverns and passageways, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Kobold, ‘I did, but to tell the truth I did it all so long ago … so long ago that … I have forgotten how to get out myself. Although heaven knows, how much I’d like to sometimes.’ And with that great dirty tears started running down his cheeks from both eyes at once, and he sat down in his hole.
‘Then come with u
s, Kobold,’ said Erik, ‘for we shall not rest until we have found the way out.’
‘Thank you … thank you …’ replied Kobold, ‘let me think about it for a few hundred years, will you?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Erik, ‘we are mere men. We do not have as long as you on this earth nor under it, and we must do what we must do now, or it will be too late.’
‘But just stop a little longer,’ pleaded Kobold, ‘and consider what else you might be doing instead …’
‘I’m sorry,’ replied Erik, ‘life is too short. Goodbye, Kobold!’ And with that he and his men got back on board Golden Dragon, and were soon paddling across the Secret Lake into the Unknown …
2. ViPER RAiN
THEY HADN’T GONE FAR before Ragnar Forkbeard pointed up at the painted roof of the cavern and said, ‘How strange! The patterns are moving …’ And sure enough, as everyone looked they saw the bright lines of colour were weaving in and out of each other in ceaseless turmoil.
‘What can this mean?’ murmured Erik. But even as he spoke some of the lines of colour began to peel away from the rest and dropped down into the shining lake, and there was a hiss like steam as they hit the water. And as the men watched in amazement, a thin line of blue came away from the roof directly above Golden Dragon and fell onto the deck, writhing and turning.
‘Don’t touch it!’ cried Sven the Strong. ‘Don’t you see? It’s a snake!’
And at that moment writhing lines of every colour began to fall thick and fast, until the shining lake was boiling and the deck of Golden Dragon was covered with coiling snakes.
Erik and his men ran here and there, knocking them back into the waters or cutting off their heads. But there were so many, and they were so quick that many of the men were bitten in the heel, and many of the men were bitten in the leg, and they lay still on the deck where they had been bitten.
Then a red viper with gold crosses on its back fell onto Ragnar Forkbeard’s shoulder and, before Erik could strike it off, it had bitten Ragnar in the neck and he fell where he stood.
Erik called out to Thorkhild, ‘Help me, Thorkhild!’ and the two of them together struggled with the mast and laid it from stem to stern, and threw the sail over it as a roof to keep off the viper rain. Then they were able to clear the decks, and tend to those who had been bitten.
‘Ragnar Forkbeard,’ whispered Erik, ‘do you still breathe?’ Ragnar Forkbeard opened his eyes and said, ‘Let us turn back, Erik. For we shall never find our way out of these caves …’
At these words they all fell silent, and they heard the hissing of the viper rain in the water of the lake, and the thudding of the snakes landing on their canvas roof. And then a strange thing happened. One by one each of Erik’s men who had been bitten opened his eyes, and each began to say the same thing, ‘Let us turn back, Erik. For we shall never find our way out of these caves …’
‘And besides,’ said Ragnar Forkbeard, ‘why should we ever want to leave? It is beautiful here and we are safe …’
Erik frowned, and did not reply. But Sven the Strong was already on his feet, shouting, ‘You are mad! Of course we can find our way out from these caves!’ But Ragnar Forkbeard and the others were on their feet too, and they had drawn their swords.
‘It is you who are mad!’ they cried. ‘Can’t you see how beautiful it is here? This is what we have been searching for! This is the goal of our quest!’
And so saying they raised their swords and began to advance on Erik and the rest. Whereupon Erik held up his hand and said, ‘Ragnar Forkbeard! You are right! It is beautiful here! Let us stay forever!’
Sven the Strong looked at Erik in amazement, but before he could reply, Thorkhild cried out, ‘Look!’ and they all turned and saw that the viper rain had ceased, and as they watched, a rainbow of snakes formed over the lake and Golden Dragon glided through it.
3. THE MERMAiD’S GARDEN
AS THEY CAME OUT the other side of the snake-rainbow, they suddenly saw the wall of the cavern open up like the doors of a great castle, to reveal a dazzling cave of ruby red and emerald green, and there inside, to their astonishment, they saw Kobold. He was no longer streaked with soil and sweat or dressed in dirty leather breeches, but he was sitting on a throne of gold and silver and he wore a crown that sparkled with the fires of every gem that can be dug out of the earth.
‘I am so glad you’ve decided to stay with me in my Kingdom!’ said Kobold, and he clapped his hands and a hundred mermaids formed a circle around Golden Dragon and swayed this way and that while they sang a strange song … a song of things of long, long ago … things half-remembered … things that happened before men knew they were men … before the time when the seas were home … and Erik and his men grew drowsy and fell asleep, one by one, while the mermaids’ song echoed in the thousand caves across the Secret Lake.
When Erik awoke, he found himself and his companions lying naked on the shore of the lake.
‘What has happened to us? asked a voice, and Erik turned to find Thorkhild at his elbow.
‘I’m not sure,’ whispered Erik. ‘But one thing I do know – we must find the antidote to the venom that now courses in the veins of Ragnar Forkbeard and the others, and that has not killed them but has taken away from them their will to go on. Otherwise, I fear we shall never leave these caves and caverns.’
So Erik and Thorkhild crept up to a mermaid who was sitting on the pile of all their clothes combing her hair, and softly Erik put his hand over her mouth to stop her singing, and held her arms to stop her combing her hair, and whispered in her ear, ‘Don’t be afraid, sea-maiden. We are only travellers passing through.’ The mermaid dropped her comb and replied:
‘If you are but travellers passing through,
I’ll help you as I’m bound to do.’
Then she turned her eyes to look at Erik, and he thought she had the most beautiful face he had ever seen.
But he looked away from her and said, ‘Where is the antidote to the viper’s venom?’
And the mermaid smiled, and her eyes sparkled, and her voice was so soft and so gentle and so nearly a song that Erik felt his resolve draining out through his toes into the sea.
‘You must come with me,’ she said, ‘to my garden, where a herb grows that only human hands can pick. That is the antidote you seek.’
‘Don’t go!’ whispered Thorkhild, ‘For I mistrust this mermaid, and it is fraught with danger to go where she lives … at the bottom of the lake.’
‘I shall not look at her,’ replied Erik. ‘And I shall not listen to her. I shall only pick the herb and return.’
‘Come!’ said the mermaid, switching her fishy tail. ‘You need not look at me, and I shall not speak once we are in the water, but hold my hand and I shall guide you safely down.’
So Erik took the mermaid’s hand, and together they dived into the bright lake, and she gave a flick of her fish’s tail and they sped down and down faster than a stone sinks.
It was much deeper than Erik could ever have imagined, and it got saltier and colder, the deeper they went. Down and down until all at once Erik saw the bottom below him, and there was a grand palace built out of giant shells, and all around the palace were pleasant gardens, with seaweed lawns and huge sea-anemone trees. Hand in hand Erik and the mermaid passed through an arbour of sea-wrack, into a plot where rockweed and sea moss, kelp and sargassum grew in neat rows. And all the time Erik did not look at the mermaid, and all the time she spoke not one word. At last, however, she pointed to a small herb that grew by the edge, and Erik reached out his hand and picked what he could, and all the time the mermaid held onto his other hand tight.
Then Erik knew he had to return to the surface, for he had no breath left in his body. But when he tried to pull his hand away, he found he could not. The mermaid would not let go, but held onto his hand tighter than ever. Erik was bursting for breath, so he turned to the mermaid to show her his plight, but as he did so, his heart filled with horror, for he found himself hold
ing not the hand of the mermaid, but the hand of the Old Man of the Sea.
‘Ha! Ha!’ cried the Old Man of the Sea. ‘You out-tricked me once! But you shan’t again!’ And he held onto Erik’s hand and squeezed it till it hurt.
But as he did so a voice said, ‘You are mistaken, Old Man of the Sea! It was I who out-tricked you last time and I who shall out-trick you again!’ They both turned to see Thorkhild as he wound a piece of seaweed round the Old Man’s eyes, and as the Old Man of the Sea put his hands to his eyes, Erik pulled free his hand, and in that moment Erik and Thorkhild made their escape.
Up and up they swam, and they could hear the Old Man of the Sea coming after them, and they could hear his angry shouts. But up they went and reached the shore just as the Old Man of the Sea’s hand came up out of the water and grabbed at Thorkhild’s leg. But Erik seized Blueblade, his sword, which was lying on the shore and struck off the Old Man of the Sea’s hand. And the Old Man of the Sea disappeared back into the shining lake with a howl of rage and pain.
Then Erik asked Thorkhild what had made him follow, and Thorkhild replied, ‘After you’d gone, I picked up the mermaid’s comb, which she had dropped, and I knew it was no mermaid’s comb, for its teeth were the bones of human fingers, so I followed you down and saw her change into the Old Man of the Sea.’
‘And lucky we are that she did!’ cried Erik.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Thorkhild. ‘You all but drowned.’
‘But also,’ replied Erik, ‘we now know, since the Old Man of the Sea lives in this lake, that it must lead us back to the open sea.’
So there and then they gave the antidote to Ragnar Forkbeard and the other men who had been bitten in the viper rain. Then they all dressed as quickly as they could.