by Philip Reeve
A small ladder ran up the side of the harness. Etty climbed up it and perched on the mole’s back. She poked the mole with a spiky-ended stick which she kept up there for the purpose, and they were off, trundling along the smooth floor of the tunnel while Henwyn tried to explain the difference between stalagmites and stalactites.
They had little idea how much time had passed while they were inside the dwarven mine. It was only when they emerged on a green hillside above Floonhaven that they realized a whole night had passed. The last stars were fading from the sky, the sun was showing signs of getting up, and far, far out across the calm and pearl-grey sea a single white sail shone.
“Prince Rhind?” asked the Floonish harbour master, opening the door of his cottage at Henwyn’s knock and blinking in surprise to find a diremole and a cartload of goblins parked at the end of his garden. “Oh, what a shame, you’ve just missed him. The Swan of Govannon set sail late last night, before the tide turned.” He pointed westward, where that pure white sail was just vanishing into the faint band of mist where sea met sky.
“Bumcakes!” said Skarper.
“Bother!” said Henwyn.
“Anchovies!” grumbled Gutgust.
“We must go after it!” said Zeewa.
The goblins all looked aghast. Set out across that heaving, serpent-haunted wetness in a boat? They didn’t even feel it was a good idea to be standing on this harbourside.
They breathed sighs of goblinny relief when the harbour master spread his hands and said, “Go after it? I’m sorry, but you can’t. There are no sea-going ships in Floonhaven at present. Only our little fishing boats, which aren’t big enough to carry all of you, let alone go setting out so far across the sea. None of them could catch the Swan anyway.”
“So that is the end of our quest,” said Henwyn. “Rhind has beaten us, and all we can do is wait to see what evils he unleashes with the Elvenhorn.”
The others weren’t listening. They were staring at some fisherfolk a little further out along the harbour wall, who were winching a strange object out of one of the little boats.
A sofa-shaped object, its flowery cushions dark with seawater.
“Spurtle?” Skarper whispered.
“Spurtle!” Henwyn shouted.
They ran to where the fisherfolk were untangling the sofa from their nets. “’Twas floating off Brisket Point,” a fishwife said. “I wonder where it come from?”
“It’s Spurtle!” shouted Skarper, furiously plumping the sofa’s cushions. The fisherfolk looked on as if they thought he was mad. But after a moment the sofa coughed, shuddered, shrank, and turned into a very wet and rather tattered-looking goblin.
“Spurtle! You’re alive!” laughed Henwyn.
“Well, of course I am,” said Spurtle, shaking vigorously to get the water off. “That’s the great advantage of being a were-sofa. I transformed into my sofa form when that sea sperpent ate me. They may eat goblins, but they don’t like furniture, and it soon spat me out.”
“He didn’t choose to turn into a sofa,” said Flegg. “It just happens when he’s scared.”
Spurtle glowered at him. “Then,” he said, “I swam to safety.”
“I don’t know about ‘swimming’,” said one of the fisherfolk. “He was just floating around in the sea when he got caught in our nets.”
“Well, swimming or floating, we are glad to see you, Spurtle,” said Henwyn.
“We are!” agreed Skarper.
“Anchovies!” said Gutgust.
“So how’s the questy thing going?” asked Spurtle. “Have I missed much?”
Their smiles faded. “It’s over,” said Skarper.
“You mean we’ve got the elf hooter back?”
“No,” said Henwyn. “Rhind has it still. He is sailing to Elvensea, and there is no way that we can follow him.”
“Perhaps there is,” said Etty. “Come, we’ll go and see King Floon. I’m sure he’ll be able to help. He’s a nice old king.”
Indeed he was. “Prince Rhind told us you’d be coming!” he chuckled, welcoming his visitors, and ordering his servants to fetch the leftovers from last night’s feast. There had been rather a lot of leftovers, because the Woollenfolk had had to leave so early, and King Floon was sure they would do pretty well as breakfast. “Such a pity you missed them,” he said.
“A pity indeed,” said Henwyn, and told him the whole story.
“A thief? Rhind? Really?” Floon was astounded.
“But he was so well spoken!” said Queen Harlyn. “And so good looking and nicely brought up.”
“It just goes to show,” said Floon. “A fair face may hide a foul heart, and a lordly manner may conceal a nasty, thieving nature that will snitch your Elvenhorn before you can say ‘boo’. It’s valuable, is it, this horn thingy? I saw it hanging round Rhind’s neck, but I didn’t realize it was anything special. Looked a bit tatty, in fact.”
“It’s good fer scratchlin’ yer back,” said Grumpling.
“Also for raising the lost land of Elvensea from its centuries-long slumber beneath the Western Ocean,” said Skarper.
“Yes,” agreed Queen Harlyn. “Rhind mentioned something about that. But if that’s his plan, well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? The elves were beautiful and wise, with lovely singing voices. We could do with a bit of their wisdom about the place again. Couldn’t we?”
“Fair face may hide a foul heart,” Henwyn reminded her. “Fentongoose and Doctor Prong, who are very wise, reckon that there could be a dire danger at Elvensea. Best to leave it where it lies, they say. But Rhind does not know that, and it is our fear that he may unleash this ancient evil by accident.”
“That’s why we must go after him,” said Zeewa.
“An’ chop him into little bits,” added Grumpling.
“Not necessarily,” said Henwyn. “Perhaps if we warn Rhind of the peril, he’ll realize his mistake and give the Elvenhorn back.”
“An’ then we can chop him into little bits,” insisted Grumpling, who was very reluctant to abandon the chopping-Prince-Rhind-into-little-bits part of the plan.
“But your harbour master told us there is no ship in Floonhaven which can carry us where the Swan of Govannon has gone,” Skarper said.
“No, indeed,” said King Floon. Then he brightened. “Well, perhaps there is! Captain Kestle does not sail much nowadays, but that old ship of his is still sound, I believe? It is moored upstream a way, behind the town. Come, we shall hurry there at once, and see if he will agree to take you!”
When kings say things like, “Hurry,” and, “At once,” they do not mean quite the same things as common folk. It took an hour or more for King Floon to get ready, with his royal walking garb and his procession of servants carrying flags and provisions for the journey; another hour to make their slow way through the town and into the woods behind it. And when they finally went down through those woods and saw the River Floon glittering through the trees and the old ship moored at the quay there, they knew that all hope of catching up with the swift-sailing Swan of Govannon had gone.
The ship was as unlike a swan as anything could be. Squat and black she was, with a ramshackle house of tarred timbers built on her deck and a rust-coloured sail furled on her single mast. The only thing Skarper knew about ships was that the pointy end was called the prow and the blunt end was called the stern or the mainbrace or something, but both ends of this ship were blunt, rounded like the toe and heel of a shapeless old shoe. Weeds had grown up waist high between the stones of the quay, and the whole place seemed long deserted, but the ship was still afloat, and from the iron chimney of her deckhouse came a faint dribble of woodsmoke.
“She is called the Sea Cucumber,” said King Floon. “A fine vessel, though less modern and more traditional than Prince Rhind’s. Old Captain Kestle took long voyages in her once – sometimes went as far as P
orthquidden, I believe. He is a proper old sea dog.”
“Go away!” snapped a voice from inside the deckhouse when the servants had cleared a way through the nettles and brambles for the king and called out to tell Captain Kestle that he had visitors.
“He doesn’t sound like a dog,” said Spurtle.
“Come, Kestle,” said the king. “These good people seek passage on your ship!”
“I’m retired,” said the voice. “I’m old and I’m tired and I’m grumpy, and I’ve retired from the sea.”
“Oh look here, Kestle,” said the king, “I am your king! This is a matter of importance. I’m ordering you to take these passengers!”
The door of the deckhouse creaked open just a tiny crack. An eye glistened like a pickled egg, peering out at the little crowd upon the quay. “You’re king on the land, Floon,” said the voice, coming from somewhere just below the eye. “I live on the water, and no man commands me, only the winds and the tides.”
“Please!” said Skarper, stepping out cautiously on to the rickety gangway which was propped between the shop and the quay. “It’s very important! We have to catch up with Prince Rhind!”
“Goblins, are you?” A beardy, scowling face appeared around the eye as the deckhouse door opened a crack wider and let a little sunlight in.
“Some of us. Also Henwyn of Clovenstone and Zeewa of the Tall Grass Country, two human beings.”
There was a snort, and the door shut with a snick. “I don’t carry goblins. Goblins is stone-born; creatures of the earth and the land. They don’t know anything of the sea and her ways.”
“That’s why we need your help, old man!” shouted Zeewa.
“Get you gone,” Kestle called back tetchily. “I haven’t the time to sit here talking.”
A little shuttered window in the side of the deckhouse opened, and he flung the remains of last night’s supper at his visitors: an old brown apple core and a plateful of tiny fish bones with the heads and tails still attached. Skarper and the others scattered backwards and stood picking the bones out of their hair and clothes.
“Bumcakes,” muttered Skarper.
“Bother,” said Henwyn.
“Anchovies!” said Gutgust.
“Eh?” The window opened again, and Kestle stuck his head out. It was an ugly head and had looked better when they could only see a part of it through the crack in the door. “What’s that you said?” he demanded.
They all looked blank.
“Anchovies?” said Gutgust.
“So goblins do know something of the sea!” said Captain Kestle. It was pure luck, but those fish he had just thrown at them had been anchovies. And now that he was leaning out of his stuffy little cabin, breathing the clean sea air, the notion of another voyage suddenly seemed more appealing. He had let himself believe that he was too old for sailing any more, but he could hear the waves beating on the sandbar at the river’s mouth, and feel his tired old ship stirring under him as the tide began to turn. And if this rag-tag gang of goblins and landlubbers really wanted to go to sea, well, someone had to take them…
“I’ve got no crew, of course,” he said doubtfully. “You’ll have to help me sail her.”
“Of course!” said Henwyn.
“Zeewa once made the crossing from Musk,” said Skarper, “finding her own way by the stars. Gutgust can act as chief anchovy-spotter, and the rest of us will haul on whatever ropes you want us to.”
“And we can cook for you,” said Henwyn. “Etty here has supplied us with a wide range of foodstuffs, ingeniously tinned.”
“And where is it that you hope to sail to?” asked Kestle.
“We want to catch the Swan of Govannon,” said Henwyn. “I don’t suppose there is much chance of that in this old ship, but we must try.”
“The Swan?” Kestle spat contemptuously downwind. “I saw her in Floonhaven yestereve. A frail, pale toy I thought her, more suited to a child’s bathtub than the open sea. My Sea Cucumber shall overhaul her in no time. But we must leave sharpish, while the tide is with us!”
Sea captains are not like kings. When they talk about doing something sharpish, sharpish is what they mean. Henwyn, Zeewa and the goblins had scarcely scrambled aboard with their heavy packs before the Sea Cucumber was moving away from the quay, out into the open river, where the ebbing tide caught her and drew her faster and faster towards the harbour and the sea beyond. Kestle’s gruff voice could be heard bellowing briny curses at his new shipmates as they struggled with ropes and tackle and unfurled the sail. It hung limply at first, dropping a few startled moths and spiders who had been living happily among its folds. Then, as the ship passed the tiny stone-built lighthouse on the end of the harbour wall, an east wind found her, the sail filled, her head swung towards the Western Ocean, and white water began to show under her forefoot.
Etty, the king, and a host of Floonishfolk lined the harbour wall, waving hats and handkerchiefs and calling out, “Good luck!” and “Come back soon!” But it was doubtful that anyone aboard the Sea Cucumber could hear them. The wind was singing in her rigging, the foam went rippling down her sides, and she was bound for the high seas.
The seas that lapped the shores of the Westlands were wide and dangerous, and few ships crossed them. Most captains preferred to stay within sight of shore, edging from one harbour to the next, and anchoring safe when nightfall came or dirty weather threatened. Especially nowadays, with so much old magic stirring, and mermen, sea serpents and sirens added to the ordinary dangers posed by storms and shoals.
Only a few were bold or foolhardy enough to venture out across the wide ocean. Captain Kestle had been one of the brave ones, always eager to see what lay over the curve of the world. When he was a younger man, he had travelled to all sorts of strange lands. He’d sailed so far, in fact, that he believed he had been everywhere, and that was why he had anchored up in the River Floon and tried to put his wandering years behind him. He could not see the point. Why go somewhere twice? He had seen everything, or so he’d thought.
But sea-going goblins – this was something new! And this lost land young Henwyn told him of – Elvensea… He had heard of it, but only as a legend. He’d never be able to set foot on it, of course, not if the goblins’ quest succeeded and it stayed drowned beneath the waves. But perhaps he would be able to look down upon its spires and streets through the water.
“I was born in the Autumn Isles,” he said, pointing south-west to where the rocky hills of Hoonish, Wedge and Far Penderglaze showed like dim blue cut-outs in the haze. “The old folk there told tales of Elvensea. Of how the elves retreated there when men and dwarves and goblins came to live in all the other lands. And then, when Elvensea was sunk, they went into their ships and sailed away across the sea to find new lands for themselves, beyond the sunset.”
Far Penderglaze fell behind them, and the Sea Cucumber sailed on, while her new crew practised knots and baled out the water which seeped in through the old ship’s timbers to slosh about her hold, and her captain fixed his gaze on the far horizon and imagined the proud towers and shady streets of Elvensea.
A hundred miles ahead, the Swan of Govannon’s captain had his eyes on the horizon, too, but he was not thinking about Elvensea. Prince Rhind had been careful not to tell him or any of his crew where they were going. “Sail west,” was his only order, “along the path of the setting sun.”
“But where are we going, Your Highness?”
“Nowhere.”
“So how shall we know when we get there?”
“Because I shall tell you.”
The captain of the Swan was called Woon Gumpus, and he was the other sort of sea captain – the foolhardy sort.
He had not been a captain at all until a few months earlier. He had worked at a bank, high on one of the steep hills of Coriander, counting the gold and silver that Coriander’s merchants brought back from their
journeys to Musk and Barragan and Tyr Davas. The little window of his counting house had looked out over the blue waters of the bay, and he had often sat there watching the ships come and go, their coloured sails as bright as petals. How he had longed to leave his stuffy little hole and sail away with them! The sea, the sea! That was a man’s life, all right – far better than counting coins.
So when his auntie died and left him her fortune, he gave up the banking life at once, and spent the whole lot on the Swan of Govannon. He had consulted a seeress called Madam Maura, and she had peered into the depths of her oracular bathtub and told him that sea cruises would be all the rage in future. Great white ships would be built, she said, and people would sail off in them, not with any destination in mind, but simply for the joy of sailing. There would be swimming pools on board, and games of deck quoits, and entertainment in the evenings.
Most people scoffed at Madam Maura’s visions, but Woon Gumpus saw at once that she was on to something. He had his shipwrights fit a copper tank into the Swan’s deck, which the grumbling crew filled with water every morning in case the passengers wanted to bathe. He had a court laid out where they could play quoits, and hammered metal hoops into the deck to make a croquet pitch. He had no luck persuading any of Coriander’s minstrels to come along as on-board entertainment, but luckily he had a passable singing voice himself, and he could sing “The Ballad of Eluned” and “I Left My Heart in Up-Brundibar”, while accompanying himself upon the hurdy-gurdy.
The only thing he didn’t have, in fact, were passengers. He had found it impossible to find anyone willing to sail with him. He had been starting to think that people were right to dismiss Madam Maura as a loopy old hedge witch who had spent too long breathing in the fumes of her own bath salts. But then Prince Rhind’s envoys had arrived, clad in the rich felts and ceremonial knitwear of the Woolmark, looking for a ship – and Woon Gumpus had known that this was his chance. It was true that he had never imagined sailing far beyond the Bay of Coriander, but how hard could it be to sail the Western Ocean? You just had to point the ship west and let the wind do the work, didn’t you? And when Prince Rhind and his companions had had enough of sailing around out there, and had seen some mermaids and sea cows and whatever other novelties the Western Ocean had to offer, why, he’d just turn round again and wait for a wind to blow them back to shore.