by Anne Forbes
They ran back to their carpets and in minutes were back on the island where they found Lord Rothlan and the MacArthur in one of the bedrooms reassuring the Ranger that Neil would wake up naturally in a few hours. Hector Mackenzie was bending over a second bed, tying a bandage round Archie’s arm.
“Clean wound!” he said cheerfully, “but just as well to take the arrow out while he’s still asleep. He’ll be as right as rain in … no … time!” His voice tailed off as he saw the expression on Hamish’s face.
“What’s happened now?” Lord Rothlan asked sharply.
“It’s something that I think we should discuss together, if it please you, milord.”
“Certainly,” Rothlan looked puzzled. “We can leave Neil and Archie to sleep, now that they have been made comfortable. Shall we go downstairs?”
He led them into a large room furnished with comfortable armchairs. Servants were carrying in heavy trays of food and he motioned them to be seated.
“This won’t wait!” said Hamish as the servants left the room. “Sorry, Lord Rothlan, but we’ve just discovered that Arthur was in the boathouse with Neil and Archie and it stank of water goblins! We believe that he’s gone into the loch after them!”
“Water goblins!” came the astounded reply. “In my loch!” Lord Rothlan’s voice was incredulous. “You must be joking! Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure!” confirmed Jaikie.
Lord Rothlan flung out his hands helplessly and looked at Lady Ellan. “Water goblins!” he said. “You mentioned Kalman and the water goblins! But why? It’s beyond me! Why on earth would water goblins come to Jarishan?”
“If there are water goblins in the loch,” stated the MacArthur, “then they’ll have come for a reason! But what could it be? What is there in your loch, Alasdair, that they would want?”
“Apart from the fish, I’ve truly no idea!”
“Well, they’ve either been there for ages or they’ve just arrived,” Dougal MacLeod stated, “for the shield around Jarishan couldn’t be broken, could it!”
Lord Rothlan nodded in agreement and then stiffened. “What a fool I’ve been,” he muttered. “What – a – fool!”
“Calm yourself, Alasdair,” said the MacArthur, “one thing you never were, was a fool!”
Rothlan rose to his feet and started to pace the room. “I got it all the wrong way round from the beginning,” he said bitterly. He stopped and throwing out his hands, turned to face them. “I thought that by giving me the power to break the shield, the crystal was giving me a way to free Jarishan. But that wasn’t actually the point of the exercise at all! Fool that I was! Ellan told me that Kalman’s been searching all the lochs around here — it must have been when he broke the shield to get into Jarishan that he brought my crystal to life!”
“But what do you have in your loch that is so vital?” Sir James asked.
“No stories of Spanish gold and buried treasure?” queried MacLeod.
Rothlan’s eyes flew to those of the MacArthur. “I don’t know what he could be looking for, unless …” he paused, “there is …” he said hesitantly, “… it’s an old story, but you must have heard it, MacArthur.”
“The Sultan’s Crown?”
Rothlan nodded. “Legend has always had it that it was lost in this area although I never quite believed it.” He shook his head doubtfully. “It couldn’t be, could it?”
“Arthur told Neil and me that the water goblins were searching at the bottom of Loch Ness for buried treasure,” said Clara hesitantly. “Nessie told him that Prince Kalman had asked the chief of the water goblins to search all the lochs.”
“Kalman, eh? That would explain a lot!” muttered the MacArthur grimly.
“Loch Ness! But it’s miles away!” Hamish said.
“Still within the general area though,” Lady Ellan said thoughtfully. “Perhaps Kalman has a list of likely places to search … and, believe me, it is only someone as ruthless as him who would be so thorough in his search! Even if it weren’t in Loch Jarishan, he’d want to score it off his list!”
“What’s the story behind the Sultan’s Crown?” asked the Ranger.
“You tell the tale, Alasdair,” nodded the MacArthur. “It’s so old that I’ve forgotten the half of it!”
“The Sultan’s Crown” he began, “is a magic, faery crown that belonged, in years gone by, to Sulaiman the Red, the Sultan of Turkey. Many magicians including Kalman and his father, Prince Casimir, used to visit Turkey because in those days it was there that the finest magic carpets were made. Prince Casimir was, of course, a powerful magician but his power was nothing compared to that of the Sultan. I don’t know what happened but, well,” he gave a puzzled frown, “he seemed to become obsessed with the thought of owning the crown. He couldn’t buy it, for it wasn’t for sale and he couldn’t steal it as it was too well protected so he challenged the Turkish Sultan to a contest. Whoever’s magic proved the stronger would win the crown. No one expected the Sultan to lose, but lose he did and he had to hand over the crown of his own free will. It was only when Prince Casimir was on his way back to Scotland on his carpet that the Sultan discovered that he’d cheated.”
The MacArthur shook his head. “Nobody could believe it at first,” he admitted. “Prince Casimir, of all people!”
Neil and Clara looked at one another as a horrified murmur ran round the little group.
“The Sultan,” Rothlan continued, “was furious and sent the storm carriers to bring the crown back. However, they conjured up such a dreadful storm that, at some stage, the crown fell off Casimir’s magic carpet and landed, it is said, somewhere on the west coast of Scotland.”
“And although everyone’s searched for it for centuries,” the MacArthur finished, “it’s never been found but in Turkey its loss was felt almost at once. No more magic carpets were ever made and over the years, the great Turkish Empire waned. The Sultan never forgave us and there has been bad blood between the Lords of the North and the Turks ever since.”
“And Prince Casimir?” asked Sir James.
Rothlan looked at him and smiled wryly. “No one knows what happened to him. Perhaps the storm carriers finished him off. His carpet was found in shreds somewhere in Sutherland but his body was never found.”
“Of course! The carpet! That must be it!” Lady Ellan said suddenly, sitting up straight in her chair. “It must be! Old Agnes!”
They looked at her blankly.
“Agnes,” she said, turning to her father. “I told you, she disappeared for months on end and turned up muttering weird stories of goblins and a magic forest. Nobody really paid much attention to her ramblings but if I remember rightly, the black tower of Ardray is surrounded by a magic forest and I’ve heard tell of goblins in its woods.”
“Agnes? Who’s she?” asked Sir James.
“Agnes is a carpet mender. She’s as old as the hills and spends her time going round all the castles and estates, mending their magic carpets. In fact, she’s been around so long that she knows them all by name!” She looked at her father grimly and said in an altered tone. “Father — what if she was in Ardray and what if the carpet she was asked to mend was Prince Casimir’s carpet?”
Rothlan sprang to his feet. “If Agnes managed to put that carpet together again, it would tell Kalman everything!” he said, appalled. “What happened when the storm carriers attacked his father! Where the crown fell! It would tell him everything he wanted to know!”
“And if Kalman finds the Sultan’s Crown?” asked Sir James.
There was a bleak silence.
“Its magic is such that he would rule us all.”
“And not,” said the MacArthur getting to his feet, “for the better! Now Alasdair! If we are all going to be digging around in the mud at the bottom of your loch for a crown that may or may not be there, to say nothing of fending off water goblins at the same time, then I, for one, want a decent meal inside me before we begin!”
31. Battle of the Giants
It was, nevertheless, several hours before they were able to start. After a brief discussion, they decided that the only way to investigate what was going on in the loch was to merge with the fish. Although Dougal MacLeod looked understandably doubtful at the prospect he had no intention of missing out on such an adventure and, with the others, threw himself wholeheartedly into the preparations.
Rothlan’s men hurriedly took boats out onto the loch to net some fish and it was not long before Hector arrived to tell them that enough had been caught for their purpose.
From the beginning, Lady Ellan and Clara were told quite forcefully that there was no way that they’d be allowed to participate in the venture. The MacArthur put it bluntly. “Ye’re no’ coming,” he stated flatly. “It’s far too dangerous and besides, Archie and Neil will soon be waking up and they’ll need you to look after them.” And that, it would seem, was that!
The sun was still high in the sky as they all moved down to the shore. Above them, the eagles wheeled and swooped, revelling in their new feathers, for the MacArthur had lifted the spell that had bound them for so many years. Jarishan, too, had been freed from its enchantment as, after lunch, Lady Ellan had presented the set of firestones to Lord Rothlan.
Their influence, thought Clara, was already pervading the castle and bringing to it an indefinable sense of ease and contentment. A warm breeze whispered along the side of the loch as she walked by the shore and listened to the murmur of the waves. Such a peaceful place, she thought. If only there were no water goblins to spoil it all. She watched Amgarad sweep down from the sky and perch on Rothlan’s shoulder. Amgarad, she could see, was not at all happy at what was going on in the loch and would, she knew, be devastated if anything were to happen to his master. She heaved a huge sigh and walked towards the jetty where the little group had gathered to merge with the fish. The MacArthur pointed out the fat trout that awaited them.
“You’ll see that they have a small gold ring piercing the sides of their mouths,” he said. “That way we’ll be able to recognise one another in the water.”
Hector, Hamish and Jaikie went first and with a wave to the others, disappeared. The MacArthur looked squarely at Sir James, the Ranger and MacLeod. “Er … you’re all quite sure about this, are you?” His gaze encompassed the three of them. “I’m not forcing you to go, you know that, don’t you?”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Sir James assured him, stepping forward. He paused and turned to wave to Clara and Ellan before grasping one of the trout in both hands and merging with it swiftly. MacLeod and the Ranger who had followed him into the water, did the same. The Ranger had already hugged Clara and told her to look after her brother but, watching him disappear into the loch brought hot tears to her eyes and she turned away to hide them.
The MacArthur turned to Ellan and hugged her. Holding her at arm’s length he spoke to her gravely. “It’s a risky venture, my dear, and if I don’t come back, my responsibilities will fall on your shoulders. God bless you, my dear, and you too, Clara! We are in your debt!”
Rothlan was strangely formal as he apologized to Lady Ellan for his treatment of her. He ended, however, by grasping her hands and saying tightly, “If by any chance, I don’t return … I … I would like you to think well of me … and Amgarad.”
Her eyes glazed with tears as she looked at the unhappy bird perched on his shoulder and she nodded wordlessly. He then bowed low to both her and Clara and waded into the water after the MacArthur. Amgarad, now finally forced to leave his master’s shoulder, squawked dolefully as he soared into the air and flew over the loch, shrieking his misery, leaving Ellan and Clara facing the empty stretch of water.
“I think we should put some boats out and have the eagles patrol the loch. What if someone has to demerge and swim for it?”
“That’s a good idea,” approved Clara. “It’ll give us something to do instead of waiting and worrying.”
“I’ll call Amgarad!” nodded Ellan. “And we can take one of the boats out ourselves. I’d rather be close by if there’s going to be any trouble under the water.”
Ellan rowed out into the middle of the loch and for a while, they were content to drift. Clara peered over the side from time to time but the water was still murky from the storm and she couldn’t see anything much.
“I’ve always wondered what it must be like, being a fish,” she murmured.
Sir James could have told her. Strange but not unpleasant, would probably have been his verdict. At that moment, he was slipping through the water after the others, concentrating hard on not letting his attention stray as it had when he’d lost Jaikie and Hamish over Arthur’s Seat! The water was murky and they had to swim close together to keep one another in sight. Sir James knew that they were heading for a specific place, as that afternoon, while the fish were being netted, Rothlan had brought out old maps of the loch and they’d pored long over them.
“There’s a current that flows round here,” Hector had pointed to the eastern end of the loch, “and I’m tempted to think that anything dropped from this end would be pushed against this headland here.”
“And if it misses it?” queried Rothlan.
“Aye, there now,” muttered Hector. “There’s a queer thing. Anything that missed the headland would end up around here,” he circled an area at the far end of the loch with his finger.
“What’s so strange about that?” Sir James had asked, looking over his shoulder.
Hector had looked at them frowningly. “It’s just that it’s no’ a part of the loch that folk visit ower often. The shore is desolate and overgrown and the pools are poor fishing …”
“If you ask me,” Dougal had murmured, “I’d say that that would be a good place to look.”
There was silence as the others had eyed one another speculatively. Rothlan nodded his head slowly. “I agree with Mr MacLeod,” he’d said. “It’s deep and it’s secret. We’ll try there first.”
Arthur, however, who hadn’t had the benefit of studying Lord Rothlan’s charts before he set off, had spent many fruitless hours swimming slowly round the brown silt-filled waters, looking for water goblins. Their smell had been unmistakeable and had filled the boathouse. He was sure they were around somewhere.
He swam close to the bottom of the loch as that was where he guessed he would find them. Delving in the silt in Loch Ness had been their favourite occupation and, knowing their narrow, finicky ways, he reckoned that not a lot would have changed. In the event, he smelled them before he saw them and creeping slowly and stealthily along the loch’s muddy bottom, managed to remain unobserved. Sidling behind a growth of slimy weed, he peered through its fronds and choked back a gasp of astonishment. Never, not even in Loch Ness, had he seen so many hundreds of water goblins.
In front of him, the bottom of the loch sheered steeply downwards to form a long, deep trench. Water goblins were everywhere, removing bucketful upon bucketful of silt. The water was thick with it. Arthur wished that he could move nearer but, as that was impossible, he wriggled himself gently into the mud so that at least he could find out what was going on.
It was then that he saw the serpent. Its body was as thick as a tree trunk and seemed miles long. He watched awestruck as it moved lazily through the water on the other side of the trench, its great gaping jaws revealing rows of sharp, curved teeth.
I wonder if Rothlan knows that he has one of those in his loch, was his immediate thought as he waited for the water goblins to notice the creature and swim for their lives. This, as it happened, proved a non-event as the only notice they took of the monstrous creature was to redouble their already frantic efforts to shift the silt from the bottom of the trench. It was then that he realized that the serpent was their master.
Arthur moved his head a fraction to avoid a rock that was digging into his chin and watched as a shoal of fish swam overhead. Now Arthur didn’t know a lot about trout but he knew that they didn’t swim in shoals. Neither, as far as he was aware, did th
ey wear gold nose-rings.
The fish, as well they might, scattered at the sight of the serpent and the water goblins. It was Sir James who, with a racing heart, dived hastily for the cover of the nearest patch of greenery, unaware that he was quivering with fear in a clump of weeds just beside Arthur’s left eye. His fear was excusable as he was, at that moment, feeling more than slightly vulnerable. As far as he was concerned, the sight of the teeth on the serpent totally overshadowed the discovery of the water goblins!
Arthur, however, afraid that the fish might draw attention to his hiding place, opened his eye wide and glowered at it furiously in an attempt to scare it. In this he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Indeed, he almost gave Sir James a heart attack. Sir James, however, once recovered from the shock, breathed a sigh of relief, for he hadn’t forgotten his first sight of Arthur’s wonderful eyes. Help, it would seem, was at hand! Fired with new hope, he promptly did a nifty bit of back-paddling.
“Arthur!” he hissed in the dragon’s ear.
Arthur froze! He couldn’t believe it. Unable to move his chin for the piece of rock, he opened his eyes and looked at the fish again.
“I’m Sir James,” hissed the fish. “We’re here with the MacArthur. We’re looking for Prince Kalman and a crown. A Turkish crown.”
Arthur waited until the serpent had swum past before he hissed back. “Is it stuck about with rubies?”
“How the … how should I know?” hissed back Sir James.
Arthur looked down his long nose. “Because I’ve just noticed that my chin is stuck between something that’s absolutely plastered with rubies!”
Sir James swam carefully forward among the weeds and, sure enough, jutting up from among their roots were the prongs of a crown. It was black with age but Arthur had been right about one thing; it was studded all over with rubies and his scaly chin seemed to be stuck firmly between two of its prongs.
Never in his life had Sir James felt so helpless. He longed to have the use of his arms so that he could prise the crown free of the mud; for it wouldn’t, he felt, take much of an effort to jerk it loose. He glanced round but as the rest of the trout had wisely disappeared at the sight of the massive serpent, he realized that he and Arthur were on their own.
