***
Down below, amid the growing hubbub of gnomes and one ironclad siege weapon, the Captain puffed on a cigar and listened as Dhamnú explained with vitriol how his fellows had failed in their engineering. “Huffaddled pillows! Tons of ‘em! Bind them to the crossbeam and pray it holds!” the small bundle of rage exclaimed.
“Might have done better with a trebuchet,” the Captain noted amid the din. “You could get more distance, more power.” No one seemed to notice so he looked to his companion for a response. After all, he couldn’t go around speaking without being heard. Alas he found himself quite curious as to Ghost-Tongue’s interest in an old stone half-buried by the creek.
“What have you there, old boy?” the Captain called out as he made his way toward the Indian.
“A memorial stone,” Ghost-Tongue replied. “I believe it might be of some use.”
“Aha!” Vaguely exclaimed, adjusting his goggles so that he might take a better look at it. The thing was the size of a very large pumpkin though some part of it was clearly embedded in the ground at an angle. It was roughly cube-shaped with its flattest side exposed and upon it tiny runes had been etched. “Is it magical? Does it contain a font of mystical energies outside the spectrum of my goggles? Because I think we could rig up-”
“No,” said Ghost-Tongue.
“Ah. Then is it the headstone of an ancient gnome hero from bygone ages? Is it haunted by the spirit of this miniature Heracles and with just a small sacrifice of something precious to us he might come to our aid?”
“No,” said Ghost-Tongue, running a thumb over the rounded black stone’s etched surface.
“Then it must be the bones of an ancient giant slumbering beneath the earth! And if we could rouse him from his slumber, he’ll smash our adversary to dust motes! That’s it, isn’t it?”
“No,” said Ghost-Tongue.
Pursing his lips and twisting his mustache, the Captain was forced to consider, “Then shall we just load it onto the catapult and chuck it at the Gurglesplat?”
“Maybe later, but right now it has the gift of wisdom and knowledge.”
“Does it now?” the Captain wondered, leaning down to inspect the stone more closely. “Because at the moment all I see is a cricket crawling across it. It doesn’t seem a particularly wise or knowledgeable cricket, so I shall require a bit more information from you, Jobi, if you don’t mind.”
Looking up to the Captain, Ghost-Tongue explained, “This stone tells the story of the goblin, Turbees.”
“I see,” said the Captain now quite interested. “Insight!”
“Yes, Cap’n,” the Indian dryly replied. “It reads:”
There once was a goblin named, Turbees
Who smelled like a barghest’s hurdies
He came ‘round twice
Was never very nice
And rotted through with scurvy
There once was a thing called, Gurglesplat
Who was very keen to make gnomes flat
It came ‘round thrice
Was never very nice
But I guess you already knew that
The Captain turned unsatisfied eyes on his Indian counterpart and said, “A bit late in the reading.”
Ghost-Tongue nodded.
“All in all this does nothing for us.”
Ghost-Tongue nodded.
“So let’s chuck it at the great, stony beast!” The Captain turned his gaze to the frantic gnomes dashing about in every direction.
“‘It came ‘round thrice,’” Ghost-Tongue muttered.
“And was notably not very nice,” said the Captain. “Yes, Jobi, that’s what it says. What are you getting at?”
“Why would it keep coming after the gnomes?”
“Ideological differences?” the Captain wondered, “Though, while I’m unsure of party affiliations when it comes to animated geological features, I don’t figure the Gurglesplat for a Tory.” His mustache twisted in response to the ponderous motions of his lips when suddenly Tripp announced, “Religious conviction! That’s always good for zealotry. Again, this is only a wild stab in the proverbial dark as I didn’t stop to see if the mountain was circumcised.” The silence from Ghost-Tongue gave the Captain time to consider further before saying, “Then again, this is Arcadia, Jobi. There may not be any reason at all.”
“Indeed,” said Ghost-Tongue as he continued to chew on his bottom lip. After a moment he noted, “The gnomes are miners.”
“That’s true,” said the Captain looking to the various tunnels dug into the hillsides. “Not very keen as far as observations go, but still very true.”
“The Gurglesplat is a living mountain,” Ghost-Tongue continued.
“This is obvious,” said the Captain. He turned his attention to the lumbering mound of stone ever more encroaching upon the starlit sky. “At least it is now.”
“Miners and a living mountain,” Ghost-Tongue considered aloud. “There must have been some sort of interaction, some event that started all this.”
The Captain reached out and snatched up a passing gnome by his elbow. “See here, my wee friend,” said Captain Vaguely, “What started all this?”
“You did, you great oaf!” the gnome squealed. He took off his red, conical cap and started slapping the Captain with it. “Let me go!”
“No, no, no!” the Captain replied. “I mean to say, when your people first encountered the Gurglesplat, what happened? What caused this?”
“How should I know?” the gnome spat, “That was ages ago and every time the Gurglesplat has come around it’s killed nearly everyone. Whoever knew what started it is long since dead. Look there. Your friend is reading the stone. That’s all we know. Now let me go!”
The Captain released the gnome and turned to Ghost-Tongue with a shrug. “One briefly inscribed stone? Not much of a history. No wonder they are so doomed to these repetitious assaults.”
“There’s got to be more,” said Ghost-Tongue, his eyes still scouring the etched face of the stone. “A limerick would not end there. It requires more of a punch line.”
The Captain shrugged and remarked, “I thought it was funny.”
“Come, Cap’n,” Ghost-Toongue instructed, “Help me dig.”
So the two men commenced to running fingers and tools through the dirt in an effort to reveal what was below. It did not take long for them to realize that Ghost-Tongue’s hunch was correct. The stone slab was not some marker set at an angle for proper viewing but a sort of toppled monolith that had been covered by the earth of passing years only to be revealed again partially by the passing of more years. The face of the stone continued downward into the ground at an angle. Its sides never tapered or expanded but remained the same shoulder width all the way down for a length nearly as tall as Ghost-Tongue. As such it took them nearly an hour to reveal its entire face.
Looking down at the thing from the lip of the hole they had dug, the Captain remarked, “You were right, Jobi. It required a punch line.”
The revealed stone now read:
There once was a goblin named, Turbees
Who smelled like a barghest’s hurdies
He came ‘round twice
Was never very nice
And rotted through with scurvy
There once was a thing called, Gurglesplat
Who was very keen to make gnomes flat
It came ‘round thrice
Was never very nice
But I guess you already knew that
There once came a day that the goblin
Stole some bread and started gobbling
He was very quickly caught
Clobbered on the spot
And chained to rock where he started sobbing
Along came the Gurglesplat stomping
And upon our hills it started romping
Until Turdees sang a song
While we all hummed along
And stopped the beast from chomping
Never was there a goblin so brave
/> Nor so many lives did one save
So we spared him his life
Handed him a fife
And sent him to live in that cave
So if at night you listen closely
And hear a tune sounding ghostly
Breathe a great sigh
And I’ll tell you why
Because the danger is gone… well, mostly
“Quite amusing,” said the Captain, “but I fail to recognize anything we did not already know. Sure, we know that whispering maniac is also a bread thief, but that hardly seems to help the situation.”
“It’s there,” said the Ghost-Tongue, pointing to a string of runes, “in the first encounter between Turdees and the Gurglesplat. He didn’t have the fife then. He simply sang to it.”
“Ah,” said Vaguely with a slightly hollow tone. “I hope you don’t expect me to-”
“No, sir. I’m the vocal talent. Besides, you need to conjure up something a bit more permanent.”
The Vulgar Gnome of Kettle's Knob Page 9
