The Bloody Nightingale: Adult Fairytales

The Goblin Prince

They say goblins live in the mountains. That if you take your weight in gold and offer it to the cliffs, the Goblin Prince will offer you your heart's desires - for a price.

Father has arranged my marriage to an old tyrant that has beheaded five of his wives. I am to be the sixth. Six for Hell. I will have none of it, so I have snuck out of the palace disguised as a beggar boy, my proud princess' hair shorn, my velvet dresses all stowed away in a moth-eaten closet. Now, I belong to the roads, and I have hiked a fortnight on Traveler caravans and with bands of pilgrims to come to the Iron Mountain, where the goblins roam.

I will wish for my freedom, and I have my favorite heavy childhood trinket: a sparkling golden ball.

"Here goes nothing," I muttered to myself, tucking my trousers into my belt, golden ball in my knapsack alongside bread and hard cheese, a flask of water on my waist, and began to climb the treacherous peak of Iron Mountain. It rose like a great gullet, splitting our kingdom in two, a now dormant volcano whose hollow bones held all of Goblindom. "I wonder if the Goblin Prince will eat me, or if Nan's rumors that bartering with him for your heart's desires actually works. It could be a load of fishwife gossip, for all I know!" I took a deep breath as I summited the peak.

"Steel your heart, Estella. This is not for a weak woman. This is for a future queen. I am to barter this solid ball of gold for my hand in marriage. I need a kingdom, after all, but it will not be with that blasted rotten king."

Clouds plumed around the great peak of the old volcano, and a round hole of a cratered lake served as the entrance to Avernus. Deer ate at the reeds and grass below in the pine, and I scrabbled down scree for an hour to come to Goblin Lake.

I sat at the riverbank, tossing my golden ball in the air. My short cinnamon colored hair was cut like one of Morgan Le Fay's pixies - spiky, temperamental. I smoothed the cowlick and stared at my reflection.

"Here goes nothing, Estella," I said, gathering my courage. I stood to the Iron Mountain, the wind at my back, arms outstretched like the stations of the cross, and with great flare, tossed the golden ball into the depths of Goblin Lake. "Oh Goblin King, hear my prayer! I offer you my weight in gold for my heart's desires!"

It sunk like a stone, after a great 'plop.'

Then, wind through the reeds like a song.

A strange, fey prince appeared behind me, playing panpipes. He had gray skin and red eyes, long black hair and elfin bones, a creature of the earth. An iron crown rested on his handsome head.

"Your heart's desires, eh? The gold was true," the Goblin Prince said kindly. He looked fearsome, with lion's teeth and claws, but warmth was also in his breast - nothing like cruel father and absent mother, or any of the catty, treacherous noblemen of court. "What is it you wish, princess?"

I blushed. "You know I am a girl? The - the Princess Estella?"

He laughed. "I can smell the butter and life of luxury on you. Lavender soap from Provence. Rose oil in your hair from Lombardy. It may be cut off at the root, but you are still well-groomed... even for a month of travel disguised as a beggar boy." He came closer, treating me like a startled lamb, then offered me the panpipe he had crafted from the reeds on a silver chain. "I get many more princess' wishing for all sorts of things than one would expect for a lonely Goblin Prince. Go ahead, blow all your anger at your gilded cage out on the panpipes. All that will be left is the wind."

I smiled. I liked him. I chuffed, breathed deeply, my cheeks a chipmunk, then blew. A clear C major came through, and the deer startled away. I gently handed it back to him, but he refused.