That force held the room strongly then, and Sir Poemen went about his skillful work of finding the prisoners and freeing them. They went on in that manner and slew gobelins more who were no mightier while knights, sailors, and the captain himself had their rescue. The last man was held in the Room of Five Walls. That place had four when Sir Poemen walked in and five when he left, for he knocked down the inside walls with his might and revealed more behind them that made the chamber five-cornered.

The place they were in lost nothing of its strangeness during all that fighting and solving of puzzles. They found no windows, no gardens, and not a single gate that barred them from the welcoming island where they had landed and slept the day before. The layout of the place and the shape of it they had not learned, nor did they meet any such person or spirit who might have painted and furnished the various chambers in such a way as no gobelin would, or so they judged. Not even when all the men who came by ship were gathered did they learn any more, but had still to wander about.

Sir Poemen chose a door that was marked over it the Room of Rooms, a name of some weight he hoped, and entered by means of his wand, which by then all had. His first look at it did not lessen his hopes. It was no small chamber he entered but rather a hall so long that he saw not the far end of it from where he stood and tall enough that forest-ruling trees might have been made the pillars of it without any woodsmen to shorten them. The builder chose otherwise and had marble brought in for the purpose, and those carved columns were no less ornate at the top of them than were the beds and other furnishings. Neither was the floor less painted than that of the smaller rooms, or the walls, or the ceiling that had on it a map of the blue-gray sea and all the lands around it done with such detail that it were a help to the captain had it been moved to the ship by some means.

The wary knight crossed that great hall and looked over it, more to find foes hidden for the ambush than to marvel at it, but even so he marveled much. Nor did he leave off from that when he reached the high seat in that hall that, column-like, joined the ceiling to the floor by its back that was adorned all over with dolphins, with whales, and with fish of every sort, and other watery beasts as well that were all wrought of onyx. As for the seat itself, it was filled by a gobelin of more than common dignity. He had about his neck a gold chain, thick in its links, and golden rings on the fingers of both hands. His mantle was finer than anything worn by the footmen or squires, and his vest under it had threads that were gold as well. For all of the richness of his clothing, he had also a sword in his hand that tapped the ground and gleamed most brightly.

Sir Poemen again and for the last time awaited an answer to his plea before he wreaked what slaughter he could with his blade, long and full of sorcery. “Prince of these gobelins, for such I deem you to be, and if I am mistaken in that must still think you some noble among them, I hope you will heed the good that whispers to us all what is best for us to do, though often we ignore it to our woe. There are two ships before you, one stout and well-rowed, the other full of leaks and rowdy men likely to run across rocks in their drunkenness. Who will take the second ship? But that is what you do by treating guests in the manner here. Instead of that, you are well able to gain a name as the foremost of hosts, for so wondrous is this place that you hold, however you made it yours. Then other rulers would send gifts to you and hope for your friendship, and merchants would think it nothing shameful to crawl through all the rooms in the manner of a dog after rats if only you did trade with them. Your servants have died, more than there was need, and your doom is likewise unenviable, unless you board that first ship, which is better.”

The gobelin prince answered with deep and well-paced words. “You begin with two ships, which is wrong. Think instead of how there came to be but two. Battles and storms that ruined vessels beyond number no doubt assailed the worse ship and lowered it to that state of seaworthiness. Its captain, skilled and firm-handed. Its crew, bold and able to do anything. Soon repairs will be made and that leaky ship caused to be sound. The other, meanwhile, is newly sailed from under the hands of carpenters and untested. Like as not it will sink at the first gale that blows against it and fail its crew to the utmost. That is the history you ignore. I led my gobelins forth from the country our home where others died, gobelins and men too. They lost their lives to that savage beast, the cockatrice, which is too much for us, and for you, however big are your boasts when the thing is far away. I took them out from that cursed land. And under me they found this palace that once belonged to a sage among spirits, Gabrielle by name. Of all my kin, only I am strong enough to name her and not tremble at it. She left it long ago, but lesser spirits were here that I overcame with my cunning arts. I have ruled here many years since without challenge. Why then should I not carry on in the same way? Why should I heed the advice of one imprisoned by us, feeble and lacking in wit? All that long time you talked I thought on one thing. By what means will I kill you? My choice is the baneful poison of the cockatrice that I learned to use for myself.”

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So the prince said, and breathed forth noisome poison at Sir Poemen. But that knight had seen the cockatrice and smelled from afar its deadly breath, and knew therefore that this was not alike to it. His blade split apart that veil of seeming poison with no more trouble than it had in cutting away the imprisoning curtains around his bed, which was none.

The gobelin waxed wroth at that and leapt down from his seat, shining sword ready, and at a raising of his other hand rose also hungry flames all about that threatened the knight with devouring heat. Sir Poemen was not afeared, thinking that if one threat was false, the next might be no less. Nor was he wrong in that, for the flames fell to his sword as any foe would, or all the swifter for that they were without mail or blade-warding shields. Even while he drove the fires from the field, his true foe struck with a sword that had nothing of falseness about it, but sharp edges instead and a sharper point. Sir Poemen blocked that and returned a blow that the prince found hard to avoid, though he did, and kept his life thereby.

The clash of tricks ended and that of arms went on, and the prince had the worse of it. He was deft and not without might, and to make him a knight of worth in gory battle were no hard task, but he was overmatched as it was against a knight known to war as Sir Poemen was. Much as when a cook spreads dough wider and in so doing causes it to thin, so too was the pride of the gobelin prince unfurled in boasts so that others would see it and have awe at it, but he saw through it himself for so slight it was and knew how ill he fared. For that cause he sent his wit searching for some way to win against a foe that was stronger.

The cunning gobelin then answered himself this. He leapt back and with swift sorcery changed his shape to that of a ruler of forests, a dreadful bear. Even so was his seeming, but bigger, and longer in his claws than any true bear, a sight most awful to see. Many times beasts, fellow gobelins, and even spirits unusual in their ways lost their will to withstand him when they saw that shape and yielded, and such was his hope then.

But the doughty knight who feared not armies and slaughter lost none of his daring in a combat against a lone gobelin, grown big by some trick though he was, and neither was his sword shorter or duller for that. It pierced the false beast's hide well through and spilled blood that was real. The prince, for his part, had less deftness in his claws, weapons rarely used, than in his practiced blade, and because of that fared ill in warding off the blows of the knight or forcing him back by his clumsy attacks. The hugeness of his body did no more for him but fill his great frame with all the more blood to lose, and that hall soon was covered in it so that it seemed a battle between armies alike in fierceness was waged there by the wet and red pond that spread more and wider. No gobelin, no prince, nor even any bear had so much vigor in him to withstand such wounds as those. His rule and his life both left him then, and he fell to the floor, shorn of all he had.

The door of that Room of Rooms opened at the gobelin's death, as did every other in the palace of Gabrielle Gaspar's queen. Sir Poemen learned that when the knights and sailors joined him there, and they for their part learned the bear that they saw, unusual in its size, was the gobelin prince, and they wondered at it greatly.

They were given little time for that, less than they wanted. For even as they stood there in the marvelous hall, unseen hands prodded, grabbed them, and hurried them forth through room after room however much they spoke against it. “Spirits of this place, as I deem you to be, allow me to say first that we are not so unfriendly as gobelins are. We know better the duties of hosts and guests as well.” Sir Poemen said that, but the spirits refused his mild speech the heed it deserved. He and all with him were not released till they were outside under the ever-traveling sun.

Still the palace was hidden from them, for when they turned they saw it not, but only the island as it was when they sailed there and landed. The men wondered more at that, but grumbled also at the rudeness of spirits, both for their own sake and more for that of Sir Poemen, who was owed better thanks for winning the spirits their palace back which they had been too feeble to hold against gobelins. Discontented, the captain, knights, and sailors boarded the ship to go on with their sailing, since the weather seemed fair.

Once aboard their discontent fled from them, not at first, but when some man or other of the dutiful crew looked over the cargo for loss and found gain instead. For wrapped in the gifts to each knight and in the bundles of the sailors too were stones of great worth, not yet cut and worked as men like them to be, but in large hunks that awaited tools wielded with skill. Then all the men aboard were right cheered. As they left, they thanked the spirits in loud words they hoped the wind would carry to that unseen palace.

Then all praised Sir Poemen much and asked him every puzzle and riddle that he solved. The wit that knight had pleased them well, and they judged the same would be true of the people they would later tell of it, who would have such startlement as seldom comes when they heard all that happened on that unmapped island. Right merrily therefore the men watched the blue-gray waters stirred by long oars, the dolphins and fish beneath, and the shore with all its villages and fishermen as they passed it when the pilot steered close.