Conundrum

by Jeff Crook

  The oars splashed nearer and nearer until they seemed just above the ship. Then, at a muffled and unintelligible cry, they stopped. There followed a series of fumbling echoing thumps. Snork whispered-though he couldn’t have said why he was whispering-”They’re shipping oars.”

  They heard a loud splash, followed several seconds later by an even louder clang against the hull of the ship. “They’ve found us! They’re attacking!” Conundrum cried out in fear.

  “No! No! Be quiet!” Commodore Brigg shouted, silencing everyone. “It’s only the anchor. Their anchor has struck the hull,” he hissed into the darkness.

  “They must know we are here,” Razmous whispered excitedly. “How could they not?”

  “What will they do? Will they attack?” Conundrum asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.

  “It was almost nightfall when we submerged,” the commodore said. “They probably think we’re a normal ship that has sunk, scuttled rather than be taken by pirates. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Ah, yes! Yes, I see,” several members of the crew exclaimed in the darkness, patting each other reassuringly. “The commodore will save us yet,” many whispered. “He is very wise.”

  Commodore Brigg continued, bolstered by this support. “Likely, they plan to wait until morning, then send divers to see what can be salvaged. But we’ll already be gone. My plan is that we’ll wait a bit, then engage the flowpellars and slip quietly away.”

  Now a babble of excited voices greeted him as the crew members began to break up, returning to their stations. But the officers on the bridge were not yet easy in their hearts, despite the evident ingeniousness of the commodore’s plan. What about the air? It was still thin, and growing thinner with each breath.

  Professor Hap-Troggensbottle was the first to see the problem with this strategy. In fact, it came upon him so suddenly that he slapped himself on the forehead. “Air!” he cried. “If the torches can’t burn, we can’t breath. If we stay here much longer, there’ll be no one alive to engage any flowpellars.”

  “And even if we do slip away unnoticed, how will we know in which direction to go?” Conundrum asked. “We can’t see where we are going if there is no light.”

  “Right!” the professor barked. “We don’t want to go the wrong way and beach the ship, or worse, surface within sight of the minotaurs. Excuse me commodore, but how did you plan to see what was on the surface once you submerged the ship?”

  No answer was immediately forthcoming. A curious, brooding silence greeted his question.

  Then Conundrum spoke up. “We might try Doctor Bothy’s Peerupitscope.”

  12

  And so it was that, after inserting Doctor Bothy’s Peerupitscope through the mast’s seal-and hastily plugging, with thirty-nine pairs of socks, the resulting leak caused by the scope’s inexact fit-Commodore Brigg was able to navigate a silent course away from the minotaur galley. Once out of sight of the pirates, the gnomes, and one kender, surfaced and ventilated the ship. The commodore agreed that an unscheduled stop was needed in order to permanently install Doctor Bothy’s Peerupitscope and Navigator Snork’s torch chimney, which Conundrum named the Snorkel after its inventor.

  According to Snork’s charts, the nearest port was a small village called Jachim. Actually, the nearest port was a place called Unger, but Jachim was known for its wools, and so promised a ready supply of desperately needed socks. Unger was known more for its pirates than its footwear. Furthermore, Jachim offered better facilities for shipboard modification and repairs, what with its deep harbor and nearby forest providing a plentiful source of lumber. In addition, Razmous’s copy of A Wandering Render’s Almanac and Pocket Guide to Krynn identified Jachim as the place to go for first-class haggis, which none of the crew had ever tasted, or even heard of, but whose fame was noted in the kender guide. Razmous was desperate to try the famous haggis, and by the time they reached Jachim, he had convinced most of the crew that they needed to try it as well. Doctor Bothy wondered if it might not prove to be a cure for hiccoughs. As it turned out, haggis was a cure for something, if not hiccoughs.

  “A cure for hunger,” the doctor was heard to declare after his first mouthful of the mealy, grease-laden dish of offal. “One taste of this and you’ll never want to eat again.” Nevertheless, he didn’t let his go to waste.

  They sat round the tables of the Wet Weskit, Jachim’s best inn and source of its famous haggis. Everyone except the kender was turning green but trying very hard to be polite; the innkeeper was a kindly host.

  “This is the best haggis I’ve ever had,” Razmous declared to the innkeeper. His cheeks were stuffed like a chipmunk’s with half-chewed haggis, for he was unwilling to swallow, considering the taste.

  “It’s too bad Ensign Gob isn’t here,” Conundrum lamented earnestly when the innkeeper had gone. “Just when you need a gully dwarf begging at the table, there isn’t one handy. I think I actually miss the little guy.”

  In the end, it was decided that, for the sake of diplomacy, everyone would stuff their haggis into their pants-and especially Razmous’s pockets-for later disposal.

  Because he had convinced everyone of the marvels of haggis, and because he was chief of supply, it was given to Razmous Pinchpocket the duty of hauling their combined dinners out into the woods and burying them at the first opportunity. They dared not dump the haggis into the harbor, for fear of attracting sharks, nor of transporting it out to sea for disposal, lest it breed some plague. And nobody wants plague, not even gully dwarves.

  A warm northern night covered Jachim, the stars glimmering in a sea of velvet blackness. Many of the citizens of this village lay atop their sheets, trying without much success to fall asleep to the whining of the mosquitoes and the sway and splash of the Northern Courrain Ocean lapping gently against the shore. The village’s many inns and taverns burned like jewels in the night, yellow torchlight streaming out of doors and windows to illuminate squares and rectangles of the nighttime streets. Sometimes a dark silhouette appeared, a fan or doffed straw hat waving, bedewed tankard in hand, to gaze at the stars and wonder at the sultriness of the night. The sounds of muted lutes hung like sweet fog in the air. People moved beds out of doors into alleys or yards or atop roofs, anywhere they could find a breeze, however warmed the wind was by the northern current.

  Down by the waterfront, various small craft belonging to local fishermen lay pulled up along the beach. Their moonshadows darkened the silver sand, here and there sheltering some fisherman snoring with his head couched in the crook of his arm, a jug of sweet brown liquor lying empty beside him.

  Through these shadows, “twixt fishing vessels leaning together with step masts crossed in X’s against the star-dappled sky, stole four darkly-clad figures. The tallest led the way, his topknot bouncing with each tip-toeing step. Across his back was slung a large lumpy sack, from which exuded an appalling odor that kept his three shorter companions at a distance of ten paces behind him. They made their way across the beach and up the main street of the village, keeping well within the shadows and avoiding the more well-lighted taverns.

  Once beyond the last house, the street tapered off into a well-worn footpath, which entered a thick forest whose blossom-laden bows were stirred by the warm wind off the sea. The four conspirators crept beneath the dark eaves of the forest and paused, looking back along the way they had come to see if anyone was following.

  “I don’t think anyone saw us,” the stoop-shouldered kender whispered as he unslung his pack and set it on the leaf-strewn ground. He straightened to his full four-foot height with a sigh, digging his knuckles into the small of his back.

  “Ooooh,” Doctor Bothy groaned, clutching at his belly. “I shouldn’t have eaten so much haggis.” He had been ordered on this mission because he had asked for seconds at the inn.

  “Let’s bury it here and get back to the ship,” Sir Grumdish muttered. He glared around the woods leaning over them with their dark, spreading branches. As
chief security officer, it was his unfortunate duty to accompany the others on this nocturnal excursion. “I don’t like the feel of this forest. What do they call it?”

  “The Black Fairy Wood,” Conundrum answered.

  “I don’t know. I think they meant the Blackberry Wood,” Razmous said. “I think I smell some blackberries.”

  “How can you smell anything except haggis?” Sir Grumdish snapped as he clapped a hand over his own nose and mouth.

  “Oh, please don’t say haggis,” Doctor Bothy groaned.

  “Let’s go a little deeper into the woods, at least,” the kender said with a wry grin and a sparkle in his periwinkle eyes. “So the villagers don’t see us. We wouldn’t want to offend them.” Picking up his sack and slinging it with a sickening squish over his shoulder, he crept deeper into the woods, leaving the light and noise of the sleepy village behind. His companions followed reluctantly.

  When they had gone about a bowshot further into the woods, Sir Grumdish called them once more to a halt. “This is far enough,” he said as he pulled a shovel out of his pack and tossed it to the kender. A sliver of moonlight penetrated the canopy overhead, illuminating a small patch of leafy soil at their feet. A number of curious mushrooms or toadstools poked their speckled caps up through the mold.

  “Let’s dig!” Sir Grumdish almost shouted as he produced a second shovel and jabbed it into the ground. He began flinging scoopfuls of dirt over his shoulder like some sort of demented badger burrowing into the hillside.

  Dropping the sack full of haggis to the ground, Razmous then stood to the side, gripping the shovel in his nimble brown hands. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “Maybe haggis is what they call an acquired taste and we should give it another try.”

  “Give me that,” Doctor Bothy muttered angrily as he took the kender’s shovel. “I’ll dig. Maybe it will get my mind off my poor belly. When I get back to the ship, I’m going to invent milk of amnesia. That’s a taste I would dearly love to acquire right now.”

  “What will milk of… milk of… what will it do?” Conundrum asked as the doctor joined Sir Grumdish in his labors.

  “Make you forget you are sick,” Doctor Bothy grunted in answer. “But a glass of regular old cold cow’s milk would do me just fine-or better yet, a bowl of vanilla-flavored frozen-sugar-cream.” He smacked his lips, then continued to dig.

  Soon, the two gnomes had excavated a sizeable hole in the loamy forest floor. They towed the wet, heavy bag of haggis into it, and within another turn of the glass were tamping down a small mound of freshly turned black earth with the flats of their shovels. Sir Grumdish stood up, his old gnomish joints cracking with the effort. He stowed the two shovels in his pack, then looked to the kender.

  But Razmous and Conundrum were busy staring at something off through the trees. “What is that?” Sir Grumdish whispered, stepping closer and peering over Conundrum’s shoulder.

  “It just appeared,” Conundrum breathed in awe.

  “It looks like a cottage,” the kender said. “A cottage made of-”

  “Vanilla-flavored frozen-sugar-cream!” Doctor Bothy finished for him.

  “Looks more like custard to me,” Conundrum offered.

  “I was going to say butter,” Razmous said.

  Doctor Bothy laughed and ran past his companions. “Don’t be ridiculous! Who ever heard of a cottage made of butter?” he cried, his last words fading away even as he disappeared into the darkness.

  Despite his girth, the doctor displayed an unexpected agility and speed. No one could keep up with him, not even the nimble-footed kender. They raced after him as best they could while being careful not to brain themselves against some tree in the dark. But Doctor Bothy leaped and darted through wood and glen like some fey creature out of a dream.

  He reached the cottage before any of the others, and they found him already eating his way through one of the walls. A strange, yellow light emanated from the interior of the cottage, setting it aglow in the midst of the woods. Doctor Bothy turned at Razmous’s shout, creamy goo dripping from his beard and the tip of his nose, and coating his arms up to the elbows.

  “It ith fanitha-flaforefh frothenthugarcreamfh!” he shouted with his cheeks bulging full of frozen dessert.

  “Truly?” Razmous cried with delight. He dearly loved vanilla-flavored frozen-sugar-cream, even more than the greediest gnome.

  “Un-hungh!” the doctor moaned in ecstasy.

  Razmous started forward, but Sir Grumdish pulled him back by the shoulder of his green vest. “Not so fast, kender!” he snarled, pushing Razmous into Conundrum’s arms. “Here, hold onto him and don’t let him go. I’m going after Doctor Bothy before anything happens. Something uncanny is afoot here.”

  With that, he stomped off toward the doctor, who was even then teetering on his toes in an effort to sink his teeth into the fudge drooping from the eaves of the cottage.

  Suddenly, Doctor Bothy gripped his ears, squeezed his head in his hands, and staggered back with a cry. Sir Grumdish rushed forward and steadied him, crying, “What’s the matter? Are you injured? Poisoned? Magicked?”

  The doctor shook his head and tried to push Sir Grumdish away. “It’s nothing. A frozen-sugar-cream headache is all.”

  Before Sir Grumdish could give voice to his annoyance with the doctor, a queer tittering giggle echoed through the forest. The doctor looked up in surprise. Sir Grumdish looked down. Conundrum heard it right in front of his face, so near that he fell backward over a log. But Razmous spun around, peering into the forest behind them. He heard the giggling everywhere.

  Then, with a pop like a cork from a bottle of gigglehiccup, the magical house disappeared. Two more loud pops followed in succession, one for Doctor Bothy, and the second for Sir Grumdish, who vanished even as he was turning in surprise at the sudden and noisy disappearance of the good doctor. Razmous and Conundrum stared in horror for a moment at the now empty forest clearing, then turned, and without any clear purpose or direction, fled screaming into the night.

  That is to say, Conundrum fled screaming. Razmous, being a kender, wasn’t exactly frightened. Instead, he was mightily concerned, and he ran calling, “Doctor Bothy! Sir Grumdish!” in his loud ringing kender voice. No one answered, and he didn’t wait around to listen. It was all he could do to keep up with his gnome companion.

  Conundrum knew not in which direction he fled, whether toward Jachim or away from it. Neither was he particularly frightened, yet he felt almost as if some extra-terrestrial power had taken over his body and was hurling him as fast as his legs could carry him through a dark and fearsome forest.

  Suddenly-and rather painfully-he caught his toe against a old gnarled root splaying across the path, and down he went. He threw out his hands to catch his fall and felt them sink up to his armpits in the soft leafy mold. But it didn’t stop there. Down, down he fell, leaves and twigs and a spatter of loosened soil pouring down around him, and it was some moments before he realized he was sliding on his belly down a long stony slide that led deep underground.

  Of course, what Razmous saw was Conundrum fall headfirst into nothingness, disappearing without even an accompanying pop. Instinctively, the kender leaped up and caught hold of a low-hanging limb. Looking down between his kicking feet, he found himself dangling over an ever-widening hole, a forest trap door with a honest-to-goodness stone slide leading downward to who knew what awful kind of awful doom.

  So, naturally, he had to explore further. Obviously, Conundrum had gone that way, and if the doom was particularly awful, the little gnome would need help. With a shrill squeal of delight, the kender let go of the branch and fell with a thud down the hole.

  As he slid down the sloping tunnel on his rear end, Razmous noticed a blue light glowing somewhere below, and moments later a dark squat figure lurking in the middle of the slide. He slid smack into Conundrum, who, being lighter and falling from a lesser height, had less momentum to carry him all the way to the slide’s bottom. The scale and construct
ion of the trap bespoke of a design for much larger creatures and not light-boned peoples like gnomes or kender. Conundrum had slid to a stop many feet yet from the slide’s end-wherever it was that it ended-but now Razmous, being a little bigger and with the added momentum of plunging from the higher height of the tree, swept into him with a loud oof! Down the two continued, Conundrum on top, Razmous below, rubbing to the thickness of a few threads the seat of the latter’s breeches against the stones.

  Slowly, they ground to a halt a few feet from the end of the slide. Razmous pushed Conundrum out of his lap and leaped up, swatting at his behind and hopping around on one foot. Spotting a trickle of water running down one of the walls, he backed against the wall and stood there sighing, his eyelids fluttering.

  Meanwhile, Conundrum investigated their surroundings. The slide came to an end at the edge of a deep, dank pit, from the sides of which protruded numerous old rusty sword blades and spear heads, all set into the stone at a downward angle as though to prevent those falling into the pit from climbing out. The strange blue glow they had noticed earlier had turned red as blood, but even as Conundrum looked round and Razmous cooled his stone-chafed hindquarters, it began to change to a cool dim violet. The glow originated from a multitude of tiny worms feeding on moss growing on the walls and stony roof overhead. Each worm glowed with blue or red phosphorescence, but as Conundrum examined them, more and more of the red ones turned blue.

  Razmous joined him in peering at the curious little worms, then very gently allowed several to crawl onto his outstretched fingers. He giggled at the feel of the tiny creatures nosing about the creases of his palm.

  “I wonder what happened to Sir Grumdish and Doctor Bothy,” he whispered, glancing around and dropping the worms into one of his pouches, “And I wonder what this place is.”

  Conundrum stood at the edge of the slide, looking up. He shrugged. “A trap of some kind,” he answered.