Conundrum

by Jeff Crook

  “I am, and I have news,” Tanar answered, unable to suppress the excitement in his voice. “We are here. Even as we speak, the ruins of ancient Istar surround us. In moments, we will begin our descent into the Abyss.”

  21

  As the Indestructible drew ever closer to the gaping black chasm in the center of the ruin of Istar, those on the bridge gathered near the porthole to gape in awe and wonder. Even the normally unflappable commodore joined the others in pressing his nose against the cold glass. Professor Hap-Troggensbottle was quite beside himself, and Sir Grumdish accused him of acting like a kender. Both Razmous and the professor felt insulted, but they were in too good a humor to complain. It seemed the final and most important-and probably the most difficult, though no one thought so at the moment-leg of their journey lay before them.

  Snork maneuvered them into position above the pit. The ruins of Istar were a barely-visible collection of darker shadows hovering around the chasm’s rim. The gnomes grew quiet, one would almost say respectful, thinking of those who died here in the Cataclysm.

  After a time, the commodore shook free of the shadow that had descended upon them. Addressing the crew, he said, “We begin now on the last stage of our journey. I ask you to remember your duty. Let us not forget that we are scientists.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Chief Portlost acknowledged first, “that we are, and we shan’t forget it!” With these words, he leaped to the ladder and descended it in a flash.

  Sir Grumdish took his position at the firing station, joined now by the professor. Doctor Bothy returned to the sick hay. Snork gripped the wheel, and the commodore took up a post beside the half-raised Peerupitscope. He glanced once more round the bridge, as if settling himself, and let out a long, satisfied sigh.

  “Navigator, engage the descending flowpellars,” he said.

  “Engage the descending flowpellars, aye,” Snork confirmed. He turned and shouted down the ladder to engineering, “Engage the descending flowpellars!”

  The Indestructible began to sink.

  Down she went, and the walls of the pit rose up to surround them, as if it were not them but the sea floor that had begun to move. The lip of the chasm passed, shutting off their view of the ruined city. Now, they dropped past a dark face of rock pocked with caves and fissures.

  “Which cave is it, Snork?” the commodore asked. “It’s not one of these, is it?”

  “No sir,” Snork said as they continued their descent. “These caves lead to flooded passages beneath the ruined city. Once, these housed all manner of vile and evil creatures, attracted here by the nearness of their Dark Queen. Conundrum and I discovered a small travel guide written by a kender over a hundred years ago that spoke of a particularly evil being called the King of Darkness that was supposed to dwell here.”

  “You’ve, ah…” the commodore stammered as he gazed through the porthole at a darkness that had suddenly become quite ominous. “You’ve never mentioned this, ah… before. Do you think it is possible this king might still be around?”

  “The Polywog seemed to have no trouble with him or any of the other sea creatures,” Snork answered. “I imagine this king and his minions departed with their Dark Queen. Without the Maelstrom to suck hapless sailors down to their doom, there probably hasn’t been much around here to keep evil creatures occupied.”

  “I see,” the commodore said without conviction.

  Descending flowpellars a-whirl, the Indestructible sank deeper into the black pit to the accompaniment of an ever more alarming series of groans, pops, and creaks from the hull and bulkheads. Guided downward by Snork’s sure hand on the helm, they glided harmlessly past protrusions of black stone that would have dashed them to pieces. At first, the walls of the pit were pockmarked with dark cavelike openings, but soon the stone planed away to a glassy black smoothness polished by the incessant swirling of the Maelstrom.

  With his hands folded behind his back, Commodore Brigg watched the stone walls slide past. Doctor Bothy reappeared on the bridge and stood quietly beside him, his fingers drumming one of the large brass buttons decorating the breast of his blue uniform. Professor Hap-Troggensbottle paced before the porthole, turning with each pass to gaze out into the eerie darkness of the deep sea. He paused occasionally to peer at some peculiar creature of the briny deeps never before recorded or observed by science. These floated in all their alien strangeness into and out of their view quickly, like people passing in the street. The gnomes had an uneasy feeling that they, inside their iron, spring-powered bubble, were the curiosities on display, and that these creatures with their long, wavering antennae, streaming swimmers, phosphorescent bodies, and bulging white eyes were popping by for a quick peek at these interlopers into their dark, mysterious domain. Some resembled creatures often seen in shallower and friendlier waters-lobsters, shrimp, jellyfish, rays, and eels-only horribly transformed into creatures out of nightmare. Others were clearly quite beyond the wildest imaginings of even the kender, as evidenced by his open-mouthed speechlessness. Some of these seemed almost not to be natural creatures at all, but the mad creations of some demented gnome inventor. Others flashed and quivered with life, their internal parts visible through bodies as translucent as polished glass.

  It was Sir Grumdish who spoke first. “Shouldn’t we arm, Commodore? These things might just be the babies. I’d hate the meet that one’s mother.” He pointed to a particularly fearsome fish, ghostly white, with more teeth than three sharks put together and one large, pink eye that gazed back at them with an unsettling spark of intelligence. “Besides, I imagine we are getting close to the Abyss now. There’ll probably be dragons attacking us at any moment.” He sounded almost gleeful.

  The commodore nodded.

  Sir Grumdish shouted below, “Extend the Toaster!”

  They heard Chief Portlost scramble to follow the order, all the while complaining that the drive springs needed more oil. The ram slid out from the bow of the Indestructible and snapped into place with a satisfying shudder.

  Suddenly, the walls of the pit fell away to either side, opening into a huge dark cavern, the mouth of which was wider than the view through the porthole allowed them to see.

  “Disengage descending flowpellars!” Snork shouted.

  The whirling of the motors wound to a stop, and the ship hung like a rusty carrot before the gaping black maw of the continent of Ansalon.

  “We’re here,” Snork said with a broad, toothy smile.

  The gnomes huddled in excitement around the porthole, while Razmous leaped like a terrier trying to see over or around the massed group of wrinkled brown pates crowding the view. As word spread quickly throughout the ship, crew members gathered on the bridge and spoke together in a raucous babble. There was much shaking of hands, slapping of backs, and tugging of beards. Even Chief Portlost poked his curious face up from below, though he did not entirely abandon his post-his feet were still below the bridge deck. The cook staggered out, wrapped like a mummy from his latest trial of the flashcooker, to peer via eyeslits through the thick glass at the dark sea cavern opening before them.

  It was about this time that Commodore Brigg noticed that they were floating into the cave, even though the engines had been disengaged. “There must be a current,” he noted with some concern. “The ship will be difficult to pilot with a following sea.”

  “But that also means that there is a way out!” Snork said excitedly. “All we have to do is follow the current and it should bring us out the other side!”

  “Are we prepared to enter upon this last stage of the journey? All stations report green or not green,” the commodore commanded.

  “Propulsion systems green,” Chief Portlost shouted as he ducked back down the ladder.

  “Weapons systems green,” Sir Grumdish confirmed.

  “Medical bay is ready,” Doctor Bothy said.

  “Please confirm with green or not green,” the commodore admonished.

  “Medical bay green,” Doctor Bothy answered wit
h a scowl.

  “Sciences are green,” the professor said.

  “Navigation green,” Snork confirmed.

  “What about cartography?” Commodore Brigg growled when the kender failed to speak up.

  “Oh, you mean me?” Razmous asked. “I’d forgotten. Um, cartography not green. I don’t have my Polywog maps.”

  “Where are they?” the commodore asked.

  “In my cabin,” Snork said. “I’ll get them.”

  “And find the first assistant cartographer, Conundrum.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Snork said as he rushed forward.

  With the majority of the crew on the bridge and the engines disengaged, the forward parts of the ship were eerily quiet. Even the popping and creaking of the hull had ceased now that the ship had stopped its descent. Snork made his way along the corridor until he reached his cabin. Darting inside, he scooped up the loose pages of the kender’s maps as well as the copies they had made to try to trace their future course. But Conundrum was nowhere to be seen.

  Tucking the papers up under his bearded chin, he began to shut the cabin door, but a burst of evil laughter from the bow of the ship sent the maps spilling across the deck as his jaw dropped open. He spun, half-expecting to see the ghost of a minotaur pirate floating down the passage toward him, ready to freeze his blood and turn his bones to water, as the bards and storytellers liked to say.

  But the corridor was empty, bluely illuminated by a couple of glowwormglobes hung at regular intervals along its length. At the end of the corridor was the small, round door leading to the wizard’s quarters. From behind this, Snork thought he heard voices. One obviously belonged to the wizard, but the other was new to him. It sounded deep and sinister, but tiny and remote, like a giant shouting from a mountaintop. It certainly wasn’t the voice of a gnome, of that much he was certain.

  Leaving his maps where they had fallen, he crept toward the door. The voices behind the door grew in volume until, still a few feet away, he could hear quite plainly what they were saying.

  “So the gnomes” ship actually works?” a deep, feminine voice chuckled. “Amazing!”

  Snork felt a flush of pride, even as he wondered at the source of the voice. Could it be some stowaway that the Thorn Knight had slipped onboard? It seemed impossible. Then again, he was a wizard, and with wizards many things were possible.

  The feminine voice continued, “Even now you descend to the Abyss.”

  “We’ve stopped,” said a third voice. To his amazement, Snork recognized it as his cousin’s voice. Now deeply concerned, he placed one hand on the latch to open the door.

  “Yes, it seems we have stopped,” Tanar confirmed, glancing out the forward porthole at the huge cavern yawning before the bow of the ship. “Even now, the gnomes are preparing to enter the cavern and continue on their preposterous quest to find a passage beneath the continent.”

  Gently, so as to make as little noise as possible, Snork lifted the latch and pushed the door open a crack. Inside, he saw Sir Tanar sitting in his hammock facing the door, but with his eyes lowered to the box before him, he failed to notice Snork’s intrusion. Behind him, the porthole was filled with the awful seascape of the submerged cave, toward which the Indestructible floated. Of the source of the female voice, he saw no sign.

  Fearful of being discovered by the wizard, Snork began to close the door, pausing only a moment to glance quickly around the cabin for Conundrum. He spotted his cousin standing among some barrels, an admiring expression on his red-bearded face as he gazed at the Thorn Knight.

  “You had better act now, Tanar,” the voice urged from the open box. “You must take over the ship and continue to the bottom of the chasm.”

  Snork started, the door still half open. Take over the ship?

  “Mutiny!” he gasped.

  22

  Before he could move, Sir Tanar spoke a single word in a voice that made Snork’s beard crawl. An irresistible force grabbed the gnome by the front of his uniform and lifted him into the air. Suddenly, he was flying across the cabin, only to come to a crashing halt against the forward porthole. His teeth, broken and bloody, scraped across the cold, thick glass as he slid to the floor.

  With a wave of the Thorn Knight’s hand, the cabin door slammed shut, and a word of magic sealed it against intrusion. Drawing a dagger from the sleeve of his robe, he turned toward Snork, who was rising groggily to his feet. “It’s not mutiny if you don’t tell anyone,” he laughed as he stepped over a coil of rope.

  Still dazed, Snork blinked up at him. But a cry of anger brought the wizard up short. Spinning, he found Conundrum stumbling toward him, fists clenched, tears streaming into his beard.

  Sir Tanar chuckled and reached into a pouch on his belt. With a wave of his hand, he flung sand into the advancing gnome’s face, at the same time speaking words of magic, “Ast tasark sinuralan krynaw. Go to sleep, little one. I’ll deal with you momentarily.”

  Conundrum blinked, stumbled, and-already snoring-fell face first onto a pile of canvas. Smiling, the Thorn Knight turned back to Snork, only to find him gone. He spun, spitting a curse that turned into a howl of pain as the ship’s navigator brought a heavy belaying pin cracking down across the wizard’s wrist. The dagger fell from his numbed fingers, and he staggered back, spittle flying from his lips.

  “Mutiny!” Snork accused through broken teeth and bloodied lips. “Dirty, rotten, stinking mutiny!” He raised the pin for another blow.

  “Shinarr shonthes alaharandan betriabal ast avantar!” the wizard said as he extended one clawlike hand at the gnome. Snork froze, the pin dropped on the floor, and he rose slowly into the air. His breath rattled in his throat, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. His feet, free of the floor, kicked spasmodically.

  The wizard’s outstretched hand closed into a clenched fist, and at the same moment, with a sickening crack, Snork’s bearded head spun round on his shoulders. His twitching stopped and his head fell limply and unnaturally to one side, like a hanged man. Where he lay on the canvas, Conundrum groaned and stirred but did not wake.

  Sir Tanar released his magical hold, and the body of the navigator fell with a thump to the floor. A moment later, someone began hammering on the door. Tanar staggered to the hammock and clutched at its ropes to hold himself up. The spell had taken more out of him than he had expected. In fact, he hadn’t meant to cast that spell at all. But in his rage and his pain, the words had formed upon his lips almost before he knew what he was saying.

  He gathered himself and straightened his robes. Outside, the pounding on the door grew more insistent. Nearby lay the body of the navigator, his head turned back to stare with sightless eyes over his shoulder. Conundrum still snored atop the pile of canvas. Sir Tanar smiled ruefully at him, then closed his eyes, gathering and focusing a portion of his remaining power. Stooping over the sleeping gnome, he gently shook him by the shoulders. “Awake, little one,” he whispered. “Awake. There has been a terrible accident.”

  Conundrum stirred, his mind fighting through layers of sleep. His eyelids fluttered, revealing the whites of his eyes beneath. “Conundrum,” Sir Tanar whispered. “Tantago, musalah. Your cousin has been killed. He tripped over my hammock and has broken his neck.”

  Still half asleep, tears started out from Conundrum’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks to be lost in the red curls of his beard. “Snork?” he cried, struggling feebly to awaken.

  “Yes,” Sir Tanar continued, “and you must tell the others what you have seen. You must tell them how you saw Snork trip over the hammock.”

  “Tell the others?” Conundrum asked, his eyes finally coming to rest on the wizard’s face. Instinctively, he recoiled, yet nodded his assent.

  “You must report to the commodore exactly what you have seen,” Sir Tanar said.

  “Snork!” Conundrum cried as he lurched to his feet. He leaped over the coil of rope and collapsed beside his fallen cousin, tears of grief wracking his small body.

  Sir Tanar s
miled and turned to the door, then settled his features into a proper expression of shock and dismay. With a wave of his hand, the door flew open.

  The hall beyond was filled with gnomes arguing over the proper way to employ the stuck-door-opener, a large contraption that resembled a mechanical spider. As the door opened, they leaped back in surprise, those in the rear collapsing in a heap of flailing arms and shocking curses.

  Commodore Brigg, who was nearest the door, stepped quickly inside. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. Then, his eyes coming to rest on the body of his navigator, he froze in horror. “Snork!” he gasped.

  Conundrum looked up, tears streaming down his face. “He… he… t-t-t-tripped!” he sobbed. “O-over the hammock.”

  The commodore ran back to the door and shouted, “Doctor Bothy! Doctor Bothy! Get up here immediately! Make way for the doctor.”

  Those crowding the door stepped back to allow the portly doctor to pass. He struggled through them, huffing and blowing under the burden of his medical kit, a black bag the size of a sea chest. He pushed it before him into the cabin and let it fall to the floor. The corners of his mouth fell as he gazed upon the body of the navigator, and he heaved a mighty sigh, shaking his head and clucking his tongue.

  Commodore Brigg pulled Conundrum away to make room for the doctor. Groaning with the effort, Doctor Bothy kneeled beside Snork and examined his twisted neck. Then he lifted one limp hand and let it fall to the floor. Finally, he pressed his ear to the navigator’s chest and listened for a moment. Clucking his tongue again, he sat back and shoved his legs straight out before him. He looked up at the commodore.

  “He’s dead, sir,” the doctor pronounced sadly.

  Conundrum wailed at the news.

  Commodore Brigg shook the weeping gnome to get his attention. “Be quiet!” he shouted. “Remember, we are scientists. Tell me exactly what happened. And,” he snapped, turning to Sir Tanar, “I want you to keep your mouth shut! If I want your opinions, I’ll ask for them.”