Conundrum

by Jeff Crook

  The Thorn Knight bowed in acceptance, smiling inwardly all the while.

  Conundrum tried to calm himself. He wiped his nose on the flap of his brown vest and pushed the tears from his cheeks with the heels of his hands. He closed his eyes and tried to bring to mind the last moments when his cousin tripped and fell, but he couldn’t envision the scene. He knew what had happened, but he couldn’t see it. Perhaps it had been too horrible. Perhaps the vision had erased itself from his mind, leaving him only the cold facts that he must now, in the interest of science if not justice, repeat.

  “He tripped over this hammock,” Conundrum said. “He must have fallen. I… I think I tried to catch him. I am sure I would have tried to catch him.”

  “You did all you could,” the commodore reassured him with a gentle pat on the shoulder. Conundrum nodded and snuffled.

  Professor Hap-Troggensbottle and the kender pulled a blanket up over the navigator’s body. Then, while the professor helped Doctor Bothy to his feet, Razmous stooped beside a bag of flour and lifted Snork’s belaying pin from where it had rolled during the fight.

  “Perhaps he stepped on this,” he offered, displaying the pin.

  “That’s probably what happened,” the commodore said as he gazed around. “This cabin is a mess, things lying everywhere. This was an unfortunate mishap. Chief Port-lost will record it, and we will move on. This has always been our way in the Maritime Sciences Guild. We do not allow these tragedies to distract us from our goal. The attempt to subnavigate the continent of Ansalon was Snork’s Life Quest. As his closest available relative, it falls upon Conundrum to attempt to complete his Life Quest."

  He turned to address the other members of the crew still crowded into the hallway. “As a member of the PuzzlesRiddlesEnigmasEtcetera Guild, Conundrum is qualified to navigate us during the remainder of this voyage. He is familiar with the maps and Navigator Snork’s intended course. Therefore, I name Conundrum the ship’s navigator. I shall take over the piloting duties myself.”

  Conundrum swallowed nervously, but saw by the nodding of heads that the crew thought the commodore’s choice a good one.

  “What… um, what will we do with the… um, body?” the professor asked.

  The commodore thought for a moment, his eyes straying to the porthole. “We’ll bury him at sea at the first opportunity,” he said quickly. “But for now, look alive! We’ve drifted into the cavern! Conundrum, I’ll need you on the bridge now.”

  The crew hurried back to their stations and Conundrum followed Razmous back to Snork’s cabin to retrieve the maps. “I’ll help you,” the kender piped. “I’m quite good with maps.”

  In moments, the commodore and Sir Tanar were alone in the cabin, facing each other over the body of the navigator. “You aren’t going to just leave him in here, are you?” the Thorn Knight asked.

  “This is as good a place as any,” the commodore growled. The glint in his eye said that he wasn’t entirely convinced of the sequence of events that led to the navigator’s death. “Gather up your things. Bunk in my cabin, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  23

  In the days following Snork’s death their journey should still have been relatively easy to chart on the map. Conundrum and Snork had already traced out most of the course before they left Flotsam. However, it was difficult to reconcile the map to the murkiness they saw through the ship’s portholes. Even with the map, they often had the option of a dozen different passages without being sure which was the correct one, or was even if it a passage at all. Oftentimes, the submersible was forced to back out of dead ends and blind alleys-a feat made possible through repeated empty firings of the UAEPs. The twin jets of high-velocity water fired from the bow of the ship proved a reliable if cumbersome reverse gear, a tool without which they would have long before come to a disastrous end, since the Indestructible’s main flowpellars provided only forward thrust. The chiefs only concern was that the UAEPs were not designed to be fired so often. If they should fail catastrophically through over-use, the ship could become hopelessly stuck in some crevasse.

  For this reason, they had begun to take special care in their navigating. Using the weak current as a navigation tool had proved utterly unreliable, for once in the caverns, its pull was hardly detectable at all, and the deeper they went the less they noticed its effect. Still, on more than one occasion, they had been forced to rely entirely on its influence to identify the correct way ahead, and these instances caused delays of several days as they waited for the Indestructible to float toward one passage or another.

  Now, however, they had come to the one portion of the map that neither Conundrum nor Snork had been able to fit together. Conundrum suspected that there was a missing portion, something that Razmous vehemently denied, as he had copied the map himself and so knew that there couldn’t have been any mistakes. Though dubious of the kender’s claims, Conundrum allowed that the error might belong to the Polywog’s original maps.

  Their situation was made worse by the lessening of Sir Tanar’s light spells. Oftentimes, because of the silt and sediment stirred up by their flowpellars, they were unable to spot a passage or turning before they were almost upon it. How the navigator of the Polywog had managed to make such extensive and accurate maps of the first voyage, Conundrum could not begin to hazard a guess. The Polywog had been primarily a ship of exploration and was equipped with a number of feelers, claws, pinchers, grabbers, rules, and prods used for feeling its way through night-dark caverns, but certainly their underwater light source must have been more efficient than the wizard’s spells.

  Sir Tanar was concerned that they would run out of air before light, and Conundrum had begun to share the Thorn Knight’s fears.

  At the moment, he was busy puzzling over a series of interlinking passages that the Polywog had mapped but that didn’t seem to fit together in any way he could discern. He and his cousin Snork had studied this section for many weeks during the first leg of their voyage.

  “You haven’t gotten us lost, have you?” Razmous whispered in Conundrum’s ear. The gnome squatted over his maps, which were spread over every available inch of the deck of the bridge.

  “Maybe it goes together like this,” the kender offered, taking two portions of the confusing map and fitting them together.

  “No, no, I’ve already tried that,” Conundrum said with some annoyance. “See, these passages here don’t link up properly.” He took the sheets from the kender and tossed them on the floor. Razmous sighed and picked up a handful of maps to study them, several of which unaccountably found their way into his pouches.

  Presently, the ship lay motionless in a huge submerged cavern. Careful exploration had revealed at least two dozen possible exits. They might spend days-weeks-trying each one and still not find a way out.

  As Conundrum stood before the porthole trying to penetrate the obscuring veils of sediment, Sir Tanar’s light spell suddenly winked out, casting the cavern once more into utter darkness. Sir Grumdish, who had been polishing the helm of his Solamnic armor, threw it to the floor in disgust.

  “This is pointless,” he grumped, half to himself. “We’ll never find the way.”

  Commodore Brigg sighed. “Somebody fetch the wizard and tell him he needs to renew his spell again.”

  “I’ll do it,” Razmous offered, quickly skipping from the room.

  Professor Hap-Troggensbottle watched him go, then said, “Sir Grumdish is correct, I think. This Life Quest is a dead end. The caverns go on forever, I’m afraid, and there doesn’t seem to be an underside to them. And I’m beginning to think that very large hot rocks don’t float at all, that the islands and continents are but the tops of mountains growing out of the ocean floor.”

  “And I haven’t come across one case of hiccoughs since we left Sancrist,” Doctor Bothy added.

  “Nor any dragons,” Sir Grumdish finished. “Maybe we should have taken the Thorn Knight’s suggestion and looked for the entrance to the Abyss. At least there we
might find some dragons.”

  “An excellent idea,” Sir Tanar said as he entered the room. He smiled, pleased that his spells-and the carefully-phrased words of dissent that he had instructed Conundrum to spread secretly and privately among the crew-were having their desired effect. “Indeed we’ve wasted enough time on this fruitless quest.”

  “We are not looking for the entrance to the Abyss!” Commodore Brigg snapped, his white beard quivering with anger. “The Life Quest of this ship is to find the east-west sub-Ansalonian passage and discover the fate of the Polywog and her crew.”

  “I respectfully submit that our chances of accomplishing either are undeniably poor, considering our present difficulty,” the professor said. “The wizard’s spells grow weaker with each casting. Our food, fresh water, and bottled air are running low, and Conundrum seems no closer to finding a way out of this maze than when we first entered it.”

  “Technically, this is not a maze,” Conundrum corrected. “There is a missing page from the maps-that is all.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Razmous asked softly. But everyone ignored him, as they often did.

  “Blast it all!” Sir Grumdish snapped. “We should go back while we still can, before our air runs out. We can at least refill our air bottles in that cavern where we buried Snork.”

  At this reminder of their fallen navigator, the crew grew silent. Sir Tanar shuffled nervously. Remembering Snork might inspire them to continue with their quest, just when they were on the verge of turning back. Days of suggestive comments to Conundrum had served well to demoralize most of the command crew.

  “Oh, wow!” Razmous gasped, pressing his face to the porthole.

  “What do you think, Navigator?” the commodore asked, still taking no notice of the kender. “Can you find us a way through or not?”

  “I could,” Conundrum answered hesitantly, glancing at Sir Tanar. The wizard nodded. “Given enough time, and provided the maps are accurate, I could. But I am inclined to doubt it, considering that the Polywog apparently came to ruin following these same maps. So perhaps we should turn back.”

  “And abandon your cousin’s Life Quest?” Commodore Brigg asked.

  Conundrum swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, hung his head, and sighed, “Yes.”

  “There’s a light outside the ship!” Razmous cried. “Maybe it’s the Polywog!

  “What’s that?” Commodore Brigg exclaimed, pushing the excited kender aside and staring through the porthole. Outside the ship, there was indeed a number of shifting beams of reddish light shining through the murky water off the starboard bow. The other members of the crew, even Sir Tanar, crowded nearer for a look at the amazing sight. Here, unnumbered leagues beneath the Khalkist Mountains, there was another light, perhaps signifying another group of intrepid travelers, perhaps even, as Razmous had suggested, it was the ill-fated Polywog herself! It had become visible only because Sir Tanar’s spell had expired, casting the cavern into total darkness long enough for their eyes to adjust well enough to see the dim glow.

  “Maybe it’s lava,” Sir Tanar offered without much conviction.

  “Nay, we’d feel its heat. The water would be boiling,” the professor answered. “I should know. I’ve made extensive study of lava and other forms of heated rock.”

  “Maybe it’s a dragon!” Sir Grumdish exclaimed.

  “With hiccoughs,” Doctor Bothy added.

  “Fellow scientists and engineers, I propose that the only way to find out is to observe and record,” the commodore said while stroking his curly white beard.

  Sir Tanar ground his teeth in frustration.

  “Chief Portlost, engage the flowpellars,” Commodore Brigg ordered. “Crew to your stations.”

  The Indestructible lurched forward. While the commodore steered toward the light, Conundrum leaned close to Sir Grumdish and whispered, “You don’t think it’s really a dragon, do you?”

  The usually sour-faced gnome grinned and shrugged.

  24

  They followed the light to its source through one of the passages that they had not yet tried, a narrow crack barely wide enough to allow the Indestructible to pass. But Commodore Brigg’s firm hand on the controls guided them safely between two vicious angles of rock that could have torn the ship in two. Soon, it opened out into a much larger chamber that was filled with similar light. The water here was a clear green, lit from above by a flickering red glow. Everywhere they looked, bubbles rose up in unceasing streams to a glimmering silvery surface, proving that the cavern was not entirely flooded. Glad for a chance at some fresh air-the interior of the ship had begun to ripen with the smells of gear oil, gnome sweat, and flashcooked beans-the commodore quickly ordered the ballast tanks blown and the ship surfaced.

  A cloud of bubbles swarmed up around the ship as his orders were carried out, and the Indestructible slowly rose to the top. With their last glimpse before breaking the surface, Conundrum noticed several underwater passages leading off from this cavern. Quickly, he turned to his maps to note the exits, only to find that most of the maps had unaccountably disappeared. He grabbed the kender and began rifling through his pouches.

  “Hey! You were walking all over them!” Razmous protested. “I didn’t want them to get damaged.”

  The large, half-flooded chamber was lit by lurid flames dancing along the surface of the water. Sometimes the flames were like foxfire, thin shimmering veils floating dreamily along the surface. Sometimes they were bright roaring jets of blue-white fire that could have melted through the hull of the ship in seconds. But the danger of their situation was nothing compared to their wonder and amazement. Heedless of the fires leaping around them, Commodore Brigg steered the Indestructible toward a broken stalagmite protruding above the surface of the water near the center of the lake. The large stalagmite was a flat plateau large enough to put on a respectable circus-an island. A number of smaller stalagmites rising from the water around it promised a safe place to moor the ship.

  At the center of the island lay a mound or heap, like an old mud hut thatched with golden straw. It was difficult to tell at this distance whether it was a construction or an accident of the light. The cavern itself stretched away into hazy darkness in either direction, a natural cathedral the dimensions of which could only be guessed at. With the ship fully surfaced, the hatches were opened and most of the crew members poured out onto the aft deck to marvel at their discovery. Commodore Brigg steered the ship nearer the island, guiding it between two stalagmites jutting like teeth from the flaming water. Crew members cast ropes over these and moored the ship fast, tying it off to the portside fore and aft recessed cleats. The island itself lay within easy reach of the Indestructible’s gangplank. Razmous was all for going immediately ashore, but most of the crew was more interested in the flaming waters that lay all about them.

  Professor Hap-Troggensbottle was the first to put forth a theory. “If many such caverns exist, then the hot air trapped within them might provide sufficient buoyancy to make the islands and continents float,” he said.

  “Imagine the engine such a cavern could drive!” Chief Portlost said, beginning his own conjectures. “Hot air rising up through chambers drilled in the roof above could drive fans to wind enormous springs. Those could then be used to power the moving stairs I have always wanted to build to replace the gnomeflinger system currently employed in Mount Nevermind for travel between levels.”

  “Moving stairs?” Razmous asked. “I thought you were Maritime Sciences."

  Smiling, the chief removed his jacket and turned it inside out, revealing a gray tweed with the emblem of the Intramountain Transportation Guild sewn over the right breast pocket.

  “But what about the island?” Sir Tanar groused, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his gray robe. The air in the cavern was sweltering, but the gleaming mound at its center had attracted his attention. “Isn’t someone going ashore to explore?”

  “I’ll go!” Razmous offered.

  The commodor
e eyed Sir Tanar suspiciously. “Very well,” he said. “Sir Tanar, since it was your idea, you may go ashore with Razmous, Conundrum, and Sir Grumdish. Report back immediately if you find anything. There may be creatures here that it would be wiser not to trifle with.”

  “Shall I get my armor, then?” Sir Grumdish asked hopefully.

  “There’s no time,” the commodore answered. “I’ve no intention of remaining surfaced longer than it takes to fill our air bottles. This cavern is too large. There may be unfriendly eyes watching us even now. Go quickly and return.”

  Crestfallen, Sir Grumdish waited with the others while the gangplank was run out. He led the way ashore, followed by the kender and the Thorn Knight, with Conundrum bringing up the rear.

  As they neared the center of island where the mound or hut stood, the flames from the water provided only a pale illumination. The walking proved more difficult than they expected. What had from a distance appeared to be a broad, smooth surface turned out to be pitted and blackened as though some intense flame had blasted it. The cracked edges of the stone were sharp as barbed knives, continually snagging the hem of the wizard’s robe and tearing it to shreds. Once, Conundrum stumbled and fell, slicing the palms of his hands into ribbons. They almost turned back then, but Razmous had gone ahead a bit, and as Sir Grumdish helped Conundrum to his feet, the kender called out, “I believe it’s gold.”

  “Gold?” Sir Tanar asked.

  Using his hoopak staff, the kender vaulted over a particularly large crack, then knelt and peered ahead through the gloom at the glittering mound at the island’s gloomy center. “Yes,” he said almost matter-of-factly. “It’s a large pile of gold.”

  “He’s insane,” Sir Grumdish muttered, using the universal gesture of a finger circling the ear to emphasize his meaning.

  “And jewels, too!” the kender exclaimed shrilly, as though to prove the gnome’s point. “And some really big swords and stuff, and…” He had nearly disappeared from their sight, his travel-worn clothes blending into the hazy dun background. “Oh!”