Conundrum

kender, who was following the commodore like a shadow of apprehension, his topknot bouncing with each step. Sometimes he was forced to duck a pipe or brace or strung hammock, which the commodore passed under with ease, so great was the difference in their height.

“What are we waiting for?” Conundrum complained as Commodore Brigg and the kender passed him for the umpteenth time, stepping over his outstretched legs.

“Nightfall,” the commodore answered curtly.

“I’m bored,” Razmous sighed. If there was one thing that frightened seasoned travelers more than a kender’s assurance of “Don’t worry,” or the always portentous, “Oops!” it was the restless sigh of a bored kender. The commodore froze, and everyone turned his gaze on the kender. Even Sir Grumdish stirred uneasily in his sleep.

Razmous looked up and found himself the center of attention, six faces staring at him gravely through the gloom. “What?” he asked innocently. He ran a hand down the length of his topknot. “Have I got something in my hair?”

Everyone returned to whatever nervous habits in which they had been indulging. Razmous peered around at everyone suspiciously, as if he suspected they were playing a joke on him. It was then that he noticed how dark it had become on the bridge, as though everyone’s dark mood had filled up the very air itself.

“It’s getting dark in here,” he commented. “What’s happening to the light?”

As if cued by his words, the last torch flickered and went out. Darkness blacker than any goblin cave descended upon them all. The air seemed to be getting thinner by the moment, and what air they did manage to gasp into their lungs was tinged with the sharp sweaty scent of fear and burned-hair reek of torchsmoke.

Into this came the sound of the oars once again splashing around just above them. Commodore Brigg called for quiet, and gradually the interior of the ship grew as noiseless as it was dark; only the occasional muffled cough broke the stillness. Everyone waited, staring up with bulging eyes, ears straining to hear.

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.”

Chapter 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.