Conundrum

This shifting of weight revealed a number of things. First, he learned that the light had indeed gone out, or to be more precise, spilled. Most of the ship’s glowworm-globes had fallen during the crash, scattering their glowing contents. The decks were littered with tiny blue worms milling aimlessly about in search of food. The whining noise proved to be the kender, atop whom Doctor Bothy had come to rest, and who, once released, loudly complained of nearly being suffocated just when things were getting interesting.

Finally, it dawned on the doctor that the annoying spasms of his abdominal musculature were in fact symptomatic of a full-blown case of the hiccoughs. This realization caused him to shout, “Eureka!” for reasons quite beyond his comprehension. Nevertheless, he was quite pleased with the turn of events, even if it had nearly killed him. He set about collecting enough glowworms to light his desk so that he could begin recording the particulars of his malady.

Meanwhile, the other members of the crew took stock of their situation. A head count showed that ten of the original crew of twenty remained alive, not including Sir Tanar, who survived the collision bruised and battered but no more surly than usual.

The Indestructible had come to rest half out of the water, thrown up on a sandy beach at the edge of the small cavern. Most of the ship’s glowwormglobes were broken in the crash. The ship listed about twenty degrees to port and lay at a rather severe angle to fore. The water she had taken on after the dragon attack had all rushed to the stern, completely flooding the engine room.

Chief Portlost, wet and bedraggled, clambered up from below. A little reddish light, shining in patches through the muck-caked bridge porthole, illuminated his wan features as he squeezed water from his beard and shivered.

“It’s no use, Commodore,” he reported. “Engine room is filled to the door with mud and water. We need to pump her out and patch her up before we can hope to float her again, provided we can unbeach ourselves. Meanwhile, there’s no telling what’s happened to the engines. Drive-shaft probably bent; flowpellar blades snapped. And we haven’t enough scrap iron on board to make even minimal repairs.”

“I see,” the commodore said, thoughtfully stroking his own wet beard. “How long, do you think?”

“With plenty of iron and a full crew, I’d say a week,” the chief answered after a few moments” consideration.

“Then you’ll need at least two weeks, provided we can find you the iron. Our first order of business is to see to our provisions. I heard cargo break loose, and I imagine most of our stores are waterlogged and useless. We’ll need to load the UAEPs-with arrows this time,” he said with a wry smile, “and make everything ready should the dragon appear. Once that is done, we can set to pumping out the ship, repairing what we can, and prospecting for some iron in the cave. The Khalkist Mountains are supposed to be filled with ore-or so say the dwarves. In any case, I suggest we take a look around. If we are still in the dragon’s lair, we’ll need to find someplace safe to hide. Sir Grumdish, bring out your armor.”

“Yes, sir!” Sir Grumdish responded happily.

“And open the weapons locker. Daggers and crossbows all around.”

Chapter 26

With the aid of Conundrum, Razmous, and the professor, Sir Grumdish dragged his mechanical Solamnic armor out of the ship. Upon their exit from the Indestructible, the gnomes were at first awestruck by what they saw. The cavern was enormous. The beach upon which they had landed was but one lonely spot at the edge of a vast and magnificent ruin.

As they assembled Sir Grumdish’s armor on the sandy shore, they stared in awe at the towering ruins of a great city, one lost to time. It was built on a gargantuan scale, many times larger than dwarf or human cities. Columns twice the girth of the Indestructible marched right down to the water’s edge, and edifices of epic proportions and ancient style had been cut out of the rock walls of the caves. Broad avenues of cracked paving stones stretched into the distance, lined along either side by bubbling pits of boiling mud, scalding geysers, and crackling pools of lava-the source of the dim red light filling the cavern like a dawning sun.

But the place was hollow and empty, dead, with only the hiss and pop of the steaming mud to break the silence of the deep earth. It seemed many years since anyone lived here, for the place was undoubtedly a ruin, the civilization that built it long ago fallen into forgetful barbarism before finally succumbing altogether to its fate. The gnomes did not care to speculate on who the original builders were, whether human or sea elves or creatures unguessed at, forgotten by time. The solidity of the construction hinted at the skill of dwarf masons, but if this city were an ancient realm of the dwarves, they were a race with a sense of grandeur unmatched by any dwarves of the modern days.

“Why do you suppose they needed such big doors?” Razmous asked while staring around in wonder, no longer even pretending to help the others assemble Sir Grumdish’s armor.

“There’s no accounting for dwarves,” the professor commented as he cupped his hands to accept Sir Grumdish’s foot. Together, he and Conundrum lifted the gnome into the legs of his mechanical armor. Once he was settled safely inside, they hoisted his top half and set it down over his head. They heard him ratcheting home the retaining bolts.

While they were doing this, the remainder of the crew disembarked and spread out along the sandy shore, staring in fear and wonder at the monumental architecture stretching off into the red haze of distance. Even Doctor Bothy had been dragged away from his research. He staggered down the sagging gangplank, his expansive, blue jumpsuited midriff convulsing with regular spasms, each one of which he dutifully recorded in a handy pocket medical diary that he continually misplaced between hiccoughs. Sir Tanar stood on the shore, staring at the Indestructible lying in the sand with her stern in the water.

Chief Portlost came down the gangplank last, bearing the keys to the ship-a massive bronze crank, nearly as tall as himself, which was used to wind the main drive spring.

He had retrieved it from the flooded engine room, nearly drowning in the effort.

With a few preliminary rattles, pings, and clangs, Sir Grumdish’s armor whirred to life. Conundrum handed him his broad sword, which his mechanical gauntlet gripped clumsily. Lifting it aloft, he shouted, his voice muffled by his armor, “Follow me!”

The shining steel blade, which like his armor he kept immaculately polished, glinted in the scarlet glow of a nearby lava pool. The others looked at him and shook their heads in disbelief. They were stifling in the heat of the cavern, so Sir Grumdish must surely have been baking in his armor.

But he did not complain. Instead, he led off in a clanking stride, sword still held high over his head like a standard. Commodore Brigg tucked a dagger into his belt and then followed, the others falling in behind him, each checking his weapon. The professor carried his last UANP-Underwater Arrow of Normal Proportions-over one shoulder, while Razmous tested the willowy flex of his hoopak. Satisfied of its soundness, the kender pulled from one his pouches Commodore Brigg’s remarkable all-purpose-thousand-in-one-uses-folding-knife, which he still hadn’t given back after the adventure of the haggis burial party, and continued his search through its many useful tools for an actual knife blade. Sir Tanar glared hungrily about, perhaps imagining the untold riches that might still lie buried in some hidden vault, forgotten by time.

Conundrum hefted the crossbow given him by Chief Portlost. He had, of course, fired a crossbow before. The crossbow was as much the birthright of every gnome as the long bow was for the elves. The crossbow, in all its varieties, was the one truly mechanical weapon, an ingenious design invented by dwarves, much to the shame of gnomes everywhere. Sure, over the centuries, the gnomes had introduced numerous improvements, like the crossbow that fired a weighted net rather than a normal bolt, and the self- propelled all-terrain crossbow and recreational vehicle. The one in Conundrum’s hands was one of the light crossbow variety, with the standard issue apple peeler and vegetable juicer ingeniously stowed in the wooden stock of the weapon.

Conundrum settled his weapon into the crook of his arm and plodded after the others. Unlike his fellows, this cavernous place filled him with foreboding. Not the unreasoning terror he had experienced when the dragon soared