Conundrum

over and glared down at him with its hateful red eyes. Instead, he seemed to feel eyes watching him. In his fancy he imagined that the spirits of the builders of this place were staring down at them as they crawled like ants along the broad and broken avenues. This place reeked of some ancient tragedy, as well as more recent violence. Here and there, he saw fire-blackened walls and piles of charred bones, pillars of stone with huge sword gashes marring their stark marble beauty, gigantic doors of granite, each large enough to serve as the banquet table of kings, thrown down and shattered like cheap crockery. At one point, the avenue was blocked by a massive pillar that had fallen from the facade of a nearby building. In several places, it had broken apart, and it was through one of these gaps, as tall and wide as the grandest hall of Mount Nevermind, that they passed, every one of them nearly overcome with awe.

After what seemed like miles, Sir Grumdish came to a halt at the edge of a vast, stone-paved plaza surrounded on all sides by buildings that towered into the darkness overhead. At the far side of the plaza, they saw a fountain as large as the lake filling the crater peak of Mount Nevermind. In its midst, a column of shimmering golden water rose a hundred feet in the air before splashing down with a noise like a mighty waterfall.

Sir Grumdish said within his armor, “I don’t think the dragon is here. We’d have been attacked by now.” He clumsily sheathed his broad sword, then opened a little hatch in the belly of the armor and took a gasp of warm, moist outside air. “We might shelter in one of these buildings.”

“I’ll not spungh-” Doctor Bothy hiccoughed-“spend a single night any where nnnungh-near here. I couldn’t sleep in ungh-anything so huge.”

“Maybe there are smaller buildings off one of the side avenues,” Conundrum suggested.

“Let’s not split up just yet. First let’s check out that fountain. We need fresh water badly, especially if we are to spend much time here,” the commodore said, mopping his sweating brow with a handkerchief. “Our supplies were ruined in the crash.”

Closing the belly hatch of his armor, Sir Grumdish started ahead. He led them across the broad paved plaza, over stone littered with broken piles of rubble and large, fire-blackened boulders. The golden color of the fountain’s water came from four flames, each burning from the top of a slender stalagmite that rose from the pool’s depths. From the center of the pool, the water shot in a thick stream high into the air, filling the area around it with a fine cool spray that proved a welcome relief to the heat. At the first hint of such blessed coolness, the crew threw caution to the wind and hurried ahead, passing Sir Grumdish and leaving him clanking along in a stiff-legged stagger.

The water in the fountain proved to be as cool and sweet as elven wine compared to the stale stuff out of their ship’s stores. Some of the more reckless crew members dove headfirst into the waters, the most vocal and frolicking among them being, of course, Razmous Pinchpocket. With a shrill scream of delight, he leaped in, performing a perfect catapult stone splash while still wearing his pouches. The others knelt on the low stone curb and splashed the refreshing stuff in their faces and over their heads, cupping their hands to drink deeply or lying with their beards streaming in the water. Sir Tanar leaned over the curb and plunged his whole head into the water.

Sir Grumdish arrived last and latest, his top half already swaying as he loosened the restraining bolts. Razmous, floating on his back near the fountain’s curb, playfully sent a thin stream of water arcing from his pursed lips high into the air. “Look at me,” he laughed. “I’m a fountain.”

“I’ll fountain you!” Sir Grumdish howled. “Help me out of here, somebody!”

“Shhh!” Razmous cautioned, sitting up. His wet topknot hung over his eyes like a pony’s mane. “Be quiet.”

The others, having learned long ago of the kender’s extraordinary hearing, paused in their cavorting, straining their ears to hear over the roaring of the fountain.

A horrible metallic grinding noise, like an old rusty gate, three hundred feet tall and weighing a couple thousand tons, swinging open, set their teeth on edge. The ground shook with heavy footsteps. As they watched in horror, a huge green crab, half as big as the Indestructible, lurched from the entrance of a nearby building and scuttled toward them, pinchers clanging together like shields. It crossed the distance to the fountain in three rapid heartbeats, closing on the nearest of the crew-Sir Grumdish, madly retightening the restraining bolts of his armor-before the others could react.

The thing scrabbled to a stop within pinching distance of the hapless armored warrior, then rose up threateningly on its two rearmost legs, performed a not-too-ungraceful pirouette, and fell over on its back with a resounding clang, its legs and pinchers waving helplessly in the air.

Chapter 27

Gradually, the thrashing legs grew weaker and weaker until at last they were still, with only an occasional twitch to warn the gnomes from approaching too closely. Not that any of them would have approached too closely- not at first anyway. But Doctor Bothy and Professor Hap-Troggensbottle had to sit on Razmous to keep him away from the huge, black creature.

“It looks dead!” he wailed. “What’s the danger in just a little peek?”

“That’s what you said about the dragon’s egg, and look what happened there!” Sir Grumdish barked from inside his armor.

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

Meanwhile, with dagger drawn, Commodore Brigg crept near enough to touch the beast’s shell with his outstretched hand. He brushed his fingertips over the rough, pitted surface of one of the creature’s legs, then leaped away, but the beast remained as still as the dead. “It doesn’t feel like a crab shell,” he whispered as he examined the tips of his fingers. “Hello! Is this rust?”

As if in answer, a door in the upturned belly of the beast clanged open, and out from it crawled a bedraggled figure dressed in rags. Long, unkept strands of white hair sprouted in a halo around his enormous bald brown head, and a long, thick, filthy beard dangled to his knees. Taking no notice of the astonished crew of the Indestructible, he began to curse and stomp around on the crab’s belly, waving a wrench at the still-twitching legs.

With a little cry of surprised joy, Commodore Brigg leaped onto the crab’s belly. The diminutive figure stopped waving his wrench and eyed the commodore warily. The two stared eye to eye for a few moments. As the light of recognition slowly kindled in the wretched creature’s eyes, his bearded lip trembled, and he dropped his wrench with a clink.

Then the two were in each other’s arm, weeping and roaring like drunken dwarves who just won some money, pummeling each other on the back and madly tugging at their beards.

“Hawser, you old sea dog!” the commodore cried.

“Brigg, you old barnacle scraper!” the bedraggled gnome answered.

Slowly, the others gathered nearer, still cautious of the strange crab-creature, but their curiosity of it and its peculiar owner gradually got the better of them. Tanar rose up from the water and stared at the crab in surprise. Razmous stood knee-deep in the pool and wrung out his topknot, a bemused smile on his wrinkled brown face. Sir Grumdish opened his belly visor and stared out suspiciously. Doctor Bothy shook with hiccoughs and chewed the ends of his beard.

Conundrum approached the crab and examined its rusty surface. Spying something beneath the green patina covering its surface, he began to rub at it with the no longer white sleeve of his robe. After a few moments, he had removed enough of the thin verdigris to reveal letters painted in bright red: MNS POLY.

“The Polywog!' he gasped.

“What is left of it,” the bedraggled gnome croaked. “Forgive me. It has been some time since I last spoke. My voice is a little raw.”

“Then you are-” the professor began.

“Captain Hawser of the MNS Polywog,” the commodore said.

“Last survivor of that ill-fated expedition,” Hawser added.