Light flared as Pneumo adjusted the flame on a wildly swinging lantern. Kerrick coughed, breathing steamy fumes, then blinked as he saw the gully dwarf dive headfirst into the water churning in the downward-pointed bow.
“More fire!” cried the gnome. “Feed the boilers! Scoop the gold! Plunge the ballast! Strike the vanes-no, strike the ballast and plunge the vanes!” The bearded captain seized a great hammer and raced away from Kerrick, pulling open the constricted hatchway leading into the stern. The other gully dwarf, Divid, remained amidships, spinning some of the bewildering array of valves. If the little fellow knew what he was doing, his frantic gestures gave no clue.
Kerrick raced after Pneumo, using his hands to pull himself up the steeply canted deck. He cast a glance behind, saw there was no sign of Terac in the water churning in the bow. Strongwind had found a rope from somewhere and was headed in that direction, Moreen at his side. Randall, his expression almost bemused, trailed the elf.
Cracking his head on a low bulkhead, Kerrick cursed, then reached for a handhold that turned out to be a scalding hot pipe. Only Randall’s strong hands against his back prevented him from falling, but quickly the elf recovered his balance and continued to move upward, scrambling toward the rear of the seemingly plummeting Whalefish.
He found Pneumo in a large chamber that was illuminated by red light spilling from the open door of a boiler. The gnome was frantically pitching chunks of coal into the furnace, releasing thick smoke that brought tears to Kerrick’s eyes. He blinked, saw familiar brightness shining among the sooty black, and realized that there were nuggets of pure gold mingled with the fuel.
“That valve!” shrieked the gnome captain, pointing to a great, spoked wheel as the elf drew near. “Turn it-we need more pressure!”
“Which way?” Kerrick asked, taking the metal rim in his hands. The surface was warm, slick, and oily, but he felt it budge under the pressure of his grip.
“How should I know?” demanded the gnome, still pitching gold-laced coal into his boiler. “Just turn it!”
Kerrick gave the valve a hard twist, and immediately a gout of steam exploded from an unseen vent. The eruption blasted Pneumo away from the boiler, sent him tumbling across the narrow, cylindrical chamber.
“Not that way!” shrieked the gnome.
Reversing the direction of spin, Kerrick opened the valve, feeling a thrum of power as steam somehow hissed through the system of pipes. Randall, meanwhile, slammed the door of the boiler shut, leaving the room in an eerie darkness split by the crimson glow of several glass panels around the boiler. The Highlander pulled the sputtering gnome to his feet and brushed him off.
“You lost a little hair, fella, but you’ll be okay,” he said.
“The vanes! We have to turn the vanes!” cried Pneumo, breaking away, racing back the way he had come, down the steeply tilted deck.
“Vanes?” Kerrick repeated, trying unsuccessfully to imagine what the gnome was talking about.
“I’ll tend the fire here,” Randall offered. “See if you can help.”
The elf lunged after Pneumo, sliding down the sloping passage, ducking under the bulkhead to find himself back in the Whalefish’s lamp-lit central compartment. Despite his initial impression of a tightly cramped space, after the hellish confines of the boiler room this now seemed to Kerrick like a spacious cabin.
Water still sloshed in the forward section of the submersible, and he spotted Moreen and Strongwind, holding their rope, staring futilely into the murky liquid. The chiefwoman caught his eye when he entered and shook her head.
“No sign of the other little one,” she said grimly.
Pneumo, meanwhile, had seized a crank mounted high on the bulkhead and was kicking and straining to try to turn it. The mechanism, so far at least, seemed unyielding. Kerrick suspected this was one of the “vanes” that must be turned, and as he advanced to help he spotted a similar apparatus on the opposite side. He went to that one and gave the handle a pull.
He got it down a few inches, against tremendous pressure, but found it would move no farther. Pneumo was jumping up and down, tugging on the handle but having no visible success with the crank.
“What do the vanes do?” Kerrick asked, shouting, then wincing in surprise as his voice boomed and echoed though the narrow hull.
“Point us up-or down!” shrilled the gnome. “Now, they’re steering us to the bottom!”
Frantically the elf tugged at the mechanism, but he couldn’t get the crank to move much. When he loosened his hold to adjust his grip, the pressure on the vane spun the handle back to its starting position.
“More power!” screamed the gnome, bouncing up and down as he tried, still without success, to rotate his own handle. “Feed the boilers! Drive the propeller!”
Kerrick suddenly halted, went to the gnome, and wrenched him away. He shook Pneumo by the shoulders, kneeling to stare the captain in his wide, watery eyes.
“You say the vanes are steering us downward?” he demanded.
The gnome gave a frantic affirmative nod.
“Then why do you want more power?” cried the elf. “Won’t that drive us down-faster?”
Pneumo opened his mouth, beard bristling, eyes bulging. Abruptly he clamped his lips together and nodded. “Right,” he said. He shouted toward the stern. “Less power! Starve the boilers! Stop the propeller!”
Leaving the gnome, Kerrick scrambled back to the boiler room to find Randall awaiting him expectantly. The elf went to the large valve he had opened scarce minutes earlier and quickly wheeled it shut. The plunging momentum of the boat slowed perceptibly.
Back in the control room, Moreen and Strongwind were hauling a blue-faced Terac up from the flooded bow section. The gully dwarf spewed a great lungful of water, coughed, and retched but looked as if he would be all right.
Only then did Kerrick notice the water spilling along the deck, draining from the bow as the boat, recovering from its headlong dive, gradually leveled out. Slowly they floated upward. A pair of thick crystal panels revealed the increasing illumination of the water as they ascended through indigo, blue, and soft emerald depths. The light continued to grow until, long minutes later, the Whalefish popped to the surface, and the glass panel brightened with the almost forgotten light of the wonderful sun.
“We need more gold,” Pneumo announced, after he had inspected his metal watercraft. “That’s the only thing that will power the boilers enough to get us out to sea.”
“Gold? You burn gold?” asked the elf, incredulous.
“Yup. Otherwise, the smoke infects the fish, and we can’t eat any, and we all die,” the gnome explained.
“Even gully dwarves, who can eat just about anything.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, leaning away from Divid and Terac, who were gobbling some vile porridge at the galley table. “They’re my third crew. The first two pairs, well, let’s just say that it wasn’t pleasant.”
“Where did you get them?” Kerrick asked.
“Why, Dracoheim, naturally. There’s lots of ’em living under the mountain there, and they make good, loyal crewmen.” Pneumo lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Dumb as two lumps of bricks, of course.”
“You’ve been to Dracoheim?” Kerrick should his head in amazement. He had a hard time believing this was all happening, but his bruises and burns-and the memory of his beloved sailboat’s loss-convinced him that the experience was real. “And gold? You burn gold in your engine? How do you get that?” he demanded.
Pneumo looked at him as if he was a stubborn student who simply refused to learn. “Why, where else would you go if you needed gold? Dracoheim, of course!”
21
