Conundrum

by Jeff Crook

  “Oh?” Sir Tanar shouted. “Oh? Oh, what?”

  “A dragon’s egg! Sir Grumdish, you were right. This really is a dragon’s lair!”

  Bottles littered the aft deck of the Indestructible. Professor Hap-Troggensbottle had designed a new air compression device after his original one was lost overboard when they were forced to crash dive after leaving Flotsam. The new pump was, like the first one, a converted bilge pump, but to this he had devised several improvements, including a self-capping mechanism that exploded only one out of every three bottles. It required twice as many operators as the previous model just to monitor the safety features. It also could be used as a sausage grinder, had they any spare meat in need of grinding.

  As the professor directed the filling of the bottles, several members of the crew busied themselves stowing the filled bottles below while others brought the remaining empty ones topside. Doctor Bothy was busy belowdecks concocting yet another cure for indigestion to counteract the cook’s newest recipes, which Chief Portlost had kindly agreed to test. Commodore Brigg stood in the conning tower, keeping one eye out for anything approaching over or under the water, while with the other he followed the progress of his landing party until it were no longer visible in the darkness. Even so, he continued to listen to team members” voices, though he had difficulty discerning their words over the banging and clanging of the air compression system.

  It had been several minutes since last he heard the kender’s shrill voice, and he was on the verge of growing concerned. The island was not large, but it was large enough for them to wander out of earshot or become lost. He wondered if they hadn’t fallen down some hole or been overcome by fumes, or, more likely, been done in by the treacherous wizard. He shaded his eyes with one hand as he peered into the darkness, not because shading his eyes helped him see better, but because it was a habit long ingrained by gazing out over the featureless gray sea. He could still see the yellow blob that hinted at a hut thatched with straw, but of his party there was no sign.

  Lifting a tube from its hook within the conning tower, Commodore Brigg placed it to his lips and blew. Then he shouted into it, “Chief Portlost!” He pressed the end of the tube to his ear.

  “Aye, sir?” came the tiny response through the tube.

  The commodore shouted into the tube, “Take two of your command and search for the landing party.”

  “Aye, sir,” the chief responded.

  Before Commodore Brigg had finished returning the tube to its hanger, the chief and two gnomes in red jumpsuits were clambering out of the forward hatch and leaping to shore. They rushed off into the darkness, the chief bringing up a puffing and wheezing rear. He was not the gnome he used to be, having put on a few pounds in recent decades.

  They had only been gone a few moments when it began-a curious whirring noise. It started low, almost at the edge of hearing, so that it was some time before the commodore realized he was hearing it. Then the low whirring grew into a whine, increasing in volume and pitch until it sounded like the voice of a banshee crying across the moors.

  The crew members on the deck looked around in wonder, dropping what they were doing to stare at their commander. The commodore shouted down to the professor, “What’s that noise?”

  “Hoopak!” the professor answered, demonstrating by twirling an imaginary kender weapon above his head. “Generally used to scare off intruders, or as a warning.”

  “A warning?” the commodore shouted in alarm. “Get everyone below deck! Hurry!”

  The whirring sound died abruptly. The commodore turned and stared into the darkness. Still, he saw nothing, unless it was a vague swirling in the hazy shadows at the far end of the cavern. He heard confused shouting, curses, the kender’s shrill cries, yet nothing clear enough to discern the nature of the trouble.

  Chief Portlost appeared from the darkness. He swerved aside to make use of the gangplank, and in moments was aboard.

  “What’s wrong?” the commodore shouted.

  “I don’t know,” the chief gasped, pausing for a moment before the open hatch. “Someone said run, so I did.”

  “Where is your command?”

  “Sir Grumdish ordered them into some kind of defensive line. They haven’t any proper weapons-no catapults or anything.”

  “Damn his eyes, I told him… Get below!”

  Chief Portlost saluted by tugging his beard, then dove through the hatch and disappeared. Commodore Brigg turned his gaze back to the center of the island. Now, the darkness there was complete, as though no light had ever been. He wondered if perhaps Sir Tanar had cast some kind of defensive spell to shield the party’s retreat, but before he had time to form any other theories, all mundane thoughts were driven from his mind, replaced by a sickening, unreasoning fear. Out from the depths of the cave rolled a hollow roar of such rage and hatred that he felt his knees go weak beneath him. It struck him like a storm wave, and he was forced to clutch the rusty rail of the conning tower to keep from being blown overboard. And where there had once been impenetrable darkness, there was now brilliant light-fire, red and golden, liquid fire pouring down upon what, for the briefest of instances, appeared to be three diminutive figures throwing up their hands to fend off destruction. They quickly vanished in the white-hot inferno, perhaps leaving behind three tiny piles of oily ash.

  It was a dragon, red as murder, soaring on leathern wings, pouring down its fiery breath on the tiny figures fleeing back toward the ship. In that one brief flare of light, Commodore Brigg saw them and despaired. But even as he was overcome with horror, he gaped in awe at the majesty and beauty of the evil wyrm as it passed within arm’s length over the top of his bald brown head. As it passed over, he heard it give a small cry of surprise at the sight of him, and then it howled in fury. Its great wings pummeled the air, lifting it into the gigantic heights of the cavern. The wave of dragonfear that passed over him turned his bones to water and his blood to ice, just like the storytellers always said.

  As the dragon soared overhead, banking round and peering over its outstretched wing at the ship, out from the darkness stumbled Razmous, helping Conundrum, who had fallen and skinned his shins. Sir Tanar was right behind them, the bottom of his robes a mass of flapping tatters. Commodore Brigg took heart and found new courage at the sight of them, as he had believed them dead already. Not that he was overjoyed to see the wizard, but even an unreliable and untrustworthy evil wizard might prove useful against a dragon.

  “Thank Reorx!” he cried. “Hurry and get below. Where’s Grumdish?”

  “Coming! Coming!” a hoarse voice shouted from the shadows. Moments later, Sir Grumdish staggered onto the gangplank, his clothes reduced to a few tattered, smoking threads, and his Solamnic mustaches scorched down to a gray stubble. His skin was blackened and wet. He looked like a coal miner escaped from a cave-in.

  “The others?” the commodore asked.

  His jaw quivering with anger, Sir Grumdish shook his head. “They were guarding our retreat. I took cover beneath a magical shield in the beast’s treasure hoard.”

  “Get below,” the commodore ordered, turning round to glance up at the dragon. Even as he did so, the gigantic beast was swooping toward the ship, its jaws agape. He dove through the hatch and slammed it shut behind him.

  “Flood fore and aft ballast and engage descending flowpellars!” he shouted as he cranked the watertight seal into place. The ship commenced to bubble and sink, waves lapping against the hull.

  All of a sudden the Indestructible jerked to a stop, tumbling the commodore from the ladder leading down from the conning tower to the bridge. The ship rolled to starboard. “What’s wrong?” Brigg cried as he grasped the Peerupitscope and pulled himself to his feet.

  “We’re still moored!” Conundrum answered, pointing through the porthole at the forward mooring line, pulled taut and quivering. The ship continued to list heavily to starboard, so much that it was in danger of capsizing. Not even Chief Portlost knew what would happen if the Indest
ructible capsized. They heard him shouting below to secure some barrels threatening to break loose.

  “Purge the ballast tanks,” the commodore ordered. “Purge them before they sink us!”

  “But the dragon, sir!” Conundrum exclaimed, pulling away from Doctor Bothy, who was trying to drag him to the medical bay.

  “We’ll have to fight,” Commodore Brigg stated.

  “A-ha! That’s more like it!” Sir Grumdish howled with glee.

  The ship righted itself, flinging everyone to starboard. Then it began to tilt slowly backward, water streaming down the hull and against the porthole. The bow of the ship rose up from the water, while the iron hull screamed at the stresses for which it had never been designed. Rivets began to pop, and they heard the rending of wood. Despite the efforts of Chief Portlost, a dozen barrels of grain broke loose and tumbled aft with a noise like thunder, in the midst of which they heard a hideous scream suddenly cut short.

  But more than anything else, what they saw through the forward bridge porthole filled them with such terror as few of them had ever known. The dragon had its claws wrapped around the bow of the Indestructible and was lifting her in the air. It was a normal red dragon of Krynn-if such monsters can be called normal-not one of the gargantuan new dragons like Pyrothraxus and Malystryx that had come after the Chaos War. But this dragon was also protecting its egg, and the hells hath no fury like a mother hen distraught over her brood.

  The dragon continued to lift the bow of the ship out of the water. Meanwhile its powerful claws ripped gaping holes in the iron hull, even tearing through the wooden under-hull. Its glaring red eyes burned with a mixture of curiosity and hatred as it twisted the ship this way and that to examine its terrified contents through the portholes, perhaps searching for a way to shake out the juicy bits inside. At the same time she snapped the mooring lines that had threatened the Indestructible’s demise.

  Finally gathering his wits, Commodore Brigg realized the full measure of their danger. Any moment now, the dragon would tear the ship apart or incinerate them with its fiery breath. Lunging up the sloping deck of the bridge, he grasped the lever that released the attacking ram, pulling against it with all his strength.

  The steel point of the ram shot out, shuddering to its full length mere inches from the breast scales of the dragon. The monster started back in surprise, nearly dropping the Indestructible. But then its red eyes narrowed and its wings spread out to either side of its body, quivering in anticipation as it sucked air in through gleaming ivory fangs, stoking the fires in its belly to a thrumming roar.

  “Sir Grumdish!” the commodore shouted at the fire-blackened gnome warrior. “The UAEPs! Fire!”

  Sir Grumdish stared for a moment longer in fascinated horror. Then, reaching above his head, he thrust home two large red buttons. The dragon opened its jaws to breathe crimson death over the ship, and the Indestructible seemed to recoil in fear.

  Then, with a hollow rush, twin jets of water spouted from the bow of the ship, sousing the dragon thoroughly, pouring several hundred gallons of seawater into its gaping maw. It tumbled over backward with the force of the spray. As it fell, the dragon tossed the Indestructible aside, and the ship fell with a thunderous crash into the fire-licked water.

  Immediately, she began to sink.

  25

  Green water streamed in through Indestructible’s numerous wounds. The crew picked itself up and hurriedly dragged out various leak-plugging and bulkhead-bracing devices invented over the years by the Maritime Sciences guild. One after another, these inventions failed spectacularly. One leak-plugger swelled so quickly that it split the wood it was supposed to repair, sending a tremendous gush of water into the galley. Chief Portlost and Doctor Bothy were washed into the corridor, but the cook, still wearing his bandages, managed to catch the edge of the watertight door. He slammed it shut and sealed himself inside, thus dooming himself and possibly saving the Indestructible from a watery grave. Watertight doors on the Indestructible could be sealed only from the inside, an unfortunate design flaw that nearly proved the ship’s undoing.

  Despite the cook’s heroism in stopping the largest of the leaks, there were still enough holes in the ship’s hull to sink her faster than they could hope to effect repairs. Commodore Brigg stared round at his drenched crew, despair creeping into his heart. “We can’t abandon ship in this dragon’s lair,” he said.

  “If you’d listened to me and gone to the Abyss, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Sir Tanar said.

  “Before we surfaced, I noticed some passages leading out,” Conundrum offered.

  “We don’t have much time,” Commodore Brigg said. “Point the way. We’ll try it. Chief Portlost, we’ll need everything she’s got. If we can get into another cave, we might be able to escape through Conundrum’s ascending kettles. We’re not dead yet.”

  He strode to the con and firmly gripped the controls. Conundrum wiped the porthole with the sleeve of his white robe, then peered through the glass into the lurid green water.

  “There, sir,” he said, pointing. “That one looks large enough.”

  “We’ll have only one chance. I hope your luck holds. Chief Portlost?”

  “Ready, sir!” came the answer from below. Glancing down the ladder, Sir Grumdish saw the lower deck swimming with loose barrels and broken crates. A crew member wearing a red jumpsuit-his name was Faldarten-floated past, facedown, bumping against the ladder before swirling aft, a trail of blood following him through the water. Sir Grumdish turned away.

  Indestructible lurched ahead drunkenly. Commodore Brigg fought the wheel, trying to keep her on course, but with hundred of gallons of water sloshing about her lower decks, and with gaping tears in her hull, she handled little better than a log raft riding a storm-swollen river. First one way, then the other, then back again, the ship swung, her escape passage growing nearer by the second but seemingly never in line with the bow of the ship. The bridge crew clutched at anything sturdy, bracing for an impact with the wall.

  At the last possible moment, the exit passage lurched into view. The commodore swore like a dwarf, and then they were through with only one bump-the Peerupitscope. It snapped off against the overhead rock. A fresh blast of water shot from the viewpiece and struck Sir Tanar full in the chest, bowling him head over heels back to his cabin.

  Now began as hair-raising a journey as any of them had ever adventured. Indestructible, still at full speed, zoomed through dark winding passages, round hairpin turns, narrowly avoiding the stalactites and stalagmites that crowded this submerged tunnel. In the distance, they saw another shimmering red light, dimmer than the cavern they had just fled but visible nonetheless.

  “Not another dragon’s lair!” Sir Grumdish shouted.

  “I thought you wanted to slay dragons,” the commodore snarled as he battled the wheel.

  Two more tight turns, the last of which they did not escape without first suffering a scrape that set their teeth on edge, and they were into another cavern. This one, like the last, was lit from above by a red glow, and it also proved to be partially submerged. They shot out from the passage and were immediately confronted by a dark sloping wall.

  Commodore Brigg threw the wheel hard to port, at the same moment screaming, “Allstopengageascendingflow-pellarsemergencyblow! "

  But it was too late. The bow struck a thundering blow that lifted the ship so suddenly and violently that it was a wonder she didn’t break in half. Indestructible ground to a shuddering halt, thrown up on a steep shore of black sand, her crew tossed about like Abanasinian popping corn in a pan.

  Doctor Bothy awoke with the certain knowledge that he was dead. He was a doctor, after all, so he should know. He discounted his continued breathing as an unimportant temporary state. It would be only a matter of time, he was sure. A body could not hurt like this and not be dead. The mortal frame was not designed to withstand such punishment. He assessed his current state of health as very grave without meaningful hope of recovery. He
was suffering from numerous contusions and lacerations about the head, shoulders, ribs, arms, legs, and feet. Even his toes hurt, having stubbed them all at the same time against the base of his examination table when the ship underwent its most spectacular misadventure. He found that he had been struck blind-or else the lights had all gone out, and there was an annoying whining in his ears. What was more, every so often he was subjected to an acute spasm of the muscles of the upper abdominal cavity, which resulted in a sharp, painful inhalation of breath. Soon, this recurring malady proved so uncomfortable that, despite his better medical judgment, he was forced to adjust his prone position.

  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.