Jeff Crook: Conundrum

“Yes, but is he still hallucinating, or has he truly found the underside of Ansalon?” the commodore asked with barely suppressed excitement, most of his doubts and fears erased.

“His spelling isn’t muddled any longer,” Conundrum answered, one ear turned to the boom to listen to the continued tapping. “He says that he is taking readings and sampling the water. The water is very cold, he says, but it is normal salt water. And… and…” Conundrum’s face bent into a frown, the red curls of his beard bristling.

Suddenly, Commodore Brigg grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him through the open aft deck hatch. Conundrum tumbled down the ladder and fell at the feet of the startled crew members. At the same moment, something large and heavy slammed into the boom, bending it almost double. The force broke the wench loose from its mooring bolts. It skittered across the floor, careened across Conundrum’s stomach (knocking the breath from his lungs), and began bumping up the ladder. It hung on the third rung, rope screaming as it stripped off. The metal rung began to bend.

“Close the hatch!” Conundrum gasped.

One crew member was already vaulting up the ladder. He grabbed the hatch and pulled it shut just as the wench bent the ladder rung double and broke free. The slamming hatch caught the wench as it was rattling through the opening, pinning it between the seal and the heavy Weight of the door. Even so, it was all the poor gnome could do to hold it. His three fellows scrambled up and quickly tied it down.

Conundrum staggered to his feet and stared up at the jury-rigged affair. Even as he looked, he could hear the rope crackling under the strain. At that moment, another tremendous blow struck, this time smashing into the side of the ship, knocking everyone off their feet. He heard Commodore Brigg shouting above deck, and in the distance, a roaring like a tornado come down into the very bowels of the earth.

Sir Grumdish flipped open the belly visor on his suit of mechanical armor and peered out at the massive heap of rubble piled up against the wall of the cavern. He glanced at Sir Tanar, who stood nearby, calmly waiting with his hands folded into the sleeves of his long gray robes. The wizard’s narrow, craggy face was unreadable, as if it had been carved from marble. Growling in frustration, Sir Grumdish focused his gaze on the pile of rubble once more.

“You say that’s the way to the dragon?” he asked with obvious suspicion.

“No doubt about it,” Sir Tanar answered. “Of course, if you are afraid…”

“Balderdash!” Sir Grumdish snorted. “I was just wondering what the point was of bringing me here. The entrance is sealed.”

“Yes, but your armor is more powerful than a human knight, correct?” the Thorn Knight prodded, his face still inscrutable.

“As strong as three men,” the gnome bragged.

“Well, there is a crevice between two of those boulders on the left there. I crawled through it yesterday. A couple of strong men might move those boulders enough for a knight in armor to pass. Anyway, that’s what I thought,” Sir Tanar said noncommittally.

“And did you see this dragon in its lair?” Sir Grumdish shrewdly guessed, catching the Thorn Knight off guard. Sir Tanar was still in the habit of thinking gnomes silly tinkerers. For a moment, his careful mask cracked, and he stared at the gnome in undisguised loathing. Sir Grumdish laughed.

“Well, so long as we really understand each other,” the gnome said. “You want me to slay this dragon so you can grab the choicest items of treasure. If I happen to be slain in the process, all the better for you.”

Sir Tanar smiled and said in a conciliatory voice, “I see I cannot fool you.”

“I do not begrudge you,” Sir Grumdish said as he snapped shut his visor. “It is no less than I expected of you. I just didn’t know that you were aware of my Life Quest. If I could only slay a dragon, the Knights of Solamnia could no longer refuse my application. Well, let’s take a look at this crevice anyway. Probably you are only wasting my time.”

He strode clankingly toward the rubble pile. Sir Tanar dropped in behind, an evil twinkle shining in his black eyes.

After walking up and down before the heap of stones for several minutes, Sir Grumdish stopped and placed his gauntleted fists on his armored hips. The belly visor swung open once more.

“It has possibilities,” he said. “One need only look at it as an architectural puzzle, and one sees that the structure of the pile has several fundamental instabilities. The giants who built it obviously knew little of masonry, while I know quite a bit about the craft, it being in the family, so to say. My mother and sisters are all members of the Masons and Stonecutters Guild back in Mount Nevermind. With a proper fulcrum, a strong enough lever, and several proper steam engines, this pile could be brought down entirely.” He clanked a few steps closer and leaned back to get a better look at the entire problem. “Of course, we don’t want to bring down the entire pile. That might let the dragon out. We just need a large enough space for me to fit through.”

Saying this, he approached a large boulder lying near the crevice and set his gauntleted hands against it. Machinery began to whine complainingly deep within Sir Grumdish’s mechanical armor, but the boulder did not budge. Metal creaked and groaned under the stress. A thin stream of smoke coiled from the left ear hole of his polished helm, and a smell of hot steel permeated the air. The whining had grown to a full-throated scream of stripping gears and bending rods when, without warning, there was a crack of stone from high above.

Sir Tanar leaped back and turned to run, shielding his head with his arms, as the entire pile of rubble came roaring down in an unstoppable landslide. Choking dust filled the air, and stones crashed around him, pelting his back and legs. Dodging into the dark doorway of a nearby building, he narrowly avoided being crushed by a boulder three times his size. Here he hid, cowering in the dark, until the last echoes of the slide faded into nothingness. Then he crept out to survey the damage.

“Damn gnomes!” he swore, mouth agape.

Sir Grumdish was nowhere to be seen. A pile of rubble now covered the place where he had been pushing against the boulder. Sir Tanar did not pause to mourn, unless it was to curse his own luck. With gnomes, nothing seemed to work as planned. Sir Grumdish was only supposed to open a way large enough for him to pass in armor. Instead, the entrance to Charynsanth’s lair now lay wide open, and his offering to the dragon was now dead underneath a dozen tons of stone. His plans had all gone to rot.

Not that it really mattered. He would just have to find a way to placate the dragon without the sacrifice of Sir Grumdish. In fact, this might even be better. He had intended to tell Charynsanth of the underwater passage that the Indestructible had used to escape her. Now he could keep that little bolt hole a secret. He might need it, once she had helped him gain control of the Indestructible. Yes, once he thought about it, this was infinitely better. He had one less gnome to deal with. If he did things right, he might not need the dragon after all.

But of course, by the time he realized this, it was too late. Charynsanth was coming. The ground began to tremble beneath his feet, and the last loose stones, released by the shaking, rattled down the face of the landslide. He had two choices now, and neither of them seemed exactly safe. Red dragons were notoriously unpredictable. She might rush out and, seeing him, flame him without a second thought. But if he hid and revealed himself only after she emerged from the tunnel, he might surprise her, and then she might flame him without a second thought.