Conundrum

Chapter
2

The stream was no wider than an oxcart and shallow enough for a gnome to ford with his pants rolled up, if he didn’t mind cold piggies. The clear, icy water sprang in a noisy gush from the hillside at the edge of the meadow, then galloped and purled through a copse of oak, elm, and walnut trees. A few squirrels scampered and leaped in the evening shadows beneath the eaves of the trees.

Where the stream emerged from the trees, someone had built a small wooden bridge. A little-used path, leading from the beach to Mount Nevermind in the distance, crossed the stream at this bridge. It was at this place that Sir Grumdish had taken his stand.

As they entered the meadow valley, Commodore Brigg and his companions, including Sir Jarnett, found the Knight sitting his massive charger beside the bridge, as still and solid as a carving of weathered stone. He wore the armor and livery of a Knight of the Rose, but his armor was oddly antique even by generous standards. Though polished to a glassy sheen, his armor appeared dented in several places, while unaccountable bulges showed in others. The roses, kingfishers, and crowns on his breastplate looked worn and tired. At his side hung an enormous two-handed sword in a battered scabbard. In his left hand, he held a great kite shield painted with a golden cog at the fess point. Propped on his right stirrup and steadied by his right hand was an long, white jousting lance with a red pennant near its silver tip rippling in the evening breeze.

Of his features, little could be discerned, except for a bit of white moustache hair dangling from beneath the bucket helm that completely covered his head. A thin, V-shaped slit in the front of the helm allowed for vision and a modicum of air. Like the rest of his antique armor, the helm exhibited signs of both carelessness and loving care. It was as battered as it was outdated, but otherwise shone like a mirror in the westering sun.

His horse was a massive beast, but even an untrained eye could see, upon closer inspection, that this was no warhorse. With its big heavy withers, dangling lips and dull eyes, it looked more a beer-wagon horse than the fearless steed of a renowned and fearless Knight of the Rose.

Sir Jarnett walked his horse across the meadow, the gnomes and the kender spreading in his wake, their eyes wide with curiosity. Surely these two sworn enemies-a Knight of Solamnia and a Knight of Neraka-could not meet but that blows would soon begin to rain. But as they drew closer, Sir Grumdish did not move or speak. Razmous began to suspect that he had fallen asleep, what with the buzzing of the flies and the purling of the stream and the warm sun shining through his visor. The kender was just stooping for a stone to plink off the Knight’s helm and wake him when a voice rang out, high and challenging, muffled but echoing, like a bee in a pipe.

“Halt! Fare thee nary closer, lest ye care to tilt with me for the road, sirrah,” Sir Grumdish cried in some semblance of the ancient language of chivalry.

Sir Jarnett stopped his horse and waited for the others to catch up. They gathered round him, their attention focused on the Knight.

“Well, there he is,” Sir Jarnett said with a bored yawn. “He’s all yours.” So saying, he turned his horse and rode away.

“Halt, miscreant Knight!” Sir Grumdish cried as he bounced angrily in the saddle. His horse took a ponderous step onto the bridge. It creaked ominously under its massive weight.

“Halt, coward Knight! Stand to and fewter thy lance!” Sir Grumdish continued as his mount crossed the bridge in a slow rumble of hooves and cracking wood. “Onward! Run hard, run free, my brave heart, my bonnie steed!” He rocked in the saddle, trying to urge his mount into something resembling a gallop.

Slowly, ponderous and unstoppable as a glacier, the great beast did manage to lift its head and come into the bit. Its broad back became like the rolling deck of a ship, and its rider a cargo broken free of its moorings. Sir Grumdish slipped backwards onto the horse’s withers and began to bounce, his feet in the stirrups and his elbows sticking straight out at the apex of each soaring bound, as though about to take flight. As he scrabbled clumsily at the reins, trying to maintain his seat, his shield sailed free like a pie plate in the wind, then his lance came loose and performed three cartwheels across the meadow before its point stabbed into the sandy soil and it jerked to a quivering stop, upright, like a flagpole. Sir Grumdish rode past it, shouting, “Whoa… Bright…Dancer!”

Then the saddle girth snapped.

Saddle and rider bounced once last time on the horse’s pumpkin-colored rump, then rose together, a little too slowly for belief, while the horse, galloped out from beneath them. At the top of their arcing flight, Sir Grumdish kicked free of the stirrups, and he and the saddle parted ways, like an apple sliced in half by the trick swordsman at the fair.

The bonnie Knight struck the ground with a clang-and broke cleanly in two at the waist. His top half hounded along the path of the still-galloping horse, arms flailing, and a startling stream of curses and exclamations of pain flowed from within the helm. His bottom half bounced to its feet and began running in a large but ever tightening circle, like the proverbial chicken. The Knight’s horse continued obliviously across the meadow and vanished into the undergrowth of the trees beyond.

The top half of the Knight finally rolled to a stop, expelling during its last few revolutions a gnome (whole and uninjured except for his pride) wearing only a dirty white loincloth and a rag wound turbanlike around his enormous bald brown head. As soon as he regained his feet, the gnome dove on top of the still-thrashing upper half of his armor, reached inside, and with a curse worthy of a dwarf, twisted some knob that shut the thing off. The arms fell to each side, limp and dead, while the gnome collapsed across the breastplate, exhausted.

The legs continued their mad scamper around the meadow, passing the two gnomes and their kender companion, who watched them with something combining curiosity, amusement, and horror. Commodore Brigg snapped a short command, and Razmous dropped his hoopak and chased after the legs. But once he had caught up with the Knight’s legs, he didn’t quite know what to do with them, so he ran alongside, hopping up and down to try to see into the waist for the switch or lever to shut them off. Finally, finding no other solution, he threw his arms around the knees and tackled them. Legs and kender went down together in a scrabble of dust.

The legs continued to thrash, flinging up large tufts of grass and odd items from the kender’s pouches. Razmous clung grimly to one knee, while the other battered him about the ears in its throes. His companions rushed to his aid. While Snork and Commodore Brigg wrestled the free leg, the professor felt inside the top of the legs. The legs suddenly fell limp and lifeless. They clung to the legs a few more moments in anticipation of their bursting into frenzied motion once again, before finally rising to their feet, slapping off the dust, and laughing nervously. Razmous gingerly palpated the pointy tips of his well-pummeled ears.

The kender was about to say something clever when the turbaned gnome was suddenly among them, rudely shoving them out of the way as he knelt beside his armored legs and examined them for damage. “What did you do?” he angrily demanded of the professor. “You’d better not have broken anything.”

“I simply flipped the kill switch,” Professor Hap said, pointing to the device in question, only to have his hand slapped away. “It seemed the logical thing to do,” he finished in hurt tones.

The turbaned gnome stood and, crossing his grease-smeared arms in front of his naked chest, frowned grimly. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he asked, studiously glaring at the kender.

Commodore Brigg stepped forward. “We are searching for Sir Grumdish.”

“Thou hast found us. What wouldst thou have of us?” the turbaned gnome asked.

“We are gnomes of Mount Nevermind,” Commodore Brigg said. Razmous cleared his throat. “And a kender of impeccable reputation,” the commodore added.

“Nevermind is home to the vile dragon Pyrothraxus and controlled by those evil Knights, is it not?” Sir Gram-dish shrewdly observed. “My Life Quest is to slay just such a dragon. I am busy at my quest. If you are its servants, I warn thee to get thee hence lest I sheath my blade in thy black innards.”

“Your Life Quest is to slay a dragon?” the kender interjected. “How interesting! Most gnomes” Life Quests are to build some useful device or other.”

“Well, actually, it is a rather interesting story,” Sir Grumdish said, flattered and brightening visibly. “My great-grandfather Jugdish, you see, was trying to build a flying machine to aid the Knights of Solamnia in the great War of the Lance. He dreamed of one day becoming a Knight himself, and hoped his invention would pave the way for his admittance. Since dragons are formidable aerialists-as even I, who am sworn to slay them, must admit-he decided to model his machine on dragons, with various improvements, of course.”

“Of course,” the three listeners agreed, nodding.

“Yes, but he needed a dragon in order to obtain his measurements and design his pattern. Dragons are notoriously unwilling volunteers, having a natural dislike of being boiled down to their bones for the sake of our technological curiosity. Therefore, Jugdish determined to slay one. It became his Life Quest. After he was burned to crisp, the Life Quest passed to my father, Lugdish, and after he was frozen into a solid block of ice, it passed to me.”

“Sir Grumdish, we are all servants of the Life Quest of our race,” Commodore Brigg answered fervently. “No evil has or ever shall corrupt our noble purposes, and if you come with us, you shall see that we are devoted to a quest of our own that will accrue to the further glory of the gnomish race. This I swear by the Cog and the Wheel, and the All-seeing Mobile Optical Scanning Device of Reorx, our god of old.”

The gnome’s faced hardened a bit below his turban. “Those are indeed grave oaths. But be that as it may, what would you have of me? By the devices on your uniform, you are a ship’s captain.”

“I am Commodore Brigg of the MNS Indestructible. This is Navigation Officer Snork, Cartographer and Chief Acquisitions Officer Razmous Pinchpocket, and Science Officer Professor Hap-Troggensbottle.”

Sir Grumdish nodded to «ach in turn as he was introduced. Then he turned back to the commodore, his bushy white eyebrows raised in curiosity.

“Indestructible is a Class C Deepswimmer,” Commodore Brigg said proudly.

“A submersible!” Sir Grumdish exclaimed.

“You’ve heard of them, then?”

Sir Grumdish nodded his turbaned head. “Deathtraps,” he said.

“Yes, well.. ." the commodore hemmed and hawed. “Most likely, you are thinking of the Class A or Class B. We’ve added a number of safety features.”

“Of course,” Sir Grumdish said as he stooped and grabbed his armor legs by the belt. “Pardon me. I have work to do.”

The gnomes parted to watch him struggle to drag his legs across the meadow to where the upper body armor still lay. Commodore Brigg followed after him. “And we’ve made the hull out of iron instead of bronze this time,” he persisted.

“That… should… help it… sink… much… faster,” Sir Grumdish grunted as he tugged. Razmous and Snork each grabbed a foot and helped him carry his legs the rest of the way. With a sigh, they set the legs beside the body.

“Thanks, lads,” Sir Grumdish said as he removed his turban and used it to mop his face.

“Our mission, if you must know, is to try to complete the voyage of the MNS Polywog," the commodore continued. “The Polywog actually completed the west-to-east leg of the journey, but it was lost during the return voyage. It is Navigator Snork’s Life Quest to complete this journey.”

“Good show. Best of luck,” Sir Grumdish said to Snork. “It’s getting dark. I’d better be a-looking for my warhorse. Thanks for stopping by and telling me about all this.” He extended one grease-grimed hand. Razmous shook it vigorously.

“But we want you to come with us, to serve as security officer,” Navigator Snork begged.

“We were hoping for a Knight, but of course a gnomish knight is much better,” Commodore Brigg added. “After all you are the only one… that is, I mean, you are a sterling example.”

“Of course! But I must confess I am not a true Knight of Solamnia,” Sir Grumdish said as he retrieved his shield. “That’s why I want to slay a dragon. If I can slay a dragon, the Knights of Solamnia have no more cause to deny my petition.”

He lay the shield over his armored legs and paused, thoughtfully stroking his moustache. “It’s funny, though. I have no interest in building a flying machine anymore, and the war’s been over for many years. But I still want to become a Knight. That part of the Life Quest is still important to me.” His face hardened once more as he turned back to the commodore. “In any case, I have no desire to be cooped up in a ship, or dragging drunken sailors out of portside taverns. Besides, there would be no room on your ship for my steed, Bright Dancer.”

Commodore Brigg frowned and chewed his beard in frustration. Behind him, the sun lowered behind the nearby hills, casting long shadows over the meadow. Sir Grumdish dragged his lance over to his armor and shield, aided once again by Razmous. They placed it carefully on the ground.

Sir Grumdish straightened his back with a groan, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Commodore,” he said sincerely. “I’m sure you understand. I have my own Life Quest to pursue.”

Professor Hap stepped forward and placed one hand on the commodore’s gold epauletted shoulder. “Did we mention that we’ll be diving dangerously close to the portal to the Abyss?”

“Is that so?” Sir Grumdish said, trying not to appear intrigued.

“Indeed!” the commodore said, brightening to this new persuasive tack. “As a matter of fact, “will be diving right down into the abyssal chasm.”

The gnomish knight raised a shaggy eyebrow, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. He then asked in a low, noncommittal voice, “You don’t suppose there will be any dragons there, do you?”

“It seems inevitable,” Commodore Brigg answered.