The gnomes found that they could hear things outside the ship quite well. They heard all sorts of clicks, whirs, clutters, squeaks, pops, whoops, and warbles, as though they were in some kind of jungle aviary and not beneath the bright briny sea. They also heard the dip and splash of the oars of the approaching minotaur galley. Almost it seemed already on top of them, but after a time, they realized that this was but a trick of hearing.
When they had descended a sufficient distance below the surface, Commodore Brigg ordered, between coughs and gasps for air, the flowpellars disengaged. The ship gradually slowed, but it never really seemed to stop. Even when lying motionless in the water, it seemed to those aboard that it was still sinking slowly. This was not the case, Commodore Brigg assured the crew that had begun to gather near the bridge. It was but a trick of the mind, like the sensation of flying one feels for days after being flung by a gnomeflinger for the first time. Everyone on the upper deck was coughing most uproariously now, as though the whole ship were trying desperately to get someone’s attention, with Conundrum and the chief alone as yet unafflicted by this strange new malady. Finally Chief Portlost noticed this oddity and raised his bushy eyebrows in consternation, pondering aloud, “Undersea sickness?”
And so, in a silence broken by waves of hacking and wheezing, they waited and listened to the approaching pirate ship. It seemed to take much longer than any of them could have imagined. In fact, it took so long that many of the crew began to drop down the ladder by ones and twos, then in mass, even the officers from the bridge, all hacking out their lungs.
“The ship is filling up with smoke,” Snork gasped as Conundrum helped him to a hammock.
“Is it a fire?” Chief Portlost cried.
“No,” Sir Grumdish wheezed. “It’s the torches. They’re smoldering.
“It’s like a cave-in in a tunnel,” Conundrum cursed. “We’re sealed inside the ship, and we’re using up all the air! The torches need plenty of air to breath and burn properly. All they do is smoke.”
“What we need is a vent, a tube to the surface, to let the smoke out,” Snork said. “Something that we can extend and retract…” He slapped weakly at his pockets, feeling for a pencil. “I’d draw up the design if I could only see!” he exclaimed. “My eyes are on fire.”
“And I can barely breathe,” someone else said.
“Well, we’re safe here for a while, at least,” the commodore said. “Extinguish all the torches on this level.”
Commodore Brigg had recovered sufficiently to begin nervously pacing the crew quarters with his hands folded behind his back. Snork lay in his hammock while Conundrum held a cool cloth to his cousin’s eyes. Doctor Bothy sat in a small chair with his flab hanging over the sides, looking rather uncomfortable and put-out, like a child made to sit in a corner. Occasionally, a cough shook his bulk like a tub of jelly. Sir Grumdish lay half-dead of asphyxiation atop a pile of grain bags. The professor leaned against the forward bulkhead, eyeing Razmous the kender, who was following the commodore like a shadow of apprehension, his topknot bouncing with each step. Sometimes he was forced to duck a pipe or brace or strung hammock, which the commodore passed under with ease, so great was the difference in their height.
“What are we waiting for?” Conundrum complained as Commodore Brigg and the kender passed him for the umpteenth time, stepping over his outstretched legs.
“Nightfall,” the commodore answered curtly.
“I’m bored,” Razmous sighed. If there was one thing that frightened seasoned travelers more than a kender’s assurance of “Don’t worry,” or the always portentous, “Oops!” it was the restless sigh of a bored kender. The commodore froze, and everyone turned his gaze on the kender. Even Sir Grumdish stirred uneasily in his sleep.
Razmous looked up and found himself the center of attention, six faces staring at him gravely through the gloom. “What?” he asked innocently. He ran a hand down the length of his topknot. “Have I got something in my hair?”
Everyone returned to whatever nervous habits in which they had been indulging. Razmous peered around at everyone suspiciously, as if he suspected they were playing a joke on him. It was then that he noticed how dark it had become on the bridge, as though everyone’s dark mood had filled up the very air itself.
“It’s getting dark in here,” he commented. “What’s happening to the light?”
As if cued by his words, the last torch flickered and went out. Darkness blacker than any goblin cave descended upon them all. The air seemed to be getting thinner by the moment, and what air they did manage to gasp into their lungs was tinged with the sharp sweaty scent of fear and burned-hair reek of torchsmoke.
Into this came the sound of the oars once again splashing around just above them. Commodore Brigg called for quiet, and gradually the interior of the ship grew as noiseless as it was dark; only the occasional muffled cough broke the stillness. Everyone waited, staring up with bulging eyes, ears straining to hear.
The oars splashed nearer and nearer until they seemed just above the ship. Then, at a muffled and unintelligible cry, they stopped. There followed a series of fumbling echoing thumps. Snork whispered-though he couldn’t have said why he was whispering-”They’re shipping oars.”
They heard a loud splash, followed several seconds later by an even louder clang against the hull of the ship. “They’ve found us! They’re attacking!” Conundrum cried out in fear.
“No! No! Be quiet!” Commodore Brigg shouted, silencing everyone. “It’s only the anchor. Their anchor has struck the hull,” he hissed into the darkness.
“They must know we are here,” Razmous whispered excitedly. “How could they not?”
“What will they do? Will they attack?” Conundrum asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.
“It was almost nightfall when we submerged,” the commodore said. “They probably think we’re a normal ship that has sunk, scuttled rather than be taken by pirates. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Ah, yes! Yes, I see,” several members of the crew exclaimed in the darkness, patting each other reassuringly. “The commodore will save us yet,” many whispered. “He is very wise.”
Commodore Brigg continued, bolstered by this support. “Likely, they plan to wait until morning, then send divers to see what can be salvaged. But we’ll already be gone. My plan is that we’ll wait a bit, then engage the flowpellars and slip quietly away.”
Now a babble of excited voices greeted him as the crew members began to break up, returning to their stations. But the officers on the bridge were not yet easy in their hearts, despite the evident ingeniousness of the commodore’s plan. What about the air? It was still thin, and growing thinner with each breath.
Professor Hap-Troggensbottle was the first to see the problem with this strategy. In fact, it came upon him so suddenly that he slapped himself on the forehead. “Air!” he cried. “If the torches can’t burn, we can’t breath. If we stay here much longer, there’ll be no one alive to engage any flowpellars.”
“And even if we do slip away unnoticed, how will we know in which direction to go?” Conundrum asked. “We can’t see where we are going if there is no light.”