As Commodore Brigg stood with his eye pasted to the Peerupitscope, he ran through all the things needing doing once they reached Flotsam. The first order of business was to arrange dry dock facilities. Next, he’d send Razmous in search of a glazier capable of producing porthole windows several inches thick, and also a good ramming beam, preferable something made of aged ash or even ironwood, to which they could then bolt a layer of iron. Not only would the ram serve them well in an attack, they could also use it to widen passages of the undersea caverns they’d be exploring.
Next, they’d need to restock the ship with provisions. Once they departed Flotsam on this final leg of the journey, their supplies would have to last until they reached the other side of the continent-if they made it.
Also, he reminded himself, they urgently needed to locate this Knight, this Tanar Lobcrow, although Commodore Brigg hoped that they’d not be able to find him. He didn’t want a human aboard his vessel, especially not a Knight of the Thorn, for they were sorcerers, and like most of his race, Commodore Brigg had a fascination with magic, but no real use for it. And he distrusted Thorn Knights. Like most humans, they didn’t take gnomes seriously, but Thorn Knights were especially bad because such sorcerers were generally distrustful of technology, and to be quite frank, jealous of it. Every gnome knew this by the time he learned to spell his name, a feat which usually takes years to master. (Commodore Brigg’s name, for example, told the story of his entire family, from the time of the Graygem to the present, and took three days to pronounce.)
The commodore harbored no illusions about the real reason why the Knights of Neraka wanted to place one of their own aboard his ship. Just as Professor Hap-Troggensbottle was fond of saying, scientists had ever been the pawns of the military. With a fleet of deepswimmer submersibles, the Knights of Neraka could rule the seas. They could strangle any Solamnic port on the face of Krynn, or extort heavy “protection” fees from honest merchants. Commodore Brigg didn’t trust this Tanar. He suspected him of being a warmonger and a spy, added to his trappings of sorcery.
Brigg hoped they’d not find the Thorn Knight, but, unfortunately, he knew exactly where to look for him. He had explicit directions from Sir Wolhelm, and indeed carried orders for Sir Tanar. He’d read these, of course, steaming the wax seal loose from the scroll and perusing its contents before they’d even left Sancrist. It was filled with the usual inane dribble, ordering Sir Tanar to observe and report any findings. As if they needed an official observer during this voyage! Everything would be duly recorded in triplicate and notarized by a notorious republican from the Useless Functionaries Guild. The Knights could glean from it all that they needed. Certainly, gnomes were better suited to the rigorous recording of minutiae than some infernal gray-robed human.
Sir Tanar Lobcrow took his meals in his room these days, as a general rule. The maids of the Sailor’s Rest took turns changing his bedding-ever an unnerving undertaking, for the Thorn Knight often sat in a darkened corner of the room and watched them with glowering eyes. Rumors connected him to a mysterious suicide, and other rumors circulated that he was performing monstrous experiments and conversing with creatures that he summoned with his magic. The voices sometimes heard from behind his door seemed to prove this last point especially. He rarely bathed, shaved, or cut his hair, and his room, which he never seemed to leave any more, smelled abominably. Not even a small fire in the inn’s kitchen provoked him to exit his chambers, even though the rest of the inn was evacuated.
And so it was that Sir Tanar failed to hear of the strange craft that appeared almost at the city’s doorstep, rising up leviathan-like from the murky waters of the harbor at dusk the day before. Nor did the cries of the crowd that quickly gathered to view the curious ship and its even more curious crew reach his ears. While the citizens of Flotsam gathered to marvel at the new arrival, empty bottles of dwarf spirits continued to pile up outside Sir Tanar’s door. As he had done most days, and as was his habit when not occupied with a job for the Knighthood, he drank all night long and into the late hours of the next morning, watching the sunrise but blind to its beauty. After wetting his parched lips with the last drop of dwarf spirits from his last bottle, he crawled under the bed to sleep.
It was in this state that Razmous and Conundrum found Sir Tanar, after pounding on the door failed to rouse him from his exhausted stupor. Conundrum had wanted to go for the innkeeper, but Razmous thought it better not to bother him, as it was such a simple lock on the door. It took him only seconds to open, and they entered cautiously, whispering the Thorn Knight’s name.
At first they thought he’d stepped out for a moment, gone to enjoy the beautiful day despite the tale told by the innkeeper about Sir Tanar’s drunken cloistering. They found the bed, rumpled and reeking of sweat, pushed into the far corner away from the window like some sort of barricade. A single wooden chair sat beside it. On the seat of the chair was a crust of stale bread on a gray pewter plate, and beside it an empty battered pewter flagon.
Razmous peeled back the sheets and recoiled at the sight of the vermin scurrying away from the morning light. Meanwhile, Conundrum lifted the edge of a blanket that had fallen off the end of the bed, and he discovered a foot in a worn gray slipper. The foot, which twitched in its sleep, was attached to the Thorn Knight. He lay on the floor under the bed on his side, curled into a ball, with a wooden box clutched to his chest. His thin lips were pulled back from his teeth in a hideous grin, his breath wheezed through his teeth as he slept, and his eyes rolled wildly beneath closed lids.
“Why is he sleeping under the bed, I wonder?” Conundrum pondered aloud.
“It’s probably cleaner than the bed. Ugh!” Razmous shivered.
“Shall I wake him?” Conundrum asked.
“Let’s have a look around first, and make sure nothing’s been stolen while he slept. If it has, he’ll be bound to accuse us. Wizards always do,” the kender said sagely.
Razmous made a further search of the bed, but there were no treasures hidden beneath the pillows or the mattress. Conundrum sloshed the chamber pot with the toe of his shoe, one hand clapped firmly over his nose, while the kender hung half out the window and examined the exterior of the inn and the alley below. Next they overturned the table and the other chair to make sure nothing had been secreted on the underside. Finally, the desk beside the wall failed to yield anything of interest.
“How do you like that?” Razmous huffed. “This is some wizard. Not a ring or magic wand in sight. Just that box he’s clutching like death. I wonder what’s in it."
“Soap, I hope!” Conundrum said, pinching his nose. “He smells worse than a gully dwarf. I wonder what’s wrong with him.”
“Nothing some of Doctor Bothy’s tonic won’t cure,” Razmous chuckled as he clambered under the bed. “I’ve seen cases like this before. Dwarf spirits will do this to a man. That box is probably full of bottles of liquor. The first thing to do it take it away from him and chuck it out the window.”
“Do you think so?” Conundrum asked uncertainly.
" “Sgotta be done. Can’t cure him until the poison is removed,” Razmous said with a grunt. “But he’s holding… onto… it… awfully… tight.”
Suddenly, the entire mattress and springs leaped from the bed frame. At the same moment, the kender cried, “Ow!” and the box came sliding out from under the bed. It bumped to a stop against Conundrum’s shoe.