“But what if the hole doesn’t lead anywhere?” Conundrum asked.
“It’s got to go somewhere," Captain Hawser said. “Where is the water going to? What’s drawing that current from the dragon’s lair? I ask you. Personally, I think it leads all the way through to the other side of Krynn.”
“Maybe it leads to the Abyss,” Razmous speculated. “Hey! Maybe that’s what happened to the Maelstrom! Maybe it didn’t just disappear. Maybe it moved here.”
Sir Tanar snorted in derision, then grew thoughtful. He clasped his hands behind his back and began to wander away, brows knit and lost in thought. Conundrum followed him.
“Hey! I wouldn’t go too far,” Captain Hawser said. “Unless you want to meet a giant or two, if you know what I mean. As a matter of fact, we’d best get underground before they show up.”
“I thought we were already underground,” Razmous said.
“We are, but there are burrows beneath the city that are too small for the giants to enter. It seems they had giant-sized rats, too, what made the burrows. Some of you help me flip this crazy machine over,” Captain Hawser said as he jumped down.
Working together, the crew of the Indestructible managed to right the crab and set it on its spindly iron legs. These seemed constructed of bits and pieces of the Polywog’s driveshafts welded together-along with various other bars and tubes that did not bear the mark of Mount Nevermind forges. As Captain Hawser climbed up inside his machine, Chief Portlost asked, “Where did you get these other iron parts, and how did you manage to weld them without a forge?”
After ascending into the crab’s mechanical belly, the captain hung his bearded head out to answer him. “As for the welding, there are lava pits everywhere, and the iron can be got if you’re willing to scrounge for it. This is-or was-a city of giants. Their old, rusty, castoff weapons are everywhere. But if you’d like to see more, climb inside. I’ll show you around.”
“May I?” the chief asked delightedly.
“Please,” Hawser said. “And Commodore, have your crew follow me to a place of safety. You have to hide around here when the geysers start venting. They’ll be perking up any moment now. Mostly, that’s when the giants come out. Mostly. They like the heat, and the steam hides them.”
Inside his clanking, creaking, mechanical crab, Captain Hawser led them by a circuitous route down broad alleys and through wide courtyards. Confusing though their course seemed, Conundrum realized that the captain was leading them back to the beach where the Indestructible lay wrecked on the shore. When he mentioned this, the captain said that the giants did not often patrol near the beach because of the water. The giants, he explained with his head hanging out of the bottom of the crab-Chief Portlost was, to his everlasting delight, now driving the contraption-had an intense dislike, almost a fear, of water in any form other than scalding steam.
“And the giants are at war with the dragon?” Conundrum asked.
“Aye, son, that they are. Though nowadays they are content to keep the passages between their two lairs blocked. Though they are strong and have the advantage of numbers, Charynsanth is too powerful for them.”
The captain’s knowledge of the subterranean city proved invaluable. They might have wandered for months before discovering some of the forgotten byways through which he led them, and as he had promised, here they found titanic weapons of forged iron lying everywhere, many of them reduced by the steamy atmosphere to huge piles of rust. What was more, as he had predicted, geysers throughout the city began to erupt during their journey, filling the streets and alleys with a warm, dense fog that obscured sight to within just a few feet-fog thick enough to hide even a giant.
Finally, they turned into a building no different than the hundreds they had already passed. The interior of the building was expansive and echoing but dark as a minotaur's heart. Captain Hawser steered his mechanical crab into a far corner of the chamber. The belly hatch popped open and he swung out, followed by Chief Portlost. Loosing a rope from a small boulder, he dropped a gigantic tapestry over the machine, then turned and pushed a flat slab of stone aside, revealing the dark mouth of a tunnel burrowed straight down into the floor.
“What’s this?” the commodore asked, peering down into the rank darkness.
“Home,” Captain Hawser answered. “Giants can’t find us here, so this is home. But only for a little while, now that you’re here.”
Chapter
28
There are few things in this or any world that so cut against the kender grain as work when there is fun to be had. Razmous had spent three interminable weeks fulfilling his duties as chief acquisitions officer, leading expeditions through the ruins in search of iron to repair the Indestructible. As interesting as exploring a ruined city might sound at first, after thirty or so collection “missions,” he was ready to put his head in a UAEP tube and explode. Once he got over the really, really big architecture and saw his two thousandth forest of stone columns, there wasn’t much to it.
To really put the beard on the dwarf, Commodore Brigg had absolutely and irrevocably forbidden him, under any circumstances, unto perpetuity, to search for the giants” lair. It wasn’t that he wanted to see a giant, in particular. He just wanted to do something.
The others were all cheerfully busy at their individual tasks. Doctor Bothy continued to search for a cure to his hiccoughs, which had not abated in three weeks. Conundrum and Commodore Brigg were helping the professor modify one of the ascending kettles so that it could be lowered by means of a wench attached to the stern of the Indestructible, down through the hole at the bottom of the flooded portion of the cavern. They wanted to see if it really was bottomless, or a way to the Abyss, or to the other side of Krynn, or a possible way out. They had renamed the ascending kettle for this purpose, calling it a diving bell. This interested the kender for a while, until Commodore Brigg refused to allow him to be the first to go down in the bell. As the most qualified scientist, the professor was going to hazard the journey himself.
Sir Tanar was busy doing whatever it was that wizards did. This seemed to consist of standing around looking surly and aloof, of else poking around in dark places when he thought he wasn’t being followed, searching for secret passages leading to fabulous treasures, of which there apparently were none. Captain Hawser and Chief Portlost were busy with the mechanical crab, stripping its hull for parts for the Indestructible or effecting repairs to the ship. By the end of the three weeks, the crab was little more than a naked skeleton, though it still contained most of its mechanical components and could be operated as usual.
This left only Sir Grumdish to provide a measure of amusement for the kender, but he spent most of his days holed up inside his armor, sulking because the mechanical crab was so much more spectacular than his own humble mechanical armor. It had quite taken the joy out of his attempt to become a Knight. Razmous had spent the better part of a day begging him to go on a long explore, but to no avail. The next day, Sir Grumdish dismantled his armor and flung the pieces in a corner. He spent the remainder of the third week sitting atop the base of a fallen marble column, staring at a blank cracked wall.
After three weeks, Commodore Brigg finally released Razmous from his duties. They had all the iron they needed to complete their repairs, the Indestructible was once more afloat-with the addition of the boom and wench and the diving bell hanging from its end. With the gnomes no longer shouting, “Razmous, more iron! Razmous, find something a little bigger next time!” every two turns of the glass, the kender was finally able to slip away alone for a little private investigation. He had seen some promising ruins during his iron-mongering expeditions. One thing that Captain Hawser said in their first encounter stuck in his mind, rolling round and round like a pebble in a barrel, endlessly repeating until it had become a little chant, the first verse in a kender traveling song. A passage linking the city with Charynsanth’s lair.