Chapter 13: "...Below the Eye That Still Might Spy..."

Nathan spun to face Flindee who was looking at him blankly. “Don’t you get it, Flindee? The water is flowing out of the skull’s mouth like as if it’s belching the water out! So the tooth of stone must be one of these large rock teeth just like I thought!”

He ran over to the jester quickly and removed his hat, fishing around inside for Snagglefang’s directions. Two balls of string, a rubber ducky, seventeen paperclips, and a pack of snack crackers later, he found it.

“Under bone and tooth of stone, beside the belching froth…” he read as Vonkar finally caught up to them. The Viking was distracted by the commotion down the beach and it was obvious that his attention was not on their search.

“Ok, we’ve discovered the belching froth of water coming out of the skull face of the mountain for sure, and these two huge towers of rock in the water are the stone teeth of the skull. Now we just have to decide which one is the one we have to get under to find this secret passage.”

The prince read the next line: “’Below the eye that still might spy those who find the cross of cloth.’ According to this it’s got to be under one of the stones and also below an eye. But I don’t see an eye. The face on the mountain looks like a skull and skulls don’t have eyes. So what is that supposed to mean?”

He looked up and down the face of the mountain, looking for any sign of something that would help him solve the riddle. There was no doubt the mountain-fortress was properly named. The rock of the mountain-face was chiseled deeply to resemble the rounded shape of a skull with the small protrusion of a half-formed nose in the center and two eye-socket caves higher up. One cave was shallow enough to see the back wall of it and was little more than an indent in the mountain that formed a large ledge, but the other one was what gave the skull face a pirate look. That “eye” had been boarded over with wooden planks and resembled an eye patch. In fact, now that the prince looked closer, he could see that those wooden planks were hinged on one side as if used as a door leading into the fortress.

“That’s strange.” He said to himself. “Why would they put a door in the side of the mountain way up there above us like that?”

While Prince Nathan was pondering all of this and Vonkar was keeping watch on their surroundings, Flindee had grown bored and had turned his attention back to the pineapple in his hands. He was hungry, but was also still faced with the problem of cracking the spiny fruit open. But then he got an idea. Looking for something sharp to split the pineapple, his eyes fell on Vonkar’s huge axe. He realized at once that the warrior’s weapon was the ideal tool he needed to solve the problem. Unfortunately, he also realized that the grouchy Viking was not likely to suffer his beloved weapon to be dishonored by such an ignoble and un-war-like fashion. The other issue was that Vonkar currently had the axe in his hands ready for battle so there was no chance of Flindee borrowing it while he wasn’t using it. Of course, Flindee was never one to let little obstacles like grumpy, war-mongering warriors with big weapons stifle his plans. Quite the contrary, Flindee found that situations like this one stimulated his creativity. So it was that within just a few minutes discussion with Q, he had worked it all out.

Just as Prince Nathan was beginning to give up on figuring out the whole “eye” thing in the riddle, he heard Flindee suddenly let out a blood-curdling shout. Spinning around, he saw the crazy jester charging straight for the unsuspecting Viking from behind as if to surprise attack him! Too confused and scared for Flindee’s safety, the prince could only watch in horror as the mighty warrior, believing that he was under attack by the enemy, whirled around swinging his axe in a deadly arc! But the jester never got close enough to be hurt. Instead, after taking only a few steps, he hurled his pineapple directly at Vonkar’s chest and smiled as it was cut neatly in two by the swinging axe.

“And THAT is how you peel a pineapple.” He squealed in delight. Then, before Vonkar could recover his wits enough to realize what had happened, Flindee bounded over, scooped up the two halves of fruit and bounded away again.

“Bummer.” He said. “It got sand on it. Now I gotta find a rag or something to wipe it off with.” Followed by a short pause and then, “No Q, I’m not going to use my hat. You blow your nose on it all the time. That’s nasty!”

Vonkar just blinked at the mad little dwarf. Nathan was just as shocked as the Viking, but came to his senses a bit quicker and decided to get Vonkar’s mind off of the situation before he had time to get angry.

“Vonkar, I need your help deciphering this riddle. Can you help me?”

“This court jester is mad as a loon and hath less sense than a wee babe,” answered the warrior incredulously, “He hath insulted Fo’egrin, my mighty axe with as little care as a witless beast.”

“Vonkar, Flindee was just hungry. Don’t mind him. I need your help right now. Remember my sister, the maiden in distress. She could be facing this sea serpent right now and you could be missing the opportunity to put Fogan, or whatever it's name is, to more important work!”

At the mention of the sea serpent, Vonkar’s thoughts came back to the immediate task. “You are right, young prince. We waste time with this foolishness. Where is this secret entrance?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Nathan replied in exasperation. “The riddle says something about finding a ‘cross of cloth’, so I was thinking maybe we ought to look for that. But I’m not even sure we’re on the right side of the ‘belching froth’ or looking under the right ‘stone tooth’ or what ‘eye’ it’s supposed to be below, not to mention the rest of the riddle!”

For the second time, Vonkar blinked in confusion.

But before Nathan could explain the riddle, another shout went up from Flindee. They both turned to see the jester sinking into a sand trap next to a huge boulder nearer to the cave mouth! He was already buried up to his knees as the sand beneath him drifted into an unseen hole in the beach taking him with it!