Vonkar was, of course, the first to react. For all his frustration with Flindee, the Viking was not one to stand idly by while a comrade sank into oblivion. Sprinting the short distance to where the jester was sinking, he gave a mighty leap right into the center of the whirlpool of sand and flung his axe over his head to hook it upon a large ivory colored branch stuck in the side of the boulder. Holding Fo’egrin with one arm, he grabbed Flindee around the waist with the other, but by this time the jester’s feet were buried in the sand and he was being sucked down by more than just gravity. The Viking could not pull him free!
Prince Nathan was right behind him. More cautious than the warrior, the prince moved around the outside of the sinkhole and tried to climb the boulder from the opposite side. But the boulder was tall and broad with no branches on that side and Nathan struggled to pull himself up. The only handhold he could find was a large crack to one side dangerously close to the edge of the shifting sand.
Flindee was still crying out in fear as he clung to his pineapple with one hand and his puppet with the other dangling precariously over the ever-deepening hole!
“Drop the fruit,” Vonkar shouted at him, “and grab hold of me, you fruitcake!”
The Viking’s strength was incredible, but Nathan knew he couldn’t hold on forever. He had to get up this rock and fast or his friends would be lost! Pulling off his metal gauntlets, the prince leapt for the crack and jammed his fingers into it. Pain shot through his arms as the rest of his body’s weight yanked down on his fingertips. The armor he wore dragged at him as well and made the climb more difficult, but at last he pulled himself to the top and reached for Vonkar’s hand!
Leaning over the boulder with his face pressed against the rough surface, the prince now noticed that the white branch Vonkar had hooked his axe over was not a branch at all, but a large bone stuck into the crevice of the rock. And it was cracking! No sooner had his hand grasped Vonkar’s arm then the bone snapped! The sudden jerk caught him off guard and pulled him from his perch before he could let go!
The next thing Nathan knew, he was being engulfed in sand and blackness…
As the sand poured over his head, he thought he would suffocate, but then it stopped and he felt himself sliding sideways through an opening and into a dark corridor of stone. Tumbling to the floor next to his friends, the prince sputtered and spit out sand as he rolled to his knees.
Next to him, Vonkar too was coughing and attempting to get to his feet, a grumbling shadow in the small ray of light behind them. Flindee was already on his feet, dusting Quattlebom off with an old, white cloth and talking to the puppet as usual.
“I’m sorry, Q. I know I shoulda listened to you and just used your hat. But how was I supposed to know that this here rag was attached to that lever? All I wanted was a clean piece of pineapple to eat.”
Suddenly he stopped brushing at the puppet and reached for something dangling from the cloth in his hand. It was the fragment of broken bone that Nathan had seen stuck in the crevice of the boulder; the very bone that had snapped under Vonkar’s axe a moment ago. Flindee turned it over in his hand.
“Hey, look at that. It’s not a lever. It’s an old bone.” He noted. “Isn’t that interestin’. I wonder why someone would attach this old piece of cloth to a bone stuck in a big ol’ rock at the bottom of a skull-shaped mountain.”
With that, he snorted loudly and, snapping the string that connected it to the cloth, tossed the bone absently over his shoulder. “Now what happened to my pineapple? I’m still hungry. I suppose both pieces are REALLY dirty now. It’s a good thing we still have this cloth to clean them with.”
He began to walk down the passage, still talking to himself, when the prince stopped him.
“Flindee wait!” He choked. Something the jester had just said clicked with him. He stumbled to his feet. “Let me see that cloth. Quick!”
Flindee frowned, clearly put out by the demand. “Aw, c’mon. I just need it for a few minutes.”
But Nathan ignored the disgruntled dwarf, snatching the cloth away from him.
“Well, I never!” Flindee stated, highly offended now. He stomped his foot and stormed away in search of his beloved pineapple.
The prince shuffled back over to the sand pile and held the piece of cloth up to the thin glimmer of sunlight that filtered through the opening through which they had poured. Unfolded, the cloth was cut in the rough shape of a simple cross!
“This is it! The cross of cloth!” He shouted. “We’ve found it! It was under a different stone tooth; a smaller one. Flindee found it directly below the eye of the fortress with the wooden door over it! It all makes sense now! That eye is a cave entrance to the fortress and probably has spy holes in the door for look-outs to see through. So it still might spy those below who find the cross of cloth! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
The prince was so excited at solving the riddle that he continued on oblivious to his friends. “So the bone in the boulder must have been the bone from the first line of the riddle. The secret passage was under bone alright. Ha! And beneath the drifting sand too.”
“I guess ‘drifting’ is one way to describe it.” Vonkar commented, now on his feet and looking around in the sand for his axe. “Sinking sand is more like it!”
“A play on words. All good riddles do that! Don’t you see, Vonkar? We’ve found the secret passage to my sister!” Nathan was positively jumping up and down now, the clanking of his armor echoing down the long dark tunnel.
Vonkar was unimpressed, being more concerned with other things at that moment. “Fo’egrin! Where’s me axe?” He croaked.
A lighthearted voice answered him from down the passage a bit.
“Oh don’t worry, I’ve got it over here.” It was of course, Flindee. “Just let me finish trimming the skin and dirt off of my pineapple pieces and you can have it back.”
Before Nathan could stop him, the Viking gave a bellow of rage that rivaled Gart the Giant and launched himself at the hapless heretic!
“You would dare to misuse me sacred weapon a second time as a mere fruit peeler? I’ll peel your melon-head!”
Fortunately for Flindee, (though not so fortunate for their quest) someone else stopped the Viking before he could reach his intended victim. Even as Flindee’s face widened into a horrified mask of terror at the oncoming banshee (known as Vonkar the Vocal for a reason), a dazzling blue light illuminated the corridor. All three friends stopped in their tracks and shielded their eyes.
The light came from a glowing crystal atop an ebony wizard’s staff.
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