What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower: Being An Adventure Of Your Own Choosing

by Margaret Killjoy

  The End

  Forty-Three

  The captain walks back towards the voice-horn and shouts a series of unintelligible commands into it. He then turns and smiles at you, his teeth white and straight and, unlike the goblins’, protruding from gums as pink as your own.

  A few moments later, two fairly small gnomes come through the gates, bearing a fine silver tray with a china tea set between the two of them. One of the cups is human-sized, and this is filled for you. The wonderful aroma of tea leaves fills the chamber.

  You sit cross-legged upon the ground and sip at the cup, relaxing quite a bit. How civil these gnomes are, you think.

  Go to Fifty-Eight.

  Forty-Four

  You’re shown to a human-sized cot in a shadowy corner of the cavern, far from any side tunnels and obscured by layers and layers of net. “The gnomes won’t know that you’re here,” Gu’dal explains, “because if they find you, they’ll take you away.”

  It’s with that ominous warning that you begin your time in Haddlelint. The goblins here keep time by the brightness of their lamps; each is controlled by a central clockwork that shuts off or dims them at night, slowly bringing them to full-bright at noon. There are no other timepieces, but you learn to adjust.

  You’re woken early each morning by a now-playful Gu’dal, who sometimes dumps water on your head, sometimes yells Goblin obscenities in your ear. You’re led off down side tunnels—chosen so as to avoid gnomish observation—and she teaches you the rudiments of cane-fighting.

  Despite outweighing her perhaps six times over, she wallops you soundly for three months before you are able to hold your own.

  “Remember,” she says one day as you practice, “if a rifle-gnome points her lightrifle at you, dodge left. Always left. It works more often than right.”

  Then, at noon each day, Gu’dal leaves for her work shift and you hide in the main room. Most often, you play tiles with the goblins, who have dozens—if not hundreds—of drinking games that you explore.

  But you find yourself drinking less than you had on the surface, certainly no more than two flasks a day. Which is not to say that the goblin sugar-mushroom brandy isn’t good. It is. You just find yourself taken by this new sense of self, this image of yourself as a warrior.

  And when Gu’dal returns in the evenings, and the two of you take long walks through the tunnels, you find yourself more and more taken with her. Five months into your stay, you’re physically fit, practically sober (no more than six shots in an evening!), and quite resoundingly in love with your mentor, who is almost two feet tall and has claws for fingernails.

  She seems fond of you as well. No longer does she wake you with sharp jabs in the underside of your ribs. Rather, she licks your cheek, or bounces on your chest as though it were a trampoline. One morning she walks alongside you on stilts, then places her arm around your waist. You nearly faint with happiness.

  Six months pass faster than you realized could be possible, and it is the last night before the horde gathers once more. You sit with Gu’dal, perched on a net forty feet from the cavern floor, and stare at the stalactites above, imagining constellations in their patterns. You pull the silver ring out of your pocket, and consider what to do.

  To ask Gu’dal to elope with you, afraid that if you fight you might lose one another, go to Fifty-Seven.

  To offer the ring as a good luck charm and go valiantly towards battle and death, go to Sixty-One.

  Forty-Five

  You leap from your perch, and fortunately a small child breaks your fall. You spin about in all directions, everything a blur, and strike about randomly.

  Screams fill the air and bring bloodlust into your eyes. The lion rends, your cane bludgeons, and soon all of your foes are subdued.

  The lion peacefully laps at blood that pools on the floor, and A’gog looks pleased. The bodies of almost a dozen gnomes are scattered about.

  “We should get out of here,” you say, because you’re afraid you might vomit if you let yourself think about what you’ve done.

  “Oh, no. No, we won’t be going anywhere. More will come, and more shall fall. The great evil city of Hak’kal will be uprooted like… like if you were to cut the tendrils off a moss. We shall be victorious!”

  Suddenly, three grown gnomes run into the room, wielding complex and bizarre rifles—adorned with crystals that spin and throw specks of light across the chamber—and wearing full-face helmets covered with darkened glass.

  You don’t think—you’re far too drunk on adrenaline and booze for that—but instead rush them, your cane raised.

  A purple beam shoots out and glances against your chest, stinging, but you bring your cane down on the faceplate of the gnome who shot you and break glass into his face, destroying his eyes. Soon you’re joined by A’gog and his lion, and a second guard falls. The third runs.

  You make to chase the fleeing figure, but A’gog stops you. “Let them run,” he says, “let them tell the whole city that we are here.”

  “We’re not going to win this, are we?”

  “No,” A’gog says, “but they’ll pay for my life of slavery. I thank you, stranger, for giving yourself to this.”

  “Yeah, well, I kinda thought I was hallucinating it all.”

  A’gog nods. You pull a final flask from your back pocket, and you drain it.

  More guards will come. And you will die. But at least you’ll die in some weird cavern far underground, miles from where you were born, on a grand and twisted adventure, with no ethics to speak of. At least you will die free.

  Nevertheless, you will die.

  The End

  Forty-Six

  “What do we have to work with?” you ask.

  “We’ve got the three of us,” Sergei says. “And we’ve got a lot of angry kabouters who may or may not help us.”

  “That’s not a lot,” A’gog says.

  “Well it’s more than we had on our way here, now isn’t it?” you reply. You’ve come down from your adrenaline high, but the fervor of fomenting revolution has gone to your head, and nothing seems impossible.

  “What better time to start putting up propaganda? The kabouters are going to be mad at the gnomes anyway,” Sergei says.

  “That’s useless,” A’gog replies, “we don’t need words, we need action. And besides, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t read. You’re blind.”

  You hear a slap in the dark, and realize that Sergei has struck A’gog. “We’ve been reading and writing with our fingers since before you goblins figured out steam!”

  “That’s enough,” you say, but no one is actually listening to you.

  “Alright, alright, I’m sorry. I sometimes think stupid things, and sometimes I say them. But still, we don’t need words. We need action. You kabouters have got your own police force, yeah? That keeps tabs on the rebels and reports to Hak’kal?”

  “Yes,” Sergei says, suddenly quite subdued.

  “So we kill them. With poison. Poison is good for killing people who are bigger than you when you don’t have guns.”

  “Maybe,” Sergei says, “maybe.”

  To throw your weight behind the idea of disseminating propaganda throughout Underburg, go to Sixty-Two.

  To support political assassination, go to Fifty-Five.

  Forty-Seven

  You look at Gu’dal and you look at the gnome. Never an unduly handsome man yourself, you reach the conclusion that, right or wrong, you will side with the goblins.

  Gu’dal catches your eye, and a smile crosses both of your faces simultaneously. Her sword comes free of her cane and before you’ve time to think she has cut the hamstrings of one of the policemen.

  You lunge forward, catching the gendarme closest to you in the chin with your club with a lucky blow. The gnome latches his jaws onto your right thigh and jabs at your left with what seems to be nothing other than a beartrap on a stick. You stumble, unable to control your legs, and collapse onto the ground. A cop leers above you and y
ou swing wildly with your cane, smacking quietly into his grinning mouth.

  He spits blood and you pass out.

  When you come to, you’re in a nearby alley with smelling salts under your nose. “You did great!” Gu’dal tells you.

  “I feel it,” you say, lying. You look at your legs. Both have vicious wounds and you doubt you’ll be running or fighting again soon. “I would have thought that gnomes wouldn’t have such sharp teeth.”

  “They don’t,” Gu’dal says, “they’re herbivores. But they also eat rocks.”

  With the help of your cane—no longer an affectation but a necessity—you find your way to your feet. You can support your own weight, if barely.

  “Thank you for,” Gu’dal says, “you know–”

  “It’s nothing,” you say. “Never liked cops anyway.”

  Gu’dal grins and you find your way to the next tower slowly, but without further interruptions.

  Go to Fifty-Six.

  Forty-Eight

  The captain shouts something through the voice-horn, then smiles at you. His teeth are white and straight, you realize, with gums as pink as your own. An herbivore’s—or at least an omnivore’s—smile. You can’t help but find it somewhat comforting.

  A few moments later the great city gates open and a gnome walks out bearing an opium pipe, which he or she—you are really having a hard time distinguishing gnomish genders—sets down in front of you and lights with a coal.

  The flowery taste of opium floods into your lungs and you begin to relax. These gnomes can’t be all bad, you decide. Until you remember your brother’s lecture to you, about how western imperialists pushed poppy addiction upon the places they conquered as a way to keep the colonized subservient.

  Still, you’re glad to be smoking.

  Go toFifty-Eight.

  Forty-Nine

  You’re led to a cot only a few inches too short for you hidden in a dark corner of the cavern, obscured from view by a thick canopy of netting.

  “Here, the gnomes won’t see you. Your presence will be a secret,” Trevor tells you. “Now, drink this.”

  You take the proffered ceramic bottle and smell it. Clearly alcohol, and potent. You drink. It burns your tongue and your throat in that lovely, lovely way that tastes like home.

  “What is this,” you ask.

  “Sweet-mushroom brandy,” Trevor replies. “Let’s get drunk.”

  And with such prophetic words, you begin your stay in Haddlelint. Every morning, you’re roused by Trevor playing drums upon your breast. You drink your breakfast and usually set into one of their seemingly hundreds of games that use tiles as pieces, then find some sort of menial task to help with for an hour or so, like washing dishes or chopping mushrooms. The other gnomes, including Gu’dal, spend most of their time out in the mines, departing at all hours with pickaxe and bucket.

  “Why don’t you work?” you ask Trevor one day, early into your stay.

  “Why don’t you?” Trevor replies.

  “Because the gnomes don’t even know I’m here,” you say.

  “Nor me,” Trevor grins. “I escaped years ago, when I went off to travel the world. They’ve got me down as ‘fugitive, presumed dead’ in their charts. I came back because there’s nowhere finer. But who would want to work if they don’t have to?”

  “Fair enough,” you nod. “But how do you eat?”

  “My brethren would never let me starve, oh no! They feed me from their share, and I do what I can to help. And I’m here as a soldier. I think that, really, that gets me off the hook… being ready to die to fight against the gnomes and all.”

  You’re not sure you believe him, but since you’re in a similar position, you don’t say anything more of it.

  For six months you learn all sorts of things about the caverns all across Undereurope. For instance, you learn that goblins are herbivores—fungivores, really—and have sharp teeth so as to break down the cell walls of the mushrooms they eat so that they can get all of the protein.

  You learn about goblin music, too. In goblin music theory, the size and shape of the chamber you are in matters as much to the song as the melody, so one set of words sung in one room is an entirely different song than one sung in another!

  You learn about goblin art and literature, about poetry, about drinking and games like “spike in your knee” and “net hoppers” and “dodge-rock” (the last being too literal for your tastes). You don’t learn much about fighting.

  But you do learn a bit about love. The more time you spend with Trevor, the closer you feel. You begin to stray farther and farther into the underwilds, often staying away from Haddlelint for days at a time, foraging your meals. When away from civilization, Trevor stays sober. And, miraculously, so do you. You laugh and write stories together, imagining fantastical adventures that sit atop the real adventure that you are on.

  You tell him about your family, about your flight from England to join your brother, about your brother’s deportation to the prison colony. You cry in the small, green man’s arms, and, yes, fall in love.

  Six months pass so swiftly that it startles you. Suddenly, it is the night before the re-gathering of the horde, of the attack upon Hak’kal. You sit with Trevor at the edge of an underground pool, staring at the untroubled waters in front of you.

  You pull the silver ring from your coat pocket, and fumble with it in your hands.

  To ask Trevor to elope with you, to go explore the wilds of the underworld and ne’er return, go to Fifty-Nine.

  To hand Trevor the ring, in hopes that it brings him luck in the next day’s battle, go to Sixty-Four.

  Fifty

  You hear the shrieks of more kabouters, and by the sound of the footsteps you guess that hundreds must be gathering to listen to you speak. Eventually, A’gog gives you the cue.

  “My fellows,” you begin, and A’gog interprets. “My fellows, I come here to beg you. To appeal to your might.”

  You turn towards A’gog. “Er, I know they enslave goblins, but what do they do to humans?”

  “They put you in a cage above the city of Hak’kal and make you sing for your supper.”

  “And ‘Hak’kal,’ that’s the name of the city? And not just you clearing your throat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks,” you say, then turn back to address the crowd. “In Hak’kal I might be caged and forced to sing, for no reason but my height and my birth. Is this a decent thing?”

  The crowd answers, and A’gog tells you: “They admit that’s not the best thing that’s ever happened.”

  “I came below the surface because I met a goblin, A’gog here, who cares about the welfare of his people. The goblins, they are hard workers. Perhaps as hard of workers as yourselves. But the goblins aren’t given the sparing bits of freedom afforded to you; they toil with the eyes of guards upon them at every moment.”

  The crowd murmurs. “One admits that this isn’t any good, but another, bastard, says that we goblins are lazy and useless and we wouldn’t work if the guards weren’t constantly threatening us.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” you say. “Who wants to work on other people’s projects? I mean, who likes to work, to labor? And down here, the goblins, under guard at every moment, cannot free themselves. The humans, caged above Hak’kal, cannot free themselves. Will the gnomes free the goblins, the humans? Yourselves?”

  Just as you begin to warm to your subject, a light appears in the distance, growing quickly. Kabouters scream and throw themselves into a panic, most scattering to all directions. You feel a cold hand take yours and find yourself dragged away, stumbling in the dark.

  More noises, chaos, and distant lights, and you find yourself in a small tunnel, most likely another ventilation corridor. You hear A’gog beside you, cursing softly under his breath in French. Then Sergei speaks up:

  “The gnomes must have heard us gathering; we weren’t expecting them for another week at least.” He pauses for a moment. “I liked what you h
ad to say. But even with your fancy speeches, you’ll find no help among the kabouters. We’re well fed and left alone and most us don’t even know we are slaves. Even now, when the gnomes will beat us for gathering, most kabouters will simply blame my friends and I for allowing it to happen.”

  “Well, thanks for getting us out of there.”

  “It is nothing to risk oneself for the cause of emancipation. I must tell you, however, that your gnome friend here was a bit creative in his translations of your speech. I didn’t hear you use the phrases ‘glorious worker’s utopia’ or ‘communist state under the dictatorship of the proletariat.’”

  “Hey, English is like my fourth language,” A’gog replies, “okay? I just got flustered with so many people listening. Let’s have some brandy, yeah? I mean, we’re alive at least, we got away from those stupid flat-toothed guards, didn’t we?”

  You hear the sound of bottle uncorking and feel the drink put into your hands. “Not right now,” you say, surprising yourself. “We need to figure out what to do.”

  Go to Forty-Six.

  Fifty-One

  “Wait,” you shout, and A’gog halts his steed in mid-stride. “We can’t kill them!”

  “What? Why not?”

  While you’re talking, the children scatter, most running back out the way that they came, a few running deeper into the chamber.

  “Because they’re children,” you say.

  “Right!” A light goes on in the drunken fog of your friend’s mind. “Children! Children make great hostages!”

  Suddenly, two children make a break past you for the exit.

  To grab the kid on the left, go to Sixty.

  To grab the kid on the right, go to Sixty-Five.

  To let the kids go by, go to Sixty-Three.

  Fifty-Two

  The captain shrugs—a decidedly human gesture—and smiles at you. You notice that his gums are as pink as your own and that his teeth are decidedly non-carnivorous, something that puts you slightly at ease.