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

by Margaret Killjoy

  For a moment, you’re paralyzed with awe and fear. Then you drain your flask of brandy and drop it on the ground. Then, and only then, you approach Gu’dal. “You know, you didn’t need to kill him.”

  “Oh,” Gu’dal says, “I suppose…” she thinks for a moment. “I suppose that wasn’t the most ethical thing to do.”

  You look at each other awkwardly, then resume the dead man’s work of preparing the balloon for takeoff. Gu’dal climbs into the wicker basket beside you and hands you wet straw to throw into the brazier. Soon, the lighter-than-air craft takes off.

  Go to Ninety-Six.

  Ninety-Four

  “My name is Gregory,” you say, “and I’m from the city above. I’ve come to talk things out.”

  If A’gog is giving you a piercing stare, one that would shoot horror into your veins and turn you to ice, you don’t notice because it’s pitch black.

  “Speak slowly,” a voice says in very heavily accented English.

  “I want to talk about the situation with Hak’kal,” you say, “because I’m concerned with how the gnomes are treating you.”

  “Sit down,” the voice says, and you comply.

  “The disturbance the other day. Is that you?”

  “I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,” you say.

  Suddenly, you hear Sergei screech to your left, and cold arms are pinning you to the floor.

  To struggle against them, go to Ninety-Nine.

  To tell A’gog to light the torch, that it’s your only hope, go to One Hundred and Three.

  Ninety-Five

  You dodge to your right, and the purple beam catches you right in the chest. The pain drives you into anger, and you charge forward, your cane overhead. But you never reach your assailant. The lightrifle beam lays you low. You feel no pain, however. You have adrenaline to thank for that.

  In fact, you feel nothing, ever again.

  The End

  Ninety-Six

  “So basically, we throw more straw on the fire to go higher,” you explain to Gu’dal, “and let it burn down to go lower. To move around, we find the altitude with the proper wind. Then when we get where we’re going, we drop a rope and your friends tie us to the ground.”

  “That’s insane,” the goblin replies. “You’re trusting entirely to chaos.”

  You grin.

  Luck is with you, because as the sun appears over the horizon you find yourself spitting distance—literally, as you test—from an assembled mess of goblins on the ground disguised as street children. You drop the rope and are soon anchored to a rag-and-bone-man’s cart of knickknacks.

  You load your rifle, overseen by Gu’dal, then pull out the spyglass and search the streets below.

  “I wish I was on the ground. Or better,” Gu’dal says, “below it. I wasn’t meant to be up here in the air.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “I know I’ll be fine. I’m just not happy.”

  As you bicker, a rumble breaks the early morning calm, and the ground below shakes, knocking goblins to their feet. A shockwave ripples up your tether, bouncing the basket about most uncomfortably. Gu’dal’s face goes from its usual healthy green to a strange pale.

  “Give me the rifle,” she says, piling up the loose straw into a mound so that she can see over the edge. “I’m a better shot than you.”

  Not accustomed to killing, you do so. And moments later, the streets below turn into a warzone.

  Armed and armored gnomes come pouring out of the doorways to buildings, but they don’t look like fearful refugees. They look like a coordinated strike force. They wield frightening lightrifles that shoot purple and red beams that seem to cause insufferable pain in their victims and they fight with a calm intensity you’ve never before imagined.

  Gu’dal fires shot after shot while you look on with horror. It is clear that the goblin forces are being slaughtered. Not five minutes after it began, it is over. The gnomes are triumphant and the goblins lie dead.

  Gu’dal looks at the tether, and you realize she is planning on descending to the streets below.

  To allow her to climb down towards the gnomes—and near-certain death—go to One Hundred and Four.

  To take her blade and cut the tether, saving her from such a suicidal act, go to One Hundred and Eight.

  To allow the balloon to descend where it is and join her in a final stand against the merciless gnomes, go to One Hundred and Twelve.

  Ninety-Seven

  The child—whose name turns out to be Germinal—bounces his way through the streets, waving at colleagues and running up behind friends to cover their eyes and demand that they “guess who.”

  But despite these distractions, you find yourself in short order at perhaps the most bizarre school you’ve ever seen. In the classroom, gray-bearded gnomes of all genders sit studiously and are taught by adolescents!

  You tell Germinal that, where you are from, the children are taught by adults.

  “Well, that’s absurd,” your guide points out. “Children learn things quite naturally in the course of work and life. It’s the old gnomes who get all curmudgeonly, who need an extra nudge to learn new things, to understand the times. Maybe it’s different in the sunlight?”

  “Maybe,” you respond, and file the idea away as something to consider later. For the moment, you’re caught up in the lesson plan.

  “You see, goblins are every bit as sentient as gnomes,” the teacher explains. “They experience pain, and emotion, at least as sharply as we do.”

  “What do you mean, at least?” one of the students asks.

  “Well, goblins are very smart. Nearly as smart as ourselves. Nearly. But the goblin is more in touch with their animal brain than a gnome is. It’s all very noble—it allows them a closer connection to their spirits, their hearts. In many ways, the goblins, dumb as they are, have a leg up on us!”

  The adults in the room nod with comprehension, and you step outside to sip liquor from the flask you keep in your left coat pocket. When it’s drained, you begin to sip from the flask in your right coat pocket. You’re suddenly overcome with emotion. What emotion, you’re not certain.

  Germinal leaves the school building and joins you sitting on the steps. After letting you ponder for a moment longer, he starts talking. “You must think us monsters, us gnomes. I’m sure the goblins told you about the conditions they live in.”

  You nod.

  “Goblins shouldn’t be treated like animals. Even the conservative thinkers of my generation know they deserve to be treated as well as the kabouters.”

  “Kabouters?” you ask.

  “Yes, the kabouters. They’re uh… they’re another species, like the goblins or the humans.”

  “Are they your slaves too?” The liquor has loosened your tongue, as is its way.

  “No, they’re not. They’re here because we help them, and they help us. They do a lot of the maintenance in the out-lying tunnels. They couldn’t feed themselves without us, and we couldn’t, you know, process the stuff that they process.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Yeah. They like, deal with our, uh… our sewage.”

  “Interesting,” you say. “So the goblins should be treated as well as your well-treated servants?”

  “Of course!”

  It occurs to you that, perhaps, children—or at least Germinal—aren’t good at picking up sarcasm.

  “But then there are the radicals among us, too. The radicals want the goblins freed completely, given back some of the deeper tunnels. The radicals think that goblins, given free will, would mine even more efficiently, that we could trade essentials for the ore that they mine.”

  “Hrmm,” you say. You decide to keep your opinions about the self-serving “good will” of these radicals to yourself. “And where do you stand?”

  “Where do I stand? I stand nowhere. I’m a politician, after all!”

  “Of course. Of course.” You drain the last of the second flask and rise to your unsteady fee
t. Thanks to the magic of alcohol, you can feel every slight tremor that runs through the floor.

  “Back to the council?” Germinal asks.

  And off you go.

  Go to One Hundred and Five.

  Ninety-Eight

  You throw yourself onto the bottom bunk and fall asleep before you have time to remove your hat or mumble your thanks. Your dreams are simple and pleasant, of your friends and lovers in the above world, of walks along the canals, of foods finer than you can afford.

  Some unknown number of hours later, you awaken refreshed. You pull the bowler off from over your eyes and see that your room has had its lantern lit. You sit up in bed and see the human woman from the previous night sitting on the floor, tugging thick brown boots on over the legs of her coveralls. Her hair is short and black, her skin a light olive, and now that you can see her close up, you realize that she is most likely five or more years your senior.

  “Morning,” she says, her voice pleasant enough, though tired, her accent clearly Castilian.

  “Good morning,” you say.

  “Didn’t get a chance to meet you when you came in last night, face all a-bloody. Name’s Comrade Difference Engine.”

  “Gregory,” you say, shaking her proffered hand.

  “When’d you come underground?” she asks.

  “Last night.”

  “You from the city up there?”

  “Indeed. Are you not?”

  “No. Born in España, was living in England when those bastard gnomes got me, dragged me under.”

  “They kidnap humans?” you ask, surprised.

  “Sometimes. Singers and engineers, mostly.”

  “Which are you, then?”

  “Know what a Difference Engine is?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “It’s a mechanical calculator. My professor at Cambridge,” Difference waits for you to look suitably impressed, which you do, “designed it. I was working late one night with Mr. Babbage in his office when the gnomes raided the place and stole the plans and, well, myself. They stole me off in some kind of aquatic, sub-marine vehicle. Haven’t seen daylight since. Happy as damnation that the Aboveground took it upon themselves to rescue me. What about yourself?”

  “Well I uh…” you recognize that your story pales in comparison, “I’m a writer, by trade. Between employments, as it were. And a right mess of goblins took it upon themselves to occupy my clock tower…” You tell your brief tale while Comrade Difference Engine leads you out of your room, through the hallway and into a large cafeteria.

  The cafeteria is filled with almost two score of the smaller people, mostly gnomes, all gabbing and laughing. Your guide beelines for the back of the room, where she fills a ceramic mug with coffee from an overly-complex boiler. She blows on it, smells it, and smiles.

  “Can’t live without the stuff.”

  Go to One Hundred and Nine.

  Ninety-Nine

  You throw your captor off of you easily, knowing her or him or it to weigh half of what you do. But where two hands were, there are now eight, and you struggle in vain. You’re forced to the floor and the life is choked out of you in the dark, leagues away from the surface, from your few friends, from the comfort of letters and vice. Unseeing and unseen, you die.

  The End

  One Hundred

  The councilgnome in the canvas smock—whose name turns out to be Emile—marches you through the maze-like streets of Hak’kal, occasionally stopping to curtsy to passersby. He seems gruff, though likably gruff, and he says little as you find yourself in a denser and denser mess of crystals, clockwork, and steam.

  What’s more, you begin to see goblins at work, side-by-side with gnomes.

  “I wanted to show you this,” Emile says, “because I wanted you to know that there are goblins who live good lives. They work on real, meaningful tasks, because they are smart enough to.”

  But you pick up on something. Most of the goblins you see are smiling, but not every smile is genuine. You’ve always had a knack for reading people—except at cards, most unfortunately!—and the goblins here have sadness behind their eyes, you’re sure of it.

  Your guide continues: “The goblins have come to see us as siblings, not masters. You might resent your older brother sometimes, yes, but you know that what he’s doing, he’s doing with your best interests at heart. The goblins, before we came, lived like animals. Now, they help engineer the greatest city the world has ever seen!”

  Pride cracks through the curmudgeonly gnome’s rough exterior, and you realize he believes what he’s saying with the earnestness of a true believer. He believes it as truly as you believe in vice.

  But suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see a goblin with a wrench who is about to turn violent. She must have overheard Emile’s speech, and she must have disagreed. She bounds up onto a gnome-height gear that stands before her, turns, and prepares to leap and attack your host.

  To throw Emile out of harm’s way, go to One Hundred and Seven.

  To step back and observe, go to One Hundred and Ten.

  One Hundred and One

  You reach the ventilation tunnel undisturbed and set A’gog down.

  “Can I light the torch here?” you ask.

  “Let’s go a little further in,” Sergei says, and you do so. You light the torch and look down at your little, old friend. He looks peaceful, except for the knife wounds that leave his face a mess of ribbons.

  “How do goblins deal with their dead?” you ask Sergei.

  “They eat them.”

  “Oh. Well, how do kabouters do it?”

  “We rip them into pieces and play a game with their limbs as bats and their head as a ball.”

  “Okay, well, we’re not doing that, either. We’ll do what my friends do.”

  “What’s that?”

  You set the torch down and go through A’gog’s pockets, taking all of his valuables. A lighter, a small pouch of strange red rocks, and a leather-bound journal.

  “We take his stuff, and then we get drunk, and then, I dunno, I guess we just leave him here.”

  “Alright,” Sergei says, respecting your culture. You pass your last flask—from your boot—and the two of you get tipsy.

  “Now what?” you ask.

  “You said we just leave him here,” Sergei replies.

  “No, no. Now what do we do? Do we wait here?”

  “No, my friend. Our part in this struggle is done. We are wanted kabouters. Well, I’m a wanted kabouter. You’re a wanted human.”

  “So, can you help me find my way back aboveground, back to my home?”

  Sergei looks at you, a startling gesture since his eyes cannot see. “No, no. My dear Gregory, you can never go home. The gnomes will find you, and they will kill you. Or, of course, do much worse things to you. But if you would like to see the sun again–”

  You nod, then, realizing he can’t see you, interrupt him by saying, “Yes, I would like to see the sun again.”

  “Then we will go to Siberia. It’s a long journey, but we have comrades there who will hide you. The gnomes cannot abide the cold.”

  You keep your own opinions about the cold—which are quite negative—to yourself because you realize this might be your only chance to survive.

  “We will walk for a week until we come to the great conveyance. Conveyance? This isn’t the right word. Conveyor, perhaps. The great conveyor, built when the gnomes and the kabouters first came to these lands. It will take us all the way to the cave sea, where we will charter a boat that will take us to Siberia. By this time three months from now, we’ll be there and you’ll have your sunshine.”

  Somehow, you’re not convinced you would have followed A’gog down the steps in your tower if you’d known what laid ahead of you.

  After three days of hiking and crawling through tunnels, hallways, and weird small holes, you’re out of torches to burn.

  “We should rest here for a few days, until I can produce more snot-torches,”
Sergei says. “It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.”

  “What is a grue?” you ask.

  “The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is humans,” he says. “It doesn’t eat kabouters, because fifty thousand years ago, we were the same species. But where we evolved to be civil, the grue evolved as a creature of instinct and violence. We speak of the grue to scare our children, to show them what monsters we might become if we don’t conform to society.”

  To stay put long enough for Sergei to blow his nose enough for there to be light, go to One Hundred and Six.

  To reject the story as baseless fancy and to hurry on so you might once again see daylight, go to One Hundred and Eleven.

  One Hundred and Two

  You throw yourself onto the top bunk, mumble “goodnight,” and are asleep before the light is turned off.

  Some unknown number of hours later, you awaken refreshed—and still fully clothed. You climb down from the top bunk and begin to walk toward the door when you hear your name called from behind you.

  You turn and see the human woman sitting on the bottom bunk, lacing her boots. Her hair is short and black, her skin a light olive, and she appears to be five or so years your senior. Much like the gnomes, she too wears a plain pair of coveralls, although it is clear that hers are hand-stitched.

  “When’d you show up down here?” she asks, her voice gruff and unfriendly, her accent clearly Castilian.

  “Last night. At least, I think it was last night.” You pull on your watch chain. “My watch is broken,” you remark.

  “Like I care. You from the city above?”

  “Of course. Aren’t you?”

  “No. I was living in England before I was kidnapped by the gnomes.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  The woman finishes lacing her boots and stands up. “I’ll show you where the cafeteria is. Hurry up.”

  “What’s your name?” you ask.