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

by Margaret Killjoy

  Six months later, the sonalopticloopticamplificator destroys a large chunk of Hak’kal, and angry—ungrateful—goblin workers storm the city. They find you sitting on your throne in the council building and take you outside. They charge you with collaboration, put you up against the wall, and shoot you.

  The End

  One Hundred and Fourteen

  Pneumatic objects: “So we involve the humans? What then? The human governments take over the caverns? What improves?”

  “To say that all humans are bad is as useless as saying all gnomes are bad,” Difference replies, “is it not?”

  “All gnomes are bad,” says the gnome. “Certainly, I’m trying to kill the colonialist in my head, but I never can, not completely. I don’t know that humans are any better. Only the goblins and the kabouters, they bear none of this sickness. Pure and noble. But I suppose the enemy of my enemy… oh, hell.”

  “Well, do you have photographic equipment or not?” you ask.

  “I’m afraid we don’t. The photographic process is a closely guarded secret among us, and only very few are trusted with the power of the camera-plate.”

  “I suppose I shall have to return to the surface and acquire the equipment myself, then.”

  Comrade Difference Engine shows you to a tunnel that deposits you in a canal. You swim to the surface and climb up to the street, oblivious, in your haste, of the sewage odor that lingers in your sopping clothes.

  You hurry back to your apartment and gather everything you own of worth. You hesitate as you reach for your grandmother’s wedding band, but the mournful caged voices come into your head. You find your way to the pawnshop and exchange your meager inheritance for a camera and plates.

  You throw the whole of the equipment into a large rucksack and hurry back to your clock tower home, where it hits you, cold as sobriety: the passageway under the steps is no more. You find no trace, no tell-tale edge.

  You return to your apartment and stare at the empty glass bottles that line your shelves, tables, and floor.

  Perhaps, you decide, it would be prudent to return the camera equipment and purchase more alcohol. If the world of adventure and cunning and revolution is locked forever from you, then oblivion seems your only option.

  The End

  One Hundred and Fifteen

  The council listens with rapt attention to you—or rather, your interpreter—as you tell them about the goblin’s plan to raid Hak’kal, about the Soniloopi… the Sonaloptica… the uh, the weird contraption they’re building in your belfry.

  As soon as you’re done talking, they burst into speech, all of them at once. Strangely, it looks as though they are actually capable of listening at the same time as they speak—an ability that many of your “intellectual” companions claim to have, but of course do not.

  Unfortunately, most of the conversation happens in Gnomish, but the interpreter manages to let you in on some of the more interesting bits.

  “How can the goblins be so ungrateful… of course they are upset, we need to show more good faith… it’s time that we squished them between our teeth like rocks… the important thing is that the attack didn’t happen… make an example.” And so forth, for the better part of a half-hour, before your eyes begin to glaze over.

  “Would you like dinner?” your interpreter asks you.

  And for the first time in a good long while, you grin. Dinner sounds lovely.

  A guard is summoned into the room and escorts you out, but you have the impression that he is there as a guide and not as a captor. You are led to a restaurant, an elegant place with crystal chandeliers—in which the crystals themselves do the lighting!—and tables suited for a man of your stature. None of the other tables are occupied, and once you sit down, your guard leaves.

  A waiter comes out and speaks to you in French. Fortunately, your minor command of the language allows you to request dinner and wine.

  This is served shortly, by a different waiter, a strikingly handsome one. It is only once you’ve begun to sip at your wine that you recognize him—he is the gnome who threatened you the night before! And now he stands before you, a smirk pasted across his face, and you have drunk his poison!

  “Bon appetite, vous porcs impérialistes.”

  It’s a strange feeling, a bit like a fever. Unfortunately, it’s nothing like opium. You had always hoped that death would be a welcome embrace, like poppy. But it’s not. It’s insufferable. And it goes on, and on. Forever.

  The End

  One Hundred and Sixteen

  Pneumatic doesn’t sound convinced. “So we involve humans in our business now? What good are humans? Why would they care?”

  Difference replies to the gnome: “What about the cages on the ceiling?”

  “What about them? What does entertainment have to do with anything?”

  “Entertainment?!” Comrade Difference Engine is outraged, and Pneumatic quickly looks meek, realizing the depths of her error.

  You interject into the argument. “I know they’ll help. My brother’s friends. They can get us weapons, bombs. Oh, we’ll take down Hak’kal,” you say, your voice quivering with possibility, “whatever the cost.”

  Your companions look at you queerly but they help you prepare for your trip. You return to the daylight by means of a tunnel that deposits you into a canal. You swim to the surface and climb up to the street, reeking of the foul city water.

  Searching your way through your hazy memories, you find the basement club where your brother and his compatriots (comrades, he called them, like the Aboveground) had met before his deportment to the prison colonies.

  Inside, the bar looks like a crypt, with low arched ceilings and walls of exposed stonework. Opium smoke fills the air, but you recognize the large-mustachioed face of Victor, your brother's friend, at the back of the club, talking with a mad sobriety with two serious-faced women.

  “Explosives,” you say, approaching the trio, “and firearms. I need to procure guns.” You sit down in an empty chair and interrupt their conversation.

  “Gregory! I haven’t seen your face for some time! I must say, you look the worse for wear–” Victor begins.

  “Of course, of course, where are my manners?” you turn and introduce yourself to the two women. “Niceties accomplished. I need a lot of gunpowder. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “For whom?” one of the women, who wears the clothing of a poor man, asks you.

  To lie and speak of your concern for the fate of your lost brother, go to One Hundred and Twenty.

  To speak candidly of the city of Hak’kal below the sunlit streets, go to One Hundred and Twenty-Two.

  One Hundred and Seventeen

  “I’m quite interested in helping you resolve this situation as amicably as possible,” you say, the lies tasting welcome on your lips, like whisky.

  The council outlines their plans for the “emancipation” of their goblin slaves while you listen intently. What might otherwise be tedious to a man of your slothful temperament is dreadfully interesting when it has become intrigue, you realize. You also realize that their plans to “free” the goblins are, well, just another stage in the imperialist process—as your brother used to say. They plan on letting the goblins elect their own leaders to report to the gnomes, even let the goblins have their own police force that can punish other goblins.

  After an hour or so, a guard escorts you to a downright fancy French restaurant, where you are told to order anything that pleases you, courtesy of the council. The tables are suited for a person of your height, there are no other patrons, and even the guard leaves to allow you privacy. When the waiter comes out and takes your order of wine, you smile. The life of a spy is a good one, you decide.

  The waiter who brings you your food is remarkably attractive, for a gnome. Then, as the wine is placed in front of you, you recognize him—the gnome who offered to rescue you, last night!

  “What a coincidence that you work here,” you say, because you are not sl
y.

  “What is this word?” the waiter asks.

  “Nevermind,” you say.

  “Do you bring information?”

  And you let him know the council’s plans. Your contact nods, listening patiently, even as you take the story off on tangents, like your tour of the city.

  “It is good thing you have been coming to the Hak’kal,” he says, and waits for you to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. “You study information well. The Imperialist swine will give us money for what they have done!” He looks uncertain. “‘Give us money,’ this is a phrase you would use, yes?”

  “I think you mean ‘pay.’”

  “I am confused. ‘Give us money’ and ‘pay,’ they mean the same, yes?”

  You try to explain the difference, but it’s hard, so you drink wine instead.

  “It is nothing. What is important is that you study more information. I think the council will let you be alive for a five-day, at very least. You have a five-day to study all the information. Study how much soldiers they will have on goblins when the goblins are let to be goblin-police.”

  “They’re going to kill me?” you ask, not paying nearly as much attention to the rest of what the waiter-spy-gnome had said.

  “Of course they will kill you. Or put you in cage and make you sing, above Hak’kal. You will not be useful. And you will to have been studying so much. These councilgnomes, they will have red cheeks, yes, but they will have white teeth. This is what we say. Red cheeks but white teeth.”

  You want to argue with him, but only because the wine is getting to you and you don’t want the councilgnomes to be trying to kill you. Instead you wait for your meal, eat somberly, and say farewell to your contact.

  “I will visit you all nights,” he says, “and will make you free when you say. Not free like council says goblins are free. But free like… free like bat in a cave is free.”

  And he is true to his confusing word. Every day you sit on the throne at the council and listen attentively. You ask strategic questions, slowly tricking the council into feeding you new information. Every night, your handsome friend slips in the window of your room and you relay everything you’ve heard.

  On the fourth day in front of the council, the conversation is more heated than usual, and your interpreter tells you very little. A few times, you hear your name in the conversation. The old, aristocratic councilgnome looks at you meets your eyes, and spits.

  That night you decide to escape.

  “Of course,” your Aboveground contact says, “where would you like to go?”

  To be escorted back to the surface, where so many letters sit unanswered at your desk, go to One Hundred and Nineteen.

  To join the Aboveground, go to One Hundred and Twenty-One.

  One Hundred and Eighteen

  “We must make total destroy on the center boiler. This will make the victory of the proletariat. An impossible attack at the heart of empire.” Comrade Eleven Stroke B. speaks enthusiastically, clutching at the table.

  But Comrade Pneumatic H. Fourteen voices a different opinion: “The central pneumatic exchange chamber controls all of our enemy’s communications. We should take you there to cautiously observe.”

  “It is not talking that we must stop! It is power!” Eleven gets out of his chair and begins to jump up and down on the table, casting dark gazes at Pneumatic. “We talk, they talk. Talk is like the empty space. Talk is nothing!”

  Pneumatic looks to you.

  To side with Comrade Eleven Stroke B. with the intention of staging an attack on the central boiler of Hak’kal, go to One Hundred and Twenty-Three.

  To side with Comrade Pneumatic H. Fourteen and see what can be done to interrupt Hak’kal’s communications, go to One Hundred and Twenty-Four.

  One Hundred and Nineteen

  “With me,” the gnome says, then vaults out the window, cute as a kitten.

  You follow, and the two of you take off at a run. Although you lack his endurance, your longer legs do make you the faster runner.

  And suddenly, speed becomes important, because a beam of purple light cuts through the dark air above your head.

  “Run!” the gnome says, although you are already at a sprint.

  You chance a look over your shoulder and see a score of riflegnomes in pursuit. You run faster.

  Suddenly a gnome’s arm reaches out from an alley and pulls you in. “Now run this way,” the new gnome—a shorter-than-average woman with spiky red hair—says.

  The comely fellow is gone, as he kept running. You don’t know if the trade-off was for your safety or his, but you decide to follow this new gnome as she runs through the maze-like city. You are approaching the edge of the cavern, you realize, because the roof is suddenly visible and is dropping quite rapidly as you flee your pursuit.

  Soon, you have to crouch. But your companion reaches up to the ceiling and pulls down a step-ladder hatch—like those that lead to attics—and shoves you quite rudely up it. She follows and pulls it shut.

  The hall is dark, lit only by a softly glowing fungus. Your rescuer takes you by the hand and leads you, jogging, as you fight to keep your breath. You are clearly going uphill.

  You finally stop at a slow-moving river.

  “In,” the gnome says, gesturing towards the river.

  “Why? Will that take me home?”

  But it’s clear that your companion doesn’t speak English.

  You stand your full height, stretch your tired muscles, catch your breath, and jump in. You long ago learned that, once you knew you would do something, it was best to simply do it and not waste time with fear or uncertainty. It’s just that, usually, you apply this to such practical pursuits as subsistence theft or hallucinogenic experimentation.

  The water is cold, but not as cold as you’d feared, and suddenly you see daylight ahead. You swim for it, and emerge in a canal, the sun above you.

  You laugh heartily, laugh as you fight for breath and paddle to stay afloat. You laugh so hard that you attract attention to yourself, and a crowd forms along the bank of the canal.

  But what is one more madman in the water, you ask. What care do I have for the opinion of the useless, pampered gentry? You swim to shore and trudge through the streets of your adopted city, soaking, shivering, and deliriously happy.

  Back at your tower, you head into your room to change and find a chunk of gold the size of your fist sitting on your table. Under it, an unsigned note reads:

  Thanks for everything. The pugilists will take it from here. If… no… when we win, we’ll stop by and thank you in person.

  You weigh the chunk of gold in your hand. First, you think, you’ll get a drink. Then, maybe, it’s time to see the world.

  The End

  One Hundred and Twenty

  “Er… my brother.”

  “You mean to sail across the ocean to effect his rescue?” Victor asks, clearly impressed.

  The two women look confused, and Victor explains: “Remember George, who was nicked for smuggling guns to the African resistance after escaping the destruction of the Paris commune? Meet his brother.”

  The second woman, wearing the garb of a well-to-do lady, looks at you, impressed.

  “I’ve already arranged passage for myself,” you explain, “but I need a trunk full of firearms, to uh… arm the prisoners, and another trunk of bombs. Demolition, you must understand.”

  “They are yours,” the woman who is dressed as a woman says.

  “As simple as that?” the woman who is dressed as a man asks.

  “As simple as that. A more noble cause I’ve never imagined. To sail across the ocean to rescue his kin?”

  “Well, that there’s your answer,” Victor says.

  You return to your home by a circuitous route, in fear that your footsteps might be dogged by the secret police, and wait in the shadows for a few hours. As the bells above toll eleven, a carriage makes its way up the cobbles, and, as instructed, you retrieve two wooden trunks and c
arry them with care into your tower. The locks are ornate, the wood well-oiled, and it is clear to you that the trunks alone would fetch a healthy sum.

  It’s only once you stand at the foot of the stairs that it strikes you: the passageway is gone. You run to your room and return with a magnifying glass, but can find no crack, no disturbed mortar.

  Frustrated, you set explosives by the wall, trusting blindly to intuition to guide you through their placement and handling. The demolition goes smoothly, but you find no passageway in the rubble. What’s more, you have little time to look, as you are certain the authorities will respond to your midnight blasting.

  Your mind pumped full of adrenaline, you make a split-second decision. The way to your room is blocked, so you make your way to the docks with only your two heavy trunks of firepower.

  Thereupon, you buy passage for the colonies by trading an ornate rifle. You have learned one thing from your stay with the little races, fictional it may have been: oppression need not be tolerated. Your brother will be free, you decide, or your life will be forfeit in the attempt.

  The End

  One Hundred and Twenty-One

  “Follow,” the gnome says, then vaults out the window.

  You try to mimic his grace, but manage to fall hard on your shoulder. Your hat takes off, rolling down the street, and you move to chase it.

  Ten paces later, it’s in your hand, and you right it on your head. Then you look over to see your would-be-rescuer being chased by nearly a score of lightrifle-wielding gnomes.

  You exclaim something inappropriate, perhaps something referring to intercourse or excrement, and—in an act most unfitting of your pre-spy nature—sprint towards the fuss.

  You pass the gnomes handily, owing to your longer legs, and swoop up your friend in your arms. Adrenaline courses through your veins—as good as the orangutan stuff you sometimes buy—and you outpace your pursuit as beams of purple light scatter about you against the wall and street.