Bad to the Throne, page 25
part #15 of The Good Guys Series
“So it is, isn’t it? And wait till you go out and try to tell other people what you do. You’re trying to explain things. Your brain is telling your mouth to do certain things and your mouth can’t do it because of the magical guards in place to make sure you’re not saying the wrong thing. It fucking drives you betty.”
“Drives you betty?”
“I figure it’d drive anybody betty.”
“Do you mean batty?”
“What did I say?”
“Sounds like Betty.”
“Maybe going Betty is a step more than batty.”
“I don’t think—”
“Listen, don’t tell anybody I fucked up the tour because I already fucked up your ritual and the Watch is going to think I’m just a fuck up and I’ll get kicked out of this gig and I’d really rather keep it long enough to earn a ribbon or two.”
“You didn’t fuck up the ritual — just a few slip-ups.”
“More than I wanted.”
“Totally fine for a first run.”
“I appreciate you saying that. Also, what was that repeat after me state your name bullshit? Nearly made me break out laughing in my fucking helmet.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist the joke. Look, can we just go through that door already?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“The other side of this door here is where you’ll find the ruins,” Bertrand said. “The biggest part of what we do is make sure what’s in there doesn’t come through and go over there.” He pointed back over his shoulder, to the door that led back up top.
“And what is in there, exactly?”
“Well, I’m going to show you. Let’s get you armored up first.”
“I already have armor on, do I have to wear your armor? Can I wear my armor?”
“It’s up to you. You’re one of the special ones. Kind of get to do whatever the fuck you want, as long as you’re not breaking the Rules. Of which there’s really only one, don’t let that stuff out there. As far as equipment goes there are really no hard rules, but most people don’t have good stuff. They’ve got whatever they acquired through years of service in the Legion, but a man like you, what with your profusion of talent and indicium, you’ve probably got better gear than what’s available in the armory. However, tends to be a good idea to at least wear our tabard out there.”
So before we went through, we helped each other put on our armor and got our weapons out. I did as he asked, and put on the Underwatch tabard so we kind of matched.
Finally, we opened the door, which led to a bulwark. A big castle-style wall with big heavy doors and windows with heavy metal bars overlooking a wide open expanse in a huge, dark, cavern.
An expanse that looked a lot like it had at one point been a city square. There were the ruins of some buildings on the other side of the square, but only that of stone. There was no wood or other organic materials. Whatever had happened to make this ruin had happened a long fucking time ago.
“Making a visit,” Bertrand called out. “Visit authority, Bertrand, showing off a special guest.
“Confirm opening up the gates,” came a voice from above. Slowly, the huge gates opened, and I got a real sense of their weight.
They only opened them up enough for us to slip through, and as soon as we made it over, Bertrand called out, “We’re through. Close the gates.”
“Closing,” came the call back, and the gates shut with a firm ka-chunk.
“Now we’re in the ruins,” Bertrand said. “Your clearance means you can explore them at your leisure. It also means you are required to provide defense from enemies that come from outside or from inside. What’s in the ruins stays in the ruins. What’s outside the ruins stays outside the ruins. Never the twain shall meet.”
“Do you know why that is?”
“Because it says so.”
“But why does it say so?”
“I don’t know — I didn’t write it. All I know is I enforce it, and you’ve sworn to do the same.”
“It doesn’t bother you why?”
“I mean, every once in a while, I think everybody stands here and goes, ‘why are we doing this?’ But then you go out into the ruins deep enough and you start to understand that something happened. Something occurred out there to cause what this once was to become what it is now, and whatever it is was that happened then could obviously happen again. And since we don’t know what happened or how it happened, it’s best if whatever is in here stays in here as static as we can make it without bringing anything new into it lest what happened happens again.”
“That’s, maybe, the most confusion explanation of anything I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“I’ll take it as one, all the same.”
“But what’s out there?”
“Just told you I don’t know.”
“But you must have a guess.”
“I suppose that’s true. I have had long hours to think about this place. I just… Look, there are a lot of theories of what was there, but I’m not sure I believe much of them. Or even want to give them to you to think about. What I can say with moderate certainty is what is in there now. Creatures. That are violent and happy to eat whatever they can catch. A lot of those who do the thinking about the why, not me, like to think those creatures are the people who used to live in the ruins before they became ruins. And those creature are not like the people who live topside, either in their current state or their prior non-ruin living state. They’re not even people anymore, really. Whatever happened to them changed them so fundamentally and made them so fucked up that what you see out here will haunt your dreams. Although given that you’ve got four slayer indicium already, I can’t imagine it’s much worse than what you might have already done let alone seen. No disrespect intended.”
“I mean, some taken. I’m not a monster who–”
“Ah, counterpoint, you do have a blessing from the god of monsters, so I’ve got to wonder.”
“It’s not because I acted like one. It has to do with a dungeon.”
“Fair enough. I can’t say I care that much, nor do I know a damn thing about dungeons. But I’m supposed to show you around, so let’s go on a bit of a walk and we’ll see if any of these things come out to take a peek at us.”
He started strolling along, hands behind his back, not quite shuffling his feet, but trying hard to put off a relaxed air that I really wasn’t feeling. I was at maybe an eight, where I wasn’t exactly afraid of something happening, but I felt like something was definitely going to happen.
“Now, back to the question of what’s out here—”
“Are you talking about the creatures that are out here?”
“Yes. What are you asking about?”
“I mean, I guess the creatures, but what are these ruins from?”
“A city.”
“But what happened to it?”
“No idea. And before we go around to what I said when we came in here and you said I was being confusing, I have not given it a lot of thought. I have thought on the creatures, and have some, well, theories? Maybe theories is a bit much. Some ideas: Some think they’re intelligent. Some think they are mindless brutes. Me, I see a minor bit of intelligence, but nothing approaching — what, sapience? Sentience? I never remember which is which. I do think they have understood who we are and that we tend not to go after them just because. So if you wear our uniform, especially our tabard, you’re more likely not to be bothered by these things. Provided, of course, you choose not to bother them. If you poke them, they will poke back, and they tend to poke back hard. There is a reason there are three hundred legionnaires in the Underwatch, and it is not because we like to hang in groups.”
“You keep them from coming through.”
“Exactly. Because even with all these defenses, I’m pretty sure if they really wanted to, they would be able to break through our first line. Whether they could figure out how to open the door to get through the main room, I’m not sure. But they can climb that wall. It’s happened more than once in the past, and we’ve managed to hold the line at the door. All the same, I’d prefer that not happen again. Especially while I’m in charge, because I can imagine it would be a bit of a black mark on my record, which is already off to a banger of a start by fucking up your ritual.”
“Again, I don’t think you fucked it up. It’s fine.”
“I appreciate you saying that. But it’s more about how I feel, and I feel I made a mess of it. Now, let’s move. Frankly, I don’t want to be in here that long. At a certain point, either they’re going to realize they can overwhelm us with numbers or we’ll find one that’s feeling particularly violent, and then we’ll go from being tourists in their land to being lunch in their land. And I don’t want to be lunch. If anything, I’d like to be dinner. It’s a more respectable meal. So onward, at a reasonable pace. Running’ll just rile ‘em up.”
67
So on we moved, even though I kind of disagreed.
“Lunch seems like a perfectly respectable meal to me,” I said. “Also breakfast. Dinner as a whole is overrated.”
“Dinner’s overrated? Are you out of your mind?”
“Dude, breakfast is—”
“Don’t say it. Everybody likes to say breakfast’s the most important meal of the day, but dinner’s the most important meal. That’s when you get the best foods. That’s when you get to drink wine. Drink beer. You know when you don’t drink beer? Breakfast. Why? Because you’re considered a drunk and a layabout”
“I feel like maybe you’ve given this a lot more thought than me.”
“Maybe I’ve had more time staring into the void than you.”
“I’d venture you’re right.”
He gave me a curt nod, and just kept on going down the ‘street’. Or, you know, the reasonably open area between what seemed like ruined buildings which I suppose meant it could have once been a street.
It was odd to be strolling along, though. We were very much walking through ruins, except they felt more alien than anything I’d ever seen. Clearly, a different culture and a different type of creature had built, designed, and lived in this place. Ones that were not human. Or human adjacent. Nothing was human scale or purpose-built for human biomechanics. The doors were a little wider and shorter. The windows were oddly placed. There were fewer right angles, more curves. And all the little things that make civilization seem civilized were missing. Papers and clothes and general life. The insides of the buildings were broken and filled with bits of furniture long rotted. Piles of detritus. Rocks and rubbles mostly just peeking through layers of the wide array of fungi and other plants that had evolved to thrive in the pseudo darkness.
Because there was a profusion of bioluminescence, providing just enough light that I was stuck in this weird zone between dark vision and normal vision.
And, the whole time, I kept one part of my brain focused on my tremor sense while listening to Bertrand banter on. I wanted to keep track of things that were around us that we weren’t seeing. And there were definitely things all around us.
Things moving with us, through the streets from the ruins in such a way that I knew we were being watched. And it seemed to me at least, whatever doubts my fellow Underwatchers had about the intelligence of the creatures down here weren’t exactly on the money. Because we were being hunted.
After about ten minutes of walking, we had gone through a maze of streets and landed in another square.
“This is known as First Square,” Bertrand told me. “Where we came in is obviously known as Entrance Square. We tend to map it out by these squares. I can already tell you’re about to ask me why we call them squares when they’re very obviously not squares. And it’s because it’s what we were told to call them originally. And it’s kind of what makes the most sense to our brains, given what we’re used to. What’s down here is a lot more based on circles and ovals and round things. You’ll either come to accept that or it will drive you slightly betty.”
I didn’t correct him this time.
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked. “Serving in the Underwatch?”
“Fifteen years.”
“You’ve been down here for fifteen years?”
“Well, no, I’ve been part of the Underwatch that long. We really only do stretches of three or four months at a time. Then you go take three months off and then you come back down for another four months. Then you go back up for two or three months. Then you come back down, and so on as needed. I did five years as a regular Legionnaire before then.”
“You’re coming up on retirement.”
“Well, I just got my leadership role. Only quitters retire at twenty years. All the best pension comes after twenty.”
“Fair enough. So how much longer do you think you’ll do it?”
“As long as I can. So don’t fuck it up for me, all right?”
“I’ll see what I can do. No promises. I’m pretty good at fucking things up.”
“You know, you’re not doing much to instill confidence in bringing you aboard, Montana of Coggeshall. Now that we’re out of the listening range of the others, you care to explain why I’ve just brought you into my vaunted organization? Given that you seem little more than a meathead psychopath who enjoys taking bloodbaths.”
“That’s a pretty harsh characterization.”
“Maybe. But it is what I’ve been told about you. How far is it from the truth? And before you answer, I think you may have some ear behind your ear.”
I reached up and felt a bit of gore I’d obviously missed when I’d taken a bath after the fights in the Ball basement.
“Touche, I guess,” I said. “I don’t go about taking bloodbaths just willy-nilly. I’ve been put in a position where I have had to protect a lot of people. And I have done what I have needed to do in order to protect those people. Now, there is a group upstairs, as you like to call it, who seem to think that there’s something special down here in these ruins. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what they want to do with it. But whatever it is has some like, religious-like value to it. They’re basically a cult. And they’re digging around, and they seem willing to kill in order to get it. They’re even trying to put an agent in place that will give them access to it.”
“An agent to give them access? Who the fuck would that be? There’s only three people that can grant access to the ruins.”
“Then I guess they want to put someone in one of those three positions, don’t they?”
“Right, but what would it... Oh, fuck.”
“I think you just figured it out, didn’t you?”
“You’re telling me that someone who could become Emperor is affiliated with this cult that’s upstairs?”
“Well, can I swear you to secrecy?”
“If there’s one thing you know, it’s that I can keep a secret, being that it’s one of the prime activities of our job, isn’t it?”
“Okay. So we think the princess is part of the cult.”
“The former princess?”
“Well, I mean, she’s not the former. She’s still the princess.”
“Sorry, the one from the former Emperor, his daughter.”
“Yeah, the daughter. She wants to be the emperor now, and we think she’s part of this cult. And if she gains the throne, she will let all of her members come down to wherever this place is and use it for whatever they want.”
“This is bad.”
“Exactly — that’s why I’m here, and I believe my friend and colleague is going to be joining as well. The two of us are trying to figure out what it is they want down here. Hence why I was so interested in if you have ideas of what this place used to be.”
“Well, shit.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I’m trying to fucking process it, aren’t I? This is a lot to drop on a man.”
“You’re right, sorry. I don’t even know how to fucking deal with it.”
“Is it— is there some use to something in the ruins that I don’t know about? Have I been protecting this place that should’ve been exploited to make the Empire better? Or is this princess and her group of friends going to ruin the world by coming down here and turning upstairs into downstairs?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. But I think it’s more the latter, less the former.”
“Does that mean ruining the world?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck,” he snapped, and walked away from me, as if he needed space to think. He spun around and pointed at me, “You know, I had it pretty good down here. It’s a lot easier than what’s upstairs, a lot more simple. Nothing goes in, nothing comes out. Simple. Then I find out about you and I think that’s bad enough, but you’re a hero of the empire so maybe you’re actually here to help. But then you show up talking about cults and princesses, and now there’s your mystery friend, who I’ve heard nothing about.”
“He’s all right. He’s an elf. He’s one of the good guys, okay? He’s trying to help.”
“Well, who goes around saying they’re one of the bad guys? Honestly. Everybody says they’re one of the good guys, because they’re always good from their own damned perspective, aren’t they? This is why I started doing this fucking job. I don’t have the mind for gray scale. I like black and white, and never the twain shall meet. You don’t have kids, do you?”
The guy was freaking out.
“No,” I replied. “I don’t.”
“I don’t either. You know why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“That’s right! Relationships are complicated. Sex? Complicated. Life? Complicated. This job? Not complicated. So I like it. That’s why I don’t want to retire. I’m happy here. I would like to keep doing this job until I can’t, at which point I’ll be old and frail and a curmudgeon who can just do nothing but sit in a rocking chair yelling at pigeons. Which, also is simple.”
“Pigeons are simple?”
“Of course they are. You think pigeons are complex? Also, I’m just talking about yelling at pigeons. Doubly simple. I’m willing to fight to keep this job, and frankly, I kind of want to stab you right now so you don’t make this mess.”
