The Tower of Nero

The trogs listened with rapt attention. No one so much as crunched a breadstick. If our hosts had any inkling that I was recycling the melody from Hall and Oates’s “Kiss on My List,” they gave no indication. (What can I tell you? Under pressure, I sometimes default to Hall and Oates.)

When the last chord ceased echoing through the cavern, no one moved.

Finally, Screech-Bling wiped tears from his eyes. “That sound…was the most—GRR—horrible thing I have ever heard. Were the words true?”

“They were.” I decided perhaps the CEO had confused horrible with wonderful, the same way he’d confused eat with disable. “I know this because my friend here, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, sees it. She is a prophetess and has the gift of clear sight.”

Rachel waved, her expression hidden under the shadow of her pith helmet. “If Nero isn’t stopped,” she said, “he won’t just take over the wor—the Crusty Crust. Eventually he will come for the trogs, too, and every other hat-wearing people. Python will do worse. He will take away the future from all of us. Nothing will happen unless he decrees it. Imagine your destiny controlled by a giant reptile.”

This last comment hit the crowd like blast of arctic air. Mothers hugged their children. Children hugged their breadstick baskets. Stacks of hats trembled on every troglodyte head. I supposed the trogs, being eaters of reptiles, could well imagine what a giant reptile might do to them.

“But that is not why you should help us,” I added. “Not just because it is good for trogs, but because we must all help one another. That is the only way to be civilized. We…We must see the right way, and we must take it.”

Nico closed his eyes, as if saying his final prayers. Will glowed quietly under his lampshade. Meg gave me a stealthy thumbs-up, which I did not find encouraging.

The trogs waited for Screech-Bling to make his decision as to whether or not we would be added to the dinner menu.

I felt strangely calm. I was convinced we’d made our best case. I had appealed to their altruism. Rachel had appealed to their fear of a giant reptile eating the future. Who could say which argument was stronger?

Screech-Bling studied me and my New York Mets hat. “What would you have me do, Lester-Apollo?”

He used Lester the same way he used screeches or clicks before other names, almost like a title—as if showing me respect.

“Could you dig under the emperor’s tower undetected?” I asked. “Allowing my friends to disable the vats of Greek fire?”

He nodded curtly. “It could be done.”

“Then I would ask you to take Will and Nico—”

Rachel coughed.

“And Rachel,” I added, hoping I was not sentencing my favorite priestess to die in a pith helmet. “Meanwhile, Meg and I must go to the emperor’s front door so we can surrender.”

The trogs shifted uneasily. Either they did not like what I said, or the skink soup had started to reach their intestines.

Grr-Fred glared at me from under his police hat. “I still do not trust you. Why would you surrender to Nero?”

“I see you, O Grr-Fred,” Nico said, “Mighty of Hats, Corporate Security Chief! You are right to be wary, but Apollo’s surrender is a distraction, a trick. He will keep the emperor’s eyes away from us while we tunnel. If we can fool the emperor into letting down his guard…”

His voice trailed off. He looked at the ceiling as if he’d heard something far above.

A heartbeat later, the trogs stirred. They shot to their feet, overturning soup bowls and breadbaskets. Many grabbed obsidian knives and spears.

Screech-Bling snarled at Nico. “Tauri silvestres approach! What have you done, son of Hades?”

Nico looked dumbfounded. “Nothing! W-we fought a herd on the surface. But we shadow-traveled away. There’s no chance they could’ve—”

“Foolish crust-dwellers!” howled Grr-Fred. “Tauri silvestres can track their prey anywhere! You have brought our enemies to our headquarters. Creak-Morris, take charge of the tunnel-lings! Get them to safety!”

Creak-Morris began gathering up the children. Other adults started pulling down tents, collecting their best rocks, hats, and other supplies.

“It is well for you we are the fastest runners in existence,” snarled Click-Wrong, his chef’s hat quivering with rage. “You have endangered us all!” He hefted his empty soup cauldron, jumped onto the roadway, and vanished in a skink-scented whoosh.

“What of the crust-dwellers?” Grr-Fred asked his CEO. “Do we kill them or leave them for the bulls?”

Screech-Bling glowered at me. “Grr-Fred, take Lester-Apollo and Meg-Girl to the Tower of Nero. If they wish to surrender, we will not stop them. As for these other three, I will—”

The platform shook, the ceiling cracked, and cows rained down on the encampment.

THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES WEREN’T JUST chaotic. They were what Chaos is like when Chaos wants to let her hair down and go nuts. And believe me, you never want to see a primordial goddess go nuts.

Tauri silvestres dropped from cracks in the ceiling—crashing into tents, flattening troglodytes, scattering hats and soup bowls and pots of mushrooms. Almost immediately, I lost track of Will, Rachel, and Nico in the pandemonium. I could only hope Screech-Bling and his lieutenants had whisked them to safety.

A bull landed in a heap right in front of me, separating me from Meg and Grr-Fred. As the beast scrambled to gain its footing (hoofing?), I parkoured over it, desperate not to lose my young master.

I spotted her—now ten feet away, Grr-Fred rapidly dragging her toward the river for reasons unknown. The close quarters and obstacles on the platform seemed to hamper the trogs’ natural running skills, but Grr-Fred was still moving at a fast clip. If Meg hadn’t kept tripping as they wove through the destruction, I would’ve stood no chance of catching up.

I leaped over a second bull. (Hey, if the cow could jump over the moon, I didn’t see why the sun couldn’t jump over two cows.) Another barreled blindly past me, lowing in panic as it tried to shake a bull-hide tent off its horns. To be fair, I would’ve panicked too if I’d had the skin of one of my own kind wrapped around my head.

I’d almost reached Meg when I spotted a crisis unfolding across the platform. The little trog with the propeller beanie, my server during dinner, had gotten separated from the other children. Oblivious to danger, he was now stumbling after his ball of crystal as it rolled across the platform, straight into the path of a charging bull.

I reached for my bow, then remembered my quivers were exhausted. With a curse, I snatched up the nearest thing I could find—an obsidian dagger—and spun it toward the bull’s head.

“HEY!” I shouted.

This accomplished two things: it stopped the trog in his tracks, and it caused the bull to face me just in time to get a dagger in its nostril.

“Moo!” said the bull.

“My ball!” shouted Beanie Boy as his crystal sphere rolled between the bull’s legs, heading in my direction.

“I’ll get it back to you!” I said, which seemed like a silly thing to promise, given the circumstances. “Run! Get to safety!”

With one last forlorn glance at his crystal ball, Beanie Boy leaped off the platform and disappeared down the road.