//------------------------------// // We Have Reasons // Story: Why We Dig // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Rover stared down at the ruts his cart had carved in the dirt. The awful pony’s magic had done the work of months in a single day. The Alpha would have been greatly pleased with such a find. “I can’t believe you let them go,” Spot squeaked, his voice boiling with anger. Some of that was probably with the vanishing ponies and their stolen gemstones, though some of it was at him. “We wouldn’t have had to dig for weeks!” Rover could smell the aggression in his tiny rival, and his whole body tensed in readiness for a fight. His muscles went taut, and his eyes narrowed. His hackles went up, and he growled just slightly. His friend and rival backed away. Fido, for his part, watched with ambivalence. Fido was a good packmate, one Rover knew he could count on so long as his bowl has food every morning. So long as they continued to serve the Alpha, Rover knew there would always be food. “I didn’t want to let them go,” Rover said, teeth still bared at Spot. “But there are things more important than digging. We have enough for the offering—we’ll just have to dig harder next year.” Spot stalked away into the darkness. “I’m glad you get to tell the Alpha about this, and not me. Maybe he will want a new dog leading the pack when this is over.” Fido still stared down the empty passage, where the ponies have gone. “Do you want me to bring it back?” “No.” Rover rested one hand gently on his friend’s shoulder, or as close to it as he could reach. “You did good, Fido. We have to prepare for the offering.” It seemed a meager offering, considering the wealth they’d nearly had. That single pony with her magic could’ve drowned them all in gems, more gems than the Alpha could ever possibly want. Rover supervised as the pack loaded a fresh cart with all the gems of sufficient quality they had gathered that year—the finest their strong senses could dig out of the bowels of the earth. Rover didn’t know what vain purposes the ponies might be taking them for—he could only hope they would make good use of them somehow. Fido could not possibly understand that there were some things more important than paying the offering to the Alpha each year. Yes, there was much to be feared from that terrible creature, capricious near-god of the underground. Staying fed was important. But the Alpha had chosen Rover because he could see further than most dogs. He had seen one captured pony bring several. If they used their guards to capture these six, what terrible odds would the surface-dwellers bring against them? What did it matter that the Alpha got his gems if his secret was discovered? There was an impressive ceremony that night, furnished with the best the pack had to offer. The finest things they had hunted were served there, along with their allotment sent by the Alpha. Rover did not join in the festivities as he had when he was a puppy, and his own father had been the one dreading the festival’s conclusion. He watched from the end of the room, where the offering-cart was piled high with gems. Many puppies made their way up to the cart, with their own feeble offerings to add. Dogs might not have had magic, but from their earliest days their senses were refined, improved, tuned to the smells and tastes of magical gemstones. Most brought feeble offerings—felspar, iron pyrite, or turquoise. Pretty rocks perhaps, but of no value to the Alpha or himself. He did not say so, only smiled to each of them as they came. “The Alpha is pleased with your offering,” he would say, or something similar. It was an ancient ritual. Then he saw his own daughter emerge from the crowd of dogs. She was older, more precocious by the day, her coat gray like his but with creamy highlights on her paws and face. Her mother’s gifts. She clutched a stone very close to her chest with one paw, watching him with interest. You won’t be taking my place yet, Daisy. I still have a few more years in me. “I have a gift for Adam,” she said, extending her paw. Rover didn’t actually know what would be there until he saw it—the glittering of a magical gemstone as large as those that studded his collar. It was quite a find, particularly for one so young. More impressive, he hadn’t known about it. “That’s very impressive,” he said. “The Alpha will be pleased.” There was a long silence, at least between them. The festival continued behind them, the pack’s dogs shouting and singing and celebrating together. A festival was a fine way to forget how much they had lost. “Is it really the same one?” she asked, her voice low. Low enough that the other dogs would not overhear. “Is he really…” she hesitated. The word barely seemed to fit in her mouth. “Immortal?” “The stories say yes,” Rover answered. “My father knew him, and his mother knew him, and her father before her.” Daisy seemed to realize that, because her ears perked on her head. “That isn’t what it means.” “Would you like to see for yourself?” Rover asked, the closest thing to a truthful answer he could safely give. Most dogs did not understand what a pack leader did—they couldn’t. Only a few understand beyond the food in their bowls. Daisy was one such—among all his children, he already had her picked as his successor. Daisy hesitated, and Rover began to relax. She is an older puppy, about two years old. She would know the offering was far smaller than the year before. More importantly, she would know the same stories they all told of the Alpha. A great leader, who had led the pack to many victories. But also demanding, impossible to understand, and harsh. “Okay,” she said. “I want to meet him.” Rover nearly fell off his cushion. He took a moment to collect himself, considering his words very carefully. He couldn’t take back the offer now—other dogs had heard him. Even an appointment from the Alpha would not keep a weak pack-leader in power. “Be sure,” he said. “Once you visit him, you will have to swear like I did. No more wondering about him to your friends. You’ll know all the answers, but won’t be able to tell them.” She nodded again, and spoke a little louder. She wanted the other dogs to overhear. She was leveraging them against him in a way, and she apparently knew it. “I’m coming,” she said. There was no going back after that. When the festival was done, Rover fixed the cart to the puppy and let her pull it into the deeper darkness. She didn’t complain—if anything, she seemed eager for the weight. It was a high honor in a way—this offering would keep the pack fed for another year, and appease the anger of the Alpha. They wandered deep—very deep, so deep in fact that the burrows had no lights, and no safeties. More than once he had to warn her away from pitfalls—forgotten mines of long ago. Some dangers were visible, and others were not. It was a dangerous maze, and one kept that way intentionally. Only the alpha knew how to navigate it. “What can he do with all the gems?” Daisy asked. “All the offerings, so many years… it must be something. Does he wear them like ponies? Does he make whole burrows out of them? Carve them into—” “Quiet,” he said, voice firm. “You will see. Do you really think the whole pack would have served for all these years if it was so?” She considered that. “He feeds us,” she said. “Without him, we would be hunting for prey all the time. Adam is the greatest hunter in all the world to give us so much food. So maybe… we do it because he might hunt us if we didn’t.” Rover shook his head. “He would not. Adam does not fight us like other dogs do. He doesn’t measure claws or wrestle. If we wanted to go, we could go. He wouldn’t stop us.” She looked unconvinced. “If he can’t fight, why have so many dogs let him rule? Why didn’t you take his place? Or your father, or… any of the great dogs before me? How can such a great hunter not even know how to fight?” “You can’t understand,” was his answer. “But you will. See that glow ahead?” And she did—an even white light, unlike anything else in their world. There were many of them, set into the ceiling above at regular intervals. Smell was no longer Rover’s guide. The ground changed swiftly too, from regular cut stone to something faintly rusted and metallic. Far more metal than anywhere in the pack’s mines, though. Daisy stopped abruptly, scratching at the ground with one of her claws. Diamond Dogs, even young ones, were impressive diggers. Yet she would find, as many dogs before her, that this was not any metal they knew of. It didn’t even scratch. “What is this place?” “The Alpha’s burrow. I will teach you to smell it next year, if he likes you. Coming tonight means Adam will judge you—he may prefer one of your other siblings to you.” “He won’t,” Daisy said, coming to a stop in the vaulted space. “The others are dumb. He’ll want a dog who’s both smart and strong. My brothers and sisters are only one or the other.” Rover privately agreed, but he didn’t say so. The puppy didn’t need an ego right now, when the time for judgement had come. His own fate was so much in question that he very well might be replaced right now. Strange noises came from the massive doorway, harsh sounds that he had learned to ignore, but that caused Daisy to squeak and whine in protest. She struggled to one side, but in her instinctive shock she could not get out of the restraints. The weight of the cart and its load held her in place, as much as it started to rock slightly from side to side. Eventually the terrible door stopped moving. It had only opened a crack, yet that crack was as wide as the largest dog. Brilliant white light came from within, along with smells and sounds Rover’s mind had no context for even now. The world beyond this doorway was not one his kind had ever seen. Adam, the Alpha, towered above them like a god. He wore far more clothing than the dogs, clothing that was like metal but flexible like cloth. His face alone was visible. It was a strange thing to see for Rover—on the one paw, it was the same one he had seen carved in sculptures and painted on walls back where the pack made their den. It was the same one he had seen his whole life, almost unchanged. Yet it did not seem as mighty and powerful as his father’s mother had laid down in her stories. His mane wasn’t thick black, but wispy white with streaks of gray. His face didn’t have the muscle of a dog in his prime, but instead the lines and wrinkles of one very near the end. A dog who looked this way would not live to see another winter, yet Adam had always looked this way. The Alpha has lived through many generations, he remembered his father saying, when Rover himself had asked about his apparent weakness. In days forgotten, he protected our pack. Now we guard his. Daisy dropped into a whimpering bow. Rover did the same, sans whimpering and without making a stain on the metal beneath him. Been there too, sweetie. You can do it. “You brought a puppy.” Adam’s voice rumbled above him. He stood a giant by dog standards, twice the size of the largest in their pack. “This is good. She can meet my successor with you.” Daisy was frozen, paralyzed with fear as Adam dropped to one knee. Rover thought he could see a new stiffness in his limbs. It seemed as though his clothes were moving for him, though Rover knew he had to be imagining that. Adam’s paw shook as he removed its outer covering. There was no fur underneath, or claws. Just wizened, bony fingers. He reached out for Rover’s daughter. Rover didn’t worry—he’d been in her place before. Adam removed the harness with a single gesture, running his bony fingers down Daisy’s back. Pulling her close to him. “You all don’t get any less cute over the years, do you?” Rover heard in that raspy voice the same love he felt for his daughter—a love that only one member of the pack could feel for another. Well, almost. Adam’s love didn’t come with conditions, as the affection of his other dogs did. There was no jostling for dominance with him, no fear that one paw out of line might mean a fight. The Alpha was the greatest of his pack, yet not like a dog. “And you too, Rover.” He turned, and spared some of that love for him. “I’m glad to see you this last time.” There wasn’t anything quite like feeling Adam’s strange spidery digits in his fur. Rover remained still, enjoying it as long as he could. A perk the rest of his pack couldn’t possibly know. “Last time?” he asked, fear inadvertently finding its way into his voice. “Are you… displeased with the offering? Have I failed? I know it’s a meager offering compared to…” Adam rose to his feet again, with apparent difficulty. He put up one hand. “No, no.” He barely even glanced at the cart. “It is nothing you have done, Rover.” He smiled knowingly at him. “I saw how you handled the Inheritors. Kidnapping one was the source of your difficulty… but you solved it on your own, no need for anger from me. You did well.” This was more forgiving than the Alpha had acted in the past. “But why, then?” He shook his head, turning away. “Bring the gems, Rover. I will show you once our duty is complete.” Rover had risen back into a standing position. Yet he froze, staring after Adam. “Alpha, wait! No dog has ever seen your den! It’s not allowed!” The Alpha turned back, but not with anger on his face. Instead, he laughed. “No dog has ever…” He waved that spidery paw through the air. “I’ve told you why we labor so many times. Before I go, those stories will be real. Come.” Rover took up the cart himself, for which his daughter seemed pleased. She was clearly overwhelmed with what she had seen, barely able to continue. She didn’t give up—Rover didn’t know what Adam would’ve done then. It was good he wouldn’t have to find out. The interior of the Alpha’s den was cavernous, though less massive than the door outside. All of it seemed to be built from that same metal, unyielding and impervious. Daisy followed along beside him, her rapid heartbeat and terrified breathing close for him to hear. Guess she isn’t going to be replacing me anytime soon. The burrows seemed to never end. There were sounds everywhere, though not from voices or dogs. They sounded too regular for that, too methodical. All the space was brilliantly lit, with the same captive sunlight they brought to the great depths beneath the Earth. Brighter than the gas lamps dogs used, with none of the associated dangers. They passed many strange things—things Rover would never be able to explain, even many years later. Strange rooms filled with shallow trays of green sludge, others where thousands and thousands of cuts of meat seemed to be sitting in little containers. They passed places where it seemed pony magic must be at work, because hundreds of little metal machines moved of their own accord, doing something inscrutable to objects Rover couldn’t identify. His world had no context for any of it—not the smells, or the sights, or the sounds. They reached a dead end—an entire room made with glass walls. Another wonder of the Alpha, one he hadn’t even known existed. As they followed him inside, the wall closed by magic, and Rover felt like he was falling. Daisy whined in protest, tucking her tail between her legs. Rover managed to keep silent only as he realized the ground wasn’t falling out from under him, despite the speed of the motion. A mining elevator in the darkness, with fragile glass walls. The only light shone on them. “Excuse me,” Daisy’s voice said then, the first thing she’d ever said to the Alpha. She couldn’t actually look up at him. “I have a question, Alpha. Is that allowed?” There were metal bars around the room at about his height, and he clung to them for support. He looked as though he might collapse if he let go. “Tell me your name.” “Daisy,” she said, her voice quavering. “I am Daisy.” He nodded. “Ask your question.” “Where are you going with all the gems we mined? Why do you need so many?” For someone who had acted so afraid, Daisy was bolder than he had been with the Alpha. It had taken him years to get brave enough to ask questions that direct. “If your pack was in danger, what would you do to protect them?” the Alpha asked. He watched Daisy, though one of his paws was moving through the air. A little light had appeared in front of him, floating, and he interacted with it with shaking fingers. The patterns changed as he touched them, though Rover could make no sense of what they meant. “Anything,” Daisy said. “That is the right answer.” Adam took a deep, shuddering breath. “I want you to see my pack, Daisy.” He moved one of his fingers forward in a decisive way. Suddenly they were blasted with light, so much that Rover was briefly overwhelmed by it. The illumination wasn’t inside the impossibly-fast mining elevator made of glass, but around it. Out at a cavern of impossible size, filled with numberless rows of identical shapes. Each one of the identical thousands was a round tube, mostly set into the wall. They were all large enough to hold the Alpha himself, if he was laying flat. They surrounded the elevator on all sides, except for the metal superstructure of the elevator shaft itself. Shapes moved around them, opening some of the machinery up, sticking their thin limbs inside, flashing and glowing in many colors. “This is my pack, Daisy. It’s the only pack left—all of them. If they die, then my species will be extinct. Nothing like us will ever exist again.” A long silence. Rover took the initiative. “The gems are like oil in our lamps, Daisy. They keep everything here working.” Rover sounded confident as he said it, even though it made no sense at all. He did not know how rocks could be turned into light, or into meat for the pack to eat, or into the strange clothing the Alpha always wore. Yet he knew it did, as confidently as he knew that pain was bad and pleasure good. “Yes,” Adam added, sounding even more amused. “Your gems…” He hesitated, and it seemed as though he was struggling to breathe. “Keep my pack alive. Each of those shapes is another like me, asleep.” He moved his paw through the air again, and all the lights around them went out. Rover spoke for him. He had never been here, never actually seen the place where the rest of the Alpha’s pack slept, but he had spoken to him a great deal. He knew the answers. “We work together, Daisy. We get food for our gems, so we can dig instead of hunt. And other things. Medicine for sick dogs, coats for winter.” The impossibly-fast elevator seemed to be slowing down. Rover could see lights below them through the floor, and more metal passages in identical array. “Yes,” Adam agreed. “A partnership. Instead of…” He broke down into coughs again. This time, Rover didn’t know what he was going to say, and so he remained silent. “We cannot afford to be noticed by the Inheritors. Without your help, it would require many of us. They would see, and we would be destroyed. But because of you… we only give our lives one at a time. I was the latest steward, Daisy. But I am not the last. When I die, my replacement will wake up. I never knew her… but she is so young. She will watch you as I have, know so many dogs… watch them all fade.” But now Rover was watching him fade. Again he found himself regretting that he had brought Daisy along tonight. She wouldn’t have had to see this. Her first memories of the Alpha would be to watch his demise. Adam took them to the very deepest part of his domain, where the ground itself was warm underpaw. They dumped their offering—a whole year of work for his pack, into a strange machine that crushed and ground it all to dust. In the end, only a few of the gems inside were what the Alpha was after. Lights all around them changed from persistent amber to a confident green. Adam led them to one final chamber—a small one this time by the standards of this place, with a bed, desk, and many machines. It looked strikingly clean, just like every other room in the Alpha’s den. An intricate rendition of a forest landscape had been painted onto the wall, and a little box of paints rested on a shelf. The only sign someone had lived here. Adam pointed to a tube running up the far wall, which glowed with internal radiance. “H-her name is… Dr. Dawn Hardy,” he read, from the tiny square set into the wall beside it. “When I die, she’ll wake. I trust you to be honest with her, Rover. And kind.” He slumped against the wall, his whole body shaking as he moved. The skin of his furless face had gone very pale, each breath a struggle. As though the Alpha had fought to survive long enough for this last meeting, and now that it was done he was finally letting go. How many of our pack have seen one of them die? Not for so long that he didn’t even know the name of the last Alpha. “Be kind to her,” he continued. He reached to one side, resting a hand on Rover’s head. His skin no longer felt warm. “I trust you, Rover. I know your pack will do a good job protecting mine even when I am gone. You’ve done it for so long… and done so well.” “How long?” Daisy asked, her voice a whisper. Confused as the young dog was, she clearly recognized the sacredness of this moment. “How long will you keep hiding?” Adam turned to look at her, an effort that evidently cost him greatly now. Maybe he could only move at all because of his strange clothes. “Until the surface is safe again,” he said. “I can hardly imagine… what my grandparents generation were thinking… but that was so long ago.” He looked across the room, and the painted mural there. “I would’ve liked to see the trees again.” There was a long silence. Rover said nothing else, and neither did his daughter. Eventually, he realized Adam wasn’t breathing anymore. Many hours later, and their collective mood had improved a bit. Meeting the newest Alpha was an exciting occasion, one for celebration and remembrance in the pack. Dawn had been more ignorant than Rover could’ve predicted, but he had done his best to explain it all. Eventually, they left the way they had come, wandering up the darkness of the mine back towards the den. Daisy loped along beside him in silence, eyes pensive. “Now you know,” he said. “Why we dig.” She nodded. Daisy would make a fine pack leader one day.