Worm

by wildbow

  The walls that surrounded Ellisburg had been painted as well. To look from a distance, Nilbog’s kingdom extended to every horizon, with crooked, impossible landscapes at the periphery of it, like an ocean frozen in time, grown over with grass and trees. Oddly enough, they had painted the sky as an overcast one, where it was visible above the lush, unpredictable fields and forests.

  Within the city, the trees had been immaculately cut and trimmed, and the shapes were just as strange; trees that were perfectly round, cubes, cones. Where new trees were growing on lawns, as dense and close together as trees in an orchard might be, I could see heavy wires wound around them, guiding their growth into twists and curves. The art of bonsai taken to a bigger scale, cultivating each tree in form. Already, some of the largest ones were properly set up, meshing together with counterparts on the opposite sides of the street, forming lush, living wooden arches.

  The grass had been cut, and I could see the attention to detail there, even. There were innumerable flowers growing across lawns, but the grass was neatly cut beneath and around them, as if someone had taken shears or scissors to the blades that grew between the flowers. I couldn’t make out any rhyme or rhythm in how the flowers or plants were laid out and how they grew. It was an injection of color in the same way a random splash of paint from a palette might be applied to a canvas.

  And then, as if to remind me that this wasn’t friendly territory, there was a scarecrow in one garden. The clothes were brightly colored, the pose one of a dancing figure, but that wasn’t the eerie thing about it. The head was a skeletal one, a dog’s head stripped of all flesh, turned skyward with its mouth opened in joy. The hands that clutched the rake and watering can were held together by wire. A very small human hand.

  For all the signs of careful tending, the entire place was still. A town that could have been taken from a storybook, desolate. There wasn’t any sign of chaos, nor the destruction that would follow from an attack by the Slaughterhouse Nine.

  But more than anything, what threw me was the absence of insect life. No spiders spun webs. Even the ground had little in the way of ants or earthworms.

  A trap? I looked behind me to see if they were planning on walling me in, and came face to face with one of Nilbog’s creations.

  It hissed, its breath hot and reeking of bile. Fangs like a viper’s parted, the distance between them great enough that it probably could have sunk some into the top of my head and the underside of my chin as it closed its mouth. I stepped back out of reach, then forced myself to stay still and wait.

  The mouth closed, and I could see how the creature’s head was smaller than mine. It wasn’t more than four feet tall, covered in pale brown scales. The reptilian face could have been in a children’s movie, if it wasn’t for the eyes. They were dark, black, and cold.

  It clung to the wall, its feet placed higher up than its hands, opposable toes gripping the frame that had been around the vault door. I noticed it was wearing white shorts, with one suspender strap over a shoulder. A taloned claw held a softball-sized chunk of the wall.

  Was it fixing the wall?

  “I’m not a threat,” I told the lizard-child.

  I felt hands touch my belt and jumped, seizing the wrist of the offending hand in an instinctive motion before I’d even looked to see who it was.

  A girl, five or so feet tall, her face mottled with purple veins that spiraled across her perfectly round, puffy, hairless head. Her eyes were tiny and piggish, her fingers blunt, barely a half-inch long, her mouth too small for her face. She wore a sack that looked like it had been sewn to work around her oversized head. Her hand was on my knife.

  The lizard boy had extended frills at his arms, neck, and the edges of his face, colorful, brilliant, and held out by a framework of needle-fine spines. His mouth hung open, viper’s teeth revealed.

  I looked beyond this pair, and I could see signs of others. Eyes reflected light in the shadows beneath steps, from windows. There were large, bulky silhouettes in the windows, some holding smaller figures on their heads and shoulders. I couldn’t make out much, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  That was twice now that they’d snuck up on me. Quiet motherfuckers.

  “I’m sorry for grabbing you,” I said. “You wanted my knife?”

  She took it, her tiny black eyes glaring at me from the midst of her oversized head. The lizard-boy eased his frills down somewhat, but his mouth remained open.

  “I’d like to see Nilbog,” I said.

  She ignored me, her pudgy, blunt-fingered hands fumbling through the pouches at my belt. With painful, clumsy slowness, she divested me of my taser, the pepper spray, and the spools of silk, both conventional and Darwin’s spider silk.

  I winced as one spool fell to the ground and unwound partially, dirt getting caught up between the strands. That would be a pain to fix.

  I could see more of the things making appearances now, getting close enough for me to see as they took interest in what was happening. Eyes appeared in the windows, reflecting the light in curious ways. Eyes from within the trees, between the slats of stairs… some faces. They ranged from artistic and beautiful to horrific.

  Every single one of them was a weapon. Going into this situation was a repeat of the information gathering and problem solving issues one faced when going up against an unknown cape. If it came down to a fight, I’d have to figure out how they operated, and the full extent of their capabilities.

  Trouble being that there were a hell of a lot of these things. Hundreds, even thousands.

  I waited patiently. No use complaining, even if every second counted, and Jack was no doubt having words with Nilbog.

  “Nilbog is in danger,” I said, trying a different tack. “The man with him, he has dark hair, a beard? He’s with a striped woman. Bad people. I think they’re going to try to hurt Nilbog, hurt the man who made you, so you get upset and leave this place.”

  Her hands fumbled with my flight pack. I felt her touch the arm at the side of the pack, with its narrow arm. She took hold of it and pulled.

  “I can take that off,” I said.

  She grunted, and I started to move to oblige, only to get a protest. The frills on the lizard boy extended, and her own head swelled, the skin getting thin enough in the process that I could see a fluid filling the lower half of her head. I moved my arms away from the straps, and I watched them both relax over long seconds.

  When she was sure I wasn’t trying something, she grunted again, louder, a frustrated, constipated sound. A communication, but not one meant for me.

  Her friend emerged from a garage, lifting the door to lumber forth. He was big, fat, and moved on four limbs that each had opposable digits. His massive belly swung right and left as he loped, so distended and so close to the ground as it swung that I worried it would hit something and split open. His genitals were almost bigger than I was, and they were, along with his sensory organs, the only way I could really tell his front from his back.

  The sensory organs consisted of slits running top to bottom from a ridge at one end of his body. There was no room for a brain, no eyes present.

  This organ granted him enough awareness to approach, probably by way of scent, but it didn’t give him the fine tuning he needed to find us, specifically. The round-headed creature approached him, took hold of a fistful of chest hair and led him my way.

  I backed up a little as they approached, and received a hissed rebuke from lizard-boy.

  I remained still. The safest course.

  The girl-thing moved the brute’s hand towards me, and I stayed still as she gripped the arm and placed it in the hand.

  He closed his fist around it.

  “Wait,” I said.

  He hauled on it, clearly intent on tearing it free. I was thrown, sent rolling until I landed in one patch of grass, dazed, startled, just a little hurt.

  The brute approached, the round-headed girl hurrying after.

  Before I could rise, he’d already fumbled for
me, and seized hold of the mechanical arm. This time, he managed to pull it free. I used the antigravity panels to control my flight as I was thrown, controlled my landing, and hurried to get my hands to the straps.

  There was a wail behind me, a warning sound. I saw the others react, but kept working through the straps. Two at the shoulders, one across the chest, beneath my armor—

  The pack fell free. I chanced a look over my shoulder, and I saw a number of Nilbog’s creations gathered, close enough that they could have lunged for me. One was a very tall, long-limbed man with skin that looked like a Siamese cat’s, covered in a very fine fur. His face was split by a wide, toothless mouth, his eye sockets little more than indents filled with fur. He held a makeshift spear with a flag on the end, which had been painted brilliant colors, and wore a matching loin cloth. Probably the most dangerous one in my immediate vicinity, just in terms of how fast he could probably close the gap and murder me.

  “Safe,” I said. “No danger. I’m safe, the pack’s off.”

  I waited, tensed, as they studied me. Enemies on all sides.

  Jack was invincible, I wasn’t. But if I was going to achieve anything here, it couldn’t involve destruction. I’d read the files on Nilbog, I had a sense of him, in the most general terms. I was banking everything on his megalomania overriding his desire to collect just a little more in the way of resources.

  I kept my voice level and calm, “I’d like to see Nilbog now.”

  Were they hungry? If this became a fight, I’d have to defend myself with the bugs in my costume and the bugs in the quarantine and filtration facility. I could use the swarm to equip myself with the stuff that had been dumped on the ground, but that required that I survive long enough to do so. Were there ranged attacks here? Assassins?

  Desperate situations called for risks. This was my gamble.

  “I have a gift for him,” I said.

  Something seemed to ease in them. I watched as some turned away, finding their way to resting spots. The tall man with the loincloth worked his overlong body under a porch, where he could rest in the shade.

  I didn’t receive an escort, but the ones along one road moved aside, sitting or standing on the sidewalks.

  I walked with my head high, and sent a handful of bugs forward. More than a few of Nilbog’s creatures took the opportunity to snap them up.

  A soft rumble sounded above. Lightning. Rain began to patter down, light.

  My surviving bugs gave me ears on the scene before I arrived.

  “Lipsy? Tell the cook to serve us something. I fancy a salad, and something robust. I think it should taste sweet.”

  The alterations to the surroundings only grew more focused and extreme as I found my way to the center of Ellisburg. Building faces were covered in wild plant growth, and there wasn’t a single building without more extreme modifications made to it. Glances indoors showed little more than barren exteriors with the floorboards pried up, or clusters of Nilbog’s creatures lurking in the unlit gloom within.

  “I’ll look forward to this, god-king.”

  “You should, you should.”

  “Your hospitality astounds me. I’m unworthy.”

  “Hardly.”

  So Jack was situating himself as someone subservient, even servile, so as not to challenge Nilbog’s alpha status. He was playing nice, even.

  If I tried the same, I’d only be working to catch up, to earn Nilbog’s trust.

  I approached the town center, and found myself in the midst of a crowd of Nilbog’s creatures. Goblins and ghouls, muppets and horned moppets. Big, small, thin and fat. Each was exaggerated, twisted, as if Nilbog had gone out of his way to insert traits and qualities that separated them from humanity.

  The creatures stepped out of the way as I made my way closer. Nilbog sat at the center of a long table, and two more tables extended from the ends to form a loose ‘c’ shape. Checked tablecloths in eye-gouging color contrasts covered each table. Jack sat at the end furthest me, and a man with white and black stripes sat beside him.

  Bonesaw was only a short distance away, sitting on the shoulders of what looked like a flayed bear. The thing had claws two or three times the usual size, it’s mouth yawning open like it had been broken.

  Nilbog was immensely fat, easily four hundred pounds, and sat on a throne that had apparently been cobbled together from dismantled furniture. His face was covered with a paper mask. Other creatures sat on chairs to his left and right.

  The arrangement of the tables created an open space that could host their entertainment. I looked, then wished I hadn’t. A bloated, coarse-looking creature lay on the ground, almost like a potato made of hair and flesh. Smaller things were busy carving gouges and holes into it.

  The resulting wounds regenerated, but not before the smaller creatures inserted body parts into the openings, allowing the regenerated flesh to close tight but not close completely.

  I averted my eyes from the scene, content with not letting my brain register which parts were being inserted and what they were doing after the fact.

  “Another guest!” Nilbog cried out. He spoke like he had a bad accent, but it wasn’t. He’d affected strange and overdramatic tones for so long that his voice had warped, and he’d had no ordinary people to hear or talk to and measure his voice against. “A friend of yours, sir Jack?”

  I could see Jack’s eyebrows raise in interest. “Not at all. Skitter, was it? Except you’re going by another name, now.”

  I ignored Jack. “Nilbog. It’s good to meet.”

  Nilbog didn’t look impressed. “Sir Jack was more obsequious when he introduced himself.”

  “That’s because he’s a two-bit thug, Nilbog.”

  Jack chuckled at that.

  “A two-bit thug? You’d insult my guests?”

  “If those guests include Jack,” I said.

  Nilbog narrowed his eyes. “I will not have fighting in my glorious kingdom. Jack has agreed to a ceasefire while we dine. You will do the same.”

  “I already gave my weapons to your underlings. You should know that the black and white striped man is a living weapon, much like your creations.”

  Nilbog glanced at the male Siberian. “I’m not concerned.”

  “I imagine you aren’t,” I said. Where’s the real him?

  I had to be careful in how I used my bugs. Sending them into buildings would only reduce the size of my swarm, but there was relatively little chance that Manton would simply be hanging out in one of the hollowed-out buildings.

  “So,” Jack said. “Are you going to have a seat, or are you going to continue to be rude?”

  “I’m waiting for our host to invite me to sit. Forgive me, Nilbog,” I said. I glanced at the fat man. The grease on his skin made it look like he’d oiled himself.

  “Sit. But I’d like to hear who you think you are, whelp, if you won’t bow down to me.”

  I approached the row of chairs opposite Jack and the Siberian, and one of the critters hopped down, scurrying under to join the festivities in the center of the tables. I took the vacated chair and sat. I might have removed my mask, but I was all too aware of the silverware in front of Jack.

  “I’m your equal, Nilbog.”

  Jack laughed again. Nilbog seemed to react, almost looking flustered, before turning to me. “You insult me.”

  “Not at all. Ignore the thug that’s sitting over there. I’m a queen, a goddess of my own realm. Or I was.”

  Jack was smiling, clearly amused. Then again, he was safe. He was untouchable with Siberian beside him, and he was only feigning weakness to get past Nilbog’s defenses.

  “A queen?”

  “A queen. With that in mind, provided you give your permission, I’d like to offer you a gift. A… peace offering, to make up for the fact that I entered your territory uninvited.”

  “Of course, of course!” He was almost childlike, so easily moved by this promise of a gift, his mood changing so quickly. Guileless. He’d been surrounded by y
es-men for more than a decade, with barely any human contact, his defenses were gone. “I forgave Jack the lack of an invitation, I’ll extend you the same courtesy. This gift?”

  I called on the swarm I’d kept within the quarantine facility. “Resources are slim. An isolated kingdom like yours, providing for your subjects is hard. You do an admirable job despite this.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  He was eager, impatient.

  “I’d feed your subjects,” I said. “Protein. You need it to make more. To keep the ones you currently have in good health.”

  “Yes, yes,” Nilbog said. My bugs were just now arriving in the area. “This will do.”

  The full swarm arrived, the vast majority of the ones I’d kept in the Dragonfly, and the ones from the area beyond the Ellisburg walls. I gathered them on plates in piles. His minions devoured them, licking at the plates, picking with talons, or simply lifting the plates and tipping the insects into open mouths.

  I wasn’t surprised when Nilbog turned his attention to his own plate. My eyes fell on Jack. He still had a slight smile on his face.

  He held the cards up his sleeve. I’d played mine for a minor advantage, but he had Bonesaw. One virus or parasite in the midst of these creatures, and they could go berserk, roaming the countryside until they were put down. He had Siberian, which meant he was safe, meant he could kill me or Nilbog whenever he wanted.

  But he wasn’t going to. This continued as long as the game was still on. He thrived on this interplay.

  As more bugs continued to arrive, I used them to search the area. Nothing.

  Below ground?

  Earthworms, ants and pillbugs dug through the soil beneath the park, searching. Some of Nilbog’s creatures were beneath the earth, ready to spring up and attack. Others were beneath, eating whatever they could find.

  In the midst of my search, I found something. Not Siberian’s creator, but nearly as good.

  Nilbog himself.

  He sat directly beneath his ‘throne’, and was connected to the fat man by what seemed to be an umbilical cord. This cord gave him control of the body, fed him sustenance, let him stay safe while the decoy sat up here.