by Larry Niven
“If you die I’ll die!”
He was startled. “You’ll die? Because you read my mind?”
“Yes!”
Wavyhill said, “She’s lying. Think it through. Piranther read your mind too. Would he have taken that risk?”
Orolandes looked at her. Her eyes did not drop. “I mean it. I won’t live without you.”
A clattering of hooves startled them. They turned as a mountain goat bounded up on the World-Worm’s lip and stood gazing up at the Warlock.
“Any of you idiots could have thought of this,” the Warlock told them. He turned back to give the goat its orders.
Stiff-legged and blank of eye, the goat walked into the cavern. They watched it blunder into stalagmites and stumble on until it had reached the entrance to the inner cave…the World-Worm’s gullet.
Clubfoot spoke grudgingly, it seemed. “You can wait till morning. Have some dinner.”
“No.”
Mirandee sat stony-eyed. She did not look up as Orolandes stroked her hair, turned and walked after the goat.
The smell of broiling meat followed him and made it hard to go on. He circled teeth taller than himself. He climbed the soil-gathering potholes in the side of the long, long tail. He walked along the top of the tail with his torch casting yellow light into the gap.
He heard only his own footsteps. The bats…the bats must have been eaten along with Piranther. The flickering flame made motion everywhere. How would he know when the roof began to descend?
Far at the back, the tip of a stalagmite tooth showed above a whitish mass that enclosed it.
The last god was no bigger than Piranther, made of nearly translucent marble. It sat with its arms and legs wrapped tight around the base of a tooth. Its slanted eyes glowed yellow-white by torchlight. Its face and ears were covered with fur. In the triangular shape of its face there was something cat-feminine.
It took some nerve to wrap his arms around the stalagmite and, throwing all of his weight into it, try to move the tooth. It was solidly fixed.
“There’s no way to get it loose from there,” he told the magicians. “Your Roze-Kattee was a coward, Wavyhill. It’s got a death-grip on that tooth.” And he sat down to eat hot disjointed hare, one-handed, with his other arm around a weeping Mirandee. He had been ready to die in there; he had come out alive, and he was famished.
When there was nothing left but bones, Wavyhill said, “It sounds bad.”
Orolandes grunted! “Would you consider chopping through one of the god’s arms?”
“No.”
“Then we’d have to chop through the tooth at the base, then have a team of men pull out tooth and statue together. Work for an army. Can we hire some of the Nordiks? They live close enough to—”
The Warlock chopped at the air. “The Nordiks won’t help us. Even the Frost Giants seem to prefer their god dormant. Curse them and their coward god.”
“And my lost vengeance,” said Wavyhill.
Clubfoot sat hugging his knees. “I don’t believe it. We came all this way, and now…No. There’s an answer. We’ve got meat to be called and snow for water. We’ll stay here until we find an answer.”
Fourteen thousand years have garbled all the details.
The last god is remembered in diverse legends. Roze become Eros, Kattee become Kali and Hecate, their qualities radically changed. Now only children hear of the Warlock’s great project. They learn of a foolish frightened hen who ran screaming to tell the world that the world was ending. Some she convinced. In a desperate effort to salvage something, she led them into a cave.
The solution was in the cave. So close…
“We can get close!” A bellowing voice cut deep into the Warlock’s dreams.
He rolled over, blinking. He heard rustlings and grunts of annoyance around him, and saw Clubfoot looming over him in gray pre-dawn light. Half asleep, he struggled to sit up.
Clubfoot was shivering with excitement. “Wavyhill, do you remember that gesture-spell, the variant on the Warlock’s Wheel? The one that cancels mana.”
“Remember it? Sure. I designed it. Nearly killed the Warlock with it, too. Shall I teach you the gestures?”
The Warlock said, “Wait a minute. I’m still trying to wake up. Clubfoot, have you really got something?”
“Yes! We can’t get into the cavern, right? But we can get close! Roze-Kattee is just inside the World-Worm’s cheek!”
Orolandes woke late, to the smell of roasting rabbit and the pleasant sound of Mirandee’s humming. “Eat,” she said gaily, “We’ve got work to do.”
“Work? That’s good. Yesterday it was all a dead end. Where are the others?”
“Already at work. Today it’s different. I had a dream.”
“So? Or do you dream the future? You’re so much a man’s ideal woman, I keep forgetting what else you are.”
She kissed him. “Sometimes I dream the future. It’s not dependable.” Her brow wrinkled. “This one was funny. I guess it means success. I dreamed the sky was falling.”
Orolandes laughed. “That sounds scary.”
“No, I wasn’t frightened at all. And it is what we’re after, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, but it sounds scary as Hell when you put it like that. What did you feel, watching the sky fall?”
“Nothing.”
After breakfast they walked on bare earth, swinging their linked hands. On their left a sloping wall of stone rose out of the earth, higher and higher above them as they walked on. The stone was smooth, worn by the wind, until only a suggestion of scales was left to show that this was the side of the World-Worm’s head.
They came to where a patch of the smooth rock turned to crumbly sandstone. Here was a hole in the rock, head-high, and sand spilled beneath it. Orolandes paused to look, but Mirandee pulled him on.
The second hole was higher and larger, big enough for a man to crawl through. Clubfoot and the Warlock waited as they came up. The magicians had piled rocks as stepping-stones to reach the hole. Orolandes climbed the pile and looked through.
It was black as a stomach in there. Clubfoot coaxed the end of a branch into flame and handed it up to him. By firelight Orolandes saw that he was ten feet away from the marble statue of Roze-Kattee.
“How did you break through? We don’t have so much as an ax.”
“We cursed it,” said the Warlock. “Wavyhill evolved a gesture spell that uses up the mana in whatever he aims it at. He used it on me once. We don’t use it much these days. It’s wasteful.”
Wavyhill spoke from his accustomed perch on the Warlock’s shoulder. “This isn’t just rock, after all. It’s a great brute of a dying god.”
Orolandes nodded. “What’s the next step? Can you revive Roze-Kattee through that hole?”
“We think so. The next step is tricky, and it involves climbing,” said the Warlock. “That leaves it up to you and Clubfoot.”
Clubfoot nodded, but he didn’t look happy.
And Mirandee was frowning. “Why, no. I climb better than you, don’t I, Clubfoot?”
“Well, there’s more to this than—”
“And I’m as skilled at magic. Unless this is weather magic? Just what have you in mind?”
Clubfoot answered in the Guild tongue.
They talked for some time. Whatever they were discussing, it was complicated, judging from Mirandee’s frequent questions and the way Clubfoot waved his arms. Orolandes could see that Mirandee didn’t like it. He edged closer to those inseparable colleagues, Wavyhill and the Warlock, and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Necromancy,” said the skull. “Very technical. Can you climb that rock with a pack?”
“Yes. But why is Mirandee—”
“We didn’t discuss it with her before. She didn’t know what was involved.”
“Then—”
“No!” Mirandee snapped. “If it has to be done, I’ll do it. Otherwise I wouldn’t let you do it either. Orolandes!” She turned her back on Clubfoot, whos
e face was a study in mixed emotions: sorrow and relief. Mirandee was biting her lower lip.
Orolandes went up alone, barefoot, using as fingerholds and toeholds those crevices and irregularities whose pattern just hinted at serpent-scales worn smooth. There were potholes in the great smooth expanse of the World-Worm’s head: real potholes this time, worn by rain pooling to dissolve rock. Orolandes chopped with the sword point—the blade was uncannily hard—until he had joined adjacent potholes into a knob that would hold the line.
Mirandee toiled up the line. There was nothing Orolandes could do from up here except hurt for her, fear for her. The slope wouldn’t kill her if she slipped, but it would remove skin and the flesh beneath, and she might break a leg at the end…
But she arrived intact, panting. She said no word to Orolandes. She spilled the pack he had carried up. She selected a chain of tiny silver links and arranged it in a circle. She drew symbols with a piece of red chalk. She looked up.
“Give me your sword,” she said.
Orolandes didn’t move. “What’s it all about?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“Tell me, love.”
She sagged. “Necromancy. Magical power derived from death, from murder. We need enough power to waken a half-dead god. We’re going to get it by murdering the World-Worm.”
“Oh. More death. Isn’t there any other way?”
“I tried to think of one. Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes, of course. Of course I believe you.”
“Curse it, Orolandes, the World-Worm is dead now. The land has shifted and broken its back in places; it’s not even the shape of a snake any more. The wind has worn it away, scales and skin and flesh. If we revived it completely, right now, it would die almost immediately. It’s dead, but it doesn’t know it yet, and we can take advantage of that. Give me your sword.”
He did.
“Stand well back.” she said, and turned to her work.
The song she sang was unpleasant, grating. Orolandes felt numbness in his toes and fingers and a black depression creeping into his soul. He watched as the dusty stone within the ring of silver turned dusty pink.
Mirandee raised the sword, holding the hilt tightly in both hands. She brought it down hard. Still singing, she pounded on the hilt with a rock until the blade was entirely sheathed.
The mountain shuddered. Orolandes flattened, gripping rock, ready for the next quake. Far back along the mountain chain to the south, he saw motion and churning dust.
The mountain shuddered and spilled Clubfoot’s little pile of stones. The Warlock cursed in his mind, but he started chanting immediately. Let my enemy’s heart be mine, let my enemy’s strength be mine—Wavyhill sang the counterpoint next to the Warlock’s ear, while Clubfoot worked at moving rocks.
It was hard work, and Clubfoot was in haste. Without the ladder of stones, they could not aim their spells into the cavern. Sweat ran down his cheeks and his neck, and he hurled his cloak from him and kept working. Poor Clubfoot, he couldn’t even curse. The Warlock sang on and watched the rock pile grow.
High enough. Clubfoot mumbled over a dry branch until it blazed, hurled it through the hole and went up the rocks after it. The Warlock followed more slowly, accepting Clubfoot’s assistance. He could feel the power in him now. The World-Worm’s life had fed him.
The last god seemed to move in the firelight; but it was illusion. Its marble arms gripped the World-Worm’s tooth as tightly as ever.
Wake and see the world…They sang the spell he and Clubfoot had sung for Wavyhill, the song for reviving the dead. Wavyhill’s voice quavered and shifted. Wavyhill was frightened, and rightly. This could cost him his own not-quite-life. The Warlock could feel the mana leaving him.
In the middle of the chant his voice left him. He managed to finish the phrase, then signaled Clubfoot with a very ancient gesture, a finger across his throat. Clubfoot moved in smoothly. Wavyhill sang on, in an echoless voice that did not pause for breath.
The tree limb had almost burned out. The statue’s eyes picked up the firelight like cat’s-eye emeralds. The Warlock made his exaggerated passes, and worried. Let your heart beat, let your blood flow…Would a spell worked to revive men revive a god?
The song ended.
The marble statue did not move.
At last Clubfoot sighed and turned from the black opening. He stumbled down the ladder of stones. The Warlock followed. He was exhausted. The soreness in his throat felt permanent.
“I feel rotten,” said Orolandes. Shoals of shifting corpses floated past his memory. He sat slumped with his chin on his knees. He could not think of a reason ever to move again. “We killed the World-Worm. How could anything be worth that?”
“It’s the spell,” Mirandee said. “I feel rotten too. Live with it.”
“I’m glad I’m not a magician.”
“No, you don’t have what it takes.”
“What does it take?”
Her black hair was a curtain around her, rendering her anonymous. “It takes another kind of courage. You know what I can do, given the power. Cause solid rock to flow like soft clay in invisible hands. Walk on clouds. Read minds, or take them over, or build illusions more real than reality. Kill with a gesture: one moment a hale and dangerous man, the next a mass of meat already decomposing. I can wake the dead to ask them questions. All those things, and other things I know how to do: they make a hash of what a mundane would call common sense. What scares the wits out of the mundanes is knowing how fragile our reality is. Not many can take that.” She shifted a little, but the tent of hair still hid her. “Swordsman, I think we made a mistake, getting so involved with each other.”
He nodded. In retrospect it seemed almost ridiculous, how dependent he had been on this woman. “It’s no basis for a lifelong love affair, is it? I’m glad you said it first.”
When she said nothing, he added, “You read my mind by accident. You must know a spell to break you loose.”
“I do.”
The sun was warm and bright, and here they sat on the biggest corpse in the world. He had felt so good this morning. Where had it gone?
The witch-woman said, “You’re around thirty, aren’t you? A child, no more. I’m over seventy. The boy and the old lady, the witch and the swordsman. They don’t go,” she said sadly. “That’s not to say we should give up sex. That was good.”
“You pulled me out of a bad period. I guess you know I’m grateful.”
“You’re just not in love any more. Nor am I.”
“Right.”
Mirandee seemed to drift off into a private reverie of her own.
Orolandes was feeling better. The awful death-wish depression was leaving him. It was good to end a love affair this easily, with no hatred, no recriminations, no guilt…
He saw her stiffen.
She stood abruptly. “Let’s get down.”
“Not so fast,” he said as she wound the line round her waist and backed toward the drop. “You’re in too much of a hurry. Curse it, slow down, you’ll get killed that way!”
Mirandee ignored him. She went down backward, properly, but too dangerously damn fast. “Slow down!” he ordered her.
“No time!”
Huh? Well, it was her neck. He watched her descend.
“I think I’ve chanted my last spell,” the Warlock whispered. His throat felt dry as dust.
“This isn’t the end,” said Clubfoot. “Only the first attack. We’ll talk it over with Mirandee. Figure out what went wrong. Try again.”
“Sure.”
“I chanted youth spells for you once. I can do it again,” said Clubfoot, “once we land the Moon.” He paused. “That sounds insane.”
“Maybe it is.”
They sat slumped against the corpse of the World-Worm. It felt like sandstone now, crumbly soft rock that the winds would wear away. The magicians were exhausted, even Wavyhill, who had not spoken in minutes.
“No maybe about it
,” Clubfoot said suddenly. “It’s crazy. How long have there been men in the world? A couple of thousand years at least, right? Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. But the mana was still rich in the world when some unknown god made men. And they used it.”
“Of course they did,” said the Warlock. “Why not?”
“The names of the great magicians come down to us. Alhazred, Vulcan the Shaper, Hera—Look, what I’m getting at is this. There were a couple of thousand years of mana so rich that none of us, no magician of these last days, has the skill to use it. His spells would kill him. Do you believe that nobody in those last two thousand years ever tried to land the Moon? Nobody?”
“Why should they?”
“Because it’s pretty! And not all those old masters were completely sane, Warlock. And some of the sane ones served mad emperors, like Vulcan served Trillion Mu.”
“All right. They tried. Certainly they failed. Maybe they weren’t desperate enough.”
“Maybe. Another thing. If we don’t know what keeps the Moon up, we sure as Fate don’t know why. One of the gods put it up, maybe; or many gods; or even a being of unknown power and unknown nature, something that doesn’t live on a world at all. If we don’t know why the Moon was put there, how can we dare call it down? We don’t even dare drain it of mana, because we don’t know what ancient spells that might ruin.”
“You make sense,” the Warlock said with some reluctance. “I’ve even been wondering if it matters to anyone but us.”
“Well, of course it matters…” Clubfoot trailed off.
“Are you sure? Animals die. Classes of animals die. Civilizations die. New things come to take their places. Take Prissthil. The sky-stone is gone, but is Prissthil hurting? It’s a thriving village, a trade center. The guard: his grandfather was a magician, but he’s not hurting. The Nordiks had captive magicians, and what did they want from them? Magic swords, and nothing else. Even the Frost Giants are happy enough with their god dormant. The strong ones adapt.”
