Empire of the Worm

by Conner, Jack

  Something flashed in the darkness. Their torches had struck sparks off an object ahead.

  “The Door,” the Emperor said. “The Door of the Great Tomb.”

  As they drew closer, Davril saw the great golden door stretching fully two hundred feet high. Oval and rounded, it jutted out toward the royal family, the most hideous face Davril had ever seen carved on its surface. Only the Emperor and his select sons were allowed here, and they were not allowed to speak of what they saw, so no legitimate tales of what awaited Davril had ever reached his ears. There was nothing human about the face, yet it possessed some recognizably human qualities, such as a mouth—a great, tooth-lined maw, almost at ground level—and eyes. Many eyes, arranged in an asymmetric pattern. There were other features, but they belonged more to the fish or the reptile than anything else.

  Davril’s father turned to regard his sons. “Are you ready to face the dark?”

  The words possessed a ritualistic quality, Davril noted that immediately.

  “Yes, Sire, we are!” the sons chanted with voices that quavered to varying degrees, and Davril spoke along with them, just a bit staggered.

  The Emperor sort of smiled, but it was a sad smile. His gaze turned to his youngest son. “Davril, are you ready?”

  “Yes, Sire, I am.”

  His father’s smile disappeared. “There is something you have not been told, my son. Something that you will not like. Yet so it must be. For, to be a true prince, a true member of the family, you must prove yourself.”

  “I will, Sire.”

  His father shook his head. “You don’t even know what is being asked of you.”

  Davril waited.

  Gratified, the Emperor nodded. “You must prove your devotion to our family and the realm by sacrificing something you hold most dear. So it has been for each of your brothers. So it was for me. So it was for my father, and his before him. So it shall be for you.”

  Davril felt queasy. “What would you ask of me, Sire? What do I hold most dear?”

  The Emperor gestured to the darkness, and out of it stepped a very familiar figure—Davril’s eldest brother, Milast, tall and hulking. To Davril’s utter shock, Milast held in his powerful arms the struggling figure of Alyssa. Her blue-green eyes flashed in fear as she struggled in Milast’s grasp, and one of his large hands clamped over her mouth.

  “Her,” said the Emperor. “You must sacrifice her.”

  “No,” Davril said, shaking his head in disbelief. “No.”

  “Yes,” his father said. “With your own hand you must slay her.”

  Davril stared at them, his father and brothers. “Have you all gone mad?”

  “You will do it,” Lord Husan said sternly. “You must. But I understand your reluctance. We all do. For the good of us all, however, you must do this thing.”

  “For the good of us all?” Davril repeated, his voice rising in fury. “For the good of us all?”

  His father inclined his head toward the great seal of the Tomb. “We’ll show you.”

  Davril backed away. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Then you’re abandoning Alyssa. She comes with us.”

  Alyssa struggled ever more violently, squealing into Milast’s hand. Davril took a step toward her, but two of his other brothers clapped hands on his shoulders and stopped him. They all wore swords, as was tradition. The only people allowed to wear arms within the Palace were the male members of the Royal Family. Yet they didn’t go for their weapons. That alone should have reassured him.

  It didn’t. His hand flew to his own sword.

  The Emperor strode forward and stopped before Davril, and Davril’s sword hand trembled, then fell away from the pommel. Looking into his father’s hard eyes, Davril knew a greater terror than ever. Fear of the unknown was one thing, but fear of losing his father’s love and favor was quite another.

  Alyssa . . .

  His hand strayed back toward his sword.

  “Draw your blade and be drawn upon,” the Emperor growled.

  Davril swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Don’t harm her,” he managed. “I’ll protect her with my life.”

  The Emperor studied him for a long moment, a longer moment than Davril could remember, and at last the older man grunted. The ghost of a smile touched his lips.

  “You make me proud,” Lord Husan said. “I acted much the same way when confronted with the truth of things. But if my faith in you is as well placed as I think it to be, I’ll be prouder still. Now come. If you come only to keep an eye on Alyssa, then so be it. But come.”

  He turned away and drew the ceremonial dagger he wore in a scabbard on his breast. With it he drew a line of blood from his palm and flung the red droplets at the massive, horror-faced Door.

  “By this blood I command you!” he shouted. “Open!”

  The Door changed. With a grating of metal on metal, the closed but snarling mouth of the golden demon opened, almost hungrily. Three obscene tongues unrolled flat on the ground, serving as steps leading up to the portal, from which coldness and darkness emanated.

  Impossible, Davril thought.

  “Onward!” shouted his father, and stepped inside that high dark cavern, between the golden fangs. Milast, bearing Alyssa, followed immediately behind, and one by one Davril’s other brothers did likewise, until at last he was all alone in darkness of the chamber.

  The fact that none of his brothers compelled him on by direct means for some reason made up his mind. He was not being forced; it was his decision. Besides, he could not simply let Alyssa go to her doom.

  The hall twisted and turned, slanted at mad angles, but always it led down, deep into the bowels of the earth. The passageway, which had been high and wide to start with, opened up by degrees till Davril imagined that they didn’t travel through a cavern at all but walked under the open sky. A sky not of this world. Blackness, stark and horrid, looked down on them from above, vast and limitless.

  Fear showed in the torch-lit faces of his brothers, and more than once they clapped each other’s arms or whispered reassurances to one another. To his surprise, Davril was not denied this. Though things were tense between them, his brothers seemed to share a sense of . . . camaraderie, he supposed . . . with him that he did not feel toward them. They had been through what he was going through, but he hadn’t been through what they had, and he couldn’t believe they would be a part of something so evil.

  “It’ll be all right,” Salbrind reassured him, patting him on the back. Salbrind was the next youngest, and he and Davril had always been close. Salbrind used to protect him when Firhad, the second oldest, picked on him growing up.

  “How?” Davril said, shaking off his brother’s hand, his own hand still on the hilt of his sword. “How can it be all right? You plan to kill her!”

  Salbrind sighed. “We have no choice.”

  “How can you have no choice? Of course you do!”

  “We don’t.” Salbrind shuddered and looked around at the blackness, as if afraid of something out there. “We truly do not. Do you think we’d do this if we did?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. I went through this just last year. Didn’t you wonder why Ilya had vanished?”

  “She . . . went off to Pysus to study . . .”

  Salbrind shook his head sadly. “No.”

  “But . . . you loved her . . .”

  “Just as you love Alyssa. Don’t try to deny it. We wouldn’t have chosen you if you hadn’t found someone you felt that way about.”

  “No. I don’t. Really. Please. Let her go. Please.” Davril hated begging, but for her sake he would. This was a nightmare. “I don’t love her. In fact, I was just about to break it off. She’s horrid.”

  Salbrind almost smiled, and Davril hated him for it. “No, brother. She is the one for you. That is why it must be her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Salbrind sighed again and kept walking.

  One hand
on his sword, Davril followed, his gaze straying to the white form of Alyssa, sobbing quietly against Milast’s hand.

  At last Father’s light picked out something ahead—something tall and spiked, like a cluster of upthrusting thorns made of obsidian. They grouped around a large slab of black stone on a dais like a great clawed hand stretching up from the ground. The Altar—Davril ascribed the honorific to himself, in lieu of the proceedings—squatted on the palm. All else was darkness. It was an island in a black sea.

  “This is the seat of our power,” the Emperor said, and even his voice seemed small here. “It’s here that we show our love and devotion to He who looks after us, who even protects us from the Worm. For a thousand years and more our House has guided the great nation of Qazradan, and Qazradan has prospered like none in the history of the world. And we owe it all to this ritual, this gift, the feeding of a soul to the Great One.” His eyes strayed to Alyssa. “Sweet child, how we thank you. I know you cannot understand. To you we are devils. But know even in your confusion and your fear that your death serves a grand purpose—it holds Qazradan together. The greatest and wisest empire ever owes its being to you, and those like you. The first time a prince goes on the Great Journey he must sacrifice his beloved to show his devotion to our god.”

  Sadness touched the Emperor’s face—that’s what struck Davril the most strangely at that moment. His father wasn’t evil, really. He wasn’t a monster. He was just himself, and very human. Even kind, in his way. But he was nonetheless determined to put Alyssa on the Altar.

  Davril knew he could not allow that. Even if he had not had feelings for her, he could not be party to her murder.

  His father nodded briefly to Milast, and the elder prince bore a thrashing Alyssa up to the black slab, where he pinned her down while two of his brothers began to snap manacles around her thin wrists and ankles, binding her to the Altar. How many young girls—and boys, too, most likely—had those black iron links restrained?

  Her mouth freed, Alyssa screamed. “Davril! Please! Do something!”

  The Emperor withdrew the ceremonial dagger. It shone resplendently, all winking gems and inlaid gold and amber. Stepping forward with much gravity, he pressed the weapon into Davril’s hand. It was heavier than the young prince had expected, and it seemed to hum with a strange power.

  “Son,” the Emperor said, “it’s time you knew the truth. Our good fortune is owed entirely to the will of the great Subn-ongath. He’s steered us toward wealth and peace and loftiness in nature. He is our Patron, but he requires souls in order to survive in our world—and so to satisfy Him we must thrice annually sacrifice one of our purest and worthiest and most beloved. Such a one is Alyssa, and in order for you to prove your worth, for you to make yourself a man, you must give this gift yourself.” He stared Davril hard in the eye and said, “Can you do it?”

  “If I do not?”

  The Emperor did not blink. “Qazradan will wither.”

  “This is evil, Father. I cannot give this thing her soul.”

  The Emperor had his answers ready. “How can it be evil if it keeps the Empire flourishing?”

  “Sacrificing Alyssa is evil!”

  “An evil, perhaps. But the withering of the realm would be the greater evil. Please, Davril, for the good of Qazradan . . . strike!”

  “No!” Alyssa cried. “You’re mad, all of you!”

  Davril ground his teeth. His gaze never left his father’s. “This is why Urai didn’t come back, isn’t it? He refused.”

  The Emperor dropped his gaze. “That was a black day. And it was I that had to deliver Urai’s beloved. Don’t make me deliver Alyssa, Davril. Give her yourself to the Great One. Accept His blessing, and join us.” He stared Davril hard in the eye. “Will you do this?”

  Davril made himself pause for a long moment, tense, then let out a breath.

  “I can,” he said. “I will.”

  His father relaxed.

  Alyssa screamed.

  Davril gripped that dagger so tightly his knuckles turned white, and without hesitation he struck.

  He plunged the cold steel deep into his father’s chest. Surprise filled the Emperor’s face. Blood blossomed from his mouth. Gurgling, he fell away, his hands rising toward his punctured breast.

  Davril lunged toward his nearest brother, Salbrind, he whom Davril was closest to above all others, and even as Davril flew he drew his sword. Before Salbrind had time to react, Davril had severed his throat. Blood sprayed Davril, warm and sticky. He hurtled through it, bounding up the stairs toward the Altar and the three brothers grouped there.

  Milast had already drawn his sword. Anger and grief in his face, he reared over Davril at the head of the stairs, crouched and ready. His was so large he blocked the stairwell, preventing the other two brothers from attacking.

  Warily, Davril ascended toward him.

  Milast hacked at Davril’s face. Davril blocked, his arms nearly buckling. Milast thrust at his middle. Davril parried, sweat flying.

  “Traitor!” Milast cried, pausing in his attack. “How could you?” Actual tears leaked from his eyes.

  Using a two-handed grip, he brought his sword down again to cleave in Davril’s skull. Davril just barely brought his own blade up in time to deflect the blow, but the force of it drove him to his knees, nearly knocking the weapon from his hands. As it was, it numbed his arms to the elbows.

  Before he could recover, Milast swung again, chopping at Davril’s neck.

  Davril ducked, felt the whoosh of air over his head. He leapt to his feet while Milast was still swinging and thrust forward, stabbing Milast through the gut. With a gasp, Milast fell down the stairs, and Davril stepped around him to gain the summit of the dais.

  His two surviving brothers advanced toward him.

  One rushed in, sword outstretched like a spear. Davril merely dodged aside, then rammed his brother with his shoulder, driving him back and off his feet.

  His second brother, Firhad, hacked at Davril’s shoulder, but Davril was no longer there when the sword came down. His blade pierced his brother’s stomach and thrust up, tearing through muscles and lungs to penetrate the heart. Firhad’s blood sprayed as Davril jerked the blade free and wheeled to face his first brother, Tranas, just then rising. Davril stomped down on Tranas’s blade, pinning it to the floor, and stabbed through Tranas’s throat. Tranas gurgled and twitched, his eyes glaring accusingly up at Davril. Davril thrust again, this time through the chest, and Tranas’s spasms ceased.

  Chest heaving, Davril stared at the carnage about him. He could taste his brothers’ blood in his mouth, feel it sting his eyes. He stood surrounded by the butchered corpses of his family, those whom he loved so dearly, their torches guttering on the floor, while Alyssa lay trembling and bloody on the Altar, crying softly.

  Davril found the keys to her manacles on Firhad’s body, released her and swung her into his arms.

  “Davril!” she cried. “What’s happened? What have you done?”

  Shocked, he said, “I saved your life!”

  She sobbed and pressed her head against his blood-soaked chest. He did not hear her if she thanked him.

  She’s right, he thought. My own family! Gods! But what else could he have done?

  Suddenly, the great hall—or whatever it was—shook violently, and Davril and Alyssa looked at each other.

  An earth-grinding roar issued from the darkness. Half reptilian, half alien, the sound obliterated all reason. Later Davril knew he must have screamed in fear, but he could not hear it, nor did he remember anything other than that awful, inhuman roar. The sound was made by something massive, something vaster than a whale, or a pod of whales, something truly gargantuan and Other. It was the roar of no beast, but of some terrible Thing possessed of inconceivable intellect—all this Davril could tell in that one awful sound.

  Alyssa clung to him tightly, likely screaming in his ear though he could not hear it.

  This was It, Davril realized—Subn-ongath, the Pat
ron of Qazradan, the foe of the Worm. He’s real. Gods be good, he’s real. Davril had not only robbed It of Its sacrifice but had slain Its chief worshippers.

  “Run!” Alyssa said. “For the gods’ sakes, run!”

  Davril ran, and all became a vague confusion of screaming and fleeing. He carried a torch in one hand, a sword in the other, and had flung Alyssa over his shoulder. The world shook around him, and his vision blurred. Stars wheeled all about. He and Alyssa screamed all the way back to the upper catacombs.

  Davril expected the Thing to charge after them, to grind them to pulp beneath it, to swallow their flesh and bones and souls, but it didn’t, and when Davril had time to think on it he realized it must not be able to pass the Door. It remained, raging, in the darkness of the deep earth, though Davril was slow to realize it.

  Somewhere in the upper catacombs, sanity returned to him. He set Alyssa down and they faced each other, both haggard and wan and panting.

  “What—was that—thing?” she wheezed. “Was it really . . .?”

  “I don’t—”

  For the first time, he noticed the blood on his hands, and his terror at Subn-ongath faded, if only a bit.

  “I killed them,” he whispered. “I slew my father . . . my brothers . . .” He held up a trembling, bloody hand and stared at it as if it didn’t belong to him. “What should I do?”

  “I—” A strange look came into her eyes.

  He realized it then, too.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s madness.”

  “It’s the only way. No one knows what happens on the Great Journey, and all know that sometimes the Journeyers don’t return. No one will question you.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. You went, and for all they know, everything went as normal—save this time only one returned. The only surviving male member of the Royal Family.” In a lower voice she added, “The Emperor.”

  Davril felt tears burn his eyes.

  She took pity on him, running her fingers through his hair. “My love,” she said. “I’m so sorry. You’ve lost everything.” With a sigh, she added, “Everything but your duty.” She knelt before him and kissed his hand. “All hail the Emperor! All hail Lord Husan!”