Empire of the Worm

by Conner, Jack

  “The Emperor! Let him in immediately.”

  Gears squealed, and the massive golden doors of the Gate of the Sun swung open. Elimhas, his age-stained face as wrinkly and cadaverous as ever, came forward and embraced Davril personally.

  “I thought you were dead!” the priest said. “There have been all sorts of rumors . . .”

  Gratified by the priest’s reaction, Davril said, “I live and breathe.”

  “So I see.” The High Priest smiled, and it was the smile of a crocodile. “The Phoenix provides. But why have you come?”

  “The Jewel of the Sun. Take me to it.”

  Father Elimhas paused, then nodded. “Very well, my lord. I suppose it can make no difference now. I never thought things would have gotten so bad. The Circle’s exertions against you must have been trying for them indeed. But you must come alone.”

  Davril gestured to his companions. “My friends—”

  “Alone.”

  To the Lady and Wesrai, Davril said, “I’ll meet you at the Tower.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. In a whisper, she added, “I don’t trust the Asqrites. You shouldn’t, either. Remember, they stole the Jewel from the Order of Tiat-sumat.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  She wheeled her camel about and rode away, Wesrai following wordlessly. Davril took the reins of his own camel in his free hand and followed Elimhas through the Gates of the Sun. The Gatekeeper met his eyes and nodded, almost a bow. Davril nodded back. The compound within the outer walls of the Temple was still beautiful, siege or no siege. After a man approached and took Davril’s camel, Elimhas led Davril over a narrow, lacy bridge that crossed an ornamental pool where red and gold fish darted between bloom-capped lily pads, then up the massive stairs that led up to the even more massive doors of the Temple, only open a crack. As soon as Elimhas and Davril passed through, they closed with a boom that echoed off the high, arched ceiling and rattled the elaborately-worked stained-glass windows that lined the golden walls overlooking the sea. A storm crowned the horizon, black and seething.

  “It’s so empty,” Davril noted, looking around at the temple, his eyes lingering on all the gold. In a strange counterpoint to all the other temples he’d seen on the way here, only a few priests ambled about the golden halls.

  “Most of the clergy are in prayer,” Father Elimhas explained as they walked along, both moving at the same slow speed.

  “You should let the people in,” Davril said. “Not drive them away.”

  “It is regrettable. I’ve told the soldiers not to be so harsh. Yet, at the same time, we cannot let the people in.”

  “Why?”

  They reached an inner stairway—not the outer walkway of last time; they were really going to the Jewel, Davril realized, trying to suppress his excitement—and Elimhas led upward. He seemed better able to navigate the stairs than Davril, yet he didn’t leave Davril behind.

  “The people are in panic,” the High Priest continued. “There’s raping and looting throughout the city. And there’s much to loot here, and many priestesses to ravish. I wish there was another way, but . . .”

  “Yes,” Davril said. “I saw just that on the way here. Tell me something. I was just speaking with the Lady of Behara and—”

  “What has that whore filled your mind with?”

  Davril frowned. “Is it true that the Jewel of the Sun once belonged to the priests of Tiat-sumat?”

  “We are the Order of the Sun. It only makes sense that the ilisan, the Jewel of the Sun, belongs to us. And only us.”

  “But this Jewel—it could help against Uulos?”

  “It’s as I told you before. We practice the proper rites, but we don’t know them all. We don’t know how to unlock the Jewel’s power—how to use against it Him. I was trained in the rituals, but those that trained me, they lacked certain knowledge which is to this day lost. Thus I fear we’re doomed. I can feel Him coming, Lord Husan—feel Him coming from across the sea. He comes, and chaos goes before Him like the trumpeting of horns.”

  “Who does have this lost knowledge? The Tiat-sumatians?”

  “Curse them! They will rot in the deepest hells before I allow them access to the Jewel.”

  “Not good enough, Father.”

  They wound up through the interior of the Light-House, past the grand library and the quarters of the Order of the Golden Plumage. There was much of gold and jewels in their halls and chambers—more, Davril thought, than there ought to be. Then again, why should priests live in squalor?

  He gasped for breath by the time they reached the top of the tower. A short, stone-lined hallway stretched from the stairs to a squat, arched doorway, where flickering red light flooded out, and the sound of crackling flames and the stench of smoke filled the tight space. Davril had a moment of apprehension.

  Elimhas laughed. “Not what you expected, eh?”

  Davril had come to a stop, but he began limping toward that fiery light. He’d expected some white, healthy glow, something anathema to the darkness of Subn-ongath and his Circle. Instead he felt like he was walking toward the doors of hell. Sweat began to bead his pores and dampen his hair. It trickled down his back, paradoxically causing him to shiver. Sound echoed strangely here, the tap of his cane thumping and clacking off the ancient stone walls. How old was this lighthouse, anyway? Had it always been a lighthouse, or something else, long ago? Surely it predated the invasion of the Niardans. Perhaps the Avestines had conducted ancient, forbidden rites here.

  He passed through the squat archway and beheld, to his amazement, the Jewel of the Sun. He recoiled.

  Father Elimhas caught him, as though afraid he would fall. The thing before Davril was stranger, more alien than anything he’d ever seen save Subn-ongath. And it had about it the same aura of otherness. It was no thing of man.

  At first all Davril saw were the flames. Bright and crackling, fire consumed it, wreathed up from it, pouring smoke across a ceiling that had long since turned black. But what was it? Davril squinted, trying to peer through the fire. He thought it was some large rock or boulder, possibly one of those from the beach. But no. It was dark, and hard, and ovoid, about four feet high. The material was different, harder, and encrusted like old iron. And there was something else, something within it, within the stone. The fire began inside the rock. If he looked hard enough, he could see through the stone, to the bright, burning core . . .

  “An egg,” he said in wonderment.

  Elimhas nodded. “The Phoenix Himself.”

  Davril spared a look at him. “You’re serious.”

  “What else could it possibly be?”

  What indeed? An ancient, flaming egg of stone . . . For a moment longer Davril stared at it, sitting on a block, perhaps in altar, in the middle of a stained, bowed floor of gray stone. Lenses and mirrors crowded against the ceiling’s edges, draped by cloths to save them from the soot. It all reeked of smoke and fire, and sheets of sweat rolled off him. The priests must vent the smoke at night to conceal it from the populace. He coughed it out of his face and lurched to a window. From here he could see Sedremere below to the right and the blue sea to the left. Actually, it was blue no longer. The great storm that had crowned the horizon was swiftly converging on the city. There was something unnatural about it . . .

  Davril returned his attention to the Jewel.

  “I need it,” he said. “Whatever it is. I need it to fight the Worm.”

  Elimhas looked at him as though he were a fool. “I told you not to go against the Patron. Now there’s no hope. We don’t have the correct books, and the ones we have we can’t read. You would be wiser to spend your energies elsewhere. Besides, if the besieging armies break through, there won’t be enough left of us for the Worm to devour.”

  “I apologize for my rashness regarding Subn-ongath. At the time it seemed warranted. But that is past, Father. We need the Jewel.”

  “Pah. You know nothing about it, boy, save what lies that witch has told you.”
<
br />   “Why do you hate her?”

  “To hate is a sin in the eyes of the Phoenix.”

  “Yes, but you hate.”

  Elimhas’s eyes narrowed. Then, to Davril’s surprise, he let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. “Yes,” Elimhas said. “I truly do. Those Beharans claim to be from an older, truer faith than we of the Golden Plumage. And even worse are those beggars and vagabonds who worship Tiat-sumat. Why can’t they just admit that Asqrit is the One True God and has been since the beginning of time when He laid the Golden Egg that begat the world? Fools! Yferl has led them astray, I’m afraid, tempted them away from the Light. He plots to weaken my Lord. But he will not succeed!”

  Davril raised his eyebrows. “How will you stop him?”

  Elimhas shook himself. “We have recently forged an alliance that will lead us from the brink of this abyss.”

  “An alliance?” Something clicked in Davril’s mind. “You said me seeing the Jewel could make no difference now in any case . . .”

  “Yes, you arrived just in time. Even now my brothers will be on their way up here with our new benefactor.”

  As if on cue, Davril heard the echoing of many feet traveling up the stairs. He glanced nervously at the High Priest. “What have you done, old man?”

  “Done, boy? What I have done is saved us all.” He considered Davril carefully. “I had toyed with the idea of turning you over to them.”

  “Who?”

  The footsteps drew louder. Davril tensed, one hand going to his dagger.

  That seemed to decide Elimhas. “There will be no bloodshed here.” He motioned toward the balcony doors. “Go. Hide. I will not betray you.”

  Davril looked from him to the doorway. Hastily he shoved the dagger away, opened the balcony door and slipped through, shutting it behind him. Putting his face to the smoky glass, he found a spot he could see through just as dozen priests wearing golden robes swept into the chamber and bowed to Father Elimhas. Toward the rear of the procession grouped five figures in dark, hooded robes, four of them seeming to act as bodyguards for the central one. Lerumites, Davril thought, feeling his skin crawl.

  He caught sight of the man in the very rear of the procession, surrounded by his own guards, and Davril had to stop himself from shouting out.

  “Well, there it is,” General Hastus said, eyes on the egg of stone. “If it isn’t my lucky day.”

  “This has nothing to do with luck,” said the darkly robed figure in the center, his voice was thick and garbled. He drew back the cowl of his robe to reveal a slick, scaly face with large black eyes and a gaping, tooth-lined maw.

  “This has all to do with the design I laid before you, General,” continued the fish-priest, who must be the Lerumites’ High Priest. “All goes as I told you it would. The pieces will continue to fall into place for you—so long as you heed our advice.”

  General Hastus’s gaze fell on the Jewel of the Sun, and fire reflected in his gray eyes. “So it’s true,” he whispered. “Elimhas, you old devil! I always thought you a fraud. Why have you never made this Jewel available for the public to see?”

  Elimhas’s mouth twisted sourly. “It is only for the eyes of the priests of the innermost circle—and for the occasional Emperor. At any rate, we cannot safeguard the Temple. Not forever. Already our guards are having to resort to greater and greater violence to keep the people out. But when things grow still more dire that will not be possible. We will not be able to guard the Jewel, and when your emissary kindly pointed out that it would be better for me to give it to you now than for you to have to take it from me later . . .”

  The High Priest of the Lerumites stepped forward, almost seeming to glide across the floor. He was a foul, abominable thing.

  “You’ve done the right thing,” the High Priest told Elimhas. “We’ll take . . . good care of the Jewel.”

  Two of the fish-priests produced a long, heavy, intricately-carved crate that they had brought with them. They set it down, opened it, and with great care, using strange-looking tongs, removed the flaming, four-foot-high ovoid stone from its pedestal and lowered it into the crate, into which it fit snugly. That done, they replaced the lid, sealing the smoke in with it. Davril, eyeing all the inscriptions, held no doubt that the crate was powerfully warded.

  The fish-priests took possession of the box, and it was with the most obvious unease that the Asqrites watched them do it.

  “You do surprise me,” Elimhas told General Hastus. “You, siding with them.”

  Hastus’s eyes were cold. “I am of the River Families, or have you forgotten?” he said. “That’s where we’re headed now. To the new palace: my home. The old one was tainted, haunted by the shades of Lord Davril’s brethren. I could not stand one night in that place. Farewell, priest.”

  Chapter 8

  “How can you do this?” Davril asked Father Elimhas minutes later. “It was you that warned me against the Lerumites.”

  Elimhas regarded him sadly. “That was before your actions weakened the Patron and his Circle. As I told you, it’s too late now. Because of you, the time of the Worm has come. I merely position the Order to be at His side rather than in his way.”

  They resumed looking through the spyglasses fetched for them by Elimhas’s junior priests; on the docks in the distance General Hastus and the fish-priests awaited something, while on the horizon the storm rolled in, lightning crackling from it. Wind blew Davril’s hair, even on this terrace high above the surface of the sea, and the taste of salt was heavy on his tongue.

  “What are they waiting for?” he asked, but of course Elimhas couldn’t know.

  The docks of Sedremere were endless, jumbled and labyrinthine. Hastus and the others occupied one of its nicer sections, where great rocking galleys were moored, ships of the general’s private fleet. As the head of an old River Family, he commanded many a merchant ship, and it was one of these ships they were waiting for, Davril had been given to understand, though he did not know the why of it.

  Something materialized from the approaching storm: a great galley, hundreds of oars rowing. No, it wasn’t emerging from the storm, Davril saw, not exactly. It was leading. The whole storm was massed about that one ship, as though the vessel itself, or something on it, had drawn the tempest to it. The galley rowed on, plowing through the turbulent waters, and the storm kept pace. At last the black clouds blotted out the gray sky overhead, and rain beat down on Davril’s face.

  The galley rowed closer, and he felt a strange presence—a coldness, a darkness—drawing nearer.

  The galley pulled abreast the docks and its sailors tied it down, grunting and swearing. They were hard, grizzled men, but their faces were pale for ones who had just spent so much time under the sun, and they looked sickly and tense.

  Then Davril saw it. A heavy ramp was lain down to the dock and painstakingly buttressed, as though something immensely heavy would be moved off-ship. The High Priest of the Lerumites stood straighter, and gave off an aura of contentment as something draped in packing sheets was shoved and rolled to the galley’s edge, then maneuvered down the buttressed ramp until it scraped to a stop on the docks. Rollers had been laid under that spot, and it was instantly rolled up the docks toward the shore. The General’s party led the way, the High Priest of the Lerumites striding proudly. Hastus moved with his usual confidence, but there was something shaken in his eyes.

  Davril tried to get a look at what they were transporting. From time to time the wind flapped a sheet away, and he was able to see what lay under before the sheet was roped down again—a great stone block, completely black, glistening with moisture, and octagonal in shape. It was this that gave off that feeling of inhuman malignance, this that had drawn the storm. Looking back, Davril could see the sailors that had transported it make signs of their gods as they watched it go. They looked unbearably grateful to have it gone.

  A massive block of stone, dozens of feet wide, taken from far out at sea . . .

  A volcano, raising from the
deeps. That was why the Lerumites had commenced their rituals a month after the Asragotians had vanished. Something rose from the sea, something holy to the Lerumites. Had it been from this place that the slab of stone had been taken?

  The great slab, dozens of feet in diameter, was rolled to one of the General’s pleasure barges. A crane maneuvered into position, then another, and they painstakingly lifted the slab onto the vessel.

  “What is that?” Davril said.

  “It can only be one thing,” Father Elimhas said. “The Black Altar of Uulos, taken from the sunken remains of Nagradin.”

  “Dear gods.” Davril had suspected the same thing, but he hadn’t let himself put a name to his fears.

  “It will be his window into our world,” Elimhas said. “His gateway—when he is ready.”

  On the docks, General Hastus led the way onto the rocking ship, followed by his men, and Lerumites hauling the crate that contained the Jewel of the Sun came last. Sailors untied the pleasure barge, and it was shoved off. For a moment Davril wondered why the slab had merely been moved to a different ship, but then he saw where they were going. The General shouted for the oarsmen to row them toward the River, and so it was; soon they made their way upstream, through the heart of the city. Only the barges had shallow enough hulls to be able to make their way up the River.

  Still peering through his spyglass, Davril was shocked to see that people lined the shores of the river, staring forlornly at the barge, some making the signs of their many gods. Many dropped to their knees and prayed. Others ran. Apparently they too could feel the presence of the black slab.

  “Where are they taking it?” Davril asked. “The Lerumites?”

  “They must be taking it to their House,” Elimhas said, meaning the great Lerumite Temple that stood astride the mouth of the Lerum River in the middle of Sedremere.

  “And the Jewel, too?”