Empire of the Worm

by Conner, Jack

  He clicked his tongue and the camel sank to its knees. With Wesrai’s help, Davril climbed off and hobbled up the steps to the great doors—broken and sagging inward, but that was as he’d expected. Many looters would have sought to rob it during the time of its abandonment. Davril wondered how many had made it out alive.

  He paused and turned back to Wesrai. “You don’t need to come with me. It would probably be better if you didn’t.”

  Wesrai looked from Davril to the Palace, biting his lip. “I’ve come this far,” he said. “I’ll go the rest of the way with you, my lord.”

  This time Davril didn’t correct him. “Very well.”

  Using a new cane, Davril limped through the yawning doors he’d passed through thousands of times before and into the high hall where sunlight should be pouring in, sparkling off all the gold and amber and white marble. But it was dusk, and the hall was dim and strange. Still, it was oddly comforting. A taint lay over the rest of the city, but not here. Perhaps there was a different taint, a lesser one, Davril couldn’t be certain, but it felt . . . right.

  He picked his way to the grand staircase that led down to the catacombs and began the descent. Here the public would come in normal times to honor the fallen emperors. Some families considered various emperors as patron saints and would light candles and say prayers to their sarcophagi. As Davril passed these first levels, he plucked a lantern from a wall and lit it. The surroundings grew darker and colder, and as he made his way deeper still he could not resist a shiver. Wesrai’s breathing became more labored behind him, and when he turned to face the priest he could see that Wesrai was pale and trembling. Yet when Davril again asked him to go back he refused.

  Shoving the lantern forward, driving back the gloom that surrounded him with one hand and leaning on his cane with the other, Davril made his clicking, clattering way down into the darkness. No longer did he feel safe and comforted. He felt frightened. The powers that dwelt below were monstrous, alien, unknowable, and he had defied them.

  Shadows darted from column to column around him, stealing from sarcophagus to statue, drawing tighter about the two intruders. Wesrai must have seen them, too, for his teeth audibly chattered.

  “I’m here,” Davril called. They were in a wide hall, with sarcophagi on either side and marble underneath, squat pillars holding up the bowed ceiling.

  “I’m here!” he repeated.

  He drew his lantern in close so that his face could be seen.

  The shadows swirled tighter, merely dark shapes against the greater darkness. Tighter—

  Wesrai screamed.

  Davril whirled to see the priest in the grip of a tall, hulking shadow with a dead-white face and livid black eyes.

  “Milast . . .” Davril said.

  Unsmiling, Davril’s eldest brother held Wesrai in an iron grip. Wesrai gibbered wordlessly, his face filled with fear. Davril smelled the stench of urine.

  “Let him go,” Davril commanded.

  “You are emperor no longer,” said Milast. There was a thick black scar running up from his eyebrow into his hairline where Davril had sunk his sword. “I will not obey the likes of a vagabond cripple.”

  Another shadow stepped forward—shorter than Milast, but broad across the shoulders and stern of face.

  “Father.” Davril was tempted to go to his knees.

  The old, dead emperor looked harsh as ever. “To converse with us you must pay a price.” His gaze flicked to Wesrai then back. “That,” he said, as if Wesrai was not even a person.

  The priest’s wordless noises rose in volume, and he struggled violently against Milast. More shadows swirled around and around them. My brothers. How they must enjoy having Davril in their grasp.

  He forced himself to stare his father in the eye. “No.”

  “It is the way it must be,” Lord Husan said. “We must have our blood, and we can allow no outside eyes to see us.”

  “His eyes cannot harm you, unless you’re more fragile than you look.”

  “You’re as insolent as ever, I see. No. He may not pass. If you wish to converse, he must be given to us.”

  Davril only smiled, which seemed to infuriate his father. “Slay him and you’ll regret it.”

  The lantern light picked out tiny fires in Lord Husan’s eyes. “How?” he growled. “How can you affect us?”

  Davril’s smile widened. “I . . . can . . . leave.”

  His voice echoed loudly in the stone halls, and he could see the anger fade in his father’s face, replaced with . . . consternation? Davril thought so. The only thing his father could fear now, other than Uulos, was being irrelevant, and Davril was the only one who could make him relevant again.

  Lord Husan sagged, just slightly. “Very well.” With a curt gesture to Milast, he said, “Let him go.”

  Reluctantly, Milast released the priest, who collapsed wetly to the floor, shuddering. Breathing heavily, he looked up at Davril, and Davril could see the gratitude there. He helped Wesrai to his feet and patted him on the shoulder.

  “See,” Davril said, “I told you you should stay behind.”

  “Next time I’ll listen.”

  Davril turned back to face his father, gazing at him sadly.

  “What is it you have come to us for?” Lord Husan said.

  Davril frowned. “Dreams,” he said. “I’ve been having strange dreams.”

  Lord Husan did not look surprised. “You will have to leave your creature here,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Come.” Without another word, he spun about and marched into the gloom, vanishing utterly from sight.

  To Wesrai, Davril said, “I am sorry, my friend, but I must ask you to stay put. Can you do that?”

  Wesrai gulped. “In the dark?”

  “I must see where I’m going, while you just need to sit here, otherwise I’d give you the lantern.”

  “Come!” said Lord Husan’s voice from the darkness. Milast had vanished, as had the other shadows.

  Davril squeezed Wesrai’s shoulder. “I’ll come back for you soon.”

  Without asking for permission (though with more than a twinge of guilt), he left Wesrai and followed his father’s voice. Shortly he found himself striding beside the man who’d sired him, the man he’d loved and nearly worshipped for most of his life. The man was dead now, emitting a strange chillness, an unnatural cold that reminded Davril of Subn-ongath. The stone faces of long-dead emperors gazed down at them.

  “What sort of dreams?” Lord Husan asked as he descended a staircase.

  “Dreams of a city. Voices call to me from the temples, and people dance, and the air is strange and purple, and the lights in the temples are red and green, and fires ripple above them, but it is a ghostly fire and forms strange patterns, and singing, always the singing . . . beautiful, horrible singing. I can hear it now.”

  The singing seemed to hum from the marble around him, echo off pillar and sarcophagus. They were deep underground, in the penultimate level of the catacombs. Below was only the Great Tomb. Davril could feel an unearthly throbbing of alien energies and powers radiating off the stone around him, and from Lord Husan himself. His brothers’ shades swirled and cavorted in the shadows all around, circling the two like sharks on the hunt. Do they want my blood? Davril wondered. Or do they want my soul?

  “You saw Algorad,” Lord Husan said. “The city of the Great Ones. When we die, we will hear the bells toll from the steeples of Algorad, summoning us home, and to there we shall go, and the might of the Patron will renew us. We shall be reborn, and we shall rejoice, for we will see with new eyes, and there in the lights and shadows of Algorad we will dwell forever and ever, in glory until the end of days.”

  He stopped walking and Davril stopped with him. Confused, visions of alien cities swimming in his head, Davril tried to slow the beating of his heart.

  “Where is this city?”

  Lord Husan looked at him archly. “You do not need to ask, my son. You know. Deep in your heart, in your bones, you k
now. It is beyond the Altar of Subn-ongath, inside their world.”

  “A world . . . ?”

  “They have carved out their own place, their own reality, between the gulfs and spheres, and it is fused with our own—fused here, beneath our very feet. And, perhaps, in other places. Here the two worlds are twisted together, and that is how we can survive, your brothers and I.”

  Davril shook his head ruefully. “You’ve sowed fear of yourselves throughout the city, you know. People are terrified of the dark presence in the Palace.”

  “As they should be. We must take the lives of others to sustain ourselves, must take their blood to fire our veins. Too, we must take sacrifices to our Master, to feed Him, to bolster Him. He is weak, and . . . well.”

  Davril knew his father had been on the verge of saying something else.

  “Will Subn-ongath die?” he asked.

  Lord Husan looked away. “He is weak,” he repeated. “And with Uulos’s rise . . . yes, it is possible.” His voice sounded unutterably sad. And angry. Davril knew his father held him accountable for Subn-ongath’s situation, and for good reason.

  “What will happen to you if he dies?” Davril asked.

  Lord Husan cast a glance at the circling shadows. “We will never be able to pass into Algorad. We will linger here, feeding off the lives of others, but without the Master’s heat we will wither and fade and become nothing. We will vanish like spilled wine on a hot day.”

  For a long while, they stood there in silence, father and son, the light dimming between them, each lost in his own thoughts. Meanwhile, the circling shades circled tighter, tighter, seeming to go faster, as if growing agitated and restless, perhaps in response to their father’s musings.

  Davril broke the silence. “But if Uulos should be defeated, you would pass into Algorad, and Subn-ongath would be healed?”

  Lord Husan nodded, just slightly. “That is what we pray for. Alas, we cannot stray far from the Palace in order to accomplish our ends.”

  “But you can stray?”

  “A bit. But not for long. And the farther we venture, the shorter we can remain there. It is only the echoes of our Master’s power that allow us to endure.”

  “I think I understand.”

  The anger in Lord Husan suddenly flared. “This is all your doing, you know. You wounded the Master by forcing him to exact revenge on you, and now He’s forced to hide with His allies, and they can do nothing to prevent the coming of the Worm. Never would we have come to this present brink but for you. Never would Uulos’s servants have gotten this far if the Patron had been kept appeased.”

  Wearily, Davril nodded. “I know. I seek to make amends—to defeat the Worm and restore our House.”

  “Bah. The people have turned on our House.”

  “They raised us up before. They will again, should we be the ones to show them the way.”

  “Uulos shows them the way.” The dead emperor’s voice was contemptuous.

  Patiently, Davril replied, “The wrong way. They will see that before long.” He rubbed his chin. “Algorad—why am I dreaming of it?”

  “It calls you home.” His father smiled, but it was a sad smile. Likely he dreamed of a place he feared he would never see. “It is our true home, where we go after we die.”

  “We . . .”

  “All those of our Master’s line.”

  Suddenly Davril shivered. “What do you mean, his line?”

  “His bloodline.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you? We Husans are descended from a long line of kings and emperors . . . and, yes, gods.”

  “How can that be?” Davril heard the horror in his own voice but didn’t try to hide it. Only with an effort did he remain standing.

  Lord Husan’s smile turned sinister, but still tinged with sadness. “Not all those laid upon the Altar . . . are slain.”

  Bile rose in the back of Davril’s throat. “But that’s madness. Surely we’re not . . . compatible . . .”

  There was no mirth in Husan’s smile now. “You talk of gods, boy.”

  Davril stumbled back, weak and shaky. Trembling, he pressed his back against a column and forced himself to take deep breaths.

  “This is madness.”

  Lord Husan stepped toward him, seeming to glide across marble that radiated unearthly energies. His face was pale and gloating. “It is the way. Your blood, too, carries a trace of the Lord. A trace, and a seed of divinity. You need merely wake it to accept the bounty of the Great One.”

  “Wake it? I don’t . . .”

  “The Patron’s blood runs in yours, but it’s dormant. You must wake it. You must heed the call of Algorad. You must listen to the singing. You must accept Him into your heart. You must become His. Only if you do this will you be permitted into the City of Bells.”

  “I will never serve the likes of that thing.”

  “Then you will die, and your city will belong to the Worm, and the family you slaughtered will wither from the earth. But should you accept the grace of the One, should you become his servant, you shall rise after your death. Your body shall rise, Davril, rise, and you shall walk down to the Great Tomb and the Door shall open to admit you, and you shall descend to Algorad, and the bells will ring, and the people, many of them Husans that have come before, will rejoice, and there will be dancing, and the Temples will glow.”

  Davril stared at the sarcophagi around him. “Rise . . .” He shook his head. The lantern felt very heavy in his hand. He wanted to drop it from his shaky fingers, but that would plunge him into utter blackness.

  Lord Husan nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Rise.” A hungry look came into his eyes, a look Davril did not like at all.

  With purpose, Lord Husan strode over to the nearest sarcophagus. With inhuman strength he wrenched off the top and hurled it away. The crash of breaking stone jolted Davril.

  “Look!” Lord Husan said, his face triumphant, his eyes gleaming. “Look into the tomb!”

  “No.” Davril shook his head. “No.”

  Suddenly hands grabbed his arms. Shoved him forwards, toward his father and the sarcophagus.

  “No . . .” Desperately, he glanced to his brothers that held him. “Let me go. Don’t make me!”

  They held him like iron. His heels scraped at the marble, trying to slow him. It was to no avail. Closer, closer he drew to the sarcophagus and the gloating father that stood over it, perched like a vulture, cruel and repugnant.

  “No . . .” Davril knew what he would see. Knew it, and was horrified by it. “No, please no . . .”

  His brothers shoved him to it, and in horror he stared down into the dim recess of the sarcophagus. There, in that narrow window into eternity, where the body of his ancestor should have rested, surely just bones by now, bones cloaked in cloth-of-gold and bedecked with jewels, perhaps wearing a crown—there was nothing.

  Nothing. No bones. No jewels. Just cold, hard stone.

  “No,” Davril said. He mashed his eyes shut. “It can’t be.”

  “It is,” came his father’s voice. “It is the way of things, my son. The way of the Husans. We serve the Great One, and it is to Him that we go after our deaths. We awaken and go down to Him.”

  “But the flowers, the visitors, the ones that come to pray to former kings . . .”

  “They pray to empty stone, my son.”

  “But the seventeen levels of the catacombs . . .”

  “Hold only empty ornaments, stone tombs that house air. Oh, perhaps there are a few who did not take the Master’s blessing, a few who did not awake after their deaths, but the bulk of us accept it. And so shall you, unless you are a fool.”

  The world spun about Davril, and the taste of bile in the back of his throat grew stronger. The blood of Subn-ongath runs in my veins. He stared at his hands, half expecting them to sprout scales, or for the flesh to slough away, revealing ghastly, inhuman appendages, twisting and glistening . . .

  They remained the same hands he’
d always had, firm and nimble, his right hand slightly callused from the cane. But, somewhere inside him, running in his veins, slumbering . . .

  With sudden violence, he ripped himself free of his brothers’ embrace and lurched toward the stairs. “Never!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I will never consign my soul to Subn-ongath!”

  He staggered away, past the empty sarcophagi, past the grand statues of emperors who had given their flesh and blood and souls to the Deep Ones, past the thick columns that held up the seventeen levels of catacombs that were no true catacombs at all but one great, horrid lie to conceal a truth too terrible for mortal minds to bear. His father and brothers did not stop him, nor did they follow.

  Shaking, he gathered up a pale and likewise trembling Wesrai and departed the Palace, and he did not look back until he was a long distance away. When he did, he saw the rising spires and it seemed to him that they were fingers, grasping at him, beckoning him back. Sweating, he grit his teeth and said, “Never.”

  Chapter 12

  Reeling, Davril returned to the deep tunnels of the Avestines, his home-in-exile. The tunnels were more crowded than ever, and there was a constant hustle and bustle—so much so that he and Wesrai had to shoulder their way through the tight confines. Davril labored for breath by the time he reached the main warren.

  “I think we need to petition the Aves for more space,” Davril said, sinking down on a couch and catching his breath.

  Wesrai nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. “I think you may be right, my lord. But we have already asked them several times.”

  “And they’ve granted us the space we need every time.”

  “With less enthusiasm each time.”

  Davril sighed. “We don’t want to antagonize them, do we?”

  Wesrai collapsed into the couch beside him. “We have enough antagonists already, my lord.”

  “A lack of air is a foe too great even for me.” To that, Wesrai had no answer. And it was a problem, Davril had to admit. His rebellion had grown too successful. After the siege had ended, Davril had sent out the word through his contacts in the aristocracy that anyone disenchanted with the new regime could come to him. And so they had. In droves. Many hated and feared Uulos, and with excellent reason. But they were too many, and the Avestines were growing resentful. Security was becoming a greater and greater problem. How could Davril ensure that his new recruits were not actually agents of the enemy?