Empire of the Worm

by Conner, Jack

  “The High Priest,” Davril muttered. He knew little of the Avestines’ religion, save that they worshipped some gods of the elder world.

  “They must be rounded up and fed to the Great Serpent,” the High Priest proclaimed. Many shook their fists in agreement, but not all looked so sure.

  “They’re talking about us,” Alyssa said.

  “I gathered that.”

  A new figure caught his eye. Below the High Priest’s level were many forms, each on one of the daises. Many were priests, Davril supposed, dressed in dark robes; they bore the same scaled appearance as their leader but lacked his hood and rich garments. Not all on the daises were priests, though; the one that stood now was Jeselri, the Patriarch of the Avestine Quarter. Davril supposed that the higher in rank one was, the closer he sat to the High Priest’s dais. Jeselri’s chair stood on the penultimate level.

  “Madness!” Jeselri said, eyes blazing. “They are our guests—guests in our own halls! Killing them would be blasphemy.” Many in the gathering thundered their agreement. “Besides,” the Patriarch continued, when the roaring had died away, “Lord Husan has promised to release us from the Quarter, to make us equal members of Sedremere if we aid him.”

  “Bah!” said the High Priest. “Now that Great Sythang has heard the call of the Worm, we need to ally ourselves with the Lerumites. With Uulos. Long ago Sythang served the Worm, and it is to Him that we owe our allegiance, not the Husans.” More Avestines called out their agreement or contempt. Some were openly fighting each other. “Calm yourselves!” the High Priest roared, and the combatants ceased their grappling. “Waste your hate not on each other, my children, but on the enemies of Uulos. The Old One is our Master’s master. We shall slay His enemies and deliver the survivors to the Lerumites. Thus will we prove our loyalty and renew the ancient bond between the Serpent and the Worm.” More fists pumped the air.

  Jeselri was shaking his head. “Nonsense!” he cried. Many of the priests around him cast him angry glances, and Davril did not have to be told that in this highly religious society—for it could be nothing else with the High Priest on the highest dais—speaking against the priesthood was dangerous. “If we bring the rebels to the Lerumites, they will only see us as servants, just as they consider Sythang a lackey of their lord. We’re mere scum to them. If we act like their dogs, they will treat us as such!”

  Angry mutterings of agreement greeted this, but also many shaking of heads. Davril and Alyssa glanced at each other nervously.

  “Fool!” the High Priest was saying. “The Husans are our foes, not our friends.”

  “They can raise us up!” Jeselri insisted. “The Lerumites can only cast us down.”

  “Bah! You are a fool and a craven, and I am glad that it is my decision to make, not yours.” Raising his hooded head, the High Priest said, “The rebels shall be put down!” Many cheered, but there still seemed to be a good number that were dissatisfied. “We will use their blood to pay our way into Uulos’s favor, and then we shall rule Qazradan side by side with the Lerumites.”

  Jeselri glared at the High Priest, and the High Priest glared at him, and a long moment passed. At last, perhaps knowing he was defeated, Jeselri slumped back into his cushioned chair. The High Priest smiled victoriously, sharp teeth gleaming.

  Davril looked at Alyssa. “I think it’s time to go.”

  But just as they crawled back into the hallway they had entered by, three Avestines stepped out of the shadows and surrounded them. One drew his blade and placed it at Davril’s neck.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said.

  They were priests, Davril saw, clad in dark robes, cowls pulled low over their tattooed faces. It was dark in the hallway, and the candles were behind the priests so that Davril could only see their silhouettes. Three of them, robed and faceless in the dark, naked steel outstretched like the fangs of serpents.

  “Harm me and you’ll regret it,” Davril warned. “I am Davril Husan.”

  “The Emperor!” gasped one.

  “Yes, I think it’s him,” said another. “That face—”

  The tallest one made a hissing sound, silencing the others. “He is emperor no longer, and whoever he is trespasses in sacred halls. The sentence for such is death.” He pressed his blade against Davril’s throat, and a thin line of blood trickled down from Davril’s neck over his chest, getting tangled in the sparse hairs there.

  “Don’t!” Alyssa said.

  “Silence!” said the priest.

  Davril tensed, waiting. One hand hovered near his waist, ready to snatch his dagger should the priest make a move to slay him.

  “An emperor should make a fine sacrifice to the Great Serpent,” the head priest said.

  “And what of her?” said one of the others, stepping forward and running his hands through Alyssa’s hair.

  She flinched away, but he only gripped her hair by the roots and jerked her toward him, laughing.

  “Get your hands off her!” Davril said. “She too is of royal blood.”

  “She is no Husan. I say we have a little sport with her.”

  “Yes,” said the second one. “The Great Serpent won’t begrudge us a little fun, and our juices will purify her pollution.”

  “I have no pollution,” Alyssa spat.

  The first one jerked her hair, and she gave a sharp cry. Her eyes stared pleadingly into Davril’s.

  The other two priests turned to their leader, who stroked his chin and nodded, his eyes glinting. “Yes, I rather think she could use some purifying. But I go first.”

  Davril had had enough. The head priest’s blade was still at his throat, but there was nothing to his back, and he still had his dagger tucked in the waistband under his loosely-fitting tunic. Without pausing to think, he wrenched it free with his right hand, slashed it across his left palm, let it feed on his blood for just a moment, long enough for him to feel it pulse with power—all this behind his back so that the priests could not see—and slashed it forward.

  He struck the head priest’s blade, and such was the dagger’s power that the blade exploded. Davril tried not to let his shock slow him. In any event, the priest screamed and recoiled.

  The other two priests stared dumbly as Davril climbed to his feet. Then, as one, they lunged at him, curved swords flashing.

  The blades leapt at his face. He stumbled back, and back some more, clumsy on his bad leg. Even as edged around a great column, he parried the thrusts with his dagger, feeling the contact again and again as his dagger met the flashing steel. Several times he thought the impacts would wrench the weapon from his fingers, but it was his only hope, slender as it was, and he kept a firm grip.

  At last one blade came down too hard and met his pulsing, blood-fed weapon, and shattered into a hundred shards. The priest cried out and covered his eyes as the shrapnel sprayed him.

  The second priest hesitated, and Davril lunged forward, knocked his blade out of the way and ran his dagger up through the man’s belly, thrusting it under the ribs, feeling his hand encased in soft warm flesh, feeling his knuckles scrape against the inside of the man’s ribcage. The dagger screamed in Davril’s mind, rejoicing at the blood. Davril jerked it loose, feeling the suck of the flesh that pulled at him, and the priest fell away, flailing weakly, blood spurting from the hole in his chest.

  The first priest turned to run, but Alyssa tackled his feet, tripping him up so that he sprawled across the ground. In seconds Davril had stabbed him through the heart.

  “Thanks,” Davril panted, and Alyssa nodded tiredly and released the dead man’s still-twitching legs.

  “But where’s—?” Just as Davril glanced about for the whereabouts of the head priest, he saw a robed shape vanish through the archway.

  “Damn it!” he snarled. “He’ll alert them that we’re here. We must hurry.” He shook some blood off his hand and wiped it on his clothes. “Do you remember the way back?”

  “Follow me.”

  She returned to their candle
s, snatched hers up and led Davril on through the darkness. Candle in one hand, blood-dripping dagger in the other, he came after, shooting wary glances over his back as he went. At any moment he expected to see a tide of Avestines pouring through the archway. He thought he could hear raised, strident voices hollering in alarm. Any moment now.

  Alyssa led along the curving wall, coming at last to a bricked-up window. To Davril it looked like all the others, but somehow she knew it was the correct one. Just as she dislodged the bricks that hid her hole, Davril heard a great rustling of bodies and whirled to see exactly what he’d feared: a tide of Avestines surging up the tunnel, torches thrust before them. At their head strode the priest that had wanted to rape Alyssa first, and by the light of the torches Davril could see his tattoos clearly; he looked like some fat, jowly serpent, scales distended and warped due to his excess flesh.

  “In!” Davril ordered, shoving Alyssa ahead of him through the hole. It was a tight fit, and she had to worm her way into position, grunting and crying out in frustration all the while. When at last she was through, he heard her call, “Hurry!”

  He didn’t have time. With his bad leg it would take him much longer to crawl in after her, and the Avestines approached rapidly. It was dark enough that they would not have seen Alyssa vanish into the hole, especially since she had taken her candle with her.

  Swearing under his breath, Davril shoved the bricks back into position. Before the last one was fitted, he called up the hole, “Tell our people to muster themselves and flee. The Avestines mean to betray us. You are in charge now.” He shoved the last brick in place and hurried down the hall, even as the Avestines closed in on him from behind. Limping, cursing and hopeless, Davril ran as fast as his bad leg would let him.

  He could hear them following him, completely ignoring the spot where Alyssa had escaped, just as he’d hoped, but they were outrunning him swiftly.

  He would die, he supposed. There could be no escape for him.

  The tide of Avestines swarmed over him. Hands grabbed his arms, his hair, his back, tearing at him. Others made as if to rip him limb from limb. He slashed out with his dagger, felt it connect, heard voices cry out in surprise and pain. Then someone struck his wrist with a cane, and the dagger spun away. Another object struck his head, and he collapsed to the floor.

  More hands clutched at him, and blood coursed down his face and back. He threw his hands before his face.

  At last one voice rose above the others: “Hold! Hold! I say hold! In the name of the Serpent, hold or suffer divine wrath!”

  As the Avestines fell back, Davril looked up to see the gilded hood of the High Priest glimmering in the light of the torches. The High Priest smiled cruelly as he stared down at Davril, and Davril winced at all the sharp teeth. And his eyes!

  The High Priest’s eyes were those of a snake. They were golden, with green, vertical irises, and they seemed to glow by the light of the torches.

  “Don’t thank me,” the High Priest said, though Davril had not been about to. “Your soul must still reside in your body when you’re given to my Master, Great Sythang.” He lifted his voice and roared, “HAIL SYTHANG!”

  “HAIL SYTHANG!” the Avestines echoed.

  They hauled Davril to his feet and shoved him through the hallway.

  Well, isn’t this just wonderful, Davril thought, as the Avestines propelled him into the great domed room with the tiered daises. He was dazzled by all the intricate scrollwork, the beautiful engravings, the inlaid gems, the tens of thousands of people . . .

  “Just what is this place?” he heard himself ask.

  The High Priest cast him a glance as they marched along toward a great stone seal before the tiered daises. “Your tomb,” he said, and bared his needle-sharp teeth. For the first time, Davril got a look at the priest’s tongue; it had been ritually mutilated, parted down the center to the length of an inch, so that the High Priest was forked of tongue. Still, he spoke remarkably well.

  They reached the great seal, sixty feet wide and fashioned of metal or stone, Davril could not tell which. Some mechanism was thrown, and the seal rolled away with a grinding roar that Davril could feel through his feet. Thousands of Avestines moved back to be safe from the yawning hole, but the High Priest didn’t seem to give them a thought. He certainly didn’t give them any warning.

  Davril wondered if the whole world had gone insane. First his family, then the Lerumites, then the other worshippers of Uulos, then the Circle of Subn-ongath, now the Avestines . . . all locked in horrid faiths, feeding their own members and those of enemy gods to the one they worshipped. Did the whole world run on darkness? He remembered Tiat-sumat, and Behara, and Asqrit, and Illyria, and the Jewel of the Sun. At least there were some representatives of goodness in this world, even if they were not so mighty and immediate as those of the darkness.

  And Alyssa. Beautiful, lovely Alyssa.

  . . . and Hariban . . . and Sareth . . .

  When the seal had completely rolled away, Davril saw the thing in the center of that domed chamber, and his legs turned to jelly.

  It was a pit.

  A great hole sixty feet across, it seemed to have no bottom. The High Priest, holding his staff in one hand and a torch in the other, stepped to the lip of the pit and gestured for Davril’s handlers to shove him forward. Davril struggled, but they were determined, and in moments he stood thrashing on the lip.

  The High Priest gestured his torch down into the darkness. The light did not go far, nor did it illuminate much, save to show that the sides of this pit were not lined with stone but was tunneled out of the living rock of the earth’s crust—not smoothly as if by man, but, yes, as if by some great serpent.

  Davril silently prayed to the gods to spare him. He reluctantly acknowledged that the Avestines might worship some thing, some beast or vermin, some bloated reptile that inspired fear into a backward people, but a god?

  “This hole goes down into the center of the world,” the High Priest said. “Into the very fires of the Furnace, yes. There the Great Sythang keeps warm, roasting His scaled belly over the flames. There you will be soon, your flesh, your soul roasting eternally in his armored abdomen, your skin blackening, your soul writhing, steaming . . . That is what becomes of defying the Serpent.”

  Davril narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t defy your stupid god, you fool. I hadn’t even heard about him until tonight.”

  “Ignorance only falls upon the unworthy.”

  “Just kill me and be done with it.”

  The High Priest gestured toward a gaggle of Avestines setting up three massive gongs the colors of jade and gold. Slowly, and as one, they began to beat the gongs. The cadence was slow, rhythmic, and Davril saw their eyes roll up in their heads. Either they were in a trance or they had taken some drug.

  BOOM. A long echo, then silence. BOOM. Echo. Silence. BOOM.

  Davril found himself grinding his teeth in the lull between gong-beats, then wincing when the beat came. The Avestines, who had before been muttering and speaking loudly, their many numbers cramming the chamber of the pit and filling up the hall beyond, now fell silent. Davril found the presence of so many silent people, all eagerly awaiting his demise, just as unnerving as the thought of the scaled monstrosity that must be rising, stirring at the sound of the gong summons. Some beast, he thought, trained to respond to the call for food. But inside he was beginning to doubt. He saw the runes carved into the gongs and knew they were no mere musical devices. Perhaps their beats truly could penetrate the earth to its core.

  BOOM . . . BOOM . . .

  Slowly, oh so slowly, the gong-beats grew faster, closer together.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  Eagerness radiated off the Avestines, and the High Priest’s smile grew broad, his eyes glazed. Davril tried to wrestle free of his guards so that he could shove the damned priest into the pit, but the guards held him rigidly.

  The gong-beats grew louder, closer together, closer. BOOM BOOM BOOM. They shook Davril’s bo
nes, slammed nails through his head. Behind him, around him, he could hear, just faintly, the sound of praying. The Avestines were calling to their god, hands clasped, eyes closed, some trembling in joy or fear, and all the while, under their breaths, praying. It was not in Qazric but in some ancient tongue, perhaps the tongue of the ancient Avestines.

  Then Davril felt it.

  Heat.

  It had been warm and moist before, and with the press of people and the relatively tight space Davril had hardly been able to breathe. This was different. Now, perceptively, it grew warmer. First it was just at trifle. Then it increased. Became hot. Sweat trickled down from his scalp, stung his eyes, the cut on his neck, coursed down from his armpits, drenched him. His feet grew warm through his sandals, uncomfortably so. He found himself shifting from one leg to the other, worse than usual.

  None of the Avestines seemed to mind. Perhaps they felt it too, but if so they reveled in it. Indeed, glancing about him, he could see them smiling. Some gasped in orgasmic release. “The Serpent!” they said. “He comes! Yes, yes! Come! Come!”

  Davril felt the ground tremble beneath him. Dust rose from the great black pit, as if some large body shoved upwards. The air grew hotter, burning his lungs.

  “Yes,” whispered the High Priest. “The time of your race is over. The Aves will rise and rule as in the days of old. The Serpent shall inhabit His temple in the ruins of Sagrahab, and Sagrahab will shine in glory once more. The City Below shall fill with light. Sythang shall rule below, and Uulos will rule above, and the world—”

  The ground shook more violently. The air seared Davril’s lungs worse than before, and the heat coursing up his feet made him want to crawl upon the shoulders of his captors. It will be over soon.

  Then, a strange odor, foul and sulfurous.

  A great, reptilian groan echoed up from the pit. The High Priest’s breath caught in his throat. All around the Avestines stood rigid. The time had come.