Empire of the Worm

by Conner, Jack

  “Noscrum un ra ta,” Davril said, drawing the blade across his forearm. The blade burned, and he cried out involuntarily. When he drew the blade away, some of his blood hissed on it. More dripped off. He smelled scorched flesh. A black line on his forearm showed where he had cut himself.

  “Now lift the knife over your head and drink the blood,” the Emperor commanded. “Say, Ustrug un mat a alla khan. To my flesh I my rights forsake.”

  Davril did not like the sound of that. “Ustrug un mat a alla khan.” He raised the blade over his mouth and let his own blood, now transformed by the knife, fall into his mouth. He swallowed. Waited. He felt no different.

  “There,” said his father. “It is done. The trace of god-blood in you has been awakened.”

  Davril did not like the sounds of that, either. “You mean . . . ?”

  “Now you serve the Great Ones. Not only do you serve them, but you are of them.”

  This had better be worth it. Davril remembered his terror at going to the Serpent without having embraced Algorad. At the thought, it seemed a great weight was lifted off his shoulders. My soul is safe. But at what price? Again he stared at his hands, as he had before, half expecting them to suddenly become slick and gray and distorted. They didn’t.

  “You may rise.”

  Shakily, Davril wiped the blood off his blade, replaced it in its sheath, and stood, propping himself up with his cane. He felt dizzy and would have collapsed if not for the stick. When he looked up at his father again, the old man was grinning. Pride glimmered in his black eyes. Despite everything, that put a lump in Davril’s throat.

  “Father,” he said, and his voice was raw.

  “Son.”

  The shadows that had been swirling around him stilled, and each one become a solitary figure. His brothers, their faces pale and ghostly by the flickering light, gazed back at him. As one, they bowed their heads.

  He bowed back. Remorse welled up in them. “Brothers. I . . . I am sorry. Look what I’ve turned you into.”

  “There is still time to make it right, if we act quickly,” the dead emperor said. “The Old One has not returned yet. He’s only brought His doorway here, and now He maneuvers to shove it open. We can stop Him from doing that.”

  “Yes,” Davril said. He took a breath, steadied himself. “That’s why I’ve come. I have a plan to defeat Him, and I’ll need your help to do it.”

  They talked for some time. Then, with Wesrai beside him, Davril made his way back through the city streets, past the Uuloson temples whose congregations were performing their evening sacrifices, and finally into the Avestine tunnels once more. He was weary and ready for sleep by the time he finished his bath and climbed into bed.

  Almost as soon as he did, Alyssa came to him. She was just a slim, shadowy figure gliding across the room. She hesitated for the merest instant at the edge of his bed, then slipped under the covers.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She wriggled closer. “What do you think?” Her voice was soft. He could feel the heat of her body.

  “No.”

  She wriggled even closer, pressing herself against him. She had worn at least a slip as she had glided across the room. Now she was naked. Her small round breasts pressed against his chest. Her nipples were hard.

  “No.”

  She kissed his upper chest, his neck, his cheek. Blood rushed through him, and his manhood lifted, poked against her thigh.

  “Oh, Davril . . .”

  He shook his head. “No. Sareth. Hariban . . .”

  “No.” There was anguish in her voice. She kissed him again, and he tasted the salty tang of tears on her lips. “Davril, my love.”

  For a moment, he kissed back, and her mouth filled his with her heat. Her heart beat against his chest, bu-bump, bu-bump, bu-bump, as fast as a rabbit’s.

  He pushed her away. “No.” His voice was firm.

  She struggled closer. “Davril—”

  “Out!”

  “Davril, please . . .”

  “Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.”

  He stood and ripped the covers away from her, exposing her nudity. She gasped and covered herself.

  “Out!” he said.

  She scowled, then meekly slid off the bed, stooped to retrieve her scanty garments, and made to depart. Before leaving, she turned and said, “Will you never forgive me?” He could just see the tears coursing down her cheeks by the light spilling in from the hall beyond. Then she was gone.

  For a while, he stared at the space where she had gone. At last he slumped back, exhausted. He kept seeing the look in her eyes. She betrayed me. It killed Hariban. Sareth. And led to her father’s usurpation of the throne. Now the very government of Qazradan is guided by the Worm!

  Despite it all, he could not quite convince himself.

  Focus, he told himself. Tomorrow night’s the night.

  Tomorrow they would retake the Jewel of the Sun.

  Chapter 14

  There was only the scuffle of footsteps and the hissing and spitting of the torches. All else was silence and echoes, and the occasional whispered curse, as Davril led his company through the sewers. An unnamable stench filled his nostrils. His eyes watered, and his stomach clenched.

  It was unnerving to think that he was not in fact in the lowest part of the city, that there was a whole other city below him, perhaps with its own hellish set of sewers—the sewers of Uulos!; it was almost laughable. Indeed, at the thought, he felt an almost irresistible urge to throw his head back and cackle, but he knew that if he began he would not be able to stop.

  The Lady consulted her maps. “We are here, I think.”

  “Yes.” Davril could feel it. They were close.

  He led his men up through the gutters and into the streets of Sedremere. Over the stench of the sewers that clung to him, he could smell the briny scent boiling off the River, and the foulness in the air was stronger here. The buildings around him seemed to vibrate, to shimmer, and from time to time a trace of purple or red or green seemed to swirl through the hot night air, as though the very fabric of reality were changing.

  “The Temple’s just a little ways ahead,” he told his group. “The other teams should already be assembled.”

  They nodded tersely, and he allowed himself a smile. They were a fine, brave group, a score of his most veteran, loyal soldiers, plus a handful of high priests to insure things supernatural were seen to. All the faces he stared into looked nervous and grim. Eyes flicked here and there, and sweat dripped down from lank hair. They all stank, of course, but they were so nervous he doubted they even noticed. He barely did. They were about to invade the very lair of the Lerumites, and the Lerumites held all the advantages. His people were jumping and flinching at every sound, every gust of wind, every scrape of pebble.

  “It will be all right,” he told them. “Tonight is the night we take back our dignity. Tonight is the night we go on the offensive.”

  They straightened, sort of smiled—brief, hard smiles—and wiped the sweat from their eyes.

  He took a deep breath. “This way,” he said, and led the way through the tight, tangled alleys. This was the industrial quarter, where the wealthy families of the River had their factories and warehouses. It was an ugly, bleak place, cut through with canals for the tributaries that filtered into the River, and in the midst of it all rose the Temple on its marshy island. Davril could feel it, lurking ahead in the darkness, a burning hole in the shadows.

  The buildings opened out, and there it was—the Temple, hunched and twisted, squatting like some grisly carrion eater upon its isle. Moonlight glimmered off the high, dark towers. In daylight they would have been purplish, but now they were black as death. The bulk of the Temple was squat and bowed and hideous, like the body of a spider, but the towers were slender and gnarled. They clawed at the stars as if seeking to pull them down.

  The Lerumites sang. Their horrid, fishy warbling rolled through the streets and made the hairs stand up on
the back of Davril’s neck. There seemed to be many singers, and the lights of the Temple blazed. The purple and red stained-glass windows glowed in long, curling, uneven strips all along the Temple’s walls, and Davril could feel the air stir against his skin in time to the singing.

  He shared dark looks with Fathers Trisdan and Elimhas—who had agreed to accompany them—the Lady of Behara, and the fourth high priest, Cabalas, leader of the Illyrians. “Can you feel anything?” Davril asked them. “Can you feel Him?”

  Father Trisdan nodded tightly. “He’s near, my boy. The Door is opening, greased on the bloods of His sacrifices. Soon it will be wide enough for Him to drag himself through.”

  “We must hurry,” said the Lady.

  Davril led his men into position at the mouth of an alley on the northwest side of the Temple. The night was hot and humid, and swirls of fog drifted up from the nearby swamp and slithered through the streets. While his men waited in the shadows, he stepped out into the street and scanned the rooftops. He did not have to wait for long before a figure appeared at the edge of one.

  The man raised a shield, then lowered it quickly, not wanting to attract attention. The signal meant that one of Davril’s other teams had taken its position on the roof. During the great ceremony of the Lerumites, all the roofs and many of the streets had been guarded. Davril’s father and brothers had, with their unnatural stealth, managed to deal with these guards, using the guards’ blood to sustain them. Afterwards, Davril’s men had taken their positions. This close to the Temple, it would be difficult for Davril’s father and brothers to maintain their strength, but somehow they had. For him.

  Davril raised his sword, the answering signal. It was time to begin.

  “Get ready,” Davril told his men as he returned to the alley.

  It all happened very fast after that. His men on the rooftops stepped forward, all in a line, each raising their bows and drawing the strings back to their ears. A darting figure carrying a torch went from one to the other, lighting the oil-soaked rags that bound the arrow shafts. The signal was given, and the arrows streaked through the misty night, from the rooftop of the factory, arcing over the black waters of the marshy moat, to embed in the Temple. The archers were on the other side of the Temple from Davril, and their arrows struck too far down on the Temple for him to see the strikes, but after the third volley he started to see flames licking up on the far side, and smoke curling amongst the stars.

  The Lerumites had placed watchers in the Temple’s high towers, and even as the first volley arced through the night, a fishy cry went up, making Davril start. Quickly two more volleys followed, the archers mere shadows on the rooftop.

  The fish-priests exerted their power. There was a loud blast from the high towers, and the air seemed to blur from the towers to the rooftop. The archers stumbled back, dropped their bows, and placed their hands over their ears as though they heard some awful sound and could not stand it.

  Davril had expected something like this and had placed two more archery teams on roofs neighboring the first one. Now they sprang up and targeted the fish-priests. Shafts sped through the night like black needles, and one robed form tumbled from a tower, spinning into the brackish water, then another. The strange blurring in the air faded, and the archers on the first rooftop shook themselves and picked up their bows.

  Abruptly, the singing that had marked the Lerumite ritual stopped.

  The Temple doors burst open. Purple light washed the flagstones before the high, arched entrance, light spilling out from within the Temple. As Davril watched, a tide of robed figures streamed out of the Temple interior and across the grounds. The gates in the wall surrounding the compound swung open, and the tide of Lerumites surged over the bridge, toward the factories and warehouses, most owned by Qasan Ulesme and his family, on whose rooftops the rebels were stationed. More and more poured out before the tide ceased.

  “Now!” said Davril. “While the gates are open.”

  He hobbled toward the Temple, moving as fast as he could. The others followed at his back. His lack of speed would not be a problem. He needed to give the Lerumites time to reach the buildings and give battle to his men.

  His heart slammed against his ribs. His breaths came fast and shallow. His veins sang.

  The putrid fog slithered across the courtyard, yellow-ish and sticky. Pushing his way through it, he led his men through the open gates. The Lerumites in the guard towers to either side of the gateway had been slain, either by his men or by his father and brothers. He led his company over the bridge, across the dark courtyard, past the shrines and strangely-shaped hedges, past skulking figures writhing with tendrils—the hairs stood up on the nape of his neck—and finally through Temple doors and into the antechamber. To either side of the great black doors that led into the chapel reared a giant, horrid statue, each a figure with a vaguely human body, but a fish-like head. Each scaly hand gripped a trident. The fish-heads glared down at the intruders.

  “On!” Davril gasped, leading his company into the chapel.

  A wave of darkness and fear shoved down on him. It was oppressive and cloying, and he wanted nothing more than to drop to his knees and weep. His men felt it too. He heard their choking cries, saw the fear in their suddenly pale faces.

  “Fight it!” he urged. “Fight it!”

  One of them started to sink to his knees. Davril slapped him, jerked him by his tunic and pulled him onward. He cuffed another one and propelled him on. The men shook themselves and followed his lead.

  They threaded their way across the wet obsidian floor toward the horrid wall that stretched ahead, with all its twisted faces and limbs, tentacles gripping terrified victims. Leading up to the bas-relief was the half-moon dais with its many stairs, all wet, as though misted by the sea. Atop the dais was the great black slab of the Lerumites’ altar—the one they had been using for countless years, not the Black Altar taken from the ship.

  Just the same, nausea rose in Davril as he approached it. His fingers trembled, and his gorge rose. Three of his men had to lean over and retch, right there on the chapel floor.

  Davril focused on the thing astride the altar, flaming and smoking.

  The Jewel. Thick and crusted and heavy, more like a rock than anything else, the oblong shape egg-shape flared and roared, its inner fires permeating the rock and wreathing the ceiling with smoke. Davril sensed that its power was muted somehow, that its fires were not as bright as they should be.

  “The altar,” Father Trisdan said. “It truly is weakening it.”

  “Yes,” said Elimhas. “Of course. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Be quick about it, then,” Davril said.

  Elimhas, looking like an overfed corpse with his bright, gleaming eyes, sharp nose and sagging jowls, nodded irritably. The High Priest of Asqrit did not like being ordered about, but he nevertheless collected the other priests of the Light together. For the first time in ages, the four sects would work in concert for the common good. The heavy chains were removed from their packs, where they had been kept wrapped in cloth to silence them, and the holy books opened. Carrying these items like weapons, the priests converged on the altar, muttering prayers to drive away Uulos’s evil.

  The altar throbbed, a violent blast Davril felt in his mind and through the soles of his feet. He reeled, shaken. Uulos was fighting them. But with the holy words, and the presence of the Jewel, the priests approached.

  In the background came the sounds of fighting—yells of hate, cries of pain, the whistling of arrows, Lerumites warbling, metal crashing, a body falling from a great height to smack the flagstones, a hastily cut-off scream.

  “Hurry!” Davril said. The tide of battle could only go one way; the Lerumites were just too strong.

  Seeming in a trance, the priests neared the holy egg, if that’s what it was, not bothered by its heat or smoke. They uncoiled their heavy, blessed chains and threw them about the Jewel. With a mighty heave, and more words, they pulled it off the altar.
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  It crashed to the ground, flamed and sparked. The priests stared at it, then said more words. Davril and his soldiers gave them space as they dragged the great flaming orb down the black steps, off the dais and away from the altar, bumping down the stairs, grating along the ground the whole way, leaving black char-marks in its wake. The egg’s flames danced higher now that it was removed from the altar, but not as high as Davril remembered. Hopefully Uulos and his Lerumites had not permanently weakened it.

  The sounds of fighting began to fade. If the men fled, the Lerumites would pursue them and buy Davril and his party more time. Father, help them.

  The priests wrestled the Jewel to the chapel floor. Elimhas, the Lady, and Trisdan slumped back, exhausted, wiping sweat from their faces.

  “Your men will have to carry it further,” Elimhas said. “We’ve done the hard part, separating it from the altar. Now it is strong.”

  “Strong enough to do what must be done?” Davril asked.

  “Not yet,” Father Trisdan said.

  The Jewel was brought to one of the warehouses, where it was loaded onto a horse-drawn carriage, one of many. At Davril’s order, the doors were opened and the tide of carriages rolled outward to join the other teams from the other factories and warehouses owned by the Ulesme Family. Qasan himself accompanied Davril, riding in the same carriage he did. He would never again be able to return to his mansion or his businesses, and he would have to give warning to his father. The risk that they had been associated with Davril’s underground was too high. He had given up everything for the rebellion, just so that they would have a place to stage their attacks and regroup afterward. Without that they would not have been able to stop Uulos’s return, nor steal the Jewel, and yet Davril sensed Qasan’s bitterness.

  “Thank you,” Davril told him as they clattered along.

  Qasan nodded. “It was the least I could do,” he said, and Davril could tell it cost him a lot to say. Another friend lost, he thought.

  The procession of carriages came upon a troop of soldiers that had been marching toward the Temple, summoned by the Lerumites to deal with the attackers, but the procession broke through their lines and rolled on. Some of the enemy soldiers gave chase, but Davril’s archers riding on the carriage-tops scattered them.