The Conqueror Worm

by Ambrose Ibsen

  Ossian nodded. “Be that as it may, you still didn't eat it, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Not once I found out what it was, no. She force-fed me sometimes, but I hated it.” He gulped, his Adam's apple quivering. “If she hadn't, I guess I'd be dead.”

  “Sometimes, death is preferable. It's more noble a thing to die than to live like an animal.” The priest pulled a blade of grass out of the ground and slipped it between his lips. “The will to live can compel people to do terrible things. Things that change them for the worse. That is why I had to do what I did.”

  Gaze low, the youth tugged on the straps of his backpack and cleared his throat. “I don't want to talk about it anymore. Where... where are we going from here?”

  Ossian led the boy down the main street, passing many of the empty buildings he'd toured previously, before giving an answer. He pointed ahead. “Well, my next major stop was the city of Bologna. I don't suppose you know the way, do you?” He grinned. “If my map is right, I think we need to leave the village in this direction, but I can't be sure. I'd use a compass to determine due north, but the Earth's magnetic fields have gone haywire since the event.”

  “I don't know the way,” replied the youth. “I've been to Bologna, but it's been a long time. Why do you need to go there?”

  “Because it's a stepping stone on the way to Avignon,” replied the priest. “Avignon is my true destination, and Bologna is one of the major cities along the way.”

  “And what will we find once we get there?” asked the youth.

  The question gave Ossian pause. There was no telling what he'd find on the road ahead, but he had little reason to expect anything good. The state of the rival capital that Rome had sent him to investigate was reportedly quite dire. Earlier in the year, four Vatican emissaries had been sent to Avignon in the hopes of reaching out to the leadership and striking up a new council by which they might heal the schism in the church.

  Only one emissary had returned, battered and bruised, and he'd brought with him the fingers, toes, tongues and ears of his fellows in a bag made of his own tanned flesh. According to this individual, a priest of some repute, Avignon had come to resemble “the seat of Hell on Earth.”

  “Is there food in Avignon? Why are your bosses sending you there?” asked Cesare, kicking a few stones down the road. The further they walked, the fewer trees there were. The street was a long and winding thing, stretching into the distance and peppered with abandoned vehicles. Every half-mile or so they passed one, as though they were mile markers.

  “My superiors want me to talk to the leaders of the church in Avignon. You see, before the disaster struck, the church I'm a part of went through a break. Suffered a disagreement. Many officials pulled up their stakes and moved to Avignon, where they chose a new pope. My job is to see what they're doing there, and to figure out whether we can heal the divide.”

  “Huh.” Cesare looked into the darkened windows of a rusted-out sedan on the side of the road. “So, there are two churches now, officially? Why don't they get along anymore?”

  “It was big news before the cataclysm. I'm surprised you're unaware,” said Ossian.

  “Yeah, well, we were never really church-goers. I remember seeing things on the news about arguments among the clergy. Gay marriage and stuff like that, right?”

  “It's complicated. Too complicated to explain to a child,” replied the priest.

  The most recent schism in the church had stemmed from a number of factors. Though there had been tremors in the upper ranks of the church for more than a decade, things had truly come to a head during the Third Vatican Council, called by Pope Pius XIII in August of the year 2021. Two factions had arisen prior to Vatican III; one which desired a return to more traditional stances on social issues and liturgical practices, and another, more progressive sect, which advocated for relaxed stances on items like abortion, female priesthood and more in the interest of appealing to the younger generation. Arguments over the future of the Catholic church that Summer ultimately resulted in a break, and in the winter of 2022, approximately half of the Cardinals in Rome traveled to Avignon, France, with the intention to elect a new pope. They did so one month later, selecting Urban IX as their new pontiff.

  “Anyhow,” continued Ossian, “how are you feeling? We're going to be walking for quite some time today. If you need to stop for a break, let me know.”

  Puffing out his emaciated chest, Cesare gave an exaggerated laugh and pulled ahead of the priest. “A break? Yeah, right. I hope you'll be able to keep up with me!”

  They'd barely left the village limits when, panting, the boy dropped down onto his ass to catch his breath.

  7

  With the boy in tow, Ossian wasn't making great time. Every mile or so they would have to slow down to allow him to rest, and the interruptions were becoming so frequent that the priest offered to carry him on his back. The prideful boy refused each time, and would set off determinedly down the path ahead, only to eventually slow back down and beg for a break.

  Their first day's hike, in the direction of what Ossian prayed was Bologna, they managed to put several miles of forest and abandoned farmland behind them. In the latter they stumbled upon a number of nearly ripe gourds, which they picked excitedly and made the centerpiece of their dinner. They'd encountered no one in their first day on the road, and had come upon no habitable tenements since leaving the village. As a result, they were forced to sleep in the open, around a meager fire, with their backs against towering trees.

  It was the second day which brought more serious difficulties.

  Taking up the road once he'd completed his morning breviary, Ossian led the boy into a denser patch of forest in a search for water, ultimately losing track of the road they'd been on. Deep in these woods, they would have to cut their own path. To his credit, Cesare kept up fairly well, and his requests for stoppage were fewer than they'd been the day previous. When it came time to set up a camp however, the pair were faced with settling in amongst the trees, and it was in this stretch of woods that they first encountered another living soul.

  The fire was set and the pair had just finished enjoying a roasted gourd. Cesare, huddled up against a tree trunk and nodding off, took to caressing his chilly limbs in search of warmth. The priest, sword at his side, stretched out his legs and closed his eyes, saying the rosary in his head till he grew too tired to focus.

  The two of them had almost fallen asleep and the fire had nearly died when the rustling began.

  Weeks in the hostile wilderness had taught Ossian reflexiveness, and at the first sound of the stranger's approach he had his eyes open and scanning the shadow-swollen woods. The trees here were densely-packed, their trunks sometimes growing over one another, and the forest floor was in many places a network of gnarled roots. His tired eyes passed over many trees while his ears tried to single out the source of the faint rustling noise. At first he thought it might be an animal creeping by the camp, something he might hunt and feed them with, however the longer he listened the more sure he became that it was the approach of something more sentient. There was purpose, hesitation in its advance, as if it were determined to catch them unaware.

  “Boy,” uttered Ossian, reaching over the embers and giving Cesare a nudge. “Wake up.”

  Wiping a thread of drool from his chin, Cesare shook his head and stared back at the priest vacantly. “W-what?”

  Ossian's hand moved to the sword. He picked it up, set it in his lap and prepared to whip the blade from its sheath. “Do you hear that?” he asked, keeping his voice down.

  Hesitating, the tired youth wiped his eyes and nodded. “S-sounds like something's coming this way.”

  Turning to his right, Ossian spotted something moving amidst the trees. It was mostly dark, its shape uncertain, but as it drew closer he found he could make out more and more of it. Using the toe of his boot to stir the embers, the fire momentarily flashed to life, and the nocturnal visitor was revealed.

&nbs
p; At first, all they saw was the pale face. Bulbous cheeks; long, unkept hair. Someone was staring out at them from between two tree trunks, had come up to within twenty feet of their camp, and was slowly crawling towards them on their belly. Man or woman, the priest was unsure, but as the stranger began to dash on all fours, he doubted it was even human in the first place.

  Head turned to one side, the visitor opened its mouth to reveal a gaping maw. It opened so widely that its face shook, and as it rushed towards their camp it seemed poised to try and swallow one of them whole.

  “It's the same creature that attacked us back in the village.” Standing with the aid of his sword, Ossian pulled the blade from its scabbard and barked at the boy. “Cesare, take cover!”

  The aberrant thing had followed them. Days had passed without their having glimpsed it, but the priest got the distinct impression that it'd always been in the background, stalking them from the shadows, waiting for the perfect chance to pounce. Now it was making its move. In the brief streaks of light coming off of the fire, Ossian could make out the ruddy, parted flesh against its brow where he'd struck it last with his scabbard.

  The battle that followed took place mostly in the dark. The animalistic stranger bounded up on hands and feet like a rabid dog, eyes and mouth thrust wide open. The sound that left its cavernous mouth was some sort of guttural battle cry that chilled the blood, and the priest, confident though he was, found himself rattled by it. In the glow of the dying fire he glimpsed an ebony tentacle bursting from the attacker's mouth, and felt the touch of the black appendage as he brought his sword down. He missed, striking a nearby tree.

  The canopy overhead parted in the breeze, allowing just enough moonlight to filter down onto the forest floor and illuminate the attacker in all its demoniacal glory. Cesare shot up, hid behind a tree as the thing threw out one of its large, fleshy hands at him.

  Loosing his blade from the tree trunk, the priest turned quickly and delivered a jab, which the flopping monstrosity rolled to evade. “Stay close to me, child!” he shouted.

  Cesare pulled away from the tree, stumbling as he sought to escape the reach of the thing's tentacle. The black limb struck him in the leg, sending him to the forest floor with a thud, and once it'd connected, it held on, constricting the child's leg at the calf.

  The creature made a noise just then, not unlike a squeal of delight, as though it could taste the boy's emaciated flesh. Digging its flabby hands into the earth, the figure anchored itself and began reeling Cesare in, pulling him into his mouth with the black tentacle. The boy yowled and cursed, but try as he might he couldn't break free.

  Lifting his sword high into the air, Ossian swung downward, landing a thunderous blow upon the crown of the attacker's head. The skull was parted and a goodly portion of its face was cleaved away as the blade's momentum carried it through. The tentacle, severed, hit the underbrush and began to thrash like a dying worm.

  Freed of its pull, Cesare scrambled away, sidling up to the priest and wobbling like he might faint. “It f-followed us all the way out here?”

  The body hit the ground, twitched, and then was still. It wasn't until the priest managed to refresh the fire that the two of them got a proper look at it from up-close.

  The thing that had attacked them had probably been a man, once. Its skin was white, ghostly white, like it'd been living underground for some time, and its eyes were cloudy in a way that Ossian could only associate with blindness. It had no teeth because its gums were blackened, and even in death its maw emitted a foul smell. Thick callouses plagued its hands and feet, where it had learned to move through the underbrush like an animal.

  “What the hell is this thing?” asked the boy again, keeping his fair distance. “It grabbed me... it grabbed me with that black thing.”

  Sword still firmly in his grasp, Ossian kicked the black tentacle away and set his sights on the corpse. “Once, it was a man. It seems he'd been living in the wild for some time. Somewhere along the line, the darkness got into him, though.”

  “The darkness?” Like he was watching a slow-motion car crash, Cesare couldn't look away from the body. Face contorted in horror, he asked, “Is that really what my mother was like when you... when you...”

  Ossian only nodded.

  On that night, there was no more hope of sleep.

  It was half-way through the next day, following an arduous trek back to the main road, that they discovered they were indeed close to Bologna. Emerging from the wall of trees and starting out onto a road of crumbling pavement, the pair spotted a solitary figure sitting amongst a mass of abandoned cars in the distance. This figure, a kindly man of some sixty or more years, waved at them as they approached and the trio spoke for some time of their travels.

  His name was Gunther, and as it happened he himself had just passed through Bologna, which he insisted was about a two-day hike down the road. “Faster, if you've got the legs for it,” he added. A tall man with a wreathe of grey hair around a shiny bald spot, he wore a thick beard and a pair of eyeglasses held together by plastic tape. He carried only a large knife for protection, along with a walking stick and his bag full of provisions. The three of them sat down on the hoods of ruined cars and enjoyed a small meal together. Ossian used this opportunity to pick the man's brain and learn something of the city they were headed towards.

  “Bologna? Well, traveler, she's seen better days,” began Gunther. “I was actually a tourist. Lived in Boston, myself. I'd come out this way to do some backpacking when all hell broke loose. Don't think I'll ever see the US of A again, though I'm going to try my damnedest to get back there, believe me. Bologna... not a lot of people there, no. Most of them, in my experience, tend to congregate around the church―The Basilica of San Petronio. I don't know much about that lot; you'll have to excuse me, as I'm not a real religious type. But the folk there, they're real keen about their church, ever since that black rider passed through with the news about the bishop.”

  “A black rider?” asked Ossian, taking a small pull from his canteen. Since leaving Rome, Ossian had heard tell of a mysterious horseman clad in black. This horseman, he'd been told by numerous travelers, was in some way affiliated with the papacy in Avignon. They could never tell him much; what his role was, if any. The one thing all of the accounts seemed to agree on however was that his visit to a place always coincided with calamity.

  “I didn't see him myself,” replied Gunther. “They say he's a direct line to the new pope; that he rides around all over the place, spreading the “new word”. Whatever that is. Supposedly, he came through Bologna not so long ago and he's the one who brought the new bishop with him. Some guy... Carnivale, maybe? Bishop Carnivale, I think, is his name. He's the head honcho out there in Bologna. Didn't meet him, but the locals are crazy about him, talking about his generosity. I guess he's arranging for some big feast day or festival... 'Feast of the Twisted Nail'... something along those lines. Me, I just want to get back to the States. It might take me years to do it, but if I have to take a rowboat, so be it. I've got family out there, mister. There's no telling how they fared after all of this, but I hope they're well.” Somewhere on his journey, Gunther had procured a pack of old cigarettes. They were bent out of shape, the package crumpled and sun-faded. He offered one to Ossian and the boy, and when they both refused he fussed over a worn-out flint and steel for a time before finally getting one lit for himself. “And where are you two from?” he asked.

  Cesare told his tale; a simple, predictable one. He'd lived in the village all his life, had seldom gone to the bigger cities with his family. They'd been bumpkins, and would likely have remained such had the cataclysm not brought ruin upon their village.

  Ossian's reply was a good deal more complicated however. He had been born in England, but had spent the bulk of his life in Rome. There was no place on Earth that he could truly call his home; his parents had died young, which had been one of the motivating factors in his pursuing the priesthood, and he'd never settled into
a place of his own. He'd done a years-long stint as a parish priest in a small church in Rome, and had been trained in the rites of exorcism many years previously, when the chief exorcist of the Vatican had begun a new initiative to stock every diocese on the planet with its own exorcist.

  Years had passed. He'd carried out countless exorcisms; some legitimate, others without the church's knowledge. And then, nearly ten years ago, he'd attempted to save those two possessed siblings...

  Picturing their faces, Ossian blanched in the midday sun, striking the headlight of the car he sat on with the heel of his boot. Casting his narrowed eyes upward and gritting his teeth, he let the sun's warmth wash over his face for a time. If he'd answered truthfully, up until the cataclysm, his home had been a jail cell in one of Rome's prisons. He'd only just recently been granted his freedom, his excommunication having been rescinded, so that he might go on the road and fulfill this mission for Rome. The pope and his staff had recognized his talent and grit, and had understood that he did the church more good on the warpath to Avignon than he did rotting away in jail for his sins.

  He said nothing of this however, and merely replied to a curious Gunther, “I've been around.” Clearing his throat, he backpedaled. “You say they're preparing for a feast day in Avignon? I've never heard of such a thing. The Feast of the Twisted Nail? Do you know anything about it?”

  Gunther took a long drag and shook his head. “No, not a thing. I heard talk about it, poked my head into that church, once, but to be honest I got weird vibes. Never been too spiritual, so maybe that was the problem. I didn't feel so welcome there, and the people in town won't hardly talk to you unless you're involved with that church. Reminds me of a cult or something.”

  Ossian frowned. “I see.”

  With their meal complete and conversation dwindling, the trio parted ways. Gunther continued in the opposite direction, wishing Ossian and the boy well, and took off down the road, whistling and savoring the last of his cigarette.