Wurm War

by Christopher Golden

  “We need to act now,” he urged.

  The smiths and miners eyed one another nervously.

  “It’s a simple question, lads,” Telford spoke to them. “Either you take a chance on living, or you resign yourselves to die. What will it be?”

  The group remained silent, and then it was the burly, bearded man who showed Verlis the decision they had silently made. He went to the pile of armor and weapons, rummaging through the heavy metal objects until he found the helmet they had forged for Verlis.

  “We had hoped to polish it up some before returning it to you,” he said, handing it to the Wurm. “Perhaps we will still get the chance.”

  Verlis took it and placed it upon his head, horns sliding easily through the holes that had been made for them. “My thanks,” he growled as they began to dress themselves in the armor, choosing weapons.

  The building shook as the invaders soared overhead. They were closer now—dangerously so. There came a chorus of roars and the stink of sulfur as the roof of the building was set ablaze, fire rippling across the ceiling.

  “Do not panic. Steel yourselves,” Charna instructed them.

  The smiths and miners stood ready, clad in armor and armed with weapons made from the Malleum they had extracted from the ground and forged to fight the Wurm. What they couldn’t wear, they carried in makeshift packs on their backs. No Malleum was to be wasted. When they at last made their way back to Arcanum, it would be given to combat mages who would help repel the enemy.

  Verlis flexed his powerful wings. “Are you ready?” His clawed hand rested on the door latch.

  “Ready for combat? Not one of us, my friend. But we’re not ready to die, either,” Walter replied as he dropped the helmet visor down to shield his eyes. He turned to the others and raised his weapon in salute. They responded in kind.

  Timothy stared at Carlyle, heart heavy with guilt. “I’m responsible … aren’t I?” He sat down heavily in a chair in the Grandmaster’s office, burying his face in his hands.

  “No one can say for certain,” Carlyle answered. “But it does appear rather likely.”

  “I’m just what Parliament feared I was,” he said. “A menace. A danger to the world.”

  “I’ll hear none of that,” Cassandra scolded, standing up from the large, high-backed chair behind the expanse of rich dark wood that had been Leander’s desk. Her desk, now. “The fall of the Divide was just an unforeseen side effect of your defeat over Alhazred. You had no way of knowing it would happen.”

  Edgar ruffled his wings as he strolled across the top of the desk. “She’s got you there, kid.”

  Timothy raised his head from his hands. “Unforeseen side effect?” he repeated in disbelief. “I’m responsible for allowing a Wurm invasion into the world.” He stood and began to pace. “Don’t you think you’re downplaying the enormity of what I’ve done just a bit?”

  “Now, Timothy,” Sheridan said in a soothing voice. The mechanical man had been standing by Cassandra’s desk, but now took several clanking steps forward, red eyes flaring brightly. “Getting upset won’t do you, or anybody else, a bit of good. What’s done is done.”

  Timothy approached the window, but not so close as to cancel out the enchantment of the shimmering spell-glass that filled its frame. “I’m a danger to this world.” He stared out at the churning sea below the floating fortress. “It would have been better for everyone if I’d never left Patience.”

  Someone approached him, and from the delicate scent of flowers that wafted in the air, he knew it was Cassandra.

  “Don’t talk like that,” she chided him. “If you had not left Patience for Terra…”

  Timothy turned to face her, staring into her beautiful green eyes. “Leander would still be alive, your grandfather would likely still be Grandmaster of the Order of Alhazred and Raptus and his Wurm legions would still be locked away in Draconae. Tell me that isn’t better than what we have now.”

  She stared back defiantly. “My grandfather was an evil monster, serving an even fouler master, and you yourself told me that the Wurm had already been working on a way through Alhazred’s Divide and were near to success. Leander’s death shatters my heart, but he was already working with the Parliament to discover the truth about the disappearance of so many mages, and his investigation would have led him to Alhazred eventually. You don’t know what fate would have brought without your participation.”

  Deep down, Timothy knew that she was right, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility for the constant turmoil that had been threatening the world since he’d decided to make Terra his home.

  “It’s all so much,” he whispered.

  There came a sound like the disapproving clucking of a tongue, and then a voice spoke in their midst, the speaker unseen. “Have you forgotten all that I have tried to teach you?”

  Only Carlyle seemed startled. The others were all used to the Asura’s ability to blend with his surroundings, to change the pigment of his skin so much that he seemed to be invisible.

  “Ivar,” Timothy said, a spark of hope rising in him. If nothing else, at least his friend and teacher was all right. “I haven’t forgotten anything—at least I don’t think I have.”

  As though he had suddenly been transported into the room, Ivar appeared. It was not magic, however. Or, at least, not the sort the mages of Terra understood. The natural hue of Ivar’s skin was pale, almost ivory, save for the inky black markings of his tribe. The marks were not tattoos, but generated from within, Ivar making the skin black in those spots, in those shapes, as a way to honor his past. Timothy was elated to see his friend up and around after all he had been through. At least something was going right.

  “I can’t imagine I’ll ever get used to that,” Carlyle muttered breathlessly.

  “Tell you the truth,” Edgar croaked from the desk, “you never really do.”

  Cassandra went to Ivar, a gentle smile on her face that reached her green eyes. “How are you, Ivar?” she asked. “Feeling better?”

  The Asura nodded slowly, but never took his dark eyes from Timothy. “I am feeling much better, Grandmaster,” he said politely. “The healers of SkyHaven are quite skillful, but I am troubled by what I have just heard.”

  Ivar stared at Timothy. “You say you have not forgotten my teaching, but the words that come from your mouth—they are not words spoken by an Asura.”

  Timothy turned his gaze away from his teacher, and friend. “I don’t understand,” he lied.

  Ivar’s gaze seem to bore into him, attempting to push him back, but Timothy held his ground. “You have come quite far in mastering the fighting techniques of my people.”

  “He’s become quite the scrapper, if I do say so myself,” Sheridan chimed in, gears noisily grinding from inside his metal body. He held up his fists, pretending to do combat with the air.

  “But that’s not what you’re talking about, is it?” Timothy asked, an anger building up inside him that was aimed at himself more than anyone, and yet he found himself turning it against his friends.

  “When I entered this room, I heard a boy filled with self-pity, ready to give in to the forces that assault him.” Ivar slowly shook his head. “That is not the way of the Asura.”

  Timothy remembered all that he’d been taught. Even now the words echoed through his mind and images rose in him of long days on the beaches of Patience, the sky orange with afternoon sunlight, his muscles aching from the combat training Ivar had given him.

  “An Asura does not hide from life, he embraces both the good and the bad,” Timothy said, remembering.

  Ivar nodded, black patterns flowing across the muscular surface of his pale flesh. “Nothing may change what has already happened, all that remains is the response.”

  Timothy sighed, feeling the weight of all that had happened to him attempting to drive him to his knees. “It’s so much,” he repeated, seeking some level of sympathy from the warrior, but knowing it was not likely to come.

&nb
sp; “And how will you respond?” Ivar asked. “Will it dominate, or will you show it who is master?”

  Timothy took a deep breath, and in his mind he returned once more to the Island of Patience. To the beach. To Ivar’s teachings. And suddenly, it was all so clear. The world was in peril—the world that he had decided to make his own. Timothy was the un-magician, and there were things he could do that no one else in this whole world was capable of. That had to count for something.

  “You’re right, Ivar. I’ve wasted enough time feeling sorry for myself.” Grim-faced, he turned toward Cassandra and Carlyle, a rush of adrenaline coursing through his body. “If the Wurm have broken through, I need to get to my father’s estate and talk with Verlis’s clan. If anybody can tell us how to deal with Raptus, it’s them.”

  Edgar cawed and took flight, beating his wings in the confines of the room and flying in a circle just beneath the ceiling. “Now that’s more like it!”

  Sheridan crossed his arms with a clank and a hiss of steam from the valve on the side of his head. There was little range in his facial expressions, but Timothy was sure he saw pride and satisfaction in the mechanical man’s face.

  When he looked at Cassandra, though—at the girl whose beauty and bravery stole his breath away—he saw regret. She brushed a lock of her long red hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.

  “I am the Grandmaster now,” she said. “The order is in disarray. Leander is dead, but so is Alhazred. It remains to be seen if there is even an order for me to lead, and if so, if any of us can bear to keep the name of the monster as the mark of our guild. In any case, there are hundreds of mages in service to the Order of Alhazred in Sunderland alone. They must all be summoned to join the fight against Raptus. Carlyle and I must stay here to muster those forces and try to determine the future of the order.”

  Timothy gazed at her. With all the heartache of recent days, what he felt for Cassandra was the one bright spot. She was a year or two older than he was, but the electricity between them was undeniable. When all of this was done, when destiny was content to let them rest awhile, he wanted nothing more than to see what would become of that bond. But for now, they both had responsibilities. Still, he couldn’t bear the idea of anything happening to her.

  “I understand. But I’d like Ivar to stay here with you, to give you his aid and counsel, if he would agree.”

  Ivar bowed. “As you wish,” he said. And there was something in his eyes that said he understood exactly what Timothy was thinking.

  Within the central spire of the Xerxis, the headquarters of the Parliament of Mages, the great hall buzzed like an angry swarm of stingers on the final day of summer. The sound of panic, Lord Romulus mused as he walked about the grand chamber, observing the frenzied chatter of the grandmasters of the 167 other guilds.

  A sound of desperation.

  Romulus grew impatient. The other grandmasters sensed his dangerously foul mood and would not dare to interrupt his pacing, but he himself wished for some distraction. They were all awaiting the arrival of their Voice.

  They did not have much longer to wait.

  Alethea Borgia, the Voice of Parliament, emerged from her private office and strode into the center of that circular chamber, her staff clutched tightly in her hand. The polished bone gleamed in the flickering light of ghostfire lamps. Romulus noticed that the white-haired woman was wearing robes of dark, angry red as opposed to her usual tranquil colors. The Voice was adorned in the color of war.

  The Voice struck her staff three times on the floor, indicating that it was time for their assembly to commence. But the members of Parliament did not listen, deaf to Alethea’s attempts to silence their frantically waving tongues.

  Rage churned in Romulus’s heart, rage over the dark twist fate had taken, rage over the ignorance shown by his peers, and rage at all of them, himself included, for believing that the Wurm could be betrayed and banished without fear of reprisal.

  “Silence!” he bellowed, his booming voice echoing throughout the chamber, causing the chatter of the frenzied throng to cease in an instant.

  Lord Foxheart of the Malleus Guild shot Romulus a dark look, his rodentlike features twitching to expose his sharp, pointy teeth. But Foxheart held his tongue, perhaps sensing that this was not the day to challenge the Grandmaster of the Legion Nocturne.

  “I am the Voice of Parliament,” the silver-haired woman said, her voice not as loud as Romulus’s, but twice as authoritative. “And our community has been called together this day for reasons most dire.”

  She looked about, her gaze touching upon each and every member of Parliament. Romulus respectfully bowed his head, heavy with black metal helm.

  “Our world has been invaded,” she went on, her voice rife with emotion. “Alhazred’s Divide has fallen. The Wurm are here.”

  Dozens of grandmasters leaped to their feet, frenzied demands and suggestions streaming from their mouths. Grandmaster Arcturus Tot of the Palisades Guild tried to shout his opinion over the voice of Mistress Belladonna of the Order of Strychnos. Lord Foxheart shouted all the louder to be heard over the rants and raves of the representatives of the Drayaidi, Winter Star, and Sectus guilds.

  Romulus was about to scream at them to hold their tongues yet again, when the Voice of Parliament raised her arms high and the head of her bone staff crackled with a blue light that formed an undulating cloud of magical power. It writhed and pulsated in the air above their heads, high up in the center of the tower. Whiplike tendrils reached down from the cloud, touching each member—stealing away their voices.

  The great hall was plunged into silence, and Romulus smiled within the darkness of his helmet, untouched by the spell storm, for he knew when it was best to hold his tongue.

  “Your voices shall be returned to you when I deem that you have earned the right to use them again for the benefit of your guilds,” the Voice of Parliament proclaimed. “But for now, I turn our discussion over to the Parliament’s Master of Arms, High Lord Romulus of the Legion Nocturne.”

  The Voice pointed her staff of bone at him as he descended from his row to stand in the circle beside her.

  Romulus looked up at the gathered mages, marveling at the fact that many of the grandmasters still were attempting to speak, even though their mouths had been silenced.

  He turned toward the Voice and bowed. “Kind thoughts to you this most troubling of days,” Romulus grumbled.

  “On this and all days,” she replied with a bow of her own. “Will you speak to us of our defense, and how we will rid our world of this heinous threat?”

  “I will,” he replied, turning to face his silent audience. “Kind thoughts to you all,” he said, not expecting the traditional response, given the circumstances. “Our world is under attack, and it is time for us to decide how we will react.”

  The grandmasters had at last begun to pay attention. Most of them returned to their seats in the Parliamentary chamber.

  “As you are all aware, we were warned that such an attack could be coming. Timothy Cade has been to Draconae and brought back a clan of Wurm who returned to this world because they were being exterminated by the followers of the tyrant Raptus. With Verlis, head of that clan, the Cade boy brought word that Raptus was a hate-filled, merciless creature, and that he was attempting to shatter the Divide and invade. They want vengeance for the injustices done to their people.”

  Romulus watched the faces of the members of Parliament. Many of them scowled at the mention of the Cade boy. Once, Romulus would have reacted the same way, but the un-magician had more than proven his courage. Timothy was an extremely controversial subject on the floor of Parliament. The boy scared them, and rightfully so, but he just may have been their best hope for dealing with this threat.

  “Timothy helped to create a tenuous truce between the Parliament of Mages and Verlis’s clan, and so we have Wurm allies in our impending war against Raptus’s army. But here is the question. Can we put our trust in this boy, invisible to t
he matrix? Do we trust Timothy Cade with what could very well be the fate of our world?”

  The members of Parliament were on their feet in a heartbeat, waving their arms and wailing silently.

  “Perhaps it is time to give them back their voices,” Romulus suggested to Alethea Borgia. “They should be allowed to express their opinions.”

  The Voice raised her bone staff, whispered something Romulus could not hear, and a rumble filled the great hall. This was one of the powers unique to the Voice of Parliament and none of them could combat it. Now, though, the churning cloud of magical energy was dispersed.

  “The power of speech is yours once more, my friends, but I will not hesitate to deprive you of it again if this debate is not conducted in an orderly fashion.”

  The grandmasters heeded the Voice’s warning, glancing about respectfully. There was a hierarchy of power and seniority, based on how long each had served as grandmaster, and they observed that hierarchy now. After a moment Grandmaster Aloysius of the Spiral Guild stood.

  “How can we possibly trust the boy?” he demanded. The man was rotund and red faced with anger. “Son of Argus Cade he may be, but he is not a part of our world. He was raised on a parallel plane, no more one of us than the Wurm themselves.”

  Aloysius looked around for support. Many of the members nodded in agreement, urging him on, some clearly impatient to have their own turn to speak. “The boy has thwarted us at every turn. He was responsible for the death of one of our most illustrious grandmasters, and broke a Wurm criminal free from the prison of Abaddon. It is a pity that the Parliament acted so harshly with Constable Grimshaw, dismissing him from his duties, for he was correct. Timothy Cade and all he represents should be locked away, and the spell to free him forgotten.”

  A roar went up from the assemblage, each of them fighting to be noticed—to be recognized so they could have their moment. The Voice clacked her staff on the floor once, and they settled down somewhat, though the debate continued.

  “Half truths at best,” Romulus boomed. “Yes, at one time Grandmaster Nicodemus was a respected member of our Parliament. But there can be no denying that his true nature was abhorrent. He was a villain and a traitor and a murderer. And if not for the boy, we would never have learned the truth.”