The Way Of The Worm

by Ramsey Campbell

  I mumbled something disguised as acceptance and closed my hands around the image. It seemed to flint at the chill of the void whose blackness it evoked, and I could have thought the wide thin disconcertingly human smile and the enormous eyes that glistened like globes of black sap were greeting me. The sinuous trident of a tongue protruded from one corner of the mouth while the tip of the tail wormed its way into the other. I found the face so disagreeably fascinating that I almost forgot to mute my phone, having let the icon rest on my lap like a quiescent pet. I cared not at all for the intimate weight, and was lifting the image—clamping it between my hands in case exerting force lent me some sense of power—when Christian Noble said “Let us reflect on our times.”

  Tina and her son took their seats as he did. The blackness of the leather chairs had camouflaged the icons they picked up, so that the Nobles might almost have been producing them out of empty space, an illusion I did my best to regard as a cheap trick. As Christian Noble gazed at the audience, he and the companions on either side of him began to finger the icons, tracing the circular outlines while they turned the objects in their hands. “Chaos,” he said. “Even the unenlightened have started to suspect that is where the world is bound.”

  His dark eyes seemed to deepen as a smile spread across his lips, a satisfied expression that grew on Tina’s face and Toph’s as well. I was further unnerved to notice that everyone around me had set about tracing the shapes of the icons they held—Toby and Claudine too, and worst of all their little daughter. I told myself that quite a few religions involved similar activities—prayer wheels, rosaries and other beads—and did my best to concentrate on the sermon.

  “Alliances are breaking up across the world,” Christian Noble said, and I was disturbed to see Tina and Toph mouthing his words in unison with him. “Continents are separating into countries, and countries are splitting apart too. There are wars and rumours of more wars, and unseen armies fighting for no country are at large all around us. Religions are reverting to their primitive states, and madness is loose on the streets, and ruling country after country. The climate is returning to its birth. Gender grows more fluid, and the minds of the masses are gathering in the space their computers and electronic devices create. The brain is becoming less dependent on the physical, and nobody need feel constrained by the body they were born with. Science is approaching a view of the universe that those of us versed in the occult have known was the truth since before the birth of science. We know that the processes commonly regarded as chaos are no more than a step towards reviving the truth in the world…”

  All this sounded prophetic, and I wondered if Noble had somehow retrieved it from his medieval ancestor. Had he used memories as stepping stones through time? The idea made me feel threatened by memories other than mine, and I searched for something on which to fix my mind—not Noble and his family mouthing the words he spoke. I tried concentrating on the view beyond the window, where the bank of cloud was fraying at the edges, so that the attenuated tendrils looked desperate to cling to the sky as their expansive body dissipated. Perhaps deciphering the shape of the item in my hands would help to keep me in the moment, since its blackness made it so hard to distinguish, and I began to follow the reptilian outline with a finger.

  “Chaos is a name for mutability,” Tina Noble said while her father and son joined in without a sound. “It’s the name religion and men’s laws try to impose on it. Some religions call it original sin, the memory that’s buried deep in us all of when we and the universe were infinitely fluid. Religions try to shape their gods to fit the minds of men, but our church means to extend your minds through time and space so that you can grasp the truths some have called gods. Religions try to fix the thoughts of their followers in the form the faith approves of, to fix the world and the universe too, but it’s our mission to revive the infinite potential within you all.”

  However much I strained my eyes I was unsure how the icon looked, because I was increasingly uncertain what it felt like. I saw the gleeful face with its entire body for a second tongue, and irregular bunches of digits sprouting like buds here and there on the circular shaft, but my fingertips suggested that it had fewer dimensions than I was seeing, like that marvel of my childhood, the Mobius strip. Or perhaps the opposite was the case: perhaps it had more dimensions than were visible, if only I could distinguish them. My sensations had grown so ambiguous that it felt like trying to mould the body out of a void rather than from any recognisable substance.

  “The universe has always been a ghost of itself.” When had Toph become the speaker? “Look up at the night sky and you will see the shining dead,” he declared, and Macy gave a delighted laugh. “The stars annihilate time, and you will all learn to see it no more. Generation speaks to generation around the great circle, and soon all will see through the eyes of the unveiled…”

  I no longer understood the sermon, but this hardly seemed to matter, though I could have thought the words were reaching me even if I didn’t grasp them. I had no idea which of the Nobles was proclaiming that the truth behind the Eden myth was the identity of the three—Adam and Eve and the serpent, who was the essence of their mutability and begetter of the primal race. One name for the serpent was Ouroboros, the personification of eternal renewal, which the Bible tried to reduce to the form of a common snake, but the truth veiled by these symbols was called Daoloth. Norse myth acknowledged it as the Midgard Serpent, which will encircle the globe until it takes its tail out of its mouth to cause the destruction and rebirth of the world. I was tracing the form of the icon, an endless process during which it seemed not merely to grow concave but to suggest a hollowness far deeper than the object could contain, when the Nobles said aloud in unison “In the time of the third birth all shall become one in Daoloth.” They elevated the icons above their heads in their cupped hands, and every member of the congregation followed suit, even Macy and a dismaying number of other children. I didn’t realise I’d responded until I sensed the icon hovering like a harbinger of night above my skull.

  I lowered it so hastily that the wide smile brushed my forehead, and I could have fancied the splayed tongue dealt me a thin lick, which felt cold and sinuous. All around me objects like a flock of solidified darkness were descending to the earth. I was pressing the icon between my hands as if I could squeeze it smaller, a reaction that only made them ache, when Christian Noble passed his gaze across the congregation. “We shall meet again soon,” he said.

  “In your future,” Tina said.

  She and her family smiled for no reason I could think of, and Toph said “Not the ones you know.”

  I heard muted sounds of amusement or appreciation all over the room, and felt as if everybody else was party to a joke I had no chance of understanding. It seemed more important to observe that the Nobles had sent everybody on their way while themselves staying in the room. I kept my seat until all the worshippers in front of me had made for the lobby, bearing their icons like relics from a shrine, and then I followed my family. I glanced back from the door, but the Nobles were too involved in a conversation to notice.

  It was plain that the lifts would take some time to clear the lobby, and I stayed well away from them. I was hoping my behaviour didn’t look suspicious when Macy said “Do you like your figure, grandad?”

  I did my best to misinterpret the question. “There’s a bit too much of me at my age.”

  She laughed, not unlike an adult indulging a child. “Not you, grandad. The one the church gives us.”

  I was averse to answering her question but reluctant to ask “What do you think of yours?”

  “It looks after us. I keep mine by my bed at night.”

  Even more unwillingly I said “Looks after you how?”

  “It lets me go where I want in my sleep, because I know it’ll bring me back.”

  This led to more questions I was even less anxious to ask, but I was taking a prefatory breath when a voice I hadn’t heard for many years said “So you�
�ve seen the light, Mr Sheldrake.”

  I turned to see not only Farr but Black. They looked withered but potentially as forceful as last time I’d encountered them, when they’d scared off the vice-chancellor. Farr’s large moist pinkish nostrils seemed in danger of collapsing outwards, while Black’s round mouth had shrivelled so much it put me in mind of a navel. The sight of the policemen provoked me to speak before taking time to think. “You’re still partners, then.”

  Black parted his lips with a desiccated hollow pop and lubricated them with a generous length of his porous greyish tongue. “We’re mates, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “I meant whether you’re still on the force.”

  “Retired, us. Doesn’t mean we’re not involved with the law.”

  “I thought one of the speakers was saying she hadn’t much time for men’s laws.

  “You’ll come to understand as you progress,” Farr said. “Our laws are eternal.”

  “You didn’t run into any conflict when you were police.”

  “There’s plenty of those that are members,” Black said. “Lawyers and judges as well.”

  I held back from arguing further. Almost any other excuse to loiter outside the room would have been more welcome than they were. Soon they might wonder why I was lingering, and I was trying to think how to divert their attention when Toby said “I didn’t realise you knew my dad.”

  “We had occasion to speak to Mr Sheldrake when you were your daughter’s age. It was just a routine matter.”

  “It didn’t come to much,” Black said and stared at me, puckering his lips almost colourless.

  I recalled how they’d thwarted Jim’s investigation. “To nothing worth remembering,” Farr said with a sniff that rendered his nostrils cavernous, and I was restraining any answer when Christian Noble darted out of the room.

  The doors on either side had opened too, letting out Tina and Toph. All the Nobles gazed at me, which seemed to add weight to the icon in my hands and intensify its chill. “Were you waiting for us, Dominic?” Christian said.

  “Just talking to some”—I did my best not to pause—“some old acquaintances until the lifts weren’t so crowded.”

  “They aren’t now,” he said as Toph crossed the lobby to push the button. “Are you following us up?”

  I wished Farr and Black weren’t close enough to hear me lie. “I don’t know what there would be to follow up.”

  Tina made a noise distantly related to a laugh. “We mean are you coming upstairs.”

  “No,” I said and tried to rescind some of my urgency. “I don’t think I’ve any reason.”

  “Then here’s a lift to take you down,” Toph said.

  I moved towards it, but only in order to falter. “I just feel I’ve forgotten something.”

  “You have your avatar,” Christian said, and all three of them leaned forward to nod at the item in my hands.

  “Shall we go and look for you, grandad?”

  Macy’s parents were watching me as well, and so were Farr and Black. My palms had grown sweaty, so that the icon almost slipped out of my grasp. I clutched it to my chest while I patted my pockets with my free hand. Once I’d mimed searching I had to say “I must have dropped my phone.”

  “Have you any idea where?” Christian Noble said.

  I was afraid he was setting a trap. “Let me go and see,” I said.

  He moved aside just enough to let me pass. As I limped between the folding chairs, he and Tina and Toph occupied the doorways. Their scrutiny unnerved me, and I retrieved the phone from my chair at once, only to fear I’d betrayed that I’d known all the time where it was. “It must have fallen out of my pocket after I turned off the sound,” I said and had to swallow halfway through.

  The Nobles watched me head for the lobby, not as steadily as I would have liked. Farr and Black were at the lifts, and Black was holding the left-hand door wide with a fist. “Will you be coming with us, Toby?” Christian said.

  I could have thought he was testing my son’s loyalty, and Toby looked apologetic “We’ll see you on Sunday as usual, dad.”

  “Don’t go any further than you feel comfortable with,” Claudine said. “We’ll guide you again next time you’re here.”

  “But you could have the worm by your bed,” Macy suggested.

  I had the daunting notion that they thought all their remarks were equally domestic and mundane. They trooped with the Nobles into the lilt, and Macy hugged her icon while she waved her other hand—many of them. As the lift shut, its neighbour opened, and Black tramped in while Farr indicated it with one pallid puffy upturned hand. “We’ll see you down, Mr Sheldrake.”

  As I ventured in, a face protruding a divided tongue flocked to welcome me—to surround me, at any rate. Many of its duplications were pretending not to watch me, but far more of the huge black eyes than I could count made no secret of observing. When Farr followed me the exultant faces multiplied as if another brood of them had hatched, and the walls swarmed with darkness. The lift set about crawling downwards, and Black turned to me. “Let’s have a look at your phone.”

  I felt trapped, hemmed in not just by the nighted faces but his and Farr’s too everywhere I might look. “What’s the issue?” I protested.

  “I’ll be finding out.”

  “I thought you weren’t with the police any longer.”

  I was instantly concerned that I’d betrayed he had good cause to be suspicious. His stare hid his thoughts as he held out a hand, a forest of which sprouted all around me. “Don’t have to be,” he said.

  He put me in mind of bullies from my childhood, but surely I needn’t feel intimidated at my age. “What does he want?” I appealed to Farr.

  “What he says, I should think, Mr Sheldrake.” With a dismissive grimace that made his nostrils gape Farr said “Have you some reason not to comply?”

  Surely he was sounding more official than he had any right to sound. I wanted to find the sight of Black’s expectantly rounded mouth absurd, even comical, but my sense that every wide-eyed reptilian shape was intent on the confrontation didn’t help. I held the icon against my chest while I groped for the phone and brandished it. “There it is,” I said. “Not even the latest model. Out of date like its owner.”

  Black’s stare didn’t let me know if my nervousness was apparent. His hand stayed outstretched as he said “Give us a proper look.”

  He didn’t know my password, and I wouldn’t tell him. Surely that would hide my secret, but I’d barely handed him the phone when I wondered if the home screen might somehow let him deduce what I’d done upstairs. I felt my heart thump hard under cover of the icon while Black frowned at the phone he was weighing in his hand. “Heavier than ours,” he said.

  “I told you it was getting on like me.”

  When he turned his stare on me I saw I’d been too eager to feel safe. “Don’t see how you wouldn’t know you’d dropped it,” he said.

  “It’s age,” I said, hoping my panic wasn’t evident. “It does that to you.”

  “Not to us, Mr Sheldrake, nor to Christian.”

  I couldn’t tell how much Farr disbelieved me, and Black’s stare was unreadable too. It returned to my phone before he said “You want to watch out what you’re doing.”

  “I hope I do.” I would have preferred not to have to ask “Anything in particular?”

  “Forgetting where you’ve left your stuff.” His stare had grown as unblinkingly insistent as the eyes of the multitude of icons, and it was close to forcing me to respond when he handed the phone back. “Too much of a weight,” he said. “I’ll stick with mine.”

  I wasn’t quite persuaded that he’d simply wanted to compare phones or to exert authority over me once again, if not both. Perhaps he’d decided against demanding my password now that he had no official status, and was pretending the idea had never occurred to him. I pocketed the mobile before he could change his mind, and faced the doors as if this might bring us to the basement s
ooner. I wasn’t far from fancying that all the faces, human and less human, were closing in on me by the time the lift touched bottom.

  My car was parked by itself against the wall on the far side of an expanse of empty concrete. As I made for it under the harsh fluorescent lights I grew an unsteady shadow, which was ushered if not urged onwards by two more. All three reared up on the side of the car, and I had an unsettling impression that the shadows of the icons my escorts held had grown disproportionately large, though this wasn’t the case with the one I was carrying. As I planted the figurine on the car roof so as to unlock my door, Farr objected “That’s a precious item, Mr Sheldrake.”

  “Take care of him,” Black said.

  I wasn’t sure whether this was addressed to me or to the icon. I would have consigned it to the boot if I hadn’t been anxious to leave the men behind. As I ducked into the car, rousing a pain that climbed my spine, I dumped the object on the seat beside my own. The men turned their backs simultaneously, stalking off in unison as I slammed the door. I moved the icon to face away from me before I started the car.

  I was heading for the exit when a black Mazda crept out from behind the pillar that housed the lifts. It was close to my rear bumper by the time the barrier deferred to me, and I saw Black behind the wheel, and his and Farr’s eyes on me. The barrier detained their car while I swung onto the Strand, where a set of traffic lights brought me to a halt. They hadn’t dropped to green when the Mazda sped up the ramp and took up a position at my back.

  I was distracted by the icon. Some movement or vibration of the car had inched it around to face me, and I could have thought that despite their lack of pupils the eyes were gazing straight at me. I turned the grinning thin-lipped face away as the lights glared green. I couldn’t risk breaking the speed limit on the way home, and whenever I glanced in the mirror I saw Farr and Black. Their eyes looked as dark and blank as the eyes of the icon. More than once I found it had crawled around on the seat again, to present me with the smile its tail and three-pronged tongue were helping to stretch wide.