Empire of the Worm (15 page)

Lord Husan looked away. “He is
weak,” he repeated. “And with Uulos’s rise . . . yes, it is possible.” His
voice sounded unutterably sad. And angry. Davril knew his father held him
accountable for Subn-ongath’s situation, and for good reason.

“What will happen to you if he
dies?” Davril asked.

Lord Husan cast a glance at the circling
shadows. “We will never be able to pass into Algorad. We will linger here,
feeding off the lives of others, but without the Master’s heat we will wither
and fade and become nothing. We will vanish like spilled wine on a hot day.”

For a long while, they stood there
in silence, father and son, the light dimming between them, each lost in his
own thoughts. Meanwhile, the circling shades circled tighter, tighter, seeming
to go faster, as if growing agitated and restless, perhaps in response to their
father’s musings.

Davril broke the silence. “But if Uulos
should be defeated, you would pass into Algorad, and Subn-ongath would be
healed?”

Lord Husan nodded, just slightly. “That
is what we pray for. Alas, we cannot stray far from the Palace in order to
accomplish our ends.”

“But you
can
stray?”

“A bit. But not for long. And the
farther we venture, the shorter we can remain there. It is only the echoes of
our Master’s power that allow us to endure.”

“I think I understand.”

The anger in Lord Husan suddenly
flared. “This is all your doing, you know. You wounded the Master by forcing
him to exact revenge on you, and now He’s forced to hide with His allies, and
they can do nothing to prevent the coming of the Worm. Never would we have come
to this present brink but for you. Never would Uulos’s servants have gotten
this far if the Patron had been kept appeased.”

Wearily, Davril nodded. “I know. I
seek to make amends—to defeat the Worm and restore our House.”

“Bah. The people have
turned
on our House.”

“They raised us up before. They
will again, should we be the ones to show them the way.”

“
Uulos
shows them the way.” The dead emperor’s voice was
contemptuous.

Patiently, Davril replied, “The
wrong way. They will see that before long.” He rubbed his chin. “Algorad—why am
I dreaming of it?”

“It calls you home.” His father
smiled, but it was a sad smile. Likely he dreamed of a place he feared he would
never see. “It is our true home, where we go after we die.”

“We . . .”

“All those of our Master’s line.”

Suddenly Davril shivered. “What do
you mean, his
line
?”

“His bloodline.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you? We Husans are descended
from a long line of kings and emperors . . . and, yes, gods.”

“How
can that be?”
Davril heard the horror in his own voice but didn’t try to
hide it. Only with an effort did he remain standing.

Lord Husan’s smile turned sinister,
but still tinged with sadness. “Not all those laid upon the Altar . . . are
slain
.”

Bile rose in the back of Davril’s throat.
“But that’s madness. Surely we’re not . . . compatible . . .”

There was no mirth in Husan’s smile
now. “You talk of gods, boy.”

Davril stumbled back, weak and
shaky. Trembling, he pressed his back against a column and forced himself to
take deep breaths.

“This is madness.”

Lord Husan stepped toward him,
seeming to glide across marble that radiated unearthly energies. His face was
pale and gloating. “It is the way. Your blood, too, carries a trace of the Lord.
A trace, and a seed of divinity. You need merely wake it to accept the bounty
of the Great One.”

“Wake it? I don’t . . .”

“The Patron’s blood runs in yours,
but it’s dormant. You must wake it. You must heed the call of Algorad. You must
listen to the singing. You must accept Him into your heart. You must become
His. Only if you do this will you be permitted into the City of Bells.”

“I will
never
serve the likes of that thing.”

“Then you will die, and your city
will belong to the Worm, and the family you slaughtered will wither from the
earth. But should you accept the grace of the One, should you become his
servant, you shall rise after your death. Your body shall rise, Davril,
rise
, and you shall walk down to the
Great Tomb and the Door shall open to admit you, and you shall descend to
Algorad, and the bells will ring, and the people, many of them Husans that have
come before, will rejoice, and there will be dancing, and the Temples will glow.”

Davril stared at the sarcophagi
around him. “Rise . . .” He shook his head. The lantern felt very heavy in his
hand. He wanted to drop it from his shaky fingers, but that would plunge him
into utter blackness.

Lord Husan nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Rise.”
A hungry look came into his eyes, a look Davril did not like at all.

With purpose, Lord Husan strode
over to the nearest sarcophagus. With inhuman strength he wrenched off the top
and hurled it away. The crash of breaking stone jolted Davril.

“Look!” Lord Husan said, his face
triumphant, his eyes gleaming. “
Look
into the tomb!”

“No.” Davril shook his head. “
No
.”

Suddenly hands grabbed his arms. Shoved
him forwards, toward his father and the sarcophagus.

“No . . .” Desperately, he glanced
to his brothers that held him. “Let me go. Don’t make me!”

They held him like iron. His heels
scraped at the marble, trying to slow him. It was to no avail. Closer, closer
he drew to the sarcophagus and the gloating father that stood over it, perched
like a vulture, cruel and repugnant.

“No . . .” Davril knew what he
would see. Knew it, and was horrified by it. “No, please no . . .”

His brothers shoved him to it, and in
horror he stared down into the dim recess of the sarcophagus. There, in that
narrow window into eternity, where the body of his ancestor should have rested,
surely just bones by now, bones cloaked in cloth-of-gold and bedecked with
jewels, perhaps wearing a crown—there was nothing.

Nothing
.
No bones. No jewels. Just cold, hard stone.

“No,” Davril said. He mashed his
eyes shut. “It can’t
be
.”

“It is,” came his father’s voice. “It
is the way of things, my son. The way of the Husans. We serve the Great One,
and it is to Him that we go after our deaths. We awaken and go down to Him.”

“But the flowers, the visitors, the
ones that come to pray to former kings . . .”

“They pray to empty stone, my son.”

“But the seventeen levels of the
catacombs . . .”

“Hold only empty ornaments, stone
tombs that house air. Oh, perhaps there are a few who did not take the Master’s
blessing, a few who did not awake after their deaths, but the bulk of us accept
it. And so shall you, unless you are a fool.”

The world spun about Davril, and
the taste of bile in the back of his throat grew stronger.
The blood of Subn-ongath runs in my veins.
He stared at his hands,
half expecting them to sprout scales, or for the flesh to slough away,
revealing ghastly, inhuman appendages, twisting and glistening . . .

They remained the same hands he’d
always had, firm and nimble, his right hand slightly callused from the cane. But,
somewhere inside him, running in his veins, slumbering . . .

With sudden violence, he ripped
himself free of his brothers’ embrace and lurched toward the stairs. “Never!”
he shouted over his shoulder. “I will never consign my soul to Subn-ongath!”

He staggered away, past the empty
sarcophagi, past the grand statues of emperors who had given their flesh and
blood and souls to the Deep Ones, past the thick columns that held up the
seventeen levels of catacombs that were no true catacombs at all but one great,
horrid lie to conceal a truth too terrible for mortal minds to bear. His father
and brothers did not stop him, nor did they follow.

Shaking, he gathered up a pale and
likewise trembling Wesrai and departed the Palace, and he did not look back
until he was a long distance away. When he did, he saw the rising spires and it
seemed to him that they were fingers, grasping at him, beckoning him back. Sweating,
he grit his teeth and said, “
Never
.”

Chapter
12

Reeling, Davril returned to the deep tunnels of the Avestines,
his home-in-exile. The tunnels were more crowded than ever, and there was a
constant hustle and bustle—so much so that he and Wesrai had to shoulder their
way through the tight confines. Davril labored for breath by the time he
reached the main warren.

“I think we need to petition the Aves
for more space,” Davril said, sinking down on a couch and catching his breath.

Wesrai nodded, wiping sweat from
his brow. “I think you may be right, my lord. But we have already asked them
several times.”

“And they’ve granted us the space
we need every time.”

“With less enthusiasm each time.”

Davril sighed. “We don’t want to
antagonize them, do we?”

Wesrai collapsed into the couch
beside him. “We have enough antagonists already, my lord.”

“A lack of air is a foe too great
even for me.” To that, Wesrai had no answer. And it was a problem, Davril had
to admit. His rebellion had grown
too
successful. After the siege had ended, Davril had sent out the word through his
contacts in the aristocracy that anyone disenchanted with the new regime could
come to him. And so they had. In droves. Many hated and feared Uulos, and with
excellent reason. But they were too many, and the Avestines were growing
resentful. Security was becoming a greater and greater problem. How could
Davril ensure that his new recruits were not actually agents of the enemy?

Looking about him, eyeing the
throngs of rebels and refugees, Davril wondered how many of those about him
were turncoats—or worse, Lerumites in disguise. He had had his priests perform
tests on every single one, to be sure—a prerequisite for anyone wishing to join
Davril’s cause—but with the priests’ diminished abilities, it was difficult to
be sure the tests were working. Still, they continued to aid Davril, as much as
they could, and indeed on his way into the tunnels Davril and Wesrai had passed
through the newly ensorcelled archway that was supposed to alert the rebels of
enemy infiltration. Davril had ordered one constructed at all entrances. This
location was secret, but he could not afford to be too trusting. Still, there
were many tunnels, and many entrances, and it would take months or years to
install ensorcelled archways at every one.

One of Davril’s lieutenants approached.
“It’s good to have you back, my lord. Really, you should let one of us handle
the tasks you set yourself. Meeting with conspirators, turning Uulos’s agents
against Him—it’s too dangerous.”

Davril raised his eyebrows. “Is it
not more dangerous to stay here and allow my plans to unfold without my
supervision?”

The lieutenant bowed his head. “It’s
as my lord says, of course. May I fetch you anything?”

Davril recalled the empty
sarcophagi and the look of awful triumph on his father’s face. “Some wine.” Whatever
he had drunk earlier had long since been burned up.

“And me as well,” added Wesrai,
whose order forbid drinking in excess but not altogether.

As Davril’s lieutenant melted away,
the Lady of Behara appeared. Her eyes dark in the smoky room, she moved with
languid grace, white robes just trailing the ground; her tiara caught the light
of a nearby brazier, twinkling.

She smiled and curtsied. “Your
Grace,” she said. “We’d expected you earlier.”

“Yes. I had an . . . appointment I
could not break.”

“Did you learn anything useful?”

“No,” he said darkly. “I did not.”

“Well.” Her voice was light. “Not
every meeting can be fruitful. You simply must do the best you can and hope
something works out. The Flame is on our side, after all.”

Davril grinned humorlessly. “Yes,
but the darkness is on our enemy’s.”
And
not altogether absent here . .
.

The lieutenant returned and pressed
a wineglass into Davril’s hands first, then Wesrai’s. Davril sipped gratefully.

“Would my Lady . . . ?” the man
began, but she waved him away.

“If you will excuse us,” she said. When
he was gone, she looked down at Davril and said, “Have you forgotten the feast
tonight?”

“Remind me.”

“This is a very important dinner. We’re
meeting with the Trading Guild chairmen. They are very powerful and could aid
us greatly, but we must impress them with our competence or they will want to
have nothing to do with us. They’re risking torture, death, the swallowing of
their very souls and that of their families. They need to see us as strong and
sure. And being late is not a good start, I might add.”

“And do, evidently.” He sighed. “Very
well.” Draining his glass, he rose to his feet. “They were blindfolded when
they were taken here?”

“We followed your instructions
explicitly.”

“Then let us go to them.”

Using his cane, he walked beside
her through the halls, Wesrai at his heels as usual these days; the priest had
become an excellent manservant. Davril noticed something strange in the Lady’s
manner. She seemed tense, her back rigid, her head held even higher than
normal.

“What’s wrong?”
 

She let out a ragged breath. Not
turning to look at him, she said, “Uulos.”

“What about him?”

She hissed impatiently. “No, I mean
it’s
him
. Rumors have been circulating
all day. Apparently the Lerumite high priest gave a speech last night, and the
faithful have been spreading the news.”

“Of what?”

“Of Uulos’s return, of course.”

“What
of
his return?”

She stopped and stared at him. She
was taller than he was, and her expression was one of pique. “You truly are
slow at times, my lord.”

“Just tell me.”

“Don’t you understand? Uulos is now
powerful enough. That’s what the Lerumites are saying. Those of his Circle have
been driven away, the people’s faith in the Flame has waned and their devotion
to the Worm blossomed. He’s feeding on that devotion, that worship, as well as
the blood and souls His flock give him. He’s strong enough, or so his High
Priest says.”

“Strong enough.”

“To return. To cross over into our
world once more. All it will take is one mass sacrifice. The one we had been
waiting for.”

Davril shared an uneasy look with
Wesrai. The priest blinked sweat out of his eyes and licked his lips.

“When?” Davril asked.

“Soon,” the Lady said. “That’s all
I know. But it will be days, not months. Then he will devour the Jewel of the
Sun, the skies will darken, his ancient allies will rise from the deeps and the
civilizations of Man shall fall.”

Davril had little patience for the feast. He constantly had
to curb his wandering mind from empty sarcophagi and the return of the Worm, to
force himself to pay attention to the members of the Trading Guild. He still
couldn’t quite believe he was a
descendant
of Subn-ongath, it didn’t matter how diluted the blood was. Cold sweat beaded
his brow, and it was all he could do to focus on the members of the Guild.

They were tense and edgy. They’d heard
the rumors of Uulos’s imminent return, and Davril could not tell if that
encouraged their defiance of the Old One or dampened it. Either way, it was an
uncomfortable meeting, as they ate roast mutton around a long wooden table deep
underground with braziers casting a cloud of smoke overhead, and the eyes of
the traders flicking about uncertainly as if expecting some treachery, even tasting
their food with open suspicion.

Surprisingly, when the meal ended the
traders agreed to aid Davril, but it was anybody’s guess what they would really
do when the time came. It was with grave doubts and paranoid fantasies that
Davril retired to his bedchambers, and even though he was tired and longed for
sleep, slumber was a hard-fought victory rewarded only with the sound of bells
ringing from the steeples of fabled Algorad —

Someone shook him, and a voice
whispered in his ear: “Davril, you must wake up! Wake up, Davi!”

Cracking his eyes, he glared up at
the supple shadow bending over him.

“Alyssa?”

“Davi, you must come with me.” She
grabbed his hand and tugged on it.

He shook his hand loose. “What is
it?”

Alyssa let out a breath and sat
down beside him. She wore only a silken nightie.

“Davril . . .”

“
No
. Return to your bed. I—we—it’s not meant to be. Hariban . . .”

She sucked in a breath, and he was
aware of the rising and falling of her breasts. “That’s not why I’ve come,” she
said.

“Then why?”

“I’ve found more doors and
windows.”

He groaned. “Gods! That can wait
till tomorrow.” She’d let her fascination with the strange architecture of the
subterranean passageways become an obsession. She wandered them constantly,
making notes and often coming to Davril to inform him of her most recent
discovery. He tolerated it because it kept her busy, but he reflected that he
might have to put an end to it.

“Enough is enough, Alyssa. Let me
sleep.”

She sidled closer. The heady smell
of her perfume teased him.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I
found more doors and windows
on the level
below.”

All threads of sleep vanished. “You’re
mad! We’re forbidden to go below this level. What are you trying to do, get the
Avestines to turn against us?”

She seemed to have expected his
ire. With a firm voice, she said, “They’re keeping something from us, Davril. Some
great secret.”

“Well, perhaps—”

“They’re having a meeting now.
Right
now. A great meeting. Tens of
thousands of them. When I heard their voices, I followed . . .” She swallowed,
and now she did sound nervous. “They’re trying to decide what to do with us.”

His hair prickled. “What to
do
? As in . . .”

“Yes.”

He stared at her. “And what did
they decide?”

She rolled a shapely shoulder. “They
were still discussing it when I left. I thought I should wake you and take you
there so that you could overhear them for yourself. Be able to prepare. I
doubted you would believe
me
.”

“You did right. Take me to them.”

He slipped from bed, shoved his
father’s dagger in his waistband, donned a pair of sandals and followed her.

“This way,” she said, showing him
through the quiet warrens to her own private cell. In place of a door was a
pretty tapestry. The walls, like those in Davril’s cell, were earthen, like most
of the interior walls of the warren. Clearly these were later additions to the
tunnels, as they did not match the advanced stone- and metal-work of the
tunnels as a whole and especially on the outer walls. Indeed, it was almost as
if the Avestines had come along ages after the stone tunnels had been formed
and erected the earthen partitions themselves so that they could make better
use of the space. They could make vast halls into a thousand rooms—if that were
true.

Behind the pile of blankets and
pillows Alyssa used for a bed another hanging depended from the wall—one of the
outer walls, he realized—and in a corner Davril saw a mound of dirt and bricks.

“You’ve been digging again. I thought
we talked about that.”

She ignored him. She stepped to the
hanging and swept it back, revealing an ancient, bricked-up window frame,
obviously one of the ones that so fascinated her, and within it a dark hole.

“Alyssa,” he said, “I thought I
asked you to stop this nonsense.”

She gave him a sharp look. “If we
overhear something important, you’ll be glad I didn’t.” She grabbed a
candle-holder for herself and pressed a second one into his hands. “Come,” she
whispered, and wriggled into the hole where she had removed the bricks that
sealed the window and the dirt beyond. In seconds she had vanished from sight.

This
is madness
, Davril thought.
If the Avestines
should find us . . .

On the other hand, if the Avestines
were discussing the rebels’ fates and Davril had the opportunity to prepare for
their decision, it would be foolish not to go.

He followed.

At once it became apparent that
Alyssa had been digging for herself and alone, for it was tiny and narrow. Cold,
moist dirt pressed in from all sides. Davril strained, forcing his way down
inch by inch. His ribs ached and he had to labor for breath, which was filled
with dust. He couldn’t look down, could only stare ahead. It was very dark, but
he could just barely see a stone or metal wall (he couldn’t tell which) pressed
up against his face, while all around him was dirt. It was as if he scaled the
outside of some strange building, the building the window was set in, but over
time the earth had swallowed it . . .

But no, that would take ages. Millions
of years . . .

Just what
was
this place? He saw why the puzzle gripped Alyssa. Still, she should
not have gone exploring. What if the Avestines had caught her and decided to
kill the rebels for her transgression, or simply turn them out? Either decision
would have the same effect, as Davril’s party of the discontented and displaced
had nowhere to go save to some black altar of Uulos.

At last he came to a narrow sliver
of light—another window frame, he realized, with another hole in its bricked-up
face, and beyond the hole a chamber or hall. Alyssa was standing there, her
candle lit, its light bathing her pretty face with her scared, determined eyes.

Davril struggled through the
opening and spilled out onto the cold stone floor. Coughing and wiping the dust
from his nightclothes, he rose and stared about him. The hall he found himself
in was huge, so tall he could not see its ceiling in the darkness, nor the
opposite wall. All was blackness save for the small orange bubble of Alyssa’s
candle, and it illuminated only herself, the stone floor, the near wall, and a
great column that soared up into the blackness.