Empire of the Worm (17 page)

“But where’s—?” Just as Davril
glanced about for the whereabouts of the head priest, he saw a robed shape
vanish through the archway.

“Damn it!” he snarled. “He’ll alert
them that we’re here. We must hurry.” He shook some blood off his hand and
wiped it on his clothes. “Do you remember the way back?”

“Follow me.”

She returned to their candles,
snatched hers up and led Davril on through the darkness. Candle in one hand,
blood-dripping dagger in the other, he came after, shooting wary glances over
his back as he went. At any moment he expected to see a tide of Avestines
pouring through the archway. He thought he could hear raised, strident voices
hollering in alarm. Any moment now.

Alyssa led along the curving wall,
coming at last to a bricked-up window. To Davril it looked like all the others,
but somehow she knew it was the correct one. Just as she dislodged the bricks
that hid her hole, Davril heard a great rustling of bodies and whirled to see
exactly what he’d feared: a tide of Avestines surging up the tunnel, torches
thrust before them. At their head strode the priest that had wanted to rape
Alyssa first, and by the light of the torches Davril could see his tattoos
clearly; he looked like some fat, jowly serpent, scales distended and warped
due to his excess flesh.

“In!” Davril ordered, shoving
Alyssa ahead of him through the hole. It was a tight fit, and she had to worm
her way into position, grunting and crying out in frustration all the while. When
at last she was through, he heard her call, “Hurry!”

He didn’t have time. With his bad
leg it would take him much longer to crawl in after her, and the Avestines
approached rapidly. It was dark enough that they would not have seen Alyssa
vanish into the hole, especially since she had taken her candle with her.

Swearing under his breath, Davril
shoved the bricks back into position. Before the last one was fitted, he called
up the hole, “Tell our people to muster themselves and flee. The Avestines mean
to betray us.
You
are in charge now.”
He shoved the last brick in place and hurried down the hall, even as the Avestines
closed in on him from behind. Limping, cursing and hopeless, Davril ran as fast
as his bad leg would let him.

He could hear them following him,
completely ignoring the spot where Alyssa had escaped, just as he’d hoped, but
they were outrunning him swiftly.

He would die, he supposed. There
could be no escape for him.

The tide of Avestines swarmed over
him. Hands grabbed his arms, his hair, his back, tearing at him. Others made as
if to rip him limb from limb. He slashed out with his dagger, felt it connect,
heard voices cry out in surprise and pain. Then someone struck his wrist with a
cane, and the dagger spun away. Another object struck his head, and he
collapsed to the floor.

More hands clutched at him, and
blood coursed down his face and back. He threw his hands before his face.

At last one voice rose above the
others: “Hold! Hold! I say hold! In the name of the Serpent, hold or suffer divine
wrath!”

As the Avestines fell back, Davril
looked up to see the gilded hood of the High Priest glimmering in the light of
the torches. The High Priest smiled cruelly as he stared down at Davril, and
Davril winced at all the sharp teeth. And his eyes!

The High Priest’s eyes were those
of a snake. They were golden, with green, vertical irises, and they seemed to
glow by the light of the torches.

“Don’t thank me,” the High Priest
said, though Davril had not been about to. “Your soul must still reside in your
body when you’re given to my Master, Great Sythang.” He lifted his voice and
roared, “HAIL SYTHANG!”

“HAIL SYTHANG!” the Avestines
echoed.

They hauled Davril to his feet and
shoved him through the hallway.

Well, isn’t this just
wonderful
, Davril thought, as the Avestines propelled him into the great
domed room with the tiered daises. He was dazzled by all the intricate
scrollwork, the beautiful engravings, the inlaid gems, the tens of thousands of
people . . .

“Just what is this place?” he heard
himself ask.

The High Priest cast him a glance
as they marched along toward a great stone seal before the tiered daises. “Your
tomb,” he said, and bared his needle-sharp teeth. For the first time, Davril
got a look at the priest’s tongue; it had been ritually mutilated, parted down
the center to the length of an inch, so that the High Priest was forked of
tongue. Still, he spoke remarkably well.

They reached the great seal, sixty
feet wide and fashioned of metal or stone, Davril could not tell which. Some
mechanism was thrown, and the seal rolled away with a grinding roar that Davril
could feel through his feet. Thousands of Avestines moved back to be safe from
the yawning hole, but the High Priest didn’t seem to give them a thought. He
certainly didn’t give them any warning.

Davril wondered if the whole world
had gone insane. First his family, then the Lerumites, then the other
worshippers of Uulos, then the Circle of Subn-ongath, now the Avestines . . .
all locked in horrid faiths, feeding their own members and those of enemy gods
to the one they worshipped. Did the whole world run on darkness? He remembered Tiat-sumat,
and Behara, and Asqrit, and Illyria, and the Jewel of the Sun. At least there
were some representatives of goodness in this world, even if they were not so
mighty and immediate as those of the darkness.

And Alyssa. Beautiful, lovely
Alyssa.

. . . and Hariban . . . and Sareth
. . .

When the seal had completely rolled
away, Davril saw the thing in the center of that domed chamber, and his legs
turned to jelly.

It was a pit.

A great hole sixty feet across, it
seemed to have no bottom. The High Priest, holding his staff in one hand and a
torch in the other, stepped to the lip of the pit and gestured for Davril’s
handlers to shove him forward. Davril struggled, but they were determined, and
in moments he stood thrashing on the lip.

The High Priest gestured his torch
down into the darkness. The light did not go far, nor did it illuminate much,
save to show that the sides of this pit were not lined with stone but was
tunneled out of the living rock of the earth’s crust—not smoothly as if by man,
but, yes, as if by some great serpent.

Davril silently prayed to the gods
to spare him. He reluctantly acknowledged that the Avestines might worship some
thing, some beast or vermin, some bloated reptile that inspired fear into a
backward people, but a
god
?

“This hole goes down into the
center of the world,” the High Priest said. “Into the very fires of the
Furnace, yes. There the Great Sythang keeps warm, roasting His scaled belly
over the flames. There you will be soon, your flesh, your soul roasting
eternally in his armored abdomen, your skin blackening, your soul writhing,
steaming . . . That is what becomes of defying the Serpent.”

Davril narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t
defy your stupid god, you fool. I hadn’t even
heard
about him until tonight.”

“Ignorance only falls upon the
unworthy.”

“Just kill me and be done with it.”

The High Priest gestured toward a
gaggle of Avestines setting up three massive gongs the colors of jade and gold.
Slowly, and as one, they began to beat the gongs. The cadence was slow,
rhythmic, and Davril saw their eyes roll up in their heads. Either they were in
a trance or they had taken some drug.

BOOM. A long echo, then silence. BOOM.
Echo. Silence. BOOM.

Davril found himself grinding his
teeth in the lull between gong-beats, then wincing when the beat came. The Avestines,
who had before been muttering and speaking loudly, their many numbers cramming
the chamber of the pit and filling up the hall beyond, now fell silent. Davril
found the presence of so many silent people, all eagerly awaiting his demise,
just as unnerving as the thought of the scaled monstrosity that must be rising,
stirring at the sound of the gong summons. Some beast, he thought, trained to
respond to the call for food. But inside he was beginning to doubt. He saw the
runes carved into the gongs and knew they were no mere musical devices. Perhaps
their beats truly could penetrate the earth to its core.

BOOM . . . BOOM . . .

Slowly, oh so slowly, the
gong-beats grew faster, closer together.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Eagerness radiated off the Avestines,
and the High Priest’s smile grew broad, his eyes glazed. Davril tried to
wrestle free of his guards so that he could shove the damned priest into the
pit, but the guards held him rigidly.

The gong-beats grew louder, closer
together, closer. BOOM BOOM BOOM. They shook Davril’s bones, slammed nails
through his head. Behind him, around him, he could hear, just faintly, the
sound of praying. The Avestines were calling to their god, hands clasped, eyes
closed, some trembling in joy or fear, and all the while, under their breaths, praying.
It was not in Qazric but in some ancient tongue, perhaps the tongue of the
ancient Avestines.

Then Davril felt it.

Heat.

It had been warm and moist before,
and with the press of people and the relatively tight space Davril had hardly
been able to breathe. This was different. Now, perceptively, it grew warmer. First
it was just at trifle. Then it increased. Became hot. Sweat trickled down from
his scalp, stung his eyes, the cut on his neck, coursed down from his armpits,
drenched him. His feet grew warm through his sandals, uncomfortably so. He
found himself shifting from one leg to the other, worse than usual.

None of the Avestines seemed to
mind. Perhaps they felt it too, but if so they reveled in it. Indeed, glancing
about him, he could see them smiling. Some gasped in orgasmic release. “The
Serpent!” they said. “He comes! Yes, yes! Come! Come!”

Davril felt the ground tremble
beneath him. Dust rose from the great black pit, as if some large body shoved
upwards. The air grew hotter, burning his lungs.

“Yes,” whispered the High Priest. “The
time of your race is over. The Aves will rise and rule as in the days of old. The
Serpent shall inhabit His temple in the ruins of Sagrahab, and Sagrahab will
shine in glory once more. The City Below shall fill with light. Sythang shall
rule below, and Uulos will rule above, and the world—”

The ground shook more violently. The
air seared Davril’s lungs worse than before, and the heat coursing up his feet
made him want to crawl upon the shoulders of his captors.
It will be over soon
.

Then, a strange odor, foul and
sulfurous.

A great, reptilian groan echoed up
from the pit. The High Priest’s breath caught in his throat. All around the Avestines
stood rigid. The time had come.

Despite himself, Davril looked down.
At first all he saw was darkness. Then, movement. The darkness stirred.
Behara, save me
. Asqrit had done him
precious little good. Why not give the god of the sky a chance?

The thing in the pit surged
upwards, and the light of the torches and braziers picked out two glints that
must be eyes, huge, hideous, reptilian eyes, amber and slitted, far apart, and
then a crack of fire appeared, what must be the mouth. Flames crackled in the
back of the throat, silhouetting long sharp needle teeth, and any doubts Davril
had of this being an otherworldly being vanished.

It surged upwards, and the Avestines
fell to their knees, crying out their love and fear, even the High Priest —

Screams erupted from the hall, in
the direction of the stairway. Screams, and more screams. The clink of armor
and the swish of swords.

“What’s this?” the High Priest said.

He and Davril both turned their
heads to see a tide of figures, some wearing armor, charge into the domed
chamber. Swords flashed by the light of the braziers. Blood spurted. Tattooed
priests fells screaming and bleeding. People shrieked and fell back. But there
were too many people, and the space was too small. People began tumbling into
the pit.

Davril hunkered low as a body hurtled
over his shoulders, howling as it fell into darkness. The roar of fire came and
the howling ceased. Another body fell, and another. The snap of monstrous teeth
chilled Davril, but he did not dare look back, did not dare look down. The
priests that gripped him let go and turned to confront the attackers.

Alyssa!
Davril thought.
Bless her.
She hadn’t
gathered the rebels to flee as he’d instructed her, but had roused them to save
him.
The wonderful, foolish girl.

As the invaders stormed in,
cleaving right and left and wreaking havoc among the faithful of Sythang, Davril
turned to see the High Priest level his staff at one of the armored rebels. The
air blurred at his tip.

Davril launched himself at the
priest and knocked the staff aside.

The High Priest struck him with his
free hand, drawing lines of blood on Davril’s cheek with sharpened fingernails.
Growling, Davril rushed forward, ramming the priest with his shoulder and
sending him flying backward—into the pit.

The High Priest vanished into the
darkness, toward those glimmering, reptilian eyes, and to his credit he did not
scream. He fell piously silent, and Davril watched him until he the Thing’s mouth
opened in a line fire, then snapped hideously shut, and the High Priest was no
more.

Davril spun just in time to avoid a
press of tangled figures being forced back into the chasm. He flattened himself
on the ground and hung on with his hands and toes to the ancient tiles as Avestines
poured over him, either giving themselves up to their god willingly as a way to
avoid a less noble death at the hands of their enemies, or else simply because
they were pushed. Davril felt a heel grind his palm, another step on his head,
shoving his chin down into the floor. Someone tripped on him, hooking his ribs.
A toe nearly gouged out his eye.