Empire of the Worm (28 page)

The Lady waited, basking in the
presence of the swollen darkness that seethed before her, blotting out the
stars and towers of the city.

When the words were done, the she
ordered the Jewel brought before her and placed on the marble floor of the
Square. She stood directly before the might of Uulos with the Jewel, a mighty
offering indeed, smoking before her. The crowd gasped at the flaming egg, and
the Lerumites made gestures to ward off ill luck, and the great mass that was
the One stirred. She could feel His hunger, His need. He had waited for this
day for countless ages—and it had been her, the Lady, who had made this happen.
He would remember that.

“My Lord, it is time,” she said. “I
bring to you the so-called Jewel of the Sun, a stepping stone to Your
invincibility, and Your utter omnipotence.”

A sound came from the Shadow—a
groan? a growl? it was impossible to tell—and for a moment the Lady felt fear
flutter in her heart. Uulos possessed few of her sensibilities, and she must
not try His patience with displays of loyalty.

She gestured to the Jewel, which
sat on the litter upon which it had been carried, wooden but with a metal seat
for the Jewel. She motioned to it, bowing, then stepped back meekly. Behind
her, the Lerumites warbled out their songs, and the crowd murmured in ear and
awe. This was it. This was the time of Uulos’s ascension.

The shadow parted. A great,
amorphous limb appeared—slowly, ponderously unreeling toward the Jewel. The
Lady had to stop herself from scurrying backward.

The limb drew closer, she could
feel it, smell it, all seaweed and sulfur, and she fancied it dripped some
substance onto the marble of the Square. The limb neared, and now its shadow
fell over Jewel and Lady. It would scoop up the Jewel, litter and all, and reel
it back into the shadow, into the One, and it would be done . . .

The Lady held her breath —

Commotion sounded. Metal clashed on
metal. People screamed.

The limb slowed . . .

The Lady spun.

Rows of horse-mounted soldiers had
stood between the Lady, the Lerumites and the mass of unworthy humanity,
keeping the citizens of Sedremere in line and serving as protection for the
royalty of the newly christened empire, but now a group of those soldiers
rushed against their brothers, cutting them down unceremoniously. The soldiers
recoiled, and in their moment of indecision even more fell.

The Lerumites arrayed themselves to
help, but just then the acolytes of the Lerumites, at least some of them, broke
ranks and set upon their fellows, spilling gray-blue blood.

The dripping limb renewed its
descent, the Lady could smell it near her. She turned to see it wrap around the
litter that bore the Jewel, and she smiled as the litter rose into the night to
be devoured by the Great One. The rebels may cause some disarray, but they
would not, could not, pose a threat to Uulos.

She noticed a shadow, small and
slender, clinging to the underside of the litter, and she frowned. Surely . . .

Davril held his breath as he felt the litter rise into the
air. The massive tendril had wrapped around the litter front and back, but it
did not want to approach the Jewel, so its coils did not touch Davril, who
clung to the underside of the litter directly beneath the burning, flaming egg.

Behind him, below him, he could hear
the clash of the soldiers, the angry shouts of the Lerumites and their
traitorous acolytes. He grinned, thankful that they’d distracted attention away
from the Jewel, that they had given him the chance to stow away on its litter,
but he regretted that theirs was otherwise a hollow gesture. Even now those
loyal to the rebellion would be being slaughtered. They had attacked in the expectation
that a larger assault was brewing, but this was not the case. Davril’s generals
and spymasters had lied to them. He begged their spirits’ forgiveness even as
the great limb drew him at last inside the shadow surrounding—emanating from—
fused
with Uulos.

All other thoughts were driven from
his mind. He saw things he could not describe, mad geometries, protrusions that
were not limbs, not heads, not phalluses, but something altogether other. He
saw huge unblinking eyes set into glistening black folds of flesh, massive,
round mouths gaping and gnashing, lined with endless rows of triangular teeth,
great slabs and joinings and . . . more. Much, much more. Arcs of green
lightning rippled from one mound of flesh to another nameless body part. Energy
crackled in the air. Things that might be living creatures swarmed in streams
about the massive bulk, singing and swaying, flying amongst the treacherous
terrain, at last vanishing into unnamable apertures.

Uulos was vast, and strange, and unlike
anything Davril could ever have imagined, and he gave off an energy, a taint .
. .

Davril barely clung to
consciousness. If it weren’t for the bloodthirsty dagger clenched between his
teeth and the power inherent in it, he was sure he would have been driven mad
or mutated by the energy of this place, this Being, but he stuck to his
purpose. This was it. The last hope of man.

The great limb coiling about the
litter drew it and its burden to the greatest mouth Davril had yet seen. It
yawned before him like a moon, but it was a hole, endless, wide and lined with
teeth. Tongues writhed in it far below. The lips widened, revealing the maw in
all its glory, and the dripping limb shoved the litter inside. A tangle black
tongues dragged the litter deep into the gullet of Uulos.

Davril swayed. His fingers trembled,
nearly let go. He gagged at the stench. Sweat beaded his pores, and he felt a
great malevolence descend on him, a great mind. It had noticed him, even in the
shadow of the Jewel. The Jewel’s presence must be much stronger than his, more
noticeable, but somehow Uulos had found him.

Pressure built in his head. He
screamed. Pain suffused him, became him.

He tried to push the Worm away. The
Worm was too strong. Only the dagger kept him alive, and the taint that ran in
his blood. He thought of Alyssa, and strength returned to him.

The tongues drew the Jewel deeper
still, and Davril smelled acid, heard the gurgle of fluid.

Now
.
It must be now.

Wearily, he repositioned his
handholds and swung himself atop the litter. Directly before him, the Jewel blazed.
Its smoke stung his nose, and its light seared his eyes. It smoldered, raging,
defiant even in the throat of the Worm. Davril did not know what it was, even
now, and supposed he never would.

He yanked the dagger from his teeth.
The light of the Jewel was the only light there was.
Can I truly do this?

He stepped forward, the blade of
his dagger glinting.

The egg flamed higher, as if
furious, and he wondered with a thrill of fear if it knew what he wanted.

Meanwhile the Presence returned,
trying to invade Davril’s mind. He pushed it away. One of the tongues coiled to
strike at him. He slashed at it, and it fell away. Uulos roared in his head,
and Davril nearly collapsed.

The Worm’s blood ran off his
dagger, and the blade throbbed with power.
It
had just tasted the blood of Uulos.
He could feel it swelling in might.

The stench of acid and sulfur
increased. The fluid boiled louder, closer.

Davril’s dagger was a red fang in
the darkness.

More of Uulos’s tongues coiled
nearby, preparing to rip Davril limb from limb —.

Now!

Without hesitation, ignoring the
flames eating at his skin, Davril plunged his dagger into the Jewel of the Sun.
He felt its outer shell of stone break under the impact, felt his blade drive
deep, deep . . .

The egg exploded. Davril’s world
turned white, then red, then black.

Hiera breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the rebels
were put down, their blood running across the flagstones, their bodies twitching
in gory heaps. The gathering had drawn back, away from the conflict, and so
there was a wide space between the people of Sedremere and Uulos.

Smiling, she turned back to Him.

He erupted. A red fire seemed to
consume Him from the inside, expanding outward. He exploded, and the last sight
the Lady ever saw was a wave of hellish fire rushing toward her.

The wave of fire washed over the marble, incinerating thousands
of Sedremerans before it died out, leaving trails of smoke to wreathe upward
and obscure the stars. The survivors murmured in awe. All the Lerumites had
been slain, all the soldiers loyal to the Worm, the Lady, everyone.

And as far as the Worm Himself, he
remained. In a thousand, perhaps a million, smoldering chunks of black flesh,
he remained, scattered far and wide over the city. The people of the city would
find these chunks, on rooftops alleyways, for months afterward. And in all
cases, they would instantly summon a priest to help them dispose of them.

As for Alyssa, she screamed along
with everyone else when the fire consumed Uulos and spread outward, and like
the rest, when it was all over, she stared with disbelief at the spot where He
had lain.

Unlike most, though, she had the
courage to wander through those seared chunks of black flesh afterward, and
what was more, had the audacity to climb the steps of the scorched, smoking
pyramid where Davril had been crowned. She remembered standing beside him that
day, remembered smiling so happily as the fountains had spurted scented green
water . . .

She wept, and wandered, not knowing
what she expected to find, and at her side, at the edges of her vision, five
shadows kept pace.

At last, at the very top of the
pyramid, she found him. He should not have endured, any part of him. He should
have been incinerated instantly. But the power of the dagger, and the power of
the Patron that ran in his veins, had protected him, or at least preserved some
remnant of him.

His blackened remains still gripped
the dagger, sprawled among heaps of glistening, flaming, gelatinous flesh. She
knelt beside him and wept, and the stars came out above.

Epilogue

For many weeks afterward, Alyssa worked with the rebels and
the Avestines to bring order to Sedremere, then the countless other cities and
provinces of Qazradan. Many fish-priests had been dispatched to other cities to
spread the Word of Uulos, and these did not take kindly to events in the
capital. But at last they were slain, or scattered, and some semblance of human
order was restored.

Finally the day came when Alyssa,
rightful Empress of Qazradan, returned to the Palace and took up her seat, her
first task being to have half the priests in the city “purify” the place. That
done, she oversaw the reconstruction of the Empire with renewed energy, and all
remarked on how she glowed, how her baby-to-be would be twice blessed with such
a mother. But her eyes were sad, and she rarely smiled. Then came a night when
her servants awoke her. Bleary-eyed, her back causing her discomfort with the
new burden on it, she sat up and bed and said, “What is it?”

“Singing, my lady,” said one of her
handmaidens. “There is singing below, from the lower catacombs.”

“
Singing
?”

“Yes, my lady. And the servants say
they hear strange noises, like the grinding of stone.”

“The Door opening . . .”

Alyssa ordered her shoes brought,
and she was helped down the stairs as fast as she could go. Her rooms were at
the very tip of the tallest tower, and it took some time for her to reach the
catacombs in her condition, and even more for her to descend them, dark as they
were. The servants trembled, but she implored them to go faster.

Sweating, she reached Davril’s
tomb, newly built and still garlanded with flowers. “Open it,” she ordered, and
her servants shoved the covering away. Some gasped and muttered prayers beneath
their breaths. In truth, Alyssa was not surprised by the tomb’s emptiness, but
it meant she must hurry.

Heart beating fast, she descended
through the darkness, moving as fast as she could go. There was not much time
now.
Please, don’t let me miss him,
she thought.
I could not bear it if I
missed him . . .

“We can go no further,” her
servants said when they reached penultimate level.

“Give me a torch.”

They bowed to her as she descended
the final flight of stairs. Alone, with child, she made her way through the
dark, the smoke teasing her nose, her heart beating ever more rapidly inside
her ribs.

She had been moving with such speed
that she had not even truly noticed the singing, but now she did. Sweet and
strange, it echoed off the walls and brought shivers to course down her spine. Oddly,
though, she found that she liked it, even if it was unlike anything she had
ever heard before. Eerie and confounding, it filled her with hope, mystery and
awe.

At last she stepped off the bottom
step and entered the room of the Great Tomb. Her torch illuminated little, but at
the other end of the room a strange, green glow bathed the open Door. She
gasped to see the great demon’s mouth open, and green light flooding from it,
silhouetting six forms . . .

She fairly ran across that wide
space. Distantly, she thought she could hear bells tolling, the sound echoing
up from the depths beyond the Great Tomb.

Five of the figures were trying to
encourage the sixth to step into open portal, but it was ignoring them. It had
turned from them, and its head pointed in her direction. One of its arms
stretched out toward her.

The others shapes slipped through
the portal.

Hurry
,
she thought she heard a voice say.
 
Hurry, it cannot hold for long
.

The bells were fading, at least to
her hearing—and the Door closing.

No!

She ran fast and hard.

The door continued to close —

She ran —

Not fast enough.

Just before the Door closed, the
figure blew her a kiss, then vanished down the demon’s throat forever. The green
light faded, and the stone mouth snapped shut.

Alyssa wiped her tears away, said a
prayer under her breath, staring at that hideous, closed Door. After a long
moment, she turned away. Darkness pressed in around her, swallowing her, but
all she could see was Davril’s face, as it once had been, handsome and smiling,
lit by green light. It had been worth it, her flight through the Palace, all
worth it. She would have that image to take with her until the end of time.

Then she thought of her baby, and
how he would look just like his father. But he would not share his father’s
burden, oh no. Uulos was dead, Asqrit fallen, and the Deep One weakened beyond
the point of return. There would be no more sacrifices, not now, not ever. The
time of the gods was over.

Finally, torch thrust before her, she
mounted the stairs, returning to the world of life, and light, leaving the
darkness behind.

THE END