Empire of the Worm (2 page)

“Light torches,” he ordered his
guard. “Let us see what’s left in here.”

“You mean to go in?” General Hastus
said. “Is that wise?”

Davril smiled and looked up at the
sun shining overhead. Sweat stood out on his skin. “I don’t know about wisdom,
General, but I could do with a bit of shade.”

He ordered one of the soldiers to go
before him, not out of any sense of fear, but prudence. He would not deprive
Qazradan of a prince simply to satisfy an urge to be first.

Warily, he entered the Pyramid
second, feeling the darkness, the coldness, clinging to him. Two soldiers went
with him, one before, one after. Their torches flickered and flared, driving back
the shadows. The stairwell led down into a medium-sized chamber with a star-shaped
stone bed at its center. The torch-light cast fire off the heaps of gold and
jewels lying all about, making the faces of the golden statues scowl and leer.

“This should do for our tribute,”
Davril muttered.

He moved closer to the white marble
bed. It was intricately carven along its sides, but the top was plain—and bare.
He traced his fingers along it, fancying he could feel a lingering warmth. Here
she’d lain—for thousands of years, supposedly—and it was not even a comfortable
bed. Not even a pillow. Had she been asleep all that time? Had she occasionally
opened her eyes? If she had, what had she looked at? There were only pretty
statues and heaps of gold, not enough to satisfy an acute mind for eons.

Davril glanced up. The room was
pyramidal in shape, and at its apex was the keystone, where all four triangular
walls met. There, on the keystone, was a carved symbol, looking down directly
over the bed. At first Davril thought it was a representation of the Sun, the
sacred symbol of Asqrit, but then he saw that what he had taken for rays leading
out from the central hub were not straight but curved, even undulating . . .

A chill coursed up his spine.

The two soldiers had seen the
direction of his gaze. Instantly, they gasped and muttered praises to their own
gods under their breaths.

“The Worm,” Davril breathed. It was
the symbol of the Worm.

It took a month for Davril to return to his home in
Sedremere, capital of Qazradan, and despite the vast heaps of treasure he
brought with him—in addition to the hoard he’d found in the Pyramid, he had seized
the contents of the Asragot Treasury—he found no hero’s welcome upon his
return. No crowd waited for him as he passed through the northern gate and between
the grand, shimmering Jade Ziggurats that flanked the square before the
gateway. Strangely he felt only relief. He’d dreaded a celebration in his
honor, a celebration at which he would have to explain to the people how
neither he nor his soldiers had so much as unsheathed their swords in combat. Of
course, he had never intended to butcher the Asragotians, hoping that the siege
would force them to capitulate peacefully. They were subjects of Qazradan and
must pay their tithes like anyone else—or so he’d thought.

Still, he smiled to see the
familiar spires and domes and fortresses and minarets stretch away before him
in a seemingly jumbled profusion all the way to the sea. Sedremere was a vast
city, the greatest in the world, home to four million, and it was gleaming and
bright and colorful, a city of amber and gold, of gleaming ivory and sparkling
topaz, dazzling to the eye with its radiance.

Scents blew in from a nearby
market, and Davril smelled roast mutton, red peppers and wine, and breathed
deep. Home at last. The sun soaked into him, and he relished it, just as he
relished the sounds of his horse’s hooves striking the cobblestones.

He led his host through the broad,
tree-lined avenues and past the many temples. Sedremere was called the City of a
Thousand Gods, and Davril knew it was more than a name. There was the great
white-and-gold temple
of Desrai; the doors were
closed but, judging from the great, susurrus moaning and gasping, the Desrains
were participating in one of their orgies. There the temple to Uligne, the
Horned God, whose silver-gray steeple looked like a cluster of horns; the doors
were open, and Davril could see the high priest wearing a goat’s head
sacrificing a swine while the gathered assembly chanted in unison and anointed
themselves with the sacrifice’s blood. He passed the Temple
to Illyria, Goddess of the Sky. One of the
gods of the Flame, her worshippers merely held hands and sang. The sects of the
Flame had grown strong in recent centuries; even the imperial family bowed to
Asqrit, the Sun-God.

Davril did not subscribe to any
gods, not really—or he had not. Events in Asragot had made him wonder. For if
indeed the Lady
had
been real . . .

Word circulated of his coming. The
girls of the city doted on him, as he was a handsome lad, tall and straight and
finely featured, with curly red-gold hair and clear blue eyes, and he was the
youngest son of the Emperor besides. The girls flocked to balconies and rooftop
gardens and showered him and his procession with flowers. Seeing their blushing
faces, Davril laughed, feeling the rhythm of the horse’s hooves beneath him. Several
of the girls tried to catch his eye, but he didn’t want to mislead them. Alyssa
would be waiting for him.

He brought his procession toward
the mountain that rose from the middle of the city, and slowly the streets steepened,
then began to wind about the mountain itself, which was such a symbol of the
city that the hour was often spoken of in terms of where the mountain’s shadow
fell;
the Tower of the Emperor is upon
the Jade Ziggurats
meant it was nearly sundown, for instance. Many of the palaces
and mansions of the city jutted from the rock of the mountain, and from the
high points one could face the west and see the glittering blue expanse of the
sea, stretching on forever.
The graveyard
of the Asragotians
.

Davril’s procession passed through
various checkpoints and then to the Palace, a great structure of red and gold
that burned under the afternoon sun. In the courtyard before the Palace, Lord
Husan, Emperor of Qazradan, and his four older sons waited with all attending
staff. Horns blew, flowers were thrown, and goblets of wine passed around. Here
at last a celebration commenced, half planned, half impromptu, and later Davril
remembered little of it. His brothers and his sister Sareth surrounded him,
congratulating him in his first campaign, and he bore it all quietly.

“You defeated them to a man, I
heard,” his father said, when he came round. He was a medium-tall man with a dark,
well-trimmed beard, and though his face was deeply etched with age and life, his
blue eyes twinkled. “And lost not a single one of ours.” Davril had sent
runners ahead to inform his father of his coming and to let him know what to
expect.

Davril smiled gamely. “Yes, I’m
afraid I sent them fleeing into the sea. I don’t think it was me that did it,
though. I think they caught a look at the General.”

General Hastus, who was within
earshot, raised an eyebrow. “Most likely,” he said. As tall as Davril’s father,
he was broader of shoulder, with a long silver beard that he had combed into a
thousand curls. His eyes were gray as the sea during a storm, and his laugh as
loud as breaking waves.

The merriment fled for a moment, as
Hastus and the Emperor regarded each other soberly.

“What do you think
could
account for such a thing, this
mass suicide?” the Emperor asked, his voice low. The two were old friends, as
well as being more or less equals. The General’s wealth rivaled even the
Emperor’s, after all.

Hastus stroked the curls of his
beard. “Delusion,” he said. “Delusion and madness and gods.”

The Emperor nodded but did not look
convinced.

“I saw the sign of the Worm,”
Davril said, his voice sober. The memory of Asragot’s emptiness disturbed him
profoundly. “In the Lady’s pyramid. It was set just above her bed.”

Hastus grunted. “The Worm is dead. If
he ever was.”

“Oh, he was,” the Emperor said. “Lord
of ancient Sagrahab, then lord of the spires of Nagradin, though Sagrahab is no
more, and Nagradin lies sunken.”

Hastus raised his glass. “May it
stay that way.”

At last the celebration died down,
and the Emperor asked Davril to accompany him to his room. Still weary and
begrimed from traveling, Davril followed his father up the countless steps to
the Emperor’s chambers atop the highest tower of the Palace. Sudden anxiety
filled the young man, and he had to stop himself from running his hands through
his hair or clearing his throat.

When they reached the Emperor’s
chambers, Davril nonetheless smiled to see their extravagance; he had rarely
been invited here before. The finest silks and tapestries hung from the walls;
the thickest, most plush carpets lay strewn upon the floor; the most heady
incense filled the chambers and intoxicated the mind; the most comely courtesans
sprawled on the couches—or would have, had the Emperor desired it. It was all
silks and gold to Davril.

The Emperor ushered him to the
terrace, where Sedremere was laid out before them, glittering all the way to
the sea. Davril had to catch his breath at the sight. This high up, the city
was more beautiful than ever.

“Amazing,” he said. The wine still
ran through his head.

“Yes.” The Emperor clapped him on
the back. Pride shown in the older man’s eyes. “You’ve turned into a fine young
man, Davril.”

Davril wanted to wave the
compliment away, but that would have been an insult. “Thank you, Father. But
the Asragotians . . .”

“I know. Nevertheless, you led our
army forth and returned, with all due tribute and more, and with no undue
mishaps—at least, on our part. We cannot be held accountable for the
superstitions of others. A remarkable feat at your age.”

“You give me too much credit.”

The Emperor spoke his next words
softly, but with an air of great importance. “I think, Davril, it’s time you
accompanied your brothers and I on the Great Journey.”

Davril blinked. Some of the warmth
left him. “But I’m only fifteen . . .” Typically a prince must be seventeen or
older to accompany an emperor on one of the Journeys, the thrice annual
pilgrimage to the Great Tomb in the heart of the mountain.

The Emperor nodded gravely, but his
eyes were kind. “You were never content with being the youngest. You learned to
ride and spar and shoot much earlier than any of your brothers, and I know
you’ve been studying battle strategy since you could read.”

That was true enough, but Davril
had never thought to be rewarded with such an honor. For some reason, the idea
frightened him.

“You’re ready,” his father said,
squeezing his shoulder. “We will do it tomorrow night.”

Davril nodded, feeling numb and
elated at the same time.

Strange notes reached him on the
wind, which parted and rose as the notes flooded over the terrace, ghastly and
surreal: singing—strange, eerie, inhuman warbling, wafting in from the River. Davril
suppressed a shudder.

His father grimaced. “They’ve been
more excruciating than usual the last few days.”

“How do you mean?”

Lord Husan gestured toward the wide,
short River and the awful temple that stood on an island among the tributaries
and marshes at its source.

“The singing,” he said. “They’ve
been at it nonstop since the day before yesterday.” He shook his head. “It
started right when the tide began to rise unexpectedly.”

Davril raised his eyebrows. “The
tide?”

“Yes, it was the strangest thing. Great
waves breaking against the shore. Went on for hours. And there was a smell in
the air, like sulfur and seaweed. My councilors say it was likely a volcano
rising from the sea, far away, pushing waves toward us. In any case, the
Lerumites must have taken it as an omen, and they’ve been at their devotions
nonstop since then.”

Davril stared toward the ocean,
then the dark temple up the River.
The
population of Asragot vanishes into the surf. A month later something rises
from the sea, and the Lerumites sing . . .
For a moment he entertained the
notion that the events were connected, and this time he did shudder.

Seeing his look, Lord Baerad Husan
IV, as his father was formally known, nodded judiciously. “Beware of them,
Davril. Beware the fish-priests of Lerum.”

This Davril did not need to be
told. In a city of a thousand cults, there was only one he truly feared.

He frowned. “I think . . .”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ll take myself to the
House of Light.” He gestured toward the shore, where the ancient tower stood, a
thick black fang against the crimson sea, its uppermost chamber blazing with a
red light. It was the Temple to Asqrit, and it
served as a lighthouse for the harbor
of Sedremere. Some said
that light at the very top was the Jewel of the Sun itself, though on this
Davril was skeptical. “The priests there maintain a library that has many old
works . . . They may know something more about the Worm. About what happened in
Asragot.”

“Please yourself,” the Emperor said.
“But know that we are safe. Safe from Him.”

Davril could not contain a look of
surprise. “Safe from the Worm? But how is that possible?”

His father smiled sadly. “Tomorrow
night you will find out.”

Chapter
2

“And they all just vanished?” she asked. “Amazing.”

Davril nodded. Word of the uncanny events
in Asragot had spread throughout the city faster than a bird could fly, and she
would have gotten a first-hand account.

“The whole city-state,” he confirmed.
“All gone.”

Alyssa shuddered. “How awful.” Just
a few months his junior, she looked lovely with the westering sun casting
golden light across the massive affair that was his bed, sparkling on her
likewise golden head, shimmering off the diamond necklace he’d given her that
dripped between her small high breasts. She’d come to him that morning, as soon
as she could slip away from her father’s mansion along the River, and she and
Davril had spent the day together.

It was only reluctantly that he
turned his eyes away. The shadow of the Tower of the Emperor was once more
reaching toward the Jade Ziggurats. “What happened in Asragot is bizarre,” he
said, “and who knows what it might mean? But somehow I can’t seem to focus on
it at the moment.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Tonight
. . .”

A restless joy filled him. As he stood
on his terrace and looked out over the wonderful white-washed spires and domes
of the massive city, sniffing the spicy scents wafting up from the markets,
feeling the warmth of the sun baking into the stones under his feet, he felt
like a god, or how like a god
should
feel. Off to the west, the sea glittered invitingly. He smiled and spread his arms.
All thoughts of the strange disappearance of the Asragotians slipped from his
mind.

“You seem so happy,” Alyssa said,
and, turning, he could see the flush in her cheeks.

“I am,” he said. “Tonight I
actually do it. Go into the Tomb.”

“So young!” She smiled, and he
didn’t have to wonder why; she imagined herself wed to the youngest prince ever
to go on the Great Journey. He didn’t disillusion her. She was General Hastus’s
daughter, and Davril had known her all his life. He’d had other lovers, but
somehow he had always known it would be her he would marry.

Suddenly her look of pride faded.

“What is it?” he asked, leaving the
balcony.

“I’m excited for you, Davi, really
I am. Only the Tomb—what’s
in
it?”

He lowered himself beside her and
cupped her face in his palm. Her skin was so smooth. “No one knows save my father
and brothers. Tonight I’ll find out and—well—
officially
I’ll be a man.”

She closed her blue-green eyes. “Davril,
I’m so proud of you, but aren’t you afraid?”
“What’s there to fear?”

Her whole body trembled. “Everything!
I know you must’ve heard the rumors, that there’s a reason that the Great Tomb
was placed on the lowest level of the Royal Catacombs—that there’s a
reason
its door is kept sealed year
round.” She held his gaze. “
It’s keeping
something in
.”

“Well, it will open tonight, and
nothing’ll come out. You’ll see.”

“Something waits inside. It’s what
they all say. Haven’t you heard the legends? Urai wasn’t the only one. Many of
the princes and emperors who’ve ventured inside over the years have also gone
missing.”

Davril’s older brother Urai, a
soft-spoken lad who had enjoyed teaching a younger Davril the joys of art and
reading, had never come back from his own first pilgrimage six years ago.

“May be,” Davril said, trying to
keep the sadness from his voice, “but
I
will return. I’ll come back to you.” In a softer voice, he added, “I look
forward to it.”

Hope shone through the fear in her
eyes. “Promise you will. And promise you’ll return . . . the same.”

He knew what she meant. Though it was
rarely spoken of, it was common knowledge among those in the highest circles that
sometimes the emperors and princes who did return from the Journey did not return
as they’d left.

“I’ll come back just as you see me
now,” he said.

Someone rapped at the door and Salbrind,
Davril’s elder brother, entered, flanked by his servants. “It is time,”
Salbrind said, ignoring Alyssa’s nudity. “The sun sets. You’d best get ready,
Davril.”

Davril cinched his belt and
straightened his tunic. “I’m ready now.”

Tonight he would find out a great
many things, chief among them why Urai had not returned, but also why his
father did not fear what had happened in Asragot—why he did not fear the Worm.

Trying to contain his nervousness, Davril accompanied
Salbrind once again to the sumptuous royal apartment of the Emperor, where heady
incense smoldered in golden holders shaped like phoenixes, the intoxicating smoke
pouring from the birds’ beaks. The phoenix was the sacred symbol of the
Asqrites, the religion to whom the imperial family ostensibly subscribed. It
was said that the Great Phoenix, Asqrit, the sun, died every day at sundown but
was reborn every dawn.

The apartment lay deserted save for
the emperor and his sons. There were no servants, no courtesans, no advisors. None
must overhear their talk, nor witness their acts tonight. The Emperor stood to
receive his sons, and his dark eyes glittered with vigor as he looked each of
them in the eye, his gaze harsh and penetrating. When at last he settled on
Davril, the young prince tensed so rigidly he thought he might faint. But
before his father’s gaze moved on, the Emperor nodded and sort of smiled, and
Davril breathed easier. His father and he had always gotten on well, and he
knew it was largely because of this favor that he was permitted to join the
Journey tonight.

Distracted though he was, Davril did
pause to wonder where his oldest brother Milast could be. He was the Heir,
after all.

“Sons, I know you’re all abuzz over
what has happened in Asragot,” the Emperor said. “The whole empire trembles
with the news of its emptying. What can it mean? What can it portend? Put that
aside. Whatever it means, it’s less important than what we do tonight. I want
you focused. Our task constitutes the salvation of our very empire, and don’t
you forget it, so let us get on with this. The Great Journey awaits.”

Davril opened his mouth to ask a
question, then thought better of it. None of his brothers had said anything their
father had not solicited.

The Emperor’s gaze went to him. “What
concerns you, Davril?”

“Nothing, Father.”

“No? Speak out.”

“Well, if I may ask . . . what
awaits us—in the Great Tomb, I mean?”

The Emperor’s face hardened. Frightened
beyond all measure, Davril clamped his mouth shut and lowered his own gaze to
the floor.

The Emperor laughed, and Davril
looked up. Lines of merriment etched his father’s face, and his great, booming chortle
filled the room. Hearing it, Davril’s brothers laughed, too, and soon he joined
in out of sheer relief.

“We go to visit our great good
fortune,” their lord father said. “And to pay it homage.”

Turning grim, he stalked through
the door. The eldest prince present—there were four of them, not counting the
absent Milast—followed, then the next in line, and so on. Baffled, but
relieved, Davril took up the rear. They marched down the high grand corridors
of the Palace, and massive braziers elicited fire from the inlaid gold that
shone in mosaics and railings and window frames. Gold, diamonds, jade, ivory
and warm amber filled Davril’s vision.

His father found a grandiose
stairway and descended, his sons just behind. Down and down they went, through
the thirty-three levels of the Royal Palace, each more lovely than the one
before, yet not one servant, not one other person, did they see. All who dwelt
in the Palace would keep behind locked doors tonight. For no reason were any servants
or courtiers to emerge, no matter what sounds they might hear, no matter what
strange sensations might overcome them.

The Emperor and his sons descended
below ground level, into the ever-expanding catacombs, carved out of the living
stone of the mountain the Palace was built upon, and great monuments and
sepulchers reared all around. Some of the mausoleums were more temple than
resting place, and on many hung flowers and gifts, sacrifices of goats and
sheep. These were the beloved dead, the great emperors of antiquity, and the
catacombs, at least the upper levels, were open to the public several days a
week, accessible not through the Palace but through entrances lower down the
mountain. The royal family passed those levels, delving deep into the bowels of
the mountain. Here the torches and braziers were fewer, and darkness hung like
a pall over all save the little lurid blobs of red. Coldness gripped Davril,
and moisture dripped on him from above. Firelight struck crimson off the vague
and oddly sinister faces of the statues and bas-reliefs. Often he fancied he
saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned he saw nothing.

Gone was his confidence. Perhaps it
was the darkness, or Alyssa’s fear transferred to him, he didn’t know. All he knew
was that he wanted to get this thing done and return to his soft warm bed with
the girl he loved. Actual terror crawled beneath his skin.
Where are we going?

They descended to the final level, reserved
solely for the Great Tomb, where the only light issued from a second round of
torches (the first had burned out) taken from the wall of the penultimate level—torches
lit and left for them by now-absent attendants. Even as he took his new torch,
Davril noticed a tremor in his hand. He hoped no one else saw. They emerged
into the grand cavern of the lowest level, where all was darkness—a heavy,
oily,
living
darkness that seemed to
fill Davril’s lungs and mind, and turn his legs to jelly. He swallowed, tried
to laugh, and noticed his older brothers, who presumably had made this trip
before, glancing around with equal or greater anxiety.

Something flashed in the darkness.
Their torches had struck sparks off an object ahead.

“The Door,” the Emperor said. “The
Door of the Great Tomb.”

As they drew closer, Davril saw the
great golden door stretching fully two hundred feet high. Oval and rounded, it
jutted out toward the royal family, the most hideous face Davril had ever seen carved
on its surface. Only the Emperor and his select sons were allowed here, and
they were not allowed to speak of what they saw, so no legitimate tales of what
awaited Davril had ever reached his ears. There was nothing human about the
face, yet it possessed some recognizably human qualities, such as a mouth—a
great, tooth-lined maw, almost at ground level—and eyes. Many eyes, arranged in
an asymmetric pattern. There were other features, but they belonged more to the
fish or the reptile than anything else.

Davril’s father turned to regard
his sons. “Are you ready to face the dark?”

The words possessed a ritualistic
quality, Davril noted that immediately.

“Yes, Sire, we are!” the sons
chanted with voices that quavered to varying degrees, and Davril spoke along
with them, just a bit staggered.

The Emperor sort of smiled, but it
was a sad smile. His gaze turned to his youngest son. “Davril, are
you
ready?”

“Yes, Sire, I am.”

His father’s smile disappeared. “There
is something you have not been told, my son. Something that you will not like. Yet
so it must be. For, to be a true prince, a true member of the family, you must
prove yourself.”

“I will, Sire.”

His father shook his head. “You
don’t even know what is being asked of you.”

Davril waited.

Gratified, the Emperor nodded. “You
must prove your devotion to our family and the realm by sacrificing something
you hold most dear. So it has been for each of your brothers. So it was for me.
So it was for my father, and his before him. So it shall be for you.”

Davril felt queasy. “What would you
ask of me, Sire? What do I hold most dear?”

The Emperor gestured to the
darkness, and out of it stepped a very familiar figure—Davril’s eldest brother,
Milast, tall and hulking. To Davril’s utter shock, Milast held in his powerful
arms the struggling figure of Alyssa. Her blue-green eyes flashed in fear as
she struggled in Milast’s grasp, and one of his large hands clamped over her
mouth.

“Her,” said the Emperor. “You must
sacrifice her.”

“No,” Davril said, shaking his head in disbelief. “
No
.”

“Yes,” his father said. “With your
own hand you must slay her.”

Davril stared at them, his father
and brothers. “Have you all gone
mad
?”

“You will do it,” Lord Husan said
sternly. “You must. But I understand your reluctance. We all do. For the good
of us all, however, you must do this thing.”

“For the good of us all?” Davril
repeated, his voice rising in fury.
“For
the good of us all?”

His father inclined his head toward
the great seal of the Tomb. “We’ll show you.”

Davril backed away. “I’m not going
anywhere with you.”

“Then you’re abandoning Alyssa.
She
comes with us.”

Alyssa struggled ever more
violently, squealing into Milast’s hand. Davril took a step toward her, but two
of his other brothers clapped hands on his shoulders and stopped him. They all
wore swords, as was tradition. The only people allowed to wear arms within the
Palace were the male members of the Royal Family. Yet they didn’t go for their
weapons. That alone should have reassured him.

It didn’t.
His
hand flew to his own sword.

The Emperor strode forward and
stopped before Davril, and Davril’s sword hand trembled, then fell away from
the pommel. Looking into his father’s hard eyes, Davril knew a greater terror
than ever. Fear of the unknown was one thing, but fear of losing his father’s love
and favor was quite another.