Empire of the Worm (18 page)

Slowly, painfully, he inched
forward. Some of the Avestines were fighting, striving against the invaders. Others
fled down narrow side-tunnels that Davril had not even noticed before. Behind
the daises was a semi-circular wall with many niche-like doorways, likely to
the priests’ apartments.

It was a raging chaos, a battle
with little order and less planning, but at last Davril came upon some of his
rescuers. He chose one that knew him and presented himself.

“The Emperor!” the man shouted. “He
lives!”

Quickly Davril wrested command of
the attack.

“Surrender!” he called to the Avestines,
cupping his hands to amplify his voice. “Surrender! There can be no victory!” The
Avestines were unarmed and unorganized, and they had walls or a great pit at
their backs. The side-tunnels were narrow and would only admit a few at a time.
Originally they had possessed the greater numbers, but that was not the case
any longer.

At last Davril saw Jeselri leading
a pocket of people, wielding severed arms and legs torn from their fallen as
weapons. Some had staffs or knives, but that was it. Davril’s men swarmed
Jeselri’s defenders, and a sword nearly took off Jeselri’s head before Davril
could stop it.

“Help me,” Davril said to Jeselri
when the Patriarch was safely captured. “Help me, and we can put an end to
this. I would have the Avestines as our friends.”

Sweat drenched Jeselri’s face. “The
priests are fools. Consider it done.”

Soon Davril strode through the
battle, Jeselri at his side. “Hold!” Jeselri shouted. “Hold! Put down your
weapons, sons of Ave! Put them down and submit! Make peace! These are our
allies!”

Slowly they listened, and at last quit
their struggle. It had been a long, bloody melee, and heaps of bodies lay on
the ground, both Avestine and rebel.

While the Avestines were being
escorted from the chamber, Davril navigated his way through the bodies until he
stood on the lip of the pit. He saw nothing, not a pinprick of a monstrous eye,
not a crack of fire for a mouth, nothing. Even the heat and the stench was
gone. The Serpent, evidently gorged satisfactorily, had returned to his lair.

Jeselri stepped to Davril’s side,
and for a moment Davril tensed, fearing the Patriarch might try to shove him
in. Jeselri saw his tension and smiled.

“You’ve nothing to fear from me,”
he said. “I never worshipped that thing.”

“So he
was
a god.”

“As much as the Worm, anyway, if
not as powerful. And as deserving of worship.” Jeselri looked at Davril
candidly. “What will happen to us now?”

“Some of your people escaped
through the rear. They will put out the word that my people are attacking.”

“Yes,” Jeselri said. “But have no
fear. The rule of the priesthood is over. Most died during the fighting,
anyway.
I
will rule now. And I hate
the Serpent, and Uulos, and all those like them. I would help you rid us of
their yoke for good and all.”

Davril stuck out his hand. Jeselri
considered it, then shook hands.

Casting one last look into the pit,
Davril said, “I only wish the Worm were as easy to get rid of.”
Jeselri sighed. “I know.” He gestured around him. “This is His city.”

Davril stared at the Patriarch. “What
. . . ?”

“Sagrahab of legend. We are in one
of its buildings. In their day they stretched to the sky. Oh, they are massive.
They would dwarf any of our buildings. Over the eons the earth has swallowed
the city, but . . . yes. This is Sagrahab, ancient capital of the Empire of Uulos.”

Chapter
13

Davril learned that Alyssa had accompanied the warriors to
the Serpent’s lair. It had been she who had rallied them and led them there.

As soon as she saw Davril through
the press of people, she ran to him and flung her arms about him, and he didn’t
stop her.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he
told her gently. “I instructed you to—”

“To let you die.” Her voice was
firm, and her eyes were still as they gazed up at him. “Now you’re alive, and
the Avestines will support us willingly.”

“So we hope.”

“Yes.” She stared up at him, and he
noticed the tear-streaks on her cheeks.

He pressed her head to his chest.
She wants this to be it
, he realized.
She wants this to be the thing that allows
me to forgive her.
Feeling her in his arms, he wondered if perhaps that
time might have come.

That night he dreamt of her—the
feel of her breath against the hollow of his neck, the smell of her hair, her
round breasts mashed up against his chest—and that thought, coupled with the
fresh memories of the Serpent, kept him from getting much sleep. During the
next days he conferred often with Jeselri and the new order of elders that led
the Avestines. The Avestines now supported Davril’s rebellion, and he hoped
they could prove of more than passive aid.

He also learned more of the true
nature of the subterranean tunnels. Of Sagrahab. It is from this city that Uulos
had ruled for countless years, until at last he was betrayed and forced into
exile by Subn-ongath and the rest of the Circle. Davril had thought Sagrahab
fallen, and but it had merely been swallowed, devoured by time. Thousands,
perhaps millions of years had passed since then, and time and dust had buried
the city, but it still stood, patient, ancient and dark, beneath the very
streets of Sedremere, just waiting to be wakened once more. Avestine legends
held that when the Worm returned to glory, the city would rise and slough away
the grime of Sedremere, and all the ancient allies of Uulos, like the Serpent
they served, would be roused and rule the world once more, though always
beneath Uulos, their supreme god.

It was amazing and horrifying to
Davril to realize that all this time a vast city had slumbered beneath his very
feet, beneath the feet of everyone. And it
was
vast. Jeselri took him on grand tours of the city’s avenues and buildings. Most
of it was inaccessible, being buried under the cold, heavy earth, but the Avestines
had excavated more of it than Davril would have thought possible—they had been
working on it for centuries, since even before his ancestors had conquered
them; indeed, it is why they had settled here: they had heard the call of their
then-slumbering god and had gone to wake him with blood. It was fantastic, and
nightmarish. Davril saw awful statues of things with wings and tentacles; blood
gutters trailing down the sides of towering spires; he saw great black altars
in the city squares; the grim bas-reliefs on ancient walls of great battles of
demons and of tortures and orgies of things no mortal was ever meant to look
upon; he saw buildings rearing at mad geometries, with a profusion of stalks
and ramparts and terraces and abutments that no natural law could support; and
more, much more.

At times Alyssa would accompany
him, and they would discuss what they had seen in whispers of awe. It was
humbling, and oppressive, to realize just how ancient and powerful Uulos truly
was. Humans had not even existed when the buried city was built, and it had
been built by fantastic creatures that did not even vaguely resemble Man. Sometimes,
just touching the stonework, Davril received a thrill. The stone seem to hum
beneath his fingers.

He didn’t know if Uulos was truly a
god, or perhaps a being of some alien race from the deep gulfs of the void, but
it didn’t matter. He must be destroyed at all costs. And if humans
did
come to serve the Old One, Davril
feared what strange aspect man might take. Davril himself was already tainted
by lesser beings than Uulos, and he had seen in his father and brothers just
what this could mean; he could not imagine what horrors Uulos would turn men
into.

In any case, while Davril explored
the city and consolidated his rebellion, Uulos grew more powerful. Davril sent
out his spies and gathered his reports, and with each day he saw the tapestry
of the Old One’s plans coming together. The other cities in the empire had been
purged of their gods save the Worm and his servants. All of Qazradan’s temples
were now temples to the Worm or his subordinates. The empire was once more
stable and strong. Trade had resumed with her allies, and her armies had been
reformed and even now marched on her foes, principally those who had attacked
her in her hour of weakness. This was not done out of hate or any sense of
revenge on Uulos’s part, Davril suspected, but out of hunger. Uulos, whatever
he was, remained a thing of blood and darkness, and for him to live, to exist
in this plane, on this world, meant he had to steal the lives and souls of
others. He must feed. Thus he sent out his armies to gather prisoners to be
brought back to him, and these poor wretches were constantly marched through
the cobbled streets of Sedremere, bound and stripped and whipped. Several times
Davril stood on terraces overlooking the city, feeling the sun warm the stone
beneath his feet, feeling the sweat trickle down from his hair, shading his
eyes from the glare on helm and spear as Qazradan soldiers—
his
soldiers—ushered in of prisoners-of-war. Some would be taken
and sold as slaves, as under General Hastus’s rule slavery was once more
practiced in Qazradan, and the slaves would be the lucky ones. Most would go to
the Temple of Lerum, and they would not be seen again.

As Uulos sent out his armies, his
empire expanded. In time, Davril knew, it truly would encompass the world, and
then Uulos would not feed on his foes but on his loyal flock, penned sheep for
him to consume at leisure. Meanwhile they would be tainted and take on
loathsome aspects, at least those who served him. They would cease being men at
all. Davril wondered if, when Uulos reached that point, he truly would raise Sagrahab
from the darkness and slough away Sedremere like a snake shedding its skin. Was
it possible? Would Sedremere simply cease to be? In Davril’s dreams he saw
dark, strange towers thrusting up through the crust of the earth, knocking
aside the golden domes and palaces of the city as though they were a child’s
toys.

The time to strike was now. Davril
was not quite as strong as he would have liked to have been, his supporters not
as unified, well-placed or organized as he would prefer, yet if he hesitated Uulos
would grow too mighty to be hurt, and he would devour the Jewel of the Sun, and
any hope of his defeat would be gone.

Davril set his plans in motion. Now
that Jeselri had fully adopted Davril’s cause, he had made known to the young
emperor many of the secret passages he had previously hidden. From him Davril
learned of tunnels that led right up to the Temple of Uulos, as Davril thought of
the Temple of Lerum now. In Davril’s previous efforts to devise a plan with his
generals to assault the Temple, he’d been stymied by all the Lerumite lookouts,
but if they could get close enough without being seen . . .

There was only one problem.

“We won’t have enough men,” General
Trias explained. Trias had been a general under Hastus, but he shared none of
Hastus’s loyalties. At Davril’s instigation, he’d made an extensive study of
the tunnels and the area of attack. “We can’t bring enough men with us through
those rat-holes. Rather, we could, but it would take too long to form the
company in Lord Ulesme’s warehouses, sliding up through the gutters as we’ll
have to do. We’ll have to come out one by one. It might take hours to assemble
enough men to assault the Temple. We can get close with those tunnels, but . .
.” He shook his head. “We can get close, but we can’t storm it.”

Davril nodded. “I believe there’s a
way.”

“Are you sure about this, sir?” asked Wesrai.

Davril looked at the abandoned wall
he was just then passing through, felt the shadows as they fell over him, and said,
“Why not?”

His aplomb did not seem to cheer
Wesrai, and the priest frowned as they wound their way up through the
checkpoints toward the Palace. Shortly they rounded the last bend and the great
Palace with its riot of red and gold spires and domes loomed over them. The
setting sun cast crimson fire on its minarets and made the glass dome over the
aviary glow. Davril sighed to see the neglect, the ruin. Townspeople, likely
daring each other, had thrown rocks to shatter the windows, had chiseled off
the faces of Emperor Melin and his daughters, had drawn graffiti along the wall
of the fountain, had knocked off the tails of the fountain fish.

Over it all hung a feeling of
darkness, and watchfulness. Davril found it oddly reassuring after having just
made his way through the streets of Sedremere. A heaviness had seemed to fall
over his mind, driving out all his other thoughts save hate, and fear. But now,
as he entered the grounds of the Palace, that stain of Uulos retreated. The
oily bitterness, and the smell of sulfur and seaweed, disappeared. To be sure,
the taint of Uulos was simply replaced by the taint of his Circle, but the
Circle was bound to Davril.
It’s my
family.
Here, in this one place, Uulos was weak, and he was strong.

“You stay here this time,” Davril
told Wesrai, and this time Wesrai did not argue.

Davril dismounted from his camel
and limped his way up the stairs, past the grand columns and through the high
main doors of the Palace. All was dark and empty. Cobwebs spanned the spaces
between ornate pillars, and furniture had been dragged and torn apart by
looters. Some of it was doubtless missing—and some of the looters, as well.

Davril lit a torch and crossed
directly to the stairwell to the catacombs. As he hobbled down the stairs, the
feeling of darkness and waiting increased. The hairs on the back of his neck
stood up, and he shuddered.

He entered the catacombs and passed
the grand sarcophagi and tombs of his forefathers, marveling that these were mere
husks, monuments housing nothing. Suddenly, he sensed movement in the darkness
around him. All was shadow save where his torch clove a path. Now the darkness
swirled, grew thick, and out of it stepped a broad figure, his face ghastly
white, his eyes black as coal.

“Son,” he said.

Davril bowed his head. “Father.”

The shadows pressed closer.

“Brothers,” Davril added.

“Have you come to repent your sins
and to accept the truth of things?” the dead emperor said.

There was anger in his voice, and
warning. Davril knew that if he said anything but yes, the shadows would feast
on his blood.

“I have,” he said.

The shadows relaxed.

His father’s face did not flicker. His
eyes bore into Davril, and Davril had to fight to keep himself from twisting.

“You must be baptized,” Emperor
Husan said. It was not a request.

“How?”

“Normally it would be different. There
would be ceremony, ritual, but now . . . Kneel.”

Somewhat nervously, and awkwardly,
Davril knelt before his father. His right knee pained him, and he had to struggle
to keep it straight, while his left knee supported his weight. When he had
knelt, he bowed his head.
What am I doing
here?
 

“Produce your knife,” the Emperor
said. “Surely you have not lost it.”

“I have not.” Davril produced the
knife, which he had retrieved after the Battle of the Pit, as the fight was now
called, and it flickered in the light of the torch he’d set beside him. The
smoke from the torch teased his nose, and he prayed the light would not go out.

“Hold out your right hand,” the
Emperor commanded, and Davril obeyed. “Slash yourself and say,
Noscrum un ra ta
. I give myself to you.”

“
Noscrum un ra ta
,” Davril said, drawing the blade across his
forearm. The blade burned, and he cried out involuntarily. When he drew the
blade away, some of his blood hissed on it. More dripped off. He smelled scorched
flesh. A black line on his forearm showed where he had cut himself.

“Now lift the knife over your head
and drink the blood,” the Emperor commanded. “Say,
Ustrug un mat a alla khan
. To my flesh I my rights forsake.”

Davril did not like the sound of that.
“
Ustrug un mat a alla khan
.” He
raised the blade over his mouth and let his own blood, now transformed by the
knife, fall into his mouth. He swallowed. Waited. He felt no different.

“There,” said his father. “It is
done. The trace of god-blood in you has been awakened.”

Davril did not like the sounds of
that, either. “You mean . . . ?”

“Now you serve the Great Ones. Not
only do you serve them, but you are
of
them.”

This
had better be worth it.
Davril remembered his terror at going to the
Serpent without having embraced Algorad. At the thought, it seemed a great
weight was lifted off his shoulders.
My
soul is safe. But at what price?
Again he stared at his hands, as he had
before, half expecting them to suddenly become slick and gray and distorted. They
didn’t.

“You may rise.”

Shakily, Davril wiped the blood off
his blade, replaced it in its sheath, and stood, propping himself up with his
cane. He felt dizzy and would have collapsed if not for the stick. When he
looked up at his father again, the old man was grinning. Pride glimmered in his
black eyes. Despite everything, that put a lump in Davril’s throat.