Empire of the Worm (3 page)

Alyssa
. . .

His hand strayed back toward his
sword.

“Draw your blade and be drawn
upon,” the Emperor growled.

Davril swallowed past the lump in
his throat. “Don’t harm her,” he managed. “I’ll protect her with my life.”

The Emperor studied him for a long
moment, a longer moment than Davril could remember, and at last the older man
grunted. The ghost of a smile touched his lips.

“You make me proud,” Lord Husan
said. “I acted much the same way when confronted with the truth of things. But
if my faith in you is as well placed as I think it to be, I’ll be prouder
still. Now come. If you come only to keep an eye on Alyssa, then so be it. But
come.”

He turned away and drew the
ceremonial dagger he wore in a scabbard on his breast. With it he drew a line
of blood from his palm and flung the red droplets at the massive, horror-faced
Door.

“By this blood I command you!” he
shouted. “Open!”

The Door
changed
. With a grating of metal on metal, the closed but snarling
mouth of the golden demon opened, almost hungrily. Three obscene tongues
unrolled flat on the ground, serving as steps leading up to the portal, from
which coldness and darkness emanated.

Impossible
,
Davril thought.

“Onward!” shouted his father, and stepped
inside that high dark cavern, between the golden fangs. Milast, bearing Alyssa,
followed immediately behind, and one by one Davril’s other brothers did
likewise, until at last he was all alone in darkness of the chamber.

The fact that none of his brothers
compelled him on by direct means for some reason made up his mind. He was not
being
forced
; it was his decision. Besides,
he could not simply let Alyssa go to her doom.
 

The hall twisted and turned,
slanted at mad angles, but always it led down, deep into the bowels of the
earth. The passageway, which had been high and wide to start with, opened up by
degrees till Davril imagined that they didn’t travel through a cavern at all
but walked under the open sky. A sky not of this world. Blackness, stark and
horrid, looked down on them from above, vast and limitless.

Fear showed in the torch-lit faces
of his brothers, and more than once they clapped each other’s arms or whispered
reassurances to one another. To his surprise, Davril was not denied this. Though
things were tense between them, his brothers seemed to share a sense of . . .
camaraderie, he supposed . . . with him that he did not feel toward them. They
had
been
through what he was going
through, but he hadn’t been through what they had, and he couldn’t believe they
would be a part of something so evil.

“It’ll be all right,” Salbrind
reassured him, patting him on the back. Salbrind was the next youngest, and he and
Davril had always been close. Salbrind used to protect him when Firhad, the
second oldest, picked on him growing up.

“How?” Davril said, shaking off his
brother’s hand, his own hand still on the hilt of his sword. “How can it be all
right? You plan to
kill
her!”

Salbrind sighed. “We have no
choice.”

“How can you have no choice? Of
course you do!”

“We don’t.” Salbrind shuddered and
looked around at the blackness, as if afraid of something out there. “We truly
do not. Do you think we’d do this if we did?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. I went through this just
last year. Didn’t you wonder why Ilya had vanished?”

“She . . . went off to Pysus to
study . . .”

Salbrind shook his head sadly. “No.”

“But . . . you loved her . . .”
“Just as you love Alyssa. Don’t try to deny it. We wouldn’t have chosen you if
you hadn’t found someone you felt that way about.”

“No. I don’t. Really. Please. Let
her go.
Please
.” Davril hated
begging, but for her sake he would. This was a nightmare. “I don’t love her. In
fact, I was just about to break it off. She’s horrid.”

Salbrind almost smiled, and Davril
hated him for it. “No, brother. She is the one for you. That is why it must be
her.”

“I don’t understand.”

Salbrind sighed again and kept
walking.

One hand on his sword, Davril
followed, his gaze straying to the white form of Alyssa, sobbing quietly
against Milast’s hand.

At last Father’s light picked out
something ahead—something tall and spiked, like a cluster of upthrusting thorns
made of obsidian. They grouped around a large slab of black stone on a dais
like a great clawed hand stretching up from the ground. The Altar—Davril
ascribed the honorific to himself, in lieu of the proceedings—squatted on the
palm. All else was darkness. It was an island in a black sea.

“This is the seat of our power,”
the Emperor said, and even his voice seemed small here. “It’s here that we show
our love and devotion to He who looks after us, who even protects us from the
Worm. For a thousand years and more our House has guided the great nation of Qazradan,
and Qazradan has prospered like none in the history of the world. And we owe it
all to this ritual, this gift, the feeding of a soul to the Great One.” His
eyes strayed to Alyssa. “Sweet child, how we thank you. I know you cannot
understand. To you we are devils. But know even in your confusion and your fear
that your death serves a grand purpose—it holds Qazradan together. The greatest
and wisest empire ever owes its being to you, and those like you. The first
time a prince goes on the Great Journey he must sacrifice his beloved to show
his devotion to our god.”

Sadness touched the Emperor’s face—that’s
what struck Davril the most strangely at that moment. His father wasn’t evil,
really. He wasn’t a monster. He was just himself, and very human. Even kind, in
his way. But he was nonetheless determined to put Alyssa on the Altar.

Davril knew he could not allow
that. Even if he had not had feelings for her, he could not be party to her
murder.

His father nodded briefly to
Milast, and the elder prince bore a thrashing Alyssa up to the black slab, where
he pinned her down while two of his brothers began to snap manacles around her
thin wrists and ankles, binding her to the Altar. How many young girls—and
boys, too, most likely—had those black iron links restrained?

Her mouth freed, Alyssa screamed. “
Davril!
Please!
Do
something!”

The Emperor withdrew the ceremonial
dagger. It shone resplendently, all winking gems and inlaid gold and amber. Stepping
forward with much gravity, he pressed the weapon into Davril’s hand. It was
heavier than the young prince had expected, and it seemed to hum with a strange
power.

“Son,” the Emperor said, “it’s time
you knew the truth. Our good fortune is owed entirely to the will of the great Subn-ongath.
He’s steered us toward wealth and peace and loftiness in nature. He is our
Patron, but he requires souls in order to survive in our world—and so to
satisfy Him we must thrice annually sacrifice one of our purest and worthiest
and most beloved. Such a one is Alyssa, and in order for you to prove your worth,
for you to make yourself a man, you must give this gift yourself.” He stared
Davril hard in the eye and said, “Can you do it?”

“If I do not?”

The Emperor did not blink. “Qazradan
will wither.”

“This is evil, Father.
I cannot give this thing her soul
.”

The Emperor had his answers ready. “How
can it be evil if it keeps the Empire flourishing?”

“Sacrificing Alyssa is evil!”

“
An
evil, perhaps. But the withering of the realm would be the
greater evil. Please, Davril, for the good of Qazradan . . . strike!”

“No!” Alyssa cried. “You’re mad,
all of you!”

Davril ground his teeth. His gaze
never left his father’s. “This is why Urai didn’t come back, isn’t it? He
refused
.”

The Emperor dropped his gaze. “That
was a black day. And it was
I
that
had to deliver Urai’s beloved. Don’t make me deliver Alyssa, Davril. Give her
yourself to the Great One. Accept His blessing, and join us.” He stared Davril
hard in the eye. “Will you do this?”

Davril made himself pause for a long
moment, tense, then let out a breath.

“I can,” he said. “I will.”

His father relaxed.

Alyssa screamed.

Davril gripped that dagger so tightly
his knuckles turned white, and without hesitation he struck.

He plunged the cold steel deep into
his father’s chest. Surprise filled the Emperor’s face. Blood blossomed from
his mouth. Gurgling, he fell away, his hands rising toward his punctured breast.

Davril lunged toward his nearest
brother, Salbrind, he whom Davril was closest to above all others, and even as
Davril flew he drew his sword. Before Salbrind had time to react, Davril had severed
his throat. Blood sprayed Davril, warm and sticky. He hurtled through it,
bounding up the stairs toward the Altar and the three brothers grouped there.

Milast had already drawn his sword.
Anger and grief in his face, he reared over Davril at the head of the stairs,
crouched and ready. His was so large he blocked the stairwell, preventing the
other two brothers from attacking.

Warily, Davril ascended toward him.

Milast hacked at Davril’s face. Davril
blocked, his arms nearly buckling. Milast thrust at his middle. Davril parried,
sweat flying.

“Traitor!” Milast cried, pausing in
his attack. “How
could
you?” Actual tears
leaked from his eyes.

Using a two-handed grip, he brought
his sword down again to cleave in Davril’s skull. Davril just barely brought
his own blade up in time to deflect the blow, but the force of it drove him to
his knees, nearly knocking the weapon from his hands. As it was, it numbed his
arms to the elbows.

Before he could recover, Milast
swung again, chopping at Davril’s neck.

Davril ducked, felt the whoosh of
air over his head. He leapt to his feet while Milast was still swinging and
thrust forward, stabbing Milast through the gut. With a gasp, Milast fell down
the stairs, and Davril stepped around him to gain the summit of the dais.

His two surviving brothers advanced
toward him.

One rushed in, sword outstretched
like a spear. Davril merely dodged aside, then rammed his brother with his
shoulder, driving him back and off his feet.

His second brother, Firhad, hacked
at Davril’s shoulder, but Davril was no longer there when the sword came down. His
blade pierced his brother’s stomach and thrust up, tearing through muscles and
lungs to penetrate the heart. Firhad’s blood sprayed as Davril jerked the blade
free and wheeled to face his first brother, Tranas, just then rising. Davril
stomped down on Tranas’s blade, pinning it to the floor, and stabbed through
Tranas’s throat. Tranas gurgled and twitched, his eyes glaring accusingly up at
Davril. Davril thrust again, this time through the chest, and Tranas’s spasms
ceased.

Chest heaving, Davril stared at the
carnage about him. He could taste his brothers’ blood in his mouth, feel it
sting his eyes. He stood surrounded by the butchered corpses of his family,
those whom he loved so dearly, their torches guttering on the floor, while
Alyssa lay trembling and bloody on the Altar, crying softly.

Davril found the keys to her
manacles on Firhad’s body, released her and swung her into his arms.

“Davril!” she cried. “What’s
happened? What have you
done
?”

Shocked, he said, “I saved your
life!”

She sobbed and pressed her head
against his blood-soaked chest. He did not hear her if she thanked him.

She’s
right
, he thought.
My own family!
Gods!
But what else could he have done?

Suddenly, the great hall—or
whatever it was—shook violently, and Davril and Alyssa looked at each other.

An earth-grinding roar issued from
the darkness. Half reptilian, half alien, the sound obliterated all reason. Later
Davril knew he must have screamed in fear, but he could not hear it, nor did he
remember anything other than that awful, inhuman roar. The sound was made by something
massive, something vaster than a whale, or a pod of whales, something truly
gargantuan and Other. It was the roar of no beast, but of some terrible Thing
possessed of inconceivable intellect—all this Davril could tell in that one awful
sound.

Alyssa clung to him tightly, likely
screaming in his ear though he could not hear it.

This was It, Davril realized—Subn-ongath,
the Patron of Qazradan, the foe of the Worm.
He’s real. Gods be good, he’s real.
Davril had not only robbed It
of Its sacrifice but had slain Its chief worshippers.

“Run!” Alyssa said. “For the gods’
sakes, run!”

Davril ran, and all became a vague
confusion of screaming and fleeing. He carried a torch in one hand, a sword in
the other, and had flung Alyssa over his shoulder. The world shook around him,
and his vision blurred. Stars wheeled all about. He and Alyssa screamed all the
way back to the upper catacombs.

Davril expected the Thing to charge
after them, to grind them to pulp beneath it, to swallow their flesh and bones
and souls, but it didn’t, and when Davril had time to think on it he realized
it must not be able to pass the Door. It remained, raging, in the darkness of
the deep earth, though Davril was slow to realize it.

Somewhere in the upper catacombs, sanity
returned to him. He set Alyssa down and they faced each other, both haggard and
wan and panting.

“What—was that—
thing
?” she wheezed. “Was it really . . .?”

“I don’t—”

For the first time, he noticed the
blood on his hands, and his terror at Subn-ongath faded, if only a bit.

“I killed them,” he whispered. “I slew
my father . . . my brothers . . .” He held up a trembling, bloody hand and
stared at it as if it didn’t belong to him. “What should I do?”