Kevin J Anderson (28 page)

The smooth catacombs had no branch tunnels. Bryl's hand-held flame lasted a long time, but he lost all sense of the passing hours. They had been too long without seeing the stars overhead.

"Do you think it's daylight yet?" Vailret asked.

"Of which day?" Bryl said.

Vailret fell silent, walking behind his stretching shadow. He broke the silence again. "If the werem took all the gems, were they really interested in the Earth Stone in the first place? I seem to recall that they believe all gemstones belong to them."

"Seeds of the earth," Bryl said, "planted in the rock, from which all life springs. They took the gems to return them deep underground. But I think they had a special purpose for the Earth Stone. The
dayid
made me sense something that the werem call their Master."

They continued ahead. "We just passed another hex-line," Bryl pointed out.

Vailret turned to squint, then plodded along the tunnel. "Is that four now?"

"I can't remember. We must be under the water hexes already."

"We're heading in that direction."

Bryl followed him, maintaining the same pace. "Did I ever tell you about Delrael's training in the old weapons storehouse?"

Vailret did not look back. Of course Vailret would remember his own storehouse training, when he had to imagine being captured by Slac, who made him fight an invisible monster in their arena.

Vailret stopped. "Del fought the worm-men, didn't he? Did he win?"

Bryl remained silent for a few moments. "Nobody wins the storehouse training," he said. "Drodanis and I set it up that way. But everyone learns."

"What did Del learn then?" Vailret asked. Bryl could tell he just wanted to keep the conversation going, to break the tedium of their long, dark journey.

"He learned never to get captured by werem."

"It figures," Vailret said. He moved on as Bryl followed behind him with the ball of clean fire in his hand. Their shadows lurched ahead, dancing on the tunnel walls.

Bryl and Drodanis had planned young Delrael's training meticulously, using all the details they could find from legends about encounters with the werem. When they brought young Delrael into the weapons storehouse, closed the shutters, and barricaded the door, Bryl asked him, "Are you ready?"

Delrael had nodded. He looked confused, but even then he seemed ready to confront whatever problem they threw at him. Bryl blew out the candle.

"Delrael, you are camped alone beside the shore of a lake," Drodanis said from a dark corner of the room. "You have a small fire burning on the shore, and you have just finished eating. You're relaxed. Your senses are dull. You're about to go to sleep."

"Then," Bryl said, "the ground bubbles at the lake shore. Dirt spatters in the air as three worm-men tunnel out of the ground and lurch up into the moonlight. They're caked with slimy mud. They have thin arms with sharp elbows, powerful claws. Their eyes are wide and white, blind because they live under the ground. Their bodies are long and segmented, trailing in their holes as they lunge forward."

"What am I supposed to do?" Delrael said. Bryl could hear the alarm in his voice.

"What would you like to do?" Drodanis asked. "They come toward you from three different sides."

"I've got my sword, right? And my armor? I'm going to fight."

"Of course you are." Drodanis's voice carried a lilt of amusement.

"Pick a number between one and seven," Bryl said. "Guess right, and we'll let you defeat them."

And so Delrael had fought several rounds against the worm-men, killing one of them, but then the battle became tedious, so Drodanis had the other two werem overpower Delrael's character and drag him underground. They pulled him through the wet tunnels where dirt fell on him and mud caked his face, and he could hardly breathe. Though he continued to struggle, Drodanis wouldn't let him break free.

The werem took him through their tunnels under the lake to a large central chamber. Their emperor sat atop his bulbous coils of segments wound in a high mound beneath him.

"The emperor grows one segment for every human character he kills," Bryl said. He thought that was a nice detail.

When the werem hauled Delrael before him, the folds of the emperor's segments split. Fat white grubs spilled from the cracks, wet and oozing mucous. They flopped along the emperor's segments and left sticky trails.

"They are the larvae of the werem," Drodanis said. "Like maggots, without the human arms and heads of full-grown worm-men. They have only a mouth filled with teeth ― and the instinct to chew into a human body, to devour a character from the inside out. Only through the taste of human flesh can the larvae mature."

Though Delrael's character did break away and kill two more of the worm-men, they overpowered him again and dragged him in front of the werem emperor. Delrael struggled when they planted the larvae on his body. As he writhed and screamed and squirmed, Delrael could feel the grubs chewing into his arms, into his stomach, into his back.

Then the werem backed off and stood with their blind faces cocked toward him. Their nostril slits flared as they smelled his fear and pain.

Delrael lay on the floor and felt the larvae inside him, eating, snapping his muscles. Blood poured from his wounds.

"Once the larvae get to your heart, you will be dead," Drodanis said.

Bryl kept his voice cold. "You are dead already. You have only a few moments left of the pain as you feel the grubs devour your body."

"Can I get to my sword?" Delrael said.

Bryl hesitated, letting Drodanis decide.

"Yes. But the werem are backing away from you. You've already killed three of them. They won't stand near, and you don't have much control over your body."

"I'm going to take the blade and hack at the hardened mud pillar in the center of the chamber. The one holding up the ceiling, and the water of the lake above."

"Good, Delrael!" Drodanis said. "You're weak, but the werem don't know what you're doing. You can take a few strikes at the pillar."

"Pick a number between one and five," Bryl said.

"Two."

"The pillar is starting to crack."

"I'm still swinging."

"You can feel the grubs moving inside you. They're chewing at your spine. Soon you're going to collapse," Drodanis said.

"I'm swinging again. And again!"

"Pick another number. Between one and four this time."

"Three."

"Oh, let him have it, Bryl."

"The pillar cracks more. The ceiling is starting to fissure. Water is trickling down. By now the worm-men know what you're doing, and they hurry forward. You have another strike, maybe two, with your sword before it's too late."

"I'm swinging again."

Bryl laughed. "The pillar breaks. The ceiling is crumbling. Water gushes down. The worm-men are running about, frantic."

"Do I have time for ― "

"You have no time. The grubs have just eaten your heart. The last thing your eyes see is the ceiling collapsing, and the great explosion of water thundering down."

The storehouse training always disturbed Bryl. It seemed so real to the characters, this role-playing game. He was glad it remained just a game. Vailret continued to walk in silence.

But suddenly the side walls of the catacombs flaked outward, and Bryl heard scratching, clawing noises.

"What's going on?" Vailret said. Bryl's hand-light bobbed against the ceiling.

The packed-earth walls split open. Mud-covered, smooth-skinned werem burst out on either side, reaching out. Bryl stepped back, stifling a scream.

He felt a lump on the floor, and a clawed hand snapped out to grab his thin ankle. He kicked and squealed, stomping down on the worm-man's wrist. The whole creature emerged, rising higher and flinging mud off its chest and limbs.

The worm-men trapped them, front and back.

"Use the Stones, Bryl! The Fire Stone ― now!"

Bryl grabbed both Stones out of his cloak. He held the diamond and ruby in his hand, gripping the sharp corners.

But his hand refused to drop the Stones. His arm remained locked into place. He strained as much as he could, but it didn't seem to be his own hand at all.

"Roll them!" Vailret said.

The worm-men made wet clicking sounds as they slithered forward, not in any hurry at all. Their sightless eyes turned toward the captives.

"I can't! I can't move my arm!" Bryl said.

Vailret tried to turn toward him, but he froze as well. His legs locked. Vailret's neck muscles twitched and jerked as he strained ― but something else held onto him, controlled their every action.

"It's the same thing that's attacking Sitnalta!" Vailret said through clenched teeth. "The invisible force, it's got us now!"

As they remained motionless, with legs together, Vailret and Bryl could offer no resistance as the werem picked them up. They glided down the bore of the tunnels, moving with a caterpillar-like motion that made Bryl feel sick. He found that his body cooperated enough to let him shiver.

Ahead, they saw two other werem widening a hole in the side of the passage. Bryl's fireball bobbed along behind them.

As their captors reached the other worm-men, they stopped and plucked Vailret and Bryl from their segmented backs. They placed their captives on the dirt floor inside the grave-sized hole they had dug. The werem seemed to be clicking and chattering among themselves.

One of them turned, bent down with a liquid motion, and snatched up Vailret and Bryl, stuffing them into the hole.

Paralyzed, Bryl could do nothing but slump against Vailret and watch as the hideous blank-eyed figure of one werem leaned forward, filling the opening with his silhouette. He reached forward with one four-fingered hand.

"The Master will make good use of these," the werem said in a scratchy, hollow voice. He snatched the Air Stone and the Fire Stone out of Bryl's locked grasp.

The fireball illuminating the tunnels winked out, leaving them in complete blackness.

Bryl could only hear the worm-men moving and chittering. They slathered dirt as they built up the tunnel wall again, piling it back inside the cell. They walled Vailret and Bryl into the chamber, without food, without light, without air.

――――

"She is our future! Tareah is the last full-blooded Sorcerer woman. Our race will rise again. She will shepherd them back to us, to make things the way they were."

― Sardun the Sentinel

Delrael's army exhibited an odd mixture of remembered horror from their first battle and nervous frivolity from considering themselves safe in the ice fortress. Many characters slumped against the ice blocks, tucked a blanket behind them, and fell deep into a numb sleep.

Siya took great pains to provide an extra large and well-prepared meal for them all. She moved about as if in a daze, staring at the fighters, especially the wounded ones; something seemed to be working in the back of her mind since she had watched Drodanis die.

Tareah did what she could to help. The Ice Palace felt so different with a human army inside. She remembered Sardun's little touches, his pennants and ice intaglios along the walls. Neither she or Enrod had been able to add unnecessary embellishments, so the great banquet chamber seemed larger and colder than it should have.

Enrod came up to her and stood, wanting to say something. She noticed him, but did not encourage conversation. She felt uncomfortable around him and his disjointed madness. He looked up at the vaulted ceilings and around the ice fortress.

"Tareah," he said. His voice sounded calm, but his expression took on a harder appearance. "Sardun said harsh things." He stared down a corridor, then flinched at something she couldn't see. "Unfair to me."

Tareah tried to keep any emotion out of her answer. "My father didn't like you. Apparently he never considered the feud finished. He was upset because you abandoned your heritage."

Enrod's heavy eyebrows knitted together. "Not abandoned! I stayed! After the Transition, after all the Sorcerers ran away, I stayed! I used my abilities to help human characters. Help them! Sardun ― lived too much in the past. More important work to do."

Enrod drew a deep breath and ran his fingernails along the ice blocks of the wall, shaving off a thin line of white. "I used my power. I offered my assistance. We built Taire."

He lowered his gaze. The ice shaving melted on his fingertips. "We owed humans that much. We created their character race for
our
wars. We gave them Gamearth already broken. I helped fix it."

Though Enrod's hair remained dark and his beard bushy, Tareah could see how truly old the Sentinel was. He had lived nearly as many years as Sardun, a full generation more than Bryl, and for several generations of human characters.

"I should become the Allspirit," he said, surprising her. "Me."

Tareah looked at Enrod, wondering how he had reached that conclusion.

"I would lose nothing, and
I
― " He paused, and she saw the deep pain on his face. "I know how power can hurt. What kind of Allspirit would Bryl make? Not even a pure Sorcerer. Tainted! Tainted!" He took a deep breath then blew it out, seeing steam in the cold air wafting upward like smoke.

"A full-blooded Sorcerer should make the last Transition. I am the only one left."

Enrod seemed to be speaking to himself. Tareah shook her head and felt her hair flowing behind her neck. "So am I, Enrod. Why does everyone always forget about me?"

Enrod blinked at her. "Sardun kept you locked away."

Tareah felt angry now. No matter how much she did, they all continued to take her lightly, even the people on her own side.

"My father had his own reasons for protecting me, regardless of whether you or I agree with them. He isn't here now, and I make my own decisions."

Enrod shrugged.

In the large hall, Siya continued her work of cleaning weapons, sitting by herself. The other non-fighter human characters tended the wounded soldiers and helped the army bed down.