The Worm That Wasn't

by Mike Maddox

  Grefno sighed.

  "But what's causing it? The chances of them all just deciding to up and die on us like this with no real obvious cause. It's... well, it's ridiculous." He stood up and paced the width of the room, hands behind his back. "No. No this is impossible, my friend. Something is doing this, something we cannot see."

  The two men looked at the pictogram, worry etched across their brows.

  "Niaal, these findings cannot be right. There must be some corruption in the data, have them go back and check it again."

  Niaal snapped his fingers and the pictogram was gone. "I already have. Three times. The findings are correct, Grefno." Niaal gestured, his hands empty. "I don't know what it is. I don't know how we can stop it."

  Grefno held his head in hands, concentrating on his breathing. Niaal continued, his voice low and urgent. "If the predictions are correct, and I see no reason to doubt them, then the sickness will destroy us within three months. If it mutates, if it becomes airborne, then we have no hope at all. But if it is confinable and can be quarantined, then we need to consider forcibly moving the unaffected population to a place of safety. However, the farmland in the unaffected areas is next to useless. To avoid the prospect of famine we will need to expand into neighbouring territory. We will have no choice but to consider the annexation of lands belonging to the Prash-Romarians." He paused, seemingly appalled by his own words. "Or else we starve."

  "What does the Mage know of this?" said Grefno.

  "The Mage knows everything."

  Grefno snorted. "We both know that's not true. How much does he really know, seeing as how you're the only one he'll talk to these days?"

  Niaal smiled. "Most of it. If he has some greater scheme, then he's playing his hand close to his chest. But for now it's fair to say he knows as much as anyone."

  "The skirmishes along the borders have been getting worse of late," said Grefno, softly. "They have been antagonising us for months now. If we are forced to consider military action on a larger scale, not the petty border squabbles, but an actual invasion, then they may be better prepared to meet us than we would like. It's fair to say that relations between us and our neighbours have not been this bad since the Great War."

  Niaal put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "The sickness could well kill us as soon as any war. The sickness is an enemy that cannot be fought. If a cure were to be found, then you and I would find it. If we could not then the Mage would, and yet we have nothing. Our best, only hope, is to set a course for military action against our neighbours, and hope that we might win for ourselves a place to live that is free from the sickness. I have taken the liberty of briefing General Vale, telling him to place his men in a state of readiness."

  "I see. And if the sickness follows us?"

  Niaal's smile stayed on his face, but his eyes betrayed horror. "We must be sure that it doesn't follow us. We must sterilise the whole region. We must leave nothing alive to follow in our wake."

  Leah woke up, hungry. It was still dark outside. She lay there for ten minutes trying to will herself back to sleep, flicking her thoughts from happy ones to boring ones, but to no avail.

  She got up and made her way downstairs, tiptoeing so as not to wake her mother, until she remembered. The house seemed suddenly cold and empty.

  Taking a loaf of seed bread from the pantry, Leah cut herself a thick slice, and placed it on her favourite plate. It showed a Garden in summer, the porcelain beautifully painted. She smiled at the hairline cracks that spread across it, remembering when she'd dropped it as a child. Leah had been so scared of telling her father, but he had merely smiled and told her not to worry.

  "Anything can be mended," he'd said. "Anything. Plates are easy. Windows, cups, vases, easy to fix if you know how. Now, broken hearts, that's a different story altogether. Plates are easy compared to those."

  She'd been puzzled at his words then, wondering how hearts could break, and was it the same as a broken arm, only inside? "Anything can be mended."

  As she sat there munching in silence, she thought of the Garden, her Garden now. She thought of the soldiers and how they were getting on and, as she did so, her mind strayed to the woods outside the village. There was a stream that ran through it. She had caught minnows there as a child, wading out into the water with her dress tucked into her underclothes.

  She sat bolt upright, suddenly wide-awake and instantly alert, her nerves on edge.

  The Garden!

  Before the illness, the Head Gardener had been working on a new irrigation scheme. The well in the town was running dry, and so he was trying to find new water supplies for the Garden, and the village itself. Leah had been at a meeting only a few days before the illness struck. As the only survivor, it was entirely possible she was the only person who knew of the scheme. With the town now cordoned off, a new local source of water was an urgent issue.

  Alone in her bed, Leah felt the weight of responsibility threaten to crush her. There was no way she would be able to sleep now. So, throwing her clothes on over the top of her nightdress and grabbing the lantern by the door, she rushed out into the night.

  Running down the street Leah heard the sounds of footsteps, and remembered Krillan's orders just in time to duck into a doorway as a sentry passed the end of the road. If she had thought things through clearly she would have arranged an escort. It was official business, after all. But thankfully the soldier's hands were in his pockets, his head deep in thought as he ambled by, whistling a popular tune to himself.

  Checking the coast was clear, Leah rushed towards the Garden. There were lights in the treetops. At least someone was still working. As she approached, she held up her palm and the gate swung obligingly open. There was nobody to challenge her. Leah felt unexpectedly cross with the guard for deserting his post and decided she'd tell someone when she reached...

  The office door was open. At light was on inside.

  It was happening again. Everyone was dead.

  "Can I help you, Miss?"

  She spun around. It was one of the militia. He was standing in the doorway, jacket off, shirt undone and a mug of hot tea in his hand. "You alright, Miss?"

  "Yes. I was checking."

  "Checking?"

  "Checking things. You check things, don't you? For instance, I'm checking whether or not anyone is on guard duty. I strolled right in through the front door unchallenged. Could you explain how that happened?"

  "We saw you on the monitors, Miss. With respect, Miss, you are actually in charge here. Although what you're doing out after curfew is anyone's guess."

  A second guard came out of the office. "What's going on?"

  "It's Miss Carleaf. She's checking things."

  Leah straightened up. "Yes, thank you. I suddenly remembered that the sprouts in section three will need feeding, and hadn't left a note. I thought it best to pop over and tell the night shift myself."

  "No need Miss, we'll call them from here. How much feed?"

  "What?" Leah flustered. "Oh, er... three full units."

  "Very good, Miss. Will there be anything else?"

  "No." She turned to leave "Thank you, private."

  "Welcome, Miss."

  Leaving the guard hut, Leah made her way to the Head Gardener's offices. She hadn't spent much time here recently, despite the fact that by default she now was the Head Gardener. It felt too much like she was intruding.

  The place was neat, tidy and ordered. She sat at the desk, flicking through papers. She found the notes relating to the irrigation scheme.

  Whilst holding the sheet of paper, Leah noticed a small scribble on the bottom. A crude picture, badly drawn, showing some scaly creature, like a dragon, but without wings. A worm. Next to the drawing, stuck on the page, was a seed. It was one of the short hand messages Gardeners sometimes left for each other. Tiny dots of magic, they could hold instructions about weed killer or feed, growing tips or, more likely, rude messages and complaints.

  It was the sort of thing only Garden
ers knew about.

  She licked her finger and brushed it against the seed, allowing the psychoactive ink to penetrate her skin.

  She felt herself floating, looking out through the eyes of someone else. With a start, she realised it was the Head Gardener. She was looking out though the eyes of a dead man, swimming through the memories left here on the paper.

  Cold and unsettled by the sensation, she looked around. She was in the town square. It was night, and the stars were shining overhead. She could smell wood smoke and... it smelt like beer. Beer and urine. She looked down to see that the Head Gardener was pissing against the wall of the town hall. It was, Leah accepted, a sensation she had never excepted to experience in her life. Feeling him zip himself up, Leah saw as the Gardener turned around and made his way across the market place. As he did so, she felt his heart race, felt him perspire as something crawled into the well. Something hideous, scaled and wet in the moonlight. It slid into darkness and out of sight like something from a nightmare.

  The Gardener ran across to the well and looked down, but there was nothing there.

  Whatever it had been it was gone.

  With a cold snap, Leah fell out of the vision. Seed messages were usually no more than one or two words; simple pictograms. She'd never heard of anyone being able to construct one of such complexity. It was like she had actually been there, had actually been him.

  She looked down at the picture on the sheet of paper. It was the same worm, the worm the Head Gardener had seen in the town square.

  Leah felt suddenly exposed. Scared, she slipped the sheet of paper into her pocket. Drawing her coat around her shoulders, she went back to the guardroom and asked the guards to provide her with an escort safely home.

  The creature would not attack him, of that Niaal was sure. Had he not, after all, raised it from an infant, nurtured it, given it food and a warm lair of its own? If the worm could speak, surely it would call him father.

  Allesh was slowly coming under the creature's thrall. Already people were falling to the sickness as the worm tainted their water supply with its deadly excretions. Niaal considered this a fair sacrifice. For when the effects of the worm were felt through the whole of Inan, it would be he who would assume the mantle of ultimate power. It would be Niaal to which Inan turned to show them the way.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Alleshi Seventh Black Fleet possessed enough firepower to destroy a city. Invisible mermaids, creatures made of plasma and thought, sped through the water beside the ships, clearing the way of mines and other obstacles.

  The Admiral sat cross-legged in the high backed leather chair in his quarters, his eyes closed in deep concentration. In his mind, he felt the waves of magical energy pour over him from the sphere he held in his hands. He could see the whole of Inan, spread before him.

  There was a sharp rap on the door to his quarters, awakening him from his meditation. "Enter."

  A senior officer ducked through the low bulkhead, and saluted. "Sir, urgent orders from the Castle. We are to make course at once to intercept the Prash-Romarian second fleet."

  "Any idea as to why? I don't recall them straying into our waters recently."

  "They're still over a hundred miles off. We have them on viewscopes now. The Castle have been shadowing them through spycraft."

  The officer followed the Admiral as he climbed the ladder to the bridge. "Very well. Bring the image up ..." The words died in his throat as he stared in disbelief at the sight before him. He could see the thought image of the Prash-Romarian fleet hanging in the air in front of him. Ships were scattering. At least one had capsized, with two more obviously taking on water.

  In the middle of the fleet there was a... thing. Vast, obscene, it was in every sense of the word impossible. It could not exist, and yet there it was. A sea creature, a magical beast, two miles long.

  He watched in disbelief as it wrapped itself around the Prash-Romari flagship, crushing it like paper. Several smaller ships had opened fire, but it seemed to not even notice, the weapons harmlessly melting on the skin of the beast.

  The comms officer on the bridge looked up, his face ashen. "It's magical in origin, sir. We don't know where it's getting that much power from, but it's taken everything they can throw at it!"

  "Give me a line to the Prash-Romari Fleet!" snapped the Admiral.

  There was a sound of static, then screams and then silence. They watched as ship after ship was smashed to pieces by the tentacles of the creature

  "Sir?" the comms officer was looking to the Admiral. "Sir?"

  The Admiral snapped himself out of shock. "Fighters to immediate launch. I want them armed with Bright Sun charges. Reach the area and destroy that thing.

  "Contact the masters of our nearest ships and tell them to stand to pick up any survivors. Tell them to dump their cargoes to make better speed. They will be fully reimbursed at the current market price on reaching harbour, plus an additional handling charge. Please remind them that they are bound my maritime law to comply with this request."

  "Sir."

  From the flight deck, fast attack fighters silently fell up into the sky, their deadly cargo slung beneath. Like a swarm of flies eager for the feast of a corpse, they made their way toward the Prash-Romari vessels.

  Turning his back on the carnage, he prepared to send a communiqué to his superiors in the Castle. If this was magical warfare, then it was on an unprecedented scale, and the sooner he made his report the safer he would feel. Not that the word 'safe' had any meaning compared to the size and power of the attack he had just witnessed. Bracing himself, he composed his message.

  Outside the village, the patrol on the roadblock was clearly bored. The guards were sitting on fuel drums, playing cards. Despite the highly inflammable symbols on them, one or two were smoking.

  The wood was in sight. She was in half a mind to just walk through them and smile, and see if they challenged her or not. But no.

  Three days ago a farmer had gone through a border point in pursuit of a fugitive cow that had wandered away from his farm. He was just going to get his cow and bring it back, and no one need ever know or worry.

  A boy with a high velocity impulse projector had drilled him through the head from 500 yards. He was still lying there. There was no news of what had happened to the cow.

  Moving back along the road Leah took a left turn and headed down the lane that sprung out at ninety degrees to the main road. It was no more than a track used by farm vehicles. Trees grew out of the high hedgerows that bordered it, as it made its way up a small valley. There was no sign of roadblocks here, at least.

  Turning the corner, Leah saw a transport drawn up across the road. Two soldiers sat on the roof, listening intently to a radio set.

  She turned back before they saw her and started to ask awkward questions. Heading back up to the road that led to the village she passed a field of maize. It was ready for harvest, and stood over twelve feet high. It looked easy enough to hide in. There was a chance that she could simply walk through it, following the lines of the tractors, and never be seen.

  The only problem was how she would know if there were already soldiers in the field, though. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Leah jumped and caught a branch of a nearby oak. From her vantage point half way up the tree she could see that there was no one to be seen in the maize and no sign of movement.

  She took a piece of rope from her bag and fashioned it into a crude leash, and held it tightly. If challenged she would say her dog had run off and she was chasing after it. It wasn't the best plan in the world, but it would have to do.

  Taking a deep breath, Leah turned into the field, following the path left by farm machinery. Every twenty paces she stopped dead, and listened for the sound of rustling, but nothing came. If there were soldiers in the field with her they were probably as blind as she was. The thought of this cheered her up immeasurably. Unless they had heat-seeking visor-ware and had smart mined the area. The thought of this depressed her
immeasurably.

  Workers from the Garden had enhanced the corn in the field. She herself had worked on its construction as an apprentice. It stood some fifteen feet high, with ears the size of cats. It could be matured in a fortnight, and was rich in energy and vitamins. Magically force grown, it was just one of the everyday marvels that the Gardeners and Sages were responsible for.

  Leah looked around, trying to get her bearings. She had travelled west since leaving the road, but she had no idea which way was which, now that she was in the field. Deciding that she must be at least half way there and it was as dangerous to go back as to go forward, she broke into a gentle jog and headed on down the tractor marks.

  She emerged near a small stream, which she followed uphill further, until she found herself back on the road, although well beyond the cordoned area.

  "Well. That was easy." She smiled as she headed to her grandma's house.

  Leah's grandmother had married three times, each time to a wonderful man, although each very different to the others. The first was her childhood sweetheart, Leah's paternal grandfather, who had been killed in active service while still in his late teens. Widowed young, and with a child to think of, she next married a gentle, educated man, who was a teacher in the village school. He had been loved by everyone, and it was a tragedy felt by the whole community when he drowned one summer, whilst saving the life of a small boy who had fallen into a lake. Her third husband was a farmer, himself recently widowed. The two of them had enjoyed what time they had together until he too simply passed away in his sleep one night. Leah's grandmother had decided that three husbands had been enough. For now at least.