Seal of the Worm

by Adrian Czajkowski

  Sperra was unhappy with that, but Taki finally got the woman out of the hold and did a few quick calculations as to how much room she was going to need to get airborne. The fixed-wing was a flimsy little thing, though, light as anything she’d ever flown. It only took a little lift to get it away from the ground and into the arms of the wind.

  The summons from Milus came just a few days after Eujen had bearded him on the wall. This time it was a map room in the Royal Court, the unspoken subtext being: Look how seriously we are taking you.

  The tactician regarded him without expression as Eujen stood there under his scrutiny, the brace and the stick taking his weight between them.

  ‘We’ve fought the Wasps about ten miles east of here – the former Collegiate garrison force and some of the First Army,’ Milus announced. ‘Mostly a skirmish of scouts and automotives, but a fair-sized engagement.’

  ‘I assume congratulations are in order,’ Eujen advanced.

  ‘The result was inconclusive, but the Wasps have been pushed further back. We think that we can control any attempt to reconnoitre our city, save for a full-scale assault. The reports from the officers in charge suggest that they will not be in a position to make such an assault in the immediate future.’

  ‘That is good news.’ Conversational pleasantries, obviously marking time until Milus got to the point.

  ‘I am aware of how many Collegiates you can put under arms, little Speaker. There is clearly nothing you can accomplish in Collegium, even with that woman’s Mynans at your back.’

  ‘And yet we are going,’ Eujen confirmed. ‘Perhaps we, too, wish to test the enemy’s strength.’ Wondering all the time, And what else have you heard? The plan was full of big secrets, sliding into place like blocks of stone, and Milus must have spies and agents listening out for their movements.

  ‘Our recent gains against the Wasps here, however, mean that I can spare at least a nominal force to accompany you south.’

  Eujen waited.

  ‘Five hundred men, some light artillery, some war automotives.’

  ‘A thousand would perhaps better demonstrate the leading role that Sarn is taking in the fight against the Empire,’ Eujen stated.

  For a long time Milus’s eyes bored into him, hunting for the awkward, injured student he knew was in there somewhere.

  ‘Very well.’ So very grudgingly, and Eujen could see a flare of that un-Ant-like temper, that erratic nature that marked Milus out from his fellows.

  ‘Thank you, Tactician,’ he said graciously, thinking, I have an enemy there. Once this is done, I will have to be careful.

  Eleven

  His name was Orothellin, and Che had waited for the cascade of titles that all of his kinden burdened themselves with, but if he had ever possessed such, he had shed them a long time ago.

  He had led them from Cold Well, choosing path after path in the pitch-dark caves, and never once coming within sight of another segment of the Worm. There was no magic to it, just an utter certainty of his route, as though every inch of it was second nature to him. His pace was leaden, his bare feet dragging on the stone, and his hoarse, heavy breathing echoed about them.

  When they came out into what passed for the open, they were far enough from Cold Well that the lights and the foundries were only a reddish glow limning a distant ridge, and Orothellin gave out a great sigh, swaying so that Che thought he might collapse. A moment later he was on his way again, one scraping step after another. He did not even look back, and for a moment Che thought he was abandoning them.

  ‘Please,’ she hissed at his retreating back, ‘I have questions.’

  He stopped, then turned – not just his head, but his whole bulky body, as though craning over his shoulder would somehow have involved even more effort. He was a shocking sight, his pale, slick skin dirty and lined, and his hair long and matted and streaked with grey. He looked old, Che realized. The thought had been slow in coming because she knew his kind lived for many centuries, and those she had met beneath Khanaphes had seemed still in their prime.

  ‘Ah, no,’ he mumbled. ‘Come with me. No, there is further to go yet. They will search here. Come, now.’ His staff creaked as it took his weight, and then he was shambling off again.

  Their progress was agonizing, given the thought of the Worm and its swift-ranging pursuit, but somehow their lurching hulk of a guide took them on a winding route that avoided all notice, despite shackling them to his slow shuffle. Messel kept ranging further ahead or off to one side, plainly anxious to be further from Cold Well, but he always came back. Orothellin had become the centre of their world.

  At last he found a crack in the rock that seemed shallow but opened out below into a fair-sized cave. The walls were tacky to the touch, and there was a bundle of rags in one corner that must serve as a bed. A pot beside it held embers, and Messel built a low fire to bring some warmth to the place.

  The huge man gave out a groan and slumped down onto the ground, the staff clattering at his feet.

  ‘So, my people survive still, do they?’ he asked Che.

  ‘They . . .’ In her mind again was the tomb complex beneath Khanaphes, with the Masters lying in dignity and state. What would they think to see one of their own like this? ‘They sleep. They are almost forgotten. I am sorry.’

  ‘As I knew they would be,’ Orothellin said mournfully, a prophet unacknowledged in his own country.

  There had been Masters amongst those who had driven the Worm below ground, and no doubt there was a complex story to account for this man being trapped down here, but Che had other priorities, urgent priorities. Like escape.

  ‘Please, Master . . .’ And, when he waved the title away, ‘Teacher, then,’ for that was how Messel had addressed the man. ‘Tell me . . . that was magic. Of all we have met down here, you are the first who . . . Please, can you help us?’

  He regarded her grimly, and for a long time he said nothing, so that she thought he really was falling asleep, but at last he said, ‘Messel, keep watch.’ A ridiculous request to a man with no eyes, but their erstwhile guide nodded sharply.

  ‘Yes, Teacher,’ and he had crawled from the cave, out into the hostile dark beyond.

  ‘So, you really are from the Old World,’ Orothellin said. ‘I had almost convinced myself that there was nowhere else but here.’

  ‘At least you can believe us, then,’ Tynisa stated. ‘Those other creatures didn’t – the slaves.’

  ‘Believe?’ Orothellin echoed mildly. ‘Dear girl, I remember. I remember the sun and the sky. I remember rain.’ His voice was hoarse with wonder.

  ‘When did you come here?’ Tynisa demanded. ‘If there’s a way in—’

  ‘I have always been here,’ the great man told her. ‘Since there has been a “here”, here I have been.’

  ‘But that’s—’ Tynisa started, but Che put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It’s possible,’ she confirmed. ‘It’s just possible.’ How long ago was it, really? How old is this man? ‘But, yes, we come from above – from the Old World, if you want. Please . . . we need to get back. The Seal . . .’

  The huge man gave out a low moan. ‘So it has happened at last. They broke the Seal.’

  ‘It was broken from the surface, by the Empress of the Wasps,’ Che told him, but of course he had no idea who he meant, or what Empire that was. ‘She has released the Worm,’ she pressed on. ‘She will ally with them, make use of them. She must be stopped.’

  ‘One does not ally with the Worm.’

  ‘She will,’ Che insisted.

  Another vast sigh from Orothellin. ‘The Worm does not negotiate or deal. It cannot. It has only one goal: for there to be nothing in existence but the Worm. All you see here, all those poor wretches in Cold Well, they are kept solely because their toil and their tax make them more useful to the Worm than their deaths would, but in the end all will be the Worm. That is what the Worm wants. And if the Worm can breach the surface, then perhaps it will not need any of this down he
re, not for much longer.’

  ‘Then we must stop it – but from up there,’ Che insisted, hearing the ragged sound of her own voice. ‘Please, you have magic. Can you send us out?’

  ‘If he could do that, do you think he’d still be here?’ Thalric demanded sharply.

  ‘Perhaps I could have left here a long time ago,’ the massive man mused, almost to himself. ‘I had power then, but it has bled away over the ages while I have hidden away here. I have a bare shadow of it left, now: so little that my kin would weep.’ He shook his head slowly, even that motion seeming to tire him. ‘If I could only sleep a little, then perhaps some might be saved up again, and I might accomplish something. But the Worm hunts me always. I have not slept in so very long.’

  ‘How long?’ Che asked, voice hushed.

  He met her eyes, and she had to fight to hold that weighty ancient gaze.

  ‘I don’t think I have slept in a thousand years,’ he whispered.

  ‘Excuse me, sieur,’ Maure put in. ‘I am a magician of some small skill, back in our home. Here . . . I cannot find any strength here.’ Her hands were clasped together, wringing and twisting. ‘There is nothing . . . even in the great cities of the Apt it was not such a desert as this. But you . . . you hid us. That was not Art nor skill; that was magic.’

  Orothellin smiled slightly. ‘I am pleased you think so. It was almost the last of my poor marshalled strength. I have that little only because the Worm does not know me. I have evaded its notice for all the time I have been down here. If it turned its gaze on me, I would be as helpless as you. More so: you at least could run.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing . . .?’ The halfbreed magician trembled, staring at the man’s sloping bulk as though she was starving.

  ‘Ah, little one, I am sorry.’ He took her hands, losing them entirely within his vast, gentle grip. ‘I have no gifts any more. A thousand waking years, what could there be?’

  Che saw the woman twitch, eyes wide. The power that leapt between them was a mere spark with no tinder to goad into a blaze, but for Maure it must be water in the desert.

  ‘I am sorry,’ the big man repeated. Maure was weeping, though, holding her hands to her face to shelter that tiny mote of strength Orothellin had given her.

  The big man turned his sorrowful gaze on the others. ‘You see, it is useless,’ he murmured. ‘I’m all used up. I can’t get out, and I can’t get you out. I can barely keep the Worm away for a few moments, perhaps not even that any more.’

  ‘Yet the Worms get out,’ Thalric objected. ‘Why not us?’

  ‘The Worm.’ Orothellin made a curious stress of the singular. ‘Can you walk the Worm’s path? The Worm has ways, but they are its own ways. My poor children,’ he said softly, ‘to find yourselves in this place. Can it be done? I cannot think it, but I can’t know, can I? The Seal has always held until now, no ray of hope in this place, no sun or moon. But perhaps you are right. Perhaps the boundaries between the New World and the Old are crumbling as we speak. Bring Messel back. Let me speak to him.’

  Esmail, who had sat silent and unreadable throughout, went out to fetch the blind man, and Che leant closer to Orothellin, glancing sidelong at Thalric, whose expression was still one of fierce suspicion.

  ‘When the Seal . . . when it happened, why did you stay?’

  Orothellin raised his eyebrows, as though he could not quite remember. ‘In all conscience, I stayed – we stayed, my countryfolk and I – because we were responsible for this place and the doom of all who were trapped here. Many of my people escaped at the start, while they still had strength. Of those who stayed, all the others have been found and killed. To my knowledge, I am the last.’

  ‘But Argastos made the Seal,’ Che argued.

  ‘His idea,’ the great man said, ‘but we all agreed, my people included. We are all responsible for this place. We – I – had hoped that I might help. I am dearly afraid that I have not been of much help to anyone, until now.’ For a moment he stared desolately into space, then: ‘I see how it may be done.’ It was as though he were divining, not by the ragged ends of his magic, but simply by thinking through each possibility, over and over. Messel had returned by then, to be greeted with: ‘You must be her guide.’

  ‘Not just her,’ Tynisa said instantly, but Orothellin held up a broad hand.

  ‘One alone might escape their notice. Messel, the Turning Spire, you know it? It overlooks . . .’

  ‘Their city,’ the blind man finished grimly. ‘If they catch us there, we will have nowhere to go.’

  ‘But she will see. Will you go, Messel?’

  Che could read the blind man’s agitation, eyes or no, but at last he nodded. ‘Yes, Teacher.’

  ‘The rest of you . . . here is shelter, warmth, some food.’ A nameless expression crossed Orothellin’s haggard face. ‘And if you would keep watch, then perhaps I might sleep for even a day, an hour . . . it has been so long.’

  After Che had gone off with Messel, Tynisa was left with the others, standing guard over the great bulk of Orothellin who lay sprawled at the back of the cave. The man had gone down like something punctured, sagging in collapsing folds until his massive frame was stretched out in sleep, his breathing slow but ragged.

  Thalric wanted a fire but, without Messel or anyone from this otherworld to advise them, the others refused. Besides, what had they to burn? Nobody much fancied trekking out into the abyss to gather fungi and lichen, or going tapping the rocks in the hope of striking coal. So they huddled there in the cave and listened out for movement in the chasm of the world beyond, their only lights the distant false stars, and the darkness so absolute that Tynisa was scarcely better off than Thalric himself. Only Maure’s heritage gave her good enough eyes to pierce it.

  Esmail spoke first, waiting until Orothellin seemed to have fully embraced his long-denied slumber.

  ‘You put great faith in her.’ He spoke softly so that any scuffling or displaced stone from beyond would still be heard.

  ‘Of course we do,’ Tynisa said defensively. ‘Che . . .’ And then she paused.

  ‘Now you’re trying to remember just when it was you started to put any faith in her at all,’ Thalric remarked drily.

  ‘No!’ Tynisa insisted, and then conceded, ‘Well . . . yes. I grew up with her, we were like sisters. She was always wanting to do things she was no good at. She wanted to be like me. And she was constantly taking things the wrong way, or offending people without meaning to, tripping over her own feet, coming up with big ideas that everyone else could see were foolishness. When exactly did we start listening to everything she said?’

  ‘Khanaphes,’ Thalric said firmly. ‘His people’s place. Orothellin’s, I mean. You weren’t there to see what I saw.’ His voice shook a little, and Tynisa caught herself thinking, And when did you start to doubt yourself, Rekef man?

  ‘The thing is,’ Thalric went on, ‘she changed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was watching her at the very point as she . . . grew up.’ At Tynisa’s derisive snort he added defensively, ‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean like . . . larva to insect. She was growing, right then. I saw her become something new, and suddenly it wasn’t me rescuing her but me following her. By the time she found you in the Commonweal, she was almost there.’

  ‘Almost,’ Maure said quietly. When she had first met Che, the Beetle girl had been under attack by the Empress, trapped inside her own mind. ‘I don’t think she’s changed like that. I think she’s still making things up day to day, like the rest of us. It’s just that you’ve finally learned to listen to her.’

  ‘Typical Inapt nonsense,’ Thalric mocked. ‘All light and flowers.’

  ‘Oh, if you believe that, Thalric, then you know very little about the Inapt world indeed,’ the magician chided him, and Esmail made a curious noise that Tynisa realized was actually something close to a laugh.

  ‘Still,’ she put in, ‘we’re following her now, though.’

  ‘Only because she’s the on
ly one who can see.’ Thalric’s humour sounded forced. It died on his lips, then he came out with, ‘I wish I’d stayed in the Empire.’

  ‘I wish you’d stayed in the Empire, too,’ Tynisa responded automatically. There was a pause that could have gone either way. ‘But you don’t actually mean that,’ she added.

  ‘Don’t tell me what I mean.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No, no I don’t.’ A shuddering sigh. ‘But I do need her to get us out of here. I don’t care how she does it. I don’t need to understand. But I need it to happen. There’s only so much of this darkness a man can take.’

  Messel led her, in fits and starts, across an increasingly uneven rockfield that seemed as if some great impact had broken it up into tilted slabs. The man was plainly reluctant even to be there, flinching at nothing, disappearing into crevices at sounds or vibrations that Che could not detect, sometimes staying still for minute after minute, while she crouched beside him. She held her patience in check, aware that he was born to a world of darkness that even her eyes could not penetrate, and that they were travelling in his domain.

  She tried twice to ask questions, but both times he virtually thrust his hands in her face to stifle the sound.

  At last they stopped, and she looked about them, seeing nothing that she would call a landmark. Had they arrived? She realized that they had not. Instead they were merely resting, the two of them tucked under an overhang after evicting a nest of pallid crickets, their antennae longer than their bodies, who went tapping their way off through the rocks in search of another hiding place.

  Watching them go, elongated feelers exploring a world of touch, she recognized the origin of Messel’s kinden’s sightless Art.

  She slept poorly, cold and cramped, and they travelled on soon after, with her guide becoming more and more erratic. She wanted to ask him what he owed the ‘Teacher’, that he should expose himself to such fear. What was it that Orothellin taught?

  She remembered Messel at Cold Well, a firm believer in a world beyond, a world that he could never see. Orothellin taught hope. He taught the legend of an Old World he could barely remember.