In the House of the Worm Read online

  “You will shape nothing,” Groff said. He started forward, and torchlight ran up and down the sharp-honed blade of his ax.

  “Oh?” said the Meatbringer. And suddenly he reached out, and seized the two great doors on either side of him, and swung them shut behind him, ducking beneath the whistling blade of Groff’s ax in the same fluid motion. The doors came together with a great rending clang.

  Darkness.

  And the Meatbringer.

  Laughing.

  Annelyn thrust wildly into the black with his rapier, at the spot where the Meatbringer had been last. Nothing. He pierced air. “Riess,” he called, frantic. “The torch, our torch.” He heard Groff’s ax swing again, and there was a jarring of metal, and a scream. A match blazed briefly; Riess, wide-eyed, held it in cupped hands. Then, before Annelyn could even get his bearings, a knife flashed in the small circle of flame and Riess’s round face disintegrated in a rush of blood and the match was falling and there was darkness again and laughing. The Meatbringer, the Meatbringer. Annelyn stood blind and helpless, rapier in limp fingers. Riess dead and Groff he didn’t know and the Meatbringer laughing and he was next, he Annelyn, and he couldn’t see . . . .

  The air duct was behind him. He dropped the rapier, stepped back, fumbled for the rope in the shaft. In the darkness, a sound like a butcher cutting meat; thick fleshy chopping, and groans. Annelyn found the rope and swung out, started to climb. Something grabbed his ankle. He reached down with one hand to yank loose the grip and suddenly the other hand couldn’t support him, and he was falling, falling, with one hand still on the rope and his palm burning, falling, plunging into infinite black. He threw his body back and smashed against one wall of the shaft, sliding a few feet as his knees came up and he wedged himself in painfully and took a firmer hold on the rope. Then he had it again, by both hands.

  A chill went through him. The Meatbringer was up above him now. And he remembered what Groff had said, about cutting the rope. The Meatbringer would cut the rope. He would fall forever.

  He kicked, and his foot met only metal. As fast as he could, he began to descend, hand under hand, down in total darkness, kicking every foot of the way. Finally his foot swung free; a new level, and the grid was gone!

  He swung out and lay panting on the floor. He was a blind man now, he thought, and shuddered. Then he remembered. Matches. He had matches. All of them, he and Vermyllar and Riess, all of them had brought plenty of matches. But Riess had their torch.

  Annelyn listened carefully. There was no noise from the shaft. He stood, his hand still shaking, and fumbled until he found his match box, his beautiful carved match box of fine metal and wood. He struck a match, and leaned into the air duct.

  The rope was gone.

  He moved his hand back and forth, just to be certain. But the rope was gone. Cut, no doubt, and fallen silently. He had no way of knowing how close he had come . . . but the Meatbringer would know. The Meatbringer would know exactly where Annelyn was right now. And he would be coming.

  The match burned his fingers. Startled, he blew it out, tossing it smoking down the shaft. Then he stood thinking.

  The rope was cut. That meant—that meant there was no doubt left; the Meatbringer had won, Groff was dead up above. Yes. That meant there was no way back. No, wait. It only meant that that way back was closed, unless the Meatbringer dropped a new rope, and Annelyn could not guess when or if that would happen. But there must be other ways up, ways that passed by the Meatbringer’s level and the Chamber of the Changemasters, as the Meatbringer had called them. He had to try to find his way up. He didn’t remember the exact way they’d come—Groff had been right, yes—but he could tell up from down, and that might be enough. He had to start, before the Meatbringer found him. Yes.

  First, he needed a torch.

  He lit another match, held it high, and in its brief flicker looked around. A bronze fist, fingerless and torch-less, was just above his head to one side of the air duct. He could see little else; the match gave scant light. Then it went out, and there was no light at all again.

  Annelyn considered. No doubt he would find another fist a few feet from this one, and another a few feet from that. One of them might have a torch he could use. He began to walk, one hand clutching his matches tightly, the other patting the unseen wall to make sure it was still there. When he thought he had come far enough, he struck another match. And saw another empty fist.

  After he had wasted four of his matches, he tried a new method. He pocketed his match box and began to grope very carefully down the wall, feeling for the fists. He found eight of them that way, and a sharp stump of metal that cut his hand and had probably been a ninth. Each of them was empty, corroded. Finally, in despair, he sank to the floor.

  There would be no torches. He had come too deep. Down here, though the yaga-la-hai had held these burrows once, the grouns had ruled for endless ages. They hated torches. It was hopeless. Up in the Undertunnel, yes, and even in the border regions, the so-called groun-runs, yes. But not here.

  Yet, without a torch—his matches were next to useless. They would never lead him out.

  Perhaps he could make a torch, Annelyn thought. He tried to recall how torches were made. The shafts were generally wood. The crooked ones were cut from the bent yellow bloodfruit tree, after the leaves and the red-white berries had been put into the breeding tanks for the food-worms. And then there were the straight ones, longer and white, the shafts made by binding together thick strips from the stem of a giant mushroom and soaking them in—what? something—until they were hard. And then something was wrapped around the end. A cloth, soaked in something-or-other, or a greasy bag of dry fungus, or something. That was what burned. But he didn’t know the details. Besides, without a torch, how could he find a bloodfruit tree or a giant mushroom? And how could he find the right fungus, and dry it, if that was what you were supposed to do? No. He could not make a torch, no more than he could find one.

  Annelyn was frightened. He began to shake. Why was he down here, why, why? He could be up among the yaga-la-hai, in flamesilk and spidergray, bantering with Caralee or munching spiced spiders at a masque. Now, instead of munching, he was likely to be munched. By the grouns, if they found him, or by the Meatbringer. He remembered vividly the way the Meatbringer had quaffed the cup full of Vermyllar’s lifeblood.

  The thought sent Annelyn to his feet. The Meatbringer would be coming for him. He must go somewhere, even if he could not see where. Frantic, with one hand he pulled loose his stiletto while with the other he felt for the reassuring wall, and he began to walk.

  The burrow was endlessly black, and full of terrors. The wall was the only sanity, cool and firm beside him, with its fists and its air ducts where they should be. The rest—there were sounds around him, rustlings and scurryings, and he was never sure if he imagined them or not. Often, in the long walk toward nothing, he thought he heard the Meatbringer laughing, laughing just as he had at the Sun Masque so long ago. He heard it dimly and far-off, above him, below him, behind him. Once he heard it in front of him, and stopped, and held his breath and waited for an hour or perhaps a week without once moving, but there was no one there at all. After a time Annelyn saw lights too; vague shadowy shapes and drifting globes and crouching things that glowed and ran away. Or did he only think he saw them? They were always distant, or just around some bend, or glowing behind him and not there when he turned to see. He spied a dozen torches, off ahead of him, burning bright and crackling with hope, but each was snatched away or snuffed before he could run to it. He found only empty bronze fists, when he found anything at all.

  He was walking very fast now, even running, and his footsteps echoed deafeningly, as if an army of the yaga-la-hai were trotting into battle. Annelyn didn’t remember when he had begun to run; he was simply doing it, to keep ahead of the sounds, to reach the lights in front of him, and it seemed as if he had been doing it for a long while.

  He had been running and running and running for what
seemed like days when he lost the wall.

  One moment his hand was on it, brushing the stone and the rusted teeth of the air-duct grills. Then nothing, and his hand was flailing in air, and he stumbled and fell.

  It was dark. There were no lights. It was silent. There was no sound. The echoes had died. He was completely turned around. Where was he? What way had he been going? He had lost his knife.

  He began to crawl, and finally he found the knife where it had dropped. Then he stood, his arms groping ahead of him, and walked toward where the wall should be. It wasn’t there. He walked longer than he should have had to. Where had the wall gone? If this was only a junction, something should be there.

  Annelyn had an idea. “Help!” he shouted, as loudly as he could. Echoes sounded, loud and then softer, bouncing, fading. His throat was very dry. He was not in a burrow. He had come out into some great chamber. He started to count his footsteps. He had reached three hundred, and lost count, when he finally came to a wall.

  He felt it carefully, exploring it with his hands. It was very smooth; not stone at all, but some kind of metal. Parts of it were cool, others faintly warm, and there were one or two places—little spots no bigger than his fingernail—that seemed cold to the touch, almost icy. Annelyn decided to risk a match. Its brief flame showed him only a blank expanse of dull metal, stretching away to both sides of him. Nothing else. Nothing to indicate why some sections were warmer than others.

  The match went out. Annelyn put the box away again, and began to follow the strange wall. The temperature patterns continued for a time, then stopped, then resumed again, then stopped. His footsteps echoed loudly. And his hand found no fists, no air ducts.

  Exhausted at last, hoping that he had come far enough from the Meatbringer, he sank down to rest. He slept. And woke when something touched him.

  The stiletto was beside him. Annelyn screamed and reached for it and struck all in the same instant, and he felt the blade cut something—cloth? Flesh? He didn’t know. He was on his feet then, jabbing this way and that with his stiletto. Then, jumping around and whirling in circles, fighting vacant darkness, he began to fumble in his pocket for a match. He found one, and struck it.

  The groun shrieked.

  Annelyn saw it briefly in the light before it stepped back into the infinite black that surrounded him. A low crouching thing it was, covered by white skin and limp, colorless hair, dressed in gray rags. Its two rear limbs and one of its center pair were supporting it, and it was reaching for Annelyn with its two arms and the other center limb. Its arms and legs and the middle limbs, whatever you should call them, were all too long by a good foot, and too thin, and this particular groun was holding something in one of them, a net or something. Annelyn guessed what that was for. Its eyes were the worst thing, because they weren’t eyes at all; they were pits in the face where eyes should be, soft, dark, moist pits that somehow let the grouns see in total darkness.

  Annelyn faced the groun for less than a second, then jumped forward, swinging the stiletto and throwing the match at the creature. But the groun was already gone, after one short shriek and a moment of indecision. He could imagine it circling him, getting ready to cast that net, seeing everything he did although he could see nothing. He danced around inanely, trying to face all directions at once, and he lit another match. Nothing. Then he froze, hoping to hear the groun and stab it. Nothing. Grouns had big, soft, padded feet, he remembered, and they moved very softly.

  Annelyn began to run.

  He had no idea where he was going, but he had to go. He could not fight the groun, not without a torch or some light to see by, and it would get him if he stood still, but maybe he could outrun it. After all, he had hurt it with that first stab.

  He ran through the darkness, his knife in one pumping fist, praying to the White Worm that he would not run into a wall, or the Meatbringer or a groun. He ran until he was breathless again. And then, quite suddenly, there was no floor beneath him.

  He fell, screaming. Then the darkness drew deeper, deeper, and Annelyn had not even fear to light his way. He had nothing at all.

  * * *

  He and Vermyllar were standing together outside the great iron doors to the High Burrow of the Manworm. Groff was there too, death-still in his bronze armor, standing the ancient guard: But on the other side of the chamber doors, no knight stood, only a huge stuffed groun. It was twice the size of an ordinary groun, hideous and white, its two upper limbs frozen in a menacing, grasping pose.

  “A horrible thing,” Vermyllar said, shuddering.

  Annelyn smiled at him. “Ah,” he said lightly, “but so easy to make it beautiful!”

  Vermyllar frowned. “No. What are you talking of, Annelyn? You can’t make a groun beautiful. My grandfather was a son of the Manworm, and I know. There is no way.”

  “Nonsense,” said Annelyn. “It is simple. To make a groun supremely beautiful, cover him.”

  “Cover him?”

  “Yes. With mushroom sauce.”

  And Vermyllar grimaced, then chuckled despite himself, and it was a very fine moment. Except . . . except . . . just then the big groun came alive and chased them down the tunnel and ate Vermyllar, while Annelyn fled screaming.

  * * *

  The grouns were all around him, closing in slowly, their long thin arms groping and waving evilly as they advanced on him despite his torch. “No,” Annelyn kept saying, “no, you can’t come any farther, you can’t, you are afraid of light.” But the grouns, the eyeless blind grouns, paid no mind to his pleas or his torch. They came in and in, crouching and swaying, moaning rhythmically. At the last moment, Annelyn remembered that he had a skin of mushroom sauce at his belt, which would surely scatter them in terror, since everyone knew how grouns felt about mushroom sauce. But before he could reach it to throw at them, the soft white hands had him, and he was being lifted and carried off into the darkness.

  * * *

  He was bound to a wheeled table, heavy metal shackles around his wrists and ankles, and there was pain, pain, horrible pain. He raised his head, slowly and with great difficulty, and saw that he was in the Chamber of the Changemasters. The Meatbringer, awash in the dim purplish illumination, was kneeling at the foot of the table, gnawing on his ankle. The cloak he wore looked strangely like Vermyllar.

  * * *

  The visions faded. Annelyn was in darkness once more. He lay on a rough floor of rocks and dust and dirt, and sharp pieces of stone were jabbing him uncomfortably in a hundred places. His ankle throbbed. He sat up, and touched it, and finally satisfied himself that it was only turned, not broken. Then he checked the rest of his body. The bones all seemed intact, and his matches were still there, thank the Worm. But his knife was gone, lost somewhere in the run or the fall.

  Where was he?

  He stood, and felt his head brush a low ceiling. His ankle screamed at him, and he shifted his weight to the other foot as much as he could, and put out a hand to lean against the wall. It was all soft and crumbly, disintegrating under his touch. This was an odd burrow, a burrow of dirt instead of stone or metal. And uneven—Annelyn groped ahead hesitantly, took a step or two, and found that both ceiling and floor were woefully irregular.

  Where was he?

  Somehow he had fallen down here, he remembered. There had been a hole in the floor of the immense chamber, and he had been running from the groun, and suddenly he was here. Perhaps the grouns had found him and carried him to this place, but that seemed unlikely. They would have killed him. No, more likely the hole had slanted at some point, and he had been knocked unconscious, and rolled down the slope. Something on that order. At any rate, there was no hole above his head now. Only dry, crumbling ceiling, and bits of rock that showered his head when he moved.

  A new fear came to him then; this burrow was soft, so very soft and dry. What if it fell in on him? Then he would be truly trapped, with no way out, ever. But where could he go?

  One thing was certain; he could not stay here. The air was
hotter and thicker than he liked, and he had not noticed any air ducts in these dust-dry walls. And he was hungry, too. How long had he been down here? Was it only this morning that he and Riess and Vermyllar had set out down the Undertunnel? Or a week ago? When had he last eaten, or drunk? He wasn’t sure.

  Annelyn began to walk, limping and favoring his sore ankle, feeling his way before him, crouching half the time when the ceiling dropped lower. Twice he hit his head on overhanging spears of stone, despite his careful progress. The bumps on his skull distracted him from his aching ankle.

  Before long, the passage began to change. The walls, once dry, became faintly moist and then distinctly damp. But they remained soft—Annelyn could sink his fist into them, and squeeze the cool soil between his fingers. His boots sank deep into the floor with every step, and made squishing, sucking sounds when he pulled them free. But the air was no cleaner; it was growing thicker and more heavy and Annelyn had begun to consider reversing his direction. He thought he smelled something.

  He decided to strike a match.

  The flame burned for only a minute, but that was long enough for Annelyn. Something dark and feral chittered behind him, and he turned in time to see it briefly before it slid into the darkness: an eyeless furred shadow on many legs. There was a spiderweb hanging on a slant from roof to wall just behind him; he had broken it in passing with a clumsy, wandering hand. The spider was absent, perhaps eaten by some other denizen of the burrow. The walls on both sides of him were pockmarked by what looked like wormholes of all sizes. He lifted one foot, and saw that his boot was covered by a dozen small gray slugs, busily trying to chew through the tough leather. Before his match guttered out, Annelyn had plucked most of them free. They clung and made soft pops when he pulled them loose, and he crushed them between thumb and forefinger. Then he ate them. The taste was bitter, nothing like the subtle flavor of the fat slugs the yaga-la-hai served at their masques, and Annelyn reflected dourly that they might well poison him. But he was hungry, and the juices moistened his dusty throat.