His match burned out, and Annelyn decided to proceed. Here, at least, he had found life; behind him was only dry death. He could always turn around later if the air became much worse.
And it did become worse, as did the smell, which soon filled the burrow with a cloying sweetness that had Annelyn close to gagging. The sweetness of rot; ahead of him, something was dead in the tunnel.
He stumbled on, blind, wrinkling up his nose and trying to breathe through his mouth. He prayed to the White Worm that he could get past whatever had died.
Then he stepped in it.
One moment he was walking in damp clinging soil; the next, he felt something leathery split under his boot and he was ankle deep in mush and viscous liquid. The odor assaulted him with renewed vigor, fresh and horribly strong. Annelyn retched up the slugs he had just eaten and reeled backward, pulling free his foot.
When he had finished heaving, he leaned against the burrow wall, holding his nose, gasping, and with his free hand he found and struck a match. Then he bent forward, to see what it was. His hand was unsteady; he could hardly see anything but the match flame at first. He came closer.
The White Worm himself lay rotting in the burrow.
Annelyn drew back, frightened, and the match went out. But he lit another and recovered his nerve. Before he was finished, he had used at least ten matches; each served to illuminate only a part of the long carcass.
The worm—it was not the White Worm after all, Annelyn finally decided, though it was certainly bigger than anything he’d ever encountered—was far gone in its decay, past the peak of its ripeness, for which Annelyn was profoundly grateful. Even the ghost of its putrefaction was bad enough. Though shrunken in death, it filled the burrow three-quarters full, so that Annelyn had to hug the wall to squeeze by it. A thousand lesser worms and other wriggling things had feasted on its immense corpse, and a few still remained; Annelyn could see them crawling around inside, through the great worm’s milky translucent skin.
The skin was part of the terror. Most of the monster’s meat had decomposed into noxious fluids or had been consumed by the scavengers, but the skin was intact. It was like thick leather, cracked and brittle now, but still formidable. Not easy for an enemy to cut through. That was part of the terror, yes.
The mouth was another part. Annelyn saw it briefly by matchlight, and wasted a second match to be sure. It had teeth. Rings of them, five concentric rings each narrower than the one before, in a circular mouth large enough to swallow a man’s head and shoulders. The inner rings were bone, ordinary bone, and that was bad enough, but the outermost ring, the greatest—the teeth were bluish black, glinting like . . . like . . . metal?
That was the second part of the terror.
The final part was its size. Annelyn measured it, match by match, step by step, struggling to get by, struggling not to choke. The worm was at least twenty feet long.
He wasted no more matches when the corpse was behind him. He plunged forward as quickly as he could, blundering noisily through the dark until the smell was only an unpleasant memory and he could breathe again. Sometime during his rush forward, Annelyn realized why this burrow was so strange. A wormhole. He giggled insanely. It must be a wormhole.
When the blackness was once again a clean blackness, he slowed down. There was nothing to do but press onward, after all.
He was remembering something strange the Meatbringer had said when he had been babbling about the Changemasters. Something about “huge white eaterworms, who multiply and grow more terrible every day.” It hadn’t made any particular sense then. Now, now it did. The Meatbringer had been talking of the Changemasters, of things they brought into the world to afflict the grouns. The thing that lay behind him was indeed an affliction. For the first time in his life, Annelyn felt sorrow for the grouns.
The burrow turned. He felt ahead of him and followed it around.
Then Annelyn saw a light.
He blinked, but it did not vanish; it was a small thing, a purplish glow so dark it almost blended with the blackness, but by now his eyes were very sharp for any trace of light at all. Not hurrying, he began to walk toward it, never daring to hope.
The light did not fade. It swelled as he drew nearer, growing steadily larger though scarcely any brighter. He could see nothing by it, nothing but the light itself, so dim was its glow.
After a time he saw that it was round. The end of the burrow. The wormhole came out somewhere.
When it had grown to man size and was still there, only then did Annelyn take heart and begin to tremble. He ran the last few feet, to the glowing violet circle of freedom, the magic portal that would restore his vision. He held the burrow walls with both hands as he looked through, and down.
Then he was very still indeed.
Below him was a huge chamber, bigger than the Chamber of the Changemasters. His wormhole had come out high above the floor, a round gap in a hard stone wall. He could see a hundred other wormholes with a glance, and things moving in some of them, and he could imagine a hundred others. The ceiling, the walls, the floor, all were covered by thick fungus, like that in the Meatbringer’s throne room. Purple, purple, thick as a haze and ominous; the room was suffused with the vague glow of the omnipresent growth.
Annelyn barely noticed it.
There was a great tank, too, full of some liquid, and globes in the ceiling that dripped some other substance, and air ducts where ropes of fungus swayed in the hot breeze, but Annelyn took little note of them. He was watching the worms.
Eaterworms. Giants forty feet long, smaller ones like the corpse he had encountered, dead ones, and a million writhing younglings. The chamber was a nest of eaterworms, a breeding tank and nursery for the monsters. But not a prison. Not for creatures that could chew through stone, not for these nightmares with translucent flesh and iron teeth. Annelyn made the sign of the worm, then realized what he had done, and giggled. He was a dead man.
He stood despairing while shadowy shapes slid through the moist purple gloom beneath him.
But at last he began to think again. None of the things seemed to be coming toward him. He had escaped their notice, at least for now, and that fanned his tiny fire of hope. He would use whatever moments were left to him. His eyes strained, as he studied the bowl-like chamber.
Dimly, across the room, he saw lines running up and down the walls, bulging beneath the fungus, crossing on the ceiling, branching from the globes. Pipes, he thought, water pipes. The yaga-la-hai knew water pipes. But the knowledge was useless to him.
Other shapes, made vague and hulking by distance and growth, sat still on the floor. The worms moved over them, between them. Annelyn thought he saw metal, overgrown by purple, but he lost it quickly. No matter; it would do him no good.
On the curve of the right-hand wall, he could make out a gleam beneath a coat of fungus. His eyes followed it. There were outlines. More pipes? No. There was a design. It came clear. It was a theta, with wormholes all around it.
Annelyn touched the golden theta embroidered on his breast. Perhaps that was why the eaterworms had not attacked him. What was it that the Meatbringer had said? That the Changemasters had shaped the great worms and other horrors, that the Changemasters wore the theta, that they were the best champions of the yaga-la-hai and the worst enemies of the grouns . . . . Could it be that the monsters ate only grouns? That they thought him a Changemaster, and thus left him alone?
Annelyn couldn’t believe it. A few strings of golden thread could not possibly stay those things. Annelyn looked at the right-hand wall again, then dismissed the subject from his mind.
He continued his examination of the murky chamber. And, one by one, he found the exits.
There were three of them, one on each wall. A fourth one, perhaps, lay below him, but the angle made it impossible to see. The doors to each were double, and they looked metallic. The one to the right was the closest; it lay just under the theta shape. He could make out its details, very faintly. He saw shafts, th
ick bars of metal running across the door, blocking it. Bolts.
Rusted in place, he thought. For how long? Impossible to move. Yet, what other answer was there? All the other ways out were wormholes; even those that looked vacant would be groun-black just a few feet away from this chamber. He would risk blundering into an eaterworm in the darkness. Anything would be better than that.
But if he stayed here, eventually he would starve, or the worms would finally notice him. He had to go either forward or back.
He knew what lay behind. The dead worm’s hole was safe enough, but beyond it lay only the vast chamber and the grouns, the infinite empty blackness. He could never find the tunnel that had led him there. He would never get back.
Annelyn sighed. He had been so long in darkness. He was tired, and conscious of a change that lay like a weight on his shoulders. He had forgotten the Meatbringer and the question of revenge. He was doomed, no matter what he did. The grouns, the Changemasters, the Third People—what difference did any of it make?
Once, at a half-remembered masque, he had called himself a freethinker. But now the ancient worship words came back to him, the mockingly obscure rote that the Manworm had intoned so often, so wearily. It had always seemed odd, in parts meaningless. But now the phrases seemed to speak to him; they danced macabre dances in his head, and came bubbling to his lips. In a hopeless voice, he began to mouth them, very quietly, much as Riess (old fat dead Riess) might have done in his place.
“The White Worm has many names,” he said, unmoving, “and the children of men have cursed them all in the centuries behind us. But we are the worm-children, and we do not curse them. He cannot be fought. His is the final power in the universe, and the wise man accepts his coming, to dance and feast in what time there is left.
“So praise the White Worm, whose name is Yaggalla. And grieve not, though our lights burn dim and die.
“So praise the White Worm, whose name is Decay. And grieve not, though our energy fades and fails:
“So praise the White Worm, whose name is Death. And grieve not, though life’s circle tightens and all things perish.
“So praise the White Worm, whose name is Entropy. And grieve not, though the sun goes out.
“An ending comes. Feast. The ships are gone. Drink. The struggling times are over. Dance. And praise, praise, to the White Worm.”
Silence; Annelyn eyed the long, pale wrigglers moving below. How foolish it was to prolong things. The struggling times were over. He would go forward.
He tried to grab a handhold in the fungus that fringed his wormhole, but there was no strength to it, and it ripped free in his hand. So nothing remained but to jump, and hope that his legs would not crack and splinter, hope that the beckoning carpet below would prove as comforting as it looked. Annelyn turned and lowered himself; he looked down past his feet, and when the floor seemed clear enough of writhing life, he dropped.
And landed jarringly, though he tried to flex his legs under him. The growth was thick, layers on layers, waist deep; it softened his fall, but it also sent his feet skidding out from under him, and he tripped and fell in a tangle of purple threads. When he rose, on edge but unhurt, bits of glowing fungus clung to his burrow-black clothing.
Abruptly his immunity ended. A worm the size of his leg slid toward him, its mouth rippling rhythmically. Annelyn kicked free and brought his boot down on the attacker, as savagely as he could. His damaged ankle reminded him forcefully that he should not be doing such things. But the worm was forced down through the living purple mat and squashed against the floor. Its skin did not seem as thick or as strong as that of its larger cousins.
Other worms were moving beneath the fungus, pale writhings that Annelyn barely saw. One of the giants had noticed him now; it moved toward him, over the sleeping body of another. Annelyn glanced around hurriedly; worms were converging from all sides.
But the wall was only a few feet away. And the fourth door, the one he had prayed would be there. It was shut and overgrown like the others, but he would not have to walk on a hundred worms to reach it.
He struggled over to it, and felt a sharp jolt of pain just as he collapsed against the metal. A small eaterworm was boring into his thigh. Annelyn ripped it loose, whirled it around his head, and flung it spinning across the length of the chamber, to splatter on the side of the large tank. He turned back to the exit, and wildly began to rip loose fungus. There were three bolts. With the heel of his hand he hammered upward at the topmost bolt, once, twice, three times, and the heavy metal shaft finally moved an inch. Another smash, and the rust that had welded it to its brackets gave; it came free in his hands.
He turned, holding the length of metal like a club, and brought it down hard on the nearest of the eaterworms. The blow broke skin, but barely, barely; it was an old worm, as large as Annelyn. It oozed, and turned aside, colliding with one slightly larger. It did not die.
He could not fight them. He swung the club once more, then went back to the door. The middle bolt came free after three sharp knocks. The lowest shaft proved an illusion; it disintegrated into flakes of fungus-eaten rust when Annelyn wrapped his hands around it. Frantic, he pounded at the length of metal between the brackets until it fell apart, and the door was free. Something bit him. He screamed and pulled at the handles, and they came loose in his hands, but the door moved only a fraction of an inch. Then he scrabbled madly with his fingers, tearing loose a nail, wedging his hands into the slim black crack until he had purchase. He could feel the monsters behind him. With all his strength, he pulled backward.
The hinges screamed, the metal creaked, while fungus worked against him to keep the door shut. But it moved, it moved! An inch, two, then six all at once. That was enough for Annelyn. He flattened himself and held his breath and squeezed through, into the quiet dark beyond. Then he threw himself to the floor, rolling over and over and thrashing up and down, until the worm that had clung to him was only a slimy paste that coated his clothes.
When he got up, he struck a match. He did not look back at the purple hell beyond the narrow opening he had forced.
He was in a very small chamber, solid metal, round, dark. Before him was another door, also of metal, and round. In its center was a wheel.
His match went out. Fungus still hung from his besoiled garments and his fine blond hair, and more was scattered on the floor, glowing dimly. Annelyn pulled at the wheel. Nothing. He tried turning it, but it would not move. Beside it was a metal bar, in a slit. That refused to move also, until he put all his weight on it and forced it down. Then he could turn the wheel, though it spun slowly and with difficulty.
Annelyn was drenched in sweat, and the metal was moist with the wetness of his palms. But it was not rusted, he suddenly realized. It was dark and strong and cool, like something newly pulled from the forges of the bronze knights.
Hissing suddenly began, all around him. He stopped, startled, and looked over his shoulder, but none of the eaterworms had yet squeezed through, so he went back to the wheel. When it would turn no more, he pulled, and the door swung smoothly outward on its huge hinges. The hissing grew louder, and Annelyn was buffeted by a tremendous gush of moist air, rushing forward from behind him.
Then he was through, pulling the door shut. It was pitch dark again; the little fungus fragments that hung on him became worms’ eyes in the blackness. But better this than risk the chamber of the eaterworms again.
His matches again. The match box rattled despairingly when Annelyn shook it. He counted the remaining matches by feeling with his fingers. A dozen left, if that; his fingers kept losing track, and he might have counted the same match twice. He chose one, grateful for its brief light.
He was standing less than a foot from a groun.
Annelyn moved, backward, in a leap. There was no sound. He came forward again, holding the flame before him like a weapon. The groun was still there. Frozen. And there was something between them. He touched it. Glass. Feeling infinitely easier, he began to move the match
up and down. He lit another, and explored further.
A whole wall of grouns!
Annelyn briefly considered trying to shatter the glass and eat one of the imprisoned grouns, but discarded the idea. They were clearly stuffed; they had probably been here for more years than he had lived. And they were unusual grouns, at that. Males and females alternated, and each in the long row was partially flayed, a section of its skin peeled back to reveal inside. A different section on each groun, at that. There were also statues of grouns and groun skulls, and a six-limbed skeleton. The last groun was the most singular. Though colorless, its garments were as fine and rich as any of the yaga-la-hai. On its head was a metal helmet, such as a bronze knight might wear, all of black metal with a thin red window curving around the front for its eyes. And it held something, pointing it.
A tube of some sort, fashioned of the same black metal as the helmet. Strangest of all, both helmet and tube were emblazoned with silver thetas.
Annelyn used four of his matches examining the row of grouns, hoping to find something that would help him. He had so few left, but it was foolish to hoard them now. Finding nothing, he crossed the room, groping for the other wall. He tripped over a table, went around it, and collided with another. They were both empty. Finally he felt glass again.
This wall was full of worms.
Like the grouns, they were dead, or stuffed, or cased in the glass; Annelyn did not care which it was, so long as they did not move. A four-foot-long eaterworm dominated the display, but there were dozens of others as well. Most of them were unknown to him, though he had eaten worms all his life. They had one thing in common: they looked dangerous. A lot of them had teeth, which Annelyn found very disquieting. A few wore what looked like stings in their tails.
He explored the rest of the chamber; it was long and narrow, sheathed in metal, seemingly untouched by time, and capped by a large, wheeled door at each end. A lot of tables were scattered about, and metal chairs, but nothing of interest to Annelyn. Once he came across something shaped like a torch, but the shaft was metal and the head glass, totally useless. Perhaps he could fill the glass part with the glowing fungus, he thought. He tucked the instrument under his arm. Other things he found as well, bulking pillars and shapes of metal and glass, vaguely like those he had seen shattered on the edge of the bridge in the Chamber of the Last Light, and in the Meatbringer’s throne room. He could not fathom their purpose.