In the House of the Worm Read Online Free PDF Page A

beckoning squares of the tunnels they passed, the endless corroded fists, row on row, the carpets of dust that lay thick in some places and were strangely absent in others. Noises, too, he heard, as he had when they waited for the Meatbringer: soft mutters and softer footsteps, growls, the stirring of impossible cold winds in tunnels not chosen, and a dim, distant rumble like nothing he had ever imagined. Real noises, phantoms, fevers of a nervous brain—Annelyn did not know. He only knew that he heard them, so that the empty burrows seemed to fill with dark and unseen life.
    There was no talk. They went down and around until Annelyn had lost track of their turnings. They descended twisted stone stairways, climbed down rusted ladders in echoing empty wells (always afraid that the rungs would snap), passed wide, slanted ramps, and vast galleries that swallowed the light of their torch, and furnished chambers where all the furniture was covered with dust and worm-rich rot. Once they walked through a high-ceilinged room much like a mushroom farm; but here the water-runs were dry and empty, and the long, sunken growing tanks held only a foul-smelling fungus that glowed a faint and evil green. Another hall they found was rich with tapestries, but each of the hangings was a gray rag that came apart at the touch.
    The noises went ahead of them. Always.
    Groff spoke only once, when they had stopped at the end of a bricked-in tunnel and were preparing to descend another of the round, black wells. “There are no grouns left,” he muttered, more to himself than to them. “These are the places they once swarmed, and now they are empty.” He shook his head, and his face was troubled. “The Meatbringer goes deep.”
    Neither Annelyn nor Riess replied. They found the rungs, and began to climb down. Then there were more tunnels.
    Finally, though, they seemed to lose the way. At first the noise was ahead of them—Vermyllar’s sobs, holding steady—but suddenly the sound grew less. Groff muttered something, and the three of them walked back to the last turning and chose another burrow. But they had gone only a few steps into the blackness when they lost the sound altogether. Back again they went, and into a third path; it proved silent and bricked-in.
    “This was the right way,” Groff insisted when they returned yet again to the junction, “the way we went first, though the noise did dwindle.” He led them back, and they heard Vermyllar again, but once again the sound began to fade after they had followed it a short way.
    Groff turned and paced down the tunnel. “Come,” he said, and Riess hurried to his side with the torch. The knight was standing next to an air duct, its breath warm around them. The torch flame danced. Annelyn saw that the duct had no gridding. Then Groff reached inside. “A rope,” he whispered.
    Suddenly Annelyn realized that the sounds were coming from the shaft.
    Groff fixed his ax to his belt, gripped the rope with both huge hands, and swung into the plunging dark. “Follow,” he ordered; then, hand under hand, he vanished below. Riess looked at Annelyn, his eyes frightened, questioning.
    “Spidersilk, no doubt,” Annelyn said. “It will be strong. Put out the torch and come after.” Then he, too, took the jerking rope.
    The shaft was warm, but not as warm as Annelyn had imagined; he did not burn. It was also narrower than he had thought; when he grew tired, he could brace his knees against one side and his back against the other, resting for a moment. The rope had a life of its own, with Groff climbing below him and Riess above, but it was strong and new and easy to hold onto.
    Finally, his feet kicked free; another level had been reached, and another grid was gone. Groff grabbed him and helped him out, and both of them helped struggling, panting Riess.
    They were in a small junction, where three tunnels met at the huge metal doors of a great chamber. But Annelyn saw in a glance that the rope was