“I await.” With a wet, sucking sound the Worm began to withdraw into the damp earth. It would lie there, Hymneth knew, with only its head above the surface, until the promised unfortunates were brought. Cast into the Pit, they would be pierced by the creature’s mouth parts, their internal organs and muscles and flesh liquefied, and the consequent putrid, gelatinous mush sucked out. No one could complain, Hymneth mused virtuously, that his dungeons suffered from overcrowding.
As he climbed upward, the two eromakadi reluctantly left the last of the surviving fungi to accompany him, impenetrable black clouds that hovered at his heels. Occasionally they would show very small, slanted red eyes, but most of the time they kept themselves as black as pitch. Visitors who knew what they represented were as terrified by their silence as by their shapes.
Hymneth had mounted nearly to the top of the corkscrewing stairwell when a voice, pure and melodious as the golden bells of a benign spirit, called down to him accusingly.
“So this is where you spend your time. In the depths of the Earth, consorting with demons!”
Taken aback by the unexpected intrusion, he tilted his head to peer upward. High above him, a portrait of beauty unsurpassed gazed down. Not even the look of utter disgust on her face could mar the perfection of her countenance.
“My beloved Themaryl, this is business of state! Nothing more. I converse in the depths. I do not consort.”
Her face furrowed with loathing. “You smell of things diseased and rotting. I thought—I thought we might talk, so I sought you out. I’m glad that I did, for it gave me the chance to see yet again your true self!” With that she whirled and fled upward, back to her rooms, back to the tower that she had made a prison for herself.