In the House of the Worm by George R. R. Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

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