In an infinite universe, everything is repeated somewhere else. Within The Worm, however, gods don`t have the luxury of infinity. They are the line cooks of the multiverse pantheon. They need designs that work, so they borrow what`s been rolled out on other planes of existence.

　　Of course, every now and again there comes along a god, an eccentric type, that wants to shuffle animal parts around for fun, or who gets a bit loose with the reset button. That`s fine when the pantheon can`t agree on a direction to go, or are bored of current affairs. But to pay the bills, you need something sentient, and sentience starts with a solid foundation of a few hardy forms in the ocean. Brains don`t exist in a vacuum. They require a carefully maintained world ecology in order to flourish.

　　And that is where this story starts. In the ocean. With a hermit crab, specifically.

　　He peeked out from his hiding spot among the coral, a small cubby in the living rock. This quiet community had a peaceable day-life, allowing the herbivores, decomposers, and filter feeders their time in the sunlight. The grasses were green, the fish were bright and lively, and the more sedentary forms were showing off. Polyps waved tiny tempting tendrils while clownfish darted in and out of their symbiotic dwellings. Come night, however, when the predators had the advantage, this proud and colorful day-life would disappear with the sun or risk being eaten. A hermit crab without its protective shell was practically a dine-and-dash meal.

　　A school of sparkling fish rushed by, startling him back inside.

　　The growth on the walls of his nook, a fine film of some primordial organic life, provided the crab with a minor distraction. He scratched at it idly, cleaning the scraping off his pincer. This was more to calm his nerves than for nourishment, as the earlier peek hadn`t been fruitful. He hadn`t spotted any available homes. The search would continue, and that meant leaving the relative safety of his nook.

　　A hiding spot like this was good, of course. It was small and out of the way. He might even remember it for later, when he could return with a nice, tough shell on his back. But as it was, a nook like this wouldn`t deter a wandering eel, or a hungry octopus. Any snout-nosed carnivore that sensed him in the cubby would have him in an instant as well.

　　He would have to make a run for it through the open water. The stuff he had nibbled from the wall put him in mind of a more substantial snack, and he had spotted a lump of brown kelp not too far away. A hiding spot, if not as sturdy as a coral cubby, that may nonetheless contain a new home. The tides washed kelp into knots all the time, usually around a nucleus of detritus. With a little bit of pincer-grease, the odds of a new home and a full belly were equally likely.

　　There was a lull in the reef activity. It was time to act.

　　The crab took a great leap from his hiding spot, falling slowly and softly, landing on sand that swirled where his spindly legs touched it. He bounded along, propelled by his paddle fins, as though on the surface of some small planet. Shifting hypnotic patterns moved erratically over the gentle ridges and slopes that made up the floor of the reef. The tangle of kelp lay dead-ahead.

　　He did not notice the large shadow keeping pace behind him.

　　Paddling furiously, the crab skipped off the ground for long glides. Swimming like this would be impossible with a heavy conch or cowrie on his back. For one, his paddle fins would be inside, useless as propellers. It was his one saving grace for this vulnerable time between homes, which unfortunately didn`t give him an edge over the ruthlessly efficient hunters with whom his species competed. Compared to the sleek and efficient forms of his predators, he swam like a brick.

　　One such creature was gaining on the exposed hermit crab, preparing to strike.

　　Claw touched kelp, and he clung to the mound. After only a moment to test it, finding the kelp dense, woven, and with no immediate entrance, he glanced around, spotting the creature.

　　A nurse shark was almost upon him.

　　Scrabbling among the surface of the mound, it proved to be no salvation. The strands were suspiciously tight. Cutting through them would take minutes, far beyond his remaining life expectancy. He prayed a little crabby prayer, facing down the toothed maw of certain doom.

　　That was when the mound shifted. It rolled over, covering the crab.

　　The shark swerved, suddenly cautious.

　　The kelp tangle sat up, proving to be a bearded creature. A gnome, in fact, rousing from sleep. He had been disturbed by a persistent scrabbling. Yawning and stretching, the crab clung tightly to what turned out to be a sleeve of a kelp robe.

　　Gnomes on the bolas are not known for their aquatic aptitude, being a land-dwelling race, with this one being an exception. The circling nurse shark recognized him as her friend, and caretaker of the reef, Amerigo.

　　He held up his arm, a naked hermit crab dangling from it, and studied it as he tugged his lengthy beard. The shark pressed herself into his side. He smiled at this interruption by his companion Saethru, and patted her rough skin. The crab was now securely in his care, and she respectfully gave up the hunt.

　　Here was a gnome who had abandoned the trappings of civilized life. In exchange for tending and protecting the coral community, he was permitted the means to live in this submersed hermitage. Now with a creature in need of his help, he set to work. This crab needed a home if it were to have any chance at survival. Through sylvan empathy, or merely deciding for himself, Amerigo discerned the crab`s name was Fen, and that he was rightfully scared of exposure.

　　The gnome removed his kelp hat, a simple conical thing the same material as his robe, and scratched his head. Amerigo patted about his person, but he had no shells. There seemed to be none lying around. But Amerigo had connections.

　　A coral reef was a community, and thus was comprised of specialized but interdependent individuals. The coral itself, which comprised the body of the reef, filtered the water for sedimentary particles and micro-organisms, converting the sun`s rays into energy. The parrotfish, for one example, would eat the overgrown and dead coral, demolishing over-reaching or unused segments of the community. Cleaners, like the many tiny shrimps and specialized fishes, made a living off the build-up of everyday life. Homes were dug into sand and established in crevices. Schools taxied swimmers safely through the reefs, and crabs supplanted small anemone or sponges on their backs, for a joint venture in mobility and protection.

　　Everyone relied on one another, working together in what looked from the outside a chaotic frenzy, but which was innately organized and delicately balanced.

　　Amerigo knew Orlith. If anyone would have a home for Fen, it would be that beach-combing octopus. Orlith lived on the edge of the reef and had a tendency to not only keep the remains of his meal, he would also wander the byways of the community to collect interesting bits of garbage. Anything from naturally occurring crab molts, scallop shells, and sand-dollars, but also artifacts from the surface world. Coincidentally, remnants of a bygone era of Amerigo`s life.

　　He placed Fen under his cap. Out of sight, out of harm. Not everyone was as respectful as Saethru. Then, the group made their way to Orlith`s.

　　Amerigo navigated the passages through the coral like one would their own neighborhood. Accompanied by Saethru, the creatures at first withdrew in anticipation of their passage, not wanting to advertise. Amerigo took no mind, and the public attitude began to change.

　　An angelfish joined them.

　　It was followed by a prospective wrasse, looking to clean.

　　Others joined, either looking to move with safety in numbers, or simply to get a good look at the procession. Before long, Amerigo had a motley school escorting him, and he spun lazily in their midst. The labyrinthine coral, the walls of which extended upwards like city buildings, eight to twelve feet tall. He could have swam high over the complex, saving time and avoiding attention, instead of taking the twisting paths through it. But instead Amerigo chose to swim down in the tutti-fruity colors, involving himself with the boundless life that came forth like a wellspring in this little oasis in the ocean.

　　Eventually, the novelty of the traveling group wore off. Each fish eventually peeled away, arriving at their destination or becoming distracted by some lure. The three arrived at Orlith`s home by themselves, and Amerigo discovered the octopus was not there.

　　This would turn out to make raiding his collection much easier. When he returned from combing, or whatever it was he was out doing, he likely wouldn`t notice anything missing. Amerigo could gift him something later, if only to satisfy his own conscience.

　　He explored the dwelling. The entrance was too small for him, but he could reach in a hand all the way to his shoulder. The floor was littered with objects, which Amerigo started removing at random. He pulled out an iridescent moon shell, a spiny comb shell, a sea-smoothed broken bottle, a bone smoking pipe, and a gold shoe buckle, laying them on the sand beside him.

　　Keeping an eye out for a returning octopus, he put his cap, carrying Fen, on the ground, and then put the bottle and shoe buckle back inside. All that was left was the pretty moon shell, the menacing comb shell, and the intricately carved smoking pipe.

　　After being sent rolling about in the moon shell, and the spines on the comb shell keeping him from crawling, Fen tried the pipe. The stem bobbed as he scuttled, but was otherwise convenient and sound. It was large enough for Fen to duck inside, and the bone bowl would serve as well as any shell to protect him.

　　Fen had found a suitable home. Amerigo returned the rejected shells back to the dwelling.

　　As he considered where to return the pipe crab, not wanting to abandon him near the home of a crab-eating octopus, he noticed Saethru was absent. He rolled one shoulder, shrugging to no one in particular. Nurse sharks could be restless, and she likely as not had grown bored of the house-hunt.

　　Scooping the crab back into his hat for now, he rose above the walls of the reef. Out of the maze, he continued to rise, stopping well before the surface, but high enough to see the reef laid out before him. Here was he best able to find a place for Fen to disembark. He might also spy Saethru, wherever she might have wandered.

　　But no, squinting to see through the dazzling patterns of the waves above, he found no nurse shark. However, while scanning the channels and byways of their home, he spotted two figures he didn`t recognize. They were dark blue, shadowy like deep water, and they were loitering together down in the reef. They were his size, or possibly bigger. Distance made it a hard judge. The figures moved, undulating like dolphins, though they lacked the mammals` mirth and playful attitude. Amerigo frowned. This called for a closer inspection. He descended quickly, hoping not to have been spotted, his form outlined against the surface sunlight.

　　Back in the coral trench, he made his way carefully along the alleys, creeping up to bends, ready to hide if they were to suddenly appear. The activity from their earlier pass through the reef had died away, the residents sensing something new. Amerigo saw debris sprinkling the sea floor. An uprooted anemone lay amidst a sprinkling of crushed coral. He pressed onward, similar signs of destruction becoming more regular.

　　Eventually he came upon them, quickly pulling back to stay out of sight. Around the corner were two merfolk. They were larger than Amerigo, but not by much. Dark blue scales covered their fishy heads, their gnomeoid torsos, and their distinctive finned tails.

　　Something stirred the sand behind him. It wiggled in the crevice between the coral and the ground, causing Amerigo to freeze. He had seen two forms navigating the reef. There could easily have been a third, staying out of sight. His quivering hand brushed against the rough wall behind him as he pressed into the reef, pulling away from the thing now unsticking itself from the tight crevice.

　　The cloud of sand settled, and Saethru was at his side again. The tightness in his chest vanished as she brushed up against him once more. It had been his companion kicking up the sand and wiggling her way free.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

　　She had sensed the merfolk`s arrival, Amerigo decided, and had hidden in this narrow alcove, as disturbed by these interlopers as the rest of the reef. When he had passed her hiding place, she was determined to join him once more. Amerigo sighed and patted his companion. It gave him an idea.

　　Skulking back the way he came, Amerigo checked in on the reef`s denizens. Most were reluctant to join him. They pulled away when he expressed a desire to resist these alien characters. Every so often, he found willing fighters, who he directed to their places. One of these slithered into the sleeve of his robe.

　　Amerigo made a complicated gesture at Saethru, twirling his index finger before fiddling the rest like he was working the keys to an invisible trumpet, and she left to fulfill her own part. Now he could return to watch the two playful wrecking balls while he waited for an opening to send them packing.

　　But the two weren`t there.

　　They had moved on while Amerigo`s back was turned. Cautiously, he sped to where they had congregated moments earlier, hoping to find a clue. There, on the wall of the coral, was a sponge they had been prodding to death. It clung to the base, hanging in stressed tatters. He held the shredded thing and silently cursed these tourists.

　　He bent down and gathered the tatters and larger chunks of reef wall before bringing them back up to the pitiful sponge. Carefully, Amerigo piled the sponge`s remains around it, making sure each bit touched the main body, and pressed the bits of coral back to the wall to help support it. He could still see a faint jetstream coming off the sponge. It was alive, if only just, filtering the water and casting it out through its porous body.

　　The pieces were all still alive. That was the important thing. He closed his eyes, hands on the reef, supporting the chunks of coral the merfolk had broken off. His bond with this underwater garden he tended went deeper than that of a neighbor or cohabiter. Amerigo was afforded skills for his position, beyond that of breathing the water. Touching the reef and sponge as he was now, there existed connections. A great many connections. One to each living thing in contact with him. The tiny zooites which landed on his skin like drifts of singled-cell snow, to the anemone which brushed against him harmlessly. And still more. One, like a braided rope of spidersilk, compounded individual connections forming one great pathway, pulled at his mind like the deeps would pull on an anchor. This connection filled him with no small amount of apprehension.

　　As he concentrated, he resisted the pull of the great thing. He felt even within his own mind a conduit to the tortured sponge. He pushed aside his worries - that the merfolk should return while he worked, that the pieces he was trying to restore were too far gone - and tapped the connection. He entered his link with the simple sponge. It had few moving parts physically, a trait which it shared with its mental or spiritual self. Amerigo envisioned the biological pump as how it was, and then as how it should be. The magic worked through him and bonded the strips and rags of sponge together, knitting the soft tissues and restoring functionality. Amerigo realized he had been holding his breath, and as he left the connection, the sponge was working properly, the scraps pieced together. It wasn`t perfect, but it would heal.

　　Next, with a slight gulp, he reached for the immense spidersilk cord of a connection. With a feeling akin to vertigo, he realized it had not come to him, but that he was starting to fall into it. This was his connection to the consciousness of the reef itself.

　　Comprised of millions of primitive organisms, it constituted not so much a hivemind, but a composite sense of being. And Amerigo risked becoming assimilated. Tiny tendrils of the connection trapped his spirit like the strands of a funnel web, the cord having grown around him in a trick of perspective. He struggled for control and bearing, his desire only to cement the few broken pieces of coral back to the whole, and in doing so he was becoming entrapped by the tiny struggles between the individual polyps. They saw his essence, his presence in the conduit, as potential leverage over neighbors.

　　But Amerigo resisted their quarrels and territorial disputes. He rose above the throng, like ascending a dais above a mob, and as quickly as they had grabbed him, a million tiny attentions returned to daily business. And Amerigo found the polyps in need of repair. He worked quickly, ignoring the limestone skeleton in favor of light tissue work.

　　The coarse gravel he had been supporting became glued to the coral wall. The loose and freewheeling damaged pieces returned from their brief exile, joining the braided cord of spidersilk in Amerigo`s mind.

　　He retreated from the connection, shaken from the encounter with the spiritual presence of the reef. From a distance, separated now from the dense, sticky web, he regarded it. Physically the reef spread for miles. A world of tiny presences, a hybrid of plant and animal and mineral, combined spiritually into a similarly all encompassing entity which transcended categorization. He held its form in his mind`s eye, stretched like a standing wave on a plucked string. Then Amerigo opened his eyes.

　　A shadow settled over him. He turned around to find the two merfolk looming.

　　One was bigger than the other, and had a hook which pierced its fishy lip. It seemed morbidly intentional. The other, scrawny by comparison, had crisscrossing scars along his thin forearm.

　　Hook-mouth carried a pike, upon which were fish, stuck like receipts on a desk spike. A few wiggled helplessly. The merfolk looked over Amerigo`s shoulder and his hand lunged, sending the coral crumbling down. He withdrew something Amerigo couldn`t see until he had stuck it on his weapon, stacking it down onto the rest. A yellow tang.

　　The coral dust settling on him, Amerigo backed into the wall as the two thugs grinned at him with flat eyes.

　　Net-bound moved to place a hand on Amerigo`s shoulder, but recoiled.

　　A black and white band unfurled from the neck of his kelp robe, a highly venomous sea-snake. Net-bound gasped and hid behind his bigger companion, who rolled his eyes.

　　The merfolk were bigger, stronger, and better adapted for swimming. It was unavoidable fact. Likewise, those three things weren`t the only deciding factor in surviving on the reef. While Hook-mouth dealt with a shivering Net-bound, Amerigo leapt off the wall. It earned him a moment`s head start, but he was around the corner with a Hook-mouth hot on his heels, a tentative Net-bound following much less confidently.

　　He ducked down a side alley, his aggressive tail speeding past the turn, unawares. Following this avenue, he pressed further onward, coming to a fork. He tried to go right, but was stopped by Hook-mouth in front of him. He wasn`t as dumb as he looked. The merfolk had sped past to catch him at the outlet further along.

　　Turning back, Amerigo saw Net-bound back the way he came, coiling and swerving, almost loping. He seemed eager to catch up but hesitant to approach the snake still on Amerigo`s person.

　　He took the left branch of the fork before either could reach him.

　　But it was no good. This one terminated in a dead-end.

　　Hook-mouth was smiling again, the gnome now trapped with the two of them closing the gap. He held his pike at the ready, moving with steady confidence, ready to spring if Amerigo tried anything. Net-bound, ever more unstable, danced nervously behind the larger merfolk.

　　Several feet away, they stopped, the larger of the two fully annoyed by his skittish partner. He turned and gripped Net-bound`s arm in a tight fist. The smaller merfolk shuddered and stopped his nervous bouncing.

　　In a smooth motion, Hook-mouth pressed the pike`s shaft into Net-bound`s hand and shoved him forward. Amerigo looked on, realizing his life was now in this fearful one`s hands. With only a glance back at the stern Hook-mouth, he held the wavering point out and sculled slowly forward.

　　A black and white tendril slithered out of Amerigo`s sleeve and he gripped the sea-snake, bringing it up to point at the slim merfolk. Despite the several feet between them, he recoiled again, almost backing into Hook-mouth.

　　With another roll of the eyes, he shoved an unwilling Net-bound forward. The three of them hung there for moments, carefully avoiding the spark that would set the keg off. Amerigo`s eyes flicked down, and Net-bound followed his gaze. A gaping maw opened like a burlap sack directly under the unwitting merfolk. A frogfish Amerigo had recruited, a living bear trap, sucked in Net-bound`s tail. It was too small to fit the whole merfolk, typically smothering its prey as opposed to dismembering.

　　Net-bound thrashed like a drowning man, turning to his stalwart partner once more, pulling at him and flipping about in mad panic. The frogfish clung like a pitbull. Amerigo took the opportunity to swim up and out of the trench. Hook-mouth, with a disgusted look, took the pike in hand and disentangled himself. He set off after the gnome, leaving Net-bound to fend for himself.

　　Skimming over the surface of the coral, the merfolk was gaining on the gnome. Thrashing with four limbs couldn`t beat a powerful fishtail, even with years of practice. It propelled the pike through the water, point forward, growing ever closer to the gnome`s kicking and paddling. He ever more desperately, and ever less efficiently, tried to outrun a vengeful homing torpedo.

　　Then a shot out of the blue tackled Hook-mouth from the side. Saethru had been watching from above, ready to strike with a quick, straight shot. She had missed the grab with her teeth, but had knocked the creature into a fire coral. Polyps stung him like a nest of bees.

　　Amerigo looked back to see the end result. Saethru speeding off for another pass, and the merfolk writhing, trying to remove himself from the paralyzing toxin, only to drag fresh skin across the stingers. Amerigo knew from experience that, while not lethal, the fire coral could hurt like sin.

　　Net-bound crawled over the lip of the wall. With a final flick, he sent the frogfish flying end over end, only to right itself and swim away. The merfolk spotted his companion and made his way there, scooping the bigger Hook-mouth up and over his shoulders. Pausing only to share a look of death with Amerigo, he turned and swam off.

　　Sending Saethru to tail them, forewarning him of their doubling back, he coaxed the snake out of his robe. They had earned a reward, but all Amerigo had on him was a crab he had just re-homed. Still, the snake deserved something.

　　He noticed the pike the merfolk had abandoned. The skewered fish were each long gone when he examined it, and he started removing them. As he removed each fish, he would secure them to the ground with a stone. The snake likely wouldn`t eat all of them, but some scavenger or other would come by and discover a free lunch.

　　With the final fish removed, he found there was one more thing secured to the pike. There was a stone talisman, tied on with string, depicting the business end of a trident in front of a net background. He removed it from the weapon and studied it until Saethru returned. It was clear the merfolk were in full retreat, but still there was something odd. They had fled north, away from the drop-off. Away from their home.

　　Pocketing the talisman, he hastened to the one person who could tell him more about these ruffians.

　　****

　　The rite for contacting a deity depends heavily on the deity in question. Contacting Stormhaegen, the god of the sea and storms, had special accommodations for his subjects, who typically lived on, near, or even under water. Where Neos, the god of the hearth and community, may require a stocked larder and a populated dining hall, and where Deos, the god of magic and artifice, may require candles and a steady drawing-hand, Stormhaegen diverged. He much preferred a place to talk comfortably, and some trifling object to catch his interest.

　　Amerigo bade Saethru to wait outside the overgrown coral temple. Being a nurse shark, she had special adaptations that allowed her to pass water over her gills, and thus did not require her constant motion to breathe. She nestled in the sand and concentrated on that.

　　Past the threshold, he made his way to the simple cairn that acted as altar for his god. It was a cozy, colorful space. Being the altar for a hermitage, the humble simplicity was the major attraction. Amerigo laid the token on the altar and began to meditate.

　　The atmosphere glittered with luminous plasma coming off coral spines and the tips of plants. Amerigo allowed himself a small sigh of relief. His thoughts were unfocused, drifting back to his encounter with the merfolk. Stormhaegen was usually a stickler for details, and such an unfocused mind could easily deter the god from making an appearance. Today, it seemed, he was willing to talk.

　　Amidst the dancing, crawling sparks, and against all known rules of meteorology, a cloud formed under water. A person emerged from the nimbus, large and boisterous, his deafening chuckles filling the place like rolling thunder, his beard grinning from ear to ear. He appeared dressed in a bath robe, blue in color with shimmering designs of intricate complexity. He looked like a larger, more rotund gnome.

　　Clouds hung to his face in place of hair. Straight wispy stratus up top with fluffy cumulus for a beard and chest hair, the latter of which peeked out where the bath robe closed.

　　"Welcome Amerigo!" the god boomed, "It feels like ages since you`ve been to my shrine! Busy tending the garden as usual I wager. We should walk it one of these days! I haven`t manifested here in an age, and I could do with seeing its splendor with physical eyes! You`ve done well! Oh, do you have something to tell me?"

　　The god prattled like the clatter of rain, oblivious to Amerigo`s frantic gestures for haste, which the god had only just noticed.

　　"What is that you have there?" he asked, leaning over his nimbus.

　　Amerigo had produced the stone talisman dropped by the merfolk from earlier. The storm god considered it with interest. After a moment`s inspection, he sat casually back, waving the token away.

　　"Yes, yes, the incursion on my beloved reef," he said, in the tone of a man tasked with filing a complaint against careless neighbors. He waved a hand, conjuring swirling clouds to form a miniature terrain. Amerigo recognized some landmarks. The drop off to the south, for instance, was expressed with dark, angry clouds. These contrasted with the reefs he tended, which were expressed in the technicolor sherbet of morning.

　　As he watched, the map moved like the time lapse of a storm front. The dark clouds crept up and over the sherbet like an amoeba, overcoming it in places and attempting to swallow the bright colors. Amerigo paled.

　　"I know about it. It is an issue. But you need not fear, dear Amerigo. You have come to me, and I have a plan to deal with these trespassers." The god leaned back in his cloud seat and patted his belly comfortably.

　　Amerigo`s relief was visible.

　　Stormhaegen closed his eyes and spoke, as though reading the inside of his eyelids.

　　"The portents are&vague," he muttered, though still loud enough Amerigo thought someone listening at the surface of the water might hear him. In what would have seemed a mock mystical tone, if Amerigo did not know him better, the god said, "You must find&a foul lizard. You will recognize him by his&queenly aura." He waggled his fingers in front of him as he spoke.

　　He opened his eyes and shrugged.

　　"Utter nonsense to me."

　　Amerigo drooped.

　　"It`s clear on this point, however. This chosen one is destined to&yada yada&bring about the something or other&and remove the merfolk menace at the source." He waved his hands indefinitely before ending with a confident tone.

　　Amerigo hid his puzzlement behind an austere look of duty, which was how he usually handled interactions with Stormhaegen.

　　"Go where I send thee," Stormhaegen announced regally, "to the dry northern wastes. I`ve prepared a rapid but economic method of transportation. No need to thank me."

　　Amerigo looked shocked. When he was jettisoned out of the ocean and through the air in a bubble of water, he looked downright panicked.

　　The sea god merely watched with resolution as his struggling devotee rapidly left the altar against his will.

　　"Air travel. Transportation of the gods," Stormhaegen said to no one in particular.