Revenge of the Rose (15 page)

 
          
Out
into the night now—Elric a raging shadow ahead of them and the massive wheels
of the ever-moving villages grinding inexorably forward—into a cold wind
carrying rain—the wild night lit by the guttering fires and lamps of the
walkers as they marched, of the distant villages of the first rank. There was a
certain spring to the road now, which suggested they were approaching the
bridge that spanned the bay.

 
          
Wheldrake
heard snatches of song. He did not break his stride but forced himself to
lengthen it, breathing expertly as he had once been taught. He heard laughter,
casual conversation, and he wondered for a moment if this were merely a dream,
with all the lack of consequence he associated with dreams. But there were
other voices ahead—oaths and yells as Elric forced his horse between the
walkers, hampered by so many bodies but refusing to use the runesword against
this unarmed mass.

 
          
And
behind him Mother Phatt grew quieter while her granddaughter’s sobs grew
louder.

 
          
Somehow
Wheldrake and the Phatts were able to keep pace with Elric, even getting closer
to him as he pushed on through the crowd and Mother Phatt cried “Stop! You must
stop!” And all the folk of the Free Gypsy Nation who heard this obscenity upon
an old woman’s tongue drew away fastidiously, disgusted.

 
          
More
confusion followed. Wheldrake began to wonder if they had not acted
thoughtlessly, in response to a senile woman’s nightmare. No wheel had stopped
turning, no foot had ceased walking; everything was as it should be on the
great road around the world. By the time they had made their way through the
main mass and were able to move freely, Elric had slowed the horse to a canter,
surprised not to be followed by the rest of Trollon’s guard. Wheldrake,
however, was prudent and waited until the albino had sheathed the great
runesword before approaching him. “What did you see, Elric?”

 
          
“Only
that the Rose was in danger. Perhaps something else. We must find Duntrollin
swiftly. She was foolish to do what she did. I had thought her wiser than that.
It was she, after all, who counseled us to caution!”

 
          
The
wind blew harder and the flags of the Gypsy Nation cracked and snapped in the
force of it.

 
          
“It
will be dawn, soon,” said Wheldrake. He turned to look back at the Family
Phatt: three faces bearing the same stamp, of a fear so all-consuming it made
them almost entirely blind to their surroundings. Imploring, wailing, shouting
warnings, sobbing and shrieking, Mother Phatt led them in a hymn of unspeakable
despair and pain. From which the free walkers discreetly removed themselves,
casting the occasional disapproving glance.

 
          
Calmly
onward moves the Gypsy Nation, wheels turning with steady slowness, propelled
by her marching millions, making her perpetual progress around the world …

 
          
Yet
there is something
wrong
—something
profoundly alarming ahead—something which Mother Phatt can already see, which
Charion can already hear and which Fallogard Phatt yearns with all his soul to
avert!

 
          
It
is only as the dawn comes up behind them, soaring pinks, blues and faint golds,
washing the road ahead with pale, watery light, that Elric understands why
Mother Phatt screams and Charion holds her hands over her ears, and why
Fallogard Phatt’s face is a tormented mask!

 
          
The
light races forward over the great span of the causeway, revealing the
lumbering settlements, the tramping thousands, the smoke and the dimming lamps,
the ordinary domestic details of the day—but ahead—ahead is what the clairvoyants
have foreseen …

 
          
The
mile-wide span across the bay, that astonishing creation of an obsessively
nomadic people, has been cut as if by a gigantic sword—sheared in a single
blow!

 
          
Now
the two halves rise and fall slowly with the shock of this catastrophe. That
massive bridge of human bones and animal skins, of every kind of compacted
ordure, trembles like a cut branch, lifting and dropping almost imperceptibly,
with steady beats, while on the landside the boiling waters release all their
fury and the white spray makes rainbows high overhead.

 
          
One
by one, with appalling deliberation, the villages of the Gypsy Nation crawl to
the edge and plunge into the abyss.

 
          
To
stop is obscene. They do not know how to stop. They can only die.

 
          
Elric,
too, is screaming now, as he forces his horse forward. But he screams, he
knows, at the apparent inevitability of human folly, of people who can destroy
themselves to honour a principle and a habit that has long since ceased to have
any practical function. They are dying because they would rather follow habit
than alter their course.

 
          
As
the villages crawl to the broken edge of the causeway and drop into oblivion,
Elric thinks of Melniboné and his own race’s refusals in the face of change.
And he weeps for the Gypsy Nation, for Melniboné, and for himself.

 
          
They
will not stop.

 
          
They
cannot stop.

 
          
There
is confusion. There is consternation. There is growing panic in the villages.
But still they will not stop.

 
          
Through
the falling mist rides Elric now, crying out for them to turn back. He rides
almost to the edge of the causeway and his horse stamps and snorts in terror.
The Gypsy Nation is dropping not into the distant ocean but into a great
blossoming mass of reds and yellows, whose sides open like exotic petals and whose
hot centre pulses as it swallows village after village. And it is then that
Elric knows this is Chaos work!

 
          
He
turns the black stallion away from the edge and gallops back through that
doomed press to where Mother Phatt in her chair shrieks: “No! No! The Rose!
Where is the Rose?”

 
          
Elric
dismounts and seizes Fallogard Phatt by his lean, trembling shoulders. “Where
is she? Do you know? Which village is Duntrollin?” But Fallogard Phatt shakes
his head, his mouth moving dumbly, until at last all he can do is repeat her
name. “The Rose!”

 
          
“She
should not have done this,” cries Charion. “It is wrong to do this!”

 
          
Even
Elric could not condone what was happening, careless as he often was of human
life, and he longed to call upon Chaos to bring a halt to the dreadful
destruction. But Chaos had been summoned to perform this deed and he knew he
would not be heeded. He had not believed the Rose capable of raising such
formidable allies; he could scarcely accept that she would willingly permit
such horror as thousands upon thousands of living creatures plunged into the
abyss, their cries of terror now unified in the air, while overhead the white
spray spumed and the rainbows glittered.

 
          
Then
he had turned, hearing a familiar voice, and it was young Koropith Phatt,
running towards them, his clothes in shreds and blood pouring from a score of
minor cuts.

 
          
“Oh,
what has she done!” cried Wheldrake. “The woman is a monster!”

 
          
But
Koropith was panting, pointing backwards to where, as bloody and ragged as
himself, her hair slick with sweat, her sword Swift Thorn in her right hand,
her dagger Little Thorn in her left, staggered the Rose, with tears like
diamonds upon her haggard face.

 
          
Wheldrake
addressed her first. He, too, was crying. “Why did you do this? Nothing can
justify such murder!”

 
          
She
looked at him in exhausted puzzlement before his words made sense to her. Then
she turned her back on him, sheathing her weapons. “You wrong me, sir. This is
Chaos work. It could only be Chaos work. Prince Gaynor has an ally. He wreaks
great sorcery. Greater than I could have guessed. It seems he does not care who
or what or how many he kills in his desperate search for death …”

 
          
“Gaynor
did this?” Wheldrake reached out to take her arm, but she resisted him. “Where
is he now?”

 
          
“Where
he believes I will not follow,” she said. “But follow I must.” There was an air
of weary determination about the woman and Elric saw that Koropith Phatt, far
from blaming her for his ordeal, had placed his hand in hers and was comforting
her.

 
          
“We
shall find him again, lady,” said the child. He began to lead her back the way
they had come.

 
          
But
Fallogard Phatt intercepted them. “Is Duntrollin destroyed?”

 
          
The
Rose shrugged. “No doubt.”

 
          
“And
the sisters?” Wheldrake wished to know. “Did Gaynor find them?”

 
          
“He
found them. As did we—thanks to Koropith and his clairvoyance. But Gaynor—Gaynor
had possession of them in some way. We fought. He had already summoned aid from
Chaos. He had doubtless planned everything in detail. He had waited until the Nation
was approaching the bridge …”

 
          
“He
has escaped? To where?” Elric already guessed some of the answer and she
confirmed what he suspected.

 
          
She
made a motion with her thumb towards the edge. “Down there,” she said.

 
          
“He
found his death then, after all.” Wheldrake frowned. “But he wished to have as
much company as possible, it seems, on his journey to oblivion.”

 
          
“Who
can say where he journeys?” The Rose had turned and was going slowly back
towards the edge where now a village perched, half-toppled, her inhabitants
wailing and scrambling, yet making no real attempt to escape. Then the whole
thing had gone, tumbling down into that flaring manifestation of Chaos, to be
swallowed, to be engulfed. “I would guess that only he knows that.”

 
          
Leading
his horse, Elric followed her. Her hand was still in Koropith’s. Elric heard
the boy say: “They are still there, lady. All of them. I can find them, lady. I
can follow. Come.” The boy was leading her now, leading her to the very lip of
the broken causeway, to stand staring into the abyss.

 
          
“We
shall find a way for you, lady,” Fallogard Phatt promised, in sudden fear. “You
cannot—”

 
          
But
he was too late, for without warning both the woman and the boy had flung
themselves into space, out over the pulsing, glowing maw that seemed so hungry,
so eager for the souls which fell by their hundreds and thousands down. Down
into the very stuff of Chaos!

 
          
Mother
Phatt screamed again. It was one long, agonized scream that no longer mourned
the general destruction. This time she voiced a thoroughly personal grief.

 
          
Elric
ran to the edge, saw the two figures falling, dwindling, to be swiftly absorbed
by the foul beauty of that voracious fundament.

 
          
Impressed
by a courage, a desperation which seemed to him even greater than his own, he
stepped backwards, speechless with astonishment—

 
          
—and
was too late to anticipate Fallogard Phatt’s single bellow of agonized outrage
as the man pushed his mother to the lip of the broken causeway, hesitated for
only a split second, then, with his niece clinging to his coat-tails, plunged
after his disappearing child. Three more figures spun down through those
pulsing, hungry colours, into the flames of Chaos.

 
          
Sickened,
confused and attempting to control a fear he had never known before, Elric drew
Stormbringer from its scabbard.

 
          
Wheldrake
came to stand beside him. “She is gone, Elric. They are all gone. There is
nothing you can fight here.”