Revenge of the Rose (36 page)

 
          
“Or
would you join your sire for ever, Elric of Melniboné?” The tone from within
the helm was cooler now, more evidently threatening. “I would even share my new
power with you. Your sword shall be the stick I’ll use to goad Mashabak to my
bidding …”

 
          
Elric
yearned to agree with Gaynor the Damned. If he had been a true Melnibonéan,
even one like his father, he would have thought no more of the matter and given
up the sword in return for the soulbox. But through whatever ties of character,
blood and disposition they were, his loyalty was for his fellows and he would
not consign one more human creature to the mercies of Chaos.

 
          
And
so he refused.

 
          
Which
brought a yell of rage from the ex-Prince of the Universal and he cried out
that Elric was a fool, that he might have saved something from these realms,
but now they would be entirely devoured by angry Mashabak …

 
          
 … when
there came a creaking and a groaning and a scattering of plaster and bits of
stone, of candle-wax and falling flambeaux, as some ancient bilge-system, some
trap-door in the hull, began to creak open from above and through the gap came
a questioning croak.

 
          
It
was Khorghakh the toad. It was the navigating monster from the ship, pushing
its way through. It sniffed and turned its head. It saw Charion. Whereupon it
gave a grunt of satisfaction and began swiftly to clamber down the carved walls
while Elric, taking advantage of Gaynor’s inattention, chopped suddenly across
the makeshift altar and struck the wand from the prince’s hand, then thrust at
him again, while Gaynor grabbed for his own sword and flung a blow at the
albino’s head.

 
          
But
now Stormbringer sent up such a fearful keening, a sharp, specific utterance of
rage, that there came a gasp of pain from within the helm—a helm that had not
known pain for millennia. Gaynor brought up his sword to try to block the
runeblade, but staggered.

 
          
Then
Elric drew back the point of his hellsword and drove it directly at that place
in Gaynor’s armour which would have hidden his heart—and the Lord of the Damned
howled with sudden agony as he was lifted upward, like a lobster on a spike,
his arms and legs flailing, roaring his rage as Count Mashabak still roared his—suspended,
helpless upon Stormbringer’s point—

 
          
“Where
is there a hell that could effect thy just punishment, Gaynor the Damned?” said
Elric through clenching teeth.

 
          
And
the Rose said softly:

 
          
“I
know of such a place, Elric. You must summon your patron demon. Summon Arioch
to this realm!”

 
          
“Madam,
you are mad!”

 
          
“You
must trust me here. Arioch’s power will be weak. It has not had time to build.
But you must speak to him.”

 
          
“What
good can Arioch do us in this? Will you return his prisoner to him?”

 
          
“Call
him,” she said. “This is the way that it should be. You must call him, Elric.
Only by doing that can any harmony be achieved again.”

 
          
And
so Elric, with his enemy Prince Gaynor squirming like a spider on a stick in
front of him, called out the name of his patron Duke of Hell, a creature who
had betrayed him, who had attempted to extinguish him for ever.

 
          
“Arioch!
Arioch! Come to thy servant, Lord Arioch. I beg thee.”

 
          
Meanwhile
the toad had reached the floor and was lumbering towards Charion, towards its
lost love, and there was a kind of soft affection in its face as Mistress Phatt
approached it, stroking its huge hands, patting its scales, while from above
came a thin voice:

 
          
“We
were in time, it seems! The toad found this entrance for us.” And through the
ruptured trapdoor came Ernest Wheldrake’s head, looking down at them with some
concern. “I was afraid we should be late.”

 
          
Charion
Phatt was patting the toad’s enraptured head and laughing. “You did not tell us
you had gone to bring extra help, my love!”

 
          
“I
thought it best to make no promises. But I bring further good news.” He looked
at the route by which the toad had clambered, from carving to carving, to the
floor and he shook his head. “I’ll rejoin you as soon as I can.” And he was
gone.

 
          
“Arioch!”
cried Elric. “Come to me, my patron!” But he could not offer blood and souls
today.

 
          
“Arioch!”

 
          
And
there, in one corner of this makeshift hall, a dark, smoky thing curled and
shook itself and grumbled and then it had become a handsome youth, wonderful in
his grace, but still not quite substantial. And the smile had all the sweetness
of the hive. “What is it, my pet, my savoury …?”

 
          
The
Rose said: “Here is your chance to bargain, now, Elric. What does this demon
own that you would have from him?”

 
          
Elric,
his eyes moving from Gaynor to Arioch, saw his patron peering, almost as if he
were purblind, at the leaping ectoplasmic sphere, at the writhing Gaynor.

 
          
“Only
his lease,” said Elric, “upon my father’s soul.”

 
          
“Then
ask him for it,” said the Rose. Her voice was vibrant with controlled urgency. “Ask
him to give up his claim on that soul!”

 
          
“He
will not agree,” said Elric. Even with the sword’s mighty energy, he was
beginning to tire.

 
          
“Ask
him for it,” she said.

 
          
So
Elric called over his shoulder. “My Lord Arioch. My patron Duke of Hell. Will
you give up your claim on my father’s soul?”

 
          
“I
will not,” said Arioch, his voice sly and puzzled. “Why should I? He was mine,
as thou art mine.”

 
          
“We
shall neither be thine, if Mashabak is freed,” said Elric. “And that you know,
my patron.”

 
          
“Give
him to me,” said Arioch thinly, “give me my prisoner, who is mine by right,
whom I ensnared with the power of my occult subtleties. Give me Mashabak, and I
will give up my claim.”

 
          
“Mashabak
is not mine to give you, Lord Arioch,” said Elric, understanding at last. “But
I will give thee Gaynor to make that exchange!”

 
          
“No!”
cried the Prince of the Damned. “I could not bear such ignominy!”

 
          
Arioch
was already smiling. “Oh, indeed, sweet immortal traitor, you shall bear it and
much else besides. I know fresh torments that are presently inconceivable to
you but which you will look back upon with nostalgia, as a time before your
agony really began. I shall bestow upon thee all the tortures I had reserved
for Mashabak—”

 
          
Then
the golden body had streaked towards the bellowing Gaynor, who begged Elric in
the name of everything he held holy, not to give him up to the Duke of Hell.

 
          
“You
cannot be slain, Gaynor the Damned,” said the Rose, her face flushed with
triumph, “but you can still be punished! Arioch will punish you and, as he
punishes you, you will remember that you were brought to this by the Rose and
that this is the revenge of the Rose upon you, for the doom you brought to our paradise!”

 
          
Elric
began to realize that not all had been coincidence, that much of what had
happened was the result of some long-nurtured plan of the Rose to ensure that
Gaynor would betray no others as he had betrayed her and her kin. That was why
she had come back here. It was why she had loaned the sisters the treasures of
her own lost land.

 
          
“Go
now, Gaynor!” She watched as the golden shadow embraced the writhing
prince … seemed to absorb the whole armoured creature into itself,
before flowing back again into its corner, and thence down whatever narrow
tunnel through the multiverse Elric had created with his Summoning.

 
          
“Go
now, Prince Gaynor, to your unsleeping eternal consciousness, to all those
horrors you had thought familiar …” She spoke with considerable
satisfaction, while the face of Count Mashabak pressed for a moment against the
membrane and the fangs clashed and drooled as he sought a glimpse of his rival,
bearing back, with something close to gratitude, his small prize to his own
dimension.

 
          
“
I
have
no claim now, Elric, to your father’s soul …
”

 
          
“But
Mashabak?” said Elric as it dawned on him the responsibility they had brought
upon themselves. “What shall we do with Mashabak?”

 
          
The
Rose smiled at him, a gentle smile that was full of wisdom. “There is something
yet we have to do,” she said, and she turned to murmur to the three sisters,
who took their swords—one of ivory, one of gold and one of granite—and with
slow care placed a black briar ring upon the tip of each blade so that suddenly
the swords were alive with glowing, flowery light—a calm energy—Nature’s energy
balanced against the raging power of Chaos. Then they lifted these swords in
unison beneath the heaving membrane of that cosmic prison, so that each tip
stood lightly upon the skin.

 
          
And
Count Mashabak growled and threatened and spoke some words in a language known
only to himself; made helpless by the very act of being captured, for he was a
creature that had known almost limitless power and had no means of existing
with the shock of its own enforced impotence. He knew not how to beg or bargain
or even to coax, as Arioch coaxed, for his nature was more direct. He had
reveled in the unchecked force of his power. He had grown used to creating
whatever he desired, of destroying whatever displeased him. He screamed at them
to release him, he grumbled, he subsided, as the tips of the swords continued
to support the ectoplasmic sphere. He was a crude, brutish sort of demigod and
knew only how to threaten.

 
          
The
Rose smiled. It was as if she were achieving everything she had dreamed of over
the years. “He will take some taming, that demon,” she said.

 
          
If
Elric had been disbelieving of Gaynor’s audacity, he was admiring of the Rose’s.
“You knew all along how Mashabak could be controlled,” he said. “You
manipulated events so that we should be here at the same time …” It was
not an accusation, merely a statement of his understanding.

 
          
“I
took the events that existed,” said the Rose simply. “I did what I could in my
weaving. But I was never certain, even as Gaynor bargained with you for your
father’s soul, what the outcome would be. I still do not know, Elric. Watch!”

 
          
She
went to the table where Gaynor had placed his stolen treasures and she took the
sweet-smelling rosewood box, advancing towards where the sisters held the
sphere upon the tips of their swords, as delicately as if they balanced a
soap-bubble, each woman concentrating upon her task while a strange, bubbling
energy began to pulse along the blades. Down the ivory poured a smoky whiteness
and down the granite a grey, curling substance; while the golden blade shook
with light the colour of fresh-cut broom, all these colours spinning together
and forming a kind of spiral which wound upwards again and back into the
sphere.

 
          
Led
by the Rose, the sisters began a chant, harnessing streamers of multiversal
life-force and brought them together in a shimmering net of pale cerise light
which surrounded them as they worked.

 
          
Then
the Rose cried out to Elric. “Bring your sword now. Bring it quickly. It must
be the conductor once more, of all this energy!” She opened the lid of the box.

 
          
The
albino moved forward, his body making strange ritualistic gestures whose
meaning was unknown to him.