The Sleeping Sorceress (12 page)

“Suppose I merely return to Tanelorn—or choose to try to die again?”

“But you will not, will you, Elric? You have loyalties to your friends, you wish in your heart to serve what I represent—and you hate Theleb K’aarna. I do not think you would wish to die for the moment.”

He scowled. “Once more I am burdened with unwanted responsibilities, hedged by considerations other than my own desires, trapped by emotions which we of Melniboné have been taught to despise. Aye—I will go, Myshella. I will do what you wish.”

“Be careful, Elric. Theleb K’aarna now has powers which are unfamiliar to you, which you will find difficult to combat.” She gave him a lingering look and suddenly he had stepped forward and had seized her, kissed her while tears flowed down his white face and mingled with hers.

Later he watched as she climbed into the onyx saddle of the bird of silver and gold and called out a command. The metal wings beat with a great clashing, the emerald eyes turned and the gem-studded beak opened. “Farewell, Elric,” said the bird.

But Myshella said nothing, did not look back.

Soon the metal bird was a speck of light in the blue sky and Elric had turned his horse towards the north-east.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

The Barrier Broken

Elric reined in behind the cover of a crag. He had found the camp of Theleb K’aarna. A large tent of yellow silk had been erected beneath the protection of an overhang of rock which was part of a formation making a natural amphitheatre amongst the dunes of the desert. A wagon and two horses were close to the tent, but all this was dominated by the thing of metal which reared in the centre of the clearing. It was contained in an enormous bowl of clear crystal. The bowl was almost globular with a narrow opening at the top. The device itself was asymmetrical and strange, composed of many curved and angular surfaces which seemed to contain myriad half-formed faces, shapes of beasts and buildings, illusive designs coming and going even as Elric looked upon it. An imagination even more grotesque than that of Elric’s ancestors had fashioned the thing, amalgamating metals and other substances which logic denied could ever be fused into one thing. A creation of Chaos which offered a clue as to how the Doomed Folk had come to destroy themselves. And it was alive. Deep within it something pulsed, as delicate and tentative as the heartbeat of a dying wren. Elric had witnessed many obscenities in his life and was moved by few of them, but this device, though superficially more innocuous than much he had seen, brought bile into his mouth. Yet for all his disgust he remained where he was, fascinated by the machine in the bowl, until the flap of the yellow tent was drawn back and Theleb K’aarna emerged.

The sorcerer of Pan Tang was paler and thinner than when Elric had last seen him, shortly before the battle between the beggars of Nadsokor and the warriors of Tanelorn. Yet unhealthy energy flushed the cheeks and burned in the dark eyes, gave a nervous swiftness to the movements. Theleb K’aarna approached the bowl.

As he came closer Elric could hear him muttering to himself.

“Now, now, now,” murmured the sorcerer. “Soon, soon will die Elric and all who league with him. Ah, the albino will rue the day when he earned my vengeance and turned me from a scholar into what I am today. And when he is dead, then Queen Yishana will realize her mistake and give herself to me. How could she love that pale-faced anachronism more than a man of my great talents? How?”

Elric had almost forgotten Theleb K’aarna’s obsession with Queen Yishana of Jharkor, the woman who had wielded a greater power over the sorcerer than could any magic. It had been Theleb K’aarna’s jealousy of Elric which had turned him from a relatively peaceful student of the dark arts into a vengeful practitioner of the most frightful sorceries.

He watched as Theleb K’aarna began with his finger to trace complicated patterns upon the glass of the bowl. And with every completed rune the pulse within the machine grew stronger. Oddly coloured light began to flow through certain sections, bringing them to life. A steady thump issued from the neck of the bowl. A peculiar stink began to reach Elric’s nostrils. The core of light became brighter and larger and the machine seemed to alter its shape, sometimes becoming apparently liquid and streaming around the inside of the bowl.

The golden mare snorted and began to shift uneasily. Elric automatically patted her neck and steadied her. Theleb K’aarna was now merely a silhouette against the swiftly changing light within the bowl. He continued to murmur to himself but his words were drowned by the heartbeats which now echoed among the surrounding rocks. His right hand drew still more invisible diagrams upon the glass.

The sky seemed to be darkening, though it was some hours to sunset. Elric looked up. Above his head the sky was still blue, the golden sun still strong, but the air around him had grown dark, as if a solitary cloud had come to cover the scene he witnessed.

Now Theleb K’aarna was stumbling back, his face stained by the strange light from the bowl, his eyes huge and mad.

“Come!” he screamed. “Come! The barrier is down!”

Elric saw a shadow then, behind the bowl. It was a shadow which dwarfed even the great machine. Something bellowed. It was scaly. It lumbered. It raised a huge and sinuous head. It reminded Elric of a dragon from one of his own caves, but it was bulkier and upon its enormous back were two rows of flapping ridges of bone. It opened its mouth to reveal row upon row of teeth and the ground shook as it walked from the other side of the bowl and stood staring down at the tiny figure of the sorcerer, its eyes stupid and angry. Another came pounding from behind the bowl, and another—great reptilian monsters from another Age of Earth. And following them came those who controlled them. The horse was snorting and prancing and desperately trying to escape, but Elric managed to calm her down again as he looked at the figures which now rested their hands on the obedient heads of the monsters. The figures were even more terrifying than the reptiles—for although they walked upon two legs and had hands of sorts they, too, were reptilian. They bore a peculiar resemblance to the dragon creatures and their size, also, was many times greater than a man’s. In their hands they had ornate instruments which could only be weapons—instruments attached to their arms by spirals of golden metal. A hood of skin covered their black and green heads and red eyes glared from the shadows of their faces.

Theleb K’aarna laughed. “I have achieved it. I have destroyed the barrier between the planes and, thanks to the Lords of Chaos, have found allies which Elric’s sorcery cannot destroy because they do not obey the sorcerous rules of this plane! They are invincible, invulnerable—and they obey only Theleb K’aarna!”

A huge snorting and screaming came from beasts and warriors alike.

“Now we shall go against Tanelorn!” Theleb K’aarna shouted. “And with this power I shall return to Jharkor, to make fickle Yishana my own!”

Elric felt a certain sympathy for Theleb K’aarna at that moment. Without the aid of the Lords of Chaos, his sorcery could not have achieved this. He had given himself up to them, had become one of their tools all because of his weak-minded love for Jharkor’s aging queen. Elric knew he could not go against the monsters and their monstrous riders. He must return to Tanelorn to warn his friends to leave the city, to hope that he might find a means of returning these frightful interlopers back to their own plane. But then the mare screamed suddenly and reared, maddened by the sights, the sounds and the smells she had been forced to witness. And the scream sounded in a sudden silence. The rearing horse revealed itself to Theleb K’aarna as he turned his mad eyes in Elric’s direction.

Elric knew he could not outride the monsters. He knew those weapons could easily destroy him from a distance. He drew the black hellsword Stormbringer from its scabbard and it shouted as it came free. He drove his spurs into the horse and he rode directly down the rocks towards the bowl while Theleb K’aarna was still too startled to give orders to his new allies. His one hope was that he could destroy the device—or at least break some important part of it—and in so doing return the monsters to their own plane.

His white face ghastly in the sorcerous darkness, his sword raised high, he galloped past Theleb K’aarna and struck a mighty blow at the glass protecting the machine.

The Black Sword collided with the glass and sank into it. Carried on by the momentum, Elric was flung from his saddle and he, too, passed through the glass without apparently breaking it. He glimpsed the dreadful planes and curves of the Doomed Folk’s device. His body struck them. He felt as if the fabric of his being was disintegrating . . .

. . . and then he lay sprawled upon sweet grass and there was nothing of the desert, of Theleb K’aarna, of the pulsing machine, of the horrible beasts and their dreadful masters, only waving foliage and warm sunshine. He heard birdsong and he heard a voice.

“The storm. It has gone. And you? Are you called Lord Elric of Melniboné?”

He picked himself up and turned. A tall man stood before him. The man was clad in a conical silver helm and was encased to the knee in a byrnie also of silver. A scarlet, long-sleeved coat partly covered the byrnie. The man bore a scabbarded longsword at his side. His legs were encased in breeks of soft leather and there were boots of green-tinted doeskin on his feet. But Elric’s attention was caught primarily by the man’s features (which resembled those of a Melnibonéan much more than those of a true man) and the fact that he wore upon his left hand a six-fingered gauntlet encrusted with dark jewels, while over his right eye was a large patch which was also jeweled and matched the hand. The eye not covered by the patch was large and slanting and had a yellow centre and purple surrounds.

“I am Elric of Melniboné,” the albino agreed. “Are you to thank for rescuing me from those creatures Theleb K’aarna summoned?”

The tall man shook his head. “’Twas I that summoned you, but I know of no Theleb K’aarna. I was told that I had only one opportunity to receive your aid and that I must take it in this particular place at this particular time. I am called Corum Jhaelen Irsei—the Prince in the Scarlet Robe—and I ride upon a quest of grave import.”

Elric frowned. The name had a half-familiar ring, but he could not place it. He half-recalled an old dream . . .

“Where is this forest?” he asked, sheathing his sword.

“It is nowhere on your plane or in your time, Prince Elric. I summoned you to aid me in my battle against the Lords of Chaos. Already I have been instrumental in destroying two of the Sword Rulers—Arioch and Xiombarg—but the third, the most powerful, remains . . .”

“Arioch of Chaos—and Xiombarg? You have destroyed two of the most powerful members of the company of Chaos? Yet but a month since I spoke with Arioch. He is my patron. He . . .”

“There are many planes of existence,” Prince Corum told him gently. “In some the Lords of Chaos are strong. In some they are weak. In some, I have heard, they do not exist at all. You must accept that here Arioch and Xiombarg have been banished so that effectively they no longer exist in my world. It is the third of the Sword Rulers who threatens us now—the strongest, King Mabelode.”

Elric frowned. “In my—plane—Mabelode is no stronger than Arioch and Xiombarg. This makes a travesty of all my understanding . . .”

“I will explain as much as I can,” said Prince Corum. “For some reason Fate has selected me to be the hero who must banish the domination of Chaos from the Fifteen Planes of Earth. I am at present traveling on my way to seek a city which we call Tanelorn, where I hope to find aid. But my guide is a prisoner in a castle close to here and before I can continue I must rescue him. I was told how I might summon aid to help me effect this rescue and I used the spell to bring you to me. I was to tell you that if you aided me, then you would aid yourself—that if I was successful then you would receive something which would make your task easier.”

“Who told you this?”

“A wise man.”

Elric sat down on a fallen tree trunk, his head in his hands. “I have been drawn away at an importunate time,” he said. “I pray that you speak the truth to me, Prince Corum.” He looked up suddenly. “It is a marvel that you speak at all—or at least that I understand you. How can this be?”

“I was informed that we should be able to communicate easily because ‘we are part of the same thing.’ Do not ask me to explain more, Prince Elric, for I know no more.”

Elric shrugged. “Well this may be an illusion. I may have killed myself or become digested by that machine of Theleb K’aarna’s, but plainly I have no choice but to agree to aid you in the hope that I am, in turn, aided.”

Prince Corum left the clearing and returned with two horses, one white and one black. He offered the reins of the black horse to Elric.

Elric settled himself in the unfamiliar saddle. “You spoke of Tanelorn. It is for the sake of Tanelorn that I find myself in this dream-world of yours.”

Prince Corum’s face was eager. “You know where Tanelorn lies?”

“In my own world, aye—but why should it lie in this one?”

“Tanelorn lies in all planes, though in different guises. There is one Tanelorn and it is eternal with many forms.”

They were riding through the gentle forest along a narrow track.

Elric accepted what Corum said. There was a dreamlike quality about his presence here and he decided that he must regard all events here as he would regard the events in a dream. “Where go we now?” he asked casually. “To the castle?”

Corum shook his head. “First we must have the Third Hero—the Many-Named Hero.”

“And will you summon him with sorcery, too?”

“I was told not. I was told that he would meet us—drawn from whichever age he exists in by the necessity to complete the Three Who Are One.”

“And what mean these phrases? What is the Three Who Are One?”

“I know little more than you, friend Elric, save that it will need all three of us to defeat him who holds my guide prisoner.”

“Aye,” murmured Elric feelingly, “and it will need more than that to save my Tanelorn from Theleb K’aarna’s reptiles. Even now they must march against the city.”