The White Wolf's Son (21 page)

“My lord Olin, you honor me. I hear you came to report trouble in your province.”

Lord Olin stammered his greetings in return. “A— a—rumor, ‘tis all, my lord Baron. We shall s-s-see what develops anon … mmmm
…”

As was traditional in Londra, no mention was made of the punishment, the horrible public humiliation, Lord Olin would soon
be suffering.

Baron Bous-Junge took Lord Olin by the arm and steered him through what seemed like miles of benches and equipment, where
his specially trained slaves worked, many of them disfigured by chemicals or other forces, some of them probably not even
human.

“Let us hope it doesn’t have anything to do with this troubling rumor concerning the Runestaff and the men who seek to discover
its ancient resting place,” murmured Bous-Junge.

But Lord Olin did not want to know anything more than he knew already. He wondered: if he had sent Sir Edwold to Londra, might
he have been spared his coming torture? He was suffering complex regrets.

“Many do not believe there is such a thing as the Runestaff,” continued Bous-Junge conversationally as they left his laboratories
and moved into the rather shabby and neglected luxury of his living apartments.
“Even though I search for it, sometimes I myself am inclined to believe it doesn’t exist. I have studied all the legends concerning
it.” Baron Bous-Junge’s sinister green mask tipped to one side. Behind it the hard, old eyes seemed amused. “But it is a troubling
coincidence that we should hear all those rumors from different sources. The Empire stands for Law, for Balance, for the power
of justice and equity. Our Empire is represented by such symbols as the Runestaff. There is always a certain power invested
in these symbols. Could we ourselves have willed the Runestaff into existence, out of sheer need?”

“Indeed, indeed, indeed,” babbled Lord Olin, his mind on his future.

“After all, our own religion is a matter of ritual and tradition, little else.” An almost inaudible hiss of words, and Lord
Olin, already trapped, was quick to sense further snares.

“We worship our immortal king-emperor, Baron Bous-Junge!”

“Of course we do, Lord Olin. Have you ever sworn an oath on the Runestaff?”

Lord Olin, within his armor, was like a terrified rat in a cage. “Oath? No? Yes! No … No, of course not— too—too—powerful
…”

“Exactly. If we swear an oath by the Runestaff, that oath is binding. We do not invoke the Runestaff lightly.”

Lord Olin racked his poor scrambled brains to remember if he had ever lightly invoked the Runestaff. He could not recall.
He began to sweat. The sweat soaked into his underclothes, ran along channels in his molded helm and breastplate. He had begun
to blubber. His snarling wolverine helm was like a greenhouse.

“Exactly,” declared Baron Bous-Junge in answer to his own question. “My dear Lord Olin, I suspect there are plans afoot to
obtain power over the original Runestaff and by this means affect the histories of our own realm in time as well as space.”

Lord Olin was still unable to utter anything resembling intelligent speech. Baron Bous-Junge did not seem to mind. Equably
he threw an arm about Lord Olin’s shoulders.

“Are you curious about what gives me that suspicion?” The snake mask lifted to glance right and left. “Have you, I wonder,
in your readings and travels, in your conversations, even in your dreams, heard of a creature not altogether human, with red
eyes and bone-white skin, whom you might know in that part of the world as Count Zodiac?”

“C-c—?”

“Some reference, I understand, to an ancient Middle European outlaw or trickster. Anyway, he might well be the worst problem
we face. Some suspect one of these Germanians to be a disguised Zodiac. Lord Taragorm’s oracles suggest it. Are you sure you
haven’t heard of him? He has other names? Crimson Eyes? White Wolf? Silverskin? Some know him as Elric of Melniboné.”

I
N HIS ASSUMED
identity Elric of Melniboné experienced a frisson he had not known for some time. It had been many years since he had enjoyed
the luxuries of so much power, and this was both attractive and relaxing to him. He had been raised, after all, in such opulence,
and for a while, as emperor of his own nation, had taken it for granted.

Yet Oonagh had not been found, and he knew his own role must soon be discovered. Every possible man and woman had been set
to the task of seeking the girl out, with no success. They had not so much as seen or heard a breath of her. Although the
mysterious albino boy might have traveled on, Elric had been certain Oonagh would be found here. All he and Scholar Ree had
been able to divine indicated that she hid in this version of Mirenburg. If he had not been so certain, he would scarcely
have concocted so elaborate a plot. As it was, he now had to fear the possibility of his sorcery wearing off and of being
exposed to the vindictive masters of the Empire.

Even his coconspirator, Yaroslaf Stredic, was growing nervous. Elric seemed determined to alert the Lords of the Dark Empire
to the very rebellion Stredic planned. Why anger the Quay Savoy by locking up the two “Germanians”? He began to suspect that
all his divinations had been
wrong. Yet why would Klosterheim and von Minct, who most wanted to find her, also be looking here? Their presence seemed to
confirm Elric’s own understanding.

On the fourth morning of the search, Elric was close to calling it off when there was an incident in the factory quarter.
Three ornithopters took off directly from the plant, flapping crazily into the air on metal wings, and from just above the
topmost roofs, fired down into the city, aiming directly for the governor’s quarters and the garrisons. Soldiers returned
their fire before the ornithopters lumbered off into the distance and disappeared. They were commandeered by the very slave
workers employed to build them. These men learned everything they knew from studying their masters.

Elric was not pleased with this development. Still posing as deputy protector, he now had to pretend to take measures against
the factory district. He sent men in with orders to arrest the heads of the factories. When they went in, the guards were
met with sustained fire and were driven back. Their captains came to Elric for further orders. He told them that the rebels
had taken over all communications, and sent them off to the internal heliograph posts to destroy them. It was his belief,
he said, that the rebellion would burn itself out.

Next morning the rebellion had spread across other parts of the city. Rebels were well armed and well disciplined. Elric ordered
more of his soldiers into the forests and hills, seeking the girl. He explained that she held the key to their defense.

Eventually, he knew, the Dark Empire would retaliate. But he aimed to give the citizens all the time he could to take control
of the city, believing that if the girl was hiding, she would come into the open once the rebels had
won. A messenger was dispatched to the border, to the nearest intact heliograph, to signal that all was well with Mirenburg.

By now the citizens had some fifty ornithopters and a variety of battle engines of the very latest design. If Londra attacked,
they would almost certainly be driven back until more troops and machines were brought to the war zone.

Elric made one last use of his stolen power. He sent his soldiers marching towards München, allegedly to relieve an even more
embattled force there.

And he gave orders for the two Germanians to be brought to him.

The first order was obeyed. The second was not. The Germanians had disappeared. Their cell in the St. Maria and St. Maria
was empty!

Elric understood their power. No doubt they had discovered that Oonagh was not, after all, in this part of the multiverse.

He would have given a great deal, however, to know where they had gone. The few spells he could readily cast gave him no further
clues.

It was time to look elsewhere for his great-granddaughter. Every instinct told him that she was now in even greater danger.

Leaving the young Prince Yaroslaf in charge of the rebellion, he discarded his disguise, left his helm and armor behind, and
set off into the Deep City to discover a gateway through to the roads between the worlds. He would have to begin his search
all over again.

Elric had begun to understand how strong were the other forces in play, supernatural forces more powerful even than the two
Germanians, the Dark Empire or even the old Empire of Melniboné. He suspected the agency of
Law or Chaos, and while he had no certain proof, he was fairly certain that his little great-grandchild and the mysterious
boy had in some way been selected to become their means to the ultimate power. Though he knew loyalty to Chaos yet fought
for Law, Elric hated both. Too much horror had befallen those he loved as one struggled to gain ascendancy over the other.
He trusted none of the Higher Powers. They cared nothing for the mortals they used in their eternal struggle for ascendancy.
And as Elric well knew, few mortals could refuse whatever fate the Lords of the Higher Worlds determined for them. His own
struggles, even in the thousand years of his long dream quest, had rarely succeeded. The illusion of free will was maintained
in spite of the evidence. Even our most private thoughts and yearnings, he suspected, were dictated by some preordained scenario
in which Law battled Chaos. The best that we could hope for was a brief respite from their eternal war.

Elric could now do nothing else but search for his young kinswoman and attempt to save her from the worst that might befall
her. He shook his fist at the gods and rode off to find the moonbeam roads, leaving his young friend to build what looked
to be a substantial force against the infamous war leader Shenegar Trott and the other feared military lords of the Dark Empire.
Yaroslaf Stredic might not defeat his conquerors, but he would set an example which might spark further revolutions across
Europa.

Meanwhile, Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln, unknown to Elric, Baron Meliadus, Klosterheim or anyone else, returned to his cave
two days after he had left to forage for food. The hero of Köln, still good-looking in spite
of his grim experience, his blue eyes like honed steel, his blond hair streaked with grey, had news which might be good. In
far-off Mirenburg, many miles from the foothills of the Bulgar Mountains, the citizens had at last risen against the Dark
Empire.

Hawkmoon’s friend, the wiry little mountain man Oladahn, was skeptical that any rebellion could succeed. The weapons of the
Dark Empire were far too sophisticated. He scratched his red, hairy body and shook his head. They had attempted to withstand
that final great attack upon Castle Brass and been defeated, in spite of their flamingos, their towers, their flame lances.
Only by chance had the defenders found security in the secret marshes surrounding the castle before Meliadus and his forces
had ruthlessly destroyed the majority of the flamingos, the horned horses and any human who had resisted them. They wanted
no survivors, had completely destroyed the watchtowers, the old towns, every house and shed, bringing in an entirely new population
from the Muskovian steppe, intending to ensure that not even a name would survive their conquest of the Kamarg. Neither had
Meliadus been greatly disturbed by the probability that a few Kamargian peasants had escaped. They would never be able to
rally fighters the way Dorian Hawkmoon of Köln had rallied them. Count Brass’s only child, his daughter Isolda, had been plucked
by Meliadus from the fires of Castle Brass and, no longer worthy of being Meliadus’s wife, made a slave at Meliadus’s court
until she had disappeared, killed no doubt in Londra by some rival for another slave’s affections. Bowgentle, the poet, was
dead, as were all other defenders, or so Count Brass believed.

But he was misled. Una Persson herself had visited the
survivors soon after they escaped into the great Slavian Forest, where they had lain low for over a year before they felt
safe enough to move on. They found refuge at last among Oladahn’s folk, the mountain brigands.

Oladahn could not believe the news. “Meliadus, or whoever represents him there, would have swiftly put down any uprising.
They are superior in weapons, if not numbers.”

Hawkmoon was not so certain of this. His informant had been a Bulgar who had the news from a Slavian merchant. “Apparently
they took over a new kind of flying machine and turned it against the Granbretanners.”

“Well,” said Oladahn, scratching his hairy red arms, “it would not be the first time we’ve heard such rumors. If we believed
them all …” His wide mouth clamped shut.

Hawkmoon said he was inclined to believe this. “It seems that many of those outlawed by the Empire are flocking to Mirenburg
to strike while they may. At the first sign of Imperial gains they will melt away, to strike elsewhere—and disappear again.
If they never attack Londra, they at least whittle away at the Empire.” The Duke of Köln had known defeat three times at the
hands of the Dark Empire, yet he would fight Huon’s people until the end, even if he never defeated them.

Hawkmoon passed a strong, bronzed hand through grey-blond hair. He was a handsome man. The dull black jewel at the center
of his forehead somehow enhanced his looks. He frowned as he considered what he had heard. All the power of the sorcerous
science he had once employed against the Dark Empire was now gone. He had only his sword, his armor and his horse with which
to fight Granbretan, while two of the people he most loved
in the world, his wife and his father-in-law, slept under the security of that cave’s roof, perhaps destined never fully to
recover from the horrors they had experienced. He regretted refusing the help of that servant of the Runestaff, the Warrior
in Jet and Gold, whose proffered gift might have given them the chance of defeating Meliadus when he brought all his force
against the Ka-marg. But the opportunity had passed, and Hawkmoon had lost too much. Now he wondered if he had the courage
to risk any more. His own life was nothing. The lives of those he loved were everything to him.