To Rescue Tanelorn (14 page)

As he entered the courtyard, it appeared that the area within the palace was greater than that outside it. Not troubling to seek any mundane explanation for this phenomenon in a world dominated by the Lords of Chaos, Elric instead dismounted from his horse and walked for nearly a quarter of a mile until he reached the entrance of the main building. He climbed the steps swiftly and found himself in a vast hall which had walls of shifting flame.

In the glow from the fiery walls, there sat at a table at the far end of the hall nine men—or at least, men or not, they had assumed the form of men. Different in facial characteristics, they all had the same sardonic air. In the centre of these nine was the one who had first addressed Elric. He leaned forward and spoke words carefully from his red lips.

“Greetings to you, mortal,” he said. “You are the first for some time to sit with the Lords of Chaos at the Time of the Change. Behold—there are others who have had the privilege.”

A rent appeared in the wall of flame to disclose some thirty frozen human figures, some men and some women. They were petrified in positions of many kinds, but all had madness and terror in their eyes—and they were still alive, Elric knew.

He lifted his head.

“I would not be so impertinent, my lords, as to set myself beside you all insofar as powers are concerned, but you know that I am Elric of Melniboné and that my race is old; my deficient blood is the royal blood of the kings of the Dreaming City. I have little pity or sentiment of any kind within me, for sentiment, whether love or hate, has served me badly in the past. I do not know what you require of me, and I thank you for your hospitality nonetheless, but I believe that I can conduct myself better in most ways than can any other mortal.”

“Let us hope so, Elric of Melniboné, for we would not wish you to fail, know that. Besides, you are not fully mortal as humans understand the word. Now, know you that I be Teshwan, and these need not be named and may be addressed singly or collectively by the name of Lords of Chaos.”

Elric bowed politely. “Lord Teshwan—my Lords of Chaos.”

They returned his bow by slightly inclining their heads and broadening a trifle their sardonic, crooked smiles.

“Come,” said Teshwan briskly, “sit here beside me and I will inform you of what we expect. You are more favoured than others have been, Elric, and, in truth, I welcomed the opportunity given me by my vengeful servant Slorg before he died.”

Elric climbed upon the dais and seated himself in the chair which appeared beside Teshwan. About him the walls of flame soared and tumbled, mumbled and roared. Sometimes shadow engulfed them, sometimes they were bathed in light. For a while they all sat in silence, pondering.

At last Teshwan spoke.

“Now,” he said decisively. “Here’s the situation in which we have decided to place you. You may leave only if you can create something which it has never occurred to us to create.”

“But you, surely, are the Masters of Creation?” said Elric in puzzlement. “How may I do this?”

“Your first statement is not strictly true and in qualifying it I can give you a hint of the answer to your question. We of Chaos cannot make anything new—we may only experiment with combinations of that already created. Do you understand?”

“I do,” said Elric.

“Only the Greatest Power, of which we know little more than do humans, can create fresh conceptions. The Greatest Power holds both Law and Chaos in perpetual balance, making us war only so that the scale will not be tilted too far to one side. We wish not for power—only for variety. Thus every time we weary of our domain we let our old creations fade and conceive new ones. If you can bring a fresh element to our domain, we shall free you. We create jokes and paradoxes. Conceive a better joke and a better paradox for our entertainment and you may leave here.”

“Surely you expect the impossible from me?”

“You alone may assess the truth of your question. Now, we begin.”

And Elric sat and watched, pondering his problem, as the great Lords of Chaos began their mighty experiments.

The walls of fire slowly flickered and faded and again he saw the vast and barren plain of flat stone. Then the air darkened and a sighing wind began to moan over the plain. In the sky clouds blossomed in myriad shapes, alien, dark, unfamiliar, blacks and smoky orange, at the same time familiar…

The rock heaved like lava, became liquid, rearing upwards and as it reared it became giants, mountains, ancient beasts, monsters, gryphons, basilisks, chimerae, unicorns. Forests bloomed, their growths huge and exotic, elephants flew and great birds crushed boiling mountains beneath their feet. Fingers of brilliant colour climbed the sky, crisscrossing and blending. A flight of wildly singing lions fell from the firmament towards the forest and soared upwards again, their music lonely.

As the forest melted to become an ocean, a vast army of wizened homunculi came tramping from its depths dragging boats behind them. For a short while they marched over the seething waters and then, with precision, began, in ordered style, to climb into the flaring sky. When they had all left the ocean behind them, they righted their boats, set their sails, laughed and screamed and shouted, waved their arms, climbed into the boats and with fantastic speed streamed towards the horizon.

All creation tumbled and poured, malleable in the Domain of Chaos. All was gusto, craze and roaring terror, love, hate and music mingled.

The sky shook with multicoloured mirth, blossoming white shot through with veins of blue and purple and black, searing red, splattered with spreading flowers of yellow, smeared, smeared, smeared with ghoulish green. Across this seething backdrop sped bizarre shapes.

The Lords of Chaos shouted and sang their weird creation and Elric, shouting also, thought the frozen statues he had seen were weeping and laughing.

A grotesque combination of man and tree sent roots streaming towards the earth to tug mountains from the caverns it exposed and set them, peak first, like inverted pyramids, into the ground. Upon the flat surfaces dancers appeared in bright rags which fluttered and flared around them. They were warped, unhuman, pale as dead beauty, grinning fixedly and then Elric saw the strings attached to their limbs and the silently laughing puppet-master, bearlike and gigantic, controlling them. From another direction sped a small, blind figure bearing a scythe that was a hundred times bigger than the bearer. With a sweep, he cut the strings and, with that action, the whole faded to be replaced by a gushing brilliance of green and orange flame which formed itself into streamers of zig-zagging disorder.

All this went on around them. The Lords of Chaos smiled to themselves now, as they created, but Elric frowned, watched with wonder and no little pleasure, but puzzled how he might emulate such feats.

For long hours the pageant of Chaos continued as the lords took the elements of Elric’s world and shook them about, turned them inside out, stood them on end, made startling, strange, beautiful, unholy combinations until they were satisfied with the constant movement of the scene about them, the perpetual shifting and changing.

They had set a pattern that was no pattern, which would last until they became bored with their domain again and brought about another Time of the Change.

Then their heads turned and all regarded Elric expectantly.

Teshwan said a trifle wearily, “There—you have seen what we can do.”

“You are artists, indeed,” said Elric, “and I am so amazed by what I have witnessed that I need a little time to think. Will you grant it me?”

“A little time—a little time only—we want to see what you prepare for us while the excitement is still upon us.”

And Elric placed his white albino’s head upon his fist and thought deeply.

Many ideas occurred to him, only to be discarded, but at length he straightened his back and said: “Give me the power to create and I will create.”

So Teshwan said smilingly, “You have the power—use it well. A joke and a paradox is all we require.”

“The reward for failure?”

“To be forever conscious.”

At this, Elric shivered and put his mind to concentrating, searching his memory until a manlike figure formed before him. Then he placed features on its head and clothes on its body until there stood before Elric and the Lords of Chaos a perfect replica—of Elric.

Puzzledly, Teshwan said: “This is splendid impertinence, I grant you—but this is nothing new—you already sit here beside us.”

“Indeed,” replied Elric, “but look in the man’s mind.”

They frowned and did as he asked. Then, smiling, they nodded: “The paradox is good,” said Teshwan, “and we see your point. We have, for an eternity, created the effect. You, in your pride and innocence, have created the cause. In that man’s mind was all that could ever exist.”

“You have noted the paradox?” asked Elric, anxious that the correct interpretation had been divulged.

“Of course. For though the mind contains the variety beloved of we of Chaos, it contains the order that those barren Lords of Law would foist on the world. Truly, young mortal, you have created everything with a stroke. And thank you, also, for the joke.”

“The joke?”

“Why truly—the best joke is but a simple statement of truth. Farewell. Remember, friend mortal, that the Lords of Chaos are grateful to you.”

And with that, the whole domain faded away and Elric stood on the grassy plain. In the distance he observed the city of Bakshaan which had been his original destination, and nearby was his horse to take him there.

He mounted, flapped the reins, and, as the grey gelding broke into a trot, he said to himself: “A joke indeed, but it is a pity that men do not laugh at it more often.”

Reluctantly, he headed for the city.

THE GREATER CONQUEROR

Just how “great” was Alexander? Considering his ultimate destiny, were there other agencies at work using him as a springboard for a vaster design?

—John Carnell, SCIENCE FANTASY No. 58, April 1963

THE GREATER CONQUEROR

H
E FELT HE
was much more than one man. Not one god, even, but many…There seemed to be a hundred other entities writhing within him. Writhing to release themselves. Every limb, every projection of bone seemed to be part of another being.

He lay on the fur-strewn bed, sweating, dominated by movements in his mind and body which he was incapable of controlling. Alexander the Great groaned in torment.

The buxom Corinthian woman spat into the rushes on the floor of the tavern.

“That for the God-King!”

But the silence around her put a stop to her enlarging the theme. The Thracian known as Simon of Byzantium lifted his bronze cup, the sleeve of his silk-trimmed jerkin falling back down his brown arm, and sucked sweet Persian wine into his throat. He sensed the discomfort the other roisterers felt towards the woman and, because he could be cautious, dropped his arm from her thick waist and pushed her from him.

He looked down his long nose. His scarred face moved and he smiled as he addressed an old Persian soldier.

“You say you were in the army Darius led against Alexander?”

“That’s right—a charioteer. His cavalry ran rings round us.”

“What did you think of him?”

“Alexander? I don’t know. I was quite close to him at one stage and saw a spearman get a blow at him—struck him in the thigh. He yelled—not in pain but when he saw his own blood flowing. He couldn’t believe it. For a short time he was an open target as he stared down at his thigh, dabbing at the blood with his finger and inspecting it. Then he shouted something—I didn’t recognize the language—and was in command of himself again. They said the wound healed unnaturally quickly.”

“He claims to be the son of Zeus,” the Corinthian woman said from the shadows, “but many Persians say he’s evil Ahriman’s spawn.”

Simon pursed his lips and fingered his wine-cup. “Perhaps he’s just a mortal,” he suggested, “a mortal of unusual vitality?”

“Perhaps,” the Persian soldier said. “I only know he’s conquered the world.”

“I heard he halted his Indian campaign at the River Indus—why should he do that?” Simon said.

“His Macedonians say they forced him to stop, but I cannot believe that. Even Alexander must tire—that’s my theory. I think he needed to rest and recuperate. Throughout his campaigns he’s hardly slept; must move on continually as if driven to conquer. Who knows what spurred him to conquest—or what made him put a temporary halt to his victories?”

“The Indians have an ancient and mighty religion of which we know little,” said a middle-aged and scrawny trader from Carthage. “Could their gods be stronger than ours? Stronger than Alexander?” He pulled at his grey-streaked beard. His many rings glinted in the ill-lit place.

“Such talk is heresy these days,” cautioned the Persian, but it could be seen that he was contemplating this idea.

“People talk of nothing but the Macedonian,” said the swarthy trader. “From the Bosphorus to the Nile they curse or praise him. But what is he other than a man who has been lucky? Events have shaped him, not he them. He owes much to his foresighted father King Philip, and that warped mother Queen Olympias, both of whom, in their separate ways, prepared the world for his conquests. What reason for instance did he have for his meanderings in Persia some years ago? Why, instead of pressing on, did he embark on a wild goose chase after Darius? He had no reason save that events were not ready for him.”

“I like to think this of great men, also.” Simon smiled. “But I would join his army for my own convenience.”

“So that’s why you’re in Babylon. I wondered about you, my friend. Where are you from?” The Carthaginian poured himself more wine from a skin.

“I was born in Thrace, but I’m Byzantine by adoption. I’ve spent seven years there as Captain of Infantry. But now I’ve the urge to see the East and since Alexander goes east, decided to attach myself to his army. I hear he’s in Babylon now.”

“That’s true. But you might find him hard to meet—obviously he is not personally concerned with the hiring of mercenaries.” The Persian’s tone was friendly.

“I’ve heard this man—or god—spoken of so often that I’ve a mind to meet him if that’s possible.”

“Good luck to you, friend. He’ll either kill you or promote you. He’s a man of extremes.”

“Are not all great conquerors?”

“You’re marvelous learned for a mercenary.” The Carthaginian grinned.

Simon picked up his scabbarded short-sword from the bench.

“And you’re marvelous curious, friend. Know you not that all Arts are encouraged in Byzantium, just as they were in ancient Greece—including the Arts of Reading and Philosophy.”

The Persian laughed. “That’s the story Byzantium tells. I for one do not believe that any city could be so enlightened. All you Westerners yearn for a Greece that never was—your whole philosophy is based on a need for perfection; a perfection you can never attain because it never existed. Believe me, the gutters of Byzantium still stink!”

“Not so strongly as Persian jealousy,” Simon said, and left before he was called upon to take the argument to its conclusion.

But behind him in the tavern the Persian had not been angered. Instead he was laughing, wiping his mouth with his arm stump.

Simon heard the laughter as he crossed the dim Square of the Bazaar, almost deserted of merchants and customers. The sun was still setting. It was nearly curfew. A few merchants baling their goods looked up as he strode, a tall, gaunt, fighting man, in smooth old leather, towards the Street of the Bronzeworkers where he had a friend.

Around him, golden Babylon squatted like an ancient monster, containing all knowledge, all secrets, her stepped houses, palaces and temples soaking the last of the sun into their burnished hides. He walked up the steeply rising street and came at length to a small white house without windows. He knocked.

For a while he waited patiently as darkness came. Eventually bolts were withdrawn on the other side of the door and it was opened. An eye gleamed. The door opened wider.

Wizened Hano smiled welcomingly. “Come in, Simon. So you reached our splendid Babylon!”

Simon stepped into the house. It was very dark, overhot, with the unpleasantly bitter smell of metal. The old Phoenician clutched at his arm and led him down the dark passage.

“Will you be staying in Babylon, my boy?” Hano said, and then, before Simon could answer this question: “How’s the sword?”

“I intend to see Alexander,” Simon said, disliking the old man’s touch though he liked Hano greatly. “And the sword is excellent, has kept its edge in a dozen fights—I intend to hire it to Alexander.”

Hano’s grip tightened as they entered a dark, smoky room, a red brazier gleaming in its centre. Around the smoke-stained walls were weapons—swords, shields, lances—and several couches and small tables were scattered on the floor. The smoke caught in Simon’s lungs and he coughed it out. Hano pointed to a couch. “Sit down, Simon.” He shuffled towards his own couch on the other side of the brazier, stretched himself at full length and scratched his hooked nose.

“Alexander has many swords.”

“I know—but if you granted me a favour it might facilitate my meeting him.”

“I owe you friendship and more,” Hano said, “for you saved me from an unpleasant death that time in Thebes nine years ago. But though I sense what you want of me I am reluctant to agree to it.”

“Why?”

“An old man’s caution, maybe, but the stories I’ve been hearing of late have been disquieting. Alexander claims himself son of Zeus, Jupiter-Ammon. Others say that the Persian evil one Ahriman possesses him. All or none of this may be true—but every oracle from here to Pela is prophesying turmoil and trouble for the world and the king who rules it. Perhaps you would be wiser to join some ordinary caravan traveling east?” Hano pulled back his woolen robe, revealing a pale and unlovely leg. He poised his wrinkled hand and then almost hurled it at a spot on his leg and began to scratch at the place with his talons of nails.

“I’m sick of this prattle of gods and demons. Can no-one be content simply to believe in men and what men could be if they ceased blaming their misfortunes on unseen gods rather than on their own ineffectiveness? Life’s not easy, it is a hard task to live it well and with grace—but, by Hades, let’s not complicate it with deities and water-nymphs!”

Simon spat into the brazier which flared and spluttered.

Hano scratched at his thigh, drawing back more of his robe to do so, revealing a greater expanse of unhealthy flesh.

“I have seen supernatural manifestations of evil, my boy.”

“You have seen what a muddled brain wished you to see.”

“What matter? Now, let’s end this conversation before you yell more heresies and have us both arrested.”

“Heresy and treason combined if Alexander’s chest-puffing claim be true.” Simon looked away from the old man’s thin legs and stared into the brazier.

Hano changed the subject.

“In Utopia,” he said to Simon, “you’d yet be seeking further perfection. You call yourself a realist, Simon—perfection is not a reality.”

“Realities can be created,” said Simon.

“True,” Hano agreed. “But by the same logic, realities can be made unreal—unrealities made real. What if there
were
supernatural beings? How would you fit them into your theory?”

“The situation will never arise.”

“Let us hope so.”

The Phoenician turned his old twisted face towards Simon. The brazier light stained it a reddish brown, showing the wrinkles of mingled cynicism, fatalism and good nature. Hano said at length: “Very well.”

He got up and moved about the crowded room taking a pot from one shelf, a skin of wine from another.

Soon the smell of herbs came from the pot on the brazier as Hano brewed wine for his guest.

“You’ll help,” Simon said.

“Alexander owes me a favour. But he has strange ways of repaying debts and I’d not normally be foolish enough to remind him of this one.”

“What did you do for him?”

“Set the handle of a star-metal blade with black opals.”

“That was a favour!” Simon laughed.

Hano scowled, but genially. “Know you not what that meant? It meant he could not directly handle iron or anything likely to conduct its force to his body. Black opal is one of the few gems which will serve to negate the flow.”

“So?”

“So Alexander has a weakness. Iron will harm him.”

“If I had such a secret I would kill the man who held it,” Simon said reflectively.

“Not if you were Alexander and the man was dear to Olympias.”

“
You
know Queen Olympias!”

“Olympias wishes me kept alive so I can feed her with secrets.”

“Dark secrets, I’ll warrant, if the stories of her are half-true.”

“They do not touch the real truth about her.”

“Does she really sport with snakes at these rites?”

“Aye—and black goats are present too.”

Simon swore.

Hano handed him a cup of hot wine. As he drank he said: “I’m impatient to meet the God-King—how will you help?”

“I’ll give you a letter and a token to take to Alexander. But be wary, my boy. Be wary.”

Though he rarely admitted it, the idea of a supernatural world of gods and spirits disturbed Simon. Had it been practicable he might have become a militant atheist but instead he kept his opinions secret for the most part and did his utmost not to question them or even think of them.

When he reached the great golden palace of Alexander he paused and stared up at it with admiration. It was illuminated by hundreds of torches many of which, on long poles, surrounded the palace. Others flared on its many ramparts.

Two guards came forward. They were Babylonians in high helmets with oiled hair and beards. Their javelins threatened him.

In poor Babylonian Simon said:

“I come to see King Alexander—I have a token and a letter for him.”