To Rescue Tanelorn (47 page)

He felt a soft hand on his wrist. He looked down to see the girl staring up at him. “Your sword must sing its song,” she said. “This I know. Your sword must sing its song—and you must sing with it. You must sing together. It will give us our road.” Her eyes were unfocused. She saw into the future, as Arioch had done, or was it the past? She spoke distantly. Elric knew he was in the presence of a great natural psychic—but still her words hardly made sense to him.

“Aye—the sword will be singing, my lady, soon enough,” he said as he caressed her hair, longing for his youth, his happiness and his Cymoril. “But I fear you’ll not favour the tune Stormbringer plays.” Gently he pushed her to go with the children and comfort them. Then his right arm swung like a heavy pendulum and his right gauntlet settled upon the black hilt of his runesword until, with a single, sudden movement, he drew the blade from its scabbard and Stormbringer gave a yelp of glee, like a thirsty hound craving blood.

“These souls are mine, Lord Arioch!”

But he knew that, ironically, he would be stealing a little of his patron’s own life-stuff; for that was what animated these Chaos creatures, their bizarre deformities creating an obscene forest of flesh as they pressed through the doorway of the temple. That energy which had already destroyed this realm also gave a semblance of life to the creeping half-things which now confronted Elric and von Bek. Captain Quelch, claiming that he had no weapon, had gone to stand with the children, his arms out in a parody of protection. “Good luck with that elephant gun, old man,” he said to Count von Bek, who lifted the weapon to his shoulder, took careful aim, squeezed the trigger and, in his own words, “put a couple of pounds of Purdy’s best into the blighters.” There was a hideous splash of ichor and soft flesh. Elric stepped away fastidiously as his companion again took aim and again pounded the horrible creatures back from the door. “Though I think it fair to warn you, Prince Elric, that I only have a couple more of these left. After that, it’s down to the old Smith and Wesson, I’m afraid.” And he tapped the pouch at his belt.

But the weapon was needed elsewhere as, against all the windows high in the walls, there came a rattling of scales and a scratching of claws and von Bek fell back to cover the centre while Elric stepped forward, his black runesword moaning with anticipation, pulsing with dark fire, its runes writhing and skipping in the unholy metal, the whole terrible weapon independent within the grip of its wielder, possessed of a profound and sinister life of its own, rising and falling now as the white prince moved against the Chaos creatures, drinking their life-stuff. What remained of their souls passed directly into the deficient body of the Melnibonéan, whose own eyes blazed in that unwholesome glory, whose own lips were drawn back in a wolfish snarl, his body splashed from head to foot with the filthy fluids of his post-human antagonists.

The sword began to utter a great, triumphant dirge as its thirst was satisfied, and Elric howled too, the ancient battle shouts of his people, calling upon the aristocracy of hell, upon its patron demons, and upon Lord Arioch, as the malformed corpses piled themselves higher and higher in the doorway, while von Bek’s weapons banged and cracked, defending the windows.

“These things will keep attacking us,” called von Bek. “There’s no end to them. We must escape. It is our only hope, else we shall be overwhelmed soon enough.”

Elric agreed. He leaned, panting, on his blade, regarding his hideous work, his eyes cold with a death-light, his face a martial mask. “I have a distaste for this kind of butchery,” he said. “But I know nothing else to do.”

“You must take the sword to the centre,” said a pure, liquid voice. It was the girl, Far-Seeing.

She left the group, pushing past an uncertain Captain Quelch and reaching fearlessly out to the pulsing sword, its alien metal streaming with corrupted blood. “To the centre.”

Von Bek, Captain Quelch and the other children stared in amazed silence as the girl’s hand settled upon that awful blade, drawing it and its wielder through their parting ranks to where the corpse of the old man lay.

“The centre lies beneath his heart,” said Far-Seeing. “You must pierce his heart and drive the sword beyond his heart. Then the sword will sing and you will sing, too.”

“I know nothing of any sword song,” said Elric again, but his protest was a ritual one. He found himself trusting the tranquil certainty of the girl, her deft movements, the way she guided him until he stood straddling the peaceful body of the master wizard.

“He is rich with the best of Law,” said Far-Seeing. “And it is that stuff which, for a while, will fill your sword and make it work for us, perhaps even against its own interests.”

“You know much of my sword, my lady,” said Elric, puzzled.

The girl closed her eyes. “I am against the sword and I am of the sword and my name is Swift Thorn.” Her voice was a chant, as if another occupied her body. She had no notion of the meaning of the words which issued from her. “I am for the sword and I replace the sword. I am of the sisters. I am of the Just. It is our destiny to turn the ebony to silver, to seek the light, to create justice.”

Von Bek leaned forward. Far-Seeing’s words seemed to have important meaning to him and yet he was clearly astonished at hearing them at all. He passed his hand before her eyes.

All attention was on her. Even Quelch’s face had grown serious, while outside came the sounds of the Chaos creatures preparing for a fresh attack.

Then she was transformed, her face glowing with a pink-gold radiance, bars of silver light streaming from hair that seemed on fire, her rich, dark skin vibrant with supernatural life. “Strike!” she cried. “Strike, Prince Elric. Strike to the heart, to the centre! Strike now or our future is forever forbidden us!”

There came a guttural cough from the doorway. They had an impression of a jeweled eye, a wriggling red mouth, and they knew that some rogue Chaos Lord, scenting blood and souls, had determined to taste them for himself.

Walking Between the Worlds

“Strike! O, my lord! Strike!”

The girl’s voice rang out, a pure, golden chord against the cacophony of Chaos, and she guided the black sword’s fleshly iron towards the old man’s heart.

“Strike, my lord. And sing your song!”

Then she made a movement with her palms and the runesword plunged downwards, plunged into the heart, plunged through sinew and bone and flesh into the very stone beneath and suddenly, through that white alchemy, a pale blue flame began to burn within the blade, gradually turning to pewter and fiery bronze, then to a brilliant, steady, silver.

Von Bek gasped. “The sword of the archangel himself!”

But Elric had no time to ask what he meant for now the transformed runesword burned brighter still, blinding the children who whimpered and fell back before it, making Captain Quelch curse and grumble that he was endangered, while the girl was suddenly gone, leaving only her voice behind, lifted in a song of extraordinary beauty and spiritual purity; a song which seemed to ring from the steel itself; a song so wonderful, speaking of such joys and fulfillment, that Elric felt his heart lifting, even as the Chaos Lord’s long, grey tongue flicked at his heels. From somewhere within him all the longing he had known, all the sadness and the grief and the loneliness, all his aspirations and dreams, his times of intense happiness, his loves and his hatreds, his affections and his dislikes, all were voiced in the same music which issued from his throat, as if his whole being had been concentrated into this single song. It was a victory and a plea. It was a celebration and an agony. It was nothing more nor less than the Song of Elric, the song of a single, lonely individual in an uncertain world, the song of a troubled intellect and a generous heart, of the last lord of his people, the brooding prince of ruins, the White Wolf of Melniboné.

And most of all, it was a song of love, of yearning idealism and desperate sadness for the fate of the world.

The silver light blazed brighter still and at its centre, where the old man’s body had been and where the blade still stood, there now hovered a chalice of finely wrought gold and silver, its rim and base emblazoned with precious stones which themselves emitted powerful rays. Elric, barely able to cling to the sword as the white energy poured through him, heard Count von Bek cry out in recognition. And then the vision was gone. And blackness, fine and silky as a butcher’s familiar, spread away in all directions, as if they stood at the very beginning of Time, before the coming of the Light.

Then, as they watched, it seemed that spiders spun gleaming web after web upon that black void, filling it with their argent silk.

They saw shapes emerging, connected by the webs, filling the vacuum, crowding it, enriching it with wonder and colour, countless mighty spheres and curving roads and an infinite wealth of experience.

“This,” said Renark von Bek, “is what we can make of Chaos. Here is the multiverse; those webs you see are the wide roads that pass between the realms. We call them ‘moonbeams’ and it is here that creatures trade from world to world and where ships arrive from the Second Ether, bringing cargoes of terrible, exquisite stuffs not meant for mortal eyes. Here are the infinite realms, all the possibilities, all the best and the worst that can be in God’s creation…”

“You do your deity credit, sir,” said Elric.

Von Bek made a graceful movement of his hand, like an elegant showman.

Forms of every kind blossomed before him, stretching to infinity—nameless colours, flaming and shimmering and glowing, or dull and distant and cold—complex spiderwebs stretching through all dimensions, one connected with another, glinting, quivering and delicate, yet bearing the cargo and traffic of countless millions of realms.

“There are your moonbeams, sir.” Von Bek was grinning like an ape and relishing this vast, varied, yet ultimately ordered multiverse, forever fecund, forever reproducing, forever expanding its materials derived from the raw, unreasoning, unpredictable stuff of Chaos, which mighty alchemy made concrete. This was the ultimate actuality, the fundamental reality on which all other realities were based, which most mortals only glimpsed in visions, in dreams, in an echo from deep within. “The webs between the worlds are the great roads we tread to pass from one realm of the multiverse to another.”

Spheres blossomed and erupted, re-formed and blossomed again. Swirling, half-familiar images reproduced themselves over and over in every possible variety and on every scale. Elric saw worlds in the shape of trees, galaxies like flowers, star systems which had grown together, root and branch, so tangled that they had become one huge, irregular planet; universes which were steely oceans; universes of unstable fire; universes of desolation and cold evil; universes of pulsing colour whose beings passed through flames to take benign and holy shapes; universes of gods and angels and devils; universes of vital tranquility; universes of shame, of outrage, of humiliation and contemplative courtesy; universes of perpetually raging Chaos, of exhausted, sterile Law; all dominated by a sentience which they themselves had spawned. The multiverse had become entirely dependent for its existence on the reasoning powers, the desires and terrors, the courage and moral resolve of its inhabitants. One could no longer exist without the other.

And still a presence could be sensed behind all this: the
presence
which held in its hand the scales of justice, the Cosmic Balance, forever tilting this way or that, towards Law or towards Chaos, and always stabilized by the struggles of mortal beings and their supernatural counterparts, their unseen, unknown sisters and brothers in all the mysterious realms of the multiverse.

“Have you heard of a Guild of Adepts calling itself ‘the Just’?” asked von Bek, still as stone and drinking in this familiar vision, this infinite constituency, as another might kneel upon his native earth. Since his companions did not reply, he continued, “Well, my friends, I am of that persuasion. I trained in Alexandria and Marrakech. I have learned to walk between the realms. I have learned to play the
Zeitjuego,
the Game of Time. Grateful as I am for your wizardry, sir, you should know that your skills drew unconsciously upon all this. You are able to perform certain rituals, describe certain openings through which you summon aid from other realms. You define these allies in terms of unsophisticated, even primitive superstition. You, sir, with all your learning and experience, do little else. But if you come with me and play the great Game of Time, I will show you all the wonders of this multiverse. I will teach you how to explore it and manipulate it and remember it—for without training, without the long years in which one learns the craft of the mukhamir, the mortal mind cannot grasp and contain all it witnesses.”

“I have things to do in my own realm,” Elric told him. “I have responsibilities and duties.”

“I respect your decision, sir,” said von Bek with a bow, “though I regret it. You would have made a noble player in the Game. Yet, however unconsciously, I think you have always played and will continue to play.”

“Well, sir,” said Elric, “I believe you intend to honour me and I thank you. Now I would appreciate it if you would put me on the right road to my realm.”

“I’ll take you back there myself, sir. It’s the least I can do.”

Elric would not, as von Bek had predicted, remember the details of his journey between the realms. It would come to seem little more than a vague dream, yet now he had the impression of constant proliferation, of the natural and supernatural worlds blending and becoming a single whole. Monstrous beings prowled empty spaces of their own making. Whole nations and races and worlds experienced their histories in the time it took Elric to put one foot in front of another upon the silver moonbeams, that delicate, complicated lacework of roads. Shapes grew and decayed, translated and transmogrified, becoming at once profoundly familiar and disturbingly strange. He was aware of passing other travelers upon the silver roads; he was aware of complex societies and unlikely creatures, of communicating with some of them. Walking with a steady, determined gait, von Bek led the albino onward. “Time is not measured as you measure it,” the guide senser explained. “Indeed, it is scarcely measured at all. One rarely requires it as one walks between the worlds.”