The Sleeping Sorceress (14 page)

Jhary-a-Conel pushed past the dwarf and entered the room of death. The sight seemed obnoxious to him but he controlled his feelings. “It is true. The sorcery we have worked today must have its effect. Whiskers—to me!”

The thing on Voilodion Ghagnasdiak’s face flew into the air and settled on Jhary’s shoulder. Elric saw that it was a small black-and-white cat, ordinary in every detail save for its neat pair of wings which it was now folding.

Voilodion Ghagnasdiak sat crumpled in the doorway and he was weeping through sightless eyes. Tears of blood flowed down his handsome face.

Elric ran back into the other room, breaking his link with Corum. He peered through the window slit. But now there was nothing but a wild eruption of mauve and purple cloud.

He gasped. “We are in limbo!”

Silence fell. Still the tower swayed. The lights were extinguished by a strange wind blowing through the rooms and the only illumination came from outside where the mist still swirled.

Jhary-a-Conel was frowning to himself as he joined Elric at the window.

“How did you know what to do?” Elric asked him.

“I knew because I know you, Elric of Melniboné—just as I know Erekosë there—for I travel in many ages and on many planes. That is why I am sometimes called Companion to Champions. I must find my sword and my sack—also my hat. Doubtless all are in Voilodion’s vault with his other loot.”

“But the tower? If it is destroyed shall we, too, be destroyed?”

“A possibility. Come, friend Elric, help me seek my hat.”

“At such a time, you look for a—hat?”

“Aye.” Jhary-a-Conel returned to the larger room, stroking the black-and-white cat. Voilodion Ghagnasdiak was still there and he was still weeping. “Prince Corum—Lord Erekosë—will you come with me, too.”

Corum and the black giant joined Elric and they squeezed into the narrow passage, inching their way along until it widened to reveal a flight of stairs leading downward. The tower shuddered again. Jhary lit a brand and removed it from its place in the wall. He began to descend the steps, the three heroes behind him.

A slab of masonry fell from the roof and crashed just in front of Elric. “I would prefer to seek a means of escape from the tower,” he said to Jhary-a-Conel. “If it falls now, we shall be buried.”

“Trust me, Prince Elric,” was all that Jhary would say.

And because Jhary had already shown himself to possess great knowledge Elric allowed the dandy to lead him further into the bowels of the tower.

At last they reached a circular chamber and in it was set a huge metal door.

“Voilodion’s vault,” Jhary told them. “Here you will find all the things you seek. And I, I hope, will find my hat. The hat was specially made and is the only one which properly matches my other clothes . . .”

“How do we open a door like that?” Erekosë asked. “It is made of steel, surely!” He hefted the black blade he still bore in his left hand.

“If you link arms again, my friends,” Jhary suggested with a kind of mocking deference, “I will show you how the door may be opened.”

Once again Elric, Corum and Erekosë linked their arms together. Once again the supernatural strength seemed to flow through them and they laughed at each other, knowing that they were all part of the same creature.

Jhary’s voice seemed to come faintly to Elric’s ears. “And now, Prince Corum, if you would strike with your foot once upon the door . . .”

They moved until they were close to the door. That part of them which was Corum struck out with his foot at the slab of steel—and the door fell inward as if made of the lightest wood.

This time Elric was much more reluctant to break the link which held them. But he did so at last as Jhary stepped into the vault chuckling to himself.

The tower lurched. All three were flung after Jhary into Voilodion’s vault. Elric fell heavily against a great golden chair of a kind he had once seen used as an elephant saddle. He looked around the vault. It was full of valuables, of clothes, shoes, weapons. He felt nauseated as he realized that these had been the possessions of all those Voilodion had chosen to call his guests.

Jhary pulled a bundle from under a pile of furs. “Look, Prince Elric. These are what you will need where Tanelorn is concerned.” It seemed to be a bunch of long sticks rolled in thin sheets of metal.

Elric accepted the heavy bundle. “What is it?”

“They are the banners of bronze and the arrows of quartz. Useful weapons against the reptilian men of Pio and their mounts.”

“You know of those reptiles? You know of Theleb K’aarna, too?”

“The sorcerer of Pan Tang? Aye.”

Elric stared almost suspiciously at Jhary-a-Conel. “How can you know all this?”

“I have told you. I have lived many lives as a Friend of Heroes. Unwrap this bundle when you return to Tanelorn. Use the arrows of quartz like spears. To use the banners of bronze, merely unfurl them. Aha!” Jhary reached behind a sack of jewels and came up with a somewhat dusty hat. He smacked off the dust and placed it on his head. “Ah!” He bent again and displayed a goblet. He offered this to Prince Corum. “Take it. It will prove useful, I think.”

From another corner Jhary took a small sack and put it on his shoulder. Almost as an afterthought he hunted about in a chest of jewels and found a gleaming ring of unnamable stones and peculiar metal. “This is your reward, Erekosë, in helping to free me from my captor.”

Erekosë smiled. “I have the feeling you needed no help, young man.”

“You are mistaken, friend Erekosë. I doubt if I have ever been in greater peril.” He looked vaguely about the vault, staggering as the floor tilted alarmingly.

Elric said: “We should take steps to leave.”

“Exactly.” Jhary-a-Conel crossed swiftly to the far side of the vault. “The last thing. In his pride Voilodion showed me his possessions, but he did not know the value of all of them.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Prince in the Scarlet Robe.

“He killed the traveler who brought this with him. The traveler was right in assuming he had the means to stop the tower from vanishing, but he did not have time to use it before Voilodion had slain him.” Jhary picked up a small staff coloured a dull ochre. “Here it is. The Runestaff. Hawkmoon had this with him when I traveled with him to the Dark Empire . . .”

Noticing their puzzlement, Jhary-a-Conel, Companion to Champions, apologized. “I am sorry. I sometimes forget that not all of us have memories of other careers . . .”

“What is the Runestaff?” Corum asked.

“I remember one description—but I am poor at naming and explaining things . . .”

“That has not escaped my notice,” Elric said, almost smiling.

“It is an object which can only exist under a certain set of spacial and temporal laws. In order to continue to exist, it must exert a field in which it can contain itself. That field must accord with those laws—the same laws under which we best survive.”

More masonry fell.

“The tower is breaking up!” Erekosë growled.

Jhary stroked the dull ochre staff. “Please gather near me, my friends.”

The three heroes stood around him. And then the roof of the tower fell in. But it did not fall on them for they stood suddenly on firm ground breathing fresh air. But there was blackness all around them. “Do not step outside this small area,” Jhary warned, “or you will be doomed. Let the Runestaff seek what we seek.”

They saw the ground change colour, breathed warmer, then colder, air. It was as if they moved from plane to plane of the multiverse, never seeing more than the few feet of ground upon which they stood.

And then there was harsh desert sand beneath their feet and Jhary shouted. “Now!” The four of them rushed out of the area and into the blackness to find themselves suddenly in sunlight beneath a sky like beaten metal.

“A desert,” Erekosë murmured. “A vast desert . . .”

Jhary smiled. “Do you not recognize it, friend Elric?”

“Is it the Sighing Desert?”

“Listen.”

And sure enough Elric heard the familiar sound of the wind as it made its mournful passage across the sands. A little way away he saw the Runestaff where they had left it. Then it was gone.

“Are you all to come with me to the defense of Tanelorn?” he asked Jhary.

Jhary shook his head. “No. We go the other way. We go to seek the device Theleb K’aarna activated with the help of the Lords of Chaos. Where lies it?”

Elric tried to get his bearings. He lifted a hesitant finger. “That way, I think.”

“Then let us go to it now.”

“But I must try to help Tanelorn.”

“You must destroy the device after we have used it, friend Elric, lest Theleb K’aarna or his like try to activate it again.”

“But Tanelorn . . .”

“I do not believe that Theleb K’aarna and his beasts have yet reached the city.”

“Not reached it! So much time has passed!”

“Less than a day.”

Elric rubbed at his face. He said reluctantly: “Very well. I will take you to the machine.”

“But if Tanelorn lies so near,” Corum said to Jhary, “why seek it elsewhere?”

“Because this is not the Tanelorn we wish to find,” Jhary told him.

“It will suit me,” Erekosë said. “I will remain with Elric. Then, perhaps . . .”

A look almost of terror spread over Jhary’s features then. He said sadly: “My friend—already much of time and space is threatened with destruction. Eternal barriers could soon fall—the fabric of the multiverse could decay. You do not understand. Such a thing as has happened in the Vanishing Tower can only happen once or twice in an eternity and even then it is dangerous to all concerned. You must do as I say. I promise that you will have just as good a chance of finding Tanelorn where I take you. Your opportunity lies in Elric’s future.”

Erekosë bowed his head. “Very well.”

“Come,” Elric said impatiently, beginning to strike off to the north-east. “For all your talk of time, there is precious little left for me.”

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Pale Lord Shouting in Sunlight

The machine in the bowl was where Elric had last seen it, just before he had attacked it and found himself plunged into Corum’s world.

Jhary seemed completely familiar with it and soon had its heart beating strongly. He shepherded the other two up to it and made them stand with their backs against the crystal. Then he handed something to Elric. It was a small vial.

“When we have departed,” he said, “hurl this through the top of the bowl, then take your horse which I see is yonder and ride as fast as you can for Tanelorn. Follow these instructions perfectly and you will serve us all.”

Elric accepted the vial. “Very well.”

“And,” Jhary said finally as he took his place with the others, “please give my compliments to my brother Moonglum.”

“You know him? What—?”

“Farewell, Elric! We shall doubtless meet many times in the future, though we may not recognize each other.”

Then the beating of the thing in the bowl grew louder and the ground shook and the strange darkness surrounded it—then the three figures had gone. Swiftly Elric hurled the vial upwards so that it fell through the opening of the bowl, then he ran to where his golden mare was tethered, leapt into the saddle with the bundle Jhary had given him under his arm, and galloped as fast as he could go towards Tanelorn.

Behind him the beating suddenly ceased. The darkness disappeared. A tense silence fell. Then Elric heard something like a giant’s gasp and blinding blue light filled the desert. He looked back. Not only the bowl and the device had gone—so also had the rocks which had once surrounded it.

He came up behind them at last, just before they reached the walls of Tanelorn. Elric saw warriors on those walls.

The massive reptilian monsters bore their equally repulsive masters upon their backs, their feet leaving deep marks in the sand as they moved. And Theleb K’aarna rode at their head on a chestnut stallion—and there was something draped across his saddle.

Then a shadow passed over Elric’s head and he looked up. It was the metal bird which had borne Myshella away. But it was riderless. It wheeled over the heads of the lumbering reptiles whose masters raised their strange weapons and sent hissing streams of fire in its direction, driving it higher into the sky. Why was the bird here and not Myshella? A peculiar cry came again and again from its metal throat and Elric realized what that cry resembled—the pathetic sound of a mother bird whose young is in danger.

He stared hard at the bundle over Theleb K’aarna’s saddle and suddenly he knew what it must be. Myshella herself! Doubtless she had given Elric up for dead and had tried to go against Theleb K’aarna only to be beaten.

Anger boiled in the albino. All his intense hatred for the sorcerer revived and his hand went to his sword. But then he looked again at the vulnerable walls of Tanelorn, at his brave companions on the battlements, and he knew that his first duty was to help them.

But how was he to reach the walls without Theleb K’aarna seeing him and destroying him before he could bring the banners of bronze to his friends? He prepared to spur his horse forward and hope that he would be lucky. Then a shadow passed over his head again and he saw that it was the metal bird flying low, something like agony in its emerald eyes. He heard its voice. “Prince Elric! We must save her.”

He shook his head as the bird settled in the sand. “First I must save Tanelorn.”

“I will help you,” said the bird of gold and silver and brass. “Climb up into my saddle.”

Elric cast a glance towards the distant monsters. Their attention was now wholly upon the city they intended to destroy. He jumped from his horse and crossed the sand to clamber into the onyx saddle of the bird. The wings began to clash and with a rush they swept into the sky, turning towards Tanelorn.

More streaks of fire hissed around them as they neared the city, but the bird flew rapidly from side to side and avoided them. Down they drifted now to the gentle city, to land on the wall itself.

“Elric!” Moonglum came running along the defenses. “We were told you were dead!”

“By whom?”

“By Myshella and by Theleb K’aarna when he demanded our surrender.”

“I suppose they could only believe that,” Elric said, separating the staffs around which were furled the thin sheets of bronze. “Here, you must take these. I am told that they will be useful against the reptiles of Pio. Unfurl them along the walls. Greetings, Rackhir.” He handed the astounded Red Archer one of the banners.

“You do not stay to fight with us?” Rackhir asked.

Elric looked down at the twelve slender arrows in his hand. Each one was perfectly carved from multicoloured quartz so that even the fletchings seemed like real feathers. “No,” he said. “I hope to rescue Myshella from Theleb K’aarna—and I can use these arrows better from the air, also.”

“Myshella, thinking you dead, seemed to go mad,” Rackhir told him. “She conjured up various sorceries against Theleb K’aarna—but he retaliated. At last she flung herself from the saddle of that bird you ride—flung herself upon him armed only with a knife. But he overpowered her and has threatened to slay her if we do not allow ourselves to be killed without retaliating. I know that he will kill Myshella anyway. I have been in something of a quandary of conscience . . .”

“I will resolve that quandary, I hope.” Elric stroked the metallic neck of the bird. “Come, my friend, into the air again. Remember, Rackhir—unfurl the banners along the walls as soon as I have gained a good height.”

The Red Archer nodded, his face puzzled, and once again Elric was rising into the air, the arrows of quartz clutched in his left hand.

He heard Theleb K’aarna’s laughter from below. He saw the monstrous beasts moving inexorably towards the walls. The gates opened suddenly and a group of horsemen rode out. Plainly they had hoped to sacrifice themselves in order to save Tanelorn and Rackhir had not had time to warn them of Elric’s message.

The riders galloped wildly towards the reptilian monsters of Pio, their swords and lances waving, their yells rising to where Elric drifted high above. The monsters roared and opened their huge jaws, their masters pointed their ornate weapons at the horsemen of Tanelorn. Flames burst from the muzzles, the riders shrieked as they were devoured by the dazzling heat.

In horror Elric directed the metal bird downwards. And at last Theleb K’aarna saw him and reined in his horse, his eyes wide with fear and rage. “You are dead! You are dead!”

The great wings beat at the air as the bird hovered over Theleb K’aarna’s head. “I am alive, Theleb K’aarna—and I come to destroy you at long last! Give Myshella up to me.”

A cunning expression came over the sorcerer’s face. “No. Destroy me and she is also destroyed. Beings of Pio—turn your full strength against Tanelorn. Raze it utterly and show this fool what we can do!”

Each of the reptilian riders directed their oddly shaped weapons at Tanelorn where Rackhir, Moonglum and the rest waited on the battlements.

“No!” shouted Elric. “You cannot—”

There was something flashing on the battlements. They were unfurling at last the banners of bronze. And as each banner was unfurled a pure golden light blazed out from it until there was a vast wall of light stretching the whole length of the defenses, making it impossible to see the banners themselves or the men who held them. The beings of Pio aimed their weapons and released streams of fire at the barrier of light which immediately repelled them.

Theleb K’aarna’s face was suffused with anger. “What is this? Our earthly sorcery cannot stand against the power of Pio!”

Elric smiled savagely. “This is not our sorcery—it is another sorcery which
can
resist that of Pio! Now, Theleb K’aarna, give up Myshella!”

“No! You are not protected as Tanelorn is protected. Beings of Pio—destroy him!”

And, as the weapons began to be directed at him, Elric flung the first of the arrows of quartz. It flew true—directly into the face of the leading reptilian rider. A high whining escaped the rider’s throat as it raised its webbed hands towards the arrow embedded in its eye. The beast the rider sat upon reared, for it was plain that it was only barely controlled. It turned away from the blinding light, from Tanelorn, and it galloped at earth-shaking speed away into the desert, the dead rider falling from its back. A streak of fire barely missed Elric and he was forced to take the bird up higher, flinging down another arrow and seeing it strike a rider’s heart. Again the mount went out of control and followed its companion into the desert. But there were ten more of the riders and each now turned his weapon against Elric, though finding it hard to aim as all the mounts grew restive and sought to accompany the two who had fled. Elric left it to the metal bird to duck and to dive through the criss-cross of beams and he hurled down another arrow and another. His clothes and his hair were singed and he remembered another time when he had ridden the bird across the Boiling Sea. Part of the bird’s right wing-tip had been melted and its flight was a little more erratic. But still it climbed and dived and still Elric threw the arrows of quartz into the ranks of the beings of Pio. Then, suddenly, there were only two left and they were turning to flee, for nearby a cloud of unpleasant blue smoke had begun to erupt where Theleb K’aarna had been. Elric flung the last arrows after the reptiles of Pio and took each rider in the back. Now there were only corpses upon the sand.

The blue smoke cleared and Theleb K’aarna’s horse stood there. And there was another corpse revealed. It was that of Myshella, Empress of the Dawn, and her throat had been cut. Theleb K’aarna had vanished, doubtless with the aid of sorcery.

Sickened, Elric descended on the bird of metal. On the walls of Tanelorn the light faded. He dismounted and he saw that the bird was weeping dark tears from its emerald eyes. He knelt beside Myshella.

An ordinary mortal could not have done it, but now she opened her lips and she spoke, though blood bubbled from her mouth and her words were hard to make out.

“Elric . . .”

“Can you live?” Elric asked her. “Have you some power to . . .”

“I cannot live. I am slain. Even now I am dead. But it will be some comfort to you to know that Theleb K’aarna has earned the disdain of the great Chaos Lords. They will never aid him again as they aided him this time, for in their eyes he has proved himself incompetent.”

“Where has he gone? I will pursue him. I will slay him the next time, that I swear.”

“I think that you will. But I do not know where he went. Elric—I am dead and my work is threatened. I have fought against Chaos for centuries and now, I think, Chaos will increase its power. Soon the great battle between the Lords of Law and the Lords of Entropy will take place. The threads of destiny become much tangled—the very structure of the multiverse seems about to transform itself. You have some part in this . . . some part . . . Farewell, Elric!”

“Oh, Myshella!”

“Is she dead now?” It was the sombre voice of the bird of metal.

“Aye.” The word was forced from Elric’s tight throat.

“Then I must take her back to Kaneloon.”

Gently Elric picked up Myshella’s bloody corpse, supporting the half-severed head on his arm. He placed the body in the onyx saddle.

The bird said: “We shall not see each other again, Prince Elric, for my death shall follow closely upon Lady Myshella’s.”

Elric bowed his head.

The shining wings spread and, with the sound of cymbals clashing, beat at the air.

Elric watched the beautiful creature circle in the sky and then turn and fly steadily towards the south and World’s Edge.

He buried his face in his hands, but he was beyond weeping now. Was it the fate of all the women he loved to die? Would Myshella have lived if she had let him die when he had wanted to? There was no rage left in him, only a sense of impotent despair.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned. Moonglum stood there, with Rackhir beside him. They had ridden out from Tanelorn to find him.