The Stealer of Souls (36 page)

He looked with wide eyes at Elric, fascinated by the tall albino’s stern and pitiless mien.

He turned his head sharply to stare up at Dyvim Slorm. “Is that not Elric Friendslayer?” he said.

Dyvim Storm released the boy and said, “Where lies the Vale of Xanyaw?”

”North-west of here—it is no place for mortals. Is that not Elric Friendslayer, sir, tell me?”

Dyvim Slorm glanced miserably at his cousin and did not reply to the boy. Together they urged their horses north-west and Elric’s pace was even more urgent.

Through the bleak night they rode, buffeted by a vicious wind.

And as they came closer to the Vale of Xanyaw, the whole sky, the earth, the air became filled with heavy, throbbing music. Melodious, sensual, great chords of sound, on and on it rose and fell, and following it came the white-faced ones.

Each had a black cowl and a sword which split at the end into three curved barbs. Each grinned a fixed grin. The music followed them as they came running like mad things at the two men who reined in their horses, restraining the urge to turn and flee. Elric had seen horrors in his life, had seen much that would make others insane, but for some reason these shocked him more deeply than any. They were men, ordinary men by the look of them—but men possessed by an unholy spirit.

Prepared to defend themselves, Elric and Dyvim Slorm drew their blades and waited for the encounter, but none came. The music and the men rushed past them and away beyond them in the direction from which they had come.

Overhead, suddenly, they heard the beat of wings, a shriek from out of the sky and a ghastly wail. Fleeing, two women rushed by and Elric was disturbed to see that the women were from the winged race of Myyrrhn, but were wingless. These, unlike a woman Elric remembered, had had their wings deliberately hacked off. They paid no attention to the two riders, but disappeared, running into the night, their eyes blank and their faces insane.

“What is happening, Elric?” cried Dyvim Slorm, resheathing his runeblade, his other hand striving to control the prancing horse.

“I know not. What
does
happen in a place where the Dead Gods’ rule has come back?”

All was rushing noise and confusion; the night was full of movement and terror.

“Come!” Elric slapped his sword against his mount’s rump and sent the beast into a jerking gallop, forcing himself and the steed forward into the terrible night.

Then mighty laughter greeted them as they rode between hills into the Vale of Xanyaw. The valley was pitch-black and alive with menace, the very hills seeming sentient. They slowed their pace as they lost their sense of direction, and Elric had to call to his unseen cousin, to make sure he was still close. The echoing laughter sounded again, roaring from out of the dark, so that the earth shook. It was as if the whole planet laughed in ironic mirth at their efforts to control their fears and push on through the valley.

Elric wondered if he had been betrayed and this was a trap set by the Dead Gods. What proof had he that Zarozinia was here? Why had he trusted Sepiriz? Something slithered against his leg as it passed him and he put his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it.

But then, shooting upwards into the dark sky, there arose, seemingly from the very earth, a huge figure which barred their way. Hands on hips, wreathed in golden light, a face of an ape, somehow blended with another shape to give it dignity and wild grandeur, its body alive and dancing with colour and light, its lips grinning with delight and knowledge—Darnizhaan, the Dead God!

“
Elric!
”

“Darnizhaan!” cried Elric fiercely, craning his head to stare up at the Dead God’s face. He felt no fear now. “I have come for my wife!”

Around the Dead God’s heels appeared acolytes with wide lips and pale, triangular faces, conical caps on their heads and madness in their eyes. They giggled and shrilled and shivered in the light of Darnizhaan’s grotesque and beautiful body. They gibbered at the two riders and mocked them, but they did not move away from the Dead God’s heels.

Elric sneered. “Degenerate and pitiful minions,” he said.

“Not so pitiful as you, Elric of Melniboné,” laughed the Dead God. “Have you come to bargain, or to give your wife’s soul into my custody, so that she may spend eternity dying?”

Elric did not let his hate show on his face.

“I would destroy you; it is instinctive for me to do so. But—”

The Dead God smiled, almost with pity. “
You
must be destroyed, Elric. You are an anachronism. Your time is gone.”

“Speak for yourself, Darnizhaan!”

“I
could
destroy you.”

“But you will not.” Though passionately hating the being, Elric also felt a disturbing sense of comradeship for the Dead God. Both of them represented an age that was gone; neither was really part of the new Earth.

“Then I will destroy her,” the Dead God said. “That I could do with impunity.”

“Zarozinia! Where is she?”

Once again Darnizhaan’s mighty laughter shook the Vale of Xanyaw. “Oh, what have the old folk come to? There was a time when no man of Melniboné, particularly of the royal line, would admit to caring for another mortal soul, especially if they belonged to the beast-race, the new race of the age you call that of the Young Kingdoms. What? Are you mating with animals, King of Melniboné? Where is your blood, your cruel and brilliant blood? Where the glorious malice? Where the evil, Elric?”

Peculiar emotions stirred in Elric as he remembered his ancestors, the Sorcerer Emperors of the Dragon Isle. He realized that the Dead God was deliberately awakening these emotions and, with an effort, he refused to let them dominate him.

“That is past,” he shouted, “a new time has come upon the Earth. Our time will soon be gone—and yours is
over
!”

“No, Elric. Mark my words, whatever happens. The dawn is over and will soon be swept away like dead leaves before the wind of morning. The Earth’s history has not even begun. You, your ancestors, these men of the new races even, you are nothing but a
prelude to history
. You will all be forgotten if the real history of the world begins. But we can avert that—we can survive, conquer the Earth and hold it against the Lords of Law, against Fate herself, against the Cosmic Balance—we
can
continue to live, but you
must
give me the swords!”

“I fail to understand you,” Elric said, his lips thin and his teeth tight in his skull. “I am here to bargain or do battle for my wife.”

“You do not understand,” the Dead God guffawed, “because we are all of us, gods and men, but shadows playing puppet parts before the true play begins. You would best not fight me—rather side with me, for I know the truth. We share a common destiny. We do not, any of us, exist. The old folk are doomed, you, myself and my brothers, unless you give me the swords. We must not fight one another. Share our frightful knowledge—the knowledge that turned us insane. There is nothing, Elric—no past, present, or future.
We do not exist, any of us!
”

Elric shook his head quickly. “I do not understand you, still. I would not understand you if I could. I desire only the return of my wife—not baffling conundra!”

Darnizhaan laughed again. “No! You shall not have the woman unless we are given control of the swords. You do not realize their properties. They were not only designed to destroy us or exile us—their destiny is to destroy the world as we know it. If you retain them, Elric, you will be responsible for wiping out your own memory for those who come after you.”

“I’d welcome that,” Elric said.

Dyvim Slorm remained silent, not altogether in sympathy with Elric. The Dead God’s argument seemed to contain truth.

Darnizhaan shook his body so that the golden light danced and its area widened momentarily. “Keep the swords and all of us will be as if we had
never
existed,” he said impatiently.

“So be it,” Elric’s tone was stubborn, “do you think I wish the memory to live on—the memory of evil, ruin and destruction? The memory of a man with deficient blood in his veins—a man called Friendslayer, Womanslayer and many other such names?”

Darnizhaan spoke urgently, almost in terror. “Elric, you have been duped! Somewhere you have been given a conscience. You must join with us. Only if the Lords of Chaos can establish their reign will we survive. If they fail, we shall be obliterated!”

“
Good!
”

“Limbo, Elric.
Limbo!
Do you understand what that means?”

“I do not care. Where is my wife?”

Elric blocked the truth from his mind, blocked out the terror in the meaning of the Dead God’s words. He could not afford to listen or fully to comprehend. He must save Zarozinia.

“I have brought the swords,” said he, “and wish my wife to be returned to me.”

“Very well,” the Dead God smiled hugely in his relief. “At least if we keep the blades, in their true shape, beyond the Earth, we may be able to retain control of the world. In your hands they could destroy not only us but you, your world, all that you represent. Beasts would rule the Earth for millions of years before the age of intelligence began again. And it would be a duller age than this. We do not wish it to occur. But if you had
kept
the swords, it would have come about almost inevitably!”

“Oh, be silent!” Elric cried. “For a god, you talk too much. Take the swords—and give me back my wife!”

At the Dead God’s command, some of the acolytes scampered away. Elric saw their gleaming bodies disappear into the darkness. He waited nervously until they returned, carrying the struggling body of Zarozinia. They set her on the ground and Elric saw that her face bore the blank look of shock.

“Zarozinia!”

The girl’s eyes roamed about before they saw Elric. She began to move towards him, but the acolytes held her back, giggling.

Darnizhaan stretched forward two gigantic, glowing hands.

“The swords first.”

Elric and Dyvim Slorm put them into his hands. The Dead God straightened up, clutching his prizes and roaring his mirth. Zarozinia was now released and she ran forward to grasp her husband’s hand, weeping and trembling. Elric leaned down and stroked her hair, too disturbed to say anything.

Then he turned to Dyvim Slorm, shouting: “Let us see if our plan will work, cousin!”

Elric stared up at Stormbringer writhing in Darnizhaan’s grasp. “Stormbringer!
Kerana soliem, o’glara…
”

Dyvim Slorm also called to Mournblade in the High Tongue of Melniboné, the mystic, sorcerous tongue which had been used for rune-casting and demon-raising all through Melniboné’s twenty thousand years of history.

Together, they commanded the blades, as if they were actually wielding them in their hands, so that merely by shouting orders, Elric and Dyvim Slorm began their work. This was the remembered quality of both blades when paired in a common fight. The blades twisted in Darnizhaan’s glowing hands. He started backwards, his shape faltering, sometimes manlike, sometimes beastlike, sometimes totally alien. But he was evidently horrified, this god.

Now the swords wrenched themselves from the clutching hands and turned on him. He fought against them, fending them off as they wove about in the air, whining malevolently, triumphantly, attacking him with vicious power. At Elric’s command, Stormbringer slashed at the supernatural being and Dyvim Slorm’s Mournblade followed its example. Because the runeblades were also supernatural, Darnizhaan was harmed dreadfully whenever they struck his form.

“Elric!” he raved, “Elric—you do not know what you are doing! Stop them! Stop them! You should have listened more carefully to what I told you. Stop them!”

But Elric in his hate and malice urged on the blades, made them plunge into the Dead God’s being time after time so that his shape sometimes faltered, faded, the colours of its bright beauty dulling. The acolytes fled upwards into the vale, convinced that their lord was doomed. Their lord, also, was so convinced. He made one lunge towards the mounted men and then the fabric of his being began to shred before the blades’ attack; wisps of his bodystuff seemed to break away and drift into the air to be swallowed by the black night.

Viciously and ferociously, Elric goaded the blades while Dyvim Slorm’s voice blended with his in a cruel joy to see the bright being destroyed.

“
Fools!
” he screamed, “
in destroying me, you destroy yourselves!
”

But Elric did not listen and at last there was nothing left of the Dead God and the swords crept back to lie contentedly in their masters’ hands.

Quickly, with a sudden shudder, Elric scabbarded Stormbringer.

He dismounted and helped his girl-wife onto the back of his great stallion and then swung up into the saddle again. It was very quiet in the Vale of Xanyaw.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Three people, bent in their saddles with weariness, reached the Chasm of Nihrain days later. They rode down the twisting paths into the black depths of the mountain city and were there welcomed by Sepiriz whose face was grave, though his words were encouraging.