The Vanishing Tower

by Michael Moorcock

  "And he sent his Oonai against me. That is how—"

  She raised her hand.

  "I sent the chimerae to find you and bring you to me. They meant you no harm. But it was the only thing I could do, for Theleb K'aarna's spell was already begin­ning to work. I battle his sorcery, but it is strong and I am unable to revive myself for more than very short periods. This is one such period. Theleb K'aarna has joined forces with Prince Umbda, Lord of the Kelmain Hosts. Their plan is to conquer Lormyr and, ultimately, the entire Southern world!"

  "Who is this Umbda? I have heard neither of him nor of the Kelmain Hosts. Some noble of Iosaz, perhaps, who..."

  "Prince Umbda serves Chaos. He comes from the lands beyond World's Edge and his Kelmain are not men at all, though they have the appearance of men."

  "So Theleb K'aarna was in the far south, after all."

  "That is why I came to you tonight."

  "You wish me to help you?"

  "We both need Theleb K'aarna destroyed. His sor­cery is what enabled Prince Umbda to cross World's Edge. Now that sorcery is strengthened by what Umbda brings—the friendship of Chaos. I protect Lormyr and I serve Law. I know that you serve Chaos, yet I hope your hatred of Theleb K'aarna overcomes that loyalty for the moment."

  "Chaos has not served me, of late, lady, so I'll for­get that loyalty. I would have my vengeance on Theleb K'aarna and if we can help each other in the matter, so much the better."

  "Good."

  She gasped then and her eyes glazed. When next she spoke it was with some difficulty.

  "The enchantment is exerting its hold again. I have a steed for you near the town's north gate. It will bear you to an island in the Boiling Sea. On that island is a palace called Ashaneloon. It is there that I have dwelt of late, until I sensed Lormyr's danger . . ."

  She pressed her hand to her brow and swayed.

  ". . . But Theleb K'aarna expected me to try to re­turn there and he placed a guardian at the palace's gate. That guardian must be destroyed. When you have de­stroyed it you must go to the . . ."

  Elric rose to help her, but she waved him away.

  ". . . to the eastern tower. In the tower's lower room is a chest. In the chest is a large pouch of cloth-of-gold. You must take that and—and bring it back to Kaneloon, for Umbda and his Kelmain now march against the castle. Theleb K'aarna will destroy the castle with their help—and destroy me, also. With the pouch, I may destroy them. But pray that I am able to wake, or the South is doomed and even you will not be able to go against the power that Theleb K'aarna will wield."

  "What of Moonglum?" Elric glanced at his sleeping friend. "Can he accompany me?"

  "Best not. Besides, he has a light enchantment upon him. There is no time to wake him. . . ." She gasped again and flung her arms across her forehead. "No time. ..."

  Elric leaped from the bed and began to pull on his breeks. He took his cloak from where it was draped across a stool and he buckled on his runesword. He went forward to help her, but she signalled him away.

  "No. ... Go, please. . . ."

  And she vanished.

  Still half asleep Elric flung open the door and dashed down the stairs, out into the night, racing for the north gate of Alorosaz, passing through it and running on through the snow, looking this way and that. The cold flooded over him like a sudden wave. He was soon knee-deep in snow. Peering about him he carried on until he stopped in his tracks.

  He gasped in astonishment when he saw the steed which Myshella had provided for him.

  "What's this? Another chimera?"

  He approached it cautiously.

  Chapter Six

  Jewelled Bird Speaking

  It was a bird, but it was not a bird of flesh and blood.

  It was a bird of silver and of gold and of brass. Its wings clashed as he approached it and it moved its huge clawed feet impatiently, turning cold, emerald eyes to regard him.

  On its back was a saddle of carved onyx chased in gold and copper and the saddle was empty, awaiting him.

  "Well, I began all this unquestioningly," Elric said to himself. "I might as well complete it in the same manner."

  And he went up to the bird and he climbed up its side and he lowered himself somewhat cautiously into the saddle.

  The wings of gold and silver flapped with the sound of a hundred cymbals meeting and with three move­ments had taken the bird of metal and its rider high up into the night sky above Alorosaz. It turned its bright head on its neck of brass and it opened its curved beak of gem-studded steel.

  "Well, master, I am commanded to take thee to Ash­analoon."

  Elric waved a pale hand. "Wherever you will. I am at the mercy of you and your mistress."

  And then he was jerked backward in the saddle as the bird's wings beat the stronger and it gathered speed and he was rushing through the freezing night, over snowy plains, over mountains, over rivers, until the coast came in sight and he saw the sea in the west which was called the Boiling Sea.

  Down through the pitch blackness dropped the bird of gold and silver and now Elric felt damp heat strike his face and hands, heard a peculiar bubbling sound, and he knew they were flying over that strange sea said to be fed by volcanoes lying deep below its surface, a sea where no ships sailed.

  Steam surrounded them now. Its heat was almost un­bearable, but through it Elric began to make out the silhouette of a landmass, a small rocky island on which stood a single building and slender towers and turrets and domes.

  "The palace of Ashaneloon," said the bird of silver and gold. "I will alight among the battlements, master, but I fear that thing you must meet before our errand is accomplished, so I will await you elsewhere. Then, if you live, I will return to take you back to Kaneloon. And, if you die, I will go back to tell my mistress of your failure."

  Over the battlements the bird now hovered, its wings beating, and Elric reflected that there would be no ad­vantage of surprise over whatever it was the bird feared so much.

  He swung one leg from the saddle, paused, and then leapt down to the flat roof.

  Hastily the bird retreated into the black sky.

  Elric was alone.

  All was silent, save for the drumming of warm waves on a distant shore.

  He located the eastern tower and began to make his way towards the door. There was some chance, per­haps, that he could complete his quest without the neces­sity of facing the palace's guardian.

  But then a monstrous bellow sounded behind him and he wheeled, knowing that this must be the guardian. A creature stood there, its red-rimmed eyes full of insen­sate malice.

  "So you are Theleb K'aarna's slave," said Elric. He reached for Stormbringer and the sword seemed to spring into his hand at its own volition. "Must I kill you, or will you be gone now?"

  The creature bellowed again, but it did not move.

  The albino said: "I am Elric of Melnibone, last of a line of great sorcerer kings. This blade I wield will do more than kill you, friend demon. It will drink your soul and feed it to me. Perhaps you have heard of me by another name? By the name of the Soul Thief?"

  The creature lashed its serrated tail and its bovine nostrils distended. The horned head swayed on the short neck and the long teeth gleamed in the darkness. It reached out scaly claws and began to lumber towards the Prince of Ruins.

  Elric took the sword in both hands and spread his feet wide apart on the flagstones and prepared to meet the monster's charge. Foul breath struck his face. An­other bellow and then it was upon him.

  Stormbringer howled and spilled black radiance over both. The runes carved in the blade glowed with a greedy glow as the thing of Hell slashed at Elric's body with its claws, ripping the shirt from him and baring his chest.

  The sword came down.

  The demon roared as the scales of its shoulder re­ceived the blow but did not part. It danced to one side and attacked again. Elric swayed back, but now a thin wound was opened in his arm from elbow to wrist.

  Stormbringer
struck for the second time and hit the demon's snout so that it shrieked and lashed out once more. Again its claws found Elric's body and blood smeared his chest from a shallow cut.

  Elric fell back, losing his footing on the stones. He almost went down, but recovered his balance and de­fended himself as best he could. The claws slashed at him, but Stormbringer drove them to one side.

  Elric began to pant and the sweat poured down his face and he felt desperation well in him and then that desperation took a different quality and his eyes glowed and his lips snarled.

  "Know you that I am Elric!" he cried. "Elric!"

  Still the creature attacked.

  "I am Elric—more demon than man! Begone, you ill-shaped thing!"

  The creature bellowed and pounced and this time El­ric did not fall back, but, his face writhing in terrible rage, reversed his grip on the runesword and plunged it point first into the demon's open jaws.

  He plunged the Black Sword down the stinking throat, down into the torso.

  He wrenched the blade so that it split jaw, neck, chest and groin and the creature's life force began to course along the length of the runesword. The claws lashed out at him, but the creature was weakening.

  Then the life force pulsed up the blade and reached Elric who gasped and screamed in dark ecstasy as the demon's energy poured into him. He withdrew the blade and hacked and hacked at the body and still the life-force flowed into him and gave greater power to his blows. The demon groaned and dropped to the flag­stones.

  And it was done.

  And a white-faced demon stood over the dead thing of Hell and its crimson eyes blazed and its pale mouth opened and it roared with wild laughter, flinging its arms upward, the runesword flaming with a black and horrid flame, and it howled a wordless, exultant song to the Lords of Chaos.

  There was silence suddenly.

  And then it bowed its head and it wept.

  Now Elric opened the door to the eastern tower and stumbled through absolute blackness until he came to the lowest room. The door to the room was locked and barred, but Stormbringer smashed through it and the Last Lord of Melnibone entered a lighted room in which squatted a chest of iron.

  His sword sundered the bands securing the chest and he flung open the lid and saw that there were many wonders in the chest, as well as the pouch made from cloth-of-gold, but he picked out only the pouch and tucked it into his belt as he raced from the room, back to the battlements where the bird of silver and gold stood pecking with its steel beak at the remnants of Theleb K'aarna's servant.

  It looked up as Elric returned. In its eyes was an ex­pression almost of humour.

  "Well, master, we must make haste to Kaneloon."

  "Aye."

  Nausea had begun to fill Elric. His eyes were gloomy as he contemplated the corpse and that which he had stolen from it. Such life force, whatever else it was, must surely be tainted. Did not he drink something of the demon's evil when his sword drank its soul?

  He was about to climb back into the onyx saddle when he saw something gleaming amongst the black and yellow entrails he had spilled. It was the demon's heart—an irregularly shaped stone of deep blue and purple and green. It still pulsed, though its owner was dead.

  Elric stooped and picked it up. It was wet and so hot that it almost burned his hand, but he tucked it into his pouch, then mounted the bird of silver and gold.

  His bone-white face flickered with a dozen strange emotions as he let the bird bear him back over the Boil­ing Sea. His milk-white hair flew wildly behind him and he was oblivious of the wounds on his arm and chest.

  He was thinking of other things. Some of his thoughts lay in the past and others were in the future. And he laughed bitterly twice and his eyes shed tears and he spoke once.

  "Ah, what agony is this Life!"

  Chapter Seven

  Black Wizard Laughing

  To Kaneloon they came in the early dawn and in the distance Elric saw a massive army darkening the snow and he knew it must be the Kelmain Host, led by Theleb K'aarna and Prince Umbda, marching against the lonely castle.

  The bird of gold and silver flapped down in the snow outside the castle's entrance and Elric dismounted. Then the bird had risen into the air again and was gone.

  The great gate of Castle Kaneloon was closed this time and he gathered his tattered cloak about his naked torso and he hammered on the gate with his fists and he forced a cry from his dry lips.

  "Myshella! Myshella!"

  There was no answer.

  "Myshella! I have returned with that which you need!"

  He feared she must have fallen into her enchanted slumber again. He looked towards the south and the dark tide had rolled a little closer to the castle.

  "Myshella!"

  Then he heard a bar being drawn and the gates groaned open and there stood Moonglum, his face strained and his eyes full of something of which he could not speak.

  "Moonglum! How came you here?"

  "I know not how, Elric." Moonglum stepped aside so that Elric could enter. He replaced the bar. "I lay in my bed last night when a woman came to me—the same woman we saw, sleeping, here. She said I must go with her. And somehow go I did. But I know not how, Elric. I know not how."

  "And where is that woman?"

  "Where we first saw her. She sleeps and I cannot wake her."

  Elric drew a deep breath and told, briefly, what he knew of Myshella and the host that came against her Castle Kaneloon.

  "Do you know the contents of that pouch?" Moonglum asked.

  Elric shook his head and opened the pouch to peer inside. "It seems to be nothing but a pinkish dust. Yet it must be some powerful sorcery if Myshella believes it can defeat the entire Kelmain Host."

  Moonglum frowned. "But surely Myshella must work the charm herself if only she knows what it is?"

  "Aye."

  "And Theleb K'aarna has enchanted her."

  "Aye."

  "And now it is too late, for Umbda—whoever he may be—nears the castle."

  "Aye." Elric's hand trembled as he drew from his belt the thing he had taken from the demon just before he left the Palace of Ashaneloon. "Unless this is the stone I think it is."

  "What is that?"

  "I know a legend. Some demons possess these stones as hearts." He held it to the light so that the blues and purples and greens writhed. "I have never seen one, but I believe it to be the thing I once sought for Cymoril when I tried to lift my cousin's charm from her. What I sought but never found was a Nanorion. A stone of magical powers said to be able to waken the dead—or those in deathlike sleep."

  "And that is a Nanorion. It will awaken Myshella?"

  "If anything can, then this will, for I took it from Theleb K'aarna's own demon and that must improve the efficaciousness of the magic. Come." Elric strode through the hall and up the stairs until he came to Myshella's room where she lay, as he had seen her before, on the bed hung with draperies, her wall hung with shields and weapons.

  "Now I understand why these arms decorate her chamber," Moonglum said. "According to legend, these are the shields and weapons of all those who loved Myshella and championed her cause."

  Elric nodded and said, as if to himself, "Aye, she was ever an enemy of Melnibone was the Empress of the Dawn."

  He held the pulsing stone delicately and reached out to place it on her forehead.

  "It makes no difference," Moonglum said after a moment. "She does not stir."

  "There is a rune, but I remember it not. . . ." Elric pressed his fingers to his temples. "I remember it not. ..."

  Moonglum went to the window. "We can ask Theleb K'aarna, perhaps," he said ironically. "He will be here soon enough."

  Then Moonglum saw that there were tears again in Elric's eyes and that he had turned away, hoping Moonglum would not see. Moonglum cleared his throat. "I have some business below. Call me if you should require my help."

  He left the room and closed the door and Elric was alone with the woman who se
emed, increasingly, a dreadful phantom from his most frightful dreams.

  He controlled his feverish mind and tried to disci­pline it, to remember the crucial runes in the High Speech of Old Melnibone.

  "Gods!" he hissed. "Help me!"

  But he knew that in this matter in particular the Lords of Chaos would not assist him—would hinder him if they could, for Myshella was one of the chief instruments of Law upon the Earth, had been respon­sible for driving Chaos from the world.

  He fell to his knees beside her bed, his hands clenched, his face twisting with the effort.

  And then it came back to him. His head still bent, he stretched out his right hand and touched the pulsing stone, stretched out his left hand and rested it upon Myshella's navel, and he began a chant in an ancient tongue that had been spoken before true men had ever walked the Earth. ...

  "Elric!"

  Moonglum burst into the room and Elric was wrenched from his trance.

  "Elric! We are invaded! Their advance riders. . . ."

  "What?"

  "They have broken into the castle—a dozen of them. I fought them off and barred the way up to this tower, but they are hacking at the door now. I think they have been sent to destroy Myshella if they could. They were surprised to discover me here."

  Elric rose and looked carefully down at Myshella. The rune was finished and had been repeated almost through again when Moonglum had come in. She did not stir yet.

  "Theleb K'aarna worked his sorcery from a dis­tance," Moonglum said. "Ensuring that Myshella would not resist him. But he did not reckon with us."

  He and Elric hurried from the room, down the steps to where a door was bulging and splintering beneath the weapons of those beyond.

  "Stand back, Moonglum."

  Elric drew the crooning runesword, lifted it high and brought it against the door.

  The door split and two oddly shaped skulls were split with it.

  The remainder of the attackers fell back with cries of astonishment and horror as the white-faced reaver fell upon them, his huge sword drinking their souls and singing its strange, undulating song.

  Down the stairs Elric pursued them. Into the hall where they bunched together and prepared to defend themselves from this demon with his hell-forged blade.