Knight of the Swords

by Michael Moorcock

  Rhalina and Jhary-a-Conel were already standing by the sky ship, staring upward as the great black beasts began to descend on Halwyg.

  "I spoke to Arkyn," Corum told them. "He was of little help. He said we must escape through the dimensions and seek Tanelorn. I told him that you could not guide the craft beyond this plane. He said that we must."

  Jhary shrugged and helped Rhalina aboard. "Then we must. Or, at least, we must try."

  "If only we could rally defenders from the City in the Pyramid. Their weapons would destroy even Glandyth's Chaos allies."

  "But they destroy each other with them. This is what Glandyth knew."

  They stood all three in the sky ship as Jhary passed his hands over the crystals and brought them to life. The craft began to rise. Jhary pointed its prow toward the west, away from Glandyth.

  But Glandyth had seen them now. The black wings beat louder and the cries increased in volume. The Denledhyssi began to sweep down toward the only three mortals in the world who were aware of what had happened to them.

  Jhary bit his lip as he studied the crystals. "It is a question of making accurate passes over these things," he said. "I am striving to remember what Bwydyth taught me."

  The sky ship was moving swiftly now, but their pursuers kept pace with them. The long necks of the flying beasts were poised like snakes about to strike. Red mouths stretched wide. Fangs flashed.

  Something foul streamed from those mouths like oily black smoke. Like the tongues of lizards they shot toward the sky ship. Desperately Jhary turned the craft this way and that, attempting to avoid the tendrils. One curled around the stern and the ship stopped moving for a moment before it broke free. Rhalina clung to Corum.

  Uselessly, he had drawn his sword.

  The little black-and-white cat clung with all its claws to Jhary's shoulder. It had recognized Glandyth and its eyes had widened in something akin to fear.

  Now Corum heard a yell and he knew that Glandyth realized who it was trying to escape from Halwyg.

  Although the barbarian was a good distance away, Corum thought he felt Glandyth's eyes glaring into his own. He stared back with his one human eye, the sword raised to protect himself and Rhalina, and he saw that Glandyth, too, brandished his great iron broadsword, almost as if challenging him to single combat. The flying serpents hissed and cackled and sent from their throats more of the smoky tendrils.

  Four of the things coiled around the ship. Jhary attempted to increase the speed.

  "We can go no faster! We are trapped!"

  "Then you must try to move through the planes. We might escape them that way."

  "Those are Chaos creatures. It is likely they too can cross the walls between the realms!"

  Hopelessly Corum hacked at the tendrils with his blade, but it was as if he cut through smoke. Inexorably they were being pulled back to where the Denledhyssi hovered, triumphantly waiting for them to be drawn close enough so that they could board the sky ship and slay its occupants.

  Then the black wings grew hazy and Corum saw that the city below was beginning to fade. Lightning seemed to flicker through sudden darkness. Globes of purple light appeared. The boat shuddered like a frightened deer and Corum felt a familiar nausea seize him. Furiously the black wings beat as they became clearer. He had guessed rightly, had Jhary. The creatures were able to follow them through the dimensions.

  Jhary made more passes over the instruments. The boat rocked and threatened to turn over. Again came the peculiar sensations, the vibrations, the lightnings and globes of golden flame in a rushing, turbulent cloud of red and orange.

  The tongues of smoke which restrained them disappeared. The black creatures still flew on, sighted through the zigzags of utter darkness and blinding brightness. Their voices could still be heard, as also could be heard the roaring rage of Glandyth-a-Krae.

  And then there was silence.

  Corum could not see Rhalina. He could not see Jhary.

  He could only feel the boat still beneath his feet.

  They were drifting in total blackness and absolute silence, in neither one dimension nor another.

  Book Two

  In which Prince Corum and his companions learn the full import of what Chaos is and what it intends to become and discover something more concerning the nature of time and identity

  The First Chapter

  Chaos Unbounded

  "Corum."

  It was Rhalina's voice.

  "Corum?"

  "I am here."

  He stretched out his right hand and tried to touch her. At last he felt her hair beneath his fingers. He encircled her shoulders with his arm.

  "Jhary?" he said. "Are you there?"

  "I am here. I am trying different configurations, but the crystals do not respond. Is this Limbo, Corum?"

  "I assume so. If it were not that we can breathe and it is relatively warm, I would think the sky ship adrift in the cosmos, beyond the sky."

  Silence.

  And then a thin line of golden light could be seen, cutting across the blackness as if dividing it in two, rather like a horizon, or the crack of light from beneath a gigantic door. And while they remained in the blackness the area of blackness above the golden line began, it seemed, to move upward, like a curtain in a vast theater.

  And now, though they could still not see each other, they saw the wide area of gold, saw it begin to change.

  "What is it, Corum?"

  "I know not, Rhalina, Jhary?"

  "This Limbo might be the domain of the Cosmic Balance—a neutral territory, as it were, where no gods or mortals come in ordinary circumstances."

  "Have we drifted into it by accident?"

  "I do not know."

  This is what they saw then:

  All was huge, but in proportion. A rider spurring his horse across a desert beneath a white and purple sky. The rider had milk-white hair and it streamed behind him. His eyes were red and full of wild bitterness, his skin was bone white. Physically he somewhat resembled the Vadhagh, for he had the same unhuman face. He was an albino, clothed all in black, baroque armor, every part of it covered in fine, detailed metal-work, a huge helm upon his head, a black sword at his side.

  And now the rider was no longer upon a horse. He rode a beast that somewhat resembled those which had pursued them—a flying beast—a dragon. The black sword was in his hand and it gave off a strange, black radiance. The rider rode the dragon as if it were a horse, seated in a saddle, his feet in stirrups, but he was strapped to the saddle to save him from falling. He was crying out.

  And below him there were other dragons, evidently brothers to the one he rode. They were engaged in aerial battles with misshapen things with the jaws of whales. A green mist drifted across the scene and obscured it.

  Now they saw the asymmetrical outlines of a gigantic castle, flowing upward to form its shape even as they watched. Battlements, turrets, towers all appeared. The dragon-rider ordered his beasts toward it and they released flaming venom from their mouths, directing it at the castle.

  A few others who followed the rider also sat upon the backs of the dragons.

  They passed the blazing castle and came now to an undulating plain. Upon this plain stood all the demons and corrupt, warped things of Chaos, arranged as if for battle.

  And here, too, were gods—Dukes of Hell every one—Malohin, Xiombarg, Zhortra and more—Chardros the Reaper, with monstrous, hairless head and sweeping scythe—and the oldest of the gods, Slortar the Old, slender and lovely as a youth of sixteen.

  And it was this massed might that the dragon-riders attacked.

  Surely they must perish.

  Fiery venom splashed across the scene and again there was only golden light.

  "What did we see?" Corum whispered. "Do you know, Jhary?"

  "Aye. I know. I have been there—or will be there. We see another age, another plane. The mightiest battle between Law and Chaos, Gods and Mortals, that I have ever witnessed. The white-faced one I served in a
different guise. He is called Elric of Melnibone."

  "You mentioned him once, when we first met."

  "He is, like you, a champion chosen by destiny to fight so that the equilibrium of the Cosmic Balance might be preserved." Jhary's voice sounded sad. "I remember his friend Moonglum, but his friend Moonglum does not remember me . . ."

  The remark seemed inconsequential to Corum.

  "What does it mean to us, Jhary?"

  "I do not know. Look—something else comes upon the stage."

  There was a city upon a plain. Corum felt that he knew it, but then realized that he had never seen it before, for it was not like any city in Bro-an-Vadhagh or Lywm-an-Esh.

  Of white marble and black granite, it was simple and it was magnificent. It was under siege. Silver-snouted weapons were upon its walls, directed at the attackers—a great horde of cavalry and infantry which had pitched its tents below. The attackers were clad in massive armor, but the defenders wore light protection and they, too, like the one Jhary had called Elric, were more like the Vadhagh than like other mortals. Corum began to wonder if the Vadhagh occupied many plains.

  A horseman in bulky armor rode from the camp toward the black-and-white walls of the city. He carried a banner and seemed to have come to parley. He called up at the walls and eventually a gate opened to admit him. The watchers could not see his face.

  The scene changed again.

  Now, strangely, the one who had been attacking the city was defending it.

  Sudden glimpses of terrible massacres. The humans were being destroyed by weapons even more powerful than those possessed by the folk of Gwlas-cor-Gwrys and it was one of their own kind who directed their murder ...

  It was gone. Golden, pure light returned.

  "Erekose," murmured Jhary. "I think I see significance in these scenes. I think it is the Balance and it is hinting at something. But the implications are so profound that my poor head cannot contain them."

  "Speak of them, please!" Corum begged into the darkness, his eyes still upon the golden stage.

  "There are no words. I have told you already that I am a Companion to Champions—that there is only one Champion and only one Companion, but that we do not always know each other, or even know of our fate.

  Circumstances change from time to time, but the basic destiny does not. It was Erekose's burden that he should be aware of this—aware of all his previous incarnations, his incarnations to come. You, at least, are spared that, Corum."

  Corum shuddered. "Say no more."

  Rhalina said, "And what of this hero's lovers? You have spoken of his friend . . ."

  And a new scene came upon the golden stage before she could continue.

  The face of a man, wracked with pain, covered in sweat, a dark, throbbing jewel imbedded in his forehead. He drew down over this face a helm of such highly polished metal that it became a perfect mirror. In the mirror could be seen a group of riders who at first appeared to be men with the heads of beasts. Then it became plain that these heads were in fact helmets, fashioned to resemble pigs, goats, bulls, and dogs.

  There was a pitched battle. There were several riders in the same polished helms. They were greatly outnumbered by their enemies in the beast masks.

  One of those in the mirror helmets—perhaps the man they had first seen—held something aloft—a short staff from which pulsed many-colored rays. This staff struck fear into the beast riders and many had to be driven on by their leaders.

  The fight continued.

  The scene vanished, to be replaced, once more, by nothing but the pure, golden light.

  "Hawkmoon," murmured Jhary. "The Runestaff. What can all this mean? You have witnessed yourself, Corum, in three other incarnations. I have never experienced such a thing before."

  Corum was trembling. He could not bear to consider Jhary's words. They suggested that it was his fate to experience an eternity of battle, of death, of misery.

  "What can it mean?" Jhary said again. "Is it a warning?

  A prediction of something about to take place? Or has it no special significance?"

  Slowly the blackness descended on the golden light until there was only a faint line of gold, and then that, too, vanished.

  They hung once more in Limbo.

  Jhary's voice came to Corum. The tone was distant, as if the dandy spoke to himself. "I think it means we must find Tanelorn. There, all destinies meet—there, all things are constant. Neither Law nor Chaos can effect Tanelorn's existence, though her occupants can sometimes be threatened. But even I do not know where Tanelorn lies in this age, in these dimensions. If I could only discover some sign which would give me my bearings ..."

  "Perhaps it is not Tanelorn we should seek," Rhalina said. "Perhaps these events we have been shown indicate some different quest?"

  "It is all bound up together," Jhary mused, seeming to answer a question he had put to himself. "It is all bound up together. Elric, Erekose, Hawkmoon, Corum. Four aspects of the same thing, as I am another aspect of it, as Rhalina is a sixth aspect. Some disruption has occurred in the universe, perhaps. Or some new cycle is about to take place. I do not know . . ."

  The sky ship lurched. It moved as if along a crazily undulating track. Massive teardrops of green and blue light began to fall all around them. There was the sound of a raging wind, but no wind touched them. An almost human voice, echoing on and on and on.

  And then they were flying through swiftly moving shadows—the shadows of things and people all rushing in the same direction.

  Below, Corum saw a thousand volcanoes, each one spewing red cinders and smoke, but somehow the cinders and smoke did not touch the sky ship. There was a stink of burning and it was suddenly replaced by the smell of flowers. The volcanoes had become so many huge blossoms, like anemones opening red petals.

  Singing came from somewhere. A joyful, martial tune like the song of a victorious army. It died away. There was a laugh, cut off short.

  The bulk of enormous beasts rose from seas of excrement and the beasts raised their square snouts to the skies and groaned before sinking again beneath the surface.

  A mottled, pink-white plain, apparently of stones. It was not stones. The plain was comprised entirely of corpses, each one neatly laid beside the other, each one face down.

  "Where are we Jhary, do you know?" Corum called, peering through disturbed air at his friend.

  "This place is ruled by Chaos, that is all I know at present, Corum. What you see is Chaos unbounded. Law has no power here at all. I believe we must be in Mabelrode's Realm and I am attempting to take the sky ship out of it, but it will not respond."

  "We are moving through the dimensions, however,"

  Rhalina said. "The scenes change so rapidly. That must be the case."

  Jhary offered her a desperate grin as he turned to look at her over his shoulder. "We are not moving through the dimensions. This is Chaos, Lady Rhalina. Pure, unchained Chaos."

  The Second Chapter

  The Castle Built of Blood

  "It is surely Mabelrode's Realm," Jhary said, "unless Chaos has conquered suddenly and all fifteen Planes are once again under its domination."

  Foul shapes flew about the sky ship for a moment and then were gone.

  "My brain reels," Rhalina gasped. "It as if I am mad. I can hardly believe I do not dream."

  "Someone dreams," Jhary told her. "Someone dreams, lady. A god."

  Corum could not speak. His head was aching. Peculiar memories threatened to come to him, but they remained elusive.

  Sometimes he would listen hard, believing that he heard voices. He would peer over the rail of the craft to see if they came from beneath the ship. He would stare into the sky. "Do you hear them, Rhalina?"

  "I hear nothing, Corum."

  "I cannot make out the words. Perhaps they are not words."

  "Forget them," Jhary said sharply. "Pay no attention to anything of that sort. We are in Chaos lands and our senses will deceive us in every way. Remember that we three
are the only realities—and be careful to inspect anything which looks like me or Rhalina very carefully before you trust it."

  "You mean demons will try to make me think that they are those I love?"

  "That is what they will do, call them what you will."

  A huge wave advanced toward them. It took the form of a human hand. It clenched itself into a fist. It threatened to smash the boat. It disappeared. Jhary flew on. He was sweating.

  A spring day dawned. They flew over the morning fields as the dew sparkled. Flowers grew in the grass and there were little bright pools of water, tiny rivers. In the shade of oak trees stood horses and cows. A little way ahead was a low, white farmhouse with smoke curling from its chimney.

  Birds sang. Pigs rooted in the farmyard.

  "I cannot believe it is not real," Corum said to Jhary.

  "It is real," Jhary told him. "But it is short-lived. Chaos delights in creation but swiftly becomes bored with what it creates for it seeks not order or justice or constancy but sensation, entertainment. Sometimes it suits it to create something which you and I would value or find pleasure in.

  But it is an accident."

  The fields remained. The farmhouse remained. The sense of peace grew.

  Jhary frowned. "Perhaps, after all, we have left the Realm of Chaos and . . ."

  The fields gradually began to swirl, like stagnant water stirred by a stick. The farmhouse spread to become scum on top of the water. The flowers were now festering growths on the surface.

  "It becomes so easy to believe what one wishes to believe," Jhary said wearily. "So easy."

  "We must escape from here," said Corum.

  "Escape? I cannot control the sky ship. I have not controlled it since we entered Limbo."

  "Then some other force controls us?"

  "Aye—but it may not be sentient." Jhary's voice was strained, his face was pale. Even the little cat was nestling hard against his neck as if seeking comfort.

  Stretching to every horizon now was seething stuff, grayish-green with what looked like pieces of rotting vegetation floating in it. The vegetation seemed to assume the shapes of crustaceans—crabs and lobsters scuttling across its surface, only slightly different in shade.