The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  XI

  IN WHICH MRS PERSSON WITNESSES THE FIRST SIGN OF THE MEGA FLOW’S DISINTEGRATION

  In Castle Canaria Lord Jagged unrolled his antique charts. He had had them drawn for him by a baffled astrologer in 1950. They were one of his many affectations. At the moment, however, they were of considerably greater use than Alvarez’s electronics.

  While he used a wrist computer to check his figures, Una Persson looked out of the window of Castle Canaria and wondered who had invented this particular landscape. A green and orange sun cast sickening light over the herds of grazing beasts who resembled, from this distance at any rate, nothing so much as gigantic human hands. In the middle of the scene was raised some kind of building in the shape of a vast helmet, vaguely Greek in conception. Beyond that was a low, grey moon. She turned away.

  “I must admit,” said Lord Jagged, “that I had not understood the extent…”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “You must forgive me. A certain amount of amnesia – euphoria, perhaps? – always comes over one in these very remote periods.”

  “Quite.”

  He looked up from the charts. “We’ve a few hours at most.”

  Her smile was thin, her nod barely perceptible.

  While she made the most of having told him so, Lord Jagged frowned, turned a power ring and produced an already lit pipe which he placed thoughtfully in his mouth, taking it out again almost immediately. “That wasn’t Dunhill Standard Medium.” He laid the pipe aside.

  There came a loud buzzing noise from the window. The scene outside was disintegrating as if melting on glass. An eerie golden light spread everywhere, flooding from an apex of deeper gold, as if forming a funnel.

  “That’s a rupture,” said Lord Jagged. His voice was tense. He put his arm about her shoulders. “I’ve never seen anything of the size before.”

  Rushing towards them along the funnel of light there came an entire city of turrets and towers and minarets in a wide variety of pastel colours. It was set into a saucer-shaped base which was almost certainly several miles in circumference.

  For a moment the city seemed to retreat. The golden light faded. The city remained, some distance away, swaying a little as if on a gentle tide, a couple of thousand feet above the ground, the grey moon below it.

  “That’s what I call megaflow distortion,” said Una Persson in that inappropriately facetious tone adopted by those who are deeply frightened.

  “I recognize the period.” Jagged drew a telescope from his robes. “Second Candlemaker’s Empire, mainly based in Arcturus. This is a village by their standards. After all, Earth was merely a rural park during that time.” He retreated into academe, his own response to fear.

  Una craned her head. “Isn’t that some sort of vehicle heading towards the city? From the moon – good heavens, they’ve spotted it already. Are they going to try to put the whole thing into a menagerie?”

  Jagged had the advantage of the telescope. “I think not.” He handed her the instrument.

  Through it she saw a scarlet and black chariot borne by what seemed to be some form of flying fairground horses. In the chariot, armed to the teeth with lances, bows, spears, swords, axes, morningstars, maces and almost every other barbaric hand-weapon, clad in quasi-mythological armour, were Werther de Goethe, the Duke of Queens and Elric of Melniboné.

  “They’re attacking it!” she said faintly. “What will happen when the two groups intersect?”

  “Three groups,” he pointed out. “Untangling that in a few hours is going to be even harder.”

  “And if we fail?”

  He shrugged. “We might just as well give ourselves up to the biggest chronoquake the universe has ever experienced.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” she said.

  “Why not? Everyone else is.”

  XII

  THE ATTACK ON THE CITADEL OF THE SKIES

  “Melniboné! Melniboné!” cried the albino as the chariot circled over the spires and turrets of the city. They saw startled faces below. Strange engines were being dragged through the narrow streets.

  “Surrender!” Elric demanded.

  “I do not think they can understand us,” said the Duke of Queens. “What a find, eh? A whole city from the past!”

  Werther had been reluctant to embark on an adventure not of his own creation, but Elric, realizing that here at last was a chance of escape, had been anxious to begin. The Duke of Queens had, in an instant, aided the albino by producing costumes, weapons, transport. Within minutes of the city’s appearance, they had been on their way.

  Exactly why Elric wished to attack the city, Werther could not make out, unless it was some test of the Melnibonéan’s to see if his companions were true allies or merely pretending to have befriended him. Werther was learning a great deal from Elric, much more than he had ever learned from Mongrove, whose ideas of angst were only marginally less notional than Werther’s own.

  A broad, flat blue ray beamed from the city. It singed one wheel of the chariot.

  “Ha! They make sorcerous weapons,” said Elric. “Well, my friends. Let us see you counter with your own power.”

  Werther obediently imitated the blue ray and sent it back from his fingers, slicing the tops off several towers. The Duke of Queens typically let loose a different coloured ray from each of his extended ten fingers and bored a hole all the way through the bottom of the city so that fields could be seen below. He was pleased with the effect.

  “This is the power of the Gods of Chaos!” cried Elric, a familiar elation filling him as the blood of old Melniboné was fired. “Surrender!”

  “Why do you want them to surrender?” asked the Duke of Queens in some disappointment.

  “Their city evidently has the power to fly through the dimensions. If I became its lord I could force it to return to my own plane,” said Elric reasonably.

  “The Morphail Effect…” began Werther, but realized he was spoiling the spirit of the game. “Sorry.”

  The blue ray came again, but puttered out and faded before it reached them.

  “Their power is gone!” cried Elric. “Your sorcery defeats them, my lords. Let us land and demand they honour us as their new rulers.”

  With a sigh, Werther ordered the chariot to set down in the largest square. Here they waited until a few of the citizens began to arrive, cautious and angry, but evidently in no mood to give any further resistance.

  Elric addressed them. “It was necessary to attack and conquer you, for I must return to my own realm, there to fulfil my great destiny. If you will take me to Melniboné, I will demand nothing further from you.”

  “One of us really ought to take a translation pill,” said Werther. “These people probably have no idea where they are.”

  A meaningless babble came from the citizens. Elric frowned. “They understand not the High Speech,” he said. “I will try the common tongue.” He spoke in a language neither Werther, the Duke of Queens nor the citizens of this settlement could understand.

  He began to show signs of frustration. He drew his sword Stormbringer. “By the Black Sword, know that I am Elric, last of the royal line of Melniboné! You must obey me. Is there none here who understands the High Speech?”

  Then, from the crowd, stepped a being far taller than the others. He was dressed in robes of dark blue and deepest scarlet and his face was haughty, beautiful and full of evil.

  “I speak the High Tongue,” he said.

  Werther and the Duke of Queens were nonplussed. This was no-one they recognized.

  Elric gestured. “You are the ruler of the city?”

  “Call me that, if you will.”

  “Your name?”

  “I am known by many names. And you know me, Elric of Melniboné, for I am your lord and your friend.”

  “Ah,” said Elric lowering his sword, “this is the greatest deception of them all. I am a fool.”

  “Merely a mortal,” said the newcomer, his voice soft, amused and ful
l of a subtle arrogance. “Are these the renegades who helped you?”

  “Renegades?” said Werther. “Who are you, sir?”

  “You should know me, rogue lords. You aid a mortal and defy your brothers of Chaos.”

  “Eh?” said the Duke of Queens. “I haven’t got a brother.”

  The stranger ignored him. “Demigods who thought that by helping this mortal they could threaten the power of the Greater Ones.”

  “So you did aid me against your own,” said Elric. “Oh, my friends!”

  “And they shall be punished!”

  Werther began: “We regret any damage to your city. After all, you were not invited…”

  The Duke of Queens was laughing. “Who are you? What disguise is this?”

  “Know me for your master.” The eyes of the stranger glowed with myriad fires. “Know me for Arioch, Duke of Hell!”

  “Arioch!” Elric became filled with a strange joy. “Arioch! I called upon thee and was not answered!”

  “I was not in this realm,” said the Duke of Hell. “I was forced to be absent. And while I was gone, fools thought to displace me.”

  “I really cannot follow all this,” said the Duke of Queens. He set aside his mace. “I must confess I become a trifle bored, sir. If you will excuse me.”

  “You will not escape me.” Arioch lifted a languid hand and the Duke of Queens was frozen to the ground, unable to move anything save his eyes.

  “You are interfering, sir, with a perfectly…” Werther too was struck dumb and paralyzed.

  But Elric refused to quail. “Lord Arioch, I have given you blood and souls. You owe me…”

  “I owe you nothing, Elric of Melniboné. Nothing I do not choose to owe. You are my slave…”

  “No,” said Elric. “I serve you. There are old bonds. But you cannot control me, Lord Arioch, for I have a power within me which you fear. It is the power of my very mortality.”

  The Duke of Hell shrugged. “You will remain in the Realm of Chaos for ever. Your mortality will avail you little here.”

  “You need me in my own realm, to be your agent. That, too, I know, Lord Arioch.”

  The handsome head lowered a fraction as if Arioch considered this. The beautiful lips smiled. “Aye, Elric. It is true that I need you to do my work. For the moment it is impossible for the Lords of Chaos to interfere directly in the world of mortals, for we should threaten our own existence. The rate of entropy would increase beyond even our control. The day has not yet come when Law and Chaos must decide the issue once and for all. But it will come soon enough for you, Elric.”

  “And my sword will be at your service, Lord Arioch.”

  “Will it, Elric?”

  Elric was surprised by this doubting tone. He had always served Chaos, as his ancestors had. “Why should I turn against you? Law has no attractions for one such as Elric of Melniboné.”

  The Duke of Hell was silent.

  “And there is the bargain,” added Elric. “Return me to my own realm, Lord Arioch, so that I might keep it.”

  Arioch sighed. “I am reluctant.”

  “I demand it,” bravely said the albino.

  “Oho!” Arioch was amused. “Well, mortal, I’ll reward your courage and I’ll punish your insolence. The reward will be that you are returned whence you came, before you called on Chaos in your battle with that pathetic wizard. The punishment is that you will recall every incident that occurred since then – but only in your dreams. You will be haunted by the puzzle for the rest of your life – and you will never for a moment be able to express what mystifies you.”

  Elric smiled. “I am already haunted by a curse of that kind, my lord.”

  “Be that as it may, I have made my decision.”

  “I accept it,” said the albino, and he sheathed his sword, Stormbringer.

  “Then come with me,” said Arioch, Duke of Hell. And he drifted forward, took Elric by the arm, and lifted them both high into the sky, floating over distorted scenes, half-formed dream-worlds, the whims of the Lords of Chaos, until they came to a gigantic rock shaped like a skull. And through one of the eye-sockets Lord Arioch bore Elric of Melniboné. And down strange corridors that whispered and displayed all manner of treasures. And up into a landscape, a desert in which grew many strange plants, while overhead could be seen a land of snow and mountains, equally alien. And from his robes Arioch, Duke of Hell, produced a wand and he bade Elric to take hold of the wand, which was hot to the touch and glittered, and he placed his own slender hand at the other end, and he murmured words which Elric could not understand and together they began to fade from the landscape, into the darkness of limbo where many eyes accused them, to an island in a grey and storm-tossed sea; an island littered with destruction and with the dead.

  Then Arioch, Duke of Hell, laughed a little and vanished, leaving the Prince of Melniboné sprawled amongst corpses and ruins while heavy rain beat down upon him.

  And in the scabbard at Elric’s side, Stormbringer stirred and murmured once more.

  XIII

  IN WHICH THERE IS A SMALL CELEBRATION AT THE END OF TIME

  Werther de Goethe and the Duke of Queens blinked their eyes and found that they could move their heads. They stood in a large, pleasant room full of charts and ancient instruments. Mistress Christia was there, too.

  Una Persson was smiling as she watched golden light fade from the sky. The city had disappeared, hardly any the worse for its existence. She had managed to save the two friends without a great deal of fuss, for the citizens had still been bewildered by what had happened to them. Because of the megaflow distortion, the Morphail Effect would not manifest itself. They would never understand where they had been or what had actually happened.

  “Who on earth was that fellow who turned up?” asked the Duke of Queens. “Some friend of yours, Mrs Persson? He’s certainly no sportsman.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t agree. You could call him the ultimate sportsman,” she said. “I am acquainted with him, as a matter of fact.”

  “It’s not Jagged in disguise is it?” said Mistress Christia who did not really know what had gone on. “This is Jagged’s castle – but where is Jagged?”

  “You are aware how mysterious he is,” Una answered. “I happened to be here when I saw that Werther and the Duke were in trouble in the city and was able to be of help.”

  Werther scowled (a very good copy of Elric’s own scowl). “Well, it isn’t good enough.”

  “It was a jolly adventure while it lasted, you must admit,” said the Duke of Queens.

  “It wasn’t meant to be jolly,” said Werther. “It was meant to be significant.”

  Lord Jagged entered the room. He wore his familiar yellow robes. “How pleasant,” he said. “When did all of you arrive?”

  “I have been here for some time,” Mrs Persson explained, “but Werther and the Duke of Queens…”

  “Just got here,” explained the Duke. “I hope we’re not intruding. Only we had a slight mishap and Mrs Persson was good enough…”

  “Always delighted,” said the insincere lord. “Would you care to see my new…”

  “I’m on my way home,” said the Duke of Queens. “I just stopped by. Mrs Persson will explain.”

  “I, too,” said Werther suspiciously, “am on my way back.”

  “Very well. Goodbye.”

  Werther summoned an air car, a restrained figure of death, in rags with a sickle, who picked the three up in his hand and bore them towards a bleak horizon.

  It was only days later, when he want to visit Mongrove to tell him of his adventures and solicit his friend’s advice, that Werther realised he was still speaking High Melnibonéan. Some nagging thought remained with him for a long while after that. It concerned Lord Jagged, but he could not quite work out what was involved.

  After this incident there were no further disruptions at the End of Time until the conclusion of the story concerning Jherek Carnelian and Mrs Amelia Underwood.

  XIV
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br />   IN WHICH ELRIC OFMELNIBONÉ RECOVERS FROM A VARIETY OF ENCHANTMENTS AND BECOMES DETERMINED TO

  RETURN TO THE DREAMING CITY

  Elric was awakened by the rain on his face. Wearily he peered around him. To left and right there were only the dismembered corpses of the dead, the Krettii and the Filkharian sailors destroyed during his battle with the half-brute who had somehow gained so much sorcerous power. He shook his milk-white hair and he raised crimson eyes to the grey, boiling sky.

  It seemed that Arioch had aided him, after all. The sorcerer was destroyed and he, Elric, remained alive. He recalled the sweet, bantering tones of his patron demon. Familiar tones, yet he could not remember what the words had been.

  He dragged himself over the dead and waded through the shallows towards the Filkharian ship which still had some of its crew. They were, by now, anxious to head out into open sea again rather than face any more terrors on Sorcerers’ Isle.

  He determined to see Cymoril, whom he loved, to regain his throne fromYyrkoon, his cousin…

  XV

  IN WHICH A BRIEF REUNION TAKES PLACE AT THE TIME CENTRE

  With the manuscript of Colonel Pyat’s rather dangerous volume of memoirs safely back in her briefcase, Una Persson decided it was the right moment to check into the Time Centre. Alvarez should be on duty again and his instruments should be registering any minor imbalances resulting from the episode concerning the gloomy albino.

  Alvarez was not alone. Lord Jagged was there, in a disreputable Norfolk jacket and smoking a battered briar. He had evidently been holidaying in Victorian England. He was pleased to see her.

  Alvarez ran his gear through all functions. “Sweet and neat,” he said. “It hasn’t been as good since I don’t know when. We’ve you to thank for that, Mrs P.”

  She was modest.

  “Certainly not. Jagged was the one. Your disguise was wonderful, Jagged. How did you manage to imitate that character so thoroughly? It convinced Elric. He really thought you were whatever it was – a Chaos Duke?”

  Jagged waved a modest hand.

  “I mean,” said Una, “it’s almost as if you were this fellow Arioch’…”