Another sound trumpeted over the noise of the winds. Looking back I saw Bes. Her body was covered in dark copper mesh which swayed as she trotted. As she came nearer, I realized her size was almost the equal to the Phoorn. Her great, linen-covered platform swayed on her back, its flaps wild in the wind. Riding on the neck of the beast, spear in his hand, was White Crow in all his paint and finery, his pale scalp lock lying along his left shoulder. His face was prepared for war. Behind him came the buffalo hide-draped platform resembling a circular bier laid out with a body which clutched a sword to its chest. I knew this had to be Oona.
I was torn. Was I to continue on and try to stop Elric, or should I turn back to tend to my wife? This all seemed part of my torment. I wondered how much of it Gaynor had planned.
The unstable ground began to heave like quicksand. Bes had difficulty keeping her footing. White Crow signaled for me to go on. I looked up. Elric was putting the horn to his lips.
And then, from somewhere, sweetly cutting through the raging howl of the wind, I heard the crystalline sound of Ayanawatta's bone flute.
As Elric blew another blast on the horn, the notes immediately blended with the music of the flute. Rather than canceling each other out, they resonated and swelled into a grand harmonic. Urgently I continued to climb up the clattering dazzle of the Phoorn's scales.
The tornado was still tearing its way downwards, and from below, the ground around the tree's roots was beginning to spit and bubble.
I lost sight of Elric above me but noticed the Phoorn's breathing had changed. Did he understand that Elric was trying to kill him, as he had begged me to do?
Lord Shoashooan crashed in upon us. His grinning, whirling heads flashed rending teeth. His wild, swinging arms ended in long claws. His feet had scythes for nails. And everywhere he danced he brought destruction.
I was certain that once Lord Shoashooan joined with his twin elemental, even now dancing just below the surface as Shoashooan danced above it, everything would begin to collapse in a final appalling cataclysm!
From behind me the nine Kakatanawa advanced upon Lord Shoashooan. Ayanawatta's flute rose above the din, sounding delicate and somber now.
Lord Shoashooan blustered and swung wildly about him, but his belligerence had no force. The sound of the flute had some effect on him. Perhaps it calmed that berserk rage?
I thought I glimpsed the outline of White Crow and Bes moving below. They, too, were bound to be destroyed.
Then all at once the nine Kakatanawa surrounded the base of the tornado. Their hair and clothing streaming out from their bodies in that hideous turbulence, they held their ground. Linking arms and shields and with lances thrust outwards, war clubs at their sides, they formed a circle around the whirling base-a ring strong enough to contain Lord Shoashooan as soon as he touched
the exposed roots of the tree at which Gaynor maniacally continued to hack while Klosterheim looked on impassively.
I saw Ayanawatta walk into the circle formed by the Kakatanawa, still playing his flute. It was clear from the buffeting that he would not hold Lord Shoashooan for long, but it was incredible that he could hold him at all. I pushed on, climbing those yielding, pulsing scales, while above me, I was sure, Elric prepared to deal his brother a death blow.
I willed myself to find more energy. We must all be weakening before the force of this stupendous supernatural threat. I reminded myself that we almost certainly witnessed the end of everything. If I did not discover further resolve within me, I should reach the moment of my death knowing that I had not done enough.
This spurred me to complete my climb. I danced along the Phoorn's back while above me the branches of the great multi-versal tree stretched out forever, damaged but not yet destroyed. I saw Elric. His sword had indeed made a cut in the Phoorn's vulnerable spine, where it met the head. Yellow blood oozed from the long incision.
I climbed on, determined to stop him. But before I could reach him he took his shield and pressed it down onto the bloody patch he had made in the beast's hide. The shield fitted the patch exactly. Blood soaked it through instantly as it was absorbed into the Phoorn's flesh. What was Elric doing? He stretched out his hand to me now. It was as if he had expected me, even welcomed me.
I made my way forward as the Phoorn's back rippled and stirred under my feet. What is it? What do you do?
Give me what White Crow gave you! Quickly. I have deceived Gaynor until now. He still controls Lord Shoashooan but is distracted. This is our moment. Give me the talisman, von Bek!
Without hesitation I ripped it from my neck and threw it to him. He caught it in his gloved fist and, kneeling, placed it at the center of the wound he had made. A plume of bright red fire shot up like a beacon, higher and higher until it disappeared among
the branches of the Skrayling Oak. Then, burning brilliant white it sank slowly back, spreading out as it turned to pale blue and covered the Phoorn's wound. The Phoorn let out a long, deep sigh which blended with the sound of the flute.
Sensing what was happening, Lord Shoashooan yelled and feinted at the Kakatanawa warriors. But they held their ground. They stabbed at him with their spears. They swung their war clubs against his whirling sides, struggling to control the spin of their weapons as the winds flung them back.
White Crow was immediately below. He had brought Bes to a stop. The patient mammoth paused, kneeling in the midst of all this wild confusion.
Ayanawatta drew another extended breath and continued to play. Above me on the Phoorn's shoulders, Elric raised the horn to his lips again.
At this blast Gaynor ceased his ferocious hacking and glanced up, his mirrored helm catching the green-gold light of the dying tree.
Guided by the horn and the flute in unison, the great round bier began to rise into the air, the white hide falling away beneath it to reveal my own wife, Oona, seemingly dead, lying upon yet another version of the Kakatanawa war-
shield. This one was twice the size of the shield Elric had put between the Phoorn's shoulders. Seeing it at last Gaynor let out a frustrated shout and looked around him for his men. There was only Klosterheim. Gaynor beckoned to him. Rather reluctantly the ex-priest came forward to join him, crying out in a peculiar singsong as the Kakatanawa attempted to tighten their circle about the raging Lord of Winds.
Higher rose Oona, lifted on Ayanawatta's and Elric's music. I saw that she lay in the position of old knightly tomb figures, her legs crossed at the ankles, a long black sword clasped between her breasts and a red sandstone bowl on her chest from which rose a willowy plume of smoke.
White Crow dropped down from Bes's neck and ran towards the Phoorn. He slung his lance over his back and began to climb
up the breathing scales as Oona's floating platform, buoyed by the notes of the flute, drifted high over the Phoorn's back, paused and then began to descend as Elric and White Crow called out in unison. They were chanting a spell. They guided Oona's flight with their sorcery, bringing the great round shield, the third part of the missing skefla'a, down towards the faintly glowing blue wound. The shield completed the membrane which all dragons must have if they are to fly between the worlds, and which is in so many unknown ways their sustenance.
They had re-created the stolen skefla'a and brought it back to the dying Phoorn! Was it this which sustained my wife between life and death?
At last the great disk covered the dragon's back, and Elric gently lifted Oona from it as I joined him. She seemed unusually at peace in his arms. But was it the peace of death?
I touched her. She was warm. Upon her chest the faintly smoking bowl, one of the great treasures of the Kakatanawa, their Grail, rose and fell with her slow, even breathing.
Instantly now the Phoorn drew in a full breath. It took all our efforts to cling to those swelling quasi-metallic scales and move towards one another.
The wind still shrieked and raged, but the Kakatanawa ring held. The warriors all called out the same strange, high-pitched ululations, their actions and
voices completely in unison. The spears ran in and out of the spinning darkness, containing the howling thing but scarcely harming it.
The scales of the Phoorn steadily changed color. They deepened and ran with dozens of different shades, taking on a fire that had not been there before. White Crow clambered towards me. He pointed to Oona, lying half held in the blue-grey membrane where Elric had placed her, still unmoving, as if she lay in a womb. Elric was beside her on his knees. He took the large ring from his finger and reached through the membrane to place it on Oona's forehead. I tried to call out to him but failed. Surely he could not mean her ill. He was her father. Even a Melnibonean would not be so ruthless as to kill his own child.
I felt a light hand on my shoulder. White Crow had reached me. Clearly exhausted, his eyes gleamed with hope. "You must take up the sword," he said. "Oona has brought it to you." And he pointed to where the black blade still lay, clutched in her hands, but outside the peculiar organic stuff of the Phoorn skefla'a.
"Take it!" he commanded.
Crimson eyes locked onto mine as Elric looked up at me. He raised the sword in his fist and all but hurled it at me. "We have no grace!"
"Fear not." White Crow gasped. "He is of our blood and of our party. We three shall do what has to be done."
At that moment it occurred to me again that Elric could be White Crow's father, which meant that the young Indian was Oona's twin. The evident discrepancy in their ages added a further mystery to the conundrum.
Would it ever be explained? None of us was dead yet, but Gaynor, Klosterheim and Lord Shoashooan appeared to have the greater power!
The Lord of Winds still screamed and raged in the Kakatanawa circle. It seemed the disciplined warriors could not hold much longer. Already there were weaknesses showing as the giants used every ounce of mental and physical energy to contain him.
But I was reluctant to accept the sword. Perhaps I feared I would use it to kill Oona again? I shuddered. A coldness filled me. I was consumed by guilty memory.
"Take it!" Elric shouted again. He rose to his feet, his eyes still fixed on his daughter. "Come. We must do this now. Lobkowitz and Sepiriz say it is the only way." He thrust the sword towards me again.
How had Lobkowitz communicated with Elric? Had they been in league all along? Lobkowitz had explained nothing to me, and I might never understand now.
I accepted the sword. I knew I could not deny the inevitable. There was time only for action now.
As my hand closed on the silk-bound hilt I felt a sudden shock
of energy. I looked down on my wife. Her face was tranquil. On her breast the red sandstone bowl glowed and smoked. On her forehead the deep blue stone swirled with a life of its own. Somehow I knew it was the bowl that sustained her life.
Elric's face was shadowy. He moved closer to stand with his body pressed against mine. White Crow came nearer from the other side until both men were almost crushing me. I could not resist. The blade demanded it. All three blades were in our hands now. All three were touching. All three were beginning to sigh and murmur, their black fire mingling, their runes leaping back and forth from one to the other. They conferred.
Oona opened her eyes, looked at us calmly and smiled. She sat up, the silvery web of membrane falling away to merge with the Phoorn skefla'a. She took the red sandstone bowl and blew gently into it. White smoke poured upwards and surrounded us. I breathed it in. It was sweet and delicate, the stuff of heaven. With every breath we took in unison, White Crow, Elric and I moved closer together. The swords merged until there was only one massive blade, and I knew, as I grew in both size and strength, wisdom and psychic power, that the swords were reunited with their archetype as we were reunited with ours. Three in one.
"Now!" It was Sepiriz. He, too, was as enormous as the single creature I had become. "Now you must climb. Now you must restore the tree and return the Balance."
I could see Lord Shoashooan whirling wildly below me. The Kakatanawa could no longer hold him. I heard Lobkowitz's voice. "Go! We will do all we can here. But if you do not go, nothing will be worth it. Gaynor will win."
Once again Elric's familiar personality was absorbing my own. I had no sense of White Crow's individuality. For me it was exactly as it had been before when only Elric and I had combined. But now I felt even more powerful. The black sword had become a monstrous and beautiful object, far more ornate and intricate in design than anything I had ever wielded in battle. Her voice was melodic, yet still as cold as justice, and her metal blazed with life. I had no doubt that I held the first sword, from which all others
had come. I looked up at the flaking bark, the decaying pulp that now blotched the base of the Skrayling Oak. Gaynor's work had been well done.
I flung my arm forward towards the oak, and the sword did the rest, carrying me deep towards the core of the trunk. The closer I came, the larger I grew, until the tree, though tall, was of more familiar size.
I scabbarded the sword and climbed. I knew what this ascent meant. I knew what I had to do. Elric's blood and soul informed my own as mine informed his. While Lobkowitz had given me only hints, he had told Elric everything he needed to know. Since the time they first saw White Buffalo Woman and Kakatanawa city, Elric had schemed against Gaynor while pretending to serve his cause. And now, too, I knew who White Crow was.
On my belt was Elric's horn, and I moved with the agility of White Crow. The outer bark of the supernatural tree was very thick and layered, forming deep fissures and overhangs which afforded me handholds on my route upwards.
I heard a sound below and looked down. Far away the Kakatanawa were being pressed back by the power of the Lord of Winds. Lord Shoashooan had widened their circle until it must surely break. I knew in my bones that unless the Phoorn had more time to heal and recover he would still perish. Oona was doing her best for the great beast, but if Lord Shoashooan were to break free now, the Phoorn would not yet be strong enough to destroy him.
I thought I glimpsed Ayanawatta, Sepiriz and Lobkowitz on the edge of my vision, but then I could not look away any longer. I needed all my faculties to climb the constantly changing organic fissures in the tree.
Noise from the tornado crashed and wailed. Every part of the tree began to shake. I had to exert even more effort to cling to the weird bark. Often pieces crumbled away in my hands. I feared I would soon weaken and lose my grip completely.
An inch at a time I climbed. The air grew thinner and colder and the sounds of the Lord of Winds more shrill. Then something grabbed at my body. It felt as if a giant skeletal hand seized me about the waist. The cold went deep into my guts, and I knew Lord Shoashooan was free.
I fought to keep my grip on the tree. Being held so, I could not climb any further. It was all I could do to hang on.
'The Lord of Winds' voice trumpeted a vainglorious note now. Once I thought I glimpsed the Kakatanawa below as they were flung backwards, their ring broken. Lord Shoashooan attacked me and the Phoorn with all his strength. I heard the pure whistle of Ayanawatta's flute cutting through the roar and bluster. Again I was gripped by the tendrils of wind as Lord Shoashooan tried to pry me loose. Without the strength of my avatars, I should surely have been lost.
But the sound of the flute came clearer and sweeter through all that cacophony and joined with another sound coming from far below, equally high but by no means sweet. This sound writhed around the tree's roots. The sound was the other Lord of Winds. If the Lords succeeded in joining, there would be no overwhelming their combined strength.
With that thought came the energy to force myself up the trunk. At last I stood in the swaying upper branches looking out across a world at night, at the frozen lake, at the rubble to which the great city had been reduced. At my will the sword sprang into my hand. I held the blade high above my head as power flooded into it. I offered myself as a conduit for this huge, supernatural force.
Then I reversed the sword and aimed it at the topmost tip of the tree, plunging it down, down into the sou
l of all-time, the heart of all-space, down into the center of the Skrayling Tree.
Immediately the sword left my hand and remained in the tree, its point driving deep through the inner wood to the soul of the Skrayling Oak. As it moved down the tree, it did not split but rather expanded the trunk until sword and tree had merged, and a great, black blade lay at the core of the ancient oak.
Then I lurched backwards, grabbing frantically at boughs to stop myself falling towards the faraway ice and the inevitable death of all my avatars. If I fell, we might never know if our sacrifice had been worth anything. Even now I heard the wind rising, higher and higher, ever more vicious. I was losing my grip on the bough. I was surely about to fall, and I had given up my weapon.
A shadow passed fleetingly through the whirlwind's dusty crown. It was Oona, and she was riding the Phoorn.
The great white-gold spread of a Phoorn rising on his wide peacock wings into the air above a storm was a breathtaking sight! On my reptilian relative's broad back, merged with his gleaming iridescent skefla'a but clearly visible, was my wife Oona, vibrantly alive, her head thrown forward in the sheer pleasure of the flight, a bowstave clutched in her right hand and the redstone smoking bowl balanced in her left.
When I fell, the Phoorn fell beside me, almost playfully. His soft breath slowed my descent, and he slid underneath me. I landed gently, painlessly, in his skefla'a. I lay prone just behind my wife. I could see the tree outlined in a golden glare. Within the spreading oak was the deep black of the sword blade, the guard stretching out across the branches, the pommel pulsing like a star. The black blade had completely merged with the oak and become part of the tree's life force.
I was held within the membrane, only able to watch as Oona put down her box, took the redstone pipe bowl and spread her hands in a magical gesture that produced two bowls, one on each palm. I saw her reach out and put a smoking redstone bowl at each end of the black sword's guard. They hung suspended there as she lifted both hands to her head and took something from it. She then placed this object on the sword hilt between the bowls. The ritual was done, and I looked upon the Cosmic Balance.
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