But what had she built her fortress against?
Or was it a fortress? Did it now function as a prison?
As we drew nearer, the wind began to sough more miserably than ever through those half-picked bones, turning to a mournful howling that filled the world with despair. We slowed our horses and moved more cautiously, searching the low surrounding hills for the sight of wolves. There were none.
We moved closer to the towering palace of bones. Keeps and domes and battlements and buttresses were shaped from the recently living bodies of men and horses from which strips of flesh and fur and linen fluttered like banners in the erratic wind. And the terrible howling continued. All the grief in all the realms of the multiverse. All the frustration. All the despair. All the wounded ambition.
So dense were the bones packed to form the walls of the palace that we could not see inside. But we thought we saw a movement behind the palace. A solitary figure. Perhaps an illusion.
“The howling’s coming from inside the bones, my lord.” Moonglum cocked his head to one side. “From deep within that house of bones. Listen.”
He was better able to locate the source of sounds than I, though my hearing was more acute. I had no reason to disbelieve him.
Whatever was howling was either trapped in the bone palace or was defending it. Was Miggea still here, still in the shape of a wolf? That would explain the howling and also the frustration. What could have thwarted her plans?
Again we glimpsed movement, this time from within the palace, as if something paced back and forth. We moved closer still until the vast construction loomed over us. And now we could smell it. Sweet, cloying, horrible, it stank of rotting flesh.
We hesitated before the great central entrance. Neither of us had any desire to confront what was within.
Then, as we made up our minds to dismount and enter, another human figure came around one of the bone buttresses. Colored rags still clung to him. He carried a sword in either hand. Leaf-bladed broadswords. One was a shade of diseased ivory with black runes running its length. The other was Stormbringer, all pulsing black iron and scarlet runes.
The man who bore them was Prince Gaynor of Mirenburg. He was wearing a mirror breastplate over the torn remains of his SS uniform.
He was laughing heartily.
Until I drew my Ravenbrand.
Then his breath hissed from him. He looked about, as if for allies or enemies, then he faced me again. He forced a grin.
“I did not know there was a third sword,” he said. I could see from his eyes that he was attempting a new calculation.
“There is no third sword,” I told him, “or second sword. You are disingenuous, cousin. There is only one sword. And you have stolen it. From your mistress, eh?”
He looked down at both hands. “I seem to have two swords, cousin.”
“One, as you know, is a farun, a false sword, forged to attract the properties of the original and absorb them. It can steal the souls of men as well as swords. It’s a kind of mirror, which absorbs the essence of the thing it most resembles. No doubt Miggea made it for you. Only a noble of the Higher Worlds can forge such a thing. Foolishly I did not anticipate such elaborate conjuring.
“That was how you two tricked Elric. And were able to capture first my energy, then the power of my blade and then the blade itself. I name your second sword ‘Deceiver’ and demand you return its stolen power. You defeated me by trickery, cousin, with words and illusions.”
“You always were too wild-blooded, cousin. I relied on you being unable to resist a challenge.”
“I shall not be foolish again,” I said.
“We’ll see, cousin. We’ll see.” He was eyeing Ravenbrand. Looking from it to Stormbringer, as if alarmed by what might happen if the two should meet in battle. “You say there’s only one sword, yet—”
“Only one,” I agreed.
He understood the implications of my words. While he had not studied as I had and did not possess my skills or learning, he had masters whose casual knowledge was far more profound than all my wisdom. Yet he was impressed. His answering grimace was almost admiring. “Powerful sorcery,” he said. “And clever strategy. You’ve had unanticipated help, eh?”
“If you say so, cousin.” I was reluctant to use the blade. I had no idea what the consequences might be. I had a sense of extraordinary supernatural movement all around me, unseen, not yet expressed. An imminence of sorcery. It was easy, in that atmosphere, to feel little more than a desperate pawn in a vast game played by the Lords of the Higher Worlds, who some said were also ourselves at our most powerful and least sane. I took control of myself. Slowly, with all the habits of discipline learned from Bek as well as Melniboné, I extended my mind to include as many of the supernatural realms as I could, sensing unexpected friends as well as mighty enemies.
Gaynor’s answer was drowned by a vast, mournful howl from within the palace of bones. He laughed richly in response. “Oh, she is an unhappy goddess,” he said jubilantly. “Such a sad old she-wolf. A prisoner of her own forces. A pretty irony, eh, cousin?”
“You did this to her?”
“I arranged it, cousin. Even I cannot control a Duchess of the Distance, a Denizen of the Higher Worlds.” He paused, as if with modesty. “I only helped. In a small way.”
“Helped what? Whom?”
“Her old enemy,” he said. “Duke Arioch of Chaos.”
“You serve Law! Arioch is my patron!”
“Sometimes these alliances are convenient,” he said, shrugging. “Duke Arioch is a reasonable fellow, for a Lord of Hell. When it became evident that my patroness was no longer in charge of her sanity, I simply made a bargain with that Master of Entropy to deliver my erstwhile mistress into his keeping. Which I shall do as soon as I can deliver her to him. Tricking her, Prince Elric, was even easier than tricking you. The poor creature is senile. She has lost all judgment. She brought no honor to her cause. Only defeat. I had to save the good name of Law. It was time she sought dignified retirement. Her followers were no longer useful to her. And so they became her home. She believed she was going to the Isle of Morn . . .”
“She doesn’t seem to appreciate it greatly,” said Moonglum. “Indeed she appears to be acting as if you have imprisoned her.”
“It’s for her own good,” said Gaynor. “She was becoming a danger to herself, as well as to others.”
“Such a high moral purpose,” I said. “And meanwhile you steal from her the sword she fought me for.”
“The plan was mine and the sword is mine,” he said. “Only the magic was hers.”
He held the white sword by the hilt and stripped off the last of his colored scarves, as if he had no further need of them.
“Her ambitions were unrealistic. I, on the other hand, am the ultimate realist. And soon I shall have everything I have sought. All the old, mystic treasures of our ancestors. All the great objects of power. All the legendary treasures of our race. Everything that guarantees us victory and security for the next thousand years. Herr Hitler’s time will soon be over. He’ll be recognized as the flawed knight, my precursor.”
He gave me a mad, knowing look, as if I were the only creature who could possibly understand his intelligence and the logic of his ambition.
“I shall prove their Parsifal. Their true Führer. For by then I will have the sword and the cup, and I will be able to show the world proof of my destiny to rule. All Christendom, East and West, will rally to my banner. Arioch has promised me this. I shall have no challengers, for my power shall be both temporal and spiritual. I will become the true blood leader of the Teutonic peoples, cleansing the world in the name of our holy discipline. Then the Golden Age will begin. The Age of the Greater Reich.”
I was familiar with such nonsense. I had heard a hundred like him in those years before and after Hitler ascended to the chancellorship. For all his bombast, he seemed to be playing a tyro’s game. Such games often progress rapidly, whether in chess or with worlds for
stakes, because of the very lack of sense behind their strategies. They can’t be anticipated or countered logically. They eventually doom themselves and are always overcome. I was far more interested in what he had said earlier. “How,” I asked him, “did you strike a bargain with my own patron, Arioch of Chaos?”
“Miggea was no longer trustworthy and therefore no longer useful to my plans. For an eternity Arioch has yearned for vengeance on his old enemy. I sought him out and offered to help him reach this plane. He could do so only with human agency. He agreed happily to the bargain and trapped her here. She cannot leave. For she has no one left to help her. Should you attempt to free her, you will be betraying your trust, flaunting the will of your patron demon.” He raised his voice in malevolent glee, to be heard by his prisoner as well as by me.
Once more the air was filled with that terrible howling.
Furious, I raised my black sword and spurred my horse towards my cousin.
He began to laugh at me again. Standing his ground as I rode down on him.
“One other thing I forgot to mention, cousin.” He crossed the two blades in front of him, as if for protection against me. “I am no longer part of your dream.”
The blades formed an X as a strange yellow and black light began to pulse from them, half blinding me so that I could no longer see Gaynor clearly. I held up one hand to shade my eyes, my sword ready. But he had become a rapidly moving shadow, racing away from me with violent light flickering all around him. He passed between two great crags and disappeared.
I spurred after him around the great bone palace while the she-wolf kept up her perpetual howling, and I almost caught him. Again the two swords were crossed and again they fluttered with that confusing black and yellow light.
Blinded by the light, deafened by the howling, I once more lost sight of Gaynor. I heard Moonglum yelling something. I looked around for my friend but could not see him. More shadows ran back and forth in front of me.
The horse balked, reared and began to whinny. I tried to control him but only barely managed to get him steadied. He was still uneasy, shifting his feet and snorting. Then there was an explosion of silver, soft, all-engulfing, narcotic. And a sudden silence.
I knew Gaynor was gone.
After a while, the she-wolf began her howling again.
Moonglum suggested that I summon Arioch. “It is the one move you can make to allow us to pursue Gaynor. Arioch can come and go as he pleases here now. Miggea’s power no longer opposes his.”
When I pointed out that Arioch habitually demanded a blood sacrifice as the price of his summoning and that he, Moonglum, was the only other living mortal soul in the vicinity, my friend put his mind to alternative schemes for our salvation.
I suggested that rather than remain and listen to Miggea’s eternal lament, we should return to Tanelorn and seek the advice of the citizens. Should a blood sacrifice still be necessary, at least I could kill an exiled witch-lawyer and win easy popularity with the majority.
So we turned our horses, hoping to reach the city by dark.
By nightfall, however, we were hopelessly lost. As we feared, it had been impossible to tell one pillar of ash from another. The wind recarved them by the moment.
With some relief, therefore, a few hours later, with the stars our only light, we heard someone calling our names. I recognized it at once. My daughter’s voice. Oona had found us. I congratulated myself on the intelligence of my relatives.
Then I thought again. This could be another deception. I cautioned Moonglum to ride forward carefully in case of a trap.
In the starlight, reflecting the glittering desert, I saw the silhouette of a woman on foot, bow and arrows slung over her shoulder. I had begun to guess that Oona had a more supernatural means of traveling than by horseback.
Once again I was looking at her intensely.
Her white skin had a warmth to it which my own lacked. Her soft hair glowed. She had much of her mother in her, a natural vitality I had never enjoyed. I had admired, respected and loved Oone the Dreamthief for a brief time when our paths had crossed. We had risked our lives and our souls in a common cause. And we had grown to love and ultimately lust for each other. But this feeling for my daughter was a different, deeper emotion.
I felt a peculiar pride in Oona, a gladness that she so resembled her mother. I imagined that her human characteristics sat better than those of her Melnibonéan ancestry. I hoped she had less conflict in her than did I. I suppose I envied her, too. It could be, of course, that all of us were doomed eternally to conflict, but maybe Fate granted a few a little more tranquillity than others. What I chiefly felt, even in these dangerous circumstances, was a quiet affection, a sense that whatever virtues I had were being passed by my blood from one soul to another. That perhaps my vices had atrophied and been lost from the blood.
Surging up from the ancient layers of my breeding came the utterly Melnibonéan response to one’s children, to cut off all feelings of affection lest they weaken us both, to turn away from them. I resisted both impulses. My self-discipline was constantly being tested, constantly being tempered and retempered.
“I thought you had again fallen prey to Gaynor.” She sounded relieved. “I know he was here until a short while ago.”
I told her what had happened to Miggea. I spoke grimly of Gaynor’s trick with the swords, his escape. I cursed him for a traitor, betraying his mistress to my patron, Duke Arioch. Whom he would doubtless betray as well, should it suit him.
At this Oona began to laugh heartily. “How thoroughly he behaves according to type,” she said. “There is no hope for that poor soul. No redemption. He races towards his damnation. He embraces it. Betrayal is becoming a habit with him. Soon it will become an addiction and he will be wholly lost. Declaring it mere common sense, he betrays Law in the name of the Balance and betrays the Balance in the name of Entropy. Inevitably he will betray Arioch. And then what a sad renegade he will be. For the moment, admittedly, he achieves a certain power.”
“Then there is no defeating him,” I said. “He will destroy Mu Ooria and then his own world.”
She held my reins as I dismounted. Somewhat awkwardly, I embraced her. She seemed in good spirits. “Oh,” she said, “I think we still have a good chance of thwarting Gaynor’s ambition.”
Moonglum began to grin. “You’re an optimist, my lady, I’ll say that. You must own a strong belief in the power of luck.”
“Indeed I do,” she agreed, “but I think we’d be wiser for the moment to rely upon the power of dreams. I shall visit the imprisoned goddess while you make haste for Tanelorn. You are free to inhabit your own form now, Father, and leave poor Count von Bek the privacy and sanctity of his overworked body.”
With that she loped off the way we had come and was soon out of sight. The sun began to pour its scarlet light over the forlorn horizon. It revealed in the distance the gables and turrets of our doomed, beloved Tanelorn.
Riding out to greet us was as odd a group of warriors as I had seen. The leader was Fromental, still in his Foreign Legion uniform. Behind him rode the three beastly lords Bragg, Blare and Bray, while on all fours, and looking a little odd in all his fineries, trotted Lord Renyard. He was the first to greet us. They had heard of our quest and had come to aid us.
I told them of our adventures and suggested we all turn back to Tanelorn for some food and rest, but that motley party was adamant. They had come all the way from the Stones of Morn to settle with Gaynor. They could find a way to follow him. Perhaps Miggea would help them.
Resignedly I gave them directions and wished them good fortune. My purpose was to save Tanelorn, not pursue Gaynor, but I had no objection if they wished to take their revenge on him. My thoughts were elsewhere.
Soon it would be time for me to return to my own body and allow von Bek to make what he could of his destiny in our fight against the common enemy.
B OOK T HREE
Two long songs for the pale lord’s brood
&nbs
p; Two short lies disguise them,
Sing true, true, true for the snow-white bird.
Dead now lies my ivory child,
Emptied of sadness, his eyes defiled;
Sing lie, lie, lie for the ivory child.
The white hare’s fleet against the falling sun.
Two dark shadows she’ll embrace;
One in shoddy, one in lace.
She speeds the lost old river’s course,
Fleet against the falling sun,
The sweet beast runs
Where the ashy wastelands toss,
To where the wasteland’s ashes flow.
Wild against the fallen sun.
—W HELDRAKE , “The Wild Hare”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Where the Multiverse Begins
T anelorn was a triumphant stain of warm life upon the endless ash. I wondered how long she would be trapped in this dead realm, conquered by Law, all traces of Chaos thoroughly extinguished. Eventually Miggea’s spell would fade and the city must return to her natural place. My feelings were mixed as Moonglum and I rode through the low gates to be greeted by our friends. We told them we believed Tanelorn no longer to be in danger. But the dangers to other places to which we’d given our love and loyalty were considerable. Mu Ooria was still threatened, perhaps conquered by now. And my Germany was still in the grip of a mad tyrant. It was hard to retain one’s focus when so many issues remained unresolved.
With deep anxiety I dismounted outside Brut of Lashmar’s house and gave my reins to his ostler. I hoped Fromental and his strange band would be successful, but I doubted it. Gaynor was playing a far more ambitious game than I had guessed. It was never wise, as we of Melniboné had discovered to our cost, to set Law against Chaos in the hope of achieving one’s mortal ends.
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