“The Runestaff has the power to change form and to move on its own volition,” Scholar Crina told me. “Some say it can take the shape of a child. Why should it not, since it can presumably assume any form it likes? In this way it preserves and defends itself. And thus preserves those who respect and defend it. It is not always obvious what form it has taken.”
“In what form does Gaynor possess it?” Oona wanted to know.
“The form of a cup,” he said. “Of a fine drinking vessel. With that and the two swords he now carries, he has more power to change the destiny of worlds than any other mortal before him. And because the gods themselves hardly understand what is happening, he could succeed. For it is well known that a mortal will eventually bring about the destruction of the gods.”
I paid little attention to this last. It had the smack of legend and superstition about it, yet at the same time a frisson of recognition went through my body. I tried to recall where I had heard a similar story, one which was couched in the mythology of my own age and people, the story of the Holy Grail and its ability to cure the world’s pain. That legend also had a mortal changing the destiny of his world. I checked myself. I felt as if I was receiving an overdose of Wagner. My own tastes were for the clearer waters of Mozart or Liszt, whose appeal was as much to the intellect as to the emotions. Was that what I recognized? Had I somehow found myself in a very complicated Wagnerian opera? I shuddered at the thought. Yet even the momentous events of the Ring Cycle were as nothing compared to what I had already witnessed.
I turned to Oona. “You said something of my particular relationship with the Grail. What did you mean?”
“Not everyone is privileged to serve it,” she said.
Her manner was grim. She did not seem optimistic. I think she had not expected Gaynor to get this far.
A strange stink filled the air. A mixture of a thousand different odors, none of them pleasant. The smell of evil.
I still could not see how Gaynor had so thoroughly defeated the Off-Moo and said as much to the scholar.
“You do not yet know,” he said, “if Gaynor has defeated us. The game, after all, is not over.”
I kept my own counsel, but as far as I could see this aspect of the game at least was well and truly won.
Elric wanted to know where Gaynor was, whether it was possible to catch up with him on foot.
“He moves towards the Grey Fees with his army. He believes he can take the power of the multiverse for himself. It is a delusion. But his delusion will destroy us all, unless someone challenges him.” Scholar Crina seemed to glance inquiringly at me.
But it was Prince Elric who answered. “I have been insulted and humiliated by that creature. I have been deceived. Whatever power he now has, he will not escape my vengeance.”
“You think not?” Oona stooped to run her hand through the sleek fur of one of the big cats, then drew it away again quickly, as if she did not wish to contemplate what had happened to the animal. Was it dead, or enchanted?
“Dream or no dream,” said Elric quietly, “he shall be punished for what he has done.”
I would not have believed another. Elric, however, was beginning to convince me that we might yet, somehow, defeat an entity who had become probably the greatest single force for evil in the multiverse. As often happened between us, Elric replied to my unvoiced ideas. “Melnibonéans believe that fate cannot be altered. That each of us has a settled destiny. That to break free of it—or attempt to break free of it—is an act of blasphemy. A blasphemy I am prepared to commit. To prevent, perhaps, a greater blasphemy.”
He had the air of a man who wrestled with his own soul as well as his conscience and background. I had the impression that he might have spoken more, had he been able to put into words the huge conflicts taking place within him.
We spent little time in Mu Ooria. The flames were already beginning to die down and serious damage had been done. We found no more Off-Moo. No sign of them. No piece of writing. No clue. They had fled in defeat. I was disappointed in them. They had no doubt become decadent, overconfident of their ability to resist attack, relying, as Byzantium had done for so many decades, on their ancient reputation. I had assumed them to be both courageous and resourceful. Perhaps they had been once. Now, it seemed, they had no capacity to resist Gaynor or anyone else who chose to take their wealth and secrets.
“There is only one possible course of action,” said Prince Elric.
“Pursue Gaynor?” I asked.
“And hope to defeat him before he can reach the Grey Fees.”
“He is almost there,” said Scholar Crina. “He and his army must even now be close to the borderland.” For the first time he appeared to show some kind of emotion. “The end for us,” he said. He lowered his cowled head. “The end for everyone. The end of everything.”
Oona was impatient with this. “Well, gentlemen, unless you welcome the end as thoroughly as Scholar Crina, who seems to derive some form of gloomy satisfaction from the situation, I suggest we rest for a while, eat well and then continue our pursuit.”
“There’s no time,” said Elric, almost to himself. “We must eat on the move. And we must begin soon, for we have no mounts and must pursue Gaynor on foot.”
“And when we catch up with him?” I said. “What will we do?”
“Punish him,” said Elric simply. “Take back the sword he has stolen.” He touched his hilt. He stroked it with his long fingers. He was beginning to grin. I found his humor alarming. “Use his own methods against him. Kill him.”
A kind of lust smoldered in the Melnibonéan. He was longing for a bloodletting and did not much care how it was achieved. I began to fear for the safety of myself and his daughter. Scholar Crina sensed it, too. When I looked for him again, he was slipping back into the burning building. He seemed untroubled by the flames.
Wrapping my damp clothing about me and feeling the need for movement, I trudged towards the outskirts of the city, my companions behind me. I was convinced that I was likely to die in this adventure. I consoled myself that if Elric and Oona had not helped me escape the concentration camp, I would be dead by now anyway. At least I had had the chance to observe the suprareality that constituted the interlinked worlds of the multiverse.
We had retreated to the outer reaches of the city when suddenly the ground underfoot began to shudder. Pieces of stone whistled from above and crashed to the cavern’s floor. Did an earthquake grip Mu Ooria? The rumbling staccato sound which followed the shock had the quality of mocking laughter.
I glanced a question to Oona, who shook her head. Elric, also, was baffled.
Another shock. More falling rock. As if a giant strode in our wake.
If I had not known better, I would have guessed that high explosives were being set off. I had experienced similar sensations and sounds when visiting the site of a new railway tunnel with my engineer brother, who had died while digging a trench three days after the outbreak of war.
I peered into the distance, between those vast columns of rock. It was impossible to see very far into that cavern or guess its dimensions. But now, far away, I caught glimpses of a flickering, raging fire. The phosphor from the lake had combined to form a whirlwind.
Several of these slender tornadoes were approaching us. Shrieking whirlwinds of whistling white light touched the ruins of the city and swirled them into new, even crazier patterns. Something about those thin twisters suggested they were sentient, or that they were at least controlled by a thinking creature.
We knew enough to run, seeking some kind of ditch or fissure into which we could climb in the hope that the tornadoes would bounce over us like their earthly counterparts, but it was a faint enough hope.
It was clear now what force Gaynor had used against our friends. Some fresh supernatural alliance, no doubt, brought him the strength of the ishass. Wind demons. Even in my earthly mythology I had heard of them. They figured largely in the folktales of desert peoples, usually as ifrits.
&
nbsp; “Can they be harnessed by the likes of Gaynor?” Oona was asking Elric.
“Clearly,” replied the albino laconically as he ran.
I brought up the rear, gasping for breath and unable to voice any of the questions rushing through my mind.
Oona signaled to us. She stopped and pointed. Ahead was the even darker mouth of a small cave. Hearing the advance of the ishass and not daring to look, without hesitation we squeezed into the hole, which was barely large enough to contain all three of us. The closeness of our bodies was a comfort to me. I felt as if the three of us had returned to some safe, defendable womb. Outside the shrieks and crashing grew louder and louder as the whirlwinds passed directly over us. Then came a lull. More twisters could be heard far away, but their sound was distant.
“This is a powerful force,” Elric mused. “It requires enormous skill to summon it. Important bargains. I do not believe even your cousin, Count Ulric, with all his cleverness, could physically contain it. These demons are famous in the netherworlds. They are called the Ten Sons, the ishass. This means he keeps his alliances with Chaos, for the ishass will not serve Law and Law, save at its most unstable, would never employ them.”
I felt guilty for judging the Off-Moo. No mortal creature could stand against such power. It would be like trying to confront an American twister with courage and moral integrity as your only weapons. And the Off-Moo, for all their sophistication, had nothing which would defend them against these ishass.
The wind demons were passing close by now. Yelping and shrieking and yapping like wild dogs, bringing ancient stones crashing down, uprooting columns which had taken a million years to grow. My fear took second place to my sense of outrage. What purpose could there be to such wild destruction? And why had Gaynor bothered to unleash the Ten Sons again upon a clearly defeated city? What was it in some mortals that gave them satisfaction in destruction? What terrible need did they satisfy by destroying the work and beauty of the centuries? Did they think they cleansed the world of something?
Only long after they passed, and we climbed out of our cramped little cave, did it occur to me that perhaps Gaynor did not command the Ten Sons. Perhaps they had escaped his control and now contented themselves with wreaking wholesale mayhem upon that once peaceful world? Or was this their reward for aiding him? They destroyed indiscriminately, not even sparing the few savages left rooting in the ruins who came into their path. They were caught up, arms and legs desperately flailing, swallowed, stripped of clothing and flesh, which was flung in all directions, their bones scattered. The bones fell like rain on a rooftop.
The Ten Sons were ahead of us now, forming a ragged line which could be followed easily. We came in their wake, stumbling along the wide path they had created and wondering what could lie before us that would be any more terrifying than what we had already witnessed.
Oona was frowning, She had had an idea, she said. “Perhaps they hurry to join Gaynor’s army? Perhaps he has already reached the Grey Fees and summons them to his service once more. Does he think he can conquer Creation with a few wind demons?”
“I would imagine,” I said, “that he has planned rather more thoroughly. What we can be sure of, I think, is that his power is the greatest granted to any human being before him.”
“I think he will be hard to defeat,” mused the Lord of Melniboné. “It’s as well there are three of us. I am not sure I could do it alone.”
We moved farther away from the city and into darkness which we illuminated with the barbarians’ fallen brands. We had little chance of catching Gaynor’s army quickly, but at least we were now safe from the Ten Sons, who leaped head of us, tiny now, glimpsed rarely amongst the massive tall stones which formed in this area a series of arches, like a huge rose arbor. We were grateful to them. They brought light to that aching distance. They gave us a clue to Gaynor’s whereabouts. But it would be some time before we were able to get closer to them.
And, when we did, I was not at all sure we wouldn’t be instantly killed. I had every reason to suspect Elric’s determined optimism had much to do with his knowledge of sorcery but not a great deal to do with the vast numbers of soldiers Gaynor commanded, not to mention his evident supernatural allies.
We were lucky to come across the slaughtered corpse of a troog. The huge half-human still had its crude pouch on a belt about its misshapen waist. The pouch was full of miscellaneous and generally useless loot salvaged from Mu Ooria. But there was also food. Two solid loaves of bread, a couple of pots of preserved meats and bottles of pickled vegetables. He had also found from somewhere a leather bottle of wine. We had to pry it from his gigantic, scabby hand. An unpleasant task, but worth it in the end, for the wine was of good quality. I had a feeling it had originally belonged to one of Fromental’s colleagues, perhaps even his friend the talking beast. This led me to wondering about the Frenchman’s fate. I hoped he and his strange companions had been successful in finding the Tanelorn they sought.
We moved rapidly and eventually caught our first sight of Gaynor’s terrible army.
In the far distance a band of grey formed a kind of horizon. Were we nearing the beginning of the mysterious Fees?
I turned inquiringly to Oona.
“The Forbidden Marches,” she confirmed. “And beyond them, the Grey Fees.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Careless Angels
S ome peoples believe,” said Oona conversationally, “that each of us has a guardian angel who discreetly looks after our interests, perhaps in the way we care for and protect a pet. The pet is barely conscious of what we do for it, just as we are hardly conscious of our guardian angel. And just as some pet animals have conscientious owners, others have bad owners. Therefore, though we are all assigned such an angel, the unlucky ones have careless angels.”
We lay upon a broad terrace looking down into a valley that had probably never seen light before. It was illuminated by the marching twisters, the Ten Sons, which formed a loose line of whirling, shrieking light. They were clearly disciplined by something as they followed behind the brands of the blind cannibals with Gaynor. The torches were not for them, but for Gaynor and his Nazis, whose horses were equally blind. Every so often a vast shadow would be thrown upon a wall of ancient, fleshy rock. The gigantic troogs, the sightless savages, the Nazis in the remains of their black and silver uniforms. A foul alliance indeed. Beasts and men. Half-men and half-beasts. Shambling and lolloping, trudging and dancing, striding and riding. Some of them stumbling. Ironically, while they had learned to adapt themselves to the dark, they were often blinded by the light. A ragged army. An ugly army. A monstrous army, marching relentlessly towards the Grey Fees.
“Could be,” I said, “that we’re already deserted by our angels. Have you ever witnessed such grotesquerie?” I indicated Gaynor’s army.
“Rarely,” said Oona. Her sweet, beautiful face, framed by her long white hair, looked up at me with sardonic intelligence. For a moment I felt an extraordinary sensation as she glanced away. I believe I was falling in love with her. And already, of course, I was debating the morality of this.
Oona was not my daughter. She was Elric’s. But at what point did a being conscious of its place in the multiverse choose to ignore the relationship it had in common with a million other beings? I could easily see the drawbacks of being fully conscious. Perhaps, years before, in his early sorcerous training Elric had been given the choice of being knowing or unknowing and had chosen to become unconscious of the multiverse. Otherwise he might never have been able to act at all.
What can it be like to be conscious that every action one performs has a consequence throughout time and space? One would become very circumspect about the company one kept. About the things one did or said. One could be frozen into complete inaction. Or returned to a state of absolute ignorance as the mind refused all information.
Or it could make one entirely reckless, willing, like Elric, to risk everything. For if one risked and lost, the reward was, after a
ll, complete oblivion. And oblivion was what that poor, tortured soul longed for so frequently. This quality made him an unreliable ally. Not all of us sought or found oblivion in battle. Something in me still looked forward to a restoration of the tranquillity of my old estate, a return to the quiet pleasures of rural life. Not that the prospect seemed especially close at this particular moment.
Elric frowned to himself. He seemed to be calculating something. I looked at him nervously, hoping he would not decide on one of his reckless moves. We three could not stand alone against those strange forces.
Cautiously, using all the cover available, we gradually drew closer to Gaynor’s horrible army. The wind demons seemed positioned to protect the flanks and rear. I could not guess how my cousin controlled them.
“How do you know these sentient tornadoes?” I whispered. “Have you encountered them before?”
“Not all ten,” he said. He was impatient with my interruption. “I once summoned their father. They all command different aspects of the elements, these wind-beings. They are protective of their separate domains. They know strong rivalries. And they can be fickle. This is not work for the sharnah, makers of gales, but for the h’Haarshann, builders of whirlwinds.”
I fell silent again. My instinct was to turn, to go back, to find the falls, the way through to Hameln. I would rather risk the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp than confront any more supernatural threats.
The marching army stopped. They pitched camp. Perhaps Gaynor needed to consider his next action? The Ten Sons became guardians of that vast horde by forming a rough circle around it. I studied the blazing whiteness as best I could, trying to see what really constituted the Ten Sons, but my vision began to blur immediately. I found it impossible to look at the wind demons for more than a few seconds.
I wondered if I tied a piece of gauze about my face it would be easier to make out whatever fundamental shape lay at the core of the Ten Sons. But perhaps I was deceiving myself. Perhaps there was no fundamental shape.
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