The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  Then it opened its jaws, pushed its back legs against the snowy bank, and shot towards the albino who tried to dodge it, lost his footing, and fell, sprawling backwards, on the gold and silver surface.

  III

  IN WHICH UNA PERSSON DISCOVERS AN UNEXPECTED SNAG

  The gigantic beetle, rainbow carapace glittering, turned as if into the wind, which blew from the distant mountains, its thick, flashing wings beating rapidly as it bore its single passenger over the queer landscape.

  On its back Mrs Persson checked the instruments on her wrist. Ever since Man had begun to travel in time it had become necessary for the Guild to develop techniques to compensate for the fluctuations and disruptions in the space-time continua; perpetually monitoring the chronoflow and megaflow. She pursed her lips. She had picked up the signal. She made the semi-sentient beetle swing a degree or two SSE and head directly for the mountains. She was in some sort of enclosed (but vast) environment. These mountains, as well as everything surrounding them, lay in the territory most utilised by the gloomy, natural-born Werther de Goethe, poet and romantic, solitary seeker after truth in a world no longer differentiating between the degrees of reality.

  He would not remember her, she knew, because, as far as Werther was concerned, they had not met yet. Had Werther even experienced his adventure with Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine? A story on which she had dined out more than once, in duller eras.

  The mountains drew closer. From here it was possible to see the entire arrangement (a creation of Werther’s very much in character): a desert landscape, a central sun, and, inverted above it, winter mountains. Werther strove to make statements, like so many naïve artists before him, by presenting simple contrasts: The World is Bleak / The World is Cold / Barren am I As I Grow Old / Tomorrow I Die, Entombed in Cold / For Silver My Poor Soul Was Sold – she remembered he was perhaps the worst poet she had encountered in an eternity of meetings with bad poets. He had taught himself to read and write in old, old English so that he might carve those words on one of his many abandoned tombs (half his time was spent in composing obituaries for himself). Like so many others he seemed to equate self-pity with artistic inspiration. In an earlier age he might have discovered his public and become quite rich (self-pity passing for passion in the popular understanding). Sometimes she regretted the passing of Wheldrake, so long ago, so far away, in a universe bearing scarcely any resemblances to those in which she normally operated.

  She brought her wavering mind back to the problem. The beetle dipped and circled over the desert, but there was no sight of her quarry.

  She was about to abandon the search when she heard a faint roaring overhead and she looked up to see another characteristic motif of Werther’s – a gold and silver chessboard on which, upside down, a monstrous doglike creature was bearing down on a tiny white-haired man dressed in the most abominable taste Una had seen for some time.

  She directed the air car upwards and then, reversing the machine as she entered the opposing gravity, downwards to where the barbarically costumed swordsman was about to be eaten by the beast.

  “Shoo!” cried Una commandingly.

  The beast raised a befuddled head.

  “Shoo.”

  It licked its lips and returned its seven-eyed gaze to the albino, who was now on his knees, using his large sword to steady himself as he climbed to his feet.

  The jaws opened wider and wider. The pale man prepared, shakily, to defend himself.

  Una directed the air car at the beasts unkempt head. The great beetle connected with a loud crack. The monsters eyes widened in dismay. It yelped. It sat on its haunches and began to slide away, its claws making an unpleasant noise on the gold and silver tiles.

  Una landed the air car and gestured for the stranger to enter. She noticed with distaste that he was a somewhat unhealthy looking albino with gaunt features, exaggeratedly large and slanting eyes, ears that were virtually pointed, and glaring, half-mad red pupils.

  And yet, undoubtedly, it was her quarry and there was nothing for it but to be polite.

  “Do, please, get in,” she said. “I am here to rescue you.”

  “Shaarmraaam torjistoo quellahm vyeearrr,” said the stranger in an accent that seemed to Una to be vaguely Scottish.

  “Damn,” she said, “that’s all we need.” She had been anxious to approach the albino in private, before one of the denizens of the End of Time could arrive and select him for a menagerie, but now she regretted that Werther or perhaps Lord Jagged were not here, for she realized that she needed one of their translation pills, those tiny tablets which could engineer’ the brain to understand a new language. By a fluke – or perhaps because of her presence here so often – the people at the End of Time currently spoke formal early 20th-century English.

  The albino – who wore a kind of tartan divided kilt, knee-length boots, a blue and white jerkin, a green cloak and a silver breastplate, with a variety of leather belts and metal buckles here and there upon his person – was vehemently refusing her offer of a lift. He raised the sword before him as he backed away, slipped once, reached the bank, scrambled through snow and disappeared behind a rock.

  Mrs Persson sighed and put the car into motion again.

  IV

  IN WHICH THE PRINCE OF MELNIBONÉ ENCOUNTERS FURTHER TERRORS

  Xiombarg herself, thought Elric as he slid beneath the snows into the cave. Well, he would have no dealings with the Queen of Chaos; not until he was forced to do so.

  The cave was large. In the thin light from the gap above his head he could not see far. He wondered whether to return to the surface or risk going deeper into the cave. There was always the hope that he would find another way out. He was attempting to recall some rune that would aid him, but all he knew depended either upon the aid of elementals who did not exist on this plane, or upon the Lords of Chaos themselves – and they were unlikely to come to his assistance in their own realm. He was marooned here: the single mouse in a world of cats.

  Almost unconsciously, he found himself moving downwards, realizing that the cave had become a tunnel. He was feeling hungry but, apart from the monster and the woman in the magical carriage, had seen no sign of life. Even the cavern did not seem entirely natural.

  It widened; there was phosphorescent light. He realized that the walls were of transparent crystal, and behind the walls were all manner of artefacts. He saw crowns, sceptres and chains of precious jewels; cabinets of complicated carving; weapons of strangely turned metal; armour, clothing, things whose use he could not guess – and food. There were sweetmeats, fruits, flans and pies, all out of reach.

  Elric groaned. This was torment. Perhaps deliberately planned torment. A thousand voices whispered to him in a beautiful, alien language.

  “Bie-meee… Bie-meee…” the voices murmured. “Baa-gen, baa-gen…”

  They seemed to be promising every delight, if only he could pass through the walls; but they were of transparent quartz, lit from within. He raised Stormbringer, half-tempted to try to break down the barrier, but he knew that even his sword was, at its most powerful, incapable of destroying the magic of Chaos.

  He paused, gasping with astonishment at a group of small dogs which looked at him with large brown eyes, tongues lolling, and jumped up at him.

  “O, Nee Tubbens!” intoned one of the voices.

  “Gods!” screamed Elric. “This torture is too much!” He swung his body this way and that, threatening with his sword, but the voices continued to murmur and promise, displaying their riches but never allowing him to touch.

  The albino panted. His crimson eyes glared about him. “You would drive me insane, eh? Well, Elric of Melniboné has witnessed more frightful threats than this. You will need to do more if you would destroy his mind!”

  And he ran through the whispering passages, looking to neither his right nor his left, until, quite suddenly, he had run into blazing daylight and stood staring down into pale infinity – a blue and endless void. He
looked up. And he screamed.

  Overhead were the gentle hills and dales of a rural landscape, with rivers, grazing cattle, woods and cottages. He expected to fall, headlong, but he did not. He was on the brink of the abyss. The cliff-face of red sandstone fell immediately below and then was the tranquil void. He looked back:

  “Baa-gen… O, Nee Tubbens…”

  A bitter smile played about the albino’s bloodless lips as, decisively, he sheathed his sword.

  “Well, then,” he said. “Let them do their worst!”

  And, laughing, he launched himself over the brink of the cliff.

  V

  IN WHICH WERTHER DE GOETHE MAKES A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY

  With a gesture of quiet pride, Werther de Goethe indicated his gigantic skull.

  “It is very large, Werther,” said Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, turning a power ring to adjust the shade of her eyes so that they perfectly matched the day.

  “It is monstrous,” said Werther modestly. “It reminds us all of the Inevitable Night.”

  “Who was that?” enquired golden-haired Gaf the Horse in Tears, at present studying ancient legendry. “Sir Lew Grady?”

  “I mean Death,” Werther told him, “which overwhelms us all.”

  “Well, not us,” pointed out the Duke of Queens, as usual a trifle literal-minded. “Because we’re immortal, as you know.”

  Werther offered him a sad, pitying look and sighed briefly. “Retain your delusions, if you will.”

  Mistress Christia stroked the gloomy Werther’s long, dark locks. “There, there,” she said. “We have compensations, Werther.”

  “Without Death,” intoned the Last Romantic, “there is no point to Life.”

  As usual, they could not follow him, but they nodded gravely and politely.

  “The skull,” continued Werther, stroking the side of his air car (which was in the shape of a large flying reptile) to make it circle and head for the left eye-socket, “is a Symbol not only of our Mortality, but also of our Fruitless Ambitions.”

  “Fruit?” Bishop Castle, drowsing at the rear of the vehicle, became interested. His hobby was currently orchards. “Less? My pine trees, you know, are proving a problem. The apples are much smaller than I was led to believe.”

  “The skull is lovely,” said Mistress Christia with valiant enthusiasm. “Well, now that we have seen it…”

  “The outward shell,” Werther told her. “It is what it hides which is more important. Man’s Foolish Yearnings are all encompassed therein. His Greed, his Need for the Impossible, the Heat of his Passions, the Coldness which must Finally Overtake him. Through this eye-socket you will encounter a little invention of my own called The Bargain Basement of the Mind…”

  He broke off in astonishment.

  On the top edge of the eye-socket a tiny figure had emerged.

  “What’s that?” enquired the Duke of Queens, craning his head back. “A random thought?”

  “It is not mine at all!”

  The figure launched itself into the sky and seemed to fly, with flailing limbs, towards the sun. Werther frowned, watching the tiny man disappear. “The gravity field is reversed there,” he said absently, “in order to make the most of the paradox, you understand. There is a snowscape, a desert…” But he was much more interested in the newcomer. “How do you think he got into my skull?”

  “At least he’s enjoying himself. He seems to be laughing.” Mistress Christia bent an ear towards the thin sound, which grew fainter and fainter at first, but became louder again. “He’s coming back.”

  Werther nodded. “Yes. The field’s no longer reversed.” He touched a power ring.

  The laughter stopped and became a yell of rage. The figure hurtled down on them. It had a sword in one white hand and its red eyes blazed.

  Hastily, Werther stroked another ring. The stranger tumbled into the bottom of the air car and lay there panting, cursing and groaning.

  “How wonderful!” cried Werther. “Oh, this is a traveller from some rich, romantic past. Look at him! What else could he be? What a prize!”

  The stranger rose to his feet and raised the sword high above his head, defying the amazed and delighted passengers as he screamed at the top of his voice:

  “Heeshgeegrowinaz!”

  “Good afternoon,” said Mistress Christia. She reached in her purse for a translation pill and found one. “I wonder if you would care to swallow this – it’s quite harmless…”

  “Yakoom, oomglallio,” said the albino contemptuously.

  “Aha,” said Mistress Christia. “Well, just as you please.”

  The Duke of Queens pointed towards the other socket. A huge, whirring beetle came sailing from it. In its back was someone he recognized with pleasure. “Mrs Persson!”

  Una brought her air car alongside.

  “Is he in your charge?” asked Werther with undisguised disappointment. “If so, I could offer you…”

  “I’m afraid he means a lot to me,” she said.

  “From your own age?” Mistress Christia also recognized Una. She still offered the translation pill in the palm of her hand. “He seems a mite suspicious of us.”

  “I’d noticed,” said Una. “It would be useful if he would accept the pill. However, if he will not, one of us…”

  “I would be happy,” offered the generous Duke of Queens. He tugged at his green and gold beard. “Werther de Goethe, Mrs Persson.”

  “Perhaps I had better,” said Una nodding to Werther. The only problem with translation pills was that they did their job so thoroughly. You could speak the language perfectly, but could speak no other.

  Werther was, for once, positive. “Let’s all take a pill,” he suggested.

  Everyone at the End of Time carried translation pills, in case of meeting a visitor from Space or the Past.

  Mistress Christia handed hers to Una and found another. They swallowed.

  “Creatures of Chaos,” said the newcomer with cool dignity, “I demand that you release me. You cannot hold a mortal in this way, not unless he has struck a bargain with you. And no bargain was struck which would bring me to the Realm of Chaos.”

  “It’s actually more orderly than you’d think,” said Werther apologetically. “Your first experience, you see, was the world of my skull, which was deliberately muddled. I meant to show what Confusion was the Mind of Man…”

  “May I introduce Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine,” said the Duke of Queens, on his best manners. “This is Mrs Persson, Bishop Castle, Gaf the Horse in Tears. Werther de Goethe – your unwitting host – and I am the Duke of Queens. We welcome you to our world. Your name, sir…?”

  “You must know me, my lord Duke,” said Elric. “For I am Elric of Melniboné, Emperor by Right of Birth, Inheritor of the Ruby Throne, Bearer of the Actorios, Wielder of the Black Sword…”

  “Indeed!” said Werther de Goethe. In a whispered aside to Mrs Persson: “What a marvellous scowl! What a noble sneer!”

  “You are an important personage in your world, then?” said Mistress Christia, fluttering the eyelashes she had just extended by half an inch. “Perhaps you would allow me…”

  “I think he wishes to be returned to his home,” said Mrs Persson hastily.

  “Returned?” Werther was astonished. “But the Morphail Effect! It is impossible.”

  “Not in this case, I think,” she said. “For if he is not returned there is no telling the fluctuations which will take place throughout the dimensions…”

  They could not follow her, but they accepted her tone.

  “Aye,” said Elric darkly, “return me to my realm, so that I may fulfil my own doom-laden destiny…”

  Werther looked upon the albino with affectionate delight. “Aha! A fellow spirit! I, too, have a doom-laden destiny.”

  “I doubt it is as doom-laden as mine.” Elric peered moodily back at the skull as the two air cars fled away towards a gentle horizon where exotic trees bloomed.

&nb
sp; “Well,” said Werther with an effort, “perhaps it is not, though I assure you…”

  “I have looked upon hellborn horror,” said Elric, “and communicated with the very Gods of the Uttermost Darkness. I have seen things which would turn other men’s minds to useless jelly…”

  “Jelly?” interrupted Bishop Castle. “Do you, in your turn, have any expertise with, for instance, blackbird trees?”

  “Your words are meaningless,” Elric told him, glowering. “Why do you torment me so, my lords? I did not ask to visit your world. I belong in the world of men, in the Young Kingdoms, where I seek my weird. Why, I have but lately experienced adventures…”

  “I do think we have one of those bores,” murmured Bishop Castle to the Duke of Queens, “so common amongst time-travellers. They all believe themselves unique.”

  But the Duke of Queens refused to be drawn. He had developed a liking for the frowning albino. Gaf the Horse in Tears was also plainly impressed, for he had fashioned his own features into a rough likeness of Elric’s. The Prince of Melniboné pretended insouciance, but it was evident to Una he was frightened. She tried to calm him.

  “People here at the End of Time…” she began.

  “No soft words, my lady.” A cynical smile played about the albino’s lips. “I know you for that great unholy temptress, Queen of the Swords, Xiombarg herself.”

  “I assure you, I am as human as you, sir…”

  “Human? I, human? I am not human, madam – though I be a mortal, ’tis true. I am of older blood, the blood of the Bright Empire itself, the Blood of R’lin K’ren A’a which Cran Liret mocked, not understanding what it was he laughed at. Aye, though forced to summon aid from Chaos, I made no bargain to become a slave in your realm…”

  “I assure you – um – your majesty,” said Una, “that we had not meant to insult you and your presence here was no doing of ours. I am, as it happens, a stranger here myself. I came especially to see you, to help you escape…”