Forced by four creatures so similar that they were almost one flesh and, at this moment, essentially one mind …
Forced downwards through the Black Sword which was not itself the receptacle of that power but merely the final and much-needed conductor …
Forced through the living stone, into the slab of rock from which the bowl, column and plinth had been carved, thousands of years before …
To transform it—to alter it entirely from any kind of material remotely akin to stone—a living form of energy so immense it was impossible, even for the adepts themselves, to imagine the fullness of its power, or how such power could possibly be contained.
Now this energy, coruscating, swirling, dancing, celebrating its own incredible being, joined in the song of the sisters, the albino and the runesword, until they formed a choir which could be heard throughout the multiverse, in every Sphere, upon every part of every planet; echoing forever throughout the multitude of planes and dimensions of the quasi-infinite. To be heard always, now, somewhere, while the multiverse existed. It was a song of promise, of responsibility and of celebration. A promise of harmony; the triumph of love; a celebration of the multiverse in balance. It was through an exquisite metaphysical harmony that they controlled this force and made it obey them, releasing it once more …
… Releasing it into three great Objects of Power which, as the fountain faded away, were revealed, grouped around the Black Sword standing in the centre of the small pool …
… Three swords, the weight and length of Stormbringer, but otherwise very different in appearance:
The first sword was made of ivory, with an ivory blade that looked oddly sharp and an ivory hilt and an ivory grip, bound about with bands of gold which seemed to have grown into the ivory.
The second sword was made of gold, yet was as sharp as its companion, and it was bound with ebony.
The third sword was of blue-grey granite furnished in silver.
These were the swords the Rune had hidden so well and which were now infused with a power to match that of Stormbringer itself …
Princess Tayaratuka, all in flowing gold, reached a golden hand towards the golden sword and took it to her breast with a deep sigh …
Her sister Mishiguya, in grey-blue silks, stretched out her own hand to the granite sword, seized it and gasped, grinning with the ecstasy and triumph of their success …
… and Princess Shanug’a, very grave in white robes, took down the ivory sword and kissed it. “Now,” she said, turning to the others, “we are ready to do battle with a Lord of Chaos.”
Elric, still weak from the rune-weaving, staggered to take hold of his own sword. Out of some sense of respect, or some unremembered ritual, he replaced it with the runestone, from which he had read the beginning of that great Casting …
Elric, my son—hast thou my soulbox? Did the sisters give it thee?
His father’s voice. Some intimation of what he would know for always should he fail. And it seemed that he had certainly failed …
Elric, the time is almost here. My sorcery cannot hold me much longer … I must come to thee, my son … I must come to the one I hate most in the entire multiverse … To live with him for ever …
“I have not found your soulbox, Father,” he murmured and then looked up to see the sisters watching him curiously when, all of a sudden, into the cloister came a breathless Koropith Phatt.
“Oh, thank heaven! I thought you all destroyed! There was a—a kind of storm. But you are here! They did not attack from within as we had feared.”
“Gaynor?” said Elric, rescabbarding the oddly quiescent runeblade. “Has he returned?”
“Not Gaynor—at least, I think not—but a Chaos army—coming against us. Oh, prince, dear princesses, we are upon the point of our extinguishment!”
Which had them running as fast as they could go in the wake of the youth as he took them up to join the others in a room formed from a ledge of rock and disguised by foliage; this formed a natural balcony from which they could look out over the surrounding countryside and see the crystalline trees shattering and smashing as a great river of armoured semi-humanity pressed towards their retreat.
An army of bestial men and manlike beasts, some with natural carapaces, like gigantic beetles, all armed with pikes and morningstars and maces and broadswords and meat-cleavers of every description, some riding one upon the other, some dragging snoring companions, some in mysterious congress, some pausing to throw dice or settle a quarrel before being beaten back into line by their officers, whose helms sported the yellow blazon of eight-arrowed Chaos.
Snorting and wheezing, whiffling and sneezing; grunting and squealing and yelping; bellowing like bulls in a slaughterhouse, the Chaos army advanced: a single appetite.
The Rose turned frightened eyes to greet her friends. “There is nothing we have can withstand that army,” she said. “It is retreat again, then …?”
“No,” said Princess Tayaratuka. “This time we do not need to retreat.” She was leaning on a sword almost as tall as herself but which she carried with considerable panache, as if she and the blade had always been one.
Her sisters, too, bore their swords as casually, and with fresh confidence.
“These swords are powerful enough to challenge Chaos?” Wheldrake was the first to voice the question. “Good heavens, your majesties! See how the old rhyme does poor justice to the true value of the epic! It is what I always tell them when they accuse me of being over-imaginative! I cannot begin to describe what is really out there! What I actually see!” He virtually crowed with excitement. “What, indeed, the world around them is really like! Are we to do battle with Chaos at last?”
“You must stay here with Mother Phatt,” said Charion. “It is your duty, my dear.”
“You must stay, too, dear child!” cried Fallogard Phatt in great dismay. “You are not a warrior! You are a clairvoyant!”
“I am both now, Uncle,” she said firmly. “I have no special blade to aid me, but I have my special wit, which gives me considerable advantage of most opponents. I learned much, Uncle, in the service of Gaynor the Damned! Let me go with you, ladies, I beg.”
“Aye,” said Princess Mishiguya, “you are well-fitted to battle Chaos. You may go with us.”
“And I would go with you, also,” said the Rose. “My magic is exhausted, but I have fought Chaos many times and survived, as you know. Let me bear my Swift Thorn and my Little Thorn into battle beside you. For if we are to die at this time, I would rather die fulfilling my vocation.”
“Then so be it,” said Princess Shanug’a and looked enquiringly towards her kinsman. “Five swords against Chaos—or six?”
Elric was still staring at that horrific army which looked as if everything obscene and evil and brutish and greedy in the human race had been given features. He turned back with a shrug. “Six, of course. But they will require our every resource to defeat them. I suspect that we do not see all that Chaos sends against us. Yet I, too, have not made use of everything …”
He raised his gauntleted hand to his lips, brooding on a matter which had just entered his mind.
Then he said: “The others must stay here, to make their escape if need be. I charge you, Master Wheldrake, with the well-being of Mother Phatt and Koropith Phatt, as well as Fallogard …”
“Really, sir. I am capable …” said that untidy idealist.
“I have every respect for your capabilities, sir,” said Elric, “but you are not experienced in these matters. You must be ready to flee, since you have no means of defending yourself or your people. Your psychic gifts might help you find a means of escape before Chaos discovers you. Believe me, Master Phatt, if it seems we are about to be defeated you must flee this realm! Use whatever powers you still possess to find a means of escape—and take the others with you.”
“I will not leave while Charion is here,” said Wheldrake firmly.
“You must, for everyone’s sake,” Charion said. “Uncle Fallogard will have ne
ed of you.”
But it was fairly clear from Wheldrake’s manner that he had made up his own mind on the matter.
“The horses are ready for us in the stables below,” said Princess Tayaratuka. “Six horses of copper and silver, as the weaving demands.”
Wheldrake watched his friends leave. Something he disliked in himself was grateful that he did not have to go with them and face such disgusting foes; something else yearned to go with them, yearned to be part of their epic fight, rather than its mere recorder …
A little later, as he leaned upon the balcony and watched the slow, sickening advance of that evil, brutified pack, crushing all it encountered and taking only absent-minded pleasure in the destruction it caused, the poet saw six figures leave the shadows of the cliff and ride on chestnut, silver-maned horses without hesitating into the clashing crystals of the forest. Elric, the three sisters, Charion Phatt and the Rose—side by side they cantered—straight-backed in their saddles—to do battle with that manifestation of perverse evil and greedy cruelty—to fight for their very future: for their history; for the merest memory of their ever having existed somewhere in the vast multiverse …
At this sight, Wheldrake laid down his expectant pen and, instead of concocting some glorious Romance from the action of those six brave riders, he offered up an impassioned prayer in respect of the lives and the souls of his cherished friends.
Pride in his companions, together with his fears for their well-being, had struck the little man speechless.
Now he watched as the Rose broke away from her fellows and rode a little way ahead until she was only a few yards from the first swaying howdahs of the massive war-beasts, part-mammal, part-reptile, which Chaos habitually used in its attacks. Already the stupid heads, lips and nostrils glistening with ichor which hung like dirty ropes from their orifices and left a trail of slime for the others to follow, were turning to sniff some alien scent, some body not yet touched and warped by the limitless, cruel and casual creativity of Chaos.
Then, from the leading howdah, all hung with human skins and other savageries, poked out a head to peer down at the Rose as she advanced upon the throng.
The helmet was immediately recognized by Wheldrake.
It belonged to Gaynor, ex-Prince of the Universal.
The death-seeker had come personally to savour the final agonies of these most irritating of his enemies.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Fight in the Crystalline Wood: Chaos Regenerated. The Tangled Woman. To The Ship That Was.
“Prince Gaynor,” said the Rose, “you and your warriors have invaded this land.” She spoke with angry formality. “And we now order you to leave. We are here to banish Chaos from this realm.”
Gaynor said coolly: “Sweet Rose, you have been driven mad by your knowledge of our power. You should not resist us further, lady. We ourselves are here to establish Gaynor’s rule once and for all upon your realm. We offer you the mercy of immediate death.”
“That mercy is a lie!” said Charion Phatt from where she sat on her silver-maned horse beside the others. “All that you say is a lie. And what is not a lie is mere vainglory!”
Gaynor’s mysterious helm turned slowly to regard the young woman and a deep, assured chuckle escaped the Prince of the Damned. “You have a naïve courage, child, but it is by no means sufficient to offer resistance to the power Chaos commands. Which I command.”
There was a fresh note in Gaynor’s voice, a new kind of confidence, and Elric wondered, with some unease, how the Prince of the Damned had come by it. Gaynor seemed to believe his position was, if anything, stronger. Did more Chaos Lords group behind him? Was this to be the beginning of the great battle between Law and Chaos which so many oracles had predicted in recent centuries?
As he watched the Rose raise herself in her saddle and draw her sword Swift Thorn, Elric marveled at the woman’s self-control; for she faced the creature that had betrayed her and caused the agonized deaths of all her people. She faced him and did not reveal in any way her contempt and hatred of him. Yet twice he had bested her in a struggle without beating her and this he must know. Perhaps that was the reason for his new-found braggadocio? Perhaps he sought to deceive them into believing he had more power than was apparent?
Now the Rose was riding back to rejoin her friends crying: “Know this, Gaynor the Damned, whatever is the worst thing you fear, that shall be your fate after this day! This I promise you!”
Gaynor’s answering laughter had little humour, merely threat. “There is no punishment I fear, madam. Do you not know that yet? Since I am not permitted the luxury of death, then I shall find it for myself—and make millions seek it with me! Each death I cause, lady, consoles me for an instant. You die in my place. All of you shall die in my place. For me.” His tone became a lover’s and his words caressed her retreating back like the foul coaxing hand of Vice personified. “For me, lady.”
When she took her place again with the others, the Rose looked steadily into Gaynor’s helm, which squirmed with the flames and smoke of his own myriad torments, and she said: “None of us shall die, Prince Gaynor. Least of all, on your behalf!”
“My surrogates!” called Gaynor, laughing again. “My sacrifices! Go to find death! Go! You do not realize I am your benefactor!”
But already the six of them, Elric and the Rose slightly ahead of their companions, were cantering through the shimmering, jangling forest, their swords drawn, their chestnut, silver-maned horses, bred in a distant age only for war and brought here by the sisters from some more barbaric realm, lifting their hoofs in sprightly anticipation of battle, their heavy harness clattering in unison with the broken branches of the crystal trees, their great heads nodding in impatience, their nostrils flaring as they anticipated the stink of blood, snorting and gnashing their teeth, rolling their eyes and glorying in the anticipation of the coming fight, for this was what they had been bred to do; becoming only fully alive when in the thick of violent destruction.
Elric, glad to feel such a fine war-stallion under him, understood how these horses looked forward to the ecstatic oblivion of battle. He, too, knew that singular joy, when every sense was alert and at its sharpest, when life never seemed sweeter or death more fearsome—and yet he knew what a false lure it was to lose himself in such mindless struggle. He wondered, not for the first time, if he was fated always to seek such struggles out, as if he, like the horses, had been bred for one special task? Hating it, he swiftly gave himself up to the thrilling delight of his battle-lust, and soon, as the first of Chaos’s creatures came against him, he knew nothing but that lust …
Wheldrake, watching from the bower far above, saw the six riders converge upon the forces of Chaos and it seemed that they must be immediately swallowed. The very size of the Chaos beasts, the weight and grotesque power of the Chaos army, was more than enough, surely, to crush them in an instant?
Now a great shaft of scintillating light illuminated the riders as they merged with the colossal war-beasts who rumbled relentlessly on through the coruscating forest. Wheldrake saw six points flickering in that generality of lumbering limbs and widening jaws—one was a dark radiance he recognized as Stormbringer’s—two were of ordinary, metallic glint—one more was a creamy white light, another the grey hard gleam of granite, and the last was the warm glow of ancient gold. Half-blinded by the crystal’s shattered brightness, Wheldrake lost sight of the swords again and, when he could see clearly once more, he was astonished!
Four half-reptilian monsters lay in agony upon the radiant crystals, their howdahs crushed as they rolled and bellowed.
Wheldrake saw Gaynor’s agitated figure, all angry, living metal, running back into the heart of his army, seeking a fresh mount. There was a sword in his gauntleted fist now—a sword that forked black and yellow—a sword whose blade seemed to twist in and out of the dimensions even as the Damned One wielded it …
And Wheldrake guessed that the three sisters were not the only adepts who had sung a
great rune or cast some other potent spell, for the sword in Gaynor’s hand was unlike any he had borne before.
Yet elsewhere, still, the Chaos creatures fell before a kind of thin ribbon of glittering light which carved into their ranks as surely as a scythe through wheat …
Hand raised against his eyes to see through the blinding crystalline multicoloured rays that mirrored in some terrible way the beauty of the multiverse, Elric swung his great black blade this way and that, feeling only the faintest of resistance as, with thirsty ease, Stormbringer feasted upon the lives and souls of the warped half-beasts who had once been men and women before they pledged their miserable lives to Chaos …
There was no satisfaction at this killing, even though there was joy in the act of battle. Each fighter at Elric’s side knew that, but for chance and a certain firmness of purpose, they, too, might be part of this army of damned souls … for Chaos was not the master most readily chosen by the majority of mortals …
Yet kill them they must—or be killed. Or see whole realms perish as Chaos gathered momentum, drawing upon the power of the conquered worlds to accomplish further conquests …
With the grace of dancers, with the precision of surgeons, with the sorrowing eyes of unwilling slaughterers, the three sisters joined in battle with those who had already destroyed most of their kinfolk.
Charion Phatt, dismounted from a horse she found too unresponsive, darted here and there with her sword, cutting swiftly at a Chaos creature’s vitals and slipping in to cut again, using her psychic gifts to anticipate attack from any quarter and never being present when the attack came. Like the sisters’, her movements were efficient and she took no pleasure in the destruction …
… Only the Rose shared some of Elric’s joy, for she, like him, had been trained to battle—even if her enemies were somewhat different—and Swift Thorn struck with expert skill at exposed organs and vulnerable places on the malformed half-men, using subtlety and speed as her chief defense—guiding her chestnut-and-silver warhorse into the densest parts of the Chaos pack’s ranks and slicing so accurately at a chosen target that she brought one monster tumbling down upon another, a churning of heavy paws and legs which killed more of their own kind even as they, themselves, perished.
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