It screamed in agony,
It attained its form,
It laughed.
Chapter Six
The Battle For Everything
Four faces laughed upon a gigantic head. Eight arms waved in triumph, eight legs began to move. And over that head it waved a single, massive sword. And it was running.
It ran upon Agak while the alien sorcerer was still in his static form. Its sword was whirling and shards of ghastly golden light fell away from it as it moved, lashing the shadowed landscape. The Four was as large as Agak. And at this moment it was as strong.
But Agak, realizing his danger, began to suck. No longer would this be a pleasurable ritual shared with his sister. He must suck at the energy of this universe if he was to find the strength to defend himself, to gain what he needed to destroy his attacker, the slayer of his sister. Worlds died as Agak sucked. But not enough. Agak tried cunning:
'This is the centre of your universe. All its dimensions intersect here. Come, you can share the power. My sister is dead. I accept her death. You shall be my partner now. With this power we shall conquer a universe far richer than this!’
'No’ said the Four, still advancing.
'Very well, but be assured of your defeat.' The Four swung its sword. The sword fell upon the faceted eye within which Agak's intelligence pool bubbled, just as his sister's had once bubbled. But Agak was stronger already and healed himself at once.
Agak's tendrils emerged and lashed at the Four and the Four cut at the tendrils as they sought its body. And Agak sucked more energy to himself. His body, which the mortals had mistaken for a building, began to glow burning scarlet and to radiate an impossible heat.
The sword roared and flared so that black light mingled with the gold and flowed against the scarlet.
And all the while the Four could sense its own universe shrinking and dying.
'Give back, Agak, what you have stolen!' said the Four.
Planes and angles and curves, wires and tubes, flickered with deep red heat and Agak sighed. The universe whimpered.
‘I am stronger than you,' said Agak. 'Now.’
And Agak sucked again.
The Four knew that Agak's attention was diverted for just that short while as he fed. And the Four knew that it, too, must draw energy from its own universe if Agak were to be defeated. So the sword was raised.
The sword was flung back, its blade slicing through tens of thousands of dimensions and drawing their power to it. Then it began to swing back.
It swung and black light bellowed from its blade.
It swung and Agak became aware of it. His body began to alter.
Down towards the sorcerer's great eye, down towards Agak's intelligence pool swept the black blade.
Agak's many tendrils rose to defend the sorcerer against the sword, but the sword cut through them as if they were not there and it struck the eight-sided chamber which was Agak's eye and it plunged on down into Agak's intelligence pool, deep into the stuff of the sorcerer's sensibility, drawing up Agak's energy into itself and thence into its master, the Four Who Were One.
And something screamed through the universe.
And something sent a tremor through the universe.
And the universe was dead, even as Agak began to die.
The Four did not dare wait to see if Agak were completely vanquished.
It swept the sword out, back through the dimensions, and everywhere the blade touched the energy was restored.
The sword rang round and round.
Round and round. Dispersing the energy.
And the sword sang its triumph and its glee.
And little shreds of black and golden light whispered away and were re-absorbed.
Hawkmoon knew the nature of the Champion, He knew the nature of the Black Sword. He knew the nature of Tanelorn. For at this moment that part of him which was Hawkmoon had experience of the whole multiverse. It inhabited him. He contained it. There were no mysteries at that moment.
And he recalled that one of his aspects had read something in the Chronicle of the Black Sword, that record of the Champion's exploits: For the Mind of Man alone is free to explore the lofty vastness of the cosmic infinite, to transcend ordinary consciousness, or roam the subterranean corridors of the human brain with its boundless dimensions. And universe and individual are linked, the one mirrored in the other, and each contains the other...'
'Ha!' cried that individual which was Hawkmoon. And he triumphed; he celebrated. This was the end to the Champion's doom!
For a moment the universe had been dead. Now it lived and Agak's energy had been added to it.
Agak lived, too, but he was frozen. He had attempted to change his shape. Now he still half resembled the building Hawkmoon had seen when he first came to the island, but part of him resembled the Four Who Were One. Here was part of Corum's face, here a leg, there a fragment of sword blade - as if Agak had believed, at the end, that the Four could only be defeated if its own form were assumed, just as the Four had assumed Gagak's form.
'We had waited so long ...' Agak sighed and then he was dead.
And the Four sheathed its sword.
Hawkmoon thought...
Then came a howling through the ruins of the many cities and a strong wind blustered against the body of the Four so that it was forced to kneel on its eight legs and bow its four-faced head before the gale.
Hawkmoon felt...
Then, gradually, it assumed again the shape of Gagak, the sorceress, and then it lay within Gagak's stagnating intelligence pool...
Hawkmoon knew … and then it rose over it, hovered for a moment, withdrew its sword from the pool.
Hawkmoon was Hawkmoon, Hawkmoon was the Champion Eternal on his last great quest...
Then four beings fled apart and Elric and Hawkmoon and Erekose and Corum stood with sword blades touching over the centre of the dead brain.
Hawkmoon sighed. He was full of wonderment. He was full of fear. Then the terror began to fade, to be replaced by an exhaustion which had something of contentment in it.
‘Wow / have flesh again. Now I have flesh,’ said a pathetic voice.
And it was the barbarian Ashnar, his face all ruined, his eyes all crazy. He had dropped his sword and had not noticed. He kept touching himself, digging at his face with his nails. And he giggled.
John ap-Rhyss raised his head from the floor. He looked at Hawkmoon in hatred, then he looked away again. Emshon of Arise, his sword, too, forgotten, crawled forward to help John ap-Rhyss rise to his feet. There was a cold silence in the manner of both men.
Others were mad or dead. Elric was helping Brut of Lashmar up.
'What did you see?' asked the albino.
'More than I deserved, for all my sins. We were trapped -trapped in that skull...' The Knight of Lashmar broke down, his sobbing that of a little child. Elric held Brut, stroking his blond hair, unable to say anything which might ease the burden of his experience.
Erekose murmured, almost to himself. 'We must go.' As he walked towards the door, his feet threatened to slide from under him.
'It was not fair,' said Hawkmoon to John ap-Rhyss and Emshon of Ariso, 'that you should suffer with us. It was not fair.'
John ap-Rhyss spat at the floor.
Chapter Seven
The Heroes Part
Outside, standing amongst the shadows of buildings that were not there, or only partly standing; standing beneath a bloody sun which had not moved a fraction in the sky since they had landed on the island; Hawkmoon watched the bodies of the sorcerers burn.
The fire took eagerly, shrieking and howling as it consumed Agak and Gagak, and its smoke was whiter than Elric's face, redder than the sun. The smoke filled the sky.
Hawkmoon could remember little of what had befallen him inside Gagak's skull, but he was full of bitterness at that moment.
'I wonder if the Captain knew why he sent us here?' said Corum. 'Or if he suspected what would happen?’ Hawkmoon wiped at his mouth.
&n
bsp; 'Only we - only that being - could battle Agak and Gagak in anything resembling their own terms.' Erekose's eyes were full of a private knowledge. 'Other means would not have been successful. No other creature could have the particular qualities, the enormous power needed to slay such strange sorcerers.'
'So it seems,' said Elric. The albino had become taciturn, introspective.
Corum said encouragingly, 'Hopefully you will forget this experience as you forgot - or will forget - the other.'
Elric was not to be consoled. 'Hopefully, brother.'
Now Erekose made an effort to break their mood. He chuckled. 'Who could recall that?’
Hawkmoon was bound to agree with him. Already the sensations were fading; already the experience had the feeling of an unusually powerful dream. He looked round at the soldiers who had fought with him; still none would meet his eye. Plainly they blamed him and his other manifestations for a horror they should not have had to confront. Ashnar the Lynx, tough-minded barbarian, was witness to the dreadful emotions they had had to suppress, to control, and now Ashnar gave out a chilling shriek and began to run towards the blaze. He ran until he had almost reached it and Hawkmoon thought he would throw himself upon the pyre, but he changed his direction at the last moment and ran instead into the ruins, swallowed by shadows.
'Why follow him?' said Elric. 'What can we do for him?' There was pain in his crimson eyes as he regarded the body of Hown Serpent-tamer, who had saved all their lives. Elric shrugged, but it was not a careless shrug. He shrugged as a man might who sought to adjust a particularly heavy load upon his shoulders.
John ap-Rhyss and Emshon of Ariso helped the dazed Brut of Lashmar to walk as they moved back from the fire, back towards the shore.
Hawkmoon said to Elric, as they walked, 'That sword of yours. It has a familiar look. It is no ordinary blade, eh?'
'No,' agreed the albino. 'It is not an ordinary blade, Duke Dorian. It is ancient, timeless, some say. Others think it was forged for my ancestors in a battle against gods. It has a twin, but that is lost.'
'I fear it,' said Hawkmoon. 'I know not why.'
'You are wise to fear it,' Elric told him. 'It is more than a sword.'
'A demon, too?'
'If you like.' Eric would say no more.
'It is the doom of the Champion to bear that blade at the Earth's most crucial crises,' Erekose said. 'I have borne it and would not bear it again, if I had the choice."
‘The choice is rarely the Champion's,' Corum added with a sigh.
Now they had come to the beach again and hovered there, contemplating the white mist surging on the water. The dark silhouette of the ship was plainly visible.
Corum, Elric and some of the others began to go forward into the mist, but Hawkmoon, Erekose and Brut of Lashmar all hesitated at the same time. Hawkmoon had come to adecision. 'I will not rejoin the ship,' he said. 'I feel I've served my passage now. If I can find Tanelorn, this, I suspect, is where I must look.’
‘My own feelings.' Erekose moved his body so that he was looking again at the ruins.
Elric's glance at Corum was questioning and Corum smiled in answer.
'I have already found Tanelorn. I go back to the ship in the hope that soon it will deposit me upon a more familiar shore.'
‘That is my hope.' Elric offered Brut, whom he supported, the same questioning stare.
Brut was whispering. Hawkmoon caught some of the words. ‘What was it? What happened to us?'
'Nothing.' Elric gripped Brut's shoulder and then released it. Brut broke free. 'I will stay. I am sorry.'
'Brut?' Elric frowned.
'I am sorry. I fear you. I fear that ship.' Brut stumbled backwards, stumbled inland.
'Brut?' Elric reached out a hand.
'Comrade,’ said Corum, laying his silver hand upon Elric's own shoulder, 'let us be gone from this place. It is what is back there that I fear more than the ship.'
With one last moody look at the ruins, Elric said: 'With that I agree.'
'If that is Tanelorn, it is not, after all, the place I sought,' murmured Otto Blendker.
Hawkmoon expected John ap-Rhyss and Emshon of Ariso to go with Blendker, but they remained stolidly where they were.
'Will you stay with me?' said Hawkmoon in surprise. The tall, long-haired man of Yel and the short, belligerent warrior of Ariso nodded together. 'We stay,' said John ap-Rhyss. ‘You have no love for me, I thought.'
'You said that we suffered an injustice,' John ap-Rhyss told him. 'Well, that is true. It is not you we hate, Hawkmoon. It is those forces which control us all. I am glad that I am not Hawkmoon, yet I envy you in a way.'
'Envy?'
‘I agree,' said Emshon soberly. To play such a role, one would give much.'
'One's soul?' said Erekose.
'What is that?' asked John ap-Rhyss, refusing to meet the eye of the heavy-bodied man. 'A cargo we abandon too soon in our voyage, perhaps. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to discover where we lost it.'
'Is that what you seek?' Emshon asked him.
John ap-Rhyss grinned a wolf's grin at him. 'Say so, if you wish.'
'Farewell to you, then,' said Corum, saluting them. 'We continue with the ship.'
'And I.' Elric drew his cloak about his face. 'I wish you success in your quest, brothers.'
'And you in yours,' said Erekose. 'The Horn must be blown.'
'I do not understand you.' Elric's tone was cold. He turned and began to wade into the water, not waiting for an explanation.
Corum smiled. 'Removed from our times, plagued by paradoxes, manipulated by beings who refuse to enlighten us - it is tiresome, is it not?'
‘Tiresome,’ said Erekose laconically. 'Aye.’
'My struggle has ended, I think,' said Corum. 'I believe that soon I will be allowed to die. I have served my turn as Champion Eternal. I join my Rhalina, my mortal bride.'
'I must still seek for my immortal Ermizhad,' said Erekose.
'My Yisselda lives, I'm told,’ Hawkmoon added. 'But I seek my children.'
'All the parts of the thing that is the Eternal Champion come together,’ said Corum. This could be the last quest for all of us.'
'And shall we know peace, then?' Erekose asked.
'Peace comes to a man only after he has struggled with himself,' said Corum. 'Is that not your experience?'
'It is the struggling which is so hard,' Hawkmoon told him.
Corum said no more. He followed Elric and Otto Blendker into the sea. Soon they had disappeared into the mist. Soon they heard faint shouts. Soon they heard the anchor raised. The ship was gone.
Hawkmoon was relieved, for all he did not relish the idea of what lay ahead of him. He turned.
The black figure was back. It was grinning at him. It was an evil, intimate grin.
'Sword,' it said. And it pointed after the ship. 'Sword, You will need me, Champion. Soon.'
Erekose showed terror for the first time. Like Hawkmoon, his first instinct was to draw his blade, but something stopped him. John ap-Rhyss and Emshon of Ariso shouted in astonishment and Hawkmoon stayed their hands. 'Do not draw,' he said.
Brut of Lashmar merely stared at the apparition with his glazed, tired eyes.
'Sword,' said the creature. His black aura made it seem that he danced a peculiar, jerky jig, but his body was quite still. 'Elric? Corum? Hawkmoon? Erekose? Urlik ...?'
'Ah!' cried Erekose. 'Now I know you. Go! Go!'
The black figure laughed. 'I can never go. Not while the Champion needs me.'
‘The Champion needs you no longer,' said Hawkmoon, without knowing what he meant.
'He does! He does!'
'Go!'
The wicked face continued to grin.
'There are two of us now,' said Erekose. Two are stronger.'
'But it is not allowed,' said the figure. 'It has never been allowed.'
‘This is a different time, the Time of the Conjunction.'
'No!' cried the apparition.
Erekose's laugh was contemptuous.
The black figure darted forward, became huge; darted back, became tiny; resumed its normal size, fled across the ruins, its own shadow capering behind it, not always in unison. The great, heavy shadows of that collection of cities seemed about to fall on the figure, for he recoiled from many of them.
'No!' they heard him cry. 'No!'
John ap-Rhyss said: 'Was that what was left of the sorcerer?'
'It was not,' said Erekose. 'It is what is left of our nemesis.'
‘You know it, then?' said Hawkmoon.
'I think so.'
‘Tell me. It has haunted me since my adventure began. I think it was responsible for parting me from Yisselda, from my own world.'
'It has not the power for that, I'm sure,' said Erekose. 'Doubtless, however, it was pleased to take advantage. I have only seen it once before, very briefly, in this manifestation.'
'What is it called?'
'Many names," said Erekose thoughtfully.
They began to move back into the ruins. The apparition had vanished again. Ahead they saw two new shadows, two huge shadows. They were the shadows of Agak and Gagak as they had looked when the heroes had first arrived here. The bodies had by this time burned to nothing. But the shadows remained.
‘Tell me one?' Hawkmoon asked.
Erekose pursed his lips before replying, then he darted a look directly into Hawkmoon's eyes. 'I think I understand why the Captain was reluctant to speculate, to divulge any information he could not be completely sure of. It is dangerous, in these circumstances, to jump to conclusions. Perhaps I am wrong, after all.'
'Oh!' cried Hawkmoon. Tell me what you suspect, then Erekose, if it is merely suspicion.'
'I think one of the names is Stormbringer,' the scarred man told him.
'And now I know why I feared Elric's sword,' Hawkmoon said.
They spoke no more of this.
Book Three
In Which Many Things Are Found To Be One Thing
Chapter One
Prisoners In Shadows
‘We are like ghosts, are we not?'
Erekose lay upon a pile of broken stone and stared up at the red, motionless sun. 'A converse of ghosts ...' He smiled to show that he spoke idly, merely to pass time.
The Chronicles of Castle Brass Page 33
