The Stealer of Souls (44 page)

“Fate is kind,” Elric commented ironically. He rose from his seat. “I’ll begin the journey straightway, for there’s no time to lose.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

With his milk-white hair streaming behind him and his red eyes blazing with purpose, Elric lashed his stallion through the cold darkness of the night, through a disturbed land which awaited Jagreen Lern’s attack in trepidation, for it could mean not only their deaths, but the drawing of their souls into the servitude of Chaos.

Already the standards of a dozen Western and Southern monarchs fluttered with Jagreen Lern’s as the kings of the conquered lands chose his command rather than death—and placed their peoples under his dominance so that they became marching, blank-faced creatures with enslaved souls, their wives and children dead, tormented or feeding the blood-washed altars of Pan Tang where the priests send up invocations to the Chaos Lords, and, ever-willing to further their power on Earth, the lords answered with support.

And not only the entities themselves, but the stuff of their own weird cosmos was entering the Earth, so that where their power was the land heaved like the sea, or the sea flowed like lava, mountains changed shape and trees sprouted ghastly blossoms never seen on Earth before—all nature was unstable and it could not be long until Earth was wholly one with the Realm of Chaos.

Wherever Jagreen Lern conquered, the warping influence of Chaos was manifest. The very spirits of nature were tortured into becoming what they should not be—air, fire, water and earth, all became unstable, for Jagreen Lern and his allies were tampering not only with the lives and souls of men, but the very constituents of the planet itself. And there was none of sufficient power to punish them for these crimes. None.

With this knowledge within him, Elric’s progress was swift and wild, as he strove to reach the Isle of the Purple Towns before his pitifully inadequate fleet sailed to do battle with Chaos.

Two days later he arrived in the port of Uhaio, at the tip of the smallest of the three Vilmirian peninsulas, and took ship at once to the Isle of the Purple Towns, where he disembarked and rode into the interior towards the ancient fortress
Ma-ha-kil-agra
, which had withstood every siege ever made against it, and was regarded as the most impregnable construction in the whole of the lands still free from Chaos. Its name was in an older language than any known to those who lived in the current Age of the Young Kingdoms. Only Elric knew what the name signified. The fortress had been there long before the present races came to dominance, even before Elric’s ancestors had begun their conquerings.
Ma-ha-kil-agra
—the Fortress of Evening, where long ago, a lonely race had come to die.

As he arrived in the courtyard, Moonglum, the Eastlander, came rushing from the entrance of a tower.

“Elric! We have been awaiting your arrival, for time grows scarce before we must embark against the enemy. We have sent out ship-borne spies to estimate the size and power of Jagreen Lern’s fleet. Only four returned and all were uselessly insane. The fifth has just come back, but—”

“But what?”

“See for yourself. He has been—altered, Elric.”

“Altered! Altered! Let me see him. Take me to him.” Elric nodded curtly to the other captains who had come out to greet him. He passed them and followed behind Moonglum through the stone corridors of the fortress, lit badly by sputtering rushes.

Leading Elric to an antechamber, Moonglum stopped outside, running his fingers through his thick, red hair. “He is therein. Would you care to interview him alone? I’d rather not set eyes on him again!”

“Very well.” Elric opened the door, wondering how this spy would be changed. Sitting at the plain wooden table, was the remains of a man. It looked up. As Moonglum had warned him—it had been altered.

Elric felt pity for the man, but he was not nauseated or horrified like Moonglum, for in his sorcery-working he had seen far worse creatures. It was as if the whole of one side of the spy’s body had become at one stage viscous, had flowed, and then coiled in a random shape. Side of head, shoulder, arm, torso, leg, all were replaced by streamers of flesh like rat’s tails, lumps of matter like swollen boils, weirdly mottled. The spy spread his good hand and some of the streamers seemed to jerk and wave in unison.

Elric spoke quietly. “What magic wrought this drastic change?”

A kind of chuckle came from the lopsided face.

“I entered the Realm of Chaos, lord. And Chaos did this, it changed me as you see. The boundaries are being extended. I did not know it. I was inside before I realized what had happened.
The area of Chaos is being widened!
” He leaned forward, his shaking voice almost screaming. “With it sail the massed fleets of Jagreen Lern—great waves of warships, squadrons of invasion craft, thousands of transports, ships mounting great war engines, fire-ships—ships of all kinds, bearing a multitude of standards—the kings of the South left alive have sworn loyalty to Jagreen Lern and he has used all their resources and his own to marshal this sea-horde! As he sails, he extends the area of Chaos, so whereas his sailing is slower than normal, when he reaches us here—Chaos will be with him. I saw such ships that could be of no earthly contriving—the size of castles—each one seeming to be a dazzling combination of all colours!”

“So he
has
managed to bring more supernatural allies to his standard,” Elric mused. “Those are the Ships of Hell, Sepiriz mentioned…”

“Aye—and even if we beat the natural craft,” the messenger said, hysterically, “we could not beat both the ships of Chaos and the stuff of Chaos which boils around them and did to me what you observe! It boils, it warps, it changes constantly. That is all I know, save that Jagreen Lern and his human allies are unharmed by it as I was harmed. When this change began to take place in my body, I fled to the Dragon Isle of Melniboné, which seems to have withstood the process and is the only safe land in all the waters of the world. My body—healed—swiftly, and I chanced another sailing to bring me here.”

“You were courageous,” Elric said hollowly. “You will be well rewarded, I promise.”

“I want only one reward, my lord.”

“What is that?”

“Death. I can no longer live with the horror of my body mirroring the horror in my brains!”

“I will see to it,” Elric promised. He remained brooding for a few seconds before nodding farewell to the spy and leaving the room.

Moonglum met him outside.

“It looks black for us, Elric,” he said softly.

Elric sighed. “Aye—perhaps I should have gone to seek the Chaos Shield
first
.”

“What’s that?”

Elric explained all Sepiriz had told him.

“We could do with such a defense,” Moonglum agreed. “But there it is—the priority is tomorrow’s sailing. Your captains await you in the conference chamber.”

“I will see them in a short while,” Elric promised. “First I wish to go to my own room to collect my thoughts. Tell them I’ll join them when that’s done.”

When he reached his room, Elric locked the door behind him, still thinking of the spy’s information. He knew that without supernatural aid no ordinary fleet, no matter how large or how courageously manned, could possibly withstand Jagreen Lern. And the fact was that he had only a comparatively small fleet, no supernatural entities for allies, no means of combating the disrupting chaotic forces. If only he had the Chaos Shield beside him now…But it was useless to regret a decision of the kind he’d made. If he sought the shield now, he couldn’t fight the battle in any case.

For weeks he had consulted the grimoires that, in the form of scrolls, tablets, books and sheets of precious metals engraved with ancient symbols, littered his room. The elementals had helped him in the past, but, so disrupted were they by Chaos, that they were weak for the most part.

He unstrapped his hellsword and flung it on the bed of tumbled silks and furs. Wryly he thought back to earlier times when he had given in to despair and how those incidents which had engendered the mood seemed merely gay escapades in comparison to the task which now weighed on his mind. Though weary, he chose not to draw Stormbringer’s stolen energy into himself, for the feeling that was so close to ecstasy was leavened by the guilt—the guilt which had possessed him since a child when he had first realized that the expression on his remote father’s face had not been one of love, but of disappointment that he should have spawned a deficient weakling—a pale albino, good for nothing without the aid of drugs or sorcery.

Elric sighed and went to the window to stare out over the low hills and beyond them to the sea. He spoke aloud, perhaps subconsciously, hoping that the release of the words would relieve some of the tension within him.

“I do not care for this responsibility,” he said. “When I fought the Dead God he spoke of both gods and men as shadow-things, playing puppet parts before the true history of Earth began and men found their fate in their own hands. Then Sepiriz tells me I must turn against Chaos and help destroy the whole nature of the world I know or history might never begin again, and Fate’s great purpose would be thwarted. Therefore
I
am the one who must be split and tempered to fulfill my destiny—
I
must know no peace of mind, must fight men and gods and the stuff of Chaos without surcease, must bring about the death of this age so that, in some far dawn-age, men who know little of sorcery or the Lords of the Higher Worlds, may move about a world where the major forces of Chaos can no longer enter, where justice may actually exist as a reality, and not as a mere concept in the minds of all philosophers.”

He rubbed his red eyes with his fingers.

“So fate makes Elric a martyr that Law might rule the world. It gives him a sword of ugly evil that destroys friends and enemies alike and sucks their soul-stuff out to feed him the strength he needs. It binds me to evil and to Chaos, in order that I may
destroy
evil and Chaos—but it does not make me some senseless dolt easily convinced and a willing sacrifice. No, it makes me Elric of Melniboné and floods me with a mighty misery…”

“My lord speaks aloud to himself—and his thoughts are gloomy. Speak them to me, instead, so that I might help you bear them, Elric.”

Recognizing the soft voice, but astonished nonetheless, Elric turned quickly towards the source and saw his wife Zarozinia standing there, her arms outstretched and a look of deep sympathy on her young face.

He took a step towards her before stopping and saying angrily: “When did you come here? Why? I told you to remain in your father’s palace at Karlaak until this business is done, if ever!”

“If ever…” she repeated, dropping her arms to her sides with a little shrug. Though scarcely more than a girl, with her full red lips and long black hair, she bore herself as a princess must and seemed more than her age.

“Ask not
that
question,” he said cynically. “It is not one we ask ourselves here. But answer mine. How did you come here and why?” He knew what her reply would be, but he spoke only to emphasize his anger which in turn was a result of his horror that she should have come so close to danger—danger which he had already rescued her from once.

“I came with my cousin Opluk’s two thousand,” she said, lifting her head defiantly, “when he joined the defenders of Uhaio. I came to be near my husband at a time when he may need my comforting. The gods know I’ve had little opportunity to discover if he does!”

Elric paced the room in agitation. “As I love you, Zarozinia, believe that I would be in Karlaak now with you had I any excuse at all. But I have not—you know my role, my destiny, my doom. You bring sorrow with your presence, not help. If this business has a satisfactory end, then we’ll meet again in joy—not in misery as we now must!”

He crossed to her and took her in his arms. “Oh, Zarozinia, we should never have met, never have married. We can only hurt one another at this time. Our happiness was so brief…”

“If you would be hurt by me, then hurt you shall be,” she said softly, “but if you would be comforted, then I am here to comfort my lord.”

He relented with a sigh. “These are loving words, my dear—but they are not spoken in loving times. I have put love aside for the nonce. Try to do likewise and thus we’ll both dispense with added complication.”

Without anger, she drew slowly away from him and with a slight smile that had something of irony in it, pointed to the bed, where Stormbringer lay.

“I see your other mistress still shares your bed,” she said. “And now you need never try to dismiss her again, for that black lord of Nihrain has given you an excuse to forever keep her by your side. Destiny—is that the word? Destiny! Ah, the deeds men have done in destiny’s name. And what is destiny, Elric, can you answer?”

He shook his head. “Since you ask the question in malice, I’ll not make the attempt to answer it.”

She cried suddenly: “Oh, Elric! I have traveled for many days to see you, thinking you would welcome me. And now we speak in anger!”

“
Fear!
” he said urgently. “It is fear, not anger. I fear for you as I fear for the fate of the world! See me to my ship in the morning and then make speed back to Karlaak, I beg you.”

“If you wish it.”

She walked back into the small chamber which joined the main one.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

“We talk only of defeat!” roared Kargan of the Purple Towns, beating upon the table with his fist. His beard seemed to bristle with rage.

Dawn had found all but a few of the captains retiring through weariness. Kargan, Moonglum, Elric’s cousin Dyvim Slorm and moon-faced Dralab of Tarkesh, remained in the chamber, pondering tactics.

Elric answered him calmly: “We talk of defeat, Kargan, because we must be prepared for that eventuality. It seems likely, does it not? We must, if defeat seems imminent, flee our enemies, conserving our force for another attack on Jagreen Lern. We shall not have the forces to fight another major battle, so we must use our better knowledge of currents, winds and terrain to fight him from ambush on sea or land. Thus we can perhaps demoralize his warriors and take considerably more of them than they can of us.”