Revenge of the Rose (29 page)

 
          
But
then one of the dogs glanced to one side and saw Elric. Immediately it became
agitated, growling softly and attracting the attention of the other two hounds,
until Elric began to wonder if these were not some close relatives of Esbern
Snare who did not approve of the werewolf’s act of sacrifice on Elric’s behalf.

 
          
Next
they were up and moving towards the albino while the Rose cried out in
surprise; cried for them to return to heel.

 
          
But
they would not.

 
          
Elric
did not fear the great hounds as they approached him. Indeed, there was
something about them which reassured him. But he was deeply puzzled.

 
          
Now
they came closer, prowling around him, sniffing, quizzing, with the soft growls
forever being exchanged between them until at last they seemed satisfied and
returned, passively, to the Rose’s side.

 
          
The
Rose was mystified. “I was about to explain,” she said, “why we must wait
before we take further action. These hounds are the three sisters. I put a glamour
on them to protect them from Gaynor’s sorcery, as well as to give them a means
of defending themselves, for they are spent, you see, of magic and all
ingenuity. They have failed in their quest.”

 
          
“What
was that quest?” asked Elric softly, stepping from behind the others and
looking with a new curiosity at the dogs, who returned his gaze with a kind of
abstracted longing.

 
          
“It
was for thee,” said the golden hound as she rose from all fours and in a single
flowing motion became a woman clad in silk the colour that her fur had been,
and her face was of that long, refined sort which Elric recognized at once as
belonging to his own people. Grey-blue fur turned to grey-blue silk, white to
white, until all three sisters were standing there before him, tiny figures,
yet unmistakably of Melnibonéan stock. “It was for thee, Elric of Melniboné,
that we sought,” they said again.

 
          
They
had black hair framing their exquisite features like helmets, large slanting
violet eyes, fair skin like the palest brass, their lips were perfect bows—

 
          
—and
they had spoken to him alone. They had used the old High Speech of Melniboné
which even Wheldrake found hard to understand.

 
          
Confronted
by this unexpected turn of events, Elric had taken an unwitting step backward.
Then he steadied himself, bowed briefly and discovered himself, in spite of all
he’d ever sworn, making the old blood greeting of the Bright Empire’s ruling
families. “I am bonded to thee and thine interests …”

 
          
“… and
we to thine, Elric of Melniboné,” said the golden woman. “I am the Princess
Tayaratuka and these are my sisters, also of the Caste, Princess Mishiguya and
Princess Shanug’a. Prince Elric, we have hunted thee through millennia and
across a thousand Spheres!”

 
          
“I
have hunted thee only a few hundred years and perhaps five hundred Spheres,”
said Elric modestly, “but it seems I am the tail that chases the weasel …”

 
          
“When
Mad Jack Porker staked his leg!” cried Ma Phatt from where she enjoyed the
luxury of a fresh couch and luxurious linen. “We have been chasing one another
in circles, then? See! I knew there was a pattern to it! Somewhere, there is
always a pattern to it. Dongle-my-dingle, the lad’s lost his jingle. It’s the
famous race, you know. Porker’s Trial by Accident. His last dash was pure
heroism. Everyone said so. Ladies and gentlemen, they are nailing our feet to
the ground. That is not fair play!” And she relapsed into some comic dialogue
with herself in which she relived her girlhood on the boards. “
Buffalo
Bill and the Wandering Jew! It was our
grand finale. The last touch.”

 
          
To
which the three sisters listened with perfect patience before continuing …

 
          
“We
sought thee to ask of thee a boon,” said Princess Tayaratuka, “and to offer
thee in exchange for that boon a gift.”

 
          
“I
am bound to thee as if I were thine own hands,” said Elric automatically.

 
          
“And
we to thee,” replied the sisters, equally familiar with the ritual.

 
          
Then
Princess Tayaratuka dropped to one knee, raising her hands to place them on his
arms and bring him down to her so that he, too, was kneeling as she kneeled. “My
lord, good power to thee,” she said, and offered her forehead for his kiss.
This ritual was performed until all had spoken and been kissed in turn.

 
          
“How
may I help thee, sisters,” said Elric when they had next kissed the triple kiss
of kinship. All his old Melnibonéan blood stirred in him and he grew chill with
a longing for his homeland and the speech and customs of his own unhuman folk.
These women were his peers; already a deep understanding existed between them,
stronger than blood, stronger than love, yet in no way encumbering or
demanding. Elric knew in his bones that their command of sorcery might well
have been the match of his own, before they exhausted all their strength in
their search for him. He had known and loved many powerful women, including his
lost betrothed Cymoril, and Myshella, the Dark Lady of Kaneloon, the sorceress
he had but lately served, but, save for the Rose, the three princesses were the
most striking of all the living women he had yet encountered, since he had left
Imrryr as the pyre for his beloved’s corpse.

 
          
“I
am flattered that you should have sought me, your majesties,” he said, relaxing
for good manners’ sake into the common tongue. “How may I be of service to you?”

 
          
“We
would borrow your sword, Elric,” said Princess Shanug’a.

 
          
“Borrow
it you shall, madam. And myself to wield it for you.” He spoke gallantly, as
honour bade him do, but he still feared the threat of his father’s ghost
hovering somewhere not too far off, ready to flee at the first threat of
extinction and pour his soul into Elric’s being, to blend for ever … And
had not Gaynor coveted the Black Sword?

 
          
“You
do not ask why we would borrow the blade,” said Princess Mishiguya, seating
herself beside the Rose and helping herself to the small fruits which had been
placed on the arm of the couch. “You would not bargain with us?”

 
          
“I
would expect you to help me as I help you,” said Elric in a matter-of-fact
tone, “but I have sworn the blood-oath, as have you. It is done. We are the
same. Our interests are the same.”

 
          
“Yet
you have a deep fear in you, Elric,” said Charion Phatt suddenly. “You have not
told these women what you fear if you allow yourself to aid them!” She spoke
out as a child might, for justice, without understanding why the albino did not
wish to betray his own anxieties.

 
          
“And
they have not told me of what
they
fear if I agree to aid them,” said Elric quietly to the young woman. “We are
riding the stallions of terror, every one of us at present, Mistress Phatt, and
the best we can hope to do is to keep some kind of grip upon the reins.”

 
          
Charion
Phatt accepted this and subsided, though she glanced furiously at Wheldrake, as
if she wished him to speak on her behalf. But the poet remained a diplomat, unsure
of the game he witnessed or of the stakes, but willing to go wherever his
almost-betrothed determined.

 
          
“Where
would you have me bear this blade?” Elric asked again.

 
          
Princess
Tayaratuka glanced at her sisters before getting their unspoken assent to
continue. “We do not need you to bear the blade,” she said gently. “We spoke
quite literally. We wish to borrow your runesword, Prince Elric. I will
explain.”

 
          
And
she told a tale of a world where all lived in harmony with nature. This world
had possessed few cities in the usual sense and its settlements were built to
conform with the contours of the hills and valleys, the mountains and the
streams, to blend with the forest but not to encroach upon it, so that anyone
visiting their plane would have seen virtually no signs of habitation upon the
continent where they lived. But Chaos came, led by Gaynor the Damned, who
sought their hospitality and betrayed it, as he had betrayed so many other
souls through the centuries, summoning in his patron lord who had immediately
put the marks of Chaos upon their land.

 
          
“Few
of our habitations were ever visible to potential enemies from other
continents, so well-protected were we by the
Heavy
Sea
, which encircles us. So dense were our
forests and wide and winding our rivers that no-one cared to risk their lives
on seeking after any legends which might have crept to other parts of the
world. It is true we lived in paradise. But it was a paradise achieved at the
expense of no other creature, including those of the wild, with whom we lived.
Yet within a day or two all that had gone and we were left with a few
barricaded outposts like this one, where our sorcery was used to maintain our
world as it had been before Chaos came.”

 
          
“And
Chaos has laid siege here for a long while, madam?” asked Fallogard Phatt
sympathetically, and raised his eyebrows at her answer.

 
          
“For
something over a thousand years there has been a sort of stalemate. Most of our
people left this world to found new settlements in other planes, but some of us
felt duty-bound to stay and fight Chaos. We are the last of those. While we
sought Elric, many of our kinfolk were killed in forays with Chaos attempting
to attack the main stronghold.”

 
          
“But
what achieved the amnesty?” Elric asked.

 
          
“A
feud between two Dukes of Hell took up their attention, especially after
Arioch, employing some complicated strategy which involved Mashabak’s cutting
of the gypsy bridge and various other machinations and manipulations of the
multiverse, was able to capture Mashabak in the territory he considered his own—our
realm. Without demonic aid, Gaynor had to hope that the sisters would lead him
back here. However, all that is altered. Some event occurred recently which
ended the truce, such as it was. Mashabak has returned here and must soon send
all his forces against us. Whoever broke that cosmic stalemate robbed us of
whatever time we thought we had left …”

 
          
And
Elric said nothing, remembering Esbern Snare and his leap at the Duke of Hell;
remembering the courage of the Northern Werewolf as he had sought to save his
friend—and had unwittingly broken the balance of power which had allowed the
sisters some respite in their own palace.

 
          
Gaynor,
insanely determined, abandoned by Mashabak, battled his own way through the
dimensions, sworn to reclaim his conquests not in Mashabak’s name, but his own!
He challenged Chaos as he had once challenged the Balance! To him, no master
was tolerable! The ex-Prince of the Universal had been lost, forced to spend
years of subjective time searching for a way back to this realm. He had
employed every strategy, every trick—furious that his cosmic ally had,
apparently, deserted him, but determined to establish his rule here! Eventually
he decided that he would follow the sisters, since they must eventually return
to their own realm. Originally Mashabak had sent him on a quest—to follow the
escaping sisters through the dimensions and bring back the living rose. But
when Mashabak no longer aided him, the rose had become secondary to Gaynor. He
desired Elric’s sword rather more urgently.