The Sleeping Sorceress (11 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Return of a Sorceress

The sand rippled as the wind blew it so that the dunes seemed like waves in an almost petrified sea. Stark fangs of rock jutted here and there—the remains of mountain ranges which had been eroded by the wind. And a mournful sighing could just be heard, as if the sand remembered when it had been rock and the stones of cities and the bones of men and beasts and longed for its resurrection, sighed at the memory of its death.

Elric drew the cloak’s cowl over his head to protect it from the fierce sun which hung in the steel-blue sky.

One day, he thought, I too shall know this peace of death and perhaps then I shall also regret it. He let the golden mare slow to a trot and took a sip of water from one of his canteens.

Now the desert surrounded him and it seemed infinite. Nothing grew. No animals lived there. There were no birds in the sky.

For some reason he shuddered and he had a presentiment of a moment in the future when he would be alone, as he was now, in a world even more barren than this desert, without even a horse for company. He shook off the thought, but it had left him so stunned that for a little while he achieved his ambition and did not brood upon his fate and his situation. The wind dropped slightly and the sighing became little more than a whisper.

Dazed, Elric fingered the pommel of his blade—Stormbringer, the Black Sword—for he associated his presentiment with the weapon but could not tell why. And it seemed to him that he heard an ironic note in the murmuring of the wind. Or did the sound emanate from his sword itself? He cocked his head, listening, but the sound became even less audible, as if aware that he listened.

The golden mare began to climb the gentle slope of a dune, stumbling once as her foot sank into deeper sand. Elric concentrated on guiding her to firmer ground.

Reaching the top of the dune he reined his horse in. The desert dunes rolled on, broken only by the occasional rock. He had it in mind then to ride on and on until it would be impossible to return to Tanelorn, until both he and his mount collapsed from exhaustion and were eventually swallowed by the sands. He pushed back his cowl and wiped sweat from his brow.

Why not? he thought. Life was not bearable. He would try death.

And yet would death deny him? Was he doomed to live? It sometimes seemed so.

Then he considered the horse. It would not be fair to sacrifice it to his desire. Slowly he dismounted.

The wind grew stronger and the sound of its sighing increased. Sand blew around Elric’s booted feet. It was a hot wind and it tugged at his voluminous white cloak. The horse snorted nervously.

Elric looked towards the north-east, towards the edge of the world.

And he began to walk.

The horse whinnied enquiringly at him when he did not call it, but he ignored the sound and had soon left his mount behind him. He had not even bothered to bring water with him. He flung back his cowl so that the sun beat directly upon his head. His pace was even, purposeful, and he marched as if at the head of an army.

Perhaps he did sense an army behind him—the army of the dead, of all those friends and enemies whom he had slain in the course of his pointless search for a meaning to his existence.

And still one enemy remained alive. An enemy even stronger, even more malevolent than Theleb K’aarna—the enemy of his darker self, of that side of his nature which was symbolized by the sentient blade still resting at his hip. And when he died, then that enemy would also die. A force for evil would be removed from the world.

For several hours Elric of Melniboné tramped on through the Sighing Desert and gradually, as he had hoped, his sense of identity began to leave him so that it was almost as if he became one with the wind and the sand and, in so doing, was united at last with the world which had rejected him and which he had rejected.

Evening came, but he hardly noticed the sun’s setting. Night fell, but he continued to march, unaware of the cold. Already he was weakening. He rejoiced in the weakness where previously he had fought to retain the strength he enjoyed only through the power of the Black Sword.

And sometime around midnight, beneath a pale moon, his legs buckled and he fell sprawling in the sand and lay there while the remains of his sensibilities left him.

“Prince Elric. My Lord?”

The voice was rich, vibrant, almost amused. It was a woman’s voice and Elric recognized it. He did not move.

“Elric of Melniboné.”

He felt a hand on his arm. She was trying to pull him upright. Rather than be dragged he raised himself with some difficulty to a sitting position. He tried to speak, but at first no words would come from his mouth which was dry and full of sand. She stood there as the dawn rose behind her and brightened her long black hair framing her beautiful features. She was dressed in a flowing gown of blue, green and gold and she was smiling.

As he cleared the sand from his mouth he shook his head, saying at last: “If I am dead, then I am still plagued by phantoms and illusions.” “I am no more illusion than anything else in this world. You are not dead, my lord.”

“You are, in that case, many leagues from Castle Kaneloon, my lady. You have come from the other side of the world—from edge to edge.”

“I have been seeking you, Elric.”

“Then you have broken your word, Myshella, for when we parted you said that you would not see me again, that our fates had ceased to be twined.”

“I thought then that Theleb K’aarna was dead—that our mutual enemy had perished in the Noose of Flesh.” The sorceress spread her arms wide and it was almost as if the gesture summoned the sun, for it appeared over the horizon, suddenly. “Why did you walk thus in the desert, my lord?”

“I sought death.”

“Yet you know it is not your destiny to die in such a way.”

“I have been told as much but I do not
know
it, Lady Myshella. However,” he stumbled upright and stood swaying before her, “I am beginning to suspect that it is so.”

She came forward, bringing a goblet from beneath her robes. It was full to the brim with a cool, silvery liquid. “Drink,” she said.

He did not lift his hands towards the cup. “I am not pleased to see you, Lady Myshella.”

“Why? Because you are afraid to love me?”

“If it flatters you to think that—aye.”

“It does not flatter me. I know you are reminded of Cymoril and that I made the mistake of letting Kaneloon become that which you most desire—before I understood that it is also what you most fear.”

He lowered his head. “Be silent!”

“I am sorry. I apologized then. We drove away the desire and terror together for a little while, did we not?”

He looked up and she was staring intently into his eyes. “Did we not?”

“We did.” He took a deep breath and stretched out his hands for the goblet. “Is this some potion to sap my will and make me work for your interests?”

“No potion could do that. It will revive you, that is all.”

He sipped the liquid and immediately his mouth was clean and his head clear. He drained the goblet and he felt a glow of strength in all his limbs and vitals.

“Do you still wish to die?” she asked as she received back the cup, replacing it beneath her robes.

“If death will bring me peace.”

“It will not—not if you die now. That I know.”

“How did you find me here?”

“Oh, by a variety of means, some of them sorcerous. But my bird brought me to you.” She extended her right arm to point behind him.

He turned and there was the bird of gold and silver and brass which he himself had once ridden while in Myshella’s service. Its great metallic wings were folded but there was intelligence in its emerald eyes as it waited for its mistress.

“Have you come, then, to return me to Tanelorn?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I have come to tell you where you may discover our enemy Theleb K’aarna.”

He smiled. “He threatens you again?”

“Not directly.”

Elric shook sand from his cloak. “I know you well, Myshella. You would not interfere in my destiny unless it had again become in some way linked with your own. You have said that I am afraid to love you. That may be true, for I think I am afraid to love any woman. But you make use of love—the men to whom you give your love are men who will serve your purpose.”

“I do not deny that. I love only heroes—and only heroes who work to ensure the presence of the power of Law upon this plane of our Earth . . .”

“I care not whether Law or Chaos gains predominance. Even my hatred of Theleb K’aarna has waned—and that was a personal hatred, nothing to do with any cause.”

“What if you knew Theleb K’aarna once again threatens the folk of Tanelorn?”

“Impossible. Tanelorn is eternal.”

“Tanelorn is eternal—but its citizens are not. I know. More than once has some catastrophe fallen upon those who dwell in Tanelorn. And the Lords of Chaos hate Tanelorn, though they cannot attack it directly. They would aid any mortal who thought he could destroy those whom the Chaos Lords regard as traitors.”

Elric frowned. He knew of the enmity of the Lords of Chaos to Tanelorn. He had heard that on more than one occasion they had made use of mortals to attack the city.

“And you say Theleb K’aarna plans to destroy Tanelorn’s citizens? With Chaos’s aid?”

“Aye. Your thwarting of his schemes concerning Nadsokor and Rackhir’s caravan made him extend his hatred to all dwelling in Tanelorn. In Troos he discovered some ancient grimoires—things which survived from the Age of the Doomed Folk.”

“How can that be? They existed a whole time cycle before Melniboné!”

“True—but Troos itself has lasted since the Age of the Doomed Folk and these were people who had many great inventions, a means of preserving their wisdom . . .”

“Very well. I will accept that Theleb K’aarna found their grimoires. What did those grimoires tell him?”

“They showed him the means of causing a rupture in the division which separates one plane of Earth from another. This knowledge of the other planes is largely mysterious to us—even your ancestors only guessed at the variety of existences obtaining in what the ancients termed the ‘multiverse’—and I know only a little more than do you. The Lords of the Higher Worlds can, at times, move freely between these temporal and spacial layers, but mortals cannot—at least not in this period of our being.”

“And what has Theleb K’aarna done? Surely great power would be needed to cause this ‘rupture’ you describe? He does not have that power.”

“True. But he has powerful allies in the Chaos Lords. The Lords of Entropy have leagued themselves with him as they would league themselves with anyone who was willing to be the means of destruction of those who dwell in Tanelorn. He found more than manuscripts in the forest of Troos. He discovered those buried devices which were the inventions of the Doomed Folk and which ultimately brought about their destruction. These devices, of course, were meaningless to him until the Lords of Chaos showed him how they could be activated using the very forces of creation for their energy.”

“And he has activated them? Where?”

“He brought the device he wanted to these parts, for he needed space to work where he thought he could not be observed by such as myself.”

“He is in the Sighing Desert?”

“Aye. If you had continued on your horse you would have found him by now—or he you. I believe that is what drove you into the desert—a compulsion to seek him out.”

“I had no compulsion save a need to die!” Elric tried to control his anger.

She smiled again. “Have it thus if you will . . .”

“You mean I am so manipulated by Fate that I cannot choose to die if I wish?”

“Ask yourself for that answer.”

Elric’s face was clouded with puzzlement and despair. “What is it, then, which guides me? And to what end?”

“You must discover that for yourself.”

“You want me to go against Chaos? Yet Chaos aids me and I am sworn to Arioch.”

“But you are mortal—and Arioch is slow to aid you these days, perhaps because he guesses what lies in the future.”

“What do you know of the future?”

“Little—and what I know I cannot speak of to you. A mortal may choose whom he serves, Elric.”

“I have chosen. I chose Chaos.”

“Yet much of your melancholy is because you are divided in your loyalties.”

“That, too, is true.”

“Besides, you would not fight for Law if you fought against Theleb K’aarna—you would merely be fighting against one aided by Chaos—and those of Chaos often fight among themselves do they not?”

“They do. It is also well known that I hate Theleb K’aarna and would destroy him whether he served Law or Chaos.”

“Therefore you will not unduly anger those to whom you are loyal—though they may be reluctant to help you.”

“Tell me more of Theleb K’aarna’s plans.”

“You must see for yourself. There is your horse.” She pointed again and this time he saw the golden mare emerge from the other side of a dune. “Head north-east as you were heading, but move cautiously lest Theleb K’aarna becomes aware of your presence and traps you.”