The Sleeping Sorceress (5 page)

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

Black Wizard Laughing

To Kaneloon they came in the early dawn and in the distance Elric saw a massive army darkening the snow and he knew it must be the Kelmain Host, led by Theleb K’aarna and Prince Umbda, marching against the lonely castle.

The bird of gold and silver flapped down in the snow outside the castle’s entrance and Elric dismounted. Then the bird had risen into the air again and was gone.

The great gate of Castle Kaneloon was closed this time and he gathered his tattered cloak about his naked torso and he hammered on the gate with his fists and he forced a cry from his dry lips.

“Myshella! Myshella!”

There was no answer.

“Myshella! I have returned with that which you need!”

He feared she must have fallen into her enchanted slumber again. He looked towards the south and the dark tide had rolled a little closer to the castle.

“Myshella!”

Then he heard a bar being drawn and the gates groaned open and there stood Moonglum, his face strained and his eyes full of something of which he could not speak.

“Moonglum! How came you here?”

“I know not how, Elric.” Moonglum stepped aside so that Elric could enter. He replaced the bar. “I lay in my bed last night when a woman came to me—the same woman we saw, sleeping, here. She said I must go with her. And somehow go I did. But I know not how, Elric. I know not how.”

“And where is that woman?”

“Where we first saw her. She sleeps and I cannot wake her.”

Elric drew a deep breath and told, briefly, what he knew of Myshella and the host that came against her Castle Kaneloon.

“Do you know the contents of that pouch?” Moonglum asked.

Elric shook his head and opened the pouch to peer inside. “It seems to be nothing but a pinkish dust. Yet it must be some powerful sorcery if Myshella believes it can defeat the entire Kelmain Host.”

Moonglum frowned. “But surely Myshella must work the charm herself if only she knows what it is?”

“Aye.”

“And Theleb K’aarna has enchanted her.”

“Aye.”

“And now it is too late, for Umbda—whoever he may be—nears the castle.”

“Aye.” Elric’s hand trembled as he drew from his belt the thing he had taken from the demon just before he left the palace of Ashaneloon. “Unless this is the stone I think it is.”

“What is that?”

“I know a legend. Some demons possess these stones as hearts.” He held it to the light so that the blues and purples and greens writhed. “I have never seen one, but I believe it to be the thing I once sought for Cymoril when I tried to lift my cousin’s charm from her. What I sought but never found was a Nanorion. A stone of magical powers said to be able to waken the dead—or those in deathlike sleep.”

“And that is a Nanorion. It will awaken Myshella?”

“If anything can, then this will, for I took it from Theleb K’aarna’s own demon and that must improve the efficaciousness of the magic. Come.” Elric strode through the hall and up the stairs until he came to Myshella’s room where she lay, as he had seen her before, on the bed hung with draperies, her wall hung with shields and weapons.

“Now I understand why these arms decorate her chamber,” Moonglum said. “According to legend, these are the shields and weapons of all those who loved Myshella and championed her cause.” Elric nodded and said, as if to himself, “Aye, she was ever an enemy of Melniboné, was the Empress of the Dawn.”

He held the pulsing stone delicately and reached out to place it on her forehead.

“It makes no difference,” Moonglum said after a moment. “She does not stir.”

“There is a rune, but I remember it not . . .” Elric pressed his fingers to his temples. “I remember it not . . .”

Moonglum went to the window. “We can ask Theleb K’aarna, perhaps,” he said ironically. “He will be here soon enough.”

Then Moonglum saw that there were tears again in Elric’s eyes and that he had turned away, hoping Moonglum would not see. Moonglum cleared his throat. “I have some business below. Call me if you should require my help.”

He left the room and closed the door and Elric was alone with the woman who seemed, increasingly, a dreadful phantom from his most frightful dreams.

He controlled his feverish mind and tried to discipline it, to remember the crucial runes in the High Speech of Old Melniboné.

“Gods!” he hissed. “Help me!”

But he knew that in this matter in particular the Lords of Chaos would not assist him—would hinder him if they could, for Myshella was one of the chief instruments of Law upon the Earth, had been responsible for driving Chaos from the world.

He fell to his knees beside her bed, his hands clenched, his face twisting with the effort.

And then it came back to him. His head still bent, he stretched out his right hand and touched the pulsing stone, stretched out his left hand and rested it upon Myshella’s navel, and he began a chant in an ancient tongue that had been spoken before true men had ever walked the Earth . . .

“Elric!”

Moonglum burst into the room and Elric was wrenched from his trance.

“Elric! We are invaded! Their advance riders . . .”

“What?”

“They have broken into the castle—a dozen of them. I fought them off and barred the way up to this tower, but they are hacking at the door now. I think they have been sent to destroy Myshella if they could. They were surprised to discover me here.”

Elric rose and looked carefully down at Myshella. The rune was finished and had been repeated almost through again when Moonglum had come in. She did not stir yet.

“Theleb K’aarna worked his sorcery from a distance,” Moonglum said. “Ensuring that Myshella would not resist him. But he did not reckon with us.”

He and Elric hurried from the room, down the steps to where a door was bulging and splintering beneath the weapons of those beyond.

“Stand back, Moonglum.”

Elric drew the crooning runesword, lifted it high and brought it against the door.

The door split and two oddly shaped skulls were split with it.

The remainder of the attackers fell back with cries of astonishment and horror as the white-faced reaver fell upon them, his huge sword drinking their souls and singing its strange, undulating song.

Down the stairs Elric pursued them. Into the hall where they bunched together and prepared to defend themselves from this demon with his hell-forged blade.

And Elric laughed.

And they shuddered.

And their weapons trembled in their hands.

“So you are the mighty Kelmain,” Elric sneered. “No wonder you needed sorcery to aid you if you are so cowardly. Have you not heard, beyond World’s Edge, of Elric Kinslayer?”

But the Kelmain plainly did not understand his speech, which was strange enough in itself, for he had spoken in the common tongue, known to all men.

These people had golden skins and eye-sockets that were almost square. Their faces, in all, seemed crudely carved from rock, all sharp angles and planes, and their armour was not rounded, but angular.

Elric bared his teeth in a smile and the Kelmain drew closer together.

Then he screamed with dreadful laughter and Moonglum stepped back and did not look at what took place.

The runesword swung. Heads and limbs were chopped away. Blood gouted. Souls were taken. The Kelmain’s dead faces bore expressions showing that before the life was drawn from them they had known the truth of their appalling fate.

And Stormbringer drank again, for Stormbringer was a thirsty hellsword.

And Elric felt his deficient veins swell with even more energy than that which he had taken earlier from Theleb K’aarna’s demon.

The hall shook with Elric’s insane mirth and he strode over the piled corpses and he went through the open gateway to where the great host waited.

And he shouted a name:

“Theleb K’aarna, Theleb K’aarna!”

Moonglum ran after him, calling for him to stop, but Elric did not heed him. Elric strode on through the snow, his sword dripping a red trail behind him.

Under a cold sun, the Kelmain were riding for the castle called Kaneloon and Elric went to meet them.

At their head, on slender horses, rode the dark-faced sorcerer of Pan Tang, dressed in flowing robes, and beside him was the prince of the Kelmain Host, Prince Umbda, in proud armour, bizarre plumes nodding on his helm, a triumphant smile on his strange, angular features.

Behind, the host dragged oddly fashioned war-gear which, for all its oddness, looked powerful—mightier than anything Lormyr could rally when the huge army fell upon her.

As the lone figure appeared and began to walk away from the walls of Castle Kaneloon, Theleb K’aarna raised his hand and stopped the host’s advance, reining in his own horse and laughing.

“Why, it is the jackal of Melniboné, by all the Gods of Chaos! He acknowledges his master at last and comes to deliver himself up to me!”

Elric came closer and Theleb K’aarna laughed on. “Here, Elric—kneel before me!”

Elric did not pause, seemed not to hear the Pan Tangian’s words.

Prince Umbda’s eyes were troubled and he said something in a strange tongue. Theleb K’aarna sniffed and replied in the same language.

And still the albino marched through the snow towards the huge host.

“By Chardros, Elric, stop!” cried Theleb K’aarna, his horse shifting nervously beneath him. “If you have come to bargain you are a fool. Kaneloon and her mistress must fall before Lormyr is ours—and Lormyr shall be ours, there’s no doubting that!”

Then Elric did stop and he brought up his eyes to burn into those of the sorcerer and there was a still, cold smile upon his pale lips.

Theleb K’aarna tried to meet Elric’s gaze but could not. His voice trembled when he next spoke.

“You cannot defeat the whole Kelmain Host!”

“I have no wish to, conjuror. Your life is all I desire.”

The sorcerer’s face twitched. “Well, you shall not have it! Hai, men of the Kelmain, take him!”

He wheeled his horse and rode into the protective ranks of his warriors, calling out his orders in their own tongue.

From the castle another figure burst, rushing to join Elric.

It was Moonglum of Elwher, a sword in either hand.

Elric half-turned.

“Elric! We’ll die together!”

“Stay back, Moonglum!”

Moonglum hesitated.

“Stay back, if you love me!”

Moonglum reluctantly retreated to the castle.

The Kelmain horsemen swept in, broad-bladed straight swords raised, instantly surrounding the albino.

They threatened him, hoping that he would lay down his sword and let himself be captured. But Elric smiled.

Stormbringer began to sing. Elric grasped the sword in both hands, bent his elbows then suddenly held the blade straight out before him.

He began to whirl like a Tarkeshite dancer, round and round, and it was as if the sword dragged him faster and faster while it gouged and gashed and decapitated the Kelmain horsemen.

For a moment they fell back, leaving their dead comrades heaped about the albino, but Prince Umbda, after a hurried conference with Theleb K’aarna, urged them upon Elric again.

And Elric swung his blade once more, but not so many of the Kelmain perished this time.

Armoured body fell against armoured body, blood mingled with brother’s blood, horses dragged corpses away with them across the snow and Elric did not fall, yet something was happening to him.

Then it dawned upon his berserker brain that, for some reason, his blade was sated. The energy still pulsed in its metal, but it transferred nothing more to its master. And his own stolen energy was beginning to wane.

“Damn you, Stormbringer! Give me your power!”

Swords rained down upon him as he fought and slew and parried and thrust.

“More power!”

He was still stronger than normal and much stronger than any ordinary mortal, but some of the wild anger was leaving him and he felt almost puzzled as more Kelmain came at him.

He was beginning to waken from the blood-dream.

He shook his head and drew deep breaths. His back was aching.

“Give me their strength, Black Sword!”

He struck at legs and arms and chests and faces and he was covered from head to foot in the blood of his attackers.

But the dead now hampered him worse than the living, for their corpses were everywhere and he almost lost his footing more than once.

“What ails you, runesword? Do you refuse to help me? Will you not fight these things because, like you, they are of Chaos?”

No, it could not be that. All that had happened was that the sword desired no more vitality and therefore gave Elric none.

He fought on for another hour before his grip on the sword weakened and a rider, half-mad with terror, struck a blow at his head, failed to split it but stunned him so that he fell upon the bodies of the slain, tried to rise, then was struck again and lost consciousness.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

A Great Host Screaming

“It was more than I hoped,” murmured Theleb K’aarna in satisfaction, “but we have taken him alive!”

Elric opened his eyes and looked with hatred on the sorcerer who was stroking his black forked beard as if to comfort himself.

Elric could barely remember the events which had brought him here and placed him in the sorcerer’s power. He remembered much blood, much laughter, much dying, but it was all fading, like the memory of a dream.

“Well, renegade, your foolishness was unbelievable. I thought you must have an army behind you. But doubtless it was your fear which unbalanced your poor brain. Still, I’ll not speculate upon the cause of my own good fortune. There’s many a bargain I can strike with the denizens of other planes, were I to offer them your soul. And your body I will keep for myself—to show Queen Yishana what I did to her lover before he died . . .”

Elric laughed shortly and looked about him, ignoring Theleb K’aarna.

The Kelmain were awaiting orders. They had still not marched on Kaneloon. The sun was low in the sky. He saw the pile of corpses behind him. He saw the hatred and fear on the faces of the golden-skinned host and he smiled again.

“I do not love Yishana,” he said distantly, as if scarcely aware of Theleb K’aarna’s presence. “It is your jealous heart that makes you think so. I left Yishana’s side to find you. It is never love that moves Elric of Melniboné, sorcerer, but always hatred.”

“I do not believe you,” Theleb K’aarna tittered. “When the whole South falls to me and my comrades, then will I court Yishana and offer to make her Queen of all the West as well as all the South. Our forces united, we shall dominate the Earth!”

“You Pan Tangians were ever an insecure breed, forever planning conquest for its own sake, forever seeking to destroy the equilibrium of the Young Kingdoms.”

“One day,” sneered Theleb K’aarna, “Pan Tang will have an empire that will make the Bright Empire seem a mere flickering ember in the fire of history. But it is not for the glory of Pan Tang that I do this . . .”

“It is for Yishana? By the gods, sorcerer, then I am glad I’m motivated by hatred and not by love, for I do not half the damage, it seems, done by those in love . . .”

“I will lay the South at Yishana’s feet and she may use it as she pleases!”

“I am bored by this. What do you intend to do with me?”

“First I will hurt your body. I will hurt it delicately to begin with, building up the pain, until I have you in the proper frame of mind. Then I will consort with the Lords of the Higher Planes to find which will give me most for your soul.”

“And what of Kaneloon?”

“The Kelmain will deal with Kaneloon. One knife is all that’s needed now to slit Myshella’s throat as she sleeps.”

“She is protected.”

Theleb K’aarna’s brow darkened. Then it cleared and he laughed again.

“Aye, but the gate will fall soon enough and your little red-haired friend will perish as Myshella perishes.”

He ran his fingers through his oiled ringlets.

“I am allowing, at Prince Umbda’s request, the Kelmain to rest a while before storming the castle. But Kaneloon will be burning by nightfall.”

Elric looked towards the castle across the trampled snow. Plainly his runes had failed to counter Theleb K’aarna’s spell.

“I would . . .” He began to speak when he paused.

He had seen a flash of gold and silver among the battlements and a thought without shape had entered his head and made him hesitate.

“What?” Theleb K’aarna asked him harshly.

“Nothing. I merely wondered where my sword was.”

The sorcerer shrugged. “Nowhere you can reach it, reaver. We left it where you dropped it. The stinking hellblade is no use to us. And none to you, now . . .”

Elric wondered what would happen if he made a direct appeal to the sword. He could not get to it himself, for Theleb K’aarna had bound him tightly with ropes of silk, but he might
call
for it . . .

He lifted himself to his feet.

“Would you seek to run away, White Wolf?” Theleb K’aarna watched him nervously.

Elric smiled again. “I wished for a better view of the coming conquest of Kaneloon. Just that.”

The sorcerer drew a curved knife.

Elric swayed, his eyes half-closed, and he began to murmur a name beneath his breath.

Theleb K’aarna leapt forward and his arm encircled Elric’s head while the knife pricked into the albino’s throat. “Be silent, jackal!”

But Elric knew that he had no other means of helping himself and, for all it was a desperate scheme, he murmured the words once more, praying that Theleb K’aarna’s lust for a slow revenge would make the sorcerer hesitate before killing him.

Theleb K’aarna cursed, trying to prise Elric’s mouth open.

“The first thing I’ll do is cut out that damned tongue of yours!”

Elric bit the hand and tasted the sorcerer’s blood. He spat it out.

Theleb K’aarna screamed. “By Chardros, if I did not wish to see you die over the months, I would . . .”

And then a sound came from the Kelmain.

It was a moan of surprise and it issued from every throat.

Theleb K’aarna turned and the breath hissed from between his clenched teeth.

Through the murky dusk a black shape moved. It was the sword, Stormbringer.

Elric had called it.

Now he cried aloud:

“Stormbringer! Stormbringer! To me!”

Theleb K’aarna flung Elric in the path of the sword and rushed into the security of the gathered ranks of Kelmain warriors.

“Stormbringer!”

The Black Sword hovered in the air near Elric.

Another shout went up from the Kelmain. A shape had left the battlements of Castle Kaneloon.

Theleb K’aarna shouted in hysteria. “Prince Umbda! Prepare your men for the attack! I sense danger to us!”

Umbda could not understand the sorcerer’s words and Theleb K’aarna was forced to translate them.

“Do not let the sword reach him!” cried the sorcerer. Once more he shouted in the language of the Kelmain and several warriors ran forward to grasp the runesword before it could reach its albino master.

But the sword struck rapidly and the Kelmain died and none dared approach it after that.

Slowly Stormbringer moved towards Elric.

“Ah, Elric,” cried Theleb K’aarna, “if you escape me this day, I swear that I shall find you.”

“And if you escape me,” Elric shouted back, “I will find you, Theleb K’aarna. Be sure of that.”

The shape that had left Castle Kaneloon had feathers of silver and gold. It flew high above the host and hovered for a moment before moving to the outer edges of the gathering. Elric could not see it clearly, but he knew what it was. That was why he had summoned the sword, for he had an idea that Moonglum rode the giant bird of metal and that the Elwherite would try to rescue him.

“Do not let it land! It comes to save the albino!” screamed Theleb K’aarna.

But the Kelmain Host did not understand him. Under Prince Umbda’s commands they were preparing themselves for the attack upon the castle.

Theleb K’aarna repeated his orders in their own tongue, but it was plain they were beginning not to trust him and could not see the need to bother themselves with one man and a strange bird of metal. It could not stop their engines of war. Neither could the man.

“Stormbringer,” whispered Elric as the sword sliced through his bonds and gently settled in his hand. Elric was free, but the Kelmain, though not placing the same importance upon him as did Theleb K’aarna, showed that they were not prepared to let him escape now that the blade was in his grasp and not moving of its own volition.

Prince Umbda shouted something.

A huge mass of warriors rushed at Elric at once and he made no effort to take the attack to them this time for he was interested in fighting a defensive strategy until Moonglum could descend on the bird and help him.

But the bird was even further away. It appeared to be circling the outer perimeters of the host and showed no interest in his plight at all.

Had he been deceived?

He parried a dozen thrusts, letting the Kelmain warriors crowd in upon each other and thus hamper themselves. The bird of gold and silver was almost out of sight now.

And Theleb K’aarna—where was he?

Elric tried to find him, but the sorcerer was doubtless somewhere in the centre of the Kelmain ranks by now.

Elric killed a golden-skinned warrior, slitting his throat with the point of the runesword. More strength began to flow into him again. He killed another Kelmain with an overarm movement which split the man’s shoulder. But nothing could be gained from this fight if Moonglum was not coming on the bird of silver and gold.

The bird seemed to change course and come back towards Kaneloon. Was it merely waiting for instructions from its sleeping mistress? Or was it refusing to obey Moonglum’s commands?

Elric backed through the muddy, bloody snow so that the pile of corpses now lay behind him. He fought on, but with very little hope.

The bird went past, far to his right.

Elric thought ironically that he had completely mistaken the significance of the bird’s leaving the castle battlements and by mistiming his decision had merely brought his death closer—perhaps Myshella’s and Moonglum’s deaths closer, too.

Kaneloon was doomed. Myshella was doomed. Lormyr and perhaps the whole of the Young Kingdoms were doomed.

And he was doomed.

It was then that a shadow passed across the battling men and the Kelmain screamed and fell back as a great din rent the air.

Elric looked up in relief, hearing the sound of the metal bird’s clashing wings. He looked for Moonglum in the saddle and saw instead the tense face of Myshella herself, her hair blowing around her face as it was disturbed by the beating wings.

“Quickly, Lord Elric, before they close in again.”

Elric sheathed the runesword and leapt towards the saddle, swinging himself behind the Dark Lady of Kaneloon. Then they rose into the air again, while arrows hurtled around their heads and bounced off the bird’s metal feathers.

“One more circuit of the host and then we return to the castle,” she said. “Your rune and the Nanorion worked to defeat Theleb K’aarna’s enchantment, but they took longer than either of us would have liked. See, already Prince Umbda is ordering his men to mount and ride to Castle Kaneloon. And Kaneloon has only Moonglum to defend her now.”

“Why this circuit of Umbda’s army?”

“You will see. At least, I hope you will see, my lord.”

She began to sing a song. It was a strange, disturbing chant in a language not dissimilar to the Melnibonéan High Speech, yet different enough for Elric to understand only a few words, for it was oddly accented.

Around the camp they flew. Elric saw the Kelmain form their ranks into battle order. Doubtless Umbda and Theleb K’aarna had by now decided on the best mode of attack.

Then back to the castle beat the great bird, settling on the battlements and allowing Elric and Myshella to dismount. Moonglum, his features taut, came running to meet them.

They went to look at the Kelmain.

And they saw that the Kelmain were on the move.

“What did you do to—” began Elric, but Myshella raised her hand.

“Perhaps I did nothing. Perhaps the sorcery will not work.”

“What was it you . . .?”

“I scattered the contents of the purse you brought. I scattered it around their whole army. Watch . . .”

“And if the spell has not worked—” Moonglum murmured. He paused, straining his eyes through the gloom. “What is that?”

Myshella’s satisfied tone was almost ghoulish as she said: “It is the Noose of Flesh.”

Something was growing out of the snow. Something pink that quivered. Something huge. A great mass that arose on all sides of the Kelmain and made their horses rear up and snort.

And it made the Kelmain shriek.

The stuff was like flesh and it had grown so high that the whole Kelmain Host was obscured from sight. There were noises as they tried to train their battle-engines upon the stuff and blast their way through. There were shouts. But not a single horseman broke out of the Noose of Flesh.

Then the substance began to fold in over the Kelmain and Elric heard a sound such as none he had heard before.

It was a voice.

A voice of a hundred thousand men all facing an identical terror, all dying an identical death.

It was a moan of desperation, of hopelessness, of fear.

But it was a moan so loud that it shook the walls of Castle Kaneloon.

“It is no death for a warrior,” murmured Moonglum, turning away.

“But it was the only weapon we had,” said Myshella. “I have possessed it for a good many years but never before did I feel the need to use it.”

“Of them all, only Theleb K’aarna deserved that death,” said Elric.

Night fell and the Noose of Flesh tightened around the Kelmain

Host, crushing all but a few horses which had run free as the sorcery began to work.

It crushed Prince Umbda, who spoke no language known in the Young Kingdoms, who spoke no language known to the ancients, who had come to conquer from beyond World’s Edge.