Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [23]
The being clutched a single great sword in all eight hands and both he and the sword glowed with a ghastly golden light.
Then Elric had rejoined this body and had become a different thing—himself and three others and something else which was the sum of that union.
The Four Who Were One reversed its monstrous sword so that the point was directed downward at the frenetically boiling stuff in the pool below. The stuff feared the sword. It mewled.
“Agak, Agak…”
The being of whom Elric was a part gathered its great strength and began to plunge the sword down.
Shapeless waves appeared on the surface of the pool. Its whole colour changed from sickly yellow to an unhealthy green. “Agak, I die…”
Inexorably the sword moved down. It touched the surface.
The pool swept back and forth; it tried to ooze over the sides and onto the floor. The sword bit deeper and the Four Who Were One felt new strength flow up the blade. There came a moan; slowly the pool quieted. It became silent. It became still. It became grey.
Then the Four Who Were One descended into the pool to be absorbed.
It could see clearly now. It tested its body. It controlled every limb, every function. It had triumphed; it had revitalized the pool. Through its single octagonal eye it looked in all directions at the same time over the wide ruins of the city; then it focused all its attention upon its twin.
Agak had awakened too late, but he was awakening at last, roused by the dying cries of his sister Gagak, whose body the mortals had first invaded and whose intelligence they had overwhelmed, whose eye they now used and whose powers they would soon attempt to utilize.
Agak did not need to turn his head to look upon the being he still saw as his sister. Like hers, his intelligence was contained within the huge eight-sided eye.
“Did you call me, sister?”
“I spoke your name, that is all, brother.” There were enough vestiges of Gagak's life-force in the Four Who Were One for it to imitate her manner of speaking.
“You cried out?”
“A dream.” The Four paused and then it spoke again: “A disease. I dreamed that there was something upon this island which made me unwell.”
“Is that possible? We do not know sufficient about these dimensions or the creatures inhabiting them. Yet none is as powerful as Agak and Gagak-Fear not, sister. We must begin our work soon.”
“It is nothing. Now I am awake.”
Agak was puzzled. “You speak, oddly.”
“The dream …” answered the creature which had entered Gagak's body and destroyed her.
“We must begin,” said Agak. “The dimensions turn and the time has come. Ah, feel it. It waits for us to take it. So much rich energy. How we shall conquer when we go home!”
“I feel it,” replied the Four, and it did. It felt its whole universe, dimension upon dimension, swirling all about it. Stars and planets and moons through plane upon plane, all full of the energy upon which Agak and Gagak had desired to feed. And there was enough of Gagak still within the Four to make the Four experience a deep, anticipatory hunger which, now that the dimensions attained the right conjunction, would soon be satisfied.
The Four was tempted to join with Agak and feast, though it knew if it did so it would rob its own universe of every shred of energy. Stars would fade, worlds would die. Even the Lords of Law and Chaos would perish, for they were part of the same universe. Yet to possess such power it might be worth committing such a tremendous crime … It controlled this desire and gathered itself for its attack before Agak became too wary.
“Shall we feast, sister?”
The Four realized that the ship had brought it to the island at exactly the proper moment. Indeed, they had almost come too late.
“Sister?” Agak was again puzzled. “What…?”
The Four knew it must disconnect from Agak. The tubes and wires fell away from his body and