Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [64]
He drew Stormbringer and raised it, facing the jade statue.
“Arioch!” he cried. “Arioch—aid me!”
Black light burst from the blade and it began to sing, as if joining in Elric's incantation.
“Arioch!”
Would the demon come? Often the patron of the kings of Melnibone refused to materialize, claiming that more urgent business called him—business concerning the eternal struggle between Law and Chaos.
“Arioch!”
Sword and man were now wreathed in a palpitating black mist and Elric's white face was flung back, seeming to writhe as the mist writhed.
“Arioch! I beg thee to aid me! It is Elric who calls thee!”
And then a voice reached his ears. It was a soft, purring, reasonable voice. It was a tender voice.
“Elric, I am fondest of thee. I love thee more than any other mortal—but aid thee I cannot—not yet.”
Elric cried desperately: “Then we are doomed to perish here!”
“Thou canst escape this danger. Flee alone into the forest. Leave the others while thou hast time. Thou hast a destiny to fulfill elsewhere and elsewhen …”
“I will not desert them.”
“Thou art foolish, sweet Elric.”
“Arioch—since Melnibone's founding thou hast aided her kings. Aid her last king this day!”
“I cannot dissipate my energies. A great struggle looms. And it would cost me much to return to R'lin K'ren Aa. Flee now. Thou shalt be saved. Only the others will die.”
And then the Duke of Hell had gone. Elric sensed the passing of his presence. He frowned, fingering his belt pouch, trying to recall something he had once heard. Slowly, he resheathed the reluctant sword. Then there was a thump and Smiorgan stood panting before him.
“Well, is aid on the way?”
“I fear not.” Elric shook his head in despair. “Once again Arioch refuses me. Once again he speaks of a greater destiny—a need to conserve his strength.”
“Your ancestors could have picked a more tractable demon as their patron. Our reptilian friends are closing in. Look …” Smiorgan pointed to the outskirts of the city. A band of about a dozen stilt-legged creatures were advancing, their huge clubs at the ready.
There was a scuffling noise from the rubble on the other side of the wall and Avan appeared, leading his men through the opening. He was cursing.
“No extra aid is coming, I fear,” Elric told him.
The Vilmirian smiled grimly. “Then the monsters out there knew more than did we!”
“It seems so.”
“We'll have to try to hide from them,” Smiorgan said without much conviction. “We'd not survive a fight.”
The little party left the ruined house and began to inch its way through what cover it could find, moving gradually nearer to the centre of the city and the statue of the Jade Man.
A sharp hiss from behind them told them that the reptile warriors had sighted them again and another Vilmirian fell with a crystal disc protruding from his back. They broke into a panicky run.
Ahead now was a red building of several storeys which still had its roof.
“In there!” Duke Avan shouted.
With some relief they dashed unhesitatingly up worn steps and through a series of dusty passages until they paused to catch their breath in a great, gloomy hall.
The hall was completely empty and a little light filtered through cracks in the wall.
“This place has lasted better than the others,” Duke Avan said. “I wonder what its function was. A fortress, perhaps.”
“They seem not to have been a warlike race,” Smiorgan pointed out. “I suspect the building had some other function.”
The three surviving crewmen were looking fearfully about them. They looked as if they would have preferred to have faced the reptile warriors outside.
Elric began to cross the floor and then paused as he saw something painted on the far wall.
Smiorgan saw it too. “What's that, friend Elric?”
Elric recognized the symbols as the written High Speech of old Melnibone, but it was subtly different and it took him a short time to decipher its meaning.
“Know you what it says, Elric?” Duke Avan murmured, joining