Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [89]
FLAMEFANG: “Ah, brother, I feel its strength already… It is my own lost skeffla'a … My senses return—all my powers…”
Rose and the others watch in astonishment as the energy from the carpet spills and ripples—the “chart” is veins, blending with the dragon's own central nervous system …
ROSE: “I've heard of this. It's a membrane—marries with the creature's central nervous system so it can migrate between the planes. A psychic as well as a physical navigation system …There's more. I can't recall …”
KWYLL’: “Quite enough for me, thanks, Rose …”
Pulsing, glowing, the carpet merges with the dragon …
… until the whole area of the beast's back is alive with strange light and the onlookers stagger back from the radiance…
… mystic crackles spread from Elric's hands to the dragon's rearing neck… They are communicating—the force is like reins, allowing Elric to guide the dragon …
ELRIC: “NOW, Flamefang! Now, brother!”
The dragon rears up and something pours from its mouth—not fire exactly, but a kind of black radiance, similar to the sword's—and it's directed at the pyramid. Again Kwyll’ and the others are forced back by the terrible power…
ELRIC: “NOW!”
The dragon directed the full force of its strange power upon the pyramid …
The dragon's strange breath actually destroys the pyramid in a single violent eruption—Elric's face is demonic as he directs his brother…
The dust and smoke clears away from the pyramid site…
… to reveal the Horn of Fate, seated on a miniature version of the same pyramid we have just destroyed. Kwyll’ is almost beside himself with rage and dismay—
KWYLL’: “That horn! All this for a horn?”
Dismounted from the dragon, Elric stretches his hand towards the horn—
ELRIC: “This is the horn which brought me here two centuries ago … This is the horn which will now take me home…To the palace of the Silverskin!”
PART ELEVEN
FOUCAULT'S PIT
The lost Valley of the Phoorn. South-west Sahara, October, AD 1000. Meetings, resolutions—and the burden of a prophecy …
EIric has dismounted from the dragon and reaches for the Horn of Fate, now revealed.
ELRIC: “For two centuries I have carried my weird within me—once I fought for this horn—at the last moment I lost the courage to sound it—but now, at long last, I fulfill my destiny—”
ELRIC: “—to herald in the night!”
Elric puts the horn to his lips.
ELRIC: “Three blasts to change the multiverse … The first will free us from this world …”
Elric blows the horn …
BAAAAAAAAAAAAA—OOOOOOOOOOOOOM—BAAAAAAAAAAAA … aaar-ooom-baaaaa … aa-oom-daa-doo-a-oo-aa-oo …
The others cover their ears in agony… The sound passes to the next page…
A spread across two pages—Everyone's back on Flamefang who is poised to take off-—as the whole of the valley begins to collapse in on itself—forming a vast pit into which sand pours like water—A great cosmic event—the stars begin to form new patterns overhead.
Elric is triumphant. Demonic, even …
(Fading horn): OOOOOoooooooooo—ooooooooo—ooooommmmmmm
ELRIC: “Free at last!”
KWYLL’/QUELCH: “Free for what!”
ROSE: “TO change the nature of reality, maybe? Ride with the tide, Horatio—this deal's bigger than both of us …”
With a great crack of his monstrous tail, Flamefang dives first skyward, then turns to dive rapidly downwards so everyone has to hang on very tight—down into the vast pit… down into organic darkness—down towards the Grey Fees—Elric is full of wild excitement—Stormbringer seems to give them both a kind of black radiance…
ELRIC: “Down, Flamefang, down! Down to confront our yearning sin! Down to redeem King Silverskin!”
Elric raises Stormbringer high as they fly through the Grey Fees (see Walter's version)—this strange limbo of organic rock and petrified life—
—from which great grey shadowy figures—far larger than themselves or the dragon—threaten them—these giants are actually exactly the same creatures as the trogs who carried Elric off earlier… The trogs could be drawn