Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [90]
ELRIC: “Here they come!”
QUELCH: “Giants! Impossible!”
ROSE: “YOU know nothing's impossible in the Grey Fees, Horace …Time and scale's meaningless here …”
A vast hand stretches towards the seemingly tiny dragon and the figures on it…Quelch is drawing his sword…
QUELCH: “Oops! Looks like we're the trolls’ plat du jour”
But Rebecca (Colinda Dovero from Moonbeams and Roses) is tearing off her veil… Her eyes are catlike, beginning to stir with a strange fire…
Rebecca's face is revealed at last—a snarling lioness—possibly with a hint of a leper's ‘lion-mask’—bone-white—underneath, basically the same character as Colinda Dovero.
LIONESS: “GRRRRR!”
The trogs are terrified of her, as they were earlier—and as they are whenever they see any kind of cat—whatever size—she's lioness size to Elric—tiny to the trogs.
The trogs retreat from her in terror—
LIONESS: “Aarrrraaaarrrrl Degenerate creatures! Begone! For I am Sekhmet. I am Niphur. And I am Basil All three can destroy you!”
They leave the trogs behind—though the cat's still poised on the dragon's back with the others—and the dragon begins to head upwards again—
ROSE: “The only living thing those monsters fear …”
The trog-giants half-grab at the disappearing dragon overhead but they're also covering their faces. They really fear Sekhmet. As would I in their circumstances … Elric glances back inwild glee—calling out to the dragon—as they head for glimmering water overhead—
ELRIC: “Up, Flamefang! Up, brother! Destiny beckons! Fate must be fulfilled!”
—and burst upwards through the surface of the lake in a great spout of water and lake-debris—out of Loch Auchy—with Castle Auchy (from Moonbeams and Roses) clearly visible …
Small panel: The four “passengers” disembark by the stone jetty of Castle Auchy.
ROSE: “This looks familiar.”
ELRIC: “Pray to your most powerful gods that we're in time.”
Elric reaches out to say farewell to Flamefang—
ELRIC: “Farewell, friend. You were a thousand times more virtuous than I …”
—who affectionately wraps his strange tongue around the albino's body, almost in a gentle gesture—its eyes sad—
FLAMEFANG: “Adieu, little brother. Our work together is finally over… But your last task will be the hardest…”
Flamefang turned for home—
Flamefang is beginning to re-submerge. The humans stand on the jetty wishing him farewell.
His tail flicks once above the waves—
And Elric draws his sword—advancing towards the door—the great snarling lioness at his side but slightly ahead—leading them inside. Elric still grasps the horn in readiness. Rose and Quelch hang back a little warier of the lioness and the sword than the door.
ELRIC: “NOW to confront King Silverskin …”
MOONBEAMS AND ROSES
(drawn by Walter Simonson)
PART TWELVE
CONCLUSION—THE HARMONIES OF CHAOS
Warming up for the final game. Elric faces the Silverskin …
EIric hesitates before the portal, a little further in.
The portal is murmuring, excreting silvery mist.
PORTAL: “Ah, it is too long, no room in my tortured mind for further memories …
We are, all of us, guilty—all of us—
Those Jews, those gypsies …
Armenians …
Moslems …
Slavs … slaves …
I can't—I can't—There is only the abyss, only the darkness, only the Cold.
We fade, we fade … The agony of it… It is cold, so cold on the edge of time …”
Elric's baffled—speaks to Moonglum [who in Part Eleven of Moonbeams and Roses is found by Elric outside the Silverskin's castle]…
ELRIC: “I don't believe I've summoned Chaos—The horn's song has called me to something I fear far worse—The one we sometimes name ‘The Other’—not my self, exactly, but my selves …”
ELRIC: “This is the confrontation I turned from once—I am sworn not to turn from it twice … Watch for me, friend Moonglum. Chance is—you alone will live to tell this tale.”
He steps through. Maybe his back's to us.
We still don't see the Silver skin.
ELRIC: “Greetings—King Silverskin …”
SILVERSKIN: “At last, Elric. At last