Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [116]
“Brave words now, madam. Were it not for primitive earth-magic, you would be my slaves at this moment. Just as you shall be my slaves very soon.”
The foggy air was thick with hot, unnatural odours and brands burned in it, scarcely casting better light than the flickering candles whose huge yellow stems dripped hissing wax upon what had once been an intricately carved roof but which was now covered in matted straw and rags. Webs were silhouetted in the air, hinting at the workings of enormous spiders, and from the deeper shadows came a scuttling that could only be of rats. Yet it seemed to Elric that all this was merely an illusion, a curtain which was being parted, for into view—and he was never sure how—came the fierce, rich, roiling colours of Chaos—a great sphere whose contents were in constant movement—and this displayed the dark outline of Gaynor the Damned, standing before it as if at some kind of altar on which he had placed some few small objects …
“Oh, you are most welcome,” he said. He was half-crazed with delight at what he was sure must soon be their acceptance of his sovereignty. “There is little need for this display of challenges and insults, my friends, for I can surely solve our differences!” The helm pulsed now with a scarlet fire, shot through with veins of black. “Let us put an end to exuberant violence and settle these matters as wiser folk should.”
“I have heard your reasoning tone before, Gaynor,” said the Rose contemptuously, “when you tried to make my sisters bargain for their honour or their lives. I do not bargain with you, any more than did they!”
“Long memories, sweet lady. I had forgotten such a trifle and so should you. It was yesterday. I promise you a glorious rule in tomorrow!”
“What can you promise that we could possibly value?” said Charion Phatt. “Your mind is chiefly mysterious to me, but I know that you lie to us. You have all but lost your grip upon this realm. The power which aided thee, aids thee no longer! But you would make it aid thee, again …”
At this the great pulsing ectoplasmic sphere behind Gaynor flared and shivered and revealed, for an instant, three glaring eyes, tusks, drooling jaws and furious claws, and Elric realized to his horror that Mashabak was not free, that Gaynor had somehow kept control of the prison, appearing to do Count Mashabak’s bidding while scheming to take the power of a Chaos Lord for himself!
Arioch had been banished from this plane, dragged through the dimensions by the last brave action of Esbern Snare, and Gaynor had been more audacious than any of them could imagine—he had determined that he should take the place of Arioch, rather than freeing his master! But though he held the Chaos Lord prisoner, he had no means of harnessing his power, of using it for his own ends. Was this why, with his leechblade, he had sought to steal the energy of Stormbringer and its sister swords?
“Aye,” said Gaynor, reading his enemy’s expression. “I had planned to gain the necessary power by other means. But I am a practical immortal, as thou must understand by now, and if I must bargain—why I shall happily go to market with thee!”
“You have nothing I need, Gaynor,” said Elric coldly.
But the ex-Prince of the Universal was already mocking him, holding up one of the objects he had placed there and jeering softly. “Do you not want this, Prince Elric? Is this not what you have sought for so long? Across the realms, sir? With such considerable impatience, sir?”
And Elric saw that it was the box of black rosewood, its gnarled surfaces all carved with black roses. Even from here he could smell its wonderful perfume. His father’s soulbox.
And again Gaynor jeered, louder now. “It was stolen by one of your sorcerer ancestors, given to your mother, then your father (who conceived his extraordinary deception once he understood