Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [18]
“Arioch could not claim me because of another pact I had made, with Count Mashabak. He is no longer my patron.” And a kind of laugh escaped him.
“Your soul was claimed by Mashabak of Chaos?”
“But disputed by Arioch. My soul is hostage to their rivalries—or was. By some sorcery I still command, I betook myself here, to the very beginning of our true history. And here I have some short sanctuary.”
“You are hiding, Father, from the Lords of Chaos?”
“I have gained some time while they dispute, for I have here a spell, my last great spell, which will free me to join your mother in the Forest of Souls where she awaits me.”
“You have a passport to the Forest of Souls? I’d thought such things a myth.” Elric wiped chilly sweat from his forehead.
“I sent thy mother there to remain until I joined her. I gave her the means, our Scroll of Dead-Speaking, and she is safe in that sweet eternity, which many souls seek and which few find. I swore an oath that I would do all I could to be reunited with her.”
The shade stepped forward, as if entranced, and reached to touch Elric’s face with something like affection. But when the hand fell away there was only torment in the old man’s undead eyes.
Elric knew a certain sympathy. “Have you no companions here, Father?”
“Only thou, my son. Thee and I now haunt these ruins together.”
An unwholesome frisson: “Am I, too, a prisoner here?” said the albino.
“At my humour, aye, my son. Now that I have touched thee we are bound together, whether thou leavest this place or no, for it is the fate of such as I to be linked always to the first living mortal his hand shall fall upon. We are one, now, Elric—or shall be.”
And Elric shuddered at the hatred and the relish in his father’s otherwise desolate voice.
“Can I not release you, Father? I have been to R’lin K’ren A’a, where our race began in this realm. I sought our past there. I could speak of it …”
“Our past is in our blood. It travels with us. Those degenerates of R’lin K’ren A’a, they were never our true kin. They bred with humans and vanished. It was not they who founded or preserved great Melniboné …”
“There are so many stories, Father. So many conflicting legends …” Elric was eager to continue the conversation with his father. Few such opportunities had existed while Sadric lived.
“The dead know truth from lies. They are privy to that understanding, at least. And I know the truth of it. We did not stem from R’lin K’ren A’a. Such questings and speculations are unnecessary. We are assured of our origins. Thou wouldst be a fool, my son, to question our histories, to dispute their truth. I had thee taught this.”
Elric kept his own counsel.
“My magic called the jill-dragon from her cave. The one I had the strength to summon. But she came and I sent her to thee. This is the only sorcery I have left. It is the first significant sorcery of our race and the purest, the dragon-sorcery. But I could not instruct her. I sent her to thee knowing she would recognize thee or she would kill thee. Both actions would have brought us together, eventually, no doubt.” The shade permitted itself a crooked smile.
“You cared no more than that, Father?”
“I could do no more than that. I long for thy mother. We were meant to be united for ever. Thou must help me reach her, Elric, and help me swiftly for my own energies and spells weaken—soon Arioch or Mashabak shall claim me. Or destroy me entirely in their struggle!”
“You have no further means of escaping them?” Elric felt his left leg shake uncontrollably for a few seconds before he forced it to obey his will. He realized it had been too long since he had last taken the infusion of herbs and drugs which allowed him the energy of a normal creature.
“In a way. If I remain attached to thee, my son, the object of my unjust hate, then my soul could hide with thine, occupying thy flesh and mine, disguised by blood that is my blood. They would never sniff me out!”
Again Elric was seized by a sensation of profound cold, as if death already