Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [25]
“Some sort of vow, is it, sir?” says Wheldrake tentatively. “Some holy purpose?”
“A quest, aye, but for something simpler, sir, than you would believe.”
“What are you seeking, sir? A particular lost bride?”
“You are perceptive, sir.”
“Merely well-read, sir. But that is not all, eh?”
“I seek nothing less than death, sir. It is to that unhappy doom that the Balance did consign me when I betrayed her those numberless millennia since. It is also my doom to fight against those who serve the Balance, though I love the Balance with a ferocity, sir, that has never dissipated. It was ordained—though I have no reason to trust the oracle in question—that I should find peace at the hand of a servant of the Balance—one who was as I once was.”
“And what were you once?” enquired Wheldrake, who had followed this last a little more swiftly than the albino.
“I was once a Prince of the Balance, a Servant and Confidant of that Unordinary Intelligence that tolerates, celebrates and loves all life throughout the multiverse and yet which both Law and Chaos would overthrow if they could. Discontented with multiplicity and massive adjustment in the multiverse, guessing something of a great conjunction which must come throughout the Key Planes and set the realities for countless aeons—realities where the Balance might no longer exist, I gave in to experiment. The notion was too strong for me. Curiosity and folly, self-importance and pride led me to convince myself that in doing what I attempted to do, I served the interests of the Balance. And for my failure, or my success, I would have paid an equal price. The price I now pay.”
“That is not the whole of your story, sir.” Wheldrake was enthralled. “You will not bore me, I know, if you wish to embroider it with more detail.”
“I cannot, sir. I speak as I do because that is all I am allowed to unburden of my tale. The rest is for me alone to know until such time I shall be released and then it can be told.”
“Released by death, sir? It would create some difficulties regarding the telling, I’d guess.”
“The Balance doubtless will decide such things,” said the stranger, without much humour.
“Is general death all you look for, sir? Or has death a name?” Elric spoke softly, with some sympathy.
“I am seeking three sisters. They came this way, I think, a few days since. Would you have seen three sisters? Riding together?”
“I regret, sir, that we are but recently transported to this realm, through no desire of our own, and thus are newly here without maps or directions.” Elric shrugged. “I had hoped you would know a little of the place.”
“It is in what they call the Nine Millionth Ring, the maguses here. It exists within what they have formalized as the Realms of Central Significance, and it is true there is an unusual quality to the plane which I have yet to identify. It is not a true Centre, for that is the Realm of the Balance, but it is what I would call a quasi-centre. You’ll forgive the jargon, sir, I hope, of the philosopher. I was for some generations an alchemist in Prague.”
“Prague!” cries Wheldrake with a caw of delighted recognition. “Those bells and towers, sir. And do you know Mirenburg, perhaps? Even more beautiful!”
“The memories are no doubt pleasant enough,” says the armoured man, “since I do not recall them. I would take it that you, too, are upon a quest here?”
“Not I, sir,” says Wheldrake, “unless it be for Putney Common and my lost half-pint.”
“I am seeking something, aye,” agreed Elric cautiously. He had hoped to learn a little of the geography rather than the mystical and astrological placing of this world. “I am Elric of Melniboné.”
His name does not seem of any great significance to the armoured man. “And I am Gaynor, once a Prince of the Universal, now called the Damned. Perhaps we have met? Without these names or even faces? In some other incarnation?”
“It is not my misfortune to recall any other lives,” says Elric softly, at last disturbed by Gaynor’s