Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [86]
“Ah, most dangerous and courageous of my souls, thou art truly fitted to be my chosen mortal above all the others, ruling in my name, with my power. Whole worlds would be thine, Elric—whole Spheres to mould to thy every whim. All pleasure can be thine. All experience. And unendingly. Without price or consequence. Eternal pleasure, Elric!”
“I have made myself clear, already, Lord Duke, on the subject of perpetuality. It could be that one day in the future I shall determine that my fate lies wholly with thee. But until that time …”
“I shall attack thy memory. That I can do!”
“Only in some ways, Lord Arioch. Never in dreams. In my dreams, I recall everything. But with this pell-mell twirling from plane to plane and Sphere to Sphere, the worlds of memory and dreams become confused with the worlds of reality and immediacy. Aye, you can attack my mind, my lord. But not my soul’s memory.”
Which set insane Count Mashabak to cackling again. “Gaynor!” His wild eyes caught sight of his former servant. “Free me from this and thy reward will be tenfold what I promised.”
“Death,” said Gaynor suddenly. “Death, death, death is all I’m greedy for. And that you all deny me!”
“Because we value thee, dear one …” said the honey-sweet boy, lifting its head and chittering, like a startled wren. “I am Chaos. I am everything. I am the Lord of the Non-Linear, Captain of the Random Particle and Entropy’s greatest celebrant! I am the wind from nowhere and I am the drowner of worlds; I am the Prince of Infinite Possibility! What glorious changes shall bloom upon the face of the multiverse, what unlikely and perverse marriages shall be sanctified by hell’s priesthood, and what wonders and pleasures there will be, Elric! Nothing predictable. The only true justice in the multiverse—where all, even the gods, are subject to random birth and random annihilation! To banish Resolution and have instead eternal Revolution. A multiverse in permanent, gorgeous Crisis!”
“I fear I have spent too long with the gentler folk of the Young Kingdoms,” said Elric softly, “to be much tempted by thy promises, my lord. Nor can I say I am much feared of thy threats. Prince Gaynor and myself are upon a quest. If we are to be of service to one another, sir, then I propose you let us continue upon that quest.”
At which Arioch shifted his beautiful rump upon the yielding globe and said pettishly, “The damned one can go on his way. As for thee, recalcitrant servant, I cannot punish thee directly, but I can hamper thy quest until this more trustworthy servant achieves his end—whereupon I shall promise him far more than Mashabak promised him. I shall promise him a true death.”
There came a sob from within Gaynor’s peculiar helm and he fell to his knees, perhaps in gratitude.
Now Arioch raised a golden hammer in either fist and his youthful features were ablaze with glee as he brought first one hammer and then another down upon the yielding surface of the ectoplasmic womb, and with each blow came an unlikely booming, like that of a great gong, while within the prison Count Mashabak clapped scaly claws to his asymmetrical ears and howled in fearsome silence, as if whole universes were in anguish.
“It is the Time,” cried Arioch. “It is the Time!”
Down falls Elric, screaming, with his hands, too, upon his ears. And Gaynor goes down, crawling and shrieking in a voice so high-pitched it sounds above the booming of the hammers.
And then there is a low whistling and Elric feels his substance being sucked away, bit by bit, from this plane to another. And he tries to fight against that force which only a Duke of Hell would use, since it damages whole histories and peoples with the violence of the dimensional rupturing, but he is helpless and his runesword will not help him. Stormbringer seems glad to leave that lifeless plane; it needs to feed on living souls and Arioch had offered it not a morsel from his store.
Yet, even as he watches the monstrous clock shimmer and grow