Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [87]
But then it has turned, sniffing, its savage mouth grinning and the hot saliva showering from its jaws, the ears laid first forward, then laid back, and it seems to curve in mid-air, a single fluid motion, and direct its great body straight upwards to where Lord Arioch giggles, then squeals in genuine surprise as Esbern Snare buries his fangs in the throat of one he recognizes as his true tormentor.
So startled was Arioch, and so sparing now of his remaining powers upon this plane, that he could neither change his shape nor did he wish to flee—for by fleeing he would leave his captured rival, who might then be freed, and that he could not bear. So he struggled upon the swaying clock while the damned souls below worked frantically to correct every unpredictable motion of the thing, and the last Elric saw of Esbern Snare was his wolf body burning with a fierce, red-gold light as if he gave up, with selfless joy, his last few embers of life.
Then Elric saw the ectoplasmic sphere topple and fall towards the earth, with Arioch and Esbern Snare still locked together in conflict, and something flared and a darkness poured in upon him and swallowed him up and carried him relentlessly through the broken walls of a thousand dimensions, every one of which lifted a separate voice in protest; every one of which exploded with a different angry colour. He was propelled through the multiverse with almost the last remaining energy Arioch had been able to summon upon that plane.
That was what Esbern Snare had known and that was why he had awaited this opportunity to help his companions.
For Esbern Snare was, indeed, a man of rare goodness and sanity. He had lived too long in thrall to an evil power. He had seen all that he valued destroyed because of it. So, though he could not reclaim his immortal soul, he could ensure himself at least an immortal memorial, some action to ensure that his name, and the name of the love he could never find again, would be forever linked in the tales told amongst the realms, in all the various futures which lay ahead.
Thus did Esbern Snare the Northern Werewolf redeem his honour, if not his soul.
BOOK THREE
A ROSE REDEEMED; A ROSE REVIVED
Three swift swords for the sisters three;
The first shall be of ivory;
The second sword’s forged of rarest gold;
The third shall be cut from a granite fold.
The first sword’s name is ‘Just Old Man’;
And the second is called ‘The Urgent Brand’;
While the third thirsty sword of that glamour’d three
Is the hungry blade named ‘Liberty’.
—Wheldrake,
Border Ballads
CHAPTER ONE
Of Weapons Possessed of Will; A Family Reunion; Old Friends Found; A Quest Resumed.
NOW ELRIC FOUGHT to resist the force of Arioch’s rage; stretching out his left hand as if to grasp at the fabric of time and space and slow his rush through the dimensions; clinging to his runesword while it howled and gibbered in his right hand, itself insane with mysterious supernatural anger at the Lord of Hell who had expended the last of his temporal energy on this plane in one final act of petty, and passing, vengeance. For Arioch had proved himself as whimsical as any other denizen of Chaos, willing to destroy all hoped-for futures in order to satisfy a momentary irritation. Which was why Chaos could be trusted no better than Law (which was inclined to permit similar actions, but in the name of principles whose purpose and point were frequently long-forgotten, creating as much mortal misery in the name of Intellect as Chaos wrought in the name of Sensibility).
Such thoughts were available to the albino, as he was flung through the radiantly pierced barriers of the multiverse—for