Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [61]
And as they moved the room itself began to shake. They heard Voilodion Ghagnasdiak screaming.
“The tower! The tower! This will destroy the tower!”
Elric looked up from the last corpse. It was true that the tower was swaying wildly from side to side like a ship in a storm.
Jhary-a-Conel pushed past the dwarf and entered the room of death. The sight seemed obnoxious to him but he controlled his feelings. “It is true. The sorcery we have worked today must have its effect. Whiskers—to me!”
The thing on Voilodion Ghagnasdiak’s face flew into the air and settled on Jhary’s shoulder. Elric saw that it was a small black-and-white cat, ordinary in every detail save for its neat pair of wings which it was now folding.
Voilodion Ghagnasdiak sat crumpled in the doorway and he was weeping through sightless eyes. Tears of blood flowed down his handsome face.
Elric ran back into the other room, breaking his link with Corum. He peered through the window slit. But now there was nothing but a wild eruption of mauve and purple cloud.
He gasped. “We are in limbo!”
Silence fell. Still the tower swayed. The lights were extinguished by a strange wind blowing through the rooms and the only illumination came from outside where the mist still swirled.
Jhary-a-Conel was frowning to himself as he joined Elric at the window.
“How did you know what to do?” Elric asked him.
“I knew because I know you, Elric of Melniboné—just as I know Erekosë there—for I travel in many ages and on many planes. That is why I am sometimes called Companion to Champions. I must find my sword and my sack—also my hat. Doubtless all are in Voilodion’s vault with his other loot.”
“But the tower? If it is destroyed shall we, too, be destroyed?”
“A possibility. Come, friend Elric, help me seek my hat.”
“At such a time, you look for a—hat?”
“Aye.” Jhary-a-Conel returned to the larger room, stroking the black-and-white cat. Voilodion Ghagnasdiak was still there and he was still weeping. “Prince Corum—Lord Erekosë—will you come with me, too.”
Corum and the black giant joined Elric and they squeezed into the narrow passage, inching their way along until it widened to reveal a flight of stairs leading downward. The tower shuddered again. Jhary lit a brand and removed it from its place in the wall. He began to descend the steps, the three heroes behind him.
A slab of masonry fell from the roof and crashed just in front of Elric. “I would prefer to seek a means of escape from the tower,” he said to Jhary-a-Conel. “If it falls now, we shall be buried.”
“Trust me, Prince Elric,” was all that Jhary would say.
And because Jhary had already shown himself to possess great knowledge Elric allowed the dandy to lead him further into the bowels of the tower.
At last they reached a circular chamber and in it was set a huge metal door.
“Voilodion’s vault,” Jhary told them. “Here you will find all the things you seek. And I, I hope, will find my hat. The hat was specially made and is the only one which properly matches my other clothes . . .”
“How do we open a door like that?” Erekosë asked. “It is made of steel, surely!” He hefted the black blade he still bore in his left hand.
“If you link arms again, my friends,” Jhary suggested with a kind of mocking deference, “I will show you how the door may be opened.”
Once again Elric, Corum and Erekosë linked their arms together. Once again the supernatural strength seemed to flow through them and they laughed at each other, knowing that they were all part of the same creature.
Jhary’s voice seemed to come faintly to Elric’s ears. “And now, Prince Corum, if you would strike with your foot once upon the door . . .”
They moved until they were close to the door. That part of them which was Corum struck out with his foot at the slab of steel—and the door fell inward as if made of the lightest wood.
This time Elric was much more reluctant to break the link which held