Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [94]
Yyrkoon panted like a captured wolf. He glared around him as if hoping to find support from the assembled warriors, but they stared back at him either neutrally or with open contempt.
“And you, Prince Yyrkoon, will be the first to benefit from this new rule of mine. Are you pleased?”
Yyrkoon lowered his head. He was trembling now. Elric laughed. “Speak up, cousin.”
“May Arioch and all the Dukes of Hell torment you for eternity,” growled Yyrkoon. He flung back his head, his wild eyes rolling, his lips curling: “Arioch! Arioch! Curse this feeble albino! Arioch! Destroy him or see Melniboné fall!”
Elric continued to laugh. “Arioch does not hear you. Chaos is weak upon the earth now. It needs a greater sorcery than yours to bring the Chaos Lords back to aid you as they aided our ancestors. And now, Yyrkoon, tell me—where is the Lady Cymoril?”
But Yyrkoon had lapsed, again, into a sullen silence.
“She is at her own tower, my emperor,” said Magum Colim.
“A creature of Yyrkoon’s took her there,” said Dyvim Tvar. “The captain of Cymoril’s own guard, he slew a warrior who tried to defend his mistress against Yyrkoon. It could be that Princess Cymoril is in danger, my lord.”
“Then go quickly to the tower. Take a force of men. Bring both Cymoril and the captain of her guard to me.”
“And Yyrkoon, my lord?” asked Dyvim Tvar.
“Let him remain here until his sister returns.”
Dyvim Tvar bowed and, selecting a body of warriors, left the throne room. All noticed that Dyvim Tvar’s step was lighter and his expression less grim than when he had first approached the throne room at Prince Yyrkoon’s back.
Yyrkoon straightened his head and looked about the court. For a moment he seemed like a pathetic and bewildered child. All the lines of hate and anger had disappeared and Elric felt sympathy for his cousin growing again within him. But this time Elric quelled the feeling.
“Be grateful, cousin, that for a few hours you were totally powerful, that you enjoyed domination over all the folk of Melniboné.”
Yyrkoon said in a small, puzzled voice: “How did you escape? You had no time for making a sorcery, no strength for it. You could barely move your limbs and your armour must have dragged you deep to the bottom of the sea so that you should have drowned. It is unfair, Elric. You should have drowned.”
Elric shrugged, “I have friends in the sea. They recognize my royal blood and my right to rule if you do not.”
Yyrkoon tried to disguise the astonishment he felt. Evidently his respect for Elric had increased, as had his hatred for the albino emperor. “Friends.”
“Aye,” said Elric, with a thin grin.
“I—I thought, too, you had vowed not to use your powers of sorcery.”
“But you thought that a vow which was unbefitting for a Melnibonéan monarch to make, did you not? Well, I agree with you. You see, Yyrkoon, you have won a victory, after all.”
Yyrkoon stared narrowly at Elric, as if trying to divine a secret meaning behind Elric’s words. “You will bring back the Chaos Lords?”
“No sorcerer, however powerful, can summon the Chaos Lords or, for that matter, the Lords of Law, if they do not wish to be summoned. That you know. You must know it, Yyrkoon. Have you not, yourself, tried? And Arioch did not come, did he? Did he bring you the gift you sought—the gift of the two black swords?”
“You know that?”
“I did not. I guessed. Now I know.”
Yyrkoon tried to speak but his voice would not form words, so angry was he. Instead, a strangled growl escaped his throat and for a few moments he struggled in the grip of his guards.
Dyvim Tvar returned with Cymoril. The girl was pale but she was smiling. She ran into the throne room. “Elric!”
“Cymoril! Are you harmed?”
Cymoril glanced at the crestfallen captain of her guard who had been brought with her. A look of disgust crossed her fine face. Then she shook her head. “No. I am not harmed.”
The captain of Cymoril’s guard was shaking with terror. He looked pleadingly at