Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [99]
“Arioch! I summon thee.”
Runes, both rhythmic and fragmented, howled now from Elric’s throat. His brain had reached the plane on which Arioch dwelt. Now it sought Arioch himself.
“Arioch! It is Elric of Melniboné who summons thee.”
Elric glimpsed an eye staring down at him. The eye floated, joined another. The two eyes regarded him.
“Arioch! My Lord of Chaos! Aid me!”
The eyes blinked—and vanished.
“Oh, Arioch! Come to me! Come to me! Aid me and I will serve you.”
A silhouette that was not a human form turned slowly until a black, faceless head looked down upon Elric. A halo of red light gleamed behind the head.
Then that, too, vanished.
Exhausted, Elric let the image fade. His mind raced back through plane upon plane. His lips no longer chanted the runes and the names. He lay exhausted upon the floor of his chamber, unable to move, in silence.
He was certain that he had failed.
There was a small sound. Painfully he raised his weary head.
A fly had come into the chamber. It buzzed about erratically, seeming almost to follow the lines of the runes Elric had so recently painted.
The fly settled first upon one rune and then on another.
It must have come in through the window, thought Elric. He was annoyed by the distraction but still fascinated by it.
The fly settled on Elric’s forehead. It was a large, black fly and its buzz was loud, obscene. It rubbed its forelegs together, and it seemed to be taking a particular interest in Elric’s face as it moved over it. Elric shuddered, but he did not have the strength to swat it. When it came into his field of vision, he watched it. When it was not visible he felt its legs covering every inch of his face. Then it flew up and, still buzzing loudly, hovered a short distance from Elric’s nose. And then Elric could see the fly’s eyes and recognize something in them. They were the eyes—and yet not the eyes—he had seen on that other plane.
It began to dawn on him that this fly was no ordinary creature. It had features that were in some way faintly human.
The fly smiled at him.
From his hoarse throat and through his parched lips Elric was able to utter but one word:
“Arioch?”
And a beautiful youth stood where the fly had hovered. The beautiful youth spoke in a beautiful voice—soft and sympathetic and yet manly. He was clad in a robe that was like a liquid jewel and yet which did not dazzle Elric, for in some way no light seemed to come from it. There was a slender sword at the youth’s belt and he wore no helm, but a circlet of red fire. His eyes were wise and his eyes were old and when they were looked at closely they could be seen to contain an ancient and confident evil.
“Elric.”
That was all the youth said, but it revived the albino so that he could raise himself to his knees.
“Elric.”
And Elric could now stand. He was filled with energy.
The youth was taller, now, than Elric. He looked down at the Emperor of Melniboné and he smiled the smile that the fly had smiled. “You alone are fit to serve Arioch. It is long since I was invited to this plane, but now that I am here I shall aid you, Elric. I shall become your patron. I shall protect you and give you strength and the source of strength, though master I be and slave you be.”
“How must I serve you, Duke Arioch?” Elric asked, having made a monstrous effort of self-control, for he was filled with terror by the implications of Arioch’s words.
“You will serve me by serving yourself for the moment. Later a time will come when I shall call upon you to serve me in specific ways, but (for the moment) I ask little of you, save that you swear to serve me.”
Elric hesitated.
“You must swear that,” said Arioch reasonably, “or I cannot help you in the matter of your cousin Yyrkoon or his sister Cymoril.