Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [184]
“Some of your words,” said Elric courteously, “are unfamiliar and the speech of my folk much garbled. Are you some guardian of this hero’s tomb?”
“Self-made guardian, aye. Now go!” She pointed towards the stone slabs.
“That is not possible. The corpse within has something of value to me. The Horn of Fate we call it, but you know it by another name.”
“Olifant! But that’s a blessed instrument. No demon would dare touch it. Even I…”
“I am no demon. I’m sufficiently human, I swear. Now stand aside. This cursed door resists my efforts too well.”
“Aye,” she said thoughtfully. “You could be a man—though an unlikely one. But the white face and hair, the red eyes, the tongue you speak…”
“Sorcerer I be, but no demon. Please—stand aside.”
She looked carefully into his face and her look disturbed him. He took her by her shoulder. She felt real enough, yet somehow she had little real presence. It was as if she were far away rather than close to him. They stared at one another, both curious, both troubled. He whispered: “What knowledge could you have of my language? Is this world a dream of mine or of the gods? It seems scarcely tangible. Why?”
She heard him. “Say you so of us? What of your ghostly self? You seem an apparition from the dead past!”
“From the past! Aha—and you are of the future, as yet unformed. Perhaps that brings us to a conclusion?”
She did not pursue the topic but said suddenly: “Stranger, you will never break this door down. If you can touch Olifant, that speaks of you as mortal, despite your appearance. You must need the horn for an important task.”
Elric smiled. “Aye—for if I do not take it back whence it came, you will never exist!”
She frowned. “Hints! Hints! I feel close to a discovery yet cannot grasp why, and that’s unusual for Vivian. Here—” she took a big key from her gown and offered it to him—” this is the key to open Roland’s tomb. It is the only one. I had to kill to get it, but oftimes I venture into the gloom of his grave to stare down at his face and pine that I might revive him and keep him living for ever on my island home. Take the horn! Rouse him—and when he has slain you, he will come to me and my warmth, my offer of everlasting life, rather than lie in that cold place again. Go—be slain by Roland!”
He took the key.
“Thanks, Lady Vivian. If it were possible to convince one who in truth did not yet exist, I would tell you that Roland’s slaying of me would be worse for you than if I am successful.”
He put the large key in the lock and it turned easily. The doors swung open and he saw that a long, low-roofed corridor twisted before him. Unhesitatingly, he advanced down it towards a flickering light that he could see through the cold and misty gloom. Yet, as he walked, it was as if he glided in a dream less real than that he had experienced the previous night. Now he entered the funeral chamber, illuminated by tall candles surrounding the bier of a man who lay upon it dressed in armour of a crude and unfamiliar design, a huge broadsword, almost as large as Stormbringer gripped to his chest and, upon the hilt, attached to his neck by a silver chain—the Horn of Fate, Olifant!
The man’s face, seen in the candlelight, was strange; old and yet with a youthful appearance, the brow smooth and the features unlined.
Elric took Stormbringer in his left hand and reached out to grasp the horn. He made no attempt at caution, but wrenched it off Roland’s neck.
A great roar came from the hero’s throat. Immediately he had raised himself to a sitting position, the sword shifting into his two hands, his legs swinging off the bier. His eyes widened as he saw Elric with the horn in his hands, and he jumped at the albino, the sword Durandana whistling downwards towards Elric’s head. He raised the shield and blocked the blow, slipped the horn into his jerkin and, backing away, returned Stormbringer to his right hand. Roland