Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [45]
Elric began to walk slowly forward towards the dark entrance of the bleak and towering castle.
In a wide, shadowy courtyard a tall figure, wreathed in scarlet fire, stood awaiting them.
Elric marched on, passing the gateway. Moonglum and Shaarilla nervously followed.
Gusty laughter roared from the mouth of the giant and the scarlet fire fluttered about him. He was naked and unarmed, but the power which flowed from him almost forced the three back. His skin was scaly and of smoky purple colouring. His massive body was alive with rippling muscle as he rested lightly on the balls of his feet. His skull was long, slanting sharply backwards at the forehead and his eyes were like slivers of blue steel, showing no pupil. His whole body shook with mighty, malicious joy.
“Greetings to you, Lord Elric of Melniboné—I congratulate you for your remarkable tenacity!”
“Who are you?” Elric growled, his hand on his sword.
“My name is Orunlu the Keeper and this is a stronghold of the Lords of Entropy.” The giant smiled cynically. “You need not finger your puny blade so nervously, for you should know that I cannot harm you now. I gained power to remain in your realm only by making a vow.”
Elric’s voice betrayed his mounting excitement. “You cannot stop us?”
“I do not dare to—since my oblique efforts have failed. But your foolish endeavours perplex me somewhat, I’ll admit. The Book is of importance to us—but what can it mean to you? I have guarded it for three hundred centuries and have never been curious enough to seek to discover why my Masters place so much importance upon it—why they bothered to rescue it on its sunward course and incarcerate it on this boring ball of earth populated by the capering, briefly lived clowns called Men.”
“I seek in it the Truth,” Elric said guardedly.
“There is no Truth but that of Eternal struggle,” the scarlet-flamed giant said with conviction.
“What rules above the forces of Law and Chaos?” Elric asked. “What controls your destinies as it controls mine?”
The giant frowned.
“That question, I cannot answer. I do not know. There is only the Balance.”
“Then perhaps the Book will tell us who holds it,” Elric said purposely. “Let me pass—tell me where it lies.”
The giant moved back, smiling ironically. “It lies in a small chamber in the central tower. I have sworn never to venture there, otherwise I might even lead the way. Go if you like—my duty is over.”
Elric, Moonglum and Shaarilla stepped towards the entrance of the castle, but before they entered, the giant spoke warningly from behind them.
“I have been told that the knowledge contained in the Book could swing the balance on the side of the forces of Law. This disturbs me—but, it appears, there is another possibility which disturbs me even more.”
“What is that?” Elric said.
“It could create such a tremendous impact on the multiverse that complete entropy would result. My Masters do not desire that—for it could mean the destruction of all matter in the end. We exist only to fight—not to win, but to preserve the eternal struggle.”
“I care not,” Elric told him. “I have little to lose, Orunlu the Keeper.”
“Then go.” The giant strode across the courtyard into blackness.
Inside the tower, light of a pale quality illuminated winding steps leading upwards. Elric began to climb them in silence, moved by his own doom-filled purpose. Hesitantly, Moonglum and Shaarilla followed in his path, their faces set in hopeless acceptance.
On and upward the steps mounted, twisting tortuously towards their goal, until at last they came to the chamber, full of blinding light, many-coloured and scintillating, which did not penetrate outwards at all but remained confined to the room which housed it.
Blinking, shielding his red eyes with his arm, Elric pressed forward and, through slitted pupils saw the source of the light lying on a small stone dais in the centre of the room.
Equally troubled by the bright light, Shaarilla and Moonglum followed him into the