Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [46]
It was a huge book—the Dead Gods’ Book, its covers encrusted with alien gems from which the light sprang. It gleamed, it throbbed with light and brilliant colour.
“At last,” Elric breathed. “At last—the Truth!”
He stumbled forward like a man made stupid with drink, his pale hands reaching for the thing he had sought with such savage bitterness. His hands touched the pulsating cover of the Book and, trembling, turned it back.
“Now, I shall learn,” he said, half-gloatingly.
With a crash, the cover fell to the floor, sending the bright gems skipping and dancing over the paving stones.
Beneath Elric’s twitching hands lay nothing but a pile of yellowish dust.
“No!” His scream was anguished, unbelieving. “No!” Tears flowed down his contorted face as he ran his hands through the fine dust. With a groan which racked his whole being, he fell forward, his face hitting the disintegrated parchment. Time had destroyed the Book—untouched, possibly forgotten, for three hundred centuries. Even the wise and powerful gods who had created it had perished—and now its knowledge followed them into oblivion.
They stood on the slopes of the high mountain, staring down into the green valleys below them. The sun shone and the sky was clear and blue. Behind them lay the gaping hole which led into the stronghold of the Lords of Entropy.
Elric looked with sad eyes across the world and his head was lowered beneath a weight of weariness and dark despair. He had not spoken since his companions had dragged him sobbing from the chamber of the Book. Now he raised his pale face and spoke in a voice tinged with self-mockery, sharp with bitterness—a lonely voice: the calling of hungry seabirds circling cold skies above bleak shores.
“Now,” he said, “I will live my life without ever knowing why I live it—whether it has purpose or not. Perhaps the Book could have told me. But would I have believed it, even then? I am the eternal skeptic—never sure that my actions are my own, never certain that an ultimate entity is not guiding me.
“I envy those who know. All I can do now is to continue my quest and hope, without hope, that before my span is ended, the truth will be presented to me.”
Shaarilla took his limp hands in hers and her eyes were wet.
“Elric—let me comfort you.”
The albino sneered bitterly. “Would that we’d never met, Shaarilla of the Dancing Mist. For a while, you gave me hope—I had thought to be at last at peace with myself. But, because of you, I am left more hopeless than before. There is no salvation in this world—only malevolent doom. Goodbye.”
He took his hands away from her grasp and set off down the mountainside.
Moonglum darted a glance at Shaarilla and then at Elric. He took something from his purse and put it in the girl’s hand.
“Good luck,” he said, and then he was running after Elric until he caught him up.
Still striding, Elric turned at Moonglum’s approach and despite his brooding misery said: “What is it, friend Moonglum? Why do you follow me?”
“I’ve followed you thus far, Master Elric, and I see no reason to stop,” grinned the little man. “Besides, unlike yourself, I’m a materialist. We’ll need to eat, you know.”
Elric frowned, feeling a warmth growing within him. “What do you mean, Moonglum?”
Moonglum chuckled. “I take advantage of situations of any kind, where I may,” he answered. He reached into his purse and displayed something on his outstretched hand which shone with a dazzling brilliancy. It was one of the jewels from the cover of the Book. “There are more in my purse,” he said, “And each one worth a fortune.” He took Elric’s arm.
“Come Elric—what new lands shall we visit so that we may change these baubles into wine and pleasant company?”
Behind them, standing stock still on the hillside, Shaarilla stared miserably after them until they were no longer visible. The jewel Moonglum had given her dropped from her fingers and fell, bouncing and bright, until it was lost amongst the heather. Then she turned—and the dark mouth of the cavern yawned before her.
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