Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [73]
“No more courting death,” smiled Elric, “but we’ll have some revenge, I hope.”
“Dawn will be with us soon,” Moonglum said. “The Orgian citadel lies six hours’ ride from here by my working, south-south-east by the Ancient Star, if the map I memorized in Nadsokor was correct.”
“You have an instinct for direction that never fails, Moonglum. Every caravan should have such a man as you.”
“We base an entire philosophy on the stars in Elwher,” Moonglum replied. “We regard them as the master plan for everything that happens on Earth. As they revolve around the planet they see all things, past, present and future. They are our gods.”
“Predictable gods, at least,” said Elric and they rode off towards Org with light hearts considering the enormity of their risk.
CHAPTER TWO
Little was known of the tiny kingdom of Org save that the Forest of Troos lay within its boundaries and to that, other nations felt, it was welcome. The people were unpleasant to look upon, for the most part, and their bodies were stunted and strangely altered. Legend had it that they were the descendants of the Doomed Folk. Their rulers, it was said, were shaped like normal men in so far as their outward bodily appearance went, but their minds were warped more horribly than the limbs of their subjects.
The inhabitants were few and were generally scattered, ruled by their king from his citadel which was also called Org.
It was for this citadel that Elric and his companions rode and, as they did so, Elric explained how he planned to protect them all from the natives of Org.
In the forest he had found a particular leaf which, when used with certain invocations (which were harmless in that the invoker was in little danger of being harmed by the spirits he marshaled) would invest that person, and anyone else to whom he gave the drug distilled from the leaf, with temporary invulnerability.
The spell somehow reknitted the skin and flesh structure so that it could withstand any edge and almost any blow. Elric explained, in a rare garrulous mood, how the drug and spell combined to achieve the effect, but his archaicisms and esoteric words meant little to the other two.
They stopped an hour’s ride from where Moonglum expected to find the citadel so that Elric could prepare the drug and invoke the spell.
He worked swiftly over a small fire, using an alchemist’s pestle and mortar, mixing the shredded leaf with a little water. As the brew bubbled on the fire, he drew peculiar runes on the ground, some of which were twisted into such alien forms that they seemed to disappear into a different dimension and reappear beyond it.
“Bone and blood and flesh and sinew,
Spell and spirit bind anew;
Potent potion work the life charm,
Keep its takers safe from harm.”
So Elric chanted as a small pink cloud formed in the air over the fire, wavered, re-formed into a spiral shape which curled downwards into the bowl. The brew spluttered and then was still. The albino sorcerer said: “An old boyhood spell, so simple that I’d near forgotten it. The leaf for the potion grows only in Troos and therefore it is rarely possible to perform.”
The brew, which had been liquid, had now solidified and Elric broke it into small pellets. “Too much,” he warned, “taken at one time is poison, and yet the effect can last for several hours. Not always, though, but we must accept that small risk.” He handed both of them a pellet which they received dubiously. “Swallow them just before we reach the citadel,” he told them, “or in the event of the men of Org finding us first.”
Then they mounted and rode on again.
Some miles to the south-east of Troos, a blind man sang a grim song in his sleep and so woke himself…
They reached the brooding citadel of Org at dusk. Guttural voices shouted at them from the battlements of the square-cut ancient dwelling place of the Kings of Org. The thick rock