Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [92]
“My lord, are we all, then, prisoners? Oh, gods—Karlaak is truly lost.”
“Did you get to Dyvim Slorm?”
“Aye—I caught up with him and his band. Luckily they were nearer to Karlaak than we suspected.”
“And what was his answer to my request?”
“He said that a few young ones might be ready, but even with sorcery to aid him it would take some time to get to the Dragon Isle. There is a chance.”
“A chance is all we need—but it will be no good unless we accomplish the rest of our plan. Somehow Drinij Bara’s soul must be regained so that Terarn Gashtek cannot force him to defend the barbarians. There is one idea I have—a memory of an ancient kinship that we of Melniboné had for a being called Meerclar. Thank the gods that I discovered those drugs in Troos and I still have my strength. Now, I must call my sword to me.”
He closed his eyes and allowed his mind and body first to relax completely and then concentrate on one single thing—the sword Stormbringer.
For years the evil symbiosis had existed between man and sword and the old attachments lingered.
He cried: “Stormbringer! Stormbringer, unite with your brother! Come, sweet runeblade, come hell-forged kinslayer, your master needs thee…”
Outside, it seemed that a wailing wind had suddenly sprung up. Elric heard shouts of fear and a whistling sound. Then the covering of the wagon was sliced apart to let in the starlight and the moaning blade quivered in the air over his head. He struggled upwards, already feeling nauseated at what he was about to do, but he was reconciled that he was not, this time, guided by self-interest but by the necessity to save the world from the barbarian menace.
“Give me thy strength, my sword,” he groaned as his bound hands grasped the hilt. “Give my thy strength and let us hope it is for the last time.”
The blade writhed in his hands and he felt an awful sensation as its power, the power stolen vampirelike, from a hundred brave men, flowed into his shuddering body.
He became possessed of a peculiar strength which was not by any means wholly physical. His white face twisted as he concentrated on controlling the new power and the blade, both of which threatened to possess him entirely. He snapped his bonds and stood up.
Barbarians were even now running towards the wagon. Swiftly he cut the leather ropes binding the others and, unconscious of the nearing warriors, called a different name.
He spoke a new tongue, an alien tongue which normally he could not remember. It was a language taught to the Sorcerer Kings of Melniboné, Elric’s ancestors, even before the building of Imrryr, the Dreaming City, over ten thousand years previously.
“Meerclar of the Cats, it is I, your kinsman, Elric of Melniboné, last of the line that made vows of friendship with you and your people. Do you hear me, Lord of the Cats?”
Far beyond the Earth, dwelling within a world set apart from the physical laws of space and time which governed the planet, glowing in a deep warmth of blue and amber, a manlike creature stretched itself and yawned, displaying tiny, pointed teeth. It pressed its head languidly against its furry shoulder—and listened.
The voice it heard was not that of one of its people, the kind he loved and protected. But he recognized the language. He smiled to himself as remembrance came and he felt the pleasant sensation of fellowship. He remembered a race which, unlike other humans (whom he disdained) had shared his qualities—a race which, like him, loved pleasure, cruelty and sophistication for its own sake. The race of Melnibonéans.
Meerclar, Lord of the Cats, Protector of the Feline Kind, projected himself gracefully towards the source of the voice.
“How may I aid thee?” he purred.
“We seek one of your folk, Meerclar, who is somewhere close to here.”
“Yes, I sense him. What do you want of him?”
“Nothing which is his—but he has two souls, one of them not his own.”
“That is so—his name is Fiarshern of the great family of Trrrechoww. I will call him. He will come to me.”
Outside, the barbarians were striving to