Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [129]
“Arioch!”
Sword and man were now wreathed in a palpitating black mist and Elric’s white face was flung back, seeming to writhe as the mist writhed.
“Arioch! I beg thee to aid me! It is Elric who calls thee!”
And then a voice reached his ears. It was a soft, purring, reasonable voice. It was a tender voice.
“Elric, I am fondest of thee. I love thee more than any other mortal—but aid thee I cannot—not yet.”
Elric cried desperately: “Then we are doomed to perish here!”
“Thou canst escape this danger. Flee alone into the forest. Leave the others while thou hast time. Thou hast a destiny to fulfill elsewhere and elsewhen…”
“I will not desert them.”
“Thou art foolish, sweet Elric.”
“Arioch—since Melniboné’s founding thou hast aided her kings. Aid her last king this day!”
“I cannot dissipate my energies. A great struggle looms. And it would cost me much to return to R’lin K’ren A’a. Flee now. Thou shalt be saved. Only the others will die.”
And then the Duke of Hell had gone. Elric sensed the passing of his presence. He frowned, fingering his belt pouch, trying to recall something he had once heard. Slowly, he resheathed the reluctant sword. Then there was a thump and Moonglum stood panting before him.
“Well, is aid on the way?”
“I fear not.” Elric shook his head in despair. “Once again Arioch refuses me. Once again he speaks of a greater destiny—a need to conserve his strength.”
“Your ancestors could have picked a more tractable demon as their patron. Our reptilian friends are closing in. Look…” Moonglum pointed to the outskirts of the city. A band of about a dozen stilt-legged creatures were advancing, their huge clubs at the ready.
There was a scuffling noise from the rubble on the other side of the wall and Avan appeared, leading his men through the opening. He was cursing.
“No extra aid is coming, I fear,” Elric told him.
The Vilmirian smiled grimly. “Then the monsters out there knew more than did we!”
“It seems so.”
“We’ll have to try to hide from them,” Moonglum said without much conviction. “We’d not survive a fight.”
The little party left the ruined house and began to inch its way through what cover it could find, moving gradually nearer to the centre of the city and the statue of the Jade Man.
A sharp hiss from behind them told them that the reptile warriors had sighted them again and another Vilmirian fell with a crystal disc protruding from his back. They broke into a panicky run.
Ahead now was a red building of several storeys which still had its roof.
“In there!” Duke Avan shouted.
With some relief they dashed unhesitatingly up worn steps and through a series of dusty passages until they paused to catch their breath in a great, gloomy hall.
The hall was completely empty and a little light filtered through cracks in the wall.
“This place has lasted better than the others,” Duke Avan said. “I wonder what its function was. A fortress, perhaps.”
“They seem not to have been a warlike race,” Moonglum pointed out. “I suspect the building had some other function.”
The three surviving crewmen were looking fearfully about them. They looked as if they would have preferred to have faced the reptile warriors outside.
Elric began to cross the floor and then paused as he saw something painted on the far wall.
Moonglum saw it too. “What’s that, friend Elric?”
Elric recognized the symbols as the written High Speech of old Melniboné, but it was subtly different and it took him a short time to decipher its meaning.
“Know you what it says, Elric?” Duke Avan murmured, joining them.
“Aye—but it’s cryptic enough. It says: ‘If thou hast come to slay me, then thou art welcome. If thou hast come without the means to awaken the Jade Man, then begone…’”
“Is it addressed to us, I wonder,” Avan mused, “or has it been there for a long while?”
Elric shrugged. “It could have been inscribed at any time during the past ten thousand years…”
Moonglum walked up to the wall and reached out to touch it. “I would