Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [162]
“I have no blood, no souls for thee today, great duke.” Elric made his way towards a massive figure lying panting across a hillside. “I am as weak as thee.”
“Then I love thee not. Begone…” The voice became nothing but fading echoes, even as Elric approached its source. “Go back, Elric. Go back whence ye came…It is not thy time…Thou shouldst not be here…Beware…Obey me or I shall…” But the threat was empty and both knew it. Arioch had used all his strength.
“I would gladly obey thee, Duke Arioch.” Elric spoke feelingly. “For I have a notion that even an adept in sorcery could not survive long in a world where so much Chaos dwells. But I know not how. I came here by an accident. I thought myself in Xanardwys.”
There was a pause, then a painful gasp of words. “This…is…Xanardwys…but not that of thy realm. There is no…hope…here. Go…go…back. There…is…no hope…This is the very end of time…It is cold…so…cold…Thy destiny…does…not…lie…here…”
“Lord Arioch?” Elric’s voice was urgent. “I told thee…I know not how to return.”
The massive head lowered, regarding him with the complex eyes of the fly, but no sound came from his sweet, red lips of youth. Duke Arioch’s skin was like shifting mercury, roiling upon his body, giving off sparks and auras and sudden bursts of brilliant, multicoloured dust, reflecting the invisible fires of hell. And Elric knew that if his patron had manifested himself in all his original glory, not in this sickly form, Elric’s very soul would have been consumed by the demon’s presence. Duke Arioch was even now gathering his strength to speak again. “Thy sword…has…the…power…to carve a gateway…to…the road home…” The vast mouth opened to drag in whatever atmosphere sustained its monstrous body. Silver teeth rattled like a hundred thousand arrows; the red mouth erupted with heat and stink, sufficient to drive the albino back. Oddly coloured wisps of flame poured from the nostrils. The voice was full of weary irony. “Thou art…too…valuable to me, sweet Elric…Now I need all my allies…even mortals. This battle…must be…our last…against…against the power…of…the…Balance…and those who have…allied themselves…with it…those vile servants of Singularity…who would reduce all the substance of…the multiverse…to one, dull, coherent agony of boredom…”
This speech took the last of his energy. One final gasp, a painful gesture. “Sing the song…the sword’s song…sing together…that power will break thee into…the roads…”
“Lord Arioch, I cannot understand thee. I must know more.”
But the huge eyes had grown dull and it seemed some kind of lid had folded over them. Lord Arioch slept, or faded into death. And Elric wondered at the power that could bring low one of the great Chaos Lords. What power could extinguish the life-stuff of invulnerable immortals? Was that the power of the Balance? Or merely the power of Law—which the Lords of Entropy called “The Singularity”? Elric had only a glimmering of the motives and ambitions of those mighty forces.
He turned to find von Bek standing beside him. The man’s face was grim and he held his strange instrument in his two hands, as if to defend himself. “What did the brute tell you, Prince Elric?”
Elric had spoken a form of High Melnibonéan, developed through the millennia as a means of intercourse between mortal and demon. “Little that was concrete. I believe we should head for what remains of the city. These weary lords of hell seem to have no interest in it.”
Count Renark agreed. The landscape still resounded with the titanic clank of sword against shield and the thunderous descent of an armoured body, the smack of great wings and the stink of their breath. The stink was unavoidable, for what they expelled—dust, vapours, showers of fluttering flames and noxious gases of all descriptions—shrouded the whole world. Like mice running amongst the feet of elephants, the two men stumbled through shadows, avoiding the slow, weary movements of the defeated host. All around them the effects of Chaos grew manifest. Ordinary rocks and trees were warping and changing. Overhead the sky