Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [163]
Elric knew that soon these corpses would become re-animated with the random Chaos energy which, while insufficient to help the Chaos Lords themselves, was more than enough to give a semblance of life to a thing which had been mortal.
Even as von Bek and Elric watched, they saw the body of a young woman liquefy and then re-form itself so that it still had something human about it but was now predominantly a mixture of bird and ape.
“Everywhere Chaos comes,” said Elric to his companion. “It is always the same. These people died in agony and now they are not even allowed the dignity of death…”
“You’re a sentimentalist, sir,” Count Renark spoke a little ironically.
“I have no feeling for these folk,” Elric assured him with rather too much haste. “I merely mourn the waste of it all.” Stepping over metamorphosing bodies and fallen architecture, which also began to alter its shape, the two men reached a small, domed structure of marble and copper, seemingly untouched by the rest of Chaos.
“Some kind of temple, no doubt,” said von Bek.
“And almost certainly defended by sorcery,” added the albino, “for no other building remains in one piece. We had best approach with a little caution.”
And he placed a hand up on his runesword, which stirred and murmured and seemed to moan for blood. Von Bek glanced towards the sword and a small shudder passed through his body. Then he led the way towards the temple. Elric wondered if this were some kind of entrance back to his own world. Had that been what Arioch meant? “These are singularly unpleasant manifestations of Chaos,” Count von Bek was saying. “This, surely, is Chaos gone sour—all that was virtue turned to vice. I have seen it more than once—in individuals as in civilizations.”
“You have traveled much, Count von Bek?”
“It was for many years my profession to wander, as it were, between worlds. I play the Game of Time, sir. As, I presume, do you.”
“I play no games, sir. Does your experience tell you if this building marks a route away from this realm and back to my own?”
“I could not quite say, sir. Not knowing your realm, for instance.”
“Sorcery protects this place,” said the albino, reaching for the hilt of his runesword. But Stormbringer uttered a small warning sound, as if to tell him that it could not be employed against this odd magic. Count von Bek had stepped closer and was inspecting the walls.
“See here, Prince Elric. There is a science at work. Look. Something alien to Chaos, perhaps?” He indicated seams in the surface of the building and, taking out a small folding knife, he scratched at it, revealing metal. “This place has always had a supernatural purpose.”
As if the traveler had triggered some mechanism, the dome above them began to spin, a pale blue aura spreading from it and encompassing them before they could retreat. They stood unmoving as a door in the base opened and a human figure regarded them. It was a creature almost as bizarre as any Elric had seen before, with the same style of clothing as von Bek, but with a peaked, grubby white cap on its unruly hair, stubble upon its chin, its eyes bloodshot but sardonically intelligent, a piece of charred root (doubtless some tribal talisman) still smouldering in the corner of its mouth. “Greetings, dear sirs. You seem as much in a pickle over this business as I am. Don’t it remind you a bit of Milton, what? ‘Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood, with scattered arms and ensigns?’ Paradise lost, indeed, my dear comrades in adversity. And I would guess that is not all we are about to lose…Will you step inside?”
The eccentric stranger introduced himself as Captain Quelch, a soldier of fortune, who had been in the middle of a successful