Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [29]
Was I right?
In spite of Arjavh’s constant antagonism to my plan, I ordered the machines out of Loos Ptokai and, mounted in one of them, ordered them overland.
Two months before I had been responsible for winning the cities of Mernadin for Humanity. Now I reclaimed them in the name of the Eldren.
I reclaimed them in a terrible way. I destroyed every human being occupying them. A week and we were at Paphanaal, the fleets of mankind at anchor in the great harbour. I destroyed those fleets as I destroyed the garrison, men, women and children perished.
And then, for the machines were amphibious, I led the Eldren across the sea to the Two Continents.
Noonos of the jewel-studded towers fell. Tarkar fell. The wondrous cities of the wheatlands fell, Stalaco, Calodemia, Mooros and Ninadoon crumbled in an inferno of gouting energy. Wedmah, Shilaal, Sinana all burned in a few hours.
In Necranal, the pastel-coloured city of the mountain, Iolinda died with some twenty millions of her citizens. And with the fall of Necranal our work was done.
Arjavh stood with me looking up at the smouldering mountainside which had been Necranal.
“For one woman’s wrath,” he said, “and another’s love, you did this?”
“You are wrong, Arjavh,” I said solemnly. “I did it for the only kind of peace that would have lasted.” I waved my hand at the rubble that was Necranal.
“I know my race too well. This Earth would have been forever rent by strife of some kind. I had to decide who best deserved to live. If they had destroyed the Eldren, then they would have fought among themselves for something. For empty things, too—for power over their fellows, for a bauble, for possession of a woman who didn’t want them.” I sighed.
“They never grew up, Arjavh, ancient as my race was. I’m driven to wonder if that is why the first humans came to Earth—because they had been exiled by others of their kind. Perhaps these weren’t representative of the whole. I think not.”
“It is done now,” Arjavh said. He gripped my arm, “Come friend, back to Mernadin—Ermizhad awaits you.”
I was an empty man, then, bereft of emotion. I followed him towards the river, drifting sluggishly now, choked with black dust.
“I think I did right,” I said. “It was not my will, you know, but something else. There are forces whose nature we shall never know, can only dream of. I think it was another will than mine which brought me to this age—not Rigenos. Rigenos, like me, was a puppet, a tool used, as I was used. It was doomed that Humanity should die on this planet.”
“It is better that you think that,” he said. “Come, now, let us go home.”
EPILOGUE
The scars of that destruction have healed now, as I end my chronicle. I returned to Loos Ptokai to wed Ermizhad, to have the secret of immortality conferred upon me, to brood for a year or two until my brain cleared.
It is clear, now. I feel no guilt about what I did. I feel more certain than ever that it was the decision of some Other.
So we are here, the three of us, Ermizhad, Arjavh and I. Arjavh is undisputed ruler of the Earth, an Eldren Earth, and we rule with him.
We cleansed this Earth of humankind—I am its last representative—and in doing so knitted this planet back into the pattern, allowed it to drift, at last, harmoniously with a harmonious universe. For the universe is old, perhaps even dying, and it could not tolerate the humans who broke its peace.
Did I do right?
It is too late for that question. I have sufficient control, nowadays, not to ask it, for I could not answer but in seeking to do so would destroy my own sanity.
One thing puzzles me. If, indeed, time is cyclic and the universe will be born again to turn another eternity, then Humanity will one day rise again, somehow, on this Earth and my adopted people will disappear from Earth, or seem to.
Ermizhad and I cannot bear children, so I am aware that I shall not be the father of your race.