Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [36]
“Tanelorn was the last of our cities,” said the Guardian. “Forgive us for judging you—most of the travelers who pass through this plane are searchers, restless, with no real purpose, only excuses, imaginary reasons for journeying on. You must love Tanelorn to brave the dangers of the gateways?”
“We do,” said Rackhir, “and I am grateful that you built her.”
“We built her for ourselves, but it is good that others have used her well—and she them.”
“Will you help us?” Rackhir said. “For Tanelorn?”
“We cannot—it is not lawful. Now, refresh yourselves and be welcome.”
The two travelers were given foods, both soft and brittle, sweet and sour, and drink which seemed to enter the pores of their skin as they quaffed it, and then the Guardian said: “We have caused a road to be made. Follow it and enter the next realm. But we warn you, it is the most dangerous of all.”
And they set off down the road that the Guardians had caused to be made and passed through the fourth gateway into a dreadful realm—the Realm of Law.
Nothing shone in the grey-lit sky, nothing moved, nothing marred the grey.
Nothing interrupted the bleak grey plain stretching on all sides of them, for ever. There was no horizon. It was a bright, clean wasteland. But there was a sense about the air, a presence of something past, something which had gone but left a faint aura of its passing.
“What dangers could be here?” said Rackhir shuddering. “Here where there is nothing?”
“The danger of the loneliest madness,” Lamsar replied. Their voices were swallowed in the grey expanse.
“When the Earth was very young,” Lamsar continued, his words trailing away across the wilderness, “things were like this—but there were seas, there were seas. Here there is nothing.”
“You are wrong,” Rackhir said with a faint smile. “I have thought—here there is Law.”
“That is true—but what is Law without something to decide between? Here is Law—bereft of justice.”
They walked on, all about them an air of something intangible that had once been tangible. On they walked through this barren world of Absolute Law.
Eventually, Rackhir spied something. Something that flickered, faded, appeared again until, as they neared it, they saw that it was a man. His great head was noble, firm, and his body was massively built, but the face was twisted in a tortured frown and he did not see them as they approached him.
They stopped before him and Lamsar coughed to attract his attention. The man turned that great head and regarded them abstractedly, the frown clearing at length, to be replaced by a calmer, thoughtful expression.
“Who are you?” asked Rackhir.
The man sighed. “Not yet,” he said, “not yet, it seems. More phantoms.”
“Are we the phantoms?” smiled Rackhir. “That seems to be more your own nature.” He watched as the man began slowly to fade again, his form less definite, melting. The body seemed to make a great heave, like a salmon attempting to leap a dam, then it was back again in a more solid form.
“I had thought myself rid of all that was superfluous, save my own obstinate shape,” the man said tiredly, “but here is something, back again. Is my reason failing—is my logic no longer what it was?”
“Do not fear,” said Rackhir, “we are material beings.”
“That is what I feared. For an eternity I have been stripping away the layers of unreality which obscure the truth. I have almost succeeded in the final act, and now you begin to creep back. My mind is not what it was, I think.”
“Perhaps you worry lest we do not exist?” Lamsar said slowly, with a clever smile.
“You know that is not so—you do not exist, just as I do not exist.” The frown returned, the features twisted, the body began, again, to fade, only to resume, once more, its earlier nature. The man sighed. “Even to reply to you is betraying myself, but I suppose a little relaxation will serve to rest my powers and equip me for the final effort of will which will bring me to the ultimate truth—the truth of non-being.