Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [44]
Sorana, the contents to which he’d referred, looked anxious as if she had rather been transfixed on the prongs of Friagho’s trident. Friagho said: “Very well, Red Archer—there are plenty more people on the land.” He pulled at the net to release her.
She stood up shakily, looking at Rackhir apprehensively.
Rackhir smiled quite softly and said: “Come here, Sorana.” She went to him and stood staring up at his bony hawk’s face, her eyes wide. With a laugh he picked her up and flung her over his shoulder.
“Tanelorn is safe!” he shouted. “You shall learn to love its peace with me!” And he began to clamber down the trailing ladders that the Boatmen had dropped over the side.
Lamsar waited for him below. “I go now, to my hermitage again.”
“I thank you for your aid,” said Rackhir. “Without it Tanelorn would no longer exist.”
“Tanelorn will always exist while men exist,” said the hermit. “It was not a city you defended today. It was an ideal. That is Tanelorn.”
And Lamsar smiled.
THE LAST ENCHANTMENT
(JESTING WITH CHAOS)
The albino warrior Elric is the last of the emperors of Melniboné, a dying kingdom. A grim, melancholy man, he wanders in exile from land to land, adventure to adventure, accompanied by his demon sword Stormbringer and his own haunted dreams.
—Thomas Durwood, ARIEL: THE BOOK OF FANTASY Vol. 3, 1978
THE LAST ENCHANTMENT
(JESTING WITH CHAOS)
(written 1962)
THROUGH THE BLUE and hazy night ran a shuddering man. He clutched terror to him, his bloated eyes full of blood. First behind him and then seemingly ahead of him came the hungry chuckles, the high whispered words.
“Here toothsome. Here sweetmeat.”
He swerved in another direction, moaning. Like a huge husk he was, like a hollow ornament of thin bone, with his great, rolling head swaying on his shoulders resembling a captive balloon, the wet cavern of his wide mouth fully open and gasping, the yellow spikes of teeth clashing in his head.
Awkwardly he ran, sometimes scuttling like a wounded spider, sometimes lurching, mooing to himself through the tall and ancient forest, his feet sinking into the carpet of wet, pungent bracken and rotting roots. He held in his hand, that long, white, metal-coloured claw, a glowing black talisman, held it out and cried:
“Oh Teshwan—aid me, Teshwan. Aid me…”
In the sluggish brew that was the contents of his rolling skull a few words swam to the surface and seemed to lie there, moving with the tide of his mind. And the voice which spoke them was sardonic: “How can Teshwan aid thee, little mortal?”
But this relic of disoriented flesh could not form a coherent thought; could not answer save to scream its fear. So Teshwan took his presence away and it was left to the horseman to find the horror-crazed man.
Elric of Melniboné heard the voice and recognized the name. He sensed other, more ominous, denizens lurking about him in the forest.
Moodily he curled his hands about the reins of his mount and jerked its head, guiding it in the direction of the screams. He only casually considered aiding the man and he rode his horse towards him more from curiosity than anything. Elric was untroubled by the terrors that the forest held, regarding them as another, more normal man might regard the omnipresent song of birds and the rustle of small rodents in the undergrowth.
Great tremblings shuddered through Slorg’s ruined body and he still heard the sharp whisperings. Were they carried on the air or were they slithering about in his jellied brain?
He gasped as he turned and saw the white-faced horseman riding like a grim, handsome god into the moon-glazed glade.
The horseman’s long, sharply delineated skull was leper-white, as if stripped of flesh, and his slightly slanting eyes gleamed crimson. He wore a jerkin of black velvet caught at the throat by a thin silver chain. His britches, too, were of black cloth, and his leather boots were high and shining. Over his shoulders was a high-collared cape of scarlet and a heavy longsword slapped at his side as he pulled his steed to a standstill. His