Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [45]
The shock of confronting this new and more tangible figure jerked Slorg back into half-sanity and broken words sidled from his lips.
“Who are you? Aid me! I beg you, aid me!”
Elric laughed lightly. “Now why should I, my friend? Tell me that.”
“I have been—been profaned—I am Slorg. I was once a man—but those…” He rocked his body and flung his rolling head backwards, the curved lids falling down to cover his bulging eyes. “I have been profaned…”
Elric leaned forward on the pommel of his saddle and said lazily: “This is none of my business, Master Slorg.”
The great head darted forward, the eyes snapped open and Slorg’s long lips writhed over his teeth like a camel’s. “Address not me by a mundane title! I am Siletah Slorg—Siletah of Oberlorn—rightfully—rightfully.”
The title was unknown to Elric.
“My apologies, O Siletah,” he mocked, “for now I observe a man of rank.”
“A man no longer,” whispered Slorg and he began to sob. “Help me.”
“Are you, then, in danger?”
“Aye, danger—my kinsmen have set the Hungry Whisperers upon me; do you not hear them?”
And Elric cocked his head to listen. Yes, he heard sibilant voices now, “Where are you, morsel?”
“Oh, help me, help me,” begged Slorg and lurched towards Elric. The albino drew himself up and pulled his horse back.
“No closer,” he warned. “I am Elric of Melniboné.”
Slorg’s tattered face squeezed itself into a frown. “Ah, the name and the face,” he mumbled to himself, “the face and the name. Elric of Melniboné. Outcast!”
“Indeed,” smiled Elric, “but no more than you, it seems. Now I must bid you farewell and suggest, by way of friendly advice, that you compose yourself soon. It is better to die with dignity, Siletah Slorg.”
“I have powers, outcast of Melniboné—I have powers, still! Help me and I will tell you secrets—such secrets!”
Elric waved a disdainful hand. A moonbeam caught for an instant the flash of the rare Actorios ring which reposed on his finger. “If you know me, you should also know that I’m no merchant to bargain. I ask nothing and give nothing. Farewell!”
“I warn you, Elric—I have one power left. I can send you screaming from this place—into another. It is the power which Teshwan gives all his servants—it is the one he never takes back!”
“Why not send your hungry friends into this other place?”
“They are not human. But if you leave me, I shall lay my last enchantment upon you.”
Elric sighed. “Your last, perhaps, but not the last or the first to be laid upon me. Now I must go and search for a quieter place than this where I can sleep undisturbed.”
He turned his horse and his back on the shaking remnant of a man and rode away.
He heard Slorg calling again as he entered another part of the forest, untainted by the Siletah or those he had termed the Hungry Whisperers.
“Teshwan—return! Return to do me one last service—a deed of vengeance—a part of our bargain, Teshwan!”
A short time later Elric heard a thin, wailing scream come flowing out of the night behind him and then the whole forest seemed alive with horrible laughter. Satiated, triumphant, chuckling.
His mood altered by his encounter, Elric rode through the night, not caring to sleep, and came out of the forest in the morning, glad of the sight of the green plateau stretching ahead of him.
“Well,” he mused, “Teshwan disdained to aid Slorg and it seems there is no enchantment on me. I am half regretful. Now Slorg resides in the bellies of those he feared and his soul’s at home in Hell.”
Then the plateau changed quite suddenly to grey rock.
Swiftly Elric wheeled his horse. The plateau and the forest were behind him. He spurred his mount quickly forward and the plateau and forest faded away to leave a vast and lonely expanse of flat, grey stone. Above him the sun had disappeared and the sky was bright and white and cold.
“Now,” said Elric grimly into silence, “it seems I was wrong in my assumption.”
The plateau—its atmosphere—reminded him of another environment in which he had once found himself. Then he remembered