Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [46]
Teshwan was a Lord of Chaos.
Hastily Elric pulled his runesword Stormbringer from its thick scabbard.
The sword was dead.
Normally the blade, forged by unhuman smiths for Elric’s royal ancestors, was alive with sentience—throbbing with the life-force it had stolen from a hundred men and women whom Elric had slain. Once before it had been like this—in the Caverns of Chaos long ago.
Elric tightened his lips, then shrugged as he replaced the sword in its scabbard.
“In a world completely dominated by the forces of Chaos,” he said, “I cannot rely on the powers which normally aid me in my sorcery. Thank Arioch I have a good supply of drugs about me, or I would indeed be doomed.”
In earlier times Elric had relied on his soul-stealing runesword to give him the energy which, as an albino, he lacked intrinsically, but recently he had rediscovered a cleaner way of counteracting his deficiency, by taking herbs he had discovered in the Forest of Troos where many unlikely things grew, both flora and fauna.
“By my father’s plague-infested bones,” he swore, “I must find a way off this granite plain and discover who, if anyone, rules in this world. I have heard of the powers invested in Teshwan’s worshippers—and I seem to remember a hint of why the Lords of Chaos confer such peculiar talents upon them.”
He shuddered.
He began to sing an ululating hate-song of old Melniboné. Elric’s ancestors had been clever haters. And on he rode beneath the sunless sky.
He could not tell how much time had passed before he saw the figure standing out strongly against the featureless horizon.
Now on the flat waste of stone there were two points at which the monotony was broken.
Elric—white, black and scarlet on a grey gelding.
The morose man, black hair lying like a coat of lacquer on his rounded skull, dressed in green, a silver sword dangling in his right hand.
Elric approached the man who raised his eyes to regard the albino.
“This is a lonely place,” said the stranger, sucking at his fleshy cheeks, and he stared at the ground again.
“True,” replied Elric halting his horse. “Is this your world or were you sent here, also?”
“Oh, it’s my world,” said the man, without looking up. “Where are you bound?”
“For nowhere, seeking something. Where do you journey?”
“I—oh, I go to Kaneloon for the Rites, of course.”
“All things, it is said, are possible in the World of Chaos,” Elric murmured, “and yet this place seems unusually barren.”
The man looked up suddenly, and jerking his lips into a smile, laughed sharply.
“The Rites will alter that, stranger. Did you not know that this is the Time of the Change, when the Lords of Chaos rest before re-forming the world into a fresh variety of patterns?”
“I did not know that,” said Elric. “I have come here only recently.”
“You wish to stay?”
“No.”
“The Lords of Chaos are fickle. If you wished to stay they might not let you. Now that you are resolved to leave, they might keep you here. Farewell. You will find me therein!” He lifted his sword and pointed. A great palace of greenstone appeared at once. The man vanished.
“This, at least, will save me from boredom,” Elric said philosophically, and rode towards the palace.
The many-pinnacled building towered above him, its highest points hazy and seeming to possess many forms, shifting as if blown by a wind. At the great arch of the entrance a giant, semi-transparent, with a red, scintillating skin, blocked his way. Over the archway, as if hanging in the air above the giant’s proud head, was the Symbol of Chaos, a circle which produced many arrows pointing in all directions.
“Who visits the Palace of Kaneloon at the Time of the Change?” enquired the giant in a