Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [47]
“Your masters, I gather, know me—for they aided their servant Slorg in sending me hither. But tell them it is Elric of Melniboné, nonetheless—Elric, destroyer of dreaming Imrryr. Kinslayer and outcast. They will know me.”
The giant appeared to shrink, to solidify and then to drift in a red mist, pouring like sentient smoke away from the portal and into the palace. And where he had been a portcullis manifested itself to guard the palace in the giant’s absence.
Elric waited patiently until at length the portcullis vanished and the giant re-formed himself.
“My masters order me to inform you that you may enter but that, having once come to the Palace of Kaneloon, you may never leave save under certain conditions.”
“Those conditions?”
“Of these they will tell you if you enter. Are you reckless—or will you stand pondering?”
“I’ll avail myself of their generosity,” smiled Elric and spurred his nervous horse forward.
As he entered the courtyard, it appeared that the area within the palace was greater than that outside it. Not troubling to seek any mundane explanation for this phenomenon in a world dominated by the Lords of Chaos, Elric instead dismounted from his horse and walked for nearly a quarter of a mile until he reached the entrance of the main building. He climbed the steps swiftly and found himself in a vast hall which had walls of shifting flame.
In the glow from the fiery walls, there sat at a table at the far end of the hall nine men—or at least, men or not, they had assumed the form of men. Different in facial characteristics, they all had the same sardonic air. In the centre of these nine was the one who had first addressed Elric. He leaned forward and spoke words carefully from his red lips.
“Greetings to you, mortal,” he said. “You are the first for some time to sit with the Lords of Chaos at the Time of the Change. Behold—there are others who have had the privilege.”
A rent appeared in the wall of flame to disclose some thirty frozen human figures, some men and some women. They were petrified in positions of many kinds, but all had madness and terror in their eyes—and they were still alive, Elric knew.
He lifted his head.
“I would not be so impertinent, my lords, as to set myself beside you all insofar as powers are concerned, but you know that I am Elric of Melniboné and that my race is old; my deficient blood is the royal blood of the kings of the Dreaming City. I have little pity or sentiment of any kind within me, for sentiment, whether love or hate, has served me badly in the past. I do not know what you require of me, and I thank you for your hospitality nonetheless, but I believe that I can conduct myself better in most ways than can any other mortal.”
“Let us hope so, Elric of Melniboné, for we would not wish you to fail, know that. Besides, you are not fully mortal as humans understand the word. Now, know you that I be Teshwan, and these need not be named and may be addressed singly or collectively by the name of Lords of Chaos.”
Elric bowed politely. “Lord Teshwan—my Lords of Chaos.”
They returned his bow by slightly inclining their heads and broadening a trifle their sardonic, crooked smiles.
“Come,” said Teshwan briskly, “sit here beside me and I will inform you of what we expect. You are more favoured than others have been, Elric, and, in truth, I welcomed the opportunity given me by my vengeful servant Slorg before he died.”
Elric climbed upon the dais and seated himself in the chair which appeared beside Teshwan. About him the walls of flame soared and tumbled, mumbled and roared. Sometimes shadow engulfed them, sometimes they were bathed in light. For a while they all sat in silence, pondering.
At last Teshwan spoke.
“Now,” he said decisively. “Here’s the situation in which we have decided to place you. You may leave only if you can create something which it has never occurred to us to create.”
“But you, surely, are the Masters of Creation?” said Elric in puzzlement. “How may I do this?”
“Your first statement is not strictly true and in qualifying it