Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [69]
The shape shot towards Alexander’s corpse, sank down over it. The corpse jerked but then was still again. For an instant a face—the face Simon had seen at the Rites of Cotys in Pela—appeared.
“There will be others, never fear!” Ahriman said and vanished.
Abaris went over to Alexander’s corpse and made a pass over the wound. When Simon looked there was no sign of a wound.
“We’ll say he died of a fever,” Abaris said softly. “It was well known that he was ill. They will believe us—we will let the Chaldaeans speak in Babylon for they long ruled the people before Alexander’s coming.”
Simon said: “I knew that clean steel could end this matter for us.”
Abaris looked at him a trifle cynically.
“Without our magic to drive Ahriman out of Alexander’s body for the time you needed, you would never have succeeded.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
Abaris continued:
“That was the solution. Ahriman works through many people—but he needs a single human vessel if he is to carry out his Great Plan. Several have been born in the past—others will be born again. Fanatical conquerors who will set out to rule the world. Men with superhuman vitality, the power of dominating great masses of people and driving them to do that one man’s will. Yes, Ahriman—under whatever name he takes—will try again. That is certain.”
“Meanwhile,” Simon said as Camilla came up to him, “we have succeeded in halting Ahriman this time.”
“Who knows?” Abaris said. “History will show if we were in time or not.”
Simon said gravely: “I am not sure what Alexander, himself, was. He could have been a force for good or evil. He was something of both. But the evil gained ascendancy towards the end. Was I right to kill him? Could not his course have been turned so that the good in him could have continued his plan to unite the world in peace?”
“That may have been possible,” the priest said thoughtfully, “but we men set limits to our endeavours—it is easier that way. Perhaps, in time, we will not stop short but will learn to choose the harder paths and so achieve more positive results. As it is we strive merely to keep a balance. One day Alexander’s dream may be realized and the world united. Let us hope that the unity will be inspired by Ormuzd. Then it may be possible to build.”
Simon sighed and made his body relax.
“Meanwhile, as you say, we’ll strive for balance alone. Pray to Ormuzd, priest, and pray that men will one day cease to need their gods.”
“That day may come and, if I am right, the gods themselves will welcome it.”
Abaris bowed and left Simon and Camilla staring at one another. For a long time they remained so before embracing.
MASTER OF CHAOS
(EARL AUBEC)
At the world’s edge, the mists of Chaos swirled. Only a man whose weakness lay in his own strength could conquer the demons of Kaneloon.
—Cele Goldsmith, FANTASTIC STORIES OF IMAGINATION, May 1964
MASTER OF CHAOS
(Earl Aubec)
(1964)
FROM THE GLASSLESS window of the stone tower it was possible to see the wide river winding off between loose, brown banks, through the heaped terrain of solid green copses which blended very gradually into the mass of the forest proper. And out of the forest, the cliff rose, grey and light green, up and up, the rock darkening, lichen-covered, to merge with the lower, and even more massive, stones of the castle. It was the castle which dominated the countryside in three directions, drawing the eye from river, rock or forest. Its walls were high and of thick granite, with towers; a dense field of towers, grouped so as to shadow one another.
Aubec of Malador marveled and wondered how human builders could ever have constructed it, save by sorcery. Brooding and mysterious, the castle seemed to have a defiant air, for it stood on the very edge of the world.
At this moment the lowering sky cast a strange, deep yellow light against the western sides of the towers, intensifying the blackness untouched by it. Huge billows of blue sky rent the general racing greyness above, and mounds of red cloud crept through to blend and produce more and subtler colourings.