Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [7]
“Erekosë!” called the king, straining his eyes through the gloom as if he had seen me. “Erekosë—we pray.”
Then I experienced the dreadful pain which I suppose a woman to go through when bearing a child. A pain that seemed eternal and yet was intrinsically its own vanquisher. I was screaming, writhing in the air above them. Great spasms of agony—but an agony complete with purpose—the purpose of creation.
At last I was standing, materially, before them.
“I have come,” I said. “I am here, King Rigenos. I have left nothing worthwhile behind me—but do not let me regret that leaving.”
“You will not regret it, Champion.” He was pale, exhilarated, smiling. I looked at Iolinda who dropped her eyes modestly and then, as if against her will, raised them again to regard me. I turned to the dais on my right.
“My sword,” I said reaching for it.
I heard King Rigenos sigh with satisfaction.
“They are doomed, now, the dogs,” he said.
They had a sheath for the sword. It had been made days before. King Rigenos left to get it, leaving me alone with Iolinda. I did not question my being there and neither, it seemed, did she. We regarded one another silently until the king returned with the scabbard.
“This will protect us against your sword’s poison,” he said.
I took it, slid the sword into it. The scabbard was opaque, like glass. The metal was unfamiliar to me, as John Daker, light, sharp, dull as lead. Yet the feel of it awaked dim remembrance which I did not bother to arouse. Why was I the only one who could wear the sword without being affected by its radiation?
Was it because I was constitutionally different in some way to the rest of these people? Was it that the ancient Erekosë and the unborn John Daker (or was that vice versa?) had metabolisms which had become adapted in some way against the power which flowed from the sword?
I had become, in that transition from my own age to this, unconcerned. It was as if I was aware that my fate had been taken out of my own hands to a large extent. I had become a tool. If only I had known for what I should be used, then I might have fought against the pull and remained harmless, ineffectual John Daker. But perhaps I could not have fought.
At any rate, I was prepared from the moment I materialized in the Tomb of Erekosë to do whatever Fate demanded of me. Later, things were to change.
I walked out of the tomb into a calm day, warm with a light breeze blowing. We stood on a small hill.
Below us a caravan awaited—there were richly caparisoned horses and a guard of men dressed in that same golden armour I had seen in my dreams, but these warriors were fresher-looking.
The armour was fluted, embellished with raised designs, ornate and beautiful but, according to my sparse reading on the subject of armour, coupled with Erekosë’s stirring memory, totally unsuitable for war. The fluting and embossing acted as a trap to catch the point of a spear or sword, whereas armour should be made to turn a point. This armour, for all its beauty, acted more as an extra danger than a protection.
The guards were mounted on heavy war horses but the beasts that knelt awaiting us resembled a kind of camel out of which all the camel’s lumpen ugliness had been bred. These beasts were beautiful. On their high backs were cabins of ebony, ivory and mother-o’-pearl, curtained in scintillating silks.
We walked down the hill and, as we walked, I noticed that I was dressed in the pyjamas I had worn when first I went to bed. I was surprised, although they were not wholly incongruous, since the king’s garments were flowing and loose, but they seemed