Stormbringer - Michael Moorcock [21]
Elric shook his head quickly. "I do not understand you, still. I would not understand you if I could. I desire only the return of my wife—not baffling conundrums!"
Darnizhaan laughed again. "No! You shall not have the woman unless we are given control of the swords. You do not realise their properties. They were not only designed to destroy us or exile us—their destiny is to destroy the world as we know it. If you retain them, Elric, you will be responsible for wiping out your own memory for those who come after you."
"I'd welcome that," Elric said.
Dyvim Slorm remained silent, not altogether in sympathy with Elric. The Dead God's argument seemed to contain truth.
Darnizhaan shook his body so that the golden light danced and its area widened momentarily. "Keep the swords and all of us will be as we had never existed," he said impatiently.
"So be it," Elric's tone was stubborn, "do you think I wish the memory to live on—the memory of evil, ruin and destruction? The memory of a man with deficient blood in his veins—a man called Friendslayer, Woman-slayer and many other such names?"
Darnizhaan spoke urgently, almost in terror. "Elric, you have been duped! Somewhere you have been given a conscience. You must join with us. Only if the Lords of Chaos can establish their reign will we survive. If they fail, we shall be obliterated!"
"Good!"
"Limbo, Elric. Limbo! Do you understand what that means?"
"I do not care. Where is my wife?"
Elric blocked the truth from his mind, blocked out the terror in the meaning of the Dead God's words. He could not afford to listen or fully to comprehend. He must save Zarozinia.
"I have brought the swords," said he, "and wish my wife to be returned to me."
"Very well," the Dead God smiled hugely in his relief. "At least if we keep the blades, in their true shape, beyond the earth, we may be able to retain control of the world. In your hands they could destroy not only us but you, your world, all that you represent. Beasts would rule the earth for millions of years before the age of intelligence began again. And it would be a duller age than this. We do not wish it to occur. But if you had kept the swords, it would have come about almost inevitably!"
"Oh, be silent!" Elric cried. "For a god, you talk too much. Take the swords—and give me back my wife!"
At the Dead God's command, some of the acolytes scampered away. Elric saw their gleaming bodies disappear into the darkness. He waited nervously until they returned, carrying the struggling body of Zarozinia. They set her on the ground and Elric saw that her face bore the blank look of shock.
"Zarozinia!"
The girl's eyes roamed about before they saw Elric. She began to move towards him, but the acolytes held her back, giggling.
Darnizhaan stretched forward two gigantic, glowing hands.
"The swords first."
Elric and Dyvim Slorm put them into his hands. The Dead God straightened up, clutching his prizes and roaring his mirth. Zarozinia was now released and she ran forward to grasp her husband's hand, weeping and trembling. Elric leant down and stroked her hair, too disturbed to say anything.
Then he turned to Dyvim Slorm, shouting: "Let us see if our plan will work, cousin!"
Elric stared up at Stormbringer writhing in Darnizhaan's grasp. "Stormbringer! Kerana soliem, o'glara . . ."
Dyvim Slorm also called to Mournblade in the Ancient Tongue of Melniboné, the mystic, sorcerous tongue which had been used for rune-casting and demon-raising all through Melniboné's twenty thousand years of history.
Together, they commanded the blades, as if they were actually wielding them in their hands, so that merely by shouting orders, Elric and Dyvim Slorm began their work. This was the remembered quality of both blades when paired in a common fight. The blades twisted in Darnizhaan's glowing hands. He started backwards, his shape faltering, sometimes manlike, sometimes beastlike, sometimes totally alien. But he was evidently horrified, this god.
Now the swords wrenched themselves from the clutching