Stormbringer - Michael Moorcock [36]
"Well, Elric," said Arioch, the leader, softly. "Would you repent and return to us?"
The voice was silvery in its beauty, and Elric half-made to dismount; but then he clapped his hands to his ears, the runesword hanging by its wrist-thong, and cried: "No! No! I must do what I must! Your time, like mine, is over!"
"Do not speak thus, Elric," Balan said persuasively, "our rule has hardly begun. Soon the earth and all its creatures will be part of the realm of Chaos and a wild and splendid era will begin!" His words passed Elric's hands and whispered in his skull. "Chaos has never been so powerful on earth—not even in earliest days. We shall make you great. We shall make you a Lord of Chaos, equal to ourselves! We give you immortality, Elric. If you behave so foolishly, you will bring yourself only death, and none shall remember you."
"I know that! I would not wish to be remembered in a world ruled by Law!"
Maluk laughed softly. "That will never come to pass. We block every move that Law makes to try to bring help to earth."
"And that is why you must be destroyed!" Elric cried.
"We are immortal—we can never be slain!" Arioch said, and there was a tinge of impatience in his voice.
"Then I shall send you back to Chaos in such a way that you shall never have power on earth again!"
Elric swung his runeblade into his hand and it trembled there, moaning quietly, as if unsure of itself, just as he was.
"See!" Balan walked part-way down the steps. "See—even your trusted sword knows that we speak truth!"
"You speak a sort of truth," Moonglum said in a quavering tone, astonished at his own bravery. "But I remember something of a greater truth—a law that should bind both Chaos and Law—the Law of the Balance. That balance is held over the earth and it has been ordained that Chaos and Law must keep it straight. Sometimes the balance tips one way, sometimes another—and thus are the ages of the earth created. But an unequal balance of this magnitude is wrong. In your struggling, you of Chaos may have forgotten this?"
"We have forgotten it for good reason, mortal. The balance has tipped to such an extent in our favour that it is no longer adjustable. We triumph!"
Elric used this pause to collect himself. Sensing his renewed strength, Stormbringer responded with a confident purr.
The dukes also sensed it and glanced at one another.
Arioch's beautiful face flared with anger and his pseudo-body glided down the steps towards Elric, his fellow dukes following.
Elric's steed backed away a few paces.
A bolt of living fire appeared in Arioch's hand and it shot towards the albino. He felt cold pain in his chest and he staggered in the saddle.
"Your body is unimportant, Elric. But think of a similar blow to your soul!" The facade of patience was dropping from Arioch.
Elric flung back his head and laughed. Arioch had betrayed himself. If he had remained calm, he would have had a greater advantage, but now he showed himself perturbed, whatever he had said to the contrary.
"Arioch, you aided me in the past, aided me to live. You will regret that!"
"There's still time to undo my folly, upstart man!" Another bolt came streaking towards him, but he passed Stormbringer before it and, in relief, saw that it deflected the unholy weapon.
But against such might they were certainly doomed, unless they could invoke some supernatural aid. But Elric dared not risk summoning his runesword's brothers. Not yet. He must think of some other means. As he retreated before the searing bolts, Moonglum, behind him, whispering almost impotent charms, he thought of the vulture-lions he had sent back to Chaos. Perhaps he could recall them—for a different purpose.
The spell was fresh in his mind, requiring a slightly changed mental state and scarcely changed wording. Calmly, mechanically deflecting the bolts of the dukes, whose features had changed hideously to retain their previous beauty but take on an increasingly malevolent look, he uttered