Stormbringer - Michael Moorcock [66]
Dyvim Slorm replaced his bowl upon the table. "We'll accompany you, of course."
"No need—and anyway impossible—I'll have to go alone. Wait for me until I return and if I do not—well, you must do what you decide, spending your remaining years imprisoned on this isle, or going to battle with Chaos."
"I have the idea that time has stopped in truth and if we stay here we shall live on forever and shall be forced to face the resulting boredom," Moonglum put in. "If you don't return, I for one will ride into the conquered realms to take a few of our enemies with me to limbo."
"As you will," Elric said. "But wait for me until all your patience is ended, for I know not how long I'll be."
He stood up and they seemed a trifle startled, as if they had not until then understood the import of his words.
"Fare you well, then, my friend," said Moonglum.
"How well I fare depends on what I meet where I go," Elric smiled. "But thanks, Moonglum. Fare you well, good cousin, do not fret. Perhaps we'll wake the dragons yet!"
"Aye," Dyvim Slorm said with a sudden resurgence of vitality, "We shall, we shall! And their fiery venom will spread across the filth that Chaos brings, burning it clean! That day must come or I'm no prophet at all!"
Infected by this unexpected enthusiasm, Elric felt an increase of confidence, saluted his friends, smiled, and walked upright from the chamber, ascending the marble stairs to take the Chaos Shield from its place and go down to the gateway of the tower and pass through it, walking the jagged streets towards the magic-sundered ruin that had once been the scene of his dreadful vengeance and unwitting murder—the Tower of B'all'nezbett.
Three
Now, as Elric stood before the broken entrance of the tower, his mind was beset with bursting thoughts which fled about his skull, made overtures to his convictions and threatened to send him hopelessly back to rejoin his companions. But he fought them, forced them down, forgot them, clung to his remembrance of the White Lord's assurance and passed into the shadowed shell which still had the smell of burnt wood and fabric about its blackened interior.
This tower, which had formed a funeral pyre for the murdered corpse of his first love Cymoril and his warped cousin, her brother Yyrkoon, had been gutted of innards. Only the stone stairway remained and that, he noted, peering into the gloom through which rays of sunlight slanted, had collapsed before it reached the roof.
He dare not think, for thought might rob him of action. Instead, he placed a foot upon the first stair and began to climb. As he did so, a faint sound entered his ears, or it may have been that it came from within his mind. However it reached his consciousness, it sounded like a far-away orchestra tuning itself. As he climbed higher, the sound mounted, rhythmic yet discordant, until, by the time he reached the final step still left intact, it thundered through his skull, pounded through his body producing a sensation of dull pain.
He paused and stared downward to the tower's floor far below. Fears beset him. He wondered whether Lord Donblas had intended him to climb to the highest point he could easily reach, or the actual point which was still some twenty feet above, him. He decided it was best to take the White Lord literally and swinging the great Chaos Shield upon his back, reached above him and got his fingers into a crack in the wall, which now sloped gently inwards. He heaved himself up, his legs dangling and his feet seeking a hold. He had always been troubled by heights and disliked the sensation that came to him as he glanced down to the rubble-laden floor, eighty feet below, but he continued to climb and the climbing was made easier by the fissures in the tower's wall. Though he