Vanishing Tower - Michael Moorcock [52]
Prince Corum's face was eager. "You know where Tanelorn lies?"
"In my own world, aye—but why should it lie in this one?"
"Tanelorn lies in all planes, though in different guises. There is one Tanelorn and it is eternal with many forms."
They were riding through the gentle forest along a narrow track.
Elric accepted what Corum said. There was a dreamlike quality about his presence here and he decided that he must regard all events here as he would regard the events in a dream. "Where go we now?" he asked casually. "To the castle?"
Corum shook his head. "First we must have the Third Hero—the Many-named Hero."
"And will you summon him with sorcery, too?"
"I was told not. I was told that he would meet us—drawn from whichever Age he exists in by the necessity to complete the Three Who Are One."
"And what mean these phrases? What is the Three Who Are One?"
"I know little more than you, friend Elric, save that it will need all three of us to defeat him who holds my guide prisoner."
"Aye," murmured Elric feelingly, "and it will need more than that to save my Tanelorn from Theleb K'aarna's reptiles. Even now they must march against the city."
Chapter Four
The Vanishing Tower.
The road widened and left the forest to wander among the heather of high and hilly moorland country. Far away to the west they could see cliffs, and beyond the cliffs was the deeper blue of the ocean. A few birds circled in the wide sky. It seemed a particularly peaceful world and Elric could hardly believe that it was under attack from the forces of Chaos. As they rode Corum explained that his gauntlet was not a gauntlet at all, but the hand of an alien being, grafted on to his arm, just as his eye was an alien eye which could see into a terrifying netherworld from which Corum could bring aid if he chose to do so.
"All you tell me makes the complicated sorceries and cosmologies of my world seem simple in comparison," Elric smiled as they crossed the peaceful landscape.
"It only seems complicated because it is strange," Corum said. "Your world would doubtless seem incomprehensible to me if I were suddenly flung into it. Besides," he laughed, "this particular plane is not my world, either, though it resembles it more than do many. We have one thing in common, Elric, and that is that we are both doomed to play a role in the constant struggle between the Lords of the Higher Worlds—and we shall never understand why that struggle takes place, why it is eternal. We fight, we suffer agonies of mind and soul, but we are never sure that our suffering is worthwhile."
"You are right," Elric said feelingly. "We have much in common, you and I, Corum."
Corum was about to reply when he saw something on the road ahead. It was a mounted warrior. He sat perfectly still as if he awaited them. "Perhaps this is the Third of whom Bolorhiag spoke."
Cautiously, they rode forward.
The man they approached stared at them from a brooding face. He was as tall as them, but bulkier. His skin was jet black and he wore upon his head and shoulders the stuffed head and pelt of a snarling bear. His plate armour was also black, without insignia, and at his side was a great black-hilted sword in a black scabbard. He rode a massive roan stallion and there was a heavy round shield attached to the back of his saddle. As Elric and Corum came closer the man's handsome negroid features assumed an astonished expression and he gasped.
"I know you! I know you both!"
Elric, too, felt he recognised the man, just as he had noticed something familiar in Corum's features.
"How came you here to Balwyn Moor, friend?" Corum asked him.
The man looked about him as if in a daze. "Balwyn Moor? This is Balwyn Moor? I have been here but a few moments. Before that I was—I was . . . Ah! The memory starts to fade again." He pressed a large hand to his forehead. "A name—another name! No more! Elric! Corum! But I—I am now . . ."
"How do you know our names?" Elric asked him. A mood of dread had seized the albino. He felt that he should not ask these questions, that he should