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"We can survive this only a little longer, " said Ashnar the Lynx, moving close to Elric. "We shall be in no condition to meet the sorcerer if we ever find him or his sister."
Elric nodded a gloomy head. "My thoughts, too, yet what else may we do, Ashnar?"
"Nothing, " said Ashnar in a low voice. "Nothing."
"Where? Where? Where?" The word rustled all about them. Many of the party were becoming openly nervous.
V
They had reached the top of the passage. The querulous voice was much louder now, but it quavered more. They saw an archway and beyond the archway a lighted chamber.
"Agak's room, without doubt, " said Ashnar, taking a better grip on his sword.
"Possibly, " said Elric. He felt detached from his body. Perhaps it was the heat and the exhaustion, or his growing sense of disquiet, but something made him withdraw into himself and hesitate before entering the chamber.
The place was octagonal and each of its eight sloping sides was of a different color and each color changed constantly. Occasionally the walls became semitransparent, revealing a complete view of the ruined city (or collection of cities) far below, and also a view of the twin castle to this one, still co
It was the large pool in the center of the chamber which attracted their attention mostly. It seemed deep and was full of evil-smelling, viscous stuff. It bubbled. Shapes formed in it. Grotesque and strange, beautiful and familiar, the shapes seemed always upon the brink of taking permanent form before falling back into the stuff of the pool. And the voice was still louder and there was no question now that it came from the pool.
"What? What? Who invades?"
Elric forced himself closer to the pool and for a moment saw his own face staring out at him before it melted.
"Who invades? Ah! I am too weak! "
Elric spoke to the pool. "We are of those you would destroy, " he said. "We are those on whom you would feed."
"Ah! Agak! Agak! I am sick! Where are you?"
Ashnar and Brut joined Elric. The faces of the warriors were filled with disgust.
"Agak, " growled Ashnar the Lynx, his eyes narrowing. "At last some sign that the sorcerer is here! "
The others had all crowded in, to stand as far away from the pool as possible, but all stared, fascinated by the variety of the shapes forming and disintegrating in the viscous liquid.
"I weaken. . . . My energy needs to be replenished. . . . We must begin now, Agak. . . . It took us so long to reach this place. I thought I could rest. But there is disease here. It fills my body. Agak. Awaken, Agak. Awaken! "
"Some servant of Agak's, charged with the defense of the chamber?" suggested Mown Serpent-tamer in a small voice.
But Elric continued to stare into the pool as he began, he thought, to realize the truth.
"Will Agak wake?" Brut said. "Will he come?" He glanced nervously around him.
"Agak! " called Ashnar the Lynx. "Coward! "
"Agak! " cried many of the other warriors, brandishing their swords.
But Elric said nothing and he noted, too, that Hawkmoon and Corum and Erekosл all remained silent. He guessed that they must be filled with the same dawning understanding.
He looked at them. In Erekosл's eyes he saw an agony, a pity both for himself and his comrades.
"We are the Four Who Are One, " said Erekosл. His voice shook.
Elric was seized by an alien impulse, an impulse which disgusted and terrified him. "No. . . ." He attempted to sheathe Stormbringer, but the sword refused to enter its scabbard.
"Agak! Quickly! " said the voice from the pool.
"If we do not do this thing, " said Erekosл, "they will eat all our worlds. Nothing will remain."
Elric put his free hand to his head. He swayed upon the edge of that frightful pool. He moaned.
"We must do it, then." Corum's voice was an echo.
"I will not, " said Elric. "I am myself."
"And I! " said Hawkmoon.
But Corum Jhaelen Irsei said, "It is the only way for us, for the single thing that we are. Do you not see that? We are the only creatures of our worlds who possess the means of slaying the sorcerers-in the only ma
Elric looked at Corum, at Hawkmoon, at Erekosл, and again he saw something of himself in all of them.
"We are the Four Who Are One, " said Erekosл. "Our united strength is greater than the sum. We must come together, brothers. We must conquer here before we can hope to conquer Agak."
"No. . . ." Elric moved away, but somehow he found himself standing at a corner of the bubbling, noxious pool from which the voice still murmured and complained, in which shapes still formed, reformed, and faded. And at each of the other three corners stood one of his companions. All had a set, fatalistic look to them.
The warriors who had accompanied the Four drew back to the walls. Otto Blendker and Brut of Lashmar stood near the doorway, listening for anything which might come up the passage to the chamber. Ashnar the Lynx fingered the brand at his belt, a look of pure horror on his rugged features.
Elric felt his arm begin to rise, drawn upward by his sword, and he saw that each of his three companions were also lifting their swords. The swords reached out across the pool and their tips met above the exact center.
Elric yelled as something entered his being. Again he tried to break free, but the power was too strong. Other voices spoke in his head.
"I understand.. . ." This was Corum's distant murmur. "It is the only way."
"Oh, no, no. . . ." And this was Hawkmoon, but the words came from Elric's lips.
"Agak! " cried the pool. The stuff became more agitated, more alarmed. "Agak! Quickly! Wake! "
Elric's body began to shake, but his hand kept a firm hold upon the sword. The atoms of his body flew apart and then united again into a single flowing entity which traveled up the blade of the sword toward the apex. And Elric was still Elric, shouting with the terror of it, sighing with the ecstasy of it.
Elric was still Elric when he drew away from the pool and looked upon himself for a single moment, seeing himself wholly joined with his three other selves.
A being hovered over the pool. On each side of its head was a face and each face belonged to one of the companions. Serene and terrible, the eyes did not blink. It had eight arms and the arms were still; it squatted over the pool on eight legs, and its armor and accouterments were of all colors blending and at the same time separate.
The being clutched a single great sword in all eight hands and both he and the sword glowed with a ghastly golden light.
Then Elric had rejoined this body and had become a different thing-himself and three others and something else which was the sum of that union.
The Four Who Were One reversed its monstrous sword so that the point was directed downward at the frenetically boiling stuff in the pool below. The stuff feared the sword. It mewled.
"Agak, Agak...."
The being of whom Elric was a part gathered its great strength and began to plunge the sword down.
Shapeless waves appeared on the surface of the pool. Its whole color changed from sickly yellow to an unhealthy green. "Agak, I die...."
Inexorably the sword moved down. It touched the surface.
The pool swept back and forth; it tried to ooze over the sides and onto the floor. The sword bit deeper and the Four Who Were One felt new strength flow up the blade. There came a moan; slowly the pool quieted. It became silent. It became still. It became gray.
Then the Four Who Were One descended into the pool to be absorbed.
It could see clearly now. It tested its body. It controlled every limb, every function. It had triumphed; it had revitalized the pool. Through its single octagonal eye it looked in all directions at the same time over the wide ruins of the city; then it focused all its attention upon its twin.