Stormbringer

And in his mind as he rode, he seemed to hear Zarozinia's youthful voice whispering comforting words as, still sobbing, he galloped away from the camp of Chaos.

BOOK FOUR 

Doomed Lord's Passing

For the mind of Man alone is free to explore the lofty vastness of the cosmic infinite, to transcend ordinary consciousness, to roam the secret corridors of the brain where past and future melt into one... And universe and individual are tinted, the one mirrored in the other, and each contains the other.

-The Chronicle of the Black Sword

One

The dreaming city no longer dreamed in splendour. The tat: tend towers of Imrryr were blackened husks, tumbled rags of masonry standing sharp and dark against a sullen sky. Once, Elric's vengeance had brought fire to the city, and the fire had brought ruin.

Streaks of cloud, like sooty smoke, whispered across the pulsing mm so that the shouting, red-stained waters beyond Imrryr were soiled by shadow, and they seemed to become quieter as if bushed by the black scan that rode across their ominous turbulence.

Upon a confusion of fallen masonry, a man stood watching the waves. A tall man' broad-shouldered, slender at hip, a man with slanting brows, pointed, lobeless ears, high cheekbones and crimson, moody eyes In a dead white ascetic face. He was dressed in black, quilted doublet and heavy cloak, both high-collared, emphasising the pallor of his albino kin. The wind, erratic and warm, played with his cloak, fingered it and passed mindlessly on to howl through the broken towers.

Elric heard the howling and his memory was filled by the sweet, the malicious and melancholy melodies of old Melnibone. He remembered, too, the other music his ancestors had created when they had elegantly tortured their slaves, choosing them for the pitch of their screams and forming them into the instruments of unholy symphonies. Lost in this nostalgia for a while, he found something dose to forgetfulness and he wished that he had never doubted The code of Melnibone, wished that he had accepted it without question and thus left his mind unsundered. Bitterly, he smiled.

A figure appeared below him and climbed the tumbled stones to stand by his side. He was a small, red-haired man with a wide mouth and eyes that had once been bright and amused.

«You look to the East, Elric.» Moonglum murmured. «You look back towards something irremediable.»

Elric put his long-fingered hand on his friend»s shoulder. «Where else is there to look, Moonglum, when the world lies beneath the heel of Chaos? What would you have me do? Look forward to days of hope and laughter, to an old age lived in peace, with children playing around my feet?» He laughed softly. It was not a laugh that Moonglum liked to hear.

«Sepiriz spoke of help from the White Lords. It must come soon. We must wait patiently.» Moonglum turned to squint into the glowering and motionless sun and then, his face set in an introspective look, cast his eyes down to the rubble on which he stood.

Elric was silent for a moment, watching the waves. Then he shrugged. «Why complain? It does me no good. I ca

«Ah, » Moonglum winked with attempted levity, «thus speaks the wild adventurer, the cynic. But we are not all wild and cynical, Elric. Other men tread other paths-and reach other conclusions than yours.»

«I tread one that’s pre-ordained. Come, lets to the Dragon Caves and see what Dyvim Slorm has done to rouse our reptilian friends.»

They stumbled together down the ruins and walked the shattered canyons that had once been the lovely streets of Imrryr. out of the city and along a grassy track not wound through the gorse, disturbing a flock of large ravens that fled into the air, cawing, all save one, the king, who balanced himself on a bush, his cloak of ruffled feathers drawn up in dignity, his black eyes regarding them with wary contempt.

Down through sharp rocks to the gaping entrance of the Dragon Caves, down the steep steps into torch-Ht darkness with its damp warmth and smell of scaly reptilian bodies. Into the first cave where the great recumbent forms of the sleeping dragons lay, their folded leathery wings rising into the shadows, their green and black scales glowing faintly, their clawed feet folded and their slender snouts curled back, even in sleep, to display the long, ivory teeth that seemed like so many white stalactites. Their dilating red nostrils groaned in torpid slumber. The smell of their hides and their breath was unmistakable, rousing in Moonglum some memory inherited from his ancestors, some shadowy impression of a time when these dragons and their masters swept across a world they ruled, their inflammable venom dripping from their fangs and heedlessly setting fire to the countryside across which they flew. Elric, used to it, hardly noticed the smell, but passed on through the first cave and the second until he found Dyvim Slorm, striding about with a torch in one hand and a scroll in the other, swearing to himself.

He looked up as he heard their booted feet approach. He spread out his arms and shouted, his voice echoing through the caverns, «Nothing! Not a stir, not an eyelid flickering! There is no way of rousing them. They'll not wake until they have slept their necessary number of years. Oh, that we had not used them on the last two occasions, for we have greater need of them today! »

«Neither you nor I had the knowledge we have now. Regret is useless since it can achieve nothing.» Elric stared around him at the huge, shadowy forms. Here, slightly apart from the rest, lay the leader-dragon, one he recognised and felt affection for: Flamefang, the eldest, who was five thousand years old and still young for a dragon. But Flamefang, like the rest, slept on.

He went up to the beast and stroked its metal-like scales, ran his hand down the ivory smoothness of its great front fangs, felt its warm breath on his body and smiled. Beside him, on his hip, he heard Stormbringer murmur. He patted the blade. «Here's one soul you ca

Dyvim Slorm said from another part of tile cavern: «I can't think of further action to take for the meantime, Brie. Let's go back to the tower of D'a'rputna and refresh ourselves.»

Elric nodded assent and, together, the three men returned through the caverns and ascended the steps into the sunlight.

«So, » Dyvim Slorm remarked, «still no nightfall. The sun has remained in that position for thirteen days, ever since we left the Camp of Chaos and made our perilous way to Melnibone. How much power must Chaos wield if it can top the sun in its course?»

«Chaos might not have done this for all we know, » Moonglum pointed out. «Though it's likely, of course, that if did. Time has stopped. Time waits… But waits for what? More confusion, further disorder? Or the influence of the great balance which will restore order and take vengeance against those forces who have gone against its will? Or does Time wait for us - three mortal men adrift, cut off from what is happening to all other men, waiting on Time as it waits on us?»