Revenge of the Rose (21 page)

 
          
“But
the Rose and the boy are dead.”

 
          
“I
said I did not know where they were, not that they were dead …” It was
clear she feared the worst but was refusing to admit it.

 
          
Elric
did not pursue the subject. He knew what it was like to live with grief.

 
          
And
on sailed the Chaos ship, into the slow silence of the Heavy Sea, with the
croaking of the great toad and the voice of the navigator the only sounds to
cut through the swampy air.

 
          
That
night they dropped anchor and all but Gaynor retired. The damned prince strode
the deck with a steady pace, almost in rhythm with the languid waves, and
occasionally Elric, who could not sleep but had no wish to join Gaynor on deck,
heard the creature cry out as if startled. “Who’s there?”

 
          
Elric
wondered what kind of denizens occupied the Heavy Sea. Were there others, like
the toad but of a more malevolent disposition?

 
          
At
Gaynor’s third cry, he got to his feet, pulling on some clothes, his scabbarded
sword in his hand. Wheldrake, too, was disturbed, but merely raised himself up
in his bunk and murmured a question.

 
          
Out
into the salty miasma went Elric, seeking the source of Gaynor’s shout. Then he
saw, looming over the port rail, the bulk of what could only be some kind of
ship. A tall, wooden construction—a kind of castellated tower from which were
already swinging half-a-dozen figures, all of them armed with long, savage
pikes and flenchers—brutal weapons, but effective in this kind of fighting.

 
          
But
not, reflected Elric with a certain humour, as effective as a black runesword.

 
          
And
with that he dragged the hellblade from its scabbard and ran on bare feet along
the deck to greet the first of the pirates as they dropped aboard the ship.

 
          
Above
them, on the foredeck, the navigator appeared for a moment, glaring upward and
moving with an odd series of leaps back into the rigging. “Dramian
Toad-hunters!” he cried to Elric. “They’re after our guide! We are dead without
it!”

 
          
Then
the navigator had disappeared again and the first of the hunters stabbed at
Elric with the jagged points of his pike—

 
          
—and
died almost without realizing it, wriggling like a speared fish as his soul was
sucked into the blade …

 
          
Stormbringer
seemed to purr with pleasure. The sword’s song grew louder, greedier as one by
one the hunters went down.

 
          
Elric,
used to supernatural foes, stood amongst the growing pile of corpses like a
farmer scything hay on a pleasant summer’s day and it was left to Charion and
the crew to finish off the few who now tried desperately to get back to their
ship …

 
          
 … But
Elric was ahead of them, clambering up one of their own lines as a hunter
desperately tried to saw at it with his pike. Elric reached the hunter before
the rope was sheared and he drove the sword deep through the man’s breastbone,
watching him writhe. The hunter tried to keep his hold on the rope, then
grasped the blade itself with both hands, as the sword relished its gradual
feasting on the rich marrow of his soul. He tried to push himself off the
sword, to cast himself into the dark water that now showed between the two
ships, and on an impulse Elric released his grip on Stormbringer and watched
with a sense of profound calm as sword and victim went plunging downwards.
Weaponless, he continued his climb up the rope, swinging over the crenelations
to discover that the bulky forward tower belonged to a vessel of singular
slimness. It was a ship designed to race upon the surface of this peculiar
ocean. Elric could see large outriggers, like the limbs of some huge
water-insect, curving into the darkness.

 
          
And
then, from a hatch in the deck, came more of the hunters, all armed with
flenchers and grinning with the prospect of their butchery. Elric cursed
himself for a fool and backed away from them, his eyes searching for some means
of escape.

 
          
The
hunters had the look of men who intended to enjoy their work. The first made an
experimental swing with his flencher. The broad, curved blade whistled in the
sultry air.

 
          
They
were almost upon Elric when the albino heard a deep growling from somewhere
over his head and thought the toad had climbed the tower undetected. But what
he saw instead was a great snarling dog, silvery in the darkness, springing for
the throat of the nearest hunter and tearing at it until it was nothing more
than bloody meat, glaring up with a triumphant flaring of its nostrils as the
other hunters fled. Elric did not care at that moment where his rescuer had
come from. He merely thanked the animal and glanced down onto the deck to see
how his companions fared. He saw Charion finishing off an adversary and lifting
her lovely head in a high, ululating note.

 
          
The
few hunters who still lived ran for the sides in blind panic; for now, over the
starboard rail, its lips smacking and its eyes gleaming, breathing with
wheezing slowness, crawled the toad they had sought to capture for themselves.
The dog had vanished.

 
          
Khorghakh
hesitated once he was aboard, his bulk enveloping parts of the rail and the
hatches, and he cocked his head enquiringly.

 
          
From
somewhere on the Chaos ship Elric heard Gaynor’s voice crying out, exultant and
full of an unusual excitement.

 
          
“
Now, toad! Now, my darling, now you can
feed!
”

 
          
Later,
when what was left of the hunters and their ship was burning in the darkness of
the Heavy Sea and Khorghakh in his cage was snoring with monstrous hands upon a
swollen belly, and Charion sat cross-legged beside him, as if comforted by the
beast’s enormous power, Elric walked slowly along the deck searching for his
sword.

 
          
He
had not for a moment believed that he had rid himself of the blade when he let
it go with its victim. In the past whenever he had tried to abandon Stormbringer
it had always returned to him. Now he regretted his folly. He was likely to
need his sword. In trepidation, wondering if the blade had been stolen by some
supernatural agency, he continued to search.

 
          
He
searched again, in the shadows of the ship. He knew the blade refused to be
separated from him. He had fully expected it to return. Yet the scabbard was
gone, too, which suggested theft. He looked, also, for the dog which had
appeared to help him and which had gone again so suddenly. Who, aboard, had
owned such a dog? Or had it belonged to the hunters and, like the toad, taken
vengeance on its oppressors?

 
          
As
he passed the cabin under the foredeck, he heard a familiar sound. It came from
Gaynor’s berth—a low, peculiar moaning. He was astonished and further alarmed
at the power commanded by the Prince of the Damned. No mortal could have taken
up that naked sword and not been harmed, especially when it had so recently
drawn enormous psychic force into itself!

 
          
Softly
Elric moved to Gaynor’s door. Now there was only silence on the other side.

 
          
The
door was not locked. Gaynor was careless of any mortal attempt on his life or
his person.

 
          
Elric
paused for a second before flinging open the door, to reveal a sudden eruption
of yelling light, a screeching and a hissing, and then Gaynor stood before him,
adjusting his helm with one metal-shod hand, holding the runesword in the
other. The runes along the blade juddered and whispered, as if the sword itself
understood that the impossible had occurred. Yet Elric noticed that Gaynor
trembled and that he had to put his other hand upon the runesword’s hilt, to
hold it steady, though his stance remained apparently casual.

 
          
Elric
stretched his open palm towards the blade.

 
          
“Even
you, Prince of the Damned, could not wield my runesword with impunity. Do you
not understand that the blade and I are one? Do you not know that we are
brothers, that sword and I? And that we have other kin who may be summoned to
our aid when we require it? Know you nothing of that battle-blade’s qualities,
prince?”

 
          
“Only
what I have heard of in legends.” Gaynor sighed within his helm. “I would test
it for myself. Will you lend me your sword, Prince Elric?”

 
          
“I
could more easily lend you a limb.” The albino gestured again for the return of
his sword.

 
          
Prince
Gaynor was reluctant. He studied the runes, he tested the balance. And then he
returned the blade to both steel hands. “I do not fear your sword will kill me,
Elric.”

 
          
“I
doubt it has the power to kill you, Gaynor. Is that what you desire of it? It
might take your soul. It might transmogrify you. I doubt, however, if it will
grant you your desire.”

 
          
Before
he gave it up, Gaynor laid one metal-clad finger upon the blade. “Is that the
power of the anti-balance, I wonder?”

 
          
“I
have not heard of such a power,” said Elric. He slid the scabbard back onto his
belt.

 
          
“They
say it is a power even more ambitious than the Lords of the Higher Worlds. More
dangerous, more cruel, more effective than anything known to the multiverse.
They say the power of the anti-balance has the means of changing the whole
nature of the multiverse in a single stroke.”

 
          
“I
know only that Fate has forged us together, that blade and I,” said Elric. “Our
destinies are the same.” He glanced around Gaynor’s sparely furnished cabin. “I
have little interest in the broadly cosmic, Prince Gaynor. I have desires
rather less exaggerated than most I have met of late. I seek only to find the
answers to certain questions I have asked myself. I would gladly be free of all
Lords of the Higher Worlds and their machinations. Even of the Balance itself.”

 
          
Gaynor
turned away from him. “You are an interesting creature, Elric of Melniboné.
Ill-suited to serve Chaos, it would seem.”

 
          
“Ill-suited
for most things, sir,” said Elric. “To serve Chaos is merely a family tradition
with us.”

 
          
Gaynor’s
helm came round again to stare broodingly at the albino. “You believe it is
possible to banish Law and Chaos entirely—to banish them from the multiverse?”

 
          
“Of
that I am not so sure. But I have heard of places where neither Law nor Chaos
have jurisdiction.” Elric was too cautious to mention Tanelorn. “I have heard
of worlds where the Balance rules unchallenged, also …”

 
          
“I,
too, have known such places. I dwelled in one …” There came a frightful
chuckling from within the shifting steel helm and then a pause as the Prince of
the Damned moved slowly to the far side of his cabin and appeared to be staring
through the porthole.