To Rescue Tanelorn (13 page)

“The boatmen live aboard their vessels,” Timeras said, “for it is only their ships which deny the laws of nature, not they.”

Timeras cupped his hands about his mouth and called through the still mountain air: “Boatmen of Xerlerenes, freemen of the air, guests come with a request for aid!”

A black and bearded face appeared over the side of one of the red-gold vessels. The man shielded his eyes against the rising sun and stared down at them. Then he disappeared again.

At length a ladder of slim thongs came snaking down to where they sat their horses on the tops of the mountains. Timeras grasped it, tested it and began to climb. Rackhir reached out and steadied the ladder for him. It seemed too thin to support a man but when he had it in his hands he knew that it was the strongest he had ever known.

Lamsar grumbled as Rackhir signaled for him to climb, but he did so and quite nimbly. Rackhir was the last, following his companions, climbing up through the sky high above the crags, towards the ship that sailed on the air.

The fleet comprised some twenty or thirty ships and Rackhir felt that with these to aid him, there was good chance to rescue Tanelorn—if Tanelorn survived. Narjhan would, anyway, be aware of the nature of the aid he sought.

Starved dogs barked the morning in and the beggar horde, waking from where they had sprawled on the ground, saw Narjhan already mounted, but talking to a newcomer, a girl in black robes that moved as if in a wind—but there was no wind. There was a jewel at her long throat.

When he had finished conversing with the newcomer, Narjhan ordered a horse be brought for her and she rode slightly behind him when the beggar army moved on—the last stage of their hateful journey to Tanelorn.

When they saw lovely Tanelorn and how it was so poorly guarded, the beggars laughed, but Narjhan and his new companion looked up into the sky.

“
There may be time,
” said the hollow voice, and gave the order to attack.

Howling, the beggars broke into a run towards Tanelorn. The attack had started.

Brut rose in his saddle and there were tears flowing down his face and glistening in his beard. His huge war-axe was in one gauntleted hand and the other held a spiked mace across the saddle before him.

Zas the One-handed gripped the long and heavy broadsword with its pommel of a rampant golden lion pointed downwards. This blade had won him a crown in Andlermaigne, but he doubted whether it would successfully defend his peace in Tanelorn. Beside him stood Uroch of Nieva, pale-faced but angry as he watched the ragged horde’s implacable approach.

Then, yelling, the beggars met with the warriors of Tanelorn and, although greatly outnumbered, the warriors fought desperately for they were defending more than life or love—they were defending that which had told them of a reason for living.

Narjhan sat his horse aside from the battle, Sorana next to him, for Narjhan could take no active part in the battle, could only watch and, if necessary, use magic to aid his human pawns or defend his person.

The warriors of Tanelorn, incredibly, held back the roaring beggar horde, their weapons drenched with blood, rising and falling in that sea of moving flesh, flashing in the light of the red dawn.

Sweat now mingled with the salt tears in Brut’s bristling beard and with agility he leapt clear of his black horse as the screaming beast was cut from under him. The noble war-cry of his forefathers sang on his breath and, although in his shame he had no business to use it, he let it roar from him as he slashed about him with biting war-axe and rending mace. But he fought hopelessly for Rackhir had not come and Tanelorn was soon to die. His one fierce consolation was that he would die with the city, his blood mingling with its ashes.

Zas, also, acquitted himself very well before he died of a smashed skull. His old body twitched as trampling feet stumbled over it as the beggars made for Uroch of Nieva. The gold-pommeled sword was still gripped in his single hand and his soul was fleeing for limbo as Uroch, too, was slain fighting.

Then the Ships of Xerlerenes suddenly materialized in the sky and Brut, looking upward for an instant, knew that Rackhir had come at last—though it might be too late.

Narjhan, also, saw the ships and was prepared for them.

They skimmed through the sky, the fire elementals which Lamsar had summoned flying with them. The spirits of air and flame had been called to rescue weakening Tanelorn…

The Boatmen prepared their weapons and made themselves ready for war. Their black faces had a concentrated look and they grinned in their bushy beards. War-harness clothed them and they bristled with weapons—long, barbed tridents, nets of steel mesh, curved swords, long harpoons. Rackhir stood in the prow of the leading ship, his quiver packed with slim arrows loaned him by the Boatmen. Below him he saw Tanelorn and was relieved that the city still stood.

He could see the milling warriors below, but it was hard to tell, from the air, which were friends and which were foes. Lamsar called to the frisking fire elementals, instructing them. Timeras grinned and held his sword ready as the ships rocked on the wind and dropped lower.

Now Rackhir observed Narjhan with Sorana beside him.

“The bitch has warned him—he is ready for us,” Rackhir said, wetting his lips and drawing an arrow from his quiver.

Down the Ships of Xerlerenes dropped, coursing downwards on the currents of air, their golden sails billowing, the warrior crews straining over the side and keen for battle.

Then Narjhan summoned the
Kyrenee.

Huge as a storm-cloud, black as its native Hell, the
Kyrenee
grew from the surrounding air and moved its shapeless bulk forward towards the Ships of Xerlerenes, sending out flowing tendrils of poison towards them. Boatmen groaned as the coils curled around their naked bodies and crushed them.

Lamsar called urgently to his fire elementals and they rose again from where they had been devouring beggars, came together in one great blossoming of flame which moved to do battle with the
Kyrenee.

The two masses met and there was an explosion which blinded the Red Archer with multicoloured light and sent the ships rocking and shaking so that several capsized and sent their crews hurtling downwards to death.

Blotches of flame flew everywhere and patches of poison blackness from the body of the
Kyrenee
were flung about, slaying those they touched before disappearing.

There was a terrible stink in the air—a smell of burning, a smell of outraged elements which had never been meant to meet.

The
Kyrenee
died, lashing about and wailing, while the flame elementals, dying or returning to their own sphere, faded and vanished. The remaining bulk of the great
Kyrenee
billowed slowly down to the earth where it fell upon the scrabbling beggars and killed them, leaving nothing but a wet patch on the ground for yards around, a patch glistening with the bones of beggars.

Now Rackhir cried: “Quickly—finish the fight before Narjhan summons more horrors!”

And the boats sailed downwards while the Boatmen cast their steel nets, pulling large catches of beggars aboard their ships and finishing the wriggling starvelings with their tridents or spears.

Rackhir shot arrow after arrow and had the satisfaction of seeing each one take a beggar just where he had aimed it. The remaining warriors of Tanelorn, led by Brut who was covered in sticky blood but grinning in his victory, charged towards the unnerved beggars.

Narjhan stood his ground, while the beggars, fleeing, streamed past him and the girl. Sorana seemed frightened, looked up and her eyes met Rackhir’s. The Red Archer aimed an arrow at her, thought better of it and shot instead at Narjhan. The arrow went into the black armour but had no effect upon the Lord of Chaos.

Then the Boatmen of Xerlerenes flung down their largest net from the vessel in which Rackhir sailed and they caught Lord Narjhan in its coils and caught Sorana, too.

Shouting their exhilaration, they pulled the struggling bodies aboard and Rackhir ran forward to inspect their catch. Sorana had received a scratch across her face from the net’s wire, but the body of Narjhan lay still and dreadful in the mesh.

Rackhir grabbed an axe from a Boatman and knocked back the helm, his foot upon the chest.

“Yield, Narjhan of Chaos!” he cried in mindless merriment. He was near hysterical with victory, for this was the first time a mortal had ever bested a Lord of Chaos.

But the armour was empty, if it had ever been occupied by flesh, and Narjhan was gone.

Calm settled aboard the Ships of Xerlerenes and over the city of Tanelorn. The remnants of the warriors had gathered in the city’s square and were cheering their victory.

Friagho, the Captain of Xerlerenes, came up to Rackhir and shrugged. “We did not get the catch we came for—but these will do. Thanks for the fishing, friend.”

Rackhir smiled and gripped Friagho’s black shoulder. “Thanks for the aid—you have done us all a great service.” Friagho shrugged again and turned back to his nets, his trident poised. Suddenly Rackhir shouted: “No, Friagho—let that one be. Let me have the contents of that net.”

Sorana, the contents to which he’d referred, looked anxious as if she had rather been transfixed on the prongs of Friagho’s trident. Friagho said: “Very well, Red Archer—there are plenty more people on the land.” He pulled at the net to release her.

She stood up shakily, looking at Rackhir apprehensively.

Rackhir smiled quite softly and said: “Come here, Sorana.” She went to him and stood staring up at his bony hawk’s face, her eyes wide. With a laugh he picked her up and flung her over his shoulder.

“Tanelorn is safe!” he shouted. “You shall learn to love its peace with me!” And he began to clamber down the trailing ladders that the Boatmen had dropped over the side.

Lamsar waited for him below. “I go now, to my hermitage again.”

“I thank you for your aid,” said Rackhir. “Without it Tanelorn would no longer exist.”

“Tanelorn will always exist while men exist,” said the hermit. “It was not a city you defended today. It was an ideal. That is Tanelorn.”

And Lamsar smiled.

THE LAST ENCHANTMENT

(J
ESTING WITH
C
HAOS)

The albino warrior Elric is the last of the emperors of Melniboné, a dying kingdom. A grim, melancholy man, he wanders in exile from land to land, adventure to adventure, accompanied by his demon sword Stormbringer and his own haunted dreams.

—Thomas Durwood, ARIEL: THE BOOK OF FANTASY Vol. 3, 1978

THE LAST ENCHANTMENT

(J
ESTING WITH
C
HAOS)

(written 1962)

T
HROUGH THE BLUE
and hazy night ran a shuddering man. He clutched terror to him, his bloated eyes full of blood. First behind him and then seemingly ahead of him came the hungry chuckles, the high whispered words.

“
Here toothsome. Here sweetmeat.
”

He swerved in another direction, moaning. Like a huge husk he was, like a hollow ornament of thin bone, with his great, rolling head swaying on his shoulders resembling a captive balloon, the wet cavern of his wide mouth fully open and gasping, the yellow spikes of teeth clashing in his head.

Awkwardly he ran, sometimes scuttling like a wounded spider, sometimes lurching, mooing to himself through the tall and ancient forest, his feet sinking into the carpet of wet, pungent bracken and rotting roots. He held in his hand, that long, white, metal-coloured claw, a glowing black talisman, held it out and cried:

“Oh Teshwan—aid me, Teshwan. Aid me…”

In the sluggish brew that was the contents of his rolling skull a few words swam to the surface and seemed to lie there, moving with the tide of his mind. And the voice which spoke them was sardonic: “
How can Teshwan aid thee, little mortal?
”

But this relic of disoriented flesh could not form a coherent thought; could not answer save to scream its fear. So Teshwan took his presence away and it was left to the horseman to find the horror-crazed man.

Elric of Melniboné heard the voice and recognized the name. He sensed other, more ominous, denizens lurking about him in the forest.

Moodily he curled his hands about the reins of his mount and jerked its head, guiding it in the direction of the screams. He only casually considered aiding the man and he rode his horse towards him more from curiosity than anything. Elric was untroubled by the terrors that the forest held, regarding them as another, more normal man might regard the omnipresent song of birds and the rustle of small rodents in the undergrowth.

Great tremblings shuddered through Slorg’s ruined body and he still heard the sharp whisperings. Were they carried on the air or were they slithering about in his jellied brain?

He gasped as he turned and saw the white-faced horseman riding like a grim, handsome god into the moon-glazed glade.

The horseman’s long, sharply delineated skull was leper-white, as if stripped of flesh, and his slightly slanting eyes gleamed crimson. He wore a jerkin of black velvet caught at the throat by a thin silver chain. His britches, too, were of black cloth, and his leather boots were high and shining. Over his shoulders was a high-collared cape of scarlet and a heavy longsword slapped at his side as he pulled his steed to a standstill. His long, flowing hair was as white as his face. The horseman was an albino.

The shock of confronting this new and more tangible figure jerked Slorg back into half-sanity and broken words sidled from his lips.

“Who are you? Aid me! I beg you, aid me!”

Elric laughed lightly. “Now why should I, my friend? Tell me that.”

“I have been—been profaned—I am Slorg. I was once a man—but those…” He rocked his body and flung his rolling head backwards, the curved lids falling down to cover his bulging eyes. “I have been profaned…”

Elric leaned forward on the pommel of his saddle and said lazily: “This is none of my business, Master Slorg.”

The great head darted forward, the eyes snapped open and Slorg’s long lips writhed over his teeth like a camel’s. “Address not me by a mundane title! I am Siletah Slorg—Siletah of Oberlorn—rightfully—rightfully.”

The title was unknown to Elric.

“My apologies, O Siletah,” he mocked, “for now I observe a man of rank.”

“A man no longer,” whispered Slorg and he began to sob. “Help me.”

“Are you, then, in danger?”

“Aye, danger—my kinsmen have set the Hungry Whisperers upon me; do you not hear them?”

And Elric cocked his head to listen. Yes, he heard sibilant voices now, “
Where are you, morsel?
”

“Oh, help me, help me,” begged Slorg and lurched towards Elric. The albino drew himself up and pulled his horse back.

“No closer,” he warned. “I am Elric of Melniboné.”

Slorg’s tattered face squeezed itself into a frown. “Ah, the name and the face,” he mumbled to himself, “the face and the name. Elric of Melniboné.
Outcast!
”

“Indeed,” smiled Elric, “but no more than you, it seems. Now I must bid you farewell and suggest, by way of friendly advice, that you compose yourself soon. It is better to die with dignity, Siletah Slorg.”

“I have powers, outcast of Melniboné—I have powers, still! Help me and I will tell you secrets—such secrets!”

Elric waved a disdainful hand. A moonbeam caught for an instant the flash of the rare Actorios ring which reposed on his finger. “If you know me, you should also know that I’m no merchant to bargain. I ask nothing and give nothing. Farewell!”

“I warn you, Elric—I have one power left. I can send you screaming from this place—into another. It is the power which Teshwan gives all his servants—it is the one he never takes back!”

“Why not send your hungry friends into this other place?”

“They are not human. But if you leave me, I shall lay my last enchantment upon you.”

Elric sighed. “Your last, perhaps, but not the last or the first to be laid upon me. Now I must go and search for a quieter place than this where I can sleep undisturbed.”

He turned his horse and his back on the shaking remnant of a man and rode away.

He heard Slorg calling again as he entered another part of the forest, untainted by the Siletah or those he had termed the Hungry Whisperers.

“Teshwan—return! Return to do me one last service—a deed of vengeance—a part of our bargain, Teshwan!”

A short time later Elric heard a thin, wailing scream come flowing out of the night behind him and then the whole forest seemed alive with horrible laughter. Satiated, triumphant, chuckling.

His mood altered by his encounter, Elric rode through the night, not caring to sleep, and came out of the forest in the morning, glad of the sight of the green plateau stretching ahead of him.

“Well,” he mused, “Teshwan disdained to aid Slorg and it seems there is no enchantment on me. I am half regretful. Now Slorg resides in the bellies of those he feared and his soul’s at home in Hell.”

Then the plateau changed quite suddenly to grey rock.

Swiftly Elric wheeled his horse. The plateau and the forest were behind him. He spurred his mount quickly forward and the plateau and forest faded away to leave a vast and lonely expanse of flat, grey stone. Above him the sun had disappeared and the sky was bright and white and cold.

“Now,” said Elric grimly into silence, “it seems I was wrong in my assumption.”

The plateau—its atmosphere—reminded him of another environment in which he had once found himself. Then he remembered clearly a time when he and two companions had sought an ancient volume called the Dead Gods’ Book. Their questing had led them to a cavern guarded at its entrance by the symbol of the Lords of Chaos. In that cavern they had discovered an underground sea which had had unnatural qualities. There was the same sense of a sardonically amused
presence
here as there had been in the Caverns of Chaos.

Teshwan was a Lord of Chaos.

Hastily Elric pulled his runesword Stormbringer from its thick scabbard.

The sword was dead.

Normally the blade, forged by unhuman smiths for Elric’s royal ancestors, was alive with sentience—throbbing with the life-force it had stolen from a hundred men and women whom Elric had slain. Once before it had been like this—in the Caverns of Chaos long ago.

Elric tightened his lips, then shrugged as he replaced the sword in its scabbard.

“In a world completely dominated by the forces of Chaos,” he said, “I cannot rely on the powers which normally aid me in my sorcery. Thank Arioch I have a good supply of drugs about me, or I would indeed be doomed.”

In earlier times Elric had relied on his soul-stealing runesword to give him the energy which, as an albino, he lacked intrinsically, but recently he had rediscovered a cleaner way of counteracting his deficiency, by taking herbs he had discovered in the Forest of Troos where many unlikely things grew, both flora and fauna.

“By my father’s plague-infested bones,” he swore, “I must find a way off this granite plain and discover who, if anyone, rules in this world. I have heard of the powers invested in Teshwan’s worshippers—and I seem to remember a hint of why the Lords of Chaos confer such peculiar talents upon them.”

He shuddered.

He began to sing an ululating hate-song of old Melniboné. Elric’s ancestors had been clever haters. And on he rode beneath the sunless sky.

He could not tell how much time had passed before he saw the figure standing out strongly against the featureless horizon.

Now on the flat waste of stone there were two points at which the monotony was broken.

Elric—white, black and scarlet on a grey gelding.

The morose man, black hair lying like a coat of lacquer on his rounded skull, dressed in green, a silver sword dangling in his right hand.

Elric approached the man who raised his eyes to regard the albino.

“This is a lonely place,” said the stranger, sucking at his fleshy cheeks, and he stared at the ground again.

“True,” replied Elric halting his horse. “Is this your world or were you sent here, also?”

“Oh, it’s my world,” said the man, without looking up. “Where are you bound?”

“For nowhere, seeking something. Where do you journey?”

“I—oh, I go to Kaneloon for the Rites, of course.”

“All things, it is said, are possible in the World of Chaos,” Elric murmured, “and yet this place seems unusually barren.”

The man looked up suddenly, and jerking his lips into a smile, laughed sharply.

“The Rites will alter that, stranger. Did you not know that this is the Time of the Change, when the Lords of Chaos rest before re-forming the world into a fresh variety of patterns?”

“I did not know that,” said Elric. “I have come here only recently.”

“You wish to stay?”

“No.”

“The Lords of Chaos are fickle. If you wished to stay they might not let you. Now that you are resolved to leave, they might keep you here. Farewell. You will find me therein!” He lifted his sword and pointed. A great palace of greenstone appeared at once. The man vanished.

“This, at least, will save me from boredom,” Elric said philosophically, and rode towards the palace.

The many-pinnacled building towered above him, its highest points hazy and seeming to possess many forms, shifting as if blown by a wind. At the great arch of the entrance a giant, semi-transparent, with a red, scintillating skin, blocked his way. Over the archway, as if hanging in the air above the giant’s proud head, was the Symbol of Chaos, a circle which produced many arrows pointing in all directions.

“Who visits the Palace of Kaneloon at the Time of the Change?” enquired the giant in a voice like limbo’s music.

“Your masters, I gather, know me—for they aided their servant Slorg in sending me hither. But tell them it is Elric of Melniboné, nonetheless—Elric, destroyer of dreaming Imrryr. Kinslayer and outcast. They will know me.”

The giant appeared to shrink, to solidify and then to drift in a red mist, pouring like sentient smoke away from the portal and into the palace. And where he had been a portcullis manifested itself to guard the palace in the giant’s absence.

Elric waited patiently until at length the portcullis vanished and the giant re-formed himself.

“My masters order me to inform you that you may enter but that, having once come to the Palace of Kaneloon, you may never leave save under certain conditions.”

“Those conditions?”

“Of these they will tell you if you enter. Are you reckless—or will you stand pondering?”

“I’ll avail myself of their generosity,” smiled Elric and spurred his nervous horse forward.