A sweet, sibilant voice issued from the beautiful mouth. The mist swirled languidly, becoming a mottled scarlet laced with emerald green.
"Greetings, Elric," said the face. "Greetings, most beloved of my children."
"Aid me, Arioch!"
"Ah," said the face, its tone full of rich regret. "Ah, that cannot be. ..."
"You must aid me!"
The chimerae had hesitated in their descent, sighting the peculiar mist.
"It is impossible, sweetest of my slaves. There are other matters afoot in the Realm of Chaos. Matters of enormous moment to which I have already referred. I offer only my blessings.
"Arioch—I beg thee!"
"Remember your oath to Chaos and remain loyal to us in spite of all. Farewell, Elric."
And the dark mist vanished.
And the chimerae came closer.
And Elric drew a racking breath while the runesword whined in his hand and quivered and its radiance dimmed a little.
Moonglum spat on the ground. "A powerful patron, Elric, but a damned inconstant one." Then he flung himself from his saddle as a creature which changed its shape a dozen times as it arrowed towards him reached out huge claws which clashed in the air where he had been. The riderless horse reared again, striking out at the beast of Chaos.
A fanged snout snapped.
Blood vomited from the place where the horse's head had been and the carcass kicked once more before falling to the ground to pour more gore into the greedy earth.
Bearing the remains of the head in what was first a scaled snout, then a beak, then a sharklike mouth, the Oonai thrashed back into the air.
Moonglum picked himself up. His eyes contemplated nothing but his own imminent destruction.
Elric, too, leapt from his horse and slapped its flank so that convulsively it began to gallop away towards the river. Another chimera followed it.
This time the flying thing seized the horse's body in claws which suddenly sprouted from its feet. The horse struggled to get free, threatening to break its own backbone in its struggles, but it could not. The chimera flapped towards the clouds with its catch.
Snow fell thicker now, but Elric and Moonglum were oblivious of it as they stood together and awaited the next attack of the Oonai.
Moonglum said quietly: "Is there no other spell you know, friend Elric?"
The albino shook his head. "Nothing specific to deal with these. The Oonai always served the folk of Melnibone. They never threatened us. So we needed no spell against them. I am trying to think. . . ."
The chimerae cackled and yelled in the air above the two men's heads.
Then another broke away from the pack and dived to the Earth.
"They attack individually," Elric said in a somewhat detached tone, as if studying insects in a bottle. "They never attack in a pack. I know not why."
The Oonai had settled on the ground and it had now assumed the shape of an elephant with the huge head of a crocodile.
"Not an aesthetic combination," said Elric.
The ground shook as it charged towards them.
They stood shoulder to shoulder as it approached. It was almost upon them—
—and at the last moment they divided, Elric throwing himself to one side and Moonglum to the other.
The chimera passed between them and Elric struck at the thing's side with his runesword.
The sword sang out almost lasciviously as it bit deep into the flesh which instantly changed and became a dragon dripping flaming venom from its fangs.
But it was badly wounded.
Blood ran from the deep wound and the chimera screamed and changed shape again and again as if seeking some form in which the wound could not exist.
Black blood now burst from its side as if the strain of the many changes had ruptured its body all the more.
It fell to its knees and the lustre faded from its feathers, died from its scales, disappeared from its skin. It kicked out once and then was still—a heavy, black, piglike creature whose lumpen body was the ugliest Elric and Moonglum had ever seen.
Moonglum grunted.
"It is not hard to understand why such a creature should want to change its form...."
He looked up.
Another was descending.
This had the appearance of a whale with wings, but with curved fangs, like those of a stomach fish, and a tail like an enormous corkscrew.
Even as it landed it changed shape again.
Now it had assumed human form. It was a huge, beautiful figure, twice as tall as Elric. It was naked and perfectly proportioned, but its stare was vacant and it had the drooling lips of an idiot child. Lithely it ran at them, its huge hands reaching out to grasp them as a child might reach for a toy.
This time Elric and Moonglum struck together, one at each hand.
Moonglum's sharp sword cut the knuckles deeply and Elric's lopped off two fingers before the Oonai altered its shape again and began first to be an octopus, then a monstrous tiger, then a combination of both, until at last it was a rock in which a fissure grew to reveal white, snapping teeth.
Gasping, the two men waited for it to resume the attack. At the base of the rock some blood was oozing. This put a thought into Elric's mind.
With a sudden yell he leapt forward, raised his sword over his head and brought it down on top of the rock, splitting it in twain.
Something like a laugh issued from the black sword then as the sundered shape flickered and became another of the piglike creatures. This was completely cut in two, its blood and its entrails spreading themselves upon the ground.
Then, through the snowy dusk, another of the Oonai came down, its body a glowing orange, its shape that of a winged snake with a thousand rippling coils.
Elric struck at the coils, but they moved too rapidly.
The other chimerae had been watching his tactics with their dead companions and they had now gauged the skill of their victims. Almost immediately Elric's arms were pinned to his sides by the coils and he found himself being borne upward as a second chimera with the same shape rushed down on Moonglum to seize him in an identical way.
Elric prepared to die as the horses had died. He prayed that he would die swiftly and not slowly, at the hands of Theleb K'aarna, who had always promised him a slow death.
The scaly wings flapped powerfully. No snout came down to snap his head off.
He felt despair as he realised that he and Moonglum were being carried swiftly northward over the great Lormyrian steppe.
Doubtless Theleb K'aarna awaited them at the end of their journey.
Chapter Three
Feathers Filling a Great Sky
Night fell and the chimerae flew on tirelessly, their shapes black against the falling snow.
The coils showed no signs of relaxing, though Elric strove to force them apart, keeping tight hold of his runesword and racking his brains for some means of defeating the monsters.
If only there were a spell. . .. .
He tried to keep his thoughts from what Theleb K'aarna would do if, indeed, it was that wizard who had set the Oonai upon them.
Elric's skill in sorcery lay chiefly in his command over the various elementals of air, fire, earth, water and ether, and also over the entities who had affinities with the flora and fauna of the Earth.
He had decided that his only hope lay in summoning the aid of Fileet, Lady of the Birds, who dwelt in a realm lying beyond the planes of Earth, but the invocation eluded him.
Even if he could remember it, the mind had to be adjusted in a certain way, the correct rhythms of the incantation remembered, the exact words and inflections recalled, before he could begin to summon Fileet's aid. For she, more than another elemental, was as difficult to invoke as the fickle Arioch.
Through the drifting snow he heard Moonglum call out something indistinct.
"What was that, Moonglum?" he called back.
"I only—sought to learn—if you still—lived, friend El
ric."
"Aye—barely. ..."
His face was chill and ice had formed on his helmet and breastplate. His whole body ached both from the crushing coils of the chimera and from the biting cold of the upper air.
On and on through the northern night they flew while Elric forced himself to relax, to descend into a trance and to dredge from his mind the ancient knowledge of his forefathers.
At dawn the clouds had cleared and the sun's red rays spread over the snow like blood over damask. Everywhere stretched the steppe—a vast field of snow from horizon to horizon, while above it the sky was nothing but a blue sheet of ice in which sat the red pool of the sun.
And, tireless as ever, the chimerae flew on.
Elric brought himself slowly from his trance and prayed to his untrustworthy gods that he remembered the spell aright.
His lips were all but frozen together. He licked them and it was as if he licked snow. He opened them and bitter air coursed into his mouth. He coughed then, turning his head upwards, his crimson eyes glazing.
He forced his lips to frame strange syllables, to utter the old vowel-heavy words of the High Speech of Old Melnibone, a speech hardly suited to a human tongue at all.
"Fileet," he murmured. Then he began to chant the incantation. And as he chanted the sword grew warmer in his hand and supplied him with more energy so that the eldritch chant echoed through the icy sky.
Feathers fine our fates entwined
Bird and man and thine and mine,
Formed a pact that Gods divine
Hallowed on an ancient shrine,
When kind swore service unto kind.
Fileet, fair feathered queen of flight
Remember now that fateful night
And help your brother in his plight.
There was more to the summoning than the words of the invocation. There were the abstract thoughts in the head, the visual images which had to be retained in the mind the whole time, the emotions felt, the memories made sharp and true. Without everything being exactly right, the invocation would prove useless.
Centuries before, the Sorcerer Kings of Melnibone had struck this bargain with Fileet, Lady of the Birds: That any bird that settled in Imrryr's walls should be protected, that no bird would be shot by any of the Melnibonean blood. This bargain had been kept and dreaming Imrryr had become a haven for all species of bird and at one time they had cloaked her towers in plumage.
Now Elric chanted his verses, recalling that bargain and begging Fileet to remember her part of it.
Brothers and sisters of the sky
Hear my voice where'er ye fly
And bring me aid from kingdoms high...
Not for the first time had he called upon the elementals and those akin to them. But lately he had summoned Haaashaastaak, Lord of the Lizards, in his fight against Theleb K'aarna and still earlier he had made use of the services of the wind elementals—the sylphs, the sharnahs and the h'Haarshanns—and the earth elementals.
Yet, Fileet was fickle.
And now that Imrryr was no more than quaking ruins, she could even choose to forget that ancient pact.
"Fileet. ..."
He was weak from the invoking. He would not have the strength to battle Theleb K'aarna even if he found the opportunity.
"Fileet. ..."
And then the air was stirring and a huge shadow fell across the chimerae bearing Elric and Moonglum northward.
Elric's voice faltered as he looked up. But he smiled and said:
"I thank you, Fileet."
For the sky was black with birds. There were eagles and robins and rooks and starlings and wren and kites and crows and hawks and peacocks and flamingoes and pigeons and parrots and doves and magpies and ravens and owls. Their plumage flashed like steel and the air was full of their cries.
The Oonai raised its snake's head and hissed, its long tongue curling out between its front fangs, its coiled tail lashing. One of the chimerae not carrying Elric or Moonglum changed its shape into that of a gigantic condor and flapped up towards the vast array of birds.
But they were not deceived.
The chimera disappeared, submerged by birds. There was a frightful screaming and then something black and piglike spiralled to earth, blood and entrails streaming in its wake.
Another chimera—the last not bearing a burden—assumed its dragon shape, almost completely identical to those which Elric had once mastered as ruler of Melnibone, but larger and with not quite the same grace as Flamefang and the others.
There was a sickening smell of burning flesh and feathers as the flaming venom fell upon Elric's allies.
But now more and more birds were filling the air, shrieking and whistling and cawing and hooting, a million wings fluttering, and once again the Oonai was hidden from sight, once again a muffled scream sounded, once again a mangled, piglike corpse plummetted groundwards.
The birds divided into two masses, turning their attention to the chimerae bearing Elric and Moonglum. They sped down like two gigantic arrowheads, led, each group, by ten huge golden eagles which dived at the flashing eyes of the Oonai.
As the birds attacked, the chimerae were forced to change shape. Instantly Elric felt himself fall free. His body was numb and he fell like a stone, remembering only to keep his grip on Stormbringer, and as he fell he cursed at the irony. He had been saved from the beasts of Chaos only to hurtle to his death on the snow-covered ground below.
But then his cloak was caught from above and he hung swaying in the air. Looking up he saw that several eagles had grasped his clothing in their claws and beaks and were slowing his descent so that he struck the snow with little more than a painful bump.
The eagles flew back to the fray.
A few yards away Moonglum came down, deposited by another flight of eagles which immediately returned to where their comrades were fighting the remaining Oonai.
Moonglum picked up the sword which had fallen from his hand. He rubbed his right calf. "I'll do my best never to eat fowl again," he said feelingly. "So you remembered a spell, eh?"
"Aye."
Two more piglike corpses thudded down not far away.
For a few moments the birds performed a strange, wheeling dance in the sky, partly a salute to the two men, partly a dance of triumph, and then they divided into their groups of species and flew rapidly away. Soon there were no birds at all in the ice-blue sky.
Elric picked up his bruised body and stiffly he sheathed his sword Stormbringer. He drew a deep breath and peered upwards.
"Fileet, I thank thee again."
Moonglum still seemed dazed. "How did you summon them, Elric?"
Elric removed his helmet and wiped sweat from within the rim. In this clime that sweat would soon turn to ice. "An ancient bargain my ancestors made. I was hard-pressed to remember the lines of the spell."
"I'm mightily pleased that you did remember!"
Absently, Elric nodded. He replaced his helmet on his head, staring about him as he did so.
Everywhere stretched the vast, snow-covered Lormyrian steppe.
Moonglum understood Elric's thoughts. He rubbed his chin.
"Aye. We are fairly lost, Lord Elric. Have you any idea where we may be?"
"I do not know, friend Moonglum. We have no means of guessing how far those beasts carried us, but I'm fairly sure it was well to the north of Iosaz. We are further away from the capital than we were. . . ."
"But then so must Theleb K'aarna be! If we were, indeed, being borne to where he dwells. . . ."
"It would be logical, I agree."
"So we continue north?"
"I think not."
"Why so?"
"For two reasons. It could be that Theleb K'aarna's idea was to take us to a place so far away from anywhere that we could not interfere with his plans. That might be considered a wiser action than confronting us and thus risking our turning the tables on him. . . ."
"Aye, I'll grant you that. And what's the other re
ason?"
"We would do better to try to make for Iosaz where we can replenish both our gear and our provisions and enquire of Theleb K'aarna's whereabouts if he is not there. Also we would be foolish to strike further north without good horses and in Iosaz we shall find horses and perhaps a sleigh to carry us the faster across this snow."
"And I'll grant you the sense of that, too. But I do not think much of our chances in this snow, whichever way we go."
"We must begin walking and hope that we can find a river that has not yet frozen over—and that the river will have boats upon it which will bear us to Iosaz."
"A faint hope, Elric."
"Aye. A faint hope." Elric was already weakened from the energy spent in the invocation to Fileet. He knew that he must almost certainly die. He was not sure that he cared overmuch. It would be a cleaner death than some he had been offered of late—a less painful death than any he might expect at the hands of the sorcerer of Pan Tang.
They began to trudge through the snow. Slowly they headed south, two small figures in a frozen landscape, two tiny specks of warm flesh in a great waste of ice.
Chapter Four
Old Castle Standing Alone
A day passed, a night passed.
Then the evening of the second day passed and the two men staggered on, for all that they had long since lost their sense of direction.
Night fell and they crawled.
They could not speak. Their bones were stiff, their flesh and their muscles numb.
Cold and exhaustion drove the very sentience from them so that when they fell in the snow and lay motionless they were scarcely aware that they had ceased to move. They understood no difference now between life and death, between existence and the cessation of existence.
And when the sun rose and warmed their flesh a little they stirred and raised their heads, perhaps in an effort to catch one last glimpse of the world they were leaving.
And they saw the castle.
It stood there in the middle of the steppe and it was ancient. Snow covered the moss and the lichen which grew on its worn, old stones. It seemed to have been there for eternity, yet neither Elric nor Moonglum had ever heard of such a castle standing alone in the steppe. It was hard to imagine how a castle so old could exist in the land once known as World's Edge.