'It is the least you deserve. No harm will come to you, warrior.'
John ap-Rhyss shrugged and his shrug was imitated by Emshon and Brut.
‘That ordeal? Was it connected with our quest?' Hawkmoon was eager. 'Was there some other point to it?'
'It was the Eternal Champion's last great deed for humanity. It has come full circle, Erekose. You understand my meaning?'
Erekose bowed his head. 'I do.'
'And the time is coming,' said the child, 'for the last deed of all - the deed which will free you from your curse.'
'Free?'
'Freedom, Erekose, for the Champion Eternal and all those he has served down the long ages.'
Erekose's face filled with dawning hope.
'But it has still to be earned,' cautioned the Spirit of the Runestaff. 'Still.'
'How can I earn it?'
‘That you will discover. Now - watch.'
The child motioned with his staff at the statue of Elric.
And they watched.
Chapter Three
The Deaths Of The Undying
They watched as one statue stepped down from its dais, face blank, limbs stiff - and slowly his features assumed the qualities of flesh (though bone-white flesh) and his armour turned black and a real person stood there; and though the face was animated he did not see them.
The scene around him had altered profoundly. Hawkmoon felt something in himself drawing him closer and closer to the one who had been a statue. It was as if their faces touched, and still the other was not aware of Hawkmoon's presence.
Then Hawkmoon was looking out of Elric's eyes. Hawkmoon was Elric. Erekose was Elric.
He was tugging the black sword from the body of his greatest friend. He was sobbing as he tugged. At last the sword was dragged from the corpse and flung aside, landing with a strange, muffled sound. He saw the sword move, approaching him. It stopped, but it watched.
He placed a large horn to his lips and he took a deep breath. He had the strength to blow the horn now, whereas earlier he had been weak. Another's strength filled him.
He blew a note upon the horn; one great blast. Then there was silence upon the plain of rock. Silence waited in the high and distant mountains.
In the sky a shadow began to materialize. It was a vast shadow and then it was not a shadow at all but an outline, and then details filled the outline. It was a gigantic hand and in the hand was a balance, its scales swinging erratically. Now, however, the scales became steadier until, at length, the balance righted itself.
The sight brought a certain relief to the grief he felt. He dropped the horn.
"There is something, at least,' he heard himself say, 'and if it's an illusion, then it's a reassuring one,'
But now, as he turned, he saw that the sword had risen into the air of its own volition. It menaced him.
'STORMBRINGER!'
The blade entered his body, entered his heart. The blade drank his soul. Tears fell from his eyes as the sword drank; he knew that part of him, now, would never have peace.
He died.
He fell away from his fallen body and he was Hawkmoon again. He was Erekose again .. .
The two aspects of the same thing watched as the sword pulled itself free from the body of the last of the Bright Emperors. They watched as the sword began to change its shape (though a husk of the blade remained and became human in proportions, standing over the man it had conquered.)
The being was the same Hawkmoon had seen on the Silver Bridge, the same he had seen on the island. It smiled.
'Farewell, friend,' said the being. ‘I was a thousand times more evil than thou!'
It flung itself into the sky, laughing, malicious, without kindness. It mocked the Cosmic Balance, its ancient enemy.
And it was gone, and the scene was gone, and the statue of the Prince of Melnibone stood again upon its dais.
Hawkmoon was gasping as if he had escaped drowning. His heart was beating horribly.
He saw that Oladahn's face twitched and that his eyes held shock; he saw Erekose's frowning countenance, and he saw Orland Fank rubbing at his jaw. He saw the serene face of the child. He saw John ap-Rhyss, Emshon of Ariso and Brut of Lashmar, and he knew, when he looked at them, that they had witnessed nothing in the scene which had disturbed them.
'So it is confirmed,' said Erekose's deep voice. 'That thing and the sword are the same.'
'Often,' said the child. 'Sometimes its whole spirit does not inhabit the sword. Kanajana was not the whole sword.'
The child motioned. 'Watch again.’
'No,' said Hawkmoon.
'Watch again,' said the child.
Another tall statue stepped from its place.
The man was handsome and he had only one eye; only one hand. He had known love and he had known grief and the love had taught him how to bear the grief. His features were calm. Somewhere, the sea crashed. He had come home.
Again Hawkmoon felt himself absorbed and knew that Erekose, too, was absorbed. Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Prince in the Scarlet Robe, Last of the Vadhagh, who had refused to fear beauty and who had fallen to it, who had refused to fear a brother and had been betrayed, who had refused to fear a harp and had been slain by it, who had been banished from a place where he did not belong, had come home.
He emerged from a forest and stood upon a seashore. The tide would be out soon and it would uncover the causeway leading to Moidel's Mount where he had been happy with a woman of the short-lived Mabden race, who had died and left him desolate (for children rarely come from such a union).
The memory of Medhbh was fading, but the memory of Rhalina, Margravine of the East, could not fade.
The causeway appeared and he began to walk across. The castle on Moidel's Mount was deserted now, that was plain. It showed neglect. A wind whispered through the towers, but it was a friendly wind.
On the other side of the causeway, standing in the entrance to the castle courtyard, he saw one he recognized - a nightmare creature, greenish blue in colour, with four squat legs, four brawny arms, a barbaric, noseless head with the nostrils set directly into the face, a wide, grinning mouth, full of sharp teeth, eyes that were faceted like a fly's. There were swords of strange design at its belt. It was the Lost God: Kwll. ' 'Greetings, Corum.'
'Greetings, Kwll, slayer of gods. Where is your brother?' He was pleased to see his old, reluctant, ally.
'At his own devices. We grow bored and ready to leave the multiverse. There is no place for us in it, as there is no place for you.'
'So I have been told.'
‘Go on one of our journeys, at least until the time of the next Conjunction.' Kwll gestured at the sky. 'We must make haste.'
'Where do you go?'
'There is another place - a place deserted by those you destroyed here - a place where they still have use for gods. Would Corum come with us? The Champion must remain, but Corum can come.'
'Are they not the same?'
'They are the same. But that which is not the same, that which is Corum only, he can come with us. It is an adventure.’
‘I am weary of adventures, Kwll.'
The Lost God grinned. 'Consider. We need a mascot. We need the strength you have.'
'What strength is that?'
'The strength of Man.'
'All gods need that, do they not?'
''Aye,' Kwll agreed, somewhat reluctantly, 'but some need it more than others. Rhynn and Kwll have Kwll and Rhynn, but it would amuse us if you came.'
Corum shook his head.
'You understand that you cannot live after the Conjunction?'
'I understand that, Kwll.'
'And you know now, I suppose, that it was not I who actually destroyed the Lords of Law and Chaos?'
‘I think so.'
‘I merely finished the work you had begun, Corum.'
'You are kind.'
‘I speak the truth. I am a boastful god, having no loyalties, save to Rhynn. But I am, by and large, a truthful god. D
eparting, I leave you with the truth.'
'Thank you, Kwll.'
'Farewell.' The barbaric figure vanished.
Corum walked through the courtyard, through the dusty halls and corridors of the castle, up to the high tower where he could look across the sea. And he knew that Lwym-an-Esh, that lovely land, was now drowned, that only a few fragments still stood above the waves. And he sighed, but he was not unhappy.
He saw a black figure come capering over the waves towards, him, a grinning figure with an insinuating stare.
'Corum? Corum?'
‘I know you,' said Corum.
'May I guest with you, Corum? There is much I can do for you. I would be your servant, Corum.'
‘I need no servant.'
The figure stood upon the sea, swaying with the movement o£ the waves.
'Let me into your castle, Corum.'
‘I require no guests.'
‘I can bring your loved ones to you.'
'They are already with me.' And Corum stood upon the battlements, laughing down at the black figure, who glowered and sneered. And Corum jumped so that his body would strike the rocks at the foot of Moidel's Mount, so that his spirit would be freed from it.
And the black figure bellowed with rage, with frustration and
t
finally, with fear ...
‘That is the last creature of Chaos, is it not?' said Erekose when the scene had faded and the statue of Corum resumed its place.
'In that guise,' said the child, 'it is, poor thing.'
'I have known it so many times,' said Erekose. 'It has sometimes worked for good.’
'Chaos is not wholly evil, surely?' said the child. 'And neither is Law wholly good. They are primitive divisions, at best - they represent only temperamental preferences in individual men and women. There are other elements ...'
'You speak of the Cosmic Balance?' said Hawkmoon. 'Of the Runestaff?'
'Call that Conscience, eh?' said Orland Fank. 'But can you call it Tolerance?’
'All are primitive,' said the child.
'You would admit that?' Oladahn was surprised. ‘Then what would replace them that would be better?'
The child smiled, but would not reply.
'Would you see more?' he asked Hawkmoon and Erekose. They shook their heads.
‘That black figure daunts us always,' said Hawkmoon. 'It plots our destruction.'
'It needs your souls,' said the child.
John ap-Rhyss said calmly, 'In Yel, in the villages, they have a legend of such a creature. Say-tunn, is that his name?'
The child shrugged. 'Give him any name and he grows in power. Refuse him a name and his power weakens. I call him Fear. Mankind's greatest enemy.'
'But a good friend to those who would use him,' said Emshon of Arise.
Oladahn said: 'For a time.'
'A treacherous friend, even to those he helps most,' said the child. 'Oh, how he longs to be admitted to Tanelorn.'
'He cannot enter?'
'Only at this time, because he comes to barter.'
'In what does he trade?' Hawkmoon asked.
'In souls, as I said. In souls. Look, I will admit him.' And the child seemed perturbed as he motioned with his staff. 'He travels, now, from Limbo.'
Chapter Four
Captives Of The Sword
'I am the Sword,' said the black figure. He waved a hand airily at the massed statues all around them. 'These were mine once. I owned the multiverse.'
'You have been disinherited,' said the child.
'By you?' the black figure smiled.
'No,' said the child. 'We share a fate, as you well know.'
‘You cannot give me back the things I must have,' said the figure. 'Where is it?' He looked about him. 'Where?'
'I have not yet summoned it. Where are...?'
'My bartering goods? Those I shall summon when I know that you have what I need.' He grinned a greeting at Hawkmoon and Erekose, saying carelessly, to nobody in particular. 'I gather that all the gods are dead.'
"Two have fled,' said the child. The rest are dead.'
'So only we remain.'
'Aye,' said the child. The sword and the staff.'
'Created at the beginning,' said Orland Fank, 'after the last Conjunction.'
'Few mortals know that,' said the black figure. 'My body was made to serve Chaos, his to serve the Balance, others to serve Law, but all those are gone now.'
'What replaces them?' said Erekose.
‘That remains to be decided,' said the black figure. 'I come to barter for that body of mine. Either manifestation will do; or both.'
'You are the Black Sword?'
The child motioned again with the staff. Jhary-a-Conel stood there, his hat at an angle, his cat on his shoulder. At Oladahn he stared with particular bemusement. 'Should we both be here?'
Oladahn said: 'I do not know you, sir.'
Then you do not know yourself, sir.' Jhary bowed to Hawkmoon. 'Greetings. I believe this is yours, Duke Dorian.' He held something in his hands and was moving forward to offer it to Hawkmoon when the child said:
'Stay! Show him.'
Jhary-a-Conel paused somewhat theatrically, eyeing the black figure. 'Show him? Must I? The mewler?'
'Show me,' whispered the black figure. 'Please, Jhary-a-Conel.'
Jhary-a-Conel rubbed at the head of the child, as an uncle might greet a favourite nephew. 'How fare you, cousin?'
'Show him,' said the child.
Jhary-a-Conel put one hand on the pommel of his sword, stuck out his leg, stuck out his elbow, looked thoughtfully at the black figure, then, with a sudden, conjurer's gesture, presented that which lay in his palm.
The black figure hissed. His eyes glowed.
‘The Black Jewel!' gasped Hawkmoon. 'You have the Black Jewel.'
‘The Jewel will do,' said the figure eagerly. 'Here...'
Two men, two women and two children appeared. Golden chains held them; links of golden silk.
‘I treat them well,' said the one who called himself Sword.
One of the men, tall, slender, languid of manner, dandified of dress, held up his shackled wrists. 'Oh,' he said, 'this luxury of chains!’
All but one of them did Hawkmoon recognize. And he was full of cold anger now. 'Yisselda! Yarmila and Manfred! D'Averc! Bowgentle! How are you this creature's prisoners.'
‘That tale's a long one…' began Huillam D'Averc, but his voice was drowned by Erekose and Erekose was shouting with joy:
'Ermizhad! My Ermizhad!'
The woman, whom Hawkmoon had not recognized, was of a race resembling Elric's and Corum's. In her own way, she was as beautiful as Yisselda. There was much in the two women's very different faces which provoked a sense of resemblance.
Bowgentle turned an apparently placid face this way and that. 'So we are in Tanelorn at last.'
The woman called Ermizhad was straining at her chains, trying to reach Erekose.
'I thought you Kalan's prisoners,' said Hawkmoon through the confusion, addressing D'Averc.
'I thought so, too, but I believe this somewhat demented gentleman intercepted our journey through Limbo ..,' D'Averc made a pantomime of dismay as Erekose glared at the black figure.
'You must release her!’
The being smiled. 'I will have the jewel first. She and the others for the jewel. It was the bargain we made.'
Jhary-a-Conel clenched his fingers around the jewel. 'Why do you not take it from me? You claim power?'
'Only a Hero may give it to him,' said the child. 'He knows that.'
‘Then I will give it to him,' said Erekose.
'No,' said Hawkmoon. 'If anyone has the right, I have it. Through the Black Jewel I was made a slave. Now, at least, I can use it to free those I love.'
The expression on the black being's face became eager.
'Not yet,' said the child.
Hawkmoon ignored him. 'Give me the Black Jewel, Jhary.'
Jhary-a-Conel looked first at the on
e he had addressed as 'cousin', then at Hawkmoon, He hesitated.
‘That jewel,' said the child quietly, 'is one aspect of one of the two most powerful things at present existing in the multiverse.'
'And the other?' said Erekose, looking yearningly at the woman he had sought for through eternity.
‘The other is this, the Runestaff.'
'If the Black Jewel is Fear, then what is the Runestaff?' asked Hawkmoon.
'Justice,' said the child, 'the enemy of Fear.'
'If you both hold so much power,' Oladahn said reasonably, 'then why are we involved?'
'Because neither can exist without Man,' said Orland Fank, They go with Man wherever He goes.'
'That is why you are here,' said the child. 'We are your creations.'
'Yet you control our destinies.' Erekose's eyes had never left Ermizhad's. 'How?'
'Because you let us,' the child told him.
'Well, then, "Justice", let me see you keep your word,' said the creature called Sword.
'My word was given that I would admit you to Tanelorn,' said the child. 'I can do no more. The bargain itself must be debated with Hawkmoon and Erekose.'
‘The Black Jewel for your captives? Is that the bargain?' Hawkmoon said. 'What will the jewel give you?'
'It will give him back some of the power he lost during the war between the gods,' said the child. 'And that power will enable him to bring more power for himself and pass easily into the new multiverse which will exist after the Conjunction.'
'Power which will serve you well,' said the black figure to Hawkmoon.
‘Power we have never wished for,' said Erekose.
'What do we lose if we agree?' Hawkmoon said.
'You lose my help, almost certainly.'
'Why is that?'
'I shall not say.'
'Mysteries!' said Hawkmoon. 'Discretion sadly misguided in my opinion, Jehamiah Cohnahlias.'
'I say nothing because I respect you,' said the child. 'But if the opportunity should come, then use the staff to smash the jewel.’
Hawkmoon took the Black Jewel from Jhary's hand. It was lifeless, without the familiar pulse, and he knew it was lifeless because that which inhabited it now stood before him in another guise.
'So,' said Hawkmoon, 'this is your home.'