Elric felt compelled to defend Pogokhashman, obscure and alien though he might be. “This man has done me a great service. He has returned Stormbringer
to me.
“Ah, yes. Stormbringer. Which was taken from you by ambush, yes?” Arioch walked delicately through the muck of the cell-floor as though trying to keep the hems of his flared scarlet pantaloons clean. “Your runeblade was snatched from you by Badichar Chon, I believe the fellow’s name is, and subjected to much experimenting by his pet wizards. And now it doesn’t... function properly, is that it?” He spoke with the solicitude of Elric’s old torturer Doctor Jest sympathizing with a prisoner over some heinous outrage which Jest himself had perpetrated.
“Yes. Yes! It does not overcome my weakness. I cannot break free.”
“No doubt that is because of the Splitting Spell... and the Chronophage.” Elric frowned. “I have never heard of either of these things.”
“The first is very simple — primitive even.” Arioch crossed his legs as a tailor might, and hovered a yard and a half above the cell floor. Across the cell, Pogokhashman’s face split in a wide, incredulous grin. “You wielded more powerful magicks yourself when you were but a child princeling. Badichar Chon searched far and wide to fill his College of Thaumaturges... but his is rather a backwater kingdom after all; the candidates were of a somewhat low order. Still, the Splitting Spell they used in an effort to unlock Stormbringer’s secrets was crudely effective, although in their ignorance they did not even recognize their success. They managed to partially unbind its energies — just for a moment of course, but in one of those delightful coincidences that are the bane of less flexible sorts than myself, it happened to be just the proper moment: a part of your runeblade’s essence was drawn away.”
“Drawn away by what? And what of this Chronophage? Some demon or wizard who robbed Stormbringer of its power?”
Arioch smiled and floated higher, until he was far above Elric’s head. A tube appeared in his hand, pulled out of some crack in reality, and the Chaos Lord brought its brass mouthpiece to his lips and inhaled. After a moment he blew out a great ring of blue smoke which drifted above his head and hung there.
“It would never do to tell you too much, pretty Elric,” he said. “It is antithetical to Chaos to rob individuals of their initiative.”
“Games, Duke Arioch, always games. Well, then, I will find Badichar Chon’s wizards and discover what they have done with their ham-handed spells.”
Arioch grinned around the brass mouthpiece. “You will not have to look far, I think.” He inclined his head toward Pogokhashman. Smoke wafted from his nostrils. “Turn around, you.”
The stranger stared at Arioch, then slowly pivoted until the stain on his backside came into view.
“If you have any questions for the College of Thaumaturges,” chuckled Arioch, “you may ask them now.”
“It was... um... an accident,” Pogokhashman said quietly.
Elric shook his head. “I understand nothing.”
Arioch blew another smoke-ring. “You must find Stormbringer’s stolen essence; it will lead you to the Chronophage. That is enough to begin. Farewell, my tragic underling.”
“Wait!” The Melnibonean leaned forward; his chains clanked. “I am still trapped here, too weak to escape....”
“Which will make your adventure all the more piquant.” Arioch abruptly began to grow transparent, then disappeared. The last of the smoke-rings followed him into oblivion a few seconds later.
“A thousand curses!” Elric howled at the empty air, then let his chin droop to his chest. Even anger sapped him; he could feel his remaining strength sifting away like sand through spread fingers. “Betrayed once more. My family’s bargain with Chaos has again proved to be a dubious one.”
“Wow, man, sorry.” Pogokhashman came forward and awkwardly patted the albino’s shoulder. “I’m not too clear on all this, but it sounds like a bummer.” He
paused for a moment, then dug in his pocket. “Would these help any?”
Elric goggled at the ring of iron keys. “What... where...?”
Pogokhashman shrugged. “One of those Topless Guards dropped ‘em. When they all ran away.”
“Ran away...?”
“Long story, man, like I told you.” The youth began trying the keys in the thick iron lock on Elric’s shackles. The third one clicked, then clicked again, and the shackles fell away.
Elric was having trouble encompassing all that had happened to him. He stared at his unlikely savior and shook his head. “I thank you, Pogokashman. If I can ever repay you....”
“I just hope you get your sword fixed. Or whatever that swimming-pool guy was saying.”
Elric held Stormbringer before him. It was still his living blade, but its essence was quiet, as though it slept. He shook it experimentally, then turned to his companion. “And somehow, I gather, you have destroyed the College of Thaumaturges — the Chon’s wizards?”
The look of embarrassment returned. “Didn’t mean to. I kind of sat on them.”
Elric shook his head, but did not pursue the matter. “Then I shall have to find some other method of seeking Stormbringer’s lost essence. You seem to be full of hidden powers, my friend. Can you help me? I am far in your debt already.”
“I don’t think so, man. I mean, I’m not even sure how I got here in the first place. We just took some acid, Sammy and me, and I was thinking about... well, anyway, I don’t think so.”
“Then I must try to solve the riddle.” Secretly, Elric felt a little relieved. The ease with which this stranger had defeated the Chon’s wizards and handpicked guard and then retrieved Stormbringer made the Melnibonean feel embarrassingly helpless. His sickly constitution had often placed him in such a position, but he did not hate it any the less for its familiarity. Now, even though his predicament was desperate, at least he would stand or fall by his own devices.
He wracked his mind for a spell that would allow him to trace Stormbringer’s stolen essence. This process was made slightly more difficult by his own lightheaded weakness, and also by Pogokhashman, who strolled up and down the length of the cell whistling and humming, his feet crunching through the rotted straw. Elric winced, but persevered, and at last a wisp of memory rose from the depths.
“Bring me the torch,” he called. His new companion went and drew it from the bracket, then stood in obvious amazement as the albino pushed his longfingered right hand into the flames.
“What... uh...?”
“Silence!” Elric hissed through clenched teeth. When he deemed a long enough moment had passed, he snatched it out again. The pain was dreadful, but it was necessary: between his own feebleness and Stormbringer’s strange torpor, Elric needed to strengthen the connection to his sword. He grasped the runeblade’s hilt in his raw, agonized hand; ignoring the pain as well as he could, he closed his eyes and felt for the restlessly slumbering core of Stormbringer.
“In flame and blood our pact was sealed,”
He intoned in a tongue that had been ancient before Imrryr was raised above the waves. He thought he could perceive a vague stirring in the internal darkness.
“With death and souls the bargain fed. Now lost to me is my dark friend, Its secrets all concealed.
“In blood our pact was first annealed, With death and souls the bond was made. Let light now burn away the shade,
Let all now be revealed.
“By all the ancient lore I wield,
By all who wait at my command,
By my heart’s blood and my right hand, Now let the breach be healed!”
When he had finished the incantation he paused, listening for something soundless, looking for something that had no shape. In a further shadow, deeper than the blackness behind his eyelids, something was indeed stirring. He felt for it, and sensed its incompleteness: Stormbringer itself was searching for what was lost. The questing something that was the remnant of the blade’s essence uncoiled and began to draw away from him. He seized at it with his mind, and could feel himself being pulled along.