«I am sorry. I have come to wish you farewell, my friend. Do what you must.»
«Aye. Shall I see you again?»
«No, for we are both truly dead. Our age has gone.»
Sepiriz seemed to twist in the air and disappear.
A cold silence remained.
At length Elric's thoughts were interrupted by Moonglum. «You must blow the horn, Elric. Whether it means nothing or much-you must blow it and finish this business forever! »
«How? I have scarcely enough strength to stand on my feet.»
«I have decided what you must do. Slay me with Stormbringer. Take my soul and vitality into yourself-then you will have sufficient power to blow the last blast.»
«Kill you, Moonglum! The only one left-my only true friend? You babble! »
«I mean it. You must, for there is nothing else to do. Further, we have no place here and must die soon at any rate. You told me how Zarozinia gave you her soul - well take mine, too! »
«I cannot.»
Moonglum paced towards him and reached down to grip Stormbringer. Stormbringer hilt, pulling it half-way from the sheath.
«No, Moonglum! »
But now the sword sprang from the sheath on its own volition. Elric struck Moonglum's hand away and gripped the Hilt. He could not stop it. The sword rose up, dragging his arm with it, poised to deliver a blow,
Moonglum stood with his arms by his side, his face expressionless, though Elric thought he glimpsed a flicker of fear in the eyes. He struggled to control the blade, but knew it was impossible.
«Let it do its work, Elric.»
The blade plunged forward and pierced Moonglum's heart. His blood sprang out and covered it. His eyes blurred and filled with horror. «Ah, no – I – had – not – expected this! »
Petrified, Elric could not tug the sword from his friend's heart. Moonglum's energy began to flow up its length and course into his body, yet, even when all the little Eastlander's vitality was absorbed, Elric remained staring at the small corpse until the tears flowed from his crimson eyes and a great sob racked him. Then the blade came free.
He flung it away from him and it did not clatter on the rocky ground but landed as a body might land. Then it seemed to move towards him and stop and he had the suspicion that it was watching him.
He took the horn and put it to his lips. He blew the blast to herald in the night of the new earth. The night that would precede the new dawn. And though the horn's note was triumphant, Elric was not. He stood full of infinite loneliness and infinite sorrow, his head tilted back as the sound rang on. And, when the note faded from triumph to a dying echo that expressed something of Elric's misery, a huge outline began to form in the sky above the earth, as if summoned by the horn.
It was the outline of a gigantic hand holding a balance and, as he watched, the balance began to right itself until each side was true.
And somehow this relieved Elric's sorrow as he released his grip on the Horn of Fate.
«There is something, at least, » he said, «and if it’s an illusion, then it's a reassuring one.»
He turned his head to one side and saw the blade leave the ground, sweep into the air and then rush down on him.
«Stormbringer! » he cried, and then the hellsword struck his chest, he felt the icy touch of the blade against his heart, reached out his fingers to clutch at it, felt his body constrict, felt it sucking his soul from the very depths of his being, felt his whole personality being drawn into the runesword. He knew, as his life faded to combine with the sword's, that it had always been his destiny to die in this manner. With the blade he had killed friends and lovers, stolen their souls to feed his own waning strength. It was as if the sword had always used him to this end, as if he was merely a manifestation of Stormbringer and was now being taken back into the body of the blade which had never been a true sword. And, as he died, he wept again, for he knew that the fraction of the sword's soul which was his would never know rest but was doomed to immortality, to eternal struggle.
Elric of Melnibone, last of the Bright Emperors, cried out, and then his body collapsed, a sprawled husk beside its comrade, and he lay beneath the mighty balance that still hung in the sky.
Then Stormbringer's shape began to change, writhing and curling above the body of the albino, finally to stand astraddle it
The entity that was Stormbringer, last manifestation of Chaos which would remain with this new world as it grew, looked down on the corpse of Brie of Melnibone and smiled.
«Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou! »
And then it leapt from the Earth and went spearing upwards, its wild voice laughing mockery at the Cosmic Balance; filling the universe with its unholy joy.
THE END
of the Saga of Elric of Melnibone.