Elric did not bother to ask Sepiriz how he knew of the Southerners' decision to fight Jagreen Lern alone. Sepiriz obviously had many powers as was proved by his ability to contact Brie through the seer.
«I have sworn to help the Southlands in spite of their refusal to side with us against the Theocrats» he said calmly.
«And you'll keep your oath-by destroying the Dukes if you can.»
«Destroying Arioch, and Balan and Maluk...» Elric whispered the names, fearful that even here he might invoke them.
«Arioch has always been an intractable demon, » Moonglum pointed out «Many times in the past he has refused to aid you, Elric.»
«Because, » Sepiriz said, «he already had some knowledge that you and he were to fight in the future.»
Though the wine had refreshed his body, Elric began to ache in different ways. The strain on his soul was almost at breaking point. To fight the demon-god his ancestors had worshipped for millenia... The old blood was still strong in him, the old loyalties still present.
Sepiriz rose and gripped Elric's Shoulder, staring with black eyes into the dazed and smouldering red.
«You have pledged yourself to this mission, remember.»
Elric drew himself upright, nodded vaguely. «Aye. And even had I been given this knowledge before I made the pledge, I would still have made it But…»
«What?»
«Do not place too much faith in my ability to fulfil this part, Sepiriz.» The black Nihrain said nothing.
Later he left Elric brooding and returned with a white tablet on which Old nines were engraved.
He handed it to the albino who received it wordlessly.
«Memorise the spell, » Sepiriz said softly, »And then destroy fee tablet. But remember, only use it in an extreme emergency for, as I warned you, Stormbringer's brethren may refuse to aid you.»
Elric made an effort and controlled his emotion. For a long time, long after Moonglum had gone to rest, he studied the rune, learning not only how to verbalise it but also the twists of logic which he would have to understand, and the state of mind into which he must put himself if it were to be effective.
When both he and Sepiriz were satisfied, Elric allowed a lave to take him to his sleeping chamber, but slumber came hard to him and he spent the night in restless torment until a slave came to wake him the next morning and found him fully dressed and ready to ride for Pan Tang where the Dukes of Hell were assembled.
Four
Through the stricken lands of the west rode Elric and Moonglum, astride sturdy Nihrain steeds that seemed to need no rest and contained no fear. The Nihrain horses were a special gift, for they had certain additional powers to their unnatural strength and endurance. Sepiriz had told them how, in fact, the steeds did not have full existence on the earthly plane and that their hooves did not touch the ground in the strict sense, but touched the stuff of their other plane. This gave them the ability to appear to gallop on air-or water.
Scenes of terror were everywhere to be found. At one time they saw in the distance a frightful sight, a wild and hellish mob destroying a village built around a castle. The castle itself was in flames and on the horizon a mountain gouted smoke and fire. Though the looters had human shape, they were degenerate creatures, spilling blood and drinking it with equal abandon. And directing them without joining their orgy Elric and Moonglum saw what seemed to be a corpse astride the living skeleton of a horse, bedecked in bright trappings, a naming sword in its band and a golden helm on its head.
They skirted the scene and rode fast away from it, through mists that looked and smelt like blood, over rivers dammed with death, past rustling forests that seemed to follow them, beneath skies often filled with ghastly winged shapes bearing even ghastlier burdens. At other times they met groups of warriors, many of them in the armour and trappings of the conquered nations, but depraved and obviously sold to Chaos.
These they fought or avoided, depending on the circumstance and, when at last they reached the cliffs of Jharkor and saw the sea which would take them to the Isle of Pan Tang, they knew they had ridden through a land which had become, literally, a hell on earth.
Scarcely stopping, Elric and Moonglum rode their horses over the water towards the evil-heavy island of Pan Tang where Jagreen Lern and his terrible allies prepared to sail with their giant fleet and smash the seapower of the south before conquering the Southlands themselves.
«Elric! » Moonglum called above the whining wind, «Should we not proceed with more caution?»
«Caution? What need of that when the Dukes of Hell must surely know their turncoat servant comes to fight them! »
Moonglum pursed his long lips, disturbed, for Elric was in a wild, maddened mood. He got little comfort, also, from the knowledge that Sepiriz had charmed his shortsword and his sabre both, with one of the few white spells he had at his command.
Now the bleak cliffs of Pan Tang were in sight, spray-lashed and ominous, the sea moaning about them as if in some special torment which Chaos could inflict on nature itself.
And also around the island a peculiar darkness hovered, shifting and changing.
They entered the darkness as the Nihrain steeds pounded up the steep, rocky beach of Pan Tang, a place that had always been ruled by its black priesthood, a grim theocracy that had sought to emulate the legendary sorcerer-kings of the Bright Empire of Melnibone. But Elric, last of those kings, and landless now with few subjects, knew that the dark arts had been natural and lawful to his ancestors, whereas these human-beings had perverted themselves to worship an unholy hierarchy they barely understood.
Sepiriz had given them their route and they galloped across the turbulent land towards the capital-Hwamgaarl, City of Screaming Statues.
Pan Tang was an island of green, shiny, obsidian rock that gave off bizarre reflections; rock that seemed alive.
Soon they could see the looming walls of Hwamgaarl in the distance. As they drew nearer, an army of black-cowered swordsmen, chanting a particularly horrible litany, seemed to rise from the ground ahead.
Elric had no time to spare for these, recognizable as a detachment of Jagreen Lern's warrior-priests.
«Up, steed! » he cried and the Nihrain horse leapt skywards, passing over the disconcerted priests with a fantastic bound. Moonglum did likewise, his laughter mocking them u he and his friend thundered on towards Hwamgaarll
Their way was dear for some distance, since Jagreen Lern had evidently expected the detachment to hold the pair at least for some time.
But when the City of Screaming Statues was barely a mile away, the ground began to grumble and gaping cracks split its surface. This did not overly disturb them, for the Nihrain horses had no use for earthly terrain in any case.
The sky above seemed to heave and shake itself, the darkness became flushed with streaks of the ebony, and from the fissures in the ground, monstrous shapes sprang up!
Vulture-headed lions, fifteen feet high, prowled in hungry anticipation towards them, their feathered manes rustling as they approached.
To Moonglum's frightened astonishment, Elric laughed and the Eastlander knew his friend had gone mad.
But Elric was familiar with this ghoulish pack since his own ancestors had formed it for their own purposes a dozen centuries before.
Evidently, Jagreen Lern had discovered the pack nuking on the borders between Chaos and Earth and had utilised it without being aware of how it had been created.