Elric paused just before he came within sword-reach of his enemy. «Jagreen Lern, are you ready to pay for the crimes you've committed against me and the world?»
«Pay? Crimes? You surprise me, Elric, for I see you have fully absorbed the carping attitude of your new allies. In my conquests I have found it necessary to eliminate a few of your friends who sought to stop me. But that was to be expected. I did what I had to and what I intended-if I have failed now, I have no regret, for regret is a fool's emotion and useless in any capacity. What happened to your wife was no direct fault of mine. Will you have triumph if you slay me?»
Elric shook his head. «My perspectives have, indeed, changed, Jagreen Lern. Yet we of Melnibone were ever a vengeful brood-and vengeance is what I claim! »
«Ah, now I understand you, » Jagreen Lern changed his stance and he raised his axe to the defensive position. «I am ready.»
Elric leapt at him, Stormbringer shrieking through the air to crash against the scarlet buckler and crash again. Three blows he delivered before Jagreen Lern's axe sought to wriggle through his defence and he halted it by a sideways movement of the Chaos Shield. The axe succeeded only in grazing his arm near the shoulder. Elric's shield clanged against Jagreen Lern's and Elric attempted to exert his weight and push the Theocrat backwards, meanwhile stabbing around the rims of the locked shields and trying to penetrate Jagreen Lern's guard.
For some moments they remained in this position while the music of the battle sounded around them and the ground seemed to fall from under them, columns of blossoming colours erupting, like magical plants, on all sides. Then Jagreen Lern jumped back, slashing at Elric. The albino rushed forward, ducked and struck at the Theocrat's leg near the knee-and missed. From above, the axe dashed down and he flung himself to one side to avoid it. Carried off-balance by the force of the blow, Jagreen Lern staggered and Elric leapt up and kicked at the small of the Theocrats back. The man fell sprawling, losing his grip on both axe and shield as he tried to do many things at once and failed to do anything. Elric put his heel on the Theocrat's neck and held him there, Stormbringer hovering greedily over his prone enemy.
Jagreen Lern heaved his body round so that he looked up at Elric. He was suddenly pale and his eyes were fixed on the black hellblade when he spoke hoarsely to Elric. «Finish me now. There's no place for my soul in all eternity-not any more. I must go to limbo-so finish me! »
Brie was about to allow Stormbringer to plunge itself into the defeated Theocrat when he stayed the weapon, holding it back from its prey with difficulty. The runesword murmured in frustration and tugged in his hand.
«No, » he said slowly. «I want nothing of yours, Jagreen Lern. I would not pollute my being by feeding off your soul. Moonglum! » His friend ran up. «Moonglum, hand me your blade.»
Silently, the little Eastlander obeyed. Elric sheathed the resisting Stormbringer, saying to it: «There - that's the first time I've stopped you from feeding. What will you do now, I wonder?» Then he took Moonglum's blade and slashed it across Jagreen Lern’s cheek, opening it up in a long, deep cut which began slowly to fill with blood.
The Theocrat screamed.
«No, Elric - kill me! »
With an absent smile, Elric slashed the other cheek. His bloody face contorted, Jagreen Lern shouted for death, but Elric continued to smile his vague, half-aware smile, and said softly: «You sought to imitate the Emperors of Melnibone, did you not? You mocked Elric of that line, you tortured him and you abducted his wife. You moulded her body into a hell-shape as you moulded the rest of the world. You slew Elric's friends and challenged him in your impertinence. But you are nothing-you are more of a pawn than Elric ever was. Now, little roan, know how the folk of Melnibone toyed with such upstarts in the days when they ruled the world! »
Jagreen Lern took an hour to die and only then because Moonglum begged Elric to finish him swiftly.
Elric handed Moonglum's tainted sword back to him after wiping it on a shred of fabric that had been part of the Theocrat's robe. He looked down at the mutilated body and stirred it with his foot, then he looked away to where the Lords of the Higher Worlds were embattled.
He was badly weakened from the fight and also from the energy he had been forced to exert to return the resisting Stormbringer to its sheath, but this was forgotten as he stared in wonder at the gigantic battle.
Both the Lords of Law and those of Chaos had become huge and misty as their earthly mass diminished and they continued to fight in human shape. They were like half-real giants, fighting everywhere now-on the land and above it Far away on the rim of the horizon, he saw Donblas the Justice Maker engaged with Chardros the Reaper, their outlines flickering and spreading, the slim sword daring and the great scythe sweeping.
Unable to participate, unsure which side was winning, Elric and Moonglum watched as the intensity of the battle increased and, with it, the slow dissolution of the gods' earthly manifestation. The fight was no longer merely on the earth but seemed to be raging throughout all the planes of the cosmos and, as if in unison with this transformation, the earth appeared to be losing its form, until Elric and Moonglum drifted in the mingled swirl of air, fire, earth and water.
The earth dissolved-yet still the Lords of the Higher Worlds battled over it
The stuff of the earth alone remained, but unformed. Its components were still in existence, but their new shape was undecided. The fight continued. The victors would have the privilege of re-forming the earth.
Six
At last, though Elric did not know how, the turbulent dart gave way to light, and there came a noise-a cosmic roar of hate and frustration-and he knew that the Lords of Chaos had been defeated and banished. The Lords of Law victorious, Fate's plan had been achieved, though it still required the last note of the horn to bring it to its required conclusion.
And Elric realised he did not have the strength left to blow the horn the third time.
About the two friends, the world was taking on a distinct shape again. They found they were standing on a rocky plain and in the distance were the slender peaks of new-formed mountains, purple against a mellow sky.
Then the earth began to move. Faster and faster it whirled, day giving way to night with incredible rapidity, and then it began to slow until the sun was again all but motionless in the sky, moving with something like its customary speed.
The change had taken place. Law ruled here now, yet the Lords of Law had departed without thanks.
And though Law ruled, it could not progress until the horn was blown for the last time.
«So it is over, » Moonglum murmured. «All gone-Elwher, my birth-place, Karlaak by the Weeping Waste, Bakshaan, even the Dreaming City and the Isle of Melnibone. They no longer exist, they cannot be retrieved. And this is the new world formed by Law. It looks much the same as the old.»
Elric, too, was filled with a sense of loss, knowing that all the places that were familiar to him, even the very continents were gone and replaced by different ones. It was like the loss of childhood and perhaps that was what it was-the passing of the earth's childhood.