The voice of the Phoorn sounded again in my mind. We. have no strength to escape him . . .
I prayed that I could die with Oona in my arms. I pushed with all my strength against the clinging membrane, too weak now to reach her. She was holding tight to the scales as the freezing wind sought to dislodge her from the Phoorn.
I was now convinced that Sepiriz, Lobkowitz and the Kakatanawa had all perished. Somehow Ayanawatta continued to play his flute, but I guessed he could not survive for long.
I love you. Father-Ulric-I love you both.
Oona's voice. I saw her turn, seeking me, yearning towards me with her eyes. She could not loose her grip, or she would be torn from the back of the Phoorn. Again I strained against the membrane. It flickered with scarlet and turquoise and a soft pewter brilliance. It did not resist me, but neither did it allow me to break free.
Oona!
From below something roared and spat at us. The whole of the surface erupted, fragmenting into millions of spores which spun away past us into the infinite cosmos. Scarlet and black streamed up at us, as if the whole world exploded. Searing hot air was a sudden wall against the cold. Silence fell.
I heard a distant rumbling. A roaring. I knew what this meant. What shot upwards towards us was magma. Rock as swift and lively as a roaring river and far more deadly. We were directly above an erupting volcano. We would burn to death before the whirlwind destroyed us!
But Oona was pointing excitedly up towards the distant Bal-
ance, clearly visible now on the staff that had replaced the black sword. I knew then that this was the original iron which Sepiriz and his people had stolen to make Stormbringer. This was the metal the Kakatanawa had told the Pukawatchi to fashion. She was what whole nations had died to possess. Her magic was the magic of the Cosmic Balance itself. Her power was strong enough to challenge that Balance. Those who mastered her, mastered Fate. Those who did not master her, were mastered by her.
What Oona showed me was not significant at first, but then I realized why she was elated. The bowls that formed the twin weights of the Balance were gradually finding equilibrium.
The boiling air struck hard against Lord Shoashooan's cold turbulence. I saw his face, closer this time, as his teeth snapped at us and his flailing claws grasped and held the Phoorn. The beast beat his wonderful wings helplessly and would surely perish.
But the hot air was consuming Lord Shoashooan. He was collapsing in it. Slowly his grip loosened, and he began to wail. I felt my head would burst with the volume. What I had taken for another aspect of Lord Shoashooan's strength had been his opposite, conjured from the benign Underworld whose denizens had helped us in the past. A counterforce as powerful as the Lord of Winds, which could only be rising from the core of the Grey Fees.
Shoashooan had weakened himself in his pursuit of us. At last we felt his grip relax, and we were free. And he in turn was now pursued. One great Lord of Winds gave chase to another! We watched the turquoise-and-crimson air, foamy masses of creamy smoke roiling in its wake, as it enclosed and absorbed its filthy opposite. It purified the Lord of Winds with its grace alone and brought at last, against Lord Shoashooan's will, a kind of uneasy harmony. With the tornado still grumbling from within, the flute's simple tune faded into one single note of resolution.
We stood looking up at the Skrayling Tree, looking up at the great black staff of the Balance, at the cups which must surely be the Grail, which had restored Oona to life. At the central pivot of the Balance Oona had placed the blue jewel of Jerusalem, my ring. The same Templar ring which Elric had carried from Jerusalem. The ring which resembled our small, ordinary planet, seen from space. The ring which had helped us restore the Balance.
The Kakatanawa resumed their watch, again immobile. The great Phoorn settled near the roots of the tree, and my wife and I dismounted and embraced at last. Almost at once the huge beast curled himself about the base of the tree. He returned peacefully to his stewardship. The roots were already restoring themselves.
At the moment of our embrace, we stood beneath a sharp, blue sky, with a sweet wind blowing surrounded by ruins. The tree grew larger and larger as the Balance grew stronger, until it filled the entire firmament, and the roots were green and fresh again, winding out from the ruined Kakatanawa city, out through the deep, deep ice-
Where the surviving avatars of Gaynor, Klosterheim and their men still moved with weary determination towards us.
The Vikings' eyes stared sightlessly. Their lips moved wordlessly. They held their weapons tightly, the only reality the Vikings could be certain of. It was clear they longed for the release of a slaughtering. They no longer cared how they died.
It was still not over. I looked around for a sword but found nothing. Instead I saw the prone bodies of Elric and White Crow. I saw Prince Lobkowitz, Lord Sepiriz and Ayanawatta, all unarmed, standing together around Bes, the mammoth. The great Phoorn seemed to have immersed himself in the trunk of the tree.
We did not have a weapon among us, and Gaynor and his men were still armed to the teeth. They understood their advantage, because their pace quickened. Like hungry dogs scenting blood, they hurried towards us. Elric and White Crow slowly revived only to become aware of their threatened destruction.
Had I survived so much to see my wife cut down before my eyes? I dug around among the rubble for a sword. There was nothing. Lord Shoashooan had reduced the entire great city to dust.
They were almost on our island. I urged Oona to flee, but she held her ground. Ayanawatta had come to stand with us. His handsome, tattooed features were calm, resolute. He slipped his
bone flute from his bag in one fluid movement and placed it to his lips. We watched Gaynor and his men advance across the ice.
As Ayanawatta played, no note issued from the flute itself, but I began to hear a strange, subterranean sound. Groaning, creaking and cracking. A distant rushing. And another eruption of warm air at our feet. Things burst upwards through the shattering ice. They glistened with fresh life.
Gaynor saw them, too. He yelled to his men, instantly understanding the danger, and began to dash towards us, sword drawn. But the fresh, green roots of the Skrayling Oak spread everywhere, smashing up through the ice, overturning great blocks and collapsing back into what was rapidly becoming water once more.
Desperate now, Gaynor persevered. He labored to the edge of the ice, our island shore only a few paces away.
And there he stopped.
Bes the mammoth stood facing him. She shook her tusks, menacing him, all the while her mild eyes regarding him with a terrifying calm.
He turned. Hesitated.
Further up the shore Klosterheim and several of his men leaped to our island as the last of the ice around them melted. Sheets of clear, pale water appeared beneath the winter sky. A great fissure had torn apart the remaining ice sheets and was widening rapidly as Gaynor, trapped between two dangers, still hesitated, not knowing how to avoid defeat. Bes stomped relentlessly towards him, and he was forced back onto the ice. He began to run, slipping and sliding, towards a nearby spur of rock jutting out from the beach.
He almost reached the rock, but his armor and his sword became too heavy for him. He sank as quickly as the ice vanished. He stood up to his waist in black water, raging to survive, roaring out his anger and frustration even as he slipped suddenly beneath the waves and was gone.
Gone. A warm, gentle breeze blew from the south.
I could not believe that angry immortal had simply disappeared. I knew by now that he would never die. Not, at least, until I, too, died.
Oona tugged at my arm. "We must go home now," she said. "Prince Lobkowitz will take us."