From another corner Jhary took a small sack and put it on his shoulder. Almost as an afterthought he hunted about in a chest of jewels and found a gleaming ring of unnamable stones and peculiar metal. "This is your reward, Erekose, in helping to free me from my captor."
Erekose smiled. "I have the feeling you needed no help, young man."
"You are mistaken, friend Erekose. I doubt if I have ever been in greater peril." He looked vaguely about the vault, staggering as the floor tilted alarmingly.
Elric said: "We should take steps to leave."
"Exactly." Jhary-a-Conel crossed swiftly to the fat side of the vault. "The last thing. In his pride Voilodion showed me his possessions, but he did not know the value of all of them."
"What do you mean?" asked the Prince in the Scarlet Robe.
"He killed the traveller who brought this with him. The traveller was right in assuming he had the means to stop the tower from vanishing, but he did not have time to use it before Voilodion had slain him." Jhary picked up a small staff coloured a dull ochre. "Here it is. The Runestaff. Hawkmoon had this with him when I travelled with him to the Dark Empire...."
Noticing their puzzlement, Jhary-a-Conel, Compan ion to Champions, apologised. "I am sorry. I sometimes forget that not all of us have memories of other careers...."
"What is the Runestaff?" Corum asked.
"I remember one description-but I am poor at naming and explaining things...."
"That has not escaped my notice, " Elric said, almost smiling.
"It is an object which can only exist under a certain set of spatial and temporal laws. In order to continue to exist, it must exert a field in which it can contain itself. That field must accord with those laws-the same laws under which we best survive."
More masonry fell.
"The tower is breaking up! " Erekose growled.
Jhary stroked the dull ochre staff. "Please gather near me, my friends."
The three heroes stood around him. And then the roof of the tower fell in. But it did not fall on them for they stood suddenly on firm ground breathing fresh air. But there was blackness all around them. "Do not step outside this small area, " Jhary warned, "or you will be doomed. Let the Runestaff seek what we seek."
They saw the ground change colour, breathed warmer, then colder, air. It was as if they moved from plane to plane of the universe, never seeing more than the few feet of ground upon which they stood.
And then there was harsh desert sand beneath their feet and Jhary shouted. "Now! " The four of them rushed out of the area and into the blackness to find themselves suddenly in sunlight beneath a sky like beaten metal.
"A desert, " Erekose murmured. "A vast desert...."
Jhary smiled. "Do you not recognise it, friend Elric?"
"Is it the Sighing Desert?"
"Listen."
And sure enough Elric heard the familiar sound of the wind as it made its mournful passage across the sands. A little way away he saw the Runestaff where they had left it. Then it was gone.
"Are you all to come with me to the defence of Tanelorn?" he asked Jhary.
Jhary shook his head. "No. We go the other way. We go to seek the device Theleb K'aarna activated with the help of the Lords of Chaos. Where lies it?"
Elric tried to get his bearings. He lifted a hesitant finger. "That way, I think."
"Then let us go to it now."
"But I must try to help Tanelorn."
"You must destroy the device after we have used it, friend Elric, lest Theleb K'aarna or his like try to activate it again."
"But Tanelorn..."
"I do not believe that Theleb K'aarna and his beasts have yet reached the city."
"Not reached it! So much time has passed! "
"Less than a day."
Elric rubbed at his face. He said reluctantly: "Very well. I will take you to the machine."
"But if Tanelorn lies so near, " Corum said to Jhary, "why seek it elsewhere?"
"Because this is not the Tanelorn we wish to find, " Jhary told him.
"It will suit me, " Erekose said. "I will remain with Elric. Then, perhaps..."
A look almost of terror spread over Jhary's features then. He said sadly: "My friend-already much of time and space is threatened with destruction. Eternal barriers could soon fall-the fabric of the multiverse could decay. You do not understand. Such a thing as has happened in the Vanishing Tower can only happen once or twice in an eternity and even then it is dangerous to all concerned. You must do as I say. I promise that you will have just as good a chance of finding Tanelorn where I take you. Your opportunity lies in Elric's future."
Erekose bowed his head. "Very well."
"Come, " Elric said impatiently, beginning to strike off to the North-east. "For all your talk of Tune, there is precious little left for me."
CHAPTER SIX
Pale Lord Shouting in Sunlight
The machine in the bowl was where Elric had last seen it, just before he had attacked it and found himself plunged into Corum's world.
Jhary seemed completely familiar with it and soon had its heart beating strongly. He shepherded the other two up to it and made them stand with their backs against the crystal. Then he handed something to Elric. It was a small vial.
"When we have departed, " he said, "hurl this through the top of the bowl, then take your horse which I see is yonder and ride as fast as you can for Tanelorn. Follow these instructions perfectly and you will serve us all."
Elric accepted the vial. "Very well."
"And, " Jhary said finally as he took his place with the others, "please give my compliments to my brother Moonglum."
"You know him? What-?"
"Farewell, Elric! We shall doubtless meet many times in the future, though we may not recognise each other."
Then the beating of the thing in the bowl grew louder and the ground shook and the strange darkness surrounded it-then the three figures had gone. Swiftly Elric hurled the vial upwards so that it fell through the opening of the bowl, then he ran to where his golden mare was tethered, leapt into the saddle with the bundle Jhary had given him under his arm, and galloped as fast as he could go towards Tanelorn.
Behind him the beating suddenly ceased. The dark ness disappeared. A tense silence fell. Then Elric heard something like a giant's gasp and blinding blue light filled the desert. He looked back. Not only the bowl and the device had gone-so also had the rocks which had once surrounded it.
He came up behind them at last, just before they reached the walls of Tanelorn. Elric saw warriors on those walls.
The massive reptilian monsters bore their equally repulsive masters upon their backs, their feet leaving deep marks in the sand as they moved. And Theleb K'aarna rode at their head on a chestnut stallion-and there was something draped across his saddle.
Then a shadow passed over Elric's head and he looked up. It was the metal bird which had borne Myshella away. But it was riderless. It wheeled over the heads of the lumbering reptiles whose masters raised their strange weapons and sent hissing streams of fire in its direction, driving it higher into the sky. Why was the bird here and not Myshella? A peculiar cry came again and again from its metal throat and Elric realized what that cry resembled-the pathetic sound of a mother bird whose young is in danger.