He heard a soft moaning come from the great black battle blade as he reached out a slim-fingered white hand to take it. It was heavy, yet perfectly balanced, a two-handed broadsword of prodigious size, with its wide crosspiece and its blade smooth and broad, stretching for over five feet from the hilt. Near the hilt, mystic runes were engraved and even Brie did not know what they fully signified.
«Again I must make use of you, Stormbringer, » he said as he buckled the sheath about his waist, »and I must conclude that we are too closely linked now for less than death to separate us.»
With that he was striding from the armoury and back to the courtyard where mounted guards were already sitting nervous steeds, awaiting his instructions.
Standing before them, he drew Stormbringer so that the sword's strange, black radiance flickered around him, his white face, as pallid as bleached bone, staring out of it at the horsemen.
«You go to chase demons this night Search the countryside, scour forest and plain for those who have done this thing to our princess! Though it's likely that her abductors used supernatural means to make their escape, we cannot be sure. So search-and search well! »
All through the raging night they searched but could find no trace of either the creatures or Elric's wife. And when dawn came, a smear of blood in the morning sky, his men returned to Karlaak where Elric awaited them, now filled with the nigromantic vitality which his sword supplied.
«Lord Elric shall we retrace our trail and see if daylight yields a clue?» cried one.
«He does not hear you, » another murmured as Elric gave no sign.
But then Elric turned his pain-racked head and he said bleakly, «Search no more. I have had time to mediate and must seek my wife with the aid of sorcery. Disperse. You can do nothing further.»
Then he left them and went back towards his palace, knowing that there was still one way of learning where Zarozinia had been taken. It was a method which he ill-liked, yet it would have to be employed.
Curtly, upon returning, Elric ordered everyone from his dumber, barred the door and stared down at the dead thing to congealed blood was still on him, but the axe with which he had stain it had been taken away by his comrades.
Elric prepared the body, stretching out its limbs on the floor. He drew the shutters of the windows so that no light filtered into the room, and lit a brazier in one corner. It swayed on its chains as an oil-soaked rushes flared. He went to a mail chest by the window and took out a pouch. From this he removed a bunch of dried herbs and with a hasty gesture flung them on the brazier so that it gave off a sickly odour and the room began to fill with smoke. Then he stood over the corpse, his body rigid, and began to sing an incantation in the old language of his forefathers, the sorcerer emperors of Melnibone. The song seemed scarcely akin to human speech, riling and falling from a deep groan to a high-pitched shriek.
The brazier spread flaring red light over Elric's face and grotesque shadows skipped about the room. On the floor the dead corpse began to stir, its ruined head moving from side to ride. Elric drew his runesword and placed it before him, his two hands on the hilt «Arise, soulless one!» he commanded.
Slowly, with jerky movements, the creature raised itself stiffly upright and pointed a clawed finger at Elric, its glazed eyes staring as if beyond him.
«An his,» it whispered, «was pre-ordained. Think not that you can escape your fate, Elric of Melnibone. You have tampered with my corpse and I am a creature of Chaos. My masters will avenge me.»
«How?»
«Your destiny is already laid down. You will know soon enough.»
«Tell me, dead one, why did you come to abduct my wife? Who sent you hither? Where has my wife been taken?»
«Three questions, Lord Elric, requiring three answers. You know that the dead who have been raised by sorcery can answer nothing directly.»
«Aye - that I know. So answer as you can.»
«Then listen well for I may recite only once my reed and then must return to the nether-regions where my being may peacefully rot to nothing. Listen;
With this, the dung fell to the floor and did not stir thereafter.
Elric went to the window and opened the shutters. Used as he was to enigmatic verse-omens, this one was difficult to unravel. As daylight entered the room, the rushes spluttered and the smoke faded. Beyond the ocean… There were many oceans.
He resheathed his runesword and climbed on to the disordered bed to lie down and contemplate the reed. At last, after long minutes of this contemplation, he remembered something he had heard from a traveller who had come to Karlaak from Tarkesh a nation of an Western Continent, beyond the Pale Sea.
The traveller had told him how there was trouble brewing between an land of Dharijor and the other nations of the west Dharijor had contravened treaties she had signed with her neighbouring kingdoms and had signed a new one with the Theocrat of Pan Tang. Pan Tang was an unholy island dominated by its dark aristocracy of warrior-wizards. It was from here not Bine's old enemy, Theleb K'aarna, had come. Its capital of Hwamgaarl was called the City of Screaming Statues and until recently its residents had had little contact with the folk of the outside world. Jagreen Lern was an new Theocrat and an ambitious man. His alliance with Dharijor could only mean may he sought more power over the nations of the Young Kingdoms. The traveller had said dial strife was sure to break out at any moment since there was ample evidence that Dharijor and Pan Tang had entered a war alliance.
Now, as his memory improved, Elric related his information with an news he had had recently that Queen Yishana of Jharkor, a neighbouring kingdom to Dharijor, had recruited the aid of Dyvim Slorm and his Imrryrian mercenaries. And Dyvim Slorm was Elric's only kinsman. This meant that Jharkor must be preparing for battle against Dharijor. The two facts were too closely linked with the prophecy to be ignored.
Even as he thought upon it, he was gathering his clothes together and preparing for a journey. There was nothing for it but to go to Jharkor and speedily, for there he was sure to meet his kinsman. And there, also, there would soon be a battle if all the evidence were true.
Yet the prospect of the journey, which would take many days, caused a cold ache to grow in his heart as he thought of the weeks to come in which he would not know how his wife fared.
«No time for that, » he told himself as he laced up his black quilted jacket. «Action is all that's required of me now - and speedy action.»
He held the sheathed runeblade before him, staring beyond it into space. «I swear by Arioch that those who have done this, wherever they be man or immortal, shall suffer from their deed. Hear me, Arioch! That is my oath! «
But his words found no answer and he sensed that Arioch, his patron demon, had either not heard him or else heard his oath and was unmoved.
Then he was striding from the death-heavy chamber, yelling for his horse.
Two
Where the Signing Desert gave way to the borders of Ilmiora, between the coasts of the Eastern continent and the lands of Tarkesh, Dharijor and Shazar, there lay the Pale Sea.
It was a cold sea, a morose and chilling sea, but ships preferred to cross from Ilmiora to Dharijor by means of it, rather than chance the weirder dangers of the Straits of Chaos which were lashed by eternal storms and inhabited by malevolent sea-creatures.