Тэд Уильямс: Go ask Elric

The prince frowned. “It is possible. My chief mage, Jazh Jandlar, assisted me in a spell designed to use Cloudhurler to summon supernatural allies — it has served me that way before, though never reliably. But no allies answered my summons.”

Elric sat up, pondering. “So you used your blade to call for help. I used my own summoning to call my patron, Duke Arioch of Chaos, to help me regain my lost sword Stormbringer — but at the very moment I did so, my enemy’s chief magicians were tampering with the substance of my runeblade. And now we are both here, in this empty place. That makes for too many coincidences. I think I see the manipulation of the Lords of the Higher Planes at work here.” He looked up at Pogokhashman, who was trying to scrape something off the sole of his yards' long shoe. “I received an ally — that strange youth. Could it be that you received something of the essence of Stormbringer?”

The Gypsy Prince stared at him for a moment, then drew his white blade, which was discolored with various shades of beast^man ichor. “I have noticed a certain... restlessness in it, but the Singing Sword has ever been an unpredictable companion; I thought perhaps it responded to the presence of the Chronophage.”

Something had been stirring in the depths of Stormbringer for several moments, as faint but arresting as an almost inaudible cry of pain. Elric lifted his runeblade and gently laid it against Cloudhurler’s white length. Suddenly, the sensation of sentience flared; at the same moment, Uendrijj reeled back as if he had been struck.

“By the Root, the Black Cat, and D’Modzho Feltarr!” breathed the prince. “Something is indeed alive in that sword of yours. I felt it as though it clawed at my soul.”

The albino did not speak, but gritted his teeth, suppressing a scream. Stormbringer’s lost power was flooding back into the blade and into him as well, boiling through his veins like a river of molten metal. Sweat beaded on his brow and his muscles trembled convulsively. Uendrijj lifted a brown, longTingered hand as though to aid him, but hesitated, not sure what was happening.

As Stormbringer’s stolen essence flowed out of the white sword and through his own black blade, Elric felt something of Cloudhurler, and of its master as well. When at last the inrush stopped, his body throbbed with new strength. He boomed out a laugh, startling Uendrijj again.

“O Gypsy Prince, I sense that we have far more in common than just the possession of such weapons! You have been the victim of many of the same cosmic jests that have made my life a misery.”

Before Uendrijj could reply, the moon-wide face of Pogokhashman suddenly tilted down toward them.

“Hey, those weirdos are coming at us again,” the giant boomed. “Think you better get ready, man.”

Elric sprang to his feet. Now that his strength had returned, the prospect of combat almost delighted him. He reminded himself that some of the anticipation was Stormbringer’s own inhuman battle-glee; it would not do to become careless. “Come, Uendrijj, my more-than-brother! We have work to do!”

The Gypsy Prince unfolded himself more slowly, but with considerable grace. “I am glad to see you looking healthier, friend Elric.”

“Here they come,” called Pogokhashman, rising to his full, towering height. “God 'damn they’re ugly!”

Having screwed up their courage to face the giant, the beast-men came on now without stopping, a seemingly unending tide of brutal, unthinking bloodlust. Despite their bravery and steadfastness, Uendrijj’s soldiery were dragged down one by one; some of those overcome did not die for hours, and their screams seemed to darken the air like shadows. Before the long afternoon had waned, only Elric, the prince, and the giant youth still stood against the horde.

As the sun fell into the West behind the ceaseless tide of attackers, the albino and the Gypsy Prince fought on, side by side. Elric shouted and roared, siphoning strength from his defeated enemies. Uendrijj chanted, plying his ivory sword with the fierce calm of a warrior monk. The swords gave voice, too, all through the long afternoon, Stormbringer’s exultant howl was capped and counterpointed by Cloudhurler’s complex, cascading song, as though the two weapons performed some arch-exotic concert piece. For hour upon hour the blades sang and their duochrome flicker scythed the awkward beast-men like a field of flowers... but these flowers had fierce thorns: both Elric and Shemei Uendrijj sustained many small wounds.

Pogokhashman retained his giant’s form, although in the few brief glimpses he could snatch, Elric could see that his companion’s strength was flagging. The youth stationed himself just far enough away to avoid treading on his allies by accident, but close enough that he could protect them when they were too hard- pressed. Despite great weariness, he flailed about him with splintering tree trunks, shouting “It’s hit deep to center-field! It could be... yes! It’s a bye-bye baby!” and other incomprehensible battle-cries, and causing vast carnage among the Chaos army. But still the horde came on. Their numbers seemed endless.

Uendrijj had stooped to pick up his ivory sword, which had slipped from his blood-slicked hands. Elric stood over him, keeping a small knot of attackers at bay. Stormbringer had drunk deep of the half-souls of beast-men, but it still thirsted. Elric was almost drunk on stolen vitality. If he were to die, it would be laughing, bathed in the gore of his enemies.

“I think you enjoy this,” Uendrijj shouted above the din as he straightened up. “I wish I could say the same, but it is only horrible, wearisome slaughter.”

Elric brought Stormbringer down in an almost invisibly swift arc, crushing the gray, jackal-eared head of one of their attackers. “War is only life speeding at a faster pace, O Prince!” he cried, although he did not know exactly what he meant. Before he could say more, Pogokhashman’s rumbling voice filled the air.

“The sun! Whoah, man — check it out!”

Elric looked up to the far horizon. The sun hung there, a flat red disc, but something huge and dark had moved across its face. But this was no mere eclipse, unless an eclipse had arms.

“The Chronophage!” screamed Uendrijj, and drove into the beast-men before him, clearing an opening.

“Lift us up, Pogokhashman,” Elric shouted to his companion. The giant youth squelched through the intervening foes and lifted his two allies in a palm the size of a barge.

The many-armed shape on the far horizon was an empty, lightless black that burned at the edges, as though an octopus-shaped hole had been scorched through the substance of reality. As they watched, the tentacles lashed across the sky; where they passed, nothing remained but sucking blackness. Lightning began to flicker all through the firmament.

The beast-men shrieked, a terrible howling that forced Elric to cover his ears, then the whole horde turned and fled down the far side of the hill, swarming and hobbling like scorched ants. They no longer seemed to care whether they destroyed Elric and his allies or not, but were only intent on staying ahead of the all-devouring Chronophage. Within moments the hill was empty but for the giant and the two men in his hand. The Chaos horde had become a fast-diminishing cloud of dust moving toward the eastern horizon.

“The greater enemy is here,” said Uendrijj. “True doom is at hand.”

V

As he gasped, struggling to regain his breath, Pogo decided that jimi’s remark was rather unnecessary. The giant, flaming squid-thing was pretty hard to miss.

But it wasn’t Jimi, though. Not exactly. It was hard to keep that straight when it looked like you were holding Mister Electric Ladyland himself in your sweaty palm, but this guy was some other Hendrix — a reincarnation or something. Still, it had been very satisfying to discover that he had been right after all: the Man had been calling him. Those eyes, that sly smile — however he talked, it was still Jimi.