Free The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock Page A

shrieking, unearthly music accompanying the licking, chilling fire. The runesword writhed in Elric’s fist and he had difficulty in controlling it. Summoning all his strength he plunged up the last few steps and aimed a wild blow at Yyrkoon. Beyond the eerie fire bubbled yellow-green lava, on all sides, above and beneath. The two men were surrounded only by the misty fire and the lava which lurked beyond it—they were outside the Earth and facing one another for a final battle. The lava seethed and began to ooze inwards, dispersing the fire.
    The two blades met and a terrible shrieking roar went up. Elric felt his whole arm go numb and it tingled sickeningly. Elric felt like a puppet. He was no longer his own master—the blade was deciding his actions for him. The blade, with Elric behind it, roared past its brother sword and cut a deep wound in Yyrkoon’s left arm. He howled and his eyes widened in agony. Mournblade struck back at Stormbringer, catching Elric in the very place he had wounded his cousin. He sobbed in pain, but continued to move upwards, now wounding Yyrkoon in the right side with a blow strong enough to have killed any other man. Yyrkoon laughed then—laughed like a gibbering demon from the foulest depths of hell. His sanity had broken at last and Elric now had the advantage. But the great sorcery which his cousin had conjured was still in evidence and Elric felt as if a giant had grasped him, was crushing him as he pressed his advantage, Yyrkoon’s blood spouting from the wound and covering Elric, also. The lava was slowly withdrawing and now Elric saw the entrance to the central chamber. Behind his cousin another form moved. Elric gasped. Cymoril had awakened and, with horror on her face, was shrieking at him.
    The sword still swung in a black arc, cutting down Yyrkoon’s brother blade and breaking the usurper’s guard.
    “Elric!” cried Cymoril desperately. “Save me—save me now, else we are doomed for eternity.”
    Elric was puzzled by the girl’s words. He could not understand the sense of them. Savagely he drove Yyrkoon upwards towards the chamber.
    “Elric—put Stormbringer away. Sheathe your sword or we shall part again.”
    But even if he could have controlled the whistling blade, Elric would not have sheathed it. Hate dominated his being and he would sheathe it in his cousin’s evil heart before he put it aside.
    Cymoril was weeping, now, pleading with him. But Elric could do nothing. The drooling, idiot thing which had been Yyrkoon of Imrryr, turned at its sister’s cries and stared leeringly at her. It cackled and reached out one shaking hand to seize the girl by her shoulder. She struggled to escape, but Yyrkoon still had his evil strength. Taking advantage of his opponent’s distraction Elric cut deep through his body, almost severing the trunk from the waist.
    And yet, incredibly, Yyrkoon remained alive, drawing his vitality from the blade which still clashed against Elric’s own rune-carved sword. With a final push he flung Cymoril forward and she died screaming on the point of Stormbringer.
    Then Yyrkoon laughed one final cackling shriek and his black soul went howling down to hell.
    The tower resumed its former proportions, all fire and lava gone. Elric was dazed—unable to marshal his thoughts. He looked down at the dead bodies of the brother and the sister. He saw them, at first, only as corpses—a man’s and a woman’s.
    Dark truth dawned on his clearing brain and he moaned in grief, like an animal. He had slain the girl he loved. The runesword fell from his grasp, stained by Cymoril’s lifeblood, and clattered unheeded down the stairs. Sobbing now, Elric dropped beside the dead girl and lifted her in his arms.
    “Cymoril,” he moaned, his whole body throbbing. “Cymoril—I have slain you.”
    C HAPTER F OUR
    Elric looked back at the roaring, crumbling, tumbling, flame-spewing ruins of Imrryr and drove his sweating oarsmen faster. The ship, sail still unfurled,