'There's nothing vague about my threats, sir, ' says the Knight of the Balance, Shifting impatiently and pushing almost fussily at his errant silks. 'Nothing insubstantial. They are backed by a hundred thousand lances.'
'Not one of which can enter this city, I'd guess.' I began to turn away.
'Without being invited. You have nothing to offer me, sir, except the boredom I seek to escape. Even your unsavory, near-senile mistress Miggea cannot stride unasked into Tanelorn. Those mortal soldiers we fought were recruited here. Most are dead. Anything supernatural still must beg to be admitted. And you, sir, have already demonstrated your belligerence. I do not believe you have any intention of fighting me fairly.'
'My tone was a mistake, I'll grant you, Prince Elric. But you will find me a more reasonable Champion of Law today. Willing to meet you man-to-man. Here's what I offer: I'll fight you fairly for the sword. Should you defeat me, all Law retreats from Tanelorn and you are returned to your natural condition, the city untouched. Should I defeat you, I take the sword. And leave you to defend yourselves as best you can.'
'My sword and I are bonded, ' I said simply, 'we are one. If you held the sword she could destroy you. And eventually she would return to me. Believe me, Sir Secret, I would not have it thus by choice. But it is so. And we are full of energy now. We have feasted well on your opposition. You have made us strong.' 'Then let's test the strength. You have nothing to lose. Let me in and we'll fight for all to see-in the public square.'
'Fighting is forbidden in Tanelorn.' I said only what he already knew.
His voice was all mellow mockery. 'What forces threaten your right to fight?'
The knight's tone became openly challenging. 'What power nursemaids an entire metropolis? Surely you are not going to let yourself be dictated to by meaningless custom? No free man should be forbidden the right to defend his life. To carry his weapons with pride and use them when he has to. That is how we of Law think now. We have rejected the great weight of ritual and look to a cleaner, fresher, more youthful future. Your rituals and customs are rules that have lost their meaning. They are no longer connected to the harsh realities of survival. Today the battle is to the strong. To the cunning. Those who do not resist Chaos are doomed to be destroyed by it.'
'But if you destroy Chaos?' I asked. 'What then?'
'Then Law can control everything. The unpredictable will be banished. The numinous will no longer exist. We shall produce an ordered world, with everything in its place, and everyone in their place. We will know at last what the future brings. It is man's destiny to finish the gods' work and complete the divine symphony in which we shall all play an instrument.'
In my mind I was thinking I had rarely heard such pious lunacy expressed so perfectly. Perhaps my overfondness for reading, as a child, had made me too familiar with all the old arguments used to justify the mortal lust for power. The moment the moral authority of the supernatural was invoked, you knew you were in conflict with the monumentally self-deceiving, who should not be trusted at any level.
'Man's destiny? Your destiny, I think you mean! ' I leaned on the battlements like a householder enjoying a chat across the fence with his neighbor. 'You have a strong sense of what is righteous, eh? You know there is only one path to virtue? One clean, straight path to infinity? We of Chaos have a less tidy vision of existence.'
'You mock me, sir. But I have the means of making my vision real. I suspect that you do not.'
'Neither the means nor the desire to do so, sir. I drift as the world drifts. We have no other choice. I don't doubt your power, sir. Law has driven my own allies away from this realm. All that stands between us and your total conquest of us is my sword and this city. But somehow, I know, we can defeat you. It's in the nature of those of us who serve Chaos to trust a little more to luck than you do. Luck can often be no more than the mood of a mob, running in your favor. Whatever it is, we trust to it. And in trusting to luck, we trust ourselves.'
'I'm not one to argue with Melnibonean sophistry, ' said the Silver Knight, fussing with his fluttering scarves and flags. 'The ambitions of your own patron, Duke Arioch, are well known. He would gobble the worlds, if he could.'
A cool, morning breeze stirred the surrounding desert. Our visitor seemed almost bound up by those long scarves. Hampered by them, yet unwilling to be rid of them. As if he could not bear the idea of wearing undecorated steel. As if he yearned for color. As if he had been denied it for an eternity. As if he clutched at it for his life. Sometimes when the sun caught his armor and the fluttering silk, he seemed to be on fire.
I knew I could defeat him in a level fight. But if the Lady Miggea helped him, it would be more difficult, perhaps impossible. She still had enormous powers, many of which I could not even predict.
There was no doubt, when I looked back on that morning, that my enemies knew me in some ways better than I knew myself. For they were playing on my impatience, on my natural boredom. I had very little to lose. Tanelorn was tired. I did not believe she could be defeated by this beribboned knight, nor even by Miggea of Law. I was anxious for the siege to end, so that I could continue about my restless and, admittedly, pointless business. I was constantly reminded of my beloved cousin Cymoril, who had died by accident as Yyrkoon and I fought. All I had wanted was Cymoril. The rest I was willing to give up to my cousin. But because Cymoril loved me, Yyrkoon needed also to possess her. And as a result of my own pride, my folly and pas-sion, and of Yyrkoon's overweening greed, she had died. Yyrkoon, too, had died, as he deserved. She had never deserved such awful violence. My instincts were to protect her. I had lost control of my sword. I had sworn never to lose that control again. The sword's will seemed as powerful as my own sometimes. Even now, I could not be entirely sure whether the energy I felt coursing through me was mine or the blade's.
Grief, anger and desperate sadness threatened to take hold of me. Every habit of self-discipline was strained. My will battled that of the sword and won. Yet I became determined to fight this stranger.
Perhaps my mood was encouraged by a clever enemy. But it seemed that I was offering to fight him on my terms. 'The she-wolf must leave, ' I said. 'The realm-' 'She cannot leave the realm.'
'She can have no hand in this. She must give me the word, the holy word of Law, that the wolf will not fight me.'
'Agreed, ' he said. 'The wolf shall have no part in our fight.'
I looked at the wolf. She lowered her eyes in reluctant compromise. 'What guarantee is there that you and she will keep your word?'
'The firm word of Law cannot be broken, ' he said. 'Our entire philosophy is based on that idea. I'll not change the terms of the bargain. If you defeat me, we all leave this realm. If I defeat you, I get the sword.'
'You're confident you can defeat me.'
'Stormbringer will be mine before sunset. Will you fight me here? Where I stand now?' He pointed back behind him. 'Or there, on the other side?'
At this I began to laugh. The old blood-madness was gripping me again. Moonglum recognized it. He came running up the steps. 'My lord-this has to be a trick. It stinks of a trap. Law grows untrustworthy. Everything decays. You are too wise to let them deceive you ...'
I was grave when I put my hand on his shoulder. 'Law is rigid and aggressive. Orthodoxy in its final stages of degeneration. She clings to her old ways, even as she rejects what is no longer useful to her. She'll keep her word, I'm sure.' 'My lord, there is no point to this duel! '
'It might save your life, my friend. And yours is the only life I care for.'
'It could bring me torment, and the same to all others in Tanelorn.' I shook my head. 'If they break their word, they can no longer be representatives of Law.'
'What kind of Law do they represent, even now? A Law willing to sacrifice justice for ambition.' Moonglum dragged at my arm as I began to descend the steps back to the ground. 'And that's what makes me doubt everything they promise. Be wary of them, my lord.' He gave up trying to persuade me and fell back.
'I'll be watching for any signs of their treachery and I'll do what I can to ensure the duel's fair. But I say again-it's folly, my friend. Your mad, old blood has seized your brain again.'
I was amused by this. 'That mad blood has found us many ways out of trouble, friend Moonglum. Sometimes I trust it better than any logic.' But I could not raise his spirits.
A dozen others, including Brut of Lashmar, begged me to be cautious. But something in me was determined to break this stalemate, to follow my blind instincts and embrace a story that was not inevitable, that took a fresh direction. I wanted to prove that it was not the working-out of some prefigured destiny. As I'd told Moonglum, this was by no means the first time I had let the old blood blaze through my veins, sing its song in me and fill my being with wild joy. If I lived, I swore it would not be the last time I felt that thrill. I was entirely alive again. I was taking risks. My life and soul were the stakes.
I marched down the steps, shouted for the gates to be raised. Demanded that the she-wolf be gone. That
