'How did you do that?' I asked Oona in astonishment.
'It is not difficult. Scale is the only thing that varies from realm to realm. Each realm, as I explained to you, is on a slightly different scale, which is how we are able to navigate between them and why we are not immediately aware of their existence.
'I arranged for Lieutenant Fromental to bring her here. Miggea is very powerful, but quite thoroughly imprisoned. Given her own volition she would soon adjust her scale to the realm in which she finds herself. I do not have the power to release her. Only the one who imprisoned her can do that.'
'You have brought another of these creatures to my world?' This seemed the height of irresponsibility to me. 'To war against the one already here? To turn the whole planet into a battlefield?'
'You will see,' said Oona. 'But you must all leave the circle now. First, give me your sword.'
Against all sense I handed her Ravenbrand. Then Elric, Fromental and I stepped outside the Stones of Morn.
The little we could see became a shadow play. The dark, lounging presence of Duke Arioch, the swift, elegant figure of Oona placing the cage of bone on the ground. Gaynor transfixed. Oona then touched the cage with the point of my sword. I heard Arioch's voice, faintly booming. 'Well, my lady, it seems it is no longer in my interest to hold you captive.'
A noise like splitting flint.
A terrible crack.
Something began to boil and writhe and grow within the circle. Something which cackled and squealed with idiot laughter and pushed against whatever force the stone circle held. Miggea, having escaped the cage, now sought to escape the circle.
The stones shook. They might have been dancing. Then they were still, straight, waiting. They looked to me as they must have looked when the first Druids newly erected them. Tall, white granite, flashing in the light from the sun.
Suddenly a figure of unstable fire stood before us, caught in the circle, writhing uncontrollably, screaming silently out at us. Gaynor's face was burning. His whole body was in flames. Burning with a million conflicts generated in his ungenerous heart. And there he was again, standing beside himself, still flaming, still screaming. He was begging us for something. Could it have been forgiveness? Or merely release? Another dancing, burning figure, and another, until they made a full circle within the circle.
From above, the shadowy golden face of Duke Arioch smiled and whistled as if watching a puppet show, and the senile, drooling, cackling creature that had once been one of Law's greatest aristocrats poked at Gaynor's twisting body, which changed shape and size, became many versions of itself, then one, then fragmented again. I heard his screams. They were like nothing else I had ever heard in all my life.
Arioch and Miggea tugged at him, breaking off pieces of his many identities in their struggle. They played with him as cats might play with a cricket. There was little animosity between them. All their hatred was directed at Gaynor, stupid Gaynor, who had thought he could play one of them off against the other.
He begged them to stop.
I was close to begging for the same thing! A thousand Gaynors filled the circle. A thousand different kinds of pain.
Oona regarded this with quiet satisfaction, in much the same way she might look upon a piece of domestic handiwork and congratulate herself.
'He cannot bring himself back to his archetype,' she said. 'It is the only way we survive. A sense of identity is all we have. At this moment all Gaynor's many
identities are in conflict. He is being disseminated throughout the multiverse. The convergence Gaynor sought to use for his own selfish ends has proved to be his undoing.'
'Too many!' Arioch swore. 'You promised me the power of Law. I already possess the power of Chaos. Where, fractured Gaynor, is the Grail?'
The replies were various, multitudinous, horrifying. 'She has it!' was the only coherent phrase we heard.
Then Gaynor was gone.
Miggea was gone.
Arioch's voice was a satisfied, luscious whisper. 'The Grail is still there. At my point of entry, where he promised to bring me through.'
Monstrous lips smacked.
And then Arioch, too, disappeared.
Between them, he and Miggea tore Gaynor into a million psychic shreds.
A rustling, like an autumn wind, and sorcery was gone from that realm. The old stones pushed their way up through ordinary grass. A bright sun shone in the sky. The surf washing the white beach was the loudest sound we had ever heard. I turned to Fromental. 'You struck this bargain with Oona when you met her at Miggea's prison?'
'We did not know exactly what we would do with Miggea, but it was useful to have her in portable form.' Fromental winked. 'Now I must return to my friends. Tanelorn is saved, but they will want to know the rest of this story. I am sure we'll meet again, my friend.'
'And the Off-Moo? Do you know their fate?'
'They have another city, that is all I know. On the far shore of the lake. They went there. Few were killed.'
With the air of a man who had urgent business, he shook hands with me and walked back to the shore. A skiff with two seamen waited for him, offering him a salute as he got into the boat. I had made the wrong presumptions about the U-boat. Fromental had sent it ahead of him. He waved to us again and was then rowed quickly over to the U-boat. Perhaps I would never know how he managed to send a captured goddess to us by submarine!
As I watched the conning tower disappear below the waves, my attention returned to the depressing realities of my own realm. Where a conquering air fleet was ensuring that Adolf Hitler would soon control the world.
I reminded Elric that my work was unfinished. If the Grail was still at Bek, perhaps I could find a way of using it against the Nazis. At the very least it should ultimately be returned to Mu Ooria.
The dreamthief's daughter smiled at me, as if at an innocent. 'What if the Grail always belonged at Bek?' she said. 'What if it was lost and the Off-Moo were merely its temporary guardians? What if it decided to return home?'
I scarcely took this in as something else dawned on me. I looked urgently to Elric. 'Klosterheim!' I cried. 'Both of us survived his bullets because we were in the presence of the Grail and did not know it! The Grail works against dissipation. Gaynor could not have performed his magic with it on his person. The Grail's still there. But that means everyone who was in its presence survived. Which means Klosterheim could even now be in possession of the Grail.'
Elric paused. I sensed that he was reluctant to stay in this dream. He wanted to rejoin Moonglum and continue his adven-turings in the world he understood best. At last he said, 'Klosterheim, too, has earned my vengeance. We'll go back to Bek.' He paused, laying a long-fingered hand on my shoulder. For a moment he was a brother.
When we returned to the beach the dragons were already waiting for us, as if they knew we needed them. They were rattling their quills and skipping with
impatience from one huge foot to the other. The sun flashed off their butterfly colors dazzling all around. They were young Phoorn, capable of flying halfway around the world without tiring. They yearned to be aloft again.
We unrolled our skeffla'an and saddled our dragons. Climbing onto their broad backs, we settled ourselves in the natural indentations which could, on a Phoorn, take up to three riders.
With a murmur from Elric, still the great dragonmaster, bright reptilian wings cracked and moved the heavy air, cracked again and took us into the afternoon sky with the steady beat of rowers across a lake. They increased speed with each mighty flap, tails lashing and curling to steer us through the rushing currents of the air. With necks stretched out and great eyes blazing, they scanned the cloud ahead. Ancient firedrakes.
