Revenge of the Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

avoiding Mashabak’s and Arioch’s
wrath, I lost that which contained it. Find it for me, Elric.”
                 “How
shall I recognize it?”
                 “It
resides in a box. No ordinary box, but a box of black rosewood carved all with
roses and smelling always of roses. It was your mother’s.”
                 “How
came you to lose such a valuable box, Father?”
                 “When
Mashabak appeared to claim my soul, then Arioch, I drew up a false soul, which
is the spell I taught thee in Incantations
After Death , to deceive them. This quasi-soul became the object of their
feuding for a while and my true soul fled to safety in the box which Diavon
Slar, my old body-servant, was to keep safely for me on strictest instructions
of secrecy.”
                 “He
maintained your secrecy, Father.”
                 “Aye—and
fled, believing he had a treasure, believing he could control me through his
possession of that box! He fled to Pan Tang with what he understood to be my
trapped spirit—some children’s tale he had heard—and was disappointed to find
no spirit obeyed him at his command. So he planned, instead, to sell his booty
to the Theocrat. As it happened, he never reached Pan Tang but was seized by
sea-raiders from the Purple Towns. They included the box in their casual booty.
My soul was truly lost.” And with this came a flicker of a former irony, the
faintest of smiles.
                 “The
pirates?”
                 “Of
them, I know only what Diavon Slar told me as I was extracting the vengeance I
had warned him I would take. The raiders probably returned to Menii, where they
auctioned their booty. My soulbox left our world entirely.” Sadric moved
suddenly and it was as if an insubstantial shadow shifted in the moonlight. “I
can still sense it. I know it traveled between the worlds and went where now
only the jill-dragon can follow. That is what has thwarted me. For, until I
called thee, I had no means of pursuit. I am bound to this place and now to
thee. Thou must fetch back my soulbox, Elric, so that I can rejoin thy mother
and rid myself of unjust hate. As thou wilt rid thyself of me.”
                 Trembling
with conflicting passions, Elric spoke at last:
                 “Father,
I believe this to be an impossible quest. I cannot but suspect you send me upon
it out of hatred alone.”
                 “Hatred,
aye, but more besides. I must rejoin your
mother, Elric! I must. I must. ”
                 Knowing
his father’s abiding obsession, that convinced Elric of the ghost’s veracity.
                 “Do
not fail me, my son.”
                 “And
should I succeed? What will happen to us, Father?”
                 “Bring
back my soul and we are both released.”
                 “But
if I fail?”
                 “My
soul will leave its prison and enter thee. We shall be united until thy death—I,
with my unjust hatred, bonded to the object of my hatred, and thee burdened by
all thou most hatest in proud
Melniboné.” He paused, almost to savour this. “That would be my consolation.”
                 “Not
mine.”
                 Sadric
nodded his corpse’s head in silent understanding, and a soft, unlikely laugh
escaped his throat. “Indeed!”
                 “And
dost thou have other aid for me in this, Father? Some spell or charm?”
                 “Only
what thou comest by on the way, my son. Bring back the rosewood box and we both
can go our own ways. Fail, and our destinies and souls are linked for ever!
Thou wilt never be free of me, thy past, or Melniboné! But thou wilt bring the
old glories back, eh?”
                 Elric’s
drug-enlivened body began to tremble. The flight and this encounter had
exhausted him, and there were