Chronicles of the Last Emperor of Melniboné · Vol. III
Elric ·
The Sleeping Sorceress
✦
Michael Moorcock · Originally published 1971 (as The Vanishing Tower in the US) · Del Rey collected edition, 2008
Three linked novellas + the origin novel Elric of Melniboné · A pursuit, a trap, a rescue — and a revelation of the multiverse
Story threads
Main narrative — Elric & Moonglum
Chaos / Sorcery
Law / Myshella / Kaneloon
Doom / Loss / Tragedy
Multiverse / Eternal Champion
Book One · The Torment of the Last Lord
Book I · Ch. 1–2
The Sleeping SorceressChapter One — Pale Prince on a Moonlit ShorePursuit · Lormyr
Elric & Moonglum Land in Lormyr — The Hunt for Theleb K'aarna Begins
". . . and then did Elric leave Jharkor in pursuit of a certain sorcerer who had, so Elric claimed, caused him some inconvenience . . ."
"Why should this be necessary? Why could not we have disembarked at Trepesaz?"
— Moonglum of Elwher, upon arriving by boat in the dark
Elric and Moonglum of Elwher arrive covertly by night on the coast of Lormyr, landing horses on a deserted beach to avoid alerting their quarry. Their target: Theleb K'aarna, the Pan Tangian sorcerer who has tormented Elric across many nations. Theleb K'aarna's obsessive love for Queen Yishana of Jharkor — and his jealous hatred of Elric — has turned him from a scholar into one of the most dangerous sorcerers in the Young Kingdoms. Elric believes he will find the sorcerer at the court of King Montan in Iosaz, Lormyr's ancient capital. The two ride through snow-dusted countryside, avoiding villages. Moonglum frets about the cold and their dwindling purse; Elric stares into his own tormented interior, paying a sailor for their passage with a ruby worth a hundred times the fare.
🌙 Elric is revealed in his most characteristic mode: melancholic, generous to the point of recklessness with wealth, grimly purposeful, and already pursued by guilt. Lormyr is introduced as an ancient, picturesque land once liberated from Melniboné — its peacefulness makes Elric feel the wrongness of his own presence there.
Tarkeshite Sea · Lormyrian coast · The Schlan River valley
ElricMoonglumTheleb K'aarna (quarry)
Book I · Ch. 2–3
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Two — White Face Staring Through Snow · Chapter Three — Feathers Filling a Great SkyOonai · Chimerae · Fileet
Attack of the Oonai — Elric Summons Fileet, Lady of the Birds
The chimerae of Chaos descend on Elric and Moonglum above a frozen steppe
As Elric and Moonglum ride through a light snowfall, they sight impossible winged shapes in the sky — the Oonai, shapeshifting creatures of Chaos known in Melniboné as "chimerae," now wielded against them by Theleb K'aarna. The beasts shift form constantly — dragon, swan, elephant-with-crocodile-head, winged snake — attacking singly, carrying off the horses, seizing the men in coils and bearing them northward across the frozen Lormyrian steppe. Elric's patron demon Arioch refuses to aid them, citing "matters of enormous moment" in the Realm of Chaos. Lost above the endless white landscape, Elric descends into trance and recovers a forgotten High Speech invocation — the Ancient Bargain with Fileet, Lady of the Birds: Melnibonéan emperors had once sworn to protect all birds that settled in Imrryr's towers, and Fileet owes that debt.
🦅 A vast flock of every species of bird darkens the sky — eagles, ravens, parrots, owls — and overwhelms the Oonai. The chimerae revert to their ugly true form (squat, piglike) and die. Elric and Moonglum are lowered safely to the steppe. Arioch's refusal to aid is ominous: something large is being planned above. The pair are stranded far from Iosaz, horseless, in the snow.
The Lormyrian Steppe · The frozen north
ElricMoonglumArioch (refuses)Fileet (Lady of Birds)
Book I · Ch. 4–5
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Four — Old Castle Standing Alone · Chapter Five — Doomed Lord DreamingMyshella · Kaneloon · Sleeping Beauty
The Mysterious Castle in the Snow — The Sleeping Sorceress Revealed
An empty castle on the frozen steppe; in its highest tower, a sleeping woman who tears Elric apart
Near death from cold and exhaustion, Elric and Moonglum stumble upon an impossible ancient castle standing alone on the steppe. It has been left open for them: a blazing fire burns in an empty hall, a pantry full of food and exceptional wine awaits. They recover over days. But in the topmost tower Elric finds what the castle has concealed — a beautiful woman asleep on an ermine bed, her black hair and scarlet gown almost identical to the memory of Cymoril, his murdered love. He breaks down, forces himself to look, then flees. Moonglum, more practically, notices a map and a lodestone lying on a carved table — left for them by an unseen intelligence. That night in the trading town of Alorasaz, the woman appears in Elric's room — half-awake, fighting her enchanted sleep.
✦ The sleeping woman is Myshella — the Empress of the Dawn, also known as the Dark Lady of Kaneloon, servant of Law and immortal protector of the southern lands. She reveals: the shapeshifting chimerae were sent by her to find Elric — Theleb K'aarna intercepted them. She and Theleb K'aarna are allies-turned-enemies. A far greater danger looms: Theleb K'aarna has allied with Prince Umbda of the Kelmain Host, creatures from beyond World's Edge, to conquer Lormyr.
The Castle of the Steppe · Alorasaz · The Lormyrian interior
ElricMoonglumMyshella (sleeping)
Book I · Ch. 6–7
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Six — Jeweled Bird Speaking · Chapter Seven — Black Wizard LaughingAshaneloon · Demon guardian · The Kelmain
Ashaneloon — Elric Slays the Demon Guardian & Recovers the Nanorion
Elric rides Myshella's mechanical bird across the Boiling Sea to her island palace
Myshella sends Elric on a solo mission, riding her bird of silver, gold and brass — a sentient mechanical construct with emerald eyes — to her island palace Ashaneloon in the Boiling Sea. The island sits above a volcanic sea of steam. Inside Ashaneloon Theleb K'aarna has placed a fearsome demon guardian. Elric attacks it alone with Stormbringer, allowing the soul-drinking blade to feed until the demon is destroyed. From the demon's corpse he notices something glinting: its heart — an irregularly shaped stone of blue, purple and green that still pulses. He recognizes it as a Nanorion — the mystic gem said to be able to awaken even the dead, or those in death-like sleep. He pockets it and recovers from Ashaneloon's chest a pouch of cloth-of-gold containing a pinkish dust — Myshella's Noose of Flesh.
⚡ Arriving at Castle Kaneloon, Elric finds Moonglum (magically transported by Myshella) and Myshella still sleeping. He places the Nanorion on her forehead and performs an ancient High Speech rune. Then the Kelmain arrive — their advance riders break into the castle. Elric slays them and strides out alone to face the entire Kelmain Host, demanding Theleb K'aarna.
The Boiling Sea · Island palace of Ashaneloon · Castle Kaneloon · World's Edge
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Eight — A Great Host ScreamingBattle · Noose of Flesh · Victory
The Battle of Kaneloon — The Noose of Flesh & the Death of the Kelmain
Elric fights alone against a hundred thousand; Myshella awakens to deploy her ultimate weapon
Elric marches out alone against the Kelmain Host — which numbers many thousands — wielding Stormbringer in a spinning, berserker assault. Stormbringer drinks soul after soul, the energy floods Elric, and for an hour he slays warriors too numerous to count. But finally the sword grows sated, refusing to pass more energy, and Elric is beaten down and taken prisoner by Prince Umbda and Theleb K'aarna. The Kelmain prepare to storm Castle Kaneloon and kill the sleeping Myshella. Then Myshella awakens — Elric's rune worked. She mounts the mechanical bird, rescues Elric from the midst of the army, circles the entire Kelmain Host — and releases the Noose of Flesh. The pink dust from the cloth-of-gold pouch crystallises into a vast ring of living matter that closes around the host and crushes every soldier and every beast, absorbing them without remainder. Theleb K'aarna alone escapes by burrowing underground with a spell.
💀 Theleb K'aarna escapes. Prince Umbda and the entire Kelmain Host are destroyed by the Noose of Flesh. In Kaneloon's castle, Myshella offers Elric the castle's magic — it reflects the heart's desire. Elric screams in terror at what he sees: Cymoril, alive. He demands she stop. Afterwards, Myshella and Elric spend the night together. He leaves at dawn. Arioch reveals he was the demon guardian all along, testing Elric's loyalty.
Castle Kaneloon · World's Edge · The snow before the world's end
The Sleeping SorceressChapter One — The Beggar Court · Chapter Two — The Stolen RingOld Hrolmar · Nadsokor · The Ring of Kings
Old Hrolmar & the Theft of the Ring of Kings
Elric's most powerful talisman is stolen by beggar-thieves acting for King Urish — and Theleb K'aarna
". . . but it was in Nadsokor, City of Beggars, that Elric found an old friend and learned something concerning an old enemy . . ."
— The Chronicle of the Black Sword
Elric and Moonglum arrive in Old Hrolmar, the cultured Vilmirian city-state famous under the governance of Duke Avan Astran. They need money for provisions for the long ride to Tanelorn. While Moonglum attempts a characteristically hare-brained scheme involving two painted women he believes he is rescuing from a cruel whoremaster, Elric is ambushed by hired assassins. Fending them off with Stormbringer, he is struck from behind with a poisoned blade. When he recovers, the Ring of Kings — the Actorios, worn by Melnibonéan emperors for centuries, focus of their sorcerous power — is gone from his finger. The dying accomplice whispers the name: Urish, King of Nadsokor.
💍 The Ring of Kings is not merely symbolic: it is Elric's anchor to his ancestors' sorcerous bargains, amplifying his ability to summon elementals. Without it he is significantly weakened as a sorcerer. King Urish sent the thieves because Elric once entered Nadsokor's Sacred Hoard in disguise — an unforgivable violation under Nadsokor's law — to retrieve a scroll that turned out to be Yyrkoon's trick. Theleb K'aarna has now secretly allied with Urish, pointing the Beggar King's grudge at Elric. Tanelorn must wait.
Old Hrolmar · Vilmir
ElricMoonglumUrish the Seven-Fingered (enemy)Theleb K'aarna (hidden)
Book II · Ch. 3–4
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Three — The Cold Ghouls · Chapter Four — Punishment of the Burning GodNadsokor · Ghouls · Checkalakh
Nadsokor — The Trap, the Ghouls & the Burning God
Elric descends into the labyrinth of Nadsokor to face Checkalakh, the imprisoned Lord of Chaos
Disguised in rags with scent-killing tablets, Elric and Moonglum infiltrate the notorious City of Beggars — a half-collapsed ruin inhabited by an army of professional criminals who have elevated poverty and disgust into their shield and weapon. In Urish's fetid hall they walk into Theleb K'aarna's trap: cold ghouls — things of limbo summoned through months of sorcerous preparation — seize them and drain their body heat to the point of death. Moonglum escapes into a garbage pile. Elric is sentenced by Urish the Seven-Fingered to the "Punishment of the Burning God" and is thrown through a pulsing membrane into a sealed labyrinth. In its depths dwells Checkalakh, a diminished Lord of Chaos imprisoned here by Lord Donblas of Law centuries ago. Checkalakh has been slowly starving for energy and now hunts the labyrinth in a shape of pure fire.
🔥 Elric fights Checkalakh in a desperate running battle, absorbing some of the fire-god's life-force into Stormbringer. He finally plunges the Black Sword through the Burning God's throat and kills him — but the torrent of divine energy flooding into his mortal frame almost destroys him. Lord Donblas himself appears and calms the force, heals Elric's blisters, and vanishes. The imprisoned Lord of Law notes that Elric — a Chaos servant — has served Law more than once. The portal opens. Elric emerges full of extraordinary stolen power.
Nadsokor, City of Beggars · The Labyrinth beneath the city
ElricMoonglumUrish the Seven-FingeredTheleb K'aarnaCheckalakh (Chaos — dead)Lord Donblas (Law)
Book II · Ch. 5–6
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Five — Things Which Are Not Women · Chapter Six — The Jesting DemonTanelorn · Rackhir · Elenoin · Grahluk · Arioch revealed
The Defence of Rackhir's Caravan — The Elenoin & the Return of the Ring
Elric, swollen with a god's stolen power, battles demon women to save the caravan bound for Tanelorn
Theleb K'aarna and Urish have raced ahead to ambush Rackhir the Red Archer's caravan returning to Tanelorn with winter provisions. The beggar army surrounds the wagons. Theleb K'aarna summons the Elenoin — a race of demon women from the Eighth Plane, with huge orange animal eyes, metallic teeth, and five-foot swords, who cannot be fought by men who instinctively hesitate to kill women. The warriors of Tanelorn are being slaughtered. Elric, empowered by Checkalakh's divine energy, performs an emergency blood ritual — using the hair of a slain Elenoin soaked in a beggar's blood — to summon the Grahluk, the Elenoin's ancient ape-like enemies from the Eighth Plane. The Grahluk destroy the Elenoin and then destroy themselves.
💀 Urish, back in Nadsokor, is consumed by the demon guardian Theleb K'aarna left on his throne — which is revealed to be Arioch himself in disguise, furious that Lord Donblas aided Elric and determined to remind everyone of Chaos's supremacy. Arioch dissolves. Elric recovers the Ring of Kings from Urish's Hoard. He now knows: Theleb K'aarna has fled to the Forest of Troos. Rackhir invites him to Tanelorn. Elric agrees — if only for a time.
The Vilmirian plains · Nadsokor · Eternal Tanelorn (destination)
ElricMoonglumRackhirBrut of LashmarUrish (dead)Arioch (revealed)
Book Three · Three Heroes With a Single Aim
Book III · Ch. 1–2
The Sleeping SorceressChapter One — Tanelorn Eternal · Chapter Two — Return of a SorceressTanelorn · Peace that cannot hold · Myshella returns
Elric in Tanelorn — The Peace He Cannot Keep
Tanelorn offers rest; Elric's restlessness wins; Myshella finds him walking to his death in the desert
". . . Elric, of all the manifestations of the Champion Eternal, was to find Tanelorn without effort. And of all those manifestations he was the only one to choose to leave . . ."
— The Chronicle of the Black Sword
Tanelorn is beautiful — pastel towers, fountains, birdsong, citizens who have earned their peace. Rackhir is serene and whole. Moonglum reads and eats apples. But a month passes and Elric cannot stop pacing. He is constitutionally incapable of the peace Tanelorn offers. His existence is circular — violent action brings temporary relief but generates fresh guilt; peace breeds unbearable introspection. He rides out alone into the Sighing Desert — and keeps walking when the horse won't follow, abandons the horse entirely, and marches northward without water into the burning sand. He is walking deliberately to his death. At midnight he collapses. At dawn Myshella finds him. She brings him cool liquid from beneath her robes and tells him why she has come: Theleb K'aarna has found ancient devices in the Forest of Troos — war machines of the long-destroyed Doomed Folk — and with help from the Lords of Entropy has activated them to summon creatures from another plane of Earth, planning to destroy Tanelorn and conquer Lormyr.
❤ In the desert Elric and Myshella acknowledge what exists between them and share a moment of genuine tenderness — one of the very few in the saga. Then she sends him northeast on horseback toward Theleb K'aarna's encampment, and departs on her mechanical bird. Elric rides, knowing he cannot choose otherwise.
Tanelorn · The Sighing Desert · Somewhere between Law and surrender
ElricRackhirMoonglumMyshella
Book III · Ch. 3
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Three — The Barrier BrokenDoomed Folk device · Reptiles of Pio · Dimensional breach
The Machine of the Doomed Folk — Theleb K'aarna Breaches the Dimensional Barrier
In a bowl of crystal in the desert, an ancient pre-Melnibonéan device tears open the fabric between planes
Hidden behind desert crags, Elric observes Theleb K'aarna at an encampment dominated by a vast crystal bowl housing an asymmetrical machine of fused metals — a device constructed by the Doomed Folk, a race destroyed before the age of Melniboné. Theleb K'aarna traces sorcerous runes on the glass with his finger, and the machine begins to pulse and throb with coiling light. Darkness pools around it. Then the barrier between planes breaks and huge reptilian creatures emerge — dinosaur-like monsters bearing riders from the plane of Pio: enormous lizard-men with weapons of golden metal that discharge streams of lethal fire. Theleb K'aarna has achieved the unprecedented: bypassing the sorcerous laws of Elric's world by importing creatures to whom those laws don't apply.
⚡ Elric's horse panics and reveals them. He has no time for caution — he charges the crystal bowl and strikes it with Stormbringer, hoping to destroy the device. Instead he passes through the crystal and the machine's forces disintegrate him across the dimensional barrier, flinging him into another plane entirely. He is gone from the desert. The reptiles of Pio begin to march on Tanelorn.
The Sighing Desert · At the boundary between planes of Earth
ElricTheleb K'aarnaThe Reptiles of Pio
Book III · Ch. 4–5
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Four — The Vanishing Tower · Chapter Five — Jhary-a-ConelCorum · Erekosë · The Three Who Are One · Jhary-a-Conel
The Three Who Are One — Elric Meets His Other Incarnations
The most cosmologically significant event of the three novellas: three Eternal Champions converge in an alien world
Elric is hurled to another plane of the multiverse — a gentle world of moors and cliffs, utterly unlike his own — where Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei (the Prince in the Scarlet Robe, a maimed Vadhagh prince with a magical hand and eye) has summoned him using a spell. Corum needs aid to rescue his guide, imprisoned in the Vanishing Tower — a castle that phases between dimensions, trapping its inhabitants. A third figure meets them on the moorland road: a huge black man in bear-pelt armour, carrying a sword near-identical to Stormbringer: Erekosë, the Champion Eternal, who has lived every hero-life and suffers the unbearable memory of all of them. All three recognize each other. All three are the same being — the Eternal Champion in different incarnations — and when they link arms their combined strength becomes something beyond mortal capacity. Together they storm the Vanishing Tower, defeat its petty-tyrant occupant Voilodion Ghagnasdiak, and free Corum's guide: Jhary-a-Conel, the Companion to Champions — a dandyish immortal with a small winged cat, who has served every incarnation of the Eternal Champion.
✦ Jhary gives Elric two objects from Voilodion's vault: Banners of Bronze (which project a wall of golden light impervious to the weapons of Pio) and Arrows of Quartz (which can penetrate the reptilian riders and sever their control of their mounts). The Runestaff returns them to Elric's plane. Corum and Erekosë depart to find their own Tanelorn. Jhary sends his compliments to "my brother Moonglum" — hinting at a deeper connection.
An unnamed moor-world · Darkvale · The Vanishing Tower · All planes simultaneously
The Sleeping SorceressChapter Six — Pale Lord Shouting in SunlightBattle · Myshella's death · Elric's rage
The Defence of Tanelorn — Myshella's Death & Elric's Boundless Grief
Banners of bronze. Arrows of quartz. And then, at the end, a throat cut by a coward.
Returning to the Sighing Desert, Elric destroys the Doomed Folk device with Jhary's vial. He races to Tanelorn on the mechanical bird, delivers the Banners of Bronze to Rackhir and Moonglum, then takes to the air with the Arrows of Quartz. The Banners unfurl along Tanelorn's walls in a wall of golden light that deflects every beam of the Pio weapons. From the bird's back Elric throws the quartz arrows — each one a spear — into the riders one by one. Without their riders the great reptiles stampede into the desert. Theleb K'aarna orders Elric destroyed, but holds Myshella as a hostage — she had tried to fight him herself and was captured. Then a blue smoke appears. It clears. Myshella lies with her throat cut. Theleb K'aarna has vanished.
💀 Myshella speaks her last words to Elric: she tells him Theleb K'aarna has lost the patronage of the Chaos Lords by proving incompetent. She warns of the coming great battle between Law and Entropy. She dies. The mechanical bird takes her body back to Kaneloon — then dies itself. Elric, beyond weeping, rides toward Tanelorn, then suddenly drags out Stormbringer and screams at the sky in blind, inarticulate fury: "Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!" Those who hear know it is Elric himself who is truly damned.
The Sighing Desert · Tanelorn · Castle Kaneloon (Myshella's final rest)
And So the Great Emperor Received His Education…Written 2003 · First collected hereDream couches · Melnibonéan origins
The Dream-Education of Elric — How the Last Emperor Was Made
A prose-poem origin: the training of Melnibonéan sorcerer-emperors on the dream couches of Imrryr
This late short story (2003) serves as an atmospheric prologue, explaining the nature of Melnibonéan sorcerous education. The emperors of Imrryr learned their magic not in classrooms but on dream couches — devices enabling one night to contain a thousand years of lived experience. There the Melnibonéan aristocracy consorted with demons, made bargains with elementals, fought supernatural wars, walked the moonbeam roads between worlds, and absorbed the entire accumulated sorcerous heritage of ten thousand years. Many died on the couches, trapped in alien spells. Those who returned carried a vast and largely unconscious reservoir of terrible knowledge. Elric received the most rigorous education of all — and yet in worldly experience he was still a young man when he came to rule, balanced on the knife-edge between inhuman power and human uncertainty.
📚 The story provides the cosmological background to Elric's powers — why he can invoke elementals, why Stormbringer's souls feed him, why Arioch answers. It also introduces the political split within Melniboné: those who back Elric's enlightened, questioning rule against those who support the "swaggering warrior prince" Yyrkoon, who promises the court conquest and glory.
Imrryr the Beautiful · The Dreaming City · The dream couches
Elric of MelnibonéWritten 1972 · First published UK 1972 (Hutchinson) · US as The Dreaming City (Lancer, altered)Origin novel · Imrryr · Cymoril · Yyrkoon
Elric of Melniboné — The Origin Novel: Before the Fall
The prequel that explains everything — Elric on the Ruby Throne, before the disaster of Imrryr
Written after The Sleeping Sorceress but set before it in narrative time, this novel was Moorcock's first direct long-form treatment of Elric's origins. It depicts Elric still on the Ruby Throne of Imrryr — melancholic, questioning, at odds with his own people's cruelty — alongside his cousin Yyrkoon (who schemes to usurp the throne), his love Cymoril (Yyrkoon's sister), and his great patron demon Arioch. Elric ventures into the Dream Realm, faces supernatural perils, and begins to understand the forces — Law, Chaos, the Cosmic Balance — that will define his entire existence. Yyrkoon's treachery is established. Cymoril's vulnerability is established. The events directly precede Vol. I's "The Dreaming City" — it ends at the moment Elric decides to take the sea-lords' offer.
✦ The origin novel provides the definitive portrait of Melniboné in its last decade of power — the drug-dream culture, the cruelty, the degenerate beauty, the ten thousand years of accumulated sorcery. It establishes the exact nature of Elric's tragedy: he could have been a good ruler and changed his people. Instead, events — and Yyrkoon's malice — made the choice for him. The del Rey edition restores the original UK text and title.
Imrryr · The Ruby Throne · The Dream Realm · The Dragon Caves
Elric (Emperor)CymorilYyrkoonAriochTanglebones
◈ Essays & Additional Material in This Volume
Aspects of Fantasy (1)
One of Moorcock's original critical essays from Science Fantasy magazine, written at the same time as the first Elric stories in 1961–62. Gives direct insight into his aesthetic and intellectual framework — his rejection of Tolkien's model, his championing of Leiber and Anderson, his view of the genre as requiring genuine literary ambition. A primary document of the New Wave attitude toward heroic fantasy.
Elric of Melniboné: Introduction to the Graphic Adaptation
Moorcock's introduction to the First Comics graphic adaptation (art by P. Craig Russell, adapted by Roy Thomas). Discusses the particular visual challenges of depicting Imrryr, the dream sequences, and Elric's physical appearance — which he notes is not human albinism but a Melnibonéan "Silver Emperor" condition that occasionally recurs in the royal bloodline.
El Cid and Elric: Under the Influence!
An essay written for the publication of the Elric series in Argentina, exploring the connections between the Spanish legendary hero El Cid Campeador and Elric. Both are exiles from their own people, both serve ambiguous masters, both are tragic figures whose greatness is inseparable from their doom. A rare window into Moorcock's medieval and Iberian literary influences.
Origins: Illustrations
Visual material tracing the artistic history of Elric's depiction — from the original Brian Lewis and James Cawthorn covers for Science Fantasy through US paperback editions (with Cawthorn's maps), DAW's Michael Whelan covers, Berkley's Robert Gould editions, to Steve Ellis's new illustrations for this Del Rey volume. A visual history of the albino prince's evolving image across six decades.