Elric — The Weird of the White Wolf

Prologue — The Dream of Earl Aubec · The book opens with a prose-poem set centuries before Elric's birth. Earl Aubec of Malador, Champion of Queen Eloarde of Klant, conquers Castle Kaneloon at World's Edge — the last unconquered fortress — and is persuaded by its dark lady, Myshella, to push beyond into the formless stuff of Chaos itself, carving new land and new nations into existence. Thus the Young Kingdoms were seeded. The irony is complete: the same Myshella who nursed the Age of Men into being will later be undone by the very last of the Melnibonéans those men eventually overthrew.

Book One — The Dreaming City

Imrryr & Vengeance

The Council of Sea Lords — Elric Returns

Six Sea Lords — Smiorgan Baldhead, Dharmit of Jharkor, Naclon of Vilmir, Yaris, Fadan of Lormyr, Jiku the dandy — wait by a fjord campfire arguing whether Elric will come at all. Their fleet of nearly five hundred ships is hidden in the fjord by Elric's sorcery — the effort has drained him white and sweating. He arrives at midnight in barbarian finery: doe-leather boots, chequered blue-and-white jerkin, scarlet britches, green velvet cloak. The Sea Lords want Imrryr's legendary riches. Elric wants one thing only: Yyrkoon, who sits the Ruby Throne and holds Cymoril in enchanted sleep. He has memorised the secret maze-channels into Imrryr's harbour that no outsider has ever navigated. His conditions: raze the city, but spare Yyrkoon and Cymoril. He will lead the raid in three days.

"Imrryr fell, in spirit, five hundred years ago — she will fall completely soon — for ever! I have a little debt to settle."

Doom & Guilt

Elric Slips Into Imrryr — Tanglebones — Cymoril

Three days before the raid, using elemental wind-spirits to cross in hours, Elric lands secretly on the Dragon Isle and enters Imrryr by an unguarded gate. He makes for Yyrkoon's palace and Tanglebones — the old retainer who taught him fencing and archery — lets him in through a back door. He climbs to Cymoril's guarded chamber. The Silent Guard eunuch nearly stops him; Stormbringer kills the man. Elric kneels by the sleeping Cymoril and kisses her hand, weeping. He cannot wake her — only defeating Yyrkoon will break the enchantment. He tells Tanglebones: take Cymoril to the Tower of D'a'rputna and wait there. Then Arioch is called to cover Elric's escape, and four guards are consumed before Yyrkoon himself appears — far enough back from the half-manifested Chaos lord to survive. Elric flees.

"Cymoril," he moaned, his whole body throbbing. "Cymoril — I have not slain you yet."

The Sack of Imrryr — Cymoril Dies on Stormbringer

The fleet storms the sea wall. Catapult-fire and ram ships break the great gate. Elric guides Count Smiorgan's flagship through the five dark maze-passages — torch-lit, the rock walls echoing — into the inner harbour. Channel archers take heavy losses from the reavers, but twenty ships make the quayside. Elric fights through Imrryrian axemen and runs alone for the Tower of D'a'rputna to find Cymoril. He finds Tanglebones dying on the floor: Yyrkoon followed them and moved Cymoril to the Tower of B'aal'nezbett, the highest sorcery tower of the royal palace. Elric speaks the single alien word that opens the crystal door of the tower and ascends through an eerie fire of lava and unreality. He finds Yyrkoon waiting — holding Mournblade, the twin of Stormbringer. The two runeblades howl and scream at each other. The brothers-in-sorcery fight above a pit of boiling lava outside all normal space. Both swords are possessed; both men barely their own masters. Elric hacks a great wound in Yyrkoon. Then Yyrkoon — laughing with final insanity — grabs Cymoril who has woken, and thrusts her forward. Stormbringer drives itself into her heart. Yyrkoon dies on the same stroke. Elric lifts Cymoril's cooling body, lays it on a couch, fires the tower. He returns to the burning city with nothing left.

"I have slain you." — He sobbed, great griefs racking his soul, and cursed the malevolent Gods for the black day when, for their amusement, they had spawned men.

Doom & Guilt

The Dragon Escape — Elric Abandons the Fleet

With the city burning and the reavers loaded with plunder, thirty golden Melnibonéan battle-barges emerge from hidden maze-channels, surrounding the fleet. Then twelve dragons appear — led by Dyvim Tvar, Lord of the Dragon Caves, Elric's old friend, riding the largest beast. Elric uses all his strength to send a witch-wind into the sails of forty reaver ships, freeing them from the closing golden circle. Then — with the dragons diving on the helpless remaining ships, their combustible venom igniting deck after deck — he uses his private wind to save only his own ship. He watches Count Smiorgan's vessel engulf in emerald-and-scarlet flame. He flees. The crew of his escaped ship stare at him with hatred. He sobs in the stern. He has destroyed the last monument of his race, killed the woman he loved, and abandoned the man who trusted him.

"He deserted the man who had trusted him, Count Smiorgan, and watched as venom poured from the sky and engulfed him in blazing green and scarlet flame. Elric fled."

Stormbringer

"We Are Two of a Kind" — The Pact with the Sword

Off Pan Tang's coast, while the surviving crew eye him with fear and hatred, Elric stands in the stern holding Stormbringer in both hands — knowing now that it is more than a weapon, that it has sentience, that it used him to kill Cymoril. He hates it. He throws it into the moon-drenched sea. It doesn't sink. It stands point-first in the water, quivering, and begins to howl — a scream of horrible malevolence that pulls him toward it. He drops over the rail and swims to it. His fingers close on the hilt. Strength seeps back. He is beaten. They are parasitic on each other: without a wielder the sword is powerless; without the sword the albino dies. Standing in the cold sea, he makes the only pact available to him: they will go forward together. Both cursed. Both bound.

"We must be bound to one another then. Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well then — let it be thus so."

Book Two — While the Gods Laugh

Quest & Purpose

Shaarilla of the Dancing Mist — The Dead Gods' Book

One year after Imrryr. Elric drinks alone in a Filkharian tavern in Raschil, describing himself, when asked, as an evil man with a doom-racked destiny who screams in his sleep and is tortured by self-loathing. A wingless woman of Myyrrhn — Shaarilla, daughter of a dead necromancer, a cripple in her own land — finds him after twenty days of searching. She offers him herself and knowledge of the Dead Gods' Book, said to hold the mightiest wisdom ever written, believed destroyed but actually hidden. Elric wants one thing from it: evidence of an ultimate order or benevolent force governing Law, Chaos, and the Balance — proof that existence has meaning beyond random cruelty. Shaarilla wants a single spell from it that will give her wings. They ride west toward the Silent Land, sleeping together, Elric screaming "Cymoril!" each night. Then he meets the small, ugly, cheerful Elwher mercenary Moonglum — and a permanent friendship begins.

"I seek the comfort of a benign God, Shaarilla. My mind goes out, searching through black barrenness for something — anything — which will tell me that there is order in the chaotic tumble of the universe."

Chaos & the Higher Worlds

The Marshes — The Mist Giant — Bellbane

Shaarilla has lost the map to the Dead Gods' Book — a whole day vanished from her memory, taken by the guardian of the Book to obstruct them. She leads from memory across the Marshes of the Mist. A Mist Giant — Bellbane, a soul-devouring ghoul of immense white formlessness with yellow eyes and a slavering mouth-slit — seizes Elric in crushing arms, slowly drawing him toward its maw. He calls on Arioch repeatedly; Arioch finally, reluctantly, touches his mind just enough to weaken the Mist Giant. Elric drives Stormbringer through its skull. He sinks into the bog. Shaarilla tears off her garments for rope and hauls him out with a horse. Then the dead Lords of Dharzi ride against them on ghost-horses with their devil-dogs — half-dog, half-bird. Elric's half-remembered spell calls the Earth Kings, who open the ground and swallow every Dharzi lord and dog back into their ancient graves.

"These Lords of Dharzi — dead these ten centuries. We're fighting dead men, Moonglum — and the too-tangible ghosts of their dogs. Unless I can think of a sorcerous means to defeat them, we're doomed!"

The Dead Gods' Book — Dust

The black mountains. The cave with the Sign of Chaos carved above its mouth — the Lords of Entropy hold this territory. Down into a vast underground world: a cold blue-lit cavern with a silver beach of crystal shingle lapped by a dark, silent, salt-free sea. A graveyard of ships from many ages and many planes. They take a surviving yellow-and-red boat — indestructible, alien wood hard as iron — and cross the strange sea, fighting off Clakars (flying winged apes, the primeval ancestors of Shaarilla's people) in the darkness above. Stormbringer barely works here; even its power is suppressed by the entropy of this realm and Elric grows weak without the sword's sustaining energy. They land on a far shore and find a vast castle of black lichen-covered stone — the stronghold of the Lords of Entropy itself. Orunlu the Keeper, a scaly purple giant wreathed in scarlet fire, greets them. He cannot harm them: a vow binds him. He tells them the Book lies in the central tower's small chamber. They climb. In the chamber, brilliant light blazes from alien gems on a huge cover — the Dead Gods' Book, pulsing with splendour. Elric touches it, trembling, and opens it. Beneath his twitching hands: a pile of yellowish dust. Three hundred centuries untouched. Time destroyed what gods could not. There is no truth. There never was.

"No!" His scream was anguished, unbelieving. He fell forward, his face hitting the disintegrated parchment. There was no answer. There never had been.

Grief & Survivors

The Mountain — Moonglum Stays — Shaarilla Goes Back

They emerge onto a sunny mountain slope above the Young Kingdoms. Elric speaks in the voice of the utterly emptied: he will live his life without ever knowing why, without purpose, without direction. He snaps at Shaarilla that she gave him hope and he would have been better never to have met her. He walks alone down the slope. Then Moonglum catches up — grinning, his purse rattling. While Elric was weeping over dust, Moonglum quietly collected the jewels from the Book's cover. Each worth a fortune. He takes Elric's arm: "Come, Elric — what new lands shall we visit so that we may change these baubles into wine and pleasant company?" It is the most practical act of friendship in the whole saga. Shaarilla stands watching them go, drops the jewel Moonglum gave her, and turns back to the dark cave mouth. Her fate is not told.

"I will live my life without ever knowing why I live it — whether it has purpose or not. I envy those who know. All I can do is continue my quest and hope, without hope, that the truth will be presented to me."

Book Three — The Singing Citadel

The Sea & Wandering

A Pan Tang Trireme — Dhakos in Style

Less than two years after Imrryr. Elric and Moonglum sail toward Dhakos, capital of Jharkor. A black-sailed Pan Tang trireme rams their Tarkeshite galley amidships without warning. Elric is reluctant to draw Stormbringer — its power has been growing — but does so and the old killing-lust of his ancestors floods him. The sword and the man become one. He cuts through sorcerously-treated armour, kills the Pan Tang captain whose soul Stormbringer drains entirely, and the entire raiding crew is massacred or captured. Elric frees the galley-slaves in exchange for rowing, infuriating Moonglum who wanted to sell them. They arrive in Dhakos on a captured trireme, flying enemy colours. Elric had intended to slip in quietly. Failing that, he dons his hood and disappears into the crowd.

"Why offer them their freedom? We could sell them in Dhakos." — "I offer them freedom because I choose to, Moonglum." The redhead sighed.

Chaos & the Higher Worlds

Queen Yishana — The Singing Citadel of Balo the Jester

Count Yolan delivers Queen Yishana's summons badly — he blames Elric for King Darmit's death at Imrryr and provokes him. Yishana arrives herself at midnight: tall, full-bodied, hypnotically beautiful in the way of the wholly self-sufficient. She and Elric are drawn to each other immediately. She explains: a shimmering, colour-shifting citadel appeared in the valley near Thokora, abducting villagers and later two hundred of her soldiers. Her court sorcerer Theleb K'aarna of Pan Tang — who is now also her lover and deeply jealous — cannot explain it. Elric recognises the citadel from his boyhood astral initiation into Melnibonéan sorcery: it belongs to Balo the Jester, a paradoxical entity permitted to wander between the realms of Chaos and Law because he serves as court entertainer to the Lords of the Higher Worlds. Balo has been banished from the Higher Worlds for a joke that offended his masters and has come to Earth to establish his own realm — the Realm of Paradox.

"He is a kind of Jester to the Court of Chaos. He juggles enigmas like baubles, laughs at what Chaos holds dear — he is the only one allowed to move between the Realms of Chaos and Law at will."

Balo the Jester — Arioch Comes to Earth — The Citadel Removed

The citadel's music seizes Yishana despite Elric's warning and she gallops in. Theleb K'aarna flees at the first note. Elric enters alone, drawing Stormbringer. The citadel's interior exists partly in other planes: spiral ramps over infinite pits of dangerous colour, intersecting beams of hypnotic light that threaten sanity, golden beasts with ruby eyes that smother rather than bite, a ghost that is denser than reality (Elric is the ghost here, not it). He fights through every trap and reaches Balo's hall where the Jester sits cross-legged, tiny — holding diminished people in his palm. Among them: Yishana and the missing soldiers, shrunken by Balo's mass-shifting arts. Balo offers Elric partnership in his Realm of Paradox. Elric declines, then does the one thing Balo never considered: he invokes Arioch. By the age-old pact between Arioch and the blood-line of Melniboné, the Chaos Lord is compelled to manifest on Earth in answer to a king's call. He appears as an impossibly beautiful, golden-haired being in scarlet doublet — not a shapeless horror but something far more terrible in its perfection. He folds Balo into a ball and swallows him. He transports the entire citadel back to the Higher Worlds. Elric and Yishana are deposited in the valley, all the captives restored to normal size. The town of Thokora is ash.

"You are pledged to serve Chaos, Elric, as were your ancestors. The time draws near when both Law and Chaos will battle for the Realm of Earth — and Chaos shall win!" — Arioch's warning before departing

Doom & Guilt

Theleb K'aarna's Butterfly-Creature — Haaashaastaak, Lord of the Lizards

Theleb K'aarna, consumed by jealousy and humiliation, conjures from a cave in the hills a creature of his own making — a butterfly of fifty-foot wingspan with a man's feathered torso, curling horns, and raking talons. It is not supernatural but a once-human being warped by Pan Tang sorcery: mortal but enormous. Elric, already exhausted from the citadel, can barely lift Stormbringer. Moonglum — who had been trailing them at Elric's insistence, rightly suspecting treachery — attacks and saves him just long enough. Then Elric and Yishana together chant the ancient invocation to Haaashaastaak, Lord of the Lizards, whose children were the fathers of men. The jewel-eyed iguana god appears, hears Elric command "mokik ankkuh," extends its great tongue, swallows the butterfly-creature whole, and vanishes. Moonglum faints. Elric and Yishana sleep on the grass. They wake in her palace in Dhakos, two days later.

"Haaashaastaak, Father of Scales, cold-blooded bringer of life — come aid a grandchild now."

The Sea & Wandering

Theleb K'aarna Vanishes — Elric Rides for Pan Tang

Recovered, Elric goes at night to Theleb K'aarna's cave — expecting a sleeping, spent sorcerer easy to kill. He searches every tunnel, finds nothing but sorcerous runes scorched into the floor of the farthest chamber: Theleb K'aarna has teleported himself away, probably to Pan Tang. Elric emerges at dawn, face frozen with fury. Moonglum, waiting with the horses, suggests returning to Yishana's hospitality. Elric says: "We go to Pan Tang." Moonglum protests — Jagreen Lern the theocrat forbids all visitors. Elric rides without answering. Moonglum watches his friend's white hair streaming in the cold dawn and, not for the first time, wonders whether the stated goal — vengeance — is really what drives him away from Dhakos. Then he follows, as always.

"No matter." And then Elric was spurring his horse away, riding like a man possessed — and perhaps he was both possessed and fleeing. Moonglum watched him go, then followed.

"Now I will live my life without ever knowing
why I live it — whether it has purpose or not.

I am the eternal sceptic —
never sure that my actions are my own;
never certain that an ultimate entity
is not guiding me."

He set off down the mountainside.
Behind him, Shaarilla stood quite still,
watching until he was out of sight.
Then she turned back to the cave.

— Elric · Outside the Stronghold of the Lords of Entropy · End of Book Two