Michael Moorcock Series General Discussion

[BardicheAssault]

Hello. As I'm sure people can already tell, I just recently signed up and made an account on this forum due to my interest in VS discussions.

One series that I would like to talk about is the Eternal Champion series of short stories and novels. Those are some of the best and darkest fantasy stories I've yet read and I couldn't help but notice the amount of misinformation being spread around regarding this series in other sites. In short, what I found in those other sites did not make much sense to me because a lot of the "information" in those pages related to the Eternal Champions are not consistent with the source materials themselves.

Chief among this is the size of the multiverse: other sites are stating that it is infinite, and that it extends beyond the Skrayling Tree. This is plainly wrong as the books and the author say repeatedly that the multiverse exists in quasi-infinity. That is to say, the multiverse is not truly infinite, it just appears that way to some observers. A major plot point in the Second Ether trilogy of books makes a point of that.

So, with all of that said, I would like to start a discussion of this series in this forum in order to avoid more false info being spread around. In order to prove my points, I’ll be posting the “About My Multiverse” essay and accompanying quotes to further elaborate on the multiverse. I will also be posting about Michael Moorcock's inspirations for his multiverse, namely String Theory, Chaos Theory, and Mandelbrot's Set and why these mathematical concepts prevents Moorcock's multiverse from being truly infinite.

 

[Setsuna_tenma]

micheal does not have a profile here it was deleted

 

[BardicheAssault]

micheal does not have a profile here it was deleted

Oh? What was the cause of that?

 

[Setsuna_tenma]

Oh? What was the cause of that?

poor quality

 

[BardicheAssault]

I THINK ITS FAIR to say that I invented the Multiverse. John Clute in the SF Encyclopedia says John Cowper Powys (a Welsh writer for whom I have considerable admiration) used the term before me in All and Everything, but Powys, who could me write me under the table, was really not using the term in the sense that I applied it — to describe a near-infinite nest of universes, each only marginally different from the next and only widely different when separated by millions of variants, where time is not linear but a field in which all these universes rest, creating the appearance of linearity within their own small sphere; here sometimes groups of universes exist in full knowledge and in full intercourse with the others, where ‘rogue’ universes can take sideways orbits, crashing through the dimensions and creating all kinds of disruptions in the delicate fabric of multiversal space-time.
Since the advent of Mandelbrot’s extraordinary observations, the creation of Chaos Theory and Chaos Mathematics, I have been able to give further coherence to my notion, by suggesting we perceive each fresh ‘plane’ of the multiverse as a ‘scale’ - that scale alone differentiates them when so close together. The greater the variance of scale, the greater the variance of history and personal life. Mass also changes with scale. We can also see the multiverse in terms of constantly renewing shoots and dances, growing more and more complex, each shoot a near-clone of the mother-branch, that branch in turn belonging to another and that to another until, a near-infinity of branches away, the trunk is joined. This fits best with observed reality but is much harder to visualize in linear terms.
I had already, from my earliest Elric stories, seen the world divided between Reason and Romance, Law and Chaos, and the Eternal Champion’s inner struggles were reflected in his attempts to reconcile the elements, as most of us try to do in some form or another. All too often we are taught to believe we must abandon one impulse to give full attention to the other. Badly-educated people are suspicious of ambiguity and rational compromise. Something seems to have divided us. The old ideal of the Happy Mean, the perfect baleen of interests and impulses, hardly ever seems to be aired, these days.
Come to think of it, nothing much of any substance at all is being aired these days. Everything seems in conflict and to no purpose. Modern radio and TV have rarely carried less real information to the public. The level of popular debate is at an all-time low. Instead, special interests engage in infantile propaganda wars, in graceless slanging matches, and call this free speech, offering the First Amendment as their noble authority. Modern newspapers care more for their threatened circulations than the truth. It seems to me that these days comics often play the part that SF once played when it had a vital and urgent purpose, of framing my generation’s experience and helping it to understand what was actually going on, who was manipulating whom and why. That was and is popular art at its most vital. It’s when romance engages with reality (as in the novels of Hammett and Chandler, say) that I’m attracted to a popular form, whether it be fiction or music or any other expression. It’s the stuff that keeps its life long after its sell-by date. Its attack can be on the venality, cruelty and hypocrisy of authority, which gave the 17th and 18th century rogues’ tales their enduring liveliness. It can be the furious anti-clericism, the outrage at the unseemly power of the Church, which fired so many of the 18th and 19th century ‘Gothick’ novels — those ancestors to all our modern supernatural adventure stories, whether they’re about men with godlike powers or the fight against some hideous personification of undying evil, or both. It can be the consistent, coherent attacks on modern corporate cynicism and decadent political orthodoxy which mark so many of the best modern graphic novels. All reflect, respond and contribute to changes in the public’s way of perceiving its world. That’s how you can always tell the real thing. And that’s what makes them so valued years after the brief flash of time in which they originally had to find a space in the market place.
For good or ill, Chaos Theory represents my experience and the Multiverse is an attempt to recreate it in all its variety. Although the Multiverse is a real place, it is also a metaphor and that for me is the real beauty — and usefulness — of it.
Welcome to my Multiverse — as familiar as it is strange.


-"About My Multiverse" from Tales from the Texas Woods by Michael Moorcock

This is a summary of the contents of Tales from the Texas Woods.

Furthermore, notes how Michael Moorcock deliberately says that his multiverse is near-infinite, not actually infinite.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Yet again, Moorcock uses Chaos Theory and String Theory because of Mandelbrot's Set.

 

[Catalyst75]

Didn't I see you over on NarutoForums under another name?

 

[Tipper17]

Didn't I see you over on NarutoForums under another name?

same

 

[BardicheAssault]

https://blog.pmpress.org/2019/08/05/interview-with-sfwa-grand-master-michael-moorcock/

ASM: Some may not know that across much of your fiction you have created a Multiverse, an existence that transcends place and time. In many of these stories, you have introduced the Eternal Champion in one form or another. For those not familiar with your work, please explain this overarching story line and what they might discover.
MM: Well, it goes back to two of my earliest stories for Carnell around 1962/3— The Sundered Worlds in which I introduced the term ‘multiverse’ to describe multiple universes existing as it were intratemporally and a human champion who is constantly reincarnated across that multiverse, over and over again. The third idea, from the Elric stories, is that of a ‘Cosmic Balance’, a regulating system in which the opposing forces of Law and Chaos are in conflict. I don’t use ‘Good and Evil’ as terms in this struggle. The eternal hero or heroine exists to fight either for Law or for Chaos so that neither ever gains ascendancy. These forces also struggle within them. I also introduced in later books the notion of Radiant Time and of Space as a dimension of Time. In the first Eternal Champion story the hero is an ordinary man, John Daker, called across the multiverse to fight for the human race. In the course of the story he discovers that the human race has committed a great sin against a non-human race and so changes sides in order to set matters right. This in turn causes him great guilt. At other times some version of Daker fights for Law or Chaos in order to set the balance straight. The story can be a supernatural adventure, a ‘surreal’ story as in Jerry Cornelius, a piece of modernist fiction or an ‘ordinary’ story with few imaginative elements. The story can be symbolic, realistic, allegorical or, as in The War Amongst the Angels stories any combination of those elements.

 

[BardicheAssault]

The following are excerpts from some of Michael Moorcock's novels:

Two pairs of lovers, famous gamblers all—Even when Chaos threatened to engulf the multiverse, when the entire quasi-infinite was in upheaval, they staked their mortal lives and their immortal souls against all the forces of Singularity, that deadly alternative refusing the trap of simplification and reduction.


-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

For the following days they played the long form, sign for sign, commitment to commitment, formula for formula; the great classic flat-game comes, the logic and counter-logic of a ten-dimensional matrix, rivalry metaphysics, a quasi-infinity held in a meter long box in which they dabbled. Minds and fingers and ordered the fate of millions, claimed responsibility for the creation, the maintenance, and the sacrifice of whole semi-real races and civilizations, not to mention individuals, some of whom formed cryptic dependencies on a an actuality they would never directly enjoy.

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

Opposed to the CHAOS ENGINEERS is the dominant culture which is bent on “taming” the Second Ether and conquering Ko-O-Ko, the Lost Universe. The Singularity has discovered a method of Hard Warping which allows its ships to “drop” through the multifaceted planes of the multiverse and emerge, if they are lucky, in the Second Ether. It is believed by some that the power of the Singularity to put its stamp on Chaos is so considerable that the Second Ether in some odd way scales herself to its laws. Rather than adapting, as do other travellers, to the sometimes whimsical conditions of Chaos, the Singularity imposes its own reality. The only power great enough to challenge the natural order of Creation, the Singularity is, in the eyes of most intelligences, the personification of pure Evil, an instrument of the ORIGINAL INSECT, while OLD REG, first Voice of the Singularity, is Satan incarnate. As both groups of homes continue to search for Ko-O-Ko, the Lost Universe, this great clash of philosophies is fought largely within the relative stillness of the Second Ether, that quasi-infinity of pearly rainbows, millennia of light years long, and curtains of violent, jewellish color rising like sudden walls ahead or behind.

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

“Madness is when you set yourself against infinity and inevitability. We believe we are not mad because we set ourselves against only quasi-infinity.”

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

In common with most of the others who explore the Second Ether, CAPTAIN WILHEMINA ROBERTA BEGG and the crew of the Now The Clouds Have Meaning are searching for Ko-O-Ko, the Lost Universe, said to be the single naturally habitable location of its kind in the whole of the bizarre space-time continuum, itself the sole level of the multiverse so far discovered which is not wholly inimical to humankind. “Humes” have divided the multiverse into a number of planes or branches—or perhaps facets of a near-infinite prism—calling our own division the First Ether and those with which we most frequently intersect the Second Ether, Third Ether and so on.

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

Sam Oakenhurst’s mortal body dies in Jack Karaquazian’s arms. What is left of him has gone to play in the service of entropy; to roam the quasi-infinite, a demigod blessed by death’s eternal simplicities. A gloriously doomed soul.

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

Mr. Karaquazian was growing used to these radical changes of color, scale and image. He had begun to detect similarities, correspondences. It was an extraordinary kind of logic but its basis was not unfamiliar to a jugador of his rank. What had at first seemed disordered now betrayed the possibility of design. Each field unfolded its own scale, repeating its unique image with minor variations for something resembling infinity.

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

Mr. Karaquazian could not imagine the value of reading the magazines but he conscientiously went through a whole stack, page by page, following the adventures of the Chaos Engineers in their perpetual war against The Singularity, that mighty pseudo-universe enclosed by a vast wall of supercarbon which tore through the scales at a sickening and always increasing rate, ripping ragged holes in the delicate branches and color fields; forever falling through seeming infinity, forever seeking to impose its simplified and sterile laws upon multiversal variety.

-Blood: A Southern Fantasy

“God sent me a vision and I followed her. He was made flesh. A miracle. I went with her to where she lived, in the fields of color, in the far Ether. We were married. We gave birth to a new human creature, neither male nor female but self-reproducing, a new messiah, and it set us free at last to dwell on that vast multiplicity of the heavens, to contemplate a quasi-infinity of versions of ourselves, our histories, our experience. That was what God granted me, my dear, when he sent me my Roes. Perhaps I was the antichrist, after all, or at least its parent.”

-Fabulous Harbors

My father reiterated his understanding of supernatural visitations and how they were accompanied by discrepancies in those myriad time waves which made up the quasi-infinite—the multiverse Time Field. A random intersection of one plane with another, he believed, was the cause of the effect. This disruption was sometimes caused by an especially intrusive form of travel used by the followers of The Singularity.

-The War Amongst the Angels

The concepts which have been the backbone of most of my science fantasies appeared pretty rapidly, one after the other. “The Eternal Champion” offered the notion of a hero constantly reincarnated to fight for the Balance, no matter what other loyalties he might possess, and The Sundered Worlds, which will not be published in this series since it was pretty much pure science fiction, first offered the idea of “the multiverse,” a quasi-infinite number of universes, any one of which is only marginally different from the next.

-To Rescue Tanelorn

Captain Cornelius stands on his bridge, his home galaxy behind him, its light filling his sails with the solar wind, and he stares into the deep, deep darkness ahead of him: the silent and near-infinite reaches of intergalactic space, which reflect the Dutchman’s own desolate, inconsolable heart.

-Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles

Now their only vision of the great vastness of interstellar space came to them framed by their Vs. Hard experience had told them what happened if you did not lock down the portholes on an old ship (new ships lacked observation domes altogether). Most sentient creatures who tried to use an open observation dome, housing the majority of the ship’s ‘eyes’, their viewing and registering instruments, found themselves staring into the near-infinite and going irredeemably mad.

-Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair as he considered this. ‘There are people who can use that energy to travel at millions of miles an hour in vessels which can dodge in and out of the different planes, moving between the near-infinite worlds of the multiverse and somehow navigating in order to take a kind of shortcut. Really it’s mostly an astonishing skill at negotiating the gravitational pull from universes or galaxies within those universes that aren’t visible to us. They’ve been moving away from the centre of our galaxies for at least two and a half billion light years.’

-Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles

‘We’re looking through the Sagittarian Schwarzschild Radius from the perspective of the Second Aether,’ explained the Doctor. ‘I doubt if it would be possible for people like us to do this under any other circumstances. The heart of it down there is the black hole which represents the centre of our multiverse and all black holes and universes everywhere to quasi-infinity, although there is, paradoxically, no centre to the multiverse and yet countless centres. But that’s what began to go wrong millennia ago…’

-Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles

She was a soldier in Afghanistan, desperately trying to reach cover as she crawled from her wrecked tank. She was a little girl, an old lady and suddenly, after millennia, herself, her own age, and still the huge ship bucked and rocked and spun like a stick being thrown from hand to hand. And she realised that ‘size’ was an illusion, that it did not matter how big or heavy or fast anything was, it was all relative, for the multiverse around her only got smaller and smaller in some directions, bigger and bigger in others and that she had just as much effect on this quasi-infinite environment as a sentient being a fraction of her size or someone living in a universe vastly bigger than this one.

-Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles

In fact, there were many emotions expressed that night when the Doctor came back into the pavilion to attend a wake for Bingo. The Doctor proudly told them that dear old Robin ‘Bingo’ Lockesley had saved Creation, good and bad, sweet and sour, ugly and beautiful, the whole of it from the centre to the Rim, top to bottom, side to side. In short, the quasi-infinite was no longer under threat of an early death and/or transfiguration.

-Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles

“They are not immortal but they are almost immortal,” said von Bek. “The multiverse does not exist in infinity but in quasi-infinity. These are not deliberate paradoxes. Our great archangels fight for control of the Balance. They represent two perfectly reasonable schools of thought and, indeed, are almost the same in habit and belief. Yet they fight—Chaos against Law, Entropy against Stasis—and these arguments are mirrored in all our mortal histories, our daily lives, and are connected in profound but complex ways. Over all this hangs the Cosmic Balance, tilting this way and that but always restoring itself. A wasteful means of maintaining the multiverse, you might say. I think our role is to find less wasteful ways of achieving the same end, to create Order without losing the creativity and fecundity of Chaos. Soon, according to other adepts I have met, there will be a great Conjunction of the multiversal realms, a moment of maximum stability, and it is at this time that the very nature of reality can be changed.”
Elric clapped his hands to his head. “Sir, I beg you! Cease! I stand here, in the middle of some astral realm, about to tread a moonbeam into near-infinity, and every part of me, physical and spiritual, tells me that I must be irredeemably insane.”

-The Black Blade's Song

“I find it difficult to imagine, sir,” Wheldrake was saying. “It is a trifle frightening, too, moreover, to contemplate such vastness. So many worlds, so many tribes, and each with a different understanding of the nature of reality! Billions of them, sir. Billions and billions—an infinity of possibilities and alternatives! And Law and Chaos fight to control all that?”
“The war is at present unadmitted,” said Phatt. “Instead there are skirmishes here and there, battles for a world or two, or at best a realm. But a great conjunction is coming and it is then that the Lords of the Higher Worlds wish to establish their rule throughout the Spheres. Each Sphere contains a universe and there are thought to be at least a million of them. This is no ordinary cosmic event!”
“They fight to control infinity!” Wheldrake was impressed.
“The multiverse is not infinite in the strictest sense …” began Phatt, to be interrupted by his mother, suddenly shrill with irritability.
“Infinity? Loose talk! Infinity? The multiverse is finite. It has limits and dimensions which only a god may occasionally perceive—but they are limits and dimensions! Otherwise there would be no point in it!”

-Revenge of the Rose

Very suddenly everything was still. His feet touched stable ground, though it was little more than a slab of rock floating in the flaming light of the quasi-infinite—universe upon universe blending one into the other, each ripple a different colour in a different spectrum, each facet a separate reality. It was as if he stood at the centre of a crystal of unimaginable complexity and his eyes, refusing the sights they were offered, somehow became blind to everything but the intense, shifting light, whose colours he could not identify, whose odours were full of hints of the familiar, whose voices offered every terror, every consolation and yet were not mortal. Which set the albino prince to sobbing, conquered and helpless as his strength drained from him, and his sword grew heavy in his hand, an ordinary piece of iron, and a soft, humorous song sounded from somewhere beyond the fires, becoming words:

-Revenge of the Rose

Now this energy, coruscating, swirling, dancing, celebrating its own incredible being, joined in the song of the sisters, the albino and the runesword, until they formed a choir which could be heard throughout the multiverse, in every Sphere, upon every part of every planet; echoing forever throughout the multitude of planes and dimensions of the quasi-infinite. To be heard always, now, somewhere, while the multiverse existed. It was a song of promise, of responsibility and of celebration. A promise of harmony; the triumph of love; a celebration of the multiverse in balance. It was through an exquisite metaphysical harmony that they controlled this force and made it obey them, releasing it once more …

-Revenge of the Rose

I could not imagine the variations in scale involved. Outside the pyramid, I was a speck of dust in the quasi-infinite multiverse. Within, I was the size of galaxies.

-The Skrayling Tree

The Warrior in Jet and Gold lowered his helmeted head as if in thought. “It might be one reason. Yes, perhaps you guess correctly. I am, as you must know by now, a mere messenger. I obey the Balance and, in doing so, serve the Runestaff.”
“The Runestaff, eh? That mythic artifact. And what is this Balance? Another mythical device?”
“Perhaps, sir. A symbol, at any rate, of the whole quasi-infinite multiverse.”
“So it is Good against Evil? Pure and simple?”
“That struggle is neither pure nor simple, I think. I suppose I am here to help you make a connection in the cosmic equilibrium.”
“Tell me—have you served Granbretan?”
“In my time, sir.”
Hawkmoon began to move back into the cave. “A turncoat. As I suspected.”
“If you like. But I said things were not simple. Besides, you have trusted other turncoats. D’Averc, for instance …”
Hawkmoon knew the truth of this. Even he was considered a turncoat by some.
“Do you serve what you believe in, Sir Warrior?” he asked.
“Do you, my lord Duke? Or do you fight against what you do not believe in?”
“They are the same.”
“Not always, Duke Dorian. The multiverse is a complex thing. There are many shades of meaning within it. Many complexities. We find ourselves in a million different contexts, and in each situation there are subtleties. In some we are great heroes, in others, great villains. In some we’re hailed as visionaries, in others as fools. Were you a man of strong resolve when you refused my help at Castle Brass and allowed Meliadus to defeat you, destroying almost everything you loved?”
Hawkmoon felt something like a knife thrust to his belly. He sighed. “You betrayed us. You stole the crystal when we had defeated the Mad God. What else could I think?”
“I do not propose to tell you what you should think. But I assure you, I am here to help you.”
“Why should you help me?”
“I do not help you for any sentimental reason, but because you serve the interests of the Balance.”
“And that purpose?”
A pause. Then the Warrior in Jet and Gold said slowly, “To maintain itself. To sustain the equilibrium of the world. Of every world.”
“Every world? There are others?”
“An almost infinite number. It was into one of these I offered you the chance to escape.”

-The White Wolf's Son

“Isn’t there somewhere else—some other … you know … world—where you can go, where things are more or less the same?”
“I am something of a monster, my dear. Few places on the surface find me acceptable. I must eventually seek either fabled Tanelorn or return to Mu-Ooria and the Off-Moo, who seem to appreciate my company.”
“Where are we going now?”
“To find a new gateway to the moonbeam roads, the old one being blocked for us by von Minct’s cruel and bloody sorcery.”
“What do all these people want from me, Lord Renyard?”
“They think you can lead them to what they seek.”
“Which is?”
“Well, ultimately it amounts to what someone from a pre-Enlightenment culture might describe as power over God and Satan. Whatever you call it, that’s what von Minct and Klosterheim want. Power. Immense power. Power over all the worlds of the universe. What Prince Lobkowitz calls the multiverse, that is, all the versions of all the worlds.”
“I know what it means,” I said. “I read a lot of comics, and my dad gets Scientific American. What, billions of them?”
“Oh, billions of billions—we call this quasi-infinity because while it is not an infinite number, we cannot know a finite number.”

-The White Wolf's Son

“As we all would,” agreed Prince Lobkowitz. “But we do not wish Prince Elric, for instance, to give his life, for that would mean that he could not fulfill his destiny elsewhere. So you see, dear Lord Renyard, we act out of necessity, not sentiment, nor always decently, nor always courageously, in a highly complex conflict, full of subtle attack and counterattack. Imagine a large orchestra, in which every instrument must be in perfect tune if a particular piece of music is to be played, also perfectly and at a specific moment. Yet each member of that orchestra can be separated by thousands of miles or even thousands of years, scattered across the multiverse, which, if not infinite, appears to be infinite. If only one of our heroes does not act as he is supposed to act, if events do not happen exactly when they are due to happen, if Elric and his avatars do not do what they must all do precisely at the right moment, then there is no hope for any of us. Life will be extinguished. The multiverse will collapse into inchoate primal matter, and there will be no intelligence, this time, to give it form.”

-The White Wolf's Son

 

[Malomtek]

Didn't I see you over on NarutoForums under another name?

same

He's "NightmareCinema" there, if you two are wondering.

Looking around that forum, it looks likes he's pursuing some personal vendetta against a Michael Moorcock fan there, and using this thread to do it.

 

[BardicheAssault]

He's "NightmareCinema" there, if you two are wondering.

Looking around that forum, it looks likes he's pursuing some personal vendetta against a Michael Moorcock fan there, and using this thread to do it.

More like I'm using this thread to counter misinformation.

And hey, if you think correcting someone who only CTRL+F's their way through this series is having a "vendetta", then I don't know what to tell you. Information should be accurate.

 

[BardicheAssault]

https://epdf.pub/the-blood-red-game5ae64ecdff1ae2f71c68ff74bd329c6717329.html

Link to the Blood Red Game story.

Some excerpts from it:

Renark and Asquiol delivered the ultimate message. They told of the threat inherent in the contracting universe. They told how this had come about and why. And then they told how the destruction of the race could be avoided. They spoke clearly, in careful terms, looking out at their listeners from the depths of their faraway minds. No longer existing wholly in any one plane of the multiverse, they needed to concentrate in order to keep this single level in complete focus. The myriad dimensions of the multiverse coursed in ever-changing beauty as they spoke. But this experience they could not as yet convey, for it was beyond speech. And the stuff of their bodies changed with the multiverse in scintillating harmony so that the watchers could not always see them as men. But, nonetheless, they listened. They listened and learned that the multiverse contained many levels and that their universe was but one level - a fragment of the great whole. That it was finite, yet beyond the power of their minds to comprehend. They learned that this structure had been created by beings called the Originators. They learned that the Originators, sensing they would die, had created the multiverse as a seeding ground for a race to take their place. They learned that they, the embryonic children of the Originators, were to be given their last chance to take over. They were given a choice: Understand and overcome the pseudo-real boundaries of time and space as they understood them, therefore claiming their birthright - or perish!

And the multiverse - what of that? Does it consist of an infinite number of layers, or...?' 'The multiverse is finite. Vast as it is, it has limitations. And beyond those limitations exist - other realities, perhaps.' Renark was silent. All his life he had accepted the concept of infinity, but even his rapidly developing mind could not quite contain the new concept hovering at the edge of his consciousness. 'We believe,' said the metazoa gently, 'that life as we know it is in an undeveloped, crude state - that you and we represent perhaps the first stage in the creation of entities designed, at length, to transcend the limitations of the multi-verse. It has been our function, all of us, to have created some sort of order out of original chaos. There is no such thing, even now, as cause and effect - there is still only cause and coincidence; coincidence and effect. There is no such thing, and this, of course, is obvious to any intelligence. There is no such thing as free will - there is only limited choice. We are limited not only by our environment, but by our psychological condition, by our physical needs - everywhere we turn we are limited. The Ekiversh believe that, though this is true, we can conceive of a condition in which this is not so - and perhaps, in time, conceive that condition.'

The fleet was dropping, dropping, dropping through layer after layer of the multiverse in a barely controlled escape dive. Soon he must give the order to slow down and halt on one level. He had no idea which to choose. Though he was aware of the multiverse, his vision, unlike Renark's, could not extend beyond its previous limits. He had no inkling of what to expect in the universe in which they would finally stop. In the great multiverse they were merely a scattering of seeds - seeds that must survive many elements if they were to grow. Finite, yet containing the stuff of infinity, the multiverse wheeled in its gigantic movement through space. To those who could observe it from beyond its boundaries - the Originators - it appeared as a solid construction, dense and huge. Yet within it there were many things, many intelligences who did not realise that they dwelt in the multi-verse, since each layer was separated from another by dimensions. Dimensions that were like leaves between the layers.

He existed in all the many dimensions of the multiverse. Yet he was bound by the single multiversal dimension of Time almost as much as anyone else. He had cast off chains of space but was tied, as perhaps all denizens of the multiverse would always be, by the steady-paced, imperturbable prowl of Time, which brooked no halt, which condoned no tampering with its movement, whether to slow it or to speed it. Time, the changer, could not be changed. Space, perhaps, the material environment, could be conquered. Time, never. It held the secret of the First Cause - a secret not known even to the Originators who had built the great, finite multi-verse as a seeding bed - a womb - for their successors. But should the human race survive the birth pangs and succeed the Originators, Asquiol felt that it would not present a key to the secret.

The 1st, 3rd, and 4th passages are all in third-person omniscient narrator style.

I also noticed that almost all mentions of the multiverse being "infinite" are from characters themselves who don't know the full extent of the multiverse; some of them even have to be corrected on the nature of the multiverse by other characters by saying that it's finite to boot.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Depending on the context, a "plane" can mean either a planet or a universe:

Spoiler

They do not refer to higher/lower planes of existence as they are in other works like, say, DC or Marvel Comics.

Not to mention that Moorcock himself already explained that characters move up or down "planes" via their mass, instead of transcending infinity.

 

[Catalyst75]

More like I'm using this thread to counter misinformation.

I did notice the thread you started got erased from the forum entirely; couldn't even find it in the place closed and removed threads normally go.

I only looked at snippets of it, but was he seriously arguing that the Skrayling Tree/Moorcock's Multiverse contains "alternate versions" of every protagonist in fiction as Eternal Champions, or something along those lines? I could swear I saw that come up in there.

 

[Wagdawgwag]

I just dropped like twenty bucks on the Pacific Comics Elric run.
The old page for Elric treated incarnations of the Eternal Champion weirdly, didn't it?
Certain characters were incarnations of Elric instead of them being incarnations of the same figure in general, which seemed like a way to artificially inflate the feats of a character that already had a ton of them.

 

[BardicheAssault]

I did notice the thread you started got erased from the forum entirely; couldn't even find it in the place closed and removed threads normally go.

I only looked at snippets of it, but was he seriously arguing that the Skrayling Tree/Moorcock's Multiverse contains "alternate versions" of every protagonist in fiction as Eternal Champions, or something along those lines? I could swear I saw that come up in there.

It got erased because of the mods over there.

That they were, which is blatantly false. Their main argument for that was Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces.





In short, every hero in all works are offshoots of each other.

There's one problem: the most common criticism of Joseph Campbell's book here is its blatant Eurocentrism ergo it doesn't take into account myths/stories that didn't originate from Greco-Roman myths such as Native American myth, Egyptian myth, Chinese myth, Japanese myth, etc.

They said that "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" has always existed but, well, that's simply not true unless you want to tell me that Babylonian myth (Gilgamesh) counts under that. This also doesn't take into account other stuff like bands that have fictionalized versions of their members (Tenacious D and Spinal Tap), musicians like David Bowie that have numerous stage personas, professional wrestlers with their various gimmicks, and fictionalized versions of real historical figures like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The whole thing about "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" being an inspiration by Michael Moorcock is simply that Eternal Champions have multiple incarnations across the multiverse, not that it's because they contain "alternate versions" of every protagonist in fiction ever.

 

[Wagdawgwag]

How would we treat the crossovers in Moorcock's mythos?
I always figured he saw them as being part of the same multiverse, like all his other work, especially the Doctor Who example from earlier.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Wank

 

[BardicheAssault]

How would we treat the crossovers in Moorcock's mythos?
I always figured he saw them as being part of the same multiverse, like all his other work, especially the Doctor Who example from earlier.

You can’t treat the Doctor Who crossover as being canon to Doctor Who itself; Moorcock replaces DW’s cosmology with that of his own, and you can’t reconcile that.

It's also the only book to have a reference to another multiverse outside of the Skrayling Tree. A grand total of one reference.

While Doctor Who's canon is rather fluid, there are still standards. Time's Champion, for one, was never published by the BBC. It was a charity work began by Craig Hinton then posthumously finished by his friend. Since it wasn't published by the BBC, it's not canon. Spiral Scratch, on the other hand, was published by the BBC and is thus canon. Not to mention that the Time's Champion timeline was what the Doctor replaced during Spiral Scratch's events, further booting it out of the canon.

Now, while Coming of the Terraphiles is also published by the BBC, the TV series still takes precedence over it and nothing in the series, as well as other books/comics that came after Coming of the Terraphiles, made any mentions about Eternal Champions or the Skrayling Tree or any other of Moorcock's concepts.

Just treat the Doctor Who crossover as just its own thing, simply canon to Moorcock's works itself but not canon to the actual Doctor Who mythos itself because of blatant contradictions.


EDIT: Made some corrections regarding Time's Champion and Spiral Scratch.

 

[Wagdawgwag]

You can’t treat the Doctor Who crossover as being canon to Doctor Who itself; Moorcock replaces DW’s cosmology with that of his own, and you can’t reconcile that.

It's also the only book to have a reference to another multiverse outside of the Skrayling Tree. A grand total of one reference.

While Doctor Who's canon is rather fluid, there are still standards. Time's Champion, for one, was never published by the BBC. It was a charity work began by Craig Hinton then posthumously finished by his friend. Since it wasn't published by the BBC, it's not canon. Spiral Scratch, on the other hand, was published by the BBC and is thus canon. Not to mention that the Time's Champion timeline was what the Doctor replaced during Spiral Scratch's events, further booting it out of the canon.

Now, while Coming of the Terraphiles is also published by the BBC, the TV series still takes precedence over it and nothing in the series, as well as other books/comics that came after Coming of the Terraphiles, made any mentions about Eternal Champions or the Skrayling Tree or any other of Moorcock's concepts.

Just treat the Doctor Who crossover as just its own thing, simply canon to Moorcock's works itself but not canon to the actual Doctor Who mythos itself because of blatant contradictions.


EDIT: Made some corrections regarding Time's Champion and Spiral Scratch.

Yeah, that makes sense. I figured it was at least worth asking.
From a the perspective of just enjoying the stories as they are I never found those kinds of things very hard to reconcile because of that fluidity.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Yeah, that makes sense. I figured it was at least worth asking.
From a the perspective of just enjoying the stories as they are I never found those kinds of things very hard to reconcile because of that fluidity.

No problem.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Moving toward Mandelbrot's Set and Chaos Theory next.

As mentioned above, Moorcock used those, as well as String Theory, as the inspirations for his multiverse.

None of that makes his multiverse infinite.

http://www.tnellen.com/alt/chaos.html

Mandelbrot's Set, String Theory, and Chaos Theory are all connected; in fact, Mandelbrot's Set is part of Chaos Theory.

Chaos theory describes complex motion and the dynamics of sensitive systems. Chaotic systems are mathematically deterministic but nearly impossible to predict. Chaos is more evident in long-term systems than in short-term systems. Behavior in chaotic systems is aperiodic, meaning that no variable describing the state of the system undergoes a regular repetition of values. A chaotic system can actually evolve in a way that appears to be smooth and ordered, however. Chaos refers to the issue of whether or not it is possible to make accurate long-term predictions of any system if the initial conditions are known to an accurate degree.

This is the definition for chaos theory. The way this is used in Moorcock's series is via the differences between one Sphere/universe from another; they tend to just be slightly different from each other. The real meat of this is Mandelbrot's Set.

The Mandelbrot fractal set is the simplest nonlinear function, as it is defined recursively as f(x)=x^(2+c). After plugging f(x) into x several times, the set is equal to all of the expressions that are generated. The plots below are a time series of the set, meaning that they are the plots for a specific c. They help to demonstrate the theory of chaos, as when c is -1.1, -1.3, and -1.38 it can be expressed as a normal, mathematical function, whereas for c = -1.9 you can't. In other words, when c is -1.1, -1.3, and -1.38 the function is deterministic, whereas when c = -1.9 the function is chaotic.

Mandelbrot's Set is, to summarize, a mathematical model that shows fractal sets repeating and growing. It's a neat effect where you can see the sets rise in quantity and quality and it goes on and on and on... But it's not infinite. It goes up to a very high number that is beyond human ability to count, but it's not truly infinite. It reaches near infinity but can't reach it, which is why Moorcock refers to his multiverse as "quasi-infinite" in several passages above.

You're either infinite, or you're not. There's no two ways about it.

This is Mandelbrot's Set. This is what the Skrayling Tree takes inspiration after.

 

[Everything12]

So do you plan to create the profiles?

 

[BardicheAssault]

So do you plan to create the profiles?

Maybe somewhere down the line. At the moment, I'm just compiling information and posting it here for quick reference.

 

[BardicheAssault]

The following excerpts are from Michael Moorcock's various posts in his own forum, answering fan questions about his works.

Alright. Admittedly, Michael Moorcock did say his multiverse is infinite twice. The reason I bring them up? I'll explain in a bit.

https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...eternal-champion-the-peoples-choice#post22387

Whoops. A time loop, no doubt. Interesting. Generally most people's favourite character in my stuff IS the one they read first, at least as far as the fantasy is concerned. Some people read the fantasy first and then came to like the non-fantasy, such as Mother London, better and probably a few even read Mother London first and then went to look at the fantasy. I'm always interested to read peoples' accounts of how they came to my books, though, as Red Arrow says, it's not a debate I can make much of a useful contribution to. My favourite of my fantasy characters is Elric, but I think my favourites of my non-fantasy characters have to be Mrs Cornelius and Joseph Kiss. Given that they once lived so close, it's a shame they never got to meet!
The reason for offering different demises for characters is to indicate that I am only selecting one strand from one manifestation of the EC.
There are many others, where Elric had a dull, uneventful life and died of old age, for instance, or where Corum didn't die at the end of the second sequence, but died violently in some other alternative of his world.
The multiverse is infinite. The stories in it are infinite. Occasionally those stories intersect. What can I say ? I have a complicated brain.


-Michael Moorcock

https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...he-victims-of-elrics-sword-stormbringer/page3

While the Eternal Champion is, indeed, the servant of the Balance, which is why he fights sometimes for Law, sometimes for Chaos, it is possible for two of his incarnations to exist on the same plane. There's some suggestion, I'd say, that Gaynor the Damned was once a Knight of the Balance and possibly an incarnation of the Eternal Champion. Perhaps he's the Champion who refused his destiny ? The multiverse, as explained in MM's Multiverse graphic novel, consists of an infinite number of variations of the same universe -- each divided by infinitely tiny differences -- only at some distance apart are the worlds radically different. Champions can move across these worlds by a variety of means, usually in service of the Balance, which, it's fair to say, is probably the only constant throughout the multiverse.

-Michael Moorcock

Okay, now people might be asking "Why are you shooting your own argument in the foot?" The answer: I'm not. These two posts were dated back in 2004, one in January and one in March. Every single post of his detailing his multiverse after March 2004 has him saying that it's quasi-infinite, and he's been extremely consistent about that distinction.

In fact, Moorcock contradicted his "the multiverse is infinite" comment just a few months later, in September 2004: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...iboné-archive/1394-elric-and-dreams#post46507

Imagine an apparent infinity of different instruments, every one of which has to be in tune with itself and with the others. That's the number of slightly variant stories which have to happen to produce a change of the kind described in, say, Stormbringer, if that change is to be reflected throughout the multiverse. The events in both the MMM story, the forthcoming Elric graphic story and the final novel all reflect the same ending. But every story is slightly or even radically different.
I'll be interested to hear if you think it works. The beginnings of the story are closer to being the same but diverge. The trick is to bring them all back to the same effective place at the end and that's what the Knights of the Balance work to achieve, fighting sometimes for Law, sometimes for Chaos. The Balance is, if you like, the stuff of life. Without it, neither side can have coherence. The struggle itself creates life, sentience and therefore Time. And therefore Space, which is a quality of Time. But what if the object were not to 'win' -- Chaos over Law or Law over Chaos -- but to control the Balance itself ? And by controlling it to stop Time and therefore abolish Space and thus obliterate existence ?


-Michael Moorcock

Every post from here-on will be posted in chronological order of when Michael Moorcock made these posts.

August 2008: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...ere-any-enigmas-in-your-multiverse#post206191

There are enigmas, paradoxes and quite a few mysteries, naturally. I think it's likely we'll find our fair share as we explore the quasi-infinite!

-Michael Moorcock

July 2009 (this one doubles as him explaining another influence on his universe as well as his experiences as a writer): https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...ichael-moorcock-s-multiverse/page2#post254975

I think the simple answer to the question is 'everything'. For almost as long as I can remember I had wanted to write about London as a 'multiverse', blending reality and myth, hopes, dreams, memories. I made an awkward attempt at showing this in the London novel I wrote in the 50s which was set mostly in Soho and which I lost, I think when I went to Sweden. Growing up, for me London was also a malleable city, forever changing. You can get much of this in the piece I wrote for The Financial Times, published just before the BL event. I think one of the reasons I'm so unhappy living inthe country near a small (but very lively) provincial city is that I miss the sense of infinity I get from a city of considerable size, London in particular. London expands forever. There are no real limits to a city of that size. London is full of of narratives. It has as many stories as the multiverse. I think Paris works for me,, too. It's not just a question of physical size it's also of depth in time. New York can work like that for me, too. I'm sure if I'd lived in NY, I'd feel the same and be writing stories out of the city. Maybe New Orleans, too. All these cities have inspired me, but not as much as London. So, yes, London is the multiverse, packed with narratives, quasi-infinite, constantly inspiring.
To be honest, most of what I feel about London as a sentient creature is offered in Mother London, King of the City, London Bone, the Cornelius and the Pyat stories. Probably The Deep Fix is the first published story I wrote which expressed my feelings about London as a living thing. Also The Real Life Mr Newman, which was written around the same time, but messed up somewhat by the copy editor! I felt some of this about LA, too, as mentioned in Letters from Hollywood. Without wishing to knock Ackroyd in any way, I think Sinclair and I were expressing these ideas for a long time before Peter began writing about London in a similar way... We used to meet frequently (see references and dedications in the Blood books for instance) before I left for America and for some time afterwards and you'll find a certain amount of cross fertilisation around that time (about 10 years ago) but Peter, for reasons never explained, moved away from Iain and me, maybe because the two of us remained interested in the less respectable aspects of old and new London, I don't know. I'm not as interested in nostalgia as Peter or, indeed, Suggs (Madness's Norton Folgate) or even the Ray Davies choral versions of Kinks (mostly) London songs, which I think have as much to do with fashion as imagination. This isn't to knock either Madness or Ray Davies, whom I enjoy, but there's a distinct sense of xeroxing going on at the moment. I still prefer Ian Dury for popular London ditties.


-Michael Moorcock

March 2010: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...he-multiverse-the-multiverse/page4#post285620

Even when writing about the multiverse I've been careful to call it the quasi infinite. Of course my speculations about super-dense and super-gaseous bodies fit nicely into the Dark Matter stuff as well as what I'm calling the Dark Tide, though I think a better term is needed, since 'Dark Force' and all that gets it mixed up with horror stories, Star Wars and so on. Lightless Sea ? Shades of Xanadu...
Antimatter ? Anything which incorporates that ?


-Michael Moorcock

May 2010 (This is a long post so I'll just take the necessary part out; feel free to read it by clicking on the link. Also, this is just Moorcock's draft of the whole piece because he himself said that he can't post the entire piece from the Financial Times due to copyright.): https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...-moorcock-financial-times?p=293076#post293076

Although I’m often referred to as a science fiction writer, I’ve written comparatively few SF novels, most of them in the 1960s when I was lucky enough to think of a few ideas which turned out to be fairly accurate. In 1961 I came up with the “multiverse” – the notion of a near-infinite number of parallel universes nesting inside the other – and also predicted what we now call black holes and miniaturised computers (this was in the days when computers took up whole buildings and, logically, a better one was always a bigger one) but they weren’t based on any profound knowledge of astrophysics. If anything the ideas had more in common with metaphysics. Still, I’m proud of my predictions. Whether I’ll be so lucky with this new story remains to be seen.


-Michael Moorcock

August 2012: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-a/q-a-◦-questions-for-mike-news/16425-multiverse/page2#post355099

In 1961 I suspect my response was similiar to others who didn't like the idea of the Big Bang logically ending in maximum Entropy. (I also had a sort of black hole in the story, dragging everything back in!) A philosophical/metaphysical response rather than a scientific one, but I'm pretty convinced this is the general temperamental response of people like me (who want a multiverse crammed with diverse phenomena).
Temperamentally I really wanted the Multiverse. This was a development of the 5th dimension idea, but that wasn't enough for me. SF writers had played with the idea of 'alternate space-time continua' and used it to great effect in both sf and fantasy fiction (I liked the Harold Shea stories as a kid, for instance) but I don't believe there was an actual 'multiverse' described -- that is a vision of a complex multitude of worlds existing outside our familiar notion of s-t with 'orbits' and predictable courses through which a 'rogue' system might progress in an irregular path. So while this was theoretical physics (or metaphysics, if you prefer) it was either applied to fantasy stories or science fiction. That idea was to do with the 'branching off' notions of quantum physics. I wasn't describing that theory. I was describing 'nests' of alternatives ('quasi-infinite').
For about twenty years or so I've liked the idea of similar universes co-existing at greater or lesser mass -- invisible to us because they are either much larger or much smaller. I continue to call these 'planes' (as in most of the fantasy stories) because it creates less confusion when moving from a fantasy to a science fiction to a non-genre story. As far as I know no other writer has tried to produce 'charts' to accompany theories of a multiverse. Most people seem still to be grappling with linear notions of time and space rather than what I called 'intratemporal' notions in which everything exists at the same moment. In the past I've found that if you put an idea out there some genius eventually produces the math.


-Michael Moorcock

His latest one, January 2015 (he hasn't posted in the site since 2015 due to his age): https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...existence-of-the-multiverse/page11#post389879

Paradox is the norm. We have to stop trying to rationalise everything from too little data. That said, I still like my model which has a near infinite sequence of nesting universes too big or too little for us to detect each varying infinitesimally from the other. A bit like Mandelbrot sets. Obeying similar laws which only vary marginally over vast areas. Then there's Radiant Time, of course...



-Michael Moorcock

 

[BardicheAssault]

This explains how 'scales' and 'planes' in Moorcock's multiverse works, also from March 2010: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-a/q-a-◦-questions-for-mike-news/12078-current-scientific-theory-for-the-existence-of-the-multiverse#post284505

My theory 'explains' the multiverse by suggesting we co-exist in space by being super-dense and super-gaseous, as it were, with a constant activity taking place 'up' and 'down' the scales as it were so that (for purposes of fiction!) we co-exist either as too big to experience or too small, each 'plane' being vastly denser or vastly less dense. But this is at base a metaphor, of course, to rationalise fiction. I recently reread part of The Sundered Worlds where this theory was first published around 1962 and it's very imprecise in what it anticipated, reminding me that theoretical physics and metaphysics are pretty much the same thing. I like the poetry of the idea and have never put it forward as potential 'truth'. I don't think the idea is dangerous. It fundamentally came about because I (and others) didn't like the idea of the universe expanding to 'nothing'. In that it was as much a religious idea as a scientific one!
But it's fun.


-Michael Moorcock

Planes in Mike Moorcock's multiverse are not higher infinities in other series such as Shin Megami Tensei, Digimon, Marvel, DC, The Elder Scrolls, or the Lovecraft Mythos. Instead, they are determined by mass, making those that travel between planes look bigger or smaller kind of like traveling through a Boom Tube in DC. For example, Elric scaling down several planes made him reach a universe so small that he dwarfed galaxies. If he were to scale the opposite direction, he would reach a universe where he would be a microbe in comparison.

 

[Malomtek]

For example, Elric scaling down several planes made him reach a universe so small that he dwarfed galaxies. If he were to scale the opposite direction, he would reach a universe where he would be a microbe in comparison.

Doesn't that sound like just a different artistic representation of "higher" and "lower" infinities?

 

[Catalyst75]

Doesn't that sound like just a different artistic representation of "higher" and "lower" infinities?

Think about how New Genesis and Apokolips have been described as "the size of galaxies", with at least one instance of Earth being described as so small relative to New Genesis that it'd barely displace the waters of a small lake. Boom Tubes are used to adjust the sizes of individuals who travel to New Genesis; otherwise, a living being from the Orrery would be the size of an insect relative to the New Gods, as already pointed out.

There is also how the Shift Ships the Monitor race possessed could be tens to hundreds of miles long within the Orrery of Worlds, but be nothing more than microscopic nanomachines within the Monitor Sphere itself, with the Monitors stated to be able to alter their "scale and pitch" to travel through the Multiverse.

In Marvel Comics, Pym Particles can be used to either shrink yourself down so small you enter the Quantum Realm/Microverse or Underspace, or can be used to grow so large you enter the Overspace, the realm of the Abstracts. DC Comics recently introduced a Microverse that can be reached by shrinking down to a subatomic level.

Whether or not it is a different representation of "higher" and "lower" infinities is be a topic for discussion, but though I find the apparent similarities almost spooky.

 

[Wagdawgwag]

Think about how New Genesis and Apokolips have been described as "the size of galaxies", with at least one instance of Earth being described as so small relative to New Genesis that it'd barely displace the waters of a small lake. Boom Tubes are used to adjust the sizes of individuals who travel to New Genesis; otherwise, a living being from the Orrery would be the size of an insect relative to the New Gods, as already pointed out.

There is also how the Shift Ships the Monitor race possessed could be tens to hundreds of miles long within the Orrery of Worlds, but be nothing more than microscopic nanomachines within the Monitor Sphere itself, with the Monitors stated to be able to alter their "scale and pitch" to travel through the Multiverse.

In Marvel Comics, Pym Particles can be used to either shrink yourself down so small you enter the Quantum Realm/Microverse or Underspace, or can be used to grow so large you enter the Overspace, the realm of the Abstracts. DC Comics recently introduced a Microverse that can be reached by shrinking down to a subatomic level.

Whether or not it is a different representation of "higher" and "lower" infinities is be a topic for discussion, but though I find the apparent similarities almost spooky.

Moorcock's works were exceedingly popular and influential in the Bronze Age of comics, to the point where Elric popped up in Marvel to fight then team up with Conan. I think it's safe to say some of Moorcock's ideas impacted how a lot of these stories handled thing later on.
He's the multiverse guy, right?

 

[BardicheAssault]

Doesn't that sound like just a different artistic representation of "higher" and "lower" infinities?

No, that’s not how Mandelbrot’s Set(s) function(s); it's all fractal dimensions AKA geometrical dimensions instead of "higher" or "lower" infinities.

If you were to visualize what Moorcock meant by that, this is a good one:

As for an example from Moorcock's works itself...

https://www.nature.com/articles/441382a.pdf

This is a good demonstration of the size differences from a Jerry Cornelius story:

Jerry strolled into the basement room sniffing. At the window, Jerry stopped to test the bars. In thekitchen Jerry cursed as he felt aboutin the toaster. From the front door upstair sJerry called through the letter box. They were all naked, save for black car-coats.Jerry stood up pulling on his underpants.“Sorry I’m not decent.”

Miss Brunner turned away with a strangled word. “What...?”

“Interdimensional travel.” Jerry knotted his wide tie, copping Frank’s calculations.“Though not very sophisticated.” Hereached to rub out a figure.

Pettishly, Frank slapped him. “Just the air cooling. Entropy factor. Anyway, your sizes are all slightly different.”

“All?” Jerry frowned at the versions of himself. “If I had a black hole they’d follow me into it. As it is...”

Frank scowled. “You and your bloody multiverse. Energy’s bound to thin out if you’re that profligate.”

“Crap.” Jerry holstered his vibragun. “Effectively energy’s limitless. It’s Mandel-brot, Frank. Each set’s invisibly smaller. Or invisibly bigger. Depending where you start. You don’t go through the multiverse— you go up and down scales of almost infinite but tiny variability. Only the mass varies enormously, making them invisible.That’s why we’re all essentially the same.” With scarcely any echo, identical voices came from each identical mouth: “Only after travelling through billions of sets do you start spotting major differences. The quasi-infinite, Frank. Think how many billions of multiversal planes of the Universe there are! Vast as it is, with my box you can step from one end to the other in about ten minutes. Go all the way round. Your mass compresses or expands accordingly. Once I realized space is a dimension of time, the rest was easy!”

“They’re not clones, they’re versions. When you dash about the multiverse, this sort of thing happens. I prefer to shrink. But denser, you rip holes; drag things in. Nobody sees the universe next door because it’s too big or too small. Fractional, of course, in multiversal terms. Problem is, bits of one universe get sucked into another. They’re all so close. Déjà vu...?”

“That’s ridiculous.” Miss Brunner repaired her face. “Why aren’t your clones...”

“Duplicates.”

“Why aren’t they too big or too small to see?”

“That’s the whole trick.” Jerry preened. Now in sync, his rippling duplicates followed his every move. “Getting us all to the same scale. Expansion and compression. Your atoms only change mass, maintaining identity. See, we’re either too huge to perceive the next universe or we’re so massively tiny we merely pass through it without noticing it. Either way you can’t see ’em. Until I use this little gadget.”

With a disapproving pout, she clicked across the parquet.

“You change your mass relative to theirs, or vice versa, and they become visible. At first you feel a bit queasy, but you get used to it.” Picking up the small black box from the table, he showed her the display, the triggers. “Have a go. It’s easy. Everything’s digitalized.”

So, it's definitely not like Gurren Lagann which explicitly uses Brane cosmology nor is it like Digimon's Neoplatonic Emanationism.

Moorcock's works were exceedingly popular and influential in the Bronze Age of comics, to the point where Elric popped up in Marvel to fight then team up with Conan. I think it's safe to say some of Moorcock's ideas impacted how a lot of these stories handled thing later on.
He's the multiverse guy, right?

Pretty sure Marvel's multiverse came to be at around the same time as Moorcock's stories. Jack Kirby began working his magic on Marvel in 1961, after all, and he was the pioneer of Marvel's cosmic side.

And if I'm remembering correctly, Moorcock did not invent the multiverse; it had been around even before Moorcock's series.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/89/The_Multiverse_Conundrum

Philosophers have already been discussing the existence of parallel/other worlds for centuries prior to Moorcock.

 

[Wagdawgwag]

Pretty sure Marvel's multiverse came to be at around the same time as Moorcock's stories. Jack Kirby began working his magic on Marvel in 1961, after all, and he was the pioneer of Marvel's cosmic side.

No doubt about it. A bunch of seperate settings from before Marvel's big 60's boom were retroactively worked in, like the Space Rangers' home, the world Captain Daring and of course, the one where Stalin was a vampire. The listicles are sleeping on that one.

And if I'm remembering correctly, Moorcock did not invent the multiverse; it had been around even before Moorcock's series.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/89/The_Multiverse_Conundrum

Philosophers have already been discussing the existence of parallel/other worlds for centuries prior to Moorcock.

The multiverse as portrayed in Speculative Fiction is popularly credited to Moorcock. The date that wikipedia lists is two years after the famous Flash issue that sets up the Pre-Crisis Multiverse, though.

 

[Cropfist]

Is Elric of Melniboné finally getting a profile?

 

[Wagdawgwag]

Is Elric of Melniboné finally getting a profile?

He had one before. I just hope this means he's getting a more accurate one.

 

[BardicheAssault]

The multiverse as portrayed in Speculative Fiction is popularly credited to Moorcock. The date that wikipedia lists is two years after the famous Flash issue that sets up the Pre-Crisis Multiverse, though.

I mean sure, he popularized it. He didn't create it is my point.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Moorcock's inspiration for writing his Eternal Champion series: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-a/q-a-◦-questions-for-mike-news/11136-eternal-champion-a-mockery?p=263828#post263828

I never read Campbell, though was familiar with the thesis, having read Graves's White Goddess as well as The Golden Bough. When I started Elric it was before Conan imitators had started or before I saw any. I believe Brak the Barbarian by Jakes in Fantastic was the first. New Leiber stories also started appearing under the inspired editorship of Cele Goldsmith. I wasn't parodying anyone in the EC stories. The first Eternal Champion story was in Science Fantasy, again before much else started appearing than the Gnome Press Conan books, The Broken Sword by Anderson, the first Leiber stories and the Jirel of Joiry stories. Most of these were in expensive small press editions from Shasta to Arkham House. One of the first people after Wollheim at Ace to put The Dying Earth, Conan and me into paperback was Larry Shaw at Lancer. Larry published the Michael Kane novels, the Hawkmoon novels and all the early Elric novels. Then Lancer went bankrupt... And that's another story.

-Michael Moorcock

Now, why is this relevant in a VS context? It's because it shoots down the wank that every protagonist in fiction are Eternal Champions and that Elric defeated a version of all protagonists in fiction during the King Silverskin fight.

Moorcock outright says that he's never read Campbell's thesis (that being "The Hero With a Thousand Faces") and that he was never trying to imitate/emulate/copy it. Besides that, Moorcock has already expressed his sheer hatred at something that was inspired by "The Hero With a Thousand Faces": Star Wars. Evidence for those:

• http://wiki.multiverse.org/index.php?title=3,_2,_1,_Rip_Off!
• https://libcom.org/library/starship-stormtroopers-michael-moorcock
• https://www.newstatesman.com/cultur...nley-kubrick-upset-arthur-c-clarke libcom.org
• https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...ews/1456-author-s-revisions?p=46928#post46928
• https://www.multiverse.org/forum/th...ost-something-along-the-way?p=25033#post25033
• https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...e-news/440-genre-categories?p=24274#post24274

Moorcock talks more about Star Wars here along with citing Zoroastrianism as one of his influences: https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...w-and-chaos-as-apollo-and-dionysus#post153584

Existentialism was certainly an influence on my writing from pretty early on and Nietzsche definitely made an impression on me when I first started reading him. Aldous Huxley was probably the first really serious writer I read (though to this day I have never read Brave New World -- I started reading his early short stories and novels like Crome Yellow when I was young) and through him discovered a lot of philosophers. Sartre and the French film-makers of the 50s were also a big influence. It's a very good point you've made and while I deliberately didn't use any classical originals as models (Zoroastrianism, of course, was also an influence) I might well have chosen Apollo and Dionysus, had I been linking the stories to a specific mythology. Of course, I learned also very early on (from Frazer and Graves) that many similar qualities are given to many similar mythological figures and it's probably fair to say that Elric was a not especially well-thought-out melange of influences. Instinctively, I seem to have hit a universal chord but I'm not one to go back and re-invent the origins of stories I wrote for popular magazines (the way Lucas, for instance, has started bringing in Greek models for Star Wars, which was also a melange of popular influences).

-Michael Moorcock

Despite taking inspiration from Zoroastrianism, it does not translate to Moorcock's multiverse being infinite because he used it as inspiration for the conflict between Order and Chaos, and nothing more.

Long story short, Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series is its own thing and has absolutely nothing to do with other works of fiction. And just because Moorcock is inspired by something doesn't mean he took everything from those inspirations and applied them to his works, 1:1.

 

[BardicheAssault]

I've seen some people say that Moorcock's works in "Tales from the Texas Woods" are "outdated" and should be discarded. However...

https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...ke-news/790-moorcock-essays?p=32177#post32177

Some of my non-fiction has been reprinted in, for instance, Casablanca (1989), Tales From the Texas Woods (1997) and also on the Fantastic Metropolis site. Savoy have plans to publish a large collection of my criticism and Wizardry and Wild Romance has been revised and reprinted and will appear this autumn from Monkeybrain Press in the US. In much of this criticism I refer to sf (and other fiction) and how it reflects society, but the pieces your friend might be referring to might be in The Opium General and Other Stories which is available via Jayde Design, among others. Hope this helps.

-Michael Moorcock

https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...rting-club-square-archive/7172-hail-and-howdy

Answer - Mr. Moorcock answered this question on 2001-04-15
They tend to be kind to my victims in the bin. Yes, there's more to read. No, you don't have to read von Bek at all. I always try to write a book that can be read on its own and several non-Elric readers have liked it and had no trouble with it, so it should be all right. It will help, eventually, to read the Blood trilogy, which shows Elric in various modes and also Tales from the Texas Woods, which sdoes the same again. However, there's probably not much hope for you now and whether your sanity snaps before you read them all or whether you get help in time is really a matter of luck now. But you're giving me something to think about. All best, M

https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...ulti-arrowed-chaos-symbol?p=162599#post162599

Answer - Mr. Moorcock answered this question on 2001-04-23
I have friends with MS and believe me I don't have anything as bad, though the symptoms are frequently similar. But I am feeling somewhat rough and trying to get into decent enough shape to pick up the West Coast reading tour in San Francisco, so I'm keeping answers short. Very glad you like DD so far. Haven't read the Zelazny. Must have read the Dunsany. Admire both writers. I was also thinking of the Iss (I think it's called) in the first Burroughs Martian stories which actually have a poetry of their own. Also Coleridge. But actually, as with the sword itself (it's the Raven Armoury forged sword that I'm describing and, of course, it actually exists -- I have one! It does sing. But its taste in karoake music is awful). I took the imagery and basic inspiration from reality. Most of my scenery is based on experience. In this case, it's based on some wonderful experiences in the Carslbad caverns which are not that far from where I live. Check out the pictures some time (I seem to remember they have a good site) and you'll see exactly what I mean. I pinch from life. The best thing that ever happened to me as a young man was making a trip into the Arctic and realising this planet had more than its share of wonders to start with. It's okay. I keep the sword in the broom cupboard, well away from the cats. In terms of chronology I think you'll find it relates closes to Stormbringer and there are other clues in the Elric story which ran in the Multiverse comic. Also in Tales From the Texas Woods which hints at Moo Ooria first, I think. Very sorry indeed about your mum. It is a bummer of a disease. All best, M

https://www.multiverse.org/forum/q-...ampion-also-the-man-alone?p=247056#post247056

And most of Tales from the Texas Woods was written in the Texas woods -- Lost Pines. I consider myself a Texan and a Parisian. But, of course, I'll always be a Londoner... What's the point of living in the multiverse if you can't enjoy it. As a Texan, I've attended the Texas Literary Festival and several other events... I picked Texas out of all the places I could have lived in, after all.

-Michael Moorcock

The man himself doesn't think so. In fact, the third quote has him explicitly saying that it has canon stories related to Zenith and, by extension, Elric himself.

Long story short, "Tales from the Texas Woods" is not "outdated" nor is it "non-canon" in the grand scheme of things. Anyone that says otherwise is pushing a misleading narrative.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Eternal Champions are not equal to each other in power. Far from it. In fact, the Jugadors are far above Eternal Champions as a whole, and one of the Jugadors is the strongest Eternal Champion as a result: Jack Karaquazian.

Normally, Eternal Champions, especially Elric, are rather low on the superhuman scale. Here are some excerpts proving that:

The cabin doors were firmly secured from the inside. Elric began to hack at them with the black sword.
But the door resisted as it should not have resisted. "Sealed by sorcery and I've no means of unsealing it, " said the albino.

-
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate

The Red Road seemed endless. The sky shivered with heat as the sun climbed higher. And Elric, who disapproved of useless regret, found himself wishing he had never been foolish enough to buy the map from the Ihnioran sailor or to venture so badly prepared into the desert.
"To summon supernatural to aid me now would compound the folly," he said aloud to the wilderness. "What's more, I might need that aid when I reach the Fortress of the Pearl." He knew that his self-disgust had not merely caused him to commit further foolishness, but still dictated his actions. Without it, his thoughts might have been clearer and he might better have anticipated Lord Gho's trickery.
Even now he doubted his own instincts. For the past hour he had guessed that he was being followed but had seen no one behind bun on the Red Road. He had taken to glancing back suddenly, to stopping without warning, to riding back a few yards. But he was apparently as alone now as he had been when he began the journey.
"Perhaps that damned elixir addles my senses also," he said, patting the dusty cloth of his horse's neck. The great bulwarks of the road were falling away here, becoming little more than mounds on either side of bun. He reined in the horse, for he fancied he could see movement that was more than drifting sand. Little figures ran here and there on long legs, upright like so many tiny manikins. He peered hard at them but then they were gone. Other, larger creatures, moving with far slower speeds, seemed to creep just below the surface of the sand while a cloud of something black hovered over them, following them as they made their ponderous way across the desert.
Elric was learning that, in this part of the Sighing Desert at least, what appeared to be a lifeless wilderness was actually no such thing. He hoped that the large creatures he detected did not regard man as a worthwhile prey.

-The Fortress of the Pearl

He was about to dismount and rest his mind and eyes, if not his body, for an hour, when the wall nearest him began to heave and quake and large cracks appeared in it. The terrible smell of burning was even closer now and he cleared his throat, coughing to rid himself of the stench while his horse began to whinny and refuse the rein as he tried to drive him forward.
Suddenly a flock of creatures ran directly across his path, bursting from the newly made holes in the walls. These were what he had mistaken for tiny men. Now that he saw them more closely he realised they were some kind of rat, but a rat which ran on long hind-legs, its forelegs short and held up high against its chest, its long, grey face full of sharp little teeth, its huge ears making it seem almost like some flying creature attempting to leave the ground.
There came a great rumbling and cracking. Black smoke blinded Elric and his horse reared. He saw a shape moving out of the broken banks-a massive, flesh-coloured body on a dozen legs, its mandibles clattering as it chased the rats which were clearly its natural prey. Elric let the horse have its head and looked back to get a clearer view of a creature he had thought existed only in ancient times. He had read of such beasts but had believed them extinct. They were called firebeetles. By some trick of biology the gigantic beetles secreted oily pools in their heavy carapaces. These pools, exposed to the sunlight and the flames already burning on other backs, would catch fire so that sometimes as many as twenty spots on the beetles' impervious backs would be burning at any one time and would only be extinguished when a beast dug its way deep underground during its breeding season. This was what he had seen in the distance.
The firebeetles were hunting.
They moved with awful speed now. At least a dozen of the gigantic insects were closing in on the road and Elric realised to his horror that he and his horse were about to be trapped in a sweep designed to catch the man-rats. He knew that the firebeetles would not discriminate where flesh was concerned and he could well be eaten by purest accident by a beast which was not known for making prey of men. The horse continued to rear and snort and only put all hooves on the ground when Elric forced it under his control, drawing Stormbringer and considering how useless even that sorcerous sword would be against the pink-grey carapaces from which flames now leapt and guttered. Stormbringer drew scant energy from natural creatures like these. He could only hope for a lucky blow, splitting a back, perhaps, and breaking through the tightening circle before he was completely trapped.
He swung the great black battle-blade down and severed a waving appendage. The beetle hardly noticed and did not pause for a second in its progress. Elric yelled and swung again and fire scattered. Hot oil was flung into the air as he struck the firebeetle's back and again failed to do it any significant harm. The shrieking of the horse and the wailing of the blade now mingled and Elric found himself yelling as he turned the horse this way and that in search of escape while all around his horse's feet the man-rats scurried in terror, unable to burrow easily into the hard clay of that much-travelled road. Blood spattered against Elric's legs and arms, against the linen which clad his horse to below its knees. Little spots of flaming oil flared on cloth and burned holes. The beetles were feasting, moving more slowly as they ate. There was nowhere in the circle a gap large enough for horse and rider to escape.
Elric considered trying to ride the horse over the backs of the great beetles, though it seemed their shells would be too slippery for purchase. There was no other hope. He was about to force the horse forward when he heard a peculiar humming in the air around him, saw the air suddenly fill with flies and knew that these were the scavengers which always followed the firebeetles, feeding off whatever scraps they left and upon the dung they scattered as they travelled. Now they were beginning to settle on him and his horse, adding to his horror. He slapped at the things, but they formed a thick coat, crawling on every part of bun, their noise both sickening and deafening, their bodies half-blinding him.
The horse cried out again and stumbled. Elric desperately tried to see ahead. The smoke and the flies were too much for both himself and his horse. Flies filled his mouth and nostrils. He gagged, trying to brush them from him, spitting them down to where the little man-rats squealed and died.
Another sound came dimly to him, and miraculously the flies began to rise. Through watering eyes he saw the beetles start to move all hi one direction, leaving a space through which he might ride. Without another thought he spurred his horse towards the gap, dragging great gasps of air into his lungs, still unsure if he had escaped or whether he had merely moved into a wider circle of firebeetles, for the smoke and the noise were still confusing him.
Spitting more flies from his mouth, he adjusted his visor and peered ahead. The beetles were no longer in sight, though he could hear them behind him. There were new shapes in the dust and smoke.
Giving them enough pain to make them move, where Elric's blade had failed. The riders wore flowing yellow robes which were caught by the breeze of their own movement and lifted about them like wings as, systematically, they herded the firebeetles away from the road and out into the desert while the remainder of the man-rats, perhaps grateful for this unexpected salvation, scattered and found burrows in the sand.
Elric did not sheath Stormbringer. He knew enough to understand that these warriors might well be saving him only incidentally and might even blame him for being in their way. The other possibility, which was stronger, was that these men had been following him for some time and did not wish the firebeetles to cheat them of their prey.
Now one of the yellow-clad riders detached himself from the throng and galloped up to Elric, hailing him with spear raised.
"I thank you mightily," the albino said. "You have saved my life, sir. I trust I did not disrupt your hunt too much."
The rider was taller than Elric, very thin, with a gaunt dark face and black eyes. His head was shaved and both his lips were decorated, apparently with tiny tattoos, as if he wore a mask of fine, multicoloured lace across his mouth. The spear was not sheathed and Elric prepared to defend himself, knowing that his chances against even so many human beings were greater than they had been against the firebeetles.
The man frowned at Elric's statement, puzzled for a moment. Then his brow cleared. "We did not hunt the firebeetles. We saw what was happening and realised that you did not know enough to get out of the creatures' way. We came as quickly as we could. I am Manag Iss of the Yellow Sect, kinsman to Councillor Iss. I am of the Sorcerer Adventurers."
Elric had heard of these sects, who had been the chief warrior caste of Quarzhasaat and had been largely responsible for the spells which inundated the Empire with sand. Had Lord Gho, not trusting him completely, set them to following him? Or were they assassins instructed to kill him?

-The Fortress of the Pearl

Cursing his own euphoria, Elric drew Stormbringer and crept back into the darkness, away from the horse.
The roar came from behind him. He whirled and there it was!
It was a huge catlike thing, save that its body resembled that of a baboon with an arching tail and there were spines along its back. Its claws were extended and it reared up, reaching for him as he yelled and jumped to one side, slashing at it. The thing flickered with peculiar colours and lights, as if not quite of the material world. He was in no doubt of its origin. Such things had been summoned more than once by the sorcerers of Melniboné to help them against those they sought to destroy. He searched his mind for some spell, something which would drive it back to the regions from which it had been summoned, but it had been too long since he had practised any kind of sorcery himself.
The thing had got his scent now and was moving in pursuit as he ran rapidly and erratically away from it across the desert, attempting to put as much space between himself and the creature as possible.
The beast screamed. It was hungry for more than Elric's flesh. Those who had summoned it had promised it his soul at very least. It was the usual reward to a supernatural beast of that kind. He felt its claws whistle in the air behind him as it again attempted to seize him , and he turned, slashing at the creature's forepaws with his sword. Stormbringer caught one of the pads and drew something like blood. Elric felt a sickening wave of energy pour into him. He stabbed this time and the beast shrieked, opening a red mouth in which rainbow-coloured teeth glittered.
"By Arioch," gasped Elric, "you're an ugly creature. Tis almost a duty to send you back to Hell..." And Stormbringer leapt out again, slashing at the same wounded paw. But this time the cat-thing saved itself and began to gather itself for a spring which Elric knew he had little chance of surviving. A supernatural beast was not as easily slain as the warriors of the Moth Brotherhood.
It was then he heard a yell and turning saw an apparition moving towards him in the moonlight. It was manlike, riding on an oddly humped animal which galloped more rapidly than any horse.
The cat-creature paused uncertainly and turned, spitting and growling, to deal with this distraction before finishing the albino.
Realising that this was not a further threat but some passing traveller attempting to come to his assistance, Elric shouted: "Best save yourself, sir. That beast is supernatural and cannot easily be killed by familiar means!"
The voice which replied was deep and vibrant, full of good humour. "I'm aware of that, sir, and would be obliged if you could deal with the thing while I draw its attention to myself." Whereupon the rider turned his odd mount and began to ride at a reduced pace in the opposite direction. The supernatural creature was not, however, deceived. Clearly those who had raised it had instructed it as to its prey. It scented at the air, seeking out Elric again.
The albino lay behind a dune, gathering his strength. He remembered a minor spell which, given the extra energy he had drawn already from the demon, he might be able to employ. He began to sing in the old, beautiful, musical language they called High Melnibonean, and as he did so he took up a handful of sand and passed it through the air with strange, graceful movements. Gradually, from the grains of the dunes, a spiral of sand began to move upward, whistling as it spun faster and faster in the oddly coloured moonlight.
The cat-beast growled and rushed forward. But Elric stood between it and the whirling spiral. Then, at the last moment, he moved aside. The spiral's voice rose still higher. It was no more than a simple trick taught to young sorcerers by way of encouragement, but it had the effect of blinding the cat-thing long enough for Elric to charge and with his sword duck under the claws to plunge the blade deep into the beast's vitals.
At once the energy began to drain into the blade and from the blade into Elric. The albino screamed and raved as the stuff filled him. Demon-energy was not unfamiliar to him, but it threatened to make a demon of him, too, for it was all but impossible to control.
"Aah! It is too much. Too much!" He writhed in agony while the demonic life-essence poured into him and the cat-thing roared and died.
Then it was gone and Elric lay gasping on. the sand as the beast's corpse gradually faded into nothingness, returning to the realm from which it had been summoned. For a few seconds Elric wanted to follow the thing into its home regions, for the stolen energy threatened to spill out of his body, burst its way from his blood and his bones, but old habits fought to control this lust until at last he once again had a rein upon himself. He began slowly to rise from the ground only to hear the approach of hooves.
He whirled, the sword ready, but saw it was the traveller who had earlier sought to help him. Stormbringer felt no sentiment in the matter and stirred in his hand, ready to take the soul of this friend as readily as it had stolen the souls of Elric's enemies.
"No!" The albino forced the blade back into its scabbard. He felt almost sick with the energy leeched from the demon but he made himself take a grave bow as the rider joined him. "I thank you for your help, stranger. I had not expected to find a friend this close to Quarzhasaat."
The young man regarded him with some sympathy and good will. He had startlingly handsome features with dark, humorous eyes in his gleaming black flesh. On his short, curly hair he wore a skull cap decorated with peacock feathers and his jacket and breeches seemed to be of black velvet stitched with gold thread, over which was thrown a pale-coloured hooded cloak of the pattern usually worn by desert peoples in these parts. He rode up slowly on the loping, bovine mount which had cloven hooves and a broad head, a massive hump above its shoulders, like that of certain cattle Elric had seen in scrolls depicting the Southern Continent.
At the young man's belt was a richly carved stick of some kind with a crooked handle, about half his height, and on his other hip he wore a simple flat-hilted sword.
"I had not expected to find an emperor of Melniboné in these parts, either!" said the man with some amusement. "Greetings, Prince Elric. I am honoured to make your acquaintance."
"We have not met? How do you know my name?"
"Oh, such tricks are nothing to one of my craft, Prince Elric. My name is Alnac Kreb and I am making my way to the oasis they call the Silver Flower. Shall we return to your camp and your horse? I am glad to say he is unharmed. What powerful enemies you have, to send such a foul demon against you. Have you given offence to the Sorcerer Adventurers of Quarzhasaat?"
"It would seem so." Elric walked beside the newcomer as they made their way back towards the Red Road. "I am grateful to you, Master Alnac Kreb. Without your help, I should now be absorbed body and soul in that creature and borne back to whatever hell gave birth to it. But I must warn you, there is some danger that I shall be attacked again by those who sent it."
"I think not, Prince Elric. They were doubtless confident of their success and, what's more, wanted no further business with you, once they realised that you were no ordinary mortal. I saw a pack of them from three separate sects of that unpleasant guild-riding rapidly back to Quarzhasaat not an hour since. Curious as to what they fled from, I came this way. And so found you. I was glad to be of some minor service."
"I, too, am riding for the Silver Flower Oasis, though I know not what to expect there." Elric had taken a strong liking to this young man. "I would be glad of your company on the journey."
"Honoured, sir. Honoured!" Smiling, Alnac Kreb dismounted from his odd beast and tethered it close to Elric's horse, which was yet to recover from its terror, though was now quieter.
"I will not ask you to weary yourself further tonight, sir," Elric added, "but I'm mightily curious to know how you guessed my name and my race. You spoke of a trick of your craft. What would that trade be, may I ask?"
"Why, sir," said Alnac Kreb, dusting sand from his velvet breeches. "I'd thought you guessed. I am a dreamthief.”

-The Fortress of the Pearl

Elric was tired. In the city of Ryfel in the land of Pikarayd he had naively sought acceptance by offering his services as a mercenary in the army of the governor of that place. For his foolishness he had been imprisoned as a Melnibonéan spy (it was obvious to the governor that Elric could be nothing else) and had but recently escaped with the aid of bribes and some minor sorcery.

-The Sailor on the Seas of Fate

He thought that he would give much for a boat now. It would not be long before the dogs discovered his scent and led their masters to the beach. He shrugged. Best to die here alone, perhaps, slaughtered by those who did not even know his name. His only regret would be that Cymoril would wonder why he had not returned at the end of the year.
He had no food and few of the drugs which had of late sustained his energy. Without renewed energy he could not contemplate working a sorcery which might conjure for him some means of crossing the sea and making, perhaps, for the Isle of the Purple Towns where the people were least unfriendly to Melnibonéans.

-
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate

Then Elric saw large, fierce eyes peering out of the gloom ahead. He heard a rattling noise, a rushing noise, and the eyes grew larger and larger. He saw a red mouth, yellow fangs, orange fur. Then the growling sounded and the beast sprang at him even as he raised Stormbringer to defend himself and shouted a warning to the others. The creature was a baboon, but huge, and there were at least a dozen others following the first. Elric drove his body forward behind his sword, taking the beast in its groin. Claws reached out and dug into his shoulders and waist. He groaned as he felt at least one set of claws draw blood. His arms were trapped and he could not pull Stormbringer free. All he could do was twist the sword in the wound he had already made. With all his might, he turned the hilt. The great ape shouted, its bloodshot eyes blazing, and it bared its yellow fangs as its muzzle shot toward Elric's throat. The teeth closed on his neck, the stinking breath threatened to choke him. Again he twisted the blade. Again the beast yelled in pain.
The fangs were pressing into the metal of Elric's gorget, the only thing saving him from immediate death. He struggled to free at least one arm, twisting the sword for the third time, then tugging it sideways to widen the wound in the groin. The growls and groans of the baboon grew more intense and the teeth tightened their hold on his neck, but now, mingled with the noises of the ape, he began to hear a murmuring and he felt Stormbringer pulse in his hand. He knew that the sword was drawing power from the ape even as the ape sought to destroy him. Some of that power began to flow into his body.
Desperately Elric put all his remaining strength into dragging the sword across the ape's body, slitting its belly wide so that its blood and entrails spilled over him as he was suddenly free and staggering backward, wrenching the sword out in the same movement. The ape, too, was staggering back, staring down in stupefied awe at its own horrible wound before it fell to the floor of the passage.
Elric turned, ready to give aid to his nearest comrade, and he was in time to see Terndrik of Hasghan die, kicking in the clutches of an even larger ape, his head bitten clean from his shoulders and his red blood gouting.
Elric drove Stormbringer cleanly between the shoulders of Terndrik's slayer, taking the ape in the heart. Beast and human victim fell together. Two others were dead and several bore bad wounds, but the remaining warriors fought on, swords and armor smeared with crimson. The narrow passage stank of ape, of sweat, and of blood. Elric pressed into the fight, chopping at the skull of an ape which grappled with Hown Serpent-tamer, who had lost his sword. Hown darted a look of thanks at Elric as he bent to retrieve his blade and together they set upon the largest of all the baboons. This creature stood much taller than Elric and had Erekosл pressed against the wall, Erekosл's sword through its shoulder.
From two sides, Hown and Elric stabbed and the baboon snarled and screamed, turning to face the new attackers, Erekosл's blade quivering in its shoulder. It rushed upon them and they stabbed again together, taking the monster in its heart and its lung so that when it roared at them blood vomited from its mouth. It fell to its knees, its eyes dimming, then sank slowly down.
And now there was silence in the passage and death lay all about them.
Terndrik of Hasghan was dead. Two of Corum's party were dead. All of Erekosл's surviving men bore major wounds. One of Hawkmoon's men was dead, but the remaining three were virtually unscathed. Brut of Lashmar's helm was dented, but he was otherwise unwounded and Ashnar the Lynx was disheveled, nothing more. Ashnar had taken two of the baboons during the fight. But now the barbarian's eyes rolled as he leaned, panting, against the wall.
"I begin to suspect this venture of being uneconomical, " he said with a halfgrin. He rallied himself, stepping over a baboon's corpse to join Elric. "The less time we take over it, the better. What think you, Elric?"

-
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate

Grim-faced, they continued, plagued by thousands of little creatures which bit at their exposed flesh like so many gnats, yet the creatures were not insects. Elric had seen nothing like them before. They were shapeless, primitive, and all but colorless. They battered at his face as he moved; they were like a wind. Half-blinded, choked, sweating, he felt his strength leaving him. The air was so thick now, so hot, so salty, it was as if he moved through liquid. The others were as badly affected as was he; some were staggering and two men fell, to be helped up again by comrades almost as exhausted. Elric was tempted to strip off his armor, but he knew this would leave more of his flesh to the mercy of the little flying creatures.
Still they climbed and now more of the serpentine things they had seen earlier began to writhe around their feet, hampering them further, for all that Mown sang his sleeping song until he was hoarse.
"We can survive this only a little longer, " said Ashnar the Lynx, moving close to Elric. "We shall be in no condition to meet the sorcerer if we ever find him or his sister."
Elric nodded a gloomy head. "My thoughts, too, yet what else may we do, Ashnar?"
"Nothing, " said Ashnar in a low voice. "Nothing."
"Where? Where? Where?" The word rustled all about them. Many of the party were becoming openly nervous.

They waded on through mounds of sleeping serpents, noticing that the next passage rose sharply. At times they were forced to use their hands to steady themselves as they climbed the peculiar, slippery material of the floor.

Finally, he reached a door of shimmering black crystal which had no bolt or handle to it. Frenziedly, Elric struck at the crystal with his sorcerous blade but the crystal appeared only to flow and re-form. His blows had no effect.
Elric racked his mind, seeking to remember the single alien word which would make the door open. He dared not put himself in the trance which would have, in time, brought the word to his lips, instead he had to dredge his subconscious and bring the word forth. It was dangerous but there was little else he could do. His whole frame trembled as his face twisted and his brain began to shake. The word was coming as his vocal chords jerked in his throat and his chest heaved.
He ripped the word from his throat and his whole mind and body ached with the strain. Then he cried:
“I command thee—open!”
He knew that once the door opened, his cousin would be aware of his presence, but he had to risk it. The crystal expanded, pulsating and seething, and then began to flow out. It flowed into nothingness, into something beyond the physical universe, beyond time. Elric breathed thankfully and passed into the Tower of B’aal’nezbett. But now an eerie fire, chilling and mind-shattering, was licking around Elric as he struggled up the steps towards the central chamber. There was a strange music surrounding him, uncanny music which throbbed and sobbed and pounded in his head.

-The Dreaming City

Elric brooded and he held the black runesword in his two hands. Stormbringer was more than an ordinary battle-blade, this he had known for years, but now he realized that it was possessed of more sentience than he had imagined. Yet he was horribly dependent upon it; he realized this with soul-rending certainty. But he feared and resented the sword’s power—hated it bitterly for the chaos it had wrought in his brain and spirit. In an agony of uncertainty he held the blade in his hands and forced himself to weigh the factors involved. Without the sinister sword, he would lose pride—perhaps even life—but he might know the soothing tranquility of pure rest; with it he would have power and strength—but the sword would guide him into a doom-racked future. He would savour power—but never peace.
He drew a great, sobbing breath and, blind misgiving influencing him, threw the sword into the moon-drenched sea.
Incredibly, it did not sink. It did not even float on the water. It fell point forwards into the sea and stuckthere, quivering as if it were embedded in timber. It remained throbbing in the water, six inches of its blade immersed, and began to give off a weird devil-scream—a howl of horrible malevolence.
With a choking curse Elric stretched out his slim, white, gleaming hand, trying to recover the sentient hellblade. He stretched further, leaning far out over the rail. He could not grasp it—it lay some feet from him, still. Gasping, a sickening sense of defeat overwhelming him, he dropped over the side and plunged into the bone-chilling water, striking out with strained, grotesque strokes, towards the hovering sword. He was beaten—the sword had won.
He reached it and put his fingers around the hilt. At once it settled in his hand and Elric felt strength seep slowly back into his aching body. Then he realized that he and the sword were interdependent, for though he needed the blade, Stormbringer, parasitic, required a user—without a man to wield it, the blade was also powerless.
“We must be bound to one another then,” Elric murmured despairingly. “Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then—let it be thus so—and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of Elric of Melniboné and Stormbringer, his sword. We are two of a kind—produced by an age which has deserted us. Let us give this age cause to hate us!”
Strong again, Elric sheathed Stormbringer and the sword settled against his side; then, with powerful strokes, he began to swim towards the island while the men he left on the ship breathed with relief and speculated whether he would live or perish in the bleak waters of that strange and nameless sea…

-The Dreaming City

The tall albino dropped the folded tent to the grass and sighed. His fingers played nervously with the pommel of his runesword. “Can an ultimate god exist—or not? That is what I need to know, Shaarilla, if my life is to have any direction at all.
“The Lords of Law and Chaos now govern our lives. But is there some being greater than them?”
Shaarilla put a hand on Elric’s arm. “Why must you know?” she said.
“Despairingly, sometimes, I seek the comfort of a benign god, Shaarilla. My mind goes out, lying awake at night, searching through black barrenness for something—anything—which will take me to it, warm me, protect me, tell me that there is order in the chaotic tumble of the universe; that it is consistent, this precision of the planets, not simply a brief, bright spark of sanity in an eternity of malevolent anarchy.”
Elric sighed and his quiet tones were tinged with hopelessness. “Without some confirmation of the order of things, my only comfort is to accept anarchy. This way, I can revel in chaos and know, without fear, that we are all doomed from the start—that our brief existence is both meaningless and damned. I can accept, then, that we are more than forsaken, because there was never anything there to forsake us. I have weighed the proof, Shaarilla, and must believe that anarchy prevails, in spite of all the laws which seemingly govern our actions, our sorcery, our logic. I see only chaos in the world. If the book we seek tells me otherwise, then I shall gladly believe it. Until then, I will put my trust only in my sword and myself.”

-While The Gods Laugh

Suddenly, the soldiers seemed' to sense that there was something behind them. They turned, four of them, and each screamed insanely as the black horror made one final rush to engulf them. Arioch crouched over them, sucking out their souls. Then, slowly, their bones began to give and snap and still shrieking bestially the men flopped like obnoxious invertebrates upon the floor: their spines broken, they still lived. Elric turned away, thankful for once that Cymoril slept, and leapt to the window ledge.
He looked down and realized with despair that he was not going to escape by that route after all.
Several hundred feet lay between him and the ground. He rushed to the door where Yyrkoon, his eyes wide with fear, was trying to drive Arioch back. Arioch was already fading.
Elric pushed past his cousin, spared a final glance for Cymoril, then ran the way he had come, his feet flipping on blood. Tanglebones met him at the head of the dark stairway.
'What has happened, King Elric what's in there?'
Elric seized Tanglebones by his lean shoulder and made him descend the stairs. 'No time, ' he panted, 'but we must hurry while Yyrkoon is still engaged with his current problem. In five days' time Imrryr will experience a new phase in her history-perhaps the last. I want you to make sure that Cymoril is safe. Is that dear?'
'Aye, Lord, but...'
They reached the door and Tanglebones shot the bolts and opened it.
'There is no time for me to say anything else. I must escape while I can. I will return in five days-with companions. You will realise what I mean when that time comes. Take Cymoril to the Tower of D'a'rputna and await me there.'
Then Elric was gone, soft-footed, running into the night with the shrieks of the dying still ringing through the blackness after him.

-The Dreaming City

There was something else out there now. A much larger, heavier shadow. Some kind of beast?
And then Elric collapsed and Duke Orogino came blundering past them, screaming, to flee into the night. They looked back. “Gods! It’s so fast!” Moonglum gasped. He tried to help, but he was already carrying Elric. The plant writhed and shifted on the ground. It had seized poor young Hored Mevza who now struggled in its coils. It was squeezing him so that his blood streamed from his orifices to be sucked up by the plant’s tapering bud. “Ugh. The poor bastard’s dead already!” What had been a thin stem was now a fair-sized trunk and as they watched, horrified, it thickened visibly, sucking the flesh and blood from the youth’s now limp body. Then it dropped back to the ground, slithering into the spread-out skin of the flayed man, filling it.
A travesty of a human creature now swayed before them, its tendrils occupying the skin like legs and arms. And from each branch now, more tendrils sprang, like fingers and toes, reaching towards the five who remained in the compound. The plant, distinctly manlike in form, continued to grow.
And still, as Elric knew, it was not yet moonrise. Still the plant sought more sustenance.
With a yell, Dyvim Mar now flung himself forward and began to hack at the disgusting limbs. The sisters imitated him, their scimitars flashing in the growing light from the sky. Moonglum tried hard to hold his friend upright. Elric did his best to summon the last of his strength. He fell forward, stabbing at the monstrous thing. Anger and disappointed rage empowered him. He had wanted no more than a normal life of the kind enjoyed by others. Again and again he thrust the sword, but he made no impression upon the thing.
A noise behind them. Duke Orogino came shrieking back into the compound. His armour was pierced in a dozen places by arrows. His helmet had been knocked from his head which streamed with blood. He gibbered and pointed behind him and then fell to the ground.
They tried to pull him free of the Black Anemonë, but the gigantic plant was too strong. Its tendrils wrapped around the duke’s body and dragged him to itself. He gave one last, long yodeling cry as he was lifted into the air and then suddenly the full moon rose above the high wall and illuminated the scene, the struggling Duke Orogino, the five figures, weapons in their hands, gathered around the swaying, manlike plant.
As the manlike plant, distracted, began to devour Duke Orogino, Elric pointed towards the high window. “We need to reach that opening, yonder. Can you help us?”
“Use my crest to climb.” Steadying his scaly bulk with his tail, Kalakak lifted himself on his huge hind quarters, his snout extending to the window from which the Uyt king, Tilus Kreek, had last called to his daughters. The black flower swayed in the background, unable to assess this new potential danger as if for all the world a sentient thing. The albino was dangerously weak, but he could still call out instructions to the others. They began to clamber up the reptile’s massive back. Below them the black plant thrashed and screeched. Above them the dwarfish cannibals crowded to the window and stared in disbelieving consternation. With a yell as bloodthirsty as any warrior’s Princess Nahuaduar led the way through the window, her scimitar taking off a head as smoothly as if she were cutting daisies in a field. Then she disappeared inside, Dyvim Mar and Princess Semleedaor behind her.
Elric and Moonglum were the last to reach the window. With a word of thanks to Lord Kalakak, the albino dropped into the room. The princesses and his cousin had already taken their toll of the savages. Bodies lay everywhere. Red revenge had been taken at last. The remaining savages scrambled into the outer corridors and scattered as fast as they could go. They left their prisoners bound but otherwise unharmed.
Weeping with joy, the princesses ran towards their straightbacked but naked father. As they cut his bonds he stared at them in astonishment. He, like the captured Melnibonéans, had not expected to survive this night.
Two more men were lost to enemy spears before they reached the edge of the jungle. In the moonlight they could retrace their original progress from the river. The undergrowth remained dense. With Dyvim Mar leading, they moved slowly on.
For the first time, the savages made a direct attack. Tattooed faces, white, glaring eyes, ochre skins and an assortment of cruel axes, spears, swords and lances suddenly surrounded them. No longer was the strategy to herd them into the compound to become food for the Black Anemonë. Now the cannibals sought only to kill the survivors, so that the man-flower would not devour the degenerate Soomians themselves. Their caution was gone. Moonglum, guarding Elric who was still barely able to hold his blade, did his best to fight back. Then Princess Nahuaduar took the albino’s arm onto her own shoulder and helped defend him as they stumbled on. Mostly, the enemy’s weapons fell on shields or were blocked by steel. Every so often one of Elric’s party would groan and blood would flow. But they could smell the river now. If the savages had not destroyed their boat the remains of the two expeditions might still escape.
Then the remaining savages had fallen back. For a moment the jungle was still. No animals called, nothing moved. The brilliant moonlight cast deep shadows. Some of them seemed to shift and curl into alarming shapes. “Maybe,” murmured Moonglum, “they’ve lost their stomach for the fight?” King Tilus Kreek let out a long relieved sigh—just as a huge, manlike shape loomed up behind them. A giant, with long, curling fingers waving as, momentarily unsteady, it balanced itself in their wake. The Black Anemonë lumbered relentlessly after fresh food. Any food so long as it pulsed with human blood. Then, suddenly, a dark arm shot into their ranks. The last Lormyrian archer shrieked and beat at the huge shape as he was lifted into the air.
They watched helplessly.
“We are finished,” murmured King Tilus. “We cannot defeat that thing. I know its power. I should never have led my men here. Now my daughters will die obscenely, thanks to my folly. You go on. I will stay here and try to slow it.” It was clear he had no hope of defeating the hugely bloated manlike tree. Only a few hours before it had been a tiny shoot. Now it came swiftly after them, gaining speed with every kill. Whenever it paused it plucked another man from the jungle. It was indiscriminate. Savages, too, were lifted kicking and shouting into its maw. They had no chance of reaching the river before they were caught and their lifestuff added to its size, speed and energy.
“We will fight together,” said Dyvim Mar, coming to stand beside the king.
Moonglum drew his twin sabres. “Rest your back on mine, friend Elric. Sadly, we’ll die disappointed deaths. Killed by the very treasure we sought.”
“No,” said Elric. He sighed. “Get the women and the rest of our fighters to the boat. I will stay to slow its advance …”
The savages had not fled after all. Realizing that they were now also food for the noibuluscus, they flung themselves again at the Melnibonéans, perhaps hoping their blood would satisfy the black flower. This time Princess Semleedaor gasped as a saw-toothed blade slashed her arm. Her father roared his anger and his sword took the attacker in the throat. Blood spurted. Another black tendril came out of the night and seized the slain savage.
“Go!” cried the albino, almost falling. “All of you! Go!” And his fingers began to fumble at the copper wire securing his sword.
Seeing this, Moonglum gripped his shoulder. “Elric. We may yet …”
“No. We’ll all be slain. And for what? Take everyone and hold the boat for a little while. I’ll try to join you. If not, well then, I’m missed by one friend, at least. And a debt will be partly paid.”
Like five long fingers, black petals, a hideous, grasping travesty of a massive human hand reached for his arm. He drew back in horror, his own feeble fingers trying desperately to untie the thongs securing his sword’s hilt to his belt.
Moonglum paused and helped the albino to untie the wire. Then he turned and with a shout began to run into the jungle, herding the little party of survivors before him.
The Black Anemonë rose up out of the tangle of silhouetted forest, the full moon outlining its writhing head, while moonlight revealed its broad, waving arms and hands. A thin, terrible whistling noise escaped the cluster of long leaves surrounding what resembled a mouth. From under its feet, a score of savages rose to surround Elric.
For a moment the tattooed cannibals stood there confronting him. The silvery light emphasized the whiteness of his skin. No doubt they saw him as some kind of phantom, the chief source of their plan’s failure. With deliberate movements, they began to close in on him, watched by the creature they had created through their barbaric blood sacrifice.
Elric grinned.
Reaching for the great broadsword at his hip, he drew it from its scabbard. So finely balanced was the black blade, he could hold it easily in one hand, almost like a rapier. The sword murmured and whispered in his grasp and he felt a sudden rush of energy suffuse him. A thrill of ecstasy that others might feel in love-making.
Then he began his work.
Elric’s eyes blazed with red, unholy light, reflecting the flickering runes which ran up and down his blade. He swung Stormbringer first one way and then another, as if to display its power. His lips twisted in crazy delight as he stepped towards the savages, now standing between him and the creature they had raised. His chest rose and fell with deep, strong breaths. He knew a pleasure he had all but forgotten. And, as that familiar black radiance poured from the blade and its song rose and fell in a melody that to him at least was beautiful, he remembered why the Black Sword had been so hard to put aside. Why his addiction had taken so long to conquer. “Aaaah!” Again he swung the blade, but this time it was not in display.
“Arioch! Arioch! Lord of the Seven Darks! Arioch! Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!” This time the black, strangely wrought metal sliced into flesh and bone. Heads sprang from necks like so many weeds in a hay field. Arms flew into the foliage. Legs buckled and torsos were hacked in half. Terrified savages tried to flee, but were now trapped between Elric and the Black Anemonë, drunk on the smell of ruined flesh. It was down on the jungle floor, sucking the blood which pumped from the remains of their bodies. It clucked and yelped with dreadful glee. A few men managed to scuttle past the monster they had brought into being, only to be snared by its prescient tendrils.
Elric yelled his mockery at the creature. “Come, Black Flower! Come to me. My blood is thin, but it is yours if you can take it!”
The noibuluscus paused, staring from its strange head, around which great, spiked leaves curled like a living crown. It bent, reaching out its long branches towards this laughing, white-faced, puny little thing of flesh and thin blood which challenged it and which, perhaps, it sensed as the agent of its own frustration.
Voicing the ancient battle-yells of his ancestors, Elric ran at the Black Anemonë. “Arioch! My lord Arioch! Blood and souls for thee and thine! I present thee with this sacrifice!” The life-force of all those he had killed seared through his veins, filling him with preternatural energy, with a wonderful lust he had almost forgotten, but always craved.
The tendril hands reached out to seize him. Elric dodged them, hacking at legs like two trunks standing across the path above him. The hands curled down to try to grasp him. A weird shriek escaped the monster as the black blade slashed at the writhing fingers, sending them flying into the undergrowth.
“Arioch! Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!” The albino’s features were contorted in unhuman delight.
And from somewhere in the darkness came a low, mocking chuckle, as if Elric’s patron demon had always known that he and the sword would feed again.
At last the black flower was down, but still the arms whipped and thrust and grasped for the albino. Still the Black Sword sang. Monstrous branches transformed themselves into snakes, coiling around his body, his arms, his legs. But too much energy now pulsed through him. He easily broke free, the blade rising and falling, rising and falling, like a woodsman’s axe in the forest. Suddenly, he was tireless. With every blow the albino’s energy increased, while the plant weakened. The head darted at Elric, the cluster of long, tough leaves spearing towards his face, trying to suck it from his shoulders, but he dodged it cleverly, still laughing with that wild, maniacal glee, as much in his blade’s power as it was in his.
A huge blow. Another. Squealing and chittering, parts of the plant tried to escape now, slithering off into the undergrowth. From head to toe, Elric was covered in black sap, but still he hacked at the thing, finally pausing to reach out and rip the crown of leaves from around the ruined head. To snatch a handful of large seeds, beating like so many hearts, from the centre. He stepped back, panting. His body sang and thrilled with the force pouring through it. He lifted his head in exultation, shouting his mocking triumph at the moon.
“ARIOCH!”
A tendril began to curl itself around his leg. To his horror, he realized that the plant was re-forming itself. He stepped back and with the point of his sword threw the branch as far as it would go. Then he turned and ran towards the river.

-
Black Petals

Slowly, the madness deserted Elric and in something close to joy he ran through the galleries until he found his friend. Princess Nauha stood with Moonglum and also Cita Tine, the tavern wench. All were armed with bloody swords and bore the familiar look of war-wolves who had fought a long, exhilarating fight. And then, as if Insensate Fate could not contain this level of coincidence but must burst and spread it across the multiverse, there appeared the nuns of Xiombarg, smug as nuns are who have pleased themselves by some deed of virtue, to report that all was settled as justice demanded.

-Red Pearls

Armoured body fell against armoured body, blood mingled with brother’s blood, horses dragged corpses away with them across the snow and Elric did not fall, yet something was happening to him.
Then it dawned upon his berserker brain that, for some reason, his blade was sated. The energy still pulsed in its metal, but it transferred nothing more to its master. And his own stolen energy was beginning to wane.
“Damn you, Stormbringer! Give me your power!”
Swords rained down upon him as he fought and slew and parried and thrust.
“More power!”
He was still stronger than normal and much stronger than any ordinary mortal, but some of the wild anger was leaving him and he felt almost puzzled as more Kelmain came at him.
He was beginning to waken from the blood-dream.
He shook his head and drew deep breaths. His back was aching.
“Give me their strength, Black Sword!”
He struck at legs and arms and chests and faces and he was covered from head to foot in the blood of his attackers.
But the dead now hampered him worse than the living, for their corpses were everywhere and he almost lost his footing more than once.
“What ails you, runesword? Do you refuse to help me? Will you not fight these things because, like you, they are of Chaos?”
No, it could not be that. All that had happened was that the sword desired no more vitality and therefore gave Elric none.
He fought on for another hour before his grip on the sword weakened and a rider, half-mad with terror, struck a blow at his head, failed to split it but stunned him so that he fell upon the bodies of the slain, tried to rise, then was struck again and lost consciousness.
Nausea had begun to fill Elric. His eyes were gloomy as he contemplated the corpse and that which he had stolen from it. Such life-force, whatever else it was, must surely be tainted. Did not he drink something of the demon’s evil when his sword drank its soul?
He was about to climb back into the onyx saddle when he saw something gleaming amongst the black and yellow entrails he had spilled. It was the demon’s heart—an irregularly shaped stone of deep blue and purple and green. It still pulsed, though its owner was dead.
Elric stooped and picked it up. It was wet and so hot that it almost burned his hand, but he tucked it into his pouch, then mounted the bird of silver and gold.
His bone-white face flickered with a dozen strange emotions as he let the bird bear him back over the Boiling Sea. His milk-white hair flew wildly behind him and he was oblivious of the wounds on his arm and chest.
He was thinking of other things. Some of his thoughts lay in the past and others were in the future. And he laughed bitterly twice and his eyes shed tears and he spoke once.
“Ah, what agony is this Life!”

-The Vanishing Tower

Elric wondered what would happen if he made a direct appeal to the sword. He could not get to it himself, for Theleb K’aarna had bound him tightly with ropes of silk, but he might call for it . . .

-The Vanishing Tower

It blundered towards Elric and went through him. It was not that the man was intangible it was Elric who felt the ghost. The creature's mass seemed of incredible density. The creature was turning, its huge hands reaching out, its face a mocking grimace. Elric struck at it with Stormbringer and was astonished as the runesword was halted, making no impression on the creature's bulk.

-
The Singing Citadel

'Allow me my pleasures also, mortal. Here she is, I think.' Balo plucked at one of the tiny creatures on his palm. Elric stepped forward and saw that Yishana was indeed there, as were many of the lost soldiers. Balo looked up at him and winked. 'They are so much easier to handle in this size.'
'I do not doubt it, though I wonder if it is not we who are larger rather than they who are smaller .... '
'You are astute, mortal. But can you guess how this came to be?'
'Your creature back there your pits and colours and archways somehow they warp what?'
'Mass, King Elric. But you would not understand such concepts. Even the Lords of Melnibone, most godlike and intelligent of mortals, only learned how to manipulate the elements in ritual, invocation, and spell, but never understood what they manipulated-that is where the Lords of the Higher Worlds score, whatever their differences.'

-The Singing Citadel

 

[BardicheAssault]

More excerpts showing that most Eternal Champions are rather low-tier on the superhuman scale:

Elric and Moonglum came up the peak of the hill on their fast Shazaarian horses (which had cost them all they had) and saw it. Worse—they smelled it. A thousand stinks issued from the festering city and both men gagged, turning their horses back down the hill to the valley.

-The Vanishing Tower

It was Moonglum. The stocky Eastlander was returning in the company of two women who were scantily dressed and heavily painted and who were without doubt Vilmirian ****** from the other side of city. Moonglum had an arm about each waist and he was singing some obscure but evidently disgraceful ballad, pausing frequently to have one of the laughing girls pour wine down his throat. Both the ****** had large stone flasks in their free hands and they were matching Moonglum drink for drink.
As Moonglum stepped unsteadily nearer he recognised Elric and hailed him, winking. "You see I have not forgotten you, Prince of Melnibone. One of these beauties is for you! "
Elric made an exaggerated bow. "You are very good to me. But I thought you planned to find some gold for us. Was that not the reason for coming to Old Hrolmar?"
"Aye! " Moonglum kissed the cheeks of the girls. They snorted with laughter. "Indeed! Gold it is-or something as good as gold. I have rescued these young ladies from a cruel whoremaster on the other side of town. I have promised to sell them to a kinder master and they are grateful to me! "
"You stole these slaves?"
"If you wish to say so-I 'stole' them. Aye, then, 'steal' I did. I stole in with my steel and I released them from a life of degradation. A humanitarian deed. Their miserable life is no more! They may look forward to..."
"Their miserable lives will be no more-as, Indeed,
will be ours when the whoremaster discovers the crime and alerts the watch. How found you these ladies?"
"They found me! I had made my swords available to an old merchant, a stranger to the city. I was to escort him about the murkier regions of Old Hrolmar in return for a good purse of gold (better, I think, than he expected to give me). While he whored above, as he could, I had a drink or two below in the public rooms. These two beauties look a liking to me and told me of their unhappiness. It was enough. I rescued them."
"A cunning plan, " Elric said sardonically.
" 'Twas theirs! They have brains as well as-"
"I'll help you carry them back to their master before the city guards descend upon us."
"But Elric! "
"But first..." Elric seized his friend and threw him over his shoulder, staggering with him to the quay at the end of the street, taking a good hold on his collar and lowering him suddenly into the reeking water. Then he hauled him up and stood him down. Moonglum shivered and looked sadly at Elric.
"I am prone to colds, as you know."
"And prone to drunken plans, too! We are not liked here, Moonglum. The watch needs only one excuse to set upon us. At best we should have to flee the city before our business was done. At worst we shall be disarmed, imprisoned, perhaps slain."
They began to walk back to where the two girls still stood. One of the girls ran forward and knelt to take Elric's hand and press her lips against his thigh. "Master, I have a message...."
Elric bent to raise her to her feet.
She screamed. Her painted eyes widened. He stared at her in astonishment and then, following her gaze, turned and saw the pack of bravos who had stolen round the corner and were now rushing at himself and Moonglum. Behind the bravos Elric thought he saw the young dandy he had earlier chased from the tavern. The dandy wished for revenge. Poignards glit tered in the darkness and their owners wore the black hoods of professional assassins. There were at least a dozen of them. The young dandy must therefore be extremely rich, for assassins were expensive in Old Hrolmar.
Moonglum had already drawn both his swords and was engaging the leader. Elric pushed the frightened girl behind him and put his hand to Stormbringer's pommel. Almost at its own volition the huge runesword sprang from its scabbard and black light poured from its blade as it began to hum its own strange battle-cry.
He heard one of the assassins gasp "Elric! " and guessed that the dandy had not made it plain whom they were to slay. He blocked the thrust of the slim longsword, turned it and chopped with a kind of delicacy at the owner's wrist. Wrist and sword flew into the shadows and the owner staggered back screaming.
More swords now and more cold eyes glittering from the black hoods. Stormbringer sang its peculiar songhalf-lament, half-victory shout. Elric's own face was alive with battle-lust and his crimson eyes blazed from his bone-white face as he swung this way and that.
Shouts, curses, the screams of women and the groans of men, steel striking steel, boots on cobbles, the sounds of swords in flesh, of blades scraping bone. A confusion through which Elric fought, his broadsword clapped in both pale hands. He had lost sight of Moonglum and prayed that the Eastlander still stood. From time to time he glimpsed one of the girls and wondered why she had not run for safety.
Now the corpses of several hooded assassins lay upon the cobbles and the remainder were beginning to falter as Elric pressed them. They knew the power of his sword and what it did to those it struck. They had seen their comrades' faces as their souls were drawn from them by the hellblade. With every death Elric seemed to grow stronger and the black radiance from the blade seemed to burn fiercer. And now the albino was laughing.
His laughter rang over the rooftops of Old Hrolmar
and those who were abed covered their ears, believing themselves in the grip of nightmares.
"Come, friends, my blade still hungers! "
An assassin made to stand his ground and Elric swept the Black Sword up. The man raised his blade to protect his head and Elric brought the Black Sword down. It sheared through the steel and cut down through the hood, through the neck, through the breastbone. It clove the assassin completely in two and it stayed in the flesh, feasting, drawing out the last traces of the man's dark soul. And then the rest were running.
Elric drew a deep breath, avoided looking at the man his sword had slain last, sheathed the blade and turned to look for Moonglum.
It was then that the blow came on the back of his neck. He felt nausea rise in him and tried to shake it off. He felt a prick in his wrist and through the haze he saw a figure he thought at first was Moonglum. But it was another-perhaps a woman. She was tugging at his left hand. Where did she want him to go?
His knees became weak and he fell to the cobbles. He tried to call out, but failed. The woman was still tugging at his hand as if she sought to take him to safety. But he could not follow her. He fell on his shoulder, then on his back, glimpsed a swimming sky...
... and then the dawn was rising over the crazy spires of Old Hrolmar and he realized that several hours had passed since he had fought the assassins.
Moonglum's face appeared. It was full of concern.
"Moonglum?"
"Thank Elwher's gentle gods! I thought you slain by that poisoned blade."
Elric's head was clearing rapidly now. He rose to a sitting position. "The attacker came from behind. How...?"
Moonglum looked embarrassed. "I fear those girls were not all they seemed."
Elric remembered the woman tugging at his left hand
and he stretched out his fingers. "Moonglum! The Ring of Kings is gone from my hand! The Actorios has been stolen! "
The Ring of Kings had been worn by Elric's forefathers for centuries. It had been the symbol of their power, the source of much of their supernatural strength.
Moonglum's face clouded. "I thought I stole the girls. But they were thieves. They planned to rob us. An old trick."
"There's more to it, Moonglum. They stole nothing else. Just the Ring of Kings. There's still a little gold left in my purse." He jingled his belt pouch, climbing to his feet.
Moonglum jerked his thumb at the street's far wall. There lay one of the girls, her finery all smeared with mud and blood.
"She got in the way of one of the assassins as we fought. She's been dying all night-mumbling your name. I had not told it to her. Therefore I fear you're right. They were sent to steal that ring from you. I was duped by them."
Elric walked rapidly to where the girl lay and he kneeled down beside her. Gently he touched her cheek. She opened her lids and stared at him from glazed eyes. Her lips formed Ms name.
"Why did you plan to rob me?" Elric asked. "Who is your master?"
"Urish..." she said in a voice that was a breeze passing through the grass. "Steal ring... take it to Nadsokor...."
Moonglum now stood on the other side of the dying girl. He had found one of the wine flasks and he bent to give her a drink. She tried to sip the wine but failed. It ran down her little chin, down her slim neck and on to her wounded breast.
"You are one of the beggars of Nadsokor?" Moonglum said.
Faintly, she nodded,
"Urish has always been my enemy, " Elric told him.
"I once recovered some property from him and he has never forgiven me. Perhaps he sought the Actorios ring in payment." He looked down at the girl. "Your companion-has she returned to Nadsokor?"
Again the girl seemed to nod. Then all intelligence left the eyes, the lids closed and she ceased to breathe.
Elric got up. He was frowning, rubbing at the hand on which the Ring of Kings had been.
"Let him keep the ring, then, " said Moonglum hopefully. "He will be satisfied."
Elric shook his head.
Moonglum cleared his throat. "A caravan is leaving Jadmar in a week. It is commanded by Rackhir of Tanelorn and has been purchasing provisions for the city. If we took a ship round the coast we could soon be in Jadmar, join Rackhir's caravan and be on our way to Tanelorn in good company. As you know, it's rare for anyone of Tanelorn to make such a journey. We are lucky, for..."
"No, " said Elric in a low voice. "We must forget Tanelorn for the moment, Moonglum, The Ring of Kings is my link with my fathers. More-it aids my conjurings and has saved our lives more than once. We ride for Nadsokor now. I must try to reach the girl before she gets to the City of Beggars. Failing that, I must enter the city and recover my ring."
Moonglum shuddered. "It would be more foolish than any plan of mine, Elric. Urish would destroy us."
"None the less, to Nadsokor I must go."
Moonglum bent and began systematically to strip the girl's corpse of its jewellery. "We'll need every penny we can raise if we're to buy decent horses for our journey, " he explained.

-The Vanishing Tower

He began to relax but his step was just as cautious. Moonglum had paused, cocking his head to one side as if hearing something.
Elric turned. “What is it you hear?”
“Possibly nothing. Or maybe one of those great rats we saw earlier. It is just that—”
A silver-blue radiance burst out from behind the grotesque throne and Elric flung up his left hand to protect his eyes, trying to disentangle his sword from his rags.
Moonglum yelled and began to run for the door, but even when Elric put his back to the light he could not see. Stormbringer moaned in its scabbard as if in rage. Elric tugged at it, but felt his limbs grow weaker and weaker. From behind him came a laugh which he recognized. A second laugh—almost a throaty cough—joined it.
His sight came back but now he was held by clammy hands and when he saw his captors he shuddered. Shadowy creatures of limbo held him—ghouls summoned by sorcery. Their dead faces smiled but their dead eyes remained dead. Elric felt the heat and the strength leaving his body and it was as if the ghouls sucked it from him. He could almost feel his vitality traveling from his own body to theirs.
Again the laugh. He looked up at the throne and saw emerging from behind it the tall, saturnine figure of Theleb K’aarna, whom he had left for dead near the castle of Kaneloon a few months since.
Theleb K’aarna smiled in his curling beard as Elric struggled in the grasp of the ghouls. Now from the other side of the throne came the filthy carcass of Urish the Seven-fingered, the cleaver Hackmeat cradled in his left arm.

-
The Vanishing Tower

Theleb K’aarna laughed. “I have achieved it. I have destroyed the barrier between the planes and, thanks to the Lords of Chaos, have found allies which Elric’s sorcery cannot destroy because they do not obey the sorcerous rules of this plane! They are invincible, invulnerable—and they obey only Theleb K’aarna!”
A huge snorting and screaming came from beasts and warriors alike.
“Now we shall go against Tanelorn!” Theleb K’aarna shouted. “And with this power I shall return to Jharkor, to make fickle Yishana my own!”
Elric felt a certain sympathy for Theleb K’aarna at that moment. Without the aid of the Lords of Chaos, his sorcery could not have achieved this. He had given himself up to them, had become one of their tools all because of his weak-minded love for Jharkor’s aging queen. Elric knew he could not go against the monsters and their monstrous riders. He must return to Tanelorn to warn his friends to leave the city, to hope that he might find a means of returning these frightful interlopers back to their own plane. But then the mare screamed suddenly and reared, maddened by the sights, the sounds and the smells she had been forced to witness. And the scream sounded in a sudden silence. The rearing horse revealed itself to Theleb K’aarna as he turned his mad eyes in Elric’s direction.
“Are you all to come with me to the defense of Tanelorn?” he asked Jhary.
Jhary shook his head. “No. We go the other way. We go to seek the device Theleb K’aarna activated with the help of the Lords of Chaos. Where lies it?”
Elric tried to get his bearings. He lifted a hesitant finger. “That way, I think.”
“Then let us go to it now.”
“But I must try to help Tanelorn.”
“You must destroy the device after we have used it, friend Elric, lest Theleb K’aarna or his like try to activate it again.”
“But Tanelorn . . .”
“I do not believe that Theleb K’aarna and his beasts have yet reached the city.”
“Not reached it! So much time has passed!”
“Less than a day.”
Elric rubbed at his face. He said reluctantly: “Very well. I will take you to the machine.”
“But if Tanelorn lies so near,” Corum said to Jhary, “why seek it elsewhere?”
“Because this is not the Tanelorn we wish to find,” Jhary told him.
“It will suit me,” Erekosë said. “I will remain with Elric. Then, perhaps . . .”
A look almost of terror spread over Jhary’s features then. He said sadly: “My friend—already much of time and space is threatened with destruction. Eternal barriers could soon fall—the fabric of the multiverse could decay. You do not understand. Such a thing as has happened in the Vanishing Tower can only happen once or twice in an eternity and even then it is dangerous to all concerned. You must do as I say. I promise that you will have just as good a chance of finding Tanelorn where I take you. Your opportunity lies in Elric’s future.”
Erekosë bowed his head. “Very well.”
“Come,” Elric said impatiently, beginning to strike off to the north-east. “For all your talk of time, there is precious little left for me.”

-
The Vanishing Tower

“It is nowhere on your plane or in your time, Prince Elric. I summoned you to aid me in my battle against the Lords of Chaos. Already I have been instrumental in destroying two of the Sword Rulers—Arioch and Xiombarg—but the third, the most powerful, remains . . .”
“Arioch of Chaos—and Xiombarg? You have destroyed two of the most powerful members of the company of Chaos? Yet but a month since I spoke with Arioch. He is my patron. He . . .”
“There are many planes of existence,” Prince Corum told him gently. “In some the Lords of Chaos are strong. In some they are weak. In some, I have heard, they do not exist at all. You must accept that here Arioch and Xiombarg have been banished so that effectively they no longer exist in my world. It is the third of the Sword Rulers who threatens us now—the strongest, King Mabelode.”
Elric frowned. “In my—plane—Mabelode is no stronger than Arioch and Xiombarg. This makes a travesty of all my understanding . . .”
“I will explain as much as I can,” said Prince Corum. “For some reason Fate has selected me to be the hero who must banish the domination of Chaos from the Fifteen Planes of Earth. I am at present traveling on my way to seek a city which we call Tanelorn, where I hope to find aid. But my guide is a prisoner in a castle close to here and before I can continue I must rescue him. I was told how I might summon aid to help me effect this rescue and I used the spell to bring you to me. I was to tell you that if you aided me, then you would aid yourself—that if I was successful then you would receive something which would make your task easier.”

-The Vanishing Tower

ELRIC FELL THROUGH centuries of anguish, millennia of mortal misery and folly; he roared his defiance as he fell, his sword like a beacon and a challenge in his grip, down towards the luscious heart of Chaos while everywhere around him was confusion and cacophony, swift images of faces, cities, whole worlds, transmogrified and insane, warping and reshaping; for in unchecked Chaos everything was in perpetual change.
He was alone.
Very suddenly everything was still. His feet touched stable ground, though it was little more than a slab of rock floating in the flaming light of the quasi-infinite—universe upon universe blending one into the other, each ripple a different colour in a different spectrum, each facet a separate reality. It was as if he stood at the centre of a crystal of unimaginable complexity and his eyes, refusing the sights they were offered, somehow became blind to everything but the intense, shifting light, whose colours he could not identify, whose odours were full of hints of the familiar, whose voices offered every terror, every consolation and yet were not mortal. Which set the albino prince to sobbing, conquered and helpless as his strength drained from him, and his sword grew heavy in his hand, an ordinary piece of iron, and a soft, humorous song sounded from somewhere beyond the fires, becoming words:

-The Revenge of the Rose

Prince Gaynor was reluctant. He studied the runes, he tested the balance. And then he returned the blade to both steel hands. “I do not fear your sword will kill me, Elric.”
“I doubt it has the power to kill you, Gaynor. Is that what you desire of it? It might take your soul. It might transmogrify you. I doubt, however, if it will grant you your desire.”
Before he gave it up, Gaynor laid one metal-clad finger upon the blade. “Is that the power of the anti-balance, I wonder?”
“I have not heard of such a power,” said Elric. He slid the scabbard back onto his belt.
“They say it is a power even more ambitious than the Lords of the Higher Worlds. More dangerous, more cruel, more effective than anything known to the multiverse. They say the power of the anti-balance has the means of changing the whole nature of the multiverse in a single stroke.”
“I know only that Fate has forged us together, that blade and I,” said Elric. “Our destinies are the same.” He glanced around Gaynor’s sparely furnished cabin. “I have little interest in the broadly cosmic, Prince Gaynor. I have desires rather less exaggerated than most I have met of late. I seek only to find the answers to certain questions I have asked myself. I would gladly be free of all Lords of the Higher Worlds and their machinations. Even of the Balance itself.”
Gaynor turned away from him. “You are an interesting creature, Elric of Melniboné. Ill-suited to serve Chaos, it would seem.”
“Ill-suited for most things, sir,” said Elric. “To serve Chaos is merely a family tradition with us.”
Gaynor’s helm came round again to stare broodingly at the albino. “You believe it is possible to banish Law and Chaos entirely—to banish them from the multiverse?”
“Of that I am not so sure. But I have heard of places where neither Law nor Chaos have jurisdiction.” Elric was too cautious to mention Tanelorn. “I have heard of worlds where the Balance rules unchallenged, also …”
“I, too, have known such places. I dwelled in one …”

-The Revenge of the Rose

ELRIC FELL THROUGH centuries of anguish, millennia of mortal misery and folly; he roared his defiance as he fell, his sword like a beacon and a challenge in his grip, down towards the luscious heart of Chaos while everywhere around him was confusion and cacophony, swift images of faces, cities, whole worlds, transmogrified and insane, warping and reshaping; for in unchecked Chaos everything was in perpetual change.
He was alone.
Very suddenly everything was still. His feet touched stable ground, though it was little more than a slab of rock floating in the flaming light of the quasi-infinite—universe upon universe blending one into the other, each ripple a different colour in a different spectrum, each facet a separate reality. It was as if he stood at the centre of a crystal of unimaginable complexity and his eyes, refusing the sights they were offered, somehow became blind to everything but the intense, shifting light, whose colours he could not identify, whose odours were full of hints of the familiar, whose voices offered every terror, every consolation and yet were not mortal. Which set the albino prince to sobbing, conquered and helpless as his strength drained from him, and his sword grew heavy in his hand, an ordinary piece of iron, and a soft, humorous song sounded from somewhere beyond the fires, becoming words:
“Thou hast such courage, sweetest of my slaves! Impetuous Champion of the Ever-Changing, where is thy father’s soul?”
“I know not, Lord Arioch.” Elric felt his own soul freeze on the very point of extermination, the imminent obliteration of everything he had ever been or would be—less than a memory. And Arioch knew he did not lie. He took away the chill. And Elric was soothed again …
He had never before experienced such a sense of impatience in his patron Lord of Hell. What emergency alarmed the gods?, he wondered.
“Mortal morsel, thou art my darling and my dear one, pretty little sweetmeat …”
Elric, familiar with the cadences of his patron’s moods, was both fascinated and afraid. Much that was in him wished for the approval of his patron at all costs. Much wished only to give itself up forever to the mercies of Duke Arioch, whatever they might be, to suffer whatever agonies his lord decided, such was the power of that godling’s presence, embracing him and coaxing him and praising him and blessed always with the absolute power of life or death over his eternal soul. Yet still, in the most profoundly secret part of his mind Elric kept a resolution to himself, that one day he would rid his world of gods entirely—should his life not be snuffed away the next second (such was his patron’s present mood). Here, in his own true element, Arioch had his full power and any pact he had ever made with a mortal was meaningless; this was his own Dukedom and here he required no allies, honoured no bargains and demanded instant compliance of all his slaves, mortal and supernatural, on pain of instant extinction.
“Speak, sweetmeat. What brought thee to my domain?”
“Mere chance, I think, Lord Arioch. I fell …”
“Ah, fell!” The word held considerable meaning, considerable understanding. “You fell.”
“Into an abyss which only a Lord of the Higher Worlds could sink between the realms.”
“Yes. You fell. IT WAS MASHABAK!”
[…]
Elric grew aware of his patron’s brooding silence. After what might have been a year, the Duke of Hell murmured, with better humour, “Very well, sweetmeat, go upon thy way. But recollect that thou art mine and thy father’s soul is mine. Both are mine. Both must be delivered up to me, for that is our ancient compact.”
“Go where, patron?”
“Why, to Ulshinir, of course, where the three sisters have escaped their captor. And could be returning home.”
“To Ulshinir, my lord?”
“Fear not, thou shalt travel like a gentleman. I shall send thy slave after thee.” The Lord of the Higher Worlds had his attention upon other affairs now. It was not in the nature of a Duke of Chaos to dwell too long upon one matter, unless it was of monumental importance.
The fires went out.
Elric still stood upon that spur of rock, but now it was attached to a substantial hill, from which he could look down into a rugged valley, full of sparse grass and limestone crags across which a thin powder of snow blew. The air was cold and sharp and good to his senses and, though he was cold, he brushed vigorously at his naked arms and face as if to rid them of the grime of hell. At his feet something murmured. He looked down to see the runesword where he had dropped it during his audience with Arioch. He wondered at the power of his patron, that even Stormbringer felt compelled to acknowledge. He raised the blade almost lovingly, cradling it like a child. “We have need of each other still, thee and I.”

-The Revenge of the Rose

The albino frowned, remembering the secret pacts of his forefathers. He took a deep breath and closed his pain-filled scarlet eyes. He swayed, the runesword half-loose in his grip. His chant was low, like the far-off moaning of the wind itself. His chest moved quickly up and down, and some of the younger warriors, those who had never been fully initiated into the ancient lore of Melniboné, stirred with discomfort. Elric’s voice was not addressing human folk—his words were for the invisible, the intangible—the supernatural. An old and ancient rhyme began the casting of word-runes…

“Hear the doomed one’s dark decision,
Let the Wind Giant’s wail be heard,
Graoll and Misha’s mighty moaning
Send my enemy like a bird.
By the sultry scarlet stones,
By the bane of my black blade,
By the Lasshaar’s lonely mewling,
Let a mighty wind be made.
Speed of sunbeams from their homeland,
Swifter than the sundering storm,
Speed of arrow deerwards shooting,
Let the sorcerer so be borne.”
His voice broke and he called high and clear:
“Misha! Misha! In the name of my fathers I summon thee, Lord of the Winds!”
Almost at once, the trees of the forest suddenly bent as if some great hand had brushed them aside. A terrible soughing voice swam from nowhere. And all but Elric, deep in his trance, shivered.
“ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ,” the voice roared like a distant storm, “WE KNEW YOUR FATHERS. I KNOW THEE. THE DEBT WE OWE THE LINE OF ELRIC IS FORGOTTEN BY MORTALS BUT GRAOLL AND MISHA, KINGS OF THE WIND, REMEMBER. HOW MAY THE LASSHAAR AID THEE?”
The voice seemed almost friendly—but proud and aloof and awe-inspiring.
Elric, completely in a state of trance now, jerked his whole body in convulsions. His voice shrieked piercingly from his throat—and the words were alien, unhuman, violently disturbing to the ears and nerves of the human listeners. Elric spoke briefly and then the invisible Wind Giant’s great voice roared and sighed:
“I WILL DO AS YOU DESIRE.” Then the trees bent once more and the forest was still and muted.

-
The Bane of the Black Sword

I laughed in his face. “I’m sworn to die before I give up Ravenbrand.”
Gaynor was impatient. “Your father, too, was sworn to die to protect your family’s inheritance. And die he did, sir. Ulric. Dear cousin. Give me the Black Sword and I guarantee that you will be allowed to live on at Bek, with all your villagers, your castle and everything back the way you’re used to. No one will bother you. Believe me, cousin, there are those of us, quite as idealistic as you, who are prepared to get their hands dirty in order to plant the seeds of paradise. If you choose to keep clean hands, that is your decision. But I do not make that choice. I’m ready to accept the necessity, to establish order throughout the multiverse. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you’re mad,” I said.
He laughed aloud at this. “Mad? We’re all that, cousin. The multiverse is mad. But we shall make it sane again. We shall make it whatever we wish it to be. Can’t you feel yourself changing? It is the only way you’ll survive. It’s how I’ve survived. But no human brain can accept so much intellectual and sensory overload without radically adapting. Do you really believe you’re the same person who so recently fled a concentration camp?”

-
The Dreamthief’s Daughter

Mirenburg’s famous Mechanical Gardens were public enough to be safe. Making sure he was not followed, Elric returned to his pension. Here he armed himself with an old black, battered Walther PPK .38 automatic. The two men would gladly kill him if the opportunity arose. He took his lunch at the Wienegatten and wrote the notes he would send to Mrs. Persson at her poste restante in Stockholm. He had developed this habit since they had first met in the early part of the twentieth century, when they had become good friends, possibly lovers, though Mrs. Persson was, as always, discreet about her liaisons.

-The White Wolf’s Son

But Elric was tired. It had cost him dearly to get here in time, to confront them and hope to rescue us. Still, he was here to save me; I knew that. If he lost this fight, whatever happened to him in that other world, I was almost certainly finished. As was this world. Maybe all the worlds.
Then I saw another, much older man standing above Elric. Another albino. Who …? A strong family resemblance. He could have been my grandpa. Elric in a different time? Impossible.
Then I realized it actually was my grandfather. Ulric von Bek reached out and touched Elric as he backed away from the relentless Gaynor. Then Granddad had vanished. Briefly I thought I saw still another white face staring out of the shadows. Then it, too, had gone.
Elric had more vitality now. I knew the older man had given it to him. Elric used it to advantage. Back Gaynor went against a blinding flurry of sword strokes. I couldn’t believe the speed. All I know about is fencing, which we do at school. This was like fencing with claymores, those massive broadswords the Scots liked to slaughter one another with. How did they achieve that speed of reflexes, let alone the strength needed to swing so many pounds of steel with such ease? My respect for both antagonists increased. This was no ordinary medieval bludgeoning match.
[…]
Elric and Gaynor clashed again. Muscle against muscle, flesh against flesh. I smelled the particular stink of predatory animals, mingled with something altogether less familiar.
Down went Gaynor, spinning wildly to avoid the weaving runesword, blocking Elric’s long, slashing blow to his torso. Up he came again, his own runesword gibbering and squalling down at Elric’s unhelmeted head. He caught the albino a glancing blow as he slipped to one side. Unwounded, Elric drove back his attacker. Gaynor grunted and cursed yet grinned at Elric’s skill, just as Elric smiled respect for his opponent’s proficiency. So familiar were they with the nearness of death, or worse than death, that they actually took pleasure in it. Their only alternative, after all, was to fear it. And fear wasn’t there in either of them.
This was a horrible game and one I would have stopped if I could have, but the glee of the fighters, the noise of the swords and some understanding of the stakes which they were dueling for overrode my repugnance. I was fascinated.
Thump! Thump! Their bodies were like battering rams in ordinary traveling clothes. Neither man was armored.
Grunting, breathing in high, painful gasps, the two separated again, rested again, clashed again.
Gaynor lifted his head and took several steps backward.
Elric frowned, staggering.
Taragorm had intervened! I saw it happen. Chimes boomed from his body, from somewhere within his architectural mask, and they were totally out of sync. It was like watching a beautifully choreographed ballet whose music was a cacophony, one element absolutely at odds with another. Elric and Gaynor were each thrown by the sounds, just enough to increase the risk of being cut by the other. Gaynor was ready. Stuffing something into his ears with his left hand, he backed away. He had anticipated this.
The sounds from the clock mask grew more jangled and out of tune. Taragorm was using a prearranged strategy, formulated no doubt long ago to help Gaynor in some other battle. The air around him spangled and faded, and I recognized magic at work.
Elric’s movements became increasingly disorganized, yet he kept his grip on the sword. His glance towards Taragorm told me he knew what was happening to him. I struggled to get up, yelling that I was coming to help. The circulation had not yet returned to my arms and legs. At the same time I feared I might still be in danger from St. Odhran. I watched, probably a bit like a hypnotized rat, as Taragorm disappeared around the rock, presumably to dispatch Jack.
Elric stumbled.
St. Odhran reached me, lifting me up to put me on my feet, caught me as I fell, and then pushed me down onto the ground so hard that I was winded. “Stay there,” he said urgently. “For your life, stay there!”
Big Ben’s hammers bounced against her bells. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The familiar sounds of the Westminster chimes hideously off-key. It was madness. Elric wobbled and fell as the still grinning Gaynor moved in swiftly beside him, with Mournblade raised again to strike. This time Gaynor would not be distracted, and I still could scarcely move.
All at once Elric rolled, sprawling spread-eagled on his back. Stormbringer was still in his left hand while his right tried to find purchase on the glassy rock as he willed himself to stand. Gaynor took his time as he stalked forward, his huge mouth open in a roar of pleasure.
Then Elric pointed upwards with his right hand, and lights streamed out of it. Green, red, violet, indigo, the colors poured from his mouth and fingertips. His lips writhed and snarled, uttering incomprehensible words. Morbid shadows formed around him.
Gaynor was openly contemptuous. “Conjurer’s pranks, Lord Elric. Nothing more. You’ll not deflect my attention as you have that of previous enemies, who lacked defenses against you. I can match you spell for spell, Sir Sorcerer-King!”
The tentative smile on Elric’s face broadened. He raised his head and called out in his own language. He called on the ancient gods of his people to help him save his soul.
With a noise like bursting rockets, Elric was suddenly plucking at the air, as another might pluck at the strings of an instrument. A red glare surrounded him. Blue fire continued to pour from his mouth. In response to his spell making, sword after sword began to appear before him. And every one of the swords was black, pulsing with runes, identical to those grasped in the fists of the two fighters. Yet even now, with so many identical sentient swords, Stormbringer and Mournblade were subtly different, subtly more powerful. Stormbringer had an extra quality to it, impossible to identify. It was clear that there was only one true Stealer of Souls.
A forest of swords surrounded Gaynor now. Hundreds of them, all rustling and clashing together in their eagerness to engage the former Knight of the Balance.
Gaynor had no doubts about what was happening. His eyes held a bleak understanding as he spat on the floor, glaring at Elric, who stood with folded arms on the other side of that mass of swords. “Well, I reckoned without your particular powers, I suppose, Elric.” He sneered at his own folly. “You didn’t spend all those thousands of years on your dream couches in order to learn a few entertaining magic tricks for the provincial stage. I should have considered better what I was facing. Still, one symbol is destroyed and another takes its place. You’ll perish yet, Lord Elric, if it’s not at my hand. You have death all over you.”
“I welcome it,” said Elric, still gasping for air, “but I’d prefer to choose where death comes to me and what price I pay.”
The black swords hovered over and surrounded Gaynor. At first the blades took tiny nicks out of him as he attempted to fend them off, like a man swatting at insects. Then the nicks became deeper wounds, and blood began to pour from him. His clothes fell away in tiny shreds of rag. Even his boots were cut from him like that until he stood there, blood coursing down every part of his head and naked body, his mad eyes still glaring defiance. The blades then carefully removed his skin and filleted his flesh, leaving his head until last. As he watched himself being cut into tiny fragments, piece by piece, his screams became no longer defiant but terrible in their desperate pleading for Elric’s pity.
Elric had no pity.
Perhaps he alone knew it wasn’t over. For each piece of flesh the black swords cut off Gaynor, a new Gaynor grew before our eyes. Gaynor after Gaynor, every one of them wielding a black sword and attacking Elric. An army of shadow Gaynors, each becoming gradually harder to see, fought against the albino and his army of supernatural swords.
With the same little smile playing around his handsome mouth, Elric fought on steadily. Like someone who has found the comfortable rhythm of a walk, though I’m sure he knew he could not yet anticipate Gaynor’s defeat.
I watched in relief as one by one, Elric began to defeat his shadow enemies, who drew on the decreasing resources of the multiverse. With each sword cut, an aspect of his enemy, a fragment of Gaynor’s soul, was taken into Elric’s blade. The original Gaynor grew rapidly older and feebler even as his many avatars continued to fight on around him. Elric drove slowly forward until he stood before that proud revolutionary, that renegade Knight of the Balance, his lips working as if he found no suitable words, until, by its own volition, Stormbringer lunged forward and pierced Gaynor in his ambitious heart, making him drop his own sword and grasp at the black steel which entered his body. He cast one final horrified look at Elric and whimpered one last time. His huge body then dissipated to nothing. All the other Gaynors raced inward to rejoin him, to give him substance, even as that substance was drawn luxuriously into Elric’s greedy Stormbringer.
I was horrified. Elric visibly bloomed and grew stronger before our eyes.
At last Gaynor was gone, in all his aspects, and Mournblade had blended with Elric’s own sword. All those other swords, with their stolen souls, had blended with their great original, and Stormbringer howled out her wild song of triumph as Elric’s crimson eyes blazed and he opened his mouth wide in a bloody victory grin.
“Stormbringer!” he cried.
And then it was very quiet.
I saw a shadow slip away through the upper tiers. Klosterheim! I opened my mouth to warn them of his escape, but then I closed it. The beast-masked warriors were throwing off their helmets, revealing themselves to be the Kakatanawa who had traveled here with Elric. Silently the warriors surrounded Klosterheim. He died without noise.
Those of us left standing didn’t move. A moment later, tiny animals started to scuttle out onto the cavern floor, pouring from unseen holes in the rock. A kind of rodent smaller than voles, they chittered around our feet, utterly oblivious of us, their tiny twitching noses leading them to the blood. I wondered what else had gone on down here, and for how long, if a breed of vermin had developed dependent on the blood and flesh of tortured human beings. Snuffling and squeaking, they found those little morsels of Gaynor which now could never be reunited, at least until the whole multiverse turned upon its axis, mirror into mirror, blending and becoming one for that brief moment of complete coupling. The animals scuttled and peeped and squabbled over the tiny bits of flesh and bone that were their anticipated feast. An hour or two earlier and it might have been Jack and me whose scattered morsels fed the scavengers.

-
The White Wolf’s Son

These aren't even low-ends considering how consistent they are. Elric can reach multiverse level only with prep time on his hands: he needs the help of his strongest spells and summons to do that.

But as he is normally, he's nowhere near that level and he meets rather mundane obstacles a lot during his travels.

 

[BardicheAssault]

Jugadors are Broken, Pt. 1​

Next up are the Jugadors. Long story short: the Jugadors are far above Eternal Champions as a whole seeing as how they use Eternal Champions as literal pawns/chess pieces in the Game of Time; Jack Karaquazian is the sole exception as he is both an Eternal Champion and a Jugador. The Game of Time is like a combination of poker and DnD/roleplaying for the Jugadors and through that, they can manipulate characters of their choosing.

Fun little tidbit:

Spoiler

Michael Moorcock writes himself as a Jugador that plays the Game of Time alongside his other characters.

Spoiler

Michael Moorcock cites tales and mentions Tarak-al-Tan-al-Oorn and Jack Karaquazian, the latter whom is the finest player in the Game of Time, something War Amongst The Angels makes more explicit by saying he's the greatest player.

Spoiler

The multiverse is getting sucked up by the Biloxi Fault and the only ones capable of stopping it are Jugadors like Jack Karaquazian.

Spoiler

Jack brings The Rose to the Moonbeam Roads which connects one universe to another and by playing the Game of Time, you may get a sight of the Holy Grail which can take the form of a universe or a simple cup.

Spoiler

The coins in Jack's possession have the faces of Rose, Captain Buggerly Otherly, Paul Minct, and others.

Spoiler

Minct alludes to the constantly revolving nature of the multiverse but Jack interjects stating that the players have to place their bets and that they'll add some dimensions to the game and reminds them that the multiverse is perishing as they talk.

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Jack says that some think the Jugadors play to preserve the physical fabric of the multiverse which is the sum of all their Games and Stories but Mike thinks that they play to sustain their own existences and their identities. Mike says he'll never know if he's the player or the played with Jack shutting down Mike's existentialist talk by showing him an image of WW1 and guesses they're playing for their own imperfect little souls.

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Jack asks if what they saw in another reality was too much for him and Mike didn't expect to feel responsibility for them, showing the purpose of Jugadors as manipulators of histories (i.e. timelines) and cultures across the multiverse.

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Jack and Mike up their game by raising the psychic ante which leaves Mike with all his reserves suddenly in play by hitting Mike with a personal move but he strikes back with an image of Colinda. Note also the Chaos Symbols on their cards, indicating what they're playing for.

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Mike calls Jack's bid and raises it, bringing Colinda into the picture which shocks Jack as he starts to remember her.

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The move that Mike struck on Jack forces him to remember and mourn his loss of Colinda which gets Mike to ask if they may call that game a draw.

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Mike says he didn't beat Jack since few ever did but he made Jack lower the stakes a little and bought himself a little time. Later the two play a round or two of "Pearl Peru," giving them some breathing space and something to do. Notice the words "Chaos Engineers" and the image of Spammer Gain in the background. These references are important.

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While Oldreg (Lucifer in disguise) and his Law-aligned Singularity forces torture Pearl Peru, Mike takes notice that Law has all the luck. Jack asks if Mike will play on or fold with Mike thinking he's up for another round. Mike's narration says that Jack almost always takes the side of Law which disturbs Mike.

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The Game is heating up as the Chaos Engineers are taking an interest. Jack tells Mama Singh that they lack the psychic resources to accommodate her with Jack saying Senor Ramsadeen makes the rules as Cafe owner. Mama Singh says his loyalty is to the Gods of Chance, to the Chaos Engineers which he doesn't doubt and grabs some Law cards which has the Singularity symbol on them.

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The Chaos Engineers don't trust the Jugadors and think they are welcoming oblivion which Mama Singh thinks that Jack is seeking but Rose is still loyal to them.

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Jack folds his hand and goes to catch up with Colinda with Ramsadeen commenting that she sings the song "Are We the Gamers or the Game?" Mike says she is both the singer and song which gets him to think they are about to see some dramatic changes in the Game of Time.

The next scan has nudity so I'll just post a summary of it: Jack had lost Colinda to the Stain, fearing he'd never see her again, guessing he'd gone a little crazy in her absence. Colinda had slipped into a better reality that he wouldn't follow her into but now she's back to help him play the Game of Time and maybe save the multiverse which Jack agrees to

Next up...

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With Colinda helping Jack, Mike needs a partner so he gets Walt Simonson since they had effectively changed the terms of the game and left him with the worst hand he'd been dealt in his entire career.

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Jack, in his Tarak guise, appears to help Duke Elric out by subduing Barbary Rose and Kwyll.

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Duke Elric asks if Jack's playing for Law now with Elric asking Jack if the Horn was there but he tells Elric cryptically to look within.

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More images flash on the board that are the faces of Paul Minct, Gaynor the Damned, Sam Oakenhurst, Oldreg, Seaton Begg, The Rose and Duke Elric. Jack explains to Walt that the Grey Fees are the bones, skeleton, sinews and central nervous system of the multiverse but Mike had heard that it was the center. Colinda disputes that since the multiverse has no center anymore than humans have a center, citing the body, mind and soul but no center unless one makes one for themselves.