Elric felt the power surge through him as the blade took the first guard, splitting him from crown to breastbone. The other tried to change direction from attack to flight, stumbled forward and was impaled on the blade's tip, his eyes horrified as he felt his soul being drawn from him into the runesword.

Lord Gho cringed in his great chair, too frightened to move. In one hand he clutched the great pearl. His other hand was held palm outwards as if he hoped to ward off Elric's blow.

But the albino, strengthened by his borrowed energy, sheathed the black blade and took five quick strides across the hall to mount the dais and stare down into Lord Gho's face which twisted in terror.

"Take the Pearl back. For my life ..." whispered the Quarzhasaati. "For my life, thief..."

Elric accepted the offered jewel, but he did not move. He reached into the pouch at his belt and drew forth a flask of the elixir Lord Gho had given him. "Would you care for something to help you wash it down?"

Lord Gho trembled. Beneath the chalky substance on his skin his face had gone still paler. "I do not understand you, thief."

"I want you to eat the Pearl, my lord. If you can swallow it and live, well, it will be clear that the prophecy of your death was premature."

"Swallow it? It is too large. I could hardly get it into my mouth!" Lord Gho sniggered, hoping that the albino joked.

"No, my lord. I think you can. And I think you can swallow it. After all, how else would it have got into the body of a child?"

"It was-they say it was a-a dream ..."

"Aye. Perhaps you can swallow a dream. Perhaps you can enter the Dream Realm and so escape your fate. You must try, my lord, or else my runesword drinks your soul. Which would you prefer?"

"Oh, Elric. Spare me. This is not fair. We made a bargain."

"Open your mouth, Lord Gho. Who knows if the Pearl might shrink or your throat expand like a snake's? A snake could easily swallow the Pearl, my lord. And you, surely, are superior to a snake?"

Anigh whispered from the window where he had been staring with studied gaze, unwilling to look upon a vengeance he regarded as just but distasteful. "The servant, Lord Elric. She has alarmed the city."

For a second a desperate hope came into Lord Gho's green eyes and then faded as Elric placed the flask on the arm of the great chair and drew the runesword part way from its scabbard. "Your soul will help me fight those new soldiers, Lord Gho."

Slowly, weeping and whimpering, the great Lord of Quarzhasaat began to open his mouth.

"Here is the Pearl again, my lord. Put it in. Do your best, my lord. You have some chance of life this way."

Lord Gho's hand shook. But eventually he began to force the lovely jewel between his reddened lips. Elric took the stopper from the elixir and poured some of the liquid into the nobleman's distorted cheeks. "Now swallow, Lord Gho. Swallow the Pearl you would have slain a child to own! And then I will tell you who I am ..."

A few minutes later the doors crashed inward and Elric recognized the tattooed face of Manag Iss, leader of the Yellow Sect and kinsman to the Lady Iss. Manag Iss looked from Elric to the distorted features of Lord Gho. The nobleman had failed completely to swallow the Pearl.

Manag Iss shuddered. "Elric. I heard that you had returned. They said you were close to death. Clearly this was a trick to deceive Lord Gho."

"Aye," said Elric. "I had this boy to free."

Manag Iss gestured with his own drawn sword. "You found the Pearl?"

"I found it."

"My Lady Iss sent me to offer you anything you desired for it."

Elric smiled. "Tell her I shall be at the Council Meeting House in half-an-hour. I shall bring the Pearl with me."

"But the others will be there. She wishes to trade privately."

"Would it not be wise to auction so valuable a thing?" said Elric.

Manag Iss sheathed his sword and smiled a little. "You're a cunning one. I do not think they know how cunning you are. Nor who you are. I have yet to tell them that particular speculation."

"Oh, you may tell them what I have just told Lord Gho. That I am the hereditary emperor of Melnibone," said Elric casually. "For that is the truth of the matter. My empire has survived rather more successfully than yours, I think."

"That could incense them. I am willing to be your friend, Melnibonean.

"Thanks, Manag Iss, but I need no more friends from Quarzhasaat. Please do as I say."

Manag Iss looked at the slaughtered guards, at the dead Lord Gho, who had turned a strange colour, at the nervous boy, and he saluted Elric.

"The Meeting House in half-an-hour, Emperor of Melnibone." He turned on his heel and left the chamber.

After issuing certain specific instructions to Anigh concerning travel and the products of Kwan, Elric went out into the courtyard. The sun had set and there were brands burning all over Quarzhasaat as if the city were expecting an attack.

Lord Gho's house was empty of servants. Elric went to the stables and found his horse and his saddle. He dressed the Bauradi stallion, carefully placing a heavy bundle over the pommel, then he had mounted and was riding through the streets, seeking the Meeting House where Anigh had told him it would be.

The city was unnaturally silent. Clearly some order had been given to uphold a curfew, for there was not even a city guard on the streets.

Elric rode at an easy canter along the wide Avenue of Military Success, along the Boulevard of Ancient Accomplishment and half-a-dozen other grandiosely named thoroughfares until he saw the long low building ahead of him which, in its simplicity, could only be the seat of Quarzhasaati power.

The albino paused. At his side the black runesword crooned a little, almost demanding a further letting of blood.

"You must be patient," said Elric. "Could be there will be no need for battle."

He thought he saw shadows moving in the trees and shrubberies around the Meeting House but he paid them no attention. He did not care what they plotted or who spied on him. He had a mission to fulfill.

At last he had reached the doors of the building and was not surprised to find them standing open. He dismounted, threw the bundle over his shoulder and walked heavily into a large, plain room, without decoration or ostentation, in which were placed seven tall-backed chairs and a lime-washed oak table. Standing in a semi-circle at one end of the table were six robed figures wearing veils not unlike certain sects of the Sorcerer Adventurers. The seventh figure wore a tall, conical hat which completely covered the face. It was this figure who spoke. Elric was not unsurprised to hear a woman's tones.

"I am the Other," she said. "I believe you have brought us a treasure to add to the glory of Quarzhasaat."

"If you believe this treasure to add to your glory then my journey has not been fruitless," said Elric. He dropped the bundle to the ground. "Did Manag Iss tell you all I asked him to tell you?"

One of the Councilors stirred and said, almost as an oath: "That you are the progeny of sunken Melnibone, aye!"

"Melnibone is not sunken. Nor does she cut herself off from the world's realities quite as much as do you." Elric was contemptuous. "You challenged our power long ago, and defeated yourselves by your own folly. Now through your greed you have brought me back to Quarzhasaat when I would as readily have passed through your city unnoticed."

"Do you accuse us!" A veiled woman was outraged. "You who have caused us so much trouble? You, who are of the blood of that degenerate unhuman race which couples with beasts for its pleasure and produces-" she pointed at Elric-"the likes of you!"

Elric was unmoved. "Did Manag Iss tell you to be wary of me?" he asked quietly.

"He said you had the Pearl and that you had a sorcerous sword. But he also said you were alone." The Other cleared her throat. "He said you brought the Pearl at the Heart of the World."

"I have brought it and that which contains it," said Elric. He bent down and tugged the velvet free of his bundle to reveal the corpse of Lord Gho Fhaazi, his face still contorted, the great lump in his throat making it seem as if he had an enormously enlarged adam's apple. "Here is the one who first commissioned me to find the Pearl."

"We heard you had murdered him," said the Other with disapproval. "But that would be a normal enough action for a Melnibonean."

Elric did not rise to this. "The Pearl is in Lord Gho Fhaazi's gullet. Would you have me cut it out for you, my nobles?"

He saw at least one of them shudder and he smiled. "You commission assassins to kill, to torture, to kidnap and to perform all other forms of evil in your name, but you would not see a little spilled blood? I gave Lord Gho a choice. He took this one. He talked so much and ate and drank so copiously I thought he might well have succeeded in getting the Pearl into his stomach. But he gagged a little and I fear that was the end of him."

"You are a cruel rogue!" One of the men came forward to look at his would-be colleague. "Aye, that's Gho. His colour has improved, I'd say."

This jest did not meet with the leader's approval.

"We are to bid for a corpse, then?"

"Unless you wish to cut the Pearl free, aye."

"Manag Iss," said one of the veiled women, lifting her head. "Step out, will you, sir?"

The Sorcerer Adventurer emerged from a door at the back of the hall. He looked at Elric almost apologetically. His hand went to his knife.

"We would not have a Melnibonean spill more Quarzhasaati blood," said the Other. "Manag Iss will cut the Pearl free."

The leader of the Yellow Sect drew a deep breath and then approached the corpse. Swiftly he did what he had been ordered to do. Blood poured down his arm as he held up the Pearl at the Heart of the World.

The Council was impressed. Several of the members gasped and they murmured amongst themselves. Elric believed they had suspected him of lying to them, since lies and intrigues were second nature to them.

"Hold it high, Manag Iss," said the albino. "It is this that you all desired so greedily that you were prepared to pay for it with what was left of your honour."

"Be careful, sir!" cried the Other. "We are patient with you now. Name your price and then begone."

Elric laughed. It was not pleasant laughter. It was Melnibonean laughter. At that moment he was a pure denizen of the Dragon Isle. "Very well," he said, "I desire this city. Not its citizens, not any of its treasure, nor its animals nor even its water. I would let you leave with everything you can carry. I desire only the city itself. It is, you see, mine by hereditary right."

"What? This is nonsense. How could we agree?"

"You must agree," said Elric, "or you must fight me."

"Fight you? There is only one of you."

"There is no question of it," said another Councilor. "He is mad. He must be put down like a crazed dog. Manag Iss, call in your brothers and their men."

"I do not believe it is advisable, cousin," said Manag Iss, clearly addressing Lady Iss. "I think it would be wise to parley."

"What? Have you turned coward? Has this rogue an army with him?"

Manag Iss rubbed at his nose. "My lady ..."

"Call in your brothers, Manag Iss!"

The captain of the Yellow Sect scratched at one silk-clad arm and he frowned. "Prince Elric, I understand that you force us to a challenge. But we have not threatened you. The Council came here honestly to bid for the Pearl ..."

"Manag Iss, you repeat their lies," said Elric, "and that is not an honourable thing to do. If they meant me no harm, why were you and all your brothers standing by? I saw almost two hundred warriors in the grounds."

"That was a precaution only," said the Other. She turned to her fellow councilors. "I told you I thought it was stupid to summon so many so soon."

Elric said evenly: "Everything you have done, my nobles, has been stupid. You have been cruel, greedy, careless of others' lives and wills. You have been blind, thoughtless, provincial and unimaginative. It seems to me that a government so careless of anything but its own gratification should be at very least replaced. When you have all left the city I will consider electing a governor who will know better how to serve Quarzhasaat. Then, later perhaps, I will let you back into the city ..."

"Oh, slay him!" cried the Other. "Waste no more time on this. When that's done we can decide amongst ourselves who owns the Pearl."

Elric sighed almost regretfully and said: "Best parley with me now, madam, before I myself lose patience. I shall not, once I have drawn my blade, be a rational and merciful being ..."

"Slay him!" she insisted. "And have done with it!"

Manag Iss had the face of a man condemned to more than death. "Madam..."

She strode forward, her conical hat swaying, and tugged the sword from his scabbard. She raised the blade to behead the albino.

He reached out swiftly. His arm was a striking snake. He gripped her wrist. "No, madam! I am, I swear, giving you fair warning ..."

Stormbringer murmured at his side and stirred.

She dropped the sword and turned away, nursing her bruised wrist.

Now Manag Iss reached for his fallen blade, making as if to sheathe it, and then, with a subtle movement, tried to bring the weapon up and take Elric in the groin, an expression of resignation crossing his terrified features as the albino, anticipating him, sidestepped and in the same action drew the Black Sword which began to sing its strange demonic song and glow with a terrible black radiance.

Manag Iss gasped as his heart was pierced. The hand that still held the Pearl seemed to stretch out, offering it back to Elric. Then the jewel had rolled from his fingers and rattled on the floor. Three Councilors rushed forward, saw Manag Iss's dying eyes, and stepped backward.

"Now! Now! Now!" cried the Other and, as Elric had expected, from every cranny of the Meeting House, members of the various sects of Sorcerer Adventurers came, their weapons at the ready.

And the albino began to grin his horrible battle-grin, and his red eyes blazed and his face was the skull of Death and his sword was the vengeance of his own people, the vengeance of the Bauradim and all those who had suffered under the injustice of Quarzhasaat over the millennia.

And he offered up the souls he took to his patron Duke of Hell, the powerful Duke Arioch who had grown sleek on many lives dedicated to him by Elric and his black blade.

"Arioch! Arioch! Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!"

Then the true slaughter began.

It was a slaughter to make all other events pale into insignificance. It was a slaughter that would never be forgotten in all the annals of the desert peoples, who would learn of it from those who fled Quarzhasaat that night-flinging themselves into the waterless desert rather than face the white laughing demon on a Bauradi horse who galloped up and down their lovely streets and taught them what the price of complacency and unthinking cruelty could be.

"Arioch! Arioch! Blood and souls!"

They would speak of a white-faced creature from hell whose sword poured with unnatural radiance, whose crimson eyes blazed with hideous rage, who seemed possessed, himself, of some supernatural force, who was no more master of it than were his victims. He killed without mercy, without distinction, without cruelty. He killed as a mad wolf kills. And as he killed, he laughed.

That laughter would never leave Quarzhasaat. It would remain on the wind which came in from the Sighing Desert, in the music of the fountains, the clang of the metal-workers' and jewelers' hammers as they fashioned their wares. And so would the smell of blood remain, together with the memory of slaughter, that terrible loss of life which left the city without a Council and an army.

But never again would Quarzhasaat foster the legend of her own power. Never again would she treat the desert nomads as less than beasts. Never again would she know that self-destructive pride so familiar to all great empires in decline.

And when the slaughter was finished, Elric of Melnibone slumped in his saddle, sheathing a sated Stormbringer, and he gasped with the demon power which still pulsed through him and he took a great pearl from his belt and held it to the rising sun.

"They have paid a fair price now, I think."

He tossed the thing into a gutter where a little dog licked congealing blood.

Above, the vultures, called from a thousand miles around by the prospect of memorable feasting, were beginning to drop like a dark cloud upon the beautiful towers and gardens of Quarzhasaat.