But my attention was quickly drawn from the carved faces to the far wall and what appeared to be a background of rippling copper. Framed against it was a familiar object. It was our old family sword, which I thought in the hands of the Communists.

It hung against the living copper which reflected the erratic light of the torch. That black iron, so full of an alien vitality, was caught as if by a magnet. Within the blade I was sure I detected moving runes. Then I thought they might have been mere reflected light from the brand. I shuddered again, this time not from cold but from memory. Ravenbrand was a family heirloom, but I knew little of its history, save that it was somehow the same sword as Elric's Stormbringer. In my own realm of the multiverse the blade had supernatural qualities, but in its own realm I knew it was infinitely more powerful.

Some deep strain within me yearned to hold that blade the moment I saw it. I remembered the wild bloodletting, the exhilarating horror of battle, the joy of testing your mettle against all the terrors of natural and supernatural worlds. I could almost taste the pleasure. I reached for the hilt before I had formed a single, conscious thought to do so. Then I reminded myself of my manners, if nothing else, and withdrew my hand.

Lord Sepiriz looked down on me with that same halfhumorous expression, and this time there was a distinct sorrow in his voice when he spoke. "You will take it. It is your destiny to carry Stormbringer."

"My destiny! You confuse me with Elric. Why does he not claim this sword?"

"He believes he seeks it."

"And will he find it?"

"When you find him ..."

I was sure that he was deliberately mystifying me. "I never entertained ambitions to act as your courier ..."

"Of course not. That is why I have your horse ready. Nihrain-ian horses are famous. Come, leave the sword for the moment, and we will hurry to the stables. If we are in luck, someone is waiting there to meet you."

If you tell me what my name is,

Should you tell me what my station,

I will speak of the Pukwatchis,

I will lead you to their nation.

I will show you what to steal.

W S. HARTE, "The Starry Trail"

Though I grew familiar with this city's grotesque and fantastic sights, I was unprepared for the Nihrainian stables. Little of that intricately hewn city lay outside the great caverns into which it was carved. We made our way through miles of impossibly complicated corridors and tunnels, every inch of which was etched with the same disturbing scenes. The muggy air tasted heavily of sulphur, and I had difficulty breathing. Lord Sepiriz did not slacken his steady gait and was hard to pace. Gradually the roofs grew higher and the galleries wider. I had the impression we were entering the core of the original city. What we had passed through up to now was a kind of suburb. Here the carvings seemed older. There was greater decay in the rock, some of which seemed almost rotten.

Everywhere volcanic fires flared through windows and doorways and fissures in the ground, illuminating what seemed to me an astonishing desolation. Here was not the tranquillity of the Off-Moo chambers, but the stink of death so violent that its ancient memory permeated this living rock. I could almost hear the screams and shouts of those who had died terrible deaths, almost see their reflections trapped in the obsidian and basalt of the walls, writhing in perpetual torment. Once again I wondered if I was in Hell.

Lord Sepiriz touched his brand to another. This in turn lit the next until in a flash of light I saw we stood at the entrance of a huge amphitheater, like a massive Spanish bullring with tiers of empty stone benches stretching up into a darkness, heavy and threatening. Yellow flames lit the scene from without while from within came an unstable scarlet glow. I felt I stood on the threshold of some strange necropolis. Our very life seemed an insult to the place, as if we intruded on every kind of agony. Even Lord Sepiriz seemed borne down by the sadness and horror. We could have been in the killing fields of the universe.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"Ah." The black giant lowered his head. He was lost for words, so I did not press the question.

My foot stirred dark dust. It eddied like water. I imagined the blood which had been spilled in this arena, yet could not easily imagine how it had happened. There was no sense it had ever been used for gladiatorial fights or displays of wild beasts.

"What was this place?" I spoke with some hesitation, perhaps not wishing to hear the answer.

"At the end, it was a kind of court, " said Lord Sepiriz. He drew in a deep, melancholy breath, like the soughing of a distant wind. "A court where all the judges were mad and all the accused were innocent..." He began to walk across the arena, towards an archway. "A place of judgment which sentenced both court and defendants to a terrible death. This is why there are only ten of us now. Our fate was as preordained as yours as soon as we forged the swords."

"You made them? You mined the metal here...?”

"We took the original metal from a master blade. War raged as always between Law and Chaos. We thought to make a powerful agent against one of them. The swords were forged to fight against whichever power threatened to tilt the Balance. Law against Chaos or Chaos against Law. We drew on all our many powers to make them, and when they were finished we knew we had found the means to save worlds and perhaps destroy them at the same time. A mysterious power entered one of the blades. While they were otherwise identical and could feed great vitality to those who wielded them, Stormbringer was subtly different. Those who made that particular blade and summoned the magic required to enliven it knew they had created something that was oddly, independently evil. Somehow, though Mournblade, the sister sword, had little such power, those who handled Stormbringer developed a craving for killing. Honest blacksmiths became mass murderers. Women killed their own children with the blade. Ultimately it was decided to put both the handlers and Stormbringer on trial..."

"Here?"

Sepiriz lowered his head in assent. "Here, in the stables. This is where the horses were exercised and exhibited. We loved our beautiful horses. But it seemed the only suitable place. Originally this ring was used for equestrian displays. Our Nihrainian horses are very unusual in that while they exist on this plane, they simultaneously exist on another. This gives them some useful qualities. And some entertaining ones." Sepiriz smiled as a happy memory intruded on the sadness.

Then, pulling himself together, he straightened his shoulders and clapped his enormous hands.

The sound was like a shot in the huge, silent arena. It brought an almost instant reaction.

From within came a whinny, a snort. Something pounded the hard surface. Another great whinny, and out of the archway, mane flaring as if in the wind, sprang a horse of supernatural proportions. A monstrous black stallion, big enough to carry Sepiriz. He reared, flailing bright jet hooves and glaring from raging ocher eyes. The beast's mane and tail became a wild mass of black fire. He was muscular, nervous. This gigantic beast expressed impatience rather than anger. But at a word from Sepiriz, the horse cocked his ears forward and immediately settled. I had never seen a creature respond so swiftly to human command.

Although there was no doubting the animal's physical presence, I quickly noticed that for all his activity, he scarcely stirred the dust of the arena floor and left no hoofprints of any kind.

Noting my curiosity, Sepiriz laid a hand gently on my shoulder. "The horse, as I told you, exists on two planes at once. The ground he gallops on is unseen by us."