Elric Quotes

“The past is a script we are constantly rewriting.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“I have brought evil to many places,” he said, “but usually there has already been evil to match mine. I seek no excuses, for I know what I am and I know what I have done. I have slain malignant sorcerers and destroyed oppressors, but I have also been responsible for slaying fine men, and a woman, my cousin, whom I loved, I killed—or my sword did.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“One avoids becoming a Tolkien clone precisely by returning to the same roots that inspired The Lord of the Rings.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“The note took long moments to fade and, when it had at last died away, there was an absolute hush over the world, the milling millions were still, there was an air of expectancy. And then the White Lords came.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“I am from crumbling Imrryr, the Dreaming City, from the Isle of the Dragon, hub of Ancient Melniboné, and I know what beauty really is. Your baubles cannot tempt one who has looked upon the milky Heart of Arioch, upon the blinding iridescence that throbs from the Ruby Throne, of the languorous and unnamable colours in the Actorios stone of the Ring of Kings. These are more than jewels, madam—they contain the lifestuff of the universe.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Moonglum sighed. “Elric—this once, let us not court the danger.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“ELRIC, LORD OF the lost and sundered Empire of Melniboné, rode like a fanged wolf from a trap—all slavering madness and mirth. He rode from Nadsokor, City of Beggars, and there was hate in his wake for he had been recognized as their old enemy before he could obtain the secret he had sought there. Now they hounded him and the grotesque little man who rode laughing at Elric’s side; Moonglum the Outlander, from Elwher and the Unmapped East.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“A great and dreadful storm was blowing—and he was the object of the Lasshaar’s attack. He had to retaliate, else his own soul would be wrenched from him by the Giants of the Wind and flung to the air spirits, to be borne for eternity on the winds of the world. Then his voice would moan like a banshee around the cold peaks of high ice-clothed mountains for ever—lost and lonely. His soul would be damned to travel with the four winds wherever their caprice might bear it, knowing no rest.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“We are wary of you, Elric. Even if we allowed you to lead us again you would take your own doomed path and us with you. There is no future here for myself and my men.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“The merchants were already regretting their haste in contacting the albino. They had a feeling that not only were the legends true—but they did not do justice to the strange-eyed man they wished to employ.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“. “No!” His scream was anguished, unbelieving. “No!” Tears flowed down his contorted face as he ran his hands through the fine dust. With a groan which racked his whole being, he fell forward, his face hitting the disintegrated parchment. Time had destroyed the Book—untouched, possibly forgotten, for three hundred centuries. Even the wise and powerful gods who had created it had perished—and now its knowledge followed them into oblivion.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Elric and his companions swung themselves on to their horses as, with a frightful multivoiced scream, the dead lords were swallowed by the earth, returning to the depths from which they had been summoned.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Arioch!” swore Elric, suddenly recognizing the riders. “These are the Lords of Dharzi—dead these ten centuries. We’re fighting dead men, Moonglum, and the too-tangible ghosts of their dogs. Unless I can think of a sorcerous means to defeat them, we’re doomed!”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“. Elric turned his face towards her, his crimson-irised eyes burning with a strange emotion. He put a hand to his dead white skin and a crooked smile twisted his lips. “I, too, have felt as you do,” he said quietly.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“. “Thanks, good sir,” he said lightly. “Without your help, the battle might have lasted longer. You deprived me of good sport, but you meant well. Moonglum is my name.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“A man frantically spurring an equally frightened horse—and behind him, the distance decreasing, a pack of what at first appeared to be dogs. But these were not dogs—they were half-dog and half-bird, with the lean, shaggy bodies and legs of dogs but possessing birdlike talons in place of paws and savagely curved beaks which snapped where muzzles should have been.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Two eyes, the colour of thin, yellow wine, were set high in the thing’s body, though it had no separate head. A mouthing, obscene slit, filled with fangs, lay just beneath the eyes. It had no nose or ears that Elric could see. Four appendages sprang from its upper parts and its lower body slithered along the ground, unsupported by any limbs. Elric’s eyes ached as he looked at it. It was incredibly disgusting to behold and its amorphous body gave off a stench of death and decay. Fighting down his fear, the albino inched forward warily, his sword held high to parry any thrust the thing might make with its arms. Elric recognized it from a description in one of his grimoires. It was a Mist Giant—possibly the only Mist Giant, Bellbane.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“. “I am a man possessed,” he groaned, “and without this devil-blade I carry I would not be a man at all.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“That night they slept restlessly and, as he had predicted, Elric screamed agonizingly in his turbulent, terror-filled sleep and he called a name which made Shaarilla’s eyes fill with pain and jealousy. Wide-eyed in his grim sleep, Elric seemed to be staring at the one he named, speaking other words in a sibilant language which made Shaarilla block her ears and shudder.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“I am doomed to be a hero. I have no choice.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Stormbringer turned in Elric’s hand, howling its satiated glee and clove down at Rackhir. Seeing his fate, the Red Archer sobbed and sought to avoid the blow. But it landed in his shoulder blade and sheared down to his breastbone. “Elric!” he cried. “Not my soul, too!” And so died the hero Rackhir the Red Archer, famous in the Eastlands as the saviour of Tanelorn. Cloven by a treacherous blade. By the friend whose life he had saved, long ago when they had first met near the city of Ameeron. And Elric laughed until realization came and he tugged his sword away though it was too late. The stolen energy still pulsed in him, but his great grief no longer gave it the same control over him. Tears streamed down Elric’s tortured face and a great, racking groan came from him. “Ah, Rackhir—will it ever cease?”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“He crossed to her and took her in his arms. “Oh, Zarozinia, we should never have met, never have married. We can only hurt one another at this time. Our happiness was so brief…” “If you would be hurt by me, then hurt you shall be,” she said softly, “but if you would be comforted, then I am here to comfort my lord.” He relented with a sigh. “These are loving words, my dear—but they are not spoken in loving times. I have put love aside for the nonce. Try to do likewise and thus we’ll both dispense with added complication.” Without anger, she drew slowly away from him and with a slight smile that had something of irony in it, pointed to the bed, where Stormbringer lay. “I see your other mistress still shares your bed,” she said. “And now you need never try to dismiss her again, for that black lord of Nihrain has given you an excuse to forever keep her by your side. Destiny—is that the word? Destiny! Ah, the deeds men have done in destiny’s name. And what is destiny, Elric, can you answer?” He shook his head. “Since you ask the question in malice, I’ll not make the attempt to answer it.” She cried suddenly: “Oh, Elric! I have traveled for many days to see you, thinking you would welcome me. And now we speak in anger!” “Fear!” he said urgently. “It is fear, not anger. I fear for you as I fear for the fate of the world! See me to my ship in the morning and then make speed back to Karlaak, I beg you.” “If you wish it.” She walked back into the small chamber which joined the main one.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“I do not care for this responsibility,” he said. “When I fought the Dead God he spoke of both gods and men as shadow-things, playing puppet parts before the true history of Earth began and men found their fate in their own hands. Then Sepiriz tells me I must turn against Chaos and help destroy the whole nature of the world I know or history might never begin again, and Fate’s great purpose would be thwarted. Therefore I am the one who must be split and tempered to fulfill my destiny—I must know no peace of mind, must fight men and gods and the stuff of Chaos without surcease, must bring about the death of this age so that, in some far dawn-age, men who know little of sorcery or the Lords of the Higher Worlds, may move about a world where the major forces of Chaos can no longer enter, where justice may actually exist as a reality, and not as a mere concept in the minds of all philosophers.” He rubbed his red eyes with his fingers. “So fate makes Elric a martyr that Law might rule the world. It gives him a sword of ugly evil that destroys friends and enemies alike and sucks their soul-stuff out to feed him the strength he needs. It binds me to evil and to Chaos, in order that I may destroy evil and Chaos—but it does not make me some senseless dolt easily convinced and a willing sacrifice. No, it makes me Elric of Melniboné and floods me with a mighty misery…”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Now they neared the huge walls of Hwamgaarl. At intervals along these walls, which slanted outwards at an angle to encumber potential besiegers, they saw the screaming statues—once men and women whom Jagreen Lern and his forefathers had turned to rock but allowed them to retain their life and ability to speak. They spoke little, but screamed much, their ghastly shouts rolling over the disgusting city like the tormented voices of the damned—and damned they were. These sobbing waves of sound were horrifying, even to Elric’s ears, familiar with such sounds. Then another noise blended with this as the mighty portcullis of Hwamgaarl’s main gate squealed upwards and from it poured a host of well-armed men.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Oh, be silent!” Elric cried. “For a god, you talk too much. Take the swords—and give me back my wife!”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“THERE CAME A time when there was great movement upon the Earth and above it, when the destiny of Men and Gods was hammered out upon the forge of Fate, when monstrous wars were brewed and mighty deeds were designed. And there rose up in this time, which was called the Age of the Young Kingdoms, heroes. Greatest of these heroes was a doom-driven adventurer who bore a crooning runeblade that he loathed. His name was Elric of Melniboné, king of ruins, lord of a scattered race that had once ruled the ancient world. Elric, sorcerer and swordsman, slayer of kin, despoiler of his homeland, white-faced albino, last of his line. Elric, who had come to Karlaak by the Weeping Waste and had married a wife in whom he found some peace, some surcease from the torment in him. And Elric, who had within him a greater destiny than he knew, now dwelt in Karlaak with Zarozinia, his wife, and his sleep was troubled, his dream dark, one brooding night in the Month of Anemone…”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Drinij Bara was bound by more than strips of leather, that was why he cursed, for Drinij Bara was a sorcerer who could not normally be held in such a manner. If he had not succumbed to his weakness for wine and women just before the Flame Bringer had come down on the town in which he was staying, he would not have been trussed so, and Terarn Gashtek would not now have Drinij Bara’s soul. Drinij Bara’s soul reposed in the body of a small, black-and-white cat—the cat which Terarn Gashtek had caught and carried with him always, for, as was the habit of Eastern sorcerers, Drinij Bara had hidden his soul in the body of the cat for protection. Because of this he was now slave to the Lord of the Mounted Hordes, and had to obey him lest the man slay the cat and so send his soul to hell. It was not a pleasant situation for the proud sorcerer, but he did not deserve less.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“A plague had smitten Eshmir and the locust had stripped her of her beauty. Both plague and locust went by the same name—Terarn Gashtek, Lord of the Mounted Hordes, sunken-faced carrier of destruction; Terarn Gashtek, insane blood-drawer, the shrieking flame bringer. And that was his other name—Flame Bringer.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“As they rode for Bakshaan, not knowing what was troubling the people of that city, Elric tapped Stormbringer which hung, once more, at his side. His eyes were hard and moody, turned inwards on his own feelings. “Be wary of this devil-blade, Moonglum. It kills the foe—but savours the blood of friends and kinfolk most.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“The sign of Chaos!” Elric exclaimed. “Perhaps I should have guessed.” “What does it mean, Elric?” Moonglum asked. “That is the symbol of everlasting disruption and anarchy,” Elric told him. “We are standing in territory presided over by the Lords of Entropy or one of their minions. So that is who our enemy is! This can only mean one thing—the Book is of extreme importance to the order of things on this plane—possibly all the myriad planes of the multiverse. It was why Arioch was reluctant to aid me—he, too, is a Lord of Chaos!” Moonglum stared at him in puzzlement. “What do you mean, Elric?” “Know you not that two forces govern the world—fighting an eternal battle?” Elric replied. “Law and Chaos. The upholders of Chaos state that in such a world as they rule, all things are possible. Opponents of Chaos—those who ally themselves with the forces of Law—say that without Law nothing material is possible. “Some stand apart, believing that a balance between the two is the proper state of things, but we cannot. We have become embroiled in a dispute between the two forces. The Book is valuable to either faction, obviously, and I could guess that the minions of Entropy are worried what power we might release if we obtain this book. Law and Chaos rarely interfere directly in Men’s lives—that is why only adepts are fully aware of their presence. Now perhaps, I will discover at last the answer to the one question which concerns me—does an ultimate force rule over the opposing factions of Law and Chaos?”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls