The English Assassin Read online

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  Elric of Melniboné

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  MICHAEL MOORCOCK’S ELRIC

  Volume 1: The Ruby Throne

  Volume 2: Stormbringer

  The English Assassin

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783291816

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783291809

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First Titan edition: April 2016

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © Michael and Linda Moorcock, 1972, and Multiverse Inc. Revised version copyright © Michael and Linda Moorcock, 2016, and Multiverse Inc. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are TM and © 2016 Michael and Linda Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.

  Edited by John Davey.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN

  A ROMANCE OF ENTROPY

  Illustrated by Mal Dean,

  Harry Douthwaite and Jill Riches

  Original artwork, by Richard Glyn Jones,

  withdrawn by artist

  For Arthur and Max Moorcock

  Dedicated to the memories of Peregrine Worsthorne, Malcolm Muggeridge, Dennis Hopper, Shirley Temple, George Steiner, Angus Maude, Robert Conquest, Bernard Braden, Spiro Agnew, Christiaan Barnard, Norman St John Stevas, Colin Wilson, Lord Longford, Rap Brown, John Wayne, Jerry Rubin, Chris Booker, Robert Heinlein, Sam Peckinpah, Miroslav Moc, Kingsley Amis, Sir Arthur Bryant, Richard Neville and all men of good will and Jolly Englishmen everywhere.

  NOTE TO THE READER

  Many of the newspaper quotations used here might cause further distress to parents and relatives of the deceased if they read them. Therefore I have in some cases changed the names. No other part of the quotation has been altered.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Michael Moorcock

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE (commencement)

  SHOT ONE

  A Bundle

  Major Nye

  Una Persson

  Sebastian Auchinek

  Mrs C. and Colonel P.

  Reminiscence (A)

  Late News

  The Alternative Apocalypse 1

  The Alternative Apocalypse 2

  Late News

  Reminiscence (B)

  Mrs C. and Frankie C.

  Auchinek

  Persson

  Nye

  J.C.

  PROLOGUE (continued)

  SHOT TWO

  The Observers

  The Performers

  The Seducers

  The Interpreters

  The Explorers

  Reminiscence (C)

  Late News

  The Alternative Apocalypse 3

  The Alternative Apocalypse 4

  Late News

  Reminiscence (D)

  The Lovers

  The Businessmen

  The Envoys

  The Gatherers

  The Rowers

  THE PEACE TALKS

  Preliminary Speech

  The Ball

  Concluding Remarks

  PROLOGUE (continued)

  SHOT THREE

  The Theatre

  The Flying Boat

  The Pier

  The Hills

  The Statue

  Reminiscence (E)

  Late News

  The Alternative Apocalypse 5

  The Alternative Apocalypse 6

  Late News

  Reminiscence (F)

  The Airship

  The Locomotive

  The Steam Yacht

  The Flying Boat

  The Raft

  PROLOGUE (concluded)

  SHOT FOUR

  Observations

  Guarantees

  Estimates

  Applications

  Securities

  Reminiscence (G)

  Late News

  The Alternative Apocalypse 7

  The Alternative Apocalypse 8

  Late News

  Reminiscence (H)

  The Forest

  The Farm

  The Village

  The Hill

  The Seaside

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  PROLOGUE (commencement)

  As a child I lived in that well-kept back garden of London, the county of Surrey. In this century, at least, Surrey achieved vitality only once. That was during the World War when the incendiaries fell, and the Messerschmidts blew up, and the V-bombs dropped suddenly from the silent sky. Night flames, droning planes, banging ack-ack, shrapnel and bombed buildings are the happiest impressions from my childhood. I long to find them again. The pylon, the hoarding, the ruined street and the factory are images which to this day most satisfy and pacify my psyche. I was very happy then, while the world fought its war and my own parents quarrelled, suppressed quarrels and finally parted. The War was won, the Family lost, and I remained, as far as I knew, content. But now, with great effort, I recall the nightmares, rages, weeping fits and traumas, the schools which came and went, and I know that, after the war, I was only happy when alone and then chiefly when I was able to create a complicated fantasy or, in a book, enter someone else’s. I was happy but, I suppose, I was not healthy. Few of my illnesses were not psychosomatic and I became fat. Poor child.

  * * *

  … I suspect that many people experience this nostalgia and would dearly love to recreate the horrifying circumstances of their own childhood. But this is not possible. At best they produce reasonable alternatives.

  —Maurice Lescoq,

  Leavetaking, 1961

  SHOT ONE

  ADDICT WAS DEAD WITH SYRINGE IN HIS ARM

  A young North Kensington addict who had made an attempt to give up drugs was killed by his addiction, the Westminster Coroner decided last week. Anthony William Leroy (sometimes known as Anthony Gray) died at St Charles Hospital in the early hours of August 29, after taking two shots of heroin in his arm when he was found, the coroner was told. Leroy was a boutique manag
er … Professor Donald Teare, pathologist, said that there were two recent injection marks on Leroy’s right arm. Cause of death was inhalation of vomit due to drug addiction.

  Kensington Post, 26 September, 1969

  A BUNDLE

  South of Bude and its neighbour, Widemouth Bay, you come to the quaint little harbour of Boscastle, with its grey stone, slate roofed cottages and background of sheltering hills, and thence to Tintagel, home of the legendary King Arthur and the famous cliff-top ruins of his mediaeval castle. Although other counties in the West may dispute Cornwall’s claim to be the sole possessor of the original authentic stronghold of the Knights of the Round Table, Cornishmen stick as closely to their time-honoured contention as the limpets to the rocky, sea-washed walls of Merlin’s mysterious cave at the foot of the great granite cliff. It is the blood spilt by the magic sword Excalibur, they insist, that keeps a small lawn of turf within the precincts of the castle forever emerald green, as if constantly fed by spring water where none exists. And what else, they ask, was Camelot if it were not the old name for Camelford, the little inland town on the River Camel not half a day’s horse-trot away?

  Cornwall: A Tourist’s Guide

  * * *

  Some time ago, possibly in the winter of 1975, the following events took place at Tintagel Bay on the north coast of Cornwall:

  Tintagel’s bay is small and walled by high, bleak cliffs, a natural subject for romantic painters and poets of the past two centuries. Most of the castle ruins stand on the inland cliff, but some are on the west cliff, which is a narrow promontory now crumbling dramatically into the sea and carrying the ruins with it.

  Though, in the summer, Tintagel is a great tourist attraction, at other seasons it is virtually deserted, save for a few local inhabitants who remain in the village some distance inland. One dull December morning two of these residents, a butcher and a retired chemist, who had been born and brought up in the area, were taking their regular stroll along the cliffs when they paused, as usual, among the ruins and rested on a wooden bench provided for people like themselves who wished to enjoy the view of the bay in comfort.

  The view on this particular day was not really up to much. The water in the bay was flat, sluggish and black. On its surface drifted grey scum and dark green weed. The sea resembled a worn-out blackboard upon which an inspired idiot had scrawled equations and then tried to erase them. The sky was clammy and the air was thick with too much brine. From the small patch of shingle on the beach below there came a strong and unpleasant odour of rotting seaweed. It was as if the whole place—castle, cliffs, sea and beach—were in a process of sudden decay. The butcher and the chemist were both old men, bearded and grey, but the butcher was tall and straight, while the chemist was small and bent. The wind tugged at their beards and hair as they huddled on the bench and massaged their legs and hands. Their skins were cracked, wrinkled, weather-beaten and, in colour and condition, very little different from the leather jerkins they wore to protect themselves against the weather. They chatted for about ten minutes and were ready to continue their walk when the tall butcher narrowed his eyes and pointed at the gap between the cliffs where the sea entered the bay.

  “What d’you make of that, then?” he asked. He had one of those unfortunate voices which is naturally aggressive in tone and liable to misinterpretation by those who did not know him well.

  The chemist frowned. He reached into his jerkin and found his spectacle case. He put the spectacles on and peered out over the water. A large, shapeless object floated in the bay. It was drifting with the tide towards the shore. It might have been the remains of a shark, covered in rotting algae; a tangle of dead eels, or just a mass of seaweed.

  “It could be anything, really,” said the chemist mildly.

  They watched as the bundle drifted closer. It came to rest on the shingle below. It was vaguely cylindrical in shape but just a little too small to be any kind of wrecked boat. The weed which wrapped it seemed to have decayed.

  “Bloody unsanitary-looking, whatever it is,” said the chemist. “The council should do something about this beach.”

  But the beach itself was unwilling to accept the bundle. The next wave that came in was forced to withdraw it. The bundle bobbed about twenty yards offshore: the sea wished to be rid of it, could think of nowhere else to deposit it, but refused to swallow it.

  The chemist, a morbid man by nature, suggested that the object might be a corpse. It was the right size.

  “What? You mean a drowned man?” The butcher smiled.

  The chemist understood that his suggestion had been too sensational. “Or a seal, I thought,” he said. “You don’t know, do you? I’ve seen nothing like it before. Have you?”

  The tall butcher hadn’t any inclination to follow this line of thought. He got up; he rubbed his beard. “Well, she’ll probably be gone by tomorrow. It’s getting a bit nippy. Shall we—?”

  The chemist took one last, frowning look at the bundle before he nodded agreement. They walked slowly inland, towards the almost deserted village.

  * * *

  After they had vanished, the tide began to turn. It hissed. It whispered. It sighed. As it receded, a lip of a cave was revealed in the west headland, a black gap flaked with foam. The sea pushed the bundle towards the cave; it forced the thing into the mouth which gurgled reluctantly, but swallowed. The tide fled, leaving behind it the weed-smothered beach, the salty stink, the foam-flecked entrance to the cave. The wind blew stronger, whining and moaning about the castle ruins like a dog at its master’s grave, pawing a tuft of coarse grass here, sniffing a clump of shrubs there. And then the wind went away, too.

  By now completely exposed to the air, the gloomy cavern contained a comprehensive collection of débris: rusty cans, pieces of drowned wood, glass shards worn smooth by the action of the ocean, plastic bottles, the torso of a child’s doll, and the twisted corpses of about twenty deformed, oversized crabs; the creations of an effluent only recently introduced to this coast. On a shelf of rock about halfway up the slimy far wall, well out of the faint light from the entrance, lay the bundle where the sea had lodged it.

  A gull flew in from the grey outside and perched on the bundle before fluttering down to peck at the soft shells and the hard flesh of the mutant crabs.

  * * *

  When the texture of the day had grown a little less disgusting, a cumbersome skiff, powered by an outboard motor imperfectly mounted in the stern so that its screw often lifted completely clear of the water and caused it to progress in a series of spluttering jolts, rounded Tintagel Head and made for the small patch of shingle leading up to the cave. There was only one person in the skiff. She wore yellow PVC oilskins, a yellow sou’wester and white plastic trousers tucked into red rubber seaboots. The sou’wester shaded her face. The tiller was tucked firmly under one arm as she directed the skiff at the beach. The engine coughed, screeched and spat. The bottom of the skiff rasped on the pebbles and the motor cut out. Awkwardly, the girl clambered from the stationary boat and pulled it completely clear of the sea; she sniffed the wind, then she reached over the side to remove a big blue Eveready flashlight, an old-fashioned gasmask and a coil of white nylon rope. She sniffed again, by way of confirmation, and seemed satisfied. She looped the rope over her shoulder and trudged in the direction of the cave. When she reached the entrance she hesitated, switching on her electric torch before going in. Her clean, protective clothing gleamed in the reflected glare. Her booted feet crunched on the corpses of the crabs; a beam of light illuminated the awful walls, disturbed the carrion gulls. They squawked and flapped nervously past her head to the open air. She directed the beam over all the filthy flotsam before focusing on the shelf of rock from which came a smell partly of brine and partly like cat’s urine. She put the torch in her pocket and used both hands to ease the gasmask under her sou’wester and over her hair and face. Her breathing became a loud, rhythmic hiss. Adjusting the rope on her shoulder she again took out the flashlight and lo
oked the bundle over. The thing was predominantly black and green and had resumed its earlier, roughly cylindrical, shape. There were small grey rocks embedded in it, some yellow grit, a few supine starfish, seahorses and shrimps, a fair number of mussels and limpets and pieces of what looked like tropical coral. The black and green areas were unidentifiable; they were possibly organic; they might have been made of mud which had started to solidify. It was as if the bundle had been rolled along the bottoms of the deepest oceans, gathering to it a detritus which was completely alien to the surface.

  The girl bent down and wedged the flashlight between two large stones so that the beam stayed on the shelf. Then she crossed to the wall and began to climb skilfully and rapidly until she stood with her legs spread wide, balancing carefully on the ledge beside the bundle while she pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Steadying herself with her left hand against an outcrop of granite, she bent and felt over the bundle with her right hand. At last she found what she was looking for and withdrew it with a squelch from a tangle of weed.

  It was a transparent polythene bag dripping with green algae. She wiped the plastic against her thigh until it was as clean as she could get it, then she held it in the torch’s beam so that she could see the contents. There was a single sheet of white paper inside, covered with doodles in black ink:

  She was satisfied. She stuffed the message into an inside pocket and unslung the rope from her shoulder, winding it round and round the slippery bundle until it was thoroughly tied up. With considerable difficulty she managed to brace her back against the wall and with her booted feet shove the bundle to the edge of the shelf. Taking a coil or two of rope around her right arm she was able to lower the bundle to the cavern floor. Then she let the end of the rope drop and climbed down after it. She rested for a moment, retrieved her torch, switched it off and put it away. Working in the faint light from the entrance, she picked up the rope and wound it twice on each hand. She turned so that the rope was now braced on her shoulder. She strained forward, hauling the bundle after her. Broken corpses of crabs scattered in its path as the girl slowly pulled it from the cave and dragged it bumping down the beach to the waiting skiff. Panting painfully into her gasmask she heaved with the last of her strength and got the thing into the boat, putting her whole weight against the bow so that the skiff slid back into the sea. Standing knee-deep in the seedy water she pulled the painter until the bow was pointing away from the beach, then she carefully got in and resumed her place at the tiller, lowering the screw into the sea and tugging at the motor’s cord.