A scene for the Elric of Melnebone universe
by Roger White, Dec 96, copyright Jan 2003
Pan Tang is mentioned often in the Elric of Melnebone series, and Elric does visit once, but the episode is brief and Pan Tang is left virtually undescribed. I suspect Morcock never had the time to fully develop Pan Tang in his own mind, so it was left a rather sketchy place. This piece is a suggestion to add to the richness of the Pan Tang story.
For those who have not read the Elric of Melnebone series, the Screaming Wall of Pan Tang is Pan Tang's most famous landmark. What follows is my interpretation of it...
The wall circles the city and is maintained by the Sorcerer's Guild that rules Pan Tang. It is the most prominent symbol of their power. The screamers of the wall are humans and other sentient creatures who have been merged with the outer face of the wall. Visually the process resembles what Geiger portrayed in the movie Aliens as humans became part of the incubation cocoon. The wall of Pan Tang is not flat or regular, but convoluted and eroded with niches and crannies of many sizes, some of the surface is empty, but much is filled with the trapped beings.
Insanity comes with the immobility and screaming is the closest these creatures come to release. Once part of the wall, a creature screams until it can scream no more.
The wall must be maintained. As the merged creatures die or go catatonic, replacements must be added. The work is tedious and moderately demanding of eldrich skill. It is handled by third year acolytes who have been admitted to the ranks of the guild of the city's sorcerers. These acolytes do their work, and the senior members stroll the walls as an informal way of inspecting the work of the new aspirants.
When times are good for Pan Tang, the screamers are mostly captured enemies and exotic creatures found on the campaigns. When times are good the acolytes will create elaborate murals of screamers.
When times are bad for Pan Tang, the screamers are traitors and criminals from the city jails. Citizens of Pan Tang shudder at the thought of bad times, because, good times or bad, the Sorcerer's Guild maintains the screamers of the wall.
This is a story of one replacement.
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The day was dawning ugly. It was an ugly business, the sort of thing Lord Arioch appreciates, and perhaps this incident was partly his doing.
These were bad times in Pan Tang, but they should end soon. Admiral Noon and High Sorcerer Ladida were reporting progress in the land of Ur -- battles had already been won, and booty was on ships headed for Pan Tang. Still, the wall must be maintained.
Ole Maralong, the entombed elephant that had trumpeted such dire agony at the South Gate for two decades had expired as the sun set the night before. Workers spent the night clearing it's remains, and the Wall Committee convened to select replacements. The Guild insisted that the sun not see the wall in disrepair twice, so time was short.
The timing was most inconvenient: Ole Maralong had been a prominent sight on the wall for years, and Ole Maralong's replacement should be prominent. But these were bad times -- the flood of exotics expected from Admiral Noon's campaign was not here yet, so the replacements would have to be traitors --many and prominent traitors because Ole Maralong's spot was not small or inconspicuous.
Petty traitors are not hard for the Wall Committee to select, but so many and so prominent as this spot called for was a strain. Still, the orders were sent out and five homes were visited by Vigilance Police.
As dawn pinked the high clouds over the Drear Sea, Acolyte Shaboom was leading a small parade to the large section of the wall near the South Gate that was now an unsightly gray. Behind him were two goons, then four men and a woman wearing chains slapped over well-made sleeping clothes, and finally, two senior members of the Wall Committee.
As they came in sight of the gray spot, the first of the chained men said, "Oh Arioch, I might have guessed." He was Funnal, a guild member of high standing, and a protégé of Admiral Noon. Funnal was easy for the Wall Committee to choose, using Funnal to maintain the wall was a preemptive quid pro quo to humble Admiral Noon after his upcoming victory march into the city.
The other four where the Mayor and members of the City Council. Putting them in the wall was damn inconvenient. The Wall Committee would have to develop a lot of plot rubbish, and their replacements were likely to botch the victory celebration for Admiral Noon because of their inexperience. Damn inconvenient, still the wall must be maintained!
The goons had released Funnal from his chains and were holding him firmly against the wall. Shaboom was directing them to position his limbs.
Funnal was alternately muttering to himself and shouting at Shaboom, "This is ridiculous... what an ugly pose... what am I supposed to be doing praying? You! Acolyte! You can do better than this..."
Shaboom and the goons paid no attention. The Wall Committee would be embarrassed if the sun rose on an incomplete wall, and the middle level clouds overhead were now shining pink on the bottom.
Shaboom chanted and extended his glowing forefinger to touch Funnal. Funnal, in all that muttering, must have been doing his own spell work -- he was wiley enough.
Goons are heavy and magic resistant -- there is a lot of cold-steel incorporated into their lean gray bodies. Funnal could not affect them easily, so he must have cast strength on himself because, as Shaboom's finger approached, he slammed the goons together in front of him, and crushed Shaboom's finger between them, then he spread his arms wide again, and slammed the goons into the wall.
Laughing, he leapt thirty feet away.
The goons are magic resistant, but not magic proof, and Wall Merging is a sure, powerful spell. The goons struggled in vain to pull away from the wall as the glow of merge slowly spread over their bodies.
Shaboom took a step back and looked for just a moment at the bloody, flattened stump that was his right hand. Then he put it from his mind. It was something he could deal with later, right now, there was a crisis to contain.
Funnal sprinted a few steps flapping his arms; his arms turned to wings; he became an eagle and he started to soar away.
Behind Shaboom, the old guild members were starting to conjure.
"Wait!" yelled Shaboom, "He's still mine! The eagle is a good choice for distance, but he should have chosen a swift." Shaboom conjured, and cast with his left hand... the eagle became a fish.
Funnal was game, but the contest was over. As the Funnal hit the ground, he changed to a crab and scuttled for the sea, Shaboom ran to catch him. The crab was fast for a crab, but as he reached the dead kelp that swirled in the surf, Shaboom transformed him once more -- into a small, white moth. Funnal was now fluttering helplessly, wings wet by the sea's foam, Shaboom's foot about to crush him.
But the foot never came down. As Shaboom had been running, he saw the sun's pink was now on the low fog clouds and the eastern sky was shining brightly -- dawn was a minute or two away, and the wall's gray spot was being fractionally filled by the two goons, still struggling. It was inevitable that they merge, but it would be hours before they merged fully, and goons can't scream.
There was something more important to accomplish than Funnal's quick death.
Shaboom pointed at the two senior guildsmen, "Ready a merge!" he screamed, then he conjured another transformation. Funnal was now a large, scraggly pile of bright green kelp. Shaboom commanded the kelp's anchor tendril to fly towards the wall -- like a hideous, sinuous, bright green snake, the kelp unraveled and floated for the wall. The guildmasters got the idea. There was one last transformation to be made, but it was not Shaboom's to make.
Shaboom spoke to the kelp-that-was-Funnal as it snaked by him, "Lord Funnal consider: If you are catatonic you will be replaced when the sun rises again, and the opportunity for revenge is lost forever."
As the kelp's anchor reached the wall, a guild master touched it with his glowing finger.
Kelp has no magic resistance, so even though this mass was over a hundred feet long, it sucked into the wall as soon as it touched. The kelp reeled into the wall. Suddenly each of the thousands of little round air bladders on the kelp grew a mouth. "Reeeveeenge!" was the single intelligible word of the kelp before it merged completely.
Funnal-kelp now screamed.
Funnal-kelp was huge. As dawn's light struck the wall, Funnal-kelp covered Ole Maralong's spot, and much more, in a hideous green splotch filled with the swirl of kelp pattern. Funnal-kelp wedged in behind the goons so they never did completely merge -- which made them curious, silent bas-reliefs in a green sea of agony.
Funnal, taking his last desperate chance to survive, gave himself a voice. He could not escape the merge, but giving his form a voice was within his power. The thousands of little mouths gave it a powerful sea howl unlike anything heard before on the screaming wall.
Shaboom had replaced Ole Maralong surpassingly. The Wall Committee was relieved, and as the chains fell from the City Council members, they were ecstatic. Even Admiral Noon was impressed at the originality of what his protégé had become.
Shaboom's goon-crushed right hand took a long time to heal. For a year Shaboom learned his conjuring leading with his left hand. His style became most disconcerting to watch, and that why he is known as Shaboom, the Weak Handed.
-- The End --