After reading “The Fortress of the Pearl” I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this book. I had just followed Elric into the realm of dreams and experienced sights and scenarios that twisted thought around itself. “The Revenge of the Rose” takes place a bit later in the timeline of Elric, after his run with “The Vanishing Tower.”
With this book, Elric’s tumble through the multiverse fully envelopes him. In a way, the multiverse itself becomes a character to this story. As much as a setting can play a significant role in the shaping of events and people, it does. There is an underlying quest – to save his father Sadric’s soul and to do so he must track down an artifact that has been lost to the multiverse. Carried on the back of a dragon, Elric is placed at a certain point in time and space from which to begin his quest. This is where Moorcock’s ability to create worlds and settings truly shines. The first place that Elric is dropped is a dimension at odds with itself, and civilization split between the Gypsy people, who only want to remain free to keep moving and the rest of the populace who must pay tithe to the Gypsies at their passing. If the Gypsies do not get tribute they cannot keep moving and to keep moving begs the question of whether they do so of their own free will or by some greater design of Fate. Fate, which plays a greater role here and operates outside the bounds of Chaos, Law, and even the Balance, the three powers which hold the multiverse ever at odds with itself. The object Elric seeks becomes intertwined with this Fate-driven people, and a familiar character to the Moorcock multiverse, Gaynor the Damned, becomes Elric’s chief ally and adversary in its search. A key dichotomy of the relationships these two have with Chaos becomes clear throughout this story, one who seeks nothing but the surety and eternity of death and one who seeks the agony and bliss of continued life. The stay on the Gypsy dimension ends up being a short one, with tragic and penultimate conclusion, which thrusts Elric and his quarry further into the multiverse. The way this realm is introduced and fully developed to every detail, down to the ground track left in the wake of the Gypsy’s city-wagons, to the moment it is imploded upon by Chaos and utterly destroyed was a harrowing and intense bout of storytelling. Arriving in this next new realm, one thick with the power of Chaos, Elric and Gaynor ply the Heavy Sea, which was another wonderful creation to behold, if not terrifying for our protagonists. A vast expanse of dark, thick waters, rent with obelisks of obsidian structures and anomalies, tests our travelers beyond measure and nearly defeats them. A blind faith is placed on the fact that they draw ever nearer to their goal, but an encounter with Arioch, Duke of Hell, thwarts their plans once again. Again a stark contrast between Elric and Gaynor becomes clear. Both pawns of Chaos, but one with a singular purpose above all and the other (Elric) realizing that he must let go of his purpose in order to achieve it. Willing himself to continue driving forward not just for himself but for the sake of the other players involved in this game or he might lose himself entirely in the process of reaching its conclusion. The conclusion of this book shocked me again and left me in awe of the moments in the multiverse that constantly entwine Elric, leading to the question of whether he arrived there by decisions of his own design or not.
“The Revenge of the Rose” offers what might be some of the least straightforward Moorcock storytelling in an Eternal Champion novel that I’ve read so far. Layers build and fold back on themselves, with a thin thread that ties them all together and only becomes clear at the book’s conclusion.
Recommended Listening:
The Reliquary Notes Online 