A Quest-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic Page 29

  Elric began to follow the sealord over the dry, crunching turf. The steep sides of the valley loomed over them, tinged with a peculiar and unpleasant greenish hue, the result of the brown foliage being stained by the blue light from above. When they reached the river, which was narrow and ran rapidly through boulders giving easy means of crossing, they rested and ate. Both men were stiff from the previous night's fighting; both were glad to wash the dried blood and mud from their bodies in the water.

  Refreshed, the pair climbed over the boulders and left the river behind, ascending the slopes, speaking little so that their breath was saved for the exertion. It was noon by the time they reached the top of the valley and observed a plain not unlike the one which Elric had first crossed. Elric now had a fair idea of the island's geography: it resembled the top of a mountain, with an indentation near the center which was the valley. Again he became sharply aware of the absence of any wildlife and remarked on this to Count Smiorgan, who agreed that he had seen nothing—no bird, fish nor beast since he had arrived.

  “It's a barren little world, friend Elric, and a misfortune for a mariner to be wrecked upon its shores.”

  They moved on, until the sea could be observed meeting the horizon in the far distance.

  It was Elric who first heard the sound behind them, recognizing the steady thump of the hooves of a galloping horse, but when he looked back over his shoulder he could see no sign of a rider, nor anywhere that a rider could hide. He guessed that, in his tiredness, his ears were betraying him. It had been thunder that he had heard.

  Smiorgan strode implacably onward, though he, too, must have heard the sound.

  Again it came. Again, Elric turned. Again he saw nothing.

  “Smiorgan? Did you hear a rider?”

  Smiorgan continued to walk without looking back. “I heard,” he grunted.

  “You have heard it before?”

  “Many times since I arrived. The pirates heard it, too, and some believed it their nemesis—an Angel of Death seeking them out for retribution.”

  “You don't know the source?”

  Smiorgan paused, then stopped, and when he turned his face was grim. “Once or twice I have caught a glimpse of a horse, I think. A tall horse—white—richly dressed—but with no man upon his back. Ignore it, Elric, as I do. We have larger mysteries with which to occupy our minds!”

  “You are afraid of it, Smiorgan?”

  He accepted this. “Aye. I confess it. But neither fear nor speculation will rid us of it. Come!”

  Elric was bound to see the sense of Smiorgan's statement and he accepted it, yet, when the sound came again, about an hour later, he could not resist turning. Then he thought he glimpsed the outline of a large stallion, caparisoned for riding, but that might have been nothing more than an idea Smiorgan had put in his mind.

  The day grew colder and in the air was a peculiar, bitter odor. Elric remarked on the smell to Count Smiorgan and learned that this, too, was familiar.

  “The smell comes and goes, but it is usually here in some strength.”

  “Like sulphur,” said Elric.

  Count Smiorgan's laugh had much irony in it, as if Elric made reference to some private joke of Smiorgan's own. “Oh, aye! Sulphur right enough!”

  The drumming of hooves grew louder behind them as they neared the coast and at last Elric, and Smiorgan too, turned round again, to look.

  And now a horse could be seen plainly—riderless, but saddled and bridled, its dark eyes intelligent, its beautiful white head held proudly.

  “Are you still convinced of the absence of sorcery here, Sir Elric?” Count Smiorgan asked with some satisfaction. “The horse was invisible. Now it is visible.” He shrugged the battle-ax on his shoulder into a better position. “Either that, or it moves from one world to another with ease, so that all we mainly hear are its hoofbeats.”

  “If so,” said Elric sardonically, eyeing the stallion, “it might bear us back to our own world.”

  “You admit, then, that we are marooned in some Limbo?”

  “Very well, yes. I admit the possibility.”

  “Have you no sorcery to trap the horse?”

  “Sorcery does not come so easily to me, for I have no great liking for it,” the albino told him.

  As they spoke, they approached the horse, but it would let them get no closer. It snorted and moved backward, keeping the same distance between them and itself.

  At last, Elric said: “We waste time, Count Smiorgan. Let's get to your ship with speed and forget blue suns and enchanted horses as quickly as we may. Once aboard the ship I can doubtless help you with a little incantation or two, for we'll need aid of some sort if we're to sail a large ship by ourselves.”

  They marched on, but the horse continued to follow them. They came to the edge of the cliffs, standing high above a narrow, rocky bay in which a battered ship lay at anchor. The ship had the high, fine lines of a Purple Towns merchantman, but its decks were piled with shreds of torn canvas, pieces of broken rope, shards of timber, torn-open bales of cloth, smashed wine-jars, and all manner of other refuse, while in several places her rails were smashed and two or three of her yards had splintered. It was evident that she had been through both storms and sea-fights and it was a wonder that she still floated.

  “We'll have to tidy her up as best we can, using only the mains'l for motion,” mused Smiorgan. “Hopefully we can salvage enough food to last us…”

  “Look!” Elric pointed, sure that he had seen someone in the shadows near the afterdeck. “Did the pirates leave any of their company behind?”

  “None.”

  “Did you see anyone on the ship, just then?”

  “My eyes play filthy tricks on my mind,” Smiorgan told him. “It is this damned blue light. There is a rat or two aboard, that's all. And that's what you saw.”

  “Possibly.” Elric looked back. The horse appeared to be unaware of them as it cropped the brown grass. “Well, let's finish the journey.”

  They scrambled down the steeply sloping cliff-face and were soon on the shore, wading through the shallows for the ship, clambering up the slippery ropes which still hung over the sides and, at last, setting their feet with some relief upon the deck.

  “I feel more secure already,” said Smiorgan. “This ship was my home for so long!” He searched through the scattered cargo until he found an unbroken winejar, carved off the seal and handed it to Elric. Elric lifted the heavy jar and let a little of the good wine flow into his mouth. As Count Smiorgan began to drink, Elric was sure he saw another movement near the afterdeck, and he moved closer.

  Now he was certain that he heard strained, rapid breathing—like the breathing of one who sought to stifle their need for air rather than be detected. They were slight sounds, but the albino's ears, unlike his eyes, were sharp. His hand ready to draw his sword, he stalked towards the source of the sound, Smiorgan now behind him.

  She emerged from her hiding place before he reached her. Her hair hung in heavy, dirty coils about her pale face; her shoulders were slumped and her soft arms hung limply at her sides, while her dress was stained and ripped.

  As Elric approached, she fell on her knees before him. “Take my life,” she said humbly, “but I beg you—do not take me back to Saxif D'Aan, though I know you must be his servant or his kinsman.”

  “It's she!” cried Smiorgan in astonishment. “It's our passenger. She must have been in hiding all this time.”

  Elric stepped forward, lifting up the girl's chin so that he could study her face. There was a Melnibonéan cast about her features, but she was, to his mind, of the Young Kingdoms; she lacked the pride of a Melnibonéan woman, too. “What name was that you used, girl?” he asked kindly. “Did you speak of Saxif D'Aan? Earl Saxif D'Aan of Melniboné?”

  “I did, my lord.”

  “Do not fear me as his servant,” Elric told her. “And as for being a kinsman, I suppose you could call me that—on my mother's side—or rather my great-grandmother's
side. He was an ancestor. He must have been dead for two centuries, at least!”

  “No,” she said. “He lives, my lord.”

  “On this island?”

  “This island is not his home, but it is in this plane that he exists. I sought to escape him through the Crimson Gate. I fled through the gate in a skiff, reached the town where you found me, Count Smiorgan, but he drew me back once I was aboard your ship. He drew me back and the ship with me. For that, I have remorse—and for what befell your crew. Now I know he seeks me. I can feel his presence growing nearer.”

  “Is he invisible?” Smiorgan asked suddenly. “Does he ride a white horse?”

  She gasped. “You see! He is near! Why else should the horse appear on this island?”

  “He rides it?” Elric asked.

  “No, no! He fears the horse almost as much as I fear him. The horse pursues him!”

  Elric produced the Melnibonéan gold wheel from his purse. “Did you take this from Earl Saxif D'Aan?”

  “I did.”

  The albino frowned.

  “Who is this man, Elric?” Count Smiorgan asked. “You describe him as an ancestor—yet he lives in this world. What do you know of him?”

  Elric weighed the large gold wheel in his hand before replacing it in his pouch. “He was something of a legend in Melniboné. His story is part of our literature. He was a great sorcerer—one of the greatest—and he fell in love. It's rare enough for Melnibonéans to fall in love, as others understand the emotion, but rarer for one to have such feelings for a girl who was not even of our own race. She was half-Melnibonéan, so I heard, but from a land which was, in those days, a Melnibonéan possession, a western province close to Dharijor. She was bought by him in a batch of slaves he planned to use for some sorcerous experiment, but he singled her out, saving her from whatever fate it was the others suffered. He lavished his attention upon her, giving her everything. For her, he abandoned his practices, retired to live quietly away from Imrryr, and I think she showed him a certain affection, though she did not seem to love him. There was another, you see, called Carolak, as I recall, and also half-Melnibonéan, who had become a mercenary in Shazar and risen in the favor of the Shazarian court. She had been pledged to this Carolak before her abduction…”

  “She loved him?” Count Smiorgan asked.

  “She was pledged to marry him, but let me finish my story…” Elric continued: “Well, at length Carolak, now a man of some substance, second only to the king in Shazar, heard of her fate and swore to rescue her. He came with raiders to Melniboné's shores and, aided by sorcery, sought out Saxif D'Aan's palace. That done, he sought the girl, finding her at last in the apartments Saxif D'Aan had set aside for her use. He told her that he had come to claim her as his bride, to rescue her from persecution. Oddly, the girl resisted, suggesting that she had been too long a slave in the Melnibonéan harem to readapt to the life of a princess in the Shazarian court. Carolak scoffed at this and seized her. He managed to escape the castle and had the girl over the saddle of his horse and was about to rejoin his men on the coast when Saxif D'Aan detected them. Carolak, I think, was slain, or else a spell was put on him, but Saxif D'Aan, in his terrible jealousy and certain that the girl had planned the escape with a lover, ordered her to die upon the Wheel of Chaos—a machine rather like that coin in design. Her limbs were broken slowly and Saxif D'Aan sat and watched, through long days, while she died. Her skin was peeled from her flesh, and Earl Saxif D'Aan observed every detail of her punishment. Soon it was evident that the drugs and sorcery used to sustain her life were failing and Saxif D'Aan ordered her taken from the Wheel of Chaos and laid upon a couch. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have been punished for betraying me and I am glad. Now you may die.’ And he saw that her lips, blood-caked and frightful, were moving, and he bent to hear her words.”

  “Those words? Revenge? An oath?” asked Smiorgan.

  “Her last gesture was an attempt to embrace him. And the words were those she had never uttered to him before, much as he had hoped that she would. She said simply, over and over again, until the last breath left her: ‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’ And then she died.”

  Smiorgan rubbed at his beard. “Gods! What then? What did your ancestor do?”

  “He knew remorse.”

  “Of course!”

  “Not so, for a Melnibonéan. Remorse is a rare emotion with us. Few have ever experienced it. Torn by guilt, Earl Saxif D'Aan left Melniboné, never to return. It was assumed that he had died in some remote land, trying to make amends for what he had done to the only creature he had ever loved. But now, it seems, he sought the Crimson Gate, perhaps thinking it an opening into Hell.”

  “But why should he plague me!” the girl cried. “I am not she! My name is Vassliss. I am a merchant's daughter, from Jharkor. I was voyaging to visit my uncle in Vilmir when our ship was wrecked. A few of us escaped in an open boat. More storms seized us. I was flung from the boat and was drowning when…” she shuddered—“when his galley found me. I was grateful, then…”

  “What happened?” Elric pushed the matted hair away from her face and offered her some of their wine. She drank gratefully.

  “He took me to his palace and told me that he would marry me, that I should be his Empress forever and rule beside him. But I was frightened. There was such pain in him—and such cruelty, too. I thought he must devour me, destroy me. Soon after my capture, I took the money and the boat and fled for the gateway, which he had told me about…”

  “You could find this gateway for us?” Elric asked.

  “I think so. I have some knowledge of seamanship, learned from my father. But what would be the use, sir? He would find us again and drag us back. And he must be very near, even now.”

  “I have a little sorcery myself,” Elric assured her, “and will pit it against Saxif D'Aan's, if I must.” He turned to Count Smiorgan. “Can we get a sail aloft quickly?”

  “Fairly quickly.”

  “Then let's hurry, Count Smiorgan Baldhead. I might have the means of getting us through this Crimson Gate and free from any further involvement in the dealings of the dead!”

  IV

  WHILE COUNT SMIORGAN AND VASSLISS OF JHARKOR WATCHED, Elric lowered himself to the deck, panting and pale. His first attempt to work sorcery in this world had failed and had exhausted him.

  “I am further convinced,” he told Smiorgan, “that we are in another plane of existence, for I should have worked my incantations with less effort.”

  “You have failed.”

  Elric rose with some difficulty. “I shall try again.”

  He turned his white face skyward; he closed his eyes; he stretched out his arms and his body tensed as he began the incantation again, his voice growing louder and louder, higher and higher, so that it resembled the shrieking of a gale.

  He forgot where he was; he forgot his own identity; he forgot those who were with him as his whole mind concentrated upon the summoning. He sent his call out beyond the confines of the world, into that strange plane where the elementals dwelled—where the powerful creatures of the air could still be found—the sylphs of the breeze, and the sharnahs, who lived in the storms, and the most powerful of all, the h'Haarshanns, creatures of the whirlwind.

  And now at last some of them began to come at his summons, ready to serve him as, by virtue of an ancient pact, the elementals had served his forefathers. And slowly the sail of the ship began to fill, and the timbers creaked, and Smiorgan raised the anchor, and the ship was sailing away form the island, through the rocky gap of the harbor, and out into the open sea, still beneath a strange, blue sun.

  Soon a huge wave was forming around them, lifting up the ship and carrying it across the ocean, so that Count Smiorgan and the girl marveled at the speed of their progress, while Elric, his crimson eyes open now, but blank and unseeing, continued to croon to his unseen allies.

  Thus the ship progressed across the waters of the sea, and at last the island was out of si
ght and the girl, checking their position against the position of the sun, was able to give Count Smiorgan sufficient information for him to steer a course.

  As soon as he could, Count Smiorgan went up to Elric, who still straddled the deck, still as stiff-limbed as before, and shook him.

  “Elric! You will kill yourself with this effort. We need your friends no longer!”

  At once the wind dropped and the wave dispersed and Elric, gasping, fell to the deck.

  “It is harder here,” he said. “It is so much harder here. It is as if I have to call across far greater gulfs than any I have known before.”

  And then Elric slept.

  He lay in a warm bunk in a cool cabin. Through the porthole filtered diffused blue light. He sniffed. He caught the odor of hot food and, turning his head, saw that Vassliss stood there, a bowl of broth in her hands. “I was able to cook this,” she said. “It will improve your health. As far as I can tell, we are nearing the Crimson Gate. The seas are always rough around the gate, so you will need your strength.”

  Elric thanked her pleasantly and began to eat the broth as she watched him.

  “You are very like Saxif D'Aan,” she said. “Yet harder in a way—and gentler, too. He is so remote. I know why that girl could never tell him that she loved him.”

  Elric smiled. “Oh, it's nothing more than a folktale, probably, the story I told you. This Saxif D'Aan could be another person altogether—or an imposter, even, who has taken his name—or a sorcerer. Some sorcerers take the names of other sorcerers, for they think it gives them more power.”

  There came a cry form above, but Elric could not make out the words.

  The girl's expression became alarmed. Without a word to Elric, she hurried from the cabin.

  Elric, rising unsteadily, followed her up the companionway.

  Count Smiorgan Baldhead was at the wheel of his ship and he was pointing towards the horizon behind them. “What do you make of that, Elric?”

  Elric peered at the horizon, but could see nothing. Often his eyes were weak, as now. But the girl said in a voice of quiet despair: