The Fortress of the Pearl eas-2, Page 2

  Anigh withdrew hastily into the sunlight again. He cleared his throat. "You called the thing by a name?"

  "I called the sword Stormbringer but the peoples of the Young Kingdoms sometimes have another name, both for myself and for the blade. The name is Soulstealer. It has drunk many souls."

  "You're a dreamthief!" Anigh's eyes remained on the blade. "Why are you not employed?"

  "I do not know the term and I do not know who would employ a 'dreamthief.'" Elric looked to the boy for further explanation.

  But Anigh's gaze did not leave the sword. "Would it drink my soul, master?"

  "If I chose. To restore my energy for a while, all I would have to do is let Stormbringer kill you and perhaps a few more and then she'll pass her energy on to me. Then, doubtless, I could find a steed and ride away from here, possibly to Kwan."

  Now the Black Sword's voice grew more tuneful, as if approving of this notion.

  "Oh, Gamek Idianit!" Anigh got to his feet, ready to flee if necessary. "This is like that story on Mass'aboon's walls. This is what those who brought about our isolation were said to wield. Aye, the leaders bore identical swords to these. The teachers at the school tell of it. I was there. Oh, what did they say!" And he frowned deeply, an object lesson to anyone wishing to point a moral concerning the benefits of attending at classes.

  Elric regretted frightening the boy. "I am not disposed, young Anigh, to maintain my own life at the expense of others who have offered me no harm. That is partly the reason why I find myself in this specific predicament. You saved my life, child. I would not kill you."

  "Oh, master. Thou art dangerous!" In his panic he spoke a tongue more ancient than Melnibonéan, and Elric, who had learned such things to aid his studies, recognised it.

  "Where came you by that language, by that Opish?" the albino asked.

  Even in his terror the boy was surprised. "They call it the gutter cant, here in Quarzhasaat. The thieves' secret. But I suppose it is common enough to hear it in Nadsokor."

  "Aye, indeed. In Nadsokor, true." Elric was again intrigued by this minor turn of events. He reached towards the boy, to reassure him.

  The motion caused Anigh to jerk up his head and make a noise in his throat. Clearly he set no store by Elric's attempt to regain his confidence. Without further remark, he left the room, his bare feet pattering down the long corridor and the steps into the narrow street.

  Convinced that Anigh was now gone for good, Elric knew a sudden pang of sadness. He regretted only one thing now, that he would never be reunited with Cymoril and return to Melniboné to keep his promise to wed her. He understood that he had always been and probably would always be reluctant to ascend the Ruby Throne again, yet he knew it was his duty to do so. Had he deliberately chosen this fate for himself, to avoid that responsibility?

  Elric knew that though his blood was tainted by his strange disease, it was still the blood of his ancestors and it would not have been easy to deny his birthright or his destiny. He had hoped he might, by his rule, turn Melniboné from the introverted, cruel and decadent vestige of a hated empire into a reinvigorated nation capable of bringing peace and justice to the world, of presenting an example of enlightenment which others might use to their own advantage.

  For a chance to return to Cymoril he would more than willingly trade the Black Sword. Yet secretly he had little hope that this was possible. The Black Sword was more than a source of sustenance, a weapon against his enemies. The Black Sword bound him to his race's ancient loyalties, to Chaos, and he could not see Lord Arioch willingly allowing him to break that particular bond. When he considered these matters, these hints at a greater destiny, he found his mind growing confused and he preferred to ignore the questions whenever possible.

  "Well, perhaps in folly and in death, I shall break that bond and thwart Melniboné's bad old friends."

  The breath in his lungs seemed to grow thin and no longer burned. Indeed, it felt cool. His blood moved more sluggishly in his veins as he tried to rise and stagger to the rough wooden table where his few provisions lay. But he could only stare at the stale bread, the vinegary wine, the wizened pieces of dried meat whose origins were best not speculated upon. He could not get up; he could not summon the will to move. He had accepted his dying if not with equanimity then at least with a degree of dignity. Falling into a languorous reverie, he recalled his deciding to leave Melniboné, his cousin Cymoril's trepidation, his ambitious cousin Yyrkoon's secret glee, his pronouncements made to Rackhir the Warrior Priest of Phum, who had also sought Tanelorn.

  Elric wondered if Rackhir the Red Archer had been any more successful in his quest or whether he lay somewhere in another part of this vast desert, his scarlet costume reduced to rags by the forever sighing wind, his flesh drying on his bones. Elric hoped with all his heart that Rackhir had succeeded in discovering the mythical city and the peace it promised. Then he found that his longing for Cymoril was growing and he believed that he wept.

  Earlier he had considered calling upon Arioch, his patron Duke of Chaos, to save him, yet had continued to feel a deep reluctance even to contemplate the possibility. He feared that by employing Arioch's help once more he would lose far more than his life. Each time that powerful supernatural agreed to help, it further strengthened an agreement both implicit and mysterious. Not that the debate was anything more than notional, Elric reflected ironically. Of late Arioch had shown a distinct reluctance to come to his aid. Possibly Yyrkoon had superseded him in every way...

  This thought brought Elric back to pain, to his longing for Cymoril. Again he tried to rise. The sun's position had changed. He thought he saw Cymoril standing before him. Then she became an aspect of Arioch. Was the Duke of Chaos playing with him, even now?

  Elric moved his gaze to contemplate the sword which seemed to shift in its loose silk wrappings and whisper some kind of warning, or possibly a threat.

  Elric turned his head away. "Cymoril?" He peered into the shaft of sunlight, following it until he looked through the window at the intense desert sky. Now he believed he saw shapes moving there, shadows that were almost the forms of men, of beasts and demons. As these shapes grew more distinct they came to resemble his friends. Cymoril was there again. Elric moaned in despair. "My love!"

  He saw Rackhir, Dyvim Tvar, even Yyrkoon. He called out to them all.

  At the sound of his own cracked speech he realised he had grown feverish, that his remaining energy was being dissipated by his fantasies, that his body was feeding on itself and that death must be close.

  Elric reached to touch his own brow, feeling the sweat pour from it. He wondered how much each bead might fetch on the open market. He found it amusing to speculate on this. Could he sweat enough to buy himself more water, or at least a little wine? Or was this production of liquid in itself against Quarzhasaat's bizarre water laws?

  He looked again beyond the sunlight, thinking he saw men there, perhaps the city's guard come to inspect his premises and demand to see his licence to perspire.

  Now it seemed that the desert wind, which was never very far away, came sliding through the room, bringing with it some elemental gathering, perhaps a force which was to bear his soul to its ultimate destination. He felt relief. He smiled. He was glad in several ways that his struggle was over. Perhaps Cymoril would join him soon?

  Soon? What could Tune mean in that intemporal Realm? Perhaps he must wait for Eternity before they could be together? Or a mere passing moment? Or would he never see her? Was all that lay ahead for him an absence, a nothingness? Or would his soul enter some other body, perhaps equally as sickly as his present one, and be faced again with the same impossible dilemmas, the same terrible moral and physical challenges which had plagued him since his emergence into adulthood?

  Elric's mind drifted further and further from logic, like a drowning mouse swept away from the shore, spinning ever more crazily before death brought oblivion. He chuckled, he wept; he raved and occasionally slept as his life dissipated its last
with the vapours now pouring from his strange, bone-white flesh. Any uninformed on-looker would have seen that some misborn diseased beast, not a man at all, lay in its final and doubtless felicitous agonies upon that rough bed.

  Darkness came and with it a brilliant panoply of people from the albino's past. He saw again the wizards who had educated him in all the arts of sorcery; he saw the strange mother he had never known, and a stranger father; the cruel friends of his childhood with whom, bit by bit, he could no longer enjoy the luscious, terrible sports of Melniboné; the caverns and secret glades of the Dragon Isle, the slim towers and hauntingly intricate palaces of his unhuman people, whose ancestors were only partially of this world and who had arisen as beautiful monsters to conquer and rule before, with a deep weariness which he could appreciate all the better now, declining into self-examination and morbid fantasies. And he cried out, for in his mind he saw Cymoril, her body as wasted as his own while Yyrkoon, giggling with horrible pleasure, practised upon it the foulest of abominations. And then, again, he wanted to live, to return to Melniboné, to save the woman he loved so deeply that often he refused to let himself be conscious of the intensity of his passion. But he could not.

  He knew, as the visions passed and he saw only the dark blue sky through his window, that soon he would be dead and there would be nobody to save the woman he had sworn to marry.

  By morning the fever was gone and Elric knew he was but a short hour or two from the end. He opened misted eyes to see the shaft of sunlight, soft and golden now, no longer glaring directly in as it had the previous day, but reflected from the glittering walls of the palace beside which his hovel had been built.

  Feeling something suddenly cool upon his cracked lips, he jerked his head away and tried to reach for his sword, for he feared that steel was being positioned against him, perhaps to cut his throat.

  "Stormbringer..."

  His voice was feeble and his hand was too weak to leave his side, let alone grip his murmuring blade. He coughed and realised that liquid was being dripped into his mouth. It was not the filthy stuff he had bought with his emerald but something fresh and clean. He drank, trying hard to focus his eyes. Immediately before him was an ornamental silver flask, a golden, soft hand, an arm clothed in exquisitely delicate brocade, a humorous face which he did not recognise. He coughed again. The liquid was more than ordinary water. Had the boy found some sympathetic apothecary? The potion was like one of his own sustaining distillations. He drew a ragged, grateful breath and stared in wary curiosity at the man who had resurrected him, however briefly. Smiling, his temporary saviour moved with studied elegance in his heavy, unseasonable robes.

  "Good morning to you, Sir Thief. I trust I'm not insulting you. I gather you're a citizen of Nadsokor, where all kinds of robbery are practised with pride?"

  Elric, conscious of the delicacy of his situation, saw fit not to contradict him. The albino prince nodded slowly. His bones still ached.

  The tall, clean-shaven man slipped a stopper into his flask. "The boy Anigh tells me you have a sword to sell?"

  "Perhaps." Certain now that his recovery was only temporary, Elric continued to exercise caution. "Though I would guess 'tis the kind of purchase most would regret making..."

  "But your sword is not representative of your main trade, eh? You have lost your crooked staff, no doubt. Sold for water?" A knowing expression.

  Elric chose to humour the man. He allowed himself to hope for life again. The liquid had revived him enough to bring back his wits, together with a proportion of his usual strength. "Aye," he said, appraising his visitor. "Maybe."

  "So ho? What? Do you advertise your own incompetence? Is this the way of the Nadsokor Thieves' Company? Thou art a subtler felon than thy guise suggests, eh?" This last was delivered in the same canting tongue Anigh had used on the previous day.

  Now Elric realised that this wealthy person had formed an opinion of his status and powers which, while at odds with any actuality, could provide him with a means of escape from his immediate predicament. Elric grew more alert. "You'd buy my services, is that it? My special prowess? That of myself and possibly my sword?"

  The man affected carelessness. "If you like." But it was clear he suppressed some urgency. "I have been told to inform you that the Blood Moon must soon burn over the Bronze Tent."

  "I see." Elric pretended to be impressed by what to him was pure gibberish. "Then we must move swiftly, I suppose."

  "So my master believes. The words mean nothing to me, but they have significance for you. I was told to offer you a second draft if you appeared to respond positively to that knowledge. Here." And smiling more broadly, he held out the silver flask, which Elric accepted, drinking sparingly and feeling still more strength return, his aches gradually dissipating.

  "Your master would commission a thief? What does he wish stolen that the thieves of Quarzhasaat cannot steal for him?"

  "Aha, sir, you affect a literal-mindedness I cannot believe in now." He took back the flask. "I am Raafi as-Keeme and I serve a great man of this empire. He has, I believe, a commission for you. We have heard much of the Nadsokorian skills and for some while have been hoping one of your folk might wander this way. Did you plan to steal from us? None is ever successful. Better to steal for us, I think."

  "Wise advice, I would guess." Elric rose in his bed and put his feet upon the flagging. Already the liquid's strength was ebbing. "Perhaps you would outline the nature of the task you have for me, sir?"

  He reached for the flask but it was withdrawn into Raafi as-Keeme's sleeve.

  "By all means, sir," said the newcomer, "when we have discussed a little of your background. You steal more than jewels, the boy says. Souls, I hear."

  Elric felt some alarm and looked suspiciously at the man whose expression remained bland. "In a manner of speaking..."

  "Good. My master wishes to make use of your services. If you're successful you'll have a cask of this elixir to carry you back to the Young Kingdoms or anywhere else you desire to go."

  "You are offering me my life, sir," said Elric slowly, "and I am willing to pay only so much for that."

  "Ah, sir, you have a streak of the merchant's bartering instinct, I see. I am sure a good bargain can be struck. Will you come with me now to a certain palace?"

  Smiling, Elric took Stormbringer in his two hands and flung himself back across the bed, his shoulders against the wall and the source of the sunlight. Placing the sword upon his lap, he waved his hand in mockery of lordly hospitality. "Would you not prefer to stay and sample what I have to offer, Sir Raafi as-Keeme?"

  The richly clad man shook his head deliberately. "I think not. You have doubtless become used to this stink and to the stink of your own body, but I can assure you it is not pleasant to one who is unfamiliar with it."

  Elric laughed as he accepted this. He rose to his feet, hooking his scabbard to his belt and slipping the murmuring runesword into the black leather. "Then lead on, sir. I must admit I'm curious to discover what considerable risks I am to take that would make one of your own thieves refuse the kind of rewards a lord of Quarzhasaat can offer."

  And in his mind he had already made a bargain: that he would not allow his life to slip away so easily a second time. He owed that much, he had decided, to Cymoril.

  2 "The Pearl at the Heart of the World"

  In a room through which mellow sunlight slanted in dusty bands from a massive grille set deep into the ornately painted roof of a place called Goshasiz whose complicated architecture was stained by something more sinister than time, Lord Gho Fhaazi entertained his guest to further drafts of the mysterious elixir and food which, in Quarzhasaat, was at least as valuable as the furnishings.

  Bathed and wearing fresh robes, Elric possessed a new vitality, the dark blues and greens of his silks emphasising the whiteness of his skin and long, fine hair. The scabbarded runesword leaned against the carved arm of his chair and he was prepared to draw it and use it should this audience prove an elabora
te trap.

  Lord Gho Fhaazi was modishly coiffed and clad. His black hair and beard were teased into symmetrical ringlets, the long moustachios were waxed and pointed, the heavy brows bleached blond above pale green eyes and a skin artificially whitened until it resembled Elric's own. The lips were painted a vivid red. He sat at the far end of a table which slanted down subtly towards bis guest, his back to the light so that he almost resembled a magistrate sitting in judgement on a felon.

  Elric recognised the deliberateness of the arrangement and was not put out by it. Lord Gho was still relatively young, in his early thirties, and had a pleasant, slightly high-pitched voice. He waved plump fingers at the plates of figs and dates in mint leaves, of honeyed locusts, which lay between them, pushed the silver flask of elixir in Elric's direction with an awkward display of hospitality, his movements revealing that he performed tasks he would usually have reserved for his servants.

  "My dear fellow. More. Have more." He was unsure of Elric, almost wary of him, and it grew clear to the albino that there was some urgency involved in the matter, which Lord Gho had not yet proposed, nor revealed through the courier he had sent to the hovel "Is there perhaps some favourite food we have not provided?"

  Elric raised yellow linen to his lips. "I'm obliged to you, Lord Gho. I have not eaten so well since I left the lands of the Young Kingdoms."

  "Aha, just so. Food is plentiful there, I hear."

  "As plentiful as diamonds in Quarzhasaat. You have visited the Young Kingdoms?"

  "We of Quarzhasaat have no need to travel." Lord Gho spoke in some surprise. "What is there abroad that we could possibly desire?"

  Elric reflected that Lord Gho's people had a good deal in common with his own. He reached and took another fig from the nearest dish and as he chewed it slowly, savouring its sweet succulence, he stared frankly at Lord Gho. "How came you to learn of Nadsokor?"