The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  Next morning the five temples of Issek were empty and defiled and his minor shrines all thrown down, while his numerous clergy, including his ancient high priest and overweeningly ambitious grand vizier, had vanished to the last member and were gone beyond human ken.

  Turning back to a dawn exactly three years earlier we find the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd clambering from a cranky, leaky skiff into the cockpit of a black sloop moored beyond the Great Mole that juts out from Lankhmar and the east bank of the River Hlal into the Inner Sea. Before coming aboard, Fafhrd first handed up Issek’s cask to the impassive and sallow-faced Ourph and then with considerable satisfaction pushed the skiff wholly underwater.

  The cross-city run the Mouser had led him on, followed by a brisk spell of galley-slave work at the oars of the skiff (for which he indeed looked the part in his lean near-nakedness) had quite cleared Fafhrd’s head of the fumes of wine, though it now ached villainously. The Mouser still looked a bit sick from his share in the running—he was truly in woefully bad trim from his months of lazy gluttony.

  Nevertheless the twain joined with Ourph in the work of upping anchor and making sail. Soon a salty, coldly refreshing wind on their starboard beam was driving them directly away from the land and Lankhmar. Then while Ourph fussed over Fafhrd and bundled a thick cloak about him, the Mouser turned quickly in the morning dusk to Issek’s cask, determined to get at the loot before Fafhrd had opportunity to develop any silly religious or Northernly-noble qualms and perhaps toss the cask overboard.

  The Mouser’s fingers did not find the coin-slit in the top—it was still quite dark—so he upended the pleasantly heavy object, crammed so full it did not even jingle. No coin-slit in that end either, seemingly, though there was what looked like a burned inscription in Lankhmarian hieroglyphs. But it was still too dark for easy reading and Fafhrd was coming up behind him, so the Mouser hurriedly raised the heavy hatchet he had taken from the sloop’s tool rack and bashed in a section of wood.

  There was a spray of stingingly aromatic fluid of most familiar odor. The cask was filled with brandy—to the absolute top, so that it had not gurgled.

  A little later they were able to read the burnt inscription. It was most succinct: “Dear Pulg—Drown your sorrows in this—Basharat.”

  It was only too easy to realize how yesterday afternoon the Number Two Extortioner had had a perfect opportunity to effect the substitution—the Street of the Gods deserted, Bwadres almost druggedly asleep from the unaccustomedly large fish dinner, Fafhrd gone from his post to guzzle with the Mouser.

  “That explains why Basharat was not on hand last night,” the Mouser said thoughtfully.

  Fafhrd was for throwing the cask overboard, not from any disappointment at losing loot, but because of a revulsion at its contents, but the Mouser set aside the cask for Ourph to close and store away—he knew that such revulsions pass. Fafhrd, however, extorted the promise that the fiery fluid only be used in direst emergency—as for burning enemy ships.

  The red dome of the sun pushed above the eastern waves. By its ruddy light Fafhrd and the Mouser really looked at each other for the first time in months. The wide sea was around them, Ourph had taken the lines and tiller, and at last nothing pressed. There was an odd shyness in both their gazes—each had the sudden thought that he had taken his friend away from the life-path he had chosen in Lankhmar, perhaps the life-path best suited to his treading.

  “Your eyebrows will grow back—I suppose,” the Mouser said at last, quite inanely.

  “They will indeed,” Fafhrd rumbled. “I’ll have a fine shock of hair by the time you’ve worked off that belly.”

  “Thank you, Egg-Top,” the Mouser replied. Then he gave a small laugh. “I have no regrets for Lankhmar,” he said, lying mightily, though not entirely. “I can see now that if I’d stayed I’d have gone the way of Pulg and all such Great Men—fat, power-racked, lieutenant-plagued, smothered with false-hearted dancing girls, and finally falling into the arms of religion. At least I’m saved that last chronic ailment, which is worse than the dropsy.” He looked at Fafhrd narrowly. “But how of you, old friend? Will you miss Bwadres and your cobbled bed and your nightly tale-weaving?”

  Fafhrd frowned as the sloop plunged on northward and the salt spray dashed him.

  “Not I,” he said at last. “There are always other tales to be woven. I served a god well, I dressed him in new clothes, and then I did a third thing. Who’d go back to being an acolyte after being so much more? You see, old friend, I really was Issek.”

  The Mouser arched his eyebrows. “You were?”

  Fafhrd nodded twice, most gravely.

  Michael Moorcock (1939– ) is a British writer and editor who first made a significant impact on science fiction, and literature generally, when he became editor of New Worlds magazine in 1964, where he supported and encouraged the avant-garde tendencies that came to be called the New Wave of SF. He is remarkably prolific and has written in nearly every genre possible, making any brief summary of his career impossible. Moorcock has had a long-standing interest in sword & sorcery, an interest that can be traced back to some of his earliest published stories, tales of Sojan the Swordsman (collected in Sojan [1977]). With “The Dreaming City,” first published in Science Fantasy magazine in 1961, Moorcock introduced the character of Elric of Melniboné, in some ways a parody of Conan the Barbarian: the frail albino emperor of a decadent world, a sorcerer who discovers a sword, Stormbringer, that gives him health and power but must be fed with souls, leading to doom. From 1961 to 1964, Moorcock published nine more stories and novellas chronicling Elric’s life, then in 1972 the novel Elric of Melniboné, telling Elric’s origin story, and numerous later collections and novels, many of which add details to Elric’s life before “The Dreaming City.”

  THE DREAMING CITY

  Michael Moorcock

  INTRODUCTION

  FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS did the Bright Empire of Melniboné flourish—ruling the world. Ten thousand years before history was recorded—or ten thousand years after history had ceased to be chronicled. For that span of time, reckon it how you will, the Bright Empire had thrived. Be hopeful, if you like, and think of the dreadful past the Earth has known, or brood upon the future. But if you would believe the unholy truth—then Time is an agony of Now, and so it will always be.

  Ravaged, at last, by the formless terror called Time, Melniboné fell and newer nations succeeded her: Ilmiora, Sheegoth, Maidahk, S’aaleem. Then memory began: Ur, India, China, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome—all these came after Melniboné. But none lasted ten thousand years.

  And none dealt in the terrible mysteries, the secret sorceries of old Melniboné. None used such power or knew how. Only Melniboné ruled the Earth for one hundred centuries—and then she, shaken by the casting of frightful runes, attacked by powers greater than men; powers who decided that Melniboné’s span of ruling had been over-long—then she crumbled and her sons were scattered. They became wanderers across an Earth which hated and feared them, siring few offspring, slowly dying, slowly forgetting the secrets of their mighty ancestors. Such a one was the cynical, laughing Elric, a man of bitter brooding and gusty humour, proud prince of ruins, lord of a lost and humbled people; last son of Melniboné’s sundered line of kings.

  Elric, the moody-eyed wanderer—a lonely man who fought a world, living by his wits and his runesword Stormbringer. Elric, last Lord of Melniboné, last worshipper of its grotesque and beautiful gods—reckless reaver and cynical slayer—torn by great griefs and with knowledge locked in his skull which would turn lesser men to babbling idiots. Elric, moulder of madnesses, dabbler in wild delights…

  CHAPTER ONE

  “What’s the hour?” The black-bearded man wrenched off his gilded helmet and flung it from him, careless of where it fell. He drew off his leathern gauntlets and moved closer to the roaring fire, letting the heat soak into his froz
en bones.

  “Midnight is long past,” growled one of the other armoured men who gathered around the blaze. “Are you still sure he’ll come?”

  “It’s said that he’s a man of his word, if that comforts you.”

  It was a tall, pale-faced youth who spoke. His thin lips formed the words and spat them out maliciously.

  He grinned a wolf-grin and stared the new arrival in the eyes, mocking him.

  The newcomer turned away with a shrug. “That’s so—for all your irony, Yaris. He’ll come.” He spoke as a man does when he wishes to reassure himself. There were six men, now, around the fire. The sixth was Smiorgan—Count Smiorgan Baldhead of the Purple Towns. He was a short, stocky man of fifty years with a scarred face partially covered with a thick, black growth of hair. His morose eyes smouldered and his lumpy fingers plucked nervously at his rich-hilted longsword. His pate was hairless, giving him his name, and over his ornate, gilded armour hung a loose woolen cloak, dyed purple.

  Smiorgan said thickly, “He has no love for his cousin. He has become bitter. Yyrkoon sits on the Ruby Throne in his place and has proclaimed him an outlaw and a traitor. Elric needs us if he would take his throne and his bride back. We can trust him.”

  “You’re full of trust tonight, count,” Yaris smiled thinly, “a rare thing to find in these troubled times. I say this—” He paused and took a long breath, staring at his comrades, summing them up. His gaze flicked from lean-faced Dharmit of Jharkor to Fadan of Lormyr who pursed his podgy lips and looked into the fire.

  “Speak up, Yaris,” petulantly urged the patrician-featured Vilmirian, Naclon. “Let’s hear what you have to say, lad, if it’s worth hearing.”

  Yaris looked towards Jiku the dandy, who yawned impolitely and scratched his long nose.

  “Well!” Smiorgan was impatient. “What d’you say, Yaris?”

  “I say that we should start now and waste no more time waiting on Elric’s pleasure! He’s laughing at us in some tavern a hundred miles from here—or else plotting with the Dragon Princes to trap us. For years we have planned this raid. We have little time in which to strike—our fleet is too big, too noticeable. Even if Elric has not betrayed us, then spies will soon be running eastwards to warn the Dragons that there is a fleet massed against them. We stand to win a fantastic fortune—to vanquish the greatest merchant city in the world—to reap immeasurable riches—or horrible death at the hands of the Dragon Princes, if we wait overlong. Let’s bide our time no more and set sail before our prize hears of our plan and brings up reinforcements!”

  “You always were too ready to mistrust a man, Yaris.” King Naclon of Vilmir spoke slowly, carefully—distastefully eyeing the taut-featured youth. “We could not reach Imrryr without Elric’s knowledge of the maze-channels which lead to its secret ports. If Elric will not join us—then our endeavour will be fruitless—hopeless. We need him. We must wait for him—or else give up our plans and return to our homelands.”

  “At least I’m willing to take a risk,” yelled Yaris, anger lancing from his slanting eyes. “You’re getting old—all of you. Treasures are not won by care and forethought but by swift slaying and reckless attack.”

  “Fool!” Dharmit’s voice rumbled around the fire-flooded hall. He laughed wearily. “I spoke thus in my youth—and lost a fine fleet soon after. Cunning and Elric’s knowledge will win us Imrryr—that and the mightiest fleet to sail the Dragon Sea since Melniboné’s banners fluttered over all the nations of the Earth. Here we are—the most powerful sea-lords in the world, masters, every one of us, of more than a hundred swift vessels. Our names are feared and famous—our fleets ravage the coasts of a score of lesser nations. We hold power!” He clenched his great fist and shook it in Yaris’s face. His tone became more level and he smiled viciously, glaring at the youth and choosing his words with precision.

  “But all this is worthless—meaningless—without the power which Elric has. That is the power of knowledge—of dream-learned sorcery, if I must use the cursed word. His fathers knew of the maze which guards Imrryr from sea-attack. And his fathers passed that secret on to him. Imrryr, the Dreaming City, dreams in peace—and will continue to do so unless we have a guide to help us steer a course through the treacherous waterways which lead to her harbours. We need Elric—we know it, and he knows it. That’s the truth!”

  “Such confidence, gentlemen, is warming to the heart.” There was irony in the heavy voice which came from the entrance to the hall. The heads of the six sea-lords jerked towards the doorway.

  Yaris’s confidence fled from him as he met the eye of Elric of Melniboné. They were old eyes in a fine featured, youthful face. Yaris shuddered, turned his back on Elric, preferring to look into the bright glare of the fire.

  Elric smiled warmly as Count Smiorgan gripped his shoulder. There was a certain friendship between the two. He nodded condescendingly to the other four and walked with lithe grace towards the fire. Yaris stood aside and let him pass. Elric was tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. He wore his long hair bunched and pinned at the nape of his neck and, for an obscure reason, affected the dress of a southern barbarian. He had long, knee-length boots of soft doe-leather, a breastplate of strangely wrought silver, a jerkin of chequered blue and white linen, britches of scarlet wool and a cloak of rustling green velvet. At his hip rested his runesword of black iron—the feared Stormbringer, forged by ancient and alien sorcery.

  His bizarre dress was tasteless and gaudy, and did not match his sensitive face and long-fingered, almost delicate hands, yet he flaunted it since it emphasized the fact that he did not belong in any company—that he was an outsider and an outcast. But, in reality, he had little need to wear such outlandish gear—for his eyes and skin were enough to mark him.

  Elric, Last Lord of Melniboné, was a pure albino who drew his power from a secret and terrible source.

  Smiorgan sighed. “Well, Elric, when do we raid Imrryr?”

  Elric shrugged. “As soon as you like; I care not. Give me a little time in which to do certain things.”

  “Tomorrow? Shall we sail tomorrow?” Yaris said hesitantly, conscious of the strange power dormant in the man he had earlier accused of treachery.

  Elric smiled, dismissing the youth’s statement. “Three days’ time,” he said, “Three—or more.”

  “Three days! But Imrryr will be warned of our presence by then!” Fat, cautious Fadan spoke.

  “I’ll see that your fleet’s not found,” Elric promised. “I have to go to Imrryr first—and return.”

  “You won’t do the journey in three days—the fastest ship could not make it.” Smiorgan gaped.

  “I’ll be in the Dreaming City in less than a day,” Elric said softly, with finality.

  Smiorgan shrugged. “If you say so, I’ll believe it—but why this necessity to visit the city ahead of the raid?”

  “I have my own compunctions, Count Smiorgan. But worry not—I shan’t betray you. I’ll lead the raid myself, be sure of that.” His dead-white face was lighted eerily by the fire and his red eyes smouldered. One lean hand firmly gripped the hilt of his runesword and he appeared to breathe more heavily. “Imrryr fell, in spirit, five hundred years ago—she will fall completely soon—for ever! I have a little debt to settle. This is my sole reason for aiding you. As you know I have made only a few conditions—that you raze the city to the ground and a certain man and woman are not harmed. I refer to my cousin Yyrkoon and his sister Cymoril…”

  Yaris’s thin lips felt uncomfortably dry. Much of his blustering manner resulted from the early death of his father. The old sea-king had died—leaving the youthful Yaris as the new ruler of his lands and his fleets. Yaris was not at all certain that he was capable of commanding such a vast kingdom—and tried to appear more confident than he actually felt. Now he said: “How shall we hide the fleet, Lord Elric?”

  The M
elnibonéan acknowledged the question. “I’ll hide it for you,” he promised. “I go now to do this—but make sure all your men are off the ships first—will you see to it, Smiorgan?”

  “Aye,” rumbled the stocky count.

  He and Elric departed from the hall together, leaving five men behind; five men who sensed an air of icy doom hanging about the overheated hall.

  “How could he hide such a mighty fleet when we, who know this fjord better than any, found nowhere?” Dharmit of Jharkor said bewilderedly.

  None answered him.

  They waited, tensed and nervous, while the fire flickered and died untended. Eventually Smiorgan returned, stamping noisily on the boarded floor. There was a haunted haze of fear surrounding him; an almost tangible aura, and he was shivering, terribly. Tremendous, racking undulations swept up his body and his breath came short.

  “Well? Did Elric hide the fleet—all at once? What did he do?” Dharmit spoke impatiently, choosing not to heed Smiorgan’s ominous condition.