The Fortress of the Pearl eas-2

by Michael Moorcock

  Yet Elric did not want to die and neither did he desire Anigh's death. He decided to bide his time, to pretend, at least, to serve Lord Gho until he discovered more about the man and his ambitions, and found out more, if possible, of the nature of the drug he so longed for. Possibly the elixir did not kill. Possibly it was a potion common to Quarzhasaat and many possessed the antidote. But he had no friends here, other than Anigh, not even temporary allies serving interests prepared to help him against Lord Gho as a common enemy.

  "Perhaps," said Elric, "I do not care what becomes of the boy."

  "Oh, I think I read your character well enough, Sir Thief. You are like the nomads. And the nomads are like the people of the Young Kingdoms. They place unnaturally high values on the lives of those with whom they associate. They have a weakness for sentimental loyalties."

  Elric could not help considering the irony of this, for Melnibonéans thought themselves equally above such loyalties and he was one of the few who cared what happened to those not of his own immediate family. It was the reason he was here now. Fate, he reflected, was teaching him some strange lessons. He sighed. He hoped they did not kill him.

  "If the boy is harmed when I return, Lord Gho-if he is harmed hi any way-you will suffer a fate a thousand times worse than any you bestow on him. Or, I'll add, on me!" He turned blazing red eyes upon the aristocrat. It seemed that the fires of Hell raged inside that skull.

  Lord Gho shuddered, then smiled to hide his fear. "No, no, no!" His unnatural brow clouded. "It is not for you to threaten me! I have explained the terms. I am unused to this, Sir Thief, I warn you."

  Elric laughed and the fire in his eyes did not fade. "I will make you used to everything you have accustomed others to, Lord Gho. Whatever happens. Do you follow me? This boy will not be harmed!"

  "I have told you..."

  "And I have warned you." Elric's lids fell over his terrible eyes, as if he closed a door on a Realm of Chaos, yet still Lord Gho took a step backward. Elric's voice was a cold whisper. "By all the power I command, I will be revenged upon you. Nothing will stop that vengeance. Not all your wealth. Not death itself."

  This tune when Lord Gho made to smile he failed.

  Anigh grinned suddenly, like the happy child he had been before these events. Evidently he believed Elric's words.

  The albino prince moved like a hungry tiger towards Lord Gho. Then he staggered a little and drew a sharp breath. Clearly the elixir was losing its strength, or demanding more of him, he could not tell. He had experienced nothing like this before. He longed for another draft. He felt pains hi his belly and chest, as if rats chewed him from within. He gasped.

  Now Lord Gho found a vestige of his former humour. "Refuse to serve me and your death's inevitable. I would caution you to greater politeness, Sir Thief."

  Elric drew himself up with some dignity. "You should know this, Lord Gho Fhaazi. If you betray any part of our bargain I will keep my oath and bring such destruction upon you and your city you will regret you ever heard my name. And you will only hear who I am, Lord Gho Fhaazi, before you die, your city and all its degenerate inhabitants dying with you."

  The Quarzhasaati made to reply then bit back his words, saying only: "You have three weeks."

  With his remaining strength, Elric dragged Stormbringer from its scabbard. The black metal pulsed, black light pouring from it while the runes carved upon the blade twisted and danced and a hideous, anticipatory song began to sound in that courtyard, echoing through all the old towers and minarets of Quarzhasaat. "This sword drinks souls, Lord Gho. It could drink yours now and give me more strength than any potion. But you have a minor advantage over me for the moment. I'll agree to your bargain. But if you lie..."

  "I do not lie!" Lord Gho had retreated to the other side of the barren fountain. "No, Sir Thief, I do not lie! You must do as I say. Bring me the Pearl at the Heart of the World and I will repay you with all the wealth I promised, with your own life and that of the boy!"

  The Black Sword growled, clearly demanding the nobleman's soul there and then.

  With a yelp, Anigh disappeared into the little room.

  "I'll leave in the morning." Reluctantly Elric sheathed the sword. "You must tell me which of the city's gates I must use to travel upon the Red Road to the Silver Flower Oasis. And I will want your honest advice on how best to ration that poisoned elixir."

  "Come." Lord Gho spoke with nervous eagerness. "There is more in the hall. It awaits you. I had no wish to spoil our encounter with bad manners..."

  Elric licked lips already growing unpleasantly dry. He paused, looking towards the doorway from which the boy's face could just be seen.

  "Come, Sir Thief." Lord Gho's hand again went to Elric's arm. "In the hall. More elixir. Even now. You long for it, do you not?"

  He spoke the truth, but Elric let his hatred control his lust for the potion. He called: "Anigh! Young Anigh!"

  Slowly the boy emerged. "Aye, master."

  "I swear you'll suffer no harm from any action of mine. And this foul degenerate now understands that if he hurts you in any way while I am gone he will die in the most terrible torment. And yet, boy, you must remember all I've said, for I know not where this adventure will lead me." And Elric added hi the cant: "Perhaps to death."

  "I hear you," said Anigh hi the same tongue. "But I would beg you, master, not to die yourself. I have some interest in your remaining alive."

  "No more!" Lord Gho strode across the courtyard signalling for Elric to accompany him. "Come. I'll supply you with all you need to find the Fortress of the Pearl."

  "And I would be most grateful if you did not let me die. I would be a most grateful boy, master," said Anigh from behind them as the door closed.

  3 On the Red Road

  So it was that next morning Elric of Melniboné left ancient Quarzhasaat not knowing what he sought or where to find it; knowing only that he must take the Red Road to the Silver Flower Oasis and there find the Bronze Tent where he would learn how he might continue on the Path to the Pearl at the Heart of the World. And if he failed in this numinous quest, his own life at very least would be forfeit.

  Lord Gho Fhaazi had offered no further illumination and it was evident the ambitious politician knew no more than he had repeated.

  "The Blood Moon must make fire of the Bronze Tent before the Pathway to the Pearl shall be revealed."

  Knowing nothing of Quarzhasaat's legends or history and very little of her geography, Elric had decided to follow the map he had been given to the oasis. It was simple enough. It showed a trail stretching for at least a hundred miles between Quarzhasaat and the oddly named oasis. Beyond this were the Ragged Pillars, a range of low mountains. The Bronze Tent was not named and neither was there any reference to the Pearl.

  Lord Gho believed the nomads to be better informed but had not been able to guarantee that they would be prepared to talk to Elric. He hoped that, once they understood who he was, and with a little of Lord Gho's gold to reassure them, they would be friendly, but he knew nothing of the Sighing Desert's interland, nor its people. He knew only that Lord Gho despised the nomads as primitives and resented occasionally admitting them into the city to trade. Elric hoped the nomads would be better mannered than those who still believed this whole continent to be under their rule.

  The Red Road was well-named, dark as half-dried blood, cutting through the desert between high banks which suggested it had once been the river on whose sides originally Quarzhasaat had been built. Every few miles the banks descended to reveal the great desert in all directions-a sea of rolling dunes which stirred in a breeze whose voice was faint here but still resembled the sighing of some imprisoned lover.

  The sun climbed slowly into a glaring indigo sky as still as an actor's backdrop and Elric was grateful for the local costume provided him by Raafi as-Keeme before he left, a white cowl, loose white jerkin and breeches, white linen shoes to the knee and a visor which protected his eyes. His horse, a bulky, graceful beast capable
of great speed and endurance, was similarly clothed in linen, to protect it from both the sun and the sand which blew in constant gentle drifts across the landscape. Clearly some effort was made to keep the Red Road free of the drifts which gathered against its banks and gradually built them into walls.

  Elric had lost none of his hatred either of his situation or of Lord Gho Fhaazi; neither had he lost his determination to remain alive and rescue Anigh, return to Melniboné and be reunited with Cymoril. Lord Gho's elixir had proved as addictive as he had claimed and Elric carried two flasks of it in his saddle-bags. Now he truly believed it must indeed kill him eventually and that only Lord Gho possessed an antidote. This belief reinforced his determination to be revenged upon that nobleman at the earliest possible opportunity.

  The Red Road seemed endless. The sky shivered with heat as the sun climbed higher. And Elric, who disapproved of useless regret, found himself wishing he had never been foolish enough to buy the map from the Ihnioran sailor or to venture so badly prepared into the desert.

  "To summon supernatural to aid me now would compound the folly," he said aloud to the wilderness. "What's more, I might need that aid when I reach the Fortress of the Pearl." He knew that his self-disgust had not merely caused him to commit further foolishness, but still dictated his actions. Without it, his thoughts might have been clearer and he might better have anticipated Lord Gho's trickery.

  Even now he doubted his own instincts. For the past hour he had guessed that he was being followed but had seen no one behind bun on the Red Road. He had taken to glancing back suddenly, to stopping without warning, to riding back a few yards. But he was apparently as alone now as he had been when he began the journey.

  "Perhaps that damned elixir addles my senses also," he said, patting the dusty cloth of his horse's neck. The great bulwarks of the road were falling away here, becoming little more than mounds on either side of bun. He reined in the horse, for he fancied he could see movement that was more than drifting sand. Little figures ran here and there on long legs, upright like so many tiny manikins. He peered hard at them but then they were gone. Other, larger creatures, moving with far slower speeds, seemed to creep just below the surface of the sand while a cloud of something black hovered over them, following them as they made their ponderous way across the desert.

  Elric was learning that, hi this part of the Sighing Desert at least, what appeared to be a lifeless wilderness was actually no such thing. He hoped that the large creatures he detected did not regard man as a worthwhile prey.

  Again he received a sense of something behind him and turning suddenly thought he glimpsed a flash of yellow, perhaps a cloak, but it had disappeared in a slight bend behind him. His temptation was to stop, to rest for an hour or two before continuing, but he was anxious to reach the Silver Flower Oasis as soon as possible. There was little time to achieve his goal and return with the Pearl to Quarzhasaat.

  He sniffed the ah". The breeze brought a new smell. If he had not known better he would have thought someone was burning kitchen waste; it was the same acrid stink. Then he peered into the middle-distance and detected a faint plume of smoke. Were there nomads so close to Quarzhasaat? He had understood that they did not like coming within a hundred miles or more of the city unless they had specific reasons to do so. And if people were camped here, why did they not set their tents closer to the road? Nothing had been said of bandits, so he did not fear attack, but he remained curious, continuing his journey with a certain caution.

  The walls rose up again and blocked his view of the desert, but the stink of burning grew stronger and stronger until it was almost unbearable. He felt the stuff clogging his lungs. His eyes began to stream. It was a most noxious smell, almost as if someone were burning putrefying corpses.

  Again the walls sank a little until he could see over them. Less than a mile away, as best he could judge, he saw about twenty plumes of smoke, darker now, while other clouds danced and zigzagged about them. He began to suspect that he had come upon a tribe who kept their cooking fires alight as they travelled in waggons of some kind. Yet it was hard to know what kind of waggons would easily cross the deep drifts. And again he wondered why they were not on the Red Road.

  Tempted to investigate he knew he would be a fool to leave the road. He might again become lost and be in even worse condition than when Anigh had found him all those days ago on the far side of Quarzhasaat.

  He was about to dismount and rest his mind and eyes, if not his body, for an hour, when the wall nearest him began to heave and quake and large cracks appeared in it. The terrible smell of burning was even closer now and he cleared his throat, coughing to rid himself of the stench while his horse began to whinny and refuse the rein as he tried to drive him forward.

  Suddenly a flock of creatures ran directly across his path, bursting from the newly made holes in the walls. These were what he had mistaken for tiny men. Now that he saw them more closely he realised they were some kind of rat, but a rat which ran on long hind-legs, its forelegs short and held up high against its chest, its long, grey face full of sharp little teeth, its huge ears making it seem almost like some flying creature attempting to leave the ground.

  There came a great rumbling and cracking. Black smoke blinded Elric and his horse reared. He saw a shape moving out of the broken banks-a massive, flesh-coloured body on a dozen legs, its mandibles clattering as it chased the rats which were clearly its natural prey. Elric let the horse have its head and looked back to get a clearer view of a creature he had thought existed only in ancient times. He had read of such beasts but had believed them extinct. They were called firebeetles. By some trick of biology the gigantic beetles secreted oily pools in their heavy carapaces. These pools, exposed to the sunlight and the flames already burning on other backs, would catch fire so that sometimes as many as twenty spots on the beetles' impervious backs would be burning at any one time and would only be extinguished when a beast dug its way deep underground during its breeding season. This was what he had seen in the distance.

  The firebeetles were hunting.

  They moved with awful speed now. At least a dozen of the gigantic insects were closing in on the road and Elric realised to his horror that he and his horse were about to be trapped in a sweep designed to catch the man-rats. He knew that the firebeetles would not discriminate where flesh was concerned and he could well be eaten by purest accident by a beast which was not known for making prey of men. The horse continued to rear and snort and only put all hooves on the ground when Elric forced it under his control, drawing Stormbringer and considering how useless even that sorcerous sword would be against the pink-grey carapaces from which flames now leapt and guttered. Stormbringer drew scant energy from natural creatures like these. He could only hope for a lucky blow, splitting a back, perhaps, and breaking through the tightening circle before he was completely trapped.

  He swung the great black battle-blade down and severed a waving appendage. The beetle hardly noticed and did not pause for a second in its progress. Elric yelled and swung again and fire scattered. Hot oil was flung into the air as he struck the firebeetle's back and again failed to do it any significant harm. The shrieking of the horse and the wailing of the blade now mingled and Elric found himself yelling as he turned the horse this way and that in search of escape while all around his horse's feet the man-rats scurried in terror, unable to burrow easily into the hard clay of that much-travelled road. Blood spattered against Elric's legs and arms, against the linen which clad his horse to below its knees. Little spots of flaming oil flared on cloth and burned holes. The beetles were feasting, moving more slowly as they ate. There was nowhere in the circle a gap large enough for horse and rider to escape.

  Elric considered trying to ride the horse over the backs of the great beetles, though it seemed their shells would be too slippery for purchase. There was no other hope. He was about to force the horse forward when he heard a peculiar humming in the air around him, saw the air suddenly fill with flies
and knew that these were the scavengers which always followed the firebeetles, feeding off whatever scraps they left and upon the dung they scattered as they travelled. Now they were beginning to settle on him and his horse, adding to his horror. He slapped at the things, but they formed a thick coat, crawling on every part of bun, their noise both sickening and deafening, their bodies half-blinding him.

  The horse cried out again and stumbled. Elric desperately tried to see ahead. The smoke and the flies were too much for both himself and his horse. Flies filled his mouth and nostrils. He gagged, trying to brush them from him, spitting them down to where the little man-rats squealed and died.

  Another sound came dimly to him, and miraculously the flies began to rise. Through watering eyes he saw the beetles start to move all hi one direction, leaving a space through which he might ride. Without another thought he spurred his horse towards the gap, dragging great gasps of air into his lungs, still unsure if he had escaped or whether he had merely moved into a wider circle of firebeetles, for the smoke and the noise were still confusing him.

  Spitting more flies from his mouth, he adjusted his visor and peered ahead. The beetles were no longer in sight, though he could hear them behind him. There were new shapes in the dust and smoke.

  There were riders, moving on either side of the Red Road, driving the beetles back with long spears which they hooked under the carapaces and used as goads, doing the creatures no real harm but giving them enough pain to make them move, where Elric's blade had failed. The riders wore flowing yellow robes which were caught by the breeze of their own movement and lifted about them like wings as, systematically, they herded the firebeetles away from the road and out into the desert while the remainder of the man-rats, perhaps grateful for this unexpected salvation, scattered and found burrows in the sand.