Elric was struck by a strangeness about these men. They lacked a certain fluidity of movement and, the closer they came, the more he realised that it was almost possible to see past their eyes and into the hollows of their skulls. These were not ordinary mortals. He had seen men like them in Imrryr once, when he had gone with his father on one of those rare times when Sadric chose to take him upon some local expedition, out to an old arena whose high walls imprisoned certain Melnibonéans who had lost their souls in pursuit of sorcerous knowledge, but whose bodies still lived. They, too, had seemed to be possessed by a cold, raging hatred against any not like themselves.
Oone cried out and moved rapidly, dropping to one knee as a sword struck at her, then clattered against one of the great pointed pillars. So close together were the stalagmites that it was difficult for the swordsmen to swing or to stab and for a while both the albino and the dreamthief ducked and dodged the blades until one cut Elric's arm and he saw, almost in surprise, that the man had drawn blood.
The Prince of Melniboné knew that it was just a matter of time before they were both killed and, as he fell back against one of the great rocky teeth, he felt the stalagmite move behind him. Some trick of the cavern had weakened the rock and it was loose. He flung all of his weight forward against it. It began to topple. Quickly he got his body in front of it, supporting the thing on his shoulder, then with all his energy he ran with the great rocky spear at his nearest assailant.
The point of the rock drove full into the veiled man's chest. The Sorcerer Assassin uttered a bleak, agonised shout, and strange, unnatural blood began to well up around the stone, gushing down and soaking into the warrior's bones, almost reabsorbed by him. Elric sprang forward and dragged the sabre and the poignard from his hands even as another of the attackers came upon him from the rear. All his battle cunning, all his war skills, returned to Elric. Long before he had come by Stormbringer he had learned the arts of the sword and the dagger, of the bow and the lance, and now he had no need of an enchanted blade to make short work of the second Sorcerer Assassin, then a third. Shouting to Oone to help herself to weapons, he darted from rock to rock, taking the warriors one at a time. They moved sluggishly, uncertainly now, yet none ran from him.
Soon Oone had joined him, showing that she was as accomplished a fighter as he. He admired the delicacy of her technique, the sureness of her hands as she parried and thrust, striking with the utmost efficiency and piling up her corpses with all the economy of a cat in a nest of rats.
Elric took time to grin over his shoulder. "For one who so recently extolled the virtues of words over the sword, you show yourself well-accomplished with a blade, madam!"
"It is often as well to have the experience of both before one makes the choice," she said. She despatched another of their assailants. "And there are times, Prince Elric, I'll admit, when a decent piece of steel has a certain advantage over a neatly turned phrase!"
They fought together like two old friends. Their techniques were complementary but not dissimilar. Both fought as the best soldiers fight, with neither cruelty nor pleasure in the killing, but with the intention of winning as quickly as possible, while causing as little pain to their opponents.
These opponents appeared to suffer no pain, as such, but every tune one died he offered up the same disturbing wail of anguish, and the blood which poured from the wounds was strange stuff indeed.
At last the man and woman were done and stood leaning on their borrowed blades panting and seeking to control that nausea which so often follows a battle.
Then, as Elric watched, the corpses around them swiftly faded, leaving only a few swords behind. The blood, too, disappeared. There was virtually nothing to say that a fight had taken place in the great cavern.
"Where have they gone?"
Oone picked up a sheath and fitted her new sabre into it. For all her words, she clearly had no intention of proceeding any further without arms. She placed two daggers in her belt. "Gone? Ah." She hesitated. "To whatever pool of half-living ectoplasm they came from." She shook her head. "They were almost phantasms, Prince Elric, but not quite. They were, as I told you, what the Sorcerer Adventurers left behind."
"You mean part of them returned to our own world, as part of Alnac returned?"
"Exactly." She drew a breath and made as if to continue.
"Then why shall we not find Alnac here? Still alive?"
"Because we do not seek him," she said. And she spoke with all her old firmness; enough to make Elric proceed only a degree further with the subject.
"And perhaps anyway we would not find him here, as we found the Sorcerer Adventurers, in the Land of Lost Beliefs," said the albino quietly.
"True," she said.
Then Elric took her in his arms for a moment and they remained, embracing, for a few seconds, until they were ready to continue forward seeking the Celador Gate.
Later, as Elric helped his ally across another natural bridge, below which flowed a river of dull brown stuff, Gone said to him: "This is no ordinary adventure for me, Prince Elric. That is why I needed you to come with me."
A little puzzled as to why she should, after all, say something which they had both taken for granted, Elric did not reply.
When the snout-faced women attacked them, with nets and spikes, it did not take them long to cut their way free and drive the cowardly creatures off, and neither were they greatly inconvenienced by the vulpine things which loped on their hindlegs and had claws like birds. They even joked together as they despatched packs of snapping beasts which resembled nothing so much as horses the size of dogs and spoke a few words of a human tongue, though without any sense of the meaning.
Now at least they were reaching the borders of Paranor and saw looming ahead of them two enormous towers of carved rock, with little balconies and windows and terraces and crenellations, all covered in old ivy and climbing brambles bearing light yellow fruit.
"It is the Celador Gate," said Gone. She seemed reluctant to approach it. Her hand on the hilt of her sword, her other arm linked with Elric's, she stopped and drew a deep, slow breath. "It is the land of forests."
"You called it the Land of Forgotten Love," said Elric.
"Aye. That's the dreamthieves' name." She laughed a little sardonically.
Elric, uncertain of her mood and not wishing to intrude upon her, held back also, looking from her to the gate and back again.
She reached a hand to his bone-white features. Her own skin was golden, still full of enormous vitality. She stared into his face. Then, with a sigh, she turned away and stepped towards the gate, taking his hand and pulling him after her.
They passed between the towers and here Elric's nostrils immediately were filled with the rich smells of leaf and turf. All around them were massive oak trees and elms and birches and every other kind of tree, yet all of them, though they formed a canopy, grew not beneath the light of the open sky but were nurtured by the oddly glowing rocks in the cavern ceilings. Elric had thought it impossible for trees to grow underground and he marvelled at the health, the very ordinariness, of everything.
It was therefore with some astonishment that he observed a creature emerge from the wood and plant itself firmly on the path along which they must move.
"Halt! I must know your business!" His face was covered in brown fur and his teeth were so prominent, his ears so large, his eyes so doelike, he resembled nothing so much as an overgrown rabbit, though he was armoured solidly in battered brass, with a brass cap upon his head, and his weapons, a sword and spear of workmanlike steel, were also bound in brass.
"We seek merely to pass through this land without doing harm or being harmed," said Oone.
The rabbit-warrior shook his head. "Too vague," he said, and suddenly he hefted his spear and plunged the point deep into the bole of an oak. The oak tree screamed. "That's what he told me. And many more of these."
"The trees were travellers?" said Elric.
"Your name, sir?"
"I am Elric of Melniboné and, like my lady Oone here, I mean you no disturbance. We travel on to Imador."
"I know no 'Elric' or 'Oone.' I am the Count of Magnes Doar and I hold this land as my own. By my conquest. By my ancient right. You must go back through the gate."
"We cannot," said Gone. "To retreat would mean our destruction."
"To proceed, madam, would mean the same thing. What? Shall you camp at the gates forever?"
"No, sir," she said. She put her hand to the hilt of her sword. "We will hack our way through your forest if need be. We are on urgent business and will accept no halt."
The rabbit-warrior pulled the spear from the oak, which ceased to scream, and flung it into another tree. This, in turn, set up a wailing and a moaning until even the Count of Magnes Doar shook his head in irritation and drew his weapon out of the trunk. "You must fight me, I think," he said.
It was then that they heard a yell from the other side of the right pillar and something white and rearing appeared there. It was another of the pale riders in armour of bone, tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl, his horrible eyes slitted with hatred, his horse's hooves beating at a barrier which had not been there when Oone and Elric passed through.
Then it was down and the warrior was charging.
The albino and the dreamthief made to defend themselves, but it was the Count of Magnes Doar who moved ahead of them and jabbed his spear up at the warrior's body. Steel was deflected by an armour stronger than it looked and the sword rose and fell, almost contemptuously, slicing down through the brass helm into the brain of the rabbit-warrior. He staggered backward, his hands clutching at his head, his sword and spear abandoned. His round brown eyes seemed to grow still wider and he began to squeal. He turned slowly, round and round, then fell to his knees.
Elric and Oone had positioned themselves behind the bole of one of the oaks, ready to defend themselves when the rider attacked.
The horse reared again, snorting with the same mindless fury as its master, and Elric darted from his cover, seized the dropped spear and stabbed up to where the breastplate and gorget joined, sliding the spearhead expertly into the warrior's throat.
There came a choking sound which in turn grew to a familiar chuckling and the rider had turned his horse and was riding ahead of them again, along the path through the forest, his body swaying and jerking as if in its death agonies, yet still borne on by the horse.
They watched it disappear.
Elric was trembling. "If I had not already seen him die on the bridge from Sadanor I would swear that was the same man who attacked me there. He has a puzzling familiarity."
"You did not see him die," said Oone. "You saw him plunge into the river."
"Well, I think he is dead now, after that stroke. I almost severed his head."
"I doubt if he is," she said. "It's my belief he is our most powerful enemy and we shall not have to deal with him in any serious way until we near the Fortress of the Pearl itself."
"He protects the Fortress?"
"Many do." She embraced him again, swiftly, then sank to one knee to inspect the dead Count of Magnes Doar. In death he more resembled a man, for already the hair on his face and hands was fading to grey and even his flesh seemed on the point of disappearance. The brass helm, too, had turned an ugly shade of silver. Elric was reminded of Alnac's dying. He averted his eyes.
Oone, too, stood up quickly and there were tears in her eyes. The tears were not for the Count of Magnes Doar. Elric took her in his arms. He was suddenly full of longing for someone he barely remembered from old dreams, the dreams of his youth; someone who, perhaps, had never existed.
He thought he felt a slight shudder run through Oone as he embraced her. He reached out for a memory of a little boat, of a fair-haired girl sleeping at the bottom of the vessel as it drifted out to open sea, of himself sailing a skiff towards her, full of pride that he might be her rescuer. Yet he had never known such a girl, he was sure, though Oone reminded him of that girl grown up.
With a gasp Oone moved away from him. "I thought you were... It's as if I'd always known you..." She put her hands to her face. "Oh, this damned land is well-called, Elric!"
Elric could only agree.
"Yet what danger is there to us?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Who knows? Much or little. None? The dreamthieves say that it is in the Land of Forgotten Love that the most important decisions are made. Decisions which can have the most monumental consequences."
"So one should do nothing here? Make no decisions?"
She passed her fingers through her hair. "At least we should be aware that the consequences might not manifest themselves for a long while yet."
Together they left the dead rabbit-warrior behind them and continued down the tunnel of trees. Now from time to time Elric thought he saw faces peering at bun from the green shadows. Once he was sure he saw the figure of his dead father, Sadric, mourning for Elric's mother, the only creature he had ever truly loved. So strong was the image that Elric called out:
"Sadric! Father! Is this your Limbo?"
At this Oone cried urgently. "No! Do not address him. Do not bring him to you. Do not make him real! It is a trap, Elric. Another trap."
"My father?"
"Did you love him?"
"Aye. Though it was an unhappy land of love."
"Remember that. Do not bring him here. It would be obscene to recall him to this gallery of illusions."
Elric understood her and used all his habits of self-discipline to rid himself of his father's shade. "I tried to tell him, Oone, how much I grieved for him in his loss and his sorrow." He was weeping. His body was shaking with an emotion from which he believed he had long since freed himself. "Ah, Oone. I would have died myself to let him have his wife returned to him. Is there no way...?"
"Such sacrifices are meaningless," she said, gripping him hi both her hands and holding him to her. "Especially here. Remember your quest. We have already crossed three of the seven lands which will bring us to the Fortress of the Pearl. We have crossed half this. That means we have already accomplished more than most. Hold on to yourself, Prince of Melniboné. Remember who and what depends upon your success!"
"But if I have the opportunity to make something right that was so wrong...?"
"That is to do with your own feelings, not what is and what can be. Would you invent shadows and make them play out your dreams? Would that bring happiness to your tragic mother and father?"
Elric looked over his shoulder into the forest. There was no sign of his father now. "He seemed so real. Of such solid flesh!"
"You must believe that you and I are the only solid flesh in this entire land. And even we are-" She stopped herself. She reached up to his face and kissed it. "We will rest for a little, if only to restore our psychic strength."
And Oone drew Elric down into the soft leaves at the side of the path. And she kissed him and she moved her lovely hands over his body and slowly she became all that he had lost in his love of women and he knew that he, in turn, became everything she had ever refused to allow herself to desire hi a man. And he knew, without guilt or regret, that their love-making had no past and that its only future lay somewhere beyond their own lives, beyond any realm they would ever visit, and that neither would ever witness the consequences.
And in spite of this knowledge they were careless and they were happy and they gave each other the strength they would need if they ever hoped to fulfill their quest and reach the Fortress of the Pearl.
4 The Intervention of a Navigator
Surprised by his own lack of confusion, filled with an apparent clarity, Elric stepped, side by side with Gone, through the shimmering silver gateway into Imador, called mysteriously by the dreamthieves the Land of New Ambition, and found himself at the top of an heroic flight of steps which curved downward towards a plain which stretched towards a horizon turned a pale, misty blue and which he could almost have mistaken for the sky. For a moment he thought that he and Go
ne were alone on that vast stairway and then he saw that it was crowded with people. Some were engaged in hectic conversation, some bartering, some embracing, while others were gathered around holy men, speech-makers, priestesses, story-tellers, either listening avidly or arguing.
The steps down to the plain were alive with every manner of human intercourse. Elric saw snake-charmers, bear-baiters, jugglers and acrobats. They were dressed in costumes typical of the desert lands-enormous silk pantaloons of green, blue, gold, vermilion and amber; coats of brocade or velvet; turbans, burnooses and caps of the most intricate needlework; burnished metal and silver, gold, precious jewels of every kind. And there was an abundance of animals, stalls, baskets overflowing with produce, with fabrics, with goods of leather and copper and brass.
"How handsome they are!" he remarked. It was true that though they were of all shapes and sizes the people had a beauty which was not easily defined. Their skins were all healthy, their eyes bright, their movements dignified and easy. They bore themselves with confidence and good humour and while it was clear they noticed Oone and Elric walking down the steps, they acknowledged them without making any great effort to greet them or ask them their business. Dogs, cats and monkeys ran about in the crowd and children played the cryptic games all children play. The air was warm and balmy and full of the scents of fruit, flowers and the other goods being sold. "Would that all worlds were like this," Elric added, smiling at a young woman who offered him embroidered cloth.
Oone bought oranges from a boy who ran up to her. She handed one to Elric. "This is a sweet realm indeed. I had not expected it to be so pleasant." But when she bit into the fruit she spat it into her hand. "It has no taste!"
Elric tried his own orange and he, too, found it a dry, flavourless thing.
The disappointment he felt at this was out of all proportion to the occurrence. He threw the orange from him. It struck a step below and bounced until it was out of sight.
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