The Skrayling Tree toa-2

by Michael John Moorcock

  "I see nothing," I told him.

  "Exactly," he said. "There is nothing to see, my friend. Everything around it is unaffected. Nothing comes to investigate. This place looks very tranquil, but it is lifelessness. Eh?" He kicked at the stale bread. "Dead."

  Lobkowitz stamped back to his horse and mounted.

  At that moment I do not believe I had ever seen a more heavily burdened individual.

  Thereafter I treated my companion with a different respect.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Against the Flow or Time

  Moons and stars saw many passings

  Many long suns rose and jell

  Many were me women dancing

  Many were me warriors singing

  Many were me deep arums calling

  Calling to the Gods of War!

  W. S. HARTE, "The Shining Trail"

  The rolling hills of that ersatz Sylvania behind us, we found ourselves in a grey terrain of shale and old granite. The world had changed again. Ahead was a succession of bleak, shallow valleys with steep, eroded flanks. High in the cloudy skies carrion eaters circled. At least they were a sign of life or, if not, the promise of death. The floors of the silvery limestone valleys were rent with dark fissures, long cracks which ran sometimes for miles. A leaden, sluggish river wound across the depressing landscape. In the distance were low, wide mountains which from time to time gouted out red flames and black smoke. This was not unlike the dead world Miggea of Law had created.

  I asked Lobkowitz if anything had caused the withering of these worlds we crossed, and he smiled wryly. "Only the usual righteous wars," he said. "When all sides in the conflict claimed to represent Law! This is characteristically a land which has died of discipline. But that is Chaos's greatest trick, of course. It is how

  she weakens and confuses her rivals. Law will characteristically push forward in a predictable line and must always have a clear goal. Chaos knows how to circle and come from unexpected angles, take advantage of the moment, often avoiding direct confrontation altogether. It is why she is so attractive to the likes of us.

  "You do not want the rule of Law?"

  "We could not exist without Chaos. Temperamentally I serve Law. Intellectually, and as a player in the Game of Time, I serve Chaos. It is my soul that serves the Balance."

  "And why is that, sir?"

  "Because, sir, the Balance serves humanity best."

  We were cantering through the shallow dust of a valley. A few hawthorn trees had managed to grow in the hollows, but mostly the scenery was bare rock. Slowing to a walk, Lobkowitz turned in his saddle and offered me a white clay pipe and a tobacco pouch. I declined. As he filled his own bowl, tamping it with his thumb, he sat back in the big wooden saddle and gestured towards the horizon. "We have kept our coordinates, I do believe. At this rate it will not be long before we reach our destination."

  "Our destination?"

  Almost apologetically Prince Lobkowitz said, "It is safe to tell you now. We travel, with a little luck, to the city of the Kakatanawa."

  "Why could we not have gone back with the Kakatanawa when they returned home?"

  "Because their path is not our path. If my judgment is accurate, when we find them, they will have long since been back at their positions. Those warriors are the immortal guardians of the Balance."

  "Why are we all from different periods of history, Prince Lobkowitz?"

  "Not history exactly, my friend, for history is just another comforting tale we tell so that we do not go mad. We are from different parts of the multiverse. We are from the multitude of twigs which make up this particular branch-each twig a possible

  world, yet not growing in time and space as we perceive, but growing in the Field of Time, through many dimensions. In the Time Field all events occur simultaneously. Space is only a dimension of time.

  "These branches we call spheres or realms-and these realms are finely separated, usually by scale, so that the nearest scale to them is either too large or too small for them to see, though perhaps the physical differences between the worlds are scarcely noticeable."

  Prince Lobkowitz gave me a sideways look to check if I was following his argument. "Yet there are occasions when the winds of limbo breathe through the multiverse, tossing the branches to and fro, tangling some, bringing down others. Those of us who play the Game of Time or otherwise engage with the multiverse attempt to maintain stability by ensuring that when such winds blow, the branches remain strong and healthy and do not crash together or proliferate into a billion different and ultimately dying twigs.

  "Nor can we let the branches grow so thick and heavy that the whole bough breaks and dies. So we maintain a balance between the joyous proliferation of Chaos and the disciplined singularities of Law. The multiverse is a tree, the Balance lies within the tree, the tree lies within the house, and the house stands on an island in a lake ..." He seemed to shake himself from a trance, in which he had been chanting a mantra. He came smartly awake and looked at me with half a smile, as if caught in some private act.

  It was all he would tell me. Since I could now anticipate further answers to my questions as it became possible for him to offer them, I grew more optimistic. Was he relaxing because we were getting closer and closer to where Oona was in some mysterious danger? If Lobkowitz was so optimistic, there was every chance we would be there to rescue her.

  On we galloped as if we rode on the soft turf of an abandoned shire, although the limestone now was melting and turning to a sickly, sluggish lava beneath the Nihrainian horses' hooves. The stink of the stuff filled my nostrils and threatened to clog my lungs, yet not once did I feel afraid as we crossed a sea of uneasy pewter and reached a shore of glittering ebony far too smooth to accept any mortal steed's hoof. The Nihrainian stallions took the slippery surface with familiar ease. Ducking as large trees came towards us, we found ourselves in a sweet-smelling pine forest through which late-afternoon sunlight fell, casting deep shadows and calling the sap from the wood. Lobkowitz let his horse stop to crop at invisible grass and turned his face upwards to admire what he saw. The sun caught his ruddy features. In the heightened contrast he resembled a perfect statue of himself. Great shafts of sunlight broke through the silhouettes of the trees and created an incredible mixture of forms. For a moment, following Lobkowitz's gaze, I thought I looked into the perfect features of a young girl. Then a breeze disturbed the branches, and the vision was gone.

  Lobkowitz turned to me, his smile broadening. "This is one of those realms all too ready to mold itself to our desires and take the form we demand. It is particularly dangerous, and we had best be out of it soon."

  We cantered again, across sparsely covered hills and through valleys of sheltered woodlands, and entered a broad plain, with a greying sky hovering over us and a cold breeze tugging at our horses' manes. Lobkowitz had become grave, turning his head this way and that as if expecting an enemy.

  The clouds streamed in towards us, thick and black, and lowered the horizon. In the far distance I could make out the peaks of a tall mountain range. I prayed they were the Northern Rockies. Certainly this great, flat plain could be part of the American prairie.

  It began to rain. Fat drops fell on my bare head. I was still wearing the clothes Sepiriz had first given me and had no hat. I lifted a gloved hand to hold off the worst of it. Lobkowitz, of course, was now dressed perfectly for the weather and seemed amused by my discomfort. He reached into one of his saddlebags and tugged out a heavy, old dark blue sea-cloak. I accepted it.

  I was soon even gladder for the cloak as the wind came whip-

  ping in from the northeast and hit us like a giant fist. Doggedly the Nihrainian stallions maintained their pace. As their great muscles strained harder, there was a hint of tiredness now. The endless veldt stretched all around us. Still no obvious signs of beaver, birds or deer. Once, as the wind howled fiercely and caused even my stallion to reduce his speed to a dogged plod, there came a gap in the clouds. Red sunlight brightened
the scene for a moment and revealed a herd of deer running for their life before the wind. The first I had seen. They were clearly trying to escape the region. I had the distinct feeling we were not heading in the sensible direction. I remarked on the wind during a lull. Lobkowitz looked concerned as he confirmed my guess that we were heading into a tornado. Knowing little of such things in Europe, I could not recognize one. All I understood was that it was wise to find shelter.

  Lobkowitz agreed that, as a general rule, it was usually wise to seek cover.

  "But not this time. He would find us, and we would be more vulnerable. We must continue."

  "Who would find us?"

  "Lord Shoashooan, Lord of Winds. He commands a dangerous alliance."

  Then, as if to silence my friend, the wind again became a shouting bully. The rain was a giant's fingers drumming on my back as we cantered on, crossing marshes, rivers and grassland with equal ease. The only thing powerful enough to slow us was that cruel, relentless wind. It seemed to carry hobgoblins with it, tugging at my body and teasing my horse. I could almost hear its hard, cackling laughter.

  Lobkowitz rode in close now, stirrup to stirrup, so that we should not lose each other in the weather. Every so often he tried to speak over the wind, but it was impossible. I was sleeping intermittently in my saddle when the horses slowed to a walk. My body ached, yet they were almost tireless. This seemed to be the nearest they came to resting.

  Mile by mile the prairie became low hills, rolling towards the mountains, slowly transferring into the range that rose tall and

  ragged into the soughing sky. The wind seemed to give up once we reached the foothills. Suddenly the clouds parted just as the sun was sinking, and the mountains were a vivid glow of ocher, russet, sienna and deep purple shot through with bands of darker yellows and crimsons. All mountain ranges have their characteristic beauty. I had seen such magnificent color only in the Rockies.

  "Now we must be more than careful." Prince Lobkowitz dismounted on the slope and was leading his horse up towards a wide cave mouth above. "We'll shelter here tonight and ensure our sleep. We shall need to be alert. Perhaps take watches."

  "At least that damned wind has dropped."

  "Aye," said Lobkowitz, "but he remains our main enemy here. He is cunning, often seeming to depart, then licking around at you from a fresh point on the compass. He loves to kill. The more he can devour at a sitting the more content he is."

  "My dear Lobkowitz, 'he' is an insentient force of nature. 'He' no more plans and schemes than do those rocks over there."

  Lobkowitz looked with some mild alarm towards the rocks. Then he shook his head. "They are benign," he said. "They follow the Balance."

  I was becoming convinced that my cousin was a little eccentric. While he could lead me to Oona, however, and back to the safety of our home and children, I would continue to humor him. As it was, I could not always tell what he saw or how. I was reminded of visionaries like Blake, who inhabited a world quite as real as that of those who mocked him. Certainly I judged people like Blake with a different and greater respect once I understood that his world had been as vividly real to him as this world was to me. I was still a sufficiently modern gentleman, however, not to relish the social circumstances of meeting and speaking with an angel.

  Lobkowitz built a little fire deep inside the cave. The smoke was drawn to a narrow crack at the back which doubtless led into some larger system.

  Like all experienced travelers, he was economical with what he carried and yet seemed to want for nothing. With ease he prepared a kind of savory pancake from various dried powders he carried in a small cabinet which fit, with a little forcing, into one of the big gun pockets in his coat.

  I asked him why he was so anxious about the wind. True, it was bitter cold, but it had not, after all, turned into a tornado and blown us away. I took my first bite of the food. It was excellent.

  "It is because Lord Shoashooan dissipates his power in various strategies. Had he drawn upon his power and concentrated it, we should doubtless be dead by now. But his main strength is elsewhere."

  "Who is this entity who commands the wind?"

  "He once had a pact with your family, for mutual defense, but that was on another plane altogether. Lord Shoashooan is an elemental who serves neither Law nor Chaos. At this time, he seems to have chosen to ally himself with our enemies, which means inevitably we shall soon be challenging him. Meanwhile the White Buffalo struggles against him on our behalf, which is why he is so weak. Yet for all the White Buffalo is his most powerful enemy, Lord Shoashooan will not be held for much longer. His allies grow strong, both in numbers and in the range of powers they command. Lord Shoashooan tastes his new freedom."

  He spoke with such knowing familiarity of this high lord that I wondered for a moment if I should suspect him of being in the creature's service. Meanwhile, it would be wise to take care what I asked him. I then decided he was speaking of a person, or a totem, and asked no more questions.

  I was becoming used to this kind of patience. We were situationalists, of sorts, he said, responding to whatever opportunities were presented to us by Fate and making the most of them. That was why, as Pushkin knew, the gambler's instinct was so important.

  I had become distracted. The thought that we were only a short distance from Oona made my sleep intermittent. I kept waking and wanting to get back in the saddle, to reach her as soon as possible, but Lobkowitz had already pointed out how ordinary time meant little in this business. It was more a matter of choosing to act when the right coordinates presented themselves. He

  remarked again that Pushkin would have made a good member of the League of Time, though he was something of an amateur. The best gamblers, like himself, were careful professionals who earned their livings by winning.

  I remarked that I could not see Prince Lobkowitz as a card-sharp. He laughed. I would be surprised, he said, at his reputation in the coffeehouses of London, where every kind of game was played. Putting away his cleaned utensils he suggested that I get as much sleep as possible and prepare myself for whatever the coming days would bring.

  I was up soon after dawn. I stepped from the cave into the cold autumn morning. The mist had lifted, and I looked out into stunning natural beauty whose wonderful shapes and colors were all touched by the rising sun. I felt like opening my arms to the east and chanting one of those songs with which Indians were said to greet the return of the Sun.

  Lobkowitz arose soon after me. With his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, he cooked a piece of bacon and some beans. The fresh dawn air made me hungry, and the smell was delicious. He apologized for what he called his "cowboy breakfast," but I found it excellent and would have eaten another portion had there been one. I asked him if he knew how much longer it would be before we saw Oona. He could not say. First he had some scouting to do.

  Only then did I notice that the horses were gone. Our saddlebags and weapons lay just inside the cavern. It was as if a thoughtful thief had led them away in the night.

  Lobkowitz reassured me. "They have returned to Nihrain, where they will be needed for another adventure involving your ancestor and alter ego Elric of Melnibone. We cannot ride horses into the territory we now explore. No horses exist there."

  "Are you telling me we are in pre-Columbian America?"

  "Something like that." He put a friendly hand on my shoulder. "You are an exemplary companion for a man like myself, Count Ulric. I know that you are impatient for more information, but understand how I can only reveal it to you a little at a time, lest we change our future and further weaken the branch. Believe me in this: my affection for your wife is, in its own way, as great as yours. And what is more, her survival depends upon our success quite as much as our survival depends on hers. Many branches are being woven together to make a stronger one, Count Ulric. But the weaving involves considerable skill and good fortune."

  "It is taking me a little while," I told him, "to think of myself as a strand."

/>   "Ah, well," he said with the suggestion of a wink, "imagine instead that you are lending the weight of your soul to the souls of a small company who together might save the Cosmic Balance and rescue the multiverse from complete oblivion. Does that make you feel more important?"

  I said that it did and, laughing, we picked up our kit and with a spring in our steps, set off along the high mountain trail, admiring the peaks and forests which lay below us and reveling in all the wildlife that now inhabited them. Such scenery eased my soul. I was strengthened by it more, I suspected, than I was strengthened by the sword.

  Lobkowitz walked with the aid of a crooked staff. I wore the big blade balanced on my back. It was so beautifully forged that it felt far lighter than it actually was. I must admit I had always thought a Luger or a Walther a more reliable weapon in a pinch, but also I had once seen what happens when someone attempts to fire such a weapon in a realm where it should not exist.

  We were comfortable while we walked, but when we stopped, we felt the chill in the wind. Before the end of that first day, a little light snow had touched my face. We were steadily moving towards winter.

  The season seemed to be coming upon us rather swiftly, I said.

  "Yes," said Lobkowitz. "We are walking against what you would usually conceptualize as the flow of time. We could be said to be walking backwards to Christmas."

  I was about to respond to this whimsicality when a pale face some seven feet high blocked the narrow mountain path ahead. A giant peered at us from eye level. When I peered back at the face, I realized it was a realistic carving. What mighty force had placed a great stone head directly in our way, blocking the path? The thing stared at me with a smile which made the Mona Lisa's seem broad, and I found myself charmed by it. Indeed I admired its beauty, running my hand over the smooth granite from which it had been sculpted. "What is it?" I asked Lobkowitz. "And why is it blocking our path?"