A Quest-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic

by Margaret Weis

  “I scarcely noticed, Elric.” Smiorgan's voice was hollow. “But I would agree with you on one thing. We are entombed. I doubt we'll live to escape this world now.”

  VI

  AN HOUR HAD PASSED SINCE THEY HAD BEEN FORCED ABOARD. THE door had been locked behind them and, it seemed, Saxif D'Aan was too preoccupied with escaping the white stallion to bother with them. Peering through the lattice of a porthole, Elric could look back to where their ship had been sunk. They were many leagues distant, already, yet he still thought, from time to time, that he saw the head and shoulders of the stallion above the waves.

  Vassliss had recovered and sat pale and shivering upon the couch.

  “What more do you know of that horse?” Elric asked her. “It would be helpful to me if you could recall anything you have heard.”

  She shook her head. “Saxif D'Aan spoke little of it, but I gather he fears the rider more than he does the horse.”

  “Ah!” Elric frowned. “I suspected it! Have you ever seen the rider?”

  “Never. I think that Saxif D'Aan has never seen him, either. I think he believes himself doomed if that rider should ever sit upon the white stallion.”

  Elric smiled to himself.

  “Why do you ask so much about the horse?” Smiorgan wished to know.

  Elric shook his head. “I have an instinct, that is all. Half a memory. But I'll say nothing and think as little as I may, for there is no doubt Saxif D'Aan, as Vassliss suggests, has some power of reading the mind.”

  They heard a footfall above, descending to their door. A bolt was drawn and Saxif D'Aan, his composure fully restored, stood in the opening, his hands in his golden sleeves.

  “You will forgive, I hope, the peremptory way in which I sent you here. There was danger which had to be averted at all costs. As a result, my manners were not all that they should have been.”

  “Danger to us?” Elric asked. “Or to you, Earl Saxif D'Aan.”

  “In the circumstances, to all of us, I assure you.”

  “Who rides the horse?” Smiorgan asked bluntly. “And why do you fear him?”

  Earl Saxif D'Aan was master of himself again, so there was no sign of a reaction. “That is very much my private concern,” he said softly. “Will you dine with me now?”

  The girl made a noise in her throat and Earl Saxif D'Aan turned piercing eyes upon her. “Gratyesha, you will want to cleanse yourself and make yourself beautiful again. I will see that facilities are placed at your disposal.”

  “I am not Gratyesha,” she said. “I am Vassliss, the merchant's daughter.”

  “You will remember,” he said. “In time, you will remember.” There was such certainty, such obsessive power in his voice that even Elric experienced a frisson of awe. “The things will be brought to you, and you may use this cabin as your own until we return to my palace on Fhaligarn. My lords…” He indicated that they should leave.

  Elric said: “I'll not leave her, Saxif D'Aan. She is too afraid.”

  “She fears only the truth, brother.”

  “She fears you and your madness.”

  Saxif D'Aan shrugged insouciantly. “I shall leave first then. If you would accompany me, my lords…” He strode from the cabin and they followed.

  Elric said, over his shoulder: “Vassliss, you may depend upon my protection.” And he closed the cabin doors behind him.

  Earl Saxif D'Aan was standing upon the deck, exposing his noble face to the spray which was flung up by the ship as it moved with supernatural speed through the sea.

  “You called me mad, Prince Elric? Yet you must be versed in sorcery, yourself?”

  “Of course. I am of the blood royal. I am reckoned knowledgeable in my own world.”

  “But here? How well does your sorcery work?”

  “Poorly, I'll admit. The spaces between the planes seem greater.”

  “Exactly. But I have bridged them. I have had time to learn how to bridge them.”

  “You are saying that you are more powerful than am I?”

  “It is a fact, is it not?”

  “It is. But I did not think we were about to indulge in sorcerous battles, Earl Saxif D'Aan.”

  “Of course. Yet, if you were to think of besting me by sorcery, you would think twice, eh?”

  “I should be foolish to contemplate such a thing at all. It could cost me my soul. My life, at least.”

  “True. You are a realist, I see.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then we can progress on simpler lines, to settle the dispute between us.”

  “You propose a duel?” Elric was surprised.

  Earl Saxif D'Aan's laughter was light. “Of course not—against your sword? That has power in all worlds, though the magnitude varies.”

  “I am glad that you are aware of that,” Elric said significantly.

  “Besides,” added Earl Saxif D'Aan, his golden robes rustling as he moved a little nearer to the rail, “you would not kill me—for only I have the means of your escaping this world.”

  “Perhaps we'd elect to remain,” said Elric.

  “Then you would be my subjects. But, no—you would not like it here. I am self-exiled. I could not return to my own world now, even if I wished to do so. It has cost me much, my knowledge. But I would found a dynasty here, beneath the blue sun. I must have my wife, Prince Elric. I must have Gratyesha.”

  “Her name is Vassliss,” said Elric obstinately.

  “She thinks it it.”

  “Then it is. I have sworn to protect her, as has Count Smiorgan. Protect her we shall. You will have to kill us all.”

  “Exactly,” said Earl Saxif D'Aan with the air of a man who has been coaching a poor student towards the correct answer to a problem. “Exactly. I shall have to kill you all. You leave me with little alternative, Prince Elric.”

  “Would that benefit you?”

  “It would. It would put a certain powerful demon at my service for a few hours.”

  “We should resist.”

  “I have many men. I do not value them. Eventually, they would overwhelm you. Would they not?”

  Elric remained silent.

  “My men would be aided by sorcery,” added Saxif D'Aan. “Some would die, but not too many, I think.”

  Elric was looking beyond Saxif D'Aan, staring out to sea. He was sure that the horse still followed. He was sure that Saxif D'Aan knew, also.

  “And if we gave up the girl?”

  “I should open the Crimson Gate for you. You would be honored guests. I should see that you were borne safely through, even taken safely to some hospitable land in your own world, for even if you passed through the gate there would be danger. The storms.”

  Elric appeared to deliberate.

  “You have only a little time to make your decision, Prince Elric. I had hoped to reach my palace, Fhaligarn, by now. I shall not allow you very much longer. Come, make your decision. You know I speak the truth.”

  “You know that I can work some sorcery in your world, do you not?”

  “You summoned a few friendly elementals to your aid, I know. But at what cost? Would you challenge me directly?”

  “It would be unwise of me,” said Elric.

  Smiorgan was tugging at his sleeve. “Stop this useless talk. He knows that we have given our word to the girl and that we must fight him!”

  Earl Saxif D'Aan sighed. There seemed to be genuine sorrow in his voice. “If you are determined to lose your lives…” he began.

  “I should like to know why you set such importance upon the speed with which we make up our minds,” Elric said. “Why cannot we wait until we reach Fhaligarn?”

  Earl Saxif D'Aan's expression was calculating, and again he looked full into Elric's crimson eyes. “I think you know,” he said, almost inaudibly.

  But Elric shook his head. “I think you give me too much credit for intelligence.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Elric knew that Saxif D'Aan was attempting to read his thoughts; h
e deliberately blanked his mind, and suspected that he sensed frustration in the sorcerer's demeanor.

  And then the albino had sprung at his kinsman, his hand chopping at Saxif D'Aan's throat. The earl was taken completely off guard. He tried to call out, but his vocal chords were numbed. Another blow, and he fell to the deck, senseless.

  “Quickly, Smiorgan,” Elric shouted, and he had leapt into the rigging, climbing swiftly upwards to the top yards. Smiorgan, bewildered, followed, and Elric had drawn his sword, even as he reached the crow's nest, driving upwards through the rail so that the lookout was taken in the groin scarcely before he realized it.

  Next, Elric was hacking at the ropes holding the mainsail to the yard. Already a number of Saxif D'Aan's ruffians were climbing after them.

  The heavy golden sail came loose, falling to envelop the pirates and take several of them down with it.

  Elric climbed into the crow's nest and pitched the dead man over the rail in the wake of his comrades. Then he had raised his sword over his head, holding it in his two hands, his eyes blank again, his head raised to the blue sun, and Smiorgan, clinging to the mast below, shuddered as he heard a peculiar crooning come form the albino's throat.

  More of the cutthroats were ascending, and Smiorgan hacked at the rigging, having the satisfaction of seeing half a score go flying down to break their bones on the deck below, or be swallowed by the waves.

  Earl Saxif D'Aan was beginning to recover, but he was still stunned.

  “Fool!” he was crying. “Fool!” But it was not possible to tell if he referred to Elric or to himself.

  Elric's voice became a wail, rhythmical and chilling, as he chanted his incantation, and the strength from the man he had killed flowed into him and sustained. His crimson eyes seemed to flicker with fires of another, nameless color, and his whole body shook as the strange runes shaped themselves in a throat which had never been made to speak such sounds.

  His voice became a vibrant groan as the incantation continued, and Smiorgan, watching as more of the crew made efforts to climb the mainmast, felt an unearthly cold creep through him.

  Earl Saxif D'Aan screamed from below:

  “You would not dare!”

  The sorcerer began to make passes in the air, his own incantation tumbling from his lips, and Smiorgan gasped as a creature made of smoke took shape only a few feet below him. The creature smacked its lips and grinned and stretched a paw, which became flesh even as it moved, towards Smiorgan. He hacked at the paw with his sword, whimpering.

  “Elric!” cried Count Smiorgan, clambering higher so that he grasped the rail of the crow's nest. “Elric! He sends demons against us now!”

  But Elric ignored him. His whole mind was in another world, a darker, bleaker world even than this one. Through gray mists, he saw a figure, and he cried a name. “Come!” he called in the ancient tongue of his ancestors. “Come!”

  Count Smiorgan cursed as the demon became increasingly substantial. Red fangs clashed and green eyes glared at him. A claw stroked his boot and no matter how much he struck with his sword, the demon did not appear to notice the blows.

  There was no room for Smiorgan in the crow's nest, but he stood on the outer rim, shouting with terror, desperate for aid. Still Elric continued to chant.

  “Elric! I am doomed!”

  The demon's paw grasped Smiorgan by his ankle.

  “Elric!”

  Thunder rolled out at sea; a ball of lightning appeared for a second and then was gone. From nowhere there came the sound of a horse's hooves pounding, and a human voice shouting in triumph.

  Elric sank back against the rail, opening his eyes in time to see Smiorgan being dragged slowly downward. With the last of his strength he flung himself forward, leaning far out to stab downwards with Stormbringer. The runesword sank cleanly into the demon's right eye and it roared, letting go of Smiorgan, striking at the blade which drew its energy from it and, as that energy passed into the blade and thence to Elric, the albino grinned a frightful grin so that, for a second, Smiorgan became more frightened of his friend than he had been of the demon. The demon began to dematerialize, its only means of escape from the sword which drank its life force, but more of Saxif D'Aan's rogues were behind it, and their blades rattled as they sought the pair.

  Elric swung himself back over the rail, balanced precariously on the yard as he slashed at their attackers, yelling the old battle-cries of his people. Smiorgan could do little but watch. He noted that Saxif D'Aan was no longer on deck and he shouted urgently to Elric:

  “Elric! Saxif D'Aan. He seeks out the girl.”

  Elric now took the attack to the pirates, and they were more than anxious to avoid the moaning runesword, some even leaping into the sea rather than encounter it. Swiftly the two leapt from yard to yard until they were again upon the deck.

  “What does he fear? Why does he not use more sorcery?” panted Count Smiorgan, as they ran towards the cabin.

  “I have summoned the one who rides the horse,” Elric told him. “I had so little time—and I could tell you nothing of it, knowing that Saxif D'Aan would read my intention in your mind, if he could not in mine!”

  The cabin doors were firmly secured from the inside. Elric began to hack at them with the black sword.

  But the door resisted as it should not have resisted. “Sealed by sorcery and I've no means of unsealing it,” said the albino.

  “Will he kill her?”

  “I don't know. He might try to take her into some other plane. We must—”

  Hooves clattered on the deck and the white stallion reared behind them, only now it had a rider, clad in bright purple and yellow armor. He was bareheaded and youthful, though there were several old scars upon his face. His hair was thick and curly and blond and his eyes were a deep blue.

  He drew tightly upon his reins, steadying the horse. He looked piercingly at Elric. “Was it you, Melnibonéan, who opened the pathway for me?”

  “It was.”

  “Then I thank you, though I cannot repay you.”

  “You have repaid me,” Elric told him, then drew Smiorgan aside as the rider leaned forward and spurred his horse directly at the closed doors, smashing through as though they were rotted cotton.

  There came a terrible cry from within and then Earl Saxif D'Aan, hampered by his complicated robes of gold, rushed from the cabin, seizing a sword from the hand of the nearest corpse, darting Elric a look not so much of hatred but of bewildered agony, as he turned to face the blond rider.

  The rider had dismounted now and came from the cabin, one arm around the shivering girl, Vassliss, one hand upon the reins of his horse, and he said, sorrowfully:

  “You did me a great wrong, Earl Saxif D'Aan, but you did Gratyesha an infinitely more terrible one. Now you must pay.”

  Saxif D'Aan paused, drawing a deep breath, and when he looked up again, his eyes were steady, his dignity had returned.

  “Must I pay in full?” he said.

  “In full.”

  “It is all I deserve,” said Saxif D'Aan. “I escaped my doom for many years, but I could not escape the knowledge of my crime. She loved me, you know. Not you.”

  “She loved us both, I think. But the love she gave you was her entire soul and I should not want that from any woman.”

  “You would be the loser, then.”

  “You never knew how much she loved you.”

  “Only—only afterwards…”

  “I pity you, Earl Saxif D'Aan.” The young man gave the reins of his horse to the girl, and he drew his sword. “We are strange rivals, are we not?”

  “You have been all these years in Limbo, where I banished you—in that garden on Melniboné?”

  “All these years. Only my horse could follow you. The horse of Tendric, my father, also of Melniboné, and also a sorcerer.”

  “If I had known that, then, I'd have slain you cleanly and sent the horse to Limbo.”

  “Jealousy weakened you, Earl Saxif D'Aan. But now we fight as
we should have fought then—man to man, with steel, for the hand of the one who loves us both. It is more than you deserve.”

  “Much more,” agreed the sorcerer. And he brought up his sword to lunge at the young man who, Smiorgan guessed, could only be Prince Carolak himself.

  The fight was predetermined. Saxif D'Aan knew that, if Carolak did not. Saxif D'Aan's skill in arms was up to the standard of any Melnibonéan nobleman, but it could not match the skill of a professional soldier, who had fought for his life time after time.

  Back and forth across the deck, while Saxif D'Aan's rascals looked on in open-mouthed astonishment, the rivals fought a duel which should have been fought and resolved two centuries before, while the girl they both plainly thought was the reincarnation of Gratyesha watched them with as much concern as might her original have watched when Saxif D'Aan first encountered Prince Carolak in the gardens of his palace, so long ago.

  Saxif D'Aan fought well, and Carolak fought nobly, for on many occasions he avoided an obvious advantage, but at length Saxif D'Aan threw away his sword, crying: “Enough. I'll give you your vengeance, Prince Carolak. I'll let you take the girl. But you'll not give me your damned mercy—you'll not take my pride.”

  And Carolak nodded, stepped forward, and struck straight for Saxif D'Aan's heart.

  The blade entered clean and Earl Saxif D'Aan should have died, but he did not. He crawled along the deck until he reached the base of the mast, and he rested his back against it, while the blood pumped from the wounded heart. And he smiled.

  “It appears,” he said faintly, “that I cannot die, so long have I sustained my life by sorcery. I am no longer a man.”

  He did not seem pleased by this thought, but Prince Carolak, stepping forward and leaning over him, reassured him. “You will die,” he promised, “soon.”

  “What will you do with her—with Gratyesha?”

  “Her name is Vassliss,” said Count Smiorgan insistently. “She is a merchant's daughter, from Jharkor.”

  “She must make up her own mind,” Carolak said, ignoring Smiorgan.

  Earl Saxif D'Aan turned glazed eyes on Elric. “I must thank you,” he said. “You brought me the one who could bring me peace, though I feared him.”