The Skrayling Tree: The Albino in America

by Michael Moorcock

  He spoke softly and with certainty.

  I had no reason to listen to him. I refused to let my annoyance with his crazy mockery show in my voice. I was greedy for my lost sword, which I had flung out over the ice. What could I do against such odds?

  “So,” I said, “the void has a voice. But the void is still a void. You seek to fill up your soulless being with empty fury. The less you are able to fill it, the more furious you become. You are a sad wretch, Cousin, stamping about in all your armor and braggadocio.”

  Gaynor ignored this. Klosterheim allowed himself a slight glint of amusement. From his bone-white face Elric’s crimson eyes stared steadily into mine.

  All I thought when I looked at him was Traitor. I hated him for the company he kept. How was it that he had been on my side against Gaynor on the Isle of Morn and now stood shoulder to shoulder with the corrupter of universes?

  Klosterheim looked worn. He had drained himself with his conjuring and spell casting. I was reminded of the dying pygmy I had encountered on the way to Kakatanawa. Klosterheim, like me, had no natural penchant for sorcery. “You are unarmed, Count Ulric. You have no power at all against us. This evil thing that you call ‘uncle’ will be witness to the final moments of the Balance as it fades into nonexistence. The tree falls. The very roots are poisoned and can be attacked with steel at last. The multiverse returns to insensate Chaos. God and Satan die and in death are reconciled. And I shall be reconciled.”

  These supernatural events, like a constant, ongoing nightmare, had clearly affected his sanity rather more than mine. But I had something to focus on. Something more important than life or death, waking or dreaming. I had to find my wife. I needed to know that I had not destroyed her.

  Where was White Crow? What had he done with Oona?

  Through the dark, gorgeous mist roiling at Gaynor’s back, shadows stirred and drew closer.

  The Kakatanawa.

  Where is my wife? I asked. Where is Oona? But they were silent, moving to enclose the three threatening me.

  Gaynor seemed unworried. As the Kakatanawa advanced, they reduced in scale, so that by the time they confronted Gaynor and his henchmen, they were equal in size. They remained, however, impressive warriors, handsome in their beautifully designed tattoos which rippled over their bodies and limbs from head to waist, a record of their experience and their wisdom.

  “This is blasphemy,” intoned one. “You must go.” His voice was resonant, very soft, and carried enormous authority.

  Gaynor remained unconcerned. He gestured to Elric, who again took up the big horn. Elric placed the instrument to his lips and drew a deep breath.

  Even before he began to blow, the noise below my feet increased. Out of the subterranean caverns, an ally was rising, the echoes of his voice whispering and whining through the caverns and crags of the underworld. I imagined all those ethereal inhabitants, the Off-Moo and their kin, seeking shelter from that destructive malice. I feared for friends I had last seen in those endless caves lying between the multiverse and the Grey Fees. Did they perish below as we were to perish above?

  But there was also something happening above us. A distant shrieking, almost human. It consumed everything with its sinister aggression.

  The growing noise alerted the Kakatanawa. All simultaneously looked skyward in surprise and alarm. Only Gaynor and his friends seemed careless of the commotion.

  There came a thrashing and slashing from far above. A metallic chuckling. A muttering, rising voice became a distant howl. Louder and louder it grew, crashing through the branches of the great Skrayling Tree, sending jagged shards of light in all directions. It seemed that entire universes might spin to land and be crushed underfoot. I felt a sickness, a realization of the magnitude of Death accompanying Lord Shoashooan’s descent towards us.

  It could be nothing else but the Lord of Winds. Summoned by that traitor Elric! What possible promise could Gaynor have made to him?

  My cousin intended to destroy the multiverse and destroy himself at the same time.

  And Lord Shoashooan was stronger than ever, hurtling at us from above and below!

  Gaynor stepped forward, his sword held in his two mailed hands, and swept the dark blade down towards the tree’s already dying roots.

  NO! I moved without thought and leaped forward. Unarmed I tried to wrestle the pulsing sword from his fists.

  Klosterheim advanced with his own blade drawn. But Elric had turned and leaped towards the dragon, using his pulsing sword to climb the glinting peacock scales, a tiny figure on the dragon’s side. I heard his crooning song join with that of his sword, and I knew the Phoorn heard it, too. What did Elric want? The creature was too weak to move its head, let alone help him.

  Then it came to me that Elric intended to kill it. That was to be his task. To kill his own brother as I had killed my own wife. Was all our ancient family to die in one terrible, unnatural bloodletting?

  I hardly knew what to do. I had no sword. I could not stop them all. The Kakatanawa had held their positions. I realized that they were guarding something.

  Not the tree any longer, but the same shadowy shape I had glimpsed before.

  Lord Shoashooan howled downwards while beneath our feet the other wind was beginning to test at the ground. I was convinced it must soon erupt under us.

  Elric reached a point close to the dragon’s back. He had his sword in hand, his shield on his arm, the horn at his belt. His cloak swirled around the ivory whiteness of his skin. His crimson eyes flashed wolfishly, triumphantly. I saw him raise the sword.

  I forgot Gaynor, who pointlessly continued to hack with compulsive energy at the tree’s roots. I left Klosterheim stumbling in my wake. Over that heaving, spongy ground, with one tornado advancing from above and another apparently from below, I ran back towards the dragon. White Crow appeared at my side. He did not pause but reached out towards me. He tore the talisman from his neck and placed it around my own. Why had he given me the miniature of Elric’s great shield? How could a trinket possibly protect me?

  I will bring her now. It is time…

  He shouted something else, but I did not hear him. I began to climb in Elric’s wake. Even against his own wishes, I had to save the Phoorn, for only he could ever save us. I had no clear idea of what to do next, but since Elric had gone mad and was trying to kill his brother, I had to try to stop him.

  Another sound trumpeted over the noise of the winds. Looking back I saw Bes. Her body was covered in dark copper mesh which swayed as she trotted. As she came nearer, I realized her size was almost the equal to the Phoorn. Her great, linen-covered platform swayed on her back, its flaps wild in the wind. Riding on the neck of the beast, spear in his hand, was White Crow in all his paint and finery, his pale scalp lock lying along his left shoulder. His face was prepared for war. Behind him came the buffalo hide–draped platform resembling a circular bier laid out with a body which clutched a sword to its chest. I knew this had to be Oona.

  I was torn. Was I to continue on and try to stop Elric, or should I turn back to tend to my wife? This all seemed part of my torment. I wondered how much of it Gaynor had planned.

  The unstable ground began to heave like quicksand. Bes had difficulty keeping her footing. White Crow signaled for me to go on. I looked up. Elric was putting the horn to his lips.

  And then, from somewhere, sweetly cutting through the raging howl of the wind, I heard the crystalline sound of Ayanawatta’s bone flute.

  As Elric blew another blast on the horn, the notes immediately blended with the music of the flute. Rather than canceling each other out, they resonated and swelled into a grand harmonic. Urgently I continued to climb up the clattering dazzle of the Phoorn’s scales.

  The tornado was still tearing its way downwards, and from below, the ground around the tree’s roots was beginning to spit and bubble.

  I lost sight of Elric above me but noticed the Phoorn’s breathing had changed. Did he understand that Elric was trying to kill him, as he
had begged me to do?

  Lord Shoashooan crashed in upon us. His grinning, whirling heads flashed rending teeth. His wild, swinging arms ended in long claws. His feet had scythes for nails. And everywhere he danced he brought destruction.

  I was certain that once Lord Shoashooan joined with his twin elemental, even now dancing just below the surface as Shoashooan danced above it, everything would begin to collapse in a final appalling cataclysm!

  From behind me the nine Kakatanawa advanced upon Lord Shoashooan. Ayanawatta’s flute rose above the din, sounding delicate and somber now.

  Lord Shoashooan blustered and swung wildly about him, but his belligerence had no force. The sound of the flute had some effect on him. Perhaps it calmed that berserk rage?

  I thought I glimpsed the outline of White Crow and Bes moving below. They, too, were bound to be destroyed.

  Then all at once the nine Kakatanawa surrounded the base of the tornado. Their hair and clothing streaming out from their bodies in that hideous turbulence, they held their ground. Linking arms and shields and with lances thrust outwards, war clubs at their sides, they formed a circle around the whirling base—a ring strong enough to contain Lord Shoashooan as soon as he touched the exposed roots of the tree at which Gaynor maniacally continued to hack while Klosterheim looked on impassively.

  I saw Ayanawatta walk into the circle formed by the Kakatanawa, still playing his flute. It was clear from the buffeting that he would not hold Lord Shoashooan for long, but it was incredible that he could hold him at all. I pushed on, climbing those yielding, pulsing scales, while above me, I was sure, Elric prepared to deal his brother a death blow.

  I willed myself to find more energy. We must all be weakening before the force of this stupendous supernatural threat. I reminded myself that we almost certainly witnessed the end of everything. If I did not discover further resolve within me, I should reach the moment of my death knowing that I had not done enough.

  This spurred me to complete my climb. I danced along the Phoorn’s back while above me the branches of the great multiversal tree stretched out forever, damaged but not yet destroyed. I saw Elric. His sword had indeed made a cut in the Phoorn’s vulnerable spine, where it met the head. Yellow blood oozed from the long incision.

  I climbed on, determined to stop him. But before I could reach him he took his shield and pressed it down onto the bloody patch he had made in the beast’s hide. The shield fitted the patch exactly. Blood soaked it through instantly as it was absorbed into the Phoorn’s flesh. What was Elric doing? He stretched out his hand to me now. It was as if he had expected me, even welcomed me.

  I made my way forward as the Phoorn’s back rippled and stirred under my feet. What is it? What do you do?

  Give me what White Crow gave you! Quickly. I have deceived Gaynor until now. He still controls Lord Shoashooan but is distracted. This is our moment. Give me the talisman, von Bek!

  Without hesitation I ripped it from my neck and threw it to him. He caught it in his gloved fist and, kneeling, placed it at the center of the wound he had made. A plume of bright red fire shot up like a beacon, higher and higher until it disappeared among the branches of the Skrayling Oak. Then, burning brilliant white it sank slowly back, spreading out as it turned to pale blue and covered the Phoorn’s wound. The Phoorn let out a long, deep sigh which blended with the sound of the flute.

  Sensing what was happening, Lord Shoashooan yelled and feinted at the Kakatanawa warriors. But they held their ground. They stabbed at him with their spears. They swung their war clubs against his whirling sides, struggling to control the spin of their weapons as the winds flung them back.

  White Crow was immediately below. He had brought Bes to a stop. The patient mammoth paused, kneeling in the midst of all this wild confusion.

  Ayanawatta drew another extended breath and continued to play. Above me on the Phoorn’s shoulders, Elric raised the horn to his lips again.

  At this blast Gaynor ceased his ferocious hacking and glanced up, his mirrored helm catching the green-gold light of the dying tree.

  Guided by the horn and the flute in unison, the great round bier began to rise into the air, the white hide falling away beneath it to reveal my own wife, Oona, seemingly dead, lying upon yet another version of the Kakatanawa war-shield. This one was twice the size of the shield Elric had put between the Phoorn’s shoulders. Seeing it at last Gaynor let out a frustrated shout and looked around him for his men. There was only Klosterheim. Gaynor beckoned to him. Rather reluctantly the ex-priest came forward to join him, crying out in a peculiar singsong as the Kakatanawa attempted to tighten their circle about the raging Lord of Winds.

  Higher rose Oona, lifted on Ayanawatta’s and Elric’s music. I saw that she lay in the position of old knightly tomb figures, her legs crossed at the ankles, a long black sword clasped between her breasts and a red sandstone bowl on her chest from which rose a willowy plume of smoke.

  White Crow dropped down from Bes’s neck and ran towards the Phoorn. He slung his lance over his back and began to climb up the breathing scales as Oona’s floating platform, buoyed by the notes of the flute, drifted high over the Phoorn’s back, paused and then began to descend as Elric and White Crow called out in unison. They were chanting a spell. They guided Oona’s flight with their sorcery, bringing the great round shield, the third part of the missing skefla’a, down towards the faintly glowing blue wound. The shield completed the membrane which all dragons must have if they are to fly between the worlds, and which is in so many unknown ways their sustenance.

  They had re-created the stolen skefla’a and brought it back to the dying Phoorn! Was it this which sustained my wife between life and death?

  At last the great disk covered the dragon’s back, and Elric gently lifted Oona from it as I joined him. She seemed unusually at peace in his arms. But was it the peace of death?

  I touched her. She was warm. Upon her chest the faintly smoking bowl, one of the great treasures of the Kakatanawa, their Grail, rose and fell with her slow, even breathing.

  Instantly now the Phoorn drew in a full breath. It took all our efforts to cling to those swelling quasi-metallic scales and move towards one another.

  The wind still shrieked and raged, but the Kakatanawa ring held. The warriors all called out the same strange, high-pitched ululations, their actions and voices completely in unison. The spears ran in and out of the spinning darkness, containing the howling thing but scarcely harming it.

  The scales of the Phoorn steadily changed color. They deepened and ran with dozens of different shades, taking on a fire that had not been there before. White Crow clambered towards me. He pointed to Oona, lying half held in the blue-grey membrane where Elric had placed her, still unmoving, as if she lay in a womb. Elric was beside her on his knees. He took the large ring from his finger and reached through the membrane to place it on Oona’s forehead. I tried to call out to him but failed. Surely he could not mean her ill. He was her father. Even a Melnibonéan would not be so ruthless as to kill his own child.

  I felt a light hand on my shoulder. White Crow had reached me. Clearly exhausted, his eyes gleamed with hope. “You must take up the sword,” he said. “Oona has brought it to you.” And he pointed to where the black blade still lay, clutched in her hands, but outside the peculiar organic stuff of the Phoorn skefla’a.

  “Take it!” he commanded.

  Crimson eyes locked onto mine as Elric looked up at me. He raised the sword in his fist and all but hurled it at me. “We have no grace!”

  “Fear not.” White Crow gasped. “He is of our blood and of our party. We three shall do what has to be done.”

  At that moment it occurred to me again that Elric could be White Crow’s father, which meant that the young Indian was Oona’s twin. The evident discrepancy in their ages added a further mystery to the conundrum.

  Would it ever be explained? None of us was dead yet, but Gaynor, Klosterheim and Lord Shoashooan appeared to have the greater power!


  The Lord of Winds still screamed and raged in the Kakatanawa circle. It seemed the disciplined warriors could not hold much longer. Already there were weaknesses showing as the giants used every ounce of mental and physical energy to contain him.

  But I was reluctant to accept the sword. Perhaps I feared I would use it to kill Oona again? I shuddered. A coldness filled me. I was consumed by guilty memory.

  “Take it!” Elric shouted again. He rose to his feet, his eyes still fixed on his daughter. “Come. We must do this now. Lobkowitz and Sepiriz say it is the only way.” He thrust the sword towards me again.

  How had Lobkowitz communicated with Elric? Had they been in league all along? Lobkowitz had explained nothing to me, and I might never understand now.

  I accepted the sword. I knew I could not deny the inevitable. There was time only for action now.

  As my hand closed on the silk-bound hilt I felt a sudden shock of energy. I looked down on my wife. Her face was tranquil. On her breast the red sandstone bowl glowed and smoked. On her forehead the deep blue stone swirled with a life of its own. Somehow I knew it was the bowl that sustained her life.

  Elric’s face was shadowy. He moved closer to stand with his body pressed against mine. White Crow came nearer from the other side until both men were almost crushing me. I could not resist. The blade demanded it. All three blades were in our hands now. All three were touching. All three were beginning to sigh and murmur, their black fire mingling, their runes leaping back and forth from one to the other. They conferred.

  Oona opened her eyes, looked at us calmly and smiled. She sat up, the silvery web of membrane falling away to merge with the Phoorn skefla’a. She took the red sandstone bowl and blew gently into it. White smoke poured upwards and surrounded us. I breathed it in. It was sweet and delicate, the stuff of heaven. With every breath we took in unison, White Crow, Elric and I moved closer together. The swords merged until there was only one massive blade, and I knew, as I grew in both size and strength, wisdom and psychic power, that the swords were reunited with their archetype as we were reunited with ours. Three in one.