It was a question which she needed to ask, but one which came hard to her lips. "Why do you desire the Dead Gods' Book, Elric? What do you believe you will find in it?"
Elric shrugged, dismissing the question, but she repeated her words less slowly, with more insistence.
"Very well then," he said eventually. "But it is not easy to answer you in a few sentences. I desire, if you like, to know one of two things."
"And what is that, Elric?"
The tall albino dropped the folded tent to the grass and sighed. His fingers played nervously with the pommel of his runesword. "Can an ultimate god exist-or not? That is what I need to know, Shaarilla, if my life is to have any direction at all.
"The Lords of Law and Chaos now govern our lives. But is there some being greater than them?"
Shaarilla put a hand on Elric's arm. "Why must you know?" she said.
"Despairingly, sometimes, I seek the comfort of a benign god, Shaarilla. My mind goes out, lying awake at night, searching through black barrenness for something-anything-which will take me to it, warm me, protect me, tell me that there is order in the chaotic tumble of the universe; that it is consistent, this precision of the planets, not simply a brief, bright spark of sanity in an eternity of malevolent anarchy."
Elric sighed and his quiet tones were tinged with hopelessness.
"Without some confirmation of the order of things, my only comfort is to accept anarchy. This way, I can revel in chaos and know, without fear, that we are all doomed from the start-that our brief existence is both meaningless and damned. I can accept, then, that we are more than forsaken, because there was never anything there to forsake us. I have weighed the proof, Shaarilla, and must believe that anarchy prevails, in spite of all the laws which seemingly govern our actions, our sorcery, our logic. I see only chaos in the world. If the book we seek tells me otherwise, then I shall gladly believe it. Until then, I will put my trust only in my sword and myself."
Shaarilla stared at Elric strangely. "Could not this philosophy of yours have been influenced by recent events in your past? Do you fear the consequences of your murder and treachery? Is it not more comforting for you to believe in deserts which are rarely just?"
Elric turned on her, crimson eyes blazing in anger, but even as he made to speak, the anger fled him and he dropped his eyes towards the ground, hooding them from her gaze.
"Perhaps," he said lamely. "I do not know. That is the only real truth, Shaarilla. I do not know."
Shaarilla nodded, her face lit by an enigmatic sympathy; but Elric did not see the look she gave him, for his own eyes were full of crystal tears which flowed down his lean, white face and took his strength and will momentarily from him.
"I am a man possessed," he groaned, "and without this devil-blade I carry I would not be a man at all."
Chapter Two
They mounted their swift, black horses and spurred them with abandoned savagery down the hillside towards the marsh, their cloaks whipping behind them as the wind caught them, lashing them high into the air. Both rode with set, hard faces, refusing to acknowledge the aching uncertainty which lurked within them.
And the horses' hoofs had splashed into quaking bogland before they could halt.
Cursing, Elric tugged hard on his reins, pulling his horse back on to firm ground. Shaarilla, too, fought her own panicky stallion and guided the beast to the safety of the turf.
"How do we cross?" Elric asked her impatiently.
"There was a map-" Shaarilla began hesitantly.
"Where is it? "
"It-it was lost. I lost it. But I tried hard to memorize it. I think I'll be able to get us safely across."
"How did you lose it-and why didn't you tell me of this before?" Elric stormed.
"I'm sorry, Elric-but for a whole day, just before I found you in that tavern, my memory was gone. Somehow, I lived through a day without knowing it-and when I awoke, the map was missing."
Elric frowned. "There is some force working against us, I am sure," he muttered, "but what it is, I do not know." He raised his voice and said to her: "Let us hope that your memory is not too faulty, now.
These marshes are infamous the world over, but by all accounts, only natural hazards wait for us." He grimaced and put his fingers around the hilt of his runesword. "Best go first, Shaarilla, but stay close. Lead the way."
She nodded, dumbly, and turned her horse's head towards the north, galloping along the bank until she came to a place where a great, tapering rock loomed. Here, a grassy path, four feet or so across, led out into the misty marsh. They could only see a little distance ahead, because of the clinging mist, but it seemed that the trail remained firm for some way. Shaarilla walked her horse on to the path and jolted forward at a slow trot, Elric following immediately behind her.
Through the swirling, heavy mist which shone whitely, the horses moved hesitantly and their riders had to keep them on short, tight rein.
The mist padded the marsh with silence and the gleaming, watery fens around them stank with foul putrescence. No animal scurried, no bird shrieked above them. Everywhere was a haunting, fear-laden silence which made both horses and riders uneasy.
With panic in their throats, Elric and Shaarilla rode on, deeper and deeper into the unnatural Marshes of the Mist, their eyes wary and even their nostrils quivering for scent of danger in the stinking morass.
Hours later, when the sun was long past its zenith, Shaarilla's horse reared, screaming and whinnying. She shouted for Elric, her exquisite features twisted in fear as she stared into the mist. He spurred his own bucking horse forwards and joined her.
Something moved, slowly, menacingly in the clinging whiteness.
Elric's right hand whipped over to his left side and grasped the hilt of Stormbringer.
The blade shrieked out of its scabbard, a black fire gleaming along its length and alien power flowing from it into Elric's arm and through his body. A weird, unholy light leapt into Elric's crimson eyes and his mouth was wrenched into a hideous grin as he forced the frightened horse further into the skulking mist.
"Arioch, Lord of the Seven Darks, be with me now!" Elric yelled as he made out the shifting shape ahead of him. It was white, like the mist, yet somehow darker. It stretched high above Elric's head. It was nearly ten feet tall and almost as broad. But it was still only an outline, seeming to have no face or limbs-only movement: darting, malevolent movement! But Arioch, his patron god, chose not to hear.
Elric could feel his horse's great heart beating between his legs as the beast plunged forward under its rider's iron control. Shaarilla was screaming something behind him, but he could not hear the words.
Elric hacked at the white shape, but his sword met only mist and it howled angrily. The fear-crazed horse would go no further and Elric was forced to dismount.
"Keep hold of the steed," he shouted behind him to Shaarilla and moved on light feet towards the darting shape which hovered ahead of him, blocking his path.
Now he could make out some of its saliencies. Two eyes, the colour of thin, yellow wine, were set high in the thing's body, though it had no separate head. A mouthing, obscene slit, filled with fangs, lay just beneath the eyes. It had no nose or ears that Elric could see. Four ap-pendages sprang from its upper parts and its lower body slithered along the ground, unsupported by any limbs. Elric's eyes ached as he looked at it. It was incredibly disgusting to behold and its amorphous body gave off a stench of death and decay. Fighting down his fear, the albino inched forward warily, his sword held high to parry any thrust the thing might make with its arms. Elric recognized it from a description in one of his grimoires. It was a Mist Giant-possibly the only Mist Giant, Bellbane. Even the wisest wizards were uncertain how many existed-one or many. It was a ghoul of the swamp-lands which fed off the souls and the blood of men and beasts. But the Marshes of this Mist were far to the east of Bellbane's reputed haunts.