Elric smiled warmly as Count Smiorgan gripped his shoulder.
There was a certain friendship between the two. He nodded condescendingly to the other four and walked with lithe grace towards the fire. Yaris stood aside and let him pass. Elric was tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. He wore his long hair bunched and pinned at the nape of his neck and, for an obscure reason, affected the dress of a southern barbarian. He had long, knee-length boots of soft doe-leather, a breastplate of strangely wrought silver, a jerkin of chequered blue and white linen, britches of scarlet wool and a cloak of rustling green velvet. At his hip rested his runesword of black iron-the feared Stormbringer, forged by ancient and alien sorcery.
His bizarre dress was tasteless and gaudy, and did not match his sensitive face and long-fingered, almost delicate hands, yet he flaunted it since it emphasized the fact that he did not belong in any company- that he was an outsider and an outcast. But, in reality, he had little need to wear such outlandish gear-for his eyes and skin were enough to mark him.
Elric, Last Lord of Melnibone, was a pure albino who drew his power from a secret and terrible source.
Smiorgan sighed. "Well, Elric, when do we raid Imrryr?"
Elric shrugged. "As soon as you like; I care not. Give me a little time in which to do certain things."
"Tomorrow? Shall we sail tomorrow?" Yaris said hesitantly, conscious of the strange power dormant in the man he had earlier accused of treachery.
Elric smiled, dismissing the youth's statement. "Three days' time," he said, "Three-or more."
"Three days! But Imrryr will be warned of our presence by then!" Fat, cautious Fadan spoke.
"I'll see that your fleet's not found," Elric promised. "I have to go to Imrryr first-and return."
"You won't do the journey in three days-the fastest ship could not make it." Smiorgan gaped.
"I'll be in the Dreaming City in less than a day," Elric said softly, with finality.
Smiorgan shrugged. "If you say so, I'll believe it-but why this necessity to visit the city ahead of the raid?"
"I have my own compunctions, Count Smiorgan. But worry not-I shan't betray you. I'll lead the raid myself, be sure of that." His dead-white face was lighted eerily by the fire and his red eyes smouldered. One lean hand firmly gripped the hilt of his runesword and he appeared to breathe more heavily. "Imrryr fell, in spirit, five hundred years ago-she will fall completely soon-for ever! I have a little debt to settle. This is my sole reason for aiding you. As you know I have made only a few conditions-that you raze the city to the ground and a certain man and woman are not harmed. I refer to my cousin Yyrkoon and his sister Cymoril…"
Yaris's thin lips felt uncomfortably dry. Much of his blustering manner resulted from the early death of his father. The old sea-king had died-leaving the youthful Yaris as the new ruler of his lands and his fleets. Yaris was not at all certain that he was capable of command-ing such a vast kingdom-and tried to appear more confident than he actually felt. Now he said: "How shall we hide the fleet, Lord Elric?"
The Melnibonean acknowledged the question. "I'll hide it for you," he promised. "I go now to do this-but make sure all your men are off the ships first-will you see to it, Smiorgan?"
"Aye," rumbled the stocky count.
He and Elric departed from the hall together, leaving five men behind; five men who sensed an air of icy doom hanging about the overheated hall.
"How could he hide such a mighty fleet when we, who know this fjord better than any, found nowhere?" Dharmit of Jharkor said bewilderedly.
None answered him.
They waited, tensed and nervous, while the fire flickered and died untended. Eventually Smiorgan returned, stamping noisily on the boarded floor. There was a haunted haze of fear surrounding him; an almost tangible aura, and he was shivering, terribly. Tremendous, racking undulations swept up his body and his breath came short.
"Well? Did Elric hide the fleet-all at once? What did he do?"
Dharmit spoke impatiently, choosing not to heed Smiorgan's ominous condition.
"He has hidden it." That was all Smiorgan said, and his voice was thin, like that of a sick man, weak from fever.
Yaris went to the entrance and tried to stare beyond the fjord slopes where many campfires burned, tried to make out the outlines of ships' masts and rigging, but he could see nothing.
"The night mist's too thick," he murmured, "I can't tell whether our ships are anchored in the fjord or not." Then he gasped involuntarily as a white face loomed out of the clinging fog. "Greetings, Lord Elric," he stuttered, noting the sweat on the Melnibonean's strained features.
Elric staggered past him, into the hall. "Wine," he mumbled, "I've done what's needed and it's cost me hard."
Dharmit fetched a jug of strong Cadsandrian wine and with a shaking hand poured some into a carved wooden goblet. Wordlessly he passed the cup to Elric who quickly drained it. "Now I will sleep," he said, stretching himself into a chair and wrapping his green cloak around him. He closed his disconcerting crimson eyes and fell into a slumber born of utter weariness.
Fadan scurried to the door, closed it and pulled the heavy iron bar down.
None of the six slept much that night and, in the morning, the door was unbarred and Elric was missing from the chair. When they went outside, the mist was so heavy that they soon lost sight of one another, though scarcely two feet separated any of them.
Elric stood with his legs astride on the shingle of the narrow beach. He looked back at the entrance to the fjord and saw, with satisfaction, that the mist was still thickening, though it lay only over the fjord itself, hiding the mighty fleet. Elsewhere, the weather was clear and overhead a pale winter sun shone sharply on the black rocks of the rugged cliffs which dominated the coastline. Ahead of him the sea rose and fell mo-notonously, like the chest of a sleeping water-giant, grey and pure, glinting in the cold sunlight. Elric fingered the raised runes on the hilt of his black broadsword and a steady north wind blew into the voluminous folds of his dark green cloak, swirling it around his tall, lean frame.
The albino felt fitter than he had done on the previous night when he had expended all his strength in conjuring the mist. He was well-versed in the arts of nature-wizardry, but he did not have the reserves of power which the Sorcerer Emperors of Melnibone had possessed when they had ruled the world. His ancestors had passed their knowledge down to him-but not their mystic vitality and many of the spells and secrets that he had were unusable, since he did not have the reservoir of strength, either of soul or of body, to work them. But for all that, Elric knew of only one other man who matched his knowledge-his cousin Yyrkoon. His hand gripped the hilt tighter as he thought of the cousin who had twice betrayed his trust, and he forced himself to concentrate on his present task-the speaking of spells to aid him on his voyage to the Isle of the Dragon Masters whose only city, Imrryr the Beautiful, was the object of the sea-lords' massing.
Drawn up on the beach, a tiny sailing-boat lay. Elric's own small craft, sturdy, oddly wrought and far stronger, far older, than it appeared.
The brooding sea flung surf around its timbers as the tide withdrew, and Elric realized that he had little time in which to work his helpful sorcery.
His body tensed and he blanked his conscious mind, summoning secrets from the dark depths of his dreaming soul. Swaying, his eyes staring unseeingly, his arms jerking out ahead of him and making unholy signs in the air, he began to speak in a sibilant monotone. Slowly the pitch of his voice rose, resembling the scarcely heard shriek of a distant gale as it comes closer-then, quite suddenly, the voice rose higher until it was howling wildly to the skies and the air began to tremble and quiver.