1 How a Thief May Instruct an Emperor
Oone removed a date stone from her mouth and dropped it into the sand of the Silver Flower Oasis. She reached her hand towards one of the brilliant cactus flowers which gave the place its name. She stroked the petals with long, delicate fingers. She sang to herself and it seemed to Elric that her words were a lament.
Respectfully he remained silent, sitting with his back to a palm tree looking to the distant camp and its continuing activity. She had asked bun to accompany her but had said little to him. He heard a calling from the kashbeh high above but when he peered in that direction he saw nothing. The breeze blew over the desert and red dust raced like water towards the Ragged Pillars on the horizon.
It was almost noon. They had returned to the Silver Flower Oasis that morning and the few remains of Alnac Kreb were to be burned with honour according to the customs of the Bauradim that night.
Oone's staff was no longer slung on her back. Now she held the dreamwand in both hands, turning it over and over, watching the light on its burnish and polish as if she had only now seen it for the first time. The other wand, Alnac's, she had tucked into her belt.
"It would have made my task a little easier," she said suddenly, "if Alnac had not acted so precipitously. He did not realise I was coming and was doing his best to save the child, I know. But a few more hours and I could have used his help, perhaps successfully. Certainly I might have saved him."
"I do not understand what happened to him," said Elric.
"Even I do not know the exact cause of his fall," she said. "But I will explain what I can. That is why I asked you to come with me. I would not wish to be overheard. And I must demand your word that you will be discreet."
"I am ever that, madam."
"Forever," she said.
"Forever?"
"You must promise never to tell another soul what I tell you today, nor recount any event which results from the telling. You must agree to be bound by a dreamthief s code even though you are not of our kind."
Elric was baffled. "For what reason?"
"Would you save their Holy Girl? Avenge Alnac? Free yourself from the drug's slavery? Adjust certain wrongs in Quarzhasaat?"
"You know I would."
"Then we may reach an agreement, for it is certain that, unless we help each other, you and the girl and perhaps myself, too, will all be dead before the Blood Moon fades."
"Certain?" Elric was grimly amused. "Are you an oracle, too, then, madam?"
"All dreamthieves are that, to some degree." She was almost impatient, as if she spoke to a slow child. She caught herself. "Forgive me. I forget that our craft is unknown in the Young Kingdoms. Indeed, it's rarely that we travel to this plane at all."
"I have met many supernatural in my life, my lady, but few who seem so human as yourself."
"Human? Of course I am human!" She seemed puzzled. Then her brow cleared. "Ah. I forget that you are at once more sophisticated and less learned than those of my own persuasion." She smiled at him. "I am still not recovered from Alnac's unnecessary dissolution."
"He need not have died." Elric's tone was flat, unquestioning. He had known Alnac long enough to care for him as a Mend. He understood something of Oone's loss. "And there is no way to revive him?"
"He lost all essence," said Gone. "Instead of stealing a dream, he was robbed of his own." She paused, then spoke quickly, as if she feared she would regret her words. "Will you help me, Prince Elric?"
"Yes." He spoke without hesitation. "If it is to avenge Alnac and save the child."
"Even if you risk Alnac's fate? The fate which you witnessed?"
"Even that. Can it be worse than dying in Lord Gho's power?"
"Yes," she said simply.
Elric laughed aloud at her frankness. "Ah, well. Just so, madam! Just so! What's your bargain?"
She moved her hand again towards the silver petals, balancing her wand between her fingers. She was frowning, still not wholly certain of the rightness of her decision. "I think that you are one of the few mortals on this earth who could understand the nature of my profession, who'll know what I mean when I speak of the nature of dreams and reality and how they intersect. I think, too, that you have habits of mind which would make you, if not a perfect ally, then an ally on whom I could to some extent depend. We dreamthieves have made something of a science of a trade which logically can tolerate no consistent laws. It has enabled us to pursue our craft with some success, largely, I suspect, because we are able, to a degree, to impose our wills upon the chaos we encounter. Does this make sense to you, Prince?"
"I think so. There are philosophers of my own people who claim that much of our magic is actually the imposition of powerful will upon the fundamental stuff of reality, an ability, if you like, to make dreams come true. Some claim our whole world was created thus."
Gone seemed pleased. "Good. I knew there were certain ideas I would not have to explain."
"But what would you have me do, lady?"
"I want you to help me. Together we can find a way to what the Sorcerer Adventurers call the Fortress of the Pearl and by so doing one or both of us might steal the dream which binds the child to perpetual sleep and free her to wakefulness, return her to her people to be their seeress and their pride."
"The two are linked, then?" Elric began to rise to his feet, ignoring the call of his ever-present craving. "The child and the Pearl?"
"I think so."
"What is the link?"
"In discovering that, we shall doubtless discover how to free her."
"Forgive me Lady Oone," said Elric gently, "but you sound almost as ignorant as I!"
"In some ways it is true that I am. Before I go further, I must ask you to swear to abide by the Dreamthief's Code."
"I swear," said Elric, and he held up the hand on which his Actorios glowed to show that he swore by one of his people's most revered artefacts. "I swear by the Rings of Kings."
"Then I will tell you what I know and what I desire of you," said Oone. She linked her free hand in his arm and led him further into the groves of palms and cypress. Sensing the shuddering hunger in him which yearned for Lord Gho's terrible drug, she seemed to show some sympathy.
"A dreamthief," she began, "does exactly what the title implies. We steal dreams. Originally our guild were true thieves. We learned the trick of entering the worlds of other peoples' dreams and stealing those which were most magnificent or exotic. Gradually, however, people began to call upon us to steal unwanted dreams-or rather the dreams which entrapped or plagued friends or relatives. So we stole those. Frequently the dreams themselves were in no way harmful to another, only to the one who was in their power..."
Elric interrupted. "Are you saying that a dream has some material reality? That it can be seized, like a volume of verse, say, or money purse, and slipped free of its owner?"
"Essentially, yes. Or, I should say, our guild learned the trick of making a dream sufficiently real for it to be handled thus!" She now laughed openly at his confusion and some of the care went away from her for a moment. "There is a certain talent needed and a great deal of training."