"And what is there?" He was sardonic. "Sublime reason?" He felt the same strange sense of exhaustion. Physically he was still capable of continuing, but his mind and his spirit were depleted.
"I cannot begin to anticipate what we shall find in the Nameless Land," she said. "Dreamthieves have little power over what occurs beyond the seventh gate."
"I've noticed your considerable influence here!" But he did not mean to hurt her. He smiled to show that he joked.
From ahead they beard a howling, so painful that even Queen Sough covered her ears. It was like the baying of some monstrous hound, echoing up and down the abyss and threatening to shake the very boulders loose from the walls. As the river bore them round the bend they saw the beast standing there, a great shaggy wolflike beast, its head lifted as it howled again. The water rushed around its huge legs, foamed against its body. As it turned its gaze upon them the beast vanished completely. They heard only the echo of its howling. The speed of the water increased. Queen Sough had removed her hands from the tiller to block her ears. The boat swung in the water and bounced as it struck a rock. She made no attempt to steer it Elric seized the long arm but in spite of using all his strength he could do nothing with the boat. Eventually he, too, gave up.
Down and down the river ran. Down into a gorge growing so deep that soon there was scarcely any light at all. They saw faces grinning at them. They felt hands reach out to touch them. Elric became convinced that every mortal creature who had ever died had come here to haunt him. In the dark rock he saw his own face many times, and that of Cymoril and Yyrkoon. Old battles were fought as he watched. And old, agonising emotions came back to him. He felt the loss of all he had ever loved, the despair of death and desertion, and soon his own voice joined the general babble and he howled as loudly as the hound had howled until Oone shook him and yelled at him and brought him back from the madness which had threatened to engulf him.
"Elric! The last gate! We are almost there! Hold on, Prince of Melniboné. You have been courageous and resourceful until now. This will require still more of you, and you must be ready!"
And Elric began to laugh. He laughed at his own fate, at the fate of the Holy Girl, at Anigh's fate and at Oone's. He laughed when he thought of Cymoril waiting for him on the Dragon Isle, not knowing even now if he lived or died, if he was free or a slave.
When Oone shouted at him again, he laughed in her face.
"Elric! You betray us all!"
He paused in his laughter long enough to say softly, almost in triumph, "Aye, madam, that is so. I betray you all. Have you not heard? It is my destiny to betray!"
"You shall not betray me, sir!" She slapped at his face. She punched him. She kicked his legs. "You shall not betray me and you shall not betray the Holy Girl!"
He knew intense pain, not from her blows but from his own mind. He cried out and then he began to sob. "Oh, Oone. What is happening to me?"
"This is Falador," she said simply. "Are you recovered, Prince Elric?"
The faces still gibbered at him from the rock. The air was still alive with all he feared, all he most misliked in himself.
He was trembling. He could not meet her gaze. He realised he was weeping. "I am Elric, last of Melniboné's royal line," he said. "I have looked upon horror and I have courted the Dukes of Hell. Why should I know fear now?"
She did not answer and he expected no answer from her.
The boat surged, swung again, lifted and dipped.
Suddenly he was calm. He took hold of Oone's hand in a gesture of simple affection.
"I am myself again, I think," he said.
"There is the gateway," said Queen Sough from behind them. She had her grip on the tiller again and with her other hand was pointing ahead.
"There is the land you call the Nameless Land," she said. She spoke plainly now, not in the cryptic phrasing she had used since they had met her. "There you will find the Fortress of the Pearl. She cannot welcome you."
"Who?" said Elric. The waters were calm again. They ran slowly towards a great archway of alabaster, its edges trimmed by soft leaves and shrubs. "The Holy Girl?"
"She can be saved," said Queen Sough. "Only by you two, I think. I have helped her remain here, awaiting rescue. But it is all I can do. I am afraid, you see."
"We are all that, madam," said Elric feelingly.
The boat was caught by new currents and travelled still more slowly, as if reluctant to enter the last gate of the Dream Realm.
"But I am of no help," said Queen Sough. "I might even have conspired. It was those men. They came. Then more came. There was only retreat thereafter. I wish I could know such words. You would understand them if I had them. Ah, it is hard here!"
Elric, looking into her agonised eyes, realised that she was probably more of a prisoner in this world than he and Gone. It seemed to him that she longed to escape and was only kept here by her love of the Holy Girl, her protective emotions. Yet surely she had been here long before Varadia had come?
The boat had begun to pass under the alabaster arch now. There was a salty, pleasant taste to the air, as if they approached the ocean.
Elric decided he must ask the question which was on his mind.
"Queen Sough," he said. "Are you Varadia's mother?"
The pain in the eyes grew even more intense as the veiled woman turned away from him. Her voice was a sob of anguish and he was shocked by it.
"Oh, who knows?" she cried. "Who knows?"
PART THREE
1 At the Court of the Pearl
Again Elric experienced that strange frisson of recognition at the landscape before bun, though he could not remember ever seeing anything like it. Pale blue mist rose around cypresses, date palms, orange trees and poplars whose shades of green were equally pale; flowing meadows occasionally revealed the rounded white of boulders and in the far distance were snow-peaked mountains. It was as if an artist had painted the scenery with the most delicate of washes, the finest of brushstrokes. It was a vision of Paradise and completely unexpected after the insanity of Falador.
Queen Sough had remained silent since she had answered Elric's question and a peculiar atmosphere had developed among the three of them. Yet all the uneasiness failed to affect Elric's delight at the world they had entered. The skies (if skies they were) were full of pearly cloud, tinged by pink and the faintest yellow, and a little white smoke rose up from a flat-roofed house some distance away. The barge had come to rest in a pool of still, sparkling water and Queen Sough gestured for them to disembark.
"You will come with us to the Fortress?" asked Gone.
"She does not know. I do not know if it is permitted," said the Queen, her eyes hooded above her veil.
"Then I shall say farewell now," and Elric bowed and kissed the woman's soft hand. "I thank you for your assistance, madam, and trust you will forgive me for the crudeness of my manners."