"Forgiven, yes." Elric, looking up, thought Queen Sough smiled.
"I thank you also, my lady." Done spoke almost intimately, as to one with whom she might share a secret. "Know you how we shall find the Fortress of the Pearl?"
"That one will know." The Queen pointed towards the distant cottage. "Farewell, as you say. You can save her. Only you."
"I am grateful for your confidence also," said Elric. He stepped almost jauntily onto the turf and followed Gone as they made their way across the fields to the little house. "This is a great relief, my lady. A contrast, indeed, to the Land of Madness!"
"Aye." She responded a trifle cautiously, and her hand went to the hilt of her sword. "But remember, Prince Elric, that madness takes many forms in all worlds."
He did not allow her wariness to let him lose his enjoyment. He was determined to restore himself to the peak of his energies, in preparation for whatever might lie ahead.
Gone was first to reach the door of the white house. Outside were two chickens scratching in the gravel, an old dog, tethered to a barrel, who looked up at them over a grey muzzle and grinned, a pair of short-coated cats cleaning their silvery fur on the roof over the lintel. Gone knocked and the door was opened almost immediately. A tall, handsome young man stood there, his head covered by an old bur-noose, his body clad in a light brown robe with long sleeves. He seemed pleased to see visitors.
"Greetings to you," he said. "I am Chamog Borm, currently in exile. Have you come with good news from the Court?"
"We have no news at all, I fear," said Gone. "We are travellers and we seek the Fortress of the Pearl. Is it close by here?"
"At the heart and the centre of those mountains." He waved with his hand towards the peaks. "Will you join me for some refreshment?"
The name the young man had given, together with his extraordinary looks, caused Elric again to rack his brains, trying to recall why all this was so familiar to him. He knew that he had only recently heard the name.
Within the cool house, Chamog Borm brewed them a herbal drink. He seemed proud of his domestic skills and it was clear he was no simple farmer. In one corner of the room was heaped a pile of rich armour, steel chased with silver and gold, a helm decorated with a tall spike, that spike decorated with ornamental snakes and falcons locked hi conflict. There were spears, a long, curved sword, daggers -weapons and accoutrements of every description.
"You are a warrior by trade?" said Elric as he sipped the hot liquid. "Your armour is very handsome."
"I was once a hero," said Chamog Borm sadly, "until I was dismissed from the Court of the Pearl."
"Dismissed?" Gone was thoughtful. "On what charge?"
Chamog Borm lowered his eyes. "I was charged with cowardice. Yet I believe that I was not guilty, that I was subject to an enchantment."
And now Elric recalled where he had heard the name. When he had arrived in Quarzhasaat he had in his fever wandered hi the market places and listened to the story-tellers. At least three of the stories he had heard had concerned Chamog Borm, hero of legend, the last brave knight of the Empire. His name was venerated everywhere, even hi the camps of the nomads. Yet Elric was sure Chamog Borm had existed-if he had ever existed-at least a thousand years earlier!
"What was the action of which you were accused?" he asked.
"I failed to save the Pearl, which now lies under an enchantment, imprisoning us all in perpetual suffering."
"What was that enchantment?" Oone asked quickly.
"It became impossible for our monarch and many of the retainers to leave the Fortress. It was for me to free them. Instead I brought a worse enchantment upon us. And my punishment is contrary to theirs. They may not leave, and I may not return." As he spoke he became increasingly melancholy.
Elric, still astonished at this conversation with a hero who should have been dead centuries before, could say little, but Oone seemed to understand completely. She made a sympathetic gesture.
"Can the Pearl be found there?" Elric asked, conscious of the bargain he had made with Lord Gho, of Anigh's impending torture and death, of Oone's predictions.
"Of course." Chamog Bonn was surprised. "Some believe it rules the whole Court, perhaps the world."
"Was this always so?" Oone asked softly.
"I have told you that it was not." He looked at them both as if they were simpletons. Then he lowered his eyes, lost in his own dishonour and humiliation.
"We hope to free her," said Oone. "Would you come with us, to help us?"
"I cannot help. She no longer trusts me. I am banished," he said. "But I can let you have my armour and my weapons so that part of me, at least, can fight for her."
"Thank you," said Oone. "You are generous."
Chamog Borm grew more animated as he helped them choose from his store. Elric found that the breastplate and greaves fitted him perfectly, as did the helmet. Similar equipment was found for Oone and the straps tightened to adjust to her slightly smaller body. They looked almost identical in then- new armour and something in Elric was again struck, some deep sense of satisfaction that he could hardly understand but which he welcomed. The armour gave him not only a greater sense of security but a sense of deep recognition of his own inner strength, a strength which he knew he must call upon to the utmost in the encounter to come. Oone had warned him of subtler dangers at the Fortress of the Pearl.
Chamog Borm's gifts continued, in the shape of two grey horses which he led from their stable at the back of the house. "These are Taron and Tadia. Brother and sister, they were twin foals. They have never been separated. Once I rode them into battle. Once I took up arms against the Bright Empire. Now the last Emperor of Melniboné will ride in my place to fulfill my destiny and end the siege of the Fortress of the Pearl."
"You know me?" Elric looked hard at the handsome youth, seeking deception or even irony, but there was none in those steady eyes.
"A hero knows another, Prince Elric." And Chamog Borm reached out to grip Elric's forearm in the gesture of friendship of the desert peoples. "May you gain all you wish to gain and may you do so with honour. You, too, Lady Oone. Your courage is the greatest of all. Farewell."
The exile watched them from the roof of his little house until they were out of sight. Now the great mountains were close, almost embracing them, and they could see a wide, white road stretching through them. The light was like that of a late summer afternoon, though Elric could still not be sure if it was sky above them or the distant roof of a vast cavern, for the sun was still not in evidence. Was the Dream Realm a limitless series of such caverns or had the dreamthief mapped the entire world? Could they cross the mountains, or the Nameless Land beyond and begin again to travel through the seven gates, ultimately arriving back at the Land of Dreams-in-Common? And would they find Jaspar Colinadous waiting for them where they had left him?
The road, when they reached it, proved to be of pure marble, but the horses' hooves were so well shod they did not slip once. The noise of their galloping began to echo through the wide pass and herds of gazelles and wild sheep looked up from their grazing to watch them pass, two silver riders on silver horses on their way to do battle with the forces who had seized power at the Fortress of the Pearl.
"You have understood these people better than I," he said to Oone, as the road began to twist upward towards the centre of the range and the light had grown colder, the sky a bright, hard grey. "Do you know what we might expect to find at the Fortress of the Pearl?"