Elric felt some alarm and looked suspiciously at the man whose expression remained bland. "In a manner of speaking..."
"Good. My master wishes to make use of your services. If you're successful you'll have a cask of this elixir to carry you back to the Young Kingdoms or anywhere else you desire to go."
"You are offering me my life, sir," said Elric slowly, "and I am willing to pay only so much for that."
"Ah, sir, you have a streak of the merchant's bartering instinct, I see. I am sure a good bargain can be struck. Will you come with me now to a certain palace?"
Smiling, Elric took Stormbringer in his two hands and flung himself back across the bed, his shoulders against the wall and the source of the sunlight. Placing the sword upon his lap, he waved his hand in mockery of lordly hospitality. "Would you not prefer to stay and sample what I have to offer, Sir Raafi as-Keeme?"
The richly clad man shook his head deliberately. "I think not. You have doubtless become used to this stink and to the stink of your own body, but I can assure you it is not pleasant to one who is unfamiliar with it."
Elric laughed as he accepted this. He rose to his feet, hooking his scabbard to his belt and slipping the murmuring runesword into the black leather. "Then lead on, sir. I must admit I'm curious to discover what considerable risks I am to take that would make one of your own thieves refuse the kind of rewards a lord of Quarzhasaat can offer."
And in his mind he had already made a bargain: that he would not allow his life to slip away so easily a second time. He owed that much, he had decided, to Cymoril.
2 "The Pearl at the Heart of the World"
In a room through which mellow sunlight slanted in dusty bands from a massive grille set deep into the ornately painted roof of a place called Goshasiz whose complicated architecture was stained by something more sinister than time, Lord Gho Fhaazi entertained his guest to further drafts of the mysterious elixir and food which, in Quarzhasaat, was at least as valuable as the furnishings.
Bathed and wearing fresh robes, Elric possessed a new vitality, the dark blues and greens of his silks emphasising the whiteness of his skin and long, fine hair. The scabbarded runesword leaned against the carved arm of his chair and he was prepared to draw it and use it should this audience prove an elaborate trap.
Lord Gho Fhaazi was modishly coiffed and clad. His black hair and beard were teased into symmetrical ringlets, the long moustachios were waxed and pointed, the heavy brows bleached blond above pale green eyes and a skin artificially whitened until it resembled Elric's own. The lips were painted a vivid red. He sat at the far end of a table which slanted down subtly towards bis guest, his back to the light so that he almost resembled a magistrate sitting in judgement on a felon.
Elric recognised the deliberateness of the arrangement and was not put out by it. Lord Gho was still relatively young, in his early thirties, and had a pleasant, slightly high-pitched voice. He waved plump fingers at the plates of figs and dates in mint leaves, of honeyed locusts, which lay between them, pushed the silver flask of elixir in Elric's direction with an awkward display of hospitality, his movements revealing that he performed tasks he would usually have reserved for his servants.
"My dear fellow. More. Have more." He was unsure of Elric, almost wary of him, and it grew clear to the albino that there was some urgency involved in the matter, which Lord Gho had not yet proposed, nor revealed through the courier he had sent to the hovel "Is there perhaps some favourite food we have not provided?"
Elric raised yellow linen to his lips. "I'm obliged to you, Lord Gho. I have not eaten so well since I left the lands of the Young Kingdoms."
"Aha, just so. Food is plentiful there, I hear."
"As plentiful as diamonds in Quarzhasaat. You have visited the Young Kingdoms?"
"We of Quarzhasaat have no need to travel." Lord Gho spoke in some surprise. "What is there abroad that we could possibly desire?"
Elric reflected that Lord Gho's people had a good deal in common with his own. He reached and took another fig from the nearest dish and as he chewed it slowly, savouring its sweet succulence, he stared frankly at Lord Gho. "How came you to learn of Nadsokor?"
"We do not travel ourselves-but, naturally, travellers come to us. Some of them have taken caravans to Karlaak and elsewhere. They bring back the occasional slave. They tell us such astonishing lies!" He laughed tolerantly. "But there's a gram of truth, no doubt, in some of what they say. While dreamthieves, for instance, are secretive and circumspect about their origins, we have heard that thieves of every land are welcomed in Nadsokor. It takes little intelligence to draw the obvious conclusion..."
"Especially if one is blessed with only the barest information concerning other lands and peoples." Elric smiled.
Lord Gho Fnaazi did not recognise the albino's sarcasm, or perhaps he ignored it. "Is Nadsokor your home city or did you adopt it?" he asked.
"A temporary home at best," Elric told him truthfully.
"You have superficial looks in common with the people of Melniboné, whose greed led us to our present situation," Lord Gho informed him. "Is there Melnibonéan blood in your ancestry, perhaps?"
"I have no doubt of it." Elric wondered why Lord Gho failed to draw the most obvious conclusion. "Are the folk of the Dragon Isle still hated for what they did?"
"Their attempt upon our empire, you mean? I suppose so. But the Dragon Isle has long since sunk beneath the waves, a victim of our sorcerous revenge, and her puny empire with her. Why should we give much thought to a dead race which was duly punished for its infamy?"
"Indeed." Elric realised that so thoroughly had Quarzhasaat explained away her defeat and provided for herself a reason for taking no action, that she had consigned his entire people to oblivion in her legends. He could not therefore be a Melnibonéan, for Melniboné no longer existed. On that score, at least, he could know some peace of mind. Moreover, so uninterested were these people in the rest of the world and its denizens that Lord Gho Fhaazi had no further curiosity about him. The Quarzhasaatim had decided who and what Elric was and were satisfied. The albino reflected on the power of the human mind to build a fantasy and then defend it with complete determination as a reality.
Elric's chief dilemma now lay in the fact that he had no clear notion at all of the profession he was thought to practise or of the task Lord Gho wished him to perform.
The Quarzhasaati nobleman lowered his hands into a bowl of scented water and washed his beard, ostentatiously letting the liquid fall upon the geometrical mosaics of the floor.
"My servant tells me you understood his references," he said, drying himself upon a gauzy towel. Again it was clear he usually employed slaves for this task but had chosen to dine alone with Elric, perhaps for fear of his secrets being overheard. "The actual words of the prophecy are a little different. You know them?"
"No," said Elric with immediate frankness. He wondered what would happen if Lord Gho realised that he was here under false pretences.
"When the Blood Moon makes fire of the Bronze Tent, then the Path to the Pearl will be opened."
"Aha," said Elric. "Just so."
"And the nomads tell us that the Blood Moon will appear over the mountains in little less than a week. And will shine upon the Waters of the Pearl."
"Exactly," said Elric.
"And so the path to the Fortress shall, of course, be revealed." Elric nodded with gravity and as if in confirmation. "And a man such as yourself, with a knowledge at once supernatural and not supernatural, who can tread between reality and unreality, who knows the ways along the borders of dreams and waking, may break through the defences, overwhelm the guardians and steal the Pearl!" Lord Gho's voice was a mixture of lasciviousness, venality and hot excitement.