Corum knew his friend's voice and he knew that it was not as confident as usual.
The ground changed color, the air was hot and then freezingly cold and Corum realized that they were moving rapidly through the planes as the Vanishing Tower had traveled, but they were not moving at random, he was sure of that.
Now there was sand beneath Corum's feet and a hot wind blowing in his face and Jhary was shouting, "Now!"
Running with the others into the blackness, Corum burst into sunlight and saw a glowing metallic sky.
"A desert," Erekose said softly. "A vast desert…"
On all sides rolled yellow dunes and the wind was sad as it whispered across them.
Jhary was plainly pleased with himself. "Do you recognize it, friend Elric?"
Elric was relieved. "Is it the Sighing Desert?"
"Listen."
Elric listened to the sad wind but he looked at something else. Corum turned his head and saw that Jhary had dropped the Runestaff, that it was fading.
"Are you all to come with me to the defense of Tanelorn?" Elric asked Jhary, doubtless expecting him to assent.
But Jhary shook his head. "No. We go the other way. We go to seek the device Theleb K'aarna activated with the help of the Lords of Chaos. Where lies it?"
Elric searched the dunes with his eyes. He frowned and then pointed hesitantly. "That way, I think."
"Then let us go to it now."
"But I must try to help Tanelorn!" Elric protested.
"You must destroy the device after we have used it, friend Elric, lest Theleb K'aarna or his like try to activate it again."
"But Tanelorn…"
Corum listened with curiosity to the conversation. Why did Jhary know so much of Elric's world and its needs?
"I do not believe," said Jhary calmly, "that Theleb K'aarna and his beasts have yet reached the city."
"Not reached it! But so much time has passed!"
"Less than a day," said Jhary.
Corum wondered if that applied to them all or just to Elric's world. He sympathized with the albino as he rubbed his hand over his face and wondered whether to trust Jhary. Then he said, "Very well. I will take you to the machine."
"But if Tanelorn lies so near," Corum said to Jhary, "why seek it elsewhere?"
"Because this is not the Tanelorn we wish to find," Jhary told him.
"It will suit me," Erekose said almost humbly. "I will remain with Elric. Then, perhaps…" There was longing in his eyes.
But Jhary was horrified. "My friend," he said sadly, "already much of time and space is threatened with destruction. Eternal barriers could soon fall-the fabric of the multiverse could decay. You do not understand. Such a thing as has happened in the Vanishing Tower can happen only once in an eternity and even then it is dangerous to all concerned. You must do as I say. I promise that you will have just as good a chance of finding Tanelorn where I take you."
Erekose bowed his head. "Very well."
"Come." Elric was impatient, already walking away from them. "For all your talk of time, there is precious little left for me."
"For all of us," said Jhary feelingly.
They stumbled through the desert and the mourning wind found an echo of sadness in their own souls, but at last they came to a place of rocks, a natural amphitheater which had in its center a deserted camp. Tent flaps slapped as the wind blew them, but it was not the tent which drew their attention, it was the great bowl in the center of the amphitheater-a bowl which contained something far stranger than anything Corum had seen in Gwlas-an-Gwrys or in the world of Lady Jane Pentallyon. It had many planes and curves and angles of many colors and it dizzied him to look upon it too long.
"What is it?" he murmured.
"A machine," Jhary told him, "used by the ancients. It is what I have been seeking to take us to Tanelorn."
"But why not go with Elric to his Tanelorn?"
"We have the geography but we still need the time and the dimension," Jhary said. "Bear with me, Corum, for, unless we are stopped, we shall soon see the Tanelorn we seek."
"And we shall find aid against Glandyth?"
"That I cannot tell you."
Jhary went up to the machine in the bowl and he walked around it as if familiar with it. He seemed satisfied. He began to trace patterns on the bowl and these brought responses in the machine. Something deep within it began to pulse like a heart. The planes and curves and angles began to shift subtly and change color. A sense of urgency came about Jhary's movements then. He made Corum and Erekose stand with their backs pressed against the bowl and he took a small vial from his jerkin, handing it to Elric.
"When we have departed," said Jhary, "hurl this through the top of the bowl, take your horse, which I still see yonder and ride as fast as you can for Tanelorn. Follow these instructions perfectly and you will serve us all."
Gingerly, Elric took the vial. "Very well."
Jhary smiled a secret smile as he stood beside the other two. "And please give my compliments to my brother Moonglum."
Elric's crimson eyes widened. "You know him? What-?"
"Farewell, Elric. We shall doubtless meet many times in the future, though we may not recognize each other."
Elric stood there, his white face stained by the light from the bowl.
"And that will be for the best, I suppose," Jhary added under his breath, looking at the albino with some sympathy.
But Elric was gone, as was the desert, as was the machine in the bowl.
Then something like an invisible hand threw them backward.
Jhary sighed with satisfaction. "The machine is destroyed. That is good."
"But how may we return to our own plane?" Corum asked. They were surrounded by tall, waving grass-grass so high that it grew over their heads. "Where is Erekose?"
"Gone on. Gone down his own road to Tanelorn," Jhary said. He looked at the sun. He took a bunch of the thick grass and wiped his face with it. There was dew on the grass and it refreshed him. "As we must now go down ours."
"Tanelorn is close?" Excitement suffused Corum. "Is it close, Jhary?"
"It is close. I feel its closeness."
"This is your city? You know its inhabitants?"
"This is my city. Tanelorn is ever my city. But this Tanelorn I do not know. I think I know of it, however-I hope I do or all my poor scheming will be for nothing."
"What are those schemes, Jhary? You must tell me more."
"I can tell you little. I knew of Elric's plight because I once rode with Elric-still do as far as he is concerned. Also I knew how to aid Erekose, because I was once-or shall be-his friend, too. But it is not wisdom which guides me, Prince Corum. It is instinct. Come."
And he led the way through the tall, waving grass as if he followed a well-marked road.
The Third Chapter
THE CONJUNCTION OF THE MILLION SPHERES
And there was Tanelorn.
It was a blue city and it gave off a strong blue aura which merged with the expanse of the blue sky which framed it, but its buildings were of such a variety of shades of blue as to make them seem many-colored. These tall spires and domes clustered together and intersected and adjoined each other and rose in wild spirals and curves, seeming to fling themselves joyfully at the heavens as if silently delighting in their own blue beauty, in all their colors from near-black to pale violet, in all their shapes of shining metal.
"It is not a mortal settlement," whispered Corum Jhaelen Irsei as he emerged with Jhary-a-Conel from the tall grass and drew his scarlet robe about him, feeling insignificant beneath the splendor of the city.
"I'll grant you that," said Jhary almost grimly. "It is not a Tanelorn which I have seen before. Why this is almost sinister, Corum…"