"We must go, " said Erekosл. His eyes were glazed. He staggered as he walked.
Thus, dragging those who had fainted, leading those who had gone mad, leaving those who had died behind, they fled through the dead passages of Gagak's body, no longer plagued by the things she had created in her attempt to rid that body of those she had experienced as an invading disease. The passages and chambers were cold and brittle and the men were glad when they stood outside and saw the ruins, the sourceless shadows, the red, static sun.
Otto Blendker was the only one of the warriors who seemed to retain his sanity through the ordeal, when they had been absorbed, unknowingly, into the body of the Four Who Were One. He dragged his brand from his belt and he took out his tinder and ignited it. Soon the brand was flaming and the others lighted theirs from his. Elric trudged to where Agak's remains still lay and he shuddered as he recognized in a monstrous stone face part of his own features. He felt that the stuff could not possibly burn, but it did. Behind him Gagak's body blazed, too. They were swiftly consumed and pillars of growling fire jutted into the sky, sending up a smoke of white and crimson which for a little while obscured the red disk of the sun.
The men watched the corpses burn.
"I wonder, " said Corum, "if the captain knew why he sent us here?"
"Or if he suspected what would happen?" said Hawkmoon. Hawkmoon's tone was near to resentful.
"Only we-only that being-could battle Agak and Gagak in anything resembling their own terms, " said Erekosл. "Other means would not have been successful, no other creature could have the particular qualities, the enormous power needed to slay such strange sorcerers."
"So it seems, " said Elric, and he would talk no more of it.
"Hopefully, " said Corum, "you will forget this experience as you forgot-or will forget-the other."
Elric offered him a hard stare. "Hopefully, brother, " he said.
Erekosл's chuckle was ironic. "Who could recall that?" And he, too, said no more.
Ashnar the Lynx, who had ceased his gigglings as he watched the fire, shrieked suddenly and broke away from the main party. He ran toward the flickering column and then veered away, disappearing among the ruins and the shadows.
Otto Blendker gave Elric a questioning stare, but Elric shook his head. "Why follow him? What can we do for him?" He looked down at Hown Serpent-tamer. He had particularly liked the man in the sea-green armor. He shrugged.
When they moved on, they left the curled body of Hown Serpent-tamer where it lay, helping only Brut of Lashmar across the rubble and down to the shore.
Soon they saw the white mist ahead and knew they neared the sea, though the ship was not in sight.
At the edge of the mist both Hawkmoon and Erekosл paused.
"I will not rejoin the ship, " said Hawkmoon. "I feel I've served my passage now. If I can find Tanelorn, this, I suspect, is where I must look."
"My own feelings." Erekosл nodded his head.
Elric looked to Corum. Corum smiled. "I have already found Tanelorn. I go back to the ship in the hope that soon it will deposit me upon a more familiar shore."
"That is my hope, " said Elric. His arm still supported Brut of Lashmar.
Brut whispered, "What was it? What happened to us?"
Elric increased his grip upon the warrior's shoulder. "Nothing, " he said.
Then, as Elric tried to lead Brut into the mist, the blond warrior stepped back, breaking free. "I will stay, " he said. He moved away from Elric. "I am sorry."
Elric was puzzled. "Brut?"
"I am sorry, " Brut said again. "I fear you. I fear that ship."
Elric made to follow the warrior, but Corum put a hard silver hand upon his shoulder. "Comrade, let us be gone from this place." His smile was bleak. "It is what is back there that I fear more than the ship."
They stared over the ruins. In the distance they could see the remains of the fire and there were two shadows there now, the shadows of Gagak and Agak as they had first appeared to them.
Elric drew a cold breath of air. "With that I agree, " he told Corum.
Otto Blendker was the only warrior who chose to return to the ship with them. "If that is Tanelorn, it is not, after all, the place I sought, " he said.
Soon they were waist-deep in the water. They saw again the outlines of the dark ship; they saw the captain leaning on the rail, his arm raised as if in salute to someone or something upon the island.
"Captain, " called Corum, "we come aboard."
"You are welcome, " said the captain. "Yes, you are welcome." The blind face turned toward them as Elric reached out for the rope ladder. "Would you care to sail for a while into the silent places, the restful places?"
"I think so, " said Elric. He paused, halfway up the ladder, and he touched his head. "I have many wounds."
He reached the rail and with his own cool hands the captain helped him over. "They will heal, Elric."
Elric moved closer to the mast. He leaned against it and watched the silent crew as they unfurled the sail. Corum and Otto Blendker came aboard. Elric listened to the sharp sound of the anchor as it was drawn up. The ship swayed a little.
Otto Blendker looked at Elric, then at the captain, then he turned and went into his cabin, saying nothing at all as he closed the door.
The sail filled, the ship began to move. The captain reached out and found Elric's arm. He took Corum's arm, too, and led them toward his cabin. "The wine, " he said. "It will heal all the wounds."
At the door of the captain's cabin Elric paused. "And does the wine have other properties?" he asked. "Does it cloud a man's reason? Was it that which made me accept your commission, Captain?"
The captain shrugged. "What is reason?"
The ship was gathering speed. The white mist was thicker and a cold wind blew at the rags of cloth and metal Elric wore. He sniffed, thinking for a moment that he smelled smoke upon that wind.
He put his two hands to his face and touched his flesh. His face was cold. He let his hands fall to his sides and he followed the captain into the warmth of the cabin.
The captain poured wine into silver cups from his silver jug. He stretched out a hand to offer a cup to Elric and to Corum. They drank.
A little later the captain said, "How do you feel?" Elric said, "I feel nothing."
And that night he dreamed only of shadows and in the morning he could not understand his dream at all.
Book TWO
SAILING TO THE PRESENT
I
His bone-white, long-fingered hand upon a carved demon's head in black-brown hardwood (one of the few such decorations to be found anywhere about the vessel), the tall man stood alone in the ship's fo'c'sle and stared through large, slanting crimson eyes at the mist into which they moved with a speed and sureness to make any mortal mariner marvel and become incredulous.
There were sounds in the distance, incongruent with the sounds of even this nameless, tuneless sea: thin sounds, agonized and terrible, for all that they remained remote-yet the ship followed them, as if drawn by them; they grew louder-pain and despair were there, but terror was predominant.
Elric had heard such sounds echoing from his cousin Yyrkoon's sardonically named "Pleasure Chambers" in the days before he had fled the responsibilities of ruling all that remained of the old Melnibonиan Empire. These were the voices of men whose very souls were under siege; men to whom death meant not mere extinction, but a continuation of existence, forever in thrall to some cruel and supernatural master. He had heard men cry so when his salvation and his nemesis, his great black battle-blade Stormbringer, drank their souls.