"But where was the battle?" Blendker whispered, fascinated and horrified by the sight.
"Not on this plane, " the captain told him. "You see only the wreckage which has drifted over from one world to another."
"Then it was a supernatural battle?"
The captain smiled again. "I am not omniscient. But, yes, I believe there were supernatural agencies involved. The warriors of half a world fought in the seabattle-to decide the fate of the multiverse. It is-or will be-one of the decisive battles to determine the fate of Mankind, to fix Man's destiny for the coming Cycle."
"Who were the participants?" asked Elric, voicing the question in spite of his resolve. "What were the issues as they understood them?"
"You will know in time, I think." The captain's head faced the sea again.
Blendker sniffed the air. "Ach! It's foul! "
Elric, too, found the odor increasingly unpleasant. Here and there now the water was lighted by guttering fires which revealed the faces of the drowning, some of whom still managed to cling to pieces of blackened driftwood. Not all the faces were human (though they had the appearance of having, once, been human): Things with the snouts of pigs and of bulls raised twisted hands to the Dark Ship and grunted plaintively for succor, but the captain ignored them and the steersman held his course.
Fires spluttered and water hissed; smoke mingled with the mist. Elric had his sleeve over his mouth and nose and was glad that the smoke and mist between them helped obscure the sights, for as the wreckage grew thicker not a few of the corpses he saw reminded him more of reptiles than of men, their pale, lizard bellies spilling something other than blood.
"If that is my future, " Elric told the captain, "I've a mind to remain on board, after all."
"You have a duty, as have I, " said the captain quietly. "The future must be served, as much as the past and the present."
Elric shook his head. "I fled the duties of an empire because I sought freedom, " the albino told him. "And freedom I must have."
"No, " murmured the captain. "There is no such thing. Not yet. Not for us. We must go through much more before we can even begin to guess what freedom is. The price for the knowledge alone is probably higher than any you would care to pay at this stage of your life. Indeed, life itself is often the price."
"I also sought release from metaphysics when I left Melnibonи, " said Elric. "I'll get the rest of my gear and take the land that's offered. With luck this Crimson Gate will be quickly found and I'll be back among dangers and torments which will, at least, be familiar."
"It is the only decision you could have made." The captain's blind head turned toward Blendker. "And you, Otto Blendker? What shall you do?"
"Elric's world is not mine and I like not the sound of those screams. What can you promise me, sir, if I sail on with you?"
"Nothing but a good death." There was regret in the captain's voice.
"Death is the promise we're all born with, sir. A good death is better than a poor one. I'll sail on with you."
"As you like. I think you're wise." The captain sighed. "I'll say farewell to you, then, Elric of Melnibonи. You fought well in my service and I thank you."
"Fought for what?" Elric asked.
"Oh, call it Mankind. Call it Fate. Call it a dream or an ideal, if you wish."
"Shall I never have a clearer answer?"
"Not from me. I do not think there is one."
"You allow a man little faith." Elric began to descend the companionway.
"There are two kinds of faith, Elric. Like freedom, there is a kind which is easily kept but proves not worth the keeping, and there is a kind which is hardwon. I agree, I offer little of the former."
Elric strode toward his cabin. He laughed, feeling genuine affection for the blind man at that moment. "I thought I had a penchant for such ambiguities, but I have met my match in you, Captain."
He noticed that the steersman had left his place at the wheel and was swinging out a boat on its davits, preparatory to lowering it.
"Is that for me?"
The steersman nodded.
Elric ducked into his cabin. He was leaving the ship with nothing but that which he had brought aboard, only his clothing and his armor were in a poorer state of repair than they had been, and his mind was in a considerably greater state of confusion.
Without hesitation he gathered up his things, drawing his heavy cloak about him, pulling on his gauntlets, fastening buckles and thongs, then he left the cabin and returned to the deck. The captain was pointing through the mist at the dark outlines of a coast. "Can you see land, Elric?"
"I can."
"You must go quickly, then."
"Willingly."
Elric swung himself over the rail and into the boat. The boat struck the side of the ship several times, so that the hull boomed like the beating of some huge funeral drum. Otherwise there was silence now upon the misty waters and no sign of wreckage.
Blendker saluted him. "I wish you luck, comrade."
"You, too, Master Blendker."
The boat began to sink toward the flat surface of the sea, the pulleys of the davits creaking. Elric clung to the rope, letting go as the boat hit the water. He stumbled and sat down heavily upon the seat, releasing the ropes so that the boat drifted at once away from the Dark Ship. He got out the oars and fitted them into their rowlocks.
As he pulled toward the shore he heard the captain's voice calling to him, but the words were muffled by the mist and he would never know, now, if the blind man's last communication had been a warning or merely some formal pleasantry. He did not care. The boat moved smoothly through the water; the mist began to thin, but so, too, did the light fade.
Suddenly he was under a twilight sky, the sun already gone and stars appearing. Before he had reached the shore it was already completely dark, with the moon not yet risen, and it was with difficulty that he beached the boat on what seemed flat rocks, and stumbled inland until he judged himself safe enough from any inrushing tide.
Then, with a sigh, he lay down, thinking just to order his thoughts before moving on; but, almost instantly, he was asleep.
II
Elric dreamed.
He dreamed not merely of the end of his world but of the end of an entire cycle in the history of the cosmos. He dreamed that he was not only Elric of Melnibonи but that he was other men, too-men who were pledged to some numinous cause which even they could not describe. And he dreamed that he had dreamed of the Dark Ship and Tanelorn and Agak and Gagak while he lay exhausted upon a beach somewhere beyond the borders of Pikarayd; and when he woke up he was smiling sardonically, congratulating himself for the possession of a grandiose imagination. But he could not clear his head entirely of the impression left by that dream.
This shore was not the same, so plainly something had befallen him-perhaps he had been drugged by slavers, then later abandoned when they found him not what they expected. . . . But, no, the explanation would not do. If he could discover his whereabouts, he might also recall the true facts.
It was dawn, for certain. He sat up and looked about him.
He was sprawled upon a dark, sea-washed limestone pavement, cracked in a hundred places, the cracks so deep that the small streams of foaming salt water rushing through these many narrow channels made raucous what would otherwise have been a very still morning.
Elric climbed to his feet, using his scabbarded rune-sword to steady himself. His bone-white lids closed for a moment over his crimson eyes as he sought, again, to recollect the events which had brought him here.
He recalled his flight from Pikarayd, his panic, his falling into a coma of hopelessness, his dreams. And, because he was evidently neither dead nor a prisoner, he could at least conclude that his pursuers had, after all, given up the chase, for if they had found him they would have killed him.