The fireball fell into the sea a few inches from their bow and was evidently placed there deliberately, as a warning.
"Don't stop! " cried Vassliss. "Let the flames slay us! It will be better! "
Smiorgan was looking upward. "We have no choice. Look! He has banished the wind, it seems."
They were becalmed. Elric smiled a grim smile. He knew now what the folk of the Young Kingdoms must have felt when his ancestors had used these identical tactics against them.
"Elric?" Smiorgan turned to the albino. "Are these your people? That ship's Melnibonиan without question! "
"So are the methods, " Elric told him. "I am of the blood royal of Melnibonи. I could be emperor, even now, if I chose to claim my throne. There is some small chance that Earl Saxif D'Aan, though an ancestor, will recognize me and, therefore, recognize my authority. We are a conservative people, the folk of the Dragon Isle."
The girl spoke through dry lips, hopelessly: "He recognizes only the authority of the Lords of Chaos, who give him aid."
"All Melnibonиans recognize that authority, " Elric told her with a certain humor.
From the forward hatch, the sound of the stallion's stamping and snorting increased.
"We're besieged by enchantments! " Count Smiorgan's normally ruddy features had paled. "Have you none of your own, Prince Elric, you can use to counter them?"
"None, it seems."
The golden ship loomed over them. Elric saw that the rails, high overhead, were crowded not with Imrryrian warriors but with cutthroats equally as desperate as those he had fought upon the island, and, apparently, drawn from the same variety of historical periods and nations. The galleon's long sweeps scraped the sides of the smaller vessel as they folded, like the legs of some water insect, to enable the grappling irons to be flung out. Iron claws bit into the timbers of the little ship and the brigandly crowd overhead cheered, grinning at them, menacing them with their weapons.
The girl began to run to the seaward side of the ship, but Elric caught her by the arm.
"Do not stop me, I beg you! " she cried. "Rather, jump with me and drown! "
"You think that death will save you from Saxif D'Aan?" Elric said. "If he has the power you say, death will only bring you more firmly into his grasp! "
"Oh! " The girl shuddered and then, as a voice called down to them from one of the tall decks of the gilded ship, she gave a moan and fainted into Elric's arms, so that, weakened as he was by his spell-working, it was all that he could do to stop himself falling with her to the deck.
The voice rose over the coarse shouts and guffaws of the crew. It was pure, lilting, and sardonic. It was the voice of a Melnibonиan, though it spoke the common tongue of the Young Kingdoms, a corruption, in itself, of the speech of the Bright Empire.
"May I have the captain's permission to come aboard?"
Count Smiorgan growled back: "You have us firm, sir! Don't try to disguise an act of piracy with a polite speech! "
"I take it I have your permission, then." The unseen speaker's tone remained exactly the same.
Elric watched as part of the rail was drawn back to allow a gangplank, studded with golden nails to give firmer footing, to be lowered from the galleon's deck to theirs.
A tall figure appeared at the top of the gangplank. He had the fine features of a Melnibonиan nobleman, was thin, proud in his bearing, clad in voluminous robes of cloth-of-gold, an elaborate helmet in gold and ebony upon his long auburn locks. He had gray-blue eyes, pale, slightly flushed skin, and he carried, so far as Elric could see, no weapons of any kind.
With considerable dignity, Earl Saxif D'Aan began to descend, his rascals at his back. The contrast between this beautiful intellectual and those he commanded was remarkable. Where he walked with straight back, elegant and noble, they slouched, filthy, degenerate, unintelligent, grinning with pleasure at their easy victory. Not a man among them showed any sign of human dignity; each was overdressed in tattered and unclean finery, each had at least three weapons upon his person, and there was much evidence of looted jewelry, of nose-rings, earrings, bangles, necklaces, toe- and finger-rings, pendants, cloak-pins, and the like.
"Gods! " murmured Smiorgan. "I've rarely seen such a collection of scum, and I thought I'd encountered most kinds in my voyages. How can such a man bear to be in their company?"
"Perhaps it suits his sense of irony, " Elric suggested.
Earl Saxif D'Aan reached their deck and stood looking up at them to where they still positioned themselves, in the poop. He gave a slight bow. His features were controlled and only his eyes suggested something of the intensity of emotion dwelling within bun, particularly as they fell upon the girl in Elric's arms.
"I am Earl Saxif D'Aan of Melnibonи, now of the Islands Beyond the Crimson Gate. You have something with you which is mine. I would claim it from you."
"You mean the Lady Vassliss of Jharkor?" Elric said, his voice as steady as Saxif D'Aan's.
Saxif D'Aan seemed to note Elric for the first time. A slight frown crossed his brow and was quickly dismissed. "She is mine, " he said. "You may be assured that she will come to no harm at my hands."
Elric, seeking some advantage, knew that he risked much when he next spoke, in the High Tongue of Melnibonи, used between those of the blood royal. "Knowledge of your history does not reassure me, Saxif D'Aan."
Almost imperceptibly, the golden man stiffened and fire flared in his grayblue eyes. "Who are you, to speak the Tongue of Kings? Who are you, who claims knowledge of my past?"
"I am Elric, son of Sadric, and I am the four-hundred-and-twenty-eighth emperor of the folk of R'lin K'ren A'a, who landed upon the Dragon Isle ten thousand years ago. I am Elric, your emperor, Earl Saxif D'Aan, and I demand your fealty." And Elric held up his right hand, upon which still gleamed a ring set with a single Actorios stone, the Ring of Kings.
Earl Saxif D'Aan now had firm control of himself again. He gave no sign that he was impressed. "Your sovereignty does not extend beyond your own world, noble emperor, though I greet you as a fellow monarch." He spread his arms so that his long sleeves rustled. "This world is mine. All that exists beneath the blue sun do I rule. You trespass, therefore, in my domain. I have every right to do as I please."
"Pirate pomp, " muttered Count Smiorgan, who had understood nothing of the conversation but had gathered something of what passed by the tone. "Pirate braggadocio. What does he say, Elric?"
"He convinces me that he is not, in your sense, a pirate, Count Smiorgan. He claims that he is ruler of this plane. Since there is apparently no other, we must accept his claim."
"Gods! Then let him behave like a monarch and let us sail safely out of his waters! "
"We may-if we give him the girl."
Count Smiorgan shook his head. "I'll not do that. She's my passenger, in my charge. I must die rather than do that. It is the Code of the Sea-lords of the Purple Towns."
"You are famous for your adherence to that code, " Elric said. "As for myself, I have taken this girl into my protection and, as hereditary emperor of Melnibonи, I cannot allow myself to be browbeaten."