'How do I enter it?’
She took the opportunity to grasp his heavily muscled arm and point through the window. 'See-there a causeway leads down from this tower to the cliff.' She glanced at him sharply. 'Do you see it?'
'Ah-yes I had not, but now I do. Yes, a causeway.'
Standing behind him, she smiled a little to herself.
'I will remove the barrier, ' she said.
He straightened his helm on his head. 'For Klant and Eloarde and only those do I embark upon this adventure.'
She moved towards the wall and raised the window. He did not look at her as he strode down the causeway into the multicoloured mist.
As she watched him disappear, she smiled to herself. How easy it was to beguile the strongest man by pretending to go his way! He might add lands to his Empire, but he might find their populations unwilling to accept Eloarde as their Empress. In fact, if Aubec did his work well, then he would be creating more of a threat to Klant than ever Kaneloon had been.
Yet she admired him, she was attracted to him, perhaps, because he was not so accessible, a little more than she had been to that earlier hero who had claimed Aubec's own land from Chaos barely two hundred years before. Oh, he had been a man! But he, like most before him, had needed no other persuasion than the promise of her body. Earl Aubec's weakness had lain in his strength, she thought. By now he had vanished into the heaving mists.
She felt a trifle sad that this time the execution of the task given her by the Lords of Law had not brought her the usual pleasure.
Yes perhaps, she thought, she felt a more subtle pleasure in his steadfastness and the means she had used to convince him.
For centuries had the Lords of Law entrusted her with Kaneloon and its secrets. But the progress was slow, for there were few heroes who could survive Kaneloon's dangers few who could defeat self created perils. Yet, she decided with a slight smile on her lips, the task had its various rewards. She moved into another chamber to prepare for the transition of the castle to the new edge of the world.
Thus were the seeds sewn of the Age of the Young Kingdoms, the Age of Men, which was to produce the downfall of Melnibone.
Book One
THE DREAMING CITY
Which tells how Elric came back to Imrryr, what he did there, and how, at last, his weird fell upon him...
ONE
‘What's the hour?' The black-bearded man wrenched off his gilded helmet and flung it from him, careless of where it fell. He drew off his leathern gauntlets and moved closer to the roaring fire, letting the heat soak into his frozen bones. 'Midnight is long past, ' growled one of the other armoured men who gathered around the blaze. 'Are you still sure he'll come?'
'It's said that he's a man of his word, if that comforts you.'
It was a tall, pale-faced youth who spoke. His thin lips formed the words and spat them out maliciously. He grinned a Wolf-grin and stared the new arrival in the eyes, mocking him.
The newcomer turned away with a shrug. 'That's so for all your irony, Yaris. He'll come.' He spoke as a man does when he wishes to reassure himself.
There were six men, now, around the fire. The sixth was Smiorgan Count Smiorgan Baldhead of the Purple Towns. He was a short, stocky man of fifty years with a scarred face partially covered with a thick, black growth of hair. His eyes smouldered morosely and his lumpy fingers plucked nervously at his-rich-hilted longsword. His pate was hairless, giving him his name, and over his ornate, gilded armour hung a loose woollen cloak, dyed purple.
Smiorgan said thickly, 'He has no love for his cousin. He has become bitter. Yyrkoon sits on the Ruby Throne in his place and has proclaimed him an outlaw and a traitor. Elric needs us if he would take his throne and his bride back. We can trust him.' 'You're full of trust tonight, Count, ' Yaris smiled thinly, 'a rare thing to find in these troubled times. I say this ' He paused and took a long breath, stating at his comrades, summing them up. His gaze flicked from lean-faced Dharmit of Jharkor to Fadan of Lormyr who pursed his podgy lips and looked into the fire.
'Speak up, Yaris, ' petulantly urged the patricianfeatured Vilmirian, Naclon. 'Let's hear what you have to say, lad, if it's worth hearing.'
Yaris looked towards Jiku the dandy, who yawned impolitely and scratched his long nose.
'Well! ' Smiorgan was impatient. 'What d'you say, Yaris?'
'I say that we should start now and' waste no more time waiting on Elric's pleasure! He's laughing at us in some tavern a hundred miles from here or else plotting with the Dragon Princes to trap us. For years we have planned this raid. We have little time in which to strike our fleet is too big, too noticeable. Even if Elric has not betrayed us, then spies will soon be running eastwards to warn the Dragons that there is a fleet massed against them. We stand to win a fantastic fortune to vanquish the greatest merchant city in the world to reap immeasurable riches or horrible death at the hands of the Dragon Princes, if we wait overlong. Let's bide our time no more and set sail before our prize hears of our plan and brings up reinforcements! '
'You always were too ready to mistrust a man, Yaris.' King Naclon of Vilmir spoke slowly, Carefully-distastefully eyeing the taut-featured youth.
'We could not reach Imrryr without Elric's knowledge of the maze-channels which lead to its secret ports. If Elric will not join us then our endeavour will be fruitless hopeless. We need him. We must wait for him or else give up our plans and return to our homelands.'
'At least I'm willing to take a risk, ' yelled Yaris, anger lancing from his slanting eyes. 'You're getting old all of you. Treasures are not won by care and forethought but by swift slaying and reckless attack.'
'Fool! ' Dharmit's voice rumbled around the fireflooded hall. He laughed wearily. 'I spoke thus in my youth and lost a fine fleet soon after. Cunning and Elric's knowledge will win us Imrryr that and the mightiest fleet to sail the Sighing Sea since Melnibone's banners fluttered over all the nations of the Earth. Here we are the most powerful Sea Lords in the world, masters, every one of us, of more than a hundred swift vessels. Our names are feared and famous our fleets ravage the coasts of a score of lesser nations. We hold power! ' He clenched his great fist and shook it in Yaris' face. His tone became more level and he smiled viciously, glaring at the youth and choosing his words with precision.
'But all this is worthless meaningless without the power which Elric has. That is the power of knowledge of sorcery, if I must use the cursed word. His fathers knew of the maze which guards Imrryr from sea-attack. And his fathers passed that secret on to him. Imrryr, the Dreaming City, dreams in peace and will continue to do so unless we have a guide to help us steer a course through the treacherous waterways which lead to her harbours. We need Elric we know it, and he knows it. That's the truth! '
'Such confidence, gentlemen, is warming to the heart.' There was irony in the heavy voice which came from the entrance to the hall. The heads of the six Sea Lords jerked towards the doorway. Yaris' confidence fled from him as he met the eyes of Elric of Melnibon. They were old eyes in a fine featured, youthful face. Crimson eyes which stared into eternity. Yaris shuddered, turned his back on Elric, preferring to look into the bright glare of the fire.
Elric smiled warmly as Count Smiorgan gripped his shoulder. There was a certain friendship between the two. He nodded condescendingly to the other four and walked with lithe grace towards the fire. Yaris stood aside and let him pass. Elric was tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. He wore his long hair bunched and pinned at the nape of his neck and, for an obscure reason, affected the dress of a Southern barbarian. He had long, knee-length boots of soft doe-leather, a breastplate of strangely wrought silver, a jerkin of chequered blue and white linen, britches of scarlet wool and a cloak of rustling green velvet. At his hip rested his runesword of black iron-the feared Stormbringer, forged by ancient and alien sorcery.