"The Fortress of the Pearl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

1 A Doomed Lord Dying

It was in lonely Quarzhasaat, destination of many caravans but terminus of few, that Elric, hereditary Emperor of Melniboné, last of a bloodline more than ten thousand years old, sometime conjuror of terrible resource, lay ready for death. The drugs and herbs which usually sustained him had been used in the final days of his long journey across the southern edge of the Sighing Desert and he had been able to acquire no replacements for them in this fortress city which was more famous for its treasure than for its sufficiency of life.

Slowly and feebly the albino prince stretched his bone-coloured fingers to the light and brought to vividness the bloody jewel in the Ring of Kings, the last traditional symbol of his ancient responsibilities; then he let the hand fall. It was as if he had briefly hoped the Actorios would revive him, but the stone was useless while he lacked energy to command its powers. Besides, he had no great desire to summon demons here. His own folly had brought him to Quarzhasaat; he owed her citizens no vengeance. They, indeed, had cause to hate him, had they but known his origins.

Once Quarzhasaat had ruled a land of rivers and lovely valleys, its forests verdant, its plains abundant with crops, but that had been before the casting of certain incautious spells in a war with threatening Melniboné more than two thousand years earlier. Quarzhasaat's empire had been lost to both sides. It had been engulfed by a vast mass of sand which swept over it like a tide, leaving only the capital and her traditions which in time became the prime reason for her continuing existence. Because Quarzhasaat had always stood there, she must be sustained, her citizens believed, at any cost throughout eternity. Though she had no purpose or function, still her masters felt a heavy obligation to continue her existence by whichever means they found expedient. Fourteen times had armies attempted to cross the Sighing Desert to loot fabulous Quarzhasaat. Fourteen times had the desert itself defeated them.

Meanwhile the city's chief obsessions (some would say her chief industry) were the elaborate intrigues amongst her rulers. A republic, albeit in name only, and hub of a vast inland empire, albeit entirely covered by sand, Quarzhasaat was ruled by her Council of Seven, whimsically known as the Six and One Other, who controlled the greater part of the city's wealth and most of her affairs. Certain other potent men and women, who chose not to serve in this septocracy, wielded considerable influence while displaying none of the trappings of power. One of these, Elric had learned, was Narfis, Baroness of Kuwai'r, who dwelled in a simple yet beautiful villa at the city's southern extreme and gave most of her attention to her notorious rival, the old Duke Ral, patron of Quarzhasaat's finest artists, whose own palace on the northern heights was as unostentatious as it was lovely. These two, Elric was told, had elected three members each to the Council, while the seventh, always nameless and simply called the Sexocrat (who ruled the Six), maintained a balance, able to sway any vote one way or the other. The ear of the Sexocrat was most profoundly desired by all the many rivals in the city, even by Baroness Narfis and Duke Ral.

Uninterested in Quarzhasaat's ornate politics as he was in his own, Elric's reason for being here was curiosity and the fact that Quarzhasaat was clearly the only haven in a great wasteland lying north of the nameless mountains dividing the Sighing Desert from the Weeping Waste.

Moving his exhausted bones on the thin straw of his pallet, Elric wondered sardonically if he would be buried here without the people ever knowing that the hereditary ruler of their nation's greatest enemies had died amongst them. He wondered if this had after all been the fate his gods had in store for him: nothing as grandiose as he had dreamed of and yet it had its attractions.

When he had left Filkhar in haste and some confusion, he had taken the first ship out of Raschil and it had brought him to Jadmar, where he had chosen wilfully to trust an old Ilmioran drunkard who had sold him a map showing fabled Tanelorn. As the albino had half-guessed, the map proved a deception, leading him far from any kind of human habitation. He had considered crossing the mountains to make for Karlaak by the Weeping Waste but on consulting his own map, of more reliable Melnibonéan manufacture, he had discovered Quarzhasaat to be significantly closer. Riding north on a steed already half-dead from heat and starvation, he had found only dried river-beds and exhausted oases, for in his wisdom he had chosen to cross the desert in a time of drought. He had failed to find fabled Tanelorn and, it seemed, would not even catch sight of a city which, in his people's histories, was almost as fabulous.

As was usual for them, Melnibonéan chroniclers showed only a passing interest in defeated rivals, but Elric remembered that Quarzhasaat's own sorcery was said to have contributed to her extinction as a threat to her half-human enemies: A misplaced rune, he understood, uttered by Fophean Dals, the Sorcerer Duke, ancestor to the present Duke Ral, in a spell meant to flood the Melnibonéan army with sand and build a bulwark about the entire nation. Elric was still to discover how this accident was explained in Quarzhasaat now. Had they created myths and legends to rationalise the city's ill-luck entirely as a result of evil emanating from the Dragon Isle?

Elric reflected how his own obsession with myth had brought him to almost inevitable destruction. "In my miscalculations," he murmured, turning dull crimson eyes again towards the Actorios, "I have shown that I share something in common with these people's ancestors." Some forty miles from his dead horse, Elric had been discovered by a boy out searching for the jewels and precious artefacts occasionally flung up by those sandstorms which constantly came and went over this part of the desert and were partially responsible for the city's survival as well as for the astonishing height of Quarzhasaat's magnificent walls. They were also the origin of the desert's melancholy name.

In better health Elric would have relished the city's monumental beauty. It was a beauty derived from an aesthetic refined over centuries and bearing no signs of outside influence. Though so many of the curving ziggurats and palaces were of gigantic proportions there was nothing vulgar or ugly about them; they had an airy quality, a peculiar lightness of style which made them seem, in their terra-cotta reds and glittering silver granite, their whitewashed stucco, their rich blues and greens, as if they had been magicked out of the very air. Their luscious gardens filled marvellously complex terraces, their fountains and water-courses, drawn from deep-sunk wells, gave tranquil sound and wonderful perfume to her old cobbled ways and wide tree-lined avenues, yet all this water, which might have been diverted to growing crops, was used to maintain the appearance of Quarzhasaat as she had been at the height of her imperial power and was more valuable than jewels, its use rationed and its theft punishable by the severest of laws.

Elric's own lodgings were in no way magnificent, consisting as they did of a truckle bed, straw-strewn flagstones, a single high window, a plain earthenware jug and a basin containing a little brackish water which had cost him his last emerald. Water permits were not available to foreigners and the only water on general sale was Quarzhasaat's single most expensive commodity. Elric's water had almost certainly been stolen from a public fountain. The statutory penalties for such thefts were rarely discussed, even in private.

Elric required rare herbs to sustain his deficient blood, but their cost, even had they been available, would have proven far beyond his present means which had been reduced to a few gold coins; a fortune in Karlaak but of virtually no worth in a city where gold was so common it was used to line the city's aqueducts and sewers. His expeditions into the streets had been exhausting and depressing.

Once a day the boy, who had found Elric in the desert and brought him to this room, paid the albino a visit, staring at him as if at a curious insect or captured rodent. The boy's name was Anigh and, though he spoke the Melnibonéan-derived lingua franca of the Young Kingdoms, his accent was so thick it was sometimes impossible to understand all he said.

Once more Elric tried to lift his arm only to let it fall. That morning he had reconciled himself to the fact that he would never again see his beloved Cymoril and would never sit upon the Ruby Throne. He knew regret, but it was of a distant kind, for his illness made him oddly euphoric.

"I had hoped to sell you."

Elric peered, blinking, into the shadows of the room on the far side of a single ray of sunlight. He recognized the voice but could make out little more than a silhouette near the door.

"But now it seems all I have to offer in next week's market will be your corpse and your remaining possessions." It was Anigh, almost as depressed as Elric at the prospect of his prize's death. "You are still a rarity, of course. Your features are those of our ancient enemies but whiter than bone and those eyes I have never seen before in a man."

"I'm sorry to disappoint your expectations." Elric rose weakly on his elbow. He had deemed it imprudent to reveal his origins but instead had said he was a mercenary from Nadsokor, the Beggar City, which sheltered all manner of freakish inhabitants.

"Then I had hoped you might be a wizard and reward me with some bit of arcane lore which would set me on the path to becoming a wealthy man and perhaps a member of the Six. Or you might have been a desert spirit who could confer on me some useful power. But I have wasted my waters, it seems. You are merely an impoverished mercenary. Have you no wealth left at all? Some curio which might prove of value, for instance?" And the boy's eyes went towards a bundle which, long and slender, rested against the wall near Elric's head.

"That's no treasure, lad," Elric informed him grimly. "He who possesses it could be said to bear a curse impossible to exorcise." He smiled at the thought of the boy trying to find a buyer for the Black Sword which, wrapped in a torn cassock of red silk, occasionally gave out a murmur, like a senile old man attempting to recall the power of speech.

"It's a weapon, is it not?" said Anigh, his thin, tanned features making his vivid blue eyes seem large.

"Aye," Elric agreed. "A sword."

"An antique?" The boy reached under his striped brown djellabah and picked at the scab on his shoulder.

"That's a fair description." Elric was amused but found even this brief conversation tiring.

"How old?" Now Anigh took a step forward so that he was entirely illuminated by the ray of sunlight. He had the perfect look of a creature adapted to dwell amongst the tawny rocks and the dusky sands of the Sighing Desert.

"Perhaps ten thousand years." Elric found that the boy's startled expression helped him forget, momentarily, his almost certain fate. "But probably more than that..."

"Then it's a rarity, indeed! Rarities are prized by Quarzhasaat's lords and ladies. There are those amongst the Six, even, who collect such things. His honour the Master of Unicht Shlur, for instance, has the armour of a whole Ilmioran army, each piece arranged on the mummified corpses of the original warriors. And my Lady Talith possesses a collection of war-instruments numbering several thousands, each one different. Let me take that, Sir Mercenary, and I'll discover a buyer. Then I'll seek the herbs you need."

"Whereupon I'll be fit enough for you to sell me, eh?" Elric's amusement increased.

Anigh's face became exquisitely innocent. "Oh, no, sir. Then you will be strong enough to resist me. I shall merely take a commission on your first engagement."

Elric felt affection for the boy. He paused, gathering strength before he spoke again. "You expect I'll interest an employer, here in Quarzhasaat?"

"Naturally," Anigh grinned. "You could become a bodyguard to one of the Six, perhaps, or at least one of their supporters. Your unusual appearance makes you immediately employable! I have already told you what great rivals and plotters our masters are."

"It is encouraging"-Elric paused for breath-"to know that I can look forward to a life of worth and fulfillment here in Quarzhasaat." He tried to stare directly into Anigh's brilliant eyes, but the boy's head turned out of the sunlight so that only part of his body was exposed. "However, I understood from you that the herbs I described grew only in distant Kwan, days from here-in the foothills of the Ragged Pillars. I will be dead before even a fit messenger could be half-way to Kwan. Do you try to comfort me, boy? Or are your motives less noble?"

"I told you, sir, where the herbs grew. But what if there are some who have already gathered Kwan's harvest and returned?"

"You know of such an apothecary? But what would one charge me for such valuable medicines? And why did you not mention this before?"

"Because I did not know if it before." Anigh seated himself in the relative cool of the doorway. "I have made enquiries since our last conversation. I am a humble boy, your worship, not a learned man, nor yet an oracle. Yet I know how to banish my ignorance and replace it with knowledge. I am ignorant, good sir, but not a fool."

"I share your opinion of yourself, Master Anigh."

"Then shall I take the sword and find a buyer for you?" He came again into the light, hand reaching towards the bundle.

Elric fell back, shaking his head and smiling a little. "I, too, young Anigh, have much ignorance. But, unlike you, I think I might also be a fool."

"Knowledge brings power," said Anigh. "Power shall take me into the entourage of the Baroness Narfis, perhaps. I could become a captain in her guard. Maybe a noble!"

"Oh, one day you'll surely be more than either." Elric drew in stale air, his frame shuddering, his lungs enflamed. "Do what you will, though I doubt the sword will go willingly."

"May I see it?"

"Aye." With painful awkward movements Elric rolled to the bed's edge and plucked the wrappings free of the huge sword. Carved with runes which seemed to flicker unsteadily upon the blade of black, glowing metal, decorated with ancient and elaborate work, some of mysterious design, some depicting dragons and demons intertwined as if in battle, Stormbringer was clearly no mundane weapon.

The boy gasped and drew back, almost as if regretting his suggested bargain. "Is it alive?"

Elric contemplated his sword with a mixture of loathing and something akin to sensuality. "Some would say it possessed both a mind and a will. Others would claim it to be a demon in disguise. Some believe it composed of the vestigial souls of all damned mortals, trapped within as once, in legend, a great dragon was said to dwell inside another pommel than that which the sword now bears." To his own faint distaste, he found that he was taking a certain pleasure in the boy's growing dismay. "Have you never looked upon an artefact of Chaos before, Master Anigh? Or one who is wedded to such a thing? Its slave, perhaps?" He let his long, white hand descend into the dirty water and raised it to wet his lips. His red eyes flickered like dying embers. "During my travels I have heard this blade described as Arioch's own battlesword, able to slice down the walls between the very Realms. Others, as they die upon it, believe it to be a living creature. There is a theory that it is but one member of an entire race, living in our dimension but capable, should it desire, of summoning a million brothers. Can you hear it speaking, Master Anigh? Will that voice delight and charm the casual buyers in your market?" And a sound came from the pale lips that was not a laugh yet contained a desolate kind of humour.

Anigh withdrew hastily into the sunlight again. He cleared his throat. "You called the thing by a name?"

"I called the sword Stormbringer but the peoples of the Young Kingdoms sometimes have another name, both for myself and for the blade. The name is Soulstealer. It has drunk many souls."

"You're a dreamthief!" Anigh's eyes remained on the blade. "Why are you not employed?"

"I do not know the term and I do not know who would employ a 'dreamthief.'" Elric looked to the boy for further explanation.

But Anigh's gaze did not leave the sword. "Would it drink my soul, master?"

"If I chose. To restore my energy for a while, all I would have to do is let Stormbringer kill you and perhaps a few more and then she'll pass her energy on to me. Then, doubtless, I could find a steed and ride away from here, possibly to Kwan."

Now the Black Sword's voice grew more tuneful, as if approving of this notion.

"Oh, Gamek Idianit!" Anigh got to his feet, ready to flee if necessary. "This is like that story on Mass'aboon's walls. This is what those who brought about our isolation were said to wield. Aye, the leaders bore identical swords to these. The teachers at the school tell of it. I was there. Oh, what did they say!" And he frowned deeply, an object lesson to anyone wishing to point a moral concerning the benefits of attending at classes.

Elric regretted frightening the boy. "I am not disposed, young Anigh, to maintain my own life at the expense of others who have offered me no harm. That is partly the reason why I find myself in this specific predicament. You saved my life, child. I would not kill you."

"Oh, master. Thou art dangerous!" In his panic he spoke a tongue more ancient than Melnibonéan, and Elric, who had learned such things to aid his studies, recognised it.

"Where came you by that language, by that Opish?" the albino asked.

Even in his terror the boy was surprised. "They call it the gutter cant, here in Quarzhasaat. The thieves' secret. But I suppose it is common enough to hear it in Nadsokor."

"Aye, indeed. In Nadsokor, true." Elric was again intrigued by this minor turn of events. He reached towards the boy, to reassure him.

The motion caused Anigh to jerk up his head and make a noise in his throat. Clearly he set no store by Elric's attempt to regain his confidence. Without further remark, he left the room, his bare feet pattering down the long corridor and the steps into the narrow street.

Convinced that Anigh was now gone for good, Elric knew a sudden pang of sadness. He regretted only one thing now, that he would never be reunited with Cymoril and return to Melniboné to keep his promise to wed her. He understood that he had always been and probably would always be reluctant to ascend the Ruby Throne again, yet he knew it was his duty to do so. Had he deliberately chosen this fate for himself, to avoid that responsibility?

Elric knew that though his blood was tainted by his strange disease, it was still the blood of his ancestors and it would not have been easy to deny his birthright or his destiny. He had hoped he might, by his rule, turn Melniboné from the introverted, cruel and decadent vestige of a hated empire into a reinvigorated nation capable of bringing peace and justice to the world, of presenting an example of enlightenment which others might use to their own advantage.

For a chance to return to Cymoril he would more than willingly trade the Black Sword. Yet secretly he had little hope that this was possible. The Black Sword was more than a source of sustenance, a weapon against his enemies. The Black Sword bound him to his race's ancient loyalties, to Chaos, and he could not see Lord Arioch willingly allowing him to break that particular bond. When he considered these matters, these hints at a greater destiny, he found his mind growing confused and he preferred to ignore the questions whenever possible.

"Well, perhaps in folly and in death, I shall break that bond and thwart Melniboné's bad old friends."

The breath in his lungs seemed to grow thin and no longer burned. Indeed, it felt cool. His blood moved more sluggishly in his veins as he tried to rise and stagger to the rough wooden table where his few provisions lay. But he could only stare at the stale bread, the vinegary wine, the wizened pieces of dried meat whose origins were best not speculated upon. He could not get up; he could not summon the will to move. He had accepted his dying if not with equanimity then at least with a degree of dignity. Falling into a languorous reverie, he recalled his deciding to leave Melniboné, his cousin Cymoril's trepidation, his ambitious cousin Yyrkoon's secret glee, his pronouncements made to Rackhir the Warrior Priest of Phum, who had also sought Tanelorn.

Elric wondered if Rackhir the Red Archer had been any more successful in his quest or whether he lay somewhere in another part of this vast desert, his scarlet costume reduced to rags by the forever sighing wind, his flesh drying on his bones. Elric hoped with all his heart that Rackhir had succeeded in discovering the mythical city and the peace it promised. Then he found that his longing for Cymoril was growing and he believed that he wept.

Earlier he had considered calling upon Arioch, his patron Duke of Chaos, to save him, yet had continued to feel a deep reluctance even to contemplate the possibility. He feared that by employing Arioch's help once more he would lose far more than his life. Each time that powerful supernatural agreed to help, it further strengthened an agreement both implicit and mysterious. Not that the debate was anything more than notional, Elric reflected ironically. Of late Arioch had shown a distinct reluctance to come to his aid. Possibly Yyrkoon had superseded him in every way...

This thought brought Elric back to pain, to his longing for Cymoril. Again he tried to rise. The sun's position had changed. He thought he saw Cymoril standing before him. Then she became an aspect of Arioch. Was the Duke of Chaos playing with him, even now?

Elric moved his gaze to contemplate the sword which seemed to shift in its loose silk wrappings and whisper some kind of warning, or possibly a threat.

Elric turned his head away. "Cymoril?" He peered into the shaft of sunlight, following it until he looked through the window at the intense desert sky. Now he believed he saw shapes moving there, shadows that were almost the forms of men, of beasts and demons. As these shapes grew more distinct they came to resemble his friends. Cymoril was there again. Elric moaned in despair. "My love!"

He saw Rackhir, Dyvim Tvar, even Yyrkoon. He called out to them all.

At the sound of his own cracked speech he realised he had grown feverish, that his remaining energy was being dissipated by his fantasies, that his body was feeding on itself and that death must be close.

Elric reached to touch his own brow, feeling the sweat pour from it. He wondered how much each bead might fetch on the open market. He found it amusing to speculate on this. Could he sweat enough to buy himself more water, or at least a little wine? Or was this production of liquid in itself against Quarzhasaat's bizarre water laws?

He looked again beyond the sunlight, thinking he saw men there, perhaps the city's guard come to inspect his premises and demand to see his licence to perspire.

Now it seemed that the desert wind, which was never very far away, came sliding through the room, bringing with it some elemental gathering, perhaps a force which was to bear his soul to its ultimate destination. He felt relief. He smiled. He was glad in several ways that his struggle was over. Perhaps Cymoril would join him soon?

Soon? What could Tune mean in that intemporal Realm? Perhaps he must wait for Eternity before they could be together? Or a mere passing moment? Or would he never see her? Was all that lay ahead for him an absence, a nothingness? Or would his soul enter some other body, perhaps equally as sickly as his present one, and be faced again with the same impossible dilemmas, the same terrible moral and physical challenges which had plagued him since his emergence into adulthood?

Elric's mind drifted further and further from logic, like a drowning mouse swept away from the shore, spinning ever more crazily before death brought oblivion. He chuckled, he wept; he raved and occasionally slept as his life dissipated its last with the vapours now pouring from his strange, bone-white flesh. Any uninformed on-looker would have seen that some misborn diseased beast, not a man at all, lay in its final and doubtless felicitous agonies upon that rough bed.

Darkness came and with it a brilliant panoply of people from the albino's past. He saw again the wizards who had educated him in all the arts of sorcery; he saw the strange mother he had never known, and a stranger father; the cruel friends of his childhood with whom, bit by bit, he could no longer enjoy the luscious, terrible sports of Melniboné; the caverns and secret glades of the Dragon Isle, the slim towers and hauntingly intricate palaces of his unhuman people, whose ancestors were only partially of this world and who had arisen as beautiful monsters to conquer and rule before, with a deep weariness which he could appreciate all the better now, declining into self-examination and morbid fantasies. And he cried out, for in his mind he saw Cymoril, her body as wasted as his own while Yyrkoon, giggling with horrible pleasure, practised upon it the foulest of abominations. And then, again, he wanted to live, to return to Melniboné, to save the woman he loved so deeply that often he refused to let himself be conscious of the intensity of his passion. But he could not.

He knew, as the visions passed and he saw only the dark blue sky through his window, that soon he would be dead and there would be nobody to save the woman he had sworn to marry.

By morning the fever was gone and Elric knew he was but a short hour or two from the end. He opened misted eyes to see the shaft of sunlight, soft and golden now, no longer glaring directly in as it had the previous day, but reflected from the glittering walls of the palace beside which his hovel had been built.

Feeling something suddenly cool upon his cracked lips, he jerked his head away and tried to reach for his sword, for he feared that steel was being positioned against him, perhaps to cut his throat.

"Stormbringer..."

His voice was feeble and his hand was too weak to leave his side, let alone grip his murmuring blade. He coughed and realised that liquid was being dripped into his mouth. It was not the filthy stuff he had bought with his emerald but something fresh and clean. He drank, trying hard to focus his eyes. Immediately before him was an ornamental silver flask, a golden, soft hand, an arm clothed in exquisitely delicate brocade, a humorous face which he did not recognise. He coughed again. The liquid was more than ordinary water. Had the boy found some sympathetic apothecary? The potion was like one of his own sustaining distillations. He drew a ragged, grateful breath and stared in wary curiosity at the man who had resurrected him, however briefly. Smiling, his temporary saviour moved with studied elegance in his heavy, unseasonable robes.

"Good morning to you, Sir Thief. I trust I'm not insulting you. I gather you're a citizen of Nadsokor, where all kinds of robbery are practised with pride?"

Elric, conscious of the delicacy of his situation, saw fit not to contradict him. The albino prince nodded slowly. His bones still ached.

The tall, clean-shaven man slipped a stopper into his flask. "The boy Anigh tells me you have a sword to sell?"

"Perhaps." Certain now that his recovery was only temporary, Elric continued to exercise caution. "Though I would guess 'tis the kind of purchase most would regret making..."

"But your sword is not representative of your main trade, eh? You have lost your crooked staff, no doubt. Sold for water?" A knowing expression.

Elric chose to humour the man. He allowed himself to hope for life again. The liquid had revived him enough to bring back his wits, together with a proportion of his usual strength. "Aye," he said, appraising his visitor. "Maybe."

"So ho? What? Do you advertise your own incompetence? Is this the way of the Nadsokor Thieves' Company? Thou art a subtler felon than thy guise suggests, eh?" This last was delivered in the same canting tongue Anigh had used on the previous day.

Now Elric realised that this wealthy person had formed an opinion of his status and powers which, while at odds with any actuality, could provide him with a means of escape from his immediate predicament. Elric grew more alert. "You'd buy my services, is that it? My special prowess? That of myself and possibly my sword?"

The man affected carelessness. "If you like." But it was clear he suppressed some urgency. "I have been told to inform you that the Blood Moon must soon burn over the Bronze Tent."

"I see." Elric pretended to be impressed by what to him was pure gibberish. "Then we must move swiftly, I suppose."

"So my master believes. The words mean nothing to me, but they have significance for you. I was told to offer you a second draft if you appeared to respond positively to that knowledge. Here." And smiling more broadly, he held out the silver flask, which Elric accepted, drinking sparingly and feeling still more strength return, his aches gradually dissipating.

"Your master would commission a thief? What does he wish stolen that the thieves of Quarzhasaat cannot steal for him?"

"Aha, sir, you affect a literal-mindedness I cannot believe in now." He took back the flask. "I am Raafi as-Keeme and I serve a great man of this empire. He has, I believe, a commission for you. We have heard much of the Nadsokorian skills and for some while have been hoping one of your folk might wander this way. Did you plan to steal from us? None is ever successful. Better to steal for us, I think."

"Wise advice, I would guess." Elric rose in his bed and put his feet upon the flagging. Already the liquid's strength was ebbing. "Perhaps you would outline the nature of the task you have for me, sir?"

He reached for the flask but it was withdrawn into Raafi as-Keeme's sleeve.

"By all means, sir," said the newcomer, "when we have discussed a little of your background. You steal more than jewels, the boy says. Souls, I hear."

Elric felt some alarm and looked suspiciously at the man whose expression remained bland. "In a manner of speaking..."

"Good. My master wishes to make use of your services. If you're successful you'll have a cask of this elixir to carry you back to the Young Kingdoms or anywhere else you desire to go."

"You are offering me my life, sir," said Elric slowly, "and I am willing to pay only so much for that."

"Ah, sir, you have a streak of the merchant's bartering instinct, I see. I am sure a good bargain can be struck. Will you come with me now to a certain palace?"

Smiling, Elric took Stormbringer in his two hands and flung himself back across the bed, his shoulders against the wall and the source of the sunlight. Placing the sword upon his lap, he waved his hand in mockery of lordly hospitality. "Would you not prefer to stay and sample what I have to offer, Sir Raafi as-Keeme?"

The richly clad man shook his head deliberately. "I think not. You have doubtless become used to this stink and to the stink of your own body, but I can assure you it is not pleasant to one who is unfamiliar with it."

Elric laughed as he accepted this. He rose to his feet, hooking his scabbard to his belt and slipping the murmuring runesword into the black leather. "Then lead on, sir. I must admit I'm curious to discover what considerable risks I am to take that would make one of your own thieves refuse the kind of rewards a lord of Quarzhasaat can offer."

And in his mind he had already made a bargain: that he would not allow his life to slip away so easily a second time. He owed that much, he had decided, to Cymoril.