Elric of Melniboné Read online

  “It seems to me, my lord,” said Dyvim Tvar from his perch a yard or two away from Elric, “that it would be unwise of us to sail directly into the harbour of Dhoz-Kam. Indeed, we could be in danger if we entered the bay. I think that we look upon the mirror, even now, only because it is not pointed directly at us. But you notice there is machinery to turn it in any direction its user chooses—save one. It cannot be turned inland, behind the city. There is no need for it, for who would approach Oin and Yu from the wastelands beyond their borders and who but the inhabitants of Oin or Yu would need to come overland to their capital?”

  “I think I take your meaning, Dyvim Tvar. You suggest that we would be wise to make use of the special properties of our ship and...”

  “... and go overland to Dhoz-Kam, striking suddenly and making full use of those veterans we brought with us, moving swiftly and ignoring Prince Yyrkoon's new allies—seeking the prince himself, and his renegades. Could we do that, Elric? Dash into the city—seize Yyrkoon, rescue Cymoril—then speed out again and away?”

  “Since we have too few men to make a direct assault, it is all we can do, though it's dangerous. The advantage of surprise would be lost, of course, once we had made the attempt. If we failed in our first attempt it would become much harder to attack a second time. The alternative is to sneak into the city at night and hope to locate Yyrkoon and Cymoril alone, but then we should not be making use of our one important weapon, the Ship Which Sails Over Land and Sea. I think your plan is the best one, Dyvim Tvar. Let us turn the ship inland, now, and hope that Grome takes his time in finding us—for I still worry lest he try seriously to wrest the ship from our possession.” Elric began to climb down towards the ground.

  Standing once more upon the poop-deck of the lovely ship, Elric ordered the helmsman to turn the vessel once again towards the land. Under half-sail the ship moved gracefully through the water and up the curve of the bank and the flowering shrubs of the forest parted before its prow and then they were sailing through the green dark of the jungle, while startled birds cawed and shrilled and little animals paused in astonishment and peered down from the trees at the Ship Which Sails Over Land and Sea and some almost lost their balance as the graceful boat progressed calmly over the floor of the forest, turning aside for only the thickest of the trees.

  And thus they made their way to the interior of the land called Oin, which lay to the north of the River Ar, which marked the border between Oin and the land called Yu with which Oin shared a single capital.

  Oin was a country consisting largely of unforested jungle and infertile plains where the inhabitants farmed, for they feared the forest and would not go into it, even though that was where Oin's wealth might be found.

  The ship sailed well enough through the forest and out over the plain and soon they could see a large lake glinting ahead of them and Dyvim Tvar, glancing at the crude map with which he had furnished himself in Ramasaz, suggested that they begin to turn towards the south again and approach Dhoz-Kam by means of a wide semi-circle. Elric agreed and the ship began to tack round.

  It was then that the land began to heave again and huge waves of grassy earth this time rolled around the ship and blotted out the surrounding view. The ship pitched wildly up and down and from side to side. Two more Imrryrians fell from the rigging and were killed on the deck below. The bosun was shouting loudly—though in fact all this upheaval was happening in silence—and the silence made the situation seem that much more menacing. The bosun yelled to his men to tie themselves to their positions. “And all those not doing anything—get below at once!” he added.

  Elric had wound a scarf around the rail and tied the other end to his wrist. Dyvim Tvar had used a long belt for the same purpose. But still they were flung in all directions, often losing their footing as the ship bucked this way and that, and every bone in Elric's body seemed about to crack and every inch of his flesh seemed bruised. And the ship was creaking and protesting and threatening to break up under the awful strain of riding the heaving land.

  “Is this Grome's work, Elric?” Dyvim Tvar panted. “Or is it some sorcery of Yyrkoon's?”

  Elric shook his head. “Not Yyrkoon. It is Grome. And I know no way to placate him. Not Grome, who thinks least of all the Kings of the Elements, yet, perhaps, is the most powerful.”

  “But surely he breaks his bargain with his brother by doing this to us?”

  “No. I think not. King Straasha warned us this might happen. We can only hope that Grome expends all his energy and that the ship survives, as it might survive a natural storm at sea.”

  “This is worse than a sea-storm, Elric!”

  Elric nodded his agreement but could say nothing, for the deck was tilting at a crazy angle and he had to cling to the rails with both hands in order to retain any kind of footing.

  And now the silence stopped.

  Instead they heard a rumbling and a roaring that seemed to have something of the character of laughter.

  “King Grome!” Elric shouted. “King Grome! Let us be! We have done you no harm!”

  But the laughter increased and it made the whole ship quiver as the land rose and fell around it, as trees and hills and rocks rushed towards the ship and then fell away again, never quite engulfing them, for Grome doubtless wanted his ship intact.

  “Grome! You have no quarrel with mortals!” Elric cried again. “Let us be! Ask a favour of us if you must, but grant us this favour in return!”

  Elric was shouting almost anything that came into his head. Really, he had no hope of being heard by the earth god and he did not expect King Grome to bother to listen even if the elemental did hear. But there was nothing else to do.

  “Grome! Grome! Grome! Listen to me!”

  Elric's only response was in the louder laughter which made every nerve in him tremble. And the earth heaved higher and dropped lower and the ship spun round and round until Elric was sure he would lose his senses entirely.

  “King Grome! King Grome! Is it just to slay those who have never done you harm?”

  And then, slowly, the heaving earth subsided and the ship was still and a huge, brown figure stood looking down at the ship. The figure was the colour of earth and looked like a vast, old oak. His hair and his beard were the colour of leaves and his eyes were the colour of gold ore and his teeth were the colour of granite and his feet were like roots and his skin seemed covered in tiny green shoots in place of hair and he smelled rich and musty and good and he was King Grome of the Earth Elementals. He sniffed and he frowned and he said in a soft, mighty voice that was yet coarse and grumpy: “I want my ship.”

  “It is not our ship to give, King Grome,” said Elric.

  Grome's tone of petulance increased. “I want my ship,” he said slowly. “I want the thing. It is mine.”

  “Of what use is it to you, King Grome?”

  “Use? It is mine.”

  Grome stamped and the land rippled.

  Elric said desperately: “It is your brother's ship, King Grome. It is King Straasha's ship. He gave you part of his domain and you allowed him to keep the ship. That was the bargain.”

  “I know nothing of a bargain. The ship is mine.”

  “You know that if you take the ship then King Straasha will have to take back the land he gave you.”

  “I want my ship.” The huge figure shifted its position and bits of earth fell from it, landing with distinctly heard thuds on the ground below and on the deck of the ship.

  “Then you must kill us to obtain it,” Elric said.

  “Kill? Grome does not kill mortals. He kills nothing. Grome builds. Grome brings to life.”

  “You have already killed three of our company,” Elric pointed out. “Three are dead, King Grome, because you made the land-storm.”

  Grome's great brows drew together and he scratched his great head, causing an immense rustling noise to sound. “Grome does not kill,” he said again.

  “King Grome has killed,” said Elric reasonably. “Three
lives lost.”

  Grome grunted. “But I want my ship.”

  “The ship is lent to us by your brother. We cannot give it to you. Besides, we sail in it for a purpose—a noble purpose, I think. We...”

  “I know nothing of ‘purposes’—and care nothing for you. I want my ship. My brother should not have lent it to you. I had almost forgotten it. But now that I remember it, I want it.”

  “Will you not accept something else in place of the ship, King Grome?” said Dyvim Tvar suddenly. “Some other gift.”

  Grome shook his monstrous head. “How could a mortal give me something? It is mortals who take from me all the time. They steal my bones and my blood and my flesh. Could you give me back all that your kind has taken?”

  “Is there not one thing?” Elric said.

  Grome closed his eyes.

  “Precious metals? Jewels?” suggested Dyvim Tvar. “We have many such in Melnibone.”

  “I have plenty,” said King Grome.

  Elric shrugged in despair. “How can we bargain with a god, Dyvim Tvar?” He gave a bitter smile. “What can the Lord of the Soil desire? More sun, more rain? These are not ours to give.”

  “I am a rough sort of god,” said Grome, “if indeed god I am. But I did not mean to kill your comrades. I have an idea. Give me the bodies of the slain. Bury them in my earth.”

  Elric's heart leapt. “That is all you wish of us.”

  “It would seem much to me.”

  “And for that you will let us sail on?”

  “On water, aye,” growled Grome. “But I do not see why I should allow you to sail over my land. It is too much to expect of me. You can go to yonder lake, but from now this ship will only possess the properties bestowed upon it by my brother Straasha. No longer shall it cross my domain.”

  “But, King Grome, we need this ship. We are upon urgent business. We need to sail to the city yonder.” Elric pointed in the direction of Dhoz-Kam.

  “You may go to the lake, but after that the ship will sail only on water. Now give me what I ask.”

  Elric called down to the bosun who, for the first time, seemed amazed by what he was witnessing. “Bring up the bodies of the three dead men.”

  The bodies were brought up from below. Grome stretched out one of his great, earthy hands and picked them up.

  “I thank you,” he growled. “Farewell.”

  And slowly Grome began to descend into the ground, his whole huge frame becoming, atom by atom, absorbed with the earth until he was gone.

  And then the ship was moving again, slowly towards the lake, on the last short voyage it would ever make upon the land.

  “And thus our plans are thwarted,” said Elric.

  Dyvim Tvar looked miserably towards the shining lake. “Aye. So much for that scheme. I hesitate to suggest this to you, Elric, but I fear we must resort to sorcery again if we are to stand any chance of achieving our goal.”

  Elric sighed.

  “I fear we must,” he said.

  8.

  The City and the Mirror

  Prince Yyrkoon was pleased. His plans went well. He peered through the high fence which enclosed the flat roof of his house (three storeys high and the finest in Dhoz-Kam); he looked out towards the harbour at his splendid, captured fleet. Every ship which had come to Dhoz-Kam and which had not flown the standard of a powerful nation had been easily taken after its crew had looked upon the great mirror which squatted on its pillars above the city. Demons had built those pillars and Prince Yyrkoon had paid them for their work with the souls of all those in Oin and Yu who had resisted him. Now there was one last ambition to fulfil and then he and his new followers would be on their way to Melnibone...

  He turned and spoke to his sister. Cymoril lay on a wooden bench, staring unseeingly at the sky, clad in the filthy tatters of the dress she had been wearing when Yyrkoon abducted her from her tower.

  “See our fleet, Cymoril! While the golden barges are scattered we shall sail unhampered into Imrryr and declare the city ours. Elric cannot defend himself against us now. He fell so easily into my trap. He is a fool! And you were a fool to give him your affection!”

  Cymoril made no response. Through all the months she had been away, Yyrkoon had drugged her food and drink and produced in her a lassitude which rivalled Elric's undrugged condition. Yyrkoon's own experiments with his sorcerous powers had turned him gaunt, wild-eyed and somewhat mangy; he ceased to take any pains with his physical appearance. But Cymoril had a wasted, haunted look to her, for all that beauty remained. It was as if Dhoz-Kam's rundown seediness had infected them both in different ways.

  “Fear not for your own future, however, my sister,” Yyrkoon continued. He chuckled. “You shall still be empress and sit beside the emperor on his Ruby Throne. Only I shall be emperor and Elric shall die for many days and the manner of his death will be more inventive than anything he thought to do to me.”

  Cymoril's voice was hollow and distant. She did not turn her head when she spoke. “You are insane, Yyrkoon.”

  “Insane? Come now, sister, is that a word that a true Melnibonean should use? We Melniboneans judge nothing sane or insane. What a man is—he is. What he does—he does. Perhaps you have stayed too long in the Young Kingdoms and its judgments are becoming yours. But that shall soon be righted. We shall return to the Dragon Isle in triumph and you will forget all this, just as if you yourself had looked into the Mirror of Memory.” He darted a nervous glance upwards, as if he half-expected the mirror to be turned on him.

  Cymoril closed her eyes. Her breathing was heavy and very slow; she was bearing this nightmare with fortitude, certain that Elric must eventually rescue her from it. That hope was all that had stopped her from destroying herself. If the hope went altogether, then she would bring about her own death and be done with Yyrkoon and all his horrors.

  “Did I tell you that last night I was successful? I raised demons, Cymoril. Such powerful, dark demons. I learned from them all that was left for me to learn. And I opened the Shade Gate at last. Soon I shall pass through it and there I shall find what I seek. I shall become the most powerful mortal on earth. Did I tell you all this, Cymoril?”

  He had, in fact, repeated himself several times that morning, but Cymoril had paid no more attention to him than she did now. She felt so tired. She tried to sleep. She said slowly, as if to remind herself of something: “I hate you, Yyrkoon.”

  “Ah, but you shall love me soon, Cymoril. Soon.”

  “Elric will come...”

  “Elric! Ha! He sits twiddling his thumbs in his tower, waiting for news that will never come—save when I bring it to him!”

  “Elric will come,” she said.

  Yyrkoon snarled. A brute-faced Oinish girl brought him his morning wine. Yyrkoon seized the cup and sipped the stuff. Then he spat it at the girl who, trembling, ducked away. Yyrkoon took the jug and emptied it onto the white dust of the roof. “This is Elric's thin blood. This is how it will flow away!”

  But again Cymoril was not listening. She was trying to remember her albino lover and the few sweet days they had spent together since they were children.

  Yyrkoon hurled the empty jug at the girl's head, but she was adept at dodging him. As she dodged, she murmured her standard response to all his attacks and insults. “Thank you, Demon Lord,” she said. “Thank you, Demon Lord.”

  Yyrkoon laughed. “Aye. Demon Lord. Your folk are right to call me that, for I rule more demons than I rule men. My power increases every day!”

  The Oinish girl hurried away to fetch more wine, for she knew he would be calling for it in a moment. Yyrkoon crossed the roof to stare through the slats in the fence at the proof of his power, but as he looked upon his ships he heard sounds of confusion from the other side of the roof. Could the Yurits and the Oinish be fighting amongst themselves? Where were their Imrryrian centurions. Where was Captain Valharik?

  He almost ran across the roof, passing Cymoril who appeared to be sleeping, and peered down into th
e streets.

  “Fire?” he murmured. “Fire?”

  It was true that the streets appeared to be on fire. And yet it was not an ordinary fire. Balls of fire seemed to drift about, igniting rush-thatched roofs, doors, anything which would easily burn—as an invading army might put a village to the torch.