The Sailor on the Seas of Fate Page 6

  Again Elric looked upon that mysterious blind face, as unhuman, in the accepted sense, as his own, and puzzled upon the origin of the one who would allow himself to be called nothing but 'Captain'.

  As if at the Captain's summons, the mist drew itself about the ship again, as a woman might draw a froth of furs about her body. The red star's light faded, but the distant screams continued.

  Did the Captain notice the screams now for the first time, or was this a pantomime of surprise? His blind head tilted, a hand went to his ear. He murmured in a tone of satisfaction: “Aha!” The head lifted. “Elric?”

  “Here,” said the albino. “Above you.”

  “We are almost there, Elric.”

  The apparently fragile hand found the rail of the companionway. The Captain began his climb.

  Elric faced him at the top of the ladder. “If it's a battle...”

  The Captain's smile was enigmatic, bitter. “It was a fight—or shall be one.”

  “...we'll have no part in it,” concluded the albino firmly.

  “It is not one of the battles in which my ship is directly involved,” the blind man reassured him. “Those whom you can hear are the vanquished—lost in some future which, I think, you will experience close to the end of your present incarnation.”

  Elric waved a dismissive hand. “I'll be glad, Captain, if you cease such vapid mystification. I'm weary of it.”

  “I'm sorry it offends you. I answer literally, according to my instincts.”

  The Captain, going past Elric and Otto Blendker so that he could stand at the rail, seemed to be apologizing. He said nothing for a while but listened to the dis­turbing and confused babble from the mist. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied.

  “We'll sight land shortly. If you would disembark and seek your own world, I should advise you to do so now. This is the closest we shall ever come again to your plane.”

  Elric let his anger show. He cursed, invoking Arioch's name, and put a hand upon the blind man's shoulder. “What? You cannot return me directly to my own plane?”

  “It is too late.” The Captain's dismay was apparently genuine. “The ship sails on. We near the end of our long voyage.”

  “But how shall I find my world. I have no sorcery great enough to move me between the spheres! And demonic assistance is denied me here.”

  “There is one gateway to your world,” the Captain told him. “That is why I suggest you disembark. Elsewhere there are none at all. Your sphere and this one intersect directly.”

  “But you say this lies in my future?”

  “Be sure—you will return to your own time. Here you are timeless. It is why your memory is so poor. It is why you remember so little of what befalls you. Seek for the gateway—it is crimson and it emerges from the sea off the coast of the island.”

  “Which island?”

  “The one we approach.”

  Elric hesitated. “And where will you go, when I have landed?”

  “To Tanelorn,” said the Captain. “There is something I must do there. My brother and I must complete our destiny. We carry cargo as well as men. Many will try to stop us now, for they fear our cargo. We might perish, but yet we must do all we can to reach Tanelorn.”

  “Was that not, then, Tanelorn, where we fought Agak and Gagak?”

  “That was nothing but a broken dream of Tanelorn, Elric.”

  The Melnibonean knew that he would receive no more information from the Captain.

  “You offer me a poor choice—to sail with you into danger and never see my own world again, or to risk landing on yonder island inhabited, by the sound of it, by the damned and those which prey upon the damned.”

  The Captain's blind eyes moved in Elric's direction. “I know,” he said softly. “But it is the best I can offer you, nonetheless.”

  The screams, the imploring, terrified shouts, were closer now, but there were fewer of them. Glancing over the side, Elric thought he saw a pair of armoured hands rising from the water; there was foam, red-flecked and noxious, and there was yellowish scum in which pieces of frightful flotsam drifted; there were broken timbers, scraps of canvas, tatters of flags and clothing, fragments of weapons and, increasingly, there were floating corpses.

  “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 sea-battle—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, asking 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 odour increasingly unpleasant. Here and there now the water was lit 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 succour, 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 1 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 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 Melnibone,” said Elric. “I'll fetch 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 amongst dangers and torments which will, at least, be familiar.”

  “It is the only decision you could have made.” The Captain's blind head turned towards Blendker. “And you, Otto Blendker? What will 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 Melnibone. 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 keeping, and there is a kind which is hard-won. I agree
, I offer little of the former.”

  Elric strode towards 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 armour 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 and 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 towards 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 towards 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 reached 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.

  Chapter 2

  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 Melnibone 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 runesword 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.

  Opening his eyes and casting about him, he marked the peculiar blue quality of the light (doubtless a trick of the sun behind the grey clouds) which made the landscape ghastly and gave the sea a dull, metallic look.

  The limestone terraces which rose from the sea and stretched above him shone intermittently, like-polished lead. On an impulse he held his hand to the light and inspected it. The normally lustreless white of his skin was now tinged with a faint, bluish luminosity. He found it pleasing and smiled as a.child might smile, in innocent wonder.

  He had expected to be tired, but he now realized that he felt unusually refreshed, as if he had slept long after a good meal, and, deciding not to question the fact of this fortunate (and unlikely) gift, he determined to climb the cliffs in the hope that he might get some idea of his bearings before he decided which direction he would take.

  Limestone could be a little treacherous, but it made easy climbing, for there was almost always somewhere that one terrace met another.

  He climbed carefully and steadily, finding many footholds, and seemed to gain considerable height quite quickly, yet it was noon before he had reached the top and found himself standing at the edge of a broad, rocky plateau which fell away sharply to form a close horizon. Beyond the plateau was only the sky. Save for sparse, brownish grass, little grew here and there were no signs at all of human habitation. It was now for the first time that Elric realized the absence of any form of wildlife. Not a single sea-bird flew in the air, not an insect crept through the grass. Instead, there was an enormous silence hanging over the brown plain.

  Elric was still remarkably untired, so he decided to make the best use he could of his energy and reach the edge of the plateau in the hope that, from there, he would sight a town or a village. He pressed on, feeling no lack of food and water, and his stride was singularly energetic still, but he had misjudged his distance and the sun had begun to set well before his journey to the edge was completed. The sky on all sides turned a deep, velvety blue and the few clouds that were in it were also tinged blue, and now, for the first time, Elric realized that the sun itself was not its normal shade, that it burned blackish purple, and he wondered again if he still dreamed.

  The ground began to rise sharply and it was with some effort that he walked, but before the light had completely faded he was on the steep flank of a hill, descending towards a wide valley which, though bereft of trees, contained a river which wound through rocks and russet turf and bracken.

  After a short rest, Elric decided to press on, although night had fallen, and see if he could reach the river where he might, at least, drink and, possibly, in the morning, find fish to eat.

  Again, no moon appeared to aid his progress and he walked for two or three hours in a darkness which was almost total, stumbling occasionally into large rocks, until the ground levelled and he felt sure that he had reached the floor of the valley.

  He had developed a strong thirst by now and was feeling somewhat hungry, but decided that it might be best to wait until morning before seeking the river when, rounding a particularly tall rock, he saw, with some astonishment, the light of a camp fire.

  Hopefully this would be the fire of a company of merchants, a trading caravan on its way to some civilized country which would allow him to travel with it, perhaps in return for his services as a mercenary swordsman (it would not be the first time, since he had left Melnibone, that he had earned his bread in such a way).

  Yet Elric's old instincts did not desert him: he approached the fire cautiously and let no one see him. Beneath an overhang of rock, made shadowy by the flame's light, he stood and observed the group of fifteen or sixteen men who sat or lay close to the fire, playing some kind of game involving dice and slivers of numbered ivory.

/>   Gold, bronze and silver gleamed in the firelight as the men staked large sums on the fall of a die and the turn of a slip of ivory.

  Elric guessed that if they had not been so intent on their game these men must certainly have detected his approach, for they were not, after all, merchants. By the evidence, they were warriors, wearing scarred leather and dented metal, their weapons ready to hand, yet they belonged to no army—unless it be an army of bandits—for they were of all races and (oddly) seemed to be from various periods in the history of the Young Kingdoms.

  It was as if they had looted some scholar's collection of relics. An axeman of the later Lormyrian Republic, which had come to an end some two hundred years ago, lay with shoulder rubbing the elbow of a Chalalite bowman, from a period roughly contemporary with Elric's own. Close to the Chalalite sat a short Ilmioran infantryman of a century past. Next to him was a Filkharian in the barbaric dress of that nation's earliest times. Tarkeshites, Shazarians, Vilmirians all mingled and the only thing they had in common, by the look of them, was a villainous, hungry cast to their features.

  In other circumstances Elric might have skirted this encampment and moved on, but he was so glad to find human beings of any sort that he ignored the disturbing incongruities of the group, but yet he remained content to watch them.

  One of the men, less unwholesome than the others, was a bulky, black-bearded, bald-headed sea-warrior clad in the casual leathers and silks of the people of the Purple Towns. It was when this man produced a large, gold Melnibonean wheel—a coin not minted, as most coins, but carved by craftsmen to a design both ancient and intricate—that Elric's caution was fully conquered by his curiosity.

  Very few of those coins existed in Melnibone and none, that Elric had heard of, outside; for the coins were not used for trade with the Young Kingdoms. They were prized, even by the nobility of Melnibone.

  It seemed to Elric that the bald-headed man could only have acquired the coin from another Melnibonean traveller—and Elric knew of no other Melniboneans who shared his penchant for exploration. His wariness dismissed, he stepped into the circle.