As the jill-dragon flew through evening skies, Elric felt himself grow whole again. A peculiar euphoria filled him. He sang out the ancient dragon-songs, the rich, silky, wicked songs of his folk who, for all their cruelty, had relished every experience that came their way and this relish for life and sensation came naturally to the albino, despite the weakness of his blood.
Indeed, it seemed to him that his blood was somehow touched by a compensatory quality, a world of almost unrelieved sensuality and vividness, so intense that it sometimes threatened to destroy not only him, but those around him. It was one of the reasons he was prepared to accept his loneliness.
Now it did not matter how far the jill-dragon flew. Her venom sustained him. The symbiosis was near-complete. On without rest beat Scarsnout until, beneath a golden late afternoon sun which made the three-quarters ripened wheat glow and shimmer like burnished copper, where a startled figure in a pointed alabaster cap cried out in delight at the sight of them and a cloud of starlings rose suddenly to trace with their hurried flight some familiar hieroglyph in the delicate blue wash of the sky and leave a sudden silence behind them, Scarsnout extended her great ribbed wings in a sinuously elegant glide towards what seemed at first a road made of basalt or some other rock and then became a mile-wide long-healed scar through the wheatlands, too smooth, unpopulated and vast to be a road, yet with an unguessable purpose. It cut through the crops as if it had been laid that day, heaped on both sides by great unkempt banks on which a few weeds and wildflowers grew and over which hopped, flapped and crawled every kind of carrion vermin. As they dropped lower Elric could smell the vile stuff and almost gagged. His nose confirmed what he saw—piles of refuse, bones, human waste, bits of broken furniture and ruined pots—great continuous banks of detritus stretching on either side of the smoothly polished road from horizon to horizon, with no notion of where or from where it led … Elric sang to his jill to take him up and away from all this filth and into the sweet air of the high summer skies, but she ignored him, wheeling first to the north, then to the south, until she was swooping down the very middle of that great, smooth scar, which had something of the brownish-pink of sunned flesh, and she had landed, almost without any sensation, in the centre of it.
Now Scarsnout folded back her wings and settled her clawed feet upon the ground, clearly indicating that she intended to carry Elric no further. With some reluctance he climbed off her back, unraveling the ruined scarf and wrapping it around his waist, as if it would secure him from any dangers hereabouts, and sang the farewell chant of thanking and kinship and, as he called the last lines, the great jill-dragon lifted up her beautiful, reptilian head and joined, with sonorous gravity, in the final cadences. Her voice might have been the voice of Time itself.
Then her jaws snapped shut, her eyes turned once upon him, half-lidded, almost in affection, and, once her tongue had tasted the evening air, she had widened her wings, hopped twice, shaking the surface so that Elric thought it must crack, and was at last a-sky, mounting into the atmosphere again, her graceful body curling and twisting as her wings carried her up to the eastern horizon, the setting sun casting her long, terrible shadow across the fields, and then, near the horizon, a single flash of silver suggested to Elric that his jill-dragon had returned to her own dimension. He raised his helm in farewell, as grateful for her venom as her patience.
All Elric wished to do was to get free of this unnatural causeway. Though it gleamed like polished marble, he could see now that it was nothing more than beaten mud; earth piled on earth until it had almost the consistency of solid rock. Perhaps the whole thing was built of garbage? For some reason, this thought disturbed him and he began to walk rapidly towards the southern edge. Wiping sweat from his forehead, he wondered again what purpose the place had. Flies now surrounded him and buzzards regarded him as a possible contender for their sweetmeats. He coughed again at the stink but knew he must climb the stuff to get to the wholesome air of the wheatfields.
“Safe passage to your home-cave, sweet Lady Scarsnout,” he murmured as he moved. “I owe you both life and death, it seems. But I bear you no ill will.”
His scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth, the albino began to climb the yielding filth, disturbing bones and vermin with every movement and making slow progress, while around him birds and winged rats hissed and chittered at him. Again he wondered what kind of creature could have created such a path, if path it were. It could not, he felt sure, be the work of any human agency and this made him all the more anxious to return to the known qualities of the wheatfield.
He had reached the rim and was clambering along it to find a firmer foothold down. Scattering rotted matter and angry rodents as he went, he wondered what kind of culture brought its waste to line a track created by some supernatural being. Then he thought he saw something larger shift below, near where the wheat grew, but the light was bad and he put it down to his imagination. Was the refuse some kind of holy offering? Did this realm’s people worship a god who patrolled from one habitation to another in the form of a gigantic snake?
There was another movement below him, as he slid down a few feet and came to rest on an old cistern, and he saw a soft felt hat rise above a pile of rags and an avian face stare up at him in astonished amusement. “Good heavens, sir. This cannot be coincidence! But what purpose has Fate for pairing we two, do you think?” It was Wheldrake, stumbling up from the wheatfield. “What lies behind you, sir, that’s duller than this? More corn? Why, sir, this seems a world of corn!”
“Of corn and garbage and a somewhat idiosyncratic pathway of baffling purpose which slices through all, from east to west. It has a sinister air to it.”
“So you go the other way, sir?”
“To avoid whichever unpleasant creation of Chaos has chosen to slither this route and take its choice of these offerings. My horses, I suppose, were not carried through the dimensions with you?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir. I’d guessed you eaten, by now. But the reptile was one of those with a sentimental weakness for heroes, I take it?”
“Something of the sort.” Elric smiled, grateful in an odd way for the red-headed poet’s ironies. They were preferable to his most recent conversation with his father. As he slid down some powdery and decomposing substance alive with maggots, he embraced the little man who almost chirped with pleasure at their reunion. “My dear sir!”
Whereupon, arm in arm they went, back to the bottom and the sweetening wheat, back in the direction of a river Elric had seen from his dragon steed. There had been a town upon that river which, he guessed, might be reached in less than a day. He spoke of this to Wheldrake, adding that they were sadly short of provisions or the means of obtaining any, unless they chewed the unripe wheat.
“I regret my poaching days in Northumberland are long behind me, sir. But as a lad I was apt enough with snare and a gun. It might be, since your scarf is rather badly the worse for wear, that you would not mind if I unraveled it a little more. It’s just possible I might remember my old skills.”
With an amiable shrug, Elric handed the birdlike poet his scarf and watched as the little fingers worked swiftly, unraveling and reknotting until he had a length of thin cord. “With evening drawing close, sir, I’d best get to work at once.”
By now they were some distance from the wall of garbage and could smell only the rich, restful scents of the summer fields. Elric took his ease amongst the wheatstalks while Wheldrake went to work and within a short space of time, having cleared a wide area and dug a pit, they were able to enjoy a young rabbit while they speculated at such a strange world which grew such vast fields and yet seemed to have so few farmsteads or villages. Staring at the rabbit’s carcass turning on a spit (also of Wheldrake’s devising) Elric said that, for all his sorcerous education, he was not the familiar traveler through the realms that Wheldrake seemed to be.
“Not by choice, sir, I assure you. I blame a certain Doctor Dee, whom I consulted on the Greeks. It was to do with me
tre, sir. A metric question. I needed, I thought, to hear the language of Plato. Well, the story’s long and not especially novel to those of us who travel, willy-nilly, through the multiverse, but I spent some while on one particular plane, shifting a little, I must admit, through time (but not the other dimensions) until I had come to rest, I was sure, in Putney.”
“Would you return there, Master Wheldrake?”
“Indeed I would, sir. I’m growing a little long in the tooth for extra-dimensional adventuring, and I tend to form firm attachments, so it is rather hard on me, you know, to miss so many friends.”
“Well, sir. I hope you will find them again.”
“And you, sir. Good luck with whatever it is you hope to discover. Though I suspect you are the kind who’s forever searching for the numinous.”
“Perhaps,” said Elric soberly, chewing upon a tender leg, “but I think the numinosity of what I presently seek would surprise you greatly …”
Wheldrake was about to ask more when he changed his mind and stared instead, with abiding pride, at his spit and his catch. Elric’s own cares were considerably lightened by his relish for the little man’s company and quirks of character.
And now Master Wheldrake has found his sought-for volume and has a handy candle to light at the fire so that he might read aloud to the last Prince of Melniboné an account of some demigod of his own dimension and his challenge of a kingship, when there comes a sound of a horse walking slowly through the wheat—a horse which hesitates with every few steps as if controlled by a clever master. So Elric shouts out—
“Greetings, horseman. Would you share our meat?”
There’s a pause, then the answering voice is muffled, distant, yet courteous:
“I’d share your heat, sir, for a while. It’s mighty cold just now, to me.”
The horse continues towards them at the same pace, still pausing from time to time, still cautious, until at last they see its shadow against the firelight and a rider dismounts, walking softly towards them, a silhouette of alarming symmetry, a big man clad from head to foot in armour that flashes silver, gold, sometimes blue-grey. On his helm is a plume of dark yellow and his breastplate is etched with the yellow-and-black Arms of Chaos, the arms of a soulbonded servant of the Lords of Unlikelihood, which are eight arrows radiating from a central hub, representing the variety and multiplicity of Chaos. Behind him his perfect war-stallion was furnished with a hood and surcoat of radiant black-and-silver silk, a high saddle of ornamental ivory and ebony, and silver harness bound with gold.
Elric got to his feet, ready for confrontation but chiefly puzzled by the stranger’s appearance. The newcomer wore a helm apparently without a visor, but all of a piece from neck to crown. Only the eye-slits relieved the smoothness of the coruscating steel, which seemed to contain living matter just below its polished surface: matter that flowed and stirred and threatened. Through those slits peered a pair of eyes displaying an angry pain which Elric understood. He was unable to identify a feeling of close affinity with the man as he came up to the fire and stretched gauntleted hands towards the flames. The firelight caught the metal and again suggested that something living was contained in it, trapped in it—some enormous energy, so powerful it could be observed through the steel. And yet the fingers stretched and curled like any fleshly finger warmed back to circulation, and the stranger’s sigh was one of simple comfort.
“Will you take a little rabbit, sir?” Wheldrake gestured towards the roasting coney.
“Thank you, no, sir.”
“Will you unburden yourself of your helm and sit with us? You’re in no danger.”
“I believe you, sir. But I am unable to remove this helm at present and have not, I’ll be frank, fed upon commonplace sustenance for some while.”
At this Wheldrake raised a ruddy eyebrow. “Does Chaos send her servants to become cannibals, these days, sir?”
“She’s had servants a-plenty who have been that,” said the armoured man, turning his back now to the fire’s heat, “but I am not of their number. I have not eaten flesh, fruit or vegetable, sir, for nigh on two thousand years. Or it could be more. I ceased attempting such a reckoning long ago. There are realms that are always Night and realms sweltering in perpetual Day and others where night and day fly by with a speed not of our usual perception.”
“Some sort of vow, is it, sir?” says Wheldrake tentatively. “Some holy purpose?”
“A quest, aye, but for something simpler, sir, than you would believe.”
“What are you seeking, sir? A particular lost bride?”
“You are perceptive, sir.”
“Merely well-read, sir. But that is not all, eh?”
“I seek nothing less than death, sir. It is to that unhappy doom that the Balance did consign me when I betrayed her those numberless millennia since. It is also my doom to fight against those who serve the Balance, though I love the Balance with a ferocity, sir, that has never dissipated. It was ordained—though I have no reason to trust the oracle in question—that I should find peace at the hand of a servant of the Balance—one who was as I once was.”
“And what were you once?” enquired Wheldrake, who had followed this last a little more swiftly than the albino.
“I was once a Prince of the Balance, a Servant and Confidant of that Unordinary Intelligence that tolerates, celebrates and loves all life throughout the multiverse and yet which both Law and Chaos would overthrow if they could. Discontented with multiplicity and massive adjustment in the multiverse, guessing something of a great conjunction which must come throughout the Key Planes and set the realities for countless aeons—realities where the Balance might no longer exist, I gave in to experiment. The notion was too strong for me. Curiosity and folly, self-importance and pride led me to convince myself that in doing what I attempted to do, I served the interests of the Balance. And for my failure, or my success, I would have paid an equal price. The price I now pay.”
“That is not the whole of your story, sir.” Wheldrake was enthralled. “You will not bore me, I know, if you wish to embroider it with more detail.”
“I cannot, sir. I speak as I do because that is all I am allowed to unburden of my tale. The rest is for me alone to know until such time I shall be released and then it can be told.”
“Released by death, sir? It would create some difficulties regarding the telling, I’d guess.”
“The Balance doubtless will decide such things,” said the stranger, without much humour.
“Is general death all you look for, sir? Or has death a name?” Elric spoke softly, with some sympathy.
“I am seeking three sisters. They came this way, I think, a few days since. Would you have seen three sisters? Riding together?”
“I regret, sir, that we are but recently transported to this realm, through no desire of our own, and thus are newly here without maps or directions.” Elric shrugged. “I had hoped you would know a little of the place.”
“It is in what they call the Nine Millionth Ring, the maguses here. It exists within what they have formalized as the Realms of Central Significance, and it is true there is an unusual quality to the plane which I have yet to identify. It is not a true Centre, for that is the Realm of the Balance, but it is what I would call a quasi-centre. You’ll forgive the jargon, sir, I hope, of the philosopher. I was for some generations an alchemist in Prague.”
“Prague!” cries Wheldrake with a caw of delighted recognition. “Those bells and towers, sir. And do you know Mirenburg, perhaps? Even more beautiful!”
“The memories are no doubt pleasant enough,” says the armoured man, “since I do not recall them. I would take it that you, too, are upon a quest here?”
“Not I, sir,” says Wheldrake, “unless it be for Putney Common and my lost half-pint.”
“I am seeking something, aye,” agreed Elric cautiously. He had hoped to learn a little of the geography rather than the mystical and astrological placing of this world. “I am Elric of Melnibon
é.”
His name does not seem of any great significance to the armoured man. “And I am Gaynor, once a Prince of the Universal, now called the Damned. Perhaps we have met? Without these names or even faces? In some other incarnation?”
“It is not my misfortune to recall any other lives,” says Elric softly, at last disturbed by Gaynor’s enquiries. “I understand you only a little, sir. I am a mercenary soldier en route to a new location with a view to finding myself a fresh patron. To the supernatural, I am almost a stranger.”
And he was grateful that Wheldrake’s eyebrows were rising at that moment from behind Gaynor. Why he should decide upon such subterfuge he did not understand, only that, for all his being drawn to Gaynor, for all their mutual patronage under Chaos, he feared something in him. Gaynor had no reason to wish him harm and Elric guessed that Gaynor did not waste anything of himself in meaningless challenges or killings, yet still Elric grew more close-lipped, as if he, too, were fated by the Balance never to speak of his own story, and at length they settled down to sleep, three strange figures in what appeared to be an infinity of wheat.
Early the next morning, Gaynor resumed his saddle. “I was glad of the company, gentlemen. If you travel yonder, you’ll find a pretty settlement. The people there are traders and welcome strangers. They treat us, indeed, with unusual respect. I go on my way. I have been informed that my sisters journeyed towards a place called the Gypsy Nation. Know you anything of that?”
“I regret, sir,” said Wheldrake, wiping his hands upon an enormous red cotton handkerchief, “we are virgins in this world. Innocent as babes. We are wholly at a disadvantage, having but recently arrived in this realm and having no notion of its people or its gods. Perhaps, if I might be somewhat forward, I would suggest that you are yourself of divine or semi-divine origin?”
The answering laugh seemed to find an internal echo, as if the prince’s helm disguised the entrance to some infinite chasm. It was far away, yet oddly intimate. “I told you, Master Wheldrake. I was a Prince of the Balance. But not now. Now, I assure you, sir, there is nothing divine about Gaynor the Damned.”