“All cultures have similar legends. Wishful thinking, Duke Avan, that is all...”
“But the Melniboneans had a culture unlike any others. The Melniboneans are not true men, as you well know. Their powers are superior, their knowledge far greater...”
“It was once thus,” Elric said. “But that great power and knowledge is not mine. I have only a fragment of it...”
“I did not seek you in Bakshaan and later in Jadmar because I believed you could verify what I have heard. I did not cross the sea to Filkhar, then to Argimiliar and at last to Pikarayd because I thought you would instantly confirm all that I have spoken of—I sought you because I think you are the only man who would wish to accompany me on a voyage which would give us the truth or falsehood to these legends once and for all.”
Elric tilted his head and drained his wine cup.
“Cannot you do that for yourself? Why should you desire my company on the expedition? From what I have heard of you, Duke Avan, you are not one who needs support in his venturings...”
Duke Avan laughed. “I went alone to Elwher when my men deserted me in the Weeping Waste. It is not in my nature to know physical fear. But I have survived my travels this long because I have shown proper foresight and caution before setting off. Now it seems I must face dangers I cannot anticipate—sorcery, perhaps. It struck me, therefore, that I needed an ally who had some experience of fighting sorcery. And since I would have no truck with the ordinary kind of wizard such as Pang Tang spawns, you were my only choice. You seek knowledge, Prince Elric, just as I do. Indeed it could be said that if it had not been for your yearning for knowledge, your cousin would never have attempted to usurp the Ruby Throne of Melnibone...”
“Enough of that,” Elric said bitterly. “Let's talk of this expedition. Where is the map?”
“You will accompany me?”
“Show me the map.”
Duke Avan drew a scroll from his pouch. “Here it is.”
“Where did you find it?”
“On Melnibone.”
“You have been there recently?” Elric felt anger rise in him. Duke Avan raised a hand. “I went there with a group of traders and I gave much for a particular casket which had been sealed, it seemed, for an eternity. Within that casket was this map.” He spread out the scroll on the table. Elric recognized the style and the script—the old High Speech of Melnibone. It was a map of part of the Western continent—more than he had ever seen on any other map. It showed a great river winding into the interior for a hundred miles or more. The river appeared to flow through a jungle and then divide into two rivers which later rejoined. The 'island' of land thus formed had a black circle marked on it. Against this circle, in the involved writing of ancient Melnibone, was the name R'lin K'ren A'a. Elric inspected the scroll carefully. It did not seem to be a forgery.
“Is this all you found?” he asked.
“The scroll was sealed and this was embedded in the seal,” Duke Avan said, handing something to Elric.
Elric held an object in his palm. It was a tiny ruby of a red so deep as to seem black at first, but when he turned it into the light he saw an image at the centre of the ruby and he recognized that image. He frowned, then he said: “I will agree to your proposal, Duke Avan. Will you let me keep this?”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No. But I should like to find out. There is a memory somewhere in my head...”
“Very well, take it. I will keep the map.”
“When did you have it in mind to set off?”
Duke Avan's smile was sardonic.
“We are already sailing round the southern coast to the Boiling Sea.”
“There are few who have returned from that ocean,” Elric murmured tersely. He glanced across the table and saw that Smiorgan was imploring with his eyes for Elric not to have any part of Duke Avan's scheme. Elric smiled at his friend. “The adventure is to my taste.”
Miserably, Smiorgan shrugged. “It seems it will be a little longer before I return to the Purple Towns.”
Chapter 2
The coast of Lormyr had disappeared in warm mist and Duke Avan Astran's schooner dipped its graceful prow towards the west and the Boiling Sea.
The Vilmirian crew of the schooner were used to a less demanding climate and more casual work than this and they went about their tasks, it seemed to Elric, with something of an aggrieved air.
Standing beside Elric in the ship's poop, Count Smiorgan Baldhead wiped sweat from his pate and growled: “Vilmirians are a lazy lot, Prince Elric. Duke Avan needs real sailors for a voyage of this kind. I could have picked him a crew, given the chance...”
Elric smiled. “Neither of us was given the chance, Count Smiorgan. It was a fait accompli. He's a clever man, Duke Astran.”
“It is not a cleverness I entirely respect, for he offered us no real choice. A free man is a better companion than a slave, says the old aphorism.”
“Why did you not disembark when you had the chance, then, Count Smiorgan?”
“Because of the promise of treasure,” said the black-bearded man frankly. “I would return with honour to the Purple Towns. Forget you not that I commanded the fleet that was lost...”
Elric understood.
“My motives are straightforward,” said Smiorgan. “Yours are much more complicated. You seem to desire danger as other men desire love-making or drinking—as if in danger you find forgetfulness.”
“Is that not true of many professional soldiers?”
“You are not a mere professional soldier, Elric. That you know as well as I.”
“Yet few of the dangers I have faced have helped me forget,” Elric pointed out. “Rather they have strengthened the reminder of what I am—of the dilemma I face. My own instincts war against the traditions of my race.” Elric drew a deep, melancholy breath. “I go where danger is because I think that an answer might lie there—some reason for all this tragedy and paradox. Yet I know I shall never find it.”
“But it is why you sail to R'lin K'ren A'a, eh? You hope that your remote ancestors had the answer you need?”
“R'lin K'ren A'a is a myth. Even should the map prove genuine what shall we find but a few ruins? Imrryr has stood for ten thousand years and she was built at least two centuries after my people settled on Melnibone. Time will have taken R'lin K'ren A'a away.”
“And this statue, this Jade Man, Avan spoke of?”
“If the statue ever existed, it could have been looted at any time in the past hundred centuries.”
“And the Creature Doomed to Live?”
“A myth.”
“But you hope, do you not, that it is all as Duke Avan says...?” Count Smiorgan put a hand on Elric's arm. “Do you not?”
Elric stared ahead, into the writhing steam which rose from the sea. He shook his head.
“No, Count Smiorgan, I fear that it is all as Duke Avan says.”
The wind blew whimsically and the schooner's passage was slow as the heat grew greater and the crew sweated still more and murmured fearfully. And upon each face, now, was a stricken look.
Only Duke Avan seemed to retain his confidence. He called to them all to take heart; he told them that they should all be rich soon; and gave orders for the oars to be unshipped, for the wind could no longer be trusted. They grumbled at this, stripping off their shirts to reveal skins as red as cooked lobsters. Duke Avan made a joke of that. But the Vilmirians no longer laughed at his jokes as they had done in the milder seas of their home waters.
Around the ship the sea bubbled and roared, and they navigated by their few instruments, for the steam obscured everything.
Once a green thing erupted from the sea and glared at them before disappearing.
They ate and slept little and Elric rarely left the poop. Count Smiorgan bore the heat silently and Duke Avan, seemingly oblivious to any discomfort, went cheerfully about the ship, calling encouragement to his men.
Count Smiorgan was fascinated by the waters.
He had heard of them, but never crossed them. “These are only the outer reaches of this sea, Elric,” he said in some wonder. “Think what it must be like at the middle.”
Elric grinned. “I would rather not. As it is, I fear I'll be boiled to death before another day has passed.”
Passing by, Duke Avan heard him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Nonsense, Prince Elric! The steam is good for you! There is nothing healthier!” Seemingly with pleasure, Duke Avan stretched his limbs. “It cleans all the poisons from the system.”
Count Smiorgan offered him a glowering look and Duke Avan laughed. “Be of better cheer, Count Smiorgan. According to my charts—such as they are—a couple of days will see us nearing the coasts of the Western continent.”
“The thought fails to raise my spirits very greatly,” said Count Smiorgan, but he smiled, infected by Avan's good humour.
But shortly thereafter the sea grew slowly less frenetic and the steam began to disperse until the heat became more tolerable.
At last they emerged into a calm ocean beneath a shimmering blue sky in which hung a red-gold sun.
But three of the Vilmirian crew had died to cross the Boiling Sea, and four more had a sickness in them which made them cough a great deal, and shiver, and cry out in the night.
For a while they were becalmed, but at last a soft wind began to blow and fill the schooner's sails and soon they had sighted their first land—a little yellow island where they found fruit and a spring of fresh water. Here, too, they buried the three men who had succumbed to the sickness of the Boiling Sea, for the Vilmirians had refused to have them buried in the ocean on the grounds that the bodies would be ‘stewed like meat in a pot’.
While the schooner lay at anchor, just off the island, Duke Avan called Elric to his cabin and showed him, for a second time, that ancient map.
Pale golden sunlight filtered through the cabin's ports and fell upon the old parchment, beaten from the skin of a beast long-since extinct, as Elric and Duke Avan Astran of Old Hrolmar bent over it.
“See,” Duke Avan said, pointing. “This island's marked. The map's scale seems reasonably accurate. Another three days and we shall be at the mouth of the river.”
Elric nodded. “But it would be wise to rest here for a while until our strength is fully restored and the morale of the crew is raised higher. There are reasons, after all, why men have avoided the jungles of the west over the centuries.”
“Certainly there are savages—some say they are not even human—but I'm confident we can deal with those dangers. I have much experience of strange territories, Prince Elric.”
“But you said yourself you feared other dangers.”
“True. Very well, we'll do as you suggest.”
On the fourth day a strong wind began to blow from the east and they raised anchor. The schooner leapt over the waves under only half her canvas and the crew saw this as a good omen.
“They are mindless fools,” Smiorgan said as they stood clinging to the rigging in the prow. “The time will come when they will wish they were suffering the cleaner hardships of the Boiling Sea. This journey, Elric, could benefit none of us, even if the riches of R'lin K'ren A'a are still there.”
But Elric did not answer. He was lost in strange thoughts, unusual thoughts for him, for he was remembering his childhood, his mother and his father. They had been the last true rulers of the Bright Empire—proud, insouciant, cruel. They had expected him—perhaps because of his strange albinism—to restore the glories of Melnibone. Instead he threatened to destroy what was left of that glory. They, like himself, had had no real place in this new age of the Young Kingdoms, but they had refused to acknowledge it. This journey to the Western continent, to the land of his ancestors, had a peculiar attraction for him. Here no new nations had emerged. The continent had, as far as he knew, remained the same since R'lin K'ren A'a had been abandoned. The jungles would be the jungles his folk had known, the land would be the land that had given birth to his peculiar race, moulded the character of its people with their sombre pleasures, their melancholy arts and their dark delights. Had his ancestors felt this agony of knowledge, this impotence in the face of the understanding that existence had no point, no purpose, no hope? Was this why they had built their civilization in that particular pattern, why they had disdained the more placid, spiritual values of mankind's philosophers? He knew that many of the intellectuals of the Young Kingdoms pitied the powerful folk of Melnibone as mad. But if they had been mad and if they had imposed a madness upon the world that had lasted a hundred centuries, what had made them so? Perhaps the secret did lie in R'lin K'ren A'a—not in any tangible form, but in the ambience created by the dark jungles and the deep, old rivers. Perhaps here, at last, he would be able to feel at one with himself.
He ran his fingers through his milk-white hair and there was a kind of innocent anguish in his crimson eyes. He might be the last of his kind and yet he was unlike his kind. Smiorgan had been wrong. Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of course, in peace there was danger. Being an imperfect creature in an imperfect world he would always know paradox. And that was why in paradox there was always a kind of truth. That was why philosophers and soothsayers flourished. In a perfect world there would be no place for them. In an imperfect world the mysteries were always without solution and that was why there was always a great choice of solutions.
It was on the morning of the third day that the coast was sighted and the schooner steered her way through the sandbanks of the great delta and anchored, at last, at the mouth of the dark and nameless river.
Chapter 3
Evening came and the sun began to set over the black outlines of the massive trees. A rich, ancient smell came from the jungle and through the twilight echoed the cries of strange birds and beasts. Elric was impatient to begin the quest up the river. Sleep—never welcome—was now impossible to achieve. He stood unmoving on the deck, his eyes hardly blinking, his brain barely active, as if expecting something to happen to him. The rays of the sun stained his face and threw black shadows over the deck and then it was dark and still under the moon and the stars. He wanted the jungle to absorb him. He wanted to be one with the trees and the shrubs and the creeping beasts. He wanted thought to disappear. He drew the heavily scented air into his lungs as if that alone would make him become what at that moment he desired to be. The drone of insects became a murmuring voice that called him into the heart of the old, old forest. And yet he could not move—could not answer. And at length Count Smiorgan came up on deck and touched his shoulder and said something and passively he went below to his bunk and wrapped himself in his cloak and lay there, still listening to the voice of the jungle.
Even Duke Avan seemed in a more introspective mood than usual when they upped anchor the next morning and began to row against the sluggish current. There were few gaps in the foliage above their heads and they had the impression that they were entering a huge, gloomy tunnel, leaving the sunlight behind with the sea. Bright plants twined among the vines that hung from the leafy canopy and caught in the ship's masts as they moved. Rat-like animals with long arms swung through the branches and peered at them with bright, knowing eyes. The river turned and the sea was no longer in sight. Shafts of sunlight filtered down to the deck and the light had a greenish tinge to it. Elric became more alert than he had ever been since he agreed to accompany Duke Avan. He took a keen interest in every detail of the jungle and the black river over which moved schools of insects like agitated clouds of mist and in which blossoms drifted like drops of blood in ink. Everywhere were rustlings, sudden squawks, barks and wet noises made by fish or river animals as they hunted the prey disturbed by the ship's oars, which cut into the great clumps of weed and sent the things that hid there scurrying. The others began to complain of insect bites but Elric was not troubled by them, perhaps because no insects could desire his deficient blood.
Duke Avan passed him the deck. The Vilm
irian slapped at his forehead. “You seem more cheerful, Prince Elric.”
Elric smiled absently. “Perhaps I am.”
“I must admit I personally find all this a bit oppressive. I'll be glad when we reach the city.”
“You are still convinced you'll find it?”
“I'll be convinced otherwise when I've explored every inch of the island we're bound for.”
So absorbed had he become in the atmosphere of the jungle that Elric was hardly aware of the ship or his companions. The ship beat very slowly up the river, moving at little more than walking speed.
A few days passed but Elric scarcely noticed, for the jungle did not change—and then the river widened and the canopy parted and the wide, hot sky was suddenly full of huge birds crowding upwards as the ship disturbed them. All but Elric were pleased to be under the open sky again and spirits rose. Elric went below.
The attack on the ship came almost immediately. There was a whistling noise and a scream and a sailor writhed and fell over clutching at a grey, thin semi-circle of something which had buried itself in his stomach. An upper yard came crashing to the deck, bringing sail and rigging with it. A headless body took four paces towards the poop deck before collapsing, the blood pumping from the obscene hole that was its neck. And everywhere was the thin whistling noise. Elric heard the sounds from below and came back instantly, buckling on his sword. The first face he saw was Smiorgan's. The bald-pated man looked perturbed as he crouched against a rail on the starboard side. Elric had the impression of grey blurrs whistling past, slashing into flesh and rigging; wood and canvas. Some fell to the deck and he saw that they were thin discs of crystalline rock, about a foot in diameter. They were being hurled from both banks of the river and there was no protection against them.