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"Dream?"
"Oh, it was nothing. I am used to such dreams and give them no significance."
"The theory ca
And Elric replied, half to himself: "Perhaps I fear the implications more." He lifted his head, and with the shaft of a broken spear, began to poke at the fire. "Certain ancient sorcerers of Melnibonи proposed that an infinite number of worlds coexist with our own. Indeed, my dreams, of late, have hinted as much! " He forced himself to smile. "But I ca
"Wait for the dawn, " said Smiorgan Baldhead. "The color of the sun shall prove the theory."
"Perhaps it will prove only that we both dream, " said Elric. The smell of death was strong in his nostrils. He pushed aside those corpses nearest to the fire and settled himself to sleep.
Smiorgan Baldhead had begun to sing a strong yet lilting song in his own dialect, which Elric could scarcely follow.
"Do you sing of your victory over your enemies?" the albino asked.
Smiorgan paused for a moment, half-amused. "No, Sir Elric, I sing to keep the shades at bay. After all, these fellows' ghosts must still be lurking nearby, in the dark, so little time has passed since they died."
"Fear not, " Elric told him. "Their souls are already eaten."
But Smiorgan sang on, and his voice was louder, his song more intense, than ever it had been before.
Just before he fell asleep, Elric thought he heard a horse whi
III
Recalling little of his voyage on the Dark Ship, Elric would never know how he came to reach the world in which he now found himself. In later years he would recall most of these experiences as dreams, and indeed they seemed dreamlike even as they occurred.
He slept uneasily, and in the morning the clouds were heavier, shining with that strange, leaden light, though the sun itself was obscured. Smiorgan Baldhead of the Purple Towns was pointing upward, already on his feet, speaking with quiet triumph:
"Will that evidence suffice to convince you, Elric of Melnibonи?"
"I am convinced of a quality about the light-possibly about this terrain-which makes the sun appear blue, " Elric replied. He glanced with distaste around him at the carnage. The corpses made a wretched sight and he was filled with a nebulous misery that was neither remorse nor pity.
Smiorgan's sigh was sardonic. "Well, Sir Skeptic, we had best retrace my steps and seek my ship. What say you?"
"I agree, " the albino told him.
"How far had you marched from the coast when you found us?"
Elric told him.
Smiorgan smiled. "You arrived in the nick of time, then. I should have been most embarrassed by today if the sea had been reached and I could show my pirate friends no village! I shall not forget this favor you have done me, Elric. I am a count of the Purple Towns and have much influence. If there is any service I can perform for you when we return, you must let me know."
"I thank you, " Elric said gravely. "But first we must discover a means of escape."
Smiorgan had gathered up a satchel of food, some water and some wine. Elric had no stomach to make his breakfast among the dead, so he slung the satchel over his shoulder. "I'm ready, " he said.
Smiorgan was satisfied. "Come-we go this way."
Elric began to follow the sea-lord over the dry, crunching turf. The steep sides of the valley loomed over them, tinged with a peculiar and unpleasant greenish hue, the result of the brown foliage being stained by the blue light from above. When they reached the river, which was narrow and ran rapidly through boulders giving easy means of crossing, they rested and ate. Both men were stiff from the previous night's fighting; both were glad to wash the dried blood and mud from their bodies in the water.
Refreshed, the pair climbed over the boulders and left the river behind, ascending the slopes, speaking little so that their breath was saved for the exertion. It was noon by the time they reached the top of the valley and observed a plain not unlike the one which Elric had first crossed. Elric now had a fair idea of the island's geography: it resembled the top of a mountain, with an indentation near the center which was the valley. Again he became sharply aware of the absence of any wildlife and remarked on this to Count Smiorgan, who agreed that he had seen nothing-no bird, fish, nor beast since he had arrived.
"It's a barren little world, friend Elric, and a misfortune for a mariner to be wrecked upon its shores."
They moved on, until the sea could be observed meeting the horizon in the far distance.
It was Elric who first heard the sound behind them, recognizing the steady thump of the hooves of a galloping horse, but when he looked back over his shoulder he could see no sign of a rider, nor anywhere that a rider could hide. He guessed that, in his tiredness, his ears were betraying him. It had been thunder that he had heard.
Smiorgan strode implacably onward, though he, too, must have heard the sound.
Again it came. Again, Elric turned. Again he saw nothing.
"Smiorgan? Did you hear a rider?"
Smiorgan continued to walk without looking back. "I heard, " he grunted.
"You have heard it before?"
"Many times since I arrived. The pirates heard it, too, and some believed it their nemesis-an Angel of Death seeking them out for retribution."
"You don't know the source?"
Smiorgan paused, then stopped, and when he turned his face was grim. "Once or twice I have caught a glimpse of a horse, I think. A tall horse-white-richly dressed- but with no man upon his back. Ignore it, Elric, as I do. We have larger mysteries with which to occupy our minds! "
"You are afraid of it, Smiorgan?"
He accepted this. "Aye. I confess it. But neither fear nor speculation will rid us of it. Come! "
Elric was bound to see the sense of Smiorgan's statement and he accepted it; yet when the sound came again, about an hour later, he could not resist turning. Then he thought he glimpsed the outline of a large stallion, caparisoned for riding, but that might have been nothing more than an idea Smiorgan had put in his mind.
The day grew colder and in the air was a peculiar, bitter odor. Elric remarked on the smell to Count Smiorgan and learned that this, too, was familiar.
"The smell comes and goes, but it is usually here in some strength."
"Like sulfur, " said Elric.
Count Smiorgan's laugh had much irony in it, as if Elric made reference to some private joke of Smiorgan's own. "Oh, aye! Sulfur right enough! "
The drumming of hooves grew louder behind them as they neared the coast and at last Elric, and Smiorgan too, turned around again, to look.
And now a horse could be seen plainly-riderless, but saddled and bridled, its dark eyes intelligent, its beautiful white head held proudly.
"Are you still convinced of the absence of sorcery here, Sir Elric?" Count Smiorgan asked with some satisfaction. "The horse was invisible. Now it is visible." He shrugged the battle-ax on his shoulder into a better position. "Either that, or it moves from one world to another with-ease, so that all we mainly hear are its hoofbeats."
"If so, " said Elric sardonically, eyeing the stallion, "it might bear us back to our own world."
"You admit, then, that we are marooned in some Limbo?"
"Very well, yes. I admit the possibility."
"Have you no sorcery to trap the horse?"
"Sorcery does not come so easily to me, for I have no great liking for it, " the albino told him.
As they spoke, they approached the horse, but it would let them get no closer. It snorted and moved backward, keeping the same distance between them and itself.