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By Root 374 0

he had come aboard the Dark Ship he was able clearly to see the length of the vessel. Here were the two great wheels, one beside him on the foredeck, one at the far end of the ship on the rear-deck, tended now as always by the steersman, the captain's sighted twin. There was the great mast bearing the taut black sail, and fore and aft of this, the two deck cabins, one of which was entirely empty (its occupants having been killed during their last landfall) and one of which was occupied only by himself and Blendker. Elric's gaze was drawn back to the steersman and not for the first time the albino wondered how much influence the captain's twin had over the course of the Dark Ship. The man seemed tireless, rarely, to Elric's knowledge, going below to his quarters, which occupied the stern deck as the captain's occupied the foredeck. Once or twice Elric or Blendker had tried to involve the steersman in conversation, but he appeared to be as dumb as his brother was blind.

The cryptographic, geometrical carvings covering all the ship's wood and most of its metal, from sternpost to figurehead, were picked out by the shreds of pale mist still clinging to them (and again Elric wondered if the ship actually generated the mist normally surrounding it) and, as he watched, the designs slowly turned to pale pink fire as the light from that red star, which forever followed them, permeated the overhead cloud.

A noise from below. The captain, his long red-gold hair drifting in a breeze which Elric could not feel, emerged from his cabin. The captain's circlet of blue jade, worn like a diadem, had turned to something of a violet shade in the pink light, and his buff-coloured hose and tunic reflected the hue—even the silver sandals with their silver lacing glittered with the rosy tint.

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 to 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 of 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 would 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