Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [35]
“Then let us pool our knowledge and our resources, Smiorgan Baldhead, and make plans to leave this island as soon as we can.”
Elric walked back to where he saw traces of the abandoned game, trampled into the mud and the blood. From among the dice and the ivory slips, the silver and the bronze coins, he found the gold Melnibonean wheel. He picked it up and held it in his outstretched palm. The wheel almost covered the whole palm. In the old days, it had been the currency of kings.
“This was yours, friend?” he asked Smiorgan.
Smiorgan Baldhead looked up from where he was still searching the Pan Tangian for his stolen possessions. He nodded.
“Aye. Would you keep it as part of your share?”
Elric shrugged. “I'd rather know whence it came. Who gave it you?”
“It was not stolen. It's Melnibonean, then?”
“Yes.”
“I guessed it.”
“From whom did you obtain it?”
Smiorgan straightened up, having completed his search. He scratched at a slight wound on his forearm. “It was used to buy passage on our ship—before we were lost—before the raiders attacked us.”
“Passage? By a Melnibonean?”
“Maybe,” said Smiorgan. He seemed reluctant to speculate.
“Was he a warrior?”
Smiorgan smiled in his beard. “No. It was a woman gave that to me.”
“How came she to take passage?”
Smiorgan began to pick up the rest of the money. “It's a long tale and, in part, a familiar one to most merchant sailors. We were seeking new markets for our goods and had equipped a good-sized fleet, which I commanded as the largest shareholder.” He seated himself casually upon the big corpse of the Chalalite and began to count the money. “Would you hear the tale or do I bore you already?”
“I'd be glad to listen.”
Reaching behind him, Smiorgan pulled a wine-flask from the belt of the corpse and offered it to Elric, who accepted it and drank sparingly of a wine which was unusually good.
Smiorgan took the flask when Elric had finished. “That's part of our cargo,” he said. “We were proud of it. A good vintage, eh?”
“Excellent. So you set off from the Purple Towns?”
“Aye. Going towards the Unmapped East. We sailed for a couple of weeks, sighting some of the bleakest coasts I have ever seen, and then we saw no land at all for another week. That was when we entered a stretch of water we came to call the Roaring Rocks—like the Serpent's Teeth off Shazaar's coast, but much greater in expanse, and larger, too. Huge volcanic cliffs which rose from the sea on every side and around which the waters heaved and boiled and howled with a fierceness I've rarely experienced. Well, in short, the fleet was dispersed and at least four ships were lost on those rocks. At last we were able to escape those waters and found ourselves becalmed and alone. We searched for our sister ships for a while and then decided to give ourselves another week before turning for home, for we had no liking to go back into the Roaring Rocks again. Low on provisions, we sighted land at last—grassy cliffs and hospitable beaches and, inland, some signs of cultivation, so we knew we had found civilization again. We put into a small fishing port and satisfied the natives—who spoke no tongue used in the Young Kingdoms—that we were friendly. And that was when the woman approached us.”
“The Melnibonean woman?”
“If Melnibonean she was. She was a fine-looking woman, I'll say that. We were short of provisions, as I told you, and short of any means of purchasing them, for the fishermen desired little of what we had to trade. Having given up our original quest, we were content to head westward again.”
“The woman?”
“She wished to buy passage to the Young Kingdoms—and was content to go with us as far as Menii, our home port. For her passage she gave us two of those wheels. One was used to buy provisions in the town—Graghin, I think it was called—and after making repairs we set off again.”
“You never reached the Purple Towns?”
“There were