Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [38]
“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 à 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 odour. 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 sulphur,” 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! Sulphur right enough!”
The drumming of hoofs 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-axe 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 backwards, keeping the same distance between them and itself.
At last, Elric said, “We waste time, Count Smiorgan. Let's get to your ship with speed and forget blue suns and enchanted horses as quickly as we may. Once aboard the ship I can doubtless help you with a little incantation or two, for we'll need aid of some sort if we're to sail à large ship by ourselves.”
They marched on, but the horse continued to follow them. They came to the edge of the cliffs, standing high above a narrow, rocky bay in which a battered ship lay at anchor. The ship had the high, fine lines of a Purple Towns merchantman, but its decks were piled with shreds of torn canvas, pieces of broken rope, shards of timber, torn-open bales of cloth, smashed wine-jars, and all manner of other refuse, while in several places her rails were smashed and two or three of her yards had splintered. It was evident that she had been through both storms and sea-fights and it was a wonder that she still floated.
“We'll have to tidy her up as best we can, using only the mains'l for motion,” mused Smiorgan. “Hopefully we can salvage enough food to last us …”
“Look!” Elric pointed, sure that he had seen someone in the shadows near the afterdeck. “Did the pirates leave any of their company behind?”
“None.”
“Did you see anyone on the ship, just then?”
“My eyes play filthy tricks on my mind,” Smiorgan told him. “It is this damned blue light. There is a rat or two aboard, that's all. And that's what you saw.”
“Possibly.” Elric looked back. The horse appeared to be unaware of