Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [56]
“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 he 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 deck. 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