Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [72]
“Aye …” Elric's mind was on other things. He forced himself to think of more practical matters. “But the jewels will not feed us, Count Smiorgan,” he said. “It will be a long journey home.”
“Home?” Count Smiorgan straightened his great back, a bunch of necklaces in either fist. “Melnibone?”
“The Young Kingdoms. You offered to guest me in your house, as I recall.”
“For the rest of your life, if you wish. You saved my life, friend Elric—now you have helped me save my honour.”
“These past events have not disturbed you? You saw what my blade can do—to friends as well as enemies.”
“We do not brood, we of the Purple Towns,” said Count Smiorgan seriously. “And we are not fickle in our friendships. You know an anguish, Prince Elric, that I'll never feel—never understand—but I have already given you my trust. Why should I take it away again? That is not how we are taught to behave in the Purple Towns.” Count Smiorgan brushed at his black beard and he winked. “I saw some cases of provisions among the wreckage of Avan's schooner. We'll sail around the island and pick them up.”
Elric tried to shake the black mood from himself, but it was hard, for he had slain a man who had trusted him, and Smiorgan's talk of trust only made the guilt heavier.
Together they launched the boat into the weed-thick water and Elric looked back once more at the silent forest and a shiver passed through him. He thought of all the hopes he had entertained on the journey upriver and he cursed himself for a fool.
He tried to think back, to work out how he had come to be in this place, but too much of the past was confused with those singularly graphic dreams to which he was prone. Had Saxif D'Aan and the world of the blue sun been real? Even now, it faded. Was this place real? There was something dreamlike about it. It seemed to him he had sailed on many fateful seas since he had fled from Pikarayd. Now the promise of the peace of the Purple Towns was very dear to him.
Soon the time must come when he must return to Cymoril and the Dreaming City, to decide if he was ready to take up the responsibilities of the Bright Empire of Melnibone, but until that moment he would guest with his new friend, Smiorgan, and learn the ways of the simpler, more direct folk of Menii.
As they raised the sail and began to move with the current, Elric said to Smiorgan suddenly, “You trust me, then, Count Smiorgan?”
The sea-lord was a little surprised by the directness of the question. He fingered his beard. “Aye,” he said at length, “as a man. But we live in cynical times, Prince Elric. Even the gods have lost their innocence, have they not?”
Elric was puzzled. “Do you think that I shall ever betray you—as—as I betrayed Avan, back there?”
Smiorgan shook his head. “It's not in my nature to speculate upon such matters. You are loyal, Prince Elric. You feign cynicism, yet I think I've rarely met a man so much in need of a little real cynicism.” He smiled. “Your sword betrayed you, did it not?”
“To serve me, I suppose.”
“Aye. There's the irony of it. Man may trust man, Prince Elric, but perhaps we'll never have a truly sane world until men learn to trust mankind. That would mean the death of magic, I think.”
And it seemed to Elric, then, that his runesword trembled at his side, and moaned very faintly, as if it were disturbed by Count Smiorgan's words.
DUKE ELRIC
DUKE ELRIC
a graphic novel drawn by John Ridgway (1997)
What follows is the script for “Duke Elric,” a graphic story drawn by John Ridgway, which together with two other tales (“Moonbeams and Roses” drawn by Walter Simonson and “The Metatemporal Detective” drawn by Mark Reeve) formed the graphic novel Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, originally serialized across twelve comic issues in 1997—98.
This script was never intended for textual publication but was written solely for the artists and letterer to work from. Some reformatting has