Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [75]
ELRIC: “A man who loves wisdom.”
ISAAK: “Among other things.”
Elric is frowning, trying not to seem too eager as he asks a question of Isaak:
ELRIC: “Then you'll have heard of a creature called ‘The Silverskin’?”
ISAAK: “Ah—that old story!”
Elric almost glares.
ELRIC: “Fresh enough to me. Where does he live, this glinting king?”
ISAAK: “It's no more than misty legend. There are only vague stories—confusing contradictions.”
Elric urgently interrogates Isaak-
ELRIC: “Tell me what you know!”
Isaak is a bit taken aback. Elric presses him.
ISAAK: “NO more than is written in the great Book of Tales.”
ELRIC: “What's that?”
Isaak speaks of a book-We see it—a wonderful, jeweled Arabian book-The towers and domes of Cordova.
ISAAK: “I saw it once in the library of the Caliph in Cordova. It contains a wealth of stories—some true and some invented. A traveler claimed to describe the court of ‘King Silverskin’—but I had no time to read the tale …”
ELRIC: “In Cordova, you say? How would I find that city?”
They are seated drinking heated wine served by the mysterious Rebecca. Isaak is not too certain about what he's committing himself to—
ISAAK: “I have business there. We were on our way to Cordova when this happened.”
ELRIC: “Good. We'll travel together. Safety in numbers.”
Isaak is sardonic. Elric is surprised.
ISAAK: “IS anyone safe from that infamous sword of yours, Duke Elric?”
ELRIC: “YOU know me?”
Isaak turns away frowning.
ISAAK: “Well enough. I know you owe no allegiance to the teachings of our holy book.”
ELRIC: “My religion's a little older than yours. It inclines neither towards charity nor humility …”
The three have reached the shores of a tranquil lake. Rebecca is in the wagon and Isaak drives it. They lead spare horses. Elric is on his own horse, reining in as he stares in astonishment at the wonderful border city of Al-Zaman', fortress against the Infidel. Tor these are in the great expansive years of the Chamberlain Hajib Muhammed, lover of Aurora, Oum-Hisham, mother of the young Caliph in whose name Muhammed, a great law-maker, scholar and warrior, ruled the whole of the Moorish Empire from the Pyrenees to the Atlas and beyond. Silk flags fly over the minarets and domes, the crenelated walls. It is a city from an Arabian Nights fantasy.
ISAAK: “Be prepared, Duke Elric. The politics of the border regions can be unstable.”
A great raft, poled by an ancient, but familiar figure (could it be jack Karaquazian, from Walter Simonson's Moonbeams and Roses?) in a loincloth and turban, comes towards them across the water.
ISAAK: “I think, too, you'll find the Moors rather better-educated than the English—and much less easily deceived …”
PART TWO
A BARGAIN IN CARPETS
ALMORAVID SPAIN, 1000 AD. Curious for news of Christendom the Kayed of Al-Zaman’ extended Moorish chivalry's finest hospitality—his guests must have only the best… And for this, using Greek as their common language, they were glad to pay with tales of the barbarian West…
Evening. Mostly interior. A great kiosk, partly open to the soft, starry night. This is real, but it's also full-strength Arabian Nights, Thief of Baghdad, over-the-top orientalist fantasy—mountains of cushions (but no ‘beautiful slave girls’—just mostly Teutonic male slaves) in which lounge, eating Moorish-style with only the right hand, Elric, Isaak—and their host, the Kayed of ∼Al-Zaman', a distinguished, middle-aged intellectual with a greying beard. Outside there are fountains, cedars and poplars, distant minarets, the works …
KAYED: “I'm an old veteran tired of war and fired only by learning. That's why they gave me this distant post. I am intelligent enough to sense danger to our empire, indolent enough to want no more power than I have now. I read how well the Duke of Normandy organizes his peasants.”
ELRIC: “But fails to educate them, it seems …”
Mid-shot of the Kayed, amused.
KAYED: “YOU understand economics