Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [78]
Gibraltar. A bustling international seaport with ships from China and India, as well as most of the contemporary Mediterranean and Atlantic ports. Orientals rub shoulders with burly Vikings and fastidious Greeks. Normans. Englishmen. Gaels. Celts. Egyptians. Franks-The whole vital flux is here.
Elric, Isaak and Rebecca, most of their belongings carried by porters (not the carpet, which Elric has over his shoulder), move towards one of the ships at the dock. It's a sturdy, lateen-rigged trading dhow. Sitting on a pile of bales is a huge, rather Falstaffian figure (Mustapha-ben-Barca). He's clearly Germanic in origin, but he wears the faded, torn silks and remains of a decorative armour of one of the old “Slav” guards, with whose help the old Caliph reconquered vast areas. He's certainly no longer in first youth and enjoys a beer or two. Indeed, he has a stone beaker in his hand at that moment. He greets the three:
MUSTAPHA-BEN-BARCA: “Passengers for Ceuta?”
ISAAK: “When do you leave?”
MUSTAPHA: “On the next tide.”
ELRIC: “What's your price?”
MUSTAPHA: “Whatever's fair to you—I need any cargo I can get…”
The old dhow is at sea. Isaak and Rebecca go below while Captain Mustapha talks to Elric:
MUSTAPHA: “Those port charges are scandalous! I couldn't pay for another hour! We're being taxed to fight the regent's wars! In my day we fought for what we could loot. We were proper soldiers. Where are you headed, friend? Mecca?”
ELRIC: “I seek one called the Silverskin. Have you heard of him?”
Mustapha has paled and gone very pensive, biting his lower lip as he looks across the water, avoiding Elric's eye… Elric is alert to this—
MUSTAPHA: “Oh, yes. I've heard of him.”
ELRIC: “What do you know?”
Mustapha's eyes are filled with remembered dread.
MUSTAPHA: “Nothing I've the courage to repeat.”
And then, as the sun set, the captain found urgent work to do. The albino was left alone—
Mustapha in the background issuing orders to his hands. Elric, outlined against the setting sun, stares forward over the water.
—to contemplate a dangerous and improbable future …
PART THREE
STAGES ON LIFE'S WAY
Bound for Africa. Out of the dawn—Isaak, Mustapha and Elric have their backs to us maybe. They're all in the prow looking to the east where the sun's coming up like thunder framing the deeper scarlet sail of a magnificent ship. On her triangular sail is emblazoned the eight-arrowed sign of Chaos in vivid yellow and black but the most remarkable thing about the vessel (which has a score of rows of oars pushing her rapidly in their direction, with the wind behind the sail) is that she has two prows—rearing in two directions—dragon-heads in a style which could be Persian …
ISAAK: “The same blazon's on your shield. Do you follow the same cause?”
ELRIC: “I fear so.”
MUSTAPHA: “Two prows! See! By Allah, I know her! She's the Either/Or out of Las Cascadas! 'Tis the Barbary Rose! We've no chance at all against her hand-picked cutthroats …”
We get a closer view of the wonderful Barbary Rose (the Rose from Moonbeams and Roses) whose beautiful face is calm as the sea she sails on and her Berber robes, including her great, loose turban, are pink, russet and green, giving an impression of petals. They swathe her as she keeps her arm on the ship's tiller, her other hand on her strange sword Swift Thorn, scab-barded beneath her robes, as she sails relentlessly towards her prey. Inset (we don't really have to see the two men clearly):
ISAAK: “A woman pirate?”
MUSTAPHA: “An afrit! There's none more ruthless on the five seas!”
Pirates come alongside. The foul crew which serves the beautiful woman who now stands amidships directing them, her sword free in her hand, looks to her with some surprise, for she does not order them to attack,. Instead, she and Elric look eye into eye and remember more than one shared secret. There is an odd sort of stillness to the scene, as if for the moment all were frozen.
For a moment, as the