Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [108]
YYRKOON: “In past times, many perished hideously on those dream couches. Soon Elric will be one mummy amongst many—in the burial vaults of our ancestors.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Vaults of our Ancestors
Out of sight of the city, Cymoril and Elric pull their horses up before a great slab of limestone, surrounded by shrubs and small trees, moss, a few small streams making tears in the massive face.
ELRIC: “Ha! Here’s my chance to show you something I learned during my dream-quests.”
CYMORIL: “Could we not ride around it, my lord?”
Elric shuts his eyes and his face contorts almost to Mr. Hyde transformation as his fingers stretch to Hogarthian proportions and he utters an unholy word in an alien language—Cymoril covers her ears.
ELRIC:
(check spelling)
With an enormous cracking noise, the rockface splits—and keeps on splitting until it is a great fissure, large enough to admit human bodies. The horses are not taking this well. They will go forward no more.
ELRIC (dismounts): “There are some practical skills to be learned from those dream-quests. Our horses will find their way home. Come!”
Cymoril is not a little uncertain about this venture… She holds back but he insists, holding out his hand. Trusting him, but uncertain still, she goes with him. Down into the dank depths of the earth. The horses turn and gallop away home.
And when we have seen the last of Elric’s and Cymoril’s heads, descending into the darkness, the slab closes again with a sense of finality.
Elric is not alarmed and comforts Cymoril. Dark and dank as it is, there are fires flaring intermittently below. Enough light to allow them to make their way down a rocky spiral road towards the bottom.
Then a huge shape goes past them with a PHUNK, almost knocking them from the ledge, but Elric is laughing up at the shape—
CYMORIL: “Elric!”
—which, as it spirals towards the ground, a tiny rider on its back, proves to be a young Phoorn. A young dragon … The fires themselves come from the combustible venom which drips from the fangs of the mature dragons who sleep or raise drowsy eyes and snort clouds of steam through their nostrils.
ELRIC: “Do not worry, my lady. These are the Dragon Caves of Imrryr.”
As the young couple descend the path, another young Melnibonéan ascends it to greet them. He’s the laughing rider of the dragon, and still wears his dragon leathers, holds part of a bridle. In the other hand is his great dragon lance—a long, leaf-shaped blade which is set in a red jewel from the other end of which comes the haft of the lance. This will show a distinct similarity of design with the Black Sword, but where the Black Sword will have a red actorios, this has a light blue sapphire. The bearer is Dyvim Tvar, Elric’s best male friend.
DYVIM TVAR: “Dear cousins! How good of you to visit me in my murky lair.”
ELRIC: “Well met, Dyvim Tvar.”
Dyvim Tvar bows and displays the rows of dragons who sleep in orderly ranks around the rim of a bay which is almost a perfect oval, an underground sea beneath the stalactites.
DYVIM TVAR: “Forgive me for startling you. We watch for intruders these days. More than we used to.”
DYVIM TVAR (with a hospitable gesture): “Come, meet the Phoorn, my family. The few who are presently awake!”
The Melnibonéans stand looking up at a massive snout from which pour, like drool, rivulets of venom. Some of this venom has scarred the rock on which the dragon sleeps. Some still flickers, for it becomes fire when it meets air …Fiery streams run on both sides of the figures as they regard the huge, sleepy, half-open eye which regards them. Dyvim Tvar speaks to the Phoorn in their own language.
DYVIM TVAR (runes): etc,
DRAGON (answers in the same language):
ELRIC: “I envy your knowledge of the dragon tongue.”
DYVIM TVAR: “Once, when our folk were the simple Mernii, we and the Phoorn shared a common language. Now it cannot be learned. It has to be remembered …”
He guides them up some rather more recently built stone stairs towards a door which he opens for them.
They look back at the great near-circle