Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [152]
“Oh, they are doubtless true. We had no trouble if audiences, for instance, died for an artist’s work. Many great composers would experiment, for instance, with the human voice.” His eyes again clouded, remembering not a crime but his lost passion.
It seemed she misinterpreted him. “I feel for you, sir. I am not one of those who celebrated the fall of the Dreaming City.”
“You could not know its influence, so far away,” he murmured, picking up a remarkable little pot and studying its design. “But those who were our neighbours were glad to see us humiliated. I do not blame them. Our time was over.” His expression was again one of cultivated insouciance. She turned her own gaze towards a house which leaned like an amiable drunkard on the buttressed walls of two neighbours, giving the impression that if it fell, then all would fall together. The house was of wood and sandy brick, of many floors, each at an angle to the rest, covered by a waved roof.
“This is the residence,” she told him, “where my forefathers and myself have lived and worked. It is the House of the Th’ee and I am Rai-u Th’ee, last of my line. It is my ambition to leave a single great work of art behind, carved in a material which has been in our possession for centuries, yet until now always considered too valuable to use. It is a rare material, at least to us, and possessed of a number of qualities, some of which our ancestors only hinted at.”
“My curiosity grows,” said Elric, though now he found himself wishing that he had accepted her offer and brought his sword. “What is this material?”
“It is a kind of ivory,” she said, leading him into the ramshackle house which, for all its age and decrepitude, had clearly once been rich. Even the wall-hangings, now in rags, revealed traces of their former quality. There were paintings from floor to ceiling which, Elric knew, would have commanded magnificent prices at any market. The furniture was carved by genuine artists and showed the passing of a hundred fashions, from the plain, somewhat austere style of the city’s secular period, to the ornate enrichments of her pagan age. Some were inset with jewels, as were the many mirrors, framed with exquisite and elaborate ornament. Elric was surprised, given what she had told him of the quarter, that the House of Th’ee had never been robbed.
Apparently reading his thoughts, she said: “This place has been afforded certain protections down the years.” She led him into a tall studio, lit by a single, unpapered window through which a great deal of light entered, illuminating the scrolls and boxed books lining the walls. Crowded on tables and shelves stood sculptures in every conceivable material. They were in bone and granite and hardwood and limestone. They were in clay and bronze, in iron and sea-green basalt. Bright, glinting whites, deep, swirling blacks. Colours of every possible shade from darkest blue to the lightest pinks and yellows. There was gold, silver and delicate porphyry. There were heads and torsos and reclining figures, beasts of every kind, some believed extinct. There were representations of the Lords and Ladies of Chaos and of Law, every supernatural aristocrat who had ever ruled in heaven, hell or limbo. Elementals. Animal-bodied men, birds in flight, leaping deer, men and women at rest, historical subjects, group subjects and half-finished subjects which hinted at something still to be discovered in the stone. They were the work of genius, decided the albino, and his respect for this bold woman grew. “Yes.” Again she anticipated a question, speaking with firm pride. “They are all mine. I love to work. Many of these are taken from life …”
He thought it impolitic to ask which.
“But you will note,” she added, “that I have never had the pleasure of sculpting the head of a Melnibonéan. This could be my only opportunity.”
“Ah,” he began regretfully, but with great