Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [171]
Didn’t there?
“This bloke phoned me up from America the other night, he said, ‘Listen man, I have to talk to you about your religion.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t got any fucking religion.’ “
—Michael Moorcock, in conversation, Notting Hill, 1976
It was six months later. Richard had been barmitzvahed, and would be changing schools soon. He and J.B.C. MacBride were sitting on the grass outside the school, in the early evening, reading books. Richard’s parents were late picking him up from school.
Richard was reading The English Assassin. MacBride was engrossed in The Devil Rides Out.
Richard found himself squinting at the page. It wasn’t properly dark yet, but he couldn’t read any more. Everything was turning into greys.
“Mac? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The evening was warm, and the grass was dry and comfortable.
“I don’t know. A writer, maybe. Like Michael Moorcock. Or T. H. White. How about you?”
Richard sat and thought. The sky was a violet-grey, and a ghost-moon hung high in it, like a sliver of a dream. He pulled up a blade of grass, and slowly shredded it between his fingers, bit by bit. He couldn’t say “a writer” as well, now. It would seem like he was copying. And he didn’t want to be a writer. Not really. There were other things to be.
“When I grow up,” he said, pensively, eventually, “I want to be a wolf.”
“It’ll never happen,” said MacBride.
“Maybe not,” said Richard. “We’ll see.”
The lights went on in the school windows, one by one, making the violet sky seem darker than it was before, and the summer evening was gentle and quiet. At that time of year the day lasts forever, and the night never really comes.
“I’d like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests as a wolf, at night,” said Richard, mostly to himself. “I’d never hurt anyone. Not that kind of wolf. I’d just run and run forever in the moonlight, through the trees, and never get tired or out of breath, and never have to stop. That’s what I want to be when I grow up …”
He pulled up another long stalk of grass, expertly stripped the blades from it, and, slowly, began to chew the stem.
And the two children sat alone in the grey twilight, side by side, and waited for the future to start.
Neil Gaiman
January 1994
ORIGINS
Early artwork associated with Elric’s first appearances
in magazines and books
Original artwork by Geoff Taylor, used for the cover of The Fortress of the Pearl, first edition, Victor Gollancz, 1989.
Elric thumbnail illustration (enlarged here), by James Cawthorn, used for chapter headings in The Fortress of the Pearl, first edition, Gollancz, 1989.
“The World of Elric” map, appeared in Elric of Melniboné/The Fortress of the Pearl, Japanese edition, © Hayakawa Publishing, Inc., 2006.
Cover artwork by “Hugo,” for Elric of Melniboné, Taiwanese edition, Fantasy Foundation Publishing, 2007.
Cover artwork by “Hugo,” for The Fortress of the Pearl, Taiwanese edition, Fantasy Foundation Publishing, 2007.
“Elric” map by Li-Chin Zhang, appeared in Elnic of Melniboné, Taiwanese edition, Fantasy Foundation Publishing, 2007.
“Elric Stormbringer,” by Frank Brunner, used as cover artwork for La Fortaleza de la Perla, Spanish edition, Martínez Roca, 1982.
Cover artwork by Walter Simonson, for Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer, issue No. 1 (of 4), DC Comics, 2004. Michael Moorcock’s Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer published by DC Comics.
A double-page spread, by Walter Simonson (written by Moorcock), from Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer, issue No. 4 (of 4), DC Comics, 2006. Michael Moorcock’s Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer published by DC Comics.
Cover artwork by Dawn Wilson, for The Fortress of the Pearl, first American paperback edition, Ace Books, 1990.
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