Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [21]
The Red Road seemed endless. The sky shivered with heat as the sun climbed higher. And Elric, who disapproved of useless regret, found himself wishing he had never been foolish enough to buy the map from the Ilmioran sailor or to venture so badly prepared into the desert.
“To summon supernaturals to aid me now would compound the folly,” he said aloud to the wilderness. “What’s more I might need that aid when I reach the Fortress of the Pearl.” He knew that his self-disgust had not merely caused him to commit further foolishness, but still dictated his actions. Without it, his thoughts might have been clearer and he might better have anticipated Lord Gho’s trickery.
Even now he doubted his own instincts. For the past hour he had guessed that he was being followed but had seen no-one behind him on the Red Road. He had taken to glancing back suddenly, to stopping without warning, to riding back a few yards. But he was apparently as alone now as he had been when he began the journey.
“Perhaps that damned elixir addles my senses also,” he said, patting the dusty cloth of his horse’s neck. The great bulwarks of the road were falling away here, becoming little more than mounds on either side of him. He reined in the horse, for he fancied he could see movement that was more than drifting sand. Little figures ran here and there on long legs, upright like so many tiny manikins. He peered hard at them but then they were gone. Other, larger, creatures moving with far slower speeds, seemed to creep just below the surface of the sand while a cloud of something black hovered over them, following them as they made their ponderous way across the desert.
Elric was learning that, in this part of the Sighing Desert at least, what appeared to be a lifeless wilderness was actually no such thing. He hoped that the large creatures he detected did not regard Man as a worthwhile prey.
Again he received a sense of something behind him and turning suddenly thought he glimpsed a flash of yellow, perhaps a cloak, but it had disappeared in a slight bend behind him. His temptation was to stop, to rest for an hour or two before continuing, but he was anxious to reach the Silver Flower Oasis as soon as possible. There was little time to achieve his goal and return with the Pearl to Quarzhasaat.
He sniffed the air. The breeze brought a new smell. If he had not known better he would have thought someone was burning kitchen waste; it was the same acrid stink. Then he peered into the middle-distance and detected a faint plume of smoke. Were there nomads so close to Quarzhasaat? He had understood that they did not like coming within a hundred miles or more of the city unless they had specific reasons to do so. And if people were camped here, why did they not set their tents closer to the road? Nothing had been said of bandits, so he did not fear attack, but he remained curious, continuing his journey with a certain caution.
The walls rose up again and blocked his view of the desert, but the stink of burning grew stronger and stronger until it was almost unbearable. He felt the stuff clogging his lungs. His eyes began to stream. It was a most noxious smell, almost as if someone were burning putrefying corpses.
Again the walls sank a little until he could see over them. Less than a mile away, as best he could judge, he saw about twenty plumes of smoke, darker now, while other clouds danced and zig-zagged about them. He began to suspect that he had come upon a tribe who kept their cooking fires alight as they traveled in wagons of some kind. Yet it was hard to know what kind of wagons would easily cross the deep drifts. And again he wondered why they were not on the Red Road.
Tempted to investigate he knew he would be a fool to leave the road. He might again become lost and be in even worse condition than when Anigh had found him all those days ago on the far side of Quarzhasaat.
He was about to