Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [33]
“If you live,” said Alnac quietly, “I suspect it will not come. But it will be many years before you are called upon to blow Roland’s horn.”
“A horn? What horn is that?” But Elric’s question was casual. He believed that the dreamthief was making another allegorical allusion.
“Look!” Alnac pointed ahead. “See in the far distance? There is the first sign of the Silver Flower Oasis.”
To their left the sun was going down. It cast deep shadows across the dunes and the high banks of the Red Road while the sky was darkening to a deep amber on the horizon. Yet almost at the limit of his vision Elric made out another shape, something that was neither a shadow nor a sand-dune but which might have been a group of rocks.
“What is it? What do you recognize?”
“The nomads call it ‘kashbeh.’ In our common tongue we would say it was a castle, perhaps, or a fortified village. We have no exact word for such a place, for we have no need of them. Here, in the desert, it is a necessity. The Kashbeh Moulor Ka Riiz was built long before the extinction of the Quarzhasaatim Empire and is named for a wise king, founder of the Aloum’rit dynasty which still holds the place in charge for the nomad clans and is respected above all other peoples of the desert. It is a kashbeh sheltering anyone in need. Anyone who is a fugitive may seek shelter there and there may be assured of a fair trial.”
“So justice exists in this desert, if nowhere else?”
“Such places exist, as I said, throughout the realms of the multiverse. They are maintained by men and women of the purest and most humane principle …”
“Then is this kashbeh not Tanelorn, whose legend brought me to the Sighing Desert?”
“It is not Tanelorn, for Tanelorn is eternal. The Kashbeh Moulor Ka Riiz must be maintained through constant vigilance. It is the antithesis of Quarzhasaat and that city’s lords have made many attempts to destroy it.”
Elric felt the pangs of craving and he resisted reaching for one of his silver flasks. “Is that also called The Fortress of the Pearl?”
At this, Alnac Kreb laughed suddenly. “Oh, my good prince, clearly you have only the haziest notion of the place and the thing you seek. Let me now say that the Fortress of the Pearl may well exist within that kashbeh and that the kashbeh could also have an existence within the Fortress. But they are in no way the same!”
“Please, Master Alnac, do not confuse me further! I pretended to know something of this, first because I wished to extend my own life and then because I needed to purchase the life of another. I would be grateful for some illumination. Lord Gho Fhaazi thought me a dream-thief, after all, which supposes that a dreamthief would know of the Blood Moon, the Bronze Tent and the location of the Place of the Pearl.”
“Aye, well. Some dreamthieves are better informed than others. And if a dreamthief is required for this task, prince, if, as you’ve told me, Quarzhasaat’s Sorcerer Adventurers cannot achieve it, then I would guess the Fortress of the Pearl is more than mere stones and mortar. It has to do with realms familiar only to a trained dreamthief—but one probably more sophisticated than myself.”
“Know you, Master Alnac, that I have already traveled to strange realms in pursuit of my various goals. I am not completely unsophisticated in such matters …”
“These realms are denied to most.” Alnac seemed reluctant to say more but Elric pressed him.
“Where lie these realms?” He stared ahead, straining his eyes to see more of the Kashbeh Moulor Ka Riiz but failing, for the sun was now almost below the horizon. “In the East? Beyond Elwher? Or in another part of the multiverse altogether?”
Alnac Kreb was regretful. “We are sworn to speak as little as we can of our knowledge, save in the most crucial and specific of circumstances. But I should inform you that those realms are at once closer and more distant than Elwher. I promise you that I will not mystify you any more than I have done so already. And if I can illuminate you and help you in your quest, that I will do also.