Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [49]
Elric felt himself trapped by that gentle yet determined gaze. “And how may we enter these lands?” The albino forced himself to engage with these questions though by now his whole body was crying out for a draught of Lord Gho’s elixir.
She sensed his tension and her hand on his arm was meant to calm and reassure him. “Through the child,” said Oone.
Elric remembered what he had witnessed in the Bronze Tent and he shuddered. “How is such a thing achieved?”
Oone frowned and the pressure of her hand increased. “She is our gateway and the dreamwands are our keys. There is no way in which I will harm her, Elric. Once we have reached the seventh aspect, the Nameless Land, there we might in turn find the key to her particular prison.”
“She is a medium, then? Is that what has happened to her? Did the Sorcerer Adventurers know something of her power and in attempting to use her put her into this trance?”
Again she hesitated, then she nodded. “Close enough, Prince Elric. It is written in our histories, of which we have many, though most are inaccessible to us in the libraries of Tanelorn, “What lies within always has a form without and that which is without takes a shape within.” Put another way, we sometimes say that what is visible must always have an invisible aspect, just as everything invisible must be represented by the visible.”
Elric found this too cryptic for him, though he was familiar enough with such mysterious utterances from his own grimoires. He did not dismiss them, but he knew they frequently required much pondering and certain experience before they made complete sense. “You speak of supernatural realms, madam. The worlds inhabited by the Lords of Chaos and of Law, by the elementals, by immortals and the like. I know something of such realms and have even journeyed in them some little way. But I have never heard of leaving part of one’s physical substance behind and traveling into those realms by means of a sleeping child!”
She looked at him for a long moment as if she thought he was deliberately disingenuous, then she shrugged. “You will find the realms of the dreamthief very similar. And you would do well to memorize and obey our code.”
“You are a strict order, then, madam …”
“If we are to survive. Alnac had the instincts of a good dreamthief but he had not acquired the full discipline. That was one of the chief reasons for his dissolution. You on the other hand are familiar with the necessary disciplines, for they were how you came by your knowledge of sorcery. Without those disciplines you, too, would have perished.”
“I have rejected much of that, Lady Oone.”
“Aye. So I believe. But you have not lost the habit, I think. Or so I hope. The first law the dreamthief obeys says: ‘Offers of guidance must always be accepted but never trusted.’ The second says: ‘Beware the familiar’ and the third tells us: ‘What is strange should be cautiously welcomed.’ There are many others, but it is those three which encompass the fundamentals by which a dreamthief survives.” She smiled. Her smile was oddly sweet and vulnerable and Elric realized she was weary. Perhaps her grief had exhausted her.
The Melnibonéan spoke gently, looking back to the great red rocks of the Silver Flower Oasis’s protection and sanctuary. The voices were stilled now. Thin lines of smoke ascended the rich blue of the sky. “How long does it take to instruct and train one of your calling?”
She recognized his irony now. “Five years or more,” she said. “Alnac had been a full member of the Guild for perhaps six years.”
“And he failed to survive in the realm where the Holy Girl’s spirit is held prisoner?”
“He was, for all his skills, only an ordinary mortal, Prince Elric.”
“And you think I’m more than that?”
She laughed openly. “You are the last emperor of Melniboné. You are the most powerful of your race, which is a race whose familiarity with sorcery is legendary. True, you have left your bride-to-be waiting for you while you place your cousin Yyrkoon on the Ruby Throne to reign as regent until you return—a decision only an idealist