Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [52]
Oone appeared to approve of Elric’s words and watched carefully as, on her instructions, Varadia’s frail body was lifted from the bed and placed this time upon a huge cushion which, in its turn, was set between two other cushions, also of great size. She signed to the albino to lay his body down on the far side of the child while she herself took up her position on the girl’s left.
“Grasp her hand, my lord emperor,” said Oone ironically, “and place the crook of the dreamwand over both yours and hers, as you saw Alnac do.”
Elric felt some trepidation as he obeyed her, but he knew no fear for himself, only for the child and her people, for Cymoril waiting for him in Melniboné, for the boy who prayed in Quarzhasaat that he would return with the jewel his jailer had demanded. His hand locked to the girl’s by the dreamwand, he knew a sense of fusion that was not unpleasant, yet seemed to burn as hot as any flame. He watched as Oone did the same thing.
Immediately Elric felt a power possess him and for a moment it was as if his body grew lighter and lighter until it threatened to drift away on the slightest breeze. His vision faded, yet dimly he could still see Oone. She seemed to be concentrating.
He looked into the face of the Holy Girl and for a second thought he saw her skin turn still whiter, her eyes glow as crimson as his own and a strange thought came and went in his mind: If I had a daughter she would look thus …
And then it was as if his bones were melting, his flesh dissolving, his whole mind and spirit dissipating. He gave himself up to this sensation as he had determined he must, since he now served Oone’s purpose, and now the flesh became flowing water, the veins and blood were coloured strands of air, his skeleton flowed like molten silver, mingling with the Holy Child’s, becoming hers, then flowing on beyond her, into caverns and tunnels and dark places, into places where whole worlds existed in hollowed rock, where voices called to him and knew him and sought to comfort him or frighten him or tell him truths he did not wish to learn; and then the air grew bright again and he felt Oone beside him, guiding him, her hand on his, her body almost his body, her voice confident and even cheerful, like one who moves towards familiar danger; danger which she had overcome many times. Yet there was an edge to her voice which made him believe she had never faced a danger as great as this one and that there was every chance neither of them would return to the Bronze Tent or the Silver Flower Oasis.
And there was music which he understood was the very soul of this child turned into sound. Sweet, sad, lonely music. Music so beautiful he would have wept had he anything more than the airiest substance.
Then he saw blue sky before him, a red desert stretching away towards red mountains on the horizon and he had the strangest of sensations, as if he were coming home to a land he had somehow lost in his childhood and then forgotten.
CHAPTER TWO
In the Marches at the Heart’s Edge
As Elric felt his bones reform and the flesh resume its familiar weight and contour he saw that the land they had entered seemed scarcely any different from that which they had left. Red desert stretched before them, red mountains lay beyond. So familiar was the landscape that Elric looked back, expecting to see the Bronze Tent, but immediately behind him now yawned a chasm so vast no further side could be seen. He knew sudden vertigo and checked his balance, somewhat to Oone’s amusement.
The dreamthief was dressed in her same functional velvets and silks and seemed a little amused by his response. “Aye, Prince Elric! Now we are indeed at the very edge of the world! We have only certain choices here and they do not include retreat!”
“I had not considered it, madam.” Looking more closely, he realized that the mountains