Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [53]
“They are like the teeth of some ancient predator,” said Oone with the shudder of one who might actually have stared into such a maw at some time in their career. “Doubtless the first stage of our journey takes us there. This is the land we dreamthieves always call Sadanor. The Land of Dreams-in-Common.”
“Yet you seem unfamiliar with this scenery.”
“The scenery varies. We know only the nature of the land. It may change in its details. But where we travel is frequently dangerous not because it is unfamiliar but because of its familiarity. That is the second rule of the dreamthief.”
“Beware the familiar.”
“You learn well.” She seemed unduly pleased by his response, as if she had doubted her own description of his qualities and was glad to have them confirmed. Elric began to realize the degree of desperation involved in this adventure and was seized by that wild carelessness, that willingness to give himself up to the moment, to any experience, which so set him apart from the other lords of Melniboné, whose lives were ruled by tradition and a desire to maintain their power at any cost.
Smiling, his eyes alight with all their old vitality, he bowed ironically. “Then lead on, madam! Let us begin our journey towards the mountains.”
Oone, a little startled by his mood, frowned. But she began to walk through sand so light it stirred like water around her feet. And the albino followed.
“I must admit,” he said, after they had walked for perhaps an hour, without noting any shift in the position of the light, “this place begins to disturb me more the more I am in it. I thought the sun obscured, but now I realize there is no sun in the sky at all.”
“Such abnormalities come and go in the Land of Dreams-in-Common,” said Oone.
“I would feel more secure with my sword at my side.”
“Swords are easily come by here,” she said.
“Drinkers of souls?”
“Perhaps. But do you feel the need for that peculiar form of sustenance? Do you crave Lord Gho’s drug?”
Elric admitted to his own surprise that he had lost no energy. For perhaps the first time in his adult life he had the sense that he was physically as other people, able to sustain himself without calling on any form of artifice. “It occurs to me,” he said, “that I might be well-advised to make my home here.”
“Ah, now you begin to fall into another of this realm’s traps,” she said, lightly enough. “First there is suspicion and maybe fear. Then there is relaxation, a feeling that you have always belonged here, that this is your natural home, or your spiritual home. These are all illusions common to the traveler, as I am sure you know. Here those illusions must be resisted, for they are more than sentiment. They may be traps set to snare you and destroy you. Be grateful that you have more apparent energy than that which you normally know, but remember another rule of the dreamthief—Every gain is paid for, either before or after the event. Every apparent benefit could well have its contrary disadvantage.”
Privately Elric still thought the price of such a sense of well-being might be worth the paying.
It was at that moment that he saw the leaf.
It drifted down from over his head, a broad, red-gold oak leaf, falling gently as any ordinary autumn shedding, and landed upon the sand at his feet. Without at first finding this extraordinary, he bent to pick the leaf up.
Oone had seen it, too, and made as if to caution him, then changed her mind.
Elric laid the leaf on the palm of his hand. There was nothing unusual about it, save that there was not a tree visible in any direction. He was about to ask Oone to explain this phenomenon when he noticed that she was staring beyond him, over his shoulder.
“Good afternoon to you,” said a jaunty voice. “This is luck indeed, to find some fellow mortals in such a miserable wilderness. What trick of the Wheel brought us here, do you think?”
“Greetings,” said Oone, her smile growing broad. “You’re ill-dressed, sir, for this desert.”
“I was neither