Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [92]
And then, over all the other noises, they heard the laughter.
It was sweet laughter. It was the unaffected laughter of a child.
It was the laughter of a freed spirit. It was Varadia’s.
“It is dissolving at last. It is all dissolving! Oh, my friends, I am a slave no longer!”
Through all the falling filthy stuff, through all the decay and dissolution which tumbled upon them, through the destroyed carcass of the Fortress of the Pearl, Oone came towards them. She was hasty but she was careful. She held one of Varadia’s hands.
“Not yet! Too soon! We could all dissolve in this!”
She made Elric take the child’s hand and they led her through the crashing, shrieking darkness, out of the chamber, down through the swaying corridors, out past the courtyards where fountains now gushed detritus and where the very walls were constructed of putrefying flesh which began to rot to nothing even as they went by. Then Oone made them run, until the final gateway lay ahead of them.
They reached the causeway and the marble road. There was a bridge ahead of them. Oone almost dragged the other two towards it, running as fast as she could possibly run, with the Fortress of the Pearl tumbling into nothing, roaring like a dying beast as it did so.
The bridge seemed infinite. Elric could not see to the further side. But at length Oone stopped running and allowed them to walk, for they had reached a gateway.
The gateway was carved of red sandstone. It was decorated with geometrical tiles and pictures of gazelles, leopards and wild camels. It had an almost prosaic appearance after so many monumental doorways, yet Elric felt some trepidation in passing through it.
“I am afraid, Oone,” he said.
“You fear mortality, I think.” She pressed on. “You have great courage, Prince Elric. Make use of it now, I beg you.”
He quelled his terrors. His grip on the child’s hand was firm and reassuring.
“We go home, do we not?” said the Holy Girl. “What is it you do not want to find there, Prince Elric?”
He smiled down at her, grateful for her question. “Nothing much, Lady Varadia. Perhaps nothing more than myself.”
They stepped together into the gateway.
CHAPTER THREE
Celebrations at the Silver Flower Oasis
Waking beside the still-sleeping child, Elric was surprised to feel so refreshed. The dreamwand, which had helped them attain substance in the Dream Realm, was still hooked over their clasped hands and, looking across the child, he saw Oone beginning to stir.
“You have failed, then?”
It was Raik Na Seem’s voice, full of resigned sadness.
“What?” Oone glanced at Varadia. Even as they watched her skin began to shine with ordinary health and her eyes opened to see her anxious father staring down at her. She smiled. It was the easy, unaffected smile with which Oone and Elric were already familiar.
The First Elder of the Bauradi Clan began to weep. He wept as the seneschal of the Court of the Pearl had wept; he wept in relief and he wept in joy. He took up his daughter in his arms and he could not speak for the gladness in his heart. All he could do was reach one hand out towards his friends, the man and the woman who had entered the Dream Realm to free his child’s spirit, where it had fled to escape the evil of Lord Gho’s hirelings.
They touched his hand and they left the Bronze Tent. They walked together into the desert and then they stood face to face, staring into one another’s eyes.
“We have a dream in common now,” said Elric. His voice was gentle, full of affection. “I think the memory will be a good one, Lady Oone.”
She reached to hold his face in her hands. “You are wise, Prince Elric, and you are courageous, but there is a certain kind of ordinary experience you lack. I hope that you are successful in finding it.”
“That is why I wander this world, my lady, and leave my cousin Yyrkoon as regent on the Ruby Throne. I