Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [93]
“I am glad we dreamed together,” she said.
“You lost your true love, I think,” Elric told her. “I am glad if I helped you ease the pain of that parting.”
She was baffled for a moment, then her brow cleared. “You speak of Alnac Kreb? I was fond of him, my lord, but he was more a brother to me than a lover.”
Elric became embarrassed. “Forgive my presumption, Lady Oone.”
She looked up into the sky. The Blood Moon had not yet waned. It cast its red rays onto the sand, onto the gleaming bronze of the tent where Raik Na Seem welcomed his daughter back to him. “I do not love easily in the way you mean.” Her voice was significant. She sighed. “Do you still plan to return to Melniboné and your betrothed?”
“I must,” he said. “I love her. And my duty lies in Imrryr.”
“Sweet duty!” Her tone was sarcastic and she took a step or two away from him, her head bowed, her hand on her belt. She kicked at dust the colour of old blood.
Elric had disciplined himself against his heart’s pain for too long. He could only stand and wait until she walked back to him. And now she was smiling. “Well, Prince Elric, would you join the dreamthieves and make this your living for a while?”
Elric shook his head. “It is a calling which requires too much of me, my lady. Yet I am grateful for what this adventure has taught me, both about myself and about the world of dreams. I still understand only a little of it. I am still not wholly sure where we traveled or what we encountered. I do not know how much in the Dream Realm was the Lady Varadia’s creation and how much was yours. It was as if I witnessed a battle of inventors! And did I contribute? I do not know.”
“Oh, without you, believe me, Prince Elric, I think I would have failed. You have seen so much of other worlds! And you have read more. It does not do to analyze too closely the creatures and places one encounters in the Dream Realm, but be assured that you made your contribution. More, perhaps, than you’ll ever know.”
“Can reality ever be made from the fabric of those dreams?” he wondered.
“There was an adventurer of the Young Kingdoms called Earl Aubec,” she said. “He knew how potent a creator of reality the human mind can be. Some say he and his kind helped make the world of the Young Kingdoms.”
Elric nodded. “I’ve heard that legend. But I think it is as substantial as the story of Chamog Borm, my lady.”
“You must think what you wish.” She turned away from him to look at the Bronze Tent. The old man and his daughter were emerging. From somewhere within the tent drums began to beat. There came a wonderful chanting, a dozen melodies linked together, interwoven. Slowly all the people who had remained at the Bronze Tent keeping vigil over the body of the Holy Girl began to gather around Raik Na Seem and Varadia. Their songs were songs of immense joy. Their voices filled the desert with the most gorgeous life and made even the distant mountains echo.
Oone linked her arm in Elric’s, a gesture of comradeship, of reconciliation. “Come,” she said, “let us join the celebrations.”
They had only walked a few more paces before they were lifted on the shoulders of the crowd and soon they were borne, laughing and infected by the general joyousness, over the desert towards the Silver Flower Oasis.
The celebrations began at once, as if the Bauradim and all the other desert clans had been preparing for this moment. Every kind of delicious food was prepared until the air was rich with an enormous variety of mouth-watering smells and it seemed all the great spice warehouses of the world had been made to release their contents. Cooking fires blazed everywhere, as did great brands and lamps and candles, and from out of the Kashbeh Moulor Ka Riiz, overlooking the great oasis, rode the Aloum’rit guardians in all the glory of their ancient armour, their red-gold helmets and breastplates, their weapons of bronze and brass and steel. They had huge forked beards and massive turbans wound around the spikes of their helms. They wore surcoats of elaborate brocade and cloth-of-silver