Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [159]
Among the people waiting to go aboard the vessel, whose only shelter was a small deckhouse set amidships, were Dyvim Mar, wearing the formal light battle armour of the Dragon Master, and Duke Orogino, who had intricately carved wooden armour which made his body bulky and seemed cleverly designed to protect the wearer from arrows and yet keep him afloat in water. The councilor’s son, Hored Mevza, had equipped himself in a coat of light brass mail and an elegant conical helmet. To Elric’s mild surprise, the two princesses were also present. Their armour was wooden, like their countryman’s. Elric greeted them with a bow. Princess Nahuaduar met his gaze with that same almost mocking directness while her sister dropped her gaze and seemed almost to blush. They greeted each other and, at a signal from Dyvim Mar, who led by common consent, began to cross the narrow, bouncing gangplank from quay to boat.
“We are grateful for your company, Prince Elric,” said Princess Semleedaor as they boarded.
“We are at your disposal until we reach Soom,” he replied. “And from then until the moon turns full. Then we have our own business to follow.”
She looked curiously up at him, clearly restraining herself from asking him any further questions.
The tide and wind were in their favour. Within moments Hored Mevza had untied the boat and they were carried by the current towards the centre.
As the women watched, the men unshipped oars and set the single sail, following the tide while it ran upstream.
Soon they had rounded a curve and the city was lost from sight behind a curtain of lush palms and thick foliage. The rowing grew harder. The familiar stink of the forest almost clogged their lungs. The air filled with the calls of myriad birds and all the grunts, barks and bellows of the diurnal jungle. The journey to Soom would take several days. None showed the same impatience to reach the city as Dyvim Mar, whose eyes never lost their haunted quality and rarely looked directly at Elric. The titular Emperor of Melniboné felt an equal discomfort, though for opposite reasons. Dyvim Mar hated him for the doom he had brought to Imrryr, a hatred Elric also felt; yet the Dragon Master still knew respect for a name and lineage which had ruled the Bright Empire for ten thousand years.
Dyvim Mar had no Phoorn to command and was by nature laconic, when not speaking to his dragons. Phoorn and Melnibonéans, it was said, had once been of the same race, in a time before time began, and still spoke the same language. But the dragons needed decades of sleep to restore their energy and their powerful venom. Almost all the dragons had been used in Imrryr’s defense, destroying the invaders even as they fled with their booty, and none remained for a Master to command. This, Elric knew, was a further source of Dyvim Mar’s frustration. The dragons slept in their deep caves, beneath the ruins of the city. The surviving Dragon Masters, Elric among them, yearned for the moment when they would begin to wake again. The very things which had once bound Elric to his cousin were those which kept them apart. He noticed that Dyvim Mar also tended to keep his distance from the others, as if he in turn considered himself guilty of betraying those he had first led to Soom.
In contrast, Duke Orogino and Hored Mevza seemed positively loquacious, talking almost to take their minds off the dangers ahead. Elric and Moonglum sat in the stern, taking the tiller whenever possible, and the two women, when not doing their share of the steering, sat near them. Princess Semleedaor, as she became used to the company, seemed direct and open compared to her twin, who was full of smouldering, secret humour and enjoyed baiting the men whenever the opportunity came to her.
At noon of the third day, as they lunched off local meats, breads