Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [161]
The princesses speculated on the wildlife to be found in the jungles and of the ancient, perhaps unhuman people who had built the city and ruled the land of Soom, occasionally asking Elric or Dyvim Mar for their opinion.
“The savages, though ugly and stunted, seemed human enough to me,” Dyvim Mar said.
The women spoke of their father who had hired the Melnibonéans. Tilus Kreek had been obsessed with learning Soom’s secrets, they said. He was convinced the city had been the centre of a wise civilization almost as old as Melniboné. Its treasure might have been knowledge or gold, he had not known from his reading. It might even have been the black flower, said to confer power on its kings. Ancient manuscripts had spoken of it in mysterious terms. Whatever form it took, that treasure could have revived his own nation’s fortunes. The Uyt had suffered a great plague, taking a huge proportion of the population, making it weak and liable to being preyed upon by stronger neighbours.
“My father was obsessed with the stories he had heard of Soom,” said Semleedaor. “He believed the older civilization would save ours. We belong to a race of scholars and it is our wisdom alone which has kept the worst predators at bay, even though we lost a number of our vassal states. Our war-engines are sophisticated, our magic, too, is feared. We have made none of the alliances which, by all accounts, made ancient Melniboné great. We believed that the crisis was over, that we had been able to resist the worst of the threats. There were other plans in place which did not depend upon discovering the secrets of Soom. But his curiosity, we suspect, began to drive him more than any immediate danger.”
“You say he was a botanist, also?” Hored Mevza asked. “Perhaps this wealth he coveted was in the nature of rare spices? Our own city’s fortunes were based upon the spice trade.”
“Perhaps.” Princess Nahuaduar was looking at Elric, as if to discover his reaction. Her own expression indicated that she did not welcome this suggestion.
Night fell for the third time since they had left Nassea-Tiki. The men drew an awning over the deckhouse and set up nets against the biting insects, tying up to a large tree trunk wedged where the river curved and the current ran slowly. They all slept soundly, save for the albino whose occasional groans and mutterings reminded Moonglum that his friend still relived those events surrounding the fall of that great capital. He had rarely slept in peace since the death of Cymoril, his betrothed.
Dawn came again and they rowed on upstream. By noon the sun was a throbbing, glaring eye gazing pitilessly down on them as they sweated to force their course on a river grown increasingly difficult to navigate, whose bends twisted and snaked, narrowing then widening unpredictably at every turn. Dyvim Mar warned them not to drag their hands in water now seething with poisonous reptiles and giant cephalopods. “And all are hungry for our flesh, or blood, or both.” As he spoke, to illustrate his warning, a great coiling serpent leapt from the water to snap at a bird skimming the surface in pursuit of a giant dragonfly.
Moonglum murmured to his friend: “What could have possessed the Uyt king to leave his country and his daughters and mount an expedition here? You at least have a far better reason for seeking Soom.”
Somehow, they survived yet another day and a night until at last Dyvim Mar stood up in the boat to point at something the colour of dried blood stretching out into the water. Clearly of sentient manufacture, it had the appearance of a ruined mole, of worn, red sandstone with rusted iron rings still set into slabs casting black shadows on thick, unpleasant water.
Moonglum, half-certain that intelligent eyes were watching them from the dark green jungle depths, made to draw one of his curved swords from its sheath.