Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [64]
But Elric held his psychic ground, conscious of Gaynor’s testing him.
“I fear you because you are prepared to go to any ends to achieve your own death. And since life has no value to you, you are to be feared as all such animals are feared. For you desire power only for that most selfish of all ends, and therefore you know no boundaries in the seeking and the gaining of it. That is why I fear you, Gaynor the Damned. And that is why you are damned.”
The faceless creature flung back its steel-shod head, the colours behind the metal quivering and flaring, and laughed at this. “I fear you, Elric, because you are damned yet continue to behave as if you were not …”
“I have made no bargains such as yours, prince.”
“Your whole race has made a bargain! And now it is paying the price—somewhere, not far from here, in a realm you will call home, the last of your people are being marshaled to march in the armies of Chaos. The time for that last great fight is not yet. But we are preparing for it. Would you survive it, Elric? Or would you be blasted to non-existence, not even your memory remaining—less enduring, say, than one of Master Wheldrake’s verses—”
“I say, sir! You have already proved yourself an unmitigated villain! Pray, remember at least that you are a gentleman!” Then Wheldrake’s eye returned to his beloved.
“Can you bear the prospect of everlasting death, Elric? You, who love life as much as I hate it. We could both have our deepest desire …”
“I think you fear me, Prince Gaynor, because I refuse that final compromise,” said Elric. “I fear you because you belong wholly to Chaos. But you fear me because I do not.”
A querulous noise issued from within the helm, almost like the snuffling of some cosmic pig. Then in came three sailors with a tambourine, a pipe and a musical sword, to play some mournful shanty, and who were swiftly dismissed by Gaynor, to the relief of all.
“Very well, sir,” said Gaynor, all his equilibrium recovered, it seemed. “Then can I put a modest suggestion to you?”
“If you wish to join forces to seek the three sisters, I will consider your proposals,” said Elric. “Otherwise I see little left to discuss between us.”
“But that is just what I would discuss, Elric. We all desire something different, I suspect, of those sisters, and the reason why so much upheaval flings us this way and that through the multiverse is because there are several interests and several Lords of the Higher Worlds involved. You accept that, gentlemen?” Now he included Wheldrake. Charion Phatt sat back in her chair, evidently already privy to her ally’s plan.
They nodded their agreement.
“In some ways we are all at odds,” Gaynor continued, “but in others we have no battle between us. And I see you agree. Well, then, so let us search for the sisters, as well as the Family Phatt—or what remains of it—together. At least until such time as our interests are no longer the same.”
And thus did Elric of Melniboné and Master Ernest Wheldrake accept the logic of the damned prince’s compromise and agreed to sail with him when his ship left harbour the next morning, as soon as they had selected another sailor or two from the braver or more desperate seadogs of Ulshinir.
“But,” said Elric, as they made to return ashore, while a scuffling and shifting went on, together with the occasional light pounding, overhead, “you have not yet discussed your destination, Prince Gaynor. Do we trust you in that or will you tell us the name of the island the three sisters have reached?”
“Island?” Gaynor’s helm grew dark, almost in puzzlement, and blues and blacks swirled across its smooth, sometimes opaque, surface. “Island, sir? We do not go to any island.”
“Then where are the three sisters?”
“Where we journey, sir, though they are lost to any immediate meeting between us, I fear.”
“And where,” said Wheldrake with a certain justified impatience, “do we journey, sir?”
Again the helm tilted a little as if in amusement and the musical voice sounded the words with