Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [77]
With dark forgetting of my care return,
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth.”
He quoted on, while a thin, cold breeze ran amongst the trees and soon his snores had gently and unostentatiously joined the rest …
Dawn had brought some snow. While most of the party shivered against it and cursed their bad luck, Esbern Snare opened his mouth and drew in the smell of it, licked his lips at the taste of it; a spring in his gait as he performed his tasks in the making of the morning meal. But already there was conflict as Gaynor cried: “Do you not recall a bargain made between us, my lady? A bargain which you yourself proposed!”
“A bargain which is now ended, sir. You have had your several uses of me. I become my own woman again. I brought you here and you shall seek your sisters here, but with no help from me!”
“Our interests are the same! It is folly to separate.” Prince Gaynor’s hand was upon the pommel of his broadsword as if he would threaten her had his pride permitted it. He had thought his native power was enough to persuade her and this was evident in every thwarted movement of his body, his frustrated tones. “Your family will find the sisters. They are bound to. We are upon the same quest!”
“No,” said Charion. “For whatever reason—and I cannot detect one—the sisters go that way, but my uncle goes yonder—and to my uncle, sir, I must follow!”
“You agreed we should seek the sisters together.”
“That was until I knew my uncle and grandma were in danger. I go to them. I go, sir, unquestionably, to them!”
And with that she was off through the trees, bidding farewell to no-one, dashing the snow from the branches she bent in her progress, her breath steaming and her wiry body gathering speed, as if she had no more time to lose.
Wheldrake was picking up his books and his miscellaneous possessions shouting out for her to pause. He would go with her! She needed a man, he said, upon her adventure. His own farewells were rapid and half-ended as he fled upon his beloved’s trail leaving a cold and sudden silence behind him as, over the ashes of the guttering fire, the three doomed men regarded one another in uncertain camaraderie.
“Will you seek the sisters with me, Elric?” Gaynor asked at last. His voice was calmer now, almost chastened.
“The sisters have what I require, so I must find them in order to ask them for it,” said Elric.
“And you, Esbern Snare?” Gaynor asked. “Are you with us, still?”
“I have no interest in your elusive sisters,” said Esbern Snare, “unless they have the key to my release.”
“They carry two keys, it seems,” said Elric, putting a friendly hand on the grey man’s shoulder, “so perhaps they have a third for you.”
“Very well,” said Esbern Snare. “I will join you tomorrow. Do you go towards the East?”
“Always east, we’ve learned, for our sisters,” said Gaynor.
So the three of them—tall figures, lean as winter weasels—began their journey eastward, up the steep slopes of the valley, through frozen foothills, to a range of ancient mountains, whose rotting granite threatened to collapse with every foot they set upon it, while the snow came thicker now and they must break ice to get their water, save at noon, when the thin sun warmed the world enough to make it run; wide ribbons of silver racing through the glittering white shards.
Gaynor continued to brood in silence while Esbern Snare, loping ahead much of the time, grew increasingly alert as if he had found his native element. And all the while his bundle never left him, whether he slept or ate, so that one day, as they made cautious progress above a deep gorge which had filled with snow to make a sort of glacier, below which a fierce torrent could be heard rushing through caverns and tunnels it had carved through the ice, Elric asked him why he valued the thing so greatly. Was it some keepsake, perhaps?
They had paused for breath upon the narrow path, their feet hardly as long as the track was wide, but Gaynor had marched tirelessly on, apparently oblivious of the depth and