Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [97]
To which the three sisters listened with perfect patience before continuing …
“We sought thee to ask of thee a boon,” said Princess Tayaratuka, “and to offer thee in exchange for that boon a gift.”
“I am bound to thee as if I were thine own hands,” said Elric automatically.
“And we to thee,” replied the sisters, equally familiar with the ritual.
Then Princess Tayaratuka dropped to one knee, raising her hands to place them on his arms and bring him down to her so that he, too, was kneeling as she kneeled. “My lord, good power to thee,” she said, and offered her forehead for his kiss. This ritual was performed until all had spoken and been kissed in turn.
“How may I help thee, sisters,” said Elric when they had next kissed the triple kiss of kinship. All his old Melnibonéan blood stirred in him and he grew chill with a longing for his homeland and the speech and customs of his own unhuman folk. These women were his peers; already a deep understanding existed between them, stronger than blood, stronger than love, yet in no way encumbering or demanding. Elric knew in his bones that their command of sorcery might well have been the match of his own, before they exhausted all their strength in their search for him. He had known and loved many powerful women, including his lost betrothed Cymoril, and Myshella, the Dark Lady of Kaneloon, the sorceress he had but lately served, but, save for the Rose, the three princesses were the most striking of all the living women he had yet encountered, since he had left Imrryr as the pyre for his beloved’s corpse.
“I am flattered that you should have sought me, your majesties,” he said, relaxing for good manners’ sake into the common tongue. “How may I be of service to you?”
“We would borrow your sword, Elric,” said Princess Shanug’a.
“Borrow it you shall, madam. And myself to wield it for you.” He spoke gallantly, as honour bade him do, but he still feared the threat of his father’s ghost hovering somewhere not too far off, ready to flee at the first threat of extinction and pour his soul into Elric’s being, to blend for ever … And had not Gaynor coveted the Black Sword?
“You do not ask why we would borrow the blade,” said Princess Mishiguya, seating herself beside the Rose and helping herself to the small fruits which had been placed on the arm of the couch. “You would not bargain with us?”
“I would expect you to help me as I help you,” said Elric in a matter-of-fact tone, “but I have sworn the blood-oath, as have you. It is done. We are the same. Our interests are the same.”
“Yet you have a deep fear in you, Elric,” said Charion Phatt suddenly. “You have not told these women what you fear if you allow yourself to aid them!” She spoke out as a child might, for justice, without understanding why the albino did not wish to betray his own anxieties.
“And they have not told me of what they fear if I agree to aid them,” said Elric quietly to the young woman. “We are riding the stallions of terror, every one of us at present, Mistress Phatt, and the best we can hope to do is to keep some kind of grip upon the reins.”
Charion Phatt accepted this and subsided, though she glanced furiously at Wheldrake, as if she wished him to speak on her behalf. But the poet remained a diplomat, unsure of the game he witnessed or of the stakes, but willing to go wherever his almost-betrothed determined.
“Where would you have me bear this blade?” Elric asked again.
Princess Tayaratuka glanced at her sisters before getting their unspoken assent to continue. “We do not need you to bear the blade,” she said gently. “We spoke quite literally. We wish to borrow your runesword, Prince Elric. I will explain.”
And she told a tale of a world where all lived in harmony with nature. This world had possessed few cities in the usual sense and its settlements were built to conform with the contours