Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [101]
“You are a sorcerer, Elric. You have but lately proved your greatness in that respect, involving the most powerful of all sorceries, the summoning of a Chaos Lord—and you still hold back? I would suggest, my lord king, that you consider such logic and that you judge it unsound. You decided to use sorcery in your pursuit of Prince Yyrkoon. The die is already cast. It would be wise to use sorcery now.”
“You cannot conceive of the mental and physical effort involved . . .”
“I can conceive of it, my lord. I am your friend. I do not wish to see you pained—and yet . . .”
“There is also the difficulty, Dyvim Tvar, of my physical weakness,” Elric reminded his friend. “How long can I continue in the use of these overstrong potions that now sustain me? They supply me with energy, aye—but they do so by using up my few resources. I might die before I find Cymoril.”
“I stand rebuked.”
But Elric came forward and put his white hand on Dyvim Tvar’s butter-coloured cloak. “But what have I to lose, eh? No. You are right. I am a coward to hesitate when Cymoril’s life is at stake. I repeat my stupidities—the stupidities which first brought this pass upon us all. I’ll do it. Will you come with me to the ocean?”
“Aye.”
Dyvim Tvar began to feel the burden of Elric’s conscience settling upon him also. It was a peculiar feeling to come to a Melnibonéan and Dyvim Tvar knew very well that he liked it not at all.
Elric had last ridden these paths when he and Cymoril were happy. It seemed a long age ago. He had been a fool to trust that happiness. He turned his white stallion’s head towards the cliffs and the sea beyond them. A light rain fell. Winter was descending swiftly on Melniboné.
They left their horses on the cliffs, lest they be disturbed by Elric’s sorcery-working, and clambered down to the shore. The rain fell into the sea. A mist hung over the water little more than five ship lengths from the beach. It was deathly still and, with the tall, dark cliffs behind them and the wall of mist before them, it seemed to Dyvim Tvar that they had entered a silent netherworld where might easily be encountered the melancholy souls of those who, in legend, had committed suicide by a process of slow self-mutilation. The sound of the two men’s boots on shingle was loud and yet was at once muffled by the mist which seemed to suck at noise and swallow it greedily as if it sustained its life on sound.
“Now,” Elric murmured. He seemed not to notice the brooding and depressive surroundings. “Now I must recall the rune which came so easily, unsummoned, to my brain not many months since.” He left Dyvim Tvar’s side and went down to the place where the chill water lapped the land and there, carefully, he seated himself, cross-legged. His eyes stared, unseeingly, into the mist.
To Dyvim Tvar the tall albino appeared to shrink as he sat down. He seemed to become like a vulnerable child and Dyvim Tvar’s heart went out to Elric as it might go out to a brave, nervous boy, and he had it in mind to suggest that the sorcery be done with and they seek the lands of Oin and Yu by ordinary means.
But Elric was already lifting his head as a dog lifts its head to the moon. And strange, thrilling words began to tumble from his lips and it became plain that, even if Dyvim Tvar did speak now, Elric would not hear him.
Dyvim Tvar was no stranger to the High Speech—as a Melnibonéan noble he had been taught it as a matter of course—but the words seemed nonetheless strange to him, for Elric used peculiar inflections and emphases, giving the words a special and secret weight and chanting them in a voice which ranged from bass groan to falsetto shriek. It was not pleasant to listen to such noises coming from a mortal throat and now Dyvim Tvar had some clear understanding of why Elric was reluctant to use sorcery. The Lord of the Dragon Caves, Melnibonéan though he was, found himself inclined