Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [16]
“What of Moonglum?” Elric glanced at his sleeping friend. “Can he accompany me?”
“Best not. Besides, he has a light enchantment upon him. There is no time to wake him . . .” She gasped again and flung her arms across her forehead. “No time . . .”
Elric leapt from the bed and began to pull on his breeks. He took his cloak from where it was draped across a stool and he buckled on his runesword. He went forward to help her, but she signaled him away.
“No . . . Go, please . . .”
And she vanished.
Still half asleep Elric flung open the door and dashed down the stairs, out into the night, racing for the north gate of Alorasaz, passing through it and running on through the snow, looking this way and that. The cold flooded over him like a sudden wave. He was soon knee-deep in snow. Peering about him he carried on until he stopped in his tracks.
He gasped in astonishment when he saw the steed which Myshella had provided for him.
“What’s this? Another chimera?”
He approached it cautiously.
CHAPTER SIX
Jeweled Bird Speaking
It was a bird, but it was not a bird of flesh and blood.
It was a bird of silver and of gold and of brass. Its wings clashed as he approached it and it moved its huge clawed feet impatiently, turning cold, emerald eyes to regard him.
On its back was a saddle of carved onyx chased in gold and copper and the saddle was empty, awaiting him.
“Well, I began all this unquestioningly,” Elric said to himself. “I might as well complete it in the same manner.”
And he went up to the bird and he climbed up its side and he lowered himself somewhat cautiously into the saddle.
The wings of gold and silver flapped with the sound of a hundred cymbals meeting and with three movements had taken the bird of metal and its rider high up into the night sky above Alorasaz. It turned its bright head on its neck of brass and it opened its curved beak of gem-studded steel.
“Well, master, I am commanded to take thee to Ashaneloon.”
Elric waved a pale hand. “Wherever you will. I am at the mercy of you and your mistress.”
And then he was jerked backward in the saddle as the bird’s wings beat the stronger and it gathered speed and he was rushing through the freezing night, over snowy plains, over mountains, over rivers, until the coast came in sight and he saw the sea in the west which was called the Boiling Sea.
Down through the pitch blackness dropped the bird of gold and silver and now Elric felt damp heat strike his face and hands, heard a peculiar bubbling sound, and he knew they were flying over that strange sea said to be fed by volcanoes lying deep below its surface, a sea where few ships sailed.
Steam surrounded them now. Its heat was almost unbearable, but through it Elric began to make out the silhouette of a landmass, a small rocky island on which stood a single building with slender towers and turrets and domes.
“The palace of Ashaneloon,” said the bird of silver and gold. “I will alight among the battlements, master, but I fear that thing you must meet before our errand is accomplished, so I will await you elsewhere. Then, if you live, I will return to take you back to Kaneloon. And, if you die, I will go back to tell my mistress of your failure.”
Over the battlements the bird now hovered, its wings beating, and Elric reflected that there would be no advantage of surprise over whatever it was the bird feared so much.
He swung one leg from the saddle, paused, and then leapt down to the flat roof.
Hastily the bird retreated into the black sky.
Elric was alone.
All was silent, save for the drumming of warm waves on a distant shore.
He located the eastern tower and began to make his way towards the door. There was some chance, perhaps, that he could complete his quest without the necessity of facing the palace’s guardian.
But then a monstrous bellow sounded behind him and he wheeled, knowing that this must be the guardian. A creature stood there, its red-rimmed eyes