Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [48]
Elric drew the cloak’s cowl over his head to protect it from the fierce sun which hung in the steel-blue sky.
One day, he thought, I too shall know this peace of death and perhaps then I shall also regret it. He let the golden mare slow to a trot and took a sip of water from one of his canteens.
Now the desert surrounded him and it seemed infinite. Nothing grew. No animals lived there. There were no birds in the sky.
For some reason he shuddered and he had a presentiment of a moment in the future when he would be alone, as he was now, in a world even more barren than this desert, without even a horse for company. He shook off the thought, but it had left him so stunned that for a little while he achieved his ambition and did not brood upon his fate and his situation. The wind dropped slightly and the sighing became little more than a whisper.
Dazed, Elric fingered the pommel of his blade—Stormbringer, the Black Sword—for he associated his presentiment with the weapon but could not tell why. And it seemed to him that he heard an ironic note in the murmuring of the wind. Or did the sound emanate from his sword itself? He cocked his head, listening, but the sound became even less audible, as if aware that he listened.
The golden mare began to climb the gentle slope of a dune, stumbling once as her foot sank into deeper sand. Elric concentrated on guiding her to firmer ground.
Reaching the top of the dune he reined his horse in. The desert dunes rolled on, broken only by the occasional rock. He had it in mind then to ride on and on until it would be impossible to return to Tanelorn, until both he and his mount collapsed from exhaustion and were eventually swallowed by the sands. He pushed back his cowl and wiped sweat from his brow.
Why not? he thought. Life was not bearable. He would try death.
And yet would death deny him? Was he doomed to live? It sometimes seemed so.
Then he considered the horse. It would not be fair to sacrifice it to his desire. Slowly he dismounted.
The wind grew stronger and the sound of its sighing increased. Sand blew around Elric’s booted feet. It was a hot wind and it tugged at his voluminous white cloak. The horse snorted nervously.
Elric looked towards the north-east, towards the edge of the world.
And he began to walk.
The horse whinnied enquiringly at him when he did not call it, but he ignored the sound and had soon left his mount behind him. He had not even bothered to bring water with him. He flung back his cowl so that the sun beat directly upon his head. His pace was even, purposeful, and he marched as if at the head of an army.
Perhaps he did sense an army behind him—the army of the dead, of all those friends and enemies whom he had slain in the course of his pointless search for a meaning to his existence.
And still one enemy remained alive. An enemy even stronger, even more malevolent than Theleb K’aarna—the enemy of his darker self, of that side of his nature which was symbolized by the sentient blade still resting at his hip. And when he died, then that enemy would also die. A force for evil would be removed from the world.
For several hours Elric of Melniboné tramped on through the Sighing Desert and gradually, as he had hoped, his sense of identity began to leave him so that it was almost as if he became one with the wind and the sand and, in so doing, was united at last with the world which had rejected him and which he had rejected.
Evening came, but he hardly noticed the sun’s setting. Night fell, but he continued to march, unaware of the cold. Already he was weakening. He rejoiced in the weakness where previously he had fought to retain the strength he enjoyed only through