Elric_ The Sleeping Sorceress - Michael Moorcock [76]
Elric laughed somewhat bitterly. “But perhaps I am not a true Melnibonéan. Yyrkoon has said as much—and others echo his thoughts.”
“He hates you because you are contemplative. Your father was contemplative and no-one denied that he was a fitting emperor.”
“My father chose not to put the results of his contemplation into his personal actions. He ruled as an emperor should. Yyrkoon, I must admit, would also rule as an emperor should. He, too, has the opportunity to make Melniboné great again. If he were emperor, he would embark on a campaign of conquest to restore our trade to its former volume, to extend our power across the earth. And that is what the majority of our folk would wish. Is it my right to deny that wish?”
“It is your right to do what you think, for you are the emperor. All who are loyal to you think as I do.”
“Perhaps their loyalty is misguided. Perhaps Yyrkoon is right and I will betray that loyalty, bring doom to the Dragon Isle.” His moody, crimson eyes looked directly into hers. “Perhaps I should have died as I left my mother’s womb. Then Yyrkoon would have become emperor. Has Fate been thwarted?”
“Fate is never thwarted. What has happened has happened because Fate willed it thus—if, indeed, there is such a thing as Fate and if men’s actions are not merely a response to other men’s actions.”
Elric drew a deep breath and offered her an expression tinged with irony. “Your logic leads you close to heresy, Cymoril, if we are to believe the traditions of Melniboné. Perhaps it would be better if you forgot your friendship with me.”
She laughed. “You begin to sound like my brother. Are you testing my love for you, my lord?”
He began to remount his horse. “No, Cymoril, but I would advise you to test your love yourself, for I sense there is tragedy implicit in our love.”
As she swung herself back into her saddle she smiled and shook her head. “You see doom in all things. Can you not accept the good gifts granted you? They are few enough, my lord.”
“Aye. I’ll agree with that.”
They turned in their saddles, hearing hoofbeats behind them. Some distance away they saw a company of yellow-clad horsemen riding about in confusion. It was their guard, which they had left behind, wishing to ride alone.
“Come!” cried Elric. “Through the woods and over yonder hill and they’ll never find us!”
They spurred their steeds through the sun-speared wood and up the steep sides of the hill beyond, racing down the other side and away across a plain where noidel bushes grew, their lush, poison fruit glimmering a purplish blue, a night-colour which even the light of day could not disperse. There were many such peculiar berries and herbs on Melniboné and it was to some of them that Elric owed his life. Others were used for sorcerous potions and had been sown generations before by Elric’s ancestors. Now few Melnibonéans left Imrryr even to collect these harvests. Only slaves visited the greater part of the island, seeking the roots and the shrubs which made men dream monstrous and magnificent dreams, for it was in their dreams that the nobles of Melniboné found most of their pleasures; they had ever been a moody, inward-looking race and it was for this quality that Imrryr had come to be named the Dreaming City. There, even the meanest slaves chewed berries to bring them oblivion and thus were easily controlled, for they came to depend on their dreams. Only Elric himself refused such drugs, perhaps because he required so many others simply to ensure his remaining alive.
The yellow-clad guards were lost behind them and once across the plain where the noidel bushes grew they slowed their flight and came at length to cliffs and then the sea.
The sea shone brightly and languidly washed the white beaches below the cliffs. Seabirds wheeled in the clear sky and their cries were distant, serving only to emphasize the sense of peace which both Elric and Cymoril now had. In silence the lovers guided their horses down steep paths to the shore and there they tethered the steeds and began