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“He does not hear you,” another murmured as Elric gave no sign.

But then Elric turned his pain-racked head and he said bleakly, “Search no more. I have had time to meditate and must seek my wife with the aid of sorcery. Disperse. You can do nothing further.”

Then he left them and went back towards his palace, knowing that there was still one way of learning where Zarozinia had been taken. It was a method which he ill-liked, yet it would have to be employed.

Curtly, upon returning, Elric ordered everyone from his chamber, barred the door and stared down at the dead thing. Its congealed blood was still on him, but the axe with which he had slain it had been taken away by its comrades.

Elric prepared the body, stretching out its limbs on the floor. He drew the shutters of the windows so that no light filtered into the room, and lit a brazier in one corner. It swayed on its chains as the oil-soaked rushes flared. He went to a small chest by the window and took out a pouch. From this he removed a bunch of dried herbs and with a hasty gesture flung them on the brazier so that it gave off a sickly odour and the room began to fill with smoke. Then he stood over the corpse, his body rigid, and began to sing an incantation in the old language of his forefathers, the Sorcerer Emperors of Melniboné. The song seemed scarcely akin to human speech, rising and falling from a deep groan to a high-pitched shriek.

The brazier speared flaring red light over Elric’s face and grotesque shadows skipped about the room. On the floor the dead corpse began to stir, its ruined head moving from side to side. Elric drew his runesword and placed it before him, his two hands on the hilt. “Arise, soulless one!” he commanded.

Slowly, with jerky movements, the creature raised itself stiffly upright and pointed a clawed finger at Elric, its glazed eyes staring as if beyond him.

“All this,” it whispered, “was pre-ordained. Think not that you can escape your fate, Elric of Melniboné. You have tampered with my corpse and I am a creature of Chaos. My masters will avenge me.”

“How?”

“Your destiny is already laid down. You will know soon enough.”

“Tell me, dead one, why did you come to abduct my wife? Who sent you hither? Where has my wife been taken?”

“Three questions, Lord Elric. Requiring three answers. You know that the dead who have been raised by sorcery can answer nothing directly.”

“Aye—that I know. So answer as you can.”

“Then listen well for I may recite only once my rede and then must return to the nether regions where my being may peacefully rot to nothing. Listen:

“Beyond the ocean brews a battle;

Beyond the battle blood shall fall.

If Elric’s kinsman ventures with him

(Bearing a twin of that he bears)

To a place where, man-forsaken,

Dwells the one who should not live,

Then a bargain shall be entered.

Elric’s wife shall be restored.”

With this the thing fell to the floor and did not stir thereafter.

Elric went to the window and opened the shutters. Used as he was to enigmatic verse-omens, this one was difficult to unravel. As daylight entered the room, the rushes sputtered and the smoke faded. Beyond the ocean…There were many oceans.

He resheathed his runesword and climbed onto the disordered bed to lie down and contemplate the rede. At last, after long minutes of this contemplation, he remembered something he had heard from a traveler who had come to Karlaak, from Tarkesh, a nation of the Western Continent, beyond the Pale Sea.

The traveler had told him how there was trouble brewing between the land of Dharijor and the other nations of the West. Dharijor had contravened treaties she had signed with her neighbouring kingdoms and had signed a new one with the Theocrat of Pan Tang. Pan Tang was an unholy island dominated by its dark aristocracy of warrior-wizards. It was from here that Elric’s old enemy, Theleb K’aarna, had come. Its capital of Hwamgaarl was called the City of Screaming Statues and until recently its residents had had little