Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [128]
He jumped and the boat rocked crazily. He leaned over, grasped a rung and steadied the boat so that Moonglum could climb aboard.
The cocky little Eastlander pushed a hand through his shock of red hair and stared up at the troubled sky.
“Bad weather for this time of year,” he noted. “It’s hard to understand. All the way from Karlaak we’ve had every sort of weather, freak snow-storms, thunder-storms, hail and winds as hot as a furnace blast. Those rumours were disturbing, too—a rain of blood in Bakshaan, balls of fiery metal falling in the west of Vilmir, unprecedented earthquakes in Jadmar a few hours before we arrived. It seems nature has gone insane.”
“Not far from the truth,” Elric said grimly, untying the mooring line. “Lift the sail will you, and tack into the wind?”
“What do you mean?” Moonglum began to loosen the sail. It billowed into his face and his voice was muffled. “Jagreen Lern’s hordes haven’t reached this part of the world yet.”
“They haven’t needed to. I told you the forces of nature were being disrupted by Chaos. We have only experienced the backwash of what is going on in the West. If you think these weather conditions are peculiar, you would be horrified by the effect which Chaos has on those parts of the world where its rule is almost total!”
“I wonder if you haven’t taken on too much in this fight.” Moonglum adjusted the sail and it filled to send the little boat scudding between the two long harbour walls towards the open sea.
As they passed the beacons, guttering in the cold wind, Elric gripped the tiller tighter, taking a south-westerly course past the Vilmirian peninsula. Overhead the stars were sometimes obscured by the tattered shreds of clouds streaming before the cold, unnatural blast of the wind. Spray splashed in his face, stinging it in a thousand places, but he ignored it. He had not answered Moonglum, for he also had doubts about his ability to save the world from Chaos.
Moonglum had learned to judge his friend’s moods. For some years before they had traveled the world together and had learned to respect one another. Lately, since Elric had near-permanent residence in his wife’s city of Karlaak, Moonglum had continued to travel and had been in command of a small mercenary army patrolling the Southern Marches of Pikarayd, driving back the barbarians inhabiting the hinterland of that country. He had immediately relinquished this command when Elric’s news reached him and now, as the tiny ship bore them towards a hazy and peril-fraught destiny, savoured the familiar mixture of excitement and perturbation which he had felt a dozen times before when their escapades had led them into conflict with the unknown supernatural forces so closely linked with Elric’s destiny. He had come to accept as a fact that his destiny was bound to Elric’s and felt, in the deepest places of his being, that when the time came they would both die together in some mighty adventure.
Is this death imminent? he wondered, as he concentrated on the sail and shivered in the blasting wind. Not yet, perhaps, but he felt, fatalistically, that it was not far away, for the time was looming when the only deeds of men would be dark, desperate and great and even these might not serve to form a bastion against the inrush of the creatures of Chaos.
Elric, himself, contemplated nothing, kept his mind clear and relaxed as much as he could. His quest for the aid of the White Lords was one which could well prove fruitless, but he chose not to dwell on this until he knew for certain whether their help could be invoked or not.
Dawn came swimming over the horizon, showing a heaving waste of grey water with no land in sight. The wind had dropped and the air was warmer. Banks of purple clouds bearing veins of saffron and scarlet, poured into the sky,