Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [159]
A tribe of Alofian hermaphrodites at his heels, the man rode eastward across the Dakwinsi Steppe, hoping to reach fabled Xanardwys before the snows blocked the pass.
His pale silver mare, hardiest of all Bastans, was bred to this terrain and had as determined a hold on life as the sickly albino who had to sustain himself by drugs or the stolen life-stuff of his fellows.
Drawing the black sealskin snow-cloak about him, the man set his face against the weather. His name was Elric and he was a prince in his own country, the last of his long line and without legitimate issue, an outcast almost everywhere in a world coming to hate and resent this alien kind as the power of Melniboné faded and the strength of the Young Kingdoms grew. He did not much care for his own safety but he was determined to live, to return to his island kingdom and be reunited with his sweet cousin Cymoril, whom he would one day marry. It was this ambition alone which drove him on through the blizzard.
Clinging to his horse’s mane as the sturdy beast pressed against the deepening drifts which threatened to bury the world, Elric’s senses grew as numb as his flesh. The mare moved slowly across the ridges, keeping to the high ground, heading always away from the afternoon sun. At night Elric dug them both a snow-hole and wrapped them in his lined canvasses. He carried the equipment of the Kardik, whose hunting grounds these were.
Elric no longer dreamed. He was almost entirely without conscious thought. Yet still his horse moved steadily towards Xanardwys, where hot springs brought eternal summer and where scarlet roses bloomed against the snow.
Towards evening on the fifth day of his journey, Elric became aware of an extra edge of coldness in the air. Though the great crimson disc of the setting sun threw long shadows over the white landscape, its light did not penetrate far. It now appeared to Elric that a vast wall of ice loomed up ahead, like the sides of a gigantic, supernatural fortress. There was something insubstantial about it. Perhaps Elric had discovered one of those monumental mirages which, according to the Kardik, heralded the inevitable doom of any witness.
Elric had faced more than one inevitable doom and felt no terror for this one, but his curiosity aroused him from the semi-stupor into which he had fallen. As they approached the towering ice he saw himself and his horse in perfect reflection. He smiled a grim smile, shocked by his own gauntness. He looked twice his real age and felt a hundred times older. Encounters with the supernatural had a habit of draining the spirit, as others whom he had met could readily testify…
Steadily his reflection grew larger until without warning he was swallowed by it—suddenly united with his own image! Then he was riding through a quiet, green dale which, he sincerely hoped, was the Valley of Xanardwys. He looked over his shoulder and saw a blue cloud billowing down a hillside and disappearing. Perhaps the mirror effect had something to do with the freakish weather of this region? He was profoundly relieved that Xanardwys—or at least its valley—was proving a somewhat substantial legend. He dismissed all questions concerning the phenomenon which had brought him here and pressed on in good spirits. All around were the signs of spring—the warm, scented air, the bright wild-flowers, the budding trees and shrubs, the lush grass—and he marveled at a wonderful paradox of geography which, according to the tales he’d heard, had saved many fugitives and travelers. Soon he must come to the ivory spires and ebony roofs of the city herself where he would rest, buy provisions, shelter and then continue his journey to Elwher, which lay beyond all the maps of his world.
The valley was narrow with steeply rising sides, like a tunnel, roots and branches of dark green trees tangling overhead in the soft earth. Elric felt a welcome sense of security and he drew deep breaths, relishing the sweet fecundity all around.