Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [169]
“Well, sir,” said Elric, “I believe you intend to honour me and I thank you. Now I would appreciate it if you would put me on the right road to my realm.”
“I’ll take you back there myself, sir. It’s the least I can do.”
Elric would not, as von Bek had predicted, remember the details of his journey between the realms. It would come to seem little more than a vague dream, yet now he had the impression of constant proliferation, of the natural and supernatural worlds blending and becoming a single whole. Monstrous beings prowled empty spaces of their own making. Whole nations and races and worlds experienced their histories in the time it took Elric to put one foot in front of another upon the silver moonbeams, that delicate, complicated lacework of roads. Shapes grew and decayed, translated and transmogrified, becoming at once profoundly familiar and disturbingly strange. He was aware of passing other travelers upon the silver roads; he was aware of complex societies and unlikely creatures, of communicating with some of them. Walking with a steady, determined gait, von Bek led the albino onward. “Time is not measured as you measure it,” the guide senser explained. “Indeed, it is scarcely measured at all. One rarely requires it as one walks between the worlds.”
“But what is this—this multiverse?” Elric shook his head. “It’s too much for me, sir. I doubt my brain is trained enough to accept it at all!”
“I can help you. I can take you to the medersim of Alexandria or of Cairo, of Marrakech and Malador, there to learn the skills of the adept, to learn all the moves in the great Game of Time.”
Again the albino shook his head.
With a shrug von Bek returned his attention to the children. “But what are we to do with these?”
“They’ll be safe enough with me, old boy.” Captain Quelch spoke from behind them. The floor of the temple alone remained, hovering in space, with the children gathered upon it. At their centre now stood Far-Seeing, smiling, her arms extended in a gesture of protection. “We’ll find a safe little harbour, my dears.”
“Have you power over all this, Count Renark?” Elric asked.
“It is within the power of all mortals to manipulate the multiverse, to create reality, to make justice and order out of the raw stuff of Chaos. Yet without Chaos there would be no Creation, and perhaps no Creator. That is the simple truth of all existence, Lord Elric. The promise of immortality. It is possible to affect one’s own destiny. That is the hope Chaos offers us.” Von Bek kept a wary eye upon Quelch, who seemed aggrieved.
“If you’ll forgive me interrupting this philosophical discourse, old sport, I must admit to being concerned for my own safety and future and that of the little children for whom I now have responsibility. You gentlemen have affairs of multiversal magnitude to concern you, but I am the only guardian of these orphans. What are we to do? Where are we to go?” There were tears in Quelch’s eyes. His own plight had moved him to some deep emotion.
The girl called Far-Seeing laughed outright at Captain Quelch’s protestations. “We need no such guardianship as yours, my lord.”
Captain Quelch made a crooked grin and reached towards her.
Whereupon the temple floor vanished and they all stood upon a broad, bright road, stretching through the multicoloured multitude of spheres and planes, that great spectrum of unguessable dimensions, staring at Quelch.
“I’ll take the children, sir,” said Count von Bek. “I have an idea I know where they will be safe and where they can improve their skills without interference.”
“What are you suggesting, sir?” Captain Quelch bridled as if accused. “Do you find me insufficiently responsible…?”
“Your motives are suspect, my lord.” Again Far-Seeing spoke, her pure tones seeming to fill the whole multiverse. “I suspect you want us only that you may eat us.”
Elric, baffled by the girl’s words, glanced at von Bek, who shrugged in helpless uncertainty. There was a confrontation taking place between the child and the man.
“To eat you, my dear? Ha, ha! I’m old Captain Quelch, not some cannibal