Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [51]
Around him, golden Babylon squatted like an ancient monster, containing all knowledge, all secrets, her stepped houses, palaces and temples soaking the last of the sun into their burnished hides. He walked up the steeply rising street and came at length to a small white house without windows. He knocked.
For a while he waited patiently as darkness came. Eventually bolts were withdrawn on the other side of the door and it was opened. An eye gleamed. The door opened wider.
Wizened Hano smiled welcomingly. “Come in, Simon. So you reached our splendid Babylon!”
Simon stepped into the house. It was very dark, overhot, with the unpleasantly bitter smell of metal. The old Phoenician clutched at his arm and led him down the dark passage.
“Will you be staying in Babylon, my boy?” Hano said, and then, before Simon could answer this question: “How’s the sword?”
“I intend to see Alexander,” Simon said, disliking the old man’s touch though he liked Hano greatly. “And the sword is excellent, has kept its edge in a dozen fights—I intend to hire it to Alexander.”
Hano’s grip tightened as they entered a dark, smoky room, a red brazier gleaming in its centre. Around the smoke-stained walls were weapons—swords, shields, lances—and several couches and small tables were scattered on the floor. The smoke caught in Simon’s lungs and he coughed it out. Hano pointed to a couch. “Sit down, Simon.” He shuffled towards his own couch on the other side of the brazier, stretched himself at full length and scratched his hooked nose.
“Alexander has many swords.”
“I know—but if you granted me a favour it might facilitate my meeting him.”
“I owe you friendship and more,” Hano said, “for you saved me from an unpleasant death that time in Thebes nine years ago. But though I sense what you want of me I am reluctant to agree to it.”
“Why?”
“An old man’s caution, maybe, but the stories I’ve been hearing of late have been disquieting. Alexander claims himself son of Zeus, Jupiter-Ammon. Others say that the Persian evil one Ahriman possesses him. All or none of this may be true—but every oracle from here to Pela is prophesying turmoil and trouble for the world and the king who rules it. Perhaps you would be wiser to join some ordinary caravan traveling east?” Hano pulled back his woolen robe, revealing a pale and unlovely leg. He poised his wrinkled hand and then almost hurled it at a spot on his leg and began to scratch at the place with his talons of nails.
“I’m sick of this prattle of gods and demons. Can no-one be content simply to believe in men and what men could be if they ceased blaming their misfortunes on unseen gods rather than on their own ineffectiveness? Life’s not easy, it is a hard task to live it well and with grace—but, by Hades, let’s not complicate it with deities and water-nymphs!”
Simon spat into the brazier which flared and spluttered.
Hano scratched at his thigh, drawing back more of his robe to do so, revealing a greater expanse of unhealthy flesh.
“I have seen supernatural manifestations of evil, my boy.”
“You have seen what a muddled brain wished you to see.”
“What matter? Now, let’s end this conversation before you yell more heresies and have us both arrested.”
“Heresy and treason combined if Alexander’s chest-puffing claim be true.” Simon looked away from the old man’s thin legs and stared into the brazier.
Hano changed the subject.
“In Utopia,” he said to Simon, “you’d yet be seeking further perfection. You call yourself a realist, Simon—perfection is not a reality.”
“Realities can be created,” said Simon.
“True,” Hano agreed. “But by the same logic, realities can be made unreal—unrealities made real. What if there were supernatural beings? How would you fit them into your theory?”
“The situation will never