Sailor on the Seas of Fate - Michael Moorcock [40]
"Augh! It's the smell of a tomb—of damp and mold. Yet nothing rots. It is passing peculiar, friend Smiorgan, is it not?"
"I scarcely noticed, Elric." Smiorgan's voice was hollow. "But I would agree with you on one thing. We are entombed. I doubt we'll live to escape this world now."
VI
* * *
An hour had passed since they had been forced aboard. The door had been locked behind them, and it seemed Saxif D'Aan was too preoccupied with escaping the white stallion to bother with them. Peering through the lattice of a porthole, Elric could look back to where their ship had been sunk. They were many leagues distant already; yet he still thought, from time to time, that he saw the head and shoulders of the stallion above the waves.
Vassliss had recovered and sat pale and shivering upon the couch.
"What more do you know of that horse?" Elric asked her. "It would be helpful to me if you could recall anything you have heard."
She shook her head. "Saxif D'Aan spoke little of it, but I gather he fears the rider more than he does the horse."
"Ah!" Elric frowned. "I suspected it! Have you ever seen the rider?"
"Never. I think that Saxif D'Aan has never seen him, either. I think he believes himself doomed if that rider should ever sit upon the white stallion."
Elric smiled to himself.
"Why do you ask so much about the horse?" Smiorgan wished to know.
Elric shook his head. "I have an instinct, that is all. Half a memory. But I'll say nothing and think as little as I may, for there is no doubt Saxif D'Aan, as Vassliss suggests, has some power of reading the mind."
They heard a footfall above, descending to their door. A bolt was drawn and Saxif D'Aan, his composure fully restored, stood in the opening, his hands in his golden sleeves.
"You will forgive, I hope, the peremptory way in which I sent you here. There was danger which had to be averted at all costs. As a result, my manners were not all that they should have been."
"Danger to us?" Elric asked. "Or to you, Earl Saxif D'Aan?"
"In the circumstances, to all of us, I assure you."
"Who rides the horse?" Smiorgan asked bluntly. "And why do you fear him?"
Earl Saxif D'Aan was master of himself again, so there was no sign of a reaction. "That is very much my private concern," he said softly. "Will you dine with me now?"
The girl made a noise in her throat and Earl Saxif D'Aan turned piercing eyes upon her. "Gratyesha, you will want to cleanse yourself and make yourself beautiful again. I will see that facilities are placed at your disposal."
"I am not Gratyesha," she said. "I am Vassliss, the merchant's daughter."
"You will remember," he said. "In time, you will remember." There was such certainty, such obsessive power, in his voice that even Elric experienced a frisson of awe. "The things will be brought to you, and you may use this cabin as your own until we return to my palace on Fhaligarn. My lords . . ." He indicated that they should leave.
Elric said, "I'll not leave her, Saxif D'Aan. She is too afraid."
"She fears only the truth, brother."
"She fears you and your madness."
Saxif D'Aan shrugged insouciantly. "I shall leave first, then. If you would accompany me, my lords . . ." He strode from the cabin and they followed.
Elric said, over his shoulder, "Vassliss, you may depend upon my protection." And he closed the cabin doors behind him.
Earl Saxif D'Aan was standing upon the deck, exposing his noble face to the spray which was flung up by the ship as it moved with supernatural speed through the sea.
"You called me mad, Prince Elric? Yet you must be versed in sorcery, yourself."
"Of course. I am of the blood royal. I am reckoned knowledgeable in my own world."
"But here? How well does your sorcery work?"
"Poorly, I'll admit. The spaces between the planes seem greater."
"Exactly. But I have bridged them. I have time to learn how to bridge them."
"You are saying that you are more powerful than am I?"
"It is a fact, is it not?"
"It is. But I did not think we were about