Sailor on the Seas of Fate - Michael Moorcock [46]
He awoke, struggling.
There were hands upon him. He strove to fight them off, but he was too weak. Someone laughed, a rough, good-humored sound.
The water no longer roared and crashed around him. The wind no longer howled. Instead there was a gentler movement. He heard waves lapping against timber. He was aboard another ship.
He opened his eyes, blinking in warm, yellow sunlight. Red-cheeked Vilmirian sailors grinned down at him. "You're a lucky man—if man you be!" said one.
"My friend?" Elric sought for Smiorgan.
"He was in better shape than were you. He's down in Duke Avan's cabin now."
"Duke Avan?" Elric knew the name, but in his dazed condition could remember nothing to help him place the man. "You saved us?"
"Aye. We found you both drifting, tied to a broken yard carved with the strangest designs I've ever seen. A Melnibonéan craft, was she?"
"Yes, but rather old."
They helped him to his feet. They had stripped him of his clothes and wrapped him in woolen blankets. The sun was already drying his hair. He was very weak. He said:
"My sword?"
"Duke Avan has it, below."
"Tell him to be careful of it."
"We're sure he will."
"This way," said another. "The duke awaits you."
BOOK THREE
SAILING TO THE PAST
I
* * *
Elric sat back in the comfortable, well-padded chair and accepted the wine cup handed him by his host. While Smiorgan ate his fill of the hot food provided for them, Elric and Duke Avan appraised one another.
Duke Avan was a man of about forty, with a square, handsome face. He was dressed in a gilded silver breastplate, over which was arranged a white cloak. His britches, tucked into black knee-length boots, were of cream-colored doeskin. On a small sea-table at his elbow rested his helmet, crested with scarlet feathers.
"I am honored, sir, to have you as my guest," said Duke Avan. "I know you to be Elric of Melniboné. I have been seeking you for several months, ever since news came to me that you had left your homeland (and your power) behind and were wandering, as it were, incognito in the Young Kingdoms."
"You know much, sir."
"I, too, am a traveler by choice. I almost caught up with you in Pikarayd, but I gather there was some sort of trouble there. You left quickly and then I lost your trail altogether. I was about to give up looking for your aid when, by the greatest of good fortune, I found you floating in the water!" Duke Avan laughed.
"You have the advantage of me," said Elric, smiling. "You raise many questions."
"He's Avan Astran of Old Hrolmar," grunted Count Smiorgan from the other side of a huge ham bone. "He's well known as an adventurer—explorer—trader. His reputation's the best. We can trust him, Elric."
"I recall the name now," Elric told the duke. "But why should you seek my aid?"
The smell of the food from the table had at last impinged and Elric got up. "Would you mind if I ate something while you explained, Duke Avan?"
"Eat your fill, Prince Elric. I am honored to have you as a guest."
"You have saved my life, sir. I have never had it saved so courteously!"
Duke Avan smiled. "I have never before had the pleasure of, let us say, catching so courteous a fish. If I were a superstitious man, Prince Elric, I should guess that some other force threw us together in this way."
"I prefer to think of it as coincidence," said the albino, beginning to eat. "Now, sir, tell me how I can aid you."
"I shall not hold you to any bargain, merely because I have been lucky enough to save your life," said Duke Avan Astran; "please bear that in mind."
"I shall, sir."
Duke Avan stroked the feathers of his helmet. "I have explored most of the world, as Count Smiorgan rightly says. I have been to your own Melniboné and I have even ventured east, to Elwher and the Unknown Kingdoms. I have been to Myyrrhn, where the Winged Folk live. I have traveled as far as World's Edge and hope one day to go beyond. But I have never crossed the Boiling Sea and I know only a small stretch of coast along the western continent—the continent