The Weird of the White Wolf - Michael Moorcock [24]
Elric felt uncomfortably drawn to this calm-eyed woman who wasted few words. He felt a great surge of emotion well within him; emotion he had never thought to experience again, and he wanted to take her finely moulded shoulders and press her slim body to his. But he quelled the urge and studied her marble delicacy and her wild hair which flowed in the wind about her head.
Silence rested comfortably between them while the chaotic wind howled mournfully over the sea. Here, Elric could ignore the warm stink of the city and he felt almost relaxed. At last, looking away from him towards the swirling sea, her green robe curling in the wind, she said: “You have heard, of course, of the Dead Gods' Book?”
Elric nodded. He was interested, despite the need he felt to disassociate himself as much as possible from his fellows. The mythical book was believed to contain knowledge which could solve many problems that had plagued men for centuries—it held a holy and mighty wisdom which every sorcerer desired to sample. But it was believed destroyed, hurled into the sun when the Old Gods were dying in the cosmic wastes which lay beyond the outer reaches of the solar system. Another legend, apparently of later origin, spoke vaguely of the dark ones who had interrupted the Book's sunward coursing and had stolen it before it could be destroyed. Most scholars discounted this legend, arguing that, by this time, the book would have come to light if it did still exist.
Elric made himself speak flatly so that he appeared to be disinterested when he answered Shaarilla. “Why do you mention the Book?”
“I know that it exists,” Shaarilla replied intensely, “and I know where it is. My father acquired the knowledge just before he died. Myself—and the book—you may have if you will help me get it.”
Could the secret of peace be contained in the book? Elric wondered. Would he, if he found it, be able to dispense with Stormbringer?
“If you want it so badly that you seek my help,” he said eventually, “why do you not wish to keep it?”
“Because I would be afraid to have such a thing perpetually in my custody—it is not a book for a woman to own, but you are possibly the last mighty nigromancer left in the world and it is fitting that you should have it. Besides, you might kill me to obtain it—I would never be safe with such a volume in my hands. I need only one small part of its wisdom.”
“What is that?” Elric inquired, studying her patrician beauty with a new pulse stirring within him.
Her mouth set and the lids fell over her eyes. “When we have the book in our hands—then you will have your answer. Not before.”
“This answer is good enough,” Elric remarked quickly, seeing that he would gain no more information at that stage. “And the answer appeals to me.” Then, half before he realised it, he seized her shoulders in his slim, pale hands and pressed his colourless lips to her scarlet mouth.
Elric and Shaarilla rode westwards, towards the Silent Land, across the lush plains of Shazaar where their ship had berthed two days earlier. The border country between Shazaar and the Silent Land was a lonely stretch of territory, unoccupied even by peasant dwellings; a no-man's land, though fertile and rich in natural wealth. The inhabitants of Shazaar had deliberately refrained from extending their borders further, for though the dwellers in the Silent Land rarely ventured beyond the Marshes of the Mist, the natural borderline between the two lands, the inhabitants of Shazaar held their unknown neighbours in almost superstitious fear.
The journey had been clean and swift, though ominous, with several persons who should have known nothing of their purpose warning the travellers of nearing danger. Elric brooded, recognising the signs of doom but choosing to ignore them and communicate nothing to Shaarilla who, for her part, seemed