The Weird of the White Wolf - Michael Moorcock [25]
The thud of the two horses' hooves on the soft turf, the muted creak and clatter of Elric's harness and sword, were the only sounds to break the stillness of the clear winter day as the pair rode steadily, nearing the quaking, treacherous trails of the Marshes of the Mist.
One gloomy night, they reached the borders of the Silent Land, marked by the marsh, and they halted and made camp, pitching their silk tent on a hill overlooking the mist-shrouded wastes.
Banked like black pillows against the horizon, the clouds were ominous. The moon lurked behind them, sometimes piercing them sufficiently to send a pale tentative beam down on to the glistening marsh or its ragged, grassy frontiers. Once, a moonbeam glanced off silver, illuminating the dark silhouette of Elric, but, as if repelled by the sight of a living creature on that bleak hill, the moon once again slunk behind its cloud-shield, leaving Elric thinking deeply. Leaving Elric in the darkness he desired.
Thunder rumbled over distant mountains, sounding like the laughter of far-off Gods. Elric shivered, pulled his blue cloak more tightly about him, and continued to stare over the misted lowlands.
Shaarilla came to him soon, and she stood beside him, swathed in a thick woollen cloak which could not keep out all the damp chill in the air.
“The Silent Land,” she murmured. “Are all the stories true, Elric? Did they teach you of it in old Melniboné?”
Elric frowned, annoyed that she had disturbed his thoughts. He turned abruptly to look at her, staring blankly through his crimson-irised eyes for a moment and then saying flatly:
“The inhabitants are unhuman and feared. This I know. Few men ventured into their territory, ever. None have returned, to my knowledge. Even in the days when Melniboné was a powerful Empire, this was one nation my ancestors never ruled—nor did they desire to do so. The denizens of the Silent Land are said to be a dying race, far more evil than my ancestors ever were, who enjoyed dominion over the Earth long before men gained any sort of power. They rarely venture beyond the confines of their territory, nowadays, encompassed as it is by marshland and mountains.”
Shaarilla laughed, then, with little humour. “So they are unhuman are they, Elric? Then what of my people, who are related to them? What of me, Elric?”
“You're human enough for me,” replied Elric insouciantly, looking her in the eyes. She smiled.
“No compliment,” she said, “but I'll take it for one—until your glib tongue finds a better.”
That night they slept restlessly and, as he had predicted, Elric screamed agonisingly in his turbulent, terror-filled sleep and he called a name which made Shaarilla's eyes fill with pain and jealousy. That name was Cymoril. Wide-eyed in his grim sleep, Elric seemed to be staring at the one he named, speaking other words in a sibilant language which made Shaarilla block her ears and shudder.
The next morning, as they broke camp, folding the rustling fabric of the yellow silk tent between them, Shaarilla avoided looking at Elric directly but later, since he made no move to speak, she asked him a question in a voice which shook somewhat.
It was a question which she needed to ask, but one which came hard to her lips. “Why do you desire the Dead Gods' Book, Elric? What do you believe you will find in it?”
Elric shrugged, dismissing the question, but she repeated her words less slowly, with more insistence.
“Very well then,” he said eventually. “But it is not easy to answer you in a few sentences. I desire, if you like, to know one of two things.”
“And what is that, Elric?”
The tall albino dropped the folded tent to the grass and sighed. His fingers played nervously with the pommel of his runesword. “Can an ultimate God exist—or not? That is what I need to know, Shaarilla, if my life is to have any direction at all.
“The Lords of Law and Chaos now govern our lives. But is there some being greater than them?”
Shaarilla put a hand