The White Wolf's Son (16 page)

They were surly creatures, ruined by work that was hard and hopeless. They asked him for any spare food he carried. He gave
them what he could, a soldier’s rations meant to sustain him for several days, and the citizens fell upon it as if it were
a feast. They were willing to help him if they could. Their watery city was all that was left of Mirenburg, where they had
once lived under the secure rule of the Sebastocrater and his opposite number, Lord Renyard, until terrible misdirected magic,
long banished from the city by ancient treaty, caused a great catastrophe, drawing in both the city and its mirror version
in the World Above. Now men dived for whatever food had been preserved, be it in sealed jars or barrels, but the supply diminished
daily. They had no way of appealing to any higher being, for they were all cursed.

“How did this curse come about?” asked Elric.

“We have told you,” said one grey crone, her black eyes catching faint reflected light from the lake. “Sorcery. The ancient
compact made with the gods was broken. The Balance tipped. The result is what you see. A great
cataclysm which shook the city to the core and brought the waters pouring in and down upon us. We are all that survived. Perhaps
it would have been better had we also drowned with the folk of the Outer and Inner, Deep and Shallow Cities. I saw the towers
crumble and collapse. I saw all the people engulfed. I saw the river rush into the craters. Within the hour, this was all
that was left of a great and ancient metropolis. Her centuries-old agreements destroyed within a few days, chiefly as the
result of fear. Of unknown fear. Of fear of the unknown …” And she began to cackle to herself happily. “What destruction we
bring upon ourselves, master!” She accepted a useless coin, which she hid in her clothes. “What insects we are! No more able
to guard against the future than we can against the day. Time remains our lady, and death our lord, eh?”

Elric, used to such views from the moment he could walk and talk, found her boring and ignored her. She spat at him and cursed
him, almost affectionately. He smiled to himself, feeling no insult. She found the coin somewhere in her rags and threw it
after him. To both of them the encounter had stirred life. In Klosterheim’s hell, he thought, this was what passed for affection.
He felt safe enough to dismount and show that he offered them no violence.

Then Elric asked after the child he sought. They told him she had almost certainly drowned.

“As she deserved,” continued the crone, “if it’s the one I think you seek, master. A little blue-eyed diddicoy, she was. All
innocence and winsome manners. It was my guess she was the one what brought this here disaster. Before she came, and those
who followed her, we
had not known any serious change for two hundred years.”

I’m told, said Mrs. Persson, that Elric returned to the more familiar Mirenburg, desperately hoping he had taken the wrong
route and that the child he thought of as his own flesh and blood had survived. Perhaps in this aspect of the multiverse,
he insisted to himself, she had survived Mirenburg at the time of the city’s drowning. He needed expert help.

Where he would find her, where he should begin looking for her, was a mystery. At least he knew that sorcery, though banned,
worked on this plane. Should he stay here or attempt to find a world where magic was even more potent? Did he have enough
time?

As before, he was welcomed in Mu-Ooria. What language differences they had, what problems were thus created, they accepted
in good faith, no matter how outrageous the other seemed. Elric, however, knew no way of asking a direct question of the Off-Moo,
or they might have helped him better. Not that it would have made an improvement to the story.

His oldest acquaintance among this people was Scholar Ree, the most widely traveled of the Off-Moo, and his people’s spiritual
leader. Ree felt something like affection for the albino. With his delicate, elongated lips fluttering, his deep-set eyes
glowing with faint phosphorescence, he embraced Elric. It was the strangest experience, like being hugged by hesitant tissue
paper.

That wise old creature agreed to help Elric, and together they consulted books and charts while the albino did all he could
to curb his impatience, fearing irrationally that time was wasting, that in the meantime the former Knight of the Balance
and Satan’s ex-servant
might be subjecting the girl to horrors he would rather not imagine.

Why they wanted her, Elric was not sure. Perhaps she was a pawn in a much larger game. Perhaps she had been abducted in order
to distract him and his allies while some other plot was hatched, but none of this affected his determination to find her.
His bone-white features were tense, his crimson eyes narrowed in concentration, as he bent over Scholar Ree’s documents, seeking
a road to Mirenburg which would have him arrive before disaster visited the city, where he might consult his own sorcerous
allies, most of whom were denied to him by the nature of his existing dream quest.

In his whispering voice like the rustling of long-dead leaves, Scholar Ree debated in High Melnibonéan with the albino. It
was difficult for the Mu-Oorian to engage with equal passion in pursuit of an answer to his friend’s problem, but he devoted
his whole attention to it.

At last the two determined the coordinates required for the exercise.

“It will be dangerous for you, Elric, considering your situation,” said Scholar Ree. “These worlds have much in common. There
is the likelihood of your encountering an avatar of yourself. Moreover, that avatar could be serving Law and you Chaos, and
you’ll find him your enemy. Such mighty power does not always work for the common good. These are unstable times, old friend.
The Balance tips this way and that; a great Conjunction of the Worlds takes place over and over again as if Creation awaits
a final, single action. You could come to great physical harm, or worse.”

“Worse?”

“You could
cause
great harm. The fate of millions of
worlds is being decided, and you and yours could be lost, unnoticed in such a struggle.”

“But I must find her, Scholar Ree.”

“I understand that. Pray she is not the catalyst for limitless destruction. That’s all I mean to imply.”

Elric sighed. “Well, I’ll rest a little, then make my way to this other Wäldenstein, this other Mirenburg, where this other
empire rules! I heard you give it a name …?”

“The Empire of Granbretan, like your own, is an island nation which has conquered whole continents. Like yours, it’s feral
yet overcivilized. Like yours, its supernatural compacts are chiefly with Chaos. And, like yours, it is thoroughly hated,
ruling by force and threat of bloody violence.”

Elric laughed at this.

“Then I shall feel thoroughly at home,” he said.

Very shortly he again took his heavy steed in rein and set off through the Middle March.

A rare rain was falling, silver tears against the black fangs of the rock. He held his face up to receive it. It smelled like
all the spices and flowers of the world. Just for a moment it reminded him of a garden where he had walked with a child. They
had both remarked on it. An extraordinary concentration of scents. And then it was gone.

Elric was careful to follow Scholar Ree’s map to the letter.

As it happened, the albino easily found his way to Wäldenstein in the age of the Dark Empire of Granbretan, a world I myself
know something about. Of course, there are a million versions of the same era, most of which vary only by the faintest degree,
but evidently the world in which Elric found himself did not vary much
from those of which I had already heard. In it the oppressive Empire of Granbretan—Britain in our world—had emerged from a
Dark Age known as the Tragic Millennium, brought about by conflicts in which terrible, mysterious weapons had been employed.
Using a mixture of sorcery and science, Granbretan had conquered Europe and set her sights on the rest of the world. In many
aspects of the multiverse she had been opposed by a few heroes, chiefly Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln, and Count Brass, Lord
Guardian of Kamarg. In some they had succeeded in their challenge. In others they had failed.

Elric emerged from the Mittelmarch into a huge cave deep in a mossy forest of old oaks, elms and ash trees. The foliage was
so thick, it had almost knitted together to form a canopy, through which the sun managed to cast a green, hazy light, cut
occasionally by bright, golden rays through which birds and small mammals moved. The air was filled with a constant fluttering
and whistling, an indication of rich life. The colors glowed and gave the canopy itself the appearance of stained glass. Elric
found his surroundings restful. He was reminded of the deep Shazaarian woods of his native world. For a moment he almost fancied
himself home, until he remembered that the armies of Chaos, guided by his blood enemy Jagreen Lern, had laid that nation waste.
Jagreen Lern must soon destroy the lands of the eastern continent unless Elric could summon Storm-bringer back and defeat
the theocrat.

Mrs. Persson thinks so many shadowy concerns filled Elric’s mind in those days, when a thousand realities and the memories
of so many men crowded his brain, that only one rigorously trained in the arts of Melniboné, who
had undertaken so many dream quests, could remain even remotely sane. I believe that it is less arduous than she thinks, for
most readers can keep a multitude of stories in their heads. I grew up reading and watching a score or so of serials a week,
at least, and had no trouble separating the threads of my favorite detective tale from a historical yarn, or a story about
a trip to Mars and another involving people fighting some evil genius’s attempt at world domination. We are complex and robust
creatures, we humans, able to give our attention to a thousand concerns.

To Elric the forest offered a welcome tranquility after the vicissitudes and setbacks of his journey, and he was tempted to
take his time, but he could not dawdle while the child remained in danger. At last he found a path, well trodden by horses
and vehicles, and followed it until it led him to a tall, moated castle, all steep-pitched towers and crenellations, flying
half a dozen unfamiliar standards, its granite walls almost white against the deep blue of the sky and the rich greens of
the woods.

Elric went forward with his usual arrogant lack of caution, calling out to the gatekeepers to show that he did not come as
a stealthy enemy.

A rattle of armor and a head appeared in a narrow window at ground level.

“Who comes?” The language was Old Slavonic, which Elric knew.

“Elric, Prince of Melniboné, seeking your master’s hospitality.”

More sounds as guards ran to receive instructions; then, in a few moments, the drawbridge above the moat creaked, chains tightened
and a groaning winch let down the wide wooden bridge across to the far bank, revealing
an ornate portcullis with just enough room for a mounted man to pass under.

Elric looked down at the dark, unpleasant waters of the moat as he dismounted and crossed. From the bubbles rising to the
weedy surface, there were creatures of some size swimming there; he saw dark shapes darting through the reflective gloom.

A man in somewhat bulky, almost medieval garb stood to greet him in the cobbled bailey. Clearly an important personage, he
had a rippling scarlet surcoat, chain mail, glinting greaves and a helmet completely covering his face. The helmet was wonderfully
molded in the features of a snarling wolf, every detail perfect, utterly belligerent as if about to charge. Such a helm had
been designed to frighten whoever saw it, but the albino scarcely noted it. He only wondered what kind of creature was insecure
enough to require such a mask.

He removed his gloves as he advanced towards the fierce wolf and held out his right hand.

“I thank you for your hospitality, sir. I have made a long journey and would trouble you for some minor assistance.”

After some hesitation the wolf unbuttoned his right gauntlet and, removing it, extended his own hand to Elric.

“I am Sir Edwold Krier, Knight Lieutenant of the Order of the Wolf. I rule this province on behalf of our great King Huon,
whose throne is in distant Granbretan, at the very center of the world. I fear I am unfamiliar with your rank and station.”

“Prince Elric of Melniboné.” Elric offered the man a slight bow. “My lands are far from here. Ours is an island
nation. We have heard a little of this continent, and I come as an emissary, in peace.”

“Then you are welcome, for we of the Empire of Granbretan wish only peace to our neighbors. We fear the aggression of those
who envy us our wealth and way of life.”

The masked man bowed and signed for Elric to follow some servants into the interior of the castle.

“Granbretan?” Elric pretended to be puzzled. “But that, too, I understand, is an island, some many leagues from here.”

“Indeed it is. I miss its sophistication, its pleasures. But I have my duty to do here. Sometimes it is fated that a man serves
his nation best in some far-flung corner of a foreign land …”

Now they were inside a rather starkly furnished hall, with functional chairs, benches and tables, some wall hangings, a few
battle flags, a rather moth-eaten collection of large animal heads, some of which were unfamiliar to Elric. There was a melancholy
air about the whole place. Clearly Krier had no family here, but the man was a good host. Wine was called for and brought.
Out of politeness, Elric sipped a little, though he had little taste for what these people cultivated in their vineyards.

“I sympathize,” said Elric, who missed the complex and varied pleasures he had forsaken when Imrryr had fallen to his own
hand. Only as he grew older did he fully appreciate what he had destroyed. “Is there nothing you can do here? Some musicians,
perhaps? I take it you are lord of this castle.”

“I am governor commander of this province, which they call Raulevici or Seneschal, in the County of Wäldenstein.”