III

Save that it faced in the opposite direction, the other cabin resembled the first in almost every detail. Here, too, were seated some dozen men, all experienced soldiers of fortune by their features and their clothing. Two sat together at the center of the table’s starboard side. One was bareheaded, fair, and careworn, the other had features resembling Elric’s own and he seemed to be wearing a silver gauntlet on his left hand while the right hand was naked; his armor was delicate and outlandish. He looked up as Elric entered and there was recognition in his single eye (the other was covered by a brocade-work patch).

“Elric of Melnibonè!” he exclaimed. “My theories become more meaningful!” He turned to his companion. “See, Hawkmoon, this is the one of whom I spoke.”

“You know me, sir?” Elric was nonplussed.

“You recognize me, Elric. You must! At the Tower of Voilodion Ghagnasdiak? With Erekosë-though a different Erekosë.”

“I know of no such tower, no name which resembles that, and this is the first I have seen of Erekosë. You know me and you know my name, but I do not know you. I find this disconcerting, sir.”

“I, too, had never met Prince Corum before he came aboard,” said Erekosë, “yet he insists we fought together once. I am inclined to believe him. Time on the different planes does not always run concurrently. Prince Corum might well exist in what we would term the future.”

“I had thought to find some relief from such paradoxes here,” said Hawkmoon, passing his hand over his face. He smiled bleakly. “But it seems there is none at this present moment in the history of the planes. Everything is in flux and even our identities, it seems, are prone to alter at any moment.”

“We were Three,” said Corum. “Do you not recall it, Elric? The Three Who Are One?”

Elric shook his head.

Corum shrugged, saying softly to himself, “Well, now we are Four. Did the captain say anything of an island we are supposed to invade?”

“He did,” said Elric. “Do you know who these enemies might be?”

“We know no more or less than do you, Elric,” said Hawkmoon. “I seek a place called Tanelorn and two children. Perhaps I seek the Runestaff, too. Of that I am not entirely sure.”

“We found it once,” said Corum. “We three. In the Tower of Voilodion Ghagnasdiak. It was of considerable help to us.”

“As it might be to me,” Hawkmoon told him. “I served it once. I gave it a great deal.”

“We have much in common,” Erekosë put in, “as I told you, Elric. Perhaps we share masters in common, too?”

Elric shrugged. “I serve no master but myself.”

And he wondered why they all smiled in the same strange way.

Erekosë said quietly, “On such ventures as these one is inclined to forget much, as one forgets a dream.”

“This is a dream,” said Hawkmoon. “Of late I’ve dreamed many such.”

“It is all dreaming, if you like,” said Corum. “All existence.”

Elric was not interested in such philosophizing. “Dream or reality, the experience amounts to the same, does it not?”

“Quite right,” said Erekosë with a wan smile.

They talked on for another hour or two until Corum stretched and yawned and commented that he was feeling sleepy. The others agreed that they were all tired and so they left the cabin and went aft and below where there were bunks for all the warriors. As he stretched himself out in one of the bunks, Elric said to Brut of Lashmar, who had climbed into the bunk above:

“It would help to know when this fight begins.”

Brut looked over the edge, down at the prone albino. “I think it will be soon,” he said.

Elric stood alone upon the deck, leaning upon the rail and trying to make out the sea, but the sea, like the rest of the world, was hidden by white curling mist. Elric wondered if there were waters flowing under the ship’s keel at all. He looked up to where the sail was tight and swollen at the mast, filled with a warm and powerful wind. It was light, but again it was not possible to tell the hour of the day. Puzzled by Corum’s comments concerning an earlier meeting, Elric wondered if there had been other dreams in his life such as this might be-dreams he had forgotten completely upon awakening. But the uselessness of such speculation became quickly evident and he turned his attention to more immediate matters, wondering at the origin of the captain and his strange ship sailing on a stranger ocean.

“The captain,” said Hawkmoon’s voice, and Elric turned to bid good morning to the tall, fair-haired man who bore a strange, regular scar in the center of his forehead, “has requested that we four visit him in his cabin.”

The other two emerged from the mist and together they made their way to the prow, knocking on the reddish-brown door and being at once admitted into the presence of the blind captain, who had four silver wine-cups already poured for them. He gestured them toward the great chest on which the wine stood. “Please help yourselves, my friends.”

They did so, standing there with the cups in their hands, four tall, doom-haunted swordsmen, each of a strikingly different cast of features, yet each bearing a certain stamp which marked them as being of a like kind. Elric noticed it, for all that he was one of them, and he tried to recall the details of what Corum had told him on the previous evening.

“We are nearing our destination,” said the captain. “It will not be long before we disembark. I do not believe our enemies expect us, yet it will be a hard fight against those two.”

“Two?” said Hawkmoon. “Only two?”

“Only two.” The captain smiled. “A brother and a sister. Sorcerers from quite another universe than ours. Due to recent disruptions in the fabric of our worlds- of which you know something, Hawkmoon, and you, too, Corum-certain beings have been released who would not otherwise have the power they now possess. And possessing great power, they crave for more-for all the power that there is in our universe. These beings are amoral in a way in which the Lords of Law or Chaos are not. They do not fight for influence upon the Earth, as those gods do; their only wish is to convert the essential energy of our universe to their own uses. I believe they foster some ambition in their particular universe which would be furthered if they could achieve their wish. At present, in spite of conditions highly favorable to them, they have not attained their full strength, but the time is not far off before they do attain it. Agak and Gagak is how they are called in human tongue and they are outside the power of any of our gods, so a more powerful group has been summoned-yourselves. The Champion Eternal in four of his incarnations (and four is the maximum number we can risk without precipitating further unwelcome disruptions among the planes of Earth)-Erekosë, Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon. Each of you will command four others, whose fates are linked with your own and who are great fighters in their own right, though they do not share your destinies in every sense. You may each pick the four with whom you wish to fight. I think you will find it easy enough to decide. We make landfall quite shortly now.”

“You will lead us?” Hawkmoon said.

“I cannot. I can only take you to the island and wait for those who survive-if any survive.”

Elric frowned. “This fight is not mine, I think.”

“It is yours,” said the captain soberly. “And it is mine. I would land with you if that were permitted me, but it is not.”

“Why so?” asked Corum.

“You will learn that one day. I have not the courage to tell you. I bear you nothing but goodwill, however. Be assured of that.”

Erekosë rubbed his jaw. “Well, since it is my destiny to fight, and since I, like Hawkmoon, continue to seek Tanelorn, and since I gather there is some chance of my fulfilling my ambition if I am successful, I for one agree to go against these two, Agak and Gagak.”

Hawkmoon nodded. “I go with Erekosë, for similar reasons.”

“And I,” said Corum.

“Not long since,” said Elric, “I counted myself without comrades. Now I have many. For that reason alone I will fight with them.”

“It is perhaps the best of reasons,” said Erekosë approvingly.

“There is no reward for this work, save my assurance that your success will save the world much misery,” said the captain. “And for you, Elric, there is less reward than the rest may hope for.”

“Perhaps not,” said Elric.

“As you say.” The captain gestured toward the jug of wine. “More wine, my friends?”

They each accepted, while the captain continued, his blind face staring upward at the roof of the cabin.

“Upon this island is a ruin-perhaps it was once a city called Tanelorn-and at the center of the ruin stands one whole building. It is this building which Agak and his sister use. It is that which you must attack. You will recognize it, I hope, at once.”

“And we must slay this pair?” said Erekosë.

“If you can. They have servants who help them. These must be slain, also. Then the building must be fired. This is important.” The captain paused. “Fired. It must be destroyed in no other way.”

Elric smiled a dry smile. “There are few other ways of destroying buildings, Sir Captain.”

The captain returned his smile and made a slight bow of acknowledgment. “Aye, it’s so. Nonetheless, it is worth remembering what I have said.”

“Do you know what these two look like, these Agak and Gagak?” Corum asked.

“No. It is possible that they resemble creatures of our own worlds; it is possible that they do not. Few have seen them. It is only recently that they have been able to materialize at all.”

“And how may they best be overwhelmed?” asked Hawkmoon.

“By courage and ingenuity,” said the captain.

“You are not very explicit, sir,” said Elric.

“I am as explicit as I can be. Now, my friends, I suggest you rest and prepare your arms.”

As they returned to their cabins, Erekosë sighed.

“We are fated,” he said. “We have little free will, for all we deceive ourselves otherwise. If we perish or live through this venture, it will not count for much in the overall scheme of things.”

“I think you are of a gloomy turn of mind, friend,” said Hawkmoon.

The mist snaked through the branches of the mast, writhing in the rigging, flooding the deck. It swirled across the faces of the other three men as Elric looked at them.

“A realistic turn of mind,” said Corum.

The mist massed more thickly upon the deck, mantling each man like a shroud. The timbers of the ship creaked and to Elric’s ears took on the sound of a raven’s croak. It was colder now. In silence they went to their cabins to test the hooks and buckles of their armor, to polish and to sharpen their weapons and to pretend to sleep.

“Oh, I’ve no liking for sorcery,” said Brut of Lashmar, tugging at his golden beard, “for sorcery it was resulted in my shame.” Elric had told him all that the captain had said and had asked Brut to be one of the four who fought with him when they landed.

“It is all sorcery here,” Otto Blendker said. And he smiled wanly as he gave Elric his hand. “I’ll fight beside you, Elric.”

His sea-green armor shimmering faintly in the lantern light, another rose, his casque pushed back from his face. It was a face almost as white as Elric’s, though the eyes were deep and near-black. “And I,” said Hown Serpent-tamer, “though I fear I’m little use on still land.”

The last to rise, at Elric’s glance, was a warrior who had said little during their earlier conversations. His voice was deep and hesitant. He wore a plain iron battle-cap and the red hair beneath it was braided. At the end of each braid was a small fingerbone which rattled on the shoulders of his byrnie as he moved. This was Ashnar the Lynx, whose eyes were rarely less than fierce. “I lack the eloquence or the breeding of you other gentlemen,” said Ashnar. “And I’ve no familiarity with sorcery or those other things of which you speak, but I’m a good soldier and my joy is in fighting. I’ll take your orders, Elric, if you’ll have me.”

“Willingly,” said Elric.

“There is no dispute, it seems,” said Erekosë to the remaining four who had elected to join him. “All this is doubtless preordained. Our destinies have been linked from the first.”

“Such philosophy can lead to unhealthy fatalism,” said Terndrik of Hasghan. “Best believe our fates are our own, even if the evidence denies it.”

“You must think as you wish,” said Erekosë. “I have led many lives, though all, save one, are remembered but faintly.” He shrugged. “Yet I deceive myself, I suppose, in that I work for a time when I shall find this Tanelorn and perhaps be reunited with the one I seek. That ambition is what gives me energy, Terndrik.”

Elric smiled. “I fight, I think, because I relish the comradeship of battle. That, in itself, is a melancholy condition in which to find oneself, is it not?”

“Aye.” Erekosë glanced at the floor. “Well, we must try to rest now.”