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 Melnibonè. 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 Melnibonè 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 that has no name. Have you been there, Elric, in your travels?”

The albino shook his head. “I seek experience of other cultures, other civilizations-that is why I travel. There has been nothing, so far, to take me there. The continent is largely uninhabited, and then, where it is inhabited, only by savages, is it not?”

“So we are told.”

“You have other intelligence?”

“You know that there is some evidence,” said Duke Avan in a deliberate tone, “that your own ancestors came originally from that mainland?”

“Evidence?” Elric pretended lack of interest. “A few legends, that is all.”

“One of those legends speaks of a city older than dreaming Imrryr. A city that still exists in the deep jungles of the west.”

Elric recalled his conversation with Earl Saxif D’Aan, and he smiled to himself. “You mean R’lin K’ren A’a?”

“Aye. A strange name.” Duke Avan Astran leaned forward, his eyes alight with delighted curiosity. “You pronounce it more fluently than could I. You speak the secret tongue, the High Tongue, the Speech of Kings....”

“Of course.”

“You are forbidden to teach it to any but your own children, are you not?”

“You appear conversant with the customs of Melnibonè, Duke Avan,” Elric said, his lids falling so that they half covered his eyes. He leaned back in his seat as he bit into a piece of fresh bread with relish. “Do you know what the words mean?”

“I have been told that they mean simply ‘Where the High Ones Meet’ in the ancient speech of Melnibonè,” Duke Avan Astran told him.

Elric inclined his head. “That is so. Doubtless only a small town, in reality. Where local chiefs gathered, perhaps once a year, to discuss the price of grain.”

“You believe that, Prince Elric?”

Elric inspected a covered dish. He helped himself to veal in a rich, sweet sauce. “No,” he said.

“You believe, then, that there was an ancient civilization even before your own, from which your own culture sprang? You believe that R’lin K’ren A’a is still there, somewhere in the jungles of the west?”

Elric waited until he had swallowed. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I believe that it does not exist at all.”

“You are not curious about your ancestors?”

“Should I be?”

“They were said to be different in character from those who founded Melnibonè. Gentler. . . .” Duke Avan Astran looked deep into Elric’s face.

Elric laughed. “You are an intelligent man, Duke Avan of Old Hrolmar. You are a perceptive man. Oh, and indeed you are a cunning man, sir!”

Duke Avan grinned at the compliment. “And you know much more of the legends than you are admitting, if I am not mistaken.”

“Possibly.” Elric sighed as the food warmed him. “We are known as a secretive people, we of Melnibonè.”

“Yet,” said Duke Avan, “you seem untypical. Who else would desert an empire to travel in lands where his very race was hated?”

“An emperor rules better, Duke Avan Astran, if he has close knowledge of the world in which he rules.”

“Melnibonè rules the Young Kingdoms no longer.”

“Her power is still great. But that, anyway, was not what I meant. I am of the opinion that the Young Kingdoms offer something which Melnibonè has lost.”

“Vitality?”

“Perhaps.”

“Humanity!” grunted Count-Smiorgan Baldhead. “That is what your race has lost, Prince Elric. I say nothing of you-but look at Earl Saxif D’Aan. How can one so wise be such a simpleton? He lost everything-pride, love, power—because he had no humanity. And what humanity he had-why, it destroyed him.”

“Some say it will destroy me,” said Elric, “but perhaps ‘humanity’ is, indeed, what I seek to bring to Melnibonè, Count Smiorgan.”

“Then you will destroy your kingdom!” said Smiorgan bluntly. “It is too late to save Melnibonè.”

“Perhaps I can help you find what you seek, Prince Elric,” said Duke Avan Astran quietly. “Perhaps there is time to save Melnibonè, if you feel such a mighty nation is in danger.”

“From within,” said Elric. “But I speak too freely.”

“For a Melnibonèan, that is true.”

“How did you come to hear of this city?” Elric wished to know. “No other man I have met in the Young Kingdoms has heard of R’lin K’ren A’a.”

“It is marked on a map I have.”

Deliberately, Elric chewed his meat and swallowed it “The map is doubtless a forgery.”

“Perhaps. Do you recall anything else of the legend of R’lin K’ren A’a?”

“There is the story of the Creature Doomed to Live.” Elric pushed the food aside and poured wine for himself. “The city is said to have received its name because the Lords of the Higher Worlds once met there to decide the rules of the Cosmic Struggle. They were overheard by the one inhabitant of the city who had not flown when they came. When they discovered him, they doomed him to remain alive forever, carrying the frightful knowledge in his head....”

“I have heard that story, too. But the one that interests me is that the inhabitants of R’lin K’ren A’a never returned to their city. Instead they struck northward and crossed the sea. Some reached an island we now call Sorcerer’s Isle while others went farther-blown by a great storm-and came at length to a larger island inhabited by dragons whose venom caused all it touched to burn ... to Melnibonè, in fact.”

“And you wish to test the truth of that story. Your interest is that of a scholar?”

Duke Avan laughed. “Partly. But my main interest in R’lin K’ren A’a is more materialistic. For your ancestors left a great treasure behind them when they fled their city. Particularly they abandoned an image of Arioch, the Lord of Chaos-a monstrous image, carved in jade, whose eyes were two huge, identical gems of a kind unknown anywhere else in all the lands of the Earth. Jewels from another plane of existence. Jewels which could reveal all the secrets of the Higher Worlds, of the past and the future, of the myriad planes of the cosmos....”

“All cultures have similar legends. Wishful thinking, Duke Avan, that is all....”

“But the Melnibonèans had a culture unlike any others. The Melnibonèans are not true men, as you well know. Their powers are superior, their knowledge far greater....”

“It was once thus,” Elric said. “But that great power and knowledge is not mine. I have only a fragment of it. . . .”

“I did not seek you in Bakshaan and later in Jadmar because I believed you could verify what I have heard. I did not cross the sea to Filkhar, then to Argimiliar and at last to Pikarayd because I thought you would instantly confirm all that I have spoken of-I sought you because I think you the only man who would wish to accompany me on a voyage which would give us the truth or falsehood to these legends once and for all.”

Elric tilted his head and drained his wine-cup.

“Cannot you do that for yourself? Why should you desire my company on the expedition? From what I have heard of you, Duke Avan, you are not one who needs support in his venturings....”

Duke Avan laughed. “I went alone to Elwher when my men deserted me in the Weeping Waste. It is not in my nature to know physical fear. But I have survived my travels this long because I have shown proper foresight and caution before setting off. Now it seems I must face dangers I cannot anticipate-sorcery, perhaps. It struck me, therefore, that I needed an ally who had some experience of fighting sorcery. And since I would have no truck with the ordinary kind of wizard such as Pan Tang spawns, you were my only choice. You seek knowledge, Prince Elric, just as I do. Indeed, it could be said that if it had not been for your yearning for knowledge, your cousin would never have attempted to usurp the Ruby Throne of Melnibonè....”

“Enough of that,” Elric said bitterly. “Let’s talk of this expedition. Where is the map?”

“You will accompany me?”

“Show me the map.”

Duke Avan drew a scroll from his pouch. “Here it is.”

“Where did you find it?”

“On Melnibonè.”

“You have been there recently?” Elric felt anger rise in him.

Duke Avan raised a hand. “I went there with a group of traders and I gave much for a particular casket which had been sealed, it seemed, for an eternity. Within that casket was this map.” He spread out the scroll on the table. Elric recognized the style and the script-the old High Speech of Melnibonè. It was a map of part of the western continent-more than he had ever seen on any other map. It showed a great river winding into the interior for a hundred miles or more. The river appeared to flow through a jungle and then divide into two rivers which later rejoined. The “island” of land thus formed had a black circle marked on it. Against this circle, in the involved writing of ancient Melnibonè, was the name R’lin K’ren A’a. Elric inspected the scroll carefully. It did not seem to be a forgery.

“Is this all you found?” he asked.

“The scroll was sealed and this was embedded in the seal,” Duke Avan said, handing something to Elric.

Elric held the object in his palm. It was a tiny ruby of a red so deep as to seem black at first, but when he turned it into the light he saw an image at the center of the ruby and he recognized that image. He frowned, then he said, “I will agree to your proposal, Duke Avan. Will you let me keep this?”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No. But I should like to find out. There is a memory somewhere in my head....”

“Very well, take it. I will keep the map.”

“When did you have it in mind to set off?”

Duke Avan’s smile was sardonic. “We are already sailing around the southern coast to the Boiling Sea.”

“There are few who have returned from that ocean,” Elric murmured bitterly. He glanced across the table and saw that Smiorgan was imploring with his eyes for Elric not to have any part of Duke Avan’s scheme. Elric smiled at his friend. “The adventure is to my taste.”

Miserably, Smiorgan shrugged. “It seems it will be a little longer before I return to the Purple Towns.”