Michael Moorcock: The Skrayling Tree

As if realizing the impression he gave, Ulric's handsome mouth curved in a broad, dismissive smile. Just as I took the magical as my norm, he took the natural as his. He could not imagine what I meant. In spite of all his experience he retained his skepticism of the supernatural. Admittedly, I was inclined to come up with explanations considered bizarre by most of our friends, so I dropped the subject.

As we advanced through the sweet, rooty mold and leafy undergrowth I had no sense that the place was sinister. Nonetheless, I tended to go a little more cautiously than Ulric. He pushed on until he had brought us to the green-painted back door under a slate porch. As he raised his fist to knock I noticed a movement in the open upper window. I was sure I glimpsed a human figure.

When I pointed to the window, we saw nothing.

"Probably a bird flying over," said Ulric. Getting no response from the house, we made our way around the walls until we reached the big double doors at the front. They were oak and heavy with iron. Ulric grinned at me. "Since we are, after all, neighbors"-he took a piece of ivory pasteboard from his waistcoat-

"the least we can do is leave our card." He pulled the old-fashioned bell-cord. A perfectly normal bell sounded within. We waited, but there was no answer. Ulric scribbled a note, stuck the card into the bell-pull, and we stepped back. Then, behind the looser weaving of the downstairs window, a face appeared, staring into mine. The shock staggered me. For a moment I thought I looked into my own reflection! Was there glass behind the lattice?

But it was not me. It was a youth. A youth who mouthed urgently through the gaps in the weaving and gestured as if for help, flapping his arms against the window. I could only think of a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage.

I am no dreamthief. I can't equate the craft with my own conscience, though I judge none who fairly practice it. Consequently I have never had the doubtful pleasure of encountering myself in another's dream. This had some of that reported frisson. The youth glared not at me but at my husband, who gasped as one bright ruby eye met another. At that moment, I could tell, blood spoke to blood.

Then it was as if a hand had gripped my hair and pulled it.

Another hand slapped against my face. From nowhere the wind had begun to blow, cold and hard. Beginning as a deep soughing, its note now rose to an aggressive howl.

I thought the young albino said something in German. He was gesticulating to emphasize his words. But the wind kept taking them away. I could make out only one repeated sound. "Werner" was it? A name? The youth looked as if he had stepped from the European Dark Ages. His unstirring white hair fell in long braids. He wore a simple deerskin jacket, and his face was smeared with what might have been white clay. His eyes were desperate.

The wind yelped and danced around us, bending the trees, turning the ferns into angry goblins. Ulric instinctively put his arm around me, and we began to back towards the shore. His hand felt cold. He was genuinely frightened.

The wind appeared to be pursuing us. Everywhere the foliage bent and twisted, this way and that. It was as if we were somehow in the middle of a tornado. Branches opened and closed; leaves were torn into ragged clouds. But our attention remained on the face at the window.

"What is it?" I asked. "Do you recognize the boy?"

"I don't know." He spoke oddly, distantly. "I don't know. I thought my brother-

but he's too young, and besides ..."

All his brothers had died in the First War. Like me, he had noticed a strong family resemblance. I felt him shake. Then he took charge of his emotions. Although he had extraordinary self-control, he was terrified of something, perhaps even of himself. A cloud passed across the sinking sun.

"What is he saying, Ulric?"

" Foorna'? I don't know the word." He gasped out a few more sentences, a nonsensical rationale about the fading light playing tricks, and pulled me rather roughly into the bracken and back through the woods until we arrived at the shore where we had drawn up our canoe. The wild wind was bringing in clouds from all directions, funneling towards us in a black mass. I felt a spot of rain on my face. The wind whipped the turning tide already beginning to cover the tiny beach. We were lucky to have returned

early. Ulric almost hurled me into the canoe as we pushed off and took up our paddles, forcing the canoe into the darkness. But Auld Strom had grown stronger and kept forcing us back towards the shore. The wind seemed sentient, deliberately making our work harder, seeming to blow first from one side then another. It was unnatural. Instinctively, I hated it.

What irresponsible idiots we had been! I could think of nothing but my children. The salt water splashed cold on my skin. My paddle struck weed, and there was a sudden stink. I looked over my shoulder. The woods seemed unaffected by the wind but were full of ghostly movement, shadows elongated by the setting sun and hazy air pursuing us like giants advancing through the trees. Were they hunting the young man who was even now running down the long slab of rock and into the water, his braided milky hair bouncing on his shoulders as he tried to reach us?

With a grunt and a heavy splash Ulric gouged his paddle into the water and broke the defenses of that erratic tide. The canoe moved forward at last. The wind lashed our faces and bodies like a cowman's whip, goading us back, but we persevered. Soaked by the spray we gained some distance. Yet still the youth waded towards us, his eyes fixed on Ulric, his hands grasping, as if he feared the pursuing shadows and sought our help. The waves grew wilder by the moment.

"Father!" The birdlike cry blended with the shrieking wind until both resonated to the same note.

"No!" Ulric cried almost in agony as we at last broke the current's grip on us and found deeper water. There was a high sound now, keening around us, and I didn't know if it was the wind, the sea or human pursuers.

I wished I knew what the youth wanted, but Ulric's only thought was to get us to safety. In spite of the wind, the mist was thicker than it had been! The young albino was soon lost in it. We heard a few garbled words, watched white shadows gathering on the shore as the setting sun vanished, and then all was grey. There was a heavy smell of ozone. The keening fell away until the water lapping against the canoe was the loudest sound. I heard Ulric's

breath rasp as he drove the paddle into the water like an automaton, and I did what I could to help him. Events on the island had occurred too rapidly. I couldn't absorb them. What had we seen? Who was that albino boy who looked so much like me? He could not be my missing twin. He was younger than I. Why was my husband so frightened? For me or for himself?

The cold, ruthless wind continued to pursue us. I felt like taking my paddle and battering it back. Then the fog rose like a wall against the wind which roared and beat impotently upon this new impediment.

Though I felt safer, I lost my bearings in that sudden fog, but Ulric had a much better sense of the compass. With the wind down, we were soon back at our old mooring. The tide was almost full, so it was easy to step from the canoe to the house's little jetty. With some difficulty we climbed the wooden staircase to the first deck. I felt appallingly tired. I could not believe I was so exhausted from such relatively brief activity, but my husband's fear had impressed me.

"They can't follow us," I said. "They had no boats."

In the bright modern kitchen I began to feel a little better. I whipped up some hot chocolate, mixing the ingredients with obsessive care as I tried to take in what had just happened. Outside, in the darkness, there was nothing to be seen. Ulric still seemed dazed. He went around checking locks and windows, peering through closed curtains into the night, listening to the sound of the lapping tide. I asked him what he knew, and he said, "Nothing. I'm just nervous."