Michael Moorcock: The Skrayling Tree

I forced him to sit down and drink his chocolate. "Of what?" I asked.

His sensitive, handsome face was troubled, uncertain. He hesitated, almost as if he were going to cry. I found myself taking him by the hand, sitting next to him, urging him to drink. There were tears in his eyes.

"What are you afraid of, Ulric?"

He attempted to shrug. "Of losing you. Of it all starting again, I suppose. I've had dreams recently. They seemed silly at the time.

But that scene on the island felt as if it had happened before. And there's something about this wind that's come up. I don't like it, Oona. I keep remembering Elric, those nightmarish adventures. I fear for you, fear that something will separate us."

"It would have to be something pretty monumental!" I laughed.

"I sometimes think that life with you has been an exquisite dream, my broken mind compensating for the pain of Nazi tortures. I fear I'll wake up and find myself back in Sachsenhausen. Since I met you I know how hard it is to tell the difference between the dream and the reality. Do you understand that, Oona?"

"Of course. But I know you're not dreaming. After all, I have the dreamthief's skills. If anyone could reassure you, it must surely be me."

He nodded, calming himself, giving my hand a grateful squeeze. He was flooded with adrenaline, I realized. What on earth had we witnessed?

Ulric couldn't tell me. He had not been alarmed until he saw what appeared to be his younger self at the window. Then he had sensed time writhing and slipping and dissipating and escaping from the few slender controls we had over it. "And to lose control of time-to let Chaos back into the world-means that I lose you, perhaps the children, everything I have here with you that I value."

I reminded him that I was still very much with him, and in the morning we could stroll the few miles down to Englishtown, call Michael Hall and speak to our beloved children, who were happily going about their schooling. "We can make sure they're well. If you still feel uneasy, we can leave for Rochester and stay with your cousin." Dick von Bek worked for the Eastman Company. We had his permanent invitation.

Again he made an effort to control his fear and was soon almost his old self.

I remarked on the distorted shadows we had seen, like elongated mist giants. Yet the youth's outline had remained perfectly

clear at all times, as if only he were in full focus! "The effects of fog, like those of the desert, are often surprising."

"I'm not sure it was the fog ..." He took another deep breath.

That distortion of perspective was one of the things that had disturbed him, he told me. It brought back all the worlds of dreams, of magic. He remembered the threat, which we must still fear, from his cousin Gaynor.

"But Gaynor's essence was dissipated," I said. "He was broken into a million different fragments, a million distant incarnations."

"No," said Ulric, "I do not think that is true any longer. The Gaynor we fought was somehow not the only Gaynor. My sense is that Gaynor is restored. He has altered his strategy. He no longer works directly. It is almost as if he is lurking in our distant past. It isn't a pleasant feeling. I dream constantly that he's sneaking up on us from behind." His weak laughter was uncharacteristically nervous.

"I have no such sense," I said, "and I am supposed to be the psychic. I promise you I would know if he were anywhere nearby."

"That's part of what I understand in the dream," said Ulric. "He no longer works directly, but through a medium. From some other place."

There was nothing more I could say to reassure him. I, too, knew that the Eternal Predator could hardly be conquered but must forever be held in check by those of us who recognized his disguises and methods. Still I had no smell of Gaynor here. The wind had grown stronger and louder as we talked and now banged around the house tugging at shutters and shrieking down chimneys.

At last I was able to get Ulric to bed and eventually to sleep. Exhausted, I, too, slept in spite of the wailing wind. In the night I was vaguely aware of the wind coming up again and Ulric rising, but I thought he was closing a window.

I awoke close to dawn. The wind was still soughing outside, but I had heard something else. Ulric was not in bed. I assumed that he was still obsessed and would be upstairs, waiting for the light, ready to train his glasses on that old house. But the next

sound I heard was louder, more violent, and I was up before I knew it, running downstairs in my pajamas.

The big room was only recently empty.

There had been a struggle. The French doors to the deck were wide open, the stained glass cracked, and Ulric was nowhere to be seen. I dashed out onto the deck. I could see dim shapes down at the water's edge. The ghostly marble bodies were obviously Indians. Perhaps they had covered their bodies with chalk. I knew of such practices among the Lakota ancestor cults but had never witnessed anything of the kind in this region. Their origin, however, was not the most pressing question in my mind as I saw them bundling Ulric into a large birchbark canoe. I could not believe that in the second half of the twentieth century my husband was being kidnapped by Indians!

Calling for them to stop, I ran down to the grey water, but they were already pushing off, the spray causing odd distortions in the air. One of them had taken our canoe. His back rippled as he moved powerful arms. His body gleamed with oil, and the single lock of hair decorated with feathers flowed like a gash down his back. He wore unusual war paint. Could this be one of those old "mourning wars" on which the Indians embarked when too many of their warriors had been killed? But why steal a sedentary white man?

The mist was still thick, distorting their shapes as they disappeared. Once I glimpsed Ulric's eyes, wide with fear for me. They were paddling rapidly directly towards Auld Strom. The wind came up again, whipping the water and swirling the mist into bizarre images. Then they were gone. And the wind went with them, as if in pursuit.

My instincts took over my mind. In the sudden silence I began to quest automatically out and into the water, seeking the sisterly intelligence I could already sense in the depths far from the shore. She became alert as I found her and readily accepted my request to approach. She was interested in me, if not sympathetic. Water flowed into my entire consciousness, became my world as I continued to bargain, borrow, petition, offer all at the same time, and

in the space of seconds. Grudgingly, I was allowed to take the shape of the stately old monarch who lay still and wise in the deep water below the tug of the current, receiving obeisance from every one of her tribe within a thousand miles.

The children of the legendary piscine first elemental Spammer Gam, the Lost Fishlings of folklore are a community of generous souls to whom altruism is natural, and this lady was one such. Her huge gills moved lazily as she considered my appeal.

It is not my duty to die, I heard her say, but to remain alive.

And one lives through action, I said. Is one alive who does nothing but exist?

You are impertinent. Come, your youth shall combine with my wisdom and my body. We shall seek this creature you love.

I had been accepted by Fwulette the Salmon Wife. And she knew the danger I meant to face.

Such ancient souls have survived the birth and death of planets. Courage is natural to them. She let me swim with extraordinary speed in pursuit of the canoes. As I had guessed, they were not heading back to the island but directly towards the whirlpool. While I could feel the current tugging me inwards, I was too experienced to fear it. I had gills. This was my element. I had followed thousands of currents for millions of years and knew that only if you fought them could they harm you.