Michael Moorcock: The Fortress of the Pearl

"You know me?" Elric looked hard at the handsome youth, seeking deception or even irony, but there was none in those steady eyes.

"A hero knows another, Prince Elric." And Chamog Borm reached out to grip Elric's forearm in the gesture of friendship of the desert peoples. "May you gain all you wish to gain and may you do so with honour. You, too, Lady Oone. Your courage is the greatest of all. Farewell."

The exile watched them from the roof of his little house until they were out of sight. Now the great mountains were close, almost embracing them, and they could see a wide, white road stretching through them. The light was like that of a late summer afternoon, though Elric could still not be sure if it was sky above them or the distant roof of a vast cavern, for the sun was still not in evidence. Was the Dream Realm a limitless series of such caverns or had the dreamthief mapped the entire world? Could they cross the mountains, or the Nameless Land beyond and begin again to travel through the seven gates, ultimately arriving back at the Land of Dreams-in-Common? And would they find Jaspar Colinadous waiting for them where they had left him?

The road, when they reached it, proved to be of pure marble, but the horses' hooves were so well shod they did not slip once. The noise of their galloping began to echo through the wide pass and herds of gazelles and wild sheep looked up from their grazing to watch them pass, two silver riders on silver horses on their way to do battle with the forces who had seized power at the Fortress of the Pearl.

"You have understood these people better than I," he said to Oone, as the road began to twist upward towards the centre of the range and the light had grown colder, the sky a bright, hard grey. "Do you know what we might expect to find at the Fortress of the Pearl?"

She shook her head in regret. "It is like understanding a code without knowing what the words actually relate to," she told him. "The force is powerful enough to banish a hero as potent as Chamog Borm."

"I know only the legend, and that from a little I heard in the Slave Market at Quarzhasaat."

"He was summoned by the Holy Girl as soon as she realised that she was under further attack. That is what I believe, at any rate. She did not expect him to fail her. Somehow, indeed, he made matters worse. She felt betrayed by him and banished him to the edge of the Nameless Land, there perhaps to greet and assist others who might come to help her. That is no doubt why we are given all the appurtenances of the hero, so that we may be as much like heroes as he."

"Yet we know this world less well. How may we succeed where he failed?"

"Perhaps because of our ignorance," she said. "Perhaps not. I cannot answer you, Elric." She rode close to him, leaning from her saddle to kiss that part of his cheek exposed by the helmet. "Only know this. I will betray neither her nor, if I can help it, you. Yet if I must betray one of you, I suppose it will be you."

Elric looked at her in bafflement. "Is that likely to be an issue?"

She shrugged and then she sighed. "I do not know, Elric. Look. I think we have come to the Fortress of the Pearl!"

It was like a palace carved from the most delicate ivory. White against the silver sky, it rose above the snows of the mountain, a great multitude of slender spires and turretted towers, of cupolas, of mysterious structures which seemed almost as if they had been arrested in mid-Sight. There were bridges and stairways, curving walls and galleries, balconies and roof-gardens whose colours were a spectrum of pastel shades, a myriad of different plants, flowers, shrubs and trees. In all his travels Elric had only seen one place that was the equal to the Fortress of the Pearl and that was his own city, Imrryr. Yet the Dreaming City was exotic, rich, even vulgar-a romantic fancy compared to the complicated austerity of this palace.

As they approached on the marble road, Elric realised that the Fortress was not pure white, but contained shades of blue, silver, grey and pink, sometimes a little yellow or green, and he had the notion that the entire thing had been carved from a single gigantic pearl. Soon they had reached the Fortress's only gate, a great circular opening protected by spiked grilles which came from above and below and both sides to meet at the centre. The Fortress was vast but even its gate dwarfed them.

Elric could think of nothing to do but cry out. "Open in the name of the Holy Girl! We come to do battle with those who imprison her spirit here!"

His words echoed through the towers of the Fortress and through the jagged peaks of the mountains beyond and seemed to lose themselves in the heights of a cavern's roof. In the shadows beyond the gateway he saw something scarlet move and then vanish again. There came the smell of delicious perfume, mixed with the same strange ocean scent they had noticed when they first reached the Nameless Land.

Then the gates had parted, so swiftly that they seemed to melt into the air, and a rider confronted them, his humourless chuckling by now all too familiar.

"This is what should be, I think," said the Pearl Warrior.

"League yourself with us again, Pearl Warrior," said Oone, with all her considerable authority. "It is what she desires!"

"No. It is so that she shall not be betrayed. You must dissolve. Now! Now! Now!" His head was flung back as he screamed these last words, for all the world like a dog gone rabid.

Elric drew a sword from its scabbard. It shone with the same silver light that poured from the Pearl Warrior's blade. Gone followed his example, though more reluctantly.

"We shall pass now, Pearl Warrior."

"Nothing will here! I want your freedom."

"She shall have it!" said Oone. "It is not yours, not unless she bestows it upon you herself."

"She says it is mine. I will be that. I will be that!"

Elric could not follow this strange conversation and he chose not to waste time with it. He urged his silver horse forward, the blade glaring in his hand. So balanced was this sword, so familiar to his grip, that he felt for a moment that it was somehow the natural contrast to his runesword. Was this a sword forged by Law to serve its purposes, just as Stormbringer had, by all accounts, been forged by Chaos?

The Pearl Warrior guffawed and widened his awful eyes. Death was in them. The death of the world. He lowered the same misshapen lance he had brandished at them before and Elric saw it was encrusted with old blood. The warrior held his ground and the lance was suddenly threatening Elric's eyes so that the albino had to throw himself to one side to avoid its points, striking upward as he did so and feeling a greater resistance to his blow than anything he had felt before. The Pearl Warrior seemed to have gained strength since their last encounter.

"Ordinary soul!" The lips twisted in this insult, clearly as disgusting as any the Pearl Warrior could conceive. And he began to chuckle again, this time because Oone was riding at him, her sword stretched out full before her, a spear held in her other hand, her reins between her teeth. The sword drove forward, the spear swung back as she poised to throw. Then sword and spear struck the Pearl Warrior at the exact same moment so that his breastplate cracked like the shell of some great crustacean and was pierced by the sword.

Elric marvelled at this strategy which he had never witnessed before. Oone's strength and coordination were almost beyond credibility. It was a feat of arms warriors would speak of for a thousand years to come, which many would try to emulate and would die in the trying.

The spear had done its work in breaking open the Pearl Warrior's armour and the sword had completed the action. But the Pearl Warrior had not been killed.

He groaned. He cackled. He floundered. His sword came up as if to protect his chest from the blow already struck. His great horse reared and its nostrils flared with fury. Oone turned her own mount away. Her sword had left its tip in the Pearl Warrior's body. She was reaching for a second spear, for her dagger.