Michael Moorcock - The Fortress of the Pearl

Elric drove forward again, his own spear aimed at the cracked armour, hoping to follow her example, but the blade struck the ivory and was turned. Elric lost balance long enough for the Pearl Warrior to take the advantage. The sword struck the steel of Elric's armour with a noise that made a cacophony within his helmet and brought bright sparks flashing like a fire. He fell onto his horse's neck, barely able to block the next thrust. Then the Pearl Warrior shrieked, the eyes growing still wider, the mouth gaping red and the foul breath steaming from it, while blood poured from under the gorget between his helmet and his breastplate. He fell towards Elric and the albino realised that the haft of a spear was sticking from his chest in exactly the same place where Oone had broken the creature's armour. , "This will not remain so!" cried the Pearl Warrior. It was a threat. "I cannot do that thing!"

Then he tumbled in a heap from his horse and clattered like old bones onto the flagstones of the courtyard. From behind him an ornamental fountain, representing a fig tree in full fruit, began to spurt water, filling the surrounding trough and overflowing until it touched the body of the Pearl Warrior. The riderless horse began to scream, turning round and round, rearing, foaming, then it galloped out through the gate and back down the marble road.

Elric turned the heavy corpse over to make sure that no life was left in the Pearl Warrior and to inspect the shattered armour. He remained admiring of Oone's manoeuvre. "I have never seen that done before," he said, "and I have fought beside and against famous warriors."

"A dreamthief must know many things," she said, by way of acknowledgement of his praise. "I learned such tactics from my mother, who was a greater battle-woman than I shall ever be."

"Your mother was a dreamthief?"

"No," said Gone absently as she inspected her ruined sword and then picked up the Pearl Warrior's, "she was a queen." She tested the weight of the dead creature's blade and discarded her own, trying it in her scabbard and finding that it was a little too wide. Carelessly she stuck it in her belt and unhooked the scabbard, throwing it upon the ground. The water from the fountain was around their ankles now and was disturbing their horses.

Leading the steeds, they passed under a heart-shaped arch and into another courtyard. Here, too, fountains played, but these were not flooding. They seemed carved out of ivory, like so much of the Fortress, and represented stylised herons, their beaks meeting at a point above then- heads. Elric was reminded vaguely of the architecture of Quarzhasaat, though this had none of the decadence of that place, none of the look of senile old age which characterised the city at its worst. Had the Fortress been built by the ancestors of the present lords of Quarzhasaat, the Council of Six and One Other? Had some great king fled the city millennia before and journeyed here to the Dream Realm? Was that how the legend of the Pearl had come to Quarzhasaat?

Courtyard after courtyard, each in its own way of extraordinary beauty, followed until Elric began to wonder if this path was merely leading them through the Fortress to the other side.

"For such a large building it's somewhat underpopulated," he said to Gone.

"We shall find the inhabitants soon enough, I think," Oone murmured. Now they ascended a spiral causeway which led around a huge central dome. Although the palace had such a mood and look of austerity, Elric did not find its architecture cold and there was something almost organic about it, as if it had been formed from flesh, then petrified.

Their horses still with them, the sound now muffled by luxurious carpet, they moved through halls and corridors whose walls were hung with tapestries and decorated with mosaics, though they saw no pictures of living things, only geometrical designs.

"We near the heart of the Fortress, I think," Oone told him in a whisper. It was as if she feared to be overheard, yet they had seen no one. She looked beyond tall columns, through a series of rooms seemingly lit by sunshine from without. Following her gaze, Elric had the impression of blue fabric wafting through a door and vanishing. "Who was that?"

"All the same," said Oone to herself. "All the same." Her sword was drawn again, however, and she signed to Elric to imitate her. They entered another courtyard. This one seemed to be open to the sky-the same grey sky they had first seen in the mountains. Gallery after gallery rose up all around them, many storeys to the top. Elric thought he saw faces peering back at him, then something liquid struck his face and he almost inhaled the sickly red stuff which covered his body. More of it was pouring down on them from every part of the gallery and already the courtyard was knee deep in what seemed to Elric to be human blood. He heard a muttering overhead, soft laughter, a cry.

"Stop this!" he shouted, wading to the side of the chamber. "We are here to parley. All we want is the Holy Girl! Give her spirit back to us and we shall leave!"

He was answered by a further shower of blood and he hauled his horse towards the next door. There was a gate across it. He tried to lift it. He tried to bounce it free of its mountings. He looked to Oone, who, wiping the red liquid from herself, joined him. She reached out her long fingers and found some kind of button. The gate opened slowly, almost reluctantly, but it opened. She grinned at him. "Like most men, you become a brute when you panic, my lord."

He was hurt by her joke. "I had no idea I should find such a means of opening the gate, my lady."

"Think of such things in future and you will stand a better chance of survival in this Fortress," she said.

"Why will they not parley with us?"

"They probably do not believe that we are ready to bargain," she said. Then she added: "In reality, I can only guess at their logic. Each adventure of a dreamthief is different from the others, Prince Elric. Come." She led them on past a series of pools full of warm water from which a little steam rose. There were no bathers in the pools. Then Elric thought he saw creatures, perhaps fish, swimming in the depths. He leaned forward to look, but Oone pulled him back. "I warned you. Your curiosity could bring your destruction and mine."

Something threshed and bubbled in the pool and then was gone. All at once the rooms began to shake and the water foamed. Cracks appeared hi the marble floors. Their horses snorted with fear and threatened to lose their footing. Elric himself almost toppled down into one of the fissures which had opened. It was as if an earthquake had suddenly struck the mountains. Yet as they dashed hastily for the next gallery, which opened onto a peaceful lawn, all signs of the earthquake had vanished.

A man approached them. In bearing, he resembled Queen Sough, but he was shorter and older. His white beard hung upon a surcoat of gold cloth and in his hand he held a salver on which were placed two leather bags. "Will you accept the authority of the Fortress of the Pearl?" he said. "I am the seneschal of this place."

"Who do you serve?" Elric asked brusquely. His sword was still hi his hand and he made no effort to disguise his readiness to use it.

The seneschal looked bewildered. "I serve the Pearl, of course. This is the Fortress of the Pearl!"

"Who rules here, old man?" Oone asked him pointedly.

"The Pearl. I have said so." .

"Does no one rule the Pearl?" Elric was mystified.

"No longer, sir. Now, will you take this gold and go? We have no wish to expend more of our energies upon you. They flag, but they are not exhausted. I think you will be dissolved soon."

"We have defeated all your defenders," said Gone. "Why should we want gold?"

"Do you not desire the Pearl?"

Before Elric could answer, Oone silenced him with a warning gesture.