The Skrayling Tree (19 page)

By the time we finished the skin, there came a stirring and a chorus of greetings. Earl Gunnar had arrived.

He hated to show his face. They said his wounds were so hideous he could not bear to look on his own features. I was surprised
at the baroque workmanship of his mask, fashioned like a gryphon’s head with an open, threatening mouth, but where the gullet
would be was a face of
silvered steel. Of Eastern origin, the helmet’s crest had been cleverly crafted in silver and pewter: gryphon ascendant. But
it was my own face I saw when I first looked at him. He was coming towards me, striding with dangerous inelegance.

Gunnar the Doomed was a bear. He was twice my width and slightly taller. I could imagine this terrifying figure on the bridge
of his ship. He wore fine-woven plaids and linens and, like all his kind, his hands were girlishly tended. Hanging down over
his shoulders his hair showed a little grey. With his well-trimmed, flowing locks, his rich clothing and knee-high doeskin
boots, he could have been a Danish noble of the previous century. There was a generally archaic air about the man. It had
been a hundred years since the last Vikings had gone on raiding expeditions.

The Norse sailors most reminded me of my old friend, the bluff, direct and solidly realistic Smiorgan Baldhead of the Purple
Towns. As an individual Gunnar struck me as Smiorgan’s opposite. There was something unwholesome about him. He affected the
rough manners of a nobleman too long in the company of brutes. Yet he was a real diplomat. He knew enough not to threaten
me. Instead he preferred to charm me. He ordered another skin of Bulgar wine and had it brought to the table where I still
sat with his men. I could, of course, read nothing from the face, completely covered by the mirrored steel of the helmet.
There were dark cavities in the mask. Through two of these he stared at me. Through another he fed himself tiny scraps of
some kind of meat he carried in his hand. Otherwise he had
the familiar manner of those who do not know me. He kept a little distance between us on the chance that I was actually a
leper. Courteously I refused his wine. I had drunk my fill, I said. “I have some business with you, Earl Gunnar.”

Gunnar shrugged. “I’m not a merchant, and my ship is not for hire.”

“You are an adventurer, like myself, and your ship is your own. I’m not here to hire you, Earl Gunnar. A man like yourself
does not strike me as one who would sing to another’s tune no matter how sweet the melody.”

“You’ve come overland, have you? Where from? Constantinople? Did you ride through the Devil’s Garden?”

I told him that I had. He nodded. He sat back in his chair, that more-than-enigmatic mask regarding me with some interest.
“So you saw all those massive heads. You’d think they were alive, eh? I saw something like them when I sailed with the Rose
on her twin-hulled ship
The Either/Or.
We passed an island which marked the boundaries of that people’s empire. Huge eyes staring from these stone faces. An island
of giants. We did not go closer.”

Gunnar had a certain witch-sight. No ordinary mortal would have seen those stones for what they were. I held my own counsel
and let Gunnar continue.

“So you know me by my reputation, as I know thee, Sir Silverskin. And it pleases you to flatter my pride. Yet you know I do
indeed work for hire on occasions. So, while I appreciate your courtesy, I’d be as happy to get down to business, if we have
any, as not. I sail on the morning tide,
and my crew is already aboard, save for these two, whom I came to find.” He paused. Taking a reed from within his jerkin he
placed one end in his wine cup and the other in the aperture in his mask. He sipped delicately. “My destination’s already
determined.”

“I understand that also.” I dropped my voice. “North and west to the World’s Rim?”

He was too canny a captain to respond immediately. “You know more than I do, Sir Silverskin. We are merely setting sail for
Las Cascadas to find fresh crewmen. Winter approaches, and at this time we normally go down to Zanzibar, where we take an
interest in the slave trade. It’s a poor business, but there are few other ways for an independent captain to make a living
in these oversettled times.”

I opened my palm and showed him what was there. “Give me a berth on your ship, Earl Gunnar, and I’ll tell you more about this.”

It was not in his nature to hesitate.

“The berth is yours,” he said. “We sail on the first tide.”

Darkling dragon, reiver’s pride,

Rides high upon the turquoise tide.

His weird-drenched wave

Shan bear him to a rich retreat.

Darkling dragon, reiver’s pride,

Lord of the Last, destined to die.

In Woden’s waves he’ll find no grave

His death’s pre-written on his own black blade.

L
ONGFELLOW
,

“Lord of the Lost”

A
little before dawn I was down at the harbor looking over the long, slender ship lying against the dock. Solomon had been
sold for a fair price to a Greek merchant who had some fancy to show himself off as a knight. I threw in the surcoat for good
measure. At least he could pretend to fellow Christians to have been a crusader. Solomon would be
making his way home to Lombardy shortly after we sailed. If he was lucky, the merchant would not be on the stallion’s broad
and cunning back.

Narrow, seemingly delicate, yet full of sinewy power even at anchor,
The Swan
pulled eagerly at her traces, haughty and confident as her namesake. I heard Gunnar had bought her from the impoverished
Greenlanders who had made her but lacked the skills to sail her.

I admired the lines of the ship. Her fine, beaky figurehead might deliberately have been a cross between a swan and a wyvern.
She had the swan’s calm stateliness, but also an air of menace, which had something to do with the rake of her deck, the set
of her mast.

In the old Viking manner there were shields strapped to the rail above the board which ran between the rowing benches and
the shutbeds where men could store their goods and get sleep when utterly worn out. I knew that many Vikings preferred to
sleep at their oars and had developed ways of hanging over the great, golden sweeps to find the total rest of the thoroughly
exhausted. But half the shield spaces were empty. I suspected they were not filled by born Norsemen.

I waited patiently near the gangplank as the sea-raiders arrived. They represented most nations, from Iceland to Mongolia.
“By Ishtar,” murmured a Persian, seeing me, “Gunnar’s more desperate for men than we knew.” Some of the races I did not recognize
at all, but there were tall, thin East Africans, a couple of burly Moors, three Mongols and a mixture of Greeks, Albanians
and Arabs. All of them had the grim look of men who knew violence more thoroughly than peace. Settling
in to the ship, some of them took places by shields they had clearly acquired from the dead. The two Ashanti had brought their
own long shields. Others had no shields at all. There was a miscellaneous mixture of weaponry. If ever a crew was born to
sail a ship into the realms of Chaos, it was
The Swan’s.

Out on the far horizon something moved. I glanced up. Melnibonéans were also a seafaring people, and I had their way of scanning
the ocean out of the corner of my eye. One of the Mongols ran up the mast like a rat to yell out his urgent fear.

“Venetian war galleys. Making good speed.”

Gunnar came brawling down to the dock, half a dozen whores and hounds forming a living train behind him, shouting orders which
were followed like thoughts by his obedient men. He took a moment to turn his faceless head to me and yell “We sail for Las
Cascadas. We’ll be safe there. Come aboard. If we can’t strike a bargain, I’ll set you off on the island.” He swung his heavily
cloaked body up over his rail and headed for the stern.

Las Cascadas was a notorious rock in the western Mediterranean with a single port. It was still some days’ sail away, and
we had the Venetians, possibly the Turks, perhaps the Byzantines, the Italians and the Caliphates to deal with, all of whom
claimed authority over these seas. Gibr al Tairat itself was not so thoroughly untakable, but Las Cascadas’s harbor was so
well protected no enemy fleet could hope to enter. Any attempt to attack by land was thwarted by the steep, volcanic cliffs
which rose sheer from the water. As a result the place
had become a refuge for every corsair on the Red Coast and beyond and had its own queen, the infamous pirate known across
the seafaring world as the Barbary Rose, whom Gunnar boasted of sailing with. Her strangely named twin-prowed ship was unmistakable
and had been built apparently by shipwrights the Rose had brought with her from the South Sea Empire, which few European navigators
even believed existed. Only the two tattooed giants, who still served the she-captain, knew the secret of making such vessels.

The black-and-gold sails of Venice were slightly larger on the horizon now. The tide was beginning to run our way, and I squeezed
into a space between the mast and the deckhouse, marveling at the efficiency of these seamen. With a single woollen sail,
they could get a ship into battle order in moments.

The oars bit the water as Gunnar roared the beat. We leaped out of the harbor, oblivious of everything but escape. Dhows and
wherries scattered as we shot through the outer walls and into open sea, oars and sail combining to bring the ship about as
Gunnar himself stood at the steering sweep, making adjustments with the touch of his hand, the balance was so beautiful. The
unshipped oars moved in amazing uniform, like a neatly choreographed dance, and
The Swan
darted like a live thing under our feet, thrusting out into the deep water long before the Venetians saw us. We were already
running for the Mediterranean, and unless they had laid a real trap for us there, we might even leave them behind completely.
Once we were seen to reach the safety of Las Cascadas, any other pursuers would give up. Earl Gunnar
had always made a point of staying on good terms with the Caliphates.

Two-masted, slave-rowed, heavy in the water and clumsy fore and aft, built more for endurance and protection than attack,
the Venetian ships needed good weather and great luck even to keep pace with us. We quickly saluted farewell as our glorious
pursuers fell below the horizon. Then we ran down the Illyrian coast and, with oars at full speed, sail bellying with a powerful
southwester, rounded the Italian peninsula with a strong wind for Sicilia and the Tyrrhenian Sea, where we ran into a small
flotilla of black-sailed ships expectantly lying in wait for us. Two brigantines and a brig.

Gunnar stood on his own bridge holding his sides and jeering with laughter as we sped by the lumbering vessels. “Three!” he
shouted. “Three ships! Only three to catch
The Swan!
Your wealth makes you stupid!” He then turned to me. “They insult us, eh, Sir Silverskin?”

It was clear he felt a bond with me which I did not share.

I was exhilarated by the ship’s performance. Gunnar, however, continued to act as if being overtaken by the Venetians were
imminent. Like me he had learned not to relax too soon.

Later that night he finally gave the order to slow oars. His men slept instantly over their sweeps. Almost at her own volition
The Swan
continued to glide through the water. Gunnar planned to hug the Numidian shore all the way to the Magreb. In the west, only
a few miles of sea separated the coast from Las Cascadas.

Gunnar joined me in the prow, where I had found a
little solitude and was looking up at the great splash of the Milky Way, staring at stars which were at once familiar and
unfamiliar. I had wrapped myself in my deep indigo oilskin cloak. Golden autumn touched the ocean. I remembered the story
told to Melnibonéan children of the dead souls who walk the star-roads of the Milky Way, which we called the Land of the Dead.
I was, for some reason, thinking of my father, the disappointed widower who blamed me for my mother’s death.

Gunnar made no apology for interrupting me. He was in good spirits. “Those fat merchant bastards are still wallowing their
way around Otranto!”

He clapped me on the back, almost as if feeling for a weakness. “So are you going to tell me how you think you know my plans?
Or am I going to throw you overboard and put you out of my mind?”

“That would be ill-advised,” I said. “But also impossible. You know I am effectively immortal and invulnerable.”

“I won’t know that until I put it to the test,” he said. “But I do not believe you are any less mortal than myself.”

“Indeed?” I saw no point in quarreling with him. He recognized the token I showed him. The ring which seemed fresh-minted.

“Aye, Elric Sadricsson, I know you from King Ethelred’s time, when he paid you with that ring for your aid against the Danes.
But the ring’s far more ancient, eh. I thought the Templars had it now.”

“Ethelred ruled a century and a half ago,” I said. “Do I seem so old? I am, as you know, not a well man.”

“I think you are much older than that, Sir Templar,” Gunnar said. “I think you are ageless.” There was a sinister note to
his voice, a mocking quality which irritated me. “But not invulnerable.”

“I think you mistake me for Luerabas, the Wandering Albanian, whom Jesus cursed from the tomb.”

“I know for a fact that story’s nonsense. Prince Elric of Melniboné, your story is far from being finished. And far from judgment.”

He was trying to disturb me. I did not show him he had succeeded. “You know much for a mortal,” I said.

“Oh, far too much for a
mortal.
It is my doom, Prince Elric, to remember everything of my past, my present and my future. I know, for instance, that I shall
die in the full knowledge of the hopelessness and folly of existence. So dying will be a relief for me. And if I take a universe
with me, so much the better. Oblivion is my destiny but also my craving. You, on the other hand, are doomed to remember too
little and so die still hoping, still loving life… ”