The Skrayling Tree (41 page)

Only when I remembered Oona did any sense of volition return.

Looking about me and down I saw three huge human figures standing on a surface of glittering, rainbow rock. To my horror,
I recognized them. How had they arrived here before us? How much more powerful had they become?

Three giants. Klosterheim and Gaynor the Damned I identified at once. The third was the black-armored man I had seen with
them earlier. But now I recognized him completely. It was indeed Elric of Melniboné. The canvas cover had been removed from
his shield, which displayed the eight-arrowed sign of Chaos. A black
runeblade trembled on his hip. There was no doubting his identity. But what of his loyalty?

The three had obviously come here by supernatural means. Now standing to my left on a great limb they were completely unaware
of me and were arguing fiercely among themselves. I was apparently too small for them to see just as they were almost too
huge for me to contemplate. I looked up at Lobkowitz above me. He was staring at the three figures with open dismay.

A gust of wind raced past us unexpectedly, and we were swept away from the gigantic figures, losing them among the branches.

I saw Sepiriz leaping and rolling towards me in an extraordinary sequence of movements. Thus he negotiated this strange version
of space. He spoke, but his words were meaningless to me. Lobkowitz then said something. I saw White Crow and Bes, with the
white-skinned youth clinging to the beast’s thick fur. Where was Oona? Imitating Lord Sepiriz’s strange tumbling method of
locomotion, Ayanawatta trailed him as they came rolling towards me.

Is Oona with you?

Their voices were enormous, booming, on the verge of being incoherent. Their bodies were huge. Bigger even than Gaynor and
company. But the hands that reached towards me were only as large as my own. Each hanging on to one of my arms, Sepiriz and
the Mohican sachem were concentrating on guiding me slowly through our descent.

I stood on spongy material that reminded me, stupidly, of my childhood, when we had played on our
feather beds. I saw myself in a field of multicolored flowers. There were millions of varieties and colors, but the petals
were all small and tight and gave the picture the quality of a pointillist painting. I half expected to see that my companions
were also made up of tiny dots. They did, indeed, have a slightly amorphous quality.

The vivid colors; strong, amniotic scents; the warm, womblike air—all emphasized the total silence around us. When I spoke
I communicated with my companions, but not in any familiar way, and it made me economical with words.

A fern as big as the world opened its fronds to embrace me. A million shades of green turned slowly to black as they disappeared
into the distance. Endless slender saplings, silver and pale gold, appeared so substantial I expected at any moment to see
a woodsman padding through them.

White Crow and the mammoth were nowhere to be seen. Where
was
Oona? I longed for a glimpse of my wife. I wept with guilt at my own hasty folly. I hoped with impotent optimism.

Ayanawatta, Lobkowitz and Sepiriz surrounded me and moved with me, guiding me in long, wading steps. Their outlines were now
sharper, and everything had a more tangible quality. Were they taking me at last to Oona? The sweetness of the wildflowers
began to dominate the saltier tastes of the sea. Ahead of us was another blinding mass of varied green. With wonder I looked
upon the Skrayling Oak, the object of so many dream-quests.

I was distracted from this vision by a sense of more than one self nearby. It was hard enough for me to cope
with the presence of Prince Elric, whose experience was supernaturally mingled with my own and manifested itself always in
my dreams if not continually in my conscious mind. It felt as if these other intelligences, these alter egos, were also Elric.
Mentally I was in a hall of repeating mirrors, where the same image is reversed and reflected again and again to infinity.
I was one of millions, and the millions were also one.

I was intratemporally infinite and contained by the infinite. Yet that infinity was also my own brain, which contained all
others. The mind of man alone was free to wander the infinity of the multiverse. One contains the other and one is contained
in the other… Not only were these paradoxes of particular comfort to me, they felt natural. For all my fear of the place,
I now knew a resounding resurgence of hope. I was returning home. I would soon be reunited with Oona. In this long moment,
at least, I knew she was safe, hidden between life and death.

Only if the tree itself died would she die. But whether it was certain she would live again, I could not tell.

The green, gold and silver lattice of the mighty tree filled the horizon. Framed against it I saw three groups of three men.
Each of the men had his head bowed, and each had his hands wrapped around a tall, slender spear. At their belts were polished
war clubs. They wore their hair in single scalp locks decorated with eagle feathers, and their bodies were tattooed and painted
in a way I had seen before. All were pale and distinctly similar, in both physique and face, yet every one was different.
I knew who they were. They were the last of the
Kakatanawa, the guardians of the prophecy, of the tree. Perhaps they now stood funeral watch for the tree itself. There was
something somber about the scene when there should have been joy.

“The tree is sick, you see.” Sepiriz’s deep voice sounded in my ear. “The roots are being poisoned by the very creature enjoined
to protect them. That which regulates the Balance was stolen by Gaynor, then found by another…”

“What creature is it that guards the roots?”

“Gunnar’s Vikings would probably tell you it was the Worm Oroborous, the great world snake who eats his own tail—the dragon
who both defends and gnaws the roots. Most of your world’s mythologies contain some version. But Elric would know him as a
blood relative. You have heard of the Phoorn?”

Already there were too many echoes. I might have replied that Elric would no doubt recognize the name, but I was not Elric!
I refused to be Elric! The Phoorn name, in my present state, had no more significance to me than any other. Yet I did know
what he meant. I was simply denying the memories which came unsummoned from my alter ego. Images crept insistently into my
consciousness. My being was suffused with a deliciously terrifying sensation. My blood recognized the word even as my brain
refused it.

“Why have you brought us to this place, Lord Sepiriz? And why are those three here? Why so gigantic? I thought we had escaped
them. I thought we came here for our security. I also thought we came to find my wife! Now you confront me with my worst enemies!”

The ground rose and fell beneath my feet like a breathing beast.

“Elric is not your enemy. He is yourself.”

“Then perhaps he is indeed my worst enemy, Lord Sepiriz.”

I could see them now, wading towards us in all their martial weight, swords drawn and ready to spill blood. Again I was all
too aware that we were virtually unarmed.

Something vibrated forcefully against my feet. I looked down, half expecting the ground to be thoroughly alive. Wildflowers
swept like a tide around my legs. There was activity in the depths below. I imagined infinite roots spreading out to mirror
the boughs above. I imagined caverns through which even now the dark reversals of ourselves prowled, seeking bones to break
and spirits to suck. Was this the route the giants had taken to arrive here now? Had Shoashooan been unable to gain access
to this oddly holy place?

Then far away and below I heard a wild, angry howling. I understood Lord Shoashooan had not been left behind.

There was more movement over near the tree’s wide trunk. The multiverse was shaken by a long, mournful groan. I breathed in
a familiar scent. I could resist the memory no longer.

“I know the Phoorn,” I said.

Seeking the worm at the heart of the world,

Wild warriors carried carnage with their swords

To Golddune, the glittering gate of Alfheim.

Bold were these bears in their byrnies of brass,

White-maned horses bore them in their boats,

To wild Western shores and rich reiving,

Where three kings ruled in Hel’s harsh realm.

Bravely they defied Death’s cold Queen,

So came in conquest to the Skrayling Tree.

T
HE
T
HIRD
E
DDA
,

“Elrik the White” (W
HELDRAKE
’
S TR
.)

I
was surrounded by the finest flowing copper spreading like a woman’s auburn hair, lock after lock, wave after wave into a
crowd of people hiding among tall grasses, waiting to join with me. Did they protect my wife? I sought only Oona. I prayed
Oona had lived long enough for me to save her.
As I came closer to the riders, I saw they were not people. They were instead intricately shaped and colored scales, dimpled
by millions of points of light, flashing with a thousand colors, each one of extraordinary beauty. I was aware that I saw
only a shadow of an older glory. And where another might have known wonder, I knew sympathy.

I looked on the body of a sickly Phoorn, blood-kin to my ancestors. Some said we were born of the same womb before history
began.

The Phoorn were what the people of the Young Kingdoms called dragons. But these were not dragons. These were Phoorn, who flew
between the realms, who had no avatars, but made the whole multiverse their flying grounds. The Phoorn had conquered entire
universes and witnessed the deaths of galaxies. Blood-kin to the Princes of Melniboné—who drank their venom and formed bonds
of flesh and souls with them, creating even more terrible progeny, half-human, half-Phoorn—they had loyalties only to their
own kind and the fundamental life stuff of the multiverse.

My blood moved in harmony with this monster’s, and I knew at once that it was ill, perhaps dying, its soul suffused with sadness.
I understood our kinship. This Phoorn was a brother to my forefathers. The poor creature had known past anguish, but now he
was near complete exhaustion. From a half-open mouth his poison dripped into the roots of the tree he was sworn to protect.
He was too weak to drag his head clear. Massive quicksilver tears fell from his milky, half-blind eyes.

His condition was obvious. His skefla’a was gone. The membrane which drew sustenance from the multi-verse itself and allowed
the Phoorn to travel wherever they chose was also the creature’s means of feeding. They might take thousands of years in their
passing, but ultimately, without a skefla’a, the Phoorn were mortal. There were few of them left now. They were too curious
and reckless to survive in large numbers. And this one was the greatest of the Phoorn, chosen to guard the Soul of Creation.
It was rare enough for these elders to grow weak, almost unheard-of for one to sicken.

“What supernatural force is capable of stealing a skefla’a from the great world snake?” said Sepiriz from somewhere nearby.
“Who would dare? He guards the roots of the multiversal tree and ensures the security of the Cosmic Balance.”

“He sickens,” I said. “And as he sickens his venom increases its effect…”

“Poisoning the roots as the Balance tips too far. Virtue turned to vice. This is a symbol of all our conflicts throughout
the multiverse.” Lobkowitz joined us. Wildflowers ran around our legs like water, but their nauseating stench was scarcely
bearable.

“A symbol only?” I asked.

“There is no such thing as a symbol only,” said Sepiriz. “Everything that exists has a multitude of meanings and functions.
A symbol in one universe is a living reality in another. Yet one will function as the other. They are at their most powerful
when the symbol and that which it symbolizes are combined.” Lord Sepiriz shared a glance with Prince Lobkowitz.

Out of nowhere came the high, lovely sound of the flute. I knew Ayanawatta had begun to play.

The Kakatanawa were aroused. They lifted their great heads and stared around them. Their eagle feathers trembled in their
flowing scalp locks. They shifted their grip on their war clubs and lances and made their shields more comfortable on their
arms. They readied themselves carefully for battle.

Was this to be the final fight? I wondered.

The sound of the flute faded, drowned by a harsher blare. I sought the source.

There above us was Elric of Melniboné, blowing on the heavily ornamented bull’s horn Gaynor had brought with them. Elric’s
black helm glowed with a disturbing radiance as he flung back his swirling cloak and lifted his head, making a long, sharp
note which cut through the quasi-air; caused great, dark green clouds to blossom and spread; shook the ground beneath my feet
and made it crack. Through the cracks oozed grey snapping paste which licked at my feet with evident relish.

I jumped away from the stuff. Was it some monster’s tentacle reaching up from the depths? I heard it grumbling away down below.

Defended by the Kakatanawa, I approached the Phoorn. In relation to this ancient creature I was about the size of a crow compared
to Bes, the mammoth. I walked through a forest of tall stalks which might have been oversized grass or saplings of the original
tree, and eventually I stood looking up at those huge, fading eyes, feeling a frisson of filial empathy.

What ails thee, Uncle?
I asked.

Thin vapor sobbed from the beast’s nostrils. His long, beautiful head lay along the base of the tree. Venom bubbled on his
lips with every labored breath and soaked into the roots below. His mind found mine.

I am dying too slowly, Nephew. They have stolen my skefla’a and divided it into three parts, scattered through the multiverse.
It cannot be recovered. By this means they stop me from finding the strength I need. I know the tree is being poisoned by
my dying. You must kill me. That is your fate.