soon separated from my sibling. Gone. Gone. My mother's words. I know nothing else.'
'You seem very casual about your twin's fate.'
'Reconciled, my lord. I thought, until recently, you had found that twin to raise as your own, but, of course, I now know that is not the case.' She turned urgently, disappearing back into the kitchen. The smell of greenberry pie came to me in a single, delicious wave. I had forgotten the simple pleasures of human life.
Because this was a dream I saw nothing strange about being invited to sit down at a kitchen table and enjoy a meal of good, new bread, fresh-churned butter, some chandra and a bottle of goldfish sauce, with the prospect of the pie, and perhaps a puff of glas to complete my pleasure.
Not once, for all the trickeries of Law, did I further suspect this young woman. Nor the sense of sanctuary which came from her cottage. It was impossible. I knew she was of my blood. If she had been a lie, a shape- changing creature of Chaos, I should have guessed it immediately.
Yet a voice in the back of my mind told me I had not smelled sorcery when Law had so successfully defeated me and essentially committed me to my present fate. Had I lost my powers? Was I only now beginning to realize it? Was this another illusion to steal what was left of my soul?
My temperament was such that I could not go cautiously. Nothing was to be gained from caution. I had few choices in this extraordinary cottage at the center of the silvery matrix of moonbeams.
'So you have no idea what became of your sister?'
'My sister?' She smiled. 'Oh, no, my dear father. It was not my sister. It was my brother we lost.'
'Brother?' Something in me shuddered. Something else exulted. 'My son?'
'Maybe it's as well you did not know, my lord. For if he is dead, as I suspect, then you would be grieving now.'
I reflected that I had only known I had a son for a few seconds. I was in shock. It would be a moment or two before I came to the grieving stage!
I looked wonderingly at my daughter. My feelings were both direct and complex. On an impulse which would have shocked and disgusted a Melnibonean, I stepped forward and embraced her. She returned my embrace awkwardly, as if she, too, was not used to such customs, She seemed pleased. 'So you are a dreamthief, ' I said. She shook her head fiercely. I saw a dozen honest emotions flit across her features. 'No. I am a dreamthief's child. I have the experience and some of the skills, but not the vocation. In fact, to tell you the truth, Father, I'm somewhat divided. Part of my character vaguely disagrees with the morality of Mother's profession.' 'Well, your mother was of great help to me when we sought the Fortress of the Pearl together.' I myself was overfamiliar with matters of moral and emotional division.
'It is one of the few adventures she retold. She was unusually fond of you, given the number of lovers she has known down the centuries and over the whole of the time field. I suspect you are the only one by whom she had children.'
'Special affection or special resentment?' 'She bore you no ill will, sir. Far from it. She spoke of you with pleasure. She spoke of you as a great warrior. As a brave and courteous knight of the limits. She told me you would have made the most gorgeous dreamthief of them all. That was her own special dream, I think. What do you think dreamthieves dream of most, Father?'
'Perhaps of dreamless sleep, ' I said. I was still surprised by the discovery of my child. A child whose beauty was stunning and whose character seemed, as far as I could tell, complex and full of intelligence. A child who had brought me here to her little Earth on the very edge of time. Her birthplace, she told me as we ate.
The forest, which looked threatening to me, she assured me was full of amiable wonders. She had enjoyed a perfect childhood, she said. The forest and the cottage were protected in some way, much as Tanelorn was protected, from the rapacity of either Law or Chaos. The place was far from lonely. Many of her mother's friends traveled between the worlds, as she did, and they loved nothing better than bringing back stories to tell in the evening around the fire.
When she was fifteen, she had gone with her mother to those worlds where Oone intended to retire, but she had not liked them. She decided to find her own vocation. Meanwhile she, too, would wander the myriad realms of the multiverse for a time. To give her travels some purpose, she tried to discover if her brother were still alive, but the only albino she heard of was her father, the feared and hated Elric of Melnibone. She had felt no great desire to meet him. Then, later, she had discovered others. A bloodline, of sorts, which she was still trying to trace. She hoped this might provide a better means of finding her brother. She believed he had settled in one particular realm, similar to the kind her mother favored. Not only had he settled there, he had absorbed himself in his host culture, married and produced offspring.
I was feeling older by the moment. While I could grasp the notion of time having passed in different ways in different realms, it was still hard for me, a relatively young man, to see myself as the patriarch of generations. The responsibility alone made me uncomfortable. I felt a certain wariness overcome me, and I wondered if this were not part of Law's complicated deception, part of some greater cosmic plot in which I played a minor role. I again began to feel like a pawn in a game. A game the gods played merely to while away their boredom.
This thought fired me to quiet anger. If that were the case, I would do everything I could to defeat their plans.
I called you here, Father, not from curiosity, but out of urgency. I know how you were duped. And why.' She seemed to sense my mood. 'Miggea and her minions threaten Tanelorn and several other realms, including the one inhabited by your descendants.'
'A race resembling Melnibone's?'
'Resembling their last emperor, at any rate. Fighting the same forces we both fight, sir. They are our natural allies. And there is one who can help us defeat Law.'
'Madam, ' I said with every courtesy, 'you are aware perhaps that beyond this realm I have no true physical form. I am a shade. A ghost. Outside this environment I am a spirit. I am, madam, as good as dead. I could not hold a cup if it were not for whatever temporary physicality you or this place has bestowed on me. My body lies in a deep, unwakable slumber in the doomed city of Tanelorn, while Miggea, Duchess of Law, now holds the Black Sword and can do with it whatever she likes. I am defeated, madam. I have failed in every venture. I am a dream within a dream. All this can be nothing but dream. A useless, pointless dream.'
'Well, ' she said, picking up the dishes, 'one person's dream is another's reality.'
'Platitudes, madam.'
'But truths, too, ' she said. A kind of confident stillness had come upon her as she undid her apron and hung it up. 'Well, Father, are you pleased to see me?'
Her eyes, humorous and inquiring, looked frankly into mine. I began to smile. 'I believe I must be, ' I said. 'Though no royal Melnibonean would admit it.'
'Well, ' she said, 'I am glad I am not a royal Melnibonean.' 'I'm the last of those, ' I said, 'or so I understand.' 'Aye, ' she said, 'that seems to be the truth. Melnibone falls, but the blood continues. Ancient blood. Ancient memory.'
'Forgive me if I seem brusque, ' I said, 'but I understood you to say, Lady Oona, that you guided me here as a matter of some urgency.' I could not bring myself to address her informally.
'With my skill I can help you, Father, ' she said. 'I can help you get your sword back and possibly even be revenged on the one who stole it from you.'
Again, I should have suspected a trick, but my daughter convinced me completely. I knew that this entire episode could be a development of the same enchantment under which Law had put me. But it seemed I had no other course of action to take. I had to trust her or remain frozen on my couch in Tanelorn, unable to retrieve my sword or claim vengeance on the one who had stolen it. 'You know the future?' I challenged.
She replied quietly, 'I know more than one.'
She explained how the multiverse is made up of millions of worlds, each only a shade different from our own. In each of those worlds certain people struggle eternally for justice. Sometimes for Law. Sometimes for Chaos. Sometimes simply for equilibrium. Most people do not know that other versions of themselves are struggling, too. Each story is a little different. And very occasionally a major change can be made to the story. Sometimes their strengths can be combined. Which was exactly what we hoped to achieve through my daughter's extraordinary strategy.
She believed it was possible for two or more avatars to occupy the same body, if the body was of like blood. I needed a physical body and a physical sword. She believed she had found both.
