fell with them-down for a thousand years, falling, falling for a thousand years. When I looked down I saw a vast field of ivory and silver flowers-of roses and chrysanthemums, marigolds and magnolias-each one representing a different universe.
I feared that I would be drawn into one of the densely woven universes, but gradually they began to form a simple field of white in which two spots of ruby red glowed, until I realized I was staring into my own gigantic image and then instantly I was staring up at the anxious faces of Moonglum and my daughter, Oona. I turned my head. On the floor beside me was the sleeping body of Ulric von Bek. But there had been a fundamental change. Everything was most definitely not what it had been...
As von Bek, however isolated I was from Elric and while he would scarcely remember me once this dream was ended, I could not rid myself of him. I remain both men. His story continues within me. I shall never be free of him. I have no reason to believe I was singled out for this fate and every reason to think it a mere accident, for if I've learned nothing else from my experiences, it is that luck has far more to do with one's fortune than any kind of judgment and that to believe oneself in control of the multiverse is to suffer the greatest delusion of all.
Since then I have heard of others who carry the identities of a thousand souls within them, but at that moment I was horrified by the notion. A simple Saxon landowner, I was bound by supernatural ties to the soul of a nonhuman creature separated from me by untold distances of time and space. Even as I looked on his face, I saw my own face looking back at me. It felt for a moment as if I stared down an endless corridor of mirrors-thousands upon thousands of selves reflected back at me. I rose with some difficulty from where I had fallen. I had the impression everything had happened simultaneously. Moonglum was overjoyed by his friend's restoration, and Oona took her father's hand as he stared with disbelieving eyes at the scene before him.
Only I retained a conscious memory of the journey through the moonbeam roads. Elric looked at me. 'I believe I have you to thank, sir, for waking me from that enchanted slumber?'
'I think the Lady Oona is to be thanked by both of us, ' I said. 'She has her mother's skills if not her inclinations.'
He frowned. 'Ah, yes. I remember something.' Then a shudder ran through him. 'My sword-?'
'Gaynor has Stormbringer, still, ' said Moonglum quickly. 'But your-this gentleman-has brought you another.'
'I remember.' Elric frowned. He looked down at Ravenbrand, which I had placed in his grasp. 'Fragments. Gaynor won my sword, then I fell asleep, then I dreamed I found Gaynor and lost him again.' He became agitated. 'And he threatens-he threatens ... No, Tanelorn is safe. Miggea's imprisoned. The Stones of Morn! Other friends are in danger. Arioch-my Lord Arioch-where is he?'
'Your Duke of Hell was here, ' said Moonglum. 'In this realm. But we did not know it. Perhaps Gaynor went with him.'
Elric clutched his head, groaning. 'The sorcery is too much, even for me. No mortal can sustain sanity or life if exposed to it for long. Oh! I remember! The dream! The cottage! Those white faces. Caverns. The young woman ...'
'You remember enough, Father, ' she said quietly. He looked up at her again. Startled. Baffled. Alarmed.
'Probably more than enough, ' I suggested. I was beginning to yearn for some natural, dreamless sleep. Oona said quietly, 'All is not over. Nor will it be until we have succeeded in getting rid of Gaynor. His strategy isn't clear. He still attacks on two fronts and becomes increasingly reckless-careless of all life, including his own.'
'Where shall we seek him?' Elric made a careful inspection of the runesword. He seemed suspicious of it, yet the blade itself was clearly the one he was familiar with.
'Oh, there's no doubt, ' she said, 'about where to find him. This Gaynor? He'll choose one of two places of power-Bek or Morn. How to fight him is the problem. If you are ready, Father, we should return as soon as we can to Mu Ooria, where there's still a great deal of work for us.'
'How do you propose to get there?' I asked her. 'I doubt if King Straasha can be prevailed upon to help me twice.'
She smiled. 'There are less dramatic means of travel. Besides, I think Miggea's spell has lifted. Now only she is trapped in the barren world she created for herself. Without human aid, there she stays. But while we can journey fairly easily between the worlds, Master Moonglum cannot. You must wait here, Moonglum, in Tanelorn, until Elric returns.'
Moonglum seemed partially relieved at this news but he grumbled. 'I've chosen to travel with you, Elric-to Hell, if necessary.'
Elric stretched out his long, pale hand and placed it on Moonglum's shoulder. 'It will not be necessary yet, old friend.'
Moonglum took this well, but he was clearly saddened. 'I'll wait a few weeks, ' he said. 'And if you don't return by then, I might head back towards Elwher. I, too, have unfinished business. If I'm not here when you return, you'll find me there.'
We left the little redheaded outlander in that room. He preferred, he said, to stay there until we had gone. He wished us luck. He was sure our paths would cross again.
Oona led us out of the Tower of the Hand into cheering streets and gentle sunlight. There, all around the city's walls, were familiar gentle green hills. Tanelorn had returned to her natural position in the multiverse.
Oona led us swiftly through the twittens and lanes of Tanelorn's most ancient districts until we entered a low house which had, by its condition, been abandoned years earlier. The upper floors were ruined but the basement was in good repair, its main room guarded by an iron-bound door which Oona, after checking that we weren't observed, opened with a surprisingly small key.
There seemed to be nothing especially valuable on the other side of the door. The room was furnished with a bed, working and cooking facilities, a desk, chair and several shelves of books and scrolls. It had the neat, well-used air of a nun's cell.
I didn't question her. This was one of her smaller surprises, after all.
Only when Elric was physically nearby did I not strongly sense his mind. The albino seemed more ill at ease than anyone else, and I had no clear idea why. I think I assumed a sophistication in him. After all, my experience of the inventive twentieth century was not his. Indeed, he was often awkward in my presence, avoiding my eye and rarely addressing me directly. Clearly I made him deeply uncomfortable and would have left him, if I could. He had something of the air of a somnambulist. I began to wonder if he thought he dreamed all that was happening.
Perhaps he did dream? Perhaps he dreamed us all?
Now Oona crossed to the far wall and pushed back a tapestry hanging to reveal another door.
'Where does this lead?' I asked.
'It depends.' She was smiling a little grimly.
'Upon what?'
'On whether Law or Chaos has control of certain realms.'
'And how do you know?'
'You find out, ' she said, 'by going through.'
Elric was impatient. 'Then let's go through, ' he said. 'I've a mind to confront Cousin Gaynor on a number of issues.' His hand was on the hilt of Ravenbrand. I admired his wild courage. We might have the same blood and some of the same dilemmas, but we were temperamentally very different. He sought oblivion in action, while I sought it in philosophy. I was reluctant to take decisions, whereas for Elric decisions were everything. He took them, as he took risks, habitually.
If he'd lived a prosaic life, with prosaic considerations, then prosaic things would chiefly have happened to him. But he was in no way prosaic, this wolfish whiteface, who relied on sorcery for his very sustenance.
Would I have been like him in his circumstances? I doubted it. But I had not known a childhood of sorcerous schooling and overbearing tradition. I had not, as a youth, stared into the most profound horror, and learned the skills of the dragonmasters, learned how magically I could manipulate the world. I knew everything about his past, of course, for his memories remained my memories, while he recalled nothing at all of me. In some ways I envied him his lack of consciousness.
With an air of impatience, Elric flung himself through the door and I followed. Oona closed the door behind us.
The three of us stood in a pleasant sunken garden. The kind of place one might seek rest and contemplation
