sense of a word he said.
'Quickly.' He drew the bowstring back a little farther.
'Which one will get the sword, which one will stay here as hostage for it?'
Oona suddenly clutched her head and staggered. Gaynor turned the bow on her.
At Oona's feet, the shining black body quivered. Huge muscles flexed. A tail lashed. Vast whiskers twitched. Jade eyes gleamed. A great, black nose made a single, searching snort.
Oona was disbelieving, but Gaynor was cursing as the saber-tooth climbed slowly to its feet, its glaring eyes casting around for an enemy, its huge ivory tusks glinting in the riverlight. And then, standing shoulder to shoulder with the gigantic cat, I saw another human figure.
My doppelganger.
Had he brought the cat back to life? Gaynor barely disguised his own terror. Oona had the common sense to drag us behind the shelter of a nearby stalagmite so we could watch from cover.
The other albino seemed to be talking to Gaynor. He gestured. Suddenly both he and the cat vanished. Gaynor unnocked the arrow, stuck it in his belt and ran into the darkness.
I was completely mystified by the exchange. I tried to ask Oona if she understood any better, but she was grim, hurrying back to the interior of the city. 'We must warn them of what's happening. This will take all their resources.'
'What does it mean? Who is that bizarre version of myself?'
'Fairer to say that you are a version of him,' she said. 'He's called Elric of Melnibone and he carries the greatest burden of us all.'
'And he's from another-what-? One of these alternatives to our own reality?'
'Some call them 'branches' or 'branes.' Or 'the realms,' or 'the scales,' but they are all versions of our universe.' She was still intent on negotiating the winding lanes of Mu Ooria, heading deeper and deeper into the city.
'And like you, this doppelganger of mine travels between these worlds? And he knows you?'
'Only in his dreams,' she said.
We were both out of breath. I had no idea where she was leading us, but she would not rest. While the immediate danger was in the forefront of my mind, I still seethed with a thousand unanswered questions. Questions so numinous I could not begin to frame them in words.
She had led us through a high doorway, down a long corridor and up a short winding ramp until we stood in a low-ceilinged hall full of long benches of carved stone arranged around a large, glassy circular area.
I was reminded of monks' communal quarters. The hall was lit by the tall, watery glasses. An air of tranquillity hung about the place. The shadows were soft. The circular area at the center stirred occasionally, its shades shifting from jet black to dark grey.
Oona led me behind the main rank of benches. As she did so, the first Off-Moo began to arrive, their long faces grave, their odd eyes questioning. I hadn't seen the young woman give any signal. Our presence in the room must have been enough to bring the Off-Moo elders there immediately. Some had the air of people interrupted in important tasks. Clearly they believed the matter serious. How had she summoned them? Was she in telepathic communication with their group intelligence? Her face had a beautiful, open quality when she communicated with them. The gracious unhumanity of these creatures made me feel I was in the company of angels.
With murmured acknowledgment to us, they assembled around the obsidian circle and listened gravely as Oona told them what she had seen and what we had learned.
'Could be an army already marches against Mu Ooria.' She spoke a little hesitantly.
Again, she was acknowledged. But the Off-Moo's concentration had begun to focus on the reflective, glossy circle of rock around which they had gathered. I wondered what they saw there, if this were their version of a crystal ball? Some means of focusing their group consciousness?
Then I fell back, dazzled, throwing up my hands to protect my eyes. I thought the Off-Moo would be equally affected, but they calmly held their ground. Still guarding my eyes, I found Oona. She held her own hands before her face. 'What's happening?' I asked.
I think they have a way of bending light,' was all she could tell me. Then the worst of the white-gold glare had gone and my eyes had become accustomed to what remained. I could see the source of the radiance. At the center the circle, it was three-dimensional and thoroughly real-an ordinary block of stone suspended in space and giving off a faint, sweet-sounding vibration which brought strange memories, recollected moments of purity. When thought, deed and idea were all in harmony. I half expected Sir Parsifal, the pure knight, to appear kneeling before it. For the stone had changed before my eyes.
I was now looking in absolute awe at what I had always assumed to be nothing more than a beautiful legend. A great, golden bowl, set with crystal and precious jewels and brimming with thick, crimson wine which poured down the sides to be absorbed by the light which darkened to deep gold and showed the whole Off-Moo conference chamber in dramatic, organic contrast, alive with dark, swirling color. My senses were barely capable of registering so much at once. I felt oddly weak and found myself, for no clear reason, longing to be united with my Raven Sword. I felt that if only I could grasp the hilt, I would be able to draw strength from the black blade. But the sword was still in my chambers and I could not bear to leave the presence of that extraordinary vessel. The bowl, this Grail, grew larger. Everywhere the tall, conical hoods of the Off-Moo waved and nodded, as if this sight was unusual, even to them. Angular shadows were softened by the rounded rock over which they fell.
The Off-Moo's voices began a single low note which became a chant, a word, a mantra threatening to set the entire world vibrating. Light and dark were shaken together and mingled. The bowl then re-formed, rolling into itself until it was a golden, jeweled staff, rotating slowly in the air above the obsidian disk.
The Off-Moo chant changed and the staff expanded, grew. Just for an instant it became the shape of a small child with a round, beatific face. Then the staff returned and slowly changed shape again until it was a single arrow. The sign of Law. Then it became a sheaf of arrows, fanning out and upwards above the glassy circle. Eight golden, jeweled arrows, spinning slowly overhead. Chaos.
The Off-Moo were concentrating on the field of glistening obsidian. Very quickly a three-dimensional picture began to form there. Riders seemed to be emerging from the rock and galloping towards us. The illusion was not unlike a very realistic cinema experience. But it was also a terrifying reality. Gaynor, in his bizarre armor, rode a great white stallion whose blind eyes stared upwards, yet whose footing was unconsciously sure. Behind him, also on pale, blind horses, still in their black and silver uniforms, came the majority of his SS followers, Klosterheim at their head. All were cloaked and armed with miscellaneous antique weaponry.
Behind these was as bizarre a collection of monsters and grotesques as ever came shuffling and hopping out of a picture by Bosch. Perhaps, after all, the painter had been drawing from experience rather than imagination? They were long-limbed, longheaded, with huge myopic eyes. They had snuffling, exaggerated snouts, showing that they used scent more than sight. These loose-limbed travesties were much larger than the men who rode ahead of them, like toy soldiers modeled to two different scales. They were clearly savages, armed with maces and axes. Archers were in their ranks, and swordsmen. A mob rather than a disciplined army. But there were thousands of them,
'Troogs,' said Oona.
I could see why the Off-Moo had known they had little to fear from these denizens of the borderlands. The giants had neither the intelligence nor the ambition to attack Mu Ooria on their own accord.
One of the Off-Moo murmured something and Oona nodded. 'All the panthers have disappeared,' she told me. 'They no longer control the troogs. We don't know if the cats are dead, charmed or have simply vanished.'
'How could they vanish?'
'The workings of a powerful spell.'
'Spell?' I was thoroughly skeptical. 'Spell, Fraulein? Are we so desperate we rely on sorcery?'
She showed some impatience with me. 'Call it what you like, Count von Bek, but that is the best description. They sense a Summoning. A being far more powerful than the kind which usually walks these caverns. Perhaps a Lord of the Higher Planes. Which means that Gaynor has somehow brought the Lords of the Balance out of their own realm and has given his allegiance. If they are able to bring all their power with them, they will be almost impossible to defeat. But some need the medium of a human creature like Gaynor and his army.'
'Those troogs are huge.'
