The Skrayling Tree toa-2

by Michael John Moorcock

  harness myself. Now I had no such fine ambition. I was fighting for my life and soul.

  The black energy pouring into me sharpened my senses. I was hideously alive. I was completely alert. I parried every tentacle's attempt to seize me. I laughed wildly. I drove again and again at the head while all around me the thing's whirlwind body shrieked and screamed and thrashed, threatening to destroy the mountains.

  Whatever part of me was myself and whatever was Elric of Melnibone, I clung to those identities, and it seemed a thousand other identities were drawn to them. Drawn by the power of the black sword. Could good come out of evil, as evil often came from good? This was no paradox, but a fact of the human condition. I struck two-handed at something which might have been the thing's jugular and was rewarded. The tornado suddenly collapsed into a wide, filthy cloud, and I was covered with what I supposed was its inner core, its blood. A green sticky mess which hampered my every move, for all my extraordinary strength, and seemed to be hardening on my flesh.

  I had struck the thing a crucial blow, but now I was helpless, whirling around and around and suddenly flung, as my wife had been flung, out onto the Silver Path. I landed winded, but I still clung to the sword and was able to stumble to my feet just in time to see a monstrous white buffalo charging down on me.

  My instinct and my sword's natural bloodlust worked together. I brought the great black battle blade up like a skewer and gored the massive bison in the chest. A second blow and the buffalo went down. A third and her blood was gouting onto the ice.

  I turned in triumph, expecting to receive the congratulations of those I had saved.

  The face that met mine was that of a second newcomer. It was as bone-white as my own with eyes just as crimson. He could easily have been my son, for I guessed him to be no older than sixteen. There was an expression of disbelieving horror on his face. What was wrong? He was the boy I had seen on the island, of

  course. Who was he? Neither my son, nor my brother. Yet that grim face had a distinct likeness to the rest of the family.

  "So," I said, "the enemy is vanquished, gentlemen. Is there more work to do?" I was met with silence. "Have you no stomach for the adventure?" I was still strutting with egocentric euphoria which came with so much bloodletting.

  Then I realized that these men were looking at me with considerable gravity, as if I had committed some error of taste or perhaps even a crime.

  Ayanawatta stepped forward. He reached out and wrenched the sword from my hand, flinging it to the path. Then he turned me around and showed me what lay behind me. "She was to lead us across the ice. Only White Buffalo Woman can walk the Shining Path. Now she is dead."

  It was Oona. Her white buffalo robe was stained with blood. She had three sword wounds. The wounds were exactly where I had struck the white buffalo.

  Slowly the horror of what I had done infused me. I picked up the sword and flung it far out across the ice.

  In my battle madness, as she had come to save me, I had killed my own wife!

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Shining Path

  Golden was the city ere Rome were mud,

  Philosophies she dream a ere Greece was form a,

  Senses she explor'd before the rise of Man;

  Long was her glory before decline began.

  ALBERT AUSTIN, 'Ancient, In Ancient Days Atlantis Dream'd"

  Disbelievingly I stumbled towards the frail corpse. Had I really killed my wife? I prayed that this was the illusion and not the bizarre beast I had cut down with my sword.

  The wind had fled in defeat and left behind it a deep, triumphant silence. I heard my own footfalls on the silvery path, smelled the sweet salt of fresh blood as I knelt and reached towards the warm, familiar face.

  Then I was knocked sprawling. The albino youth I had first seen on the island stooped and swiftly wrapped my wife in the buffalo robe. Without hesitation he began to run towards the great pyramid city. As he ran, the Silver Path extended before him and remained behind him where he passed. I raised myself to follow him, but I was exhausted. I had no sword. All my stolen energy was draining from me.

  I stumbled and fell on the unstable causeway. My hands sank into mercury. I tried to crawl. My cry filled worlds with sorrow.

  Then Lobkowitz was there, and with the Indian stood over me and helped me to my feet.

  "He seeks to save her," said Lobkowitz. "There is a chance. See? Even in death she has the power to make the path."

  "Why did you let me-?" I stopped myself. I had never been one to blame others for my own follies, but this was worse than anything I could possibly have imagined. There were terrible resonances within me as Elric's memories confronted mine and came together in common guilt. Only now did I remember who I really was. How had Elric managed to take me over so thoroughly? I looked about me, expecting him to appear as he had first appeared to me in the concentration camp. But our relationship was by now far more profound.

  Lobkowitz signed to the Indian. "Ayanawatta, sir. If you would take his other arm ..."

  Ayanawatta responded immediately, and I was hauled bodily up as the two men mounted the massive pachyderm who waited impatiently for us.

  Now I could see the reasons for their urgency.

  The Vikings were returning. Already they were running towards the pathway, which would be as useful to them as it would be to us. They had reassembled around their leader, who, in his mirror helm, still looked for all the world like my defeated enemy, Gaynor the Damned. I heard their voices echoing across the ice. Were they gaining on us?

  I struggled to find my sword, but the two men gripped me tightly, and I was too weary to fight them.

  "Do not fear Gunnar and company," said Prince Lobkowitz. "We will reach the safety of the city before they catch up with us."

  "Once we are through the gates, he cannot harm us," the other man agreed.

  I was relieved to see that at least the youth was safe. His pace dropped to a walk as he passed beneath the gateway and disappeared within. I looked back again. Gunnar-or Gaynor-was still pursuing us. There was something odd about the perspective. They seemed either too far away or too small in relation to the gigantic mammoth. Perhaps all this was an illusion or another dream? Should I trust my own eyes? Could I trust any of my

  senses? I felt as if I had swelled enormously in size and lost substance at the same time. My skin felt like a balloon about to burst. My head was fuzzy with a kind of fever. All perspective around me seemed to be warping and shifting. The mammoth became smaller, then larger. I felt sick. My eyes ached, and I could hold my head up no longer.

  As the pair dragged me towards the city I lost my senses entirely. By the time I recovered we were behind the tall walls of the Kakatanawa city, and an unexpected security filled me. The youth with my wife's corpse was nowhere to be seen. Indeed, to my astonishment, the great courtyard around the gigantic city was completely deserted. And yet I had noted complex activity earlier as I approached the ziggurat. It seemed that everything had become an inchoate illusion, like a dream without rational meaning. How could such a vast city now give the impression of being empty?

  Even the mammoth appeared surprised, lifting her huge trunk, her tusks actually making whistling noises in the air as she raised her head, and trumpeting out a greeting which received no response, save from the echoes among the empty tiers and the distant peaks.

  Where were the Kakatanawa, the giant Indians who had brought me to the Chasm of Nihrain and ultimately to this world? I tried to free myself from the friendly hands still holding me. I needed to find someone who would give me the answers. I think I was babbling. At some point thereafter I fell into a deep sleep. But it was not a comforting sleep. My dreams were as disturbed as my life had become, and as mysterious.

  In those dreams I saw a thousand incarnations of Oona, of the woman I loved, and in those same dreams I killed her a thousand times in a thousand different ways. I knew a thousand different kinds of remorse, of unbearable grief. But out of a
ll this spiritual agony I seemed to find a tiny thread of hope. I saw it as a thin, grey wire which led from tragedy towards joyous resolution, where all fear was driven away, all terror quietened, all gentle dreams made real. And I wondered if Kakatanawa were just another

  name for Tanelorn, if here I might rest and have my love and my life restored.

  "This is not Tanelorn." I awoke refreshed. The black giant Sepiriz was staring down at me. He held a goblet in his hand which he offered me. Yellow wine. I drank and felt better still. But then memory came back, and I sprang off the dais on which I had been lying. I looked around for my sword. Apart from the platform on which I had slept, the room was entirely empty. I ran into the next room, out of a door, into a corridor. All empty. No furniture. No occupants.

  "Is this Kakatanawa?"

  "It is the city of that people, yes."

  "Have they fled? I saw them ..."

  "You saw what travelers have seen for centuries now. You saw a memory of the city as she was in her prime. Now she dies, and her people are reduced to those few you have already met."

  "And where are they?"

  "Returned to their positions."

  "My wife?"

  "She is not dead."

  "Alive? Where?"

  Sepiriz tried to comfort me. He offered me more of the wine. "I told you that she was not dead. I did not say she was alive. The tree alone no longer has that power. The bowl alone no longer has that power. The disk itself alone has no power. The staff alone no longer has the power. The blade alone no longer has that power. The stone alone no longer has that power. The pivot is gone. Only if the Balance is restored can she live. Meanwhile, there is some hope. Three by three, the unity."

  "Let me see her!"

  "No. It is too soon. There is more to do. And unless you play your prescribed role, you will never see her."

  I could only trust him, though his assurances had hidden aspects to them. He had promised me I would see Oona again, but he had not told me she might take a different form.

  "Do you understand, Count Ulric, that the Lady Oona saved

  your life?" asked Sepiriz gently. "While you fought Lord Shoashooan most bravely and weakened him considerably, it was the dreamthief's daughter who dealt him the final, dissipating blow, which sent his elements back to the world's twelve corners."

  "She shot those arrows, I remember ..."

  "And then, after you precipitously attacked the demon duke, thinking you saved her, she aided you again. She at last took the shape of the White Buffalo whose destiny was to make our final road across the ice. She had the greatest tradition of resisting Lord Shoashooan. Do you understand? She became the White Buffalo. The Buffalo is the trail-maker. She can lead the way to new realms. In this realm, she is the only force the wind elementals fear, for she carries the spirit of all the spirits."

  "There are more elementals?"

  "They combined in Lord Shoashooan, who was ever a powerful lord with many alliances among the air elementals. But now he has taken them in thrall. Although the twelve spirits of the wind are conquered by his powers, they can still re-form. All the winds serve him in this realm. It is why he succeeds so well. He commands those elementals who were once the friends of your people."

  "Friends no longer?"

  "Not while that mad archetype enslaves them. You must know that the elementals serve neither Law nor Chaos, that they have only loyalty to themselves and their friends. Only inadvertently do they serve the Balance. And now, against their will, they serve Lord Shoashooan."

  "What is his power over them?"

  "He it was who stole the Chaos Shield which should have brought your wife to this place. Lord Shoashooan waylaid her and took the shield. That was all he needed to focus his strength and conquer the winds. Had it not been for Ayanawatta's medicine, she would not have been with us at all! His magic flute has been our greatest friend in this."

  "Lord Sepiriz, I undertook to serve your cause because you

  promised me the return of my wife. You did not tell me I would kill her."

  "I was not sure that you would, this time."

  "This time?"

  "My dear Count Ulric." Prince Lobkowitz had entered the room. "You seem much recovered and ready to continue with this business!"

  "Only if I am told more. Do I understand you rightly, Lord Sepiriz? You knew that I would kill my wife?"

  The black giant's expression betrayed him, but I saw the sadness that was there also. Any blame I felt towards him dissipated. I sighed. I tried to remember some words I had heard. Was it from Lobkowitz, long ago? We are all echoes of some larger reality, yet every action we take ultimately decides the nature of truth itself.

  "Nothing we do is unique. Nothing we do is without meaning or consequence." Lobkowitz's soft, cultured Austrian accent cut into Sepiriz's silence. The black giant seemed relieved, even grateful. He could not answer my challenge and feared to answer my question.

  The ensuing silence was broken by a loud noise from outside. I walked past the dais on which I had been sleeping. I was almost naked, but the room was pleasantly warm. I went to the window. There was a courtyard outside, but we were many stories above it. Old vines, thicker than my legs, climbed up the worn, glittering stonework. Autumn flowers, huge dahlias, vast hydrangeas, roses the span of my shoulders, grew among them, and it was only now I understood how ancient the place must truly be. Now it was a better home to nature than to man. Large, spreading trees grew in the courtyard, and tall, wild grass. Some distance below on an' other terrace I made out an entire orchard. Elsewhere were fields gone to seed, cattle pens, storehouses. There had been no one here for centuries. I remembered the tales told of the Turks cap-turing Byzantium. They had believed they brought down an em-pire, but instead found a shell, with sheep grazing among the ruins of collapsed palaces. Was this the American Byzantium?

  In the courtyard the great black mammoth, Bes, was being

  washed down by the youth, White Crow, and his older companion, Ayanawatta. The two men seemed good friends, and both were in the peak of physical fitness, though White Crow could not have been more than seventeen. His features, of course, were those of an albino. But it was not my family he resembled. It was someone else. Someone I knew well. My urge was to call to him, to ask after Oona, but Sepiriz had already assured me she was no longer dead. I forced myself to accept his leadership. He did not simply know the future-he understood all the futures which might proliferate if any of us strayed too far from the narrative which, like a complicated spell involving dozens of people in dozens of different actions, must be strictly adhered to if we wished to achieve our desire. A game of life or death whose rules you had to guess.

  Looking up, the youth saw me. He became grave. He made a sign which I took to be one of comradeship and reassurance. The lad had charm, as had the aristocratic warrior at his side. Ayanawatta now offered me a faint, respectful bow.

  Who were these aristocrats of the prairie? I had seen nothing like them in any of the wonderful historic documents I had studied about the early history of northern America. I did, however, recognize them as men of substance. Warriors and superbly fit, they were expensively dressed. The quality of workmanship in their beaded clothing, weaponry and ornaments was exquisite. Both men were clearly prominent among their own people. Their oiled and shaven heads; their scalp locks their only body hair, hanging just so at an angle to the glittering eagle feathers; the complicated tattoos and piercings of the older man; the workmanship of their buckskins and beading-all indicated unostentatious power. I wondered if, like the Kakatanawa, they too were the last of their tribes.

  Again I was struck by the sense that, from within, the city seemed totally deserted. I looked back at tier upon tier fading into the clouds which hid the city's upper galleries.

  Turning I could see beyond the great walls to the lake of ice and the ragged peaks of the mountains beyond. The whole world

  seemed abandoned of life. What had Sepiriz said about the inhabitant
s of this city? It must have housed millions of them.

  I asked Lobkowitz about this phenomenon. He seemed unwilling to answer, exchanging looks with Lord Sepiriz, who shrugged. "I do not think it unsafe, any longer," he said. "Here we have no control of events at all. Whatever we say, the consequences will not change. It is only our actions which will bring change now, and I fear ..." He dropped his great chin to his chest and closed his brooding eyes.

  I turned from the window. "Where are the Kakatanawa, the people of this city?"

  "You have met the only survivors. Do you know the other name for this city-the Kakatanawa name? I see you do not. It is Ikenipwanawa, which roughly means the Mountain of the Tree. Do you know of it? Just the tree itself, perhaps? So many mythologies speak of it."

  "I do not know of it, sir. It is mainly my wife who concerns me now. You suggest she might live. Can time be reversed?"

  "Oh, easily, but it would do you no good. The action has already taken place. And will take place again. Your memory cannot be changed so readily!"

  "What has changed within these walls?" I asked him. "Nothing. At least, not in many hundreds of years. Perhaps thousands. What you saw from the ice was an illusion of an inhabited city. It is one which has been maintained by those who guard the source of life itself. The reflective walls of the city serve more than one purpose."

  "Has no one ever come here and discovered the truth?" "How could they? Until recently the lake was constantly boil' ing with viscous rock, the very life stuff of the planet. Nothing could cross it, and nothing cared to. But since then cold Law has worked its grim sorcery and made the lake as you see it now. This is what Klosterheim and his friends have been doing. In response the pathway was conjured by Ayanawatta and White Buffalo, but of course, it is now being used by our enemies. We make the paths, but we cannot control who uses them after us. It will not be long,