The Revenge of the Rose

  He felt, in short, that he had found a sister. And he knew that she, too, felt something of the same kinship, though he were Melnibonéan and she were not. And he wondered at all of this, for he had experienced kinship of a thoroughly different kind with Gaynor—yet kinship, nonetheless.

  When the Rose had retired, saying she had not slept for some thirty-six hours, Wheldrake was full of enthusiasm for her. “She’s as womanly a woman, sir, as I’ve ever seen. What a magnificent woman. A Juno in the flesh! A Diana!”

  “I know nothing of your local divinities,” said Elric gently, but he agreed with Wheldrake that they had met an exceptional individual that day. He had begun to speculate on this peculiar linking of fathers and sons, quasi-brothers and quasi-sisters. He wondered if he did not sense the presence of the Balance in this—or perhaps, more likely, the influence of the Lords of Chaos or of Law, for it had become obvious of late that the Dukes of Entropy and the Princes of Constancy were about to engage in a conflict of more than ordinary ferocity. Which went further to explaining the urgency that was in the air—the urgency his father had attempted to express, though dead and without his soul. Was there, in this slow-woven pattern that seemed to form about him, some reflection of a greater, cosmic configuration? And, for a second, he had a glimmering of the vastness of the multiverse, its complexity and variousness, its realities and its still-to-be-realized dreams; possibilities without end—wonders and horrors, beauty and ugliness—limitless and indefinable, full of the ultimate in everything.

  And when the grey-haired man came back, a little better dressed, a little neater in his toilet, Elric asked him why they did not fear direct attack from the so-called Gypsy Nation.

  “Oh, they have their own rules about such things, I understand. There is a status quo, you know. Not that it makes your circumstances any more fortunate …”

  “You parley with them?”

  “In a sense, sir. We have treaties and so forth. It is not Agnesh-Val we fear for, but those who would come to trade with us …” And again he made apologetic pantomime. “The gypsies have their ways, you know. Strange to us, and I would not serve them directly, I think, but we must see the positive as well as the negative side of their power.”

  “And they have their freedom, I suppose,” said Wheldrake. “It is the great theme of The Romany Rye.”

  “Perhaps, sir.” But their host seemed a trifle doubtful. “I am not aware of what you speak—a play?”

  “An account, sir, of the joys of the open road.”

  “Ah, then it would be of gypsy origin. We do not buy their books, I fear. Now, gentlemen, I do not know if you would take advantage of what we offer distressed travelers by way of credit and cost-price equipment. If you have no money, we will take kind. Perhaps to be sure one of those books, if you like, Master Wheldrake, for a horse.”

  “A book for a horse, sir! Well, sir!”

  “Two horses? I regret I have no notion of the market value. Book-reading is not a great habit among us. Perhaps we should feel ashamed, but we prefer the passive pleasures of the evening arena.”

  “As well as the horses, perhaps a few days’ provisions?” suggested Elric.

  “If that seems fair to you, sir.”

  “My books,” pronounced Wheldrake through gritted teeth, his nose seeming more pointed than ever, “are my—my self, sir. They are my identity. I am their protector. Besides, though through the oddity of some telepathy we all enjoy, we can understand language, we cannot read it. Did you know that, sir? The ability does not extend to that. Logical, in one sense, I suppose. No, sir, I will not part with a page!”

  But when Elric had pointed out that Wheldrake had already explained that one of the volumes was in a language even he did not know and suggested that their lives might depend upon acquiring horses and throwing in with the Rose, who already had her horse, Wheldrake at last consented to part with the Omar Khayyam he had hoped one day to read.

  So Elric, Wheldrake and the Rose all three rode back down the white road beside the river, back to where they had joined the trail on the previous day, but now they remained on the path, letting it carry them slowly and sinuously southward, following the lazy flow of the river. And Wheldrake sang his Song of ’Rabia to an entranced Rose, while Elric rode some distance ahead, wondering if he had entered a dream and fearing he would never find his father’s soul.

  They had reached a part of the river road Elric did not remember passing over and he was remarking to himself that this had been close to where the dragon had headed due south, away from the water’s winding course, when his sensitive ears caught a distant noise he could not identify. He mentioned it to the others but neither could hear it. Only after another half-hour had passed did the Rose cup her hand to her ear and frown. “A kind of rushing. A sort of roar.”

  “I hear it now,” said Wheldrake, rather obviously piqued that he, the poet, should be the least well-tuned. “I did not know you meant that rushing, roaring kind of noise. I had understood it to be a feature of the water.” And then he had the grace to blush, shrug and take an interest in something at the end of his beaklike nose.

  It was another two hours before they saw that the water was now gushing and leaping with enormous force, through rocks which even the most skilled navigator could not have negotiated, and sending up such a whistling and shouting and yelling it might have been a live thing, voicing its furious discontent. The roadway was slippery with spray and they could scarcely make themselves heard above the noise, could scarcely see more than a few paces in front of them, could smell only the angry water. And then the road had dropped away from the river and entered a hollow which made the noise suddenly distant.

  The rocks around them still ran with water sprayed from above, but the near-silence was almost physically welcome to them and they breathed deep sighs of pleasure. Then Wheldrake rode a little ahead and came back to report that the road curved off, along what appeared to be a cliff. Perhaps they had reached the ocean.

  They had left the hollow and were on the open road again where coarse grass stretched to an horizon which still roared, still sent up clouds of spray, like a silver wall. Now the road led them to the edge of a cliff and a chasm so deep the bottom was lost in blackness. It was into this abyss that water poured with such relentless celebration and when Elric looked up he gasped. Only at that moment had he seen the causeway overhead—a causeway that curved from the eastern cliff of a great bay to the western cliff—the same causeway, he was sure, that he had seen earlier. Yet this could not be made of beaten mud. The mighty curving span was woven of boughs and bones and strands of metal supporting a surface that seemed to be made of thousands of animal hides fixed one on top of another by layers of foul-smelling bone-glue—utterly primitive in one way, thought Elric, but otherwise a sturdy and sophisticated piece of engineering. His own people had once possessed similar ingenuity, before magic began to absorb them. He was admiring the extraordinary structure as they rode beside it, when Wheldrake spoke up.

  “It’s no wonder, friend Elric, nobody chooses to consider the river route below what is, I’m sure, the thing they call the Divide.”

  And Elric was forced to smile at this irony. “Does that strange causeway lead, do you think, to the Gypsy Nation?”

  “Leads to death, disorder and dismay; leads to the craven Earl of Cray,” intoned Wheldrake, the association sparking, as it did so often, snatches of self-quotation. “Now Ulric takes the Urgent Brand and hand in hand they trembling stand, to bring the justice of the day, the terrible justice of the day, to evil Gwandyth, Earl of Cray.”

  Even the admiring Rose did not applaud, nor think his verse appropriate to this somewhat astonishing moment, with the roaring river to one side, the cliffs and the chasm to another; above that a great causeway of primitive construction stretching for more than a mile from cliff to cliff, high over the water’s spray—and some distance off the wide waters of a lake, blue-green and dreamy in the sun. Elric yearned for the peace it offered. Y
et he guessed the peace might also be illusory.

  “Look, gentlemen,” says the Rose, letting her horse break into a bit of a canter, “there’s a settlement ahead. Can it be an inn, by any happy chance?”

  “It would seem an appropriate place for one, madam. They have a similar establishment at Land’s End, in my last situation …” says Wheldrake, cheering.

  The sky was overclouded now, dark and brooding, and the sun shone only upon the far-off lake, while from the chasm beside them came unpleasant booming noises, sounds like wailing human voices, savage and greedy. And all three joked nervously about this change in the landscape’s mood and said how much they missed the easy boredom of the river and the wheat and would gladly return to it.

  The unpainted, ramshackle collection of buildings—a two-storey house with crooked gables surrounded by about a dozen half-ruined outhouses—did, indeed, sport a sign—a crow’s carcass nailed to a board. Presumably the indecipherable lettering gave a name to the place.

  “ ‘The Putrefied Crow’ is good enough for me,” says Wheldrake, seemingly in more need of this hostelry than the other two. “A place for pirate meetings and sinister executions. What think you?”

  “I’m bound to agree.” The Rose nods her pale red curls. “I would not choose to visit it, if there were any choice at all, but you’ll note there’s none. Let’s see, at least, what information we can gain.”

  In the shadow of that causeway, on the edge of that abyss, the three unlikely companions gave their horses somewhat reluctantly up to an ostler of dirty, though genial, appearance, and stepped inside “the Putrefied Crow,” to look with surprise upon the six burly men and women who were already enjoying such hospitality as the place offered.

  “Greetings to you, gentlemen. My lady.” One of them doffed a hat so trimmed in feathers, ribbons, jewels and other finery its outline was completely lost. All these folk were festooned in lace, velvet, satin, in the most vivid array, with caps and hats and helmets of every fanciful style, their dark curls oiled to mingle with the blue-black beards of the men or fall upon the olive shoulders of the women. All were armed to the teeth and clearly ready to address any argument with steel. “Have you traveled far?”

  “Far enough for a day,” said Elric, stripping off his gloves and cloak and taking them up to the fire. “And you, my friends. Do you come far?”

  “Why,” says one of the women, “we are the Companions of the Endless Way. We are travelers, always. Pledged to it. We follow the road. We are the free auxiliaries of the Gypsy Nation. Pure-bred Romans of the Southern Desert, with ancestors who traveled the world before there were nations of any sort!”

  “Then I’m delighted to meet you, madam!” Wheldrake shook his hat into the fire, causing it to hiss and spit. “For it’s the Gypsy Nation we seek.”

  “The Gypsy Nation requires no seeking,” said the tallest man, in red and white velvet. “The gypsies will always come to you. All you must do is wait. Put a sign upon your door and wait. The season is near-ended. Soon begin the seasons of our passing. Then you shall see the crossing of the Treaty Bridge, by which we keep to our old trail, though the land has long since fallen away.”

  “The bridge is yours? And the road?” Wheldrake was puzzled. “Can gypsies own such things and still be gypsies?”

  “I smell walkerspew!” One of the women rose, a threatening fist upon her dagger’s hilt. “I smell the droppings of a professor-bird. There’s nonsense in the air and the place for nonsense isn’t here.”

  It was Elric who broke that specific tension, by moving easily between the two. “We are come to parley and perhaps to trade,” he said, for he could think of no other excuse they might accept.

  “Trade?” This caused a general grinning and muttering amongst the gypsies. “Well, gentlemen, everyone’s welcome in the Gypsy Nation. Everyone who has the taste for wandering.”

  “You’ll take us there?”

  Again they seemed to find this amusing and Elric guessed few residents of this plane volunteered to travel with the gypsies.

  It was clear to Elric that the Rose was deeply suspicious of this cutthroat half-dozen and not at all sure she wished to go with them, yet again she was determined to find the three sisters and would risk any danger to follow them.

  “There are friends of ours gone ahead,” said Wheldrake, ever the quickest wit in such situations. “Three young ladies, all very alike? Would you have made their acquaintance?”

  “We are Romans of the Southern Desert and do not as a rule make small-talk with the diddicoyim.”

  “Ha!” exclaims Wheldrake. “Gypsy snobs! The multiverse reveals nothing but repetitions! And we continue to be surprised by them …”

  “This is no time for social observation, Master Wheldrake,” says the Rose severely.

  “Madam, it is always time for that. Or what are we else, but beasts?” He’s offended. He winks at the tall gypsy and raises his tiny voice in song. “I’d rather go with the Gypsy Wild; And bear a Gypsy’s nut-brown child!” He hums the air. “Are you familiar with the ballad, good friends?”

  And he charms them enough to make them ease their bodies more comfortably upon their benches and tell patronizing jokes about a variety of non-gypsy peoples, including, of course, Wheldrake’s own, while Elric’s strange appearance soon gets him nicknamed “the Ermine,” which he accepts with the equanimity with which he accepts all other names presented by those who find him unnatural and disturbing. He bides his time with a patience that has become almost physical, as if it is a shell he can strap around himself, to make himself wait. He knows he has but to draw Stormbringer for a minute and six gypsies would lie, drained of life and soul, upon the stained boards of the inn; but also, perhaps that the Rose would die, or Wheldrake, for Stormbringer is not always satisfied merely with the lives of enemies. And because he is an adept, and no other person here, at the roaring edge of the world, has any inkling of his power, he smiles a little to himself. And if the gypsies take it for a placatory grin and tell him he’s thin enough to wipe out a whole warren-full of rabbits, then he cares not. He is Elric of Melniboné, prince of ruins, last of his line, and he seeks the receptacle of his dead father’s soul. He is a Melnibonéan and he draws upon this atavistic pride for all the strength it can give him, remembering the almost sensuous joy that came with the assumption of his superiority over all other creatures, natural and supernatural, and it armours him, though it brings back, too sharply, the pain in memory.

  Meanwhile Wheldrake is teaching four of the gypsies a song with a noisy and vulgar chorus. The Rose engages the landlord in a discussion of the menu. He offers them rabbit couscous. It is all he has. She accepts it on their behalf, they eat as much of the food as they can bear, then retire to a mephitic loft where they sleep as best they can while a variety of bugs and small vermin search across their bodies for some worthwhile morsel, and find little. Elric’s blood is never lusted after by insects.

  Next morning, before the others wake, Elric creeps down to the kitchen and finds the water-tub, crumbling a little dragon’s venom into a tankard, and muffling his own shrieks as the stuff punishes each corpuscle, each cell and atom of his being, and then his strength and arrogance return. He can almost feel the wings beating on his body, bearing him up into the skies where his dragon brothers wait for him. A dragon-song comes to his lips but he stifles that, too. He wishes to learn, not to draw attention to himself. It is the only way he can discover the whereabouts of his father’s soul.

  The other two find their traveling companion in jovial humour when they come down, already grinning at a joke concerning a famished ferret and a rabbit—the gypsies have a wealth of such bucolic reference, a constant source of amusement to them.

  Elric’s attempts at similar banter leave them puzzled, but when Wheldrake joins in with a string of stories concerning sheep and jackboots, the ice is thoroughly broken. By the time they ride towards the west cliff and the causeway, the gypsies have decided they are acceptable enough co
mpanions and assure them that they will be more than welcome in the Gypsy Nation.

  “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,” warbles Wheldrake, still with his mug of breakfast porter in his hand as he leans upon his saddle and admires the grandeur of it all. “To tell you the truth of the matter, Prince Elric, I was growing a little bored with Putney. Though there was some talk of moving to Barnes.”

  “They are unsavoury places, then?” says Elric, happy to make ordinary conversation as they ride. “Full of sour magic and so forth?”

  “Worse,” says Wheldrake, “they are South of the River. I believe now I was writing too much. There is little else to do in Putney. Crisis is the true source of creativity, I think. And one thing, sir, that Putney promises is that you shall be free from Crisis.”

  Listening politely, as one does when a friend discusses the more abstruse or sticky points of their particular creed, Elric let the poet’s words act as a lullaby to his still-tortured senses. It was clear that the venom’s effect did not lessen with increasing use. But now, he knew, if their gypsy guides proved treacherous he would be able to kill them without much effort. He was a little contemptuous of local opinion. These ruffians might have terrorized the farmers of these parts, but they were clearly no match for trained fighters. And he knew he could rely on the Rose in any engagement, though Wheldrake would be next to useless. There was an air of awkwardness about him which made it clear that his use of a sword was more likely to confuse than threaten any opponent.

  From time to time he shared glances with his friends, but it was clear neither had any idea of an alternative. Since the ones they sought had searched for the Gypsy Nation there could be no reason for not at least discovering what exactly the Gypsy Nation was.