The Skrayling Tree (30 page)

You can imagine the array of emotions I was experiencing. Every fear I had dismissed a few hours earlier threatened to become
reality. I was being drawn from a dream of happiness and achievement back to some parallel existence of despair and threatened
failure. But I sensed this was not a desperate fantasy of escape created by my tortured brain and body in a Nazi concentration
camp. In spite of all my terrors and anxieties, it was Oona I feared for most. I knew her well. I knew what her instincts
would tell her to do. I could only hope that common sense would prevail.

With extraordinary speed this bizarre raiding party neared the Old Woman, whose voice lifted in a strange, pensive wail. And
from somewhere another wind rose and shrieked as if in frustrated anger. At one point it seemed that it extended fingers of
ice, gripping my head
and pulling me clear of my captors. It was not trying to rescue me. I was certain that it meant me ill.

I was relieved to escape it when suddenly the canoe dipped downwards, and we were beneath the surface. Everywhere was swirling
water. I was not breathing, yet I was not drowning. Great eddies of emerald green and white-veined blue rose like smoke from
below. I felt something bump the bottom of the canoe. On impulse I sought the source of the collision, but it was already
too late.

Like an arrow, the canoe drove down through the agitated currents, down towards a flickering ruby light, tipped with orange
and yellow. I thought at first we had begun to ascend and I was looking at the sun, but the flames were too unstable. Down
here, deep at the core of the maelstrom, a great fire burned. What could this mean? We were heading for the very core of the
earth! Where else could fire burn in water? Could these gigantic Indians be messengers of the Off-Moo, that strange subterranean
people whom Gaynor had driven from their old cities? Were these their new, less-hospitable territories? The flames licked
through the water, and I was sure we would be consumed. Then the canoe twisted slightly in the current, and immediately we
were above an unfathomable abyss lit by dark blue-and-scarlet volcanic fires.

All sound fell behind us.

A great column of white flame stabbed upwards erratically from the depths and dissipated into roiling smoke. We drifted in
neither air nor water, descending slowly through the foaming fumes into the chasm itself.

My captors had not uttered a word. Now I struggled in the strips of leather which bound me and demanded they tell me what
they were doing and why. Could my words be heard? I was not sure. While they acknowledged me with some gravity, they did not
reply.

The blackness of the chasm grew more intense in contrast to the vivid tongues of fire, which licked out every few seconds
and illuminated my immediate surroundings before vanishing. Everywhere brooded a sense of massive stillness behind which was
frenetic activity. I felt as if something had been bottled up in this chasm, and I could not guess if it was a physical or
some crude supernatural force.

The glinting obsidian of the vast sides was veined with brilliant streams of fire. The mouths of caves, many of them clearly
man-made, often glowed scarlet, like the open maws of hungry animals. Sounds were loud, then quickly muffled and echoing.
My nostrils filled with the stink of sulphur. I choked on the thick air, almost drowning in it. The canoe continued to sink
between the mighty black walls. I could see no surface, no bottom. Only the red-and-indigo flames gave us light, and what
that light revealed was alien, ancient, unwholesome. I am not given to fanciful imaginings, especially at such times, but
I felt as if I was descending into the bowels of Hell!

After a very long time the canoe began to rock gently under me, and I realized with a shock that we were floating on a great,
slow-moving river. For a moment I wondered if it was the source of the river which both fed and lit the world of the Off-Moo.
But this was almost
the opposite of phosphorescent. This river seemed to
absorb
the light. I could now see that we drifted on water dark as blood which reflected the flashes of flame from above. By the
weird, intermittent light my captors paddled into the entrance of a wide old harbor, its bizarre architecture built on a huge
scale.

Every piece of stone was fluid and organic, but seemingly frozen at the moment of its greatest vitality. The sculptors had
found the natural lines of the rock and turned these forms into exquisite but chilling imagery. Great eyes glared from agonized
heads. Hands twisted into their own petrified flesh, as if trying to escape some frightful terror or seeking to tear their
own organs from their bodies. I had half an idea that the statues had once been living beings, but the thought was too terrible.
I forced the idea from my mind. Desperately my eyes darted everywhere, hoping to see some living creature among all this inanimate
horror, while at the same time fearing what I might be forced to confront. What kind of life chose to inhabit such a hellish
landscape? In spite of my situation, I began to speculate on the kind of minds which had found this place good and built their
city here.

I was soon rewarded. My abductors carried me bodily to the slippery quayside whose cobbles were made dangerous by disuse.
There was a musty smell of age in that rank air. A smell of resisted death. But death nonetheless. This place had passed its
time and refused to die. It spoke of an age and an intelligence which had lived long before the rise of my own kind. Might
it even be the natural enemy of my kind? Or perhaps just of
myself? A wild proliferation of half-memories swam just below my consciousness but refused to come to the surface.

I fought confusion. I knew I must keep my head as clear as possible. Nothing here offered me immediate harm. That strange
seventh sense I had developed since my encounters with Elric of Melniboné drew upon almost infinite memory. To say that I
knew the peculiar feeling of repeating an experience, which the French call déjà vu, would give some idea of what I felt if
multiplied many times over. I had somehow lived these moments many, many times before. It was impossible to rid myself of
a sense of significance as I was carried away from the quayside. I looked towards an avenue which ran between the statues.
I had heard a sound.

From out of the ranks of twisted sculpture there stepped a group of tall, graceful shadows. I at first mistook them for Off-Moo,
since the steamy atmosphere gave them that same etiolated appearance. Like my captors, they were very tall. My eyes hardly
reached the level of their chests. Unlike the Off-Moo, however, these people had refined, handsome human features and superb
physiques, reminding me of the Masai and other East African peoples. Their bodies were half-naked, their exposed flesh glinting
ebony, its depth emphasized by their silky yellow robes, not unlike those of Buddhist priests. These men, however, were armed.
They carried heavy quartz-tipped spears and oblong shields. Their heads were as closely shaved as my captors’, but bore no
decoration. They were warriors, perhaps? They moved towards the pale giants with gestures of congratulation.
Clearly they were compatriots. The newcomers stood and looked gravely down on me. Gently I was helped to my feet. I am a tall
man and not used to being overlooked. It was a strangely irritating feeling. My instinct was to take a step or two back, but
they were in the process of removing my bonds.

As I was freed, an even taller and more heavily muscled man stepped through the ranks. He carried a tangible charisma, an
air of complete authority, and it was evident that the other handsome warriors deferred to him. There was nothing sinister
about their leader. He had an air of peculiar gentleness as he reached forward and took my hand in his. The raven-black palm
and fingers were massive, engulfing mine. The gesture was evidently one of pleasure. He again congratulated his friends in
that wordless way I somehow understood. His strange eyes shone with triumph, and he turned to his companions as if to display
me as proof of some argument. These people were not mutes; they simply did not need sound to communicate. He was clearly pleased
to see me. I felt like a boy in his presence, and I knew immediately that he was not my enemy. I trusted him, if a little
warily. These were, after all, the people who had presumably built this dark city.

I was at a disadvantage. They all seemed to have some idea of my identity, but I still knew nothing of theirs.

“I am the Lord Sepiriz,” the black giant told me, almost apologetically. “My brothers and I are called the Nihrain, and this
is our city. Welcome. You might not forgive us this uncivilized way of bringing you here, but
I hope you will let me explain so that you will at least understand why we need you and why we had to claim you when the opportunity
presented itself to us. It was not you the Kakatanawa sought, but a lost friend. Their friend was freed, but they brought
you here with them in the hope you will elect to serve our cause.”

“It only disturbs me further to think you had not planned to kidnap me,” I said. “What possible purpose could you have in
such reckless action?” I told him that my first concern was for my wife. Had he no idea what trauma my abduction had created?

The black giant lowered his eyes in shame. “It is our business sometimes to cause pain,” he said. “For we are the servants
of Fate, and Fate is not always kind. She has a way of presenting her opportunities abruptly. It is up to us to take advantage
of them. Her service sometimes brings us disquiet as well as pride.”

“Fate?” I all but laughed in his face. “You serve an abstraction?”

This seemed to amuse and please him. “You will have little trouble understanding what I must tell you. You are by instinct
a servant of Law rather than Chaos. Yet you are married to Chaos, eh?”

“Apparently.” I understood him to mean my strange relationship with Elric of Melniboné, with whom I had had a conscious but
inexplicable connection since he had come to my aid in the concentration camp all those many years before. “But have you any
conception of my family’s anxiety?”

“Some,” said Sepiriz gravely. “And all I can promise you is that if you follow your destiny, you will almost
certainly see them again. If you refuse, they are lost to you—and to one another—forever.”

Now my pent-up fears burst out in anger. I walked towards the giant, glaring up into his troubled eyes. “I demand that you
return me to my wife at once. By what right do you bring me here? I have already done my duty in the fight against Gaynor.
Leave me in peace. Take me home.”

“That, I fear, is now impossible. This was ordained.”

“Ordained? What on earth are you talking about? I am a Christian, sir, and believe in free will—not some sort of predestined
fate! Explain yourself!” I was deeply frustrated, feeling like a midget surrounded by all these extraordinary, gigantic men.

A fleeting smile crossed Sepiriz’s lips, as if he sympathized. “Believe me in this then—I possess knowledge of your future.
That is, I possess knowledge of what your best future can be. But unless you work with me to help this future come about,
not only will your wife and children perish in terrible circumstances, you, too, will be consigned to oblivion, erased from
your world’s memory.”

As we spoke Sepiriz began to move with his men back into the shadows. I had little choice but to move with them. From one
shadow to another, each deeper. We entered a great building whose roof was carved with only the most exquisite human faces
all looking down on us with expressions of great tranquillity and good will. These faces were caught by the dancing flames
of brands stuck into brackets on walls inscribed with hieroglyphs and symbols, all of which were meaningless to me. Couches
of carved obsidian; dark, leathery draperies; constantly moving light and shadow. Sepiriz’s own face resembled the ones looking
down from the roof. For an instant I thought, This man is all those people. But I did not know how such an idea had come into
my head.

While the giants arranged themselves on the couches and conversed quietly, Lord Sepiriz took me aside into a small antechamber.
He spoke softly and reasonably and succeeded in calming my temper somewhat. But I was still outraged. He seemed determined
to convince me that he had no choice in the matter.

“I told you that we serve Fate. What we actually serve is the Cosmic Balance. The Balance is maintained by natural forces,
by the sum of human dreams and actions. It is the regulator of the multiverse, and without it all creation would become inchoate,
a limbo. Should Law or Chaos gain supremacy and tip the scales too far, we face death—the end of consciousness. While linear
time is a paradox, it is a necessary one for our survival. I can tell you that unless you play out this story—that is, ‘fulfill
your destiny’—you will begin an entirely new brane of the multiverse, a branch which can only ultimately wither and die, for
not all the branches of the multiverse grow strong and proliferate, just as some wood always dies on the tree. But in this
case it is the tree itself which is threatened. The very roots of the multiverse are being poisoned.”

“An enemy more powerful than Gaynor and his allies? I had not thought it possible.” I was a little mocking, I suppose. “And
a tree which can only be an abstraction!”

“Perhaps an abstraction to begin with,” said Sepiriz softly, “but mortals have a habit of imagining something before they
make it real. I can tell you that we are threatened by a visionary intelligence both reckless and deaf to reason. It dismisses
as nonsense the wisdom of the multiverse’s guardians. It mocks Law as thoroughly as it mocks Chaos, though it acts in the
name of both. These warring forces are now insane. Only certain mortals, such as yourself, have any hope of overcoming them
and halting the multiverse in its relentless rush towards oblivion.”

“I thought I had put supernatural melodrama behind me. I weary of this, I can tell you. And where are your own loyalties,
sir? With Law or Chaos?”