Michael Moorcock - Castle Brass 3 - The Quest for Tanelorn

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The Quest for Tanelorn
Michael Moorcock
The Chronicles of Castle Brass Book 3
BOOK ONE
THE WORLD INSANE: A CHAMPION OF DREAMS
CHAPTER ONE
AN OLD FRIEND AT CASTLE BRASS
‘Lost?’
‘Aye.’
‘But only dreams, Hawkmoon. Lost dreams?’ The tone was nearly pathetic.
‘I think not.’
Count Brass moved his great body away from the window so that light fell suddenly on
Hawkmoon’s gaunt face. ‘Would that I had two grandchildren. Would that I had. Perhaps one day
...’
It was a conversation which had been repeated so many times that it had become almost a ritual.
Count Brass did not like mysteries; he did not respect them.
‘There was a boy and a girl.’ Hawkmoon was still tired, but there was no longer any madness in
him. ‘Manfred and Yarmila. The boy much resembled you.’
We have told you this, father.’ Yisselda, hands folded under her breasts, moved from the shade
near the fireplace. She wore a green gown, cuffs and collar ermine-trimmed. Her hair was drawn
back from her face. She was pale. She had been pale since her return, with Hawkmoon, to Castle
Brass, more than a month ago. “We told you - and we must find them.’
Count Brass ran heavy fingers through his greying red hair, his red brows furrowed. ‘I did not
believe Hawkmoon - but I believe you both now, though I do not wish to.’
‘It is why you argue so, father.’ Yisselda placed a hand upon his brocaded arm.
‘Bowgentle could explain these paradoxes, possibly,’ Count Brass continued, ‘but there is no other
who could find the kind of words which a plain-thinking soldier like myself could easily understand.
You are of the belief that I have been brought back from the dead, yet I’ve no memory of dying.
And Yisselda has been rescued from Limbo, when I, myself, thought her slain at the Battle of
Londra. Now you speak of children, also somewhere in Limbo. A horrifying thought. Children
experiencing such terrors! Ah! No! I will not consider it.’
‘We have had to, Count Brass.’ Hawkmoon spoke with the authority of a man who had faced many
hours alone with his darkest thoughts. ‘It is why we are determined to do everything we can to find
them. It is why, today, we leave for Londra where we hope Queen Flana and her scientists can
help us.’
Count Brass fingered his thick red moustaches. The mention of Londra had aroused other
thoughts in his mind. There was a slight expression of embarrassment on his face. He cleared his
throat.
There was kindly humour in Yisselda’s eyes as she said, ‘Is there a message we can give Queen
Flana?’
Her father shrugged. “The usual courtesies, of course. I intend to write. Perhaps I will have time to
give you a letter before you leave.’
‘She would be glad to see you in person again.’ Yisselda glanced meaningly at Hawkmoon, who
rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘In her last letter she told me how much she had enjoyed your visit,
father. She remarked on the wisdom of your counsel, the practical common sense of your advice in
matters of State. There was a hint that she could offer you an official position at the Court of
Londra.’
Count Brass’s ruddy features seemed to take on a deeper shade of colour, a blush. ‘She
mentioned something of that. But she does not need me in Londra.’
‘Not for your advice, certainly,’ said Yisselda. ‘Your support... ? She was fond of men, once. But
with D’Averc’s terrible death - I have heard that she has had no thoughts of marrying. I have heard
that she has considered the question of an heir, but that there is only one man who could, in her
opinion, compare with Huillam D’Averc. I speak clumsily...’
‘Indeed you do, daughter. It is understandable, for your mind is full of other thoughts. I am touched,
however, by your willingness to concern yourself with my very minor affairs.’ Count Brass smiled
and put his arm out to Yisselda. The brocade sleeve fell away to reveal his bronzed, heavily
muscled forearm, ‘But I am too old to marry. If I planned marriage, certainly I could think of no
better wife than Flana. But the decision I made many years ago to live in virtual retirement in the
Kamarg remains. Besides, I have my duty to the folk of the Kamarg. Would I abandon that?’
‘We could take up that duty, as we did once when you were ...’ She paused.
‘Dead?’ Count Brass frowned. ‘I am grateful that I do not have such memories of you, Yisselda.
When I returned from Londra and found you here I was full of joy. I asked for no explanation. It was
enough that you lived. But then, I had seen you die at Londra some years before. It was a memory
I was happy to doubt. A memory of children, though - to be haunted by such ghosts, by the
knowledge that they are alive somewhere and afraid - Oh, that is terrifying!’
‘It is a familiar terror,’ said Hawkmoon. ‘Hopefully we shall find them. Hopefully they know nothing
of all this. Hopefully, in whatever other plane they now inhabit, they are happy.’
There came a knock on the door of Count Brass’s study. He answered it in his gruff voice: ‘Enter.’
Captain Josef Vedla opened the door, closed it behind him and stood in silence for a moment. The
old soldier was clad in what he chose to call his civilian clothing - doeskin shirt, buckskin jerkin and
breeks, boots of old, black leather. At his belt was a long dirk, apparently there not for any
particular usefulness save to act as a familiar rest for his left hand. ‘The ornithopter is almost
ready,’ he said. ‘It will take you to Karlye. The Silver Bridge is completed, rebuilt in all its old
beauty, and by means of it you may cross, Duke Dorian, as you wished, to deau-vere.’
‘Thank you, Captain Vedla. It will please me to make this journey from the Kamarg by the route I
used when I first came to Castle Brass.’
Her hand still in that of her father, Yisselda stretched her other hand out and took Hawkmoon’s.
Her steady eyes regarded his face and her grip tightened for a second on his fingers. He drew a
deep breath. “Then we must go,’ he said.
‘There was other news...’ Josef Vedla hesitated.
‘Other news?’
‘Of a rider, sir. He has been seen by our guardians. We received a heliograph message a few
minutes ago. He comes towards the town...”
‘Has he announced himself at our borders?’ Count Brass asked.
‘That is what is strange, Count Brass. He was not seen at the borders. He was half-way into the
Kamarg before he was sighted.’
That is unusual. Our guardians are normally vigilant...’
“They are quite as vigilant today. He did not enter by any of the known roads.’
“Well, doubtless we’ll have the opportunity of asking him how he avoided being seen,’ said
Yisselda calmly. ‘After all, it is one rider, not an army.’
Hawkmoon laughed. For a moment they had all been over-worried. ‘Have him met, Captain Vedla.
Invite him to the castle.’
Vedla saluted and left.
Hawkmoon went to the window and looked over the roofs of Aigues-Mortes to the fields and
lagoons beyond the old town. The sky was a clear, pale blue and the distant water reflected it. A
light, winter wind was blowing at the reed beds. He saw a movement on the wide, white road that
came through the marshes to the town. He saw the rider. He was coming swiftly, at a steady
canter, sitting upright in his saddle, sitting proudly, it seemed to Hawkmoon. And the rider’s outline
was familiar. Rather than peer at the distant figure, Hawkmoon turned away from the window,
prepared to wait until it was closer and could be identified easily.
‘An old friend - or an old enemy,’ he said. ‘I recognize something about his stance.’
‘We have had no announcement,’ said Count Brass. He shrugged. ‘But these are not the old days.
These are calmer times.’
‘For some,’ said Hawkmoon, then he regretted the self-pity in his tone. He had had too much of
such emotions. Now that he was rid of them he was, perhaps, overly sensitive to any traces of their
return he detected in himself. From an over-indulgence in such feelings, he had now gone to a
mood of intense stoicism which was a relief to all save those who knew him best and had the
greatest affection for him. Sensitive to his thoughts, Yisselda reached to place delicate fingers
upon his lips and then his cheek. Gratefully, he smiled at her, drawing her to him and kissing her
lightly upon the forehead.
‘Now I must prepare for our journey,’ she said.
Hawkmoon was already dressed in the clothes in which he intended to travel.
‘Will you and father wait here to receive our visitor?’ she asked Hawkmoon.
He nodded. ‘I think so. There is always hope that...’
‘Do not expect it, my dear. There is little chance that he will bring news of Manfred and Yarmila.’
‘True.’
With another smile at her father, Yisselda left the room.
Count Brass strode to a table of polished oak on which a tray had been set. He lifted a pewter jug.
‘Would you share a glass of wine with me, Hawkmoon, before you go?’
‘Thank you.’
Hawkmoon joined Count Brass at the table, accepting the carved wooden goblet the old warrior
handed him. He sipped the wine and resisted the temptation to return to the window to see if he
recognized the traveller.
‘More than ever, I regret that Bowgentle is not here to advise us,’ said Count Brass. ‘All this talk of
other planes of existence, of other possibilities, of dead friends still alive - it smacks of the occult.
All my life I have looked with a cold eye upon superstitions; I have scoffed at pseudo-philosophical
speculation. But I have not the kind of mind which can easily distinguish between mumbo-jumbo
and that which falls into the province of the genuinely metaphysical.’
‘Do not misinterpret what I say as morbid brooding,’ Hawkmoon replied, ‘but I have reason to hope
that Bowgentle may, one day, be restored to us.’
The difference between us, I suppose,’ said Count Brass, ‘is that you, for all your rediscovered
toughness of mind, continue to allow yourself to entertain many forms of hope. Long ago, I
dismissed Faith altogether - at least from my conscious thoughts. Yet you, Hawkmoon, discover it
over and over again.’
‘Aye - through many lives.’
‘What?’
‘I refer to my dreams. To those strange dreams of myself in so many different incarnations. I had
identified those dreams with my madness, but now I am not so sure. They still come to me, you
know.’
‘You have not mentioned them since you returned here with Yisselda.’
‘They have not tormented me as they once did. But they are familiar, still.’
‘Every night?’
‘Aye. Every night. The names - Elric, Erekose, Corum -those are the chief ones. And there are
others. And sometimes I see the Runestaff, and sometimes a black sword. All seem significant.
And sometimes, when I am alone, particularly when I ride the marshlands, they come to me in my
waking hours. Faces, familiar and unfamiliar, float before me. Snatches of words are heard. And
most common is that frightening phrase “Champion Eternal” ... Formerly I would have thought that
only a madman could think of himself as a demigod ...’
‘I, too,’ said Count Brass, pouring more wine for Hawkmoon. “But it is others who make their
heroes into demigods. Would that the world had no need for heroes.’
‘A sane world will not need them.’
‘But perhaps a sane world is a world without humankind.’ Count Brass’s smile was bleak. ‘Perhaps
it is we who make it what it is?’
‘If an individual can make himself whole, so can our race,’ said Hawkmoon. ‘If I have Faith, Count
Brass, that is why I retain it.’
‘I wish that I shared such Faith. I see Man as destined, ultimately, to self-destruction. All that I hope
for is that that destiny can be averted for as long as possible, that Man’s most foolish actions can
be restrained, that a little equilibrium can be maintained.’
‘Equilibrium. The idea symbolized by the Cosmic Balance, by the Runestaff. Have I told you that I
have come to doubt that philosophy? Have I told you that I have come to the conclusion that
equilibrium is not enough - not in the sense you mean? Equilibrium in an individual is a fine thing -
a balance between the needs of the mind and the needs of the body - maintained without self-
consciousness. Certainly, let us aim for that. But what of the world? Would we tame it too much?’
‘You have lost me, my friend.’ Count Brass laughed. ‘I was never a cautious man, in the ordinary
sense of the word, but I became a weary one. Perhaps it is weariness which now informs your
thoughts?’
‘It is anger,’ said Hawkmoon. ‘We served the Runestaff. It cost us dear to serve it. Many died.
Many were tormented. We still know a terrible despair. And we were told that we could call on its
help when we needed it. Do we not need it now?’
‘Perhaps we do not need it enough.’
Hawkmoon’s laugh was grim. ‘If you are right, I do not look forward much to a future when we shall
need it enough!’
And then his head was filled by a revelation and he rushed to the window. But by now the figure
had left the road and entered the town and could not be seen. ‘I know that rider!’
There came a knock at the door. Hawkmoon went to it and flung it open.
And there he stood, tall and cocky and proud, with his hand on his hip and the heel of his other
hand resting on the pommel of his plain sword, a folded cloak over his right shoulder, his bonnet at
a tilt and a crooked grin on his red, raw face. It was the Orkneyman, the brother of the Warrior in
Jet and Gold. It was Orland Fank, Servant of the Runestaff.
‘Good day to ye, Duke of Koln,’ he said.
Hawkmoon’s brow was furrowed and his smile was bleak. ‘Good day to you, Master Fank. Do you
come asking favours?’
“The folk of Orkney ask nothing for nothing, Duke Dorian.’
‘And the Runestaff - what does that ask?’
Orland Fank took a few paces into the room, Captain Vedla at his heels. He stood beside the fire
and warmed his hands at it, glancing about him. There was sardonic amusement in his eyes, as if
he relished their puzzlement.
‘I thank ye for sending your emissary here with your invitation to guest at Castle Brass,’ said Fank,
winking up at Vedla, who was disconcerted still. ‘I was not sure how ye’d receive me.’
‘You were right to wonder, Master Fank.’ Hawkmoon’s own expression matched Fank’s. ‘I seem to
remember something of an oath you swore, when we parted. Since then we have battled dangers
quite as momentous as those we fought in the service of the Runestaff - and the Runestaff has
been not one wit in evidence.’
Fank frowned. ‘Aye, that’s true. But blame neither myself nor the staff for that. Those forces
affecting you and yours also affected the Runestaff. It is gone from this world, Hawkmoon of Kohl. I
have sought it in Amarehk, in Asiacommunista, in all the lands of this Earth. Then I heard rumours
of your madness - of peculiar happenings here in the Kamarg - and I came, barely stopping, all the
way from the Courts of Muskovia to visit you and ask you if you have an explanation for the events
of the past year or so.’
‘You - the Runestaff’s oracle - come to ask us for information?’ Count Brass let forth a bellow of
laughter and slapped at his thigh. ‘Oh, this is indeed a turning world.’
‘I have information to exchange!’ Fank drew himself up to face Count Brass, his back to the fire, his
hand on his sword’s hilt. All his amusement was suddenly gone from him and Hawkmoon noticed
how drawn his face seemed, how tired his eyes were.
Hawkmoon poured out a cup of wine and handed it swiftly to Fank who accepted it, flashing
Hawkmoon a quick glance of gratitude.
Count Brass regretted his outburst and his expression became sober. ‘I am sorry, Master Fank. I
am a poor host.’
‘And I a poor guest, count. I see from the activity in your courtyard that someone leaves Castle
Brass today.’
‘Yisselda and I go to Londra,’ said Hawkmoon.
‘Yisselda? So it is true. I heard different tales - that Yisselda was dead, that Count Brass was dead
- and I could not deny or confirm them, for I found my memory playing peculiar tricks. I lost
confidence in my own recollection of events...’
‘We have all had that experience,’ said Hawkmoon. And he told Fank of everything he could
remember (it was garbled, there were some things he could only half remember, some things he
could only guess at) concerning his recent adventures, which seemed to him unreal, and his recent
dreams which seemed much more tangible. Fank continued to stand before the fire, his hands
folded on his back, his head upon his chest, listening with absolute concentration to every word.
Occasionally he would nod, sometimes he would grunt, and very rarely he would ask for
clarification of some phrase. While he listened, Yisselda, dressed in heavy jerkin and breeks for
her journey, entered, and seated herself silently by the window, only speaking when, towards the
end of Hawkmoon’s account, she could add information of her own.
‘It is true,’ she said, when Hawkmoon had finished. The dreams seem the reality, and the reality
seems the dream. Can you explain that, Master Fank?’
Fank sniffed, rubbing at his nose. There are many versions of reality, my lady. Some would say
that our dreams reflect events in other planes. There is a great disruption taking place, but I do not
think it was caused by the experiments of Kalan and Taragorm. As far as their work goes, I think
the damage has been largely repaired. I think they were able to exploit this larger disruption for a
while. Possibly they exacerbated the condition, but that is all. Their efforts were puny. They could
not have caused all this. I suspect a vaster conflict. I suspect that there are forces at work so huge
and terrifying that the Runestaff has been called from this individual plane to serve in a war of
which we have received only a hint. A great war in which the destiny of the planes will be fixed for
a period of time most would consider Eternity. I speak of something I know little about, my friends. I
have only heard the phrase “The Conjunction of the Million Spheres”, spoken by a dying
philosopher, in the mountains of Asiacommunista. Means the phrase anything to you?’
The phrase was familiar to Hawkmoon, yet he was sure he had not heard it before, even in his
strange dreams. He told Fank that.
‘I had hoped ye’d know more, Duke Dorian. But I believe that phrase to have considerable
significance to us all. Now I learn that ye seek lost children, while I seek the Runestaff. What of the
word ‘Tanelorn”? Means that anything?’
‘A city,’ said Hawkmoon. The name of a city.’
‘Aye. That is what I heard. Yet I have found no city of that name anywhere in this world. It must lie
in some other. Would we find the Runestaff there? Would we find your children there?”
‘In Tanelorn?’
‘In Tanelorn.’
CHAPTER TWO
ON THE SILVER BRIDGE
Fank had elected to remain at Castle Brass and so Hawkmoon and Yisselda climbed into the
cushioned cabin of the great ornithopter. Ahead, in his small, open cockpit, the pilot began to
manipulate the controls.
Count Brass and Fank stood outside the door of the castle watching as the heavy metallic wings
began to beat and the strange motors of the ancient craft murmured, whispered and crooned.
There came a fluttering of enamelled silver feathers, a lurch, a wind which set Count Brass’s red
hair pouring back from his head and caused Orland Fank to hang on to his bonnet; then the
ornithopter began to rise.
Count Brass raised a hand in farewell. The machine banked a little as it rose over the red and
yellow roofs of the town, then it wheeled once, turned to avoid a cloud of wild, giant flamingos
which blossomed suddenly from one of the lagoons to the west, gained height and speed with
each beat of its clashing wings, and soon it seemed to Hawkmoon and Yisselda that they were
entirely surrounded by the cold, lovely blue of the winter sky.
Since their conversation with Orland Fank, Hawkmoon had been in a thoughtful mood and
Yisselda, respecting this mood, had made no attempt to talk to him. Now he turned to her, smiling
gently.
‘There are still wise men in Londra,’ he said. ‘Queen Flana’s court has attracted many scholars,
many philosophers. Perhaps some will be able to help us.’
‘You know of Tanelorn?’ she said. The city Fank mentioned.’
‘Only the name. I feel I should know much. I feel that I have been there, at least once, possibly
many times, yet you and I both know that I have not.’
‘In your dreams? Have you been there in your dreams, Dorian?’
He shrugged. ‘Sometimes it seems to me that I have been everywhere in my dreams - in every age
of the Earth - even beyond the Earth and to other worlds. I am convinced of one thing; that there
are a thousand other Earths, even a thousand other galaxies - and that events in our world are
mirrored in all the rest; that the same destinies are played out in subtly different ways. But whether
those destinies are controlled by ourselves or by other, superhuman, forces, I do not know. Are
there such things as Gods, Yisselda?’
‘Men make Gods. Bowgentle once offered the opinion that the mind of Man is so powerful that it
can make “real” anything he desperately needs to be real.’
‘And perhaps those other worlds are real because, at some time in our history, enough people
needed them. Could that be how alternative worlds are created?’
She shrugged. ‘It is not something you and I are likely to prove, no matter how much information
we are given.’
Tacitly, they both dropped this line of thought, contenting themselves with the magnificence of the
views which passed below them as they peered through the portholes of the cabin. Steadily the
ornithopter headed northward to the coasts, at length passing over the tinkling towers of Parye, the
Crystal City, now restored in all its finery. The sunlight was reflected and transformed into rainbow
colours by the scores of prisms, the spires of Parye, created by means of that city’s timeless and
cryptic technologies. They observed whole buildings, gilded and ancient, wholly enclosed in vast,
apparently solid eight-, ten-, and twelve-sided crystal structures.
Half blinded, they fell back from the portholes, still able to see the sky all around them filled with
soft, pulsating colours, still able to hear the gentle, musical ringing of the glass ornaments which
the citizens of Parye used to decorate their quartz-paved streets. Even the warlords of the Dark
Empire had let Parye stand; even those insane and bloody-handed destroyers had held the Crystal
City in awe - and now she was fully restored to all her great beauty and it was said that the children
of Parye were born blind, that it was often three years before their eyes were capable of accepting
the everyday visions granted to those who habitually dwelled therein.
Parye behind them, they now entered grey cloud and the pilot, kept warm by the heater in his
cockpit and the thick flying garments he wore, sought clearer sky above the cloud, found none, and
dropped lower until they were barely two hundred feet from the flat, dull winter fields of the country
lying inland from Karlye. A light drizzle was falling and, as the drizzle turned to driving rain, the sun
began to set, so that they came to Karlye at dusk, seeing the warm lights welcoming them from the
windows of the city’s cobblestone buildings. They circled over Karlye’s quaintly designed roof tops
of dark red and light grey slates, dropping, at length, into the bowl of the circular, grass-sown,
landing field around which the city was built. For an ornithopter (never the most comfortable of
flying machines) the vessel landed smoothly, with Hawkmoon and Yisselda clinging firmly to the
straps provided until the bumping had stopped and the pilot, his transparent visor streaming with
moisture, turned to indicate to them that they might leave. The rain beat heavily now upon the
cabin’s canopy and Hawkmoon and Yisselda dressed themselves in thick capes which covered
them to their feet. Across the landing field men came running, bodies bent into the wind, and
behind them was a hand-drawn carriage. Hawkmoon waited until the carriage had been positioned
as close as possible to the ornithopter, then he drew open the oddly shaped door and helped
Yisselda to cross the sodden ground to the vehicle. They climbed in, and with a rather exaggerated
lurch, the carriage moved towards the buildings on the far side of the field.
‘We’ll lodge in Karlye tonight,’ said Hawkmoon, ‘and leave early in the morning for the Silver
Bridge.’
Count Brass’s agents in Karlye had already secured rooms for the Duke of Koln and Yisselda of
Brass; these were situated not far from the landing field, in a small but extremely comfortable inn
which was one of the few buildings to have survived the conquerings of the Dark Empire. Yisselda
remembered that she had stayed here with her father when she was a child and at first she felt a
simple delight until her own childhood reminded her of her lost Yarmila, and then her brow became
clouded. Hawkmoon, realizing what had happened, put his arm around her shoulders to comfort
her when, after eating a good supper, they went upstairs to bed.
The day had tired them and neither was of a disposition to stay awake talking, for there was little
left to talk about, so they slept.
But Hawkmoon’s sleep was almost immediately populated by his all too familiar dreams - faces
and images jostling for his attention - eyes imploring him, hands beseeching him, as if a whole
world, perhaps a whole universe, cried out for his attention and his aid.
And he was Corum - alien Corum of the Vadhagh - riding against the foul Fhoi Myore, the Cold
Folk from Limbo ...
And he was Elric - Last Prince of Melnibone - a shouting battleblade in his right hand, his left upon
the pommel of an oddly wrought saddle, the saddle on the back of a huge reptilian monster whose
saliva turned to fire wherever it dripped...
And he was Erekose - poor Erekose - leading the Eldren to victory over his own human people -
And he was Urlik Skarsol prince of the Southern Ice, crying out in despair at his fate,•which was to
bear the Black Sword.,.
TANELORN...
Oh, where was Tanelorn ...?
Had he not been there, at least once? Did he not recall a sense of absolute peace of mind, of
wholeness of spirit, of the happiness which only those who have suffered profoundly may feltl?
TANELORN ...
‘Too long have I born my burden - too long have I paid the price of Erekose’s great crime. ..’ It was
his voice which spoke, but it was not his lips which formed the words - they were other lips,
unhuman lips ... I must have rest - 1 must have rest...’
And now there came a face - a face of ineffable evil, but it was not a confident face - a dark face -
was it desperate? Was it his face? Was this his face, too?
AH, I SUFFER!
This way and that, the familiar armies marched. Familiar swords rose and fell. Familiar faces
screamed and perished, and blood flowed from body after body - a familiar flowing...
TANELORN - have I not earned the peace of Tanelorn?
Not yet, Champion. Not yet.
It is unjust that I, alone, should suffer so!
You do not suffer alone. Mankind suffers with you.,
It is unjust.
Then make justice!
I cannot. I am only a man.
You are the Champion. You are the Eternal Champion.
1 am a man!
You are a man. You are the Champion Eternal.
I am only a man!
You are only the Champion.
1 am Elric! I am Urlik! I am Erekose! I am Corum! I am too many. I am too many!
You are one.
And now, in his dreams (if dreams they were), Hawkmoon felt, for a brief instant, a sense of peace,
an understanding too profound for words. He was one. He was one...
But then it was gone and he was many again. And he yelled in his bed and he begged for peace.
And Yisselda was clinging to his threshing body. And Yisselda was weeping. And light fell on his
face from the window. It was dawn.
‘Dorian. Dorian. Dorian.’
‘Yisselda.’
He drew a deep breath. ‘Oh, Yisselda.’ And he was grateful that at least she had not been taken
from him, for he had no other consolation but her in all the world, in all the many worlds he
experienced while he slept; so he held her close to him in his strong warrior’s arms, and he wept
for a little while, and she wept with him. Then they rose from the bed and dressed themselves and
in silence they left the inn without breakfasting, mounting the good horses which waited for them.
They rode away from Karlye, along the coast road, through the rain which swept from the grey,
turbulent sea, until they came to the Silver Bridge which spanned thirty miles of water between the
mainland and the isle of Granbretan.
The Silver Bridge was not as Hawkmoon had seen it, all those many years before. Its tall pylons,
obscured now by mist, by rain, and, at their tops, by cloud, no longer bore motifs of warfare and
Dark Empire glories; instead they were decorated with designs supplied by all the cities of the
continent which the Dark Empire warlords had once pillaged - a great variety of designs,
celebrating the harmony of Nature. The vast causeway still measured a quarter of a mile wide, but
previously, when Hawkmoon had crossed it, it had carried war-machines, the loot of a hundred
great campaigns, the beast-warriors of the Dark Empire. Now trading caravans came and went
along its two main roads; travellers from Normandia, from Italia, Slavia, Rolance, Scandia, from the
Bulgar Mountains, from the great German city-states, from Pesht and from Ulm, from Wien, from
Krahkov and even from distant, mysterious Muskovia. There were waggons drawn by horses, by
oxen, by elephants, even. There were trains of camels, mules and donkeys. There were carts
propelled by mechanical devices, often faulty, often faltering, whose principles were understood by
only a handful of clever men and women (and most of them could understand only in the abstract)
but which had worked for a thousand years or more; there were men on horseback and there were
men who had walked hundreds of miles to cross the wonder that was the Silver Bridge. Clothing
was often outlandish, some of it dull, patched, dusty, some of it vulgar in its magnificence. Furs,
leather, silks, plaids, the skins of strange beasts, the feathers of rare birds, decorated the heads
and backs of the travellers, and some who were clad in the greatest finery suffered the most in the
chill rain which soaked through the subtly dyed fabrics and quickly found the unadorned flesh
beneath. Hawkmoon and Yisselda travelled in heavy, warm gear that was plain, bereft of any
decoration, but their steeds were sturdy and carried them without tiring, and soon they had joined
the throng heading westward towards a land once feared by all but now transformed, under Queen
Flana, into a centre of art and trade and learning and just government. There would have been
several quicker ways of reaching Londra, but Hawkmoon’s desire was strong to reach the city by
the same means he had first left it.
His spirits improved as he looked at the quivering hawsers supporting the main causeway, at the
intricate workmanship of the silversmiths who had fashioned decorations many inches thick to
摘要：

TheQuestforTanelornMichaelMoorcockTheChroniclesofCastleBrassBook3BOOKONETHEWORLDINSANE:ACHAMPIONOFDREAMSCHAPTERONEANOLDFRIENDATCASTLEBRASS‘Lost?’‘Aye.’‘Butonlydreams,Hawkmoon.Lostdreams?’Thetonewasnearlypathetic.‘Ithinknot.’CountBrassmovedhisgreatbodyawayfromthewindowsothatlightfellsuddenlyonHawkmoo...

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