This was, as Alnac Kreb had warned him, not the simple resting place of primitive caravans Elric had expected to find on the Red Road.

They were not challenged as they descended towards the wide sheet of water around which blossomed a rich variety of palms, cypresses, poplars, fig trees and cactus, but many looked at them with open curiosity. And not all the curious eyes were friendly.

Their horses were of a similar build to Elric's own, while others of the nomads rode the bovine creatures favoured by Alnac. The sounds of bellowing, grunting and spitting rose from every quarter and Elric could see that beyond the field of tents lay corrals in which riding beasts as well as sheep, goats and other creatures were penned.

But the sight which dominated this extraordinary scene was that of some hundred or more torches blazing in a semi-circle at the water's edge.

Each torch was held by a cloaked and cowled figure and each burned with a bright, white steady flame which cast the same strong light upon a dais of carved wood at the very centre of the gathering.

Elric and his companion reined in their mounts to watch, as fascinated by this vision as the scores of other nomads who walked slowly to the edge of the semi-circle to witness what was clearly a ceremony of some magnitude. The witnesses stood in attitudes of respect, their various robes and costumes identifying their clan. The nomads were of a variety of colours, some as black as Alnac Kreb, some almost as white-skinned as Elric, with every shade in between, yet in features they were similar, with strong-boned faces and deep-set eyes. Both men and women were tall and bore themselves with considerable grace. Elric had never seen so many handsome people and he was as impressed by their natural dignity as he had been disgusted by the extremes of arrogance and degradation he had witnessed in Quarzhasaat.

Now a procession approached down the hill and Elric saw that six men bore a large, domed chest on their shoulders, proceeding with grave slowness until they came to the dais.

The white light showed every detail of the scene. The men were drawn from different clans, though all of the same height and all of middle age. A single drum began to sound, its beat sharp and clear in the night air. Then another joined it, then another, until at least twenty drums were echoing across the waters of the oasis and the rooftops of Kashbeh Moulor Ka Riiz, their voices at once slow and obeying complicated rhythmic patterns whose subtlety Elric gradually came to marvel at.

"Is it a funeral?" the albino asked his new friend.

Alnac nodded. "But I know not who they bury." He pointed to a series of symmetrical mounds in the distance beyond the trees. "Those are the nomad burial grounds."

Now another, older man, his beard and brows grey beneath his cowl, stepped forward and began to read from a scroll he produced from his sleeve, while two others opened the lid of the elaborate coffin and, to Elric's astonishment, spat into it.

Now Alnac gasped. He stood on his toes and peered, for the brands clearly illuminated the coffin's contents. He turned, still more mystified, to Elric. "'Tis empty, Prince Elric. Or else the corpse is invisible."

The rhythm of the drums increased in tempo and complexity. Voices began to chant, rising and falling like waves in an ocean. Elric had never heard such music before. He found that it was moving him to obscure emotions. He felt rage. He felt sorrow. He found that he was close to weeping. And still the music continued, growing in intensity. He longed to join in, but could understand nothing of the language they used. It seemed to him that the words were older by far than the speech of Melnibone, which was the oldest in the Young Kingdoms.

And then, suddenly, the singing and the drumming ended.

The six men took the coffin from the dais and began to march away with it, towards the mounds, and the men with the torches followed, the light casting strange shadows amongst the trees, illuminating sudden patches of shining whiteness which Elric could not identify.

As suddenly as they had stopped the drumming, the chanting began again, but this time they had a celebratory, triumphant note to them. Slowly the crowd lifted their heads and from several hundred throats came a high-pitched ululation, clearly a traditional response.

Then the nomads began to drift back towards their tents. Alnac stopped one, a woman wearing richly decorated green and gold robes, and pointed to the disappearing procession. "What is this funeral, sister? I saw no corpse."

"The corpse is not here," she said, and she was smiling at his confusion. "It is a ceremony of revenge, taken by all our clans at the instigation of Raik Na Seem. The corpse is not present because its owner will not know he is dead, perhaps for several months. We bury him now because we cannot reach him. He is not one of us, not of the desert. He is dead, however, but merely unaware of that fact. There is no mistake, though. We lack only the physical body."

"He is an enemy of your people, sister?"

"Aye, indeed. He is an enemy. He sent men to steal our greatest treasure. They failed, but they have done us profound harm in their failing. I know you, do I not? You are the one Raik Na Seem hoped would return. He sent for a dreamthief." And she looked back to the dais where, beneath the light of a single torch, a huge figure stood, bowed as if in prayer. "You are our friend, Alnac Kreb, who aided us once before."

"I have been privileged to do your people a trifling service in the past, aye." Alnac Kreb acknowledged her recognition with his habitual grace.

"Raik Na Seem waits upon you," she said. "Go in peace and peace be with your family and friends."

Puzzled, Alnac Kreb turned to Elric. "I know not why Raik Na Seem should have sent for me but I feel obliged to find out. Will you stay here or accompany me, Prince Elric?"

"I am growing curious about this whole affair," said Elric, "and would know more, if that's possible."

They made their way through the trees until they stood on the banks of the great oasis, waiting respectfully while the old man remained in the position he had assumed since the coffin had been carried off. Eventually he turned and it was clear that he had been weeping. When he saw them he straightened up and, as he recognized Alnac Kreb, he smiled, making a gesture of welcome. "My dear friend!"

"Peace be upon you, Raik Na Seem." Alnac stepped forward and embraced the old man, who was at least a head and shoulders taller than himself. "I bring with me a friend. His name is Elric of Melnibone, of that same people who were the great enemies of the Quarzhasaatim."

"The name has substance in my heart," said Raik Na Seem. "Peace be upon you, Elric of Melnibone. You are welcome here."

"Raik Na Seem is First Elder to the Bauradi Clan," Alnac said, "and a father to me."

"I am blessed by a good, brave son." Raik Na Seem gestured back towards the tents. "Come. Take refreshment in my tent."

"Willingly," said Alnac. "I would learn why you are burying an empty casket and who your enemy is that he should merit such elaborate ceremony."

"Oh, he is the worst of villains, make no mistake of that." A deep sigh escaped the old man as he led them through the throngs of tents until he reached a massive pavilion into which they followed him, their feet treading on richly patterned carpets. The pavilion was actually a series of compartments, one leading into another, each occupied by members of Raik Na Seem's family, which seemed vast enough to be almost a tribe in itself. The smell of delicious food came through to them as they were seated on cushions and offered bowls of scented water with which to wash themselves.

Eventually, as they ate, the old man told his story and, while it unfolded, Elric came to realize that fate had brought him to the Silver Flower Oasis at an auspicious time, for he slowly recognized the significance of what was being said. At the time of the last Blood Moon, said Raik Na Seem, a group of men had come to the Silver Flower Oasis asking after the road to the Place of the Pearl. The Bauradim had recognized the name, for it was in their literature, but they understood the references to be poetic metaphor, something for scholars and other poets to discuss and interpret. They had told the newcomers this and hoped that they would leave, for they were Quarzhasaatim, members of the Sparrow Sect of Sorcerer Adventurers and as such notorious for their murky wizardry and cruelty. The Bauradim wanted no quarrel, however, with any Quarzhasaatim, with whom they traded. The men of the Sparrow Sect did not leave, though, but continued to ask anyone they could about the Place of the Pearl, which was how they came to learn of Raik Na Seem's daughter.

"Varadia?" Alnac Kreb knew alarm. "They surely did not think she knew anything of this jewel?"

"They heard that she was our Holy Girl, the one we believe will grow to be our spiritual leader and bring wisdom and honour to our clan. They believed that, because we say that our Holy Girl is the receptacle of all our knowledge, she must know where this pearl was to be found. They attempted to steal her."

Alnac Kreb growled with sudden anger. "What did they do, father?"

"They drugged her, then made to ride away with her. We learned of their crime and followed them. We caught them before they had completed half the length of the Red Road back to Quarzhasaat and in their terror they threatened us with the power of their master, the man who had commissioned them to seek out the Pearl and use any means to bring it back to him."

"Was his name Lord Gho Fhaazi?" asked Elric softly.

"Aye, prince, it was." Raik Na Seem looked at him with new curiosity. "Do you know him?"

"I know him. And I know him for what he is. Is that the man you buried?"

"It is."

"When do you plan his death?"

"We do not plan it. We have been promised it. The Sorcerer Adventurers attempted to use their arts against us, but we have such people of our own and they were easily countered. It is not something we like to use, that power, but sometimes it is necessary. A certain creature was summoned from the netherworld. It devoured the men of the Sparrow Sect and before it left it granted us a prophecy, that their master would die within the year, before the next Blood Moon had faded."

"But Varadia?" said Alnac Kreb urgently. "What became of your daughter, your Holy Girl?"

"She had been drugged, as I said, but she lived. We brought her back."

"And she recovered?"

"She half-wakes, perhaps once a month," said Raik Na Seem, controlling his sadness. "But the sleep will not lift from her. Shortly after we found her she opened her eyes and told us to take her to the Bronze Tent. There she sleeps, as she has slept for almost a year, and we know that only a dreamthief may save her. That was why I have sent word by every traveler and caravan we have encountered, asking for a dreamthief. We are fortunate, Alnac Kreb, that a friend heard our prayer."

The dreamthief shook his handsome head. "It was not your message which brought me hither, Raik Na Seem."

"Still," said the old man philosophically, "you are here. You can help us."

Alnac Kreb seemed disturbed, but disguised his emotions quickly. "I will do my best, that I swear. In the morning we shall visit the Bronze Tent."

"It is well guarded now, for more Quarzhasaatim have come since those first evil ones, and we have been forced to defend our Holy Girl against them. That has been a simple enough matter. But you spoke of the enemy we have buried, Prince Elric. What do you know of him?"

Elric paused for only a few seconds before he spoke. He told Raik Na Seem everything which had happened: how he had been tricked by Lord Gho, what he had been told to find, the hold which Lord Gho had over him. He refused to lie to the old man and the respect he showed Raik Na Seem was apparently reciprocated, for though the First Elder's face darkened with anger at the tale he reached out with a firm hand when it was finished and gripped Elric's arm in a gesture of sympathy.

"The irony is, my friend, that the Place of the Pearl exists only in our poetry and we have never heard of the Fortress of the Pearl."

"You must know that I would do your Holy Girl no further harm," said Elric, "and that if I can help you and yours in any way that is what I shall do. My quest is ended here and now."

"But Lord Gho's potion will kill you unless you can find the antidote. Then he'll kill your friend, too. No, no. Let us look more positively at these problems, Prince Elric. We have them in common, I think, for we are all victims of that soon-dead lord. We must consider how to defeat his schemes. It is possible that my daughter does indeed know something about this fabulous pearl, for she is the vessel of all our wisdom and has already learned more than ever my poor head could hold ..."

"Her knowledge and her intelligence are as breathtaking as her beauty and her amiability," said Alnac Kreb, still fuming at the story of what the Quarzhasaatim had done to Varadia. "If you had known her, Elric ..." He broke off, his voice shaking.

"We are all in need of rest, I think," said the First Elder of the Bauradim. "You shall be our guests and in the morning I shall take you to the Bronze Tent, there to look upon my sleeping daughter and hope, perhaps with the sum of all our wisdom, to find a means of bringing her waking mind back to this realm."

That night, sleeping in the luxury only a wealthy nomad tent could provide, Elric dreamed again of Cymoril, trapped in a drugged slumber by his cousin Yyrkoon, and it seemed that he slept beside her, that they were one and the same, as he had always felt when they lay together. But now he saw the dignified figure of Raik Na Seem standing over him and he knew that this was his father, not the neurotic tyrant, the distant figure of his childhood, and he understood why he was obsessed with questions of morality and justice, for it was this Bauradi who was his true ancestor. He knew a kind of peace, then, as well as some kind of new, disturbing emotion, and when he awoke in the morning he was reconciled to the fact that he was craving the elixir which at once brought him life and death, and he reached for his flask and took a small sip before rising, washing himself and joining Alnac and Raik Na Seem at the morning meal.

When this was done, the old man called for the fleet, sturdy mounts for which the Bauradim were famous, and the three of them rode away from the Silver Flower Oasis, which bustled with every kind of activity, where comedians, jugglers and snake-charmers were already performing their skills and story-tellers had gathered groups of children whose parents had sent them there while they went about their business, and they rode towards the Ragged Pillars seen faintly on the morning horizon. These mountains had been eroded by the winds of the Sighing Desert until they did, indeed, resemble huge columns of ragged red stone, as if they should have supported the roof of the sky itself. Elric had thought at first he observed the ruins of some ancient city. But Alnac Kreb had told him the truth.

"There are, indeed, many ruins in these parts. Farms, small villages, whole towns, which the desert sometimes reveals, all engulfed by the sand summoned by the foolish wizards of Quarzhasaat. Many built here, even after the sands came, in the belief that they would disperse after a while. Forlorn dreams, I fear, like so many of the things built by men."

Raik Na Seem continued to lead them across the desert, though he used no map or compass. Apparently he knew the way by habit and instinct alone.

They stopped once at a spot where a tiny growth of cacti had been all but covered by the sand and here Raik Na Seem took his long knife and sliced the plants close to their roots, peeling them swiftly and handing the juicy parts to his friends. "There was once a river here," he said, "and a memory of it remains, far below the surface. The cactus remembers."

The sun had reached the zenith. Elric began to feel the heat sapping him and was forced again to drink a little of the elixir, merely in order to keep pace with the other two. And it was not until evening, when the Ragged Pillars were considerably closer, that Raik pointed to something which flashed and glittered in the last rays of the sun. "There is the Bronze Tent, where the peoples of the desert go when they must meditate."

"It is your temple?" said Elric.

"It is the nearest thing we have to a temple. And there we debate with our inner selves. It is also the nearest thing we have to the religions of the West. And it is there we keep our Holy Girl, the symbol of all our ideals, the vessel of our race's wisdom."

Alnac was surprised. "You keep her there always?"

Raik Na Seem shook his head, almost amused. "Only while she sleeps in this unnatural slumber, my friend. As you know, before this she was a normal little child, a joy to all who met her. Perhaps with your help she will be that child again."

Alnac's brow clouded. "You must not expect too much of me, Raik Na Seem. I am an inexpert dreamthief at best. There are those with whom I learned my craft who would tell you so."

"But you are our dreamthief." Raik Na Seem smiled sadly and put his hand on Alnac Kreb's shoulder. "And our good friend."

The sun had set by the time they approached the great tent, which resembled those Elric had seen at the Silver Flower Oasis but was several times the size, its walls of pure bronze.

Now the moon made its appearance in the sky almost directly overhead. It seemed that the sun's rays reached for it even as they began to sink beneath the horizon, touching it with their colour, for it glowed with a richness Elric had never seen in Melnibone or the lands of the Young Kingdoms. He gasped in surprise, realizing the specific nature of the prophecy.

A Blood Moon had risen over the Bronze Tent. Here he would find the path to the Fortress of the Pearl.

Though it meant that his own life might now be saved, the Prince of Melnibone discovered that he was only disturbed by this revelation.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The Dreamthief's Pledge "Here is our treasure," said Raik Na Seem. "Here is what greedy Quarzhasaat would steal from us." And there was sorrow as well as anger in his voice.

At the very centre of the Bronze Tent's cool interior, in which tiny lamps burned over hundreds of heaped cushions and carpets occupied by men and women in attitudes of deep contemplation, was a raised level and on this a bed carved with intricate designs of exquisite delicacy, set with mother-of-pearl and pale turquoise, with milky jade and silver filigree and blond gold. Upon this, her little hands folded on her chest, which rose and fell with profound regularity, lay a young girl of about thirteen years. She had the strong beauty of her people and her hair was the colour of honey against her tawny skin. She might have been sleeping as naturally as any child of her age save for the single startling fact that her eyes, blue as the wonderful Vilmirian sea, stared upwards towards the roof of the Bronze Tent and were unblinking.

"My people believed that Quarzhasaat destroyed herself for ever," said Elric. "Would that they had or that Melnibone had shown less arrogance and completed what their wizards began!" He rarely betrayed such ferocious emotions towards those his race had defeated but now he knew only loathing for Lord Gho, whose men, he was sure, had done this terrible thing. He recognized the nature of the sorcery, for it was not unlike that he had learned himself, though his cousin Yyrkoon had shown more interest in those specific arts and cared to practise them where Elric did not.

"But who can save her now?" said Raik Na Seem softly, perhaps a little embarrassed by Elric's outburst in this place of meditation.

The albino recovered himself and made a gesture of apology. "Are there no potions which will rouse her from this slumber?" he asked.

Raik Na Seem shook his head. "We have consulted everyone and everything. The spell was cast by the leader of the Sparrow Sect and he was killed when we took our premature revenge."

In deference to those who sat within the Bronze Tent, Raik Na Seem now led them out into the desert again. Here guards stood, their lamps and torches casting great shadows across the sand, while the rays of the ruby moon drenched everything with crimson, so it was almost as if they drowned in a tide of blood. Elric was reminded how, as a youth, he had peered into the depths of his Actorios, imagining the gem as a gateway into other lands, each facet representing a different realm, for by then he had already read much of the multiverse and how it was thought to be constituted.

"Steal the dream which entraps her," Raik Na Seem was saying, "and you know that all we have will be yours, Alnac Kreb."

The handsome black man shook his head. "To save her would be all the reward I wanted, father. Yet I fear I have not the skills ... Has no other tried?"

"We have been deceived more than once. Sorcerer Adventurers from Quarzhasaat, either believing themselves possessed of your knowledge or thinking they could accomplish what only a dreamthief can accomplish, have come to us, pretending to be members of your craft. We have seen them all go mad before our eyes. Several died. Some we let run back to Quarzhasaat in the hope they would be a warning to others not to waste their lives and our time."

"You sound very patient, Raik Na Seem," said Elric, remembering what he had already heard and clearer now as to why Lord Gho so desperately sought a dreamthief for this work. The news brought back to Quarzhasaat by the maddened Sorcerer Adventurers had been garbled. What little Lord Gho had made of it, he had passed on to Elric. But now the albino saw that it was the child herself who possessed the secret of the path to the Pearl at the Heart of the World. Doubtless, as the recipient of all her people's wisdom, she had learned of its location. Perhaps it was a secret she must keep to herself. Whatever the reason, it was obvious that the girl, Varadia, must wake from her sorcerous sleep before any further progress could be made. And Elric knew that even if she did wake it was not in his nature to question her, to beg for a secret which was not his to know. His only hope would be if she offered the knowledge freely to him but he knew that no matter what occurred he would never be able to ask.

Raik Na Seem seemed to understand a little of the albino's dilemma. "My son, you are a friend of my son," he said in the formal manner of his people. "We know that you are not our enemy and that you did not come here willingly to steal what was ours. We know, too, that you had no intention of taking from us any treasure to which we are guardian. Know this, Elric of Melnibone, that if Alnac Kreb can save our Holy Girl, we shall do all we can to put you on the path to the Fortress of the Pearl. The only reason for hindering you would be if Varadia, awakened, warned us against giving this aid. Then, at least, you will be told as much."

"There could be no fairer promise," said Elric gratefully. "Meanwhile, I pledge myself to you, Raik Na Seem, to help guard your daughter against all those who would harm her and to watch over her until Alnac should bring her back to you."

Alnac had moved a little away from the other two and was standing in deep thought on the edge of the torchlight, his white night-cloak drenched a dark pinkish hue by the rays of the Blood Moon. From his belt he had drawn his hooked staff and was holding it in his two hands, looking at it and murmuring to it, much as Elric might speak to his own runesword.

At length the dreamthief turned back to them, his face full of great seriousness. "I will do my best," he said. "I will call upon every resource within myself and upon everything I have been taught, but I should warn you that I have weaknesses of character I have not yet overcome. These are weaknesses which I can control if called upon to exorcize an old merchant's nightmares or a boy's love-trance. What I see here, however, might defeat the cleverest dreamthief, the most experienced of my calling. There can be no partial success. I succeed or I fail. I am willing, because of the circumstances, because of our old friendship, because I loathe everything that the Sorcerer Adventurers represent, to attempt the task."

"It is all I would hope," said Raik Na Seem sombrely. He was impressed by Alnac's tone.

"If you succeed you bring the child's soul back to the world where it belongs," said Elric. "What do you lose if you fail, Master Dreamthief?"

Alnac shrugged. "Nothing of any great value, I suppose."

Elric, looking hard into his new friend's face, saw that he lied. But he saw, too, that he wished to be questioned no further in the matter.

"I must rest," said Alnac. "And eat." He wrapped himself in the folds of his night-cloak, his dark eyes staring back at Elric as if he wished for all the world to share some secret which he felt in his heart should never be shared. Then he turned away suddenly, laughing. "If Varadia should wake as a result of my efforts and if she knows the whereabouts of your terrible pearl, why then, Prince Elric, I'll have done most of your work for you. I'll expect part of your reward, you know."

"My reward will be the slaying of Lord Gho," said Elric quietly.

"Aye," said Alnac, moving towards the Bronze Tent, which shifted and shimmered like some half-materialized artifact of Chaos, "that is exactly what I hope to share!"

The Bronze Tent consisted of the great central chamber and then a series of smaller chambers, where travelers could rest and revive themselves, and it was to one of these that the three men went to lay themselves down and, still wakeful, consider the work which must begin the next day. They did not talk, but it was several hours before all were eventually asleep.

In the morning, while Elric, Raik Na Seem and Alnac Kreb approached the place where the Holy Girl still lay, those who still remained in the Bronze Tent drew back respectfully. Alnac Kreb held his dreamwand gently in his right hand, balancing it rather than gripping it, as he stared down into the face of the child he loved almost as his own daughter. A long sigh escaped him and Elric saw that his sleep had not apparently refreshed him. He looked drawn and unhappy. He turned, smiling to the albino. "When I saw you partaking of the contents of that silver flask earlier, I had half a mind to ask you for a little ..."