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 halfmemories 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 Melnibone drew upon almost infinite memory. To say that I knew the peculiar feeling of repeating an experience, which the French call deja 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 Melnibone, 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."