In the morning, while Elric, Raik Na Seem and Alnac Kreb approached the place where the Holy Girl still lay, those who 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 ..."

"The drug's poison and it's addictive," said Elric, shocked. "I thought I had explained as much."

"You had." Alnac Kreb again revealed by his expression that he possessed thoughts he felt unable to share. "I had merely thought " that in the circumstances, there would be little point in fearing its power."

"That is because you do not know it," said Elric forcefully. "Believe me, Alnac, if there was any way in which I could help you in this task I would do so. But to offer you poison would not, I think, be an act of friendship ..."

Alnac Kreb smiled a little. "Indeed. Indeed." He slid his dream-wand from hand to hand. "But you said that you would watch over me?" ,

"I promised that, aye. And as you asked, the moment you tell me to carry the dreamwand from the Bronze Tent, I shall do so."

"That is all you can do and I thank you for that," said the dreamthief. "Now I'll begin. Farewell for the moment, Elric. I think we are fated to meet again, but perhaps not in this existence."

And with those mysterious words Alnac Kreb approached the sleeping girl, placing his dreamwand over her unblinking eyes, laying his ear against her heart, his own gaze growing distant and strange, as if he entered a trance himself. He straightened, swaying, then took the girl in his arms and lowered her gently to the carpets. Next he lay down beside her, putting her lifeless hand within his own, his dream-wand in the other. His breathing grew slower and deeper and Elric almost thought he heard a faint song coming from within the dreamthief's throat.

Raik Na Seem bent forward, peering into Alnac's face, but Alnac did not see bun. With his other hand he brought up the dreamwand so that the hook passed over their clasped hands, as if to secure them, to bind them together.

To his surprise, Elric saw that the dreamwand was beginning to glow faintly and to pulse a little. Alnac's breathing grew deeper still, his lips opening, his eyes staring directly above him, just as Varadia's ; stared.

. Elric thought he heard the child murmur and it was no illusion , that a tremor passed between Alnac and the Holy Girl while the dreamwand pulsed in tempo with their mutual breathing and glowed brighter.

Then suddenly the dreamwand was curling and writhing, moving with astonishing speed between the two, as if it had entered their very veins and was following the blood itself. Elric had the impression of a tangle of arteries and nerves, all touched by the strange light from the dreamwand, then Alnac gave a single cry and his breathing was no longer the steady movement it had been. Instead it had become shallow, almost non-existent, while the child continued to breathe with the same slow, deep, steady rhythm.

The dreamwand had returned to Alnac. It seemed to bum from within his body, almost as if it had become fused with his spine and cortex. The hooked end appeared to glow from within his brain, flooding his flesh with indescribable luminance, displaying every bone, every organ, every vein.

The child herself seemed unchanged until Elric looked at her more closely, seeing almost with horror that her eyes had turned from vibrant blue to jet black. Reluctantly he looked from Varadia's face to Alnac's and saw what he had not wished to see: The dreamthief's own eyes now bright blue. It was as if the two of them had exchanged souls.

The albino, with all his experience of sorcery, had never witnessed anything like this and he found it disturbing. Gradually he was beginning to understand the strange nature of a dreamthief's calling, why it could be so dangerous, why there were so few who could practise the trade and why fewer still would wish to.

Now a further change began to take place. The crooked staff seemed to writhe again and begin to absorb the dreamthief's very substance, taking the blood and the vitality of flesh and bones and brain into itself.

Raik Na Seem groaned with terror. He stepped backward, unable to control himself. "Ah, my son! What have I asked of thee!"

Soon all that remained of Alnac Kreb's splendid body seemed little more than a husk, like the discarded skin of some transmuted dragonfly. But the dreamwand lay where Alnac had first placed it upon his own hand and Varadia's, though it seemed larger and glowed with an impossible brilliance, its colours constantly moving through a spectrum part natural, part supernatural.

"I think he is giving much in his attempt to save my daughter," said Raik Na Seem. "Perhaps more than anyone should give."

"He would give everything," Elric said. "I think that it is in his nature. That is why you call him your son and why you trust him."

"Aye," said Raik Na Seem. "But now I fear that I lose a son as well as a daughter." And he sighed and was troubled, perhaps wondering, if, after all, he had been wise in begging this service of Alnac Kreb.

For more than a day and a night Elric sat with Raik Na Seem and the men and women of the Bauradim within the shelter of the Bronze Tent, their eyes fixed upon the strangely wizened body of Alnac the Dreamthief which occasionally stirred and murmured yet still seemed as lifeless as the mummified goats which the sand-dunes sometimes revealed. Once Elric thought he heard the Holy Girl make a sound and once Raik Na Seem rose to put his hand on his daughter's brow, then returned shaking his head.

"This is not the time to despair, father of my friend," said Elric.

"Aye." The First Elder of the Bauradim drew himself up, then settled down again beside Elric. "We set high store by prophecies here in the desert. It seems that our longing for help might have coloured our reason."

They looked out of the tent into the morning. Smoke from the still burning brands drifted across the lilac-coloured sky, borne upward and to the north by the light breeze. Elric found the smell almost sickening now, but his concern for his new friend made bun forgetful of his own health. Occasionally he drank sparingly of Lord Gho's elixir, unable to do more than control his craving, and when Raik Na Seem offered him water from his own flask Elric shook his head. Within him there were still many conflicts. He felt a strong comradeship with these people, a liking for Raik Na Seem which he valued. He had grown to care for Alnac Kreb, who had helped save his life in an action clearly as generous as the man's general character. Elric was grateful for the Bauradim's trust of him. Having heard his tale,; they would have been within their rights to banish him at very least from the Silver Flower Oasis. Rather, they had taken him to the Bronze Tent when the Blood Moon burned, allowing him to follow Lord Gho's instructions, trusting him not to abuse their action. He was bound to them now by a loyalty he could never break. Perhaps they knew this. Perhaps they read his character as easily as they read Alnac's. This sense of their trust heartened him, though it made his task all the more difficult, and he was determined hi no way, however inadvertently, to betray it.

Raik Na Seem sniffed the wind and looked back towards the distant oasis. A column of black smoke marched into the sky, growing taller and taller, mingling with the smoke closer at hand: some released afrit joining its fellows. Elric would not have been surprised if it had taken shape before his eyes, so familiar had he become with strange events in past days.