"In a realm beyond this one, in a place where only those of our profession, or those who attend upon us, may travel."

"You'd take me there?" Elric spoke from curiosity.

Her glance was a mixture of amusement and caution. "Possibly. But first we must be successful. We must steal a dream so that we may trade it there. Know you, Elric, I have every desire to inform you of all you wish to learn, but there are many things hard to explain to one who has not studied with our guild. They can only be demonstrated or experienced. I am not a native of your world, nor are most dreamthieves from this sphere. We are wanderers-nomads, you might say-between many times and many places. We have learned that a dream in one realm can be an undeniable reality hi another, while what is utterly prosaic in that realm can elsewhere be the stuff of the most fantastic nightmare."

"Is all creation so malleable?" Elric asked with a shudder.

"What we create must ever be, lest it die," she said, her tone one of ironical finality.

"The struggle between Law and Chaos echoes that struggle within ourselves between unbridled emotion and too much caution, I suppose," Elric mused, aware that she did not wish to pursue this particular conversation.

With her foot Gone traced the cracks in the red earth. 'To learn more you must become an apprentice dreamthief..."

"Willingly," said Elric. "I'm sufficiently curious now, madam. You spoke of your laws. What are they?"

"Some are instructive, some are descriptive. First I'll tell you that we have determined that every Dream Realm shall have seven aspects, which we have named. By naming and describing we hope to shape that which has no shape and control that which few can begin to control. By such impositions we have learned to survive in worlds where others would be destroyed within minutes. Yet even when we perform such impositions, even that which our own wills define can become transmuted beyond our control. If you would accompany me and aid me in this adventure, you must know that I have determined we shall pass through seven lands. The first land we call Sadanor, or the Land of Dreams-in-Common. The second land is Marador, which we call the Land of Old Desires, while the third is Paranor, the Land of Lost Beliefs. The fourth land is known to dreamthieves as Celador, which is the Land of Forgotten Love. The fifth is Imador, the Land of New Ambition, and the sixth is Falador, the Land of Madness..."

"Fanciful names indeed, madam. The Guild of Dreamthieves has a penchant for poetry, I think. And the seventh? What is that named?"

She paused before she replied. Her wonderful eyes peered into his, as if exploring the recesses of his own skull. "That has no name," she said quietly, "save any name the inhabitants shall give it. But there, if anywhere, you will find the Fortress of the Pearl,"

Elric felt himself trapped by that gentle yet determined gaze. "And how may we enter these lands?" The albino forced himself to engage with these questions though by now his whole body was crying out for a draft of Lord Gho's elixir.

She sensed his tension, and her hand on his arm was meant to calm and reassure him. "Through the child," said Oone.

Elric remembered what he had witnessed in the Bronze Tent and he shuddered. "How is such a thing achieved?"

Oone frowned and the pressure of her hand increased. "She is our gateway and the dreamwands are our keys. There is no way hi which I will harm her, Elric. Once we have reached the seventh aspect, the Nameless Land, there we might in turn find the key to her particular prison."

"She is a medium, then? Is that what has happened to her? Did the Sorcerer Adventurers know something of her power and in attempting to use her put her into this trance?"

Again she hesitated, then she nodded. "Close enough, Prince Elric. It is written in our histories, of which we have many, though most are inaccessible to us in the libraries of Tanelorn, 'What lies within always has a form without and that which is without takes a shape within.' Put another way, we sometimes say that what is visible must always have an invisible aspect, just as everything invisible must be represented by the visible."

Elric found this too cryptic for him, though he was familiar enough with such mysterious utterances from his own grimoires. He did not dismiss them, but he knew they frequently required much pondering and certain experience before they made complete sense. "You speak of supernatural realms, madam. The worlds inhabited by the Lords of Chaos and of Law, by the elementals, by immortals and the like. I know something of such realms and have even journeyed in them some little way. But I have never heard of leaving part of one's physical substance behind and travelling into those realms by means of a sleeping child!"

She looked at him for a long moment as if she thought he was deliberately disingenuous, then she shrugged. "You will find the realms of the dreamthief very similar. And you would do well to memorise and obey our code."

"You are a strict order, then, madam..."

"If we are to survive. Alnac had the instincts of a good dreamthief but he had not acquired the full discipline. That was one of the chief reasons for his dissolution. You on the other hand are familiar with the necessary disciplines, for they were how you came by your knowledge of sorcery. Without those disciplines you, too, would have perished."

"I have rejected much of that, Lady Gone."

"Aye. So I believe. But you have not lost the habit, I think. Or so I hope. The first law the dreamthief obeys says, Offers of guidance must always be accepted but never trusted. The second says, Beware the familiar, and the third tells us, What is strange should be cautiously welcomed. There are many others, but it is those three which encompass the fundamentals by which a dreamthief survives." She smiled. Her smile was oddly sweet and vulnerable and Elric realised she was weary. Perhaps her grief had exhausted her.

The Melnibonéan spoke gently, looking back to the great red rocks of the Silver Flower's protection and sanctuary. The voices were stilled now. Thin lines of smoke ascended the rich blue of the sky. "How long does it take to instruct and train one of your calling?"

She recognised his irony now. "Five years or more," she said. "Alnac had been a full member of the guild for perhaps six years."

"And he failed to survive in the realm where the Holy Girl's spirit is held prisoner?"

"He was, for all his skills, only an ordinary mortal, Prince Elric."

"And you think I'm more than that?"

She laughed openly. "You are the last Emperor of Melniboné. You are the most powerful of your race, which is a race whose familiarity with sorcery is legendary. True, you have left your bride to be waiting for you while you place your cousin Yyrkoon on the Ruby Throne to reign as Regent until you return-a decision only an idealist would make-but nonetheless, my lord, you cannot pretend to me that you are in any way ordinary!"

In spite of his craving for the poisonous elixir, Elric found himself laughing back at her. "If I am such a man of qualities, madam, how is it that I find myself in this position, contemplating death from the tricks of a second-rate provincial politician?"

"I did not say you admired yourself, my lord. But it would be foolish to deny what you have been and what you could become."

"I prefer to consider the latter, my lady."

"Consider, if you will, the fate of Raik Na Seem's daughter. Consider the fate of his people deprived of then: history and their oracle. Consider your own doom, to perish for no good reason in a distant land, your destiny unfulfilled."

Elric accepted this.

She continued. "It is probable, too, that you have no rival as a sorcerer in your world. While your specific skills might be of little use to you in the adventure I propose, your experience, knowledge and understanding might make the difference between success and failure."