Elric moved his gaze to contemplate the sword which seemed to shift in its loose silk wrappings and whisper some kind of warning, or possibly a threat.

Elric turned his head away. "Cymoril?" He peered into the shaft of sunlight, following it until he looked through the window at the intense desert sky. Now he believed he saw shapes moving there, shadows that were almost the forms of men, of beasts and demons. As these shapes grew more distinct they came to resemble his friends. Cymoril was there again. Elric moaned in despair. "My love!"

He saw Rackhir, Dyvim Tvar, even Yyrkoon. He called out to them all.

At the sound of his own cracked speech he realised he had grown feverish, that his remaining energy was being dissipated by his fantasies, that his body was feeding on itself and that death must be close.

Elric reached to touch his own brow, feeling the sweat pour from it. He wondered how much each bead might fetch on the open market. He found it amusing to speculate on this. Could he sweat enough to buy himself more water, or at least a little wine? Or was this production of liquid in itself against Quarzhasaat's bizarre water laws?

He looked again beyond the sunlight, thinking he saw men there, perhaps the city's guard come to inspect his premises and demand to see his licence to perspire.

Now it seemed that the desert wind, which was never very far away, came sliding through the room, bringing with it some elemental gathering, perhaps a force which was to bear his soul to its ultimate destination. He felt relief. He smiled. He was glad in several ways that his struggle was over. Perhaps Cymoril would join him soon?

Soon? What could Tune mean in that intemporal Realm? Perhaps he must wait for Eternity before they could be together? Or a mere passing moment? Or would he never see her? Was all that lay ahead for him an absence, a nothingness? Or would his soul enter some other body, perhaps equally as sickly as his present one, and be faced again with the same impossible dilemmas, the same terrible moral and physical challenges which had plagued him since his emergence into adulthood?

Elric's mind drifted further and further from logic, like a drowning mouse swept away from the shore, spinning ever more crazily before death brought oblivion. He chuckled, he wept; he raved and occasionally slept as his life dissipated its last with the vapours now pouring from his strange, bone-white flesh. Any uninformed on-looker would have seen that some misborn diseased beast, not a man at all, lay in its final and doubtless felicitous agonies upon that rough bed.

Darkness came and with it a brilliant panoply of people from the albino's past. He saw again the wizards who had educated him in all the arts of sorcery; he saw the strange mother he had never known, and a stranger father; the cruel friends of his childhood with whom, bit by bit, he could no longer enjoy the luscious, terrible sports of Melniboné; the caverns and secret glades of the Dragon Isle, the slim towers and hauntingly intricate palaces of his unhuman people, whose ancestors were only partially of this world and who had arisen as beautiful monsters to conquer and rule before, with a deep weariness which he could appreciate all the better now, declining into self-examination and morbid fantasies. And he cried out, for in his mind he saw Cymoril, her body as wasted as his own while Yyrkoon, giggling with horrible pleasure, practised upon it the foulest of abominations. And then, again, he wanted to live, to return to Melniboné, to save the woman he loved so deeply that often he refused to let himself be conscious of the intensity of his passion. But he could not.

He knew, as the visions passed and he saw only the dark blue sky through his window, that soon he would be dead and there would be nobody to save the woman he had sworn to marry.

By morning the fever was gone and Elric knew he was but a short hour or two from the end. He opened misted eyes to see the shaft of sunlight, soft and golden now, no longer glaring directly in as it had the previous day, but reflected from the glittering walls of the palace beside which his hovel had been built.

Feeling something suddenly cool upon his cracked lips, he jerked his head away and tried to reach for his sword, for he feared that steel was being positioned against him, perhaps to cut his throat.

"Stormbringer..."

His voice was feeble and his hand was too weak to leave his side, let alone grip his murmuring blade. He coughed and realised that liquid was being dripped into his mouth. It was not the filthy stuff he had bought with his emerald but something fresh and clean. He drank, trying hard to focus his eyes. Immediately before him was an ornamental silver flask, a golden, soft hand, an arm clothed in exquisitely delicate brocade, a humorous face which he did not recognise. He coughed again. The liquid was more than ordinary water. Had the boy found some sympathetic apothecary? The potion was like one of his own sustaining distillations. He drew a ragged, grateful breath and stared in wary curiosity at the man who had resurrected him, however briefly. Smiling, his temporary saviour moved with studied elegance in his heavy, unseasonable robes.

"Good morning to you, Sir Thief. I trust I'm not insulting you. I gather you're a citizen of Nadsokor, where all kinds of robbery are practised with pride?"

Elric, conscious of the delicacy of his situation, saw fit not to contradict him. The albino prince nodded slowly. His bones still ached.

The tall, clean-shaven man slipped a stopper into his flask. "The boy Anigh tells me you have a sword to sell?"

"Perhaps." Certain now that his recovery was only temporary, Elric continued to exercise caution. "Though I would guess 'tis the kind of purchase most would regret making..."

"But your sword is not representative of your main trade, eh? You have lost your crooked staff, no doubt. Sold for water?" A knowing expression.

Elric chose to humour the man. He allowed himself to hope for life again. The liquid had revived him enough to bring back his wits, together with a proportion of his usual strength. "Aye," he said, appraising his visitor. "Maybe."

"So ho? What? Do you advertise your own incompetence? Is this the way of the Nadsokor Thieves' Company? Thou art a subtler felon than thy guise suggests, eh?" This last was delivered in the same canting tongue Anigh had used on the previous day.

Now Elric realised that this wealthy person had formed an opinion of his status and powers which, while at odds with any actuality, could provide him with a means of escape from his immediate predicament. Elric grew more alert. "You'd buy my services, is that it? My special prowess? That of myself and possibly my sword?"

The man affected carelessness. "If you like." But it was clear he suppressed some urgency. "I have been told to inform you that the Blood Moon must soon burn over the Bronze Tent."

"I see." Elric pretended to be impressed by what to him was pure gibberish. "Then we must move swiftly, I suppose."

"So my master believes. The words mean nothing to me, but they have significance for you. I was told to offer you a second draft if you appeared to respond positively to that knowledge. Here." And smiling more broadly, he held out the silver flask, which Elric accepted, drinking sparingly and feeling still more strength return, his aches gradually dissipating.

"Your master would commission a thief? What does he wish stolen that the thieves of Quarzhasaat cannot steal for him?"

"Aha, sir, you affect a literal-mindedness I cannot believe in now." He took back the flask. "I am Raafi as-Keeme and I serve a great man of this empire. He has, I believe, a commission for you. We have heard much of the Nadsokorian skills and for some while have been hoping one of your folk might wander this way. Did you plan to steal from us? None is ever successful. Better to steal for us, I think."