«I came with my cousin Opluk’s two thousand, » she said, fitting her head defiantly, «when he joined the defenders of Uhaio. I came to be near my husband at a time when he may need my comforting. The gods know I've had little opportunity to discover if he does! »

Elric paced the room in agitation. «As I love you, Zarozinia, believe that I would be in Karlaak now with you had I any excuse at all. But I have not-you know my role, my destiny, my doom. You bring sorrow with your presence, not help. If this business has a satisfactory end, then we’ll meet again, in joy-not in misery as we now must! » He crossed to her and took her in his arms. «Oh, Zarozinia, we should never have met, never have married. We can only hurt one another at this time. Our happiness was so brief...»

«If you would be hurt by me, then hurt you shall be, » she said softly, «but if you would be comforted, then I am hero to comfort my lord.»

He relented with a sigh. «These are loving words, my dear-but they are not spoken in loving times. I have put love aside for the nonce. Try to do likewise and thus well both dispense with added complication.»

Without anger, she drew slowly away from him and with a slight smile that had something of irony in it, pointed to the bed, where Stormbringer lay.

«I see your other mistress still shares your bed, » she said. «And now you need never try to dismiss her again, for that black Lord of Nihrain has given you an excuse to forever keep her by your side. Destiny-is that the word? Destiny! Ah, the deeds men have done in Destiny's name. And what is destiny, Brie, can you answer?»

He shook his bead. «Since you ask the question in malice, I’ll not make the attempt to answer it.»

She cried suddenly: «Oh, Elric! I - have travelled for many days to see you, thinking you would welcome me. And now we speak in anger! »

«Fear! » he said urgently. «It is fear, not anger. I fear for you as I fear for the fate of the world! See me to my ship in the morning and then make speed back to Karlaak. I beg you»

«If you wish it.»

She walked back into the small chamber which joined the main one.

«We talk only of defeat! » roared Kargan of the Purple Towns, beating upon the table with his fist. His beard seemed to bristle with rage.

Dawn had found all but a few of the captain' retiring through weariness. Kargan' Moonglum, Elric's cousin Dyvim Slonn and moon-faced Dralab of Tarkesh. remained in the chamber, pondering tactics.

Elric answered him calmly: «We talk of defeat, Kargan, because we must be prepared for that eventuality. It seems likely, does it not? We must, if defeat seems imminent, flee our enemies, conserving our force for another attack on Jagreen Lern. We shall not have the forces to fight another major battle, so we must use our better knowledge of currents, winds and terrain to fight him from ambush on sea or land. Thus we can perhaps demoralise his warriors and take considerably more of them than they can of us.»

«Aye-I see the logic, » Kargan rumbled unwillingly, evidently disturbed by this talk for, if the major battle was lost, then lost also would be the Isle of the Purple Towns, bastion against Chaos for the Ilminly nations of Vumir and Ilmiora.

Moonglum shifted his position, granting slightly. «And if they drive us back, men back we must go, beading rather than breaking, and returning from other directions to attack and confuse them. Ifs in my mind that well have to move more rapidly than we'll be able to, since we'd be tired and with few provisions...» He grinned faintly. «Ah, forgive me for my pessimism. Ill-placed, I fear.»

«No, » Brie said. «We must face all this or be caught unawares. You are right. And to allow for ordered retreat, I have already sent detachments to the Signing Desert and the Weeping Waste to bury large quantities of food and such dungs as extra arrows, lances and so forth. If we are forced back as far as the barrens, we'll likely fare better than Jagreen Lern, assuming that it takes him time to extend the area of Chaos and that his allies from the Higher Worlds are not overwhelmingly powerful.»

«You spoke of realism...» said Dyvim Slonn, pursing his curving lips and raising a slanting eyebrow.

«Aye - but some things cannot be faced or considered-for if we are totally engulfed by Chaos at the outset, then well nave no need of plans. So we plan for the other eventuality, you see.»

Kargan let out his breath and rose from the table. There's no more to discuss, » he said. «All to bed. We must be ready to sail with the noon tide tomorrow.»

They all gave signs of assent and chairs scraped as they pushed them back and left the chamber.

Bereft of human occupants, the chamber was silent save for the sputtering of the lamps and the rustle of the maps and, papers as they were stirred by a warm wind.

It was late in the morning when Elric arose and found Zarozinia already up and dressed in a skirt and bodice of doth-of-gold with a long black-trimmed cloak of silver flowing from her shoulders and spreading to the floor.

He washed, shaved and ate the dish of herb-flavoured fruit she handed him.

«Why have you arrayed yourself in such finery?» he asked.

«To bid you goodbye from the harbour, » she said.

«If you spoke truth last night, then you'd best be dressed in funeral red.» he smiled and then, relenting, clasped her to him. He gripped her tightly, desperately, before standing back from her and taking her chin in his hand raised her face to stare down into it «In these tragic times, » he said, «there's little room for love-play and kind words. Love must be deep and strong, manifesting itself in our actions. Seek no courtly words from me, Zarozinia, but remember earlier nights when the only turbulence was our pulse-beats blending.»

He was clad, himself, in Melnibonean war regalia, with a breastplate of shiny black metal, a high-collared jerkin of black velvet, black feather breeks covered to the knee by his boots, also of black leather. Over his back was pushed a cloak of deep red, and on one thin, white finger, was the Ring of Kings, the single rare actorious stone set in silver.

His long white hair hung loose down to his shoulders, kept from his eyes by a bronze circlet in which were set other precious charm stones of peryx, mio and golden otredos. Stormbringer was sheathed at his left hip and an ebony handled poignard dangled at his right. Upon the table, among the open books, a tapering black helm, engraved with old runes, lay, its crown gradually rising into a spike, standing almost two feet from the base. At this base, dominating the eye-slits, was a tiny replica of a spread-winged dragon, with a gaping snout, a reminder that, as when as being Emperors of the Bright Empire, Elric's ancestors were Dragon Masters over all that remained of the dragon kind. Brie, himself, was chief master-though now only his cousin Dyvim Slorm knew the dragon speech and spells, the rest having perished in various ways since the Sack of Imrryr years before when Elric, turned renegade, had led the attack upon the Dreaming City.

Now he picked up the helm and fitted it over his head so that it covered the top half of his face, only his red eyes gleaming from its shadows. He refrained from pulling the side wings about his lower face but for the meantime, left them sweeping back from the bottom of the helmet.

Noting her silence, he said, with a heart already heavy, «Come, my love, let's to the harbour to astound these undercivillised allies of ours with our elegance. Have no fear not I shall live to survive this day's battle-for Fate has not finished with me yet and protects me as a mother would her cub-so that I might witness further misery until such a day when ifs over for all time.»

Together, they left the Fort of Evening, riding on magical Nihrain horses, down to the harbour where the other Sealords and captains were already assembled beneath the bright sun.