'At last,' Elric breathed, 'At last-the Truth!' He stumbled forward like a man made stupid with drink, his pale hands reaching for the thing he had sought with such savage bitterness. His hands touched the pulsating cover of the Book and, trem-bling, turned it back. 'Now, I shall learn,' he said, half-gloatingly. With a crash, the cover fell to the floor, sending the brightgems skipping and dancing over the pav-ing stones.

Beneath Elric's twitching hands lay nothing but a pile of yellowish dust. 'No!' His scream was anguished, unbelieving. 'No!' Tears flowed down his contorted face as he ran his hands through the fine dust. With a groan which racked his whole being, he fell forward, his face hitting the disintegrated parchment, Time had destroyed the Book-untouched, possibly forgotten, for three hundred centuries. Even the wise and pow-erful Gods who had created it had perished-and now its knowledge followed them into oblivion. They stood on the slopes of the high mountain, staring down

into the green valleys below them. The sun shone and the sky was clear and blue. Behind them lay the gaping hole which led into the strong-hold of the Lords of Entropy.

Elric looked with sad eyes across the world and his head was lowered beneath a weight of weariness and dark despair. He had not spoken since his compan-ions had dragged him sobbing from the chamber of the Book. Now he raised his pale face and spoke in a voice tinged with self-mockery, sharp with bitterness-a lonely voice: the calling of hungry seabirds circling cold skies above bleak shores. 'Now,' he said, 'I will live my life without ever knowing why I live it-whether it has purpose or not. Perhaps the Book could have told me. But would I have believed it, even then? I am the eter-nal sceptic---never sure that my actions are my own; never certain that-an ultimate entity is not guiding me.

'I envy those who know. All I can do now is to continue my quest and hope, without hope, that before my span is ended, the truth will be presented to me.' Shaarilla took his limp hands in hers and her eyes were wet.

-Elric Saga