"Moonglum?"

"Thank Elwher's gentle gods! I thought you slain by that poisoned blade."

Elric's head was clearing rapidly now. He rose to a sitting position. "The attacker came from behind. How...?"

Moonglum looked embarrassed. "I fear those girls were not all they seemed."

Elric remembered the woman tugging at his left hand

and he stretched out his fingers. "Moonglum! The Ring of Kings is gone from my hand! The Actorios has been stolen! "

The Ring of Kings had been worn by Elric's forefathers for centuries. It had been the symbol of their power, the source of much of their supernatural strength.

Moonglum's face clouded. "I thought I stole the girls. But they were thieves. They planned to rob us. An old trick."

"There's more to it, Moonglum. They stole nothing else. Just the Ring of Kings. There's still a little gold left in my purse." He jingled his belt pouch, climbing to his feet.

Moonglum jerked his thumb at the street's far wall. There lay one of the girls, her finery all smeared with mud and blood.

"She got in the way of one of the assassins as we fought. She's been dying all night-mumbling your name. I had not told it to her. Therefore I fear you're right. They were sent to steal that ring from you. I was duped by them."

Elric walked rapidly to where the girl lay and he kneeled down beside her. Gently he touched her cheek. She opened her lids and stared at him from glazed eyes. Her lips formed Ms name.

"Why did you plan to rob me?" Elric asked. "Who is your master?"

"Urish..." she said in a voice that was a breeze passing through the grass. "Steal ring... take it to Nadsokor...."

Moonglum now stood on the other side of the dying girl. He had found one of the wine flasks and he bent to give her a drink. She tried to sip the wine but failed. It ran down her little chin, down her slim neck and on to her wounded breast.

"You are one of the beggars of Nadsokor?" Moonglum said.

Faintly, she nodded,

"Urish has always been my enemy, " Elric told him.

"I once recovered some property from him and he has never forgiven me. Perhaps he sought the Actorios ring in payment." He looked down at the girl. "Your companion-has she returned to Nadsokor?"

Again the girl seemed to nod. Then all intelligence left the eyes, the lids closed and she ceased to breathe.

Elric got up. He was frowning, rubbing at the hand on which the Ring of Kings had been.

"Let him keep the ring, then, " said Moonglum hopefully. "He will be satisfied."

Elric shook his head.

Moonglum cleared his throat. "A caravan is leaving Jadmar in a week. It is commanded by Rackhir of Tanelorn and has been purchasing provisions for the city. If we took a ship round the coast we could soon be in Jadmar, join Rackhir's caravan and be on our way to Tanelorn in good company. As you know, it's rare for anyone of Tanelorn to make such a journey. We are lucky, for..."

"No, " said Elric in a low voice. "We must forget Tanelorn for the moment, Moonglum, The Ring of Kings is my link with my fathers. More-it aids my conjurings and has saved our lives more than once. We ride for Nadsokor now. I must try to reach the girl before she gets to the City of Beggars. Failing that, I must enter the city and recover my ring."

Moonglum shuddered. "It would be more foolish than any plan of mine, Elric. Urish would destroy us."

"None the less, to Nadsokor I must go."

Moonglum bent and began systematically to strip the girl's corpse of its jewellery. "We'll need every penny we can raise if we're to buy decent horses for our journey, " he explained.

CHAPTER THREE

The Cold Ghouls

Framed against the scarlet sunset, Nadsokor looked from this distance more like a badly kept graveyard than a city. Towers tottered, houses were half-collapsed, the walls were broken.

Elric and Moonglum came up the peak of the hill on their fast Shazarian horses (which had cost them all they had) and saw it. Worse-they smelled it. A thousand stinks issued from the festering city and both men gagged, turning their horses back down the hill to the valley.

"We'll camp here for a short while-until nightfall, " Elric said. "Then we'll enter Nadsokor."

"Elric, I am not sure I could bear the stench. Whatever our disguise, our disgust would reveal us for strangers."

Elric smiled and reached into his pouch. He took out two small tablets and handed one to Moonglum.

The Eastlander regarded the thing suspiciously. "What's this?"

"A potion. I used it once before when I came to Nadsokor. It will kill your sense of smell completelyunfortunately your sense of taste as well...."

Moonglum laughed. "I did not plan to eat a gourmet meal while in the City of Beggars! " He swallowed the pill and Elric did likewise.

Almost instantly Moonglum remarked that the stink of the city was subsiding. Later, as they chewed the stale bread which was all that was left of their provisions, he said:

"I can taste nothing. The potion works."

Elric nodded. He was frowning, looking up the hill in the direction of the city as the night fell.

Moonglum took out his swords and began to hone them with the small stone he carried for the purpose. As he honed, he watched Elric's face, trying to see if he could guess Elric's thoughts.

At last the albino spoke. "We'll need to leave the horses here, of course, for most beggars disdain their use."

"They are proud in their perversity, " Moonglum murmured.

"Aye. We'll need those rags we brought."

"Our swords will be noticed:..."

"Not if we wear the loose robes over all. It will mean we'll walk stiff-legged, but that's not so strange in a beggar."

Reluctantly Moonglum got the bundles of rags from the saddle-panniers.

So it was that a filthy pair, one stooped and limping, one short but with a twisted arm, crept through the debris which was ankle deep around the whole city of Nadsokor. They made for one of the many gaps in the wall.

Nadsokor had been abandoned some centuries before by a people fleeing from the ravages of a particularly virulent pox which had struck down most of their number. Not long afterwards the first of the beggars had occupied it. Nothing had been done to preserve the city's defences and now the muck around the perimeters was as effective a protection as any wall.

No one saw the two figures as they climbed over the messy rubble and entered the dark, festering streets of the City of Beggars. Huge rats raised themselves on their hind legs and watched them as they made their way to what had once been Nadsokor's senate building and which was now Urish's palace. Scrawny dogs with garbage dangling in their jaws warily slunk back into the shadows. Once a little column of blind men, each man with his right hand on the shoulder of the man in front, tapped their way through the night, pass ing directly across the street Elric and Moonglum were in. From some of the tumble-down buildings came cacklings and titterings as the maimed caroused with the crippled and the degenerate and corrupted coupled with their crones. As the disguised pair neared what had been Nadsokor's forum there came a scream from one shattered doorway and a young girl, barely over puberty, dashed out pursued by a monstrously fat beggar who propelled himself with astounding speed on his crutches, the livid stumps of his legs, which terminated at the knee, making the motions of running. Moonglum tensed, but Elric held him back as the fat cripple bore down his prey, abandoned his crutches which rattled on the broken pavement, and flung himself on the child.

Moonglum tried to free himself from Elric's grasp but the albino whispered: "Let it happen. Those who are whole either in mind, body or spirit cannot be tolerated in Nadsokor."

There were tears in Moonglum's eyes as he looked at his friend. "Your cynicism is as disgusting as anything they do! "