Free Revenge of the Rose by Michael Moorcock

Elric, truthfully. Within him now a voice was speaking.
He tried to quiet it but it would not be silent. It was his father’s voice. The sisters. Find them. They have the box.
They have the box . The voice was
fading now. Was it false? Was he deceived? He had no other course to follow, he
decided, so he might as well follow this one and hope, ultimately, it might
lead him to the rosewood box and his father’s stolen soul. Besides, there was
something he enjoyed in this woman’s company that he felt he might never find
again, an easy, measured understanding which made him, in spite of his careful
resolve, wish to tell her all the secrets of his life, all the hopes and fears
and aspirations he had known, all the losses; not to burden her, but to offer
her something she might wish to share. For they had other qualities in common,
he could tell.
                 He
felt, in short, that he had found a sister. And he knew that she, too, felt
something of the same kinship, though he were Melnibonéan and she were not. And
he wondered at all of this, for he had experienced kinship of a thoroughly
different kind with Gaynor—yet kinship, nonetheless.
                 When
the Rose had retired, saying she had not slept for some thirty-six hours,
Wheldrake was full of enthusiasm for her. “She’s as womanly a woman, sir, as I’ve
ever seen. What a magnificent woman. A Juno in the flesh! A Diana!”
                 “I
know nothing of your local divinities,” said Elric gently, but he agreed with
Wheldrake that they had met an exceptional individual that day. He had begun to
speculate on this peculiar linking of fathers and sons, quasi-brothers and
quasi-sisters. He wondered if he did not sense the presence of the Balance in
this—or perhaps, more likely, the influence of the Lords of Chaos or of Law,
for it had become obvious of late that the Dukes of Entropy and the Princes of
Constancy were about to engage in a conflict of more than ordinary ferocity.
Which went further to explaining the urgency that was in the air—the urgency
his father had attempted to express, though dead and without his soul. Was
there, in this slow-woven pattern that seemed to form about him, some
reflection of a greater, cosmic configuration? And, for a second, he had a
glimmering of the vastness of the multiverse, its complexity and variousness,
its realities and its still-to-be-realized dreams; possibilities without end—wonders
and horrors, beauty and ugliness—limitless and indefinable, full of the
ultimate in everything.
                 And
when the grey-haired man came back, a little better dressed, a little neater in
his toilet, Elric asked him why they did not fear direct attack from the
so-called Gypsy Nation.
                 “Oh,
they have their own rules about such things, I understand. There is a status
quo, you know. Not that it makes your circumstances any more fortunate …”
                 “You
parley with them?”
                 “In
a sense, sir. We have treaties and so forth. It is not Agnesh-Val we fear for,
but those who would come to trade with us …” And again he made apologetic
pantomime. “The gypsies have their ways, you know. Strange to us, and I would
not serve them directly, I think, but we must see the positive as well as the
negative side of their power.”
                 “And
they have their freedom, I suppose,” said Wheldrake. “It is the great theme of The Romany Rye . ”
                 “Perhaps,
sir.” But their host seemed a trifle doubtful. “I am not aware of what you
speak—a play?”
                 “An
account, sir, of the joys of the open road.”
                 “Ah,
then it would be of gypsy origin. We do not buy their books, I fear. Now,
gentlemen, I do not know if you would take advantage of what we offer
distressed travelers by way of credit and cost-price equipment. If you