The Eternal Champion
By Micheal Moorcock

PROLOGUE

They called for me.

That is all I really know.

They called for me and I went to them. I could not do otherwise. The will of the 
whole of humanity was a strong thing. It smashed through the ties of time and 
the chains of space and dragged me to itself.

Why was I chosen? I still do not know, though they thought they had told me. And 
now it is done and I am here. I shall always be here and if, as wise men tell 
me, time is cyclic, then I shall one day return to the part of the cycle I left 
and which I knew as the twentieth century A.D. in the Age of Men, for (it was no 
doing or wish of mine) I am immortal.




CHAPTER ONE

A CALL ACROSS TIME


Between wakefulness and sleeping we have most of us had the illusion of hearing 
voices, scraps of conversation, phrases spoken in unfamiliar tones. Sometimes we 
attempt to attune our minds so that we can hear more, but we are rarely 
successful. These illusions are called hypnagogic hallucinations-the beginning 
of the dreams we shall later experience as we sleep.

There was a woman. A child. A city. An occupation. A name: John Daker. A sense 
of frustration. A need for fulfilment. Though I loved them. I know I loved them.

It was in the winter. I lay miserably in a cold bed and I stared through the 
window at the moon. I do not remember my exact thoughts. Something to do with 
mortality and the futility of human existence, no doubt. Then, between 
wakefulness and sleeping. I began every night to hear voices . . .

At first I dismissed them, expecting to fall immediately asleep, but they 
continued, and I began trying to listen to them, thinking, perhaps, to receive 
some message from my unconscious. But the most commonly repeated word was 
gibberish to me:

Erekose . . . Erekose . . . Erekose . . .

I could not recognise the language, though it had a peculiar familiarity. The 
closest language I could place it with was the language of Sioux Indians, but I 
knew only a few words of Sioux.

Erekose . . . Erekose . . . Erekose

Each night I redoubled my efforts to concentrate on the voices and gradually I 
began to experience much stronger hypnagogic hallucinations, until one night it 
seemed that I broke free from my body altogether.


* * *


Had I hung for an eternity in limbo? Was I alive-dead? Was there a memory of a 
world that lay in the far past or the distant future? Of another world which 
seemed closer? And the names? Was I John Daker or Erekose? Was I either of 
these? Many other names-Corom Bannan Flurrun, Aubec, Elric, Rackhir, Simon, 
Cornelius, Asquinol, Hawkmoon-fled away down the ghostly rivers of my memory. I 
hung in darkness, bodiless. A man spoke. Where was he? I tried to look but had 
no eyes with which to see . . .


* * *


'Erekose the Champion, where are you?'

Another voice: 'Father . . . it is only a legend . . .'

'No, lolinda. I feel he is listening. Erekose . . .'



I tried to answer, but I had no tongue with which to speak.

Then there were swirling half-dreams of a house in a great city of miracles-a 
swollen, grimy city of miracles, crammed with dull-coloured machines, many of 
which bore human passengers. There were buildings, beautiful beneath their 
coatings of dust, and there were other, brighter buildings not so beautiful, 
with austere lines and many windows. There were screams and loud noises.

There was a troop of riders galloping over an undulating countryside, flamboyant 
in armour of lacquered gold, coloured pennants draped around their blood-
encrusted lances. Their faces were heavy with weariness.

Then there were more faces, many faces. Some of them I half-recognised. Others 
were completely unfamiliar. Many of these were dressed in strange clothes. I saw 
a white-haired man in middle age. He wore a tall, spiked crown of iron and 
diamonds upon his head. His mouth moved. He was speaking. . .

'Erekose. It is I-King Rigenos, Defender of Humanity . . .

'You are needed again, Erekose. The Hounds of Evil rule a third of the world and 
humankind is weary with the war against them. Come to us, Erekose. Lead us to 
victory. From the Plains of Melting Ice to the Mountains of Sorrow they have set 
up their corrupt standard and I fear they will advance yet further into our 
territories.

'Come to us, Erekose. Lead us to victory. Come to us Erekose. Lead us . . .'

The woman's voice:

'Father. This is only an empty tomb. Not even the mummy of Erekose remains. It 
became drifting dust long ago. Let us leave and return to Necranal to marshal 
the living peers!'



* * *


I felt like a fainting man who strives to fight against dizzy oblivion but, 
however much he tries, cannot take control of his own brain. Again I tried to 
answer, but could not.

It was as if I wavered backwards through Time, while every atom of me wanted to 
go forward. I had the sensation of vast size, as if I were made of stone with 
eyelids of granite that measured miles across-eyelids which I could not open.

And then I was tiny: the most minute grain in the universe. And yet I felt I 
belonged to the whole far more than did the stone giant.

Memories came and went.

The whole panorama of the twentieth century, its discoveries and its deceits, 
its beauties and its bitterness, its satisfactions, its strifing, its self-
delusion, its superstitious fancies that it gave the name of Science, rushed 
into my mind like air into a vacuum.

But it was only momentary, for the next second my entire being was flung 
elsewhere-to a world which was Earth, but not the Earth of John Daker, not quite 
the world of dead Erekose . . .

There were three great continents, two close together, divided from the other by 
a vast sea containing many islands, large and small.

I saw an ocean of ice which I knew to be slowly shrinking-the Plains of Melting 
Ice.

I saw the third continent which bore lush flora, mighty forests, blue lakes, and 
which was bound along its northern coasts by a towering chain of mountains-the 
Mountains of Sorrow. This I knew to be the domain of the Eldren, whom King 
Rigenos had called the Hounds of Evil.

Now, on the other two continents, I saw the wheatlands of the West on the 
continent of Zavara, with their tall cities of multicoloured rock, their rich 
cities-Stalaco, Calodemia, Mooros, Ninadoon and Dratarda.

There were the great seaports-Shilaal, Wedmah, Sinana, Tarkar-and Noonos with 
her towers cobbled in precious stones.

Then I saw the fortress cities of the continent of Necralala, with the capital 
city Necranal chief among them, built on, into and about a mighty mountain, 
peaked by the spreading palace of its warrior kings.

Now I began to remember as, in the background of my awareness, I heard a voice 
calling Erekose, Erekose, Erekose . . .

The warrior kings of Necranal, kings for two thousand years of a humanity 
united, at war and united again. The warrior kings of whom King Rigenos was the 
last living-and ageing now, with only a daughter, lolinda, to carry on his line. 
Old and weary with hate-but still hating. Hating the unhuman folk whom he called 
the Hounds of Evil, mankind's age-old enemies, reckless and wild; linked, it was 
said, by a thin line of blood to the human race-an outcome of a union between an 
ancient Queen and the Evil One, Azmobaana. Hated by King Rigenos as soulless 
immortals, slaves of Azmobaana's machinations.

And, hating, he called upon John Daker, whom he named Erekose, to aid him with 
his war against them.

'Erekose, I beg thee answer me. Are you ready to come?' His voice was loud and 
echoing and when, after a struggle, I could reply, my own voice seemed to echo, 
also.

'I am ready,' I replied, 'but seem to be chained . . .'

'Chained?' There was consternation in his voice. 'Are you, then, a prisoner of 
Azmobaana's frightful minions? Are you trapped upon the Ghost Worlds?'

'Perhaps,' I said. 'But I do not think so. It is Space and Time which chain me. 
I am separated from you by a gulf without form or dimension . . .'

'How may we bridge that gulf and bring you to us?'

'The united walls of humanity may serve the purpose.'

'Already we pray that you may come to us.'

'Then continue,' I said.



I was falling away again. I thought I remembered laughter, sadness, pride. Then, 
suddenly, more faces. I felt as if I witnessed the passing of everyone I had 
known, down the ages, and then one face superimposed itself over the others-the 
head and shoulders of an amazingly beautiful woman, with blonde hair piled 
beneath a diadem of precious stones which seemed to light the sweetness of her 
oval face. 'lolinda,' I said.

I saw her more solidly now. She was clinging to the arm of the tall, gaunt man 
who wore the crown of iron and diamonds. King Rigenos.

They stood before an empty platform of quartz and gold and, resting on a cushion 
of dust, was a straight sword which they dared not touch. Neither did they dare 
step too close to it, for it gave off a radiation which might slay them.

It was a tomb in which they stood.

The Tomb of Erekose. My tomb.

I moved towards the platform, hanging over it.

Ages before, my body had been placed there. I stared at the sword which held no 
dangers for me, but I was unable in my captivity to pick it up. It was my spirit 
only which inhabited that dark place-but the whole of my spirit now, not the 
fragment which had inhabited the tomb for thousands of years. That fragment had 
heard King Rigenos and had enabled John Daker to hear it, to come to it; to be 
united with it.

'Erekose!' called the king, straining his eyes through the gloom as if he had 
seen me. 'Erekose! We pray.'

Then I experienced the dreadful pain which I supposed must be like that of a 
woman experiencing child-birth. A pain that seemed eternal and yet was 
intrinsically its own vanquisher. I was screaming, writhing in the air above 
them. Great spasms of agony-but an agony complete with purpose-the purpose of 
creation.

I shrieked. But there was joy in my cry.

I groaned, But there was triumph there.

I grew heavy and I reeled. I grew heavier and heavier, and I gasped, stretching 
out my arms to balance myself.

I had flesh and I had muscle and I had blood and I had strength. The strength 
coursed through me and I took a huge breath and touched my body. It was a 
powerful body and tall and fit.

I looked up. I stood before them in the flesh. I was their God and I had 
returned.

'I have come,' I said. 'I am here, King Rigenos. I have left nothing worth while 
behind me, but do not let me regret that leaving.'

'You will not regret it, Champion.' He was pale, exhilarated, smiling. I looked 
at lolinda who dropped her eyes modestly and then, as if against her will, 
raised them again to regard me. I turned to the dais on my right. 'My sword,' I 
said, reaching for it. I heard King Rigenos sigh with satisfaction. 'They are 
doomed now, the dogs,' he said.


CHAPTER TWO

'THE CHAMPION HAS COME!'


They had a sheath for the sword. It had been made days before. King Rigenos left 
to get it, leaving me alone with his daughter.

Now that I was here, I did not think to question how I came and why it should 
have been possible. Neither, it seemed, did she question the fact. I was there. 
It seemed inevitable.

We regarded one another silently until the king returned with the scabbard.

'This will protect us against your sword's poison,' he said.

He held it out to me and for a moment I hesitated before stretching my own hand 
towards it and accepting it.

The king frowned and looked at the ground. Then he folded his arms across his 
chest.

I held the scabbard in my two hands. It was opaque, like old glass, but the 
metal was unfamiliar to me-or rather to John Daker. It was light, flexible and 
strong.

I turned and picked up the sword. The handle was bound in gold thread and was 
vibrant to my touch. The pommel was a globe of deep onyx and the hilt was worked 
in strips of silver and black onyx. The blade was long and straight and sharp, 
but it did not shine like steel. Instead, in colour, it resembled lead. The 
sword was beautifully balanced and I swung it through the air and laughed aloud, 
and it seemed to laugh with me.

'Erekose! Sheath it!' cried King Rigenos in alarm. 'Sheath it! The radiation is 
death to all but yourself!'

I was reluctant, now, to put the sword away. The feel of it awakened a dim 
remembrance . . .

'Erekose! Please! I beg you!' lolinda's voice echoed her father's. 'Sheath the 
sword!'

Reluctantly I slid the sword into its scabbard. Why was I the only one who could 
wear the sword without being affected by its radiation?

Was it because, in that transition from my own age to this, I had become 
constitutionally different in some way? Was it that the ancient Erekose and the 
unborn John Daker (or was it vice versa?) had metabolisms which had adapted to 
protect themselves against the power which flowed from the sword?

I shrugged. It did not matter. The fact itself was enough. I was unconcerned. It 
was as if I was aware that my fate had been taken out of my hands to a large 
extent. I had become a tool. . .

If only I had known then to what use the tool would be put, then I might have 
fought against the pull and remained the harmless intellectual, John Daker. But 
perhaps I could not have fought and won. The power that drew me to this Age was 
very great.

At any rate, I was prepared at that moment to do whatever Fate demanded of me. I 
stood there, where I had materialised, in the Tomb of Erekose', and I revelled 
in my strength and in my sword.

Later, things were to change.



'I will need clothes,' I said, for I was naked. 'And armour. And a steed. I am 
Erekose.'

'Clothes have been prepared,' said King Rigenos. He clapped his hands. 'Here.'

The slaves entered. One carried a robe, another a cloak, another a white cloth 
which I gathered had to serve for underwear. They wrapped the cloth around my 
lower quarters and slipped the robe over my head. It was loose and cool and felt 
pleasant on my skin. It was deep blue, with complicated designs stitched into it 
in gold, silver and scarlet thread, The cloak was scarlet, with designs of gold, 
silver and blue. They gave me soft boots of doeskin to put on my feet, and a 
wide belt of light brown leather with an iron buckle in which were set rubies 
and sapphires, and I hung my scabbard on this. Then I gripped the sword with my 
left fist.

'I am ready,' I said.

lolinda shuddered. 'Then let us leave this gloomy place,' she murmured.

With one last look back at the dais on which the heap of dust still lay, I 
walked with the King and the Princess of Necranal out of my own tomb and into a 
calm day that, while warm, had a light breeze blowing. We were standing on a 
small hill. Behind us the tomb, apparently built of black quartz, looked time-
worn and ancient, pitted by the passing of many storms and many winds. On its 
roof was the corroded statue of a warrior mounted on a great battle-charger, The 
face had been smoothed by dust and rain, but I knew it. It was my face.

I looked away.

Below us a caravan was waiting. There were the richly caparisoned horses and a 
guard of men dressed in that same golden armour I had seen in my dreams. These 
warriors, however, were fresher looking than the others.

Their armour was fluted, embellished with raised designs, ornate and beautiful 
but, according to my sparse reading on the subject of armour, coupled with 
Erekose's stirring memory, totally unsuitable for war. The fluting and embossing 
acted as a trap to catch the point of a spear or sword, whereas armour should be 
made to turn a point. This armour, for all its beauty, acted more as an extra 
danger than a protection.

The guards were mounted on heavy war-horses, but the beasts that knelt awaiting 
us resembled a kind of camel from which all the camel's lumpen ugliness had been 
bred. These beasts were beautiful. On their high backs were cabins of ebony, 
ivory and mother-of-pearl, curtained in scintillating silks.

We walked down the hill, and as we walked I noticed that I still had the ring on 
my finger that I had worn as John Daker. A ring of woven silver that my wife had 
given me . . . My wife . . . I could not recall her face. I felt I should have 
left the ring behind me-on that other body. But perhaps there is no body left 
behind.

We reached the kneeling beasts and the guards stiffened their backs to 
acknowledge our arrival. I saw curiosity in many of the eyes that looked at me.

King Rigenos gestured towards one of the beasts. 'Would you care to take your 
cabin, Champion?' Though he himself had summoned me, he seemed to be slightly 
wary of me.

'Thank you.' I climbed the little ladder of plaited silk and entered the cabin. 
It was completely lined with deep cushions of a variety of hues.

The camels climbed to their feet and we began to move swiftly through a narrow 
valley whose sides were lined with evergreen trees which I could not name-
something like spreading monkey-puzzle trees, but with more branches and broader 
leaves.

I had lain my sword across my knees. I inspected it. It was a plain, soldier's 
sword, having no markings on the blade. The hilt fitted perfectly into my right 
hand as I gripped it. It was a good sword. But why it was poisonous to other 
humans I did not know. Presumably it was also lethal to those whom King Rigenos 
called the Hounds of Evil-the Eldren.



On we travelled through the soft day and I drowsed on my cushions, feeling 
strangely weary, until I heard a cry and pushed back the curtains of my cabin to 
look ahead.

There was Necranal. The city which I had seen in my dreams.

Far away, still, it towered upwards so that the entire mountain upon which it 
was built was hidden by its wondrous architecture. Minarets, steeples, domes and 
battlements shone in the sun and, above them all, loomed the huge palace of the 
warrior kings, a noble structure, many-towered, the Palace of Ten Thousand 
Windows. I remembered the name.

I saw King Rigenos peer from his cabin and cry: 'Katorn! Ride ahead and tell the 
people that Erekose the Champion has come to drive the Evil Ones back to the 
Mountains of Sorrow!'

The man he addressed was a sullen-faced individual. Doubtless the Captain of the 
Imperial Guard. 'Aye, sire,' he growled.

He drew his horse out of line and galloped speedily along the road of white dust 
which wound, now, down an incline. I could see the road stretching for many 
miles into the distance towards Necranal. I watched the rider for a while but 
wearied of this eventually and instead strained my eyes to make out details in 
that great city structure.

The cities of London, New York or Tokyo were probably bigger in area, but not 
much. Necranal was spread around the base of the mountain for many miles. 
Surrounding the city was a high wall upon which turrets were mounted at 
intervals.

So, at last, we came to the great Main Gate of Necranal and our caravan halted.

A musical instrument sounded and the gates began to swing open. We passed 
through into streets packed with jostling, cheering people who shouted so loudly 
I was forced, at times, to cover my ears for fear they would rupture.


CHAPTER THREE

THE ELDREN THREAT


Now the cheering gradually fell away as the little caravan ascended the winding 
road to the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows. A silence settled and I heard only 
the creak of the howdah in which I sat, the occasional jingle of harness or the 
clatter of a horse's hoof. I began to feel discomforted. There was something 
about the mood of the city that was not altogether sane and which could not be 
explained away in conventional terms. Certainly the people were afraid of enemy 
attack; certainly they were weary with fighting. But it seemed to me that this 
mood held something morbid-a mixture of hysterical elation and melancholic 
depression that I had sensed only once before in my previous life, during my 
single visit to a mental hospital . . .

Or perhaps I was merely imposing my own mood on my surroundings. After all, it 
could be argued that I was in a classic paranoid-schizophrenic situation! A man 
with two or more well-defined identities who also happened to be considered in 
this world the potential saviour of mankind! For a moment I wondered if in fact 
I had not gone completely insane-if this were not some monstrous delusion-if I 
were not actually at this moment in the very madhouse I had once visited!

I touched the draperies, my scabbarded sword; I peered out at the vast city now 
stretched out below me; I stared at the huge bulk of the Palace of Ten Thousand 
Windows above me. I attempted to see beyond them, deliberately assuming that 
they were an illusion, expecting to see the walls of a hospital room, or even 
the familiar walls of my own apartment. But the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows 
remained as solid as ever. The City of Necranal had none of the qualities of a 
mirage. I sank back in my cushions. I had to assume that this was real, that I 
had been transported somehow across the ages and through space to this Earth of 
which there were no records in any history book I had ever read (and I had read 
many) and of which there were only echoes in myths and legends.

I was no longer John Daker. I was Erekose-the Eternal Champion. A legend myself-
come to life.

I laughed then. If I were mad-then it was a glorious madness. A madness of which 
I would never have considered myself capable of inventing!



At length our caravan arrived at the summit of the mountain and the jewelled 
gates of the palace opened for us and we passed inside a splendid courtyard in 
which trees grew and fountains played, feeding little rivers spanned by 
ornamental bridges. Fish swam in the rivers and birds sang in the trees as pages 
came forward to make our beasts kneel down, and we stepped out into the evening 
light.

King Rigenos smiled with pride as he gestured around the great courtyard. 'You 
like this, Erekose? I had it built myself, shortly after I came to the throne. 
The courtyard was a gloomy sort of place until then-it did not fit with the rest 
of the palace.'

'It is very beautiful,' I said. I turned to look at lolinda who had joined us. 
'And not the only beautiful thing you have helped create-for here is the most 
beautiful adornment to your palace!'

King Rigenos chuckled. 'You are a courtier as well as a warrior, I see.' He took 
my arm and lolinda's and guided us across the courtyard. 'Of course, I have 
little time these days to consider the creation of beauty. It is weapons we must 
create now. Instead of plans for gardens, I must concern myself with battle 
plans.' He sighed. 'Perhaps you will drive the Eldren away for ever, Erekose. 
Perhaps when they are destroyed, we shall be able to enjoy the peaceful things 
of life again . . .'

I felt sorry for him at that moment. He only wanted what every man wanted-
freedom from fear, a chance to raise children with a reasonable certainty that 
they would be allowed to do the same, a chance to look forward to the future 
without the knowledge that any plans made might be wrecked for ever by some 
sudden act of violence. His world, after all, was not so different from the one 
I had so recently left.

I put my hand on the king's shoulder, 'Let us hope so, King Rigenos,' I said. 'I 
will do what I can.'

He cleared his throat. 'And that will be a great deal, Champion. I know it will 
be a great deal. We shall soon rid ourselves of the Eldren menace!'

We entered a cool hall whose walls were lined with beaten silver over which 
tapestries were draped. It was a pleasant hall, though very large. Off the hall 
led a wide staircase and down the staircase now descended a whole army of 
slaves, servants and retainers of all kinds. They drew themselves up in ranks at 
the bottom and knelt to greet the king.

'This is Lord Erekose,' King Rigenos told them. 'He is a great warrior and my 
honoured guest. Treat him as you would treat me-obey him as you would obey me. 
All that he wishes shall be his.'

To my embarrassment the assemblage fell to its knees again and chorused: 
'Greetings, Lord Erekose.'

I spread my hands. They rose. I was beginning to take this sort of behaviour for 
granted. There was no doubt that part of me was used to it.

'I shall not burden you with ceremony for tonight,' Rigenos said. 'If you would 
like to refresh yourself in the apartments we have set aside for your use, we 
shall visit you later.'

'Very well,' I said. I turned to lolinda and put out my hand to take hers. She 
extended it after a moment's hesitation and I kissed it. 'I look forward to 
seeing you both again in a little time,' I murmured, looking deep into her 
marvellous eyes. She dropped her gaze and withdrew her hand, and I allowed the 
servants to escort me upstairs to my apartments.

Twenty large rooms had been set aside for my use. These contained quarters for a 
staff of some ten personal slaves and servants and they were most of them 
extravagantly furnished with an eye to luxury that, it seemed to me, the people 
of the twentieth century had lost. Opulent was the word that sprang to mind. I 
could not move, but a slave would come forward and take my surcoat or help me 
pour a glass of water or arrange the cushions of a divan. Yet I was still 
somewhat uneasy and it was a relief, when exploring the apartments, to come upon 
the more austere rooms. These were weapon-lined warrior's rooms, without 
cushions or silks or furs, but with solid benches and blades and maces of iron 
and steel, brass-shod lances and razor-sharp arrows.

I spent some time in the weapon rooms and then returned to eat. My slaves 
brought me food and wine and I ate and drank heartily.

When I had finished I felt as if I had been asleep for a long time and had 
awakened invigorated. Again I paced the rooms, exploring them further, taking 
more interest in the weapons than in the furnishings which would have delighted 
even the most jaded sybarite. I stepped out on to one of the several covered 
balconies and surveyed the great city of Necranal as the sun set over it and 
deep shadows began to flow through the streets.

The faraway sky was full of smoky colour. There were purples, oranges, yellows 
and blues, and these colours were reflected in the domes and steeples of 
Necranal so that the entire city seemed to take on a softer texture, like a 
pastel drawing.

The shadows grew blacker. The sun set and stained the topmost domes scarlet, and 
then the night fell and fire flared suddenly all around the distant walls of 
Necranal, the yellow and red flames leaping upward at intervals of a few yards 
and illuminating much of the city within the walls. Lights appeared in windows 
and I heard the calls of night-birds and insects. I turned to go in and saw that 
my servants had lit lamps for me. It had grown colder but I hesitated on the 
balcony and decided to stay where I was, thinking deeply about my strange 
situation and trying to gauge the exact nature of the perils which humanity 
faced.

There came a sound behind me. I looked back into the apartments and saw King 
Rigenos entering. Moody Katorn, Captain of the Imperial Guard, was with him. 
Instead of a helmet he now wore a platinum circlet on his head, and instead of a 
breastplate, a leather jerkin stamped with a design in gold, but the absence of 
armour did not seem to soften his general demeanour. King Rigenos was wrapped in 
a white fur cloak and still wore his spiked crown of iron and diamonds. The two 
men joined me on the balcony.

'You feel rested, I hope, Erekose?' King Rigenos enquired almost nervously, as 
if he had expected me to fade into air while he was away.

'I feel very well, thank you, King Rigenos.'

'Good.' He hesitated.

'Time is valuable,' Katorn grunted.

'Yes, Katorn. Yes, I know.' King Rigenos looked at me as if he hoped I already 
knew what he wished to say, but I did not and could only stare back, waiting for 
him to speak.

'You will forgive us, Erekose,' said Katorn, 'if we come immediately to the 
Matter of the Human Kingdoms. The king would outline to you our position and 
what we require of you . . .'

'Of course,' I said. 'I am ready.' I was in fact very anxious to learn the 
position.

We have maps,' said King Rigenos. 'Where are the maps, Katorn?'

'Within, sire.'

'Shall we . . .?'

I nodded and we entered my apartments, We passed through two chambers until we 
came to the main living-room in which was a large oak table. Here stood several 
of King Rigenos's slaves with large rolls of parchment under their arms. Katorn 
selected several of the rolls and spread them, one on top of the other, on the 
table. He drew his heavy dagger to weight one side and picked up a metal vase 
studded with rubies and emeralds to hold the other side.

I looked at the maps with interest. I already recognised them. I had seen 
something similar in my dreams before I had been called here by King Rigenos's 
incantations.

Now the king bent over the maps and his long, pale index finger traced over the 
territories shown.

'As I told you in your-your tomb, Erekose, the Eldren now dominate the entire 
southern continent. They call this continent Mernadin. There.' His finger now 
hovered over a coastal region of the continent. 'Five years ago they recaptured 
the only real outpost we had on Mernadin. Here. Their ancient seaport of 
Paphanaal. There was little fighting.'

'Your forces fled?' I asked.

Katorn came in again. 'I admit that we had grown complacent. When they suddenly 
swept out of the Mountains of Sorrow, we were unprepared. They must have been 
building their damned armies for years and we were unaware of it. We could not 
be expected to know their plans-they're aided by sorcery and we are not!'

'You were able to evacuate most of your colonies, I take it?' I put in.

Katorn shrugged. 'There was little evacuation necessary. Mernadin was virtually 
uninhabited since human beings would not live in a land which had been polluted 
by the presence of the Hounds of Evil. The continent is cursed. Inhabited by 
fiends from Hell.'

I rubbed my chin and asked innocently: 'Then why did you drive the Eldren back 
to the mountains in the first place if you had no need of their territories?'

'Because while they had the land under their control they were a constant threat 
to Humanity!'

'I see.' I made a tiny gesture with my right hand. 'Forgive me for interrupting 
you. Please continue.'

'A constant threat-' began Katorn.

'That threat is once again imminent,' the king's voice broke in. It was thick 
and trembling. His eyes were suddenly full of fear and hatred. 'We expect them 
at any moment to launch an attack upon the Two Continents-upon Zavara and 
Necralala!'

'Do you know when they plan this invasion?' I asked. 'How long have we to ready 
ourselves?'

'They'll attack!' Katorn's black eyes came to life. The thin beard framing his 
pale face seemed to bristle.

'They'll attack,' agreed King Rigenos. 'They would have overrun us now if we did 
not constantly war against them.'

'We have to keep them back,' added Katorn. 'Once a breach is made, they will 
engulf us!'

King Rigenos sighed. 'Humanity, though, is battle-weary. We needed one of two 
things-though ideally both-fresh warriors to drive the Eldren back, or a leader 
to give the warriors we have new hope.'

'And you can train no fresh warriors?' I asked.

Katorn made a short, guttural sound in his throat. I took this to be a laugh. 
'Impossible! All mankind fights the Eldren menace!'

The king nodded. 'So I called you, Erekose-though believing myself to be a 
desperate fool willing to think a mirage reality . . .'

Katorn turned away at this. It seemed to me that this had been his private 
theory-that the king had gone mad in his desperation. My materialisation seemed 
to have destroyed this theory and made him in some way resentful of me, though I 
did not think I could be blamed for the king's decision.

The king straightened his shoulders. 'I called you. And I held you to your vow.'

I knew of no vow. I was surprised. 'What vow?' I said.

Now the king looked astonished. 'Why, the vow that if ever the Eldren dominated 
Mernadin again, you would come to decide the struggle between them and 
Humanity.'

'I see.' I signed to a slave to bring me a cup of wine and I sipped it and 
stared at the map. As John Daker I saw a meaningless war between two ferocious, 
blindly hating factions, both of whom seemed to be conducting a racial jihad, 
one against the other. Yet my loyalties were clear. I belonged to the human race 
and should use all my power to help defend my kind. Humanity had to be saved.

'The Eldren?' I looked up at King Rigenos. 'What do they say?'

'What do you mean?' Katorn growled. 'Say? You speak as if you do not believe our 
king . . .'

'I am not questioning the truth of your statements,' I told him. 'I wish to know 
the exact terms in which the Eldren justify their war against us. It would help 
if I had a clearer idea of their ambitions.'

Katorn shrugged. 'They would wipe us out,' he said. 'Is that not enough to 
know?'

'No,' I said. 'You must have taken prisoners. What do the prisoners tell you?' I 
spread my hands. 'How have the Eldren leaders justified their war against 
humanity?'

King Rigenos smiled patronisingly. 'You have forgotten a great deal, Erekose, if 
you have forgotten the Eldren. They are not human. They are clever. They are 
cold and they have smooth, deceitful tongues with which they would lull a man 
into a false sense of tranquillity before tearing his heart from his body with 
their bare fangs. They are brave, though, I'll give them that. Under torture 
they die, refusing to tell us their true plans. They are cunning. They try to 
make us believe their talk of peace, of mutual trust and mutual help, hoping 
that we will drop our defences long enough so that they may turn and destroy us, 
or get us to look them full in the face so that they can work the evil eye upon 
us. Do not be naive, Erekose. Do not attempt to deal with an Eldren as you would 
deal with a human being, for if you did so, you would be doomed. They have no 
souls, as we understand souls. They have no love, save a cold loyalty to their 
cause and to their master Azmobaana. Realise this, Erekose-the Eldren are 
demons. They are fiends to whom Azmobanna in his dreadful blasphemy has granted 
something like a human form. But you must not be blinded by the form. That which 
is inside an Eldren is not human-it is everything, in fact, that is unhuman . . 
.'

Katorn's face twisted.

'You can't trust an Eldren wolf. They are treacherous, immoral and evil. We 
shall not be safe until their whole race is destroyed. Utterly destroyed-so that 
not a fragment of their flesh, not a droplet of their blood, not a splinter of 
their bone, not a strand of their hair is left to taint the Earth. And I speak 
literally, Erekose', for while one finger-clipping of an Eldren survives upon 
our world, then there is the chance that Azmobanna can re-create his servants 
and attack us again. That demon brood must be burnt to the finest ash-every man, 
every female and every youngling. Burnt-then cast to the winds, the clean winds. 
That is our mission, Erekose. The mission of Humanity. And we have the Good 
Ones' blessing for that mission.'

Then I heard another voice, a sweeter voice, and I glanced towards the door. It 
was lolinda.

'You must lead us to victory, Erekose,' she said candidly. 'What Katorn says is 
true-no matter how fiercely he declaims it. The facts are as he tells you. You 
must lead us to victory.'

I looked again into her eyes. I drew a deep breath and my face felt hard and 
cold.

'I will lead you,' I said.


CHAPTER FOUR

IOLINDA


The next morning I awoke hearing the sounds of the slaves preparing my 
breakfast. Or was it the slaves? Was it not my wife moving about the room, 
getting ready to wake the boy up as she did every morning?

I opened my eyes expecting to see her.

I did not see her. Nor did I see my room in my apartment where I had lived as 
John Daker.

Nor did I see slaves.

Instead I saw lolinda. She was smiling down at me as she prepared the breakfast 
with her own hands.

I felt guilty for a moment, as if I had betrayed my wife in some obscure way. 
Then I realised that there was nothing I could be ashamed of. I was the victim 
of Fate-of forces which I could not hope to understand. I was not John Daker. I 
was Erekose. I realised that it would be the best for me if I were to insist on 
that. A man divided between two identities is a sick man. I resolved to forget 
John Daker as soon as possible. Since I was Erekose now, I should concentrate on 
being Erekose only. In that I was a fatalist.

lolinda brought a bowl of fruit towards me. 'Would you eat, Lord Erekose?'

I selected a strange, soft fruit with a reddish yellow skin. She handed me a 
small knife. I tried to peel it but since the fruit was new to me, I was not 
sure how to begin. She gently took it from me and began to peel it for me, 
sitting on the edge of my low bed and concentrating rather excessively, in my 
opinion, on the fruit she held.

At last the fruit was peeled and she quartered it and placed it on a plate and 
handed the plate to me, still avoiding my direct gaze, but smiling a little 
mysteriously as she looked about her. I picked up a piece of the fruit and bit 
it. It was sharp and sweet at the same time and very refreshing.

'Thank you,' I said. 'It is good. I have never had this fruit before.'

'Have you not?' She was genuinely surprised. 'But the ecrex is the commonest 
fruit in Necralala.'

'You forget I am a stranger to Necralala,' I pointed out.

She put her head on one side and looked at me with a slight frown. She pushed 
back the flimsy blue cloth that covered her golden hair and made a great play of 
arranging her matching blue gown. She really did seem to be puzzled. 'A stranger 
. . .' she murmured.

'A stranger,' I agreed.

'But'-she paused-'but you are the great hero of humanity, Lord Erekose. You knew 
Necranal as it was in its greatest glory-when you ruled here as the Champion. 
You knew the Earth in ancient times, when you set it free from the chains the 
Eldren had bound around it. You know more of this world than I do, Erekose.'

I shrugged. 'I admit that much of it is familiar-and growing increasingly 
familiar. But until yesterday my name was John Daker and I lived in a city very 
different from Necranal and my occupation was not that of warrior or, indeed, 
anything like it. I do not deny that I am Erekose-the name is familiar and I am 
comfortable with it. But I do not know who Erekose was, any more than do you. He 
was a great hero of ancient times who, before he died, swore that he would 
return to decide the issue between Eldren and Mankind if he were needed. He was 
placed in a rather gloomy tomb on a hillside along with his sword, which only he 
could wield . . .'

'The Sword Kanajana,' murmured lolinda.

'It has a name, then?'

'Aye-Kanajana. It-it is more than a name, I believe. It is some sort of mystic 
description-a description of its exact nature-of the powers it contains.'

'And is there any legend that explains why only I can bear that blade?' I asked 
her.

'There are several,' she said.

'Which do you prefer?' I smiled.

Then, for the first time that morning, she looked directly at me and her voice 
lowered and she said: 'I prefer the one that says that you are the chosen son of 
the Good One, the Great One-that your sword is a sword of the Gods and that you 
can handle it because you are a God-an Immortal.'

I laughed. 'You do not believe that?'

She dropped her gaze. 'If you tell me that it is not true, then I must believe 
you,' she said. 'Of course.'

'I admit that I feel extremely healthy,' I told her. 'But that is a long way 
from feeling as a God must feel! Besides, I think I would know if I were a God. 
I would know other Gods. I would dwell in some place where the Gods dwell. I 
would count Goddesses among my friends . . .' I stopped. She seemed disturbed.

I reached out and touched her and said softly: 'But then perhaps you are right. 
Perhaps I am a God-for I am certainly privileged to know a Goddess.'

She shrugged off my hand. 'You are making mock of me, my lord.'

'No. I swear it.'

She got up. 'I must appear foolish to such a great lord as yourself. I apologise 
for wasting your time with my chatter.'

'You have not wasted my time,' I said. 'You have helped me, in fact.'

Her lips parted. 'Helped you?'

'Yes. You have filled in part of my somewhat peculiar background. I still do not 
remember my past as Erekose, but at least I know as much about that past as 
anyone here. Which is not a disadvantage!'

'Perhaps your centuries long sleep has washed your mind free of memory,' she 
said.

'Perhaps,' I agreed. 'Or perhaps there have been so many other memories during 
that sleep-new experiences, other lives . . .'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, it seems to me that I have been more people than just John Daker and 
Erekose. Other names spring to mind-strange names in unfamiliar tongues. I have 
a vague-and perhaps stupid notion-that while I slept as Erekose, my spirit took 
on other shapes and names. Perhaps that spirit cannot sleep, but must forever be 
active . . .' I stopped. I was getting deep into the realms of metaphysics-and 
metaphysics had never been my strong point. I considered myself a pragmatist, in 
fact. Such notions as reincarnation, I had always scoffed at-still scoffed at, 
really, in spite of the evidence, such as it was.

But lolinda pressed me to continue what I considered to be pointless 
speculation. 'Go on,' she said. 'Please continue, Lord Erekose.'

If only to keep the beautiful girl beside me for a short while longer, I did as 
she asked.

'Well,' I said, 'while you and your father were attempting to bring me here, I 
thought I remembered other lives than this one as Erekose or the other one, as 
John Daker. I remembered, very dimly, other civilisations-though I could not 
tell you whether they existed in the past or in the future. In fact, the idea of 
past and future seems meaningless to me now. I have no idea, for instance, 
whether this civilisation lies in the "future" that I knew as John Daker or in 
the "past". It is here. I am here. There are certain things that I will have to 
do. That is all I can say.'

'But these other incarnations,' she said. 'What do you know of them?'

I shrugged. 'Nothing. I am attempting to describe a dim feeling, not an exact 
impression. A few names which I have now forgotten. A few images which have 
almost completely faded away as dreams fade. And perhaps that is all they ever 
were-just dreams. Perhaps my life as John Daker, which in its turn is beginning 
to fade in my memory, was merely that, a dream. Certainly I know nothing of any 
supernatural agencies of whom your father and Katorn have spoken. I know of no 
"Azmobaana", no Good and Great One, no demons or, indeed, angels. I know only 
that I am a man and that I exist.'

Her face was grave. 'That is true. You are a man. You exist. I saw you 
materialise.'

'But from where did I come?'

'From the Other Regions,' she said. 'From the place where all great warriors go 
when they die-and where their women go to join them-to live in eternal 
happiness.'

Again I smiled, but then smothered the smile for I did not wish to offend her 
beliefs. I remembered no such place. 'I remember only strife. If I have been 
away from here it was not in some land of eternal happiness-it was in many 
lands-lands of eternal warfare.'

Suddenly I felt depressed and weary. 'Eternal warfare,' I repeated and I sighed.

Her look became sympathetic. 'Do you think that that is your fate-to war for 
ever against the enemies of humanity?'

I frowned. 'Not quite-for I seem to remember times when I was not human as you 
would understand the word. If I have a spirit, as I said, that inhabits many 
forms, then there have been times when it has inhabited forms that were-
different . . .' I rejected the thought. It was too difficult to grasp, to 
frightening to tolerate.

It disturbed lolinda. She rose and darted a look of incomprehension at me. 'Not-
not as an . . .'

I smiled. 'An Eldren? I do not know. But I do not think so, for the name is not 
familiar to me in that respect.'

She was relieved. 'It is so hard to trust . . .' she said sadly.

'To trust what? Words?'

'To trust anything,' she said. 'I once thought I understood the world. Perhaps I 
was too young. Now I understand nothing. I do not know whether I shall even be 
alive next year.'

'I think that may be described as a common fear to all we mortals,' I said 
gently.

'We mortals?' Her smile was without humour. 'You are not mortal, Erekose!'

I had not up to now considered it. After all, I had been summoned into existence 
in thin air! I laughed. 'We shall soon know whether I am or not,' I said, 'when 
we have joined battle with the Eldren!'

A little moan escaped her lips then. 'Oh!' she cried. 'Do not consider it!' She 
moved towards the door. 'You are immortal, Erekose! You are invulnerable! You 
are-eternal! You are the only thing of which I can be sure. The only person I 
can trust! Do not joke so! Do not joke so, I beg you!'

I was astonished at this outburst. I would have risen from the bed to hold her 
and comfort her, but I was naked. Admittedly she had seen me naked once before, 
when I had originally materialised in Erekose's tomb, but I did not know enough 
of the customs of these people to guess whether it would shock her or not.

'Forgive me, lolinda,' I said. 'I did not realise . . .'

What had I not realised? The extent of the poor girl's insecurity? Or something 
deeper than that?

'Do not go,' I begged.

She stopped by the door and turned and there were tears in her huge, wide eyes. 
'You are eternal, Erekose. You are immortal. You can never die!'

I could not reply.

For all I knew I would be dead in the first encounter with the Eldren.

Suddenly I became aware of the responsibility I had. A responsibility not just 
to this beautiful woman but to the whole human race. I swallowed hard and fell 
back on my pillows as lolinda rushed from the room.

Could I possibly bear such a burden?

Did I wish to bear such a burden?

I did not. I had no great faith in my own powers and there was no reason to 
believe that those powers were any more potent than, say, Katorn's. Katorn was, 
after all, far more experienced in warfare than I. He had a right to be 
resentful of me. I had taken over his role, robbed him of his power and of a 
responsibility which he had been prepared to shoulder-and I was unproven. 
Suddenly I saw Katorn's point of view and sympathised with it.

What right had I to lead humanity in a war that could decide its very existence?

None.

And then another thought came to me-a more self-pitying thought.

What right had humanity to expect so much of me?

They had, let us say, awakened me from a slumber which I had earned, leading the 
quiet, decent life of John Daker. And now they were imposing their will upon me, 
demanding that I give back to them the self-confidence and-yes-self-
righteousness that they were losing.

I lay there in the bed, and for a while I hated King Rigenos, Katorn and the 
rest of the human race-including the fair lolinda who had been the one to bring 
this question to my mind.

Erekose the Champion, Defender of Humanity, Greatest of Warriors, lay wretched 
and snivelling in his bed and felt very sorry for himself indeed.


CHAPTER FIVE

KATORN


I arose at last and dressed myself in a simple tunic, having been washed and 
shaved-much to my embarrassment-by my slaves. I went by myself into the weapons 
rooms and there took down my sword from where it hung in its scabbard on a peg.

I unsheathed the blade and again a sort of exultation filled me. Immediately I 
forgot my qualms and scruples and laughed as the sword whistled around my head 
and my muscles flexed with the weight of it.

I feinted with the sword and it seemed that it was part of my very body, that it 
was another limb whose presence I had been unaware of until now. I thrust it out 
at full reach, pulled it back, swung it down. It filled me with joy to wield it!

It made me into something greater than I had ever felt I was before. It made me 
into a man. A warrior. A champion.

And yet, as John Daker, I had handled swords perhaps twice in my life-and 
handled them most clumsily, according to those friends of mine who had 
considered themselves experts.

At last I reluctantly sheathed the sword as I saw a slave hovering some distance 
away. I remembered that only I, Erekose', could hold the sword and live.

'What is it?' I said.

'The Lord Katorn, master. He would speak with you.' I put the sword back on its 
peg. 'Bid him enter,' I told the slave.



Katorn came in rapidly. He appeared to have been waiting some time and was in no 
better a mood than when I had first encountered him. His boots, which seemed to 
be shod with metal, clattered on the flagstones of the weapons room.

'Good morning to you, Lord Erekose,' he said.

I bowed. 'Good morning, Lord Katorn. I apologise if you were made to wait. I was 
trying out that sword.  . .'

'The Sword Kanajana . . .' Katorn looked at it speculatively.

'The Sword Kanajana,' I said. 'Would you have some refreshment, Lord Katorn?' I 
was making a great effort to please him-not only because it would not do to have 
so experienced a warrior as an enemy when plans of battle were being prepared, 
but because I had, as I said, come to sympathise with his situation.

But Katorn refused to be mollified. 'I broke my fast at dawn,' he said. 'I have 
come to discuss more pressing matters than eating, Lord Erekose.'

'And what are those?' Manfully, I restrained my own temper.

'Matters of war, Lord Erekose. What else?'

'Indeed. And what specific matters would you wish to discuss with me, Lord 
Katorn?

'It seems to me that we should attack the Eldren before they come against us.'

'Attack being the best form of defence, eh?'

He looked surprised at this. He had plainly not heard the phrase before. 
'Eloquently put, my lord. One would think you an Eldren yourself, with such a 
way with words. . .' He was deliberately trying my temper. But I swallowed the 
insinuation.

'So,' I said, 'we attack them. Where?'

'That is what we shall have to discuss with all those concerned in planning this 
war. But it seems there is one obvious point.'

'And that is?'

He wheeled and strode into another chamber, returning with a map which he spread 
on a bench. It was a map of the third continent, the one entirely controlled by 
the Eldren, Mernadin.

With his dagger he stabbed at a spot I had seen indicated the night before.

'Paphanaal,' I said.

'While it is the logical point of an initial attack in a campaign of the sort we 
plan, it seems to me unlikely that the Eldren will expect us to make so bold a 
move, knowing that we are weary and under strength . . .'

'But if we are weary and weak,' I said, 'would it not seem a good idea to attack 
some less important city first?'

'You are forgetting, my lord, that our warriors have been heartened by your 
coming,' Katorn said dryly.

I could not help grinning at this cut. But Katorn scowled, angry that I had not 
taken offence.

I said quietly: 'We must learn to work together, my lord Katorn. I bow to your 
great experience as a warrior leader. I acknowledge that you have had much more 
recent knowledge of the Eldren than have I. I need your help surely as much as 
King Rigenos believes he needs mine.'

Katorn seemed slightly comforted by this. He cleared his throat and continued.

'Once Paphanaal, province and city, are taken, we shall have a beachhead from 
which other attacks inland can be made. With Paphanaal again in our hands, we 
can decide our own strategy-initiate action rather than react to the Eldren's 
strategy. Only once we have pushed them back into the mountains will we have the 
wearying task of clearing them all out. It will take years. But it is what we 
should have done in the first place. That, however, will be a matter for 
ordinary military administration and will not concern us directly.'

'And what kind of defences has Paphanaal?' I asked.

Katorn smiled. 'She relies almost entirely on her warships. If we can destroy 
her fleet, then Paphanaal is as good as taken.' He bared his teeth in what I 
gathered was a grin. And he looked at me, his expression changing to one of 
sudden suspicion, as if he had revealed too much to me.

I could not ignore the expression. 'What is on your mind, Lord Katorn?' I asked. 
'Do you not trust me?'

He controlled his features. 'I must trust you,' he said flatly. 'We all must 
trust you, Lord Erekose. Have you not returned to fulfil your ancient promise?'

I gazed searchingly into his face. 'Do you believe that?'

'I must believe it.'

'Do you believe that I am Erekose the Champion returned?'

'I must believe that also.'

'You believe it because you surmise that if I am not Erekose-the Erekose of the 
legends-then the human race is doomed?'

He lowered his head as if in assent.

'And what if I am not Erekose, my lord?'

Katorn looked up. 'You must be Erekose-my lord. If it were not for one thing, I 
would suspect . . .'

'What would you suspect?'

'Nothing.'

'You would suspect that I were an Eldren in disguise. Is that it, Lord Katorn? 
Some cunning unhuman who had assumed the outer appearance of a man? Do I read 
your thoughts correctly, my lord?'

'Too correctly.' Katorn's thick brows came together and his mouth was thin and 
white. 'The Eldren are said to have the power to probe minds-but not human 
beings . . .'

'And are you, then, afraid, Lord Katorn?'

'Of an Eldren? By the Good One, I'll show you . . .' and Katorn's heavy hand 
rushed to the hilt of his sword.

I raised my own hand and then pointed at the sword that hung sheathed on the peg 
on the wall. 'But that is the one fact that does not fit your theory, isn't it? 
If I am not Erekose, then how is it that I can handle Erekose's blade?'

He did not draw his sword, but his grip remained on the hilt.

'It is true, is it not, that no living creature-human or Eldren-can touch that 
blade and live?' I said quietly.

'That is the legend,' he agreed.

'Legend?'

'I have never seen an Eldren try to handle the Sword Kanajana . . .'

'But you must assume that it is true. Otherwise . . .'

'Otherwise, there is little hope for humanity.' The words were dragged from his 
lips.

'Very well, Lord Katorn. You will assume that I am Erekose, summoned by King 
Rigenos to lead humanity to victory.'

'I have no choice but to assume that.'

'Good. And there is something that I, too, must assume, for my part, Lord 
Katorn.'

'You? What?'

'I must assume that you will work with me in this enterprise. That there will be 
no plots behind my back, that there will be no information withheld from me that 
might prove vital, that you will not seek to make allies against me within our 
own ranks. You see, Lord Katorn, it could be your suspicions that might wreck 
our plans. A man jealous and resentful of his leader is capable of doing more 
harm than any enemy . . .'

He nodded his head and straightened his shoulders, the hand falling away from 
his sword. 'I had considered that question, my lord. I am not a fool.'

'I know you are not a fool, Lord Katorn. If you were a fool, I should not have 
bothered to have had this conversation.'

His tongue bulged in his cheek as he mulled this statement over. Eventually, he 
said: 'And you are not a fool, Lord Erekose.'

'Thank you. I did not suspect that you judged me that . . .'

'Hmph.' He removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick hair. He was 
still thinking.

I waited for him to say something further, but then he replaced his helmet 
firmly on his head, dug his thumb into the side of his mouth and picked at a 
tooth with the nail. He withdrew the thumb and stared at it intently for a 
moment. Then he looked at the map and murmured, 'Well, at least we have an 
understanding. With that, it will be easier to fight this stinking war.'

I nodded. 'Much easier, I think.'

He sniffed.

'How good is our own fleet?' I asked him.

'It's a good fleet still. Not as large as it was, but we are remedying that, 
too. Our shipyards work night and day to build more and larger men-o'-war. And 
in our ironworks up and down the land we forge powerful guns with which to arm 
those ships.'

'And what of men to crew them?'

'We are recruiting all we can. Even women are used in certain tasks-and boys. 
You were told that, Lord Erekose, and it was true-the whole of humanity fights 
the Eldren warriors.'

I said nothing, but I have begun to admire the spirit of this people. I was less 
divided in my mind concerning the rights or wrongs of what I did. The folk of 
this strange time and place in which I found myself were fighting for nothing 
more nor less than the survival of their species.

But then another thought came to me. Could not the same be said of the Eldren?

I dismissed the thought.

At least Katorn and I had that in common. We refused to concern ourselves with 
speculation on moral and sentimental issues. We had a task to perform. We had 
assumed the responsibility for that task. We should do it to the best of our 
ability.


CHAPTER SIX

PREPARING FOR WAR


And so I talked with generals and with admirals. We pored over maps and 
discussed tactics, logistics, available men, animals and ships, while the fleets 
massed and the Two Continents were scoured for warriors, from boys of ten years 
old to men of fifty or older, from girls of twelve to women of sixty. All were 
marshalled beneath the double banner of Humanity which bore the arms of Zavara 
and Necralala and the standards of their king, Rigenos, and their war champion, 
Erekose.

As the days passed, we planned the great land-sea invasion of Mernadin's chief 
harbour, Paphanaal, and the surrounding province which was also called 
Paphanaal.

When not conferring with the commanders of the armies and navies, I practised 
weaponry, riding, until I became skilled in those arts.

It was not a question of learning so much as remembering. Just as the feel of my 
strange sword had been familiar, so was the sensation of a horse between my 
legs. Just as I had always known my name was Erekose (which, I had been told, 
meant The One Who Is Always There in some ancient tongue of humanity which was 
no longer used) so I had always known how to pull an arrow on a bowstring and 
let fly at a target as I galloped past on horseback.

But lolinda-she was not familiar in this way. Though there was some part of me 
that seemed able to travel through time and space and assume many incarnations, 
they were plainly not the same incarnations. I was not living an episode of my 
life over again, I had merely become the same person again, going through a 
different series of actions, or so it seemed. I had a sense of free will, within 
those terms. I did not feel that my fate was pre-ordained. But perhaps it was. 
Perhaps I am too much of an optimist. Perhaps I am, after all, a fool and Katorn 
was wrong in his assessment of me. The Eternal Fool . . .

Certainly I was willing to make a fool of myself where lolinda was concerned. 
Her beauty was almost unbearable. But with her I could not be a fool. She wanted 
a hero-an Immortal-and nothing less. So I must play the hero for her, to comfort 
her, though it went ill with my preferred manner, which has always been pretty 
casual. Sometimes, in fact, I felt more like her father than her would-be lover, 
and with my pat twentieth-century notions of human motivation, wondered if I 
were really nothing more than a substitute for the strong father she expected in 
Rigenos.

I think that she secretly despised Rigenos for not being more heroic, but I 
sympathised with the older man (older? I think- it is I who am older-infinitely 
older-but enough of that . . .) for Rigenos bore a great responsibility and bore 
it pretty well as far as I could make out. After all, he was a man who would 
rather plan pleasant gardens than plan battles. It was not his fault that he had 
been born a king without a close male successor to whom he could have, if he had 
been luckier, transferred responsibility. And I had heard that he bore himself 
well in battle and never backed away from any responsibility. King Rigenos was 
meant for a gentler life, maybe-though he could be fierce enough when it came to 
hating the Eldren. I was to be the hero that he felt incapable of being. I 
accepted that. But I was much more reluctant to be the father than he could not 
be. I wanted a much healthier relationship with lolinda or, so I told myself, I 
did not want one at all!

I am not sure I had a choice. I was mesmerised by her. I would probably have 
accepted her on any terms.

We spent whatever time we could together, whenever I could get away from the 
military men and my own martial training. We would wander arm in arm along the 
closed balconies that covered the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows like a creeping 
plant, winding from top to bottom of the great palace and containing a great 
variety of flowers, shrubs and caged and uncaged birds that fluttered through 
the foliage of these spiralling passages and perched among the branches of the 
vines and the small trees and sang to us as we wandered. I learned that this, 
too, had been King Rigenos's idea, to make the balconies more pleasant. But that 
had been before the coming of the Eldren.



Slowly the day approached when the fleet would gather together and sail for the 
distant continent where the Eldren ruled. I had begun by being impatient to get 
to grips with the Eldren, but now I was becoming more and more reluctant to 
leave-for it would mean leaving lolinda and my lust for her was growing quite as 
strongly as my love.

Although I gathered that day by day the society of humankind was becoming less 
and less open, more and more bound by unpleasant and unnecessary restrictions, 
it was still not considered wrong for unwed lovers to sleep together, so long as 
they were of an equal social standing. I was much relieved when I discovered 
this. It seemed to me that an Immortal-as I was assumed to be-and a princess 
were quite decently matched. But it was not the social conventions that hampered 
my ambition-it was lolinda herself. And that is one thing that no amount of 
freedom or 'license' or 'permissiveness' or whatever the old fogies call it can 
cope with. That is the odd assumption the twentieth century (I wonder if you who 
read this will know what those two stupid words mean?) makes-that if the laws 
that man makes concerning 'morality'-particularly sexual morality-are done away 
with, then one huge orgy will begin. It forgets that people are, generally 
speaking, only attracted to a few other people and only fall in love with one or 
two in their whole lives. And there may be many other reasons why they may not 
be able to make love, even if their love is confirmed.

'Where lolinda was concerned, I hesitated because, as I have said, I did not 
wish to be merely a substitute for her father-and she hesitated because she 
needed to be absolutely sure she could 'trust' me. John Daker would have called 
this a neurotic attitude. Perhaps it was, but on the other hand was it neurotic 
for a relatively normal girl to feel a bit peculiar about someone she had only 
lately seen materialise from thin air?

But enough of this. All I should say is that although we were both deeply in 
love at this point, we did not sleep together-we did not even discuss the 
matter, though it was often on the tip of my tongue . . .

What, in fact, began to happen was, oddly, that my lust began to wane. My love 
for lolinda remained as strong-if not stronger-than ever, but I did not feel any 
great need to express it in physical terms. It was not like me. Or perhaps I 
should say that it was not like John Daker!

However, as the day of departure came closer, I began to feel a need to express 
my love in some way and, one evening as we wandered through the balconies, I 
paused and put my hand under her hair and stroked the back of her neck and 
gently turned her to face me.

She looked sweetly up at me and smiled. Her red lips parted slightly and she did 
not move her head as I bent my own lips to hers and kissed her softly. My heart 
leapt. I held her close against me, feeling her breasts rise and fall against my 
chest. I lifted her hand and held it against my face as I looked down at her 
beauty. I thrust my hand deep into her hair and tasted her warm, sweet breath as 
we kissed again. She curled her fingers in mine and opened her eyes and her eyes 
were happy-truly happy for the first time. We drew apart.

Her breathing was now much less regular and she began to murmur something but I 
cut her off short. She smiled at me expectantly, with a mixture of pride and 
tenderness.

'When I return,' I said softly, 'we shall be married.'

She looked surprised for a moment and then she realised what I had said-the 
significance of what I had said. I was trying to tell her that she could trust 
me. It was the only way I could think of to do it. Perhaps a John Daker reflex, 
I don't know.

She nodded her head, drawing off her hand a wonderfully worked ring of gold, 
pearls and rose-coloured diamonds. This she placed on my little finger.

'A token of my love,' she said. 'An acceptance of your proposal. A charm, 
perhaps, to bring you luck in your battles. Something to remind you of me when 
you are tempted by those unhuman Eldren beauties . . .' She smiled when she made 
this last retort.

'It has many functions,' I said, 'this ring.'

'As many as you wish,' she replied.

'Thank you.'

'I love you, Erekose,' she said simply.

'I love you, lolinda.' I paused, then added, 'But I am a crude sort of lover, am 
I not? I have no token to give you. I feel embarrassed and a bit inadequate . . 
.'

'Your word is enough,' she said. 'Swear that you will return to me.'

I looked at her nonplussed for a second. Naturally I would return to her.

'Swear it,' she said.

'I'll swear it. There is no question . . .'

'Swear it again.'

'I'll swear it a thousand times if once is not enough. I swear it. I swear that 
I will return to you, lolinda, my love, my delight . . .'

'Good.' She seemed satisfied.

There came the sound of hurried footsteps along the balcony and we saw a slave I 
recognised as one of my own rushing towards us.

'Ah, master, there you are. King Rigenos has asked me to bring you to him.'

It was late. 'And what does King Rigenos want?' I asked.

'He did not say, master.'

I smiled down at lolinda and tucked her arm in mine. 'Very well. We shall come.'


CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ARMOUR OF EREKOSe


The slave led us to my apartments. They were empty of anyone save my retinue.

'But where is King Rigenos?' I asked.

'He said to wait here, master.'

I smiled at lolinda again. She smiled back. 'Very well,' I said. 'We shall 
wait.'

We did not wait long. Presently slaves began to arrive at my apartments. They 
were carrying bulky pieces of metal wrapped in oiled parchment and they began to 
pile it in the weapons room. I watched them with as little expression as 
possible, though I was greatly puzzled.

Then at last King Rigenos entered. He seemed much more excited than usual, and 
Katorn was not, this time, with him.

'Greetings, Father,' said lolinda. 'I . . .'

But King Rigenos raised a hand and turned to address the slaves. 'Strip off the 
coverings,' he said. 'Hurry.'

'King Rigenos,' I said. 'I would like to tell you that . . .'

'Forgive me, Lord Erekose. First look at what I have brought. It has lain for 
centuries in the vaults of the palace. Waiting, Erekose-waiting for you!'

'Waiting . . . ?'

Then the oiled parchment was torn away and lay in curling heaps on the 
flagstones, revealing what was to me a magnificent

'This,' said the king, 'is the armour of Erekose. Broken from its tomb of rock 
deep beneath the palace's lowest dungeons so that Erekose can wear it again.'

The armour was black and it shone. It was as if it had been forged that day and 
forged by the greatest smith in history, for it was of exquisite workmanship.

I picked up the breastplate and ran my hand over it.

Unlike the armour, worn by the Imperial Guard, this was smooth, without any kind 
of raised embellishment. The shoulder pieces were grooved, fanning high and away 
from the head, to channel a blow of sword, axe or lance away from the wearer. 
The helmet, breastplates, greaves and the rest were all grooved in the same 
manner.

The metal was light, but very strong, like that of the sword. But the black 
lacquer shone. It shone brightly-almost blindingly. In its simplicity, the 
armour was beautiful-as beautiful as only really fine craftsmanship can be. Its 
only ornament was a thick plume of scarlet horsehair which sprang from the crest 
of the helmet and cascaded down the smooth sides. I touched the armour with the 
reverence one has for fine art. In this case it was fine art designed to protect 
my life and my reverence was, if anything, that much greater!

'Thank you, King Rigenos,' I said-and I was honestly grateful. 'I will wear it 
on the day we set sail against the Eldren.'

'That day is tomorrow,' said King Rigenos quietly.

'What?'

'The last of our ships has come in. The last member of the crew is on board. The 
last cannon has been fitted. It will be a good tide tomorrow and we cannot miss 
it.'

I glanced at him. Had I been misled in some way? Had Katorn prevailed upon the 
king not to let me know the exact time of sailing? But the king's expression 
showed no sign of a plot. I dismissed the idea and accepted what he said. I 
turned my gaze to lolinda. She looked stricken.

'Tomorrow . . .' she said.

'Tomorrow,' confirmed King Rigenos.

I bit my lower lip. 'Than I must prepare . . .'

She said: 'Father . . .'

He looked at her. 'Yes, lolinda?'

I began to speak and then paused. She glanced at me and was also silent. There 
was no easy way of telling him and suddenly it was as if we should keep our 
love, our pact, a secret. Neither of us knew why.

Tactfully, the king withdrew. 'I will discuss last minute matters with you 
later, Lord Erekose.'

I bowed. He left.

Somewhat stunned, lolinda and I stared at each other and then we moved into each 
other's arms and we wept.

John Daker would not have written this. He would have laughed at the sentiments, 
just as he would have scoffed at anyone who considered the arts of war 
important. John Daker would not have written this, but I must:

I began to feel a rising sense of excitement for the coming war. The old 
exultant mood started to sweep through me again. Overlaying my excitement was my 
love for lolinda. This love seemed to be a calmer, purer love, so much more 
satisfying than casual, carnal love. It was a thing apart. Perhaps this was the 
chivalrous love which the Peers of Christendom were said to hold above all 
other.

John Daker would have spoken of sexual repression and of swords as substitutes 
for sexual intercourse and so forth.

Perhaps John Daker would have been right. But it did not seem to me that he was 
right, though I was well aware of all the rationalist arguments that supported 
such a view. There is a great tendency for the human race to see all other times 
in its own terms. The terms of this society were subtly different-I was only 
dimly aware of many of the differences. I was responding to lolinda in those 
terms. It is all I can say. And later events, I suppose, were also played out in 
those terms.

I took lolinda's face in my two hands and I bent and I kissed her forehead, and 
she kissed my lips and then she left.

'Shall I see you before I leave?' I asked as she reached the door.

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, my love, if it is possible.'



When she had gone I did not feel sad. I inspected the armour once again and then 
I went down to the main hall where King Rigenos stood with many of his greatest 
captains, studying a large map of Mernadin and the waters between it and 
Necralala.

'We start here in the morning,' Rigenos told me, indicating the harbour area of 
Necranal. The River Droonaa flowed through Necranal to the sea and the port of 
Noonos where the fleet was assembled. 'There must be a certain amount of 
ceremony, I fear, Erekose. Various rituals to perform. I have already sketched 
them to you, I believe.'

'You have,' I said. 'The ceremony seems more arduous than the warfare.'

The captains laughed. Though somewhat distant and a trifle wary of me, they 
liked me well enough, for I had proved (to my own astonishment) to have a 
natural grasp of tactics and the warlike arts.

'But the ceremony is necessary,' Rigenos said, 'for the people. It makes a 
reality for them, you see. They can experience something of what we shall be 
doing.'

'We?' I said. 'Am I wrong? I thought you implied that you were sailing too.'

'I am,' Rigenos said quietly. 'I decided that it was necessary.'

'Necessary?'

'Yes.' He would say no more-particularly in front of his marshals. 'Now, let us 
continue. We must all of us rise very early tomorrow morning.'

As we discussed these final matters of order and tactics and logistics, I 
studied the king's face as best I could.

No one expected him to sail with his armies. He would lose no face at all by 
remaining behind in his capital. Yet he had made a decision which would put him 
in a position of extreme danger and make him take actions for which he had no 
palate.

Why had he made the decision? To prove to himself that he could fight, perhaps? 
Yet he had proved it already. Because he was jealous of me? Because he did not 
altogether trust me? I glanced at Katorn, but saw nothing in Katorn's face to 
indicate satisfaction. Katorn was merely his usual surly self.

Mentally, I shrugged. Speculation at this-point would get me nowhere. The fact 
was that the king, not an altogether robust man now, was coming with us. It 
might give extra inspiration to our warriors, at least. It might also help 
control Katorn's particular tendencies.

Eventually we dispersed and went our ways. I went straight to my bed and, before 
I slept, lay there peacefully, thinking of lolinda, thinking of the battle-plans 
I had hatched, wondering what the Eldren would be like to fight-I still had no 
completely clear idea of how they fought (save 'treacherously and ferociously') 
or even what they looked like (save that they resembled 'demons from the deepest 
pits').

I knew I would soon have some of the answers, at any rate. Soon I was asleep.



My dreams were strange dreams on that night before we sailed for Mernadin.

I saw towers and marshes and lakes and armies and lances that shot flames and 
metallic flying machines whose wings flapped like those of gigantic birds. I saw 
monstrously large flamingos, strange mask-like helmets resembling the faces of 
beasts . . .

I saw dragons-huge reptiles with fiery venom, flapping across dark, moody skies. 
I saw a beautiful city tumbling in flames. I saw unhuman creatures that I knew 
to be gods. I saw a woman about whom I could not name, a small, red-headed man 
who seemed to be my friend. A sword-a great, black sword more powerful than the 
one I know owned-a sword that perhaps, oddly, was myself!

I saw a world of ice across which strange, great ships with billowing sails ran 
and black beasts like whales propelled themselves over endless plateaux of 
white.

I saw a world-or was it a universe?-that had no horizon and was filled with a 
rich, jewelled mosaic atmosphere which changed all the time and from which 
people and objects emerged only to disappear again. It was somewhere beyond the 
Earth, I was sure. Yes-I was aboard a spaceship-but a ship that travelled 
through no universe conceived of by Man,

I saw a desert through which I stumbled weeping and I was alone-lonelier than 
any man had ever been.

I saw a jungle-a jungle of primitive trees and gigantic ferns. And through the 
ferns I saw huge, bizarre buildings and there was a weapon in my hand that was 
not a sword and was not a gun, but it was more powerful than either . . .

I rode strange beasts and encountered stranger people. I moved through 
landscapes that were beautiful and terrifying. I piloted flying machines and 
spaceships and I drove chariots. I hated. I fell in love. I built empires and 
caused the collapse of nations and I slew many and was slain many times. I 
triumphed and I was humiliated. And I had many names. The names roared in my 
skull. Too many names. Too many . . .

And there was no peace. There was only strife.


CHAPTER EIGHT

THE SAILING


Next morning I awoke and my dreams went away and I was left in an introspective 
mood and there was only one thing that I desired.

That thing was an Upmann's Coronas Major cigar.

I kept trying to push the name from my mind. To my knowledge John Daker had 
never smoked an Upmann's. He would not have known one cigar from another! Where 
had the name come from? Another name came into my head-Jeremiah . . . And that, 
too, was vaguely familiar.

I sat up in bed and I recognised my surroundings and the two names merged with 
the other names I had dreamed of and I got up and entered the next chamber where 
slaves were finishing preparing my bath. With relief I got into the bath and, as 
I washed my body, I began to concentrate once again on the problem at hand. Yet 
a sense of depression remained with me and again for a moment I wondered if I 
were mad and involved in some complicated schizophrenic fantasy.

When the slaves brought in my armour I began to feel much better. Again I 
marvelled at its beauty and its craftsmanship;

And now the time had come to put it on. First I donned my underclothes, then a 
sort of quilted overalls and then I began to strap the armour about me. Again it 
was easy to find the appropriate straps and buckles. It was as if I had clad 
myself in this armour every morning of my life. It fitted perfectly. It was 
comfortable and no weight at all, though it completely covered by body.

Next, I strode to the weapons room and took down the great sword that hung there 
and I drew the belt of metal links around my waist and settled the poisonous 
sword in its protecting scabbard against my left hip, tossed the scarlet plume 
on my helmet, lifted the visor and was ready.

Slaves escorted me down to the Great Hall where the Peers of Humanity had 
assembled to make their final leavetaking with Necranal.

The tapestries which had earlier hung on the walls of beaten silver had now been 
removed and in their place were hundreds of bright banners. These were the 
banners of the Marshals, the Captains and the Knights who were gathered there in 
splendid array, assembled according to rank.

On a specially erected dais the throne of the king had been placed. The dais was 
hung with a cloth of emerald green and behind it were the twin banners of the 
Two Continents. I took my place before the dais and we waited tensely for the 
arrival of the king. I had already been coached concerning the responses I was 
to make in the forthcoming ceremony.

At last there came a great yelling of trumpets and beating of martial drums from 
the gallery above us and through a door came the king.

King Rigenos had gathered stature, it seemed, for he wore a suit of gilded 
armour over which was hung a surcoat of white and red. Set into his helmet was 
his crown of iron and diamonds. He walked proudly to the dais and ascended it, 
seating himself in his throne with both arms stretched along the arms of the 
seat.

We raised our hands in salute:

'Hail, King Rigenos!' we roared.

And then we kneeled. I kneeled first. Behind me kneeled the little group of 
Marshals. Behind them were a hundred Captains, behind them were five thousand 
Knights, all kneeling. And surrounding us, along the walls, were the old nobles, 
the Ladies of the Court, men-at-arms at attention, slaves and squires, the 
mayors of the various quarters of the city and from the various provinces of the 
Two Continents.

And all watched Rigenos and his Champion, Erekose.

King Rigenos rose from his throne and took a step forward. I looked up at him 
and his face was grave and stern. I had never seen him look so much a king 
before.

Now I felt that the attention of the watchers was on myself alone. I, Erekose, 
Champion of Humanity, was to be their saviour. They knew it.

In my confidence and pride, I knew it, also.

King Rigenos raised his hands and spread them out and began to speak:

'Erekose the Champion, Marshals, Captains and Knights of Humanity-we go to wage 
war against inhuman evil. We go to fight something that is more than an enemy 
bent on conquest. We go to fight a menace that would destroy our entire race. We 
go to save our two fair continents from total annihilation. The victor will rule 
the entire Earth. The defeated will become dust and will be forgotten-it will be 
as if he had never existed.

'This expedition upon which we are about to embark will be decisive. With 
Erekose to lead us we shall win the port of Paphanaal and its surrounding 
province. But that will only be the first stage in our campaigns.'

King Rigenos paused and then spoke again into the almost absolute silence that 
had fallen in the Great Hall.

'More battles must follow fast upon the first so that the hated Hounds of Evil 
will, once and for all, be destroyed. Men and women-even children-must perish. 
We drove them to their holes in the Mountains of Sorrow once, but this time we 
must not let their race survive. Let only their memory remain for a little 
while-to remind us what evil is!'

Still kneeling, I raised both my hands above my head and clenched my fists.

'Erekose,' said King Rigenos. 'You who by the power of your eternal will made 
yourself into flesh again and came to us at this time of need, you will be the 
power with which we shall destroy the Eldren. You will be Humanity's scythe to 
sweep this way and that and cut the Eldren down as weeds. You will be Humanity's 
spade to dig up the roots wherever they have grown. You will be Humanity's fire 
to burn the waste to the finest ash. You, Erekose, will be the wind that will 
blow those ashes away as if they had never existed! You will destroy the 
Eldren!'

'I will destroy the Eldren!' I cried and my voice echoed through the Great Hall 
like the voice of a God. 'I will destroy the Enemies of Humanity! With the Sword 
Kanajana I will ride upon them with vengeance and hatred and cruelly in my heart 
and I will vanquish the Eldren!'

From behind me now came a mighty shout:

'WE SHALL VANQUISH THE ELDREN!'

Now the king raised his head and his eyes glittered and his mouth was hard.

'Swear it!' he said.

We were intoxicated by the atmosphere of hate and rage in the Great Hall.

'We so swear!' we roared. 'We will destroy the Eldren!'

Hatred now boiled from the king's eyes, seared in his voice:

'Go now, Paladins of Mankind. Go-destroy the Eldren offal. Clean our planet of 
the Eldren filth!'

As one man, we rose to our feet and yelled our battle-cries, turned in precision 
and marched from the Great Hall, out of the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows and 
into a day noisy with the swelling cheers of the people.

But as we marched, one thought preyed on my mind. Where was lolinda? Why had she 
not come to me? There had been so little time before the ceremony and yet I 
would have thought she would have sent a message at least.

Down the winding streets of Necranal we marched in glorious procession. Through 
die cheering day with the bright sun shining on our weapons and our armour and 
our flags of a thousand rich colours waving in the wind.

And I led them. I, Erekose, the Eternal, the Champion, the Vengeance Bringer-I 
led them. My arms were raised as if I was already celebrating my victory. Pride 
filled me. I knew what Glory was and I relished it. This was the way to live-as 
a warrior-a leader of great armies-a wielder of weapons.

On we marched, down towards the waiting ships which were ready on the river. And 
a song came to my lips-a song that was in an archaic version of the language I 
now spoke. I sang the song and it was taken up by all the warriors that marched 
behind me. Drums began to beat and trumpets to shout and we cried aloud for 
blood and death and the great, red reaping that would come to Mernadin.

That is how we marched. That is how we felt.

Do not judge me until I have told you more.



We reached the wide part of the river where the harbour was and there were the 
ships. There were fifty ships stretched along both quays on either side of the 
river. Fifty ships bearing the fifty standards of fifty proud paladins.

And these were only fifty. The fleet itself waited for us to join it at the port 
of Noonos. Noonos of the Jewelled Towers.

The people of Necranal lined the banks of the river. They were cheering, 
cheering-so that we became used to their voices as men became used to the sounds 
of the sea, scarcely hearing them.

I regarded the ships. Richly decorated cabins were built on the decks and the 
ships of the Paladins had several masts bearing furled sails of painted canvas. 
Already oars were being slipped through the ports and dipped into the placid 
river waters. Strong men, three to a sweep, sat upon the rowing benches. These 
men were not, as far as I could see, slaves, but free warriors.

At the head of this squadron of ships lay the king's huge battle barge-a 
magnificent man-o'-war. It had eighty pair of oars and eight tall masts. Its 
rails were painted in red, gold and black, its decks were polished crimson, its 
sails were yellow, dark blue and orange and its huge craved figurehead, 
representing a goddess holding a sword in her two outstretched hands, was 
predominantly scarlet and silver. Ornate and splendid, the deck cabins shone 
with fresh varnish which had been laid over pictures of ancient human heroes (I 
was among them, though die likenesses were poor . . .) and ancient human 
victories, of mythical beasts and demons and gods.

Detaching myself from the main force that had drawn itself up on the quayside, I 
walked to the tapestry-covered gangway and strode up it and boarded the ship. 
Sailors rushed forward to greet me.

One said: 'The Princess lolinda awaits you in die Grand Cabin, Excellency.'

I turned and then paused, looking at die splendid structure of the cabin, 
smiling slightly at the representations of myself painted upon it. Then I moved 
towards it and entered a comparatively low door into a room which was covered, 
floor, walls and ceiling, with thick tapestries in deep reds and blacks and 
golds. Lanterns hung in the room, and in the shadows, clad in a simple dress and 
a thin, dark cloak, stood my lolinda.

'I did not wish to interrupt the preparations this morning,' she said. 'My 
father said that they were important-that there was little time to spare. So I 
thought you would not want to see me . . .'

I smiled. 'You still do not believe what I say, do you, lolinda? You still do 
not trust me when I proclaim my love for you, when I tell you that I would do 
anything for you.' I went towards her and held her in my arms. 'I love you, 
lolinda. I shall always love you.'

'And I shall always love you, Erekose. You will live forever, but . . .'

'There is no proof of that,' I said gently. 'And I am by no means invulnerable, 
lolinda. I sustained enough cuts and bruises in my weapons practice to realise 
that!'

'You will not die, Erekose.'

'I would be happier if I shared your conviction!'

'Do not laugh at me, Erekose. I will not be patronised.'

'I am not laughing at you, lolinda. I am not patronising you. I only speak the 
truth. You must face that truth. You must.'

'Very well,' she said. 'I will face it. But I feel that you will not die. Yet, I 
have such strange premonitions-I feel that something worse than death could 
befall us.'

'Your fears are natural, but they are baseless. There is no need for gloom, my 
dear. Look at the fine armour I wear, the powerful sword I bear, the mighty 
force I command.'

'Kiss me, Erekose.'

I kissed her. I kissed her for a long time and then she broke from my arms and 
ran to the door and was gone.

I stared at the door, half thinking of running after her, of reassuring her. But 
I knew that I could not reassure her. Her fears were not really rational-they 
reflected her constant sense of insecurity. I promised myself that later I would 
give her proof of security. I would bring constants into her life-things she 
could trust.

Trumpets sounded. King Rigenos was coming aboard.

A few moments later the king entered the cabin, tugging off his crowned helm. 
Katorn was behind him, as sullen as ever.

'The people seem enthusiastic,' I said. 'The ceremony seemed to have the effect 
you desired, King Rigenos.'

Rigenos nodded wearily. 'Aye.' The ritual had plainly taken much from him and he 
slumped into a hanging chair in the corner and called for wine. 'We'll be 
sailing soon. When, Katorn?'

'Within the quarter hour, my lord king.' Katorn took the jug of wine from the 
slave who brought it and poured Rigenos a cup without offering one to me.

King Rigenos waved his hand. 'Would you have some wine, Lord Erekose?'

I declined. 'You spoke well in the hall, King Rigenos,' I said. 'You fired us 
with a fine bloodlust.'

Katorn sniffed. 'Let us hope it lasts until we get to the enemy,' he said. 'We 
have some raw soldiers sailing on this expedition. Half our warriors have never 
fought before-and half of those are boys. There are even some women in some 
detachments, I've heard.'

'You seem pessimistic, Lord Katorn,' I said.

He grunted. 'It is as well to be. All this finery and grandeur is all right for 
cheering up the civilians, but it's best you don't believe it yourself. You 
should know, Erekose. You should know what real war is all about. Pain, fear, 
death. There's nothing else to it.'

'You forget,' I said. 'My memory of my own past is clouded.'

Katorn .sniffed and gobbled down his wine. He replaced the cup with a clatter 
and left. 'I'll see to the casting off.'

The king cleared his throat. 'You and Katorn . . .' he began, but broke off. 
'You . . .'

'We are not friends,' I said. 'I dislike his surly, mistrustful manner-and he 
suspects me of being a fraud, a traitor, a spy of some sort.'

King Rigenos nodded. 'He has hinted as much to me.' He sipped his wine. 'I told 
him that I saw you materialise with my own eyes. That there is no question you 
are Erekose, that there is no reason not to trust you-but he persists. Why, do 
you think? He is a sane, sensible soldier.'

'He is jealous,' I said. 'I have taken over his power.'

'But he was as agreed as any of us that we needed a new leader who would inspire 
our people in the fight against the Eldren.'

'In principle, perhaps,' I said. I shrugged. 'It does not matter, King Rigenos. 
I think we have worked out a compromise.'

King Rigenos was lost in his own thoughts. 'There again,' he murmured, 'it could 
have nothing to do with war, at all.'

'What do you mean?'

He gave me a candid look. 'It might concern matters of love, Erekose. Katorn has 
always been pleased by lolinda's manner.'

'You could be right. But again there is nothing I can do. lolinda seems to 
prefer my company.'

'Katorn might see it as mere infatuation with an ideal rather than a real 
person.'

'Do you see it as that?'

'I do not know. I have not talked to lolinda about it.'

'Well,' I said, 'perhaps we shall see when we return.'

'If we return,' said King Rigenos. 'In there, I must admit, I'm in agreement 
with Katorn. Over-confidence has often been the main cause of many defeats.'

I nodded. 'Perhaps you are right.'

There came shouts and cries from outside and the ship lurched suddenly as the 
ropes were cast off and the anchors hauled in.

'Come,' said King Rigenos. 'Let us go out on deck. It will be expected of us.' 
Hastily he finished his wine and placed his crowned helmet upon his head. We 
left the cabin together and, as we came out, the cheering on the quayside 
swelled louder and louder.

We stood there waving to the people as the drums began to pound out the slow 
rowing rhythm. I saw lolinda seated in her carriage, her body half turned to 
watch as we left. I waved to her and she raised her own arm in a final salute.

'Goodbye, lolinda,' I murmured.

Katorn darted me a cynical look from the corner of his eye as he passed to 
supervise the rowing.

Goodbye, lolinda.

The wind had dropped. I was sweating in my wargear, for the day was oppressed by 
a great flaming sun, blazing in a cloudless sky.

I continued to wave from the stern of the swaying vessel, keeping my gaze on 
lolinda as she sat there erect in her carriage, and then we had rounded a bend 
in the river and saw only the rearing towers of Necranal above and behind us, 
heard only the distant cheering.

We beat down the Droonaa River, moving fast with the current towards Noonos of 
the Jewelled Towers-and the fleets.


CHAPTER NINE

AT NOONOS


Oh these blind and bloody wars . . .

'Really, bishop, you fail to understand that human affairs are resolved in terms 
of action . . .'

Brittle arguments, pointless causes, cynicism disguised as pragmatism.

'Would you not rest, my son?'

'I cannot rest, Father, while the Paynim horde is already on the banks of the 
Danube . . .'

'Peace. . .'

'Will they be content with peace?'

'Perhaps.'

'They won't be satisfied with Vietnam. They won't be content until the whole of 
Asia is their's . . . And after that, the world . . .'

'We are not beasts.'

'We must act as beasts. They act as beasts.'

'But if we tried . . .'

'We have tried.'

'Have we?'

'Fire must be fought with fire.'

'Is there no other way?'

'There is no other way.'

'The children . . .'

'There is no other way.'

A gun. A sword. A bomb. A bow. A vibrapistol. A flamelance. An axe. A club . . .

'There is no other way . . .'


*   *   *


On board the flagship that night, as the oars rose and fell and the drum 
continued its steady beat and the timbers creaked and the waves lapped at the 
hull, I slept poorly. Fragments of conversations. Phrases. Images. They tumbled 
in my tired brain and refused to leave me in peace. A thousand different periods 
of history. A million different faces. But the situation was always the same. 
The argument-made in myriad tongues-did not change.

Only when I rose from my bunk did my head clear and at length I resolved to go 
on deck.

What sort of creature was I? Why did it seem that I was forever doomed to drift 
from era to era and act out the same role wherever I went? What trick-what 
cosmic joke had been played upon me?

The night air was cool on my face and the moonlight struck through the light 
clouds at regular intervals so that the beams looked like the spokes of some 
gigantic wheel. It was as if the chariot of a God had sunk through the low cloud 
and become embedded in the coarser air beneath.

I stared at the water and saw the clouds reflected in it, saw them break to 
reveal the moon. It was the same moon I had known as John Daker. The same bland 
face could be made out staring down in contentment at the antics of the 
creatures of the planet it circled. How many disasters had that moon witnessed? 
How many foolish crusades? How many wars and battles and murders?

The clouds moved together again and the waters of the river grew black as if to 
say that I would never find the revelation I sought.

I looked to the banks. We were passing through a thick forest. The tops of the 
trees were silhouetted against the slightly lighter darkness of the night. A few 
night animals voiced their cries from time to time and it seemed to me that they 
were lonely cries, lost cries, pitiful cries. I sighed and leaned against the 
rail and watched the water creamed grey by the slashing oars.

I had better accept that I must fight again. Again? Where had I fought before? 
What did my vague memories mean? What significance had my dreams? The simple 
answer-the pragmatic answer (or certainly one that John Daker could have best 
understood) was that I was mad. My imagination was overwrought. Perhaps I had 
never been John Daker. Perhaps he, too, was another crazed invention.

I must fight again.

That was all there was to it. I had accepted the role and I must play it to the 
finish.

My brain began to clear as the moon set and dawn lightly touched the horizon.

I watched the sun rise, a huge scarlet disc moving with steady grandeur into the 
sky, as if curious to discover the sounds that disturbed the world-the beat of 
the drum, the crack of the oars.

'You are not sleeping, Lord Erekose. You are eager, I see, to do battle.'

I felt I did not need Katorn's banter added to the burden. 'I thought I would 
enjoy watching the sun rise,' I said.

'And the moon set?' Katorn's voice implied something that I could not quite 
grasp. 'You seem to like the night, Lord Erekose.'

'Sometimes,' I said. 'It is peaceful,' I added as significantly as I could. 
'There is little to disturb a man's thoughts in the night.'

'True. You have something in common with our enemies, then . . .'

I turned impatiently, regarding those dark features with anger. 'What do you 
mean?'

'I meant only that the Eldren, too, are said to prefer the night to the day.'

'If it is true of me, my lord,' I said, 'then it will be a great asset to us in 
our war with them if I can fight them by night as well as by day.'

'I hope so, my lord.'

'Why do you mistrust me so, Lord Katorn?'

He shrugged. 'Did I say that I did. We struck a bargain, remember?'

'And I have kept my part of it.'

'And I mine. I will follow you, do not doubt that. Whatever I suspect, I will 
follow you.'

'Then I would ask you to discontinue these little jibes of yours. They are 
naive. They serve no purpose.'

'They serve a purpose for me, Lord Erekose. They ease my temper-they channel it 
into a suitable area.'

'I have sworn my oath to Humanity,' I told him. 'I will serve King Rigenos's 
cause. I have my own burdens to bear, Lord Katorn. . .'

'I am deeply sympathetic.'

I turned away. I had come close to making a fool of myself-appealing to Katorn 
for mercy, almost, by claiming my own problems as an excuse.

'Thank you, Lord Katorn,' I said coldly. The ship began to turn a bend in the 
river and I thought I could see the sea ahead. 'I am grateful for your 
understanding.' I slapped at my face. The ship was passing through a cloud of 
midges hovering over the river. 'These insects are irritating, are they not?'

'Perhaps it would be best if you did not allow yourself to be subjected to their 
intentions, my lord,' Katorn replied.

'Indeed, I think you are right, Lord Katorn. I will go below.'

'Good morrow, my lord.'

'Good morrow, Lord Katorn.'

I left him standing on the deck and staring moodily ahead.

In other circumstances, I thought, I would slay that man.

As it was, there seemed a growing chance that he would do his utmost to slay me. 
I wondered if Rigenos were correct and Katorn was doubly jealous of me. Jealous 
of my reputation as a warrior. Jealous of lolinda's love for me.

I washed and dressed myself in my war-gear and refused to bother myself with all 
these pointless thoughts. A little later I heard the helmsman shout and went on 
deck to see what his call signified.



Noonos was in sight. We all crowded the rails to get a glimpse of this fabulous 
city. We were half-blinded by the glare from the towers for they were truly 
jewelled. The city flared with light-a great white aura speckled with a hundred 
other colours-green and violet and pink and mauve and ochre and red-all dancing 
in the brighter glow created by a million gems.

And beyond Noonos lay the sea-a calm sea gleaming in the sunshine.

As Noonos came closer, the river widened until it was clear that this was where 
it opened into the ocean. The banks became more and more distant and we kept 
closer to the starboard bank, for that was the bank on which Noonos was built. 
There were other towns and villages dotted among the wooded hills overlooking 
the river mouth. Some of them were picturesque, but they were all dominated by 
the port we were approaching.

Now seabirds began to squeal around our topmast and with a great flapping of 
wings settle in the yards and began squabbling, it appeared, for the best spot 
in the rigging.

The rhythm of the oars became slower and we began to back water as we approached 
the harbour itself. Behind us the squadron of proud ships dropped anchor. They 
would join us later when, the pilot had come out to give them their mooring 
order.

Leaving our sister ships behind, we rowed slowly into Noonos, flying the 
standard of King Rigenos and the standard of Erekose-a black field supporting a 
silver sword.

And the cheering began again. Held back by soldiers in armour of quilted 
leather, the crowds craned their necks to see us as we disembarked. And then, as 
I walked down the gangplank and appeared on the quayside a huge chanting began 
that startled me at first when I realised what the word was that they were 
chanting.

'EREKOSe.' EREKOSe! EREKOSe! EREKOSe!'

I raised my right arm in salute and almost staggered as the noise increased 
until it was literally deafening. I could barely refrain from covering my ears!

Prince Bladagh, Overlord of Noonos, greeted us with due ceremony and read out a 
speech that could not be heard for the shouting and then we were escorted 
through the streets towards the quarters we were to use while making our brief 
stay in the city.

The jewelled towers were not disappointing, though I noticed that the houses 
built closer to the ground made a great contrast. Many of them were little 
better than hovels. It was quite plain where the money came from to encrust the 
towers with rubies, pearls and emeralds . . .

I had not noticed this great disparity between the rich and the poor in 
Necranal. Either I had been too impressed by the newness of the sights or the 
royal city took pains to disguise any areas of poverty if they indeed existed.

And there were ragged people here, to go with the hovels, though they cheered as 
loudly as the rest-if not louder. Perhaps they blamed the Eldren for their 
misery.

Prince Bladagh was a sallow-featured man of about forty-five. He had a long, 
drooping moustache and rather blank eyes and he moved rather like a fussy 
vulture. It emerged, and I was not surprised, that he would not be joining us in 
our expedition but would remain behind 'to protect the city'-or his own gold, 
most likely, I thought.

'Ah, now, my liege,' he muttered as we reached his palace and the jewelled gates 
swung back to admit us (I noticed that they would have shone better if they had 
been cleaned). 'Ah, now-my palace is yours, King Rigenos. And yours, too, Lord 
Erekose, of course. Anything you need . . .'

'A hot meal-and a simple one,' King Rigenos said, echoing my own sentiments. 'No 
banquets-I warned you not to make a large ceremony of this, Bladagh.'

'And I have not, my liege.' Bladagh looked relieved. He did not seem to me to be 
a man who enjoyed spending money. 'I have not.'

The meal was simple, though not particularly well-prepared. We ate it with 
Prince Bladagh, his plump, stupid wife, Princess lonante and their two scrawny 
children. Privately, I was amused at the contrast between the city seen from a 
distance and the appearance and way of life of its ruler.

A short while later the various commanders, who had been assembling in Noonos 
for the past several weeks, arrived to confer with Rigenos and myself. Katorn 
was among them and was able to outline very succinctly and graphically the 
battle-plans we had worked out between us in Neciranal.

Among the commanders were several famous heroes of the Two Continents-Count 
Roldero, a burly aristocrat whose armour was as workmanlike and free from 
decoration as my own-also there was Prince Malihar and his brother, Duke Ezak, 
both of whom had been through many campaigns; Earl Shanura of Karakoa, one of 
the furthest provinces and one of the most barbaric. Shanura wore his hair long, 
in three plaits that hung down his back. His pale features were gaunt and criss-
crossed with scars and he spoke seldom and usually to ask specific questions. 
The variety of the faces and the costumes surprised me at first. At least, I 
thought ironically, humanity was united on this world, which was more than could 
be said for the world John Daker had left. But perhaps they were only united for 
the moment, to defeat the common enemy. After that, I thought, their unity might 
well suffer a set-back. Earl Shanura, for instance, did not seem too happy about 
taking orders from King Rigenos who he probably considered soft.

I hoped that I could keep so disparate a group of officers together in the 
battles that were to follow.

At last we were finished with our discussions and I had spoken a word or two 
with every commander there. King Rigenos glanced at the bronze clock that stood 
on the table and which was marked with sixteen divisions. 'It will be time to 
put to sea soon,' he said. 'Are all ships ready?'

'Mine have been ready for months,' Earl Shanura said gruffly. 'I was beginning 
to feel they would rot before they saw

The others agreed that their ships would be able to sail with little more than 
an hour's notice.

Rigenos and I thanked Bladagh and his family for their hospitality and they 
seemed rather more cheerful now that we were leaving.

Instead of marching from the palace, we now hurried in coaches to the quayside 
and rapidly boarded our ships. The king's flagship was called the lolinda, a 
fact which I had not noticed before, my thoughts being full of the woman who 
bore that name. Our other ships from Necranal were now in port and their sailors 
were refreshing themselves in the short time they had, while slaves took on 
board the last provisions and armaments that were needed.

There was still a mood of slight depression hanging over me from my strange 
half-dreams of the previous night, but it was beginning to disperse as my 
excitement grew. It was still a month's sailing to Mernadin, but already I was 
beginning to relish the chance of action. At least action would help me forget 
the other problems. I was reminded of something that Pierre told Andrei in War 
and Peace-something about all men finding their own ways of forgetting the fact 
of death. Some womanised, some gambled, some drank and some, paradoxically, made 
war. Well, it was not the fact of death that obsessed me-indeed, it seemed that 
it was the fact of eternal existence that was preying on my mind. An eternal 
life involving eternal warfare.

Would I at some stage discover the truth? I was not sure that I wanted to know 
the truth. The thought frightened me. Perhaps a God could have accepted it. But 
I was not a God. I was a man. I knew I was a man. My problems, my ambitions, my 
emotions were on a human scale-save for the one abiding problem-the question of 
how I came to exist in this form-of how I had become what I was. Or was I truly 
eternal? Was there no beginning and no end to my existence? The very nature of 
Time was held in question. I could no longer regard Time in linear terms, as I 
had once done as John Daker. Time could not be conceived of any more in spatial 
terms.

I needed a philosopher-a magician-a scientist to help me on that problem. Or 
else I could forget it? But could I forget it? I would have to try.

The seabirds squawked and circled as the sails smacked down and swelled in the 
sultry wind that had started to blow. The timbers creaked as the anchors were 
weighed and the mooring ropes cast off from the capstans and the great flagship, 
lolinda, heaved herself from the port, her oars still rising and falling, but 
making faster speed now as she sailed towards the open sea.


CHAPTER TEN

FIRST SIGN OF THE ELDREN


The fleet was huge and contained great fighting ships of many kinds, some 
resembling what John Daker would have called nineteenth-century tea-clippers, 
some that looked like junks, some with the lateen rig of Mediterranean craft, 
some that were very like Elizabethan caravels. Sailing in their separate 
formations, according to their province or origin, they symbolised the 
differences and the unity of mankind. I was proud of them.

Excited, tense, alert and confident of victory, we sailed for Paphanaal, gateway 
to Mernadin and conquest.

Yet I still felt the need to know more of the Eldren. My cloudy memory of the 
life of an earlier Erekose could only confer an impression of confused battles 
against them and also, perhaps, somewhere a feeling of emotional pain. That was 
all. I had heard that they had no orbs to their eyes and that this was their 
chief distinguishing unhuman characteristic. They were said to be inhumanly 
beautiful, inhumanly merciless and with inhuman sexual appetites. They were 
slightly taller than the average man, had long heads with slanting cheek-bones 
and slightly slanting eyes. But this was not really enough for me. There were no 
pictures of Eldren anywhere on the Two Continents. Pictures were supposed to 
bring bad luck, particularly if the evil eyes of the Eldren were depicted.

As we sailed, there was a great deal of ship-to-ship communication, with 
commanders being rowed or hauled in slings to and from the flagship, depending 
on how good the weather was. We had worked out our basic strategy and had 
contingency plans in case it should not prove possible to exercise this 
strategy. The idea had been mine and seemed a new one to the others, but they 
soon grasped it and the details had now all been decided upon. Each day the 
warriors of every ship were drilled in what they were to do when the Eldren 
fleet was sighted, if it was sighted. If it was not' we should despatch part of 
the fleet straight to Paphanaal and begin the attack on the city. However, we 
expected the Eldren to send out their defence fleet to meet us before we reached 
Paphanaal and it was on this probability that we based our main plan.

Katorn and I avoided each other as much as possible. There were, in those first 
few days of sailing, none of the verbal duels of the sort we had had in Necranal 
and on the Droonaa River. I was polite to Katorn when we had need to communicate 
and he, in his surly way, was polite to me. King Rigenos seemed to be relieved 
and told me that he was glad we had settled our differences. We had not, of 
course, settled anything. We had merely waived those differences until such time 
as we could decide them once and for all. I knew eventually that I must fight 
Katorn or that he would try to murder me.

I took a liking to Count Roldero of Stalaco, though he was perhaps the most 
bloodthirsty of all when it came to discussing the Eldren. John Daker would have 
called him a reactionary-but he would have liked him. He was a staunch, stoical, 
honest man who spoke his mind and allowed others to speak theirs, expecting the 
same tolerance from them as he gave to them. When I had once suggested to him 
that he saw things too plainly in black and white he had smiled wearily and 
replied:

'Erekose, my friend, when you have seen what I have of the events that have 
taken place in my lifetime on this planet of ours, then you would see things 
quite as clearly in black and white as I do. You can only judge people by their 
actions, not by their protestations. People act for good or they act for ill and 
those who do great ill are bad and those who do great good-they are good.'

'But people may do great good accidentally, though with evil intentions-and 
conversely people may do great evil though having the best of intentions,' I 
said, amused by his assumption that he had lived longer and seen more than I 
had-though I think his assumption was meant in jest.

'Exactly!' Count Roldero replied. 'You have only repeated my point. I do not 
care, as I said, what people protest their intentions to be. I judge them by the 
results they achieve. Take the Eldren . . .'

I raised my hand, laughing. 'I know how wicked they are. Everyone has told me of 
their cunning, their treachery, their black powers.'

'Ah, you seem to think I hate Eldren individuals, I do not. For all I know they 
may be kind to their own children, love their wives and treat their animals 
well. I do not say that they are, as individuals, monsters. It is as a force 
that they must be considered-it is what they do that must be judged-it is on the 
threat of their own ambitions that we must base our attitude towards them.'

'And how do you consider that force?' I asked.

'It is not human, therefore its interests are not human. Therefore in terms of 
its own self-interest, it needs to destroy us. In this case, because the Eldren 
are not human, they threaten us merely by existing. And, by the same token, we 
threaten them. They understand this and would wipe us out. We understand this 
and would wipe them out before they have the chance to destroy us. You 
understand?'

The argument seemed convincing enough to the pragmatist that I considered myself 
to be. But one thought came to mind and I voiced it.

'Are you not forgetting one thing, Count Roldero? You have said it yourself-the 
Eldren are not human. You are assuming that they have human interests . . .'

'They are flesh and blood,' he said. 'They are beasts, as we are beasts. They 
have those impulses, just as we have them.'

'But many species of beast seem to live together in basic harmony,' I reminded 
him. 'The lion does not constantly war with the leopard-the horse does not war 
with the cow--even among themselves they rarely kill each other, no matter how 
important the issue to them.'

'But they would,' said Count Roldero, undaunted. 'They would if they could 
anticipate events. They would if they could work out the rate at which the rival 
animal is consuming food, breeding, expanding its territory.'

I gave up. I felt we were both on shaky ground now. We were seated in my cabin, 
looking out at a beautiful evening and a calm sea through the open porthole. I 
poured Count Roldero more wine from my dwindling store (I had taken to drinking 
a good deal of wine shortly before I went to bed, to ensure myself of a rest not 
broken by visions and memories).

Count Roldero quaffed the wine and stood up. 'It's getting late. I must return 
to my ship or my men will think I've drowned and be celebrating. I see you're 
running short of wine. I'll bring a skin or two on my next visit. Farewell, 
friend Erekose. Your heart's in the right place, I'm sure. But you're a 
sentimentalist, for all you say to the contrary.'

I grinned. 'Good night, Roldero.' I raised my half-full wine cup. 'Let's drink 
to peace when this business is over!'

Roldero snorted. 'Aye, peace-like the cows and the horses! Good night, my 
friend.' He left laughing.

Rather drunkenly, I removed my clothes and fell into my bunk, chuckling 
foolishly at Roldero's parting remark. 'Like the cows and the horses. He's 
right. Who wants to lead a life like that. Here's to War!' And I flung the wine 
cup through the open porthole and fell to snoring almost before my eyes had 
closed.

And I dreamed.

But this time I dreamed of the wine cup I had hurled through the porthole. I 
imagined I saw it bobbing on the waves, its gold and jewels glittering. I 
imagined I saw it caught by a current and borne far away from the fleet-out to a 
lonely place where ships never sailed and land was never in sight-tossed for 
ever on a bleak sea.



For the whole month of our sailing, the sea was calm, the wind good and the 
weather, on the whole, fine.

Our spirits rose higher. We took this to be a sign of good luck. All of us were 
cheerful. All, that is, save Katorn, who grumbled that this could well be the 
calm before the storm, that we must expect the worst of the Eldren when we 
eventually engaged.

'They are tricky,' he would say. 'Those filth are tricky. Even now they could 
know of our coming and have planned some manoeuvre we are not expecting. They 
might even be responsible for the weather . . .'

I could not help laughing openly at this and he stalked off up the deck in 
anger. 'You will see, Lord Erekose,' he called back. 'You will see!'

And the next day the opportunity came.

According to our charts, we were nearing the coasts of Mernadin. We posted more 
look-outs, arranged the Fleets of Humanity in battle order, checked our armament 
and cut our speed.

The morning passed slowly as we waited, the flagship in the forefront rocking on 
the waves, its sails reefed, its oars raised.

And then, around noon, the look-out in our topmast yelled through his megaphone:

'Ships for'ard! Five sails!'

King Rigenos, Katorn and I stood on the foredeck, staring ahead. I looked at 
King Rigenos and frowned. 'Five ships? Five ships only?'

King Rigenos shook his head. 'Perhaps they are not Eldren ships . . .'

'They'll be Eldren craft,' Katorn grunted. 'What else could they be in these 
waters? No human merchants would trade with the creatures!'

And then the cry of the look-out reached us again.

'Ten sails now! Twenty! It's the fleet-the Eldren fleet! They are sailing fast 
upon us!'

And now I thought I glimpsed a flash of white on the horizon. Had it been the 
crest of a wave? No. It was the sail of a ship, I was sure.

'Look,' I said. 'There.' And I pointed.

Rigenos screwed up his eyes and shielded them with his hand. 'I see nothing. It 
is your imagination. They could not be coming in so fast . . .'

Katorn, too, peered ahead. 'Yes! I see it too. A sail! They are that swift! By 
the Sea God's scales-slimy sorcery aids them! It is the only explanation.'

King Rigenos seemed sceptical. 'They are lighter craft than ours,' he reminded 
Katorn, 'and the wind is in their favour.'

Katorn, in turn, was not convinced. 'Maybe,' he growled. 'Perhaps you are right, 
sire . . .'

'Have they used sorcery before?' I asked him. I was willing to believe anything. 
I had to if I was to believe what had happened to me!

'Aye!' spat Katorn. 'Many times. All kinds! Ooph! I can smell sorcery on the 
very air!'

'When?' I asked him. 'What kind? I wish to know so that I can take counter 
measures.'

'They can make themselves invisible sometimes. That's how they took Paphanaal, 
so it's said. They can walk on water-sail through the air.'

'You have seen them do this?'

'Not myself. But I've heard many tales. Tales I can believe from men who do not 
lie.'

'And these men have experienced this sorcery?'

'Not themselves. But they have known men who did.'

'So their use of sorcery remains a rumour,' I said.

'Ach! Say what you like!' Katorn roared. 'Do not believe me-you who are the very 
essence of sorcery-who owes his existence to an incantation. Why do you think I 
supported the notion to bring you back, Erekose? Because I felt we needed 
sorcery that would be stronger than theirs! What else is that sword at your side 
than a sorcerous blade?'

I shrugged. 'Let us wait, then,' I said, 'and see their sorcery.'

King Rigenos called up at the look-out. 'How big's the fleet you see?'

'About half our size, my liege!' he shouted back, his words distorted by the 
megaphone. 'Certainly no larger. And I think it is their whole fleet. I see no 
more coming.'

'They do not seem to be coming any closer at this moment,' I murmured to King 
Rigenos. 'Ask him if they're moving.'

'Has the Eldren fleet hove to, master look-out?' called King Rigenos.

'Aye, my liege. It no longer speeds hither and they seem to be furling their 
sails.'

'They are waiting for us,' Katorn muttered. 'They want us to attack them. Well, 
we shall wait too.'

I nodded. 'That is the strategy we agreed.'

And we waited.

We waited as the sun set and night fell and far away on the horizon we caught 
the occasional glimpse of silver that could have been a wave or a ship. Hasty 
messages were sent by swimmers back and forth among the vessels of the fleet.

And we continued to wait, sleeping as best we could, wondering when, if at all, 
the Eldren would attack.

Katorn's footsteps could be heard pacing the deck as I lay awake in my cabin, 
trying to do the sensible thing and preserve my energy for the next day. Of all 
of us, Katorn was the most impatient to engage the enemy. I felt that if it had 
been up to him, we should even now be sailing on the Eldren, having thrown our 
carefully worked out battle-plans overboard.

But luckily it was up to me. Even King Rigenos did not have the authority, 
except under exceptional circumstances, to countermand any of my orders.

I rested, but I could not sleep. I had my first glimpse of an Eldren craft, but 
I still did not know what the ships really looked like-or what my impression of 
their crews would be.

I lay there, praying that our battle should soon begin. A fleet of only half our 
size! I smiled without humour. I smiled because I knew we should be victorious.

When would the Eldren attack?

It might even be tonight. Katorn had said that they loved the night.

I would not care if it was at night. I wanted to fight. A huge battle-lust was 
building within me. I wanted to fight!


CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE FLEETS ENGAGE


A whole day passed and another night and still the Eldren remained on the 
horizon.

Were they deliberately hoping to tire us, makes us nervous? Or were they afraid 
of the size of our fleet? Perhaps, I thought, their own strategy depended on us 
attacking them.

On the second night I did sleep, but not the drink sodden slumber I had trained 
myself to. There was no drink left. Count Roldero had never had a chance to 
bring his wineskins on board.

And the dreams, if anything, were worse than ever.

I saw entire worlds at war, destroying themselves in senseless battles.

I saw Earth but this was an Earth without a Moon. An Earth which did not rotate, 
which was half in sunlight, half in a darkness relieved only by the stars. And 
there was strife here, too, and a morbid quest that as good as destroyed me . . 
. name-Clarvis? Something of the sort. I grasped at these names, but they almost 
always eluded me and, I suppose, they were really the least important parts of 
the dreams.

I saw Earth-a different Earth again. An Earth which was so old that even the 
seas had begun to dry up. And I rode across a murky landscape, beneath a tiny 
sun, and I thought about Time. . .

I tried to hang on to this dream, this hallucination, this memory, whatever it 
was. I thought there might be a clue here to what I was, what had begun it all.

Another name-the Chronarch . . . Then it faded. There seemed to be no extra 
significance to this dream than to the rest.

Then this dream had faded and I stood in a city beside a large car and I was 
laughing and there was a strange sort of gun in my hand and bombs were raining 
from planes and destroying the city. I tasted an Upmann cigar . . .

I woke up, but was almost at once dragged back into my dreams.

I walked, insane and lonely, through corridors of steel and beyond the walls of 
the corridors was empty space. Earth was far behind. The steel machine in which 
I paced was heading for another star. I was tormented. I was obsessed with 
thoughts of my family. John Daker? No-John . . .

And then, as if to confuse me further, the names began. I saw them. I heard 
them. They were spelled in many different forms of hieroglyphics, chanted in 
many tongues.

Aubec. Byzantium. Cornelius. Colvin. Bradbury. London. Melnibone. Hawkmoon. 
Lanjis Liho. Powys. Marca. Elric. Muldoon. Dietrich. Arflane. Simon. Kane. 
Allard. Corom. Traven. Ryan. Asquinol. Pepin. Seward. Mennell. Tallow. Hallner. 
Kln . . .

The names went on and on and on.

I awoke screaming.

And it was morning.



Sweating I got out of my bunk and splashed cold water all over my body.

Why did it not begin? Why?

I knew that once the fighting started the dreams would go away. I was sure of 
it.

And then the door of my cabin burst open and a slave entered.

'Master--'

A trumpet voiced a brazen bellow. There were the sounds of running men all over 
the ship.

'Master. The enemy ships are moving.'

With a great sigh of relief I dressed myself, buckling on my armour as quickly 
as I could and strapping my sword about me.

Then I ran up on deck and climbed to the forward deck where King Rigenos stood, 
clad in his own armour, his face grim.

Everywhere in the fleet the war signals were being flown and voices called from 
ship to ship, trumpets snarled like metallic beasts and drums began to beat.

Now I could see for certain that the Eldren ships were on the move.

'Our commanders are all prepared,' Rigenos murmured tensely. 'See, our ships are 
already taking their positions.'

I looked with pleasure as the fleet began to form itself according to our much 
rehearsed battle-plan. Now, if only the Eldren would behave as we had 
anticipated, we should be the victors.

I looked forward again and gasped as the Eldren ships drew closer, marvelled at 
their rare grace as they leapt lightly over the water like dolphins.

But they were not dolphins, I thought. They were sharks. They would rend us all 
if they could. Now I understood something of Katorn's suspicion of everything 
Eldren. If I had not known that these were our enemies, that they intended to 
destroy us, I would have stood there entranced at their beauty.

They were not galleons, as most of our craft were. They were ships of sail only-
and the sails were diaphanous on slim masts. White hulls broke the darker white 
of the surf as they surged wildly, without faltering, towards us.

I studied their armament intently.

They mounted a few cannon, but not so many as ours. Their cannon, however, were 
slender and silver and when I saw them I feared their power.

Katorn joined us. He was snarling with pleasure. 'Ah, now,' he growled. 'Now. 
Now. See their guns, Erekose? Beware of them. There is sorcery, if you do not 
believe me!'

'Sorcery? What do you mean--'

But he was off again, shouting at the men in the rigging to hurry their work.

I began to make out tiny figures on the decks of the Eldren ships. I caught 
glimpses of eldritch faces, but still could not, at that distance, discern any 
special characteristics. They moved swiftly about their ships as they swam 
steadily towards us.

Now our own fleet's manoeuvres were almost complete and the flagship began to 
move into position.

I myself gave the orders to heave to and we rocked in the sea, awaiting the 
Eldren shark-ships rushing towards us.

As planned, we had manoeuvred to form a square that was strong on three sides, 
but weak on the side facing the Eldren fleet.

Some hundred ships were at the far end of the square, set stem to stern with 
cannon bristling. The two other strong sides also had about a hundred ships a 
piece and were at a far enough distance from each other so that their cannon 
could not accidentally sink one of their own craft. We had placed a thinner wall 
of ships-about twenty-five-at the side of the square where the Eldren were 
drawing in. We hoped to give the impression of a tightly closed square 
formation, with a few ships in the middle flying the royal colours, to give the 
impression that this was the flagship and its escorts. These ships were bait. 
The true flagship-the one on which I stood-had temporarily taken down its 
colours and lay roughly in the middle of the starboard side of the square.

Closer and closer now the Eldren ships approached. It was almost true what 
Katorn had said. They did seem to fly through the air rather than through the 
waves.

My hands began to sweat. Would they take the bait? The plan had struck the 
commanders as original, which meant that it was not the classical manoeuvre it 
had been in some periods of the Earth's history. If it did not work, I would 
lose Katorn's confidence still further and it would not make my position with 
the king, whose daughter I hoped to marry, any better.

But there was no point in worrying about that. I watched.

And the Eldren took the bait.

Cannon roaring, the Eldren craft smashed in a delta formation into the thin wall 
and, under their own impetus, sailed on to find themselves thickly surrounded on 
three sides.

'Raise our colours!' I shouted to Katorn. 'Raise the colours! Let them see the 
originator of their defeat!'

Katorn gave the orders. My own banner went up first-the black field with the 
silver sword-and then the king's. We moved to tighten the trap, to crush the 
Eldren as they realised they had been tricked.

I had never seen such highly manoeuvrable sailing craft as those slender ships 
used by the Eldren. Slightly smaller than our men-o'-war, they darted about 
seeking an opening in the wall of ships. But there was no opening. I had seen to 
that.

Now their cannon bellowed fiercely, gouting balls of flame. Was this what Katorn 
had meant by 'sorcery'? The Eldren ammunition was fire-bombs rather than solid 
shot of the sort we used. Like comets the fireballs hurtled through the noonday 
air. Many of our ships were fired. They blazed, crackling and groaning as the 
flames consumed them.

Like comets they were and the ships were like flashing sharks.

But they were sharks caught in a net that could not be broken. Inexorably we 
tightened the trap, our own guns booming heavy iron that tore into those white 
hulls and left black gaping wounds, that ripped through those slim masts and 
brought the yards splintering down, the diaphanous sails flapping and faing like 
the wings of dying moths.

Our own monstrous men-o'-war, their heavy timbers clothed in brass, their huge 
oars churning the water, their dark, painted sails bulging, drew in to crush the 
Eldren.

Then the Eldren fleet divided into two roughly equal parts and dashed for the 
far corners of the net of ships-its weakest points. Many Eldren craft broke 
through, but we were prepared for this and with monumental precision our ships 
closed around them.

The Eldren fleet was now divided into several groups and it made our work 
easier. Implacably, we sailed in to crush them.

Now the skies were filled with smoke and the seas with flaming wreckage and the 
air was populated by screams, yells and warshouts, the whine of the Eldren 
fireballs, the roar of our own shot, the shattering bellowings of the cannon. My 
face was covered by a film of grease and ash from the smoke, and I sweated in 
the heat from the flames.

From time to time I caught a glimpse of a tense Eldren face and I wondered at 
their beauty and feared that perhaps we had been overconfident in our assumption 
of our victory. They were clad in light armour and moved about their ships as 
gracefully as trained dancers and their silver cannon did not once pause in 
their bombardment of our craft. Wherever the fireballs landed, the decks or 
rigging became instantly alight with a shrieking, all-consuming flame that burnt 
green and blue and seemed to devour metal as easily as it did wood.

I gripped the rail of the foredeck and leaned forward, trying to peer through 
the stinging smoke. All at once I saw an Eldren ship side-on immediately ahead 
of us.

'Prepare to ram!' I yelled. 'Prepare to ram!'

Like many of our ships, the lolinda possessed an ironshod ram lying just below 
the waterline. Now was our chance to use it. I saw the Eldren commander on his 
poop-deck shout orders to his men to turn the ship. But it was too late even for 
the speedy Eldren. We bore down on the smaller craft and, our whole ship 
reverberated with the mighty roar, we drove into its side. Iron and timber 
screamed and ruptured and foam lashed skyward. I was thrown back against the 
mast losing my footing and, as I clambered to my feet. I saw that we had broken 
the Eldren craft completely in two. I looked on the sight with a mixture of 
horror and exultation. I had not guessed the brutal power of the lolinda.

On either side of our flagship I saw the two halves of the enemy ship rear in 
the water and begin to go down. The horror on my face seemed matched by that on 
the Eldren commander's as he fiercely strove to hold himself erect on his 
sloping poop-deck while his men threw up their arms and leapt into the dark, 
surging sea that was already full of smashed timbers and drifting corpses.

Swiftly now the sea swallowed the slim ship and I heard King Rigenos laughing 
behind me as the Eldren drowned.

I turned. His face was smeared by soot and his red-rimmed eyes stared wildly out 
of his haggard skull. The helmet-crown of iron and diamonds was askew on his 
head as he continued to laugh in his morbid triumph.

'Good work, Erekose'! The most satisfying method of all when dealing with these 
creatures. Break them open. Send them to the depths of the ocean so that they 
can be that much closer to their master, the Lord of Hell!'

Katorn climbed up. His face, too, was exultant. 'I'll give you that, Lord 
Erekose. You have proved you know how to kill Eldren.'

'I know how to kill many kinds of men,' I said quietly. I was disgusted by their 
response. I had admired the way in which the Eldren commander had died. 'I 
merely took an opportunity,' I said. 'There is nothing clever in a ship of this 
size crushing lighter craft.'

But there was no time to dispute the issue. Our ship was moving through the 
wreckage it had created, surrounded by orange tongues of flame, shrieks and 
yells, thick smoke which obscured vision in all directions so that it was 
impossible to tell how the Fleets of Humanity fared.

'We must get out of this,' I said. 'Into clearer sea. We must let our own ships 
know that we are unharmed. Will you give the orders, Katorn?'

'Aye.' Katorn went back to his duties.

My head was beginning to throb with the din of the battle. It became one great 
wall of noise, one huge wave of smoke and flame and the stench of death.

And yet-it was all familiar to me.

Up to now my battle-tactics had been somewhat notional-intellectual rather than 
instinctive. But now it did seem that old instincts came into play and I gave 
orders without working them out first.

And I was confident that the orders were good. Even Katorn trusted them.

Thus it had been with the order to ram the Eldren craft. I had not stopped to 
think. It was probably just as well.

Its oars pulling strongly, the lolinda cleared the worst of the smoke and her 
trumpets and drums called out to announce her presence to the rest of the fleet. 
A cheering went up from some of the nearby ships as we emerged into an area 
relatively free of smoke, wreckage or other ships.

A few of our craft had begun to single out individual Eldren vessels and were 
hurling out their grappling irons towards the shark ships. The savage barbs cut 
into the white rails, ripped through the shining sails, bit into flesh even and 
tore off arms and legs. The great men-o'-war dragged the Eldren craft towards 
them, as whalers haul in their half-dead prey.

Arrows began to fly from deck to deck as archers, their legs twisted in the 
rigging, shot at enemy archers. Javelins rattled on the decks or pierced the 
armour of the warriors, Eldren and Human, and threw them prone. Now the sound of 
cannon could still be heard, but it was not the steady pounding it had been. The 
shots became more intermittent and were replaced by the clash of swords, the 
shouts of warriors fighting hand to hand.

Smoke still formed acrid blossoms in the air above that watery battlefield. And 
when I could see through the murk to the green, wreckage-strewn ocean itself I 
saw that the foam was no longer white. It was red. The sea was covered by a 
slick of blood.

As our ship beat on to join battle once again, I saw upturned faces staring at 
me from the sea. They were the faces of the dead, both Eldren and Human, and 
they seemed to share a common expression-an expression of astonished accusation.

After a while, I tried to ignore the sight of those faces.


CHAPTER TWELVE

THE BROKEN TRUCE


Two more ships fell to our ram and we sustained hardly any damage at all. The 
lolinda moved through the battle like a dignified juggernaut, as if assured of 
her own invulnerability.

It was King Rigenos who saw it first. He screwed up his eyes and pointed through 
the smoke, his open mouth red in the blackness of his soot-covered face.

'There! See it, Erekose? There!'

I saw a magnificent Eldren ship ahead of us, but I did not know why Rigenos 
singled it out.

'It is the Eldren flagship, Erekose,' Rigenos said. 'The Eldren flagship. It 
could be that their leader himself is aboard. If that cursed servant of 
Azmobaana does ride his own flagship and if we can destroy him, then our cause 
will be truly won. Pray that the Eldren Prince rides her, Erekose! Pray for it!'

Katorn snarled from behind us: 'I would like to be the one to bring him down.' 
He had a heavy crossbow in his mailed hands, and he stroked its butt as another 
man might stroke a favourite kitten.

'Oh, let Prince Arjavh be there. Let him be there,' hissed Rigenos thirstily.

I paid them little heed, but shouted the order for grappling irons to be 
readied.

Luck, it seemed, was still with us. Our huge vessel reared up on a surging wave 
at exactly the right moment and we rode it down upon the Eldren flagship, our 
timbers scraping its sides and turning it so that it lay in a perfect position 
for our grapples to seize it. The iron claws snaked out on thick ropes, clamped 
in the rigging, stabbed into the deck, snatched at the rails.

Now the Eldren craft was bound to us. We held it close, like a lover holds his 
mistress.

And that same smile of triumph began to cross my face. I had the sweet taste of 
victory on my lips. It was the sweetest taste of all. I, Erekose, signed for a 
slave to run forward and wipe my face with a damp cloth. I drew myself up 
proudly on my deck. Just behind me was King Rigenos, on my right. On my left was 
Katorn. I felt a comradeship with them suddenly. I looked proudly down on the 
Eldren deck. The warriors looked exhausted. But they stood ready, with arrows 
strung on bows, with swords clenched in white fists and shields raised. They 
watched us silently, making no attempt to cut the ropes, waiting for us to make 
the first move.

When two flagships locked in this way, there was always a pause before fighting 
broke out. This was to enable the enemy commanders to speak and, if both desired 
it, decide a truce and the terms of that truce.

Now King Rigenos bellowed across the rail of his high deck, calling out to the 
Eldren who looked up at him, their strange eyes smarting with the smoke as much 
as ours did.

'This is King Rigenos and his champion, the immortal Erekose, your ancient enemy 
come again to defeat you. We would speak with your commander for a moment, in 
the usual truce.'

From beneath a canvas awning on his poop-deck, a tall man now emerged. Through 
the shifting smoke I saw, dimly at first, a pointed golden face with milky blue-
flecked eyes staring sadly from the sockets of the slanting brow. An eldritch 
voice, like music, sang across the sea:

'I am Duke Baynahn, Commander of the Eldren Fleet. We will make no complicated 
peace terms with you, but if you let us sail away now we will not continue to 
fight.'

Rigenos smiled and Katorn snorted. 'How gracious!' Katorn grunted. 'He knows he 
is doomed.'

Rigenos chuckled at this. Then he called back to Duke Baynahn.

'I find your proposal somewhat naive, Duke Baynahn.'

Baynahn shrugged wearily. 'Then let us finish this,' he sighed. He raised his 
gloved hand to order his men to loose their arrows.

'Hold a moment!' Rigenos shouted. 'There is another way, if you would spare your 
men.'

Slowly Baynahn lowered his hand. 'What is that?' His voice was wary.

'If your master, Arjavh of Mernadin, is aboard his own flag-snip-as he should 
be-let him come out and do battle with Lord Erekose', humanity's champion.' King 
Rigenos spread out his palms. 'If Arjavh should win-why, you will go in peace. 
If Erekose should win, then you will become our prisoners.'

Duke Baynahn folded his arms across his chest. 'I have to tell you that our 
Prince Arjavh could not get to Paphanaal in time to sail with our fleet. He is 
in the West-In Loos Ptokai.'

King Rigenos turned to Katorn.

'Kill that one, Katorn,' he said quietly.

Duke Baynahn continued: 'However, I am prepared to fight your champion if . . .'

'No!' I cried to Katorn. 'Stop! King Rigenos, that is dishonourable-you speak 
during a truce.'

'There is no question of honour, Erekose', when exterminating vermin. That you 
will soon learn. Kill him, Katorn!'

Duke Baynahn was frowning, plainly puzzled at our muted argument, striving to 
catch the word.

'I will fight your Erekose,' he said. 'Is it agreed?'

And Katorn brought up the crossbow and the bolt whirred and I heard a soft gasp 
as it penetrated the Eldren speaker's throat.

His hand went up towards the quivering bolt. His strange eyes filmed. He fell.

I was enraged at the treachery shown by one who so often spoke of treachery in 
his enemies. But now there was no time to remonstrate for already the Eldren 
arrows were whistling towards us and I had to ensure our defences and prepare to 
lead the boarding party against the betrayed crew of the enemy ship.

I grasped a trailing rope, unsheathed my glowing sword and let the words come 
from my lips, though I was still full of anger against Katorn and the king.

'For Humanity!' I shouted. 'Death to the Hounds of Evil!'

I swung down through the heated air that slashed against my face in that swift 
passage and I dropped, with howling human warriors behind me, among the Eldren 
ranks.

Then we were fighting.

My followers took care to stay away from me as the sword opened pale wounds in 
the Eldren foes, destroying all whom it even lightly cut. Many Eldren died 
beneath the Sword Kanajana but there was no battle-joy in me as I fought, for I 
was still furious with my own people's actions and there was no skill needed for 
such slaying-the Eldren were shocked at the death of their commander and they 
were plainly half-dead with weariness, though they fought bravely.

Indeed, the slender shark ships seemed to hold more men than I had estimated. 
The long-skulled Eldren, well aware that my sword touch was lethal, flung 
themselves at me with desperate and ferocious courage.

Many of them wielded long-hafted axes, swinging at me out of reach of my sword. 
The sword was no sharper than any ordinary blade and, although I hacked at the 
shafts, I succeeded only in splintering them slightly. I had constantly to duck, 
stab beneath the whirling axe blades.

A young, golden-haired Eldren leapt at me, swung his axe and it smashed against 
my shoulder plate, knocking me off balance.

I rolled, trying desperately to regain my footing on the blood-smeared deck. The 
axe smashed down again, on to my breastplate, winding me. I struggled up into a 
crouching position, plunged forward beneath the axe and slashed at the Eldren's 
bared wrist.

A peculiar sobbing grunt escaped his lips. He groaned and died. The 'poison' of 
the blade had done its work yet again. I still did not understand how the metal 
itself could be poisoned, but there was no doubting its effectiveness. I 
straightened up, my bruised body throbbing as I stared down at the brave young 
Eldren who now lay at my feet. Then I looked about me.



I saw that we had the advantage. The last pocket of fiercely fighting Eldren was 
on the main deck, back to back around their banner-a scarlet field bearing the 
Silver Basilisk of Mernadin.

I stumbled towards the fray. The Eldren were fighting to the last man. They knew 
they would receive no mercy from their human enemies.

I stopped. The warriors had no need of help from me. I sheathed my sword and 
watched as the Eldren were engulfed by our forces and, although all badly 
wounded, continued to fight until slain.

I looked about me. A peculiar silence seemed to surround the two locked ships, 
though in the distance the sound of cannon could still be heard.

Then Katorn, who had led the attack on the last Eldren defenders, snatched down 
their basilisk banner and flung it into the flowing Eldren blood. Insanely he 
began to trample the flag until it was completely soaked and unrecognisable.

'Thus will all the Eldren perish!' he screamed in his mad triumph. 'All! All! 
All!'

He stumbled below to see what loot there was.

The silence returned. The drifting smoke began to dissipate and hang higher in 
the air above us, obscuring the sunlight.

Now that the flagship was taken, the day was won. Not one prisoner would be 
taken. In the distance the victorious human warriors were busy firing the Eldren 
vessels. There seemed to be no Eldren ships left uncaptured, none fleeing over 
the horizon. Many of our own ships had been destroyed or were sinking in flames. 
Both sides' craft were stretched across a vast expanse of water and the ocean 
itself was covered by a great carpet of wreckage and corpses so that it looked 
as if the remaining ships were trapped in it, as if in some Sargasso Sea.

I, for one, felt trapped by it. I wanted to leave this scene as soon as 
possible. The smell of the dead choked me. This was not the battle I had 
expected to fight. This was not the glory I had hoped to win.

Katorn re-emerged with a look of satisfaction on his dark face.

'You're empty-handed,' I said. 'Why so pleased.'

He wiped his lips. 'Duke Baynahn had his daughter with him.'

'Is she still alive?'

'Not now.'

I shuddered.

Katorn stretched up his head and looked around him. 'Good. We've finished them. 
I'll give orders to fire the remaining vessels.'

'Surely,' I said, 'that is a waste. We could use those ships to replace those we 
have lost.'

'Use these cursed craft-never.' He spoke with a twist of his mouth and strode to 
the rail of the Eldren flagship, shouting to his men to follow him back to their 
own vessel.

I came reluctantly, looking back to where the corpse of the betrayed Duke 
Baynahn still lay, the crossbow bolt projecting from his slender neck.

Then I clambered aboard our ship and I gave the orders to save what grapples we 
could and cut away the rest.

King Rigenos greeted me. He had taken no part in the actual fighting. 'You did 
well, Erekose. Why, you could have taken that ship single-handed.'

'I could have done,' I said. 'I could have taken the whole fleet single-handed . 
. .'

He laughed. 'You are very confident! The whole fleet!'

'Aye. There was one way.'

He frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'If you had let me fight Duke Baynahn-as he suggested-many lives and many ships 
would have been saved. Our lives. Our ships.'

'You surely did not trust him? The Eldren will always try some trick like that. 
Doubtless if you had agreed to his plan, you would have stepped aboard his ship 
and been cut down by a hundred arrows. Believe me, Erekose, you must not be 
deceived by them. Our ancestors were so deceived-and look how we suffer now!'

I shrugged. 'Maybe you are right.'

'Of course I am right.' King Rigenos turned his head and called to our crew. 
'Fire the ship! Fire that cursed Eldren craft! Hurry up, you luggards!'

He was in a good humour was King Rigenos. A great good humour.

I watched as blazing arrows were accurately shot into bales of combustible 
materials which had been placed in strategic parts of the Eldren ship.

The slender vessel soon caught. The bodies of the slain began to burn and oily 
smoke struck upward to the sky. The ship drifted away, its silver cannon like 
the snouts of slaughtered beasts, its glistening sails dropping in flaming 
ribbons to the already flaming deck. It gave a long shudder suddenly as if 
expiring the last of its life.

'Put a couple of shots below the waterline,' Katorn shouted to his gunners. 
'Let's make sure the thing sinks once and for all.'

Our brazen cannon snarled and the heavy shot smashed into the Eldren flagship, 
sending up gouts of water and crashing through the timbers.

The flagship yawed, but still seemed to be trying to stay upright Her drifting 
went slower and slower as she settled lower in the water until she had stopped 
altogether. And then all at once she sank swiftly and was gone.

I thought of the Eldren duke. I thought of his daughter.

And in a way I now envied them. They would know eternal peace, just as it seemed 
I should know nothing but eternal strife.

Our fleet began to reassemble.

We had lost thirty-eight men-o'-war and a hundred and ten smaller craft of 
different types.

But nothing remained of the Eldren fleet.

Nothing but the burning hulks which we now left, sinking, behind us as we 
sailed, in battle-thirsty glee, for Paphanaal.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PAPHANAAL


For the rest of our sailing towards Paphanaal, I avoided both Katorn and King 
Rigenos. Perhaps they were right and the Eldren could not be trusted. But should 
we not set some kind of example?

On the second night of the voyage after the big battle with the Eldren, Count 
Roldero visited me.

'You did well there,' he said. 'Your tactics were superb. And I hear you 
accounted well for yourself in the hand-to-hand fighting.' He looked about him 
in mock fear and whispered, jerking his thumb at a vague spot above him, 'But I 
hear Rigenos decided that it was best he did not put the royal person in danger, 
lest we warriors lose heart.'

'Oh,' I said, 'Rigenos has a fair point. He came with us, don't forget. He could 
have stayed behind. We all expected him to. Did you hear of the order he gave 
while the truce was on with the enemy commander?'

Roldero sniffed. 'Had him shot by Katorn, right?'

'Yes.'

'Well . . .' Roldero grinned at me. 'You make allowances for Rigenos's cowardice 
and I'll make allowances for his treachery!' He burst into gusty laughter. 
'That's fair, eh?'

I could not help smiling. But later, more seriously, I said: 'Would you have 
done the same, Roldero?'

'Oh, I expect so. War, after all . . .'

'But Baynahn was prepared to fight me. He must have known his chances were slim. 
He must have known, too, that Rigenos could not be trusted to keep his word . . 
.'

'If he did, then he would have acted as Rigenos acted. It was just that Rigenos 
was quicker. Merely tactics, you see-the trick is to gauge the exact moment to 
be treacherous.'

'Baynahn did not look like one who would have acted treacherously.'

'He is probably a very kind man and treated his family well. I told you, 
Erekose, it is not Baynahn's character I dispute. I just say that, as a warrior, 
he would have tried what Rigenos succeeded in doing-eliminating the enemy's 
chief. It is one of the basic principles of warfare!'

'If you say so, Roldero . . .'

'I do say so. Now drink up.'

I did drink up. And I drank deep and I drank myself stupid. Now there were not 
merely the dream memories to contend with, but more recent memories, too.



Another night came before we reached the harbour city of Paphanaal and we lay at 
anchor, a sea league or so offshore.

Then, in the shifting dawn of the morrow, we upped anchors and rowed in towards 
Paphanaal, for there was no wind to fill our sails.

Nearer we came to land.

I saw cliffs and black mountains rising.

Nearer.

I saw a flash of brighter colour to the east of us.

'Paphanaal!'  shouted the look-out from his precarious perch in the top trees.

Nearer.

And there was Paphanaal.

She was undefended as far as we could make out. We had left her defenders on the 
bottom of the ocean, far behind.

There were no domes on this city, no minarets. There were steeples and 
buttresses and battlements, all close together. They made the city seem like one 
great palace. The materials of their construction were breathtaking. There was 
white marble veined with pink, blue, green and yellow. Orange marble, veined 
with black. Marble faced with gold, basalt and quartz and bluestone in 
abundance.

It was a shining city.

As we came closer, we saw no one on the quaysides, no one in the streets or on 
the battlements. I assumed that the city had been deserted.

I was wrong.



We put in to the great harbour and disembarked. I formed our armies into 
disciplined ranks and warned them of a possible trap, although I did not really 
believe there could be one.

The warriors had spent the rest of the voyage repairing their clothes and their 
armour, cleaning their weapons and making repairs to their ships.

All the ships crowded the harbour now, their banners waving in the light breeze 
that had come up almost as soon as we set foot on the cobblestones of the quay. 
Cloud came in with the breeze and made the day grey.

The warriors stood before King Rigenos, Katorn and myself. Rank upon rank they 
stood, their armour bright, banners moving sluggishly in the breeze.

There were seven hundred divisions, each hundred divisions commanded by a 
Marshal who had as his commanders his Captains, who controlled twenty-five 
divisions each, and his Knights, who controlled one division.

The wine had helped fade the memory of the battle and I felt a return of my old 
pride as I stood looking at the Paladins and Armies of Humanity assembled before 
me. I addressed them:

'Marshals, Captains, Knights and Warriors of Humanity, you have seen me to be a 
victorious War Leader.'

'Aye!' they roared, jubilant.

'We shall be victorious here and elsewhere in the land of Mernadin. Go now, with 
caution, and search these buildings for Eldren. But be careful. This city could 
hide an army, remember!'

Count Roldero spoke up from the front rank.

'And booty, Lord Erekose. What of that?'

King Rigenos waved his hand. 'Take what booty you desire. But remember what 
Erekose has said-be wary for such things as poisoned food. Even the wine-cups 
could be smeared with poison. Anything in this damned city could be poisoned!'

The divisions began to march past us, each taking a different direction.

I watched them go and I thought that while the city received them into its 
heart, it did not welcome them.

I wondered what we would find in Paphannal. Traps? Hidden snipers? Everything 
poisoned, as Rigenos had said?



We found a city of women.

Not one Eldren man had remained.

Not one boy over twelve. Not one old man of any age.

We had slain them all at sea.


CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ERMIZHAD


I did not know how they slew the children. I begged King Rigenos not to give the 
order. I pleaded with Katorn to spare them-to drive them from the city if he 
must, but not to kill them.

But the children were slain. I do not know how many.



We had taken over the palace which had belonged to Duke Baynahn himself. He had, 
it transpired, been Warden of Paphanaal.

I shut myself in my quarters while the slaughter went on outside. I reflected 
sardonically that for all their talk of the Eldren 'filth', they did not seem to 
mind forcing their attentions on the Eldren women.

There was nothing I could do. I did not even know if there was anything I should 
do. I had been brought here by Rigenos to fight for Humanity, not to judge it, I 
had agreed to answer his summons, after all-doubtless with reason. But I had 
forgotten any reason.

I sat in a room that was exquisitely furnished with delicate furniture and fine, 
light tapestries on walls and floor. I looked at the Eldren craftsmanship and I 
sipped the aromatic Eldren wine and I tried not to listen to the cries of the 
Eldren children as they were butchered in their beds in the houses in the 
streets beyond the thin palace walls.

I looked at the Sword Kanajana which I had propped in a corner and I hated the 
poisoned thing. I had stripped myself of my armour and I sat alone.

And I drank more wine.

But the wine of the Eldren began to taste of blood and I tossed the cup away and 
found a skin that Count Roldero had given me and sucked it dry of the bitter 
wine it contained.

But I could not get drunk. I could not stop the screams from the streets. I 
could not fail to see the flickering shadows on the tapestries I had drawn over 
the windows. I could not get drunk and therefore I could not even begin to try 
to sleep, for I knew what my dreams would be and I feared those almost as much 
as I feared thinking of the implications of what we were doing to those who were 
left in Paphanaal.

Why was I here? Oh, why was I here?

There was a noise outside my door and then a knock.

'Enter,' I said.

No one entered. My voice had been too low.

The knock sounded again.

I rose and walked unsteadily to the door flinging it open.

'Can you not leave me in peace?'

A frightened soldier of the Imperial Guard stood there. 'Lord Erekose, forgive 
me for disturbing you, but I bear a message from King Rigenos.'

'What's the message?' I said without interest.

'He would like you to join him. He says that there are still plans to discuss.'

I sighed. 'Very well. I will come down shortly.'

The soldier hurried off along the corridor.



At last, reluctantly, I rejoined the other conquerors. All the marshals were 
there, lounging on cushions and celebrating their victory. King Rigenos was 
there and he was so drunk that I envied him. And, to my relief, Katorn was not 
there.

Doubtless he was leading the looters.

As I came in to the hall, a huge cheer went up from the marshals and they raised 
their wine-cups in a toast to me.

I ignored them and walked to where the king was seated alone, staring vacantly 
into space.

'You wish to discuss further campaigns, King Rigenos,' I said. 'Are you sure . . 
. ?'

'Ah, my friend Erekose. The immortal. The Champion. The saviour of Humanity. 
Greetings, Erekose.' He put a hand drunkenly on my arm. 'You disapprove of my 
unkingly insobriety, I see.'

'I disapprove of nothing,' I said. 'I have been drinking much myself.'

'But you-an immortal-can contain your . . .' he belched . . . 'can contain your 
liquor . . .'

I took pains to smile and said: 'Perhaps you have stronger liquor. If so, let me 
try it.'

'Slave!' screamed King Rigenos. 'Slave! More of that wine for my friend 
Erekose!'

A curtain parted and a trembling Eldren boy appeared. He was bearing a wineskin 
almost as large as himself.

'I see you have not slain all the children,' I said.

King Rigenos giggled. 'Not yet. Not while there are uses for them!'

I took the wineskin from the child and nodded to him. 'You may go.' I held the 
skin and put the opening to my lips and began to drink deeply. But still the 
wine refused to dull my brain. I hurled the skin away and it fell heavily and 
slopped wine over the tapestries and cushions covering the floor.

King Rigenos continued to giggle. 'Good! Good!'

These people were barbarians. Suddenly I wished that I was John Daker again. 
Studious, unhappy John Daker, living his quiet, cut-off life in the pursuit of 
pointless learning.

I turned to leave.

'Stay, Erekose. I'll sing you a song. It's a filthy song about the filthy Eldren 
. . .'

'Tomorrow . . .'

'It's already tomorrow!'

'I must rest . . .'

'I am your king, Erekose. You own your material form to me. Do not forget that!'

'I have not forgotten.'

The doors of the hall burst open then and they dragged in the ' Katorn was in 
the lead and he was grinning like a sated

She was a black-haired, elfin-faced girl. Her alien features were composed 
against the fear she felt. She had a strange, shifting beauty which was always 
there but which seemed to change with every breath she took. They had torn her 
garments and bruised her arms and face.

'Erekose!' Katorn followed his men in. He, too, was very drunk. 'Erekose-
Rigenos, my lord king-look!'

The king blinked and looked at the girl with distaste. 'Why should we take 
interest in an Eldren wanton? Get hence, Katorn. Use her as you will-that is 
your private decision-but be sure she is not still alive when we leave 
Paphanaal.'

'No!' laughed Katorn. 'Look! Look at her!'

The king shrugged and inspected the wine swilling in his cup.

'Why have you brought her here, Katorn?' I asked quietly.

Katorn rocked with laughter. His thick lips opened wide and he roared in our 
faces. 'You know not who she is, that's plain!'

'Take the Eldren wench away, Katorn!' The king's voice rose in drunken 
irritation.

'My lord king-this-this is Ermizhad!'

'What?' The king leaned forward and stared at the girl. 'What? Ermizhad, that 
whore! Ermizhad of the Ghost Worlds!'

Katorn nodded. 'The same.'

The king grew more sober. 'She's lured many a mortal to his death, so I've 
heard. She shall die by torture for her lustful crimes. The stake shall have 
her.'

Katorn shook his head. 'No, King Rigenos-at least, not yet. Forget you that 
she's Prince Arjavh's sister?'

The king nodded in a mockery of gravity. 'Of course, Arjavh's sister.'

'And the implications, my lord? We should keep her prisoner, should we not? She 
will make a good hostage, eh? A good bargaining counter, should we need one?'

'Ah, of course. Yes. You did right, Katorn. Keep her prisoner.' The king grinned 
a silly grin. 'No. It is not fair. You deserve to enjoy yourself further this 
night. Who does not wish to enjoy himself . . .' He looked at me. 'Erekose'-
Erekose who cannot get drunk. She shall be put in your charge, Champion.'

I nodded. 'I accept the charge,' I said. I pitied the girl, whatever terrible 
crimes she had committed.

Katorn looked at me suspiciously.

'Do not worry, Lord Katorn,' I said. 'Do as the king says-continue to enjoy 
yourself. Slay some more. Rape some more. There must be plenty left.'

Katorn drew his brows together. Then his face cleared a little.

'A few maybe,' he said. 'But we've been thorough. Only she will live to see the 
sun rise, I think.' He jabbed a thumb at his prisoner, then signed to his men. 
'Come! Let's finish our task.'

He stalked out.

Count Roldero got up slowly and came towards me where I stood looking at the 
Eldren girl.

The king looked up. 'Good. Keep her from harm, Erekose,' he said cynically. 
'Keep her from harm. She'll be a useful piece in our game with Arjavh.'

'Take her to my apartments in the East wing,' I told the guards, 'and make sure 
she's unmolested and has no chance to escape.'

They took her away and almost as soon as she had left King Rigenos made to stand 
up, swayed and fell with a crash to the floor.

Count Roldero gave a slight smile. 'Our liege is not himself,' he said. 'But 
Katorn is right. The Eldren bitch will be useful to us.'

'I understand her usefulness as a hostage,' I said, 'but I do not understand 
this reference to "the Ghost Worlds". I've heard them spoken of once before. 
What are they, Roldero?'

'The Ghost Worlds? Why, we all know of them. I should have thought that you 
would, too. But we do not often speak of them . . .'

'Why so?'

'Humankind fear Arjavh's allies so much that they will rarely mention them, in 
terror of conjuring them up by their words, you understand . . .'

'I do not understand.'

Roldero rubbed his nose and coughed. 'I am not superstitious, Erekose,' he said. 
'Like yourself.'

'I know. But what are the Ghost Worlds?'

Roldero seemed nervous. 'I'll tell you, but I'm uncomfortable about doing so in 
this cursed place. The Eldren know better than we what the Ghost Worlds are. We 
had thought, at first, that you yourself were a prisoner there. That was why I 
was surprised.'

'Where are they?'

'The Ghost Worlds lie beyond the Earth-beyond Time and beyond Space-linked to 
the Earth only by the most tenuous of bonds.'

Roldero's voice dropped, but he whispered on.

'There, on the torn Ghost Worlds, dwell the many-coiled serpents which are the 
terror and the scourge of the eight dimensions. Here, also, live ghosts and men-
those who are manlike and those who are unlike men-those who know that their 
fate is to live without Time, and those who are unaware of their doom. And 
there, also, do kinfolk to the Eldren dwell-the halflings.'

'But what are these worlds?' I asked impatiently.

Roldero licked his lips. 'They are the worlds to which human sorcerers sometimes 
go in search of alien wisdom, and from which they draw helpers of horrible 
powers and disgusting deeds. It is said that within those worlds an initiate may 
meet his long-slain comrades who may sometimes help him, his dead loves and his 
dead kin, and particularly his enemies-those whom he has caused to die. 
Malevolent enemies with great power-or wretches who are half-souled and 
incomplete.'

His whispered words convinced me, perhaps because I had drunk so much. Was it 
these Ghost Worlds that were the origin of my strange dreams? I wanted to know 
more.

'But what are they, Roldero? Where are they?'

Roldero shook his head, 'I do not concern myself with such mysteries, Erekose. I 
have never been much of a mystic. I believe-but I do not probe. I know of no 
answer to either of your questions. They are worlds full of shadow and gloomy 
shores upon which drab seas beat. The populace can sometimes be summoned by 
powerful sorcery to visit this Earth, to haunt, to help-or to terrorise. We 
think that the Eldren came, originally, from these half-worlds if they were not, 
as our legends say, spawned from the womb of a wicked Queen who gave her 
virginity to Azmobaana in return for immortality-the immortality which her 
offspring inherited. But the Eldren are material enough, for all their lack of 
souls, whereas the Ghost Armies are rarely solid flesh.'

'And Ermizhad . . . ?'

'The Wanton of the Ghost Worlds.'

'Why is she called that?'

'It is said that she mates with ghouls,' muttered Count Roldero. He shrugged and 
drank more wine. 'And in return for giving her favours to them, she receives 
special powers over the halflings who are friends with the ghouls. The halflings 
love her, I'm told, as far as it's possible for such creatures to love.'

I could not believe it. The girl seemed young. Innocent. I said as much.

Roldero gestured dismissively. 'How can you tell the age of an immortal? Look at 
yourself. How old are you, Erekose? Thirty? You look no older.'

'But I have not lived for ever,' I said. 'At least, not in one body, I do not 
think.'

'But how do you tell?'

I could not answer him, of course.

'Well, I think there's a great deal of superstition mixed up in your tale, 
Roldero,' I said. 'I would not have expected it of you, old friend.'

'Believe me or not,' Roldero muttered. 'But you would do better to believe me 
until I am proved a liar, eh?'

'Possibly you're right.'

'I sometimes wonder at you, Erekose,' he said. 'Here you are owing your own 
existence to an incantation, and you are the most sceptical man I know!'

I smiled at this. 'Yes, Roldero. I should believe more. I should believe more.'

'Come,' said Roldero, moving towards the prone king who lay on his face in a 
pool of wine. 'Let's get our lord to bed before he drowns.'

Together we picked up the king and called for soldiers to help us as we hauled 
Rigenos up the stairs and dumped him on his bed.

Roldero put a hand on my shoulder. 'And stop brooding, friend. It will do no 
good. Think you that I enjoy the slaughter of children? The rape of young 
girls?' He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand as if to rid it of a foul 
taste. 'But if it is not done now, Erekose', it will be done at some time to our 
children and our young girls. I know the Eldren are beautiful. But so are many 
snakes. So are some kinds of wolf that prey on sheep. It is braver to do what 
has to be done than it is to pretend to yourself that you are not doing it. You 
follow me?'

We stood there in the king's bedchamber staring at each other.

'You are very kind, Roldero,' I said.

'It's well meant advice,' he told me.

'I know it is.'

'It was not your decision to slaughter the children,' he said.

'But it was my decision to say nothing of it to King Rigenos,' I replied.

At the mention of his name, the king stirred and began to mumble in his stupor.

'Come,' grinned Roldero. 'Let's get out of here before he remembers the words of 
that dirty song he promised to sing us.'

We parted in the corridor outside the chamber. Count Roldero looked at me with 
some concern. 'These actions must be made,' he said. 'It has befallen us to be 
the instruments of a decision made some centuries ago. Do not bother yourself 
with matters of conscience. The future may see us as bloody-handed butchers. But 
we know we are not. We are men. We are warriors. And we are at war with those 
who would destroy us.'

I said nothing, but put my hand on his shoulder then turned and walked back to 
my lonely apartments.

In my mental discomfort, I had all but forgotten the girl until I saw the guard 
at my door.

'Is the prisoner secure?' I asked him.

'There is no way out,' the guard said. 'No way, at least, Lord Erekose, that a 
human could take. But if she were to summon her halfling allies . . .'

'We'll concern ourselves with those when they materialise,' I told him. He 
unlocked the door for me and I entered.

There was only one lamp burning and I could barely see. I took a taper from a 
table and with it lit another lamp.

The Eldren girl lay on the bed. Her eyes were closed, but her cheeks were 
stained with tears.

So they cry like us, too, I thought.

I tried not to disturb her, but she opened her eyes and I thought I saw fear in 
them, though it was difficult to tell, for the eyes really were strange-without 
orbs and flecked with gold and blue. Seeing those eyes, I remembered what 
Roldero had told me and I began to believe him.

'How are you?' I asked, somewhat inanely.

Her lips parted, but she did not speak.

'I do not intend to harm you,' I said weakly. 'I would have spared the children 
if I could. I would have spared the warriors in the battle. But I have only the 
power to lead men to kill each other. I have no power to save their lives.'

She frowned.

'I am Erekose,' I said.

'Erekose'?' The word was music when she spoke it. She pronounced it more 
familiarly than I did myself.

'You know who I am?'

'I know who you were.'

'I am reborn,' I said. 'Do not ask me how.'

'You do not seem happy to be reborn, Erekose.'

I shrugged.

'Erekose,' she said again. And then she voiced a low, bitter laugh.

'Why do you laugh?'

But she would not speak again. I tried to converse with her further. She closed 
her eyes. I left the room and went to the bed next door.

The wine had worked at last-or something had-for I slept reasonably well.


CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE RETURNING


Next morning I arose, washed myself, dressed and knocked on Ermizhad's door.

There was no reply.

Thinking that she had, perhaps, escaped and that Katorn would be instantly 
suspicious that I had helped her, I flung open the door and entered.

She had not escaped. She still lay on the bed, but now her eyes were open again 
as she stared at the ceiling. Those eyes were as mysterious to me as the star-
flecked depths of the universe.

'Did you sleep well?' I asked.

She did not reply.

'Are you unwell?' was my next rather stupid, question. But she had plainly 
decided to communicate with me no further. I made one last attempt and the left, 
going down to the great hall of the slain Warden. Here Roldero was waiting for 
me and there were a few other marshals, looking the worse for wear, but King 
Rigenos and Katorn were not present.

Roldero's eyes twinkled. 'There are no drums beating in your skull by the look 
of you.'

He was right. I had not considered it, but I had no after effects from the huge 
quantities of wine drunk the night before.

'I feel very well,' I said.

'Ah, now I believe you are an immortal!' he laughed. 'I have not escaped so 
lightly. Neither, it seems, have King Rigenos and Lord Katorn, or some of the 
others who were enjoying themselves so much last night.' He drew closer and said 
quietly: 'And I hope you are in better spirits today, my friend.'

'I suppose I am,' I said. I felt drained of emotion, in fact.

'Good. And what of that Eldren creature? Still safe?'

'Still safe.'

'She did not try to seduce you?'

'On the contrary-she will not speak to me at all!'

'Just as well.' Roldero looked around impatiently. 'I hope they get up soon. 
There's much to discuss. Do we carry on inland or what?'

'I thought we agreed that the best plan was to leave a good force here, strong 
enough to defend the city, and get back to the Two Continents to re-equip and to 
check any attempt to invade us while our fleet's at Paphanaal.'

Roldero nodded. 'It's the most sensible plan. But I do not like it very much. 
While it has logic it does not suit my impatience to get at the enemy as soon as 
possible.'

I agreed with him. 'I would like to have done with this as soon as I could,' I 
told him.

But we had little clear idea where the rest of the Eldren forces were 
marshalled. There were four other major cities on the continent of Mernadin. The 
chief of these was Loos Ptokai which lay near to the Plains of Melting Ice. This 
was Arjavh's headquarters and, from what the Eldren on the flagship had said, he 
was either there now or marching to recapture Paphanaal. It seemed to us that he 
would attempt this, because Paphanaal was the most important position on the 
coast. With it in our hands we had a good harbour in which to bring our ships 
and land our men.

And if Arjavh did march against us, then all we had to do was save our energy 
and wait. We thought that we could leave our main force in Paphanaal, return to 
our own base at Noonos, bringing back the divisions of warriors who, because of 
insufficient ships, had been unable to come with us on the preliminary 
expedition.

But Roldero had something else on his mind. 'We must not forget the sorcerous 
fortress of the Outer Islands,' he told me. 'They lie at World's Edge. The Outer 
Islands should be taken as soon as possible.'

'What exactly are the Outer Islands? Why are they so strategic,' I asked him. 
'And why haven't they been mentioned before in our plans?'

'Ah,' said Count Roldero. 'Ah, it is because of our reluctance, particularly 
when at home, to discuss the Ghost Worlds . . .'

I made a sign of mock despair. 'The Ghost Worlds again!'

'The Outer Islands lie in the Gateway to the Ghost Worlds,' Roldero said 
seriously. 'From there the Eldren can summon their ghoulish allies. Perhaps, now 
Paphanaal is taken, we should concentrate on smashing their strength in the 
west-at World's Edge.'

Had I been wrong to be so sceptical? Or was Roldero overestimating the power of 
the Ghost World denizens. 'Roldero-have you ever seen these halflings?' I asked 
him.

'Oh yes, my friend,' he replied. 'You are wrong if you believe them legendary 
beings. They are, in one sense, real enough.'

I became more convinced. I trusted Roldero's opinions more than most.

'Then perhaps we should alter our strategy slightly,' I said. 'We can leave the 
main army here to wait for Arjavh to march against the city and waste his 
strength trying to take it from the land side. We return to Noonos with the 
large portion of the fleet, add any new ships that are ready to our force, take 
fresh warriors aboard-and sail against the Outer Islands while, if we are right, 
Arjavh expends his own force trying to retake Paphanaal.'

Roldero nodded. 'It seems a wise plan to me, Erekose. But what of the girl-our 
hostage? How shall we use her to our best advantage?'

I frowned. I did not like the idea of using her at all. I wondered where she 
would be safest.

'I suppose we should keep her as far away from here as possible,' I said. 
'Necranal would be best. There is little chance of her people being able to 
rescue her and she would have a difficult time getting back if she managed to 
escape. What do you think?'

Roldero nodded. 'I think you are right. That's sensible.'

'We must discuss all this with the king, of course,' I said gravely.

'Of course,' said Roldero, and winked.

'And Katorn,' I added.

'And Katorn,' he agreed. 'Especially Katorn.'



It was well after noon before we had a chance to speak with Katorn or the king. 
Both were palefaced and were quick to agree with our suggestions as if they 
would agreed to anything so long as they were left alone.

'We'll establish our position here,' I told the king, 'and set sail back to 
Noonos within the week. We should waste no time. Now that we have gained 
Paphanaal, we can expect savage counter-attacks from the Eldren . . .'

'Aye,' muttered Katorn. He was red eyed. 'And you are right to try to block off 
Arjavh's summoning of his frightful Ghost Armies.'

'I am glad you approve of my plan, Lord Katorn,' I said.

His smile was twisted. 'You're beginning to prove yourself, my lord, I'll say 
that for you. Still a little soft towards our enemies, but you're beginning to 
realise what they're like . . .'

'I wonder,' I said.

There were minor details of the plan to discuss and, while the victorious 
warriors continued to pleasure themselves on Eldren spoils, we talked of these 
matters until they were completely settled.

It was a good plan.

It would work if the Eldren reacted as we expected And we were sure that they 
would.

We agreed that I and King Rigenos would return with the fleet, leaving Katorn to 
command the army at Paphanaal. Roldero also elected to return with us. The bulk 
of the warriors would remain behind. We had to hope that the Eldren did not have 
another fleet in the vicinity, for we would be sailing back with just the 
minimum crews and would be hard-pressed to defend ourselves if attacked at sea.

But there were risks to all the different possibilities and we had to decide 
which actions the Eldren were most likely to take and act accordingly.

The next few days were spent in preparation for the voyage back and soon we were 
ready to sail.



We sailed out of Paphanaal on a dawn tide, our ships moving sluggishly through 
the water, for they groaned with captured Eldren treasure.

Begrudgingly the king had agreed to giving Ermizhad decent quarters next to 
mine. His attitude towards me seemed to have changed since the first drunken 
night in Paphanaal. He was reserved, almost embarrassed by my presence. 
Doubtless he remembered vaguely that he had made some sort of fool of himself. 
Perhaps he remembered my own refusal to celebrate the victory, perhaps the glory 
that I had won for him made him jealous, though the gods knew I wanted nothing 
of that tainted glory.

Or perhaps he sensed my own disgust with the war I had agreed to fight for him 
and was nervous that I might suddenly refuse to be the Champion he felt he so 
desperately needed?

I had no opportunity to discuss this with him and Count Roldero could offer no 
explanation save to say, in the king's favour, that the slaughter might have 
wearied the king just as it had wearied me.

I was not sure of this, for the king seemed to hate the Eldren even more than 
before, as was made evident by his treatment of Ermizhad.

Ermizhad still refused to speak. She hardly ate and she rarely left her cabin. 
But one evening, as I strolled on deck, I saw her standing at the rail and 
staring down into the sea as if she contemplated hurling herself into its 
depths.

I increased my pace so that I should be near if she did attempt to throw herself 
overboard. She half turned as I approached and then looked away again.

At this point the king emerged on the poop-deck and called down to me.

'I see you've taken pains to make sure the wind's behind you when you get near 
to the Eldren bitch, Lord Erekose.'

I stopped and looked up. At first I hardly understood the reference. I glanced 
at Ermizhad who pretended not to have heard the king's insult. I, too, pretended 
I had not understood the significance of the remark and gave a slight, polite 
bow.

Then, deliberately, I walked past Ermizhad and paused near the rail, staring out 
to sea.

'Perhaps you have no sense of smell, Lord Erekose,' the king called. Again, I 
ignored the remark.

'It seems a pity that we must tolerate vermin on our ship when we took such 
pains to scrub our decks free of their tainted blood,' the king went on.

At last, furious, I turned round, but he had left the poop-deck. I looked at 
Ermizhad, She continued to stare down into the dark waters as they were pierced 
by our oars. She seemed almost mesmerised by the rhythm. I wondered if she 
really had not heard the insults.

There were several more occasions of that kind on board the flagship lolinda as 
we sailed on for Noonos.

Whenever King Rigenos got the opportunity, he would speak of Ermizhad in her 
presence as if she were not there; spoke disdainfully of her and his disgust for 
all her kind.

Increasingly, I found it harder to control my anger, but control it I did and 
Ermizhad, for her part, showed no sign that she was offended by the king's crude 
references to her and her race.

I saw less of Ermizhad than I wished but, in spite of the king's warnings, came 
to like her. She was certainly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her 
beauty was different from the cool beauty of lolinda, my betrothed.

What is love? Even now, now that the whole pattern of my particular destiny 
seems to have been fulfilled, I do not know. Oh yes, I still loved lolinda, but 
I think that, while I did not know it, I was falling in love with Ermizhad, too.

I refused to believe in the stories told about her and held affection for her 
though, at that time, I had no thought of letting this affect my attitude 
towards her. That attitude had to be of a gaoler for his prisoner-an important 
prisoner, at that. A prisoner who could help decide the war against the Eldren 
in our favour.

I did pause, once or twice, to wonder about the logic of keeping her as a 
hostage. If, as King Rigenos insisted, the Eldren were cold-hearted and unhuman, 
then why should Arjavh care if his sister were murdered by us?

Ermizhad, if she were the creature King Rigenos believed her to be, showed no 
signs of her evil. Rather she seemed to be to exhibit a singular nobility of 
soul that was in excellent contrast to the king's rude banter.

And then I wondered if the king realised the affection I felt for Ermizhad and 
was afraid that the union between his daughter and his immortal Champion was 
threatened.

But I remained loyal to lolinda. It did not occur to me to question that we 
should not be married on my return, as we had agreed.

There must be countless forms of love. Which is the form which conquers the 
rest? I cannot define it. I shall not try,

Ermizhad's beauty had the fascination of being an unhuman beauty, but close 
enough to my own race's ideal to attract me.

She had the long pointed Eldren face that John Daker might have tried to 
describe as 'elfin' and failed to do justice to its nobility. She had the 
slanting eyes that seemed blind in their strange milkiness, the slightly pointed 
ears, the high slanting cheekbones and a slender body that was almost boyish. 
All the Eldren women were slender like this, small-breasted and narrow-waisted. 
Her red lips were fairly wide, curving naturally upwards so that she always 
seemed to be on the point of smiling when her face was in repose.

For the first two weeks of our voyage she continued to refuse to speak, although 
I showed her every courtesy. I saw that she had everything for her comfort and 
she thanked me through her guards, that was all. But one day I stood outside the 
set of cabins where she, the king and myself had our apartments, leaning over 
the rail and looking at a grey sea and an overcast sky, and I saw her approach 
me.

'Greetings, Sir Champion,' she said half-mockingly as she came out of her cabin.

I was surprised.

'Greetings, Lady Ermizhad,' said I. She was dressed in a cloak of midnight blue 
flung around a simple smock of pale blue wool.

'A day of omens, I think,' she said, looking at the gloomy sky which boiled 
darkly now above us, full of heavy greys and dusty yellows.

'Why think you?' I enquired.

She laughed. It was lovely to hear-crystal and gold-strung harps. It was the 
music of heaven, not of hell. 'Forgive me,' she said. 'I sought to disturb you-
but I see you are not so prone to suggestion as others of your race.'

I grinned. 'You are very complimentary, my lady. I find their superstitions a 
trifle tedious, I must admit. Not to mention their insults . . .'

'One is not troubled by those,' she said. 'They are sad little insults, really.'

'You are very charitable.'

'We Eldren are a charitable race, I think.'

'I have heard otherwise.'

'I suppose you have.'

'I have bruises that prove otherwise!' I smiled. 'Your warriors did not seem 
particularly charitable in the seafight beyond Paphanaal.'

She bowed her head. 'And yours were not charitable when they came to Paphanaal. 
Is it true? Am I the only survivor?'

I licked my lips. They were suddenly dry. 'I believe so,' I said quietly.

'Then I am lucky,' she said, her voice rising a little.

There was, of course, no reply I could make.

We stood there in silence, looking at the sea.

Later she said quietly: 'So you are Erekose. You are not like the rest of your 
race. In fact, you do not seem wholly of that race . . .'

'Aha,' I replied. 'Now I know you are my enemy.'

'What do you mean?'

'My enemies-the Lord Katorn in particular-suspects my humanity.'

'And are you human?'

'I am nothing else. I am sure of that. I have the problems of any ordinary 
mortal. I am as confused as the rest, though my problems are, perhaps, 
different. How I came here, I do not know. They say I am a great hero reborn. 
Come to aid them against your people. They brought me here by means of an 
incantation. But then it sometimes seems to me, in dreams, at night, that I have 
been many heroes . . .'

'And all of them human?'

'I am not sure. I do not think my basic character has altered in any of those 
incarnations. I have no special wisdom, no special powers, as far as I know. 
Would you not think that an immortal would have gathered a great store of 
wisdom?'

She nodded slightly. 'I would think so, my lord.'

'I am not even sure where I am,' I continued. 'I do not know if I came here from 
the far future or from the far past . . .'

'The terms mean little to the Eldren,' she said. 'But some of us believe that 
past and future are the same-that time moves in a circle, so that the past is 
the future and the future is the past.'

'An interesting theory,' I said. 'But a rather simple one, is it not?'

'I think I would agree with you,' she murmured. 'Time is a subtle thing. Even 
our wisest philosophers do not fully understand its nature. The Eldren do not 
think very much about time-we do not have to, normally. Of course, we have our 
histories. But history is not mine. History is merely a record of certain 
events.'

'I understand you,' I said.

Now she came and stood by the ship's rail, one hand resting lightly upon it.



At that moment I felt the affection that I suppose a father might have for a 
daughter. A father who delights in his offspring's assured innocence. She could 
not have been, I felt, much more than nineteen. Yet her voice had a confidence 
that comes with knowledge of the world, her carriage was proud, also confident. 
I realised then that King Rigenos might well have spoken the truth. How, indeed, 
could you gauge the age of an immortal?

'I thought at first,' I said, 'that I came from your future. But now I am not 
sure. Perhaps I come from your past-that this world is, in relation to what I 
call the "twentieth century", in the far future.'

'This world is very ancient,' she agreed.

'Is there a record of a time when only human beings occupied the Earth?'

'We have no such records,' she smiled. 'There is an echo of a myth, the thread 
of a legend, which says that there was a time when only the Eldren occupied the 
Earth. My brother has studied this. I believe he knows more.'

I shivered. I did not know why but my vitals seemed to chill within me. I could 
not, easy, continue the conversation, though I wanted to.

She appeared not to have noticed my discomfort.

At last I said: 'A day of omens, madam. I hope to talk with you again soon.' I 
bowed and returned to my cabin.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CONFRONTATION WITH THE KING


That night I slept without my usual precaution of a jug of wine to send me into 
deeper slumber. I did it deliberately, though with trepidation.

'EREKOSe . . .'

I heard the voice calling as it had called once before to John Daker. But this 
time it was not the voice of King Rigenos.

'Erekose . . .'

This voice was more musical.

I saw green, swaying forests and great, green hills and glades and castles and 
delicate beasts whose names I did not know . . .

'Erekose? My name is not Erekose,' I said. 'It is Prince Coram. Prince Coram-
Prince Coram Bannan Flurunn of the Scarlet Robe-and I seek my people. O, where 
are my people? Why is there no cessation to this quest?'

I rode a horse. The horse was mantled in yellow velvet and hung about with 
panniers, two spears, a plain, round shield, a bow and a quiver holding arrows. 
I wore a conical silver helm and a double weight of chain-mail, the lower layer 
of brass and the upper of silver. And I bore a long, strong sword that was not 
the Sword Kanajana . . .

'Erekose.'

'I am not Erekose . . .'

'Erekose!'

'I am John Daker!'

'Erekose!'

'I am Jerry Cornelius.'

'Erekose.'

'I am Konrad Arflane.'

'Erekose.'

'What do you want?' I asked.

'We want your help!'

'You have my help!'

'Erekose.'

'I am Karl Glogauer!'

'Erekose!'

The names did not matter. I knew it now. Only the fact mattered. The fact that I 
was a creature incapable of dying. A creature eternal. Doomed to have many 
shapes, to be called many names, but to be for ever battling . . .

And perhaps I had been wrong. Perhaps I was not truly human, but only assumed 
the characteristics of a human being if I were caught in a human body.

It seemed to me that I howled in misery then. What was I? What was I? If I was 
not a man . . .?

The voice was still calling, but I refused to heed it. How I wished I had not 
heeded it before, as I lay in my comfortable bed, in the comfortable identity of 
John Daker . . .



I awoke and I was sweating. I had found out nothing more about myself and the 
mystery of my origin. It seemed I had only succeeded in confusing myself 
further.

It was still night, but I dared not fall asleep again.

I peered through the darkness. I looked at the curtains pulled across the 
windows, the white coverlet of the bed, my wife beside me. . .

I began to scream.



'EREKOSe-EREKOSe-EREKOSe . . .'

'I am John Daker!' I screamed. 'Look-I am John Daker!'

'EREKOSe . . .'

'I know nothing of this name, Erekose. My name is Elric, Prince of Melnibone. 
Elric the Kinslayer. I am known by many names . . .'

Many names-many names-many names . . .

How was it possible to possess dozens of identities all at the same time. To 
move from period to period at random. To move away from the Earth itself, out to 
where the cold stars glared?

There was a rushing noise and now I plunged through dark airless places, down, 
down, down. And there was nothing in the universe but drifting gas. No gravity, 
no colour, no air, no intelligence save my own-and perhaps, somewhere, one 
another . . .

Again I screamed.

And I refused to let myself know further.



Whatever the doom upon me, I thought next morning, I would never understand it. 
And it was probably for the best.

I went on deck and there was Ermizhad, standing in the same place at the rail, 
as if she had not moved all night. The sky had cleared somewhat and sunlight 
pushed thick beams through the clouds, the rays slanting down on the choppy sea 
so that the world seemed half dark, half light.

A moody day.

We stood for a while in silence, leaning out over the rail, watching the surf 
slide by, watching the oars smash into the waters in monotonous rhythm.

Again, she was the first to speak.

'What do they plan to do with me?' she asked quietly.

'You will be a hostage against the eventuality of your brother, Prince Arjavh, 
ever attacking Necranal,' I told her. It was only half the truth. There were 
other ways of using her against her brother, but there was no point in detailing 
them. 'You will be safe-King Rigenos will not be able to bargain if you are 
harmed.'

She sighed.

'Why did not you and the other Eldren women flee when our fleets put in to 
Paphanaal?' I asked. This had puzzled me for some time.

'The Eldren do not flee,' she said. 'They do not flee from cities that they 
build themselves.'

'They fled to the Mountains of Sorrow some centuries ago,' I pointed out.

'No.' She shook her head. 'They were driven there. That is the difference.'

'That is a difference,' I agreed.

'Who speaks of difference?' A new, harsher voice broke in. It was King Rigenos. 
He had come silently out of his cabin and stood behind us, feet apart on the 
swaying deck. He did not look at Ermizhad but stared directly at me. He did not 
look well.

'Greetings, sire,' I said. 'We were discussing the meaning of words.'

'You've become uncommon friendly with the Eldren bitch,' he sneered. What was it 
about a man who had shown himself kind and brave in many ways that, when the 
Eldren were concerned, he became an uncouth barbarian?

'Sire,' I said, for I could no longer be polite. 'Sire, you speak of one who, 
though our enemy, is of noble blood.'

Again he sneered. 'Noble blood! The vile stuff which flows in their polluted 
veins cannot be termed thus! Beware, Erekose! I realise that you are not 
altogether versed in our ways or our knowledge, that your memory is hazy-but 
remember that the Eldren wanton has a tongue of liquid gold which can beguile 
you to your doom and ours. Pay no heed to her!'

It was the most direct and most portentious speech he had made thus far.

'Sire . . .' I said.

'She'll weave such a spell that you'll be a fawning dog at her mercy and no good 
to any of us. I tell, you, Erekose, beware. Gods! I've half a mind to give her 
to the rowers and let them have their way with her before she's thrown over the 
side!'

'You placed her under my protection, my lord king,' I said angrily. 'And I am 
sworn to protect her against all dangers!'

'Fool! I have warned you. I do not want to lose your friendship, Erekose-and 
more, I do not want to lose our War Champion. If she shows further signs of 
enchanting you, I shall sky her. None shall stop me!'

'I am doing your work, king,' I said, 'at your request. But remember you this-I 
am Erekose. I have been many other Champions. What I do is for the human race. I 
have taken no oath of loyalty to you or to any other king. I am Erekose, the War 
Champion-Champion of Humanity-not Rigenos's Champion!'

His eyes narrowed. 'Is this treachery, Erekose?' It was almost as if he hoped it 
was.

'No, King Rigenos. Disagreement with a single representative of humanity does 
not constitute treachery to mankind.'

He said nothing, but just stood there, seeming to hate me as much as he hated 
the Eldren girl. His breathing was heavy and rasped in his throat.

'Give me no reason to regret my summoning of thee, dead Erekose,' he said at 
length and turned away, going back into his cabin.

'I think it would be for the best if we discontinued our conversation,' said 
Ermizhad quietly.

'Dead Erekose, eh?' I said and then grinned. 'If I'm dead, then I'm strangely 
prone to emotion for a corpse.' I made light of our dispute, yet events had 
taken a turn which caused me to fear that he would not, among other things, 
allow me the hand of lolinda-for he still did not know that we were betrothed.

She looked at me strangely and moved her hand as if to comfort me.

'Perhaps I am dead,' I said. 'Have you seen any creatures like me on the Ghost 
Worlds?'

She shook her head. 'Not really.'

'So the Ghost Worlds do exist?' I said. Really, I had been speaking 
rhetorically.

'Of course they exist!' She laughed. 'You are the greatest sceptic I have ever 
met!'

'Tell me about them, Ermizhad.'

'What is there to tell?' She shook her head. 'And if you do not believe what you 
have heard already, then there's little point if I tell you more that you will 
not believe, is there?'

I shrugged. 'I suppose not.' I felt she was being unduly secretive, but I did 
not press the matter.

'Answer one thing,' I said. 'Would the mystery of my existence be found on the 
Ghost Worlds?'

She smiled sympathetically. 'How could I answer that, Erekose?'

'I don't know-I thought the Eldren knew more of-of sorcery . . .'

'Now you are showing yourself to be as superstitious as your fellows,' she said. 
'You do not believe . . .'

'Madam,' I said, 'I do not know what I should believe. The logic of this world-
both human and Eldren-is, I am afraid, a mystery to me.'


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NECRANAL AGAIN


Although the king refrained from further outbursts against either myself or 
Ermizhad, it could not really be said that he warmed to me again, though he grew 
more relaxed as the shores of Necralala drew closer.

And eventually Noonos was sighted and we left the better part of the fleet there 
to refit and reprovision and sailed back up the River Droonaa to come again to 
Necranal.

The news of our great sea victory was already in Necranal. Indeed it had been 
amplified and it seemed that I had sunk some score of ships and destroyed their 
crews single-handed!

I did nothing to deny the truth of this for the reason that I was worried King 
Rigenos would begin to work against me. The adulation of the people, however, 
meant that he could not be seen to deny me anything. My power had grown on my 
return, for I had achieved a victory, I had proved myself the Champion the 
people wanted.

It now seemed that if King Rigenos acted against me, he would arouse the wrath 
of the people against him-and that wrath would be so great it could lose him his 
crown-and his head.

This did not mean, of course, that he had to like me, but in fact when we had 
once again reached the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows he was almost in an 
affable mood.

I think he had begun to see me as a threat to his throne, but the sight of his 
palace, his people and his daughter, reassured him that he was still the king 
and would always be the king. I was not interested in his crown-only his 
daughter.

Guards escorted Ermizhad away to her quarters when we arrived and she had 
departed before lolinda came running down the stairs into the Great Hall, her 
face radiant, her carriage graceful, kissing first her father and then myself.

'Have you told Father of our secret?' she asked.

'I think he knew before we left,' I laughed, turning to Rigenos upon whose face 
there had come something of an abstracted look. 'We would be betrothed, sire. Do 
you give us your consent?'

King Rigenos opened his mouth, wiped his forehead and swallowed before nodding. 
'Of course. My blessings to you. This will make our unity even stronger.'

A slight frown came to lolinda's brow. 'Father-you are pleased, are you not?'

'Of c-yes, naturally I am pleased-naturally. But I am weary with travelling and 
with fighting, my dear. I need to rest. Forgive me . . .'

'Oh, I am sorry, Father. Yes, you must rest. You are right. You do not look 
well. I will have the slaves prepare some food for you and you can dine in bed . 
. .'

'Yes,' he said, 'yes . . .'



When he had gone lolinda looked at me curiously. 'You, too, seem to have 
suffered from the fighting, Erekose. You are not hurt, are you?'

'No. The battle was bloody. And I did not enjoy much of what we had to do.'

'Warriors kill men-that is the way.'

'Aye,' I said hoarsely. 'But do they kill women, lolinda? Do they kill children? 
Babies?'

She moistened her lips with her tongue. Then she said: 'Come. Let's eat in my 
apartments. It is more restful there.'



When we had eaten, I felt better, but I was still not completely at ease.

'What happened?' she asked. 'At Mernadin?'

'There was a great sea fight. We won it.'

'That is good.'

'Yes.'

'You took Paphanaal. You stormed it and took it.'

'Who told you we "stormed" it?' I asked in astonishment.

'Why you do-the returning warriors. We heard the news shortly before you came 
back . . .'

'There was no resistance in Paphanaal,' I told her. 'There were some women there 
and there were some children there and they were butchered by our troops.'

'Some women and children always get harmed in the storming of a city,' said 
lolinda. 'You must not blame yourself if . . .'

'We did not storm the city,' I repeated. 'It was undefended. There were no men 
there. Every one of the male inhabitants of Paphanaal had sailed with the fleet 
we destroyed.'

She shrugged. Evidently she could not visualise the true picture. Perhaps it was 
just as well. But I could not resist one further comment:

'And, although we should have won anyway, part of our sea victory was due to our 
treachery,' I said.

'You were betrayed, did you say?' She looked up eagerly. 'Some treachery of the 
Eldren?'

'The Eldren fought honourably. We slaughtered their commander during a truce.'

'I see,' she said. Then she smiled. 'Well, we must help you forget such terrible 
things, Erekose.'

'I hope you can,' I said.



The king announced our betrothal the next day and the news was received with joy 
by the citizens of Necranal. We stood before them on the great balcony 
overlooking the city. We smiled and waved but, when we went inside again, the 
king left us with a curt word and hurried away.

'Father really does seem to disapprove of our match,' lolinda said in 
puzzlement, 'in spite of his consent.'

'A disagreement about tactics while at war,' I said. 'You know how important we 
soldiers think these things. He will soon forget.'

But I was perturbed. Here I was a great hero, loved by the people, marrying the 
king's daughter as a hero should, and something was beginning to strike me as 
being not quite right.

I had had the feeling for some time, but I could not trace the source. I did not 
know whether it was to do with my peculiar dreams, my worries concerning my 
origin or merely the crisis that seemed to be building between the king and 
myself. It was probably very little and my anxiety was baseless.

lolinda and I now went to the bridal bed together, as was the custom in the 
Human Kingdoms.

But, that first night, we did not make love.



Half-way through the night I felt my shoulder being touched and I straightened 
up almost instantly. I smiled in relief.

'Oh, it is you, lolinda.'

'It is I, Erekose. You moaned and groaned so in your sleep that I thought it 
better to wake you.'

'Aye . . .' I rubbed my eyes. 'I thank you.' My memory was unclear! but it 
seemed to me that I had been experiencing the usual dreams.

'Tell me something of Ermizhad, lolinda said suddenly.

'Ermizhad?' I yawned. 'What of her?'

'You have seen much of her, I heard. You conversed with her. I have never 
conversed with an Eldren. Usually, we do not take prisoners . . .'

I smiled. 'Well, I gather it's heresy to say so-but I found her quite-human.'

'Oh, Erekose. That's a joke in bad taste. They say she's beautiful. They say she 
has a thousand human lives to account for. She's evil, is she not? She had lured 
many men to their deaths . . .'

'I did not ask her about that,' I said. 'We discussed matters of philosophy, 
mainly.'

'She is very clever, then?'

'I do not know. She seemed almost innocent to me.' I added hastily, 
diplomatically. 'But perhaps that's her cleverness-to seem innocent.'

lolinda frowned. 'Innocent! Ha!'

I was disturbed. 'I only offer my impression, lolinda. I have no opinions, 
really, concerning Ermizhad or the rest of the Eldren, for that matter.'

'Do you love me, Erekose?'

'Of course.'

'You would not-you would not-betray me?'

I laughed and took her in my arms. 'How could you fear such a thing?'

We fell, again, asleep.



Next morning, King Rigenos, Count Roldero and myself got down to the serious 
business of planning our strategy. Concerning ourselves with maps and battle-
plans, it became less strained and Rigenos was almost cheerful. We were in 
unison about what should be done. By now it was quite likely that Arjavh would 
be attempting to retake Paphanaal-and assuredly failing. Probably he would lay 
siege to it, but we could bring in supplies and weapons by ship and he would 
waste his time. Meanwhile, our expedition to the Ghost Worlds would attack 
Eldren positions there and, Roldero and Rigenos assured me, make it impossible 
for them to call on their halfling allies.

The plan, of course, depended on Arjavh's attacking Paphanaal.

'But he would have been already on his way when when we sailed in,' Rigenos 
reasoned. 'It would be pointless for him to turn back. What could he achieve by 
doing that?'

Roldero agreed. 'I think it's pretty certain that he'll concentrate on 
Paphanaal,' he said. 'Another two or three days and our fleets will be ready to 
sail again. We'll soon have the Outer Islands subdued, then we move on to Loos 
Ptokai itself. With luck, Arjavh will still have his main force concentrated on 
Paphanaal. By the end of this year, every Eldren position will have fallen to 
us.'

I was a trifle pessimistic about his over-confidence. I would give that to 
Katorn-he would have been less sure. I half wished, in fact, that Katorn was 
here. I respected his advice as a soldier and strategist.

And it was the next day, while we still pored over maps, that the news came.

It astonished us. It altered every plan we had made. It made nonsense of our 
strategy. It put us in a frightening position.

Arjavh, Prince of Mernadin, Ruler of the Eldren, had not attacked Paphanaal. A 
great proportion of our troops waited there to greet him, but he had not deigned 
to pay them a visit.

Perhaps he had never intended to march on Paphanaal.

Perhaps he had always planned to do what he had done now and it was we who were 
the dupes! Outmanoeuvred! Fooled!

'I said that the Eldren were clever,' said King Rigenos when we received the 
news. 'I told you, Erekose.'

'I believe you now,' I said softly, trying to grasp the enormity of what had 
happened.

'Now how do you feel about them, my friend?' Roldero said. 'Are you still 
divided?'

I shook my head. My loyalties lay with humanity. There was no time for 
conscience, no point in trying to understand these unhuman people. I had 
underestimated them and now it seemed that humanity itself might have to pay the 
price.

Eldren ships had beached on the coasts of Necralala, on the Eastern seaboard and 
reasonably close to Necranal. An Eldren army was pushing towards Necranal 
herself and, it was said, none could stand against it.

I cursed myself then. Rigenos-Katorn-Roldero-even lolinda-had all been right. I 
had been deceived by their golden tongues, their alien beauty.

And there was hardly a warrior in Necranal. Half our available force was in 
Paphanaal and it would take a month to bring them back. The fleet Eldren craft 
had probably crossed the ocean in half that time! We thought we had defeated 
their fleet at Paphanaal. We had only defeated a fraction of it!

There was fear on all our faces as we made hasty contingency plans.

'There's no point in recalling the troops in Paphanaal at this stage,' I said. 
'By the time they got here the battle would have been decided. Send a fast 
messenger there, Roldero. Tell them what has happened and let Katorn decide his 
own strategy. Tell him I trust him.'

'Very well,' Roldero nodded. 'But our available warriors are scarce in number. 
We can get a few divisions by sending fast to Zavara. There are troops at 
Stalaco, Calodemia and some at Dratarda. Perhaps they can reach us in a week. 
Then we have some men at Shilaal and Sinana, but I hesitated to recommend their 
withdrawal . . .'

'I agree,' I said. 'The ports must be defended at all costs. Who knows how many 
other fleets the Eldren have?' I cursed. 'If only we had had some means of 
gathering intelligence. Some spies . . .'

'That's idle talk,' Roldero said. 'Who among our people could disguise himself 
as an Eldren? Who would be able to stomach their company long enough, for that 
matter.'

Rigenos said: 'The only large force we have is at Noonos. We'll have to send for 
them and pray that Noonos is not attacked in their absence.' He looked at me. 
'This is not your fault, Erekose. I sympathise with you. We expected too much of 
you . . .'

'Well,' I promised him, 'you can expect more of me now, King Rigenos. I'll drive 
the Eldren back.'

Rigenos scowled thoughtfully. 'There's one thing we have to bargain with,' he 
said. 'The Eldren bitch-Arjavh's sister . . .'

And then an idea began to dawn on me. Arjavh's sister . . . We had thought that 
he must certainly march on Paphanaal and he had not. We had never expected him 
to invade Necralala. But he had. Arjavh's sister . . .

'What of her,' I said.

'Could we not use her in this way-tell Arjavh that if he does not retreat, we 
will slay her?'

'Would he trust us?'

'That depends on how much he loves his sister, eh?' King Rigenos grinned, his 
spirits rising. 'Yes. Try that, anyway, Erekose. But do not go to him in 
weakness. Take all the divisions you can muster.'

'Naturally,' I said. 'I have a feeling that Arjavh will not let sentiment stop 
him while there is a chance he can capture the capital.'

King Rigenos ignored this. Even I wondered about the truth of it, particularly 
since I was beginning to think there might be something more to Arjavh's 
decision.

King Rigenos put his hand on my shoulder. 'We have had our differences, Erekose. 
But now we are united. Go. Do battle with the Hounds of Evil. Win the battle. 
Kill Arjavh. This is your opportunity to strike the head from the monster that 
is the Eldren. And if battle seems impossible-use his sister to buy time for us. 
Be brave, Erekose, be cunning-be strong.'

'I will try,' I said. 'I will leave at once to rally the warriors at Noonos. 
I'll take all available cavalry and leave a small force of infantry and 
artillery to defend the city.'

'Do as you think fit, Erekose.'

I went back to our apartments and said farewell to lolinda. She had been full of 
sorrow.

I did not call on Ermizhad and tell her what we planned.


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PRINCE ARJAVH


I rode out in my proud armour at the head of my army. My lance flaunted my 
banner of silver sword on a black field, my horse pranced, my stance was 
confident and I had five thousand knights at my back and no idea of the size of 
the Eldren army. We rode from Noonos, eastwards to where the Eldren were said to 
be marching. Our idea was to cut them off before they reached Necranal.

Well before we met Arjavh's forces, we heard stories of their progress from 
fleeing villagers and townspeople. Apparently the Eldren were marching doggedly 
for Necranal, avoiding any settlements they came to. There were no reports, so 
far, of Eldren atrocities. They seemed to be moving too fast to bother to waste 
rime on civilians.

Arjavh seemed to have only one ambition-to reach Necranal in me shortest 
possible time. I knew little of the Eldren prince save that he was reputedly a 
monster incarnate, a slayer and torturer of women and children. I was impatient 
to meet him in battle.

And there was one other rumour concerning Prince Arjavh's army. They said it was 
partly comprised of halflings-creatures from the Ghost Worlds. This story had 
terrified my men, but I had tried to assure diem that the rumours were false.

Roldero and Rigenos were not with me. Roldero had returned to supervise die 
defence of Necranal, should we be unsuccessful, and it was in Necranal that 
Rigenos also stayed.

For the first time now, I was on my own. I had no advisors. I felt I needed 
none.



The armies of the Eldren and the forces of Humanity saw each other at last when 
they both reached a vast plateau known as the Plain of Olas, after an ancient 
city that had once stood there. The plateau was surrounded by the peaks of 
distant hills. It was green and the hills were purple and we saw the banners of 
the Eldren as the sun set and those banners shone as if they were flags of fire.

My marshals and captains were all for rushing upon the Eldren as soon as morning 
came. To our relief it seemed that their numbers were smaller than ours and it 
now looked likely we could defeat them.

I felt relieved. It meant that I did not need to use Ermizhad for bartering with 
Arjavh and I could afford to stand by the Code of War which the humans used 
among themselves but refused to extend to the Eldren.

My commanders were horrified when I told them, but I said: 'Let us act well and 
with nobility. Let us set an example to them.' Now mere was no Katorn, no 
Rigenos-not even Roldero-to argue with me and tell me that we must be 
treacherous and quick where Eldren were concerned. I wanted to fight this battle 
in the terms that Erekose understood, for I was following Erekose's instincts 
now.

I watched our herald ride into die night under a flag of truce. I watched him 
ride away and then, on an impulse, spurred after him.

My marshals called after me: 'Lord Erekose-where do do you go?'

'To the Eldren camp!' I called back, and laughed at their consternation.

The herald turned in his saddle, hearing the hoofbeats of my horse. 'Lord 
Erekose?' he said questioningly.

'Ride on, herald-and I'll ride with you.'



And so, together, we came at last to the Eldren camp, and we stopped as the 
outer guards hailed us.

'What would you here, humans?' some low-ranking officer asked, peering with his 
blue-flecked eyes through the gloom.

The moon came out and shone silver. I took my banner from where it lay against 
my horse's side. I raised it and I shook it out. The moon picked up the motif.

'That is Erekose's banner,' said the officer.

'And I am Erekose,' I said.

A look of disgust crossed the Eldren's face. 'We heard what you did at 
Paphanaal. If you were not here under the truce flag I would. . .'

'I did nothing at Paphanaal I am ashamed of,' I said.

'No. You would not be ashamed.'

'My sword was sheathed during the whole stay at Paphanaal, Eldren.'

'Aye-sheathed in the bodies of babes.'

'Think what you will,' I said. 'Lead me to your master. I'll not waste time with 
you.'

We rode through the silent camp until we came to the simple pavilion of Prince 
Arjavh. The officer went inside.

Then I heard a movement in the tent and from it stepped a lithe figure, dressed 
in half-armour, a steel breastplate strapped over a loose shirt of green, 
leather hose beneath leg greaves, also of steel, and sandles on his feet. His 
long black hair was kept away from his eyes by a band of gold bearing a single 
great ruby.

And his face-his face was beautiful. I hesitate to use the word to describe a 
man, but it is the only one that will do justice j those fine features. Like 
Ermizhad he had the tapering skull, the slanting, orbless eyes. But his lips did 
not curve upwards as lid hers. His mouth was grim and there were lines of 
weariness about it. He passed his hand across his face and looked up at us.

'I am Prince Arjavh of Mernadin,' he said in his liquid voice. What would you 
say to me, Erekose, you who abducted my sister?'

'I came, personally, to bring the traditional challenge from the hosts of 
Humanity,' I said.

He raised his head to look about him. 'Some plot, I gather. Some fresh 
treachery?'

'I speak only the truth,' I told him.

There was melancholy irony in his smile when he replied. 'Very well, Lord 
Erekose. On behalf of the Eldren, I accept your gracious challenge. We will 
battle, then, shall we? We will kill each other tomorrow, shall we?'

'You may decide when to begin,' I said. 'For it is we who made the challenge.'

He frowned. 'It has been perhaps a million years since the Eldren and Humanity 
fought according to the Code of War. How can I trust you, Erekose? We have heard 
how you butchered the children.'

'I butchered no children,' I said quietly. 'I begged that they be spared. But at 
Paphanaal I was advised by King Rigenos and his marshals. Now I control the 
battle forces and I choose to fight according to the Code of War. The Code of 
War, I believe, that I originally drew up . . .'

'Aye,' Arjavh said thoughtfully. 'It's sometimes called Erekose's Code. But you 
are not the true Erekose. He was a mortal like all men. Only the Eldren are 
immortal.'

'I am mortal in many respects,' I said shortly, 'and immortal in others. Now, 
shall we decide the terms of battle?'

Arjavh spread his arms. 'Oh, how can I trust all this talk. How many times have 
we agreed to believe you humans and have been betrayed time after time? How can 
I accept that you Erekose, the Champion of Humanity, our ancient enemy whom, 
even in our legends, we respect as a noble foe? I would believe you, you who 
calls himself Erekose, but I cannot afford to . . .'

'May I dismount?' I asked. The herald glanced at me in astonishment.

'If you wish.'

I clambered from the back of my armoured horse and unbuckled my sword and hung 
it over the pommel of the saddle and I pushed the horse to one side and walked 
forward and stood there confronting Prince Arjavh face to face.

'We are a stronger force than you,' I said. 'We stand a good chance of winning 
the battle tomorrow. It is possible that within a week even the few who escape 
the battle will be dead at the hands of our soldiers or our peasants. I offer 
you the chance to fight a noble battle, Prince Arjavh. A fair battle. I suggest 
that the terms can include the sparing of prisoners, medical treatment for all 
captured wounded, a counting of the dead and of the living . . .' I was 
remembering it all as I spoke.

'You know Erekose's Code well,' he said.

'I should.'

He looked away and up at the moon. 'Is my sister still alive?'

'She is.'

'Why did you come, thus, with your herald to our camp?'

'Curiosity, I suppose,' I told him. 'I have spoken much with Ermizhad. I wanted 
to see if you were the devil I heard you were-or the person Ermizhad described.'

'And what do you see?'

'If you are a devil, you are a weary one.'

'Not too weary to fight,' he said. 'Not too weary to take Necranal if I can.'

'We expected you to march on Paphanaal,' I told him. 'We thought it logical that 
you would try to recapture your main port.'

'Aye-that's what I planned. Until I learned that you had abducted my sister.' He 
paused. 'How is she?'

'Well,' I said. 'She was placed under my protection and I have seen to it that 
she has been treated with courtesy wherever possible.'

He nodded.

'We come, of course, to rescue her,' he said.

'I wondered if that was your reason.' I half smiled. 'We should have expected 
it, but we did not. You realise that they will, should you win tomorrow's 
battle, threaten to kill her if you do not retreat.'

Arjavh pursed his lips. 'They will kill her, anyway, will they not? They will 
torture them. I know how they treat Eldren prisoners.'

I could say nothing to the contrary.

'If they kill my sister,' Prince Arjavh said. 'I will burn down Necranal, if I 
am the only one left to do it. I will kill Rigenos, his daughter, everyone . . 
.'

'And so it goes on,' I said softly.

Arjavh looked back at me. 'I am sorry. You wished to discuss the terms of 
battle. Very well, Erekose', I will trust you. I agree to all your proposals-and 
offer a term of my own.'

'That is?'

'Deliverance of Ermizhad from captivity if we should win. It will save you and 
us many lives.'

'It would,' I agreed, 'but it is not for me to make that bargain. I regret it, 
Prince Arjavh, but it is the king who holds her. If she were my prisoner and not 
just under my protection, I would do as you suggest. If you win, you must go on 
to Necranal and lay siege to the city.'

He sighed. 'Very well, Sir Champion. We shall be ready at dawn tomorrow.'

I said hurriedly: 'We outnumber you, Prince Arjavh. You could go back now-in 
peace.'

He shook his head. 'Let the battle be fought.'

'Until dawn, then, Prince of the Eldren.'

He moved his hand tiredly in assent. 'Farewell, Lord Erekose'.'

'Farewell.' I wheeled my horse and rode back to our camp in a sorrowful mood, 
the puzzled herald at my side.

Once again I was divided. Were the Eldren so clever they could deceive me so 
easily?

Tomorrow would tell.



That night in my own pavilion I slept as badly as ever, but I accepted the 
dreams, the vague memories, and I did not attempt to fight them, to interpret 
them. It had become clear to me that there was no point to it. I was what I was-
I was the Eternal Champion-the Everlast Wager of War. I would never know why.

Before dawn our trumpets warned us to awake and make ourselves ready. I buckled 
on my armour, my sword and my lance's cover was ripped off to reveal the long, 
metal-shod spear.

I went out into the chill of the dying night. The day was not yet with us. 
Silhouetted against what little light there was, my cavalry were already 
mounting. There was a cold, clammy sweat on my forehead. I wiped it with a rag 
time after time, but it remained there. I raised my helm and brought it down 
over my head, strapping it to my shoulder plates. My squires handed me my 
gauntlets and I pulled them on. Then, stiff-legged in my armour, I stalked 
towards my steed, was helped into the saddle, was handed my shield and my lance 
and cantered up the line to the head of my troops.

It was very quiet when we began to move-a steel sea lapping at the coast that 
was the Eldren camp.



As the watery dawn broke our forces sighted each other. The Eldren were still by 
their camp, but when they saw us they, too, began to move. Very slowly, it 
seemed, but implacably.

I lifted my visor to get a wider view of the surroundings. The ground seemed 
good and dry. There appeared to be no places with superior advantages.

The horses hooves thumped the turf. The arms of the riders clattered at their 
sides. Their armour clashed and their harness creaked. But in spite of this a 
silence seemed to fill the air.

Nearer we came and nearer.

A flight of swallows flew high above us and then glided away towards the far-off 
hills.

I closed my visor. The back of the horse jogged beneath me. The cold sweat 
seemed to cover my body and clog my armour. The lance and the shield seemed 
suddenly very heavy.

I smelled the stink of other sweating men and horses. Before long, I would smell 
their blood, too.

Because of our need for speed, we had brought no cannon. The Eldren, also 
wishing to travel rapidly, had no artillery, either. Perhaps, I thought, their 
siege machines were following behind at a slower pace.

Nearer now. I could make out Arjavh's banner and a little cluster of flags that 
were those of his commanders.

I planned to depend upon my cavalry. They would spread out on two sides to 
surround the Eldren while another arrowhead of horsemen pierced the centre of 
their ranks and pushed through to the rear so that we would surround them on all 
sides.

Nearer still. My stomach grumbled and I tasted bile in my mouth.

Close. I reined in my horse and raised my lance and gave the order for the 
archers to shoot.

We had no crossbows, only longbows, which had a greater range and penetrating 
power and could shoot many more arrows at a time. The first flight of arrows 
screamed overhead and thudded down into the Eldren ranks and then were almost 
instantly followed by another flight and then another.

Our shafts were answered by the slim arrows of the Eldren. Horses and men 
shrieked as the arrows found their marks and for a moment there was 
consternation among our men as their ranks became ragged. But then, with great 
discipline, they reformed.

Again I raised my lance on which fluttered my black and silver pennant.

'Cavalry! Advance at full gallop!'

The trumpets sounded the order. The air was savaged by the sound. The knights 
spurred their war-steeds forward and began, line upon line of them, to fan out 
on two sides while another division rode straight towards the centre of the 
Eldren host. These knights were bent over the necks of their fast-moving horses, 
lances leaning at an angle across their saddles, some held under the right arm 
and aimed to the left and others secure under left arms, aimed at the right. 
Their helmet plumes fluttered behind them as they bore down on the Eldren. Their 
cloaks streamed out, and their pennants waved and the dim sunlight gleamed on 
their armour.

I was almost deafened by the thunder of hooves as I kicked my charger into a 
gallop and, with a band of fifty picked knights behind me, they themselves 
surrounding the twin standards of Humanity, rode forward, straining my eyes for 
Arjavh whom, at that moment, I hated with a terrible hatred.

I hated him because I must fight this battle and possibly kill him.

With a fearful din made up of shouts and clashing metal, we smashed into the 
Eldren army and soon I was oblivious to all but the need to kill and defend my 
life against those who would kill me. I broke my lance early on. It smashed 
right through the armoured body of an Eldren noble and split with the impetus. I 
left it in him and drew my sword.

Now I hewed about me with savage intensity, seeking sight of Arjavh. At last I 
saw him, a huge mace swinging from his gauntleted hand, battering at the 
infantrymen who sought to pull him from his saddle.

'Arjavh.'

He glimpsed me from the corner of his eye as I waited for him. 'A moment, 
Erekose, I have work here.'

'Arjavh!' The word I screamed was a challenge, nothing else.

Arjavh finished the last of the foot-soldiers and he kicked his horse towards 
me, still flailing around him with his giant mace as two mounted knights came at 
him. Then the men drew back as they saw we were about to engage.

We came close enough to fight now. I aimed a mighty blow at him with my poisoned 
sword, but he pulled aside in time and I felt his mace glance off my back as I 
leaned so far forward in my saddle after the wasted blow that my sword almost 
touched the churned ground.

I brought the sword up in an under-arm swing and the mace was there to deflect 
it. For several minutes we fought until, in my astonishment, I heard a voice 
some distance away . . .

'RALLY THE STANDARD! RALLY, KNIGHTS OF HUMANITY!'

We had not succeeded in our tactics! That was obvious from the cry. Our forces 
were attempting to consolidate and attack afresh. Arjavh smiled and lowered his 
mace.

'They sought to surround the halflings,' he said and laughed aloud.

'We'll meet again soon, Arjavh,' I shouted as I turned my horse back and spurred 
it through the press, forcing my way through the milling, embattled men towards 
the standard which swayed to my right.

There was no cowardice in my leaving and Arjavh knew it. I had to be with my men 
when they rallied. That was why Arjavh had lowered his weapon. He had not sought 
to stop me.


CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE BATTLE DECIDED


Arjavh had mentioned the halflings? I had noticed no ghouls among his men. What 
were they, then? What kind of creatures could not be surrounded?

The halflings were only part of my problem. Fresh tactics had to be decided upon 
hurriedly or the day would be soon lost. Four of my marshals were desperately 
trying to get our ranks closed as I came up to them. The Eldren enclosed us 
where we had planned to enclose them and many groups of our warriors were cut 
off from the main force.

Above the noise of the battle I shouted to one of my marshals: 'What's the 
position? Why did we fail so quickly? We outnumber them. . .'

'It's hard to tell what the position is, Lord Erekose,' the marshal answered, 
'or how we failed. One moment we had surrounded the Eldren and the next moment 
half their forces were surrounding us-they vanished and reappeared behind us! 
Even now we cannot tell which is material Eldren and which halfling.' The man 
who answered me was Count Maybeda, an experienced old warrior. His voice was 
ragged and he was very much shaken.

'What other qualities do these halfling possess?' I asked.

'They are solid enough when fighting, Lord Erekose, and they can be slain by 
ordinary weapons-but they can disappear at will and be wherever they wish on the 
field. It is impossible to plan tactics against such a foe.'

'In that case,' I decided, 'we had best keep our men together and fight a 
defensive action. I think we still outnumber the Eldren and their ghostly 
allies. Let them come to us!'

The morale of my warriors was low. They were disconcerted and were finding it 
difficult to face the possibility of defeat when victory had seemed so certain.

Through the milling men I saw the basilisk banner of the Eldren approaching us. 
Their cavalry came in swiftly with Prince Arjavh at their head.

Our forces came together again and once more I was doing battle with the Eldren 
leader.

He knew the power of my sword-knew that the touch of it could slay him if it 
fell on a break in his armour-but that deadly mace, wielded with the dexterity 
with which another would wield a sword, warded off every blow I aimed.

I fought him for half-an-hour until he showed signs of dazed weariness and my 
own muscles ached horribly.

And again our forces had been split! Again it was impossible to see how the 
battle went. For most of the time I was uncaring, oblivious to the events around 
me as I concentrated on breaking through Arjavh's splendid guard.

Then I saw Count Maybeda ride swiftly past me, his golden armour split, his face 
and arms bloody. In one red hand he carried the torn banner of Humanity and his 
eyes stared in fear from his wounded head.

'Flee Lord Erekose!' he screamed as he galloped past. 'Flee! The day is lost!'

I could not believe it, until the ragged remnants of my warriors began to stream 
past me in ignominious flight.

'Rally Humanity!' I called. 'Rally!' But they paid me no heed. Again Arjavh 
dropped his mace to his side.

'You are defeated,' he said.

Reluctantly I lowered my sword.

'You are a worthy foe, Prince Arjavh . . .'

'You are a worthy foe, Erekose. I remember our battle terms. Go in peace. 
Necranal will need you.'

I shook my head slowly and drew a heavy breath. 'Prepare to defend yourself, 
Prince Arjavh,' I said.

He shrugged, swiftly brought up the mace against the blow I aimed at him and 
brought it down suddenly upon my metal-gauntleted wrist. My whole arm went numb. 
I tried to cling to the sword, but my fingers would not respond. It dropped from 
my hand and hung by a thong from my wrist.

With a curse, I flung myself from my saddle straight at him, my good hand 
grasping at him, but he turned his horse aside and I fell, face forward, in the 
bloody mud of the field.

I attempted once to rise, failed and lost consciousness.


CHAPTER TWENTY

A BARGAIN


WHO AM I?

You are Erekose, the Eternal Champion.

WHAT IS MY REAL NAME?

Whatever it happens to be.

WHY AM I AS I AM?

Because that is what you have always been.

WHAT IS 'ALWAYS'?

Always.

WILL I EVER KNOW PEACE?

You will sometimes know peace.

FOR HOW LONG?

For a while.

WHERE DID I COME FROM? .

You have always been.

WHERE WILL I GO?

Where you must.

FOR WHAT PURPOSE?

To fight.

TO FIGHT FOR WHAT?

To fight.

FOR WHAT?

Fight.

FOR WHAT?


*   *   *


I shivered, aware that I was no longer clad in my armour. I looked up. Arjavh 
stood over me.

'I wonder why he hated me then,' he was murmuring to himself. Then he realised I 
was awake and his expression altered. He gave a light smile. 'You're a ferocious 
one, Sir Champion.'

I looked into his moody, milky eyes.

'My warriors,' I said, 'what . . . ?'

'Those that were left have fled. We released the few prisoners we had and sent 
them after their comrades. Those were the terms, I believe?'

I struggled up. 'Then you are going to release me?'

'I suppose so. Although . . .'

'Although?'

'You would be a useful bargaining prisoner.'

I took his meaning and relaxed, sinking back on to the hard bed. I thought 
deeply and fought the idea which came to me. But it grew too large in me. At 
length I said, almost against my will: 'Trade me for Ermizhad.'

His cool eyes showed surprise for an instant. 'You would suggest that? But 
Ermizhad is such a strong hostage for Humanity . . .'

'Damn you, Eldren. I told you to trade me for her.'

'You're a strange human, my friend. But with your permission granted, that is 
what I shall do. I thank you. You really do remember the old Code of War, don't 
you? I think you are who you say you are.'

I closed my eyes. My head ached.

He left the tent and I heard him instructing a messenger.

'Make sure the people know,' I shouted from the bed. 'The king may not agree, 
but the people will force his hand. I'm their hero! They'll willingly trade me 
for an Eldren-no matter who that Eldren is.'

Arjavh instructed the messenger accordingly. He came back into the tent.

'It puzzles me,' I said at length. He was sitting on a bench on the other side 
of the tent. 'It puzzles me that the Eldren have not conquered Humanity before 
now. With those halfling warriors I should think you'd be invincible.'

He shook his head. 'We rarely make use of our allies,' he said. 'But I was 
desperate. You can understand that I was prepared to go almost to any measures 
to rescue my sister.'

'I can,' I told him.

'We would never have invaded,' he continued, 'had it not been for her.' It was 
said so simply that I believed him. I had already been fairly certain of that.

I took a deep breath. 'It is hard for me,' I said. 'I am forced to fight like 
this, with no clear idea about the rights or the wrongs of that fighting, with 
no true knowledge of this world, with no opinions of those who inhabit it. 
Simple facts turn out to be lies-and unbelievable things turn out to be true. 
What are the halflings, for instance?'

Again he smiled. 'Sorcerous ghouls,' he said.

'That is what King Rigenos told me. It is no explanation.'

'What if I told you they were capable of breaking up their atomic structure at 
will and assembling again in another place. You would not understand me. 
Sorcery, you would say.'

I was surprised at the scientific nature of his explanation. 'I would understand 
you better,' I said slowly.

He raised his slanting eyebrows.

'You are different,' he said. 'Well, the halflings, as you have seen, are 
related to the Eldren. Not all the dwellers on the Ghost Worlds are our kin-some 
are more closely related to men, and there are other, baser, forms of life . . .

'The Ghost Worlds are solid enough, but exist in an alternate series of 
dimensions to our own. On these worlds, the halflings have no special powers-no 
more than we have-but here they have. We do not know why. They do not know why. 
On Earth different laws seem to apply for them. More than a million years ago we 
discovered a means of bridging the dimensions between Earth and these other 
worlds. We found a race akin to our own who will, at times, come to our aid if 
our need is especially great. This was one of those times. Sometimes, however, 
the bridge ceases to exist when the Ghost Worlds move into another phase of 
their weird orbit, so that any halflings on Earth cannot return and any of our 
people are in the same position if they are on the Ghost Worlds. Therefore, you 
will understand, it is dangerous to stay on either side overlong.'

'Is it possible,' I asked, 'that the Eldren came originally from these Ghost 
Worlds?'

'I suppose it is possible,' he answered. 'There are no records, though . . .'

'Perhaps that is why the humans hate you as aliens,' I suggested.

'That is not the reason,' he told me, 'for the Eldren occupied the Earth for 
ages before humankind ever came to the planet.'

'What!'

'It is true,' he said. 'I am an immortal and my grandfather was an immortal. Hex 
was slain during the first wars between the Eldren and Humanity. When the humans 
came to Earth, they had incredible weapons of terrible destructive potential. In 
those days we also used such weapons. The wars created such destruction that the 
Earth seemed like a blackened ball of mud when the wars were ended and the 
Eldren defeated. Such was the destruction that we swore never again to use our 
weapons, whether we were threatened with extermination or not. We could not 
assume the responsibility for destroying an entire planet.'

'You mean you still have these weapons?'

'They are locked away, yes.'

'And you have the knowledge to use them?'

'Of course. We are immortal. We have many people who fought in those ancient 
wars, some even built new weapons before our decision was made.'

'Then why . . . ?'

'I have told you. We swore not to.'

'What happened to the humans' weapons-and their knowledge of them? Did they make 
the same decision?'

'No. The human race degenerated for a while. Wars between themselves occurred. 
At one time they almost wiped themselves out completely, at another they were 
barbarians, and at another they seemed to have matured at last, to be at peace 
with their own souls and with one another. During one of those stages they lost 
the knowledge and the remaining weapons. In the last million years they have 
climbed back from absolute savagery- the peaceful years were short, a false 
lull-and I'd predict they'll sink back again soon enough. They seem bent on 
their own destruction as well as ours. We have wondered if the humans, who must 
surely exist on other planets than this, are the same. Perhaps not.'

'I hope not,' I said. 'How do you think the Eldren will fare against the 
humans?'

'Badly,' he said. 'Particularly since the humans are inspired by your leadership 
and the gateway to the Ghost Worlds is due soon to close again. Previously 
Humanity was split by quarrels, you see. King Rigenos could never get his 
marshals to agree and he was too uncertain of himself to make the large 
decisions. But you have made decisions for him and you have united the marshals. 
You will win, I think.'

'You are a fatalist,' I said.

'I am a realist,' he said.

'Could not peace terms be arranged?'

He shook his head. 'What use is it to talk?' he asked me bitterly. 'You humans, 
I pity you. Why will you always identify our motives with your own? We do not 
seek power-only peace. Peace! But that, I suppose, this planet shall never have 
until Humanity dies of old age.'



I stayed with Arjavh for a few more days before he released me on trust, and I 
rode back towards Necranal. It was a long, lonely ride and I had a great deal of 
time to think.

I was hardly recognised this time, for I was dusty and my armour was battered 
and the people of Necranal had become used to seeing beaten warriors returning 
to the city.

I reached the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows and a gloomy quiet had settled on 
it. The king was not in the Great Hall and lolinda was not in her quarters.

In my old apartments, I stripped off my armour. 'When did the Lady Ermizhad 
leave?' I asked a slave.

'Leave, master? Is she not still here?'

'What? Where?'

'In the same quarters, surely . . .'

I still had my breastplate on and I donned my sword as I strode through the 
corridors until I got to Ermizhad's apartments and brushed past the guard on the 
door.

'Ermizhad-you were to be traded for me. Those were the terms. Where is the king? 
Why has he not kept his word?'

'I knew nothing of this,' she said. 'I did not know Arjavh was so close, 
otherwise . . .'

I interrupted her. 'Come with me. We'll find the king and get you on your 
journey back.'

I half dragged her from room to room of the palace until at last I found the 
king in his private apartments. He was in conference with Roldero as I burst in 
upon them.

'King Rigenos, what is the meaning of this? My word was given to Prince Arjavh 
that Ermizhad was to leave here freely upon my release. He allowed me to leave 
his camp on trust and now I return to find the Lady Ermizhad still in captivity. 
I demand that she be released immediately.'

The king and Roldero laughed at me.

'Come now, Erekose,' said Roldero. 'Who needs to keep his word to an Eldren 
jackal? Now we have our War Champion back and still retain our chief hostage. 
Forget it, Erekose. There is no need to regard the Eldren as human!'

Ermizhad smiled. 'Do not worry, Erekose. I have other friends.' She closed her 
eyes and began to croon. At first the words came softly, but the volume rose 
until she was giving voice to a weird series of harmonies.

Roldero jumped forward, dragging out his sword.

'Sorcery!'

I stepped between them.

'Out of the way, Erekose. The bitch invokes her demon kind!'

I drew my own sword and held it warningly in front of me protecting Ermizhad. I 
had no idea what she was going, but I was going to give her the chance, now, to 
do whatever she wanted.

Her voice changed abruptly and then stopped. Then she cried: 'Brethren! Brethren 
of the Ghosts Worlds-aid me!'


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AN OATH


Quite suddenly there materialised in the chamber some dozen or so Eldren, their 
faces but slightly different from others I had seen. I recognised them now as 
halflings.

'There!' shouted Rigenos. 'Evil sorcery. She is a witch. I told you! A witch!'

The halflings were silent. They surrounded Ermizhad until all their bodies 
touched hers and one anothers. Then Ermizhad shouted: 'Away, brethren-back to 
the camp of the Eldren!'

Their forms began to flicker so that they seemed half in our dimension, half in 
some other. 'Goodbye, Erekose,' she cried. 'I hope we shall meet in happier 
circumstances.'

'I hope so!' I shouted back. And then she vanished.

'Traitor!' cursed King Rigenos. 'You aided her escape!'

'You should die by torture!' added Roldero, disgusted.

'I'm no traitor, as well you know,' I said evenly. 'You are traitors-traitors to 
your words-to the great tradition of your ancestors. You have no case against 
me, you stupid-stupid . . .'

I stopped, turned on my heel and left the chamber.

'You lost the battle-War Champion!' screamed King Rigenos after me as I stalked 
out. 'The people do not respect defeat!'

I went to find lolinda.

She had been walking in the balconies and had now returned to her apartments. I 
kissed her, needing at that moment a woman's friendly sympathy, but I seemed to 
meet a block. She was not, it seemed, prepared to give me help, although she 
kissed me dutifully. A length I ceased to embrace her and stood back a little, 
looking into her eyes.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'Should there be? You are safe. I had feared you dead.'

Was it me, then? Was it . . . ? I pushed the thought from me. But can a man 
force himself to love a woman Can he love two women at the same time? I was 
desperately clinging to the strands of the love I had felt for her when first we 
met.

'Ermizhad is safe,' I blurted, 'she called her halfling brothers to her aid and, 
when she returns to the Eldren camp, Arjavh will take his forces back to 
Mernadin. You should be pleased.'

'I am,' she said, and then: 'And you are pleased, no doubt, that our hostage 
escaped!'

'What do you mean?'

'My father told me how you'd been enchanted by her wanton sorcery. You seemed to 
be more anxious for her safety than ours.'

'That is foolish talk.'

'You seem to like the company of the Eldren, too. Holidaying with our greatest 
enemy . . .'

'Stop! All foolish talk!'

'Is it? I think my father spoke true, Erekose.' Her voice was subdued now. She 
turned from me.

'But, lolinda, I love you. You alone.'

'I do not believe you, Erekose.'

What is it in me that I became what I became then. It was the moment that I gave 
an oath that was to affect all our destinies. Why, as my love for her began to 
fade and I saw her as a selfish, grasping fool, did I protest a greater love for 
her?

I do not know. I only know that that is what I did.

'I love you more than life, lolinda!' I said. 'I would do anything for you!'

'I do not believe you!'

'I do. I will prove it!' I cried in agony.

She turned. There was pain and reproach in her eyes. There was a bitterness that 
went so deep it had no bottom. There was anger and there was revenge.

'How will you prove it, Erekose?' she said softly.

'I swear I shall kill all the Eldren.'

'All?'

'Every single Eldren life. You will spare none?'

'None! None! I want it to be over. And the only way I can finish it is to kill 
them all. Then it will be over-only then!'

'Including Prince Arjavh and his sister?'

'Including them!'

'You swear this? You swear it?'

'I swear it. And when the last Eldren dies. When the whole world is ours, then I 
will bring it to you and we shall be married.'

She nodded. 'Very well, Erekose. I will see you later.' She glided swiftly from 
the room.

I unstrapped my sword and flung it savagely to the floor. I spent the next few 
hours fighting my own agony of spirit.

But I had made the oath now.

Soon I became cold. I meant what I had said. I would destroy all the Eldren. Rid 
the world of them. Rid myself of this continual turmoil in my mind.


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE REAVING


The less of a man I became, the more of an automaton, so the dreams and half 
memories ceased to plague me. It was as if they had forced me into this mindless 
role, that while I continued to be a creature without remorse or conscience they 
would reward me with their absence. If I showed signs of being an ordinary human 
being, they would punish me with their presence.

But that is a notion. It is no nearer the truth, I suppose, than any other. One 
might also argue that I was about to achieve the catharsis that would rid me of 
my ambivalence, banish my nightmares.

In the month I spent preparing for the great war against the Eldren, I saw but 
little of my betrothed and, finally, ceased to seek her out but concentrated on 
the plans for the campaigns we intended to fight.

I developed the strictly controlled mind of the soldier. I allowed no emotion, 
whether it was love or hate, to influence me

I became strong. And in my strength I became virtually inhuman. I knew people 
remarked upon it - but they also saw in me the qualities of a great battle 
leader and, although all avoided my company, socially, they were glad that 
Erekose led them.



Arjavh and his sister had gone back to their ships and in their ships sailed 
back to their own land. Now, doubtless, they awaited us, readying themselves for 
the next battle.

We continued with our original plans and at length were ready to sail for the 
Outer Islands at World's Edge. The Gateway to the Ghost Worlds. We intended to 
close that gate.

Then we sailed.

It was a long and arduous sailing that one, before we sighted the bleak cliffs 
of the Outer Islands and prepared ourselves for the invasion,

Roldero was with me. But it was a grim Roldero, a silent Roldero who had made 
himself, as I had, into nothing but an instrument of war.

Warily, we sailed in, but, it seemed, the Eldren had known of our coming and had 
all but deserted their towns. This time there were no women and no children. 
There were naught but a few handfuls of Eldren, whom we slew. And of halflings 
there were none. Arjavh had spoken the truth when he said the gates were closing 
to the Ghost Worlds.

We ripped the towns to rubble, burning and pillaging as a matter of course, but 
without lust. We tortured captured Eldren to discover the meaning for this 
desertion, but secretly I knew the meaning. Our troops became possessed of a 
sense of anticlimax and, although we left no building standing, no Eldren alive, 
the men could not rid themselves of the notion that they had been thwarted in 
some way-as an ardent lover is thwarted by a coy maiden.

And, because of the Eldren's refusal to give them a mighty battle, our soldiers 
grew to hate the Eldren that much more.



When our work was done in the Outer Islands and every building was dust, every 
Eldren a corpse, we sailed almost immediately for the continent of Mernadin and 
put into Paphanaal which was still held by our forces under the Lord Katorn. 
But, in the meantime, King Rigenos had joined them and was waiting for us to 
arrive. We landed our troops and pushed outwards across the continent, bent on 
victorious conquest.

I remember few incidents in detail. The days merged one into the other and 
wherever we went we slew Eldren. It seemed that no Eldren fortress could 
withstand our grim thrusting . . .

I was tireless in my murdering, insatiable in my bloodlust. Humanity had wanted 
such a wolf as I, and now they had him and they followed him, though they feared 
him.

It was a year of fire and steel and Mernadin seemed at times to be a sea of 
smoke and blood. The troops were all physically weary, but the spirit of 
slaughter was in them and that spirit gave them a terrible vitality.

A year of pain and death, and everywhere that the banners of Humanity met the 
standards of the Eldren, the basilisk standards were torn down and trampled.

We put all we found to the sword. We mercilessly punished deserters in our own 
ranks, we flogged our troops to greater endurance.

We were the horsemen of death, King Rigenos, Lord Katorn, Count Roldero and 
myself. We grew as gaunt as hungry dogs and it seemed we fed on Eldren flesh, 
lapped at Eldren blood. Fierce dogs, we were. Wild-eyed and panting dogs, sharp-
fanged dogs for ever restless for the scent of fresh-spilled blood.

Towns burned behind us, cities fell and were crushed, stone by stone, to the 
ground. Eldren corpses littered the countryside and the fairest of our camp-
followers were carrion birds and sleek-coated jackals.



A year of bloodshed. A year of destruction. If I could not force myself to love, 
then I could force myself to hate, and this I did. All feared me, humans and 
Eldren alike, as I turned beautiful Mernadin into a funeral pyre on which I 
sought, in my own terrible bewilderment and grief, to burn my own dead humanity.



It was in the Valley of Kalaquita, where stood the garden city of Lakh, that 
King Rigenos was killed.

The city looked peaceful and deserted and we rode down upon it with little 
caution. We howled one great, concerted howl and, instead of the disciplined 
army that had landed at Paphanaal, we were a horde in blood-encrusted armour and 
dust-ingrained flesh, waving our weapons and galloping wildly upon the garden 
city of Lakh.

It was a trap.

The Eldren were in the hills and had used their beautiful city as bait. Silver-
snouted cannon suddenly shouted from surrounding spinneys and sent a searing 
shower of shot into our astonished soldiers' midst! Slender arrows whistled in a 
wave of sharp-tipped terror as the hidden Eldren archers took their vengeance 
with their bows.

Horses fell. Men screamed. We turned in confusion. But then our own bowmen began 
to retaliate, concentrating not on the enemy archers, but on their cannoneers. 
Gradually the silver guns went silent and the archers melted back into the 
hills, retreating back once again to one of their few remaining fortresses.

I turned to King Rigenos, who sat beside me on his big war-steed. He was rigid, 
staring up at the sky. And then I saw then an arrow had pierced his thigh and 
imbedded itself in his saddle, pinning him to his horse.

'Roldero!' I shouted. 'Get a doctor for the king if we have one.'

Roldero rode up from where he had been taking account of our dead. He pushed 
back the king's visor and shrugged. Then he stared significantly at me. 'He has 
not breathed for several minutes by the look of him.'

'Nonsense. An arrow in the thigh doesn't kill. Not normally, at any rate-and not 
so quickly. Get the doctor.'

A peculiar smile crossed Roldero's bleak features. 'It was the shock, I think, 
that killed him.' Then he laughed brutally and pushed at the armoured corpse 
with his hand so that it tilted over, wrenching the arrow free, and crashing 
into the mud. 'Your betrothed is queen now, Erekose,' said Roldero, still 
laughing. 'I congratulate you.'

My horse stirred as I stared down at Rigenos's corpse. Then I shrugged and 
turned my steed away.

It was our habit with the dead to leave them, no matter whom they had been, 
where they lay.

We took Rigenos's horse with us. It was a good horse.

The loss of the king did not disturb our warriors, though Katorn himself seemed 
a little perturbed, perhaps because he had had such great influence over the 
monarch. But the king had been a puppet of authority, particularly in this last 
year, for humanity followed a grimmer conqueror whom it regarded with awe.

Dead Erekose, they called me-the vengeful Sword of Humanity.

I did not care what they called me-Reaver, Blood-letter, Berserker-for my dreams 
no longer plagued me and my ultimate goal came closer and closer.

Until it was the last fortress of the Eldren left undefeated. Then I dragged my 
armies behind me as if by a rope. I dragged them towards the principal city of 
Mernadin, by the Plains of Melting Ice. Arjavh's capital-Loos Ptokai.

And at last we saw its looming towers silhouetted against a red evening sky. Of 
marble and black granite, it rose mighty and seemingly invulnerable above us. 
But I knew we should take it.

I had Arjavh's word for it, after all. He had told me we should win.



The night after we had camped beneath the walls of Loos Ptokai, I sprawled in my 
chair and could not sleep, but stared into the darkness, brooding. This was not 
my habit. Normally I would now slump into my bed and snore till dawn, wearied by 
the day's killing.

But tonight I brooded.

And then, at dawn the next day, my features cold as stone, I rode beneath my 
banner as I had ridden a year before into the camp of the Eldren, with my herald 
at my side.

We came close to the main gate of Loos Ptokai and then we slopped. Eldren looked 
down.

My herald raised his golden trumpet to his lips and blew an eerie blast upon it 
which echoed among the black and white towers of Loos Ptokai.

'Eldren prince!' I called in my dead voice. 'Arjavh or Mernadin, I have come to 
slay you.'

Then on the battlements over the great main gate I saw Arjavh appear. He looked 
down at me, a sadness in his strange

'Greetings, old enemy,' he called. 'You will have a long siege before you break 
this, the last of our strength.'

'So be it,' I said, 'but break it we shall.'

Arjavh paused. Then he said: 'We once agreed to fight a battle according to the 
Erekosian Code of War. Do you wish to discuss terms again?'

I shook my head. 'We shall not stop until every Eldren is slain. I have sworn an 
oath to rid the Earth of all your kind.'

'Then,' said Arjavh, 'before the battle commences, I invite you to enter Loos 
Ptokai as my guest and refresh yourself. You seem in need of refreshment.'

At this I bridled, but then my herald sneered. 'They become ingenuous in their 
defeat, master, if they think they can deceive you by such a simple trick.'

But now my mind had suddenly become a battleground of conflicting emotions. 'Be 
silent!' I ordered the herald. I took a deep breath.

'Well . . . ?' called Arjavh.

'I accept,' I said hollowly. And then I added: 'Is the Lady Ermizhad therein?'

'She is-and is eager to see you again.' There was an edge to Arjavh's voice as 
he answered this last question. For a moment I was again suspicious. Perhaps the 
herald was right. Arjavh loved his sister, I knew.

Perhaps Arjavh was aware of my own buried affection for his sister. That 
affection which I did not now admit but which, of course, secretly contributed 
to my decision to enter Loos Ptokai.

The herald said in astonishment: 'My lord, Surely you cannot be serious? Once 
inside the gates, you will be slain. There were stories, once, that you and 
Prince Arjavh were not on unfriendly terms, for enemies, but after the havoc you 
have caused in Mernadin he will kill you immediately. Who would not?'

I shook my head. I was in a new and quieter mood. 'He will not,' I said. 'I am 
sure of it. And this way I can find an opportunity to judge the Eldren strength. 
It will be useful to us.'

'But disastrous for us, if you should die . . .'

'I will not die,' I said, and all the ferocity, the hate, the mad battle-anger, 
seemed to swell out of me leaving me, as I turned away from the herald so he 
should not see, with tears in my eyes.

'Open your gates, Prince Arjavh,' I called in shaking tones. 'I come to Loos 
Ptokai as your guest.'


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

IN LOOS PTOKAI


I rode my horse slowly into the city, having left my sword and lance with the 
herald who was now, in astonishment, galloping back to our own camp to give the 
news to the marshals.

The streets of Loos Ptokai were silent, as if in mourning, as Arjavh came down 
the steps from the battlements to greet me. I saw, now that he was closer, that 
he, too, wore the expression which showed upon my own harsh features. His step 
was not so lithe and his voice not quite so lilting as when we had first met a 
year before.

I dismounted. He gripped my hand.

'So,' he said in attempted gaiety, 'the barbarian battle-monger is still 
material. My people had begun to doubt it.'

'I suppose they hate me,' I said.

He seemed a little surprised. 'The Eldren cannot hate,' he said as he led me 
towards his palace.



I was shown by Arjavh to a small room containing a bed, a table and a chair of 
wonderful workmanship all slender and seemingly of precious metal but in fact of 
cunningly wrought wood. In one corner was a sunken bath, water steaming in it.

When Arjavh had gone, I stripped off my blood- and dust-encrusted armour and 
climbed out of the underclothes I had worn for much of the past year. Then I 
sank gratefully into the water.

Since the initial emotional shock I had received when Arjavh had issued his 
invitation, my mind had become numbed. But now, for the first time in a year, I 
relaxed, mentally and physically, washing all the grief and hatred from me as I 
washed my body.

I was almost cheerful as I donned the fresh clothes which had been laid out for 
me and, when someone knocked at my door, called lightly for them to enter.

'Greetings, Erekose.' It was Ermizhad.

'My lady.' I bowed.

'How are you faring, Erekose?'

'In war, as you know, I am faring well. And personally I feel better for your 
hospitality.'

'Arjavh sent me to bring you to the meal.'

'I am ready. But first tell me how you have fared, Ermizhad.'

'Well enough-in health,' said she. Then she came closer to me. Involuntarily, I 
leaned back slightly. She looked at the ground and raised her hands to touch her 
throat. 'And tell me-are you now wed to Queen lolinda?'

'We are still betrothed,' I told her.

Deliberately, then, I looked into Ermizhad's eyes and added as levelly as I 
could: 'We are to be married when . . .'

'When?'

'When Loos Ptokai is taken.'

She said nothing.

I stepped forward so that we were separated by little more than an inch. 'Those 
are the only terms on which she will accept me,' I said. 'I must destroy all the 
Eldren. Your trampled banners will be my wedding gift to her.'

Ermizhad nodded and gave a queer, sad and sardonic look. 'That is your oath you 
swore. You must abide by it. You must slay every Eldren. Every one.'

I cleared my throat. 'That is the oath.'

'Come,' she said. 'The meal grows cold.'



At dinner, Ermizhad and I sat close together and Arjavh spoke wittily of some of 
the stranger experiments of his scientist ancestors and for a little while we 
managed to drive away the knowledge of the forthcoming battle. But later, as 
Ermizhad and I talked softly to one another, I caught a look of pain in Arjavh's 
eyes and for a moment he was quiet. He broke into our conversation suddenly:

'We are beaten, as you know, Erekose.'

I did not want to speak of these things any more. I shrugged and tried to 
continue the lighter talk with Ermizhad. But Arjavh was insistent.

'We are doomed, Erekose, to fall beneath the swords of your great army.'

I drew a deep breath and looked him full in the face. 'Yes. You are doomed, 
Prince Arjavh.'

'It is a matter of time before you raze our Loos Ptokai.'

This time I avoided his urgent gaze and merely nodded.

'So-you . . .' He broke off.

I became impatient. Many emotions mingled in me. 'My oath . . .' I reminded him. 
'I must do what I swore I would do, Arjavh.'

'I do not fear to lose my own life . . .' he began.

'I know what you fear,' I told him.

'Could not the Eldren admit defeat, Erekose? Could they not acknowledge 
mankind's victory? Surely, one city . . . ?'

'I swore an oath.' Now sadness filled me.

'But you cannot . . .' Ermizhad gestured with her slim hand. 'We are your 
friends, Erekose. We enjoy each other's company. We-we are friends . . .'

'We are of different races,' I said. 'We are at war.'

'I am not asking for mercy,' Arjavh said.

'I know that,' I replied. 'I do not doubt Eldren courage. I have seen too many 
examples of it.'

'You abide by an oath given in anger, offered to an abstraction, that leads you 
to slay those you love and respect . . .' Ermizhad's voice was puzzled. 'Are you 
not tired of killing, Erekose?'

'I am very tired of killing,' I told her.

'Then . . . ?'

'But I began this thing,' I continued. 'Sometimes I wonder if I really do lead 
my men-of if they push me ahead of them. Perhaps I am wholly their creation. The 
creation of the will of humanity. Perhaps I am a kind of patchwork hero that 
they have manufactured. Perhaps I have no other existence and when my work is 
done I will fade as their sense of danger fades . . .'

'I think not,' said Arjavh soberly.

I shrugged. 'You are not me. You have not had my strange dreams . . .'

'You still have those dreams?' Ermizhad asked.

'Not recently. Since I began this campaign they have gone away. They only plague 
me when I attempt to assert my own individuality. When I do what is required of 
me, they leave me in peace. I am a ghost, you see. Nothing more.'

Arjavh sighed. 'I do not understand this. I think you are suffering from self-
pity, Erekose. You could assert your own will-but you are afraid to! Instead, 
you abandon yourself to hate and bloodshed, to this peculiar melancholia of 
yours. You are depressed because you are not doing what you really desire to do. 
The dreams will come again, Erekose. Mark my words-the dreams will come again 
and they will be more terrible than any you have experienced before.'

'Stop!' I shouted. 'Do not spoil this last meeting of ours. I came here because-
'

'Because?' Arjavh raised a slim eyebrow.

'Because I needed some civilised company . . .'

'To see your own kind,' Ermizhad said softly.

I turned on her, rising from the table. 'You are not my own kind! My race is out 
there-beyond those walls-waiting to vanquish you!'

'We are kin in spirit,' Arjavh said. 'Our bonds are finer and stronger than 
bonds of blood . . .'

My face twisted and I buried it in my hands. 'No!'

Arjavh put a hand on my shoulder. 'You are more substantial than you will allow 
yourself to be, Erekose. It would take a great deal of a particular kind of 
courage if you would pursue the implications of another course of action . . .'

I let my hands fall to myself. 'You are right,' I told him. 'And I do not have 
that courage. I am just a sword. A force, like a whirlwind. There is nothing 
else to me-nothing I would allow. Nothing I am allowed . . .'

Ermizhad interrupted fiercely. 'For your own sake, you must allow that other 
self to rule. Forget your oath to lolinda. You do not love her. You have nothing 
in common with the bloodthirsty rabble that follows you. You are a greater man 
than any you lead-greater than any you fight . . .'

'Stop it!'

'She is right, Erekose,' Arjavh said. 'It is not for our lives that we argue. It 
is for your spirit . . .'

I slumped down into my seat. 'I sought to avoid confusion,' I said, 'by taking a 
simple course of action. You are right that I feel no kinship with those I lead-
or those who thrust me before them-but undeniably they are my kin. My duty . . 
.'

'Let them fare how they will,' Ermizhad said. 'Your duty is not to them. It is 
to yourself.'

I sipped some wine. Then I said quietly: 'I am afraid.'

Arjavh shook his head. 'You are brave. It is not your fault . . .'

'Who knows?' I said. 'Perhaps I committed some enormous crime at some stage. Now 
I am paying the price.'

'That is a self-pitying sort of speculation,' Arjavh reminded me. 'It is not-it 
is not-manly, Erekose.'

I inhaled deeply. 'I suppose not.' Then I looked at him. 'But if time is cyclic-
in some form, at least-it could be that I have not yet committed that crime . . 
.'

'It is idle to speak of "crime" in this way,' Ermizhad said impatiently. 'What 
does your heart tell you to do?'

'My heart? I have not listened to it for many months.'

'Listen to it now!' she said.

I shook my head. 'I have forgotten how to listen to it, Ermizhad. I must finish 
what I set out to do. What I was called here to do . . .'

'Are you sure it was King Rigenos who called you?'

'Who else?'

Arjavh smiled. 'This, too, is idle speculation. You must do what you must do, 
Erekose. I will plead for my people no longer.'

'Thank you for that,' I said. I rose, staggered slightly and screwed up my eyes. 
'Gods! I am so weary!'

'Rest here tonight,' Ermizhad said quietly. 'Rest with me . . .'

I looked at her.

'With me,' she said.

Arjavh began to speak, changed his mind and left the room.

I realised then that I wanted nothing else but to do as Ermizhad suggested, but 
I shook my head. 'It would be weakness . . .'

'No,' she said. 'It would give you strength. It would enable you to make a 
clearer decision . . .'

'I have made my decision. Besides, my oath to lolinda . . .'

'You swore an oath of faithfulness . . .'

I spread my hands. 'I cannot remember.'

She moved towards me and stroked my face. 'Perhaps it would end something,' she 
suggested. 'Perhaps it would restore your love for lolinda . . .'

Now physical pain seemed to seize me. I even wondered for a moment if they had 
poisoned me. 'No.'

'It would help,' she said. 'I know it would help. How, I am not sure. I do not 
even know if it suit my own desires, but . . .'

'I cannot weaken now, Ermizhad.'

'Erekose, it would not be weakness!'

'Still . . .'

She turned away from me and said in a soft, strange tone. 'Then rest here, 
anyway. Sleep in a good bed so that you will be fit for tomorrow's fighting. I 
love you, Erekose. I love you more than I love anything. I will aid you in 
whatever course of action you decide upon.'

'I have already decided,' I reminded her. 'And you cannot aid me there.' I felt 
dizzy. I did not want to return to my own camp in that condition, for they would 
be sure I had been drugged and would lose all confidence in me. Better to stay 
the night and greet my troops refreshed. 'Very well, I will stay here tonight,' 
I said. 'Alone.'

'As you wish, Erekose.' She moved towards the door. 'A servant will come to show 
you were to sleep.'

'I'll sleep in this room,' I told her. 'Have someone bring in a bed.'

'As you wish.'

'It will be good to sleep in a real bed,' I said. 'My thoughts will be sharper 
in the morning.'

'I hope so. Good night, Erekose.'



Had they known that the dreams would return that night? Was I the victim of 
immense and subtle cunning such as only the unhuman Eldren possessed?

I lay on my bed in the Eldren fortress city and I dreamed.

But this was not a dream in which I sought to discover my true name. I had no 
name in this dream. I did not want a name.



I watched the world turning and I saw its inhabitants running about its surface 
like ants in a hill, like beetles in a dung heap. I saw them fighting and 
destroying, making peace and building-only to drag those buildings down again in 
another inevitable war. And it seemed to me that these creatures had evolved 
only so far from the beast state and that some quirk of destiny had doomed them 
to repeat, over and over again, the same mistakes. And I realised that there was 
no hope for them these imperfect creatures that were half-way from the animals, 
half-way from the gods-that it was their fate, like mine, to struggle for ever 
and for ever fail to be fulfilled. The paradoxes that existed in me existed in 
the whole race. The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no 
solution. There was no point in seeking an answer; one could only accept what 
existed or else reject it, as one pleased. It would always be the same. Oh, 
there was much to love them for and nothing at all to hate them for. How could 
they be hated, when their errors resulted from the quirk of fate that had made 
them the half-creatures that they were-half-blind, half-deaf, half-dumb . . .

I woke up and felt very calm. And then, gradually, a sense of terror possessed 
me as the implications of my thoughts began to dawn on me.

Had the Eldren sent this dream-with their sorcery?

I did not think so. This dream was the dream that the other dreams had sought to 
hide from me. I was sure of it. This was the stark truth.

And the stark truth horrified me.

It was not my fate to wage eternal war-it was the fate of my entire race. As 
part of that race-as its representative, in fact-I, too, must wage eternal war.

And that is what I wished to avoid. I could not bear the thought of fighting for 
ever, wherever I was required. And yet whatever I did to try to end the cycle 
would be hopeless. There was only one thing I could do . . .

I buried the thought.

But what else?

Try for peace? See if it would work? Let the Eldren live?

Arjavh had expressed impatience with idle speculation. But this, too, was idle 
speculation. The human race was sworn to destroy the Eldren. This done, of 
course, it would then turn upon itself and begin the perpetual squabbling, the 
constant warring that its peculiar destiny decreed for it.

And yet-should I not, at least, attempt to make the compromise?

Or should I continue with my original ambition, destroy the Eldren, let the race 
resume its fratricidal sport. In a way it seemed to me that while some Eldren 
lived, the race might hold together. If the common enemy remained, at least some 
sort of unity would exist in the human kingdoms. It seemed critical to me then 
that some Eldren be spared-for the sake of humanity.

I suddenly realised that there was no conflict in my loyalties all. What I had 
thought was contradictory was, in fact, two halves of a whole. The dream had 
merely helped me unite them and see everything clearly.

Perhaps this was a complex piece of rationalisation. I shall never know. I feel 
that I was right, though it is possible that subsequent events proved me wrong. 
At least I tried . . .

I sat up in my bed as a servant came in with water for me to wash and my own 
clothes freshly laundered. I washed, dressed myself and when a knock came at the 
door I called out for the person to enter.

It was Ermizhad. She brought me my breakfast and set it on the table. I thanked 
her and she looked at me oddly.

'You seem to have changed since last night,' she said. 'You seem more at one 
with yourself.'

'I think I am,' I told her as I ate. 'I had another dream last night . . .'

'Was it as terrifying as the others?'

'More terrifying in certain aspects,' I said. 'But it did not raise problems, 
this time. It offered me a solution.'

'You feel you can fight better . . .'

'If you like. I think it would be in the interests of my race if we made peace 
with the Eldren. Or, at least, declared a permanent truce . . .'

'You have realised at last that we offer you no danger.'

'On the contrary, it is the very danger you offer that makes your survival 
necessary to my race.' I smiled, remembering an old aphorism from somewhere. 'If 
you did not exist, it would be necessary to invent you.'

A look of intelligence brightened her face. She smiled, too. 'I think I 
understand you.'

'Therefore, I intend to present this conclusion to Queen lolinda,' I said. 'I 
hope to persuade her that it is in our interest to end this war against the 
Eldren.'

'And your terms?'

'I see no need to make terms with you,' I said. 'We will merely stop fighting 
and go away.'

She laughed. 'Will it be so easy?'

I looked squarely at her, deliberated for a moment, and then I shook my head. 
'Perhaps not. But I must try.'

'You have become very rational, suddenly, Erekose. I am glad. Your sleep here 
did do you some good, then . . .'

'And the Eldren, too, perhaps . . .'

She smiled again. 'Perhaps.'

'I will return to Necranal as soon as possible and speak with lolinda.'

'And if she agrees, you will marry her?'

I felt weak, then. At last I said: 'I must do that. Everything would be negated 
if I did not. You understand?'

'Entirely,' she said and there were tears in her eyes as she smiled.



Arjavh came in a few minutes later and I told him what I intended to do. He 
received the news rather more sceptically than Ermizhad.

'You do not think I mean what I say?' I asked him.

He shrugged. 'I believe you completely, Erekose. But I do not think the Eldren 
will survive.'

'What is it? Some disease? Something in you that . . . ?'

He laughed shortly. 'No, no. I think you will propose a truce and that the 
people will not let you make it. Your race will only be satisfied when every 
Eldren has perished. You said that it is their destiny always to fight. Could it 
not be that secretly they resent the Eldren because the presence of the Eldren 
means that they cannot go about their normal activities-I mean by that their 
fighting among themselves. Could this not be nothing more than a pause while 
they wipe us out? And if they do not wipe us out now, they will do it very soon, 
whether you lead them or no.'

'Still, I must try . . .' I said.

'Try by all means. But they'll hold you to your vow, I'm sure.'

'lolinda is intelligent. If she listens to my arguments . . .'

'She is one of them. I doubt if she will listen. Intelligence has little to do 
with it. . . Last night when I pleaded with you I was not myself-I panicked, I 
know, really, that there can be no peace.'

'I must try.'

'I hope you succeed.'

Perhaps I had been beguiled by the charms of the Eldren, but I did not think so. 
I would do my best to bring peace to the wasted land of Mernadin, though it 
meant I could never see my Eldren friends again-never see Ermizhad . . .

I put the thought from my head and resolved to dwell upon it no longer.

Then a servant entered the room. My herald, accompanied by several marshals, 
including Count Roldero, had presented himself outside the gates of Loos Ptokai, 
half certain that I had been murdered by the Eldren.

'Only sight of you will reassure them,' Arjavh murmured. I agreed and left the 
room.

I heard the herald calling as I approached the city wall. 'We fear that you have 
been guilty of great treachery. Let us see our master-or his corpse.' He paused. 
'Then we shall know what to do.'

Arjavh and I mounted the steps to the battlements and I saw relief in the 
herald's eyes as he noted I was unharmed.

'I have been talking with Prince Arjavh,' I said. 'And I have been thinking 
deeply. Our men are weary beyond endurance and the Eldren are now only a few, 
with just this city in their possession. We could take Loos Ptokai, but I see no 
point to it. Let us be generous victors, my marshals. Let us declare a truce . . 
.'

'A truce, Lord Erekose!' Count Roldero's eyes widened. 'Would you rob us of our 
ultimate prize? Our final, fierce fulfilment? Our greatest triumph? Peace!'

'Yes,' I said, 'peace. Now go back. Tell our warriors I am safe.'

'We can take this city easily, Erekose,' Roldero shouted. 'There's no need to 
talk of peace. We can destroy the Eldren once and for all. Have you succumbed to 
their cursed enchantments again? Have they beguiled you once more with their 
smooth words?'

'No,' I said, 'it was I who suggested it.'

Roldero swung his horse around in disgust.

'Peace!' he spat as he and his comrades headed back to the camp. 'Our Champion's 
gone mad!'

Arjavh rubbed his lips with his finger. 'Already, I see, there is trouble.'

They fear me,' I told him, 'and they'll obey me. They'll obey me-for a while, at 
least.'

'Let us hope so,' he said.


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE PARTING


This time there were no cheering crowds in Necranal to welcome me, for news of 
my mission had gone ahead of me. The people could hardly believe it but where 
they did believe it, they disapproved. I had shown weakness, in their eyes.

I had not seen lolinda, of course, since she had become Queen, She had a haughty 
look now as she strode about her throne room, awaiting me.

Privately I was a little amused. I felt like the man who, as an old rejected 
suitor, returns to see the object of his passion married and become a shrew. I 
was, therefore, somewhat relieved . . .

It was a small relief.

'Well, Erekose,' she said, 'I know why you are here-why you have forsaken your 
troops, gone against your word to me that you would destroy every Eldren. Katorn 
has told me.'

'Katorn is here?'

'He came here as soon as he heard your pronouncement from the battlements of 
Loos Ptokai where you stood with your Eldren friends.'

'lolinda,' I said urgently. 'I am convinced that the Eldren are weary of war. 
That they never intended to threaten the Two Continents at all. They want only 
peace.'

'Peace we shall have. When the Eldren race is perished!'

'lolinda, if you love me, you will listen to me, at least.'

'What? If I love you? And what of the Lord Erekose? Does he still love his 
Queen?'

I opened my mouth, but I could not speak.

And suddenly there were tears in her eyes. 'Oh, Erekose . . .' Her tone 
softened. 'Can it be true?'

'No,' I said thickly. 'I still love you, lolinda. We are to be married . . .'

But she knew. She had suspected, but now she knew. However, if peace could 
result from my action, I was still prepared to pretend, to lie, to declare my 
passion for her, to marry her . . .

'I still want to marry you, lolinda,' I said.

'No,' she said. 'No. You do not.'

'I will,' I said desperately. 'If peace with the Eldren comes about . . .'

Again her wide eyes blazed. 'You insult me, my lord. Not on those terms, 
Erekose. Never. You are guilty of High Treason against us. The people already 
speak of you as a traitor.'

'But I conquered a continent for them. I took Mernadin.'

'All but Loos Ptokai-where your wanton Eldren bitch waits for you.'

'lolinda! That is not true!'

But it was true.

'You are unfair . . .' I began.

'And you are a traitor! Guards!'

As if they had been prepared for this, a dozen of the Imperial Guards rushed in, 
led by their Captain, Lord Katorn. There was a hint of triumph in his eyes and 
then, at once, I knew why he had always hated me. He desired lolinda.

Then I knew that whether I drew my sword or not, he would slay me where I stood.

So I drew my sword. The Sword Kanajana. It glowed and the glow was reflected in 
Katorn's black eyes.

'Take him, Katorn!' cried lolinda. And her voice was a scream of agony. I had 
betrayed her. I had failed to be the strength she needed so desperately. 'Take 
him. Alive or dead. He is a traitor to his kind!'

I was a traitor to her. That was what she really meant. That was why I must die.

But I still hoped to save something. 'It is untrue . . .' I began. But Katorn 
was already cautiously advancing, his men spreading out behind him. I backed to 
a wall, near a window. The throne room was on the first storey of the palace. 
Outside were the private gardens of the Queen. 'Think, lolinda,' I said. 
'Retract your command. You are driven by jealousy. I'm no traitor.'

'Slay him, Katorn!'



But I slew Katorn. As he came rushing at me, my sword flicked across his 
writhing, hate-filled face. He screamed, staggered, his hands rushed up to his 
head and then he toppled in his golden armour, toppled and fell with a crash to 
the flag-stones.

He was the first human I was to slay.

The other guards came on, but more warily. I fought off their blades, slew a 
couple more, drove the others back, glimpsed Queen lolinda watching me, her eyes 
full of tears, and leapt to the sill of the window.

'Goodbye, Queen. You have lost your Champion now.'

I jumped.

I landed in a rosebush that ripped at my skin, broke free and ran hastily 
towards the gate of the garden, the guards behind me.

I tore the gate open and rushed down the hill and into the twisting streets of 
Necranal, with the guards in pursuit, their ranks joined by a howling pack of 
citizens who had no idea why I was wanted or even who I was. They chased me for 
the sheer pleasure of the hunt.

So it was thus that things turned. lolinda's pain and jealousy had clouded her 
mind. And soon her decision would be the cause of more bloodshed than even she 
had demanded.

But now I ran, blindly at first, and then towards the river. My crew, I hoped, 
were still loyal to me. If they were, then there was a faint chance of escape. I 
gained the ship just before my pursuers. I leaped aboard screaming:

'Prepare to sail!'

Only half the crew was aboard. The rest was on shore, in the taverns, but those 
remaining hurriedly shipped out the oars while we held the guards and the 
citizens at bay.

Then we shoved off and began our hasty flight down the Droonaa River.



It was some time before they managed to commandeer a ship for pursuit and by 
that time we were safely outdistancing them. My crew asked no questions. They 
were used to my silences, my actions which sometimes seemed peculiar. But, a 
week after we were on course over the sea, bound for Mernadin, I told them 
briefly that I was now an outlaw.

'Why, Lord Erekose?' asked my captain. 'It seems unjust . . .'

'It is unjust, I think. Call it the Queen's malice. I suspect Katorn spoke 
against me, making her hate me.'

They were satisfied with the explanation and, when we put in at a small cove 
near the Plains of Melting Ice, I bade them farewell, mounted my horse and rode 
swiftly for Loos Ptokai, knowing not what I should do when I got there. Knowing 
only that I must let Arjavh have the information concerning the turn events had 
taken.

We had been right. Humanity would not let me show mercy.

My crew bid me farewell with a certain amount of affection. They did not know-
and neither did I-that they were soon to be killed because of me.



Now I crept into Loos Ptokai. I sneaked through the great siege camp that we had 
constructed there and, at night, entered the city of the Eldren.

Arjavh rose from his bed when he heard I had returned.

'Well, Erekose?' He looked searchingly at me. Then he said: 'You were not 
successful, were you? You have been riding hard and you have been fighting. What 
happened?'

I told him.

He sighed. 'Well, our advice was foolish. Now you will die when we die.'

'I would rather that, I think,' I said.



Two months passed. Two ominous months in Loos Ptokai. Humanity did not attack 
the city immediately and it soon emerged that they were awaiting orders from 
Queen lolinda. She, it appeared, had refused to make a decision.

The inaction was oppressive in itself.

I fretted often at the battlements, looking out over the great camp and wishing 
that the thing would start and be finished. Only Ermizhad eased my unhappiness. 
We openly acknowledged our love now.

And because I loved her, I began to want to save her.

I wanted to save her and I wanted to save myself and I wanted to save all the 
Eldren in Loos Ptokai, for I wanted to stay with Ermizhad for ever. I did not 
want to be destroyed.

Desperately I tried to think of ways in which we could defeat that great force, 
but every plan I made was a wild one and could not work.

And then, one day, I remembered.

I remembered a conversation I had had with Arjavh on the plateau after he had 
defeated me in battle.

I went looking for him and found him in his study. He was reading.

'Erekose? Are they beginning their attack?'

'No, Arjavh. But I remember you told me once about some ancient weapons your 
race once had-that you still have.'

'What . . . ?'

'The old terrible weapons,' I said. 'The ones you swore never to use again 
because they could destroy so much!'

He shook his head. 'Not those . . .'

'Use them this once, Arjavh,' I begged him. 'Make a show of strength, that is 
all. They will be ready to discuss peace, then.'

He closed his book. 'No. They will never discuss peace with us. They would 
rather die. Anyway, I do not think that even this situation merits the breaking 
of that old vow.'

'Arjavh,' I said, 'I respect the reasons for refusing to use the weapons. But I 
have grown to love the Eldren. I have already broken one vow. Let me break 
another-for you.'

He still shook his head.

'Just agree to this, then,' I said. 'If the time comes when I feel we could use 
them, will you let me decide-take the decision out of your hands. Make it my 
responsibility.'

He looked searchingly at me. The orbless eyes seemed to pierce me.

'Perhaps,' he said.

'Arjavh-will you?'

'We Eldren have never been motivated by the same amount of self-interest such as 
you humans have-not to the extent of destroying another race, Erekose. Do not 
confuse our values with those of mankind.'

'I am not,' I replied. 'That is my reason for asking you this. I could not bear 
to see your noble race perish at the hands of such beasts as those beyond our 
walls!'

Arjavh stood up and replaced the book in the shelves. 'lolinda spoke the truth,' 
he said quietly. 'You are a traitor to your own race.'

'Race is a meaningless term. It was you and Ermizhad who told me to be an 
individual. I have chosen my loyalties.'

He pursed his lips. 'Well . . .'

'I seek only to stop them continuing in their folly,' I said.

He clenched his thin, pale hands together.

'Arjavh. I ask you because of the love I have for Ermizhad and the love she has 
for me. Because of the great friendship you have given me. For all the Eldren 
left alive, I beg you to let me take the decision if it becomes necessary.'

'For Ermizhad?' he raised his slanting eyebrows. 'For you? For me? For my 
people? Not for revenge?'

'No' I said quietly. 'I do not think so.'

'Very well. I leave the decision to you. I suppose that is fair. I do not want 
to die. But remember-do not act as unwisely as others of your kind.'

'I will not,' I promised.

I think I kept my promise.


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE ATTACK


And the days continued to pass until they began to get chill and it was plain 
that winter was coming. If winter arrived, we would be safe until spring, for 
the invaders would be fools to attempt a heavy siege in winter.

They realised this too, it seemed. lolinda must have come to a decision. She 
gave them permission to attack Loos Ptokai.

After much bickering among themselves, I learned, the marshals elected one of 
themselves, the most experienced, to act as their War Champion.

They elected Count Roldero.

The siege commenced in earnest.

Their massive siege engines were brought forward, including the giant cannon 
known as the Firedrakes. Great black things of iron, decorated with fierce 
reliefs.

Roldero rode up and his herald announced his presence and I went to speak with 
him from the battlements.

'Greetings, Erekose the Traitor!' he called. 'We have decided to punish you-and 
all the Eldren within these walls. We would have slaughtered the Eldren cleanly, 
but now we intend to put to slow death all those we capture.'

I was saddened.

'Roldero, Roldero,' I begged. 'We were friends once. You were perhaps the only 
true friend I had. We drank together and fought together, made jokes together. 
We were comrades, Roldero. Good comrades.'

His horse fidgeted beneath him, pawing at the earth.

'That was an age ago,' he said without looking up at me. 'An age ago.'

'Little more than a year, Roldero . . .'

'But we are not those two friends any longer, Erekose.' He looked up, shielding 
his eyes with a gauntletted hand. I saw that his face had grown old and it bore 
many new scars. Doubtless I looked as different in my own way. 'We are different 
men,' Roldero said, and wrenching at his reins drove his horse away, digging his 
long spurs savagely into its flanks.

Now there was nothing we could do but fight.

The Firedrakes boomed and their solid shot slammed against the walls. Blazing 
fireballs from captured Eldren artillery screamed over the walls and into the 
streets. These were followed by thousands of arrows that came in a black shower.

And then a million men rushed against our handful of defenders.

We replied with what cannon we had, but we relied mainly on archers to meet that 
first wave, for we were short of shot.

And we repelled them, after ten hours of fighting. They fell back.

Then, next day and the day after, they continued to attack. But Loos Ptokai, the 
ancient capital of Mernadin, Loos Ptokai held firm during those first days.

Battalion upon battalion of yelling warriors mounted the siege towers and we 
again replied with arrows, with molten metal and, economically, with the fire-
spewing cannon of the Eldren. We fought bravely, Arjavh and I leading the 
defenders and, whenever they sighted me, the warriors of Humanity screamed for 
vengeance and died striving for the privilege of slaying me.

We fought side by side, like brothers, Arjavh and I, but our Eldren warriors 
were tiring and, after a week of constant barrage, we began to realise that we 
could not much longer hold back that tide of steel.

That night we sat together after Ermizhad had gone to bed. We massaged our 
aching muscles and we spoke little.

Then I said: 'We shall all be dead soon, Arjavh. You and I. Ermizhad. The rest 
of your folk.'

He continued to dig his fingers into his shoulder, kneading it to loosen it. 
'Yes,' he said. 'Soon.'

I wanted him to raise the subject that was on the tip of my tongue, but he would 
not.



The next day, scenting our defeat, the warriors of Humanity came at us with 
greater vigour than ever. The Firedrakes were brought in closer and began 
steadily to bombard the main gates.

I saw Roldero, mounted on his great black horse, directing the operation and 
there was something about his stance that made

e realise that he was sure he would break our defences that

I turned to Arjavh who stood beside me on the wall and I was about to speak when 
several of the Firedrakes boomed in unison. The black metal shook, the shot 
screamed from their snouts, hit the main gates, which were of metal and split 
the left one down the middle. It did not fall, but it was so badly weakened that 
one more cannonade would bring it completely down.

'Arjavh!' I yelled. 'We must break out the old weapons. We must arm the Eldren!'

His face was pale, but he shook his head.

'Arjavh! We must! Another hour and we'll be driven off these battlements! 
Another three and we'll be overwhelmed entirely!' He looked to where Roldero was 
directing the cannoneers and this time he did not remonstrate. He nodded. 'Very 
well. I agreed that you would decide. Come.'

He led me down the steps.

I only hoped he had not overestimated their power.

Arjavh led me to the vaults that lay at the core of the city. We moved along 
bare corridors of polished black marble, lighted by small bulbs which burned 
with a greenish light. We came to a door of dark metal and he pressed a stud 
beside it. The door moved open and we entered an elevator which bore us yet 
further downwards.

I was, again, astonished at the Eldren. They had deliberately given up all these 
marvels because of some strange sense of justice.

Then we stepped into a great hall full of weirdly wrought machines that looked 
as if they had just been manufactured. They stretched for nearly half a mile 
ahead of us.

'These are the weapons,' said Arjavh hollowly.

Around the high walls were arranged hand-guns of various kinds, rifles and 
things that looked to John Baker's eye like antitank weapons of some sort. There 
were squad machines on caterpillar treads that really did look like ultra-
streamlined tanks, with glass cabins and couches for a single man to lie flat 
upon and operate the controls. I was surprised that there were no flying 
machines of any kind-or none that I recognised as such. I mentioned this to 
Arjavh.

'Flying machines! It would be interesting if such things could be invented. But 
I do not think it is possible. We have never, in all our history, been able to 
develop a machine that will safely stay in the air for any length of time.'

I was amazed at this strange gap in their technology, but I commented on it no 
further.

'Now you have seen these fierce things,' he said, 'do you still feel you should 
use them?'

But he doubtless thought such things were not familiar to me. They were not so 
very different, in general appearance, to the war machines John Daker knew. And, 
in my dreams, I had seen much stranger weapons.

'Let us ready them,' I said to him.

We returned to the surface and there instructed our warriors to bring the 
weapons up.

Roldero had smashed in one of our gates now and we had had to bring up cannon to 
defend it, but the warriors of Humanity were beginning to press in and some 
hand-to-hand fighting was going on at the approach to the gates.

Night was beginning to fall. I hoped that, in spite of their gain, the human 
army would fall back at dark and give us the time we needed. Through the gap in 
the gate I saw Roldero urging his men in. Doubtless he hoped to consolidate his 
advantage before nightfall.

I ordered more men to the breach.

Already I was beginning to doubt my own decision.

Perhaps Arjavh was right and it was criminal to let the power of the ancient 
weapons loose. But then, I thought, what does it matter? Better destroy them and 
half the planet than let them destroy the beauty that was the Eldren.

I was forced to smile at this reaction in myself. Arjavh would not have approved 
of it. It was alien to him, such a thought.

I saw Roldero bring in more men to counter our forces and I swung into the 
saddle of a nearby horse, spurring it towards the crucial breach.

I drew my poison sword, Kanajana, and I voiced my battle-cry-the battle-cry that 
only a short while ago had urged the warriors I attacked into war! They heard it 
and, as I suspected, were disconcerted.

I leapt my horse over the heads of my own men and confronted Roldero. He looked 
at me in astonishment and pulled his horse up short.

'Would you fight, Roldero?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'Aye. I'll fight you, traitor.'

And he rushed at me with his reins looped over his arm and both hands around the 
hilt of his great sword. It whistled over my head as I ducked.

Everywhere about us, beneath the broken walls of Loos Ptokai, human and Eldren 
fought desperately in the fading light.

Roldero was tired, more tired than I was, but he battled valiantly on and I 
could not get through his guard. His sword caught me a blow on my helmet and I 
reeled and struck back and caught him on the helmet. My helmet stayed on, but 
his was half pulled off. He wrenched it off all the way and flung it aside. His 
hair had turned completely white since I had last seen him bareheaded.

His face was flushed and his eyes bright, his lips drawn back over his teeth. He 
tried to stab his sword through my visor, but I ducked under the blow and he 
fell forward in his saddle and I brought up my sword and drove it down into his 
breastbone.

He groaned and then his face lost all its anger and he gasped: 'Now we can be 
friends again, Erekose . . .' and he died.

I looked down at him as he collapsed over the neck of his sword. I remembered 
his kindness, the wine he had brought me to help me sleep, the advice he had 
tried to give me. And I remembered him pushing the dead king from his saddle. 
Yet, Count Roldero was a good man. A good man forced by history to do evil.

His black horse turned and began to canter back towards the count's distant 
pavilion.

I raised my sword in salute and then shouted to the humans who fought on. 'Look, 
warriors of Humanity! Look! Your War Champion is defeated!'

The sun was setting.

The warriors began to withdraw, looking at me in hatred as I laughed at them, 
but not daring to attack me while the bloody sword Kanajana was in my hand.

One of them did call back, however.

'We are not leaderless, Erekose, if that is what you think. We have the Queen to 
send us into battle. She has come to be witness of your destruction tomorrow!'

lolinda was with the besiegers!

I thought swiftly and then yelled: 'Tell your mistress to come tomorrow to our 
walls. Come at dawn to parley!'



Through the night we worked to reinforce the gate and to position the newfound 
weapons. They were raised wherever they would fit and the Eldren soldiers were 
armed with the handweapons.

I wondered if lolinda would get the message and, if she did get it, whether she 
would deign to come.

She came. She came with her remaining marshals in all their proud panoply of 
war. That panoply seemed so insignificant now, against the power of the ancient 
Eldren weapons.

We had set one of the new cannon pointing up at the sky so that we could 
demonstrate its fearful potential.

lolinda's voice drifted up to us.

'Greetings, Eldren-and greetings to your human pet. Is he a well-trained pet 
now?'

'Greetings, lolinda,' I said, showing my face. 'You begin to show your father's 
penchant for poor insults. Let's waste no further time.'

'I am already wasting time,' she said. 'We are going to destroy you all today.'

'Perhaps not,' I said. 'For we offer you a truce-and peace.'

lolinda laughed aloud. 'You offer us peace, traitor! You should be begging for 
peace-though you'll get none!'

'I warn you, lolinda,' I shouted desperately. 'I warn you all. We have fresh 
weapons. Weapons which once came near to destroying this whole Earth! Watch!'

I gave the order to fire the giant cannon.

An Eldren warrior depressed a stud on the controls.

There came a humming from the cannon and all at once a tremendous blinding bolt 
of golden energy gouted from its snout. The, heat alone blistered our skins and 
we fell back, shielding our eyes.

Horses shrieked and reared. The marshals' faces were grey and their mouths 
gaped. They fought to control their mounts. Only lolinda sat firmly in her 
saddle, apparently calm.

'That is what we offer you if you will not have peace,' I shouted. 'We have a 
dozen like it and there are others that are different, but as powerful, and we 
have hand-cannon which can kill a hundred men at a sweep. What say you now?'

lolinda raised her face and stared directly up at me.

'We fight,' she said.

'lolinda,' I pleaded. 'For our old love-for your own sake- do not fight. We will 
not harm you. You can go home, all of you, and live in security for the rest of 
your lives. I mean it.'

'Security!' she laughed bitterly. 'Security, while such weapons as these exist!'

'You must believe me, lolinda!'

'No,' she said, 'Humanity will fight to the end and, because the Good One 
favours us, doubtless we will win. We are pledged to wage war on sorcery and 
there was never greater sorcery than what we have seen today.'

'It is not sorcery. It is science. It is only like your cannon, but more 
powerful.'

'Sorcery!' Everyone was murmuring it now. They were like primitives, these 
fools.

'If we continue to fight,' I said, 'it will be a fight to the finish. The Eldren 
would prefer to let you go, once this battle is won. But if we win, I intend to 
clean the planet of your kind, just as you swore you would do to the Eldren. 
Take the chance. A peace! Be sane.'

'We will die by sorcery,' she said, 'if we have to. But we will die fighting 
it.'

I was too weary to continue. 'Then let us finish it,' I told her.

lolinda wheeled her horse away and, with her marshals in her wake, galloped back 
to order the attack.

I did not see lolinda perish. There were so many that perished that day.

They came and we met them. They were helpless against our weapons. Energy 
spouted from the guns and seared into their ranks. We all felt pain as we fired 
the howling waves of force which swept across them and destroyed them, turning 
proud men and beasts to blackened rubble.

We did as they had predicted we would do. We destroyed them all.

I pitied them as they came on, the cream of Humanity's menfolk.

It took an hour to destroy a million warriors.

One hour.

When the extermination was over, I was filled with a strange emotion which I 
could not, then and cannot now define. It was a mixture of grief, relief and 
triumph. I mourned for lolinda. She was somewhere there in the heap of blackened 
bone and smouldering flesh. One piece of ruined meat among many, her beauty gone 
in the same instant as her life. At least, I thought, that might be something.

And it was then that I made my final decision. Or did I, indeed, make it at all? 
Was it not what I had been meant to do?

Or was it the crime I had mentioned earlier? Was this the crime I committed that 
doomed me to be what I was?

Was I right?

In spite of Arjavh's constant antagonism to my plan, I ordered the machines out 
of Loos Ptokai and, mounted in one of them, ordered them overland.

This is what I did:



Two months before I had been responsible for winning the cities of Mernadin for 
Humanity. Now I reclaimed them in the name of the Eldren.

I reclaimed them in a terrible way. I destroyed every human being occupying 
them.

A week and we were at Paphanaal where the fleets of mankind lay at anchor in the 
great harbour.

I destroyed those fleets as I destroyed the garrison-men, women and children 
perished. None were spared.

And then, for many of the machines were amphibious, I led the Eldren across the 
sea to the Two Continents, though Arjavh and Ermizhad were not with me.

These cities fell-Noonos of the jewel-studded towers fell. Tarkar fell. The 
wondrous cities of the wheatlands, Stalaco, Calodemia, Mooros and Ninadoon, all 
fell. Wedma, Shilaal, Sinaan and others fell, crumbling in an inferno of gouting 
energy. They fell in a few hours.

In Necranal, the pastel-coloured city of the mountain, five million citizens 
died and all that was left of Necranal was the scorched, smoking mountain 
itself.

But I was thorough. Not merely the great cities were destroyed. Villages were 
destroyed. Hamlets were destroyed. Towns and farms were destroyed.

I found some people hiding in caves. The caves were destroyed.

I destroyed forests where they might flee. I destroyed stones that they might 
creep under.

I would doubtless have destroyed every blade of grass if Arjavh had not come 
hurrying over the ocean to stop me.

He was horrified at what I had done. He begged me to stop.

I stopped.

There was no more killing to do.

We made our way back to the coast and we paused to look at the smouldering 
mountainside that had been Necranal.

'For one woman's wrath,' said Prince Arjavh, 'and another's love, you did this?'

I shrugged. 'I do not know. I think I did it for the only kind of peace that 
will last. I know my race too well. This Earth would have been for ever rent by 
strife of some kind. I had to decide who best deserved to live. If they had 
destroyed the Eldren, they would have soon turned on each other, as you know. 
And they fight for such empty things, too. For power over their fellows, for a 
bauble, for an extra acre of land that they will not till, for possession of a 
woman who doesn't want them . . .'

'You speak in the present tense,' Arjavh said quietly. 'Really, Erekose, I do 
not think you know yet what you have done.'

I sighed. 'But it is done,' I said.

'Yes,' he murmured. He gripped my arm. 'Come, friend. Back to Mernadin. Leave 
this stink behind. Ermizhad awaits you.'

I was an empty man, then, bereft of emotion. I followed him towards the river. 
It moved sluggishly now. It was choked with black dust.

'I think I did right,' I said. 'It was not my will, you know, but something 
else. I think it might have been what I was really brought here to do. There are 
forces, I think, whose nature we shall never know, can only dream of. I think it 
was another will than mine which dragged me here-not Rigenos. Rigenos, like me, 
was a puppet-a tool used, as I was used. It was fated that Humanity should die 
on this planet.'

'It is better that you think that,' he said. 'Come now. Let us go home.'


EPILOGUE


The scars of that destruction have healed now, as I end my chronicle.

I returned to Loos Ptokai to wed Ermizhad, to have the Eldren secret of 
immortality conferred upon me, to brood for a year or two until my brain 
cleared.

It is clear now. I feel no guilt for what I did. I feel more certain than ever 
that it was not my decision.

Perhaps that is madness? Perhaps I have rationalised my guilt? If so, I am at 
one with my madness, it does not tear me in two as my dreams used to. I have 
those dreams rarely these days.

So we are here, the three of us-Ermizhad, Arjavh and I. Arjavh is undisputed 
ruler of the Earth, an Eldren Earth, and we rule with him.

We cleansed this Earth of human kind. I am its last representative. And in so 
doing I feel that we knitted this planet back into the pattern, allowed it to 
drift, at last, harmoniously with a harmonious Universe. For the Universe is 
old, perhaps even older than I, and it could not tolerate the humans who broke 
its peace.

Did I do right?

You must judge for yourself, wherever you are.

For me, it is too late to ask that question. I have sufficient control, 
nowadays, never to ask it. The only way in which I could answer it would involve 
destroying my own sanity.

One thing puzzles me. If, indeed, Time is cyclic, in some manner, and the 
Universe we know will be born again to turn another long cycle, then Humanity 
will one day arise again, somehow, on this Earth and my adopted people will 
disappear from the Earth, or seem to.

And if you are human who read this, perhaps you know. Perhaps my question seems 
naive and you are at this moment laughing at me. But I have no answer. I can 
imagine none.

I am not to be the father of your race, human, for Ermizhad and I cannot produce 
children.

Then how shall you come again to disrupt the harmony of the Universe?

And will I be here to receive you. Will I become your hero again or will I die 
with the Eldren fighting you?

Or will I die before then and be the leader who brings disrupting humanity to 
Earth? I cannot say.

Which of the names will I have next time you call?

Now the Earth is peaceful. The silent air carries only the sounds of quiet 
laughter, the murmur of conversation, the small noises of small animals. We and 
the Earth are at peace.

But how long can it last?

Oh, how long can it last?
