The Champion of Garathorm Read online

  The Champion of

  Garathorm

  The Chronicles of Castle Brass

  Book II

  Michael Moorcock

  A Mayflower Original

  First published in 1973 by Mayflower Books

  Reprinted 1974

  Copyright © Michael Moorcock 1973

  Made and printed in Great Britain by

  C. Nicholls & Company Ltd

  The Philips Park Press, Manchester

  Set in Intertype Plantin

  Other Mayflower Books

  by Michael Moorcock

  THE BLACK CORRIDOR

  THE JEWEL IN THE SKULL

  MAD GOD'S AMULET

  THE RUNESTAFF

  THE SWORD OF THE DAWN

  THE KNIGHT OF THE SWORDS

  THE QUEEN OF THE SWORDS

  THE KING OF THE SWORDS

  THE STEALER OF SOULS

  STORMBRINGER

  THE SINGING CITADEL

  THE ETERNAL CHAMPION

  PHOENIX IN OBSIDIAN

  THE TIME DWELLER

  BEHOLD THE MAN

  THE FINAL PROGRAMME

  COUNT BRASS

  Being a sequel to the High History of the Runestaff of which this is the second volume

  Content

  Dedication

  A Note to the Reader

  Quotes

  Book One Departures

  1 Representations And Possibilities

  2 Count Brass Goes A-Journeying

  3 A Lady All In Armour

  4 News From Beyond The Bulgar Mountains

  5 Reluctantly - A Quest

  Book Two A Homecoming

  1 Ilian Of Garathorm

  2 Outlaws Of A Thousand Spheres

  3 A Meeting In The Forest

  4 A Pact Is Made

  5 The Raid On Virinthorm

  6 The Wrong Champion

  Book Three A Leavetaking

  1 Sweet Battle, Triumphant Vengeance

  2 An Impossible Death

  3 The Swaying Of The Balance

  4 The Soul Gem

  Dedication

  For Trux

  A Note to the Reader

  While it is a sequel to the previous volume in the series called The Chronicles of Castle Brass, this particular book may also be read as a sequel to the second book in the Eternal Champion series, Phoenix in Obsidian.

  Michael Moorcock

  Quotes

  Then the Earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of age, its ways becoming whimsical and strange in the manner of a man in his last years.

  The High History of the Runestaff

  And when this History was done there followed it another. A Romance involving the same participants in experiences perhaps even more bizarre and awesome than the last. And again the ancient Castle of Brass in the marshy Kamarg was the centre for much of this action..

  — The Chronicles of Castle Brass

  Book One

  Departures

  1

  Representations And Possibilities

  Dorian Hawkmoon was no longer mad, yet neither was he healthy. Some said that it was the Black Jewel which had ruined him when it had been torn from his forehead. Others said that the war against the Dark Empire had exhausted him of all the energy he would normally need for a full lifetime and that now there was no more energy left. And some would have it that Hawkmoon mourned for the love of Yisselda, Count Brass's daughter, who had died at the Battle of Londra. In the five years of his madness Hawkmoon had insisted that she was still alive, that she lived with him at Castle Brass and bore him a son and a daughter.

  But while causes might be the subject of debate in the inns and taverns of Aigues-Mortes, the town which sheltered be­neath the great Castle of Brass, the effects themselves were plain to all.

  Hawkmoon brooded.

  Hawkmoon pined and shunned human company, even that of his good friend Count Brass. Hawkmoon sat alone in a small room at the top of the castle's highest tower and, with chin on fist, stared out over the marshes, the fields of reeds, the lagoons, his eyes fixed not on the wild white bulls, the horned horses or the giant scarlet flamingoes of the Kamarg, but upon a distance, profound and numinous.

  Hawkmoon tried to recall a dream or an insane fantasy. He tried to remember Yisselda. He tried to remember the names of the children he had imagined while he had been mad. But Yis­selda was a shadow and he could see nothing of the children at all. Why did he yearn? Why was he full of such a deep and last­ing sense of loss? Why did he sometimes nurse the thought that this, which he experienced now, was madness and that the dream - that of Yisselda and the children - had been the reality?

  Hawkmoon no longer knew himself and had lost the inclina­tion, as a result, to communicate with others. He was a ghost. He haunted his own apartments. A sad ghost who could only sob and groan and sigh.

  At least he had been proud in his madness, said the towns­folk. At least he had been complete in his delusions.

  'He was happier mad."

  Hawkmoon would have agreed with such sentiments, had they been expressed to him.

  When not in the tower he haunted the room where he had set up his War Tables - high benches on which rested models of cities and castles occupied by thousands of other models of sol­diers. In his madness he had commissioned this huge array from Vaiyonn, the local craftsman. To celebrate, he had told Vaiyonn, their victories over the Lords of Granbretan. And repre­sented in painted metal were the Duke of Koln himself, Count Brass, Yisselda, Bowgentle, Huillam D'Averc and Oladahn of the Bulgar Mountains - the heroes of the Kamarg, most of whom had perished at Londra. And here too were models of their old enemies, the Beast Lords - Baron Meliadus in his wolf helm, King Huon in his Throne Globe, Shenegar Trott, Adaz Promp, Asrovak Mikosevaar and his wife, Flana (now the gentle Queen of Granbretan). Dark Empire infantry, cavalry and flyers were ranged against the Guardians of the Kamarg, against the Warriors of Dawn, against the soldiers of a hundred small nations.

  And Dorian Hawkmoon would move all these pieces about his vast boards, going through one permutation after another; fighting a thousand versions of the same battle in order to see how a battle which followed it might have changed. And his heavy fingers were often upon the models of his dead friends, and most of all they were upon Yisselda. How could she have been saved? What set of circumstances would have guaranteed her continuing to live?

  Sometimes Count Brass would enter the room, his eyes troubled. He would run his fingers through his greying red hair and watch as Hawkmoon, absorbed in his miniature world, brought forward a squadron of cavalry here, drew back a line of infantry there. Hawkmoon either did not notice the presence of Count Brass on these occasions or else he preferred to ignore his old friend until Count Brass would clear his throat or other­wise make it evident that he had come in. Then Hawkmoon would look up, eyes introspective, bleak, unwelcoming, and Count Brass would ask softly after Hawkmoon's health. Hawkmoon would reply curtly that he was well.

  Count Brass would nod and say that he was glad.

  Hawkmoon would wait impatiently, anxious to get back to his manoeuvrings on his tables, while Count Brass looked around the room, inspected a battle-line or pretended to admire the way Hawkmoon had worked out a particular tactic.

  Then Count Brass would say:

  'I'm riding to inspect the towers this morning. It's a fine day. Why don't you come with me, Dorian?"

  Dorian Hawkmoon would shake his head. 'There are things I have to do here.'

  'This?' Count Brass would indicate the wide trestles with a sweep of his hand. 'What point is there? They are dead. It is over. Will your speculation bring them back? You are like some mystic - some warlock - thinking tha
t the facsimile can manip­ulate that which it imitates. You torture yourself. How can you change the past? Forget. Forget, Duke Dorian.'

  But the Duke of Koln would purse his lips as if Count Brass had made a particularly offensive remark, and would turn his attention back to his toys. Count Brass would sigh, try to think of something to add, then he would leave the room.

  Hawkmoon's gloom coloured the atmosphere of the whole Castle Brass and there were some who had begun to voice the opinion that, for all that he was a Hero of Londra, the duke should return to Germany and his traditional lands, which he had not visited since his capture, at the Battle of Koln, by the Dark Empire lords. A distant relative now reigned as Chief Citizen there, presiding over a form of elected government which had replaced the monarchy of which Hawkmoon was the last living direct descendant. But it had never entered Hawkmoon's mind that he had any home other than his apartments in Castle Brass.

  Even Count Brass would sometimes think, privately, that it would have been better for Hawkmoon if he had been killed at the Battle of Londra. Killed at the same time that Yisselda had been killed.

  And so the sad months passed, all heavy with sorrow and useless speculation, as Hawkmoon's mind closed still more firmly around its single obsession until he hardly remembered to take sustenance or to sleep.

  Count Brass and his old companion, Captain Josef Vedla, debated the problem between themselves, but could arrive at no solution.

  For hours they would sit in comfortable chairs on either side of the great fireplace in the main hall of Castle Brass, drinking the local wine and discussing Hawkmoon's melancholia. Both were soldiers and Count Brass had been a statesman, but neither had the vocabulary to cope with such matters as sickness of the soul.

  'More exercise would help,' said Captain Josef Vedla one evening. 'The mind will rot in a body which does nothing. It is well known.'

  'Aye - a healthy mind knows as much. But how do you con­vince a sick mind of the virtues of such action?' Count Brass replied. 'The longer he remains in his apartments, playing with those damned models, the worse he gets. And the worse he gets, the harder it is for us to approach him on a rational level. The seasons mean nothing to him. Night is no different to day for him. I shudder when I think what must be happening in his head!'

  Captain Vedla nodded. 'He was never one for overmuch in­trospection before. He was a man. A soldier. Intelligent without being, as it were, too intelligent. He was practical. Sometimes it seems to me that he is a different man entirely now. As if the old Hawkmoon's soul was driven from its body by the terrors of the Black Jewel and a new soul entered to fill the place!'

  Count Brass smiled at this. 'You're becoming fanciful, cap­tain, in your old age. You praise the old Hawkmoon for being practical - and then make a suggestion like that!'

  Captain Vedla was also forced to smile. 'Fair enough, Count Brass! Yet when one considers the powers of the old Dark Em­pire lords and remembers the powers of those who helped us in our struggle, perhaps the idea could have some foundation in terms of our own experience?'

  'Perhaps. And if there were not more obvious answers to ex­plain Hawkmoon's condition, I might agree with your theory.'

  Captain Vedla became embarrassed, murmuring: 'It was merely a theory.' He raised his glass to catch the firelight, study­ing the rich, red wine within. 'And this stuff is doubtless what encourages me to voice such theories!'

  They both laughed and then they drank some more.

  'Speaking of Granbretan,' said Count Brass later, 'I wonder how Queen Flana is coping with the problem of the unregenerates who still, from what she has said in her letters, inhabit some of the darker, less accessible parts of underground Londra? I have had little news from her in recent months. I wonder if the situation has worsened, so that she devotes more time to it'

  'You have had a letter from her recently, surely?'

  'By messenger. Two days ago. Aye. The letter was much briefer, however, than those she used to send. It was almost for­mal. Merely extending the usual invitation to visit her when­ever I desired.'

  'Could it be that, of late, she has become offended that you have not taken her up on her offer of hospitality?' Vedla sug­gested. 'Perhaps she thinks you do not feel friendship for her.'

  'On the contrary, she is the nearest thing to my heart save for my memory of my own dead daughter.'

  'But you have not indicated as much?' Vedla poured him­self more wine. 'Women require these affirmations, you know. Even queens.'

  'Flana is above such feelings. She is too intelligent. Too sen­sible. Too kind.'

  'Possibly,' said Captain Vedla, as if he doubted Count Brass's words.

  Count Brass understood the implication. 'You think I should write to her in more - more flowery terms?"

  'Well...' Captain Vedla grinned.

  'I was never capable of these literary flourishes.'

  'Your style at its best (and on whatever subject) usually re­sembles communiques issued in the field during the heat of a battle,' Captain Vedla admitted. 'Though I do not mean that as an insult. On the contrary.'

  Count Brass shrugged. 'I would not like Flana to think I did not remember her with anything but the greatest affection. Yet I cannot write. I suppose I should go to Londra - accept her offer.' He stared around his shadowed hall. 'It might be a change. This place has become almost overpoweringly gloomy of late.'

  'You could take Hawkmoon with you. He was fond of Flana. It might be the only thing likely to attract him away from his toy soldiers.' Captain Vedla caught himself speaking sardon­ically and regretted it. He had every sympathy for Hawkmoon, every respect for him, even in his present state of mind. But Hawkmoon's brooding was a strain on all who had been even remotely connected with him in the past.

  'I'll suggest it to him,' said Count Brass. Count Brass under­stood his own feelings. Much of him wanted to get away from Hawkmoon for a while. Yet his conscience would not let him go alone at least until he had put the idea to his old friend. And Vedla was right. A trip to Londra might force Hawkmoon out of his brooding mood. The chances were, however, that it would not. In which case, Count Brass anticipated a journey and a visit involving more emotional strain on himself and the rest of his party then that which they now experienced within the confines of Castle Brass.

  'I'll speak to him in the morning,' Count Brass said after a pause. 'Perhaps by returning to Londra itself, rather than by involving himself with models of the place, the melancholy in him will be exercised...'

  Captain Vedla agreed. 'It is something we should have con­sidered earlier, maybe?'

  Count Brass was, without rancour, thinking that Captain Vedla was expressing a certain amount of self-interest when he suggested that Hawkmoon go with him to Londra.

  'And would you journey with us, Captain Vedla?' he asked with a faint smile.

  'Someone would be needed here to act on your behalf ...' Vedla said. 'However, if the Duke of Koln declined to go then, of course, I would be glad to accompany you.'

  'I understand you, captain.' Count Brass leaned back in his chair, sipping his wine and regarding his old friend with a cer­tain amount of humour.

  After Captain Josef Vedla had left, Count Brass remained in his chair. He was still smiling. He cherished his amusement, for it had been a long while since he had felt any at all. And now that the idea was in his mind, he began to look forward to his visit to Londra, for he only realised at this moment to what extent the atmosphere had become oppressive in Castle Brass, once so famous for its peace.

  He stared up at the smoke-darkened beams of the roof, think­ing sadly of Hawkmoon and what he had become. He won­dered if it was altogether a good thing that the defeat of the Dark Empire had brought tranquillity to the world. It was pos­sible that Hawkmoon, even more than himself, was a man who only came alive when conflict threatened. If, for instance, there was trouble again in Granbretan - if the unregenerate remnants of the defeated warriors were seriously troubling Queen Flana -perhaps it would be a g
ood notion to ask Hawkmoon to make it his business to find them and destroy them.

  Count Brass sensed that a task of that nature would be the only thing which could save his friend. Instinctively he guessed that Hawkmoon was not made for peace. There were such men — men fashioned by fate to make war, either for good or for evil (if there was a difference between the two qualities) - and Hawkmoon might well be one of them.

  Count Brass sighed and returned his attention to his new plan. He would write to Flana in the morning, sending news ahead of his intended visit. It would be interesting to see what had become of that strange city since he had last visited it, as a conqueror.

  2

  Count Brass Goes A-Journeying

  'Give Queen Flana my kindest compliments,' said Dorian Hawkmoon distantly. He held a tiny representation of Flana in his pale fingers, turning the model this way and that as he spoke. Count Brass was not entirely sure that Hawkmoon realised he had picked the model up. 'Tell her that I do not feel fit enough to make the journey.'

  'You would feel fitter once you had begun to travel,' Count Brass pointed out. He noticed that Hawkmoon had covered the windows with dark tapestries. The room was lit now by lamps, though it neared noon. And the place smelled dank, unhealthy, full of festering memories.

  Hawkmoon rubbed at the scar on his forehead, where the Black Jewel had once been imbedded. His skin was waxy. His eyes burned with a dreadful, feverish light. He had become so thin that his clothes draped his body like drowned flags. He stood looking down at the table bearing the intricate model of old Londra, with its thousands of crazy towers, interconnected by a maze of tunnels so that no inhabitant need ever see daylight.

  Suddenly it occurred to Count Brass that Hawkmoon had caught the disease of those he had defeated. It would not have surprised the Count to discover that Hawkmoon had taken to wearing an ornate and complicated mask.

  'Londra has changed,' said Count Brass, 'since last you saw it. I hear that the towers have been torn down - that flowers grow in wide streets - that there are parks and avenues in place of the tunnels.'