The Eternal Champion Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Michael Moorcock

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1: A Call Across Time

  2: “The Champion has Come!”

  3: The Eldren Threat

  4: Iolinda

  5: Katorn

  6: Preparing for War

  7: The Armour of Erekosë

  8: The Sailing

  9: At Noonos

  10: First Sight of the Eldren

  11: The Fleets Engage

  12: The Broken Truce

  13: Paphanaal

  14: Ermizhad

  15: The Returning

  16: Confrontation with the King

  17: Necranal Again

  18: Prince Arjavh

  19: The Battle Decided

  20: A Bargain

  21: An Oath

  22: The Reaving

  23: In Loos Ptokai

  24: The Parting

  25: The Attack

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Coming soon from Michael Moorcock and Titan Books

  THE ETERNAL CHAMPION SERIES

  Phoenix in Obsidian (December 2014)

  The Dragon in the Sword (January 2015)

  THE CORUM SERIES

  The Knight of the Swords (May 2015)

  The Queen of the Swords (June 2015)

  The King of the Swords (July 2015)

  The Bull and the Spear (August 2015)

  The Oak and the Ram (September 2015)

  The Sword and the Stallion (October 2015)

  The Eternal Champion

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783291618

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783291588

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: November 2014

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 1970, 2014 by Michael Moorcock. All rights reserved.

  Edited by John Davey

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  To the memory of Douglas Fairbanks,

  the greatest hero of them all

  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 hell.

  Why was I chosen? I still do not know, though they believed they had told me. 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 part of the cycle I knew as the twentieth century, for (it was no wish of mine) I am immortal.

  1

  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 morality 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:

  Erekosë… Erekosë… Erekosë…

  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.

  Erekosë… Erekosë… Erekosë…

  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 Erekosë? Was I either of these? Many other names—Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Aubec, Seaton Begg, Elric, Rackhir, Ilian, Oona, Simon, Bastable, Cornelius, the Rose, von Bek, Asquiol, 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…

  * * *

  “Erekosë the Champion, where are you?”

  Another voice: “Father… it is only a legend…”

  “No, Iolinda. I feel he is listening. Erekosë…”

  * * *

  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 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…

  * * *

  “Erekosë. It is I—King Rigenos, Defender of Humanity…

  “You are needed again, Erekosë. The Hounds of Evil rule a third of the world and humankind is weary with the war against them. Come to us, Erekosë. 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 farther into our territories.

  “Come to us, Erekosë. Lead us to victory. Come to us, Erekosë. Lead us…”

  The woman’s voice:

  “Father. This is only an empty tomb.
Not even the mummy of Erekosë 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 panorama of the twentieth century, its discoveries and its deceits, its beauties and its bitterness, its satisfactions, its strife, its self-delusion, its superstitious fancies to which 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 Erekosë…

  There were three great continents; two close together were divided from the third 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 sea-ports—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, “Erekosë, Erekosë, Erekosë…”

  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, Iolinda, 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 Erekosë, to aid him with his war against them.

  * * *

  “Erekosë, 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 wills 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. “Iolinda,” 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 Erekosë. 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.

  * * *

  “Erekosë!” called the king, straining his eyes through the gloom as if he had seen me. “Erekosë! We pray.”

  Then I experienced the dreadful pain which I supposed must be like that of a woman experiencing childbirth, 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, 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 worthwhile behind me, but do not let me regret that leaving.”

  “You will not regret it, Champion.” He was pale, exhilarated, smiling. I looked at Iolinda, 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.

  2

  “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. 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 red 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.

  “Erekosë! Sheathe it!” cried King Rigenos in alarm. “Sheathe it! The radiation is death to all but yoursel
f!”

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

  “Erekosë! Please! I beg you!” Iolinda’s voice echoed her father’s. “Sheathe 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 Erekosë 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 almost entirely out of my own hands. 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 where I had materialised, in the tomb of Erekosë, 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 Erekosë.”

  “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.