The Eternal Champion

  “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 Erekosë. 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 Erekosë the Champion returned?”

  “I must believe that also.”

  “You believe it because you surmise that, if I am not Erekosë—the Erekosë of the legends—then Humanity is doomed?”

  He lowered his head as if in assent.

  “And what if I am not Erekosë, my lord?”

  Katorn looked up. “You must be Erekosë—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 human beings do not possess that power.”

  “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 Erekosë, then how is it that I can handle Erekosë’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 Erekosë, 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 over this statement. Eventually he said: “And you are not a fool, Lord Erekosë.”

  “Thank you. I did not suspect that you judge 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 fine 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 Erekosë, and it was true—the whole of Humanity fights the Eldren warriors.”

  I said nothing, but I had 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.

  6

  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, Erekosë.

  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 Erekosë (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 Iolinda—she was not familiar to me. 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 preordained. 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 Iolinda 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 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 that he could not be. I wanted to enjoy a much healthier relationship with Iolinda or, so I told myself, I would not enjoy 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 which covered the Palace of Ten Thousand Windows like a creeping plant, winding from top to bottom of the great palace and containing a superb variety of flowers, shrubs and caged and uncaged birds that fluttered through the foliage of these spiralling passages and perched amongst 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 Iolinda 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 Iolinda herself. And that is one thing that no amount of freedom or “licence” or “permissiveness” or whatever the old fogies call it can cope with. That is the odd assumption found in the twentieth century (I wonder if you who read this will know what those two stupid words mean?): 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 Iolinda 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 Iolinda remained as strong as ever—if not stronger—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 leaped. 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, Erekosë,” she said simply.

  “I love you, Iolinda.” 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, Iolinda, 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 Iolinda and tucked her arm in mine. ??
?Very well. We shall come.”

  7

  THE ARMOUR OF EREKOSË

  THE SLAVE LED us to my own 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 Iolinda 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 Iolinda. “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 Erekosë. First, look at what I have brought. It has lain for centuries in the vaults of the palace. Waiting, Erekosë—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 sight.

  “This,” said the king, “is the armour of Erekosë. Broken from its tomb of rock deep beneath the palace’s lowest dungeons so that Erekosë 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 from the wearer. The helmet, breastplate, 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 sole 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!