“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 Iolinda. She looked stricken.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“Tomorrow,” confirmed King Rigenos.
I bit my lower lip. “Then I must prepare.”
She said: “Father…”
He looked at her. “Yes, Iolinda?”
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 Erekosë.”
I bowed. He left.
Somewhat stunned, Iolinda 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 Iolinda. 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 are said to have held above all other.
John Daker would have spoken of sexual repression and of swordplay as a substitute for sexual intercourse.
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 Iolinda in those terms. It is all I can say. And later events, I suppose, were also played out in those terms.
I took Iolinda’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, Erekosë. 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.”
“l 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 cause him to 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 Iolinda, thinking of the battle plans I had helped hatch, 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 flamingoes, strange masklike 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 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 now 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 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.
8
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.
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 reco
gnised 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 overall 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 my 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 back 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 leave-taking 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 gained 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, Erekosë.
King Rigenos rose from his throne. I looked up at him and his face was grave and stern. I had never before seen him look so much a king.
Now I felt that the attention of the watchers was on myself alone. I, Erekosë, 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:
“Erekosë the Champion, Marshals, Captains and Knights of Humanity—we go to wage war against unhuman 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 Erekosë 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 battle 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.
“Erekosë,” 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, Erekosë, 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 cruelty 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 seared from the king’s eyes, trembled 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 Iolinda? 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 the 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, Erekosë, the Eternal, the Champion, the Vengeance Bringer—I led them. My arms were raised as if I were 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 who 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 become 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 pairs 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 carved 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 the 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 Iolinda awaits you in the Grand Cabin, excellency.”
I turned and then paused, looking at the 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 Iolinda.
“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, Iolinda? 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, Iolinda. I shall always love you.”