The Princess Sharadim’s soldiers were now in confusion. The Warriors of the Edge turned hard, killers’ eyes upon them, yet they did nothing. They awaited my orders.
Now one of Sharadim’s generals came riding through the ranks. He was very fine in his dark blue armour, his plumes, his spiked helm, his full, black beard.
“My lord Emperor! The allies you promised us. Are they all assembled?” His face was bathed in crimson light. “Does Chaos come to aid us in our destruction? Is that our sign?”
I drew a breath and then I sighed, poising my sword. “Here is your sign,” I said. I swung the blade in a single movement which sheared off his head so that it fell with a heavy clanking to the ground. Then I cried out to the assembled army which Sharadim had raised to conquer the Six Realms.
“There is your enemy! In fighting Chaos you stand some small chance of salvation. If you stand against us, you will perish!”
I heard a babble of questions but I ignored them. I turned my black stallion towards the widening crimson wound. I lifted my sword in a sign to all who would follow me.
And then I was charging at full gallop towards the Lords of Chaos!
There was a sound behind me. A mighty yell which could have been a single voice. It was the battle-shout of the Warriors at the Edge of Time. It was an exultation. They had come to life. They had come to the only life they knew.
Now through the crimson gateway the massive black figures rode in. I saw Balarizaaf, powerful in armour which flowed about his body like mercury. I saw a creature with the head of a stag, another which resembled a tiger, while many others bore no likeness at all to anything which had ever walked or crept upon any realm I had visited. And from them came a peculiar stink. It was both pleasant and horrible. It was both warm and cold. It had an animal quality about it, yet it could also have been the smell of vegetation. It was the pure stink of Chaos, the odour which legends said rose always out of Hell.
Balarizaaf reined in his scaly steed as he saw me. He was stern. His voice was kindly. He shook his huge head and when he spoke his voice was a booming reverberation. “Little mortal, the game is over. The game is over, and Chaos has won. Do you still not understand? Ride with us. Ride with us, and I will feed you. I will let you have creatures to play with. I will let you remain alive.”
“You must go back to Chaos,” I said. “It is where you and your kind belong. You have no business here, Archduke Balarizaaf. And she who made a bargain with you is dead.”
“Dead?” Balarizaaf was disbelieving. “You killed her?”
“She killed herself. Now all the different women who were Sharadim, who deceived so many of her kind, are scattered through limbo for ever. It is a harsh fate. But it is deserved. There is no-one left to welcome you, Archduke Balarizaaf. If you enter this realm now, you disobey the Law of the Balance.”
“How do you see that?”
“You know it is true. You must be called, whether there be a gateway or no.”
Archduke Balarizaaf made a noise in his huge chest. He put a hand the size of a house to his face. He scratched his nose. “But if I enter, what can stop me? The invitation was there. A mortal prepared the gateway. Those realms are mine.”
“I have an army,” I said. “And I wield the Dragon Sword.”
“You spoke of the Balance? It is a fine point, I think. I do not recognise your logic. And I believe that the Balance would not recognise it. What does it matter to me if you have raised an army? Look at what I bring against you.” And he swept his monstrous arm to show not only his immediate liegemen, lesser nobles of Chaos, but a seething tide which could have been animals or humans or neither, for their form was hardly constant. “This is Chaos, little Champion. And there is more.”
“You are forbidden to cross into our realm,” I said firmly. “I have summoned the Warriors of the Edge. And I wield the Dragon Sword.”
“So you persist in telling me. Am I to praise you? Or how must I be impressed? Little mortal, I am an Archduke of Chaos and I was summoned by mortals to rule their worlds. That is enough.”
“Then it seems we must do battle,” I said.
He smiled. “If that is what you wish to call it.”
I pointed my Dragon Sword forward. Again came the great shout from my back.
I was riding resolutely into the teeth of Chaos. There was nothing else I could do.
The rest was battle.
It was like all the battles I had ever fought made into one. It seemed to last for eternity. Wave upon wave of belching, whining, barking, squealing, stinking things were thrown against me; some with weapons, some with teeth and claws, some with imploring eyes which begged a mercy they could never return. And yet, all about me, like an impervious wall of hardened flesh, of muscle and bone which seemed tireless, I saw my allies, the Warriors of the Edge. Each of these fought as skillfully as I. And some fell, engulfed by the creatures of Chaos. But there were more to replace them.
The tide of Chaos came, wave after wave, upon us. And wave after wave it was repulsed. Moreover, some of the humans fought with us. They fought with a will, glad to be no longer in Sharadim’s service. They died, but they died knowing that they had, in the end, not betrayed their own kind.
The Lords of Chaos had kept back from all this. They disdained to fight mere mortals. Yet it grew plain, as the hours wore on, that their creatures could not defeat us. It was as if we had been destined for this one great fight, trained in every arena of war the multiverse could provide. And I knew that in some sense this was my last fight, that if I succeeded in this, I might know peace, if only for a while.
Slowly the ranks of Chaos were growing thinner. My blade was encrusted with their lifestuff (it did not seem the same as blood) and my arm grew so tired I felt it would fall from its socket. My horse bled from a hundred different cuts and I, too, had received several wounds. But I hardly noticed them. We were the Warriors at the Edge of Time and we fought until we were killed. There was nothing else for us to do.
Now Archduke Balarizaaf came riding through his forces again and he was not disdainful. He did not laugh. He was grim and he was fierce. He was angry, but he no longer mocked me with his gaze.
“Champion! Why fight so hard? Call a truce and we’ll discuss terms.”
This time I turned my horse towards him. I summoned energy for myself and my sword. And I charged.
I charged into the face of the Archduke of Chaos. I flew, my horse’s hoofs galloping on air, straight towards that huge and supernatural bulk. I was weeping. I was shouting. I wanted only to destroy him.
Yet I knew I could not kill him. It was, indeed, likely that he would kill me. I did not care. In a fury at all the terror he had brought to the Six Realms, at all the misery he had sown and would always sow, at the wretchedness he had created wherever his ambitions took him, I hurled myself and my sword at his face, aiming at his treacherous mouth.
From behind me I heard again that great exultant battle-shout of the warriors. It was as if they recognised what I did and encouraged me, celebrating my action, honouring whatever it was that moved me to attack the Archduke.
The point of the Dragon Sword touched that suddenly opened maw. I felt for one moment that I must be swallowed by him, falling into his red throat.
The saddle of my horse was no longer under me. I sailed directly at Archduke Balarizaaf’s head.
And then it had vanished and I felt earth beneath my feet. The crimson wound was closing before me. I looked and saw the piled corpses of our enemies and the corpses of our allies. I saw the bodies of ten thousand warriors who had died in that battle whose memory was even now fading from my mind, it had been so terrible.
I turned. The Warriors of the Edge were sheathing their weapons, wiping blood from their axes, inspecting their wounds. They had expressions of regret upon their faces, as if they had been disappointed, as if they wished to continue the fight. I counted them.
There were fourteen still alive. Fourteen together with myself.
The crimson wound in the cosmic fabric was healing rapidly. It was now hardly large enough to accept a man. And through it stepped a single figure.
The figure paused, looking back to watch the gap close and vanish.
It was suddenly cold in the cavern of Adelstane. The fourteen warriors saluted me, then marched into the shadows. They were gone.
“They rest until the next cycle,” said the newcomer. “They are allowed battle only once. And those who die are the fortunate. The others must wait. That is the fate of the Warriors at the Edge of Time.”
“But what is their crime?” I asked.
Sepiriz removed his black-and-yellow helm. He made a small gesture with his hand. “Not a crime exactly. Some would call it a sin, perhaps. They lived only to fight. They did not know when to stop.”
“Are they all former incarnations of the Eternal Champion?” I asked him.
He looked thoughtfully at me, sucking his upper lip. Then he shrugged. “If you like.”
“Surely you owe me some more substantial explanation, my lord,” I said.
He took me by the shoulder. He turned me towards Adelstane and we began to walk over stone slippery with the blood of all those dead thousands. Here and there the wounded were tending to one another. The hulls and the tents and the stone shanties were full of the dying now.
“I owe you nothing, Champion. You are owed nothing. You owe nothing.”
“I can speak for myself,” I said. “I have a debt.”
“Would you not say it is fully paid now?”
He stopped. He opened his mouth and he laughed at my confusion. “Paid now, Champion, eh?”
I bowed my head in acceptance. “I am weary,” I said.
“Come.” He walked on through all those corpses, all that ruin. “There is work still to do. But first we must take news of your victory into Adelstane. Are you aware of what you achieved?”
“We fought back the encroachment of Chaos. Have we saved the Six Realms?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. But you did more. Do you not know what it was?”
“Was it not enough?”
“Possibly. But you were also responsible for banishing an Archduke of Chaos to limbo. Balarizaaf can never rule again. He challenged the Balance. Even then he might have won. But your act of courage was decisive. Such an action contains so much that is noble, so much that is powerful, so much that affects the very nature of the multiverse, that its effect was greater than any other. You are truly a hero now, Sir Champion.”
“I have no wish to be a hero any longer, Lord Sepiriz.”
“And that is doubtless why you are such a great one. You have earned respite.”
“Respite? Is that all?”
“It is more than is allowed to most of us,” he said in some astonishment. “I have never known it.”
Chastened, I let him lead me through the fiery ring of Adelstane and into the arms of my dear friends.
“The fight is over,” said Sepiriz. “On all of the planes, in all of the realms. It is over. Now the healing and the changing must begin.”
5
“WE SHALL KNOW a better peace now,” said Morandi Pag, “for those who remain in the Six Realms. There must be building, of course, and replanting. But rather than withholding our ancient knowledge and retreating into our caves, we, the Ursine Princes, will do our best to help. So, too, shall each of the races give their special skills to the common good.”
The white city of Adelstane was tranquil once more. The remains of Sharadim’s army, who had fought with us against Chaos, had returned to their different worlds, determined to ensure that their future would never again allow the rise of a tyrant. Never again would they be deceived by such as Sharadim into making war upon one another. New councils were being formed, drawn from all the races, and the time of the Great Massing would not now be merely a time for trading.
Only the Lady Phalizaarn and her Eldren women had not returned to Gheestenheem which, we had heard, had been razed by Sharadim’s warriors. They were making specific preparations for their own departure.
Bellanda of the Maaschanheem had gone back with her people, aboard the Frowning Shield, promising us that if we should ever return to the Maaschanheem we would experience better hospitality than any we had previously known. We bade her farewell with special affection. I knew that if she had not kept the gun in trust for von Bek all those months I for one would probably not be alive.
Alisaard, Phalizaarn, von Bek and myself were guests in the comfortable study which the Ursine Princes used for their own conferences and gatherings. Again the clouds of incense filled the fireplace and drifted throughout the room as, discreetly, the bearlike people did their best to disguise their distaste for our smell. Morandi Pag had already declared his decision not to return to his sea-crag, but to work with his fellows towards the improvement of communication between the Six Realms.
“You have done much for us, you three,” said Groaffer Rolm with a wave of his silken sleeve, “and you, Champion, will be remembered in legends, that is certain. Perhaps as Prince Flamadin. For legends have a habit of mingling, transforming and becoming something new.”
I inclined my head, saying politely: “I am honoured, Prince Groaffer Rolm, though for my own part I would be glad to see a world free of heroes and legends. Especially heroes such as myself.”
“I do not believe that is possible,” said the Ursine Prince. “All one can hope for is that the legends celebrate what is noble in the spirit, what is honourable in deeds and ambitions. We have known ages when the legends have not celebrated what is noble, when the heroes were self-serving, clever creatures who improved their own situation against the interests of the rest. Those cultures are usually ones which are close to decay and death. Better to praise idealism than denigrate it, I think.”
“Though idealism can lead to acts of unspeakable evil?” asked von Bek.
“That which is valuable is always in danger of being devalued,” said Morandi Pag. “That which is pure can always be corrupted. It is our business to find the balance…” He smiled. “For do we not echo, in our domestic actions, the war which rages between Chaos and Law? Moderation is, in the end, also survival. But this is what we learn in middle age, I suppose. Sometimes the proponents of excess must triumph, sometimes the proponents of restraint must win. That is the way of things. That is what maintains the Balance.”
“I do not believe I have much of a care for the Cosmic Balance,” I said, “nor for the machinations of Law and Chaos. Nor for gods and devils. I believe that we alone should control our own destinies.”
“And so we shall,” said Morandi Pag. “And so we shall, my friend. There are many cycles yet to come in the great history of the multiverse. In some of them the supernatural shall be banished, just as you banished Archduke Balarizaaf from this world. But our will and our nature is such that at other times those gods, in different guises, will return. The power is always ultimately within ourselves. It depends how much responsibility we are prepared to take…”
“And that is what Sepiriz told me, when he said I should know respite?”
“It seems so.” Morandi Pag scratched at his grizzled fur. “The Knight in Black and Yellow travels constantly between the planes. Some even think he has the power to travel through the megaflow, through Time, if you like, between one cycle and the next. Few have such great power or such terrible responsibility. Occasionally, it is said, he sleeps. He has brothers, according to what I have heard, all of whom share with him the duty of maintaining the Balance. But I understand little more of his activities, for all my own studies in the matter. Some say he even now sows the seeds for the salvation of the next cycle as well as for its destruction, but perhaps that is too fanciful a notion.”
“I wonder if I shall see him again. He said his work was done here, and that mine was almost done. Why should there be such a peculiar affinity between certain people and certain objects? Why is it that von Bek can handle the Grail and I can handle
the Sword and so on?”
Morandi Pag made a grunting noise at the back of his throat. He put his muzzle into the fireplace and took a deep breath of the fumes, then he sat back in his armchair. “If certain schemes are set at certain times, if certain functions are required to ensure the survival of the multiverse, so that neither Law nor Chaos shall ever gain full command of it, then perhaps certain creatures must be matched to certain powerful artifacts. After all, every race has legends concerning such things. These affinities are part of the pattern. And the maintenance of the pattern, of Order, is of paramount importance.” He cleared his great throat. “I must look into this further. It will be an interesting way of passing my final years.”
The Lady Phalizaarn said gently, “The time for leaving has come, Prince Morandi Pag. There is one last great action to be taken, then this particular stage in the eternal game is completed. We must go to rejoin the rest of our people.”
Morandi Pag inclined his head. “The ships we hid for you are ready. They await you in our harbour.”
Von Bek, Alisaard and I were the last to go aboard the slender Eldren vessels. We remained, almost reluctantly, making our final farewells to the Ursine Princes. Not one of us said anything of meeting again. We knew it was never likely to be. And so it was with a special regret that we parted.
We three stood on the high aft deck of the final ship to sail out of the harbour, leaving the massive cliffs of Adelstane behind us, sailing beyond the whirlpool crags where Morandi Pag had lived for so long.
“Goodbye!” I cried as I waved to the last of that noble race. “Goodbye, dear friends!”
And I heard Morandi Pag call to me. “Goodbye, John Daker. May your rest be all you desire.”
We sailed for a day until we came at length to a place where great beams of light pierced the clouds and stroked the rolling sea: rainbow light forming a circle of great pillars, a kind of temple. We had come again to the Pillars of Paradise.