The Eternal Champion

CHAPTER FOURTEEN ERMIZHAD

I did not know how they slew the children. I begged King Rigenos not to give the order. I pleaded with Katorn to spare them-to drive them from the city if he must, but not to kill them.

But the children were slain. I do not know how many.

We had taken over the palace which had belonged to Duke Baynahn himself. He had, it transpired, been Warden of Paphanaal.

I shut myself in my quarters while the slaughter went on outside. I reflected sardonically that for all their talk of the Eldren 'filth', they did not seem to mind forcing their attentions on the Eldren women.

There was nothing I could do. I did not even know if there was anything I should do. I had been brought here by Rigenos to fight for Humanity, not to judge it, I had agreed to answer his summons, after all-doubtless with reason. But I had forgotten any reason.

I sat in a room that was exquisitely furnished with delicate furniture and fine, light tapestries on walls and floor. I looked at the Eldren craftsmanship and I sipped the aromatic Eldren wine and I tried not to listen to the cries of the Eldren children as they were butchered in their beds in the houses in the streets beyond the thin palace walls.

I looked at the Sword Kanajana which I had propped in a corner and I hated the poisoned thing. I had stripped myself of my armour and I sat alone.

And I drank more wine.

But the wine of the Eldren began to taste of blood and I tossed the cup away and found a skin that Count Roldero had given me and sucked it dry of the bitter wine it contained.

But I could not get drunk. I could not stop the screams from the streets. I could not fail to see the flickering shadows on the tapestries I had drawn over the windows. I could not get drunk and therefore I could not even begin to try to sleep, for I knew what my dreams would be and I feared those almost as much as I feared thinking of the implications of what we were doing to those who were left in Paphanaal.

Why was I here? Oh, why was I here?

There was a noise outside my door and then a knock.

'Enter,' I said.

No one entered. My voice had been too low.

The knock sounded again.

I rose and walked unsteadily to the door flinging it open.

'Can you not leave me in peace?'

A frightened soldier of the Imperial Guard stood there. 'Lord Erekose, forgive me for disturbing you, but I bear a message from King Rigenos.'

'What's the message?' I said without interest.

'He would like you to join him. He says that there are still plans to discuss.'

I sighed. 'Very well. I will come down shortly.'

The soldier hurried off along the corridor.

At last, reluctantly, I rejoined the other conquerors. All the marshals were there, lounging on cushions and celebrating their victory. King Rigenos was there and he was so drunk that I envied him. And, to my relief, Katorn was not there.

Doubtless he was leading the looters.

As I came in to the hall, a huge cheer went up from the marshals and they raised their wine-cups in a toast to me.

I ignored them and walked to where the king was seated alone, staring vacantly into space.

'You wish to discuss further campaigns, King Rigenos,' I said. 'Are you sure…?'

'Ah, my friend Erekose. The immortal. The Champion. The saviour of Humanity. Greetings, Erekose.' He put a hand drunkenly on my arm. 'You disapprove of my unkingly insobriety, I see.'

'I disapprove of nothing,' I said. 'I have been drinking much myself.'

'But you-an immortal-can contain your…' he belched… 'can contain your liquor…'

I took pains to smile and said: 'Perhaps you have stronger liquor. If so, let me try it.'

'Slave!' screamed King Rigenos. 'Slave! More of that wine for my friend Erekose!'

A curtain parted and a trembling Eldren boy appeared. He was bearing a wineskin almost as large as himself.

'I see you have not slain all the children,' I said.

King Rigenos giggled. 'Not yet. Not while there are uses for them!'

I took the wineskin from the child and nodded to him. 'You may go.' I held the skin and put the opening to my lips and began to drink deeply. But still the wine refused to dull my brain. I hurled the skin away and it fell heavily and slopped wine over the tapestries and cushions covering the floor.

King Rigenos continued to giggle. 'Good! Good!'

These people were barbarians. Suddenly I wished that I was John Daker again. Studious, unhappy John Daker, living his quiet, cut-off life in the pursuit of pointless learning.

I turned to leave.

'Stay, Erekose. I'll sing you a song. It's a filthy song about the filthy Eldren…'

'Tomorrow…'

'It's already tomorrow!'

'I must rest…'

'I am your king, Erekose. You own your material form to me. Do not forget that!'

'I have not forgotten.'

The doors of the hall burst open then and they dragged in the ' Katorn was in the lead and he was grinning like a sated

She was a black-haired, elfin-faced girl. Her alien features were composed against the fear she felt. She had a strange, shifting beauty which was always there but which seemed to change with every breath she took. They had torn her garments and bruised her arms and face.

'Erekose!' Katorn followed his men in. He, too, was very drunk. 'Erekose-Rigenos, my lord king-look!'

The king blinked and looked at the girl with distaste. 'Why should we take interest in an Eldren wanton? Get hence, Katorn. Use her as you will-that is your private decision-but be sure she is not still alive when we leave Paphanaal.'

'No!' laughed Katorn. 'Look! Look at her!'

The king shrugged and inspected the wine swilling in his cup.

'Why have you brought her here, Katorn?' I asked quietly.

Katorn rocked with laughter. His thick lips opened wide and he roared in our faces. 'You know not who she is, that's plain!'

'Take the Eldren wench away, Katorn!' The king's voice rose in drunken irritation.

'My lord king-this-this is Ermizhad!'

'What?' The king leaned forward and stared at the girl. 'What? Ermizhad, that whore! Ermizhad of the Ghost Worlds!'

Katorn nodded. 'The same.'

The king grew more sober. 'She's lured many a mortal to his death, so I've heard. She shall die by torture for her lustful crimes. The stake shall have her.'

Katorn shook his head. 'No, King Rigenos-at least, not yet. Forget you that she's Prince Arjavh's sister?'

The king nodded in a mockery of gravity. 'Of course, Arjavh's sister.'

'And the implications, my lord? We should keep her prisoner, should we not? She will make a good hostage, eh? A good bargaining counter, should we need one?'

'Ah, of course. Yes. You did right, Katorn. Keep her prisoner.' The king grinned a silly grin. 'No. It is not fair. You deserve to enjoy yourself further this night. Who does not wish to enjoy himself…' He looked at me. 'Erekose'-Erekose who cannot get drunk. She shall be put in your charge, Champion.'

I nodded. 'I accept the charge,' I said. I pitied the girl, whatever terrible crimes she had committed.

Katorn looked at me suspiciously.

'Do not worry, Lord Katorn,' I said. 'Do as the king says-continue to enjoy yourself. Slay some more. Rape some more. There must be plenty left.'

Katorn drew his brows together. Then his face cleared a little.

'A few maybe,' he said. 'But we've been thorough. Only she will live to see the sun rise, I think.' He jabbed a thumb at his prisoner, then signed to his men. 'Come! Let's finish our task.'

He stalked out.

Count Roldero got up slowly and came towards me where I stood looking at the Eldren girl.

The king looked up. 'Good. Keep her from harm, Erekose,' he said cynically. 'Keep her from harm. She'll be a useful piece in our game with Arjavh.'

'Take her to my apartments in the East wing,' I told the guards, 'and make sure she's unmolested and has no chance to escape.'

They took her away and almost as soon as she had left King Rigenos made to stand up, swayed and fell with a crash to the floor.

Count Roldero gave a slight smile. 'Our liege is not himself,' he said. 'But Katorn is right. The Eldren bitch will be useful to us.'

'I understand her usefulness as a hostage,' I said, 'but I do not understand this reference to "the Ghost Worlds". I've heard them spoken of once before. What are they, Roldero?'

'The Ghost Worlds? Why, we all know of them. I should have thought that you would, too. But we do not often speak of them…'

'Why so?'

'Humankind fear Arjavh's allies so much that they will rarely mention them, in terror of conjuring them up by their words, you understand…'

'I do not understand.'

Roldero rubbed his nose and coughed. 'I am not superstitious, Erekose,' he said. 'Like yourself.'

'I know. But what are the Ghost Worlds?'

Roldero seemed nervous. 'I'll tell you, but I'm uncomfortable about doing so in this cursed place. The Eldren know better than we what the Ghost Worlds are. We had thought, at first, that you yourself were a prisoner there. That was why I was surprised.'

'Where are they?'

'The Ghost Worlds lie beyond the Earth-beyond Time and beyond Space-linked to the Earth only by the most tenuous of bonds.'

Roldero's voice dropped, but he whispered on.

'There, on the torn Ghost Worlds, dwell the many-coiled serpents which are the terror and the scourge of the eight dimensions. Here, also, live ghosts and men-those who are manlike and those who are unlike men-those who know that their fate is to live without Time, and those who are unaware of their doom. And there, also, do kinfolk to the Eldren dwell-the halflings.'

'But what are these worlds?' I asked impatiently.

Roldero licked his lips. 'They are the worlds to which human sorcerers sometimes go in search of alien wisdom, and from which they draw helpers of horrible powers and disgusting deeds. It is said that within those worlds an initiate may meet his long-slain comrades who may sometimes help him, his dead loves and his dead kin, and particularly his enemies-those whom he has caused to die. Malevolent enemies with great power-or wretches who are half-souled and incomplete.'

His whispered words convinced me, perhaps because I had drunk so much. Was it these Ghost Worlds that were the origin of my strange dreams? I wanted to know more.

'But what are they, Roldero? Where are they?'

Roldero shook his head, 'I do not concern myself with such mysteries, Erekose. I have never been much of a mystic. I believe-but I do not probe. I know of no answer to either of your questions. They are worlds full of shadow and gloomy shores upon which drab seas beat. The populace can sometimes be summoned by powerful sorcery to visit this Earth, to haunt, to help-or to terrorise. We think that the Eldren came, originally, from these half-worlds if they were not, as our legends say, spawned from the womb of a wicked Queen who gave her virginity to Azmobaana in return for immortality-the immortality which her offspring inherited. But the Eldren are material enough, for all their lack of souls, whereas the Ghost Armies are rarely solid flesh.'

'And Ermizhad…?'

'The Wanton of the Ghost Worlds.'

'Why is she called that?'

'It is said that she mates with ghouls,' muttered Count Roldero. He shrugged and drank more wine. 'And in return for giving her favours to them, she receives special powers over the halflings who are friends with the ghouls. The halflings love her, I'm told, as far as it's possible for such creatures to love.'

I could not believe it. The girl seemed young. Innocent. I said as much.

Roldero gestured dismissively. 'How can you tell the age of an immortal? Look at yourself. How old are you, Erekose? Thirty? You look no older.'

'But I have not lived for ever,' I said. 'At least, not in one body, I do not think.'

'But how do you tell?'

I could not answer him, of course.

'Well, I think there's a great deal of superstition mixed up in your tale, Roldero,' I said. 'I would not have expected it of you, old friend.'

'Believe me or not,' Roldero muttered. 'But you would do better to believe me until I am proved a liar, eh?'

'Possibly you're right.'

'I sometimes wonder at you, Erekose,' he said. 'Here you are owing your own existence to an incantation, and you are the most sceptical man I know!'

I smiled at this. 'Yes, Roldero. I should believe more. I should believe more.'

'Come,' said Roldero, moving towards the prone king who lay on his face in a pool of wine. 'Let's get our lord to bed before he drowns.'

Together we picked up the king and called for soldiers to help us as we hauled Rigenos up the stairs and dumped him on his bed.

Roldero put a hand on my shoulder. 'And stop brooding, friend. It will do no good. Think you that I enjoy the slaughter of children? The rape of young girls?' He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand as if to rid it of a foul taste. 'But if it is not done now, Erekose', it will be done at some time to our children and our young girls. I know the Eldren are beautiful. But so are many snakes. So are some kinds of wolf that prey on sheep. It is braver to do what has to be done than it is to pretend to yourself that you are not doing it. You follow me?'

We stood there in the king's bedchamber staring at each other.

'You are very kind, Roldero,' I said.

'It's well meant advice,' he told me.

'I know it is.'

'It was not your decision to slaughter the children,' he said.

'But it was my decision to say nothing of it to King Rigenos,' I replied.

At the mention of his name, the king stirred and began to mumble in his stupor.

'Come,' grinned Roldero. 'Let's get out of here before he remembers the words of that dirty song he promised to sing us.'

We parted in the corridor outside the chamber. Count Roldero looked at me with some concern. 'These actions must be made,' he said. 'It has befallen us to be the instruments of a decision made some centuries ago. Do not bother yourself with matters of conscience. The future may see us as bloody-handed butchers. But we know we are not. We are men. We are warriors. And we are at war with those who would destroy us.'

I said nothing, but put my hand on his shoulder then turned and walked back to my lonely apartments.

In my mental discomfort, I had all but forgotten the girl until I saw the guard at my door.

'Is the prisoner secure?' I asked him.

'There is no way out,' the guard said. 'No way, at least, Lord Erekose, that a human could take. But if she were to summon her halfling allies…'

'We'll concern ourselves with those when they materialise,' I told him. He unlocked the door for me and I entered.

There was only one lamp burning and I could barely see. I took a taper from a table and with it lit another lamp.

The Eldren girl lay on the bed. Her eyes were closed, but her cheeks were stained with tears.

So they cry like us, too, I thought.

I tried not to disturb her, but she opened her eyes and I thought I saw fear in them, though it was difficult to tell, for the eyes really were strange-without orbs and flecked with gold and blue. Seeing those eyes, I remembered what Roldero had told me and I began to believe him.

'How are you?' I asked, somewhat inanely.

Her lips parted, but she did not speak.

'I do not intend to harm you,' I said weakly. 'I would have spared the children if I could. I would have spared the warriors in the battle. But I have only the power to lead men to kill each other. I have no power to save their lives.'

She frowned.

'I am Erekose,' I said.

'Erekose'?' The word was music when she spoke it. She pronounced it more familiarly than I did myself.

'You know who I am?'

'I know who you were.'

'I am reborn,' I said. 'Do not ask me how.'

'You do not seem happy to be reborn, Erekose.'

I shrugged.

'Erekose,' she said again. And then she voiced a low, bitter laugh.

'Why do you laugh?'

But she would not speak again. I tried to converse with her further. She closed her eyes. I left the room and went to the bed next door.

The wine had worked at last-or something had-for I slept reasonably well.