The Eternal Champion

CHAPTER ONE 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 mortality 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:

Erekose… Erekose… Erekose…

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.

Erekose… Erekose… Erekose

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 Erekose? Was I either of these? Many other names-Corom Bannan Flurrun, Aubec, Elric, Rackhir, Simon, Cornelius, Asquinol, 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…

'Erekose the Champion, where are you?'

Another voice: 'Father… it is only a legend…'

'No, lolinda. I feel he is listening. Erekose…'

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 an 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…

'Erekose. It is I-King Rigenos, Defender of Humanity…

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

'Come to us, Erekose. Lead us to victory. Come to us Erekose. Lead us…'

The woman's voice:

'Father. This is only an empty tomb. Not even the mummy of Erekose 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 whole panorama of the twentieth century, its discoveries and its deceits, its beauties and its bitterness, its satisfactions, its strifing, its self-delusion, its superstitious fancies that 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 Erekose…

There were three great continents, two close together, divided from the other 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 seaports-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 Erekose, Erekose, Erekose…

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, lolinda, 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 Erekose, to aid him with his war against them.

'Erekose, 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 walls 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. 'lolinda,' 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 Erekose. 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.

'Erekose!' called the king, straining his eyes through the gloom as if he had seen me. 'Erekose! We pray.'

Then I experienced the dreadful pain which I supposed must be like that of a woman experiencing child-birth. 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 and 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 worth while behind me, but do not let me regret that leaving.'

'You will not regret it, Champion.' He was pale, exhilarated, smiling. I looked at lolinda 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.