The Eternal Champion

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE IN LOOS PTOKAI

I rode my horse slowly into the city, having left my sword and lance with the herald who was now, in astonishment, galloping back to our own camp to give the news to the marshals.

The streets of Loos Ptokai were silent, as if in mourning, as Arjavh came down the steps from the battlements to greet me. I saw, now that he was closer, that he, too, wore the expression which showed upon my own harsh features. His step was not so lithe and his voice not quite so lilting as when we had first met a year before.

I dismounted. He gripped my hand.

'So,' he said in attempted gaiety, 'the barbarian battle-monger is still material. My people had begun to doubt it.'

'I suppose they hate me,' I said.

He seemed a little surprised. 'The Eldren cannot hate,' he said as he led me towards his palace.

I was shown by Arjavh to a small room containing a bed, a table and a chair of wonderful workmanship all slender and seemingly of precious metal but in fact of cunningly wrought wood. In one corner was a sunken bath, water steaming in it.

When Arjavh had gone, I stripped off my blood- and dust-encrusted armour and climbed out of the underclothes I had worn for much of the past year. Then I sank gratefully into the water.

Since the initial emotional shock I had received when Arjavh had issued his invitation, my mind had become numbed. But now, for the first time in a year, I relaxed, mentally and physically, washing all the grief and hatred from me as I washed my body.

I was almost cheerful as I donned the fresh clothes which had been laid out for me and, when someone knocked at my door, called lightly for them to enter.

'Greetings, Erekose.' It was Ermizhad.

'My lady.' I bowed.

'How are you faring, Erekose?'

'In war, as you know, I am faring well. And personally I feel better for your hospitality.'

'Arjavh sent me to bring you to the meal.'

'I am ready. But first tell me how you have fared, Ermizhad.'

'Well enough-in health,' said she. Then she came closer to me. Involuntarily, I leaned back slightly. She looked at the ground and raised her hands to touch her throat. 'And tell me-are you now wed to Queen lolinda?'

'We are still betrothed,' I told her.

Deliberately, then, I looked into Ermizhad's eyes and added as levelly as I could: 'We are to be married when…'

'When?'

'When Loos Ptokai is taken.'

She said nothing.

I stepped forward so that we were separated by little more than an inch. 'Those are the only terms on which she will accept me,' I said. 'I must destroy all the Eldren. Your trampled banners will be my wedding gift to her.'

Ermizhad nodded and gave a queer, sad and sardonic look. 'That is your oath you swore. You must abide by it. You must slay every Eldren. Every one.'

I cleared my throat. 'That is the oath.'

'Come,' she said. 'The meal grows cold.'

At dinner, Ermizhad and I sat close together and Arjavh spoke wittily of some of the stranger experiments of his scientist ancestors and for a little while we managed to drive away the knowledge of the forthcoming battle. But later, as Ermizhad and I talked softly to one another, I caught a look of pain in Arjavh's eyes and for a moment he was quiet. He broke into our conversation suddenly:

'We are beaten, as you know, Erekose.'

I did not want to speak of these things any more. I shrugged and tried to continue the lighter talk with Ermizhad. But Arjavh was insistent.

'We are doomed, Erekose, to fall beneath the swords of your great army.'

I drew a deep breath and looked him full in the face. 'Yes. You are doomed, Prince Arjavh.'

'It is a matter of time before you raze our Loos Ptokai.'

This time I avoided his urgent gaze and merely nodded.

'So-you…' He broke off.

I became impatient. Many emotions mingled in me. 'My oath…' I reminded him. 'I must do what I swore I would do, Arjavh.'

'I do not fear to lose my own life…' he began.

'I know what you fear,' I told him.

'Could not the Eldren admit defeat, Erekose? Could they not acknowledge mankind's victory? Surely, one city…?'

'I swore an oath.' Now sadness filled me.

'But you cannot…' Ermizhad gestured with her slim hand. 'We are your friends, Erekose. We enjoy each other's company. We-we are friends…'

'We are of different races,' I said. 'We are at war.'

'I am not asking for mercy,' Arjavh said.

'I know that,' I replied. 'I do not doubt Eldren courage. I have seen too many examples of it.'

'You abide by an oath given in anger, offered to an abstraction, that leads you to slay those you love and respect…' Ermizhad's voice was puzzled. 'Are you not tired of killing, Erekose?'

'I am very tired of killing,' I told her.

'Then…?'

'But I began this thing,' I continued. 'Sometimes I wonder if I really do lead my men-of if they push me ahead of them. Perhaps I am wholly their creation. The creation of the will of humanity. Perhaps I am a kind of patchwork hero that they have manufactured. Perhaps I have no other existence and when my work is done I will fade as their sense of danger fades…'

'I think not,' said Arjavh soberly.

I shrugged. 'You are not me. You have not had my strange dreams…'

'You still have those dreams?' Ermizhad asked.

'Not recently. Since I began this campaign they have gone away. They only plague me when I attempt to assert my own individuality. When I do what is required of me, they leave me in peace. I am a ghost, you see. Nothing more.'

Arjavh sighed. 'I do not understand this. I think you are suffering from self-pity, Erekose. You could assert your own will-but you are afraid to! Instead, you abandon yourself to hate and bloodshed, to this peculiar melancholia of yours. You are depressed because you are not doing what you really desire to do. The dreams will come again, Erekose. Mark my words-the dreams will come again and they will be more terrible than any you have experienced before.'

'Stop!' I shouted. 'Do not spoil this last meeting of ours. I came here because-'

'Because?' Arjavh raised a slim eyebrow.

'Because I needed some civilised company…'

'To see your own kind,' Ermizhad said softly.

I turned on her, rising from the table. 'You are not my own kind! My race is out there-beyond those walls-waiting to vanquish you!'

'We are kin in spirit,' Arjavh said. 'Our bonds are finer and stronger than bonds of blood…'

My face twisted and I buried it in my hands. 'No!'

Arjavh put a hand on my shoulder. 'You are more substantial than you will allow yourself to be, Erekose. It would take a great deal of a particular kind of courage if you would pursue the implications of another course of action…'

I let my hands fall to myself. 'You are right,' I told him. 'And I do not have that courage. I am just a sword. A force, like a whirlwind. There is nothing else to me-nothing I would allow. Nothing I am allowed…'

Ermizhad interrupted fiercely. 'For your own sake, you must allow that other self to rule. Forget your oath to lolinda. You do not love her. You have nothing in common with the bloodthirsty rabble that follows you. You are a greater man than any you lead-greater than any you fight…'

'Stop it!'

'She is right, Erekose,' Arjavh said. 'It is not for our lives that we argue. It is for your spirit…'

I slumped down into my seat. 'I sought to avoid confusion,' I said, 'by taking a simple course of action. You are right that I feel no kinship with those I lead-or those who thrust me before them-but undeniably they are my kin. My duty…'

'Let them fare how they will,' Ermizhad said. 'Your duty is not to them. It is to yourself.'

I sipped some wine. Then I said quietly: 'I am afraid.'

Arjavh shook his head. 'You are brave. It is not your fault…'

'Who knows?' I said. 'Perhaps I committed some enormous crime at some stage. Now I am paying the price.'

'That is a self-pitying sort of speculation,' Arjavh reminded me. 'It is not-it is not-manly, Erekose.'

I inhaled deeply. 'I suppose not.' Then I looked at him. 'But if time is cyclic-in some form, at least-it could be that I have not yet committed that crime…'

'It is idle to speak of "crime" in this way,' Ermizhad said impatiently. 'What does your heart tell you to do?'

'My heart? I have not listened to it for many months.'

'Listen to it now!' she said.

I shook my head. 'I have forgotten how to listen to it, Ermizhad. I must finish what I set out to do. What I was called here to do…'

'Are you sure it was King Rigenos who called you?'

'Who else?'

Arjavh smiled. 'This, too, is idle speculation. You must do what you must do, Erekose. I will plead for my people no longer.'

'Thank you for that,' I said. I rose, staggered slightly and screwed up my eyes. 'Gods! I am so weary!'

'Rest here tonight,' Ermizhad said quietly. 'Rest with me…'

I looked at her.

'With me,' she said.

Arjavh began to speak, changed his mind and left the room.

I realised then that I wanted nothing else but to do as Ermizhad suggested, but I shook my head. 'It would be weakness…'

'No,' she said. 'It would give you strength. It would enable you to make a clearer decision…'

'I have made my decision. Besides, my oath to lolinda…'

'You swore an oath of faithfulness…'

I spread my hands. 'I cannot remember.'

She moved towards me and stroked my face. 'Perhaps it would end something,' she suggested. 'Perhaps it would restore your love for lolinda…'

Now physical pain seemed to seize me. I even wondered for a moment if they had poisoned me. 'No.'

'It would help,' she said. 'I know it would help. How, I am not sure. I do not even know if it suit my own desires, but…'

'I cannot weaken now, Ermizhad.'

'Erekose, it would not be weakness!'

'Still…'

She turned away from me and said in a soft, strange tone. 'Then rest here, anyway. Sleep in a good bed so that you will be fit for tomorrow's fighting. I love you, Erekose. I love you more than I love anything. I will aid you in whatever course of action you decide upon.'

'I have already decided,' I reminded her. 'And you cannot aid me there.' I felt dizzy. I did not want to return to my own camp in that condition, for they would be sure I had been drugged and would lose all confidence in me. Better to stay the night and greet my troops refreshed. 'Very well, I will stay here tonight,' I said. 'Alone.'

'As you wish, Erekose.' She moved towards the door. 'A servant will come to show you were to sleep.'

'I'll sleep in this room,' I told her. 'Have someone bring in a bed.'

'As you wish.'

'It will be good to sleep in a real bed,' I said. 'My thoughts will be sharper in the morning.'

'I hope so. Good night, Erekose.'

Had they known that the dreams would return that night? Was I the victim of immense and subtle cunning such as only the unhuman Eldren possessed?

I lay on my bed in the Eldren fortress city and I dreamed.

But this was not a dream in which I sought to discover my true name. I had no name in this dream. I did not want a name.

I watched the world turning and I saw its inhabitants running about its surface like ants in a hill, like beetles in a dung heap. I saw them fighting and destroying, making peace and building-only to drag those buildings down again in another inevitable war. And it seemed to me that these creatures had evolved only so far from the beast state and that some quirk of destiny had doomed them to repeat, over and over again, the same mistakes. And I realised that there was no hope for them these imperfect creatures that were half-way from the animals, half-way from the gods-that it was their fate, like mine, to struggle for ever and for ever fail to be fulfilled. The paradoxes that existed in me existed in the whole race. The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no solution. There was no point in seeking an answer; one could only accept what existed or else reject it, as one pleased. It would always be the same. Oh, there was much to love them for and nothing at all to hate them for. How could they be hated, when their errors resulted from the quirk of fate that had made them the half-creatures that they were-half-blind, half-deaf, half-dumb…

I woke up and felt very calm. And then, gradually, a sense of terror possessed me as the implications of my thoughts began to dawn on me.

Had the Eldren sent this dream-with their sorcery?

I did not think so. This dream was the dream that the other dreams had sought to hide from me. I was sure of it. This was the stark truth.

And the stark truth horrified me.

It was not my fate to wage eternal war-it was the fate of my entire race. As part of that race-as its representative, in fact-I, too, must wage eternal war.

And that is what I wished to avoid. I could not bear the thought of fighting for ever, wherever I was required. And yet whatever I did to try to end the cycle would be hopeless. There was only one thing I could do…

I buried the thought.

But what else?

Try for peace? See if it would work? Let the Eldren live?

Arjavh had expressed impatience with idle speculation. But this, too, was idle speculation. The human race was sworn to destroy the Eldren. This done, of course, it would then turn upon itself and begin the perpetual squabbling, the constant warring that its peculiar destiny decreed for it.

And yet-should I not, at least, attempt to make the compromise?

Or should I continue with my original ambition, destroy the Eldren, let the race resume its fratricidal sport. In a way it seemed to me that while some Eldren lived, the race might hold together. If the common enemy remained, at least some sort of unity would exist in the human kingdoms. It seemed critical to me then that some Eldren be spared-for the sake of humanity.

I suddenly realised that there was no conflict in my loyalties all. What I had thought was contradictory was, in fact, two halves of a whole. The dream had merely helped me unite them and see everything clearly.

Perhaps this was a complex piece of rationalisation. I shall never know. I feel that I was right, though it is possible that subsequent events proved me wrong. At least I tried…

I sat up in my bed as a servant came in with water for me to wash and my own clothes freshly laundered. I washed, dressed myself and when a knock came at the door I called out for the person to enter.

It was Ermizhad. She brought me my breakfast and set it on the table. I thanked her and she looked at me oddly.

'You seem to have changed since last night,' she said. 'You seem more at one with yourself.'

'I think I am,' I told her as I ate. 'I had another dream last night…'

'Was it as terrifying as the others?'

'More terrifying in certain aspects,' I said. 'But it did not raise problems, this time. It offered me a solution.'

'You feel you can fight better…'

'If you like. I think it would be in the interests of my race if we made peace with the Eldren. Or, at least, declared a permanent truce…'

'You have realised at last that we offer you no danger.'

'On the contrary, it is the very danger you offer that makes your survival necessary to my race.' I smiled, remembering an old aphorism from somewhere. 'If you did not exist, it would be necessary to invent you.'

A look of intelligence brightened her face. She smiled, too. 'I think I understand you.'

'Therefore, I intend to present this conclusion to Queen lolinda,' I said. 'I hope to persuade her that it is in our interest to end this war against the Eldren.'

'And your terms?'

'I see no need to make terms with you,' I said. 'We will merely stop fighting and go away.'

She laughed. 'Will it be so easy?'

I looked squarely at her, deliberated for a moment, and then I shook my head. 'Perhaps not. But I must try.'

'You have become very rational, suddenly, Erekose. I am glad. Your sleep here did do you some good, then…'

'And the Eldren, too, perhaps…'

She smiled again. 'Perhaps.'

'I will return to Necranal as soon as possible and speak with lolinda.'

'And if she agrees, you will marry her?'

I felt weak, then. At last I said: 'I must do that. Everything would be negated if I did not. You understand?'

'Entirely,' she said and there were tears in her eyes as she smiled.

Arjavh came in a few minutes later and I told him what I intended to do. He received the news rather more sceptically than Ermizhad.

'You do not think I mean what I say?' I asked him.

He shrugged. 'I believe you completely, Erekose. But I do not think the Eldren will survive.'

'What is it? Some disease? Something in you that…?'

He laughed shortly. 'No, no. I think you will propose a truce and that the people will not let you make it. Your race will only be satisfied when every Eldren has perished. You said that it is their destiny always to fight. Could it not be that secretly they resent the Eldren because the presence of the Eldren means that they cannot go about their normal activities-I mean by that their fighting among themselves. Could this not be nothing more than a pause while they wipe us out? And if they do not wipe us out now, they will do it very soon, whether you lead them or no.'

'Still, I must try…' I said.

'Try by all means. But they'll hold you to your vow, I'm sure.'

'lolinda is intelligent. If she listens to my arguments…'

'She is one of them. I doubt if she will listen. Intelligence has little to do with it… Last night when I pleaded with you I was not myself-I panicked, I know, really, that there can be no peace.'

'I must try.'

'I hope you succeed.'

Perhaps I had been beguiled by the charms of the Eldren, but I did not think so. I would do my best to bring peace to the wasted land of Mernadin, though it meant I could never see my Eldren friends again-never see Ermizhad…

I put the thought from my head and resolved to dwell upon it no longer.

Then a servant entered the room. My herald, accompanied by several marshals, including Count Roldero, had presented himself outside the gates of Loos Ptokai, half certain that I had been murdered by the Eldren.

'Only sight of you will reassure them,' Arjavh murmured. I agreed and left the room.

I heard the herald calling as I approached the city wall. 'We fear that you have been guilty of great treachery. Let us see our master-or his corpse.' He paused. 'Then we shall know what to do.'

Arjavh and I mounted the steps to the battlements and I saw relief in the herald's eyes as he noted I was unharmed.

'I have been talking with Prince Arjavh,' I said. 'And I have been thinking deeply. Our men are weary beyond endurance and the Eldren are now only a few, with just this city in their possession. We could take Loos Ptokai, but I see no point to it. Let us be generous victors, my marshals. Let us declare a truce…'

'A truce, Lord Erekose!' Count Roldero's eyes widened. 'Would you rob us of our ultimate prize? Our final, fierce fulfilment? Our greatest triumph? Peace!'

'Yes,' I said, 'peace. Now go back. Tell our warriors I am safe.'

'We can take this city easily, Erekose,' Roldero shouted. 'There's no need to talk of peace. We can destroy the Eldren once and for all. Have you succumbed to their cursed enchantments again? Have they beguiled you once more with their smooth words?'

'No,' I said, 'it was I who suggested it.'

Roldero swung his horse around in disgust.

'Peace!' he spat as he and his comrades headed back to the camp. 'Our Champion's gone mad!'

Arjavh rubbed his lips with his finger. 'Already, I see, there is trouble.'

They fear me,' I told him, 'and they'll obey me. They'll obey me-for a while, at least.'

'Let us hope so,' he said.