The Eternal Champion

EPILOGUE

The scars of that destruction have healed now, as I end my chronicle.

I returned to Loos Ptokai to wed Ermizhad, to have the Eldren secret of immortality conferred upon me, to brood for a year or two until my brain cleared.

It is clear now. I feel no guilt for what I did. I feel more certain than ever that it was not my decision.

Perhaps that is madness? Perhaps I have rationalised my guilt? If so, I am at one with my madness, it does not tear me in two as my dreams used to. I have those dreams rarely these days.

So we are here, the three of us-Ermizhad, Arjavh and I. Arjavh is undisputed ruler of the Earth, an Eldren Earth, and we rule with him.

We cleansed this Earth of human kind. I am its last representative. And in so doing I feel that we knitted this planet back into the pattern, allowed it to drift, at last, harmoniously with a harmonious Universe. For the Universe is old, perhaps even older than I, and it could not tolerate the humans who broke its peace.

Did I do right?

You must judge for yourself, wherever you are.

For me, it is too late to ask that question. I have sufficient control, nowadays, never to ask it. The only way in which I could answer it would involve destroying my own sanity.

One thing puzzles me. If, indeed, Time is cyclic, in some manner, and the Universe we know will be born again to turn another long cycle, then Humanity will one day arise again, somehow, on this Earth and my adopted people will disappear from the Earth, or seem to.

And if you are human who read this, perhaps you know. Perhaps my question seems naive and you are at this moment laughing at me. But I have no answer. I can imagine none.

I am not to be the father of your race, human, for Ermizhad and I cannot produce children.

Then how shall you come again to disrupt the harmony of the Universe?

And will I be here to receive you. Will I become your hero again or will I die with the Eldren fighting you?

Or will I die before then and be the leader who brings disrupting humanity to Earth? I cannot say.

Which of the names will I have next time you call?

Now the Earth is peaceful. The silent air carries only the sounds of quiet laughter, the murmur of conversation, the small noises of small animals. We and the Earth are at peace.

But how long can it last?

Oh, how long can it last?