The Eternal Champion

'And I shall always love you, Erekose. You will live forever, but…'

'There is no proof of that,' I said gently. 'And I am by no means invulnerable, lolinda. I sustained enough cuts and bruises in my weapons practice to realise that!'

'You will not die, Erekose.'

'I would be happier if I shared your conviction!'

'Do not laugh at me, Erekose. I will not be patronised.'

'I am not laughing at you, lolinda. I am not patronising you. I only speak the truth. You must face that truth. You must.'

'Very well,' she said. 'I will face it. But I feel that you will not die. Yet, I have such strange premonitions-I feel that something worse than death could befall us.'

'Your fears are natural, but they are baseless. There is no need for gloom, my dear. Look at the fine armour I wear, the powerful sword I bear, the mighty force I command.'

'Kiss me, Erekose.'

I kissed her. I kissed her for a long time and then she broke from my arms and ran to the door and was gone.

I stared at the door, half thinking of running after her, of reassuring her. But I knew that I could not reassure her. Her fears were not really rational-they reflected her constant sense of insecurity. I promised myself that later I would give her proof of security. I would bring constants into her life-things she could trust.

Trumpets sounded. King Rigenos was coming aboard.

A few moments later the king entered the cabin, tugging off his crowned helm. Katorn was behind him, as sullen as ever.

'The people seem enthusiastic,' I said. 'The ceremony seemed to have the effect you desired, King Rigenos.'

Rigenos nodded wearily. 'Aye.' The ritual had plainly taken much from him and he slumped into a hanging chair in the corner and called for wine. 'We'll be sailing soon. When, Katorn?'

'Within the quarter hour, my lord king.' Katorn took the jug of wine from the slave who brought it and poured Rigenos a cup without offering one to me.

King Rigenos waved his hand. 'Would you have some wine, Lord Erekose?'

I declined. 'You spoke well in the hall, King Rigenos,' I said. 'You fired us with a fine bloodlust.'

Katorn sniffed. 'Let us hope it lasts until we get to the enemy,' he said. 'We have some raw soldiers sailing on this expedition. Half our warriors have never fought before-and half of those are boys. There are even some women in some detachments, I've heard.'

'You seem pessimistic, Lord Katorn,' I said.

He grunted. 'It is as well to be. All this finery and grandeur is all right for cheering up the civilians, but it's best you don't believe it yourself. You should know, Erekose. You should know what real war is all about. Pain, fear, death. There's nothing else to it.'

'You forget,' I said. 'My memory of my own past is clouded.'

Katorn.sniffed and gobbled down his wine. He replaced the cup with a clatter and left. 'I'll see to the casting off.'

The king cleared his throat. 'You and Katorn…' he began, but broke off. 'You…'

'We are not friends,' I said. 'I dislike his surly, mistrustful manner-and he suspects me of being a fraud, a traitor, a spy of some sort.'

King Rigenos nodded. 'He has hinted as much to me.' He sipped his wine. 'I told him that I saw you materialise with my own eyes. That there is no question you are Erekose, that there is no reason not to trust you-but he persists. Why, do you think? He is a sane, sensible soldier.'

'He is jealous,' I said. 'I have taken over his power.'

'But he was as agreed as any of us that we needed a new leader who would inspire our people in the fight against the Eldren.'

'In principle, perhaps,' I said. I shrugged. 'It does not matter, King Rigenos. I think we have worked out a compromise.'

King Rigenos was lost in his own thoughts. 'There again,' he murmured, 'it could have nothing to do with war, at all.'

'What do you mean?'

He gave me a candid look. 'It might concern matters of love, Erekose. Katorn has always been pleased by lolinda's manner.'

'You could be right. But again there is nothing I can do. lolinda seems to prefer my company.'

'Katorn might see it as mere infatuation with an ideal rather than a real person.'

'Do you see it as that?'

'I do not know. I have not talked to lolinda about it.'

'Well,' I said, 'perhaps we shall see when we return.'

'If we return,' said King Rigenos. 'In there, I must admit, I'm in agreement with Katorn. Over-confidence has often been the main cause of many defeats.'

I nodded. 'Perhaps you are right.'

There came shouts and cries from outside and the ship lurched suddenly as the ropes were cast off and the anchors hauled in.

'Come,' said King Rigenos. 'Let us go out on deck. It will be expected of us.' Hastily he finished his wine and placed his crowned helmet upon his head. We left the cabin together and, as we came out, the cheering on the quayside swelled louder and louder.

We stood there waving to the people as the drums began to pound out the slow rowing rhythm. I saw lolinda seated in her carriage, her body half turned to watch as we left. I waved to her and she raised her own arm in a final salute.

'Goodbye, lolinda,' I murmured.

Katorn darted me a cynical look from the corner of his eye as he passed to supervise the rowing.

Goodbye, lolinda.

The wind had dropped. I was sweating in my wargear, for the day was oppressed by a great flaming sun, blazing in a cloudless sky.

I continued to wave from the stern of the swaying vessel, keeping my gaze on lolinda as she sat there erect in her carriage, and then we had rounded a bend in the river and saw only the rearing towers of Necranal above and behind us, heard only the distant cheering.

We beat down the Droonaa River, moving fast with the current towards Noonos of the Jewelled Towers-and the fleets.

CHAPTER NINE AT NOONOS

Oh these blind and bloody wars…

'Really, bishop, you fail to understand that human affairs are resolved in terms of action…'

Brittle arguments, pointless causes, cynicism disguised as pragmatism.

'Would you not rest, my son?'

'I cannot rest, Father, while the Paynim horde is already on the banks of the Danube…'

'Peace…'

'Will they be content with peace?'

'Perhaps.'

'They won't be satisfied with Vietnam. They won't be content until the whole of Asia is their's… And after that, the world…'

'We are not beasts.'

'We must act as beasts. They act as beasts.'

'But if we tried…'

'We have tried.'

'Have we?'

'Fire must be fought with fire.'

'Is there no other way?'

'There is no other way.'

'The children…'

'There is no other way.'

A gun. A sword. A bomb. A bow. A vibrapistol. A flamelance. An axe. A club…

'There is no other way…'

***

On board the flagship that night, as the oars rose and fell and the drum continued its steady beat and the timbers creaked and the waves lapped at the hull, I slept poorly. Fragments of conversations. Phrases. Images. They tumbled in my tired brain and refused to leave me in peace. A thousand different periods of history. A million different faces. But the situation was always the same. The argument-made in myriad tongues-did not change.

Only when I rose from my bunk did my head clear and at length I resolved to go on deck.

What sort of creature was I? Why did it seem that I was forever doomed to drift from era to era and act out the same role wherever I went? What trick-what cosmic joke had been played upon me?

The night air was cool on my face and the moonlight struck through the light clouds at regular intervals so that the beams looked like the spokes of some gigantic wheel. It was as if the chariot of a God had sunk through the low cloud and become embedded in the coarser air beneath.