The Eternal Champion

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.'