The Eternal Champion

'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…