“A new sword from each part. Is there enough metal for that?”
“I think so. But that will not concern you for a while, at any rate. Would you sleep now?”
“I am tired,” I said. I felt as if I had not rested for centuries.
The blind captain led me to my old, familiar bunk. I stretched myself out and almost immediately I began to dream. I dreamed of King Rigenos and Ermizhad, of Urlik Skarsol and all the other heroes I had been. And then I dreamed of dragons. Hundreds of dragons. Dragons whom I knew by name. Dragons who loved me as I loved them. And I dreamed of great fleets. Of wars. Of tragedies and of impossible delights, of wizardry and wild romance. I dreamed of white arms locked around me. I dreamed again of Ermizhad. And then I dreamed that we had come together again at last and I awoke laughing, remembering something of that dragon song which the Eldren women had sung.
The blind captain and his brother the helmsman stood there. They, too, were smiling.
“It is time to disembark, John Daker. It is time for you to go to your reward.”
I got up, then. I was dressed only in a pair of leather breeches and boots. But it did not feel cold. I followed them out into the darkness of the deck. A few yellow lamps gleamed here and there. Through the red mist I saw the suggestion of a shoreline. I saw first one tower and then a second. They seemed to be spanning a harbour.
I peered through the darkness, trying to distinguish details. The towers looked familiar.
Now the helmsman called to me from below. He was in a small boat waiting to carry me to land. I bade farewell to the Captain and I climbed down to the boat, seating myself on the bench.
The helmsman pulled strongly on his oars. The red mist grew dimmer still. It seemed close to dawn. The twin towers had a bridge spanning them. Elsewhere were thousands of lights gleaming. I heard the mournful hoot of what I thought at first was a great water-beast. Then I realised it was a boat.
The helmsman shipped his oars. “You are at your destination now, John Daker. I wish you good fortune.”
Cautiously I stepped onto the slippery mud of the shore. I heard a drone from above me. I heard voices. And then, as the helmsman disappeared back into the red mist, I realised that I had been in this place before.
The twin towers were those of Tower Bridge. The sounds I heard were the sounds of a great modern city. The sounds of London.
John Daker was returning home.
EPILOGUE
MY NAME IS John Daker. I was once called the Eternal Champion. It is possible I shall bear that name once again. For now, however, I am at peace.
By summoning up this identity—the original, if you will—I was able to resist and ultimately defeat the powers of Chaos. My reward for this action is that I am allowed to resume my life as John Daker.
When called by King Rigenos to be Humanity’s champion, I had been discontented with my life. I had seen it as shallow, without colour. Yet I have come to realise how rich my life actually is, how complex is the world I inhabit. That complexity alone is worthy of celebration. I understand that life in a great city of my world’s twentieth century can be just as intense, just as satisfactory as any other. Indeed, to be a hero, forever at war, is to be in some ways always a child. The true challenge comes in making sense of one’s life, of imbuing it with purpose based on one’s own principles.
I still have memories of those other times. I still dream frequently of the great battle-blades, the chargers, the massive fighting barges, the weird creatures and the magical cities, the bright banners and the wonder of a perfect love. I dream of riding against Chaos, of bearing arms against Heaven in the name of Hell, of being the scythe which cut Humanity down… But I have discovered an equal intensity of experience in this world, too. We have merely, I think, to teach ourselves how to recognise and to relish it.
That is what I learned when I faced the Archduke Balarizaaf, Princess Sharadim and Prince Flamadin at The World’s Beginning, when we struggled for the Dragon Sword.
It is ironic that I saved both myself and those I cared for by recalling, at the crucial moment, my identity as an ordinary mortal. There are subtle dangers to the rôle of hero. I am glad I no longer have to consider them.
So John Daker has returned home. The cycle is complete; the saga finds a form of resolution. Somewhere, doubtless, the Eternal Champion will continue to fight to maintain the Cosmic Balance. And in his dreams, if nowhere else, John Daker will recall those battles, as he will sometimes recall a vast field of statues, all of which seem to bear his name… For the present, however, he need take no further part in battles, nor wonder at the significance of that field.
I still long, of course, for my Ermizhad. I shall never love anyone as I loved her. I believe I must surely find her, not in some bizarre realm of the multiverse, but here, perhaps in this city, in London. Does she look for me, even now, as I search for her? It surely cannot be very long before we are reunited.
And when that time comes there is no sword forged, in this world or any other, which will divide us!
We shall know peace.
Though our span of years be those of ordinary human beings, they will be our own years. We shall be free of all cosmic designs, free of destinies and grandiose dooms.
We shall be free to love as we were always meant to love; free to be the flawed, finite, mortal creatures which from the first was all we ever wished to be.
And, for those years at least, the Eternal Champion will be at rest.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BORN IN LONDON in 1939, Michael Moorcock now lives in Texas. A prolific and award-winning writer with more than eighty works of fiction and non-fiction to his name, he is the creator of Elric, Jerry Cornelius and Colonel Pyat, amongst many other memorable characters. In 2008, The Times named Moorcock in their list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.
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ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
THE ETERNAL CHAMPION SERIES
BY MICHAEL MOORCOCK
The Eternal Champion
Phoenix in Obsidian
THE CORUM SERIES
BY MICHAEL MOORCOCK
The Knight of the Swords (May 2015)
The Queen of the Swords (June 2015)
The King of the Swords (July 2015)
The Bull and the Spear (August 2015)
The Oak and the Ram (September 2015)
The Sword and the Stallion (October 2015)
TITANBOOKS.COM
PRAISE FOR MICHAEL MOORCOCK
“The most important successor to Mervyn Peake and Wyndham Lewis” — JG Ballard
“Michael Moorcock transcends cool. He is beyond any need for cool.” — Neil Gaiman
“His imagination sweeps the reader along. Amongst the best Moorcock has written.”
— Sunday Telegraph
“…a Moorcock novel through and through: exhilarating, funny and deeply peculiar. It’s been years since the Who range put out anything as smart and engaging as this.” — SFX
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Michael Moorcock, The Dragon in the Sword
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