The Champion of Garathorm
Michael Moorcock

      Then the Earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of 
age, its ways becoming whimsical and strange in the manner of a man in his last 
years.
- The High History of the Runestaff

   And when this History was done there followed it another. A Romance involving 
the same participants in experiences perhaps even more bizarre and awesome than 
the last. And again the ancient Castle of Brass in the marshy Kamarg was the 
centre for much of this action..
   - The Chronicles of Castle Brass

CONTENTS
BOOK ONE DEPARTURES
1. Representations and Possibilities       13
2. Count Brass Goes A-Journeying       20
3. A Lady All In Armour       25
4. News From Beyond The Mountains       31
5. Reluctantly-A Quest       40
BOOK TWO
A HOMECOMING
1. Ilian of Garathorm       61
2. Outlaws of a Thousand Spheres       70
3. A Meeting in the Forest       77
4. A Pact is Made       81
5. The Raid on Virinthorm       87
6. The Wrong Champion       94
BOOK THREE A LEAVETAKING
1. Sweet Battle, Triumphant Vengeance       103
2. An Impossible Death       110
3. The Swaying of the Balance       117
4. The Soul Gem       121

BOOK ONE
DEPARTURES

1
REPRESENTATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES
      Dorian Hawkmoon was no longer mad, yet neither was he healthy. Some said 
that it was the Black Jewel which had ruined him when it had been torn from his 
forehead. Others said that the war against the Dark Empire had exhausted him of 
all the energy he would normally need for a full lifetime and that now there was 
no more energy left. And some would have it that Hawkmoon mourned for the love 
of Yisselda, Count Brass's daughter, who had died at the Battle of Londra. In 
the five years of his madness Hawkmoon had insisted that she was still alive, 
that she lived with him at Castle Brass and bore him a son and a daughter.
      But while causes might be the subject of debate in the inns and taverns of 
Aigues-Mortes, the town which sheltered beneath the great Castle of Brass, the 
effects themselves were plain to all.
      Hawkmoon brooded.
      Hawkmoon pined and shunned human company, even that of his good friend 
Count Brass. Hawkmoon sat alone in a small room at the top of the castle's 
highest tower and, with chin on fist, stared out over the marshes, the fields of 
reeds, the lagoons, his eyes fixed not on the wild white bulls, the horned 
horses or the giant scarlet flamingoes of the Kamarg, but upon a distance, 
profound and numinous.
      Hawkmoon tried to recall a dream or an insane fantasy. He tried to 
remember Yisselda. He tried to remember the names of the children he had 
imagined while he had been mad. But Yisselda was a shadow and he could see 
nothing of the children at all. Why did he yearn? Why was he full of such a deep 
and lasting sense of loss? Why did he sometimes nurse the thought that this, 
which he experienced now, was madness and that the dream - that of Yisselda and 
the children - had been the reality?
      Hawkmoon no longer knew himself and had lost the inclination, as a result, 
to communicate with others. He was a ghost. He haunted his own apartments. A sad 
ghost who could only sob and groan and sigh.
      At least he had been proud in his madness, said the townsfolk. At least he 
had been complete in his delusions.
      'He was happier mad."
      Hawkmoon would have agreed with such sentiments, had they been expressed 
to him.
      When not in the tower he haunted the room where he had set up his War 
Tables - high benches on which rested models of cities and castles occupied by 
thousands of other models of soldiers. In his madness he had commissioned this 
huge array from Vaiyonn, the local craftsman. To celebrate, he had told Vaiyonn, 
their victories over the Lords of Granbretan. And represented in painted metal 
were the Duke of Koln himself, Count Brass, Yisselda, Bowgentle, Huillam D'Averc 
and Oladahn of the Bulgar Mountains - the heroes of the Kamarg, most of whom had 
perished at Londra. And here too were models of their old enemies, the Beast 
Lords - Baron Meliadus in his wolf helm, King Huon in his Throne Globe, Shenegar 
Trott, Adaz Promp, Asrovak Mikosevaar and his wife, Flana (now the gentle Queen 
of Granbretan). Dark Empire infantry, cavalry and flyers were ranged against the 
Guardians of the Kamarg, against the Warriors of Dawn, against the soldiers of a 
hundred small nations.
      And Dorian Hawkmoon would move all these pieces about his vast boards, 
going through one permutation after another; fighting a thousand versions of the 
same battle in order to see how a battle which followed it might have changed. 
And his heavy fingers were often upon the models of his dead friends, and most 
of all they were upon Yisselda. How could she have been saved? What set of 
circumstances would have guaranteed her continuing to live?
      Sometimes Count Brass would enter the room, his eyes troubled. He would 
run his fingers through his greying red hair and watch as Hawkmoon, absorbed in 
his miniature world, brought forward a squadron of cavalry here, drew back a 
line of infantry there. Hawkmoon either did not notice the presence of Count 
Brass on these occasions or else he preferred to ignore his old friend until 
Count Brass would clear his throat or otherwise make it evident that he had come 
in. Then Hawkmoon would look up, eyes introspective, bleak, unwelcoming, and 
Count Brass would ask softly after Hawkmoon's health. Hawkmoon would reply 
curtly that he was well.
      Count Brass would nod and say that he was glad.
      Hawkmoon would wait impatiently, anxious to get back to his manoeuvrings 
on his tables, while Count Brass looked around the room, inspected a battle-line 
or pretended to admire the way Hawkmoon had worked out a particular tactic.
      Then Count Brass would say:
      'I'm riding to inspect the towers this morning. It's a fine day. Why don't 
you come with me, Dorian?"
      Dorian Hawkmoon would shake his head. 'There are things I have to do 
here.'
      'This?' Count Brass would indicate the wide trestles with a sweep of his 
hand. 'What point is there? They are dead. It is over. Will your speculation 
bring them back? You are like some mystic - some warlock - thinking that the 
facsimile can manipulate that which it imitates. You torture yourself. How can 
you change the past? Forget. Forget, Duke Dorian.'
      But the Duke of Koln would purse his lips as if Count Brass had made a 
particularly offensive remark, and would turn his attention back to his toys. 
Count Brass would sigh, try to think of something to add, then he would leave 
the room.
      Hawkmoon's gloom coloured the atmosphere of the whole Castle Brass and 
there were some who had begun to voice the opinion that, for all that he was a 
Hero of Londra, the duke should return to Germany and his traditional lands, 
which he had not visited since his capture, at the Battle of Koln, by the Dark 
Empire lords. A distant relative now reigned as Chief Citizen there, presiding 
over a form of elected government which had replaced the monarchy of which 
Hawkmoon was the last living direct descendant. But it had never entered 
Hawkmoon's mind that he had any home other than his apartments in Castle Brass.
      Even Count Brass would sometimes think, privately, that it would have been 
better for Hawkmoon if he had been killed at the Battle of Londra. Killed at the 
same time that Yisselda had been killed.
      And so the sad months passed, all heavy with sorrow and useless 
speculation, as Hawkmoon's mind closed still more firmly around its single 
obsession until he hardly remembered to take sustenance or to sleep.
      Count Brass and his old companion, Captain Josef Vedla, debated the 
problem between themselves, but could arrive at no solution.
      For hours they would sit in comfortable chairs on either side of the great 
fireplace in the main hall of Castle Brass, drinking the local wine and 
discussing Hawkmoon's melancholia. Both were soldiers and Count Brass had been a 
statesman, but neither had the vocabulary to cope with such matters as sickness 
of the soul.
      'More exercise would help,' said Captain Josef Vedla one evening. 'The 
mind will rot in a body which does nothing. It is well known.'
      'Aye - a healthy mind knows as much. But how do you convince a sick mind 
of the virtues of such action?' Count Brass replied. 'The longer he remains in 
his apartments, playing with those damned models, the worse he gets. And the 
worse he gets, the harder it is for us to approach him on a rational level. The 
seasons mean nothing to him. Night is no different to day for him. I shudder 
when I think what must be happening in his head!'
      Captain Vedla nodded. 'He was never one for overmuch introspection before. 
He was a man. A soldier. Intelligent without being, as it were, too intelligent. 
He was practical. Sometimes it seems to me that he is a different man entirely 
now. As if the old Hawkmoon's soul was driven from its body by the terrors of 
the Black Jewel and a new soul entered to fill the place!'
      Count Brass smiled at this. 'You're becoming fanciful, captain, in your 
old age. You praise the old Hawkmoon for being practical - and then make a 
suggestion like that!'
      Captain Vedla was also forced to smile. 'Fair enough, Count Brass! Yet 
when one considers the powers of the old Dark Empire lords and remembers the 
powers of those who helped us in our struggle, perhaps the idea could have some 
foundation in terms of our own experience?'
      'Perhaps. And if there were not more obvious answers to explain Hawkmoon's 
condition, I might agree with your theory.'
      Captain Vedla became embarrassed, murmuring: 'It was merely a theory.' He 
raised his glass to catch the firelight, studying the rich, red wine within. 
'And this stuff is doubtless what encourages me to voice such theories!'
      They both laughed and then they drank some more.
      'Speaking of Granbretan,' said Count Brass later, 'I wonder how Queen 
Flana is coping with the problem of the unregenerates who still, from what she 
has said in her letters, inhabit some of the darker, less accessible parts of 
underground Londra? I have had little news from her in recent months. I wonder 
if the situation has worsened, so that she devotes more time to it'
      'You have had a letter from her recently, surely?'
      'By messenger. Two days ago. Aye. The letter was much briefer, however, 
than those she used to send. It was almost formal. Merely extending the usual 
invitation to visit her whenever I desired.'
      'Could it be that, of late, she has become offended that you have not 
taken her up on her offer of hospitality?' Vedla suggested. 'Perhaps she thinks 
you do not feel friendship for her.'
      'On the contrary, she is the nearest thing to my heart save for my memory 
of my own dead daughter.'
      'But you have not indicated as much?' Vedla poured himself more wine. 
'Women require these affirmations, you know. Even queens.'
      'Flana is above such feelings. She is too intelligent. Too sensible. Too 
kind.'
      'Possibly,' said Captain Vedla, as if he doubted Count Brass's words.
      Count Brass understood the implication. 'You think I should write to her 
in more - more flowery terms?"
      'Well...' Captain Vedla grinned.
      'I was never capable of these literary flourishes.'
      'Your style at its best (and on whatever subject) usually resembles 
communiques issued in the field during the heat of a battle,' Captain Vedla 
admitted. 'Though I do not mean that as an insult. On the contrary.'
      Count Brass shrugged. 'I would not like Flana to think I did not remember 
her with anything but the greatest affection. Yet I cannot write. I suppose I 
should go to Londra - accept her offer.' He stared around his shadowed hall. 'It 
might be a change. This place has become almost overpoweringly gloomy of late.'
      'You could take Hawkmoon with you. He was fond of Flana. It might be the 
only thing likely to attract him away from his toy soldiers.' Captain Vedla 
caught himself speaking sardonically and regretted it. He had every sympathy for 
Hawkmoon, every respect for him, even in his present state of mind. But 
Hawkmoon's brooding was a strain on all who had been even remotely connected 
with him in the past.
      'I'll suggest it to him,' said Count Brass. Count Brass understood his own 
feelings. Much of him wanted to get away from Hawkmoon for a while. Yet his 
conscience would not let him go alone at least until he had put the idea to his 
old friend. And Vedla was right. A trip to Londra might force Hawkmoon out of 
his brooding mood. The chances were, however, that it would not. In which case, 
Count Brass anticipated a journey and a visit involving more emotional strain on 
himself and the rest of his party then that which they now experienced within 
the confines of Castle Brass.
      'I'll speak to him in the morning,' Count Brass said after a pause. 
'Perhaps by returning to Londra itself, rather than by involving himself with 
models of the place, the melancholy in him will be exercised...'
      Captain Vedla agreed. 'It is something we should have considered earlier, 
maybe?'
      Count Brass was, without rancour, thinking that Captain Vedla was 
expressing a certain amount of self-interest when he suggested that Hawkmoon go 
with him to Londra.
      'And would you journey with us, Captain Vedla?' he asked with a faint 
smile.
      'Someone would be needed here to act on your behalf ...' Vedla said. 
'However, if the Duke of Koln declined to go then, of course, I would be glad to 
accompany you.'
      'I understand you, captain.' Count Brass leaned back in his chair, sipping 
his wine and regarding his old friend with a certain amount of humour.
      After Captain Josef Vedla had left, Count Brass remained in his chair. He 
was still smiling. He cherished his amusement, for it had been a long while 
since he had felt any at all. And now that the idea was in his mind, he began to 
look forward to his visit to Londra, for he only realised at this moment to what 
extent the atmosphere had become oppressive in Castle Brass, once so famous for 
its peace.
      He stared up at the smoke-darkened beams of the roof, thinking sadly of 
Hawkmoon and what he had become. He wondered if it was altogether a good thing 
that the defeat of the Dark Empire had brought tranquillity to the world. It was 
possible that Hawkmoon, even more than himself, was a man who only came alive 
when conflict threatened. If, for instance, there was trouble again in 
Granbretan - if the unregenerate remnants of the defeated warriors were 
seriously troubling Queen Flana -perhaps it would be a good notion to ask 
Hawkmoon to make it his business to find them and destroy them.
      Count Brass sensed that a task of that nature would be the only thing 
which could save his friend. Instinctively he guessed that Hawkmoon was not made 
for peace. There were such men - men fashioned by fate to make war, either for 
good or for evil (if there was a difference between the two qualities) - and 
Hawkmoon might well be one of them.
Count Brass sighed and returned his attention to his new plan. He would write to 
Flana in the morning, sending news ahead of his intended visit. It would be 
interesting to see what had become of that strange city since he had last 
visited it, as a conqueror.

2
COUNT BRASS GOES A-JOURNEYING
      'Give Queen Flana my kindest compliments,' said Dorian Hawkmoon distantly. 
He held a tiny representation of Flana in his pale fingers, turning the model 
this way and that as he spoke. Count Brass was not entirely sure that Hawkmoon 
realised he had picked the model up. 'Tell her that I do not feel fit enough to 
make the journey.'
      'You would feel fitter once you had begun to travel,' Count Brass pointed 
out. He noticed that Hawkmoon had covered the windows with dark tapestries. The 
room was lit now by lamps, though it neared noon. And the place smelled dank, 
unhealthy, full of festering memories.
      Hawkmoon rubbed at the scar on his forehead, where the Black Jewel had 
once been imbedded. His skin was waxy. His eyes burned with a dreadful, feverish 
light. He had become so thin that his clothes draped his body like drowned 
flags. He stood looking down at the table bearing the intricate model of old 
Londra, with its thousands of crazy towers, interconnected by a maze of tunnels 
so that no inhabitant need ever see daylight.
      Suddenly it occurred to Count Brass that Hawkmoon had caught the disease 
of those he had defeated. It would not have surprised the Count to discover that 
Hawkmoon had taken to wearing an ornate and complicated mask.
      'Londra has changed,' said Count Brass, 'since last you saw it. I hear 
that the towers have been torn down - that flowers grow in wide streets - that 
there are parks and avenues in place of the tunnels.'
      'So I believe,' said Hawkmoon without interest. He turned away from Count 
Brass and began to move a division of Dark Empire cavalry out from beyond 
Londra's walls. He seemed to be working on a battle situation where the Dark 
Empire had defeated Count Brass and the other Companions of the Runestaff. 'It 
must be exceptionally - pretty. But for my own purposes I prefer to remember 
Londra as it was.' His voice became sharp, unwholesome. 'When Yisselda died 
there,' he said.
      Count Brass wondered if Hawkmoon was blaming him - accusing him of 
cohabiting with those whose compatriots had slain Yisselda. He ignored the 
inference. He said: 'But the journey itself. Would that not be exhilarating? The 
last you saw of the outside world it was wasted, ruined. Now it flourishes 
again.'
      'I have important things to do here,' Hawkmoon said.
      'What things?' Count Brass spoke almost sharply. 'You have not left your 
apartments for months.'
      'There is an answer," Hawkmoon told him curtly, 'in all this. There is a 
way to find Yisselda.'
      Count Brass shuddered.
      'She is dead,' he said softly.
      'She is alive,' Hawkmoon murmured. 'She is alive. Somewhere. In another 
place.'
      'We once agreed, you and I, that there was no life after death,' Count 
Brass reminded his friend. 'Besides - would you resurrect a ghost. Would that 
please you - to raise Yisselda's shade?'
      'If that were all I could resurrect, aye.'
      'You love a dead woman,' Count Brass said in a quiet, disturbed voice. 
'And in loving her you have fallen in love with death itself.'
      'What is there in life to love?'
      'Much. You would discover it again if you came with me to Londra.'
      'I have no wish to see Londra. I hate the city.'
      'Then just travel part of the distance with me."
      "No. I am dreaming again. And in my dreams I come closer to Yisselda - and 
our two children.'
      'There never were children. You invented them. In your madness you 
invented them.'
      'No. Last night I dreamed I had another name, but that I was still the 
same man. A strange, archaic name. A name from before the Tragic Millenium. John 
Daker. That was the name. And John Daker found Yisselda.'
      Count Brass was close to weeping at his friend's insane mutterings. 'This 
reasoning - this dreaming - will bring you much more pain, Dorian. It will 
heighten the tragedy, not decrease it. Believe me. I speak the truth.'
      'I know that you mean well, Count Brass. I respect your view and I 
understand that you believe that you are helping me. But I ask you to accept 
that you are not helping me. I must continue to follow this path. I know that it 
will lead me to Yisselda.'
      'Aye,' said Count Brass sorrowfully. 'I agree. It will lead you to your 
death.'
      If that is the case, the prospect does not alarm me.' Hawkmoon turned 
again to regard Count Brass. The count felt a chill go through him as he looked 
at the gaunt, white face, the hot eyes which burned in deep sockets.
      'Ah, Hawkmoon,' he said. 'Ah, Hawkmoon.'
      And he walked towards the door and he said nothing else before he left the 
room.
      And he heard Hawkmoon shout after him in a high, hysterical voice:
      'I will find her, Count Brass!'
      Next day Hawkmoon drew back the tapestry to peer through his window down 
into the courtyard below. Count Brass was leaving. His retinue was already 
mounted on good, big horses, caparisoned in the Count's red colours. Ribbons and 
pennants waved on bolstered flame-lances, surcoats curled in the breeze, bright 
armour shone in the early morning sunlight. The horses snorted and stamped their 
feet. Servants moved about, making last minute preparations, handing warming 
drinks up to the horsemen. And then the Count Brass himself emerged and mounted 
his chestnut stallion, his brazen armour flickering as if fashioned from flame. 
The count looked up at the window, his face thoughtful for a moment. Then his 
expression changed as he turned to give an order to one of his men. Hawkmoon 
continued to watch.
      While looking down upon the courtyard, he had been unable to rid himself 
of the sensation of observing particularly detailed models; models which moved 
and talked, yet were models nonetheless. He felt he could reach down and move a 
horseman to the other side of the courtyard, or pick up Count Brass himself and 
send him off away from Londra in another direction all together. He had vague 
feelings of resentment towards his old friend which he could not understand. 
Sometimes it occurred to him, in dreams, that Count Brass had bought his own 
life with that of his daughter. Yet how could that be? And neither was it a 
thing which Count Brass could possibly conceive of doing. On the contrary, the 
brave old warrior would have given his life for a loved one without a second 
thought. Still, Hawkmoon could not drive the thought from his skull. For a 
moment he felt a pang of regret, wondering if he should, after all, have agreed 
to accompany Count Brass to Londra. He watched as Captain Josef Vedla rode 
forward and ordered the portcullis raised in the gateway. Count Brass had left 
Hawkmoon to rule in his place; but really the stewards and the veteran Guardians 
of the Kamarg could run things perfectly well and would make no demands on 
Hawkmoon for a decision.
      But no, thought Hawkmoon. This was not a time for action, but a time for 
thought. He was determined to find a way through to those ideas which he could 
feel in the back of his own mind and yet which he could not, as yet, reach. For 
all his old friends might disdain his 'playing with toy soldiers' he knew that 
by putting the models through a thousand permutations it might release, at some 
point, those thoughts, those elusive notions which would lead him to the truth 
involving his own situation. And once he understood the truth, he was sure he 
would find Yisselda alive. He was almost sure, too, that he would find two 
children - perhaps a boy and a girl. They had all judged him mad for five years, 
yet he was convinced that he had not been mad. He believed that he knew himself 
too well - that if he ever did go mad it would not be in the way his friends had 
described.
      Now Count Brass and his retinue were waving to the castle's retainers as 
they rode through the gates on the first stage of the long journey to Londra.
      Contrary to Count Brass's suspicions, Dorian Hawkmoon still held his old 
friend in great esteem. It caused him a pang of sorrow to see Count Brass 
leaving. Hawkmoon's problem was that he could no longer express any of the 
sentiments he felt. He had become too single-minded in his considerations, too 
absorbed in the problems which he attempted to solve in his obsessive 
manipulation of the tiny figures on his boards.
      Hawkmoon continued to watch as Count Brass and his men rode down through 
the winding streets of Aigues-Mortes. The streets were lined with townsfolk, 
bidding Count Brass farewell. At last the party reached the walls of the town 
and rode out across the broad road through the marshes. Hawkmoon looked after 
them until they were out of sight, then he turned his attention back to his 
models.
      Currently he was working out a situation in which the Black Jewel had not 
been set in his forehead, but in that of Oladahn of the Bulgar Mountains, and 
where the Legion of the Dawn could not be summoned. Would the Dark Empire have 
been defeated then? And if it could have been defeated, how might that have been 
accomplished? He had reached the point he had reached a hundred times before, of 
reenacting the Battle of Londra. But this time it struck him that he, himself, 
might have been killed. Would this have saved Yisselda's life?
      If he hoped, by going through these permutations of past events, to find a 
means of releasing the truth he believed to be hidden in his mind, he failed 
again. He completed the tactics involved, he noted the fresh possibilities 
involved, he considered his next development. He wished that Bowgentle had not 
died at Londra. Bowgentle had known much and might have helped him in this line 
of reasoning.
      There again, the messengers of the Runestaff - The Warrior in Jet and 
Gold, Orland Fank or even the mysterious Jehamia Cohnalias, who had not claimed 
to be human - might have helped him. He had called to them for their help in the 
darkness of the nights, but they had not come. The Runestaff was safe now and 
they had no need of Hawkmoon's help. He had felt abandoned, though he knew they 
owed him nothing.
      Yet could the Runestaff be involved in what had happened to him, was 
happening to him now? Was that strange artefact under some new threat? Had it 
set into motion a fresh series of events, a new pattern of destiny? Hawkmoon had 
a sense that there was more to his situation than anything which the ordinary, 
observed facts might suggest. He had been manipulated by the Runestaff and its 
servants just as he now manipulated his model soldiers. Was he being manipulated 
again? And was that why he turned to the models, deceiving himself that he 
controlled something when, in fact, he was controlled?
      He pushed such thoughts aside. He must devote himself to his original 
speculations.
      And thus it was that he avoided confronting the truth.
      By pretending to search for the truth, by pretending that he was single-
minded in that quest, he was able to escape it. For the truth of his situation 
might have been intolerable to him.
      And that was ever the way of mankind.

3
A LADY ALL IN ARMOUR
      A month went by.
      Twenty alternative destinies were played out on Hawkmoon's wargame boards. 
And Yisselda came no closer to him, even in his dreams.
      Unshaven, red-eyed, acned, his skin flaking with eczema, weak from lack of 
food, flabby from lack of exercise, Dorian Hawkmoon had nothing of the hero left 
in him, either in his mind, his character or his body. He looked thirty years 
older than his real age. His clothes, stained, torn, ill-smelling, were the 
clothes of a beggar. His unwashed hair hung in greasy strands about his face. 
His beard contained flecks of distasteful substances. He had taken to wheezing, 
to muttering to himself, to coughing. His servants avoided him as much as they 
could. He had little cause to call on them and so he did not notice their 
absence.
      He had changed beyond recognition, this man who had been the Hero of Koln, 
the Champion of the Runestaff, the great warrior who had led the oppressed to 
victory over the Dark Empire.
      And his life was fading from him, though he did not realise it.
      In his obsession with alternative destinies he had come close to fixing 
his own; he was destroying himself.
      And his dreams were changing. And because they were changing he slept even 
less frequently than before. In his dreams he had four names. One of them was 
John Daker, but much more often now did he sense the other names - Erekose and 
Urlik. Only the fourth name escaped him, though he knew it was there. On waking, 
he could never recall the fourth name. He began to wonder if there was such a 
thing as reincarnation. Was he remembering earlier lives? That was his 
instinctive conclusion. Yet his common sense could not accept the idea.
      In his dreams he sometimes met Yisselda. In his dreams he was always 
anxious, always weighed down by a sense of heavy responsibility, of guilt He 
always felt that it was his duty to perform some action, but could never recall 
what that action was. Had he lived other lives that had been just as tragic as 
this one? The thought of an eternity of tragedy was too much for him. He drove 
it off, almost before it had formed.
      And yet these ideas were half-familiar. Where had he heard them before? In 
other, earlier dreams? In conversation with someone? With Bowgentle? In Danark, 
the distant city of the Runestaff?
      He began to feel threatened. He began to know terror. Even the models on 
his tables were half-forgotten. He began to see shadows moving at the corners of 
his eyes.
What was causing the fear?
      He thought that possibly he was close to understanding the truth 
concerning Yisselda and that there were certain forces pledged to stop him; 
forces which might kill him just as he was on the point of discovering how to 
reach her.
      The only thing which Hawkmoon did not consider - the only answer which did 
not come to mind - was that his fear was, in fact, fear of himself, fear of 
facing an unpleasant truth. It was the lie which was threatened, the protecting 
lie and, as most men will, he fought to defend that lie, to stave off its 
attackers.
      It was at this time that he began to suspect his servants of being in 
league with his enemies. He was sure that they had made attempts to poison him. 
He took to locking his doors and refusing to open them when servants came to 
perform some necessary function. He ate the barest amount necessary to keep 
alive. He collected rain water from the cups he set out on the sills of his 
windows and he drank only that water. Yet still fatigue would overwhelm his 
weakened body and then the little dreams would come to the man who dwelt in 
darkness. Dreams which in themselves were not unpleasant - gentle landscapes, 
strange cities, battles which Hawkmoon had never taken part in, peculiar, alien 
folk whom Hawkmoon had never encountered even in the strangest of his adventures 
in the service of the Runestaff. And yet they terrified him. Women appeared in 
those dreams, also, and some might have been Yisselda, yet he experienced no 
pleasure when he dreamed of these women, only a sense of deep disquiet. And 
once, fleetingly, he dreamed that he looked in a mirror and saw a woman there in 
place of his own reflection.
      One morning he awoke from such a slumber and instead of rising, as was his 
habit, and going directly to his tables, he remained where he lay, looking up at 
the rafters of his room. In the dim light filtering through the tapestries 
across the window he could, quite plainly, see the head and shoulders of a man 
who bore a strong resemblance to the dead Oladahn. The resemblance was mostly in 
the way the head was held, in the expression, in the eyes. There was a wide-
brimmed hat on the long, black hair and a small black and white cat sat on the 
shoulder. Hawkmoon noticed, without surprise, that the cat had a pair of wings 
folded neatly on its back.
      'Oladahn?' Hawkmoon said, though he knew it was not Oladahn.
      The face smiled and made as if to speak.
      Then it had vanished.
      Hawkmoon pulled dirty silk sheets over his head and lay there trembling. 
It began to dawn on him that he was going mad again, that perhaps Count Brass 
had been right, after all, and that he had experienced hallucinations for five 
years.
      Later Hawkmoon got up and uncovered his mirror. Some weeks before he had 
thrown a robe over the mirror, for he had not wished to see himself.
      He looked at the wretch who peered back at him through the dusty glass.
      'I see a madman,' Hawkmoon murmured. 'A dying madman.'
      The reflection aped the movement of the lips. The eyes were frightened. 
Above them, in the centre of the forehead, was a pale scar, perfectly circular, 
where once a black jewel had burned, a jewel which could eat a man's brain.
      'There are other things which eat at a man's brain,' muttered the Duke of 
Koln. 'Subtler things than jewels. Worse things than jewels. How cleverly, after 
they are dead, do the Dark Empire lords reach out to take vengeance on me. By 
slaying Yisselda they brought slow death to me.'
      He covered the mirror again and sighed a thin sigh. Painfully he walked 
back to his couch and sat down again, not daring to look up at the ceiling where 
he had seen the man who so much resembled Oladahn.
      He was reconciled to the fact of his own wretchedness, his own death, his 
own madness. Weakly, he shrugged.
      'I was a soldier,' he said to himself. 'I became a fool. I deceived 
myself. I thought I could achieve what great scientists and sorcerers achieve, 
what philosophers achieve. And I was never capable of it. Instead, I turned 
myself from a man of skill and reason into this diseased thing which I have 
become. And listen. Listen, Hawkmoon. You are talking to yourself. You mutter. 
You rave. You whine. Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke von Koln, it is too late for you to 
redeem yourself. You rot.'
      A small smile crossed his sick lips.
      'Your destiny was to fight, to carry a sword, to perform the rituals of 
war. And now tables have become your battlefields and you have lost the strength 
to bear a dirk, let alone a sword. You could not sit a horse if you wished to.'
      He let himself drop back onto his soiled pillow. He covered his face with 
his arms. 'Let the creatures come,' he said. 'Let them torment me. It is true. I 
am mad.'
      He started, believing he heard someone groaning beside him. He forced 
himself to look.
      It was the door which groaned. A servant had pushed it open. The servant 
stood nervously in the opening.
      'My lord?'
      'Do they all say I am mad, Voisin?'
      'My lord?'
      The servant was an old man, one of the few who still regularly attended 
Hawkmoon. He had served Hawkmoon ever since the Duke of Koln had first come to 
Castle Brass. Yet there was a nervous look in his eyes as he replied.
      'Do they, Voisin?'
      Voisin spread his hands. 'Some do, my lord. Others say you are unwell - a 
physical disease. I have felt for sometime that perhaps a doctor could be called 
...'
      Hawkmoon felt a return of his old suspicions. 'Doctors? Poisoners?'
      'Oh, no, my lord!'
      Hawkmoon controlled himself. 'No, of course not. I appreciate your 
concern, Voisin. What have you brought me?'
      'Nothing, my lord, save news.'
      'Of Count Brass? How fares Count Brass in Londra?'
      'Not of Count Brass. Of a visitor to Castle Brass. An old friend of the 
count's, I understand, who, on hearing that Count Brass was absent and that you 
were undertaking his responsibilities, asked to be received by you.'
      'By me?' Hawkmoon smiled grimly. 'Do they know what I have become, in the 
outside world?"
      'I think not, my lord."
      'What did you tell them?'
      That you were not well but that I would convey the message.'
      'And that you have done.'
      'Aye, my lord, I have.' Voisin hesitated. 'Shall I say that you are 
indisposed ...?'
      Hawkmoon began to nod assent but then changed his mind, pushing himself 
from the bed and standing up. 'No. I will receive them. In the hall. I will come 
down.'
      'Would you wish to - to prepare yourself, my lord? Toilet things - some 
hot water?'
      "No. I will join our guest in a few minutes.'
      'I will take your decision to them.' Rather hastily Voisin departed from 
Hawkmoon's apartments, plainly disturbed by Hawkmoon's decision.
      Deliberately, maliciously, Hawkmoon made no attempt to improve his 
appearance. Let his visitor see him as he was.
      Besides, he was most certainly mad. Even this could be one of his 
fantasies. He could be anywhere - in bed, at his tables, even riding through the 
marshes - and only believing that these events were taking place. As he left his 
bed-chamber and passed through the room in which his model tables had been set 
up, he brushed at ranks of soldiers with his dirty sleeves, he knocked over 
buildings, he kicked at a leg so that an earthquake took place in the city of 
Koln.
      He blinked as he came out onto the landing, lit by huge, tinted windows at 
both ends. The light hurt his eyes.
      He walked towards the stairs which wound down to the great hall. He 
clutched a rail, feeling dizzy. His own infirmity amused him. He looked forward 
to his visitor's shock when he appeared.
      A servant hurried up to help him and he leaned heavily on the young man's 
arm as, slowly, they descended. And at last he reached the hall.
      An armoured figure stood admiring one of Count Brass's battle trophies - a 
lance and a dented shield which he had won off Orson Kach during the Rhine 
Cities Wars, many years before.
      Hawkmoon did not recognise the figure at all. It was fairly short, stocky 
and had a somewhat belligerent stance. Some old fighting companion of the 
count's, when he was a mercenary general, almost certainly.
      'Greetings,' wheezed Hawkmoon. 'I am the present custodian of Castle 
Brass.'
      The figure turned. Cool, grey eyes looked Hawkmoon up and down. There was 
no shock in the eyes, no expression at all as the figure stepped forward, hand 
extended.
      Indeed, it was likely that Hawkmoon's own face betrayed surprise, at very 
least.
      For his visitor, dressed all in battered armour, was a middle-aged woman.
      'Duke Dorian?' she said. 'I am Katinka van Bak. I've been travelling many 
nights.'

4
NEWS FROM BEYOND THE BULGAR MOUNTAINS
      I was born in sea-drowned Hollandia,' said Katinka van Bak, though my 
mother's parents were traders from Muskovia. In the battles between our country 
and the Belgic States, my kin were slain and I became a captive. For a while I 
served - in a manner you can imagine - in the retinue of Prinz Lobkowitz of 
Berlin. He had aided the Belgics in their war and I was part of his spoil.' She 
paused to take another slice of cold beef from the plate before her. Her armour 
was discarded and she wore a simple silk shirt and a pair of blue cotton breeks. 
For all she leaned her arms on the table and spoke in blunt, unladylike tones, 
she was not unfeminine and Hawkmoon found himself liking her very much.
       "Well, I spent much time in the company of warriors and it became my 
ambition to learn their skills. It amused them to teach me to use sword and bow 
and I continued to affect an awkwardness with weapons long after I had mastered 
their use.' In this means I succeeded in not arousing any suspicion as to my 
plans.'
      "You planned to escape?'
      'A little more than that.' Katinka van Bak smiled and wiped her lips. 
'There came a time when Prinz Lobkowitz himself heard of my eccentricity. I 
remember his laughter when he was taken to the quadrangle outside the 
dormitories where we girls lived. The soldier who had made me his special 
protege gave me a sword and we duelled, he and I, for a while, to demonstrate to 
the prince the charming artlessness with which I thrust and parried. This was 
fine amusement indeed and Prinz Lobkowitz said that as he was entertaining 
guests that evening it would be a novel idea to show me off to them, something 
to make a change from the usual jongleurs and such who normally performed at 
such functions. This suited me well. I fluttered my lashes and smiled shyly and 
pretended to be pleased that I had teen granted such an honour - pretended that 
I did not realise they were all laughing at me.'
      Hawkmoon tried to imagine Katinka van Bak fluttering her lashes and 
playing the ingenue, but the effort defeated his imagination. 'And what 
happened?' He was genuinely curious. For the first time in months something was 
happening to take his attention away from his own problems. He rested an 
unshaven chin on a scabrous hand as Katinka van Bak continued.
      'Well, that evening I was presented to the delighted guests who watched me 
girlishly duelling with several of Prinz Lobkowitz's warriors. They ate much as 
they watched, but they drank more. Several of the prince's guests - men and 
women -offered to buy me for large sums and this, of course, increased Prinz 
Lobkowitz's pride that he owned me. Naturally, he refused to sell. I remember 
his calling out to me:
      ' "And now, little Katinka, how many other martial arts do you pursue? 
What will you show us next?"
      'Judging my moment to be the right one, I curtseyed prettily and, as if 
with naive boldness, said:
      ' "I have heard that you are a great swordsman, Your Grace. The best in 
all the province of Berlin."
      ' "So it is said," replied Lobkowitz.
      "Would you do me the honour of crossing swords with me, my lord? So that I 
may test my skill against the finest blade in this hall?"
      'Prince Lobkowitz was taken aback by this at first, but then he laughed. 
It was hard for him to refuse in front of his guests, as I'd known. He decided 
to indulge me, but said gravely:
      ' "In Berlin there are different stakes for different forms of duelling. 
We fight for a first body-cut, for a first cut on the left cheek, for a first 
cut on the right cheek and so on - up to duelling to the death. I would not like 
to spoil your beauty, little Katinka."
      ' "Then let us fight to the death, Your Grace," I said, as if carried away 
by the reception I had received.
      'Laughter filled the hall, then. But I saw many an eager eye looking from 
me to the prince. None doubted that the prince would win any duel, of course, 
but they would be gratified at seeing my blood spilled.
      'Lobkowitz was nonplussed, too drunk to think clearly, to work out the 
implications of my suggestion. But he did not wish to lose face in front of his 
guests.
      ' "I would not kill such a talented slave," he said jovially. "I think we 
should consider some other stake, little Katinka."
      ' "My freedom, then?" I suggested.
      ' "Neither would I lose so entertaining a girl ..." he began. But then the 
crowd was roaring at him to take more sporting an attitude. After all, they all 
knew he would play with me for a while before delivering a token cut or 
disarming me.
      ' "Very well!" He smiled and shrugged and accepted a blade from one of his 
guards, stepping from his table to the floor and taking up a fighting stance 
before me. "Let's begin." I could see that he intended to display his own skill 
in the manner in which he would prolong the duel.
      'The fight began clumsily enough. Awkwardly I thrust and insouciantly he 
parried. The crowd of guests cheered me on and some even began to make wagers on 
how long the duel would last - though none wagered that I would win, of course.' 
Katinka van Bak poured a cup of apple juice for herself and swallowed it down 
before going on with her story.
      'As you have guessed, Duke Dorian, I had become a swords-woman of no mean 
ability. Slowly I began to reveal my talent and slowly it dawned on Prince 
Lobkowitz that he was having to use more and more of his skill to defend 
himself. I could see that he was beginning to realise that he fought an opponent 
who might well be his match. The idea of being beaten by a slave -and a slave-
girl, at that - was not a pleasant one. He began to fight seriously. He wounded 
me twice. Once in the left shoulder and once in the thigh. But I fought on. And 
now, I recall, there was absolute silence in the hall, save for the sound of our 
steel and of Prinz Lobkowitz's heavy breathing. We fought for an hour. He would 
have killed me if he could.'
      'I remember,' said Hawkmoon, 'a tale I heard when I ruled in Kohl. So you 
are the woman who ... ?'
      'Who slew the Prince of Berlin? Aye. I killed him in his own hall, before 
his own guests, in the presence of his own bodyguards. I took him in his heart 
with a single clean thrust. He was the first I killed. And before they could 
believe what they had seen I had raised my sword and reminded them all of the 
prince's bargain - that if I won the duel I should have my freedom. I doubt if 
any of the prince's close retainers would have kept that bargain. They would 
have slain me there and then if it had not been for Lobkowitz's friends and 
those who had had ambitions upon his territories. Several of them gathered round 
me to offer me positions in their households - as a novelty, you understand, 
rather than for my battle-skill. I accepted a post in the guard of Guy 
O'Pointte, Archduke of Bavaria. On the spot. The archduke's guard was the 
largest there, you understand, since he was the most powerful of the nobles 
assembled. After that, the dead prince's men decided to honour their master's 
bargain.'
      'And that is how you became a soldier?'
      'Aye. Eventually I became Guy O'Pointte's chief general. When the archduke 
was murdered by his uncle's family, I left the service of Bavaria and went to 
find a new position. And that, of course, is when I met Count Brass. We've 
served as mercenaries together in half the armies of Europe - and often on the 
same side! At about the time your count settled here in the Kamarg, I went east 
and joined the permanent service of the Prince of Ukrainia, where I advised him 
on the reconstruction of his army. We put up a good defence against the legions 
of the Dark Empire."
      'You were captured by the Beast Lords?'
      Katinka van Bak shook her head. 'I escaped to the Bulgar Mountains, where 
I remained until after you and your comrades had turned the tables on them at 
the Battle of Londra. It fell upon me to help restore Ukrainia, the prince's 
youngest niece being the only surviving member of the family. I became Regent of 
Ukrainia, through no particular wish of my own.'
      'You have renounced that position, then? Or are you merely visiting us 
incognito?'
      'I did not renounce the position and I am not visiting you incognito,' 
said Katinka van Bak firmly, as if chiding Hawkmoon for trying to hurry her in 
her story. 'Ukrainia was invaded.'
      'What? By whom? I thought the world at relative peace!'
      'So it is. Or was until a short time ago when we who dwell to the east of 
the Bulgar Mountains began to hear of an army which had gathered in those 
mountains.'
      'The Dark Empire resurgents!'
      Katinka van Bak held up a chiding hand to silence him.
      'It was a rabble army,' she went on. 'Certainly it was that. But I do not 
think it was the remains of the Dark Empire army. Though it was vast and had 
powerful weapons at its disposal, no individual comprising it resembled another. 
They wore different styles of clothing, carried different kinds of weapons, 
belonged to different races - some of which were by no means human. Do you 
follow me - each one looked as if he belonged to a different army.'
      'A band comprised of soldiers who survived the conquerings of the Dark 
Empire?'
      'I think not. I do not know where these came from. All I do know is that 
every time they ventured from their mountains -which they had made their own and 
turned them into an impregnable fortress - almost - no expedition ever sent 
against this army was ever successful. Each force was wiped out. They kill whole 
populations - to the last new-born baby - and strip villages, cities, whole 
nations of everything of value. In that respect they are like bandits, rather 
than an organised army with some ultimate purpose. These seem to attack 
countries for loot alone. And as a result they extend their activities further 
and further, returning always with their booty, their stolen food and - very 
occasionally - women, to their mountain stronghold.'
      'Who leads them?'
      'I know not, though I've fought them when they came against the Ukraine. 
Either several lead them or none does. There is noone to reason with, to parley 
with. They seem moved only by greed and a lust to kill. They are like locusts. 
There is no other description which fits them better. Even the Dark Empire 
allowed survivors, for it planned to rule the world and needed people to serve 
it. But these - these are worse.'
      'It's hard to conceive of an aggressor worse than the Dark Empire,' said 
Hawkmoon feelingly. 'But,' he added quickly, 'I believe you, of course, Katinka 
van Bak.'
      'Aye, believe me, for I'm the sole survivor. I thank the life I've led. It 
has given me the experience to know when a situation is lost and how to escape 
the consequences of such a loss. No other creature remains alive in Ukrainia or 
many other lands beyond the Bulgar Mountains.'
      'So you fled to warn the lands this side of the mountains? To raise an 
army, perhaps, against this - powerful rabble?'
      'I fled. That is all. I have told my story to anyone who will listen, but 
I do not expect much will be done as a result. Most will not care what has 
happened to folk dwelling in such distant parts, even if they believed me in the 
first place. Therefore, to try to raise an army would be fruitless. And, I'll 
add, any human army which went against those who now occupy the Bulgar Mountains 
would be utterly destroyed.'
      'Will you go on to Londra? Count Brass will be there by now.'
      Katinka van Bak sighed and stretched. "Not immediately, I think. If at 
all. I am weary. I have been riding almost without pause since leaving Ukrainia. 
If you do not object, I'll remain at Castle Brass until my old friend returns. 
Unless I have a whim to continue on to Londra. At the moment, however, I have no 
inclination to move beyond these walls.'
      'You are, of course, fully welcome,' said Hawkmoon eagerly. 'It is an 
honour for me. You must tell me more of your tales of the old days. And you must 
give me your theories about this rabble army - where it might have come from, 
and so on.'
      'I have no ideas on that subject,' said Katinka van Bak. 'There is no 
logical explanation. They appeared overnight and have been there ever since. 
Discourse with them is impossible. It is like attempting to talk reasonably to a 
hurricane. There is a sense of desperation about them, a wild contempt for their 
own lives as well as yours. And the clothing and forms of the soldiers, as I 
have said, is so disparate. Not one alike. And yet, you know, I thought I 
recognised one or two familiar faces in the throng which swept over us. Soldiers 
I'd known who had been dead these many years since. And I'll swear I saw Count 
Brass's old friend, Bowgentle, riding with them. Yet I heard Bowgentle was 
killed at Londra ...'
      'He was. He was. I saw his remains.' Hawkmoon, whose interest up until now 
had been relatively faint, now became eager to hear all Katinka van Bak could 
tell him. He felt he was on the verge of solving the problem he had been working 
on all this time. Perhaps he had not been so insane, after all. 'Bowgentle, you 
say. And others who were familiar - yet dead?'
      'Aye.'
      'Did any women ride in the army?'
      'Yes. Several.'
      'Any you recognised ...?' Hawkmoon leaned across the table, staring 
intensely at Katinka van Bak.
      She frowned, trying to recall, then she shook her head so that her grey 
braids swung. 'No.'
      Tslot Yisselda, perhaps? Yisselda of Brass?'
      'She who died at Londra, too?'
      'So it's said.'
      'No. Besides I should not have recognised her. She was a small child when 
last I saw her.'
      'Ah,' said Hawkmoon, resuming his chair. 'Yes. I forgot."
      'That is not to say she could not have been there,' went on the warrior 
woman. 'There were so many. I did not see half the army which conquered me.'
      'Well, if you recognised Bowgentle, perhaps all the others were there - 
all those who died at Londra?'
      'I said I thought the man I saw resembled Bowgentle. But why should 
Bowgentle or anyone else who was a friend of yours ride in such an army?'
      'True.' Hawkmoon drew his brows together in thought. His eyes had lost 
their dullness. His movements had become somewhat more energetic. 'Say that he 
and the others were charmed, perhaps. In trances. Forced to do the will of an 
enemy. The Dark Empire had powers which could make such a thing possible.'
      'It is fanciful, Duke Dorian ...'
      'As would sound the History of the Runestaff, if we did not know it to be 
true.'
      'I agree, but..."
      'I have long cherished an instinct, you see,' Hawkmoon told her, 'that 
Yisselda did not die at Londra, for all there were many witnesses to her death 
and burial. It is also possible that none of our other friends died at Londra - 
that all were victims of some secret Dark Empire counterplan. Could not the Dark 
Empire have substituted bodies for Yisselda and the rest, then borne the real 
people away to the Bulgar Mountains - captured others, too? Could you not have 
fought an army of Dark Empire slaves, controlled by those who escaped our 
vengeance?'
      'But so few did escape. And none of the Lords lived after the Battle of 
Londra. So who could be making such plans, even if they were likely. Which they 
most decidedly are not, Duke Dorian.' Katinka van Bak pursed her lips. 'I 
thought you a man of sense. A practical soldier, like myself.'
      'I thought so once - until this idea came into my mind - that Yisselda 
still lives. Somewhere.'
      'I had heard that you were not wholly your old self ...'
      'You mean that you had heard I was mad. Well, madam, I do believe I am 
mad. Perhaps I have indulged in mad follies, of late, but only because the idea 
- the central idea - has truth in it.'
      'I accept what you say,'said Katinka van Bak evenly. 'But I would need 
considerable proof of such a theory. 'I do not have an instinct that the dead 
live...'
      'I think Count Brass has,' Hawkmoon told her. 'Though he would not admit 
it. I think it is something he refuses to consider for he fears that he would go 
as mad as he thought me to be.'
      'And that could also be,' agreed Katinka van Bak, 'but again I have no 
evidence that Count Brass thinks as you say. I should have to meet him again and 
talk with him in order to test your words.'
      Hawkmoon nodded. He thought for a moment and then said:
      'But suppose I have a means of defeating this army? What would you say? If 
my theories led me to the truth concerning the army and its origins and that 
they, in turn, led me to an understanding of its weaknesses.'
      'Then your theories would be in a practical direction,' Katinka van Bak 
said. 'But unfortunately there is only one way to test them and that involves 
losing one's life if one is wrong. Eh?'
      'I would willingly take that risk. When I fought the Dark Empire I soon 
realised there was no way to overcome it by direct confrontation, but if one 
sought weaknesses in the leaders, and made use of those weaknesses, then they 
could be defeated. That is what I learned in the service of the Runestaff.'
      'You think you know how to defeat that rabble?' Katinka van Bak was by now 
half-convinced.
      'Obviously I do not know the exact nature of the weakness. But I could 
discover it probably better than anyone else in the world!'
      'I think you could!' exclaimed Katinka van Bak, grinning. 'I'm with you 
there. But I think it is too late to look for weaknesses.'
'If I could observe them. If I could find a hiding place, perhaps in the 
mountains themselves, and watch them, then perhaps I could think of a way of 
defeating them.' Hawkmoon was thinking of another thing he might gain from 
observing the rabble army, but he kept that idea to himself. You hid in those 
same mountains for a long while,
Katinka van Bak. You, better than anyone save Oladahn himself, could find me a 
lair from which I might spy on the locusts!'
      'I could, but I have just fled from those parts. I have no wish to lose my 
life, young man, as I told you. Why should I take you into the Bulgar Mountains, 
the very stronghold of my enemies?'
      'Had you not nursed at least a little hope that your Ukrainia might be 
avenged? Did you not think to yourself, even secretly, that you might enlist the 
help of Count Brass and his Kamargians against your foes?'
      Katinka van Bak smiled. 'Well, I knew the hope to be foolish, but...'
      'And now I offer you a chance of taking that vengeance. All you need do is 
lead me into the mountains, find me a place that is relatively safe, and then 
you could even depart if you wished.'
      'Are your motives selfless, Duke Dorian?'
      Hawkmoon hesitated. Then he admitted: 'Perhaps not wholly selfless. I wish 
to test my theory that Yisselda still lives and that I can save her.'
      'Then I think I'll take you to the Bulgar Mountains,' said Katinka van 
Bak. 'I do not trust a man who tells me that anything he does is completely 
selfless. But I think I can trust you.'
      'I think you can,' said Hawkmoon.
      'The only problem that I can see,' added the warrior woman frankly, 'is 
whether you'll survive the journey. You are in extremely poor condition, you 
know.' She reached forward and fingered his garments just as if she were a 
peasant woman buying a goose in the market. 'You need fattening up for a start. 
Let a week pass first. Get some food into your belly. Exercise. Ride. We'll have 
a mock duel or two together...'
      Hawkmoon smiled. 'I am glad that you hold no grudge against me, my lady, 
or I should think twice about accepting that last suggestion at face value!'
      And Katinka van Bak flung back her head and laughed.

5
RELUCTANTLY - A QUEST
      Hawkmoon ached in every limb. He made a sorry sight as he stumbled out 
into the courtyard where Katinka van Bak already waited, mounted on a frisky 
stallion whose hot breath clouded the early morning air. Hawkmoon's mount was a 
less nervous beast, but known for his reliability and stamina, yet Hawkmoon did 
not relish the prospect of climbing into the animal's saddle. His stomach was 
griping him, his head swam, his legs shook, for all that he had spent more than 
a week exercising and eating a good diet. His appearance had improved a little, 
and he was cleaner, but he was not the Runestaff Hero who had ridden out against 
Londra only seven years earlier. He shivered, for winter was beginning to touch 
the Kamarg. He wrapped his heavy leather cloak about him. The cloak was lined 
with wool and was almost too warm when closed. So heavy was the cloak that it 
almost bore him to the ground as he walked. He carried no weapons. His sword and 
flame-lance were in saddle scabbards. He wore, as well as the cloak, a thick 
quilted jerkin of dark red, doeskin leggings stitched with complicated designs 
by Yisselda, when she lived, and plain knee-boots of good, gleaming leather. 
Upon his head was a simple helmet. Aside from this, he wore no armour. He was 
not strong enough to wear armour.
      Hawkmoon was still not healthy, either in mind or body. What had driven 
him to improve his physical condition to this degree had not been disgust with 
what he had become but his insane belief that he might find Yisselda alive in 
the Bulgar Mountains.
      With some difficulty, he mounted his horse. Then he was bidding farewell 
to his stewards, completely forgetful that Count Brass had left the 
responsibility of running the province in his hands, and following Katinka van 
Bak through the gates and down through the empty streets of Aigues-Mortes. No 
citizens lined these streets. None, save the servants at the castle, knew that 
he was leaving Castle Brass, heading east where Count Brass had headed west.
      By noon the two figures had passed through the reed-fields, passed the 
marshes and the lagoons, and were following a hard white road past one of the 
great stone towers which marked the borders of the land of which Count Brass was 
Lord Protector.
      Weary of riding even this comparatively short distance, Hawkmoon was 
beginning to regret his decision. His arms ached from clinging to his saddle 
pommel, his thighs gave him agonising pain and his legs had gone completely 
numb. Katinka van Bak, on the other hand, seemed tireless. She kept stopping her 
own horse to allow Hawkmoon to catch up, yet was deaf to his suggestions that 
they stop and rest for a while. Hawkmoon wondered if he would last the journey, 
if he would not die on the way to the Bulgar Mountains. He wondered, from time 
to time, how he could ever have conceived a liking for this fierce, heartless 
woman.
      They were hailed by a Guardian who saw them from his post at the top of 
the tower. His riding flamingo stood beside him and his scarlet cloak waved in 
the breeze so that for a moment Hawkmoon saw man and bird as one creature. The 
Guardian raised his long flame-lance in salute as he recognised Hawkmoon. 
Hawkmoon managed to wave a feeble hand in return, but was unable to call back in 
reply to the Guardian's greeting.
      Then the tower had dwindled behind them as they took the road to Lyonesse, 
with a view to skirting the Switzer Mountains which were said to be tainted 
still with the poisons of the Tragic Millenium and which were, besides, all but 
impassable. Also, in Lyonesse Katinka van Bak had acquaintances who would give 
them provisions for the remainder of their journey.
      They camped on the road that night and in the morning Hawkmoon had become 
fully convinced of his own imminent death. The pain of the previous day was as 
nothing with the agony he felt now. Katinka van Bak, however, continued to show 
no mercy, heaving him peremptorily upon his patient horse before climbing into 
her own saddle. Then she grasped his bridle and led horse and swaying rider 
after her.
      Thus they progressed for three more days, hardly resting at all, until 
Hawkmoon collapsed altogether, falling from his saddle in a faint. He no longer 
cared whether he found Yisselda or not. He neither blamed nor condoned Katinka 
van Bak for her ruthless treatment of his person. His pain had faded to a 
perpetual ache. He moved when the horse moved. He stopped when the horse 
stopped. He ate the food which Katinka van Bak would occasionally put in front 
of him. He slept for the few hours she allowed him. And then he fainted.
      He woke once and opened his eyes to receive a view of his own swaying feet 
on the other side of his horse's belly, and he knew that Katinka van Bak 
continued her journey, having slung him over the saddle of his own steed.
      It was in this manner, some time later, that Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke von 
Koln, Champion of the Runestaff, Hero of Londra, entered the old city of Lyon, 
capital of Lyonesse, his horse led by an old woman in dusty armour.
      And the next time Dorian Hawkmoon woke he lay in a soft bed and there were 
young maidens bending over him, smiling at him, offering him food. He refused to 
accept their existence for some moments.
      But they were real and the food was good and the rest revived him.
      Two days later the reluctant Hawkmoon, in considerably better condition 
now, left with Katinka van Bak to continue their quest for the rabble army of 
the Bulgar Mountains.
      'You're filling out at last, lad,' said Katinka van Bak one morning as 
they rode into the sun which was turning to a glowing green the rolling, gentle 
hills of the land through which they travelled. She rode beside him now, no 
longer finding it necessary to lead his horse. She slapped him on the shoulder. 
'You've good bones. There was nothing wrong with you that couldn't be put right, 
as you see.'
      'Health achieved through such an ordeal as that, madam,' said Hawkmoon 
feelingly, 'is scarcely worth attaining.'
      'You'll feel grateful to me yet.'
      'I tell you honestly, Katinka van Bak, I am not sure I shall!'
      And at this Katinka van Bak, Regent of Ukrainia, laughed heartily and 
spurred her stallion along the narrow track through the grass.
      Hawkmoon was forced to admit to himself that the worst of his aches had 
disappeared and he was much more capable of sustaining long horseback journeys 
now. He was still subject to occasional stomach gripes and he was by no means as 
strong as he had once been, yet he was almost at the stage where he could enjoy 
the sights and smells and sounds around him for their own sake. He was amazed at 
how little sleep Katinka van Bak seemed to need. Half the time they rode on 
through the best part of the night before she was ready to make camp. As a 
result they made excellent time, but Hawkmoon felt permanently weary.
      They reached the second main stage of their journey when they entered the 
territories of Duke Mikael of Bazhel, a distant kinsman of Hawkmoon's and for 
whom Katinka van Bak had once fought during the duke's squabble with another of 
his relatives, the now long-dead Pretender of Strasbourg. During the occupation 
of his lands by the Dark Empire, Duke Mikael had been subject to the grossest 
humiliation and he had never quite recovered from it. He had become distinctly 
misanthropic and his wife performed most of his functions for him. She was 
called Julia of Padova, daughter of the Traitor of Italia, Enric, who had formed 
a pact with the Dark Empire against his fellows and had been slain by the Beast 
Lords for his pains. Perhaps because of the knowledge she had of her father's 
baseness, Julia of Padova ruled the province well and with considerable 
fairness. Hawkmoon remarked on 'the wealth which was evident everywhere about 
the countryside. Fat cattle grazed on good grass. The farmhouses were well kept 
and shone with fresh paint and polished stone, their gables carved in the 
intricate style favoured by the peasants of these parts.
      But when they came to Bazhel, the capital city, they were received by 
Julia of Padova with only moderate politeness and her hospitality was not 
lavish. It seemed that she did not like to be reminded of the old, dark days 
when the Dark Empire had ruled the whole of Europe. Therefore she was not 
pleased to see Hawkmoon, for he had played such an important part against the 
Empire and thus she could not help but be reminded of it -of her husband's 
humiliation and of her father's treachery.
      So it was that the pair did not remain long in Bazhel, but struck on for 
Munchenia, where the old Prince tried to smother them with gifts and begged them 
to stay longer and tell him of their adventures. Aside from warning him of what 
had happened in Ukrainia (he was sceptical) they told him nothing of their quest 
and reluctantly bade him farewell, armed with better weapons than those they had 
carried, and dressed in better clothes, though Hawkmoon had retained his big 
leather cloak, for the winter was making itself evident across the whole land 
now.
      By the time Dorian Hawkmoon and Katinka van Bak reached Linz, now a 
Republic, the first snows had begun to fall in the streets of the little wooden 
city, rebuilt from that which had been completely razed by the armies of 
Granbretan.
      'We must make better time,' Katinka van Bak told Hawkmoon as they sat in 
the tap-room of a good inn near the central square of the city. 'Else the passes 
in the Bulgar Mountains will be blocked to us and our whole journey will have no 
point.'
      'I wonder if it does have point,' Hawkmoon said, sipping a negus with some 
relish, holding the steaming winecup in his gloved hands. He had now changed 
beyond recognition from the creature he had become at Castle Brass, though all 
who had known him before that time would have recognised him immediately. His 
face had become strong again and muscles rippled beneath his silk shirt. His 
eyes were bright and healthy and his skin glowed. His long fair hair shone.
      'You wonder if you'll find Yisselda there?'
      'That, aye. And I wonder if the army is as strong as you thought. Perhaps 
they were lucky in the manner in which they overwhelmed your forces."
      'Why do you think this now?'
      'Because we have heard no rumours. No a single hint that anyone in these 
parts has received even an inkling of this force which occupies the Bulgar 
Mountains.'
      'I have seen this army,' Katinka van Bak reminded him. 'And it is vast. 
Believe me in that. It is powerful. It could take over the whole world. Believe 
me in that also.'
      Hawkmoon shrugged. 'Well, I do believe you, Katinka van Bak. But I still 
find it strange that no rumours have come to our ears. When we have spoken of 
this army there is never another who confirms what we say. It is no wonder that 
little attention is paid to us!'
      'Your brain sharpens,' said Katinka van Bak approvingly, 'but as a result 
you are less able to believe the fantastical!' She smiled. 'Is that not often 
the case?'
      'Often, aye.'
      'Would you turn back?'
      Hawkmoon studied the hot wine in his cup. 'It is a long journey home. But 
now I feel guilty, leaving my duties in the Kamarg to go upon this quest.'
      'You were not performing those duties very well,' she reminded him softly. 
'You were not in a position to do so - mentally or physically.'
      Hawkmoon smiled grimly. 'That's true. I have benefited a great deal from 
this journey. Yet that does not change the fact that my responsibilities lie 
firstly in the Kamarg.'
      'It is a longer journey to the Kamarg, now, than it is to the Bulgar 
Mountains,' she said.
      'You were at first reluctant to go on this quest,' he said. 'But now you 
are the most anxious of us to complete it!'
      She shrugged. 'Say that I like to finish what I begin. Is that unusual?'
      'I would say it was typical of you, Katinka van Bak.' Hawkmoon sighed. 
'Very well. Let's go to the Bulgar Mountains, then, as quickly as our horses 
will take us. And let us make haste back to the Kamarg when our errand is done. 
With information and the strength of the Kamarg we shall find a way of defeating 
those who destroyed your land. We'll confer with Count Brass who, almost 
certainly, will have returned by then.'
      'A sensible scheme, Hawkmoon.' Katinka van Bak seemed relieved. 'And now 
I'll to bed.'
      'I'll finish my wine and copy your example,' said Hawkmoon. He laughed. 
'You still manage to lire me out, even now.'
      'Another month and our situation will be reversed,' she promised. 
'Goodnight to you, Hawkmoon.'
      Next morning their horses' hooves galloped through shallow snow and more 
snow was falling from an overcast sky. But by the early afternoon the clouds had 
cleared and the sky was blue and empty over their heads while the snow had begun 
to melt. It was not a serious fall, but it was an omen of what they might expect 
to find when they approached the Bulgar Mountains.
      They rode through a hilly land which had once been part of the Kingdom of 
Wien, but so crushed had been that kingdom that its population had all but 
disappeared. Now grass had grown back on the burned ground and the many ruins 
were vine-covered and picturesque. Later travellers might come to marvel at such 
pretty relics, thought Hawkmoon, but he could never forget that they were the 
result of Granbretan's savage lust to rule the world.
      They were passing the remains of a castle which looked down on them from a 
rise above the path they followed when Hawkmoon thought he heard a sound from 
the place.
      He whispered to Katinka van Bak who was riding just ahead.
      'Did you hear it? From the castle?'
      'A human voice? Aye. I did. Could you hear the words?' She turned in her 
saddle to look back at him.
      He shook his head. 'No. Should we investigate?"
      'Our time runs short.' She pointed to the sky where more clouds were 
gathering.
      But by now they had both pulled in their horses and were still, looking up 
at the castle.
      'Good afternoon!'
      The voice was strangely accented but cheerful.
      'I had a feeling you would be passing this way, Champion.'
      And from the ruins now stepped a slim young man wearing a hat with a huge 
brim, turned up at one side. There was a feather stuck in the band. He wore a 
velvet jerkin, rather dusty, and blue velvet pantaloons. On his feet were soft 
doeskin boots. He carried a small sack over his back. At his hip was a plain, 
slender sword.
      And it was with horror that Dorian Hawkmoon recognised him.
      Hawkmoon found himself drawing his sword, though the stranger had offered 
him no harm.
      'What? You think me an enemy?' said the youth, smiling. 'I assure you that 
I am not.'
      'You have seen him before, Hawkmoon?' Katinka van Bak said sharply. 'Who 
is he?'
      He was the vision Hawkmoon had had when he lay upon his bed in Castle 
Brass, before the coming of the warrior woman.
      'I know not,' said Hawkmoon thickly. 'This has a terrible smell of sorcery 
to it. Dark Empire work perhaps. He resembles - he looks like an old friend of 
mine - yet there is nothing evidently the same about them ...'
      'An old friend, eh?' said the stranger. 'Well I am that, Champion. What do 
they call you in this world?'
      'I do not understand you.' Reluctantly Hawkmoon sheathed his sword.
      'It is often the case when I recognise you. I am Jhary-a-Conel and I 
should not be here at all. But such strange disruptions have been taking place 
in the multiverse of late! I was wrenched from four separate incarnations in as 
many minutes! And what do they call you, then?'
      'I still do not understand,' said Hawkmoon doggedly. 'Call me? I am the 
Duke von Koln. I am Dorian Hawkmoon.'
      'Then greetings again, Duke Dorian. I am your companion. Though for how 
long I shall remain with you I know not. As I say, strange disruptions are...'
      'You babble a considerable amount of nonsense, Sir Jhary," said Katinka 
van Bak impatiently. 'How came you to these parts?'
      'Through no volition of my own was I transported to this wasteland, 
madam.'
      Suddenly the young man's bag began to jump and writhe and Jhary-a-Conel 
lowered it gently to the ground, opening it and drawing out a small, winged 
black and white cat. The same Hawkmoon had seen in the vision.
      Hawkmoon shuddered. While he could find nothing to dislike about the young 
man himself, he had a terrible premonition that a-Conel's appearance heralded 
some unpleasant doom for him. Just as he could not see why he thought a-Conel 
resembled Oladahn, neither could he work out why other things were familiar, 
too. Echoes. Echoes like those which had convinced him that Yisselda still lived 
.. .
      'Do you know Yisselda?' he said tentatively. 'Yisselda of Brass?'
      Jhary-a-Conel frowned. 'I do not believe so. But then I know so many 
people and forget most of them, just as I might well forget you some day. That 
is my fate. As, of course, it is yours."
      'You speak familiarly of my fate. Why should you know more of it than do 
I?'
      'Because I do, in this context. Another time neither shall recognise the 
other. Champion, what calls you now?'
      As a Champion of the Runestaff, Hawkmoon was used to this form of address, 
though it was rare for most to use it. The rest of the sentence was a mystery to 
him.
      'Nothing calls me. I am upon a quest with this lady here. An urgent 
quest."
      'Then we must not delay. A moment."
      Jhary-a-Conel raced back up the hill and into the ruined castle. A moment 
later he emerged leading an old yellow horse. It was the unloveliest nag 
Hawkmoon had ever seen.
      'I doubt if you would be able to keep up with us mounted on that 
creature," Hawkmoon said. 'Even if we had agreed that you should accompany us. 
And we have not agreed.'
      'But you will.' Jhary-a-Conel put a foot into a stirrup and swung himself 
into his saddle. The horse seemed to sag under his weight. 'After all, it is our 
fate to ride together.'
      'That may seem preordained to you, my friend,' said Hawkmoon grimly, 'but 
I share no such belief.' And yet, he realised, he did. It seemed to him that it 
was perfectly natural that Jhary should ride with them. At the same time he 
resented both Jhary's assumption and his own.
      Hawkmoon looked to Katinka van Bak to see what she thought. She merely 
shrugged. 'I've no objection to another sword riding with us,' she said.
      She cast a disdainful look at Jhary's horse. 'Not,' she added, 'that I 
think you'll be riding with us for long.'
      'We shall see,' Jhary told her cheerfully. 'Where do you ride?'
      Hawkmoon became suspicious. Suddenly it occured to him that this man might 
be a spy for those who now occupied the Bulgar Mountains.
      'Why do you ask?'
      Jhary shrugged. 'I wondered. I had heard of some trouble in the mountains 
to the east of here. A wild band who swoop down to destroy everything before 
returning to their retreat.'
      'I have heard a story like that," Hawkmoon admitted cautiously. 'Where did 
you hear it?"
      'Oh, from a traveller I met on the road.'
      At last Hawkmoon had heard confirmation of what Katinka van Bak had told 
him. He was relieved to find that she had not been lying to him. 'Well,' he 
said, 'we ride in that general direction. Perhaps we shall see for ourselves.'
      'Indeed,' said Katinka van Bak with a crooked smile.
      And now there were three riding for the Bulgar Mountains. A strange 
threesome, in truth. They rode for some days and Jhary's nag appeared to have no 
great trouble in keeping pace with the other horses.
      One day Hawkmoon turned to their new companion and asked him: 'Did you 
ever have occasion to meet a man called Oladahn? He was quite short and covered 
all over in red hair. He claimed to be kin to the Bulgar Mountain Giants (whom 
none, to my knowledge, has ever seen). An expert archer."
      'I've met many expert archers, among them Rackhir the Red Archer who is 
perhaps the greatest in all the multiverse, but never one called Oladahn. Was he 
a good friend of yours?'
      'My closest friend for a long while."
      'Perhaps I have borne that name," Jhary-a-Conel said frowning. 'I have 
borne many, of course. It seems vaguely familiar. Just as the name Corum or 
Urlik would seem familiar to you.'
      'Urlik?' Hawkmoon felt the blood leave his face. 'What know you of that 
name?'
      'It is your name. Or one of them, at least. As is Corum. Though Corum was 
not a human manifestation and would therefore be a little harder for you to 
recall.'
      'You speak so casually of incarnations! Do you really mean to claim you 
can recall past lives as easily as I can recall past adventures?'
      'Some lives. By no means all. And that is just as well. In another 
incarnation I might not remember this one, for instance. Yet my name has not 
changed, in this case, I note.'
      Jhary laughed. 'My memories come and go. Just as yours do. It is what 
saves us.'
      'You speak in riddles, friend Jhary.'
      'So you often tell me.' Jhary shrugged. 'Yet this adventure does seem a 
little different, I'll admit. I am in the peculiar situation, at present, of 
being shifted willy-nilly through the dimensions at present. Disruptions on a 
large scale - brought about by the experiments of some foolish sorcerer, no 
doubt. And then, of course, there is always the interest that the Lords of Chaos 
show when such opportunities are offered. I would imagine they are playing some 
part in this."
      'The Lords of Chaos? Who are they?'
      'Ah, it is something you must discover, if you do not know. Some say that 
they dwell at the end of time and their attempts to manipulate the universe 
according to their own desires are a result of their own world's dying. But that 
is a rather narrow theory. Others suggest that they do not exist at all, but are 
conjured up, periodically, by men's imaginations.'
      'You are a sorcerer yourself, Master Jhary?' asked Katinka van Bak, 
falling back to join them.
      'I think not.'
      'A philosopher at least,' she said.
      'My experience moulds my philosophy, that is all.'
      And Jhary seemed to tire of the conversation and refused to be drawn 
further on that particular topic.
      'My only experience of the sort you hint at," said Hawkmoon, 'was with the 
Runestaff. Could the Runestaff be involved in what is happening in the Bulgar 
Mountains?'
      'The Runestaff? Perhaps.'
      Snow had fallen heavily on the great city of Pesht. Built of white, carved 
stone, the city had survived the Dark Empire sieges and now looked much as it 
had done before Granbretan had ridden out on her conquerings. Snow sparkled on 
every surface and its glare, as they approached at night under a full moon, made 
it seem that Pesht burned with white fire.
      They arrived at the gates after midnight and had some difficulty rousing 
the guard who let them in with a considerable amount of grumbling and querying 
their business in the city. Down broad, deserted avenues they rode, seeking the 
palace of Prince Karl of Pesht. Prince Karl had once courted Katinka van Blak 
and asked her to be his wife. They had been lovers for three years, the warrior 
woman had told Hawkmoon, but she would never marry him. Now he had married a 
princess from Zagredia and was happy. They were friends. She had stayed with him 
during her flight from Ukrainia. He would be surprised to see her.
      Prince Karl of Pesht was surprised. He arrived in his own ornate hall in a 
brocade dressing gown, his eyes still thick with sleep, but he was pleased to 
see Katinka van Bak.
      'Katinka! I thought you planned to winter in the Kamarg!'
      'That had been my plan.' She went forward and seized the tall old man's 
shoulders, kissing him swiftly on both cheeks in the military fashion, so that 
it seemed more as if she was presenting a soldier with a medal than greeting an 
ex-lover. 'But Duke Dorian here persuaded me to accompany him to the Bulgar 
Mounains.'
      'Dorian? The Duke of Koln. I have heard much of you, young man. It is an 
honour to have you under my roof." Prince Karl smiled as he shook Hawkmoon's 
hand. 'And this?'
      'A companion of the road,' said Hawkmoon. 'His name is a strange one. 
Jhary-a-Conel.'
      Jhary swept off his hat in an elaborate bow. 'An honour to meet the Prince 
of Pesht,' he said.
      Prince Karl laughed. 'A privilege to entertain any companion of the great 
Hero of Londra. This is wonderful. You will stay for some time?'
      'For the night only, I regret,' said Hawkmoon. 'Our business in the Bulgar 
Mountains is urgent.'
      'What could possibly take you there? Even the legendary mountain giants 
are all dead now, I gather.'
      'You have not told the prince?" said Hawkmoon in surprise, turning to 
Katinka van Bak. 'Of the raiders. I thought...'
      'I did not wish to alarm him,' she said.
      'But his city is not so distant from the Bulgar Mountains that it cannot 
be in danger of attack!' Hawkmoon said.
      'Attack? What is this? An enemy from beyond the mountains?' Prince Karl's 
expression changed.
      'Bandits,' said Katinka van Bak, darting a hard, meaning glance at 
Hawkmoon. 'A city of the size of Pesht has nothing to fear. A land so well 
defended as yours is under no threat."
      'But ...' Hawkmoon restrained himself. Plainly Katinka van Bak had a 
reason for not telling the Prince of Pesht all she knew. But what could that 
reason possibly be? Did she suspect Prince Karl of being in league with her 
enemies? If so, she should have warned him earlier. Besides, it was 
inconceivable that this fine old man would ally him with such a rabble. He had 
fought well and nobly against the Dark Empire and had been imprisoned for his 
pains, though he had not been subjected to the indignities normally visited upon 
captured enemy aristocrats by the Dark Empire.
      'You will be weary from so much riding,' said Prince Karl tactfully. He 
had already ordered his servants to prepare rooms for his guests. 'You will want 
to seek your beds. I have been selfish in thinking only of my own pleasure at 
seeing you again, Katinka, and meeting this hero here.' He smiled and put his 
arm around Hawkmoon's shoulders. 'But at breakfast, perhaps, we can talk a 
little. Before you leave?'
      'It would please me greatly, sire," said Hawkmoon.
      And when Hawkmoon lay in a great bed in a well-appointed room in which a 
comfortable fire blazed, he watched the shadows playing on the rich tapestries 
which decorated the walls and he brooded for a few minutes on the reasons for 
Katinka van Bak's reticence before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
      The big sleigh could have taken a dozen armoured men and could have been 
sold for a fortune, for it was inlaid with gold, platinum, ivory and ebony, as 
well as precious jewels. The carvings cut into the wood of its frame were the 
work of a master. Hawkmoon and Katinka van Bak had been reluctant to accept the 
gift from Prince Karl, but he was insistent. 'It is what you will need in this 
weather. Your riding beasts can follow and thus be fresh when you need them.' 
Eight black geldings pulled the sleigh and they were clad in harness of black 
leather and fine silver. Silver bells had been fixed to the harness, but these 
had been muffled for obvious reasons.
      The snow was falling thickly and the roads which led to Pesht were all 
slippery with ice. It was logical to use a sleigh under such circumstances. The 
sleigh was piled with provisions, with furs, with a pavilion which could be 
quickly erected in even the worst weather. There were ancient devices, relatives 
to the flame-lances, on which food could be prepared. And there seemed enough 
food of all kinds to feed a small army. Prince Karl had not been expressing mere 
politeness when he had said he was delighted to receive them.
Jhary-a-Conel felt no reluctance in accepting the sleigh. He laughed with 
pleasure as he climbed in and seated himself amidst a profusion of expensive 
furs. 'Remember when you were Urlik,' he said, addressing Hawkmoon, 'Urlik 
Skarsol, Prince of the Southern Ice. Bears drew your carriage then!'
      'I remember no such experience,' said Hawkmoon sharply. 'I wish I could 
understand your motives in continuing this pretence.'
      'Ah, well,' replied Jhary philosophically, 'perhaps you will understand 
later."
      Prince Karl of Pesht bid them farewell personally, waving to them from 
Pesht's impressive walls until they were out of sight.
      The great sleigh moved swiftly and Hawkmoon wondered why the speed of its 
travelling filled him with a mixture of exhilaration and misgivings. Again Jhary 
had mentioned something which roused an echo of memory. And yet it was obvious 
to him that he could never have been this 'Urlik' - for all he seemed to 
remember dreaming once of such a name.
      And now the going was speedy, for the weather had been turned to their 
advantage. The eight black geldings seemed tireless as they strained in their 
harness, dragging the sleigh closer and closer to the Bulgar Mountains.
      But still Hawkmoon had a terrifying sense of familiarity. The image of a 
silver chariot, its four wheels fixed to skis, moving implacably over a great 
ice plain. Another image of a ship - but a ship which travelled upon another ice 
plain. And they were not the same worlds - of that he was sure. Neither was 
either one this world, his world. He drove the thoughts away as best he could, 
but they were persistent.
      Perhaps he should put all his questions to Katinka van Bak and to Jhary-a-
Conel, but he could not bring himself to ask them. He felt that the answers 
might not be to his taste.
      So they drove on through the swirling snow and the ground rose steeply and 
the speed of their travelling decreased a little, but not very much.
      From what he could see of the surrounding landscape, there was no evidence 
at all of recent raids. Sitting with his hands on the reins of the eight black 
geldings, Hawkmoon put this to Katinka van Bak.
      Her answer was brief:
      'Why should there be such signs? I told you that they raided only on the 
other side of the mountains.'
      'Then there must be an explanation for that,' Hawkmoon said. 'And if we 
find the explanation we might also find their weakness.'
      Finally the roads became too steep and the geldings' hooves slipped on the 
ice as they strove to haul the sleigh behind them. The snow had abated and it 
was late in the afternoon. Hawkmoon pointed to a mountain meadow below them. 
'The horses may be pastured there. The grazing is reasonable and - look - a cave 
where they might stable themselves. It is the most we can do for them, I fear.'
      'Very well,' agreed Katinka van Bak. With great difficulty they managed to 
turn the horses and lead them back down the path until they reached the snow-
covered meadow. Hawkmoon cleared snow with his boot to indicate the grass below, 
but the geldings needed no help from him. They were used to such conditions and 
were soon using their hooves to clear the snow so that they might graze. And 
since it was almost sunset, the three decided to spend the night in the cave 
with the horses before continuing into the mountains.
      'These conditions are an advantage,' said Hawkmoon. 'For our enemies have 
little chance of seeing us.'
      'True enough,' said Katinka van Bak.
      'And similarly,' Hawkmoon went on, "we must be wary. For we shall not see 
them until they are upon us. Do you know this area, Katinka van Bak?'
      'I know it fairly well,' she told him. She was lighting a fire inside the 
cave for their cooking stoves, provided by the prince, did not give out enough 
heat to warm the cave.
      'This is snug,' said Jhary-a-Conel. 'I would not mind spending the rest of 
the winter here. Then we could travel on when spring comes.'
      Katinka offered him a glance of contempt. He grinned and kept silence for 
a while.
      They led their horses now, beneath a cold, hard sky. Save for a little 
withered moss and some stunted grey and brown birches, nothing grew in these 
mountains. A sharp wind blew. A few carrion birds wheeled away amongst the 
jagged peaks. The sounds of their breathing, of their horses' hooves clicking on 
the rocks, of their own slippery progress, were the only sounds. The scenery 
viewed from these high mountain paths was beautiful in the extreme, yet it was 
also deadly. It was dead. It was cold. It was cruel. Many travellers must have 
died in these parts during the season of winter.
      Hawkmoon wore a thick fur robe over his leather coat. Though he sweated, 
he did not dare take any of his clothing off for fear he would freeze to the 
spot when he stopped. The others, too, wore heavy furs - hoods, gloves and boots 
as well as coats. And the climbing was almost always upward. Only occasionally 
might a path take a downward turn, only to soar again around the next bend.
      Yet the mountains, for all their deadly beauty, seemed peaceful. An 
immense sense of peace filled the valleys, and Hawkmoon could barely believe 
that a great force of bandits hid here. There was no atmosphere to indicate that 
the mountains had been invaded. He felt as if he were one of the first human 
beings ever to come this way. Although the going was difficult and very 
wearying, he felt more relaxed here than he had felt since he had been a child 
in Koln, when the old Duke, his father, had ruled. His responsibilities had 
become simple. To stay alive.
      And at last they reached a slightly wider path where there was room enough 
for Hawkmoon to stretch to his full length had he so desired. And this path 
ended suddenly at a big, black cave entrance.
      'What's this?' Hawkmoon asked Katinka. 'It seems a dead end. Is it a 
tunnel?'
      'Aye,' replied Katinka van Bak. "It's a tunnel.'
      'And how much further do we journey when we reach the other end of the 
tunnel?'
      Hawkmoon leaned against the rock wall, just at the entrance to the tunnel.
      'That depends,' said Katinka van Bak mysteriously. And she would not say 
more.
      Hawkmoon was too weary to ask her what she meant. Jerking his body 
forward, he plunged into the tunnel, leading his horse behind him, glad that 
snow no longer dragged at his boots once he had gone a few yards into the great 
cavern. Inside it was quite warm and there was a smell. It was almost like the 
smell of spring. Hawkmoon remarked on it, but neither of the others could smell 
the odour so that he wondered if perhaps some perfume clung to his big fur 
cloak. The floor of the cavern levelled out now and it became much easier to 
walk. 'It is hard to believe," said Hawkmoon, 'that this place is natural. It is 
a wonder of the world.'
      They had been walking for an hour, with no sight of the other end of the 
tunnel, when Hawkmoon began to feel nervous.
      'It cannot be natural,' he repeated. He ran his gloved hands along the 
walls, but there were no signs of tools having been used to create them. He 
turned back to the others and thought, in the gloom, that he noticed peculiar 
expressions on both their faces. 'What do you think? You know this place, 
Katinka van Bak. Are there any mentions of it in the histories? In legends?'
      'Some,' she admitted. 'Go on, Hawkmoon. We shall soon be at the other 
side."
      'But where does it lead?' He brought his body fully round to confront 
them. The fireglobe in his hand burned dully and turned his face to a demonic 
red. 'Directly to the Dark Empire camp? Do you two work for my old enemies? Is 
this a ruse? You have neither of you told me enough!'
      We are not in the pay of your enemies,' said Katinka van Bak. 'Continue, 
Hawkmoon, please. Or shall I lead?' She stepped forward.
      Hawkmoon involuntarily put a hand to the hilt of his sword, pushing back 
his great fur cloak to do so. 'No. I trust you, Katinka van Bak, yet everything 
in me warns me of a trap. How can this be?'
      'You must go on, Sir Champion!' said Jhary-a-Conel quietly, stroking the 
fur of his small black and white cat, which had emerged from his jerkin. 'You 
must.'
      'Champion? Champion of what?' Still Hawkmoon's hand gripped the sword 
hilt. 'Of what?'
      'Champion Eternal," said Jhary-a-Conel, softly still. 'Fate's soldier...'
      'No!' Though the words were all but meaningless, Hawkmoon could not bear 
to hear them. 'No!!'
      His gloved hands flew to his ears.
      And that was when his two friends rushed at him.
      He was still not as strong as he had been before his madness. He was weary 
from the climb. He struggled against them until he felt Katinka van Bak's dagger 
pricking his eye and he heard her urgent voice in his ear:
      'Killing you is the easiest way to achieve our purpose, Hawkmoon,' she 
said. 'But it would not be the kindest. Besides, I am reluctant to cut you off 
from this body, should you desire to return to it. Thus I shall only kill you if 
you make it impossible for me to do ought else. Do you understand ?'
      'I undersand treachery,' he said savagely, still testing his strength 
against their clutches, 'and I thought I smelled the spring. I smelled traitors, 
instead. Traitors who posed as friends.'
      One of them extinguished the fireglobe. The three stood in blackness and 
Hawkmoon heard the echoes of his words.
      'Where is this place?' He felt the dagger point prick his eye again. 'What 
are you doing to me?'
      'It was the only way,' said Katinka van Bak. 'It was the only way, 
Champion.'
      It was the first time she had called him that, though Jhary had used the 
term frequently.
      'Where is this place?' he said again. 'Where?'
      'I wish that I knew,' said Katinka van Bak. And her voice was almost sad.
      Then she evidently struck him on the back of the head with her armoured 
gauntlet. He felt the blow and guessed what caused it. For a moment he thought 
that it had not succeeded in its intention of driving consciousness from him. 
Then he realised that he had sunk to his knees.
      Then he realised that his body seemed to be falling away from him in the 
blackness of the cave.
      And then he knew that her blow had done what it had intended, after all.

BOOK TWO
A HOMECOMING

1
ILIAN OF GARATHORM
      Hawkmoon listened to ghosts.
      Each ghost spoke to him in his own voice.
      In Hawkmoon's voice...
      ... then I was Erekos and I slew the human race. And Urlik Skarsol, Prince 
of the Southern Ice, who slew the Silver Queen from Moon. Who bore the Black 
Sword. Now I hang in limbo and await my next task. Perhaps through this I shall 
find a means of returning to my lost love Ermizhad. Perhaps I shall find 
Tanelorn.
      (I have been Elric)
      Fate's soldier ... Time's tool ... Champion Eternal .., Doomed to 
perpetual strife.
      (I have been Corum. In more than one life I have been Corum)
      I know not how it began. Perhaps it will end in Tanelorn.
      Rhalina, Yisselda, Cymoril, Zarozinia ...
      So many women.
      (I have been Arflane. Asquiol. Aubec.")
      All die, save me.
      (I have been Hawkmoon ...)
      'No! I am Hawkmoon!'
      (We are all Hawkmoon. Hawkmoon is all of us")
      All live, save me.
      John Daker? Was he the first?
      Or the last?
      I have betrayed so many and been betrayed so much.
      Faces floated before him. Each face was different. Each face was his own 
face. He shouted and tried to push them away.
      But he had no hands.
      He tried to revive himself. Better to die under Katinka van Bak's knife 
than suffer this torment. It was what he had feared. It was what he had tried to 
avoid. It was the reason he had not pursued his argument with Jhary-a-Conel. But 
he was alone against a thousand - a thousand manifestations of himself.
      The struggle is eternal. The fight is endless.
      And now we must become Ilian. Ilian, whose soul was driven out. Is this 
not a strange task?
      '/ am Hawkmoon. Only Hawkmoon.'
      And I am Hawkmoon. And I am Urlik Skarsol. And I am Ilian of Garathorm. 
Perhaps here I shall find Tanelorn. Farewell to the South Ice and the dying sun. 
Farewell to the Silver Queen and the Screaming Chalice. Farewell Count Brass. 
Farewell Urlik. Farewell Hawkmoon ...
      And Hawkmoon began to feel his memories fading from him. In their place 
came crowding a million other memories. Memories of bizarre worlds and exotic 
landscapes, of creatures both human and inhuman. Memories that could not 
possibly belong to a single man, and yet they were like those dreams he had had 
at Castle Brass. Or had he experienced them at Castle Brass? Perhaps it had been 
elsewhere? In Melnibone? In Loos Ptokai? In Castle Erorn by the sea? Aboard that 
strange ship which travelled beyond the Earth? Where? Where had he dreamed those 
dreams?
      And he knew that he had dreamed them in all of those places and that he 
would dream them again in all those places.
      He knew that there was no such thing as Time.
      Past, present and future were all the same. They existed all at the same 
moment - and they did not exist at any moment.
      He was Urlik Skarsol, Prince of the Southern Ice, and his chariot was 
drawn by bears, moving across the ice beneath a dying sun. Moving towards a 
goal. Searching, as Hawkmoon searched for Yisselda, for a woman whom he could 
not reach. Ermizhad. And Ermizhad had not loved Urlik Skarsol. She had loved 
Erekose. Yet Erekose was Urlik Skarsol, too.
      Tanelorn. That was Urlik's goal.
      Tanelorn. Should it be Hawkmoon's?
      The name was so familiar. Yet he had found Tanelorn many times. He had 
dwelled there once and each time Tanelorn had been different.
      Which Tanelorn must he seek?
      And there was a sword. A sword which had many manifestations. A black 
sword. Yet it was often disguised. A sword ...
      Ilian of Garathorm bore a good sword. Ilian felt for it, but it was not 
there. Ilian's hands ran over chain mail, over silk, over flesh. Ilian's hands 
touched cool turf and Ilian's nose smelled the richness of spring. Ilian's eyes 
opened. Two strangers stood there, a young man and a middle-aged woman. Yet 
their faces were familiar.
      Hawkmoon said: 'Katinka van ...' and then Ilian forgot the rest of the 
name. Hawkmoon felt his body and was astonished. "What have you made me 
into...?' And Ilian wondered at those words, even though they came from Ilian's 
mouth.
      'Greetings, Ilian of Garathorm, Champion Eternal,' said the young man with 
a smile. He had a small black and white cat on his shoulder. The cat had a pair 
of wings folded on its back.
      'And Hawkmoon, farewell - for the moment, at least,' said the middle-aged 
woman who was dressed all in battered plate armour.
      Ilian said Vaguely: 'Hawkmoon? The name is familiar. Yet I thought for an 
instant I was called Urlik Skarsol, also. Who are you?'
      The young man bowed, showing none of the patronising mockery or 
condescension with which Ilian had become familiar, even when at court.
      'I am Jhary-a-Conel. And this lady is Katinka van Bak, whom you may 
remember.'
      Ilian frowned. 'Yes ... Katinka van Bak. You are the one who saved me when 
Ymryl's pack pursued me ...'
      And then, for a moment, Ilian's memory faded.
      Hawkmoon said, through Ilian's lips: 'What have you done to me, Katinka 
van Bak?' He felt at his body in horror. His skin was softer. His form was 
different. He had become shorter. 'You have made me into ... into a woman!'
      Jhary-a-Conel leaned forward, his eyes full of an abnormal intensity. 'It 
had to be done. You are Ilian of Garathorm. This world needs Ilian. Trust us. It 
will benefit Hawkmoon, too.'
      'You plotted this together. There was no army in the Bulgar Mountains! 
That tunnel...'
      'It led here. To Garathorm,' Katinka van Bak said. 'I discovered this 
passage between the dimensions when I hid from the Dark Empire. I was here when 
Ymryl and the others arrived. I saved your life, Ilian, but they were able, with 
their sorcery, to drive your spirit from you. I was in despair for Garathorm. 
Then I met Jhary here. He conceived a solution. Hawkmoon was close to the point 
of death. As a manifestation of the eternal Champion his spirit could substitute 
for Ilian's - for she is another manifestation of that Champion, you see. That 
story I told you. I knew it might bring you here - through the tunnel. The army 
I described does raid beyond the Bulgar Mountains. It raids Garathorm.'
      Hawkmoon's brain was whirling. 'I don't understand. I occupy another's 
body? Is that what you are saying? This can only be Dark Empire work!'
      'Believe us that it is not!' said Katinka van Bak seriously.
      'Though the Dark Empire has played some part, I feel, in bringing this 
disaster about," said Jhary-a-Conel. 'The exact part is yet to be discovered. 
But only as Ilian can you hope to oppose those who now rule this world. It is 
Ilian's fate, you see. Only Ilian's. Hawkmoon could not have succeeded ...'
      'So you have imprisoned me in this woman's body ... But how? What sorcery 
accomplished it?'
      Jhary looked at the grassy ground. 'I have some skill in this particular 
area. But you must forget that you are Hawkmoon. Hawkmoon has no place in 
Garathorm. You must be Ilian, or our work is wasted. Ilian - whom Ymryl desired. 
And because he could not possess her, he drove her spirit from her. Even Ymryl 
did not realise what he was doing - that Ilian's destiny is to wage war against 
him. Ymryl merely sees you, Ilian, as a desirable woman, albeit a fierce foe who 
led the remnants of her father's army against him.'
      'Ymryl ...' Hawkmoon strove to hang on to his own identity, but it was 
slipping away from him again. 'Ymryl, who serves Chaos. Ymryl, the Yellow Horn. 
They came from nowhere and Garathorm fell to them. Ah, I remember the fires. I 
remember my father, kindly Pyran. With all his reluctance to fight, he battled 
Ymryl long ...'
      'And then you took up Pyran's flaming banner. Remember, Ilian? You took up 
that burning flag, the fame of all Garathorm, and you rode against Ymryl's force 
...' Katinka van Bak said softly. 'I had taught you the use of sword, shield and 
axe, while I guested at Pyran's court, after I fled the Dark Empire. And you put 
all my learning to splendid use until only you and I remained alive upon the 
field.'
      'I remember,' said Ilian. 'And we were only spared because they were 
amused to discover our feminine sex. Ah, the humiliation I felt when Ymryl 
tugged the helm from my head! "You shall rule beside me," he said. And he 
reached out a hand still covered in the blood of my people, and he touched my 
body! Oh, I remember.' Ilian's voice became hard and fierce. 'And I remember 
that it was then I swore to slay him. Yet there was only one way and I was 
unable to follow it. I could not. And, because I resisted him, he imprisoned 
me...'
      'Which was when I was able to rescue you. We fled. His pack followed. We 
fought it and destroyed it. But Ymryl's sorcerers found us. In his rage he made 
them reach out and drive your spirit from you.'
      'Ah, the sending. Yes. They attacked. I remember nothing more."
      'We were hiding in the cave. I had some idea to take you through, back to 
my own world where I thought you would be safe. But then, when your soul went 
out of you, there was no point to it. I met Jhary-a-Conel, who had been drawn to 
Garathorm by the same forces which brought Ymryl. Between us we determined what 
we must try to do. Your memories were still within your skull. Only an - an 
essence - was lacking. So we had to find a new soul. And Hawkmoon's was not in 
use then, as he rotted in his tower at Castle Brass. With many misgivings we did 
what we had to do. And now you have a soul again.'
      'And Ymryl?'
      'He believes you - gone. He has doubtless forgotten you and thinks he 
rules all Garathorm with nothing to fear. His rabble army rides roughshod over 
all the land. Yet even those creatures have hardly been able to spoil 
Garathorm's beauty."
      'Garathorm is still lovely,' agreed Ilian. She looked from where she stood 
on the slopes of the hill, the cave mouth behind her, and saw her world with 
fresh eyes, as if for the first time.
      Not far off was the edge of the great forest - the forest which covered 
this world's single continent. Save for Garathorm, all the rest was sea 
containing the occasional small island. And the trees were huge. Some stretched 
several hundred feet into the air.
      The sky was wide and blue and in it burned a huge golden sun. The sun 
shone on flowers whose heads measured more than twelve feet across. It made 
their colours almost blinding in their intensity. Scarlets, purples and yellows 
predominated. Among the blooms flew butterflies whose proportions matched those 
of the flowers and whose colours were even richer. One particularly glorious 
insect had wings measuring nearly two feet long. And among the vine-hung boles 
of the trees fluttered great birds, their plumage glittering in the deep shadows 
of the forest. And Ilian knew that there was hardly a bird or a beast in that 
forest which a human had to fear. She breathed the thick air with relish and she 
smiled.
      'Yes,' she said, 'I am Ilian of Garathorm. Who could wish to be anything 
else? Who would want to dwell anywhere but in Garathorm, even in these times?'
      'Exactly,' said Jhary-a-Conel in some relief.
      Katinka van Bak began to unwrap a big fur cloak which Ilian did not recall 
having seen before. In the cloak was a variety of stone pots. The lids of the 
pots were sealed with wax.
      'Preserves,' explained Katinka van Bak. 'Meats, fruits and vegetables. 
These will sustain us for a while. Let's eat now.'
      And while they ate, Ilian recalled the terrors of the past months.
      Garathorm had become a united land some two centuries earlier, thanks to 
the diplomacy (not to mention the lust for power) of Ilian's ancestors. And for 
those two hundred years there had been peace and prosperity for all the 
inhabitants of the great arboreal continent. Learning flourished, as did the 
arts. Garathorm's capital, the ebony city of Virinthorm, had grown to great 
proportions. Its suburbs stretched for several miles from the old city, under 
the branches of the great, sheltering trees, which protected Garathorm from the 
heavy rains which, for a month every year, beat down upon the island continent. 
Once, it was said, there had been other continents and Garathorm had been a 
desert. Then some cataclysm had swept the earth, perhaps causing the melting of 
the polar ice, and when the cataclysm was past, only Garathorm remained. And 
Garathorm was changed, becoming a place where foliage grew to enormous 
proportions. The reason for this was still unknown. Garathorm's scholars had yet 
to find a clue to the answer. Perhaps it lay beneath the sea, in the drowned 
lands.
      Twenty years earlier Ilian's father, Pyran, had come to the throne on the 
death of his uncle. Ilian had been born but two years before, almost to the day. 
And Pyran's rule began what many believed to be a Golden Age for Garathorm. 
Ilian had grown up in an atmosphere of humanity and happiness. Always an active 
girl, she had spent much time riding the ostrich-like vayna through the forests. 
The vayna could make considerable speed upon the ground, and almost as good 
speed when it ran along the thick branches of the trees, leaping from branch to 
branch with a rider clinging to its back. It was one of the most exhilarating 
pastimes in Garathorm. And when, several years ago, Katinka van Bak had suddenly 
arrived at the court of King Pyran, exhausted, confused and close to death from 
many wounds, Ilian took to her immediately. Katinka's story had been a strange 
one. Somehow she had been transported through time - either into the future or 
the past, she could not be sure - after fleeing from enemies who had defeated 
her in a great battle. The details of her passage through time were vague, but 
she had soon become a welcome guest at the court and, to occupy her own mind as 
much as to help Ilian, had agreed to teach Ilian the martial arts. In Garathorm 
there were no warriors. There was only a ceremonial guard and groups of others 
whose task it was to protect the remoter farmsteads against attacks from the few 
wild beasts which still remained in Garathorm. Yet Ilian took to the sword and 
the axe as if she was the cub of some ancient reaver. It was as if she had 
always pursued such arts. And she found a peculiar satisfaction in learning 
everything Katinka van Bak could teach her. For all that her childhood had been 
happy, it had always seemed to lack something until that moment.
      Her father had been amused by her enthusiasm for such archaic pursuits. 
And her enthusiasm had been infectious amongst many of the young people at 
court. Eventually there had been several hundred girls and boys who felt at ease 
with a sword and a buckler and elaborate mock tournaments became a feature of 
court festivals.
      Perhaps it was not coincidence, then, but some working of Fate, that had 
prepared a small but highly skilled army to resist Ymryl when he came.
      Ymryl had come suddenly to Virinthorm. A few rumours had arrived ahead of 
him and King Pyran had sent emissaries to investigate the disturbing reports 
coming from the remoter quarters of the continent. But before the emissaries 
could return, Ymryl had arrived. It emerged later that he was part of a larger 
army which had swept over the whole of Garathorm and taken all the main 
provincial cities within a matter of weeks. At first it was thought that they 
had come from some previously unknown land beyond the sea, but there was no 
evidence to suggest it. Like Katinka van Bak, Ymryl and his comrades had arrived 
mysteriously in Garathorm. They hardly seemed, themselves, to know how they had 
got here.
      Speculation as to their origin became unimportant. All efforts were put 
into resisting them. Scholars were asked to invent weapons. Engineers, too, 
found that they were asked to put their skills to conceiving methods of 
destruction. They were not used to thinking in such terms and few weapons were 
produced. Katinka van Bak, Ilian and about two hundred others, harried Ymryl's 
rabble army, and scored a few victories in skirmishes, but when Ymryl was ready 
to march against the tree-sheltered city of Virinthorm, he marched. He could not 
be resisted. There were two battles fought in the great glade beyond the city. 
At the first battle King Pyran brought out the ancient war-flag of his ancestors 
- the burning flag, which blazed with a strange fire and which was made of a 
cloth which never perished. With that flag held in his own hand, he went against 
Ymryl, leading an army of poorly armed and untrained citizens. King Pyran was 
slaughtered with his folk and Ilian had barely managed to drag the burning 
banner from his dead hand before she escaped with the remains of her own 
professional fighters - those who had once shared her enthusiasm for military 
arts and who had swiftly become hardened veterans.
      There had been one last battle in which Ilian and Katinka van Bak had led 
a few hundred survivors against Ymryl. They had put up a splendid fight and 
taken many of the invaders that day, but they were eventually beaten. Ilian was 
not sure if any of her people had escaped, but there seemed to be no survivors, 
save herself and Katinka van Bak.
And they had been captured. And Ymryl had lusted for her and seen, too, that 
with her at his side he would have no difficulty in ruling those citizens who 
still hid in the forests beyond Virinthorm and crept out at night to slaughter 
his men.
      When she had resisted him, he had given orders that she should be 
imprisoned, that she should be kept awake and fed only the minimum to keep her 
alive. He had known that she would eventually agree to what he wanted.
      And now, as she ate, Ilian suddenly remembered what she had done. 
Something which Katinka van Bak had not mentioned.
      And Ilian could barely swallow the food in her mouth as she turned to look 
at Katinka van Bak.
      'Why did you not remind me of that?' she said coldly. 'Of my brother.'
      'You were not to blame for that,' said Katinka van Bak. The older woman 
lowered her eyes to the ground. 'I should have done what you did. Anyone would. 
They tortured you.'
      'And I told them. I told them where he would be hiding. And they found him 
and they slew him.'
      'They tortured you,' said Karen van Bak harshly. 'They tore your body. 
They abused it. They did not let you sleep. They did not let you eat. They 
wanted two things from you. You only gave them one. That was a triumph!'
      'You mean I gave them my brother instead of myself. Is that a triumph?'
      'In the circumstances, yes. Forget it, Ilian. We may yet avenge your 
brother - and the rest."
      'I must do much to atone for that thing,' said Ilian. She knew there were 
tears in her eyes and she tried to force them back.
      'There is much, anyway, that must be done,' said Jhary-a-Conel.

2
OUTLAWS OF A THOUSAND SPHERES
      The small black and white cat drifted high above the forest on a warm 
upcurrent of air. The sun was setting. The cat waited, for it preferred to go 
about its business at night. From the ground, if it could be seen at all, the 
cat would have been mistaken for a hawk. It hovered, keeping its position by the 
slightest movements of its wings, close to a city but recently occupied by a 
huge and ferocious army.
      Katinka van Bak had not lied when she had described the army which had 
defeated her. Her only lie concerned where she had engaged this army and what 
its intentions were. In a sense, of course, it had occupied the Bulgar 
Mountains, for did not this land, in some mysterious way, exist within that 
range?
      As the sun sank, so the small black and white cat dropped lower and lower 
until at last it had settled upon a branch close to the top of one of the 
tallest trees. A breeze blew, rustling the leaves and making the trees, from 
where the cat sat, seem to move like the waves of a strange sea.
      The cat jumped and landed on a lower branch, jumped again and this time 
spread its wings, soaring a few feet before finding another foothold.
      Slowly it began to descend towards the city, whose lights could be seen 
far below. Not for the first time was the cat scouting for its master, Jhary-a-
Conel; going somewhere where Jhary himself, or his friends, could not go.
      At last the cat lay stretched on a branch directly over the centre of the 
city. Virinthorm had no walls, for it had been long since she had needed them, 
and all her main buildings were built of carved, polished ebony, inlaid with 
whale ivory bought from the coastal peoples to the south. Those people had once 
hunted whales, but now the few who were left were hunted by monsters themselves. 
The other buildings were all built of hardwood, for stone was a rarity in 
Garathorm, and all had a rich, mellow look to them - those which had been left 
untouched by the invaders' brands.
      The cat dropped still lower, digging its claws into the smooth roof of a 
large building and climbing to the main beam.
      A terrible smell filled the city. It was a smell of death and of decay. 
The cat found it at once unpleasant and interesting, but it denied itself the 
instinct to explore the source of the odours. Instead it spread its wings and 
flew away from the building and then back again, losing height rapidly and then 
gliding gracefully through an open window.
      The cat's unusual sixth sense had not betrayed it. It found itself in a 
bedroom. The room was strewn with rich brocades, silks and feather cloaks. The 
bed was unmade and in great disorder. Empty wine-cups were scattered everywhere 
and there was evidence that much wine had been spilled throughout the room over 
the course of weeks or months. On the bed lay a naked man. To one side of him, 
huddled in each other's arms and sleeping fitfully, lay two young girls. There 
were many minor cuts and bruises on their bodies. Both had black hair and pale 
skins. The man had bright yellow hair, which might have been dyed. The hair on 
his body was not the same colour, but a reddish brown. It was an extremely 
muscular body and it must have measured at least seven feet long. The head was 
large and tapered from the wide cheek-bones to the jaw, almost to a point. It 
was a brutish head and a powerful head, yet there was also a look of weakness in 
it. Something about that pointed jaw and that cruel mouth made the face not 
quite handsome (though some might have found it so) and instead it was oddly 
repulsive.
      This was Ymryl.
      Around his thick neck was slung by a cord a silver-dressed amber horn.
      This was Ymryl, the Yellow Horn.
      And his horn could be heard for miles, if he needed to summon his men. And 
it was said that the notes of that horn could be heard elsewhere, too. It was 
said that they could be heard in Hell, where Ymryl had comrades.
      Ymryl stirred, as if he sensed the cat's presence. The cat swiftly flew to 
a ledge high up on the far wall. Trophies had once been kept there, but the gold 
shield, won by one of Ilian's ancestors, had been dragged from its place months 
before. Ymryl coughed and groaned and opened his eyes a fraction. He rolled over 
on the bed and leaning his elbows on the back of one of the girls poured himself 
wine from the jug which rested on the nearby table. He drained the wine-cup, 
sniffed and sat up straighter on the bed.
      'Garko!' growled Ymryl. 'Garko! Here!'
      From another room a creature came scuttling. The creature had four short 
legs, a round torso into which was set a face, and long spindly arms ending in 
large hands.
      'Master?' whispered Garko.
      'What's the hour?'
      'Just past sunset, master.'
      'So I've slept through the day, have I?' Ymryl got up and dragged on a 
dirty robe, looted from the king's own chests. 'Doubtless it has been another 
dull day. No news from the west?'
      'None. If they planned to attack, we should know by now, lord.'
      'I suppose so. By Arioch! I grow bored, Garko. I began to suspect that 
somehow we are all in this damned place as a punishment. I wish I knew how I had 
offended the Lords of Chaos, if that's the case. We thought at first that we had 
been given a paradise to loot. Few of the people knew the first thing about 
making war. It was so easy to take over their cities. And now we find ourselves 
with nothing to do. How go the sorcerer's experiments?'
      'He remains frustrated in his attempts to get his dimension travelling 
machine to work for him. I have little faith in him, master.'
      Ymryl sniffed. 'Well, he slew the maid for me - or the next best thing. 
And at some distance. That was clever. Perhaps he will yet find a way through 
for us.'
      'Perhaps, master."
      'I cannot understand why even the most powerful amongst us is unable to 
summon word from the Lords of Chaos. If I were not Ymryl, the Yellow Horn, if I 
were a lesser man, I should feel abandoned. I ruled a great nation in my own 
world, Garko. I ruled it in the name of Chaos. I gave Arioch many sacrifices, 
Garko. Many.'
      'So you have told me, master.'
      'And there are others here who were kings in their own worlds. Some ruled 
empires. And barely one of us seems to have shared the same time or even the 
same plane. That is what puzzles me. Each creature - human or unhuman (like 
yourself) - came here at the identical moment, and came here from a different 
world. It could only be the work of Arioch. Or some other powerful Chaos Lord, 
for we are all - or most of us - servants of those great Lords of Entropy. And 
still Arioch does not tell us his reason for bringing us here."
      'It could be that he has none, master.'
      Ymryl snorted. Without much anger, he cuffed Garko across the top of his 
head. 'Arioch always has reasons. Yet he is good to those who serve him without 
question - as I served him for many years in my own world. I thought at first 
that this must be a reward...'
      Ymryl took his jug and his cup to the window and stared out at the city he 
had conquered while he poured himself more wine. He tilted back his yellow head 
and gulped the wine. 'I grow so bored. So bored. I thought those who took the 
westerly provinces would have become greedy by now and would have tried to 
attack us. But they, it seems, are as wary as I. They do not wish to anger 
Arioch by turning on the others. I am beginning to alter my thinking on that 
subject now. I think Arioch expects us to fight. He wishes to discover which is 
the strongest. That could be why we were brought here. A test, you see, Garko.'
      'A test. I see, master.'
      Ymryl sniffed. 'Summon the sorcerer. I would consult with him. It could be 
that he can help me understand what to do.'
      Garko backed from the room. 'I will summon him, master.'
      The small black and white cat watched as Ymryl strode about the room, his 
brows drawn in thought. There was an immense sense of physical power about the 
man and yet at the same time there was an indecisiveness which perhaps he had 
not always had. Perhaps, before he pledged himself to Chaos, he had been 
stronger. It was often said that Chaos warped those who served it - and not 
always physically.
      Once Ymryl paused and stared about him, as if he again sensed the presence 
of the cat. But then he raised his head and murmured:
      'Arioch! Arioch! Why do you not come? Why do you send no messenger to us?'
      For a few moments Ymryl waited expectantly, then he shook his head and 
continued his pacing.
      Some time later Garko returned.
      'The sorcerer is here, master."
      'Let him enter.'
      Then there came into the room a bent figure in a long green robe decorated 
with writhing black serpents. Upon his face was a mask moulded to resemble the 
head of a striking snake. The mask was made of engraved platinum and its details 
were picked out in precious stones.
      'Why did you summon me, Yellow Horn?' The sorcerer's voice was faintly 
muffled, slightly querulous, yet deferential withall. 'I was in the middle of an 
experiment.'
      'The experiment, if it is as successful as the rest, can wait a little, 
Baron Kalan.'
      'I suppose you are right.' The serpent mask turned this way and that as 
its owner glanced about the brightly lit room. 'What did you wish to discuss 
with me, Ymryl?'
      'I wanted your opinion of our situation. My own opinion you know - that we 
are here because of some scheme brewed by the Lords of Chaos ...'
      'Yes. And as you know, I have no experiences of these supernatural beings. 
I am a scientist. If such beings exist, then they seem devious to the point of 
stupidity -'
      'Silence!' Ymryl raised his hand. 'I tolerate your blasphemies, Baron 
Kalan, because I respect your talents. I have assured you that Duke Arioch of 
Chaos and the rest not only exist but take a great interest in the affairs of 
mankind, in every sphere of existence.'
      'Very well, if I must accept that notion, then I am as much at a loss as 
yourself to understand why they do not manifest themselves. My own theory is 
linked to my own experience. In my experiments in the realm of time-manipulation 
I caused an immense disruption which resulted, among other things, in this 
particular phenomenon. Like you, I sense that I am stranded here. Certainly all 
the efforts I have made to send my pyramid through the dimensions have met with 
total failure. That in itself is a problem I find hard to answer. Some 
conjunction of the planes has doubtless taken place - but why so many folk from 
so many different planes should all find themselves suddenly in this world, as 
we found ourselves, I do not know.'
      Ymryl yawned and fingered his yellow horn. 'And that is the sum of what 
you have said. You do not know.'
      'I assure you, Ymryl, that I am working on the problem. But I must do so 
in my own way -'
      'Oh, I'm not blaming you, sorcerer. It seems the most ironic thing of all 
that there are so many clever people here and none can solve the problem. The 
languages we speak sound the same, but they are all essentially different. Our 
terms are not the same. Our references are not the same. What I call sorcery, 
you call "science". I speak of gods and you speak of the principles of science. 
They are all the same thing. Yet the words themselves confuse us.'
      'You are an intelligent man, Ymryl,' Kalan said. 'I'll grant you that. I 
wonder why you waste your time as you do. You seem to get little relish even 
from your butchery, your wenching, your drinking...'
      'You begin to go too far, even for my tolerance,' Ymryl said softly. 'I 
must spend my time somehow. And I've little respect for scholarship, save where 
it's useful. Your knowledge has proved useful to me once. I live in the patient 
hope that it will prove useful a second time. I am damned, you see, Baron Kalan. 
I know that. I was damned the instant I accepted the gift of this horn I wear 
about my throat. The horn that helped me rise from being the leader of a band of 
cattle-thieves to be ruler of Hythiak, the most powerful nation in my world.' 
Ymryl smiled bleakly. 'The horn was given me by Duke Arioch himself. It summoned 
aid from Hell whenever I needed it. It made me great. Yet it made me, also, a 
slave. Slave to the Lords of Chaos. I can never relinquish their gift, just as I 
can never now refuse to serve them. And being damned, I see no point to life. I 
had ambition when I was a cattle-raider. Now I have only nostalgia for those 
simple days, when I spent my time drinking, killing and wenching.' And Ymryl's 
bleak smile widened and he laughed. 'I appear to have gained very little from my 
bargain."
      He put an arm around the stooped shoulders of the sorcerer and led him 
from the room.
      'Come. I'll see how you progress with your experiments!' The little cat 
crept further out onto the ledge and looked down. The two young girls still 
slept in each other's arms. The cat heard Ymryl's laughter echoing back to the 
room. It launched itself from the ledge and flew over the bed and out through 
the window, heading back to where it had left Jhary-a-Conel.

3
A MEETING IN THE FOREST
      'So we can anticipate a falling out, soon, amongst the invaders,' said 
Jhary-a-Conel. By some mysterious means the cat had communicated to him all it 
had seen. He stroked its small round head and it purred.
      It was dawn. From the cave Katinka van Bak led three horses. Two of the 
horses were good, strong stallions. The third horse was Jhary's yellow nag. By 
now Ilian had become used to the sense of familiarity she had when she saw 
things she was sure she could never have seen before. She mounted one of the 
stallions and settled herself in the saddle, inspecting the weapons she found in 
the saddle sheaths - the sword and the lance with the odd, ruby tip where its 
point should be.
      Without thinking, she looked for a grip half-way down the shaft. The grip 
had a jewel set into it. She knew that if she pressed the jewel destroying flame 
would leap from the ruby tip of the lance. Philosophically, she shrugged, glad 
enough to have a weapon that was as powerful as those possessed by many of 
Ymryl's warriors. She noticed that Katinka van Bak had a similar weapon, though 
Jhary's arms were of the more conventional kind, an ordinary lance, a shield and 
a sword.
      'What of these gods in whom Ymryl pins so much faith,' Katinka asked Jhary 
as they rode into the massive forest, 'do they have any reality at all, Jhary?'
      'They had once - or will have. I suspect that they exist when men need 
them to exist. But I could be wrong. Rest assured, however, Katinka van Bak, 
that when they do exist they are extremely powerful.'
      Katinka van Bak nodded. 'Then why do they not help Ymryl?'
      'It is possible that they do,' Jhary said, 'without him realising it.' He 
took a deep breath of the sweet air. He looked admiringly at the huge blooms, 
the variety of greens and browns of the trees. 'Though often these gods are 
unable to enter human worlds themselves and must work through agents like Ymryl. 
Only a powerful sorcery could bring Arioch through, I suspect.'
      'And this Dark Empire lord - Baron Kalan, without a doubt - he has not 
sufficient skill?'
      'I am sure his skill is sufficient, in his own sphere. But if he does not 
believe in Arioch - save, perhaps, intellectually - then he is useless to Ymryl. 
It is lucky for us.'
      'The thought of more powerful beings than Ymryl and his pack invading 
Garathorm is not a pleasant one,' said Ilian. Though undisturbed by the strange 
half-memories which flitted through her head from time to time, she had become 
gloomier since she had remembered her screaming betrayal of her brother, Bradne. 
She had never seen his body, though she had heard there was little left of it 
when Ymryl's raiders brought it back to the city, for Katinka van Bak had 
appeared to rescue her before Ymryl could enjoy the sight of Ilian's horror.
      Ymryl had guessed what would follow. She would have been so full of self-
disgust that she would have agreed to any demands he made on her. She knew that 
she would have given herself up to him then, almost gratefully, as a means of 
atoning for her guilt. She drew a hissing breath as she recalled her feelings. 
Well, at least she had denied Ymryl the fulfilment of his scheme.
      Small comfort, thought Ilian cynically. But she would have felt no better 
now if she had lain with Ymryl. It would not have absolved her, it would only 
have indulged her own sense of hysteria at the time. She could never satisfy her 
own conscience, for all her friends did not blame her for what she had done, but 
at least she could use the hatred she felt to good effect. She was determined to 
destroy Ymryl and all his fellows, even though she was sure such an action would 
result in her own destruction. That was what she wanted. She would not die 
before Ymryl was slain.
      'We must accept the possibility that your countrymen will not reveal 
themselves to us,' Katinka van Bak said. 'Those who still fight Ymryl will have 
become wary, suspecting treachery from anyone.'
      'And particularly from me,' said Ilian bitterly.
      'They might not know of your brother's capture,' said Jhary. 'Or at least 
they might not know of the circumstances which led to his capture...' But the 
suggestion sounded weak in his own ears.
      'Ymryl will have made sure all your folk -will know what you did,' Katinka 
van Bak said. 'It would be what I would do in his position. And you can be 
certain that he would have had the worst interpretation put upon the facts. With 
the last of their hereditary rulers proven a traitress, their morale will 
decline and they will cause Ymryl far less trouble. I have taken cities in my 
time. And so, doubtless, has Ymryl taken others before Virinthorm. If he could 
not use you one way, Ilian, he would have used you another!'
      'Any interpretation put upon my treachery could be no worse than the 
truth, Katinka van Bak,' said Ilian of Virinthorm.
      The older woman said nothing to this. She merely pursed her lips and 
clapped her heels to the flanks of her horse, riding on ahead.
      For the best part of the day they pressed through the tangled forest. And 
the deeper they went, the darker it became - a cool, green, restful darkness, 
full of heady scents. They were to the north east of Virinthorm and riding away 
from the city rather than towards it. Katinka van Bak had a feeling she knew 
where she might find some of the surviving Garathormians.
      And at last they entered a warm, sunlit glade, blinking painfully in the 
bright light, and Katinka van Bak pointed to the other side of the glade.
      Ilian saw dark shapes beneath the trees. Jagged shapes. And she 
remembered.
      'Of course,' she said. 'Tikaxil! Ymryl knows nothing of the old city.'
      Tikaxil had existed long before Virinthorm. It had once been a thriving 
trading city, home of Ilian's ancestors. A walled city. The walls had been made 
of huge blocks of hardwood, each block placed upon the other. Most of those 
blocks had disappeared now, or rotted into nothing, but a few fragments of the 
ramparts remained. And there were one or two ebony houses which, for all they 
were thickly wound about with creepers and low branches, were almost as good as 
when they had been built.
      In the middle of the glade the three stopped and dismounted, looking 
warily around them. Overhead massive tree branches waved and mottled shadows 
skipped across the grass.
      Ilian kept seeing the moving shadows as figures. It was possible that 
Ymryl's men and not her own folk were camped here - if anyone was camped here at 
all. She kept her hand near the oddly familiar flame-lance, ready to meet an 
attack.
      Katinka van Bak spoke clearly.
      'If you are friends of ours you will recognise us. You will know that we 
come to ally ourselves with you against Ymryl.'
      'The place is deserted,' said Jhary-a-Conel, dismounted from his yellow 
nag and looking about him. 'But it will make a good place to camp tonight.'
      'See - this is your queen, Ilian, Pyran's daughter. Remember how she bore 
the burning banner into battle with Ymryl's army? And I am Katinka van Bak, also 
known to you as Ymryl's enemy. This is Jhary-a-Conel. Without his help, your 
queen would not be here now.'
      'You speak to birds and squirrels, Katinka van Bak,' said Jhary-a-Conel. 
'There are none here from Garathorm.'
      He had not finished this sentence before the nets swept down and engulfed 
them. It was a tribute to the training of each of them that they did not 
struggle but calmly attempted to draw their swords, to cut their way free. But 
Katinka and Ilian were still mounted. Ilian tried to slash her way clear, but 
her horse kept rearing and whinnying in fear. Only Jhary was unmounted and he 
managed to crawl under the edge of the net and be ready with his sword as a 
score of men and women, all armed, came rushing at them from behind the ruined 
ramparts.
      Ilian's arms became increasingly entangled in the tough fibres of the net 
and, as she struggled, she found herself slipping from the saddle and falling to 
the ground.
She felt someone kick her in the stomach. She gasped in pain, hearing someone 
snarling insults at her, though she could not make out the words.
      Katinka van Bak had misjudged the situation, obviously. These folk were 
not friends.

4
A PACT IS MADE
      "You are fools!' said Katinka van Bak contemptuously. 'You do not deserve 
the chance we offer. Ymryl's plans are well suited by your actions. Do you not 
realise that you are doing exactly what he would want you to do?"
      'Silence!' The young man with the scar along his jaw glared at her.
      Ilian raised her head, feebly shaking it to free the strands of hair which 
clung to the sweat on her face. 'Why reason with them, Katinka? They are right 
from their point of view.'
      They had been hanging by their arms for the best part of three days, being 
released only to eat and relieve themselves. For all the pain involved, it was 
nothing compared with what Ilian had suffered in Ymryl's dungeons. She was 
hardly aware of the discomfort. And their captors had concentrated most of their 
spleen on her. She had received several kicks since the first. She had been spat 
upon, slapped, reviled. It meant nothing to her. It was her due, that was all.
      'They'll destroy themselves if they destroy us,' said Jhary-a-Conel 
quietly. He, too, seemed hardly to notice the pain. He seemed to have been 
sleeping through most of their ordeal. His black and white cat had vanished.
      The young man looked from Ilian to Katinka to Jhary. "We are doomed 
anyway,' he said. 'It will not be long before Ymryl's hounds sniff us out.'
      'That is my point,' said Katinka van Bak.
      Ilian looked across the ruins of the old city. Attracted by the sound of 
voices the others were coming over to the tree where the three prisoners hung. 
Ilian recognised many of the faces. These were the young people with whom she 
had spent so much time in the old days. These were the trained fighters, those 
who had resisted Ymryl longest, as well as a few citizens who had either managed 
to escape from Virinthorm or who had not been near the city when Ymryl had 
captured it. And there was not one there who did not hate her with that hatred 
that only comes from those who have admired someone and then discovered that 
person to be despicable.
      'There is not one here who would not have given the information Ilian gave 
Ymryl,' said Katinka. 'You must know little of life if you do not understand 
that. You are still soft, you fighters. You are not realistic. We are the only 
chance you have of fighting Ymryl and winning. To misuse us so is to misuse your 
assets. Forget your hatred of Ilian - at least until we have fought Ymryl. You 
have insufficient resources, my friends, to discard the best!'
      The young man with the scar was called Mysenal of Hinn and he was a 
distant relative of Ilian's. Once, Ilian knew, he had had an infatuation for 
her, as had many other young men of the court. Mysenal frowned. 'Your words are 
sensible, Katinka van Bak, and you have advised us well in the past. But how do 
we know that these sensible words are not being used to deceive us. For all we 
know you've made some bargain with Ymryl to deliver us into his hands."
      'You must remember that I am Katinka van Bak. I would not do such a 
thing.'
      'Queen Ilian betrayed her own brother,' Mysenal reminded Katinka.
      Ilian closed her eyes. Now there was pain, but not from the ropes which 
chafed her wrists.
      'Under abominable torture,' Katinka pointed out impatiently. 'Just as, 
perhaps, I would have done. Have you any notion of Ymryl's skills in that 
quarter?'
      'Some,' Mysenal admitted. 'Yet...'
      'And why, if we were in league with Ymryl, would we come here alone? If we 
knew where you camped, we had merely to tell him. He could have sent a force to 
destroy you and caught you by surprise ...'
      'Not by surprise. There are guards in the high branches for more than a 
mile in all directions. We should have known and we should have fled. We knew 
you were coming and had time to prepare for you, had we not?'
      'True. But my point is still valid.'
      Mysenal of Hinn sighed. 'Some of us would rather have vengeance on this 
traitress than fight Ymryl. Some of us feel we should try to make a life for 
ourselves here, in the hope that Ymryl will forget us.'
      'He will not. He is bored. It will please him, soon, to hunt you down 
himself. You are only tolerated at present because he thought that those who 
conquered the west were readying themselves to attack Virinthorm. Thus he kept 
most of his forces in the city. But now he knows that the west does not 
immediately prepare to march. He will be reminded of you.'
      'The invaders quarrel amongst themselves?' Mysenal's voice became 
interested. 'They fight each other?"
      'Not yet. But it is inevitable. I see you realise the implications of 
that. It is what we came to tell you, among other things.'
      'If they fall upon each other, then we have a better chance of striking 
effectively at those who took Virinthorm!' Mysenal rubbed at his scar. 'Aye.' 
Then he frowned again. 'But this information could be part of your ruse to 
deceive us ..."
      'It is a complicated interpretation, I'll give you that,' said Jhary-a-
Conel wearily. 'Why not accept that we came to join with you against Ymryl. It 
is the most likely explanation.'
      'I believe them.' It was a girl who spoke. Ilian's old friend Lyfeth, who 
had been her brother's lover.
      Lyfeth's words carried weight with the others. After all, Lyfeth had most 
to hate Ilian for.
      'I think we should cut them down, for a while at least. We should listen 
to everything they have to say. Katinka van Bak is responsible for us being able 
to put up at least a little resistance to Ymryl, remember that. And we have no 
grudge against the other fellow, Jhary-a-Conel, at all. Also it could be that -
that Ilian -' Lyfeth plainly found it hard even to speak Ilian's name - 'would 
make amends for her treachery. I cannot say that I would not have betrayed 
Bradne if subjected to the tortures Katinka van Bak has described. I knew her 
once as a friend. I thought highly of her, as did we all. She fought well in her 
father's stead. Yes, I think I am prepared to trust her, with a certain amount 
of caution.'
      Lyfeth advanced to where Ilian hung.
      Ilian dropped her head and closed her eyes again, unable to look into 
Lyfeth's face.
      But Lyfeth stretched out a hard hand and grasped Ilian under the chin, 
harshly forcing her head up.
      Ilian opened her eyes and tried to stare back at Lyfeth. Lyfeth's own eyes 
were enigmatic. There was hatred there, but also sympathy.
      'Hate me, Lyfeth of Ghant,' said Ilian, for Lyfeth's ears only. 'You need 
do no more. But listen to me, also, for I do not come to betray you.'
      Lyfeth bit her lower lip. Once she had been beautiful - more beautiful 
than Ilian - but now her face had hardened and her skin was pale, rough. Her 
hair had been cut short, to the nape of her neck. She wore no ornament. Her 
patched smock was green, to blend with the foliage, and belted at the waist with 
a broad, woven belt, at which hung her sword and dagger. Her legs were bare and 
she wore tough-soled sandals on her feet. Her garb was no different from that 
worn by most here. With her chain-mail jerkin and leggings, Ilian felt almost 
overdressed.
      'Whether you came to betray us or not this time, that's not important,' 
said Lyfeth. 'For there would still be every reason to punish you for Bradne's 
death. An uncivilised opinion, I know, Ilian. But I feel it strongly. However, 
if you have the means of defeating Ymryl, then we should listen to you. Katinka 
van Bak's reasoning is good.' Lyfeth turned away, letting Ilian's head drop 
again. 'Cut them down!'
      'The Yellow Horn will soon make plans to attack the west," said Jhary-a-
Conel. His cat had returned to his shoulder and he stroked it absently as he 
told Mysenal and the others of all he had discovered through its help. 'Who 
rules in the west now, do you know?'
      'One called Kagat Bearclaw had the cities of Bekthorm and Rivensz under 
his sway," said Lyfeth, "but more recent news suggests that he was murdered by a 
rival and that two or three rule there now, among them one called Arnald of 
Grovent, who has little resemblance to a man, but is blessed with the body of a 
lion and the face of an ape, though he walks on two legs.'
      'A Chaos creature,' mused Jhary-a-Conel.  'There are so many here. It is 
as if Garathorm has become a world to which all those who serve Chaos are 
banished! An unpleasant thought.'
      There had been two other large cities in the west, Ilian recalled. 'What 
of Poytarn and Masgha?' she asked.
      Mysenal looked surprised. 'You have not heard. A vast explosion destroyed 
Masgha - and destroyed all those within it. It was nought to do with those who 
resist the conquerors, by all accounts. They destroyed themselves, by accident. 
Some sorcerous experiment, no doubt.'
      'And Poytarn?'
      'Looted, razed and abandoned. Those who did it rode to the coast, 
doubtless hoping to find other rich pickings. They'll be disappointed. The sea 
villages would be deserted. Those who lived on the coast were the luckiest of 
us. Many were able to put to sea and escape to distant islands before the 
invaders found them. The invaders have no ships and thus could not pursue them. 
I hope they fare well. We would attempt to follow them, if there were any ships 
left.'
      'They have made counter-attacks?'
      'Not yet,' said Lyfeth. 'Soon, we hope.'
      'Or not at all,' said someone else. 'They probably have enough sense to 
bide their time - or merely forget the problems of the mainland.'
      'Still, they are potential allies," said Katinka van Bak. 'I had not 
realised so many had escaped.'
      'But we cannot contact them," Lyfeth pointed out patiently. 'No ships.'
      'There might be other means devised. But we must consider that later.'
      Ilian said: 'It seems to me that Ymryl places much faith in that yellow 
horn he wears ever about his neck. If that could be stolen from him or destroyed 
by some means, it would weaken his confidence. Perhaps he even draws his power 
from the horn, as he believes. If so, there would be even more reason to part 
him from it.'
      'A good thought,' said Mysenal. 'But hard to accomplish. Would you not say 
so, Katinka van Bak?'
      Katinka nodded. 'However, it is an important factor, and something we must 
continue to consider.' She sniffed and rubbed at her nose. 'The first thing we 
need are some better weapons that these. Something a little more modern, in my 
terms. Flame-lances and the like. If each of us was armed with a flame-lance, we 
should immediately triple our striking power. How many are here, Lyfeth?'
      'Fifty-three.'
      'So we need fifty-four good weapons - the extra one being for Jhary here, 
who has weapons as primitive as yours. Weapons which depend upon a power 
source...'
      'I follow your reasoning,' Jhary said. 'You see a certain expenditure of 
resources by Ymryl and the other, when they eventually do war on each other. If 
we are then in possession of weapons like flame-lances, we shall have a 
considerable advantage, no matter how small our numbers.'
      'Exactly. But the problem is how to capture such a large supply, eh?'
      'It could mean a visit to Garathorm itself,' said Ilian. She stood up, 
stretching her bruised muscles and wincing. She had stripped off her chain 
armour and was now dressed in a green smock like the others. She had made every 
effort to show her ex-friends that she wished to be accepted as one of them. 
'For that is where we should find such weapons.'
      'And death,' said Lyfeth. 'We should find death there, too.'
      'We should have to disguise ourselves.' Katinka van Bak stroked her lips.
      'Better,' said Jhary-a-Conel, 'we should bring the weapons to us.'
      'What do you mean?' Ilian asked him.

5
THE RAID ON VIRINTHORM
      There were eight.
      Ilian was in the fore. She was dressed again in her shining chain armour, 
with her helmet on her golden hair, a slender sword in her gauntleted hand.
      She led the remaining seven along the wide branches of the trees, 
balancing expertly, for she had trodden the tree-roads since she was a child.
      Virinthorm was ahead.
      Slung on her back was one of their two flame-lances. The other was back at 
the camp, with Katinka van Bak.
      Ilian paused as they reached the outskirts of Virinthorm and could see the 
city's conquerors moving about in the streets.
      Virinhorm had, over the months, become a series of smaller townships. Each 
township attracted groups or races of men or other creatures to it, so that 
those from similar eras or similar worlds or those who resembled each other 
physically would band together.
      The township on which Ilian and her small band now spied was one which 
they had selected specially. It was made up mainly of folk who resembled mankind 
in many ways and yet who were not men.
      The features of these people - who were drawn from many spheres and eras - 
were familiar to Ilian. Indeed, now that she looked upon them, she had a great 
reluctance to put her plan into action. They were tall and slender, with 
slanting, almond eyes, ears which came almost to points. While the eyes of some 
of them were like those of ordinary men, others had eyes that were purple and 
yellow, others had eyes that were flecks of blue and silver which sparkled 
constantly. They seemed a proud and intelligent people and were plainly given to 
avoiding most of their fellows. Yet Ilian also knew that these could be 
cruellest of all the invaders.
      'Call them Eldren, call them Vadhagh, call them Melniboneans,' Jhary-a-
Conel had said to her, 'but remember that these are renegades all of some kind, 
else they would not league themselves with Ymryl. And doubtless they also serve 
Chaos as willingly as does Ymryl. Feel no regret for what you do."
      Ilian drew the flame-lance off her back, then began to work her way round 
to the far side of the unhumans' enclave. On this side dwelled a group of 
warriors who had all been born at the end of or immediately after the Tragic 
Millenium. As a group, they were one of the best armed. Each man had at least 
one flame-lance.
      It was about an hour to dusk. Ilian judged her moment the right one. She 
picked out an unhuman warrior at random, pointed the flame-lance with a skill 
she had no right to possess and touched the jewelled stud. Immediately a beam of 
red light issued from the ruby tip and burned a clean hole through the 
breastplate of the warrior, through his torso and through the backplate on the 
other side. Ilian released the stud and moved back into the leafier branches to 
watch what would happen next.
      Already a crowd had gathered around the corpse. Many of the eldritch-
featured men pointed at once towards the neighbouring camp. Swords slipped from 
scabbards. Ilian heard oaths, a babble of rage. Her plan had worked so far. The 
unhumans had drawn the obvious conclusion that one of their number had been 
murdered by those to whom the flame-lance was their first weapon.
      Leaving the corpse where it lay about thirty of the unhumans, all dressed 
in a variety of styles of clothing and armour, each looking faintly different to 
the other, began to run towards the neighbouring camp.
      Ilian smiled as she watched them. Her old pleasure in fighting and tactics 
was returning.
      She saw the unhumans gesticulating as they reached the other camp. She saw 
warriors come running out of their houses, buckling on swords. She knew that 
Ymryl had banned the use of power weapons within the confines of the camp and 
that this made the crime doubly treacherous. Yet she did not expect a fully-
fledged fight to develop yet. She had noticed that the discipline of the camp 
though crude was effective and designed to stop such squabbles between different 
factions.
      Now Tragic Millenium swords flashed in the dying light of the sun, but 
still they were not used. A man who was obviously the leader of the unhumans was 
deep in argument with the chief of the humans. Then both groups trooped back to 
the unhumans' camp to inspect the corpse. Again the Tragic Millenium leader was 
plainly denying that his men had anything to do with the murder. He indicated 
that they were all only armed with swords and knives. Still the unhuman leader 
was not mollified. The source of the beam seemed obvious to him. Then the human 
chief pointed in the direction of his own camp and again the warriors stalked 
across the space between their camps. Here the human pointed to a sturdily built 
house whose doors and windows were heavily padlocked. He sent one of his men 
away. The man returned with a bunch of keys. The keys were used to open one of 
the doors. By straining her eyes Ilian could just see inside. As she had hoped, 
this was the house where the flame-lances were stored. It was one of the 
necessary things she had to know before she could continue. Now, as the two 
factions separated, not without exchanging many scowls, she and her band settled 
down to wait for night.
      They lay in the boughs overlooking the Tragic Millenium camp, almost 
directly over the flame-lance storehouse.
      Ilian signed to the nearest youth who nodded and drew an exquisitely made 
dagger from his shirt. This was a captured dagger, belonging to the unhumans. 
Silently, the young man dropped down through the trees until he stood in the 
shadows of the street. He waited for nearly half-an-hour before a warrior came 
strolling by. Then he leapt from the dark. One arm went around the throat of the 
warrior. The dagger rose. The dagger fell. The warrior screamed. Again the 
dagger struck. Again the warrior screamed. The young man was not striking for 
the death, but to inflict pain, to force the warrior to yell out.
      The third blow was the death blow. The dagger jutted through the man's 
throat as his corpse fell to the ground. The youth jumped up and began to climb 
up the side of a house, jumping into the lower branches of a tree and then 
disappearing as he climbed higher to rejoin his comrades.
      This time the scene was enacted from the point of view of the Tragic 
Millenium soldiers who came running to discover the body with the unhuman dagger 
sticking in its throat.
      It was obvious to them what happened. In spite of their innocence. In 
spite of their protestations, the unhumans had taken a cowardly vengeance on 
them for a crime they could not possibly have committed.
      As one man the Tragic Millenium soldiers raced towards the unhumans' camp.
      And that was when Ilian dropped from her tree onto the roof of the 
armoury. Swiftly she slung her own flame-lance from her back and directed its 
beam close to her feet, cutting a circle large enough to admit her body. 
Meanwhile the others had joined her on the roof. One of them held her flame-
lance as she lowered herself into the building.
      She was in a loft. The lances were plainly stored in the rooms below. She 
found a trap-door and eased it open, dropping into deeper darkness. Slowly her 
eyes became used to the gloom. A little light came through chinks in the 
shutters on the windows. She had found some of the lances, at least. She went 
back the way she had come and signalled for all but one of her band to follow 
her. While they began to remove the lances, forming a human chain to take them 
out of the opening she had carved, she explored the lower rooms, finding more 
lances there, as well as a variety of edged weapons, including some fine 
throwing axes. These she had to ignore, and it would not be possible to steal 
more than sixty or so of the lances in the time they had, for there was also the 
question of carrying them back to their own camp. As she turned to go something 
came to mind. How did she know that the tips of the lances unscrewed from their 
shafts? She did not stop to wonder on this but crossed to where she had seen the 
lances stacked and began to unscrew the ruby tips. As she unscrewed them she 
picked up a well-balanced axe, placed the tip upon the floor and smashed the axe 
not on the ruby, which would not break, but upon the stem which screwed into the 
shaft, denting it so that they would have considerable difficulty in repairing 
their lances. It was the best she could do.
      She heard voices outside. She crossed silently to the nearest window and 
looked down.
      Other soldiers had appeared in the street. These looked like those Ymryl 
had made into his personal guard. They had doubtless been sent to quell the 
trouble. Ilian admired Ymryl's efficiency. He never seemed to care about such 
things, yet he always reacted swiftly when there was any danger of disruption in 
his camp. Already the soldiers were yelling at the embattled unhumans and Tragic 
Millenium humans, forcing them to lay down their weapons.
      Ilian climbed back to where her band was getting the last of the flame-
lances through the hole.
      'Go,' she whispered. 'The danger increases. Leave now.'
      'You, Queen Ilian?' said the youth who had killed the soldier.
      'I'll follow. There is something I must try to finish here.'
      She watched until the last of her band had disappeared and then she went 
back to unscrew the tips of the few remaining flame-lances. Smashing the axe 
down on the last, she heard a yell, a commotion. Again she peered through the 
crack in the shutter.
      Men were pointing at the roof of the building. Ilian looked round for her 
own flame-lance and then realised that it had gone with her comrades. She had 
only her sword. She ran up the stairs, reached the loft, jumped and swung up 
through the hole she had herself made.
      They had seen her.
      And that was when an arrow whistled past her shoulder, so close that 
involuntarily she ducked back, lost her footing on the roof beam and fell down 
the sloping roof towards the ground on the other side of the house. But men were 
already running here. She managed to grasp a gable as she went over the edge. 
Her arms were almost pulled from her body as she swung there with arrows 
whistling on all sides. One or two arrows struck her helmet and mail, but did 
not penetrate. She got a foothold somewhere and pushed herself back up again, 
crouching behind the gable as she ran along, searching for a branch low enough 
to jump for. But there was no such branch. Now figures were appearing above her. 
They had found what had happened to their weapons and where she had entered. She 
could hear their angry shouts and she was glad she had gone back to destroy 
every one of the flame-lances. If they had had them now, she would be dead 
already. She reached the far end of the roof and prepared to jump to the next. 
It was her only means of escape.
      She launched herself into space, hands clutching for the gable of that 
house. She grasped the carved wood and felt it give sickeningly beneath her 
weight. She hung there, thinking she would fall, but the gable held and she 
hauled herself up. They had realised where she was and more arrows sought her. 
She jumped from that roof to another, closer, realising with despair that she 
was moving deeper and deeper into the city as they pursued her. She prayed that 
she would eventually come to a spot where a branch brushed the roofs. In the 
trees she had a much better chance of escape. She was consoled, at least, that 
her comrades were getting away in the other direction.
      Three more roofs and they had lost her for the moment. She breathed in 
relief. But it was a matter of time before they caught her, she was sure.
      If she could get into one of the houses and hide, then they would assume 
she had escaped. When the pursuit died down it would not be too difficult to 
leave at her leisure.
      She saw an unlit house ahead.
      That would do.
      She jumped across the gap between the roofs, landed, swung over the edge 
of the roof and down to a window ledge. Crouching on the ledge she forced open 
the shutters and crept in, drawing the shutters to behind her.
      She was tired. The chain-mail was heavy on her body. She wished she had 
time to remove it. Without it, she could jump higher, climb faster. But it was 
too late to worry about such things now.
      The room in which she found herself smelled musky as if the windows had 
not been opened for a long time. As she moved across it, she bumped her knee 
against something. A chest? A bed?
      And then she heard a stifled moan.
      Ilian peered into the gloom.
      A figure lay upon a rumpled bed. It was the figure of a woman.
      And she was bound.
      Was this some fellow-citizen whom one of the invaders was keeping 
prisoner? Ilian bent forward to remove the gag which had been tightly drawn 
about the girl's mouth.
      'Who are you?' Ilian whispered. 'Do not fear me. I'll save you if that's 
possible, though I'm in great danger myself.'
      And then Ilian gasped as the gag came free.
      She recognised the face.
      It was the face of a ghost.
      Ilian felt terror shiver through her body. It was a terror that she could 
not name. A terror which she had never felt before, for while she recognized the 
face, she could not name it.
      Neither could she remember where, in all her life, she had seen it before.
      She tried to stop her impulse to shrink away from the bound figure on the 
bed.
      "Who are you?' said the woman.

6
THE WRONG CHAMPION
      Ilian controlled herself. She found a lamp, found flint and tinder and lit 
the lamp while she took deep breaths and tried to rationalise what was happening 
to her. The shock of recognition had been strong - yet she could swear she had 
never seen the woman before.
      Ilian turned. The woman was dressed in a filthy white gown. She had 
evidently been kept prisoner here for some time. She began to try to struggle 
into a sitting position on the bed. Her hands were locked in front of her, in a 
complicated leather harness which also bound her throat, her legs and her feet.
      Ilian wondered if this were a madwoman. Perhaps it had been foolish to cut 
the gag without thinking. There was something wild about the woman's eyes, but 
again that could merely be because she had been captive so long.
      'Are you of Garathorm?' Ilian asked, holding up the lamp to peer once more 
at the woman's pale features.
      'Garathorm? This place? No.'
      'You seem familiar.'
      'You, also. Yet...'
      'Aye,' said Ilian feelingly. 'You have never seen me before either.'
      'My name is Yisselda of Brass. I am Baron Kalan's captive and have been 
since I came here.'
      'Why are you his prisoner?'
      'He is afraid I might escape and be seen. He wants me for himself. I seem 
to represent some sort of talisman for him. He has done me no great harm. Can 
you cut this harness, do you think?'
      Reassured by Yisselda of Brass's level tones, Ilian bent and sliced 
through the straps. Yisselda gasped as feeling returned to her limbs. 'I thank 
you.'
      'I am Ilian of Garathorm. Queen Ilian.'
      'King Pyran's daughter!' Yisselda seemed astonished. 'But Kalan drew your 
soul from you, did he not?'
      'So I gather. But I have a new soul now.'
      'Indeed?'
      Ilian smiled. 'Do not ask me to explain. So not all who came so suddenly 
to our world are evil.'
      'Most are those whom we should call evil. Most are pledged to Chaos, Kalan 
tells me, and believe they cannot be slain. But he hardly believes that theory 
himself. It is what he is told."
      Ilian was trembling, wondering why she had the impulse to embrace this 
woman, to hold her in a way that was more than comradely. She had never felt 
such impulses before. Her knees shook. Without thinking, she sat down on the 
bed.
      'Fate,' she murmured. 'They say I serve Fate. Do you know aught of that, 
Yisselda of Brass? I know your name so well -and that of Baron Kalan. It seems 
to me I have been searching for you - searching all my life - and yet it is not 
I who searched. Oh ...' She was close to fainting. She put a hand to her brow. 
'This is horrifying.'
      'I understand you. Kalan thinks that his experiments in time distortion 
have created this situation. Our lives are mixed up so much. One possibility 
clashes with another. It must even be possible to meet oneself, under these 
conditions.'
      'Kalan was responsible for letting Ymryl and the rest through?'
      'So he believes. He spends his whole time trying to restore the balance 
which he himself disrupted. And I am important to him in his experiments. He has 
no wish to go with Ymryl on the morrow.'
      'Tomorrow? Where does Ymryl ride?'
      'Against the west. Against one called Arnald of Grovent, I understand.'
      'So they fight at last!' Ilian forgot everything but that fact for a 
moment. She was exhilarated. Their opportunity was coming sooner than she had 
hoped.
      'Baron Kalan is Ymryl's mascot,' said Yisselda. She had found a comb 
somewhere and was trying to comb out her tangled hair. 'Just as I am Kalan's. I 
survive thanks to a chain of superstition!'
      'And where is Kalan now?'
      'Doubtless in Ymryl's palace - your father's palace, is it not?'
      'It is. What does he there?"
      'Some of his experiments. Ymryl has set him up with a laboratory, though 
really Kalan prefers to work from here. He will take me with him when he works, 
sitting me down and talking to me as if I were a pet dog. It is the most 
attention he pays me. Needless to say I understand little of what he talks 
about. I was present, however, when he stole your soul. That was horrible. How 
did you recover it?"
      Ilian did not answer. 'How did he - steal my soul?'
      'With a jewel, similar to that which threatened to eat my Hawkmoon's brain 
when it was imbedded in his skull. A jewel of similar properties, at any rate 
...'
      'Hawkmoon? That name ...'
      'Aye? You know Hawkmoon. How does he fare? Surely he is not in this world 
...?
      'No - no. I do not know him. I do not know why I should. Yet it sounded so 
familiar."
      'You are unwell, Ilian of Garathorm?"
      'Aye. Aye. I could be.' Ilian felt faint. Doubtless the exertions she had 
had to make to escape Ymryl's soldiers had tired her more than she had at first 
realised. Again she made an effort to recover. 'This jewel, then? Kalan has it? 
And my soul, he believes, is in it?'
      'Yes. But he is plainly wrong. Somehow your soul was released from the 
jewel."
      'Plainly,' Ilian smiled grimly. 'Well, we must consider a means of 
escaping. You do not look fit enough to climb rooftops and swing through trees 
with me."
      'I can try,' said Yisselda. 'I am stronger than I seem.'
      'Then we must try, then. When do you expect Kalan's return?"
      'He only recently left.'
      'Then we have some time. I will use it in resting.' Ilian leaned back on 
the bed. 'My head aches so."
      Yisselda reached forward to massage Ilian's brow, but Ilian drew away with 
a gasp. 'No!' She licked dry lips. 'No. I thank you for your consideration.'
      Yisselda went to the still shuttered window and cautiously opened it a 
little, breathing in the cooler night air.
      'Kalan is to try to help Ymryl make contact with this black god of his, 
this Arioch.'
      'Whom Ymryl believes responsible for placing him here?'
      'Yes. Ymryl will blow that Yellow Horn he has and Kalan will try to 
concoct some form of spell. Kalan is cynical concerning their chances of raising 
the demon."
      'Ymryl's horn is dear to him. Does he never let it off his person?"
      'Never, so Kalan says. The only one who could make Ymryl give up his horn 
is Arioch himself."
      The time passed with painful slowness. While Ilian tried to rest, Yisselda 
extinguished the lamp and watched the streets, noticing that patrols of soldiers 
still searched there for Ilian. Some were even on the rooftops at one stage. But 
eventually they seemed to have given up the search and Yisselda went to rouse 
Ilian, who was by now sleeping fitfully.
Yisselda shook Ilian's shoulder and Ilian shuddered, waking with a start.
      'They are gone,' said Yisselda. 'I think we can risk leaving. How shall we 
go? Into the street?'
      'No. But a coil of rope would help. Is there one in the house, do you 
think?'
      'I will see.'
      Yisselda returned in a few minutes with a length of rope coiled over her 
shoulder. 'It is the longest I could find. Is it strong enough?"
      'It will have to be.' Ilian smiled. She opened the window wide and looked 
up. The nearest large branch was some ten feet overhead. Ilian took the rope and 
made a noose at one end, coiling the rope so that it was the same circumference 
as the noose. Then she began to swing the coil round and round before releasing 
it suddenly.
      The noose settled over a branch, held, and Ilian tightened the knot.
      'You'll have to climb onto my back," Ilian told Yisselda, 'curling your 
legs around my waist and hanging on as hard as you can. Do you think you'll be 
able to?'
      'I must,' said Yisselda simply. She did as she was ordered and then Ilian 
pulled herself onto the window sill, took a good grip on the rope, turning it 
round her hand once or twice, and then flung herself out over the rooftops, 
narrowly missing the spire of one of the old trading halls. Her feet struck 
another branch and she dug in her heels, straining with all her might to get a 
belter grip on the branch above her. She was about to slip when Yisselda reached 
up and pulled herself onto the branch, leaning down to help Ilian after her. 
They lay panting on the great branch.
      Ilian sprang up. 'Follow me,' she said. 'Keep your arms spread for 
balance. And keep moving."
      She began to run along the bole.
      And Yisselda, somewhat shakily, followed her.
      They were back at the camp by morning and they were jubilant.
      Katinka van Bak came out of the shack she had built for herself from old 
planks and she was delighted to see Ilian. "We feared for you,' she said. 'Even 
those who profess to hate you so. The others came back with the flame-lances. A 
good haul.'
      'Excellent. And I have more information.'
      'Good. Good. You'll want to breakfast - and rest, too, I should think. Who 
is this?' Katinka van Bak seemed to notice the woman in the white, soiled dress 
for the first time.
      'She is called Yisselda of Brass. She, like you, is not of Garathorm...'
      Ilian noticed the look of astonishment which appeared on Katinka's face 
then. Yisselda? Count Brass's daughter?'
      'Aye,' said Yisselda in some delight. 'Though Count Brass is dead - slain 
at the Battle of Londra.'
      'Not so! Not so! He dwells still at Castle Brass! So Hawkmoon was right. 
You are alive! This is the strangest thing I have yet to experience - but by far 
the most pleasurable.'
      'You have seen Dorian? How is he?'
      'Ah -' Katinka van Bak seemed to become evasive. 'He is well. He is well. 
He has been ill, but now all the portents are that he will recover.'
      'I wish it was possible to see him again. He is not in this plane?'
      'Unfortunately he could not be.'
      'How came you here? In the same manner as myself?'
      'Pretty much the same, aye.' Katinka van Bak turned to see that Jhary-a-
Conel had emerged from one of the ebony houses still standing. He was rubbing 
sleep from his eyes and looked barely awake. 'Jhary. This is Yisselda of Brass. 
Hawkmoon was right.'
      'She is alive!' Jhary slapped his thigh, looking with some irony from 
Ilian to Yisselda and back again. 'Ha! This is the best I've ever known! Oh, 
dear!' And he burst into laughter which Ilian and Yisselda found inexplicable.
      Ilian felt anger rise in her. 'I become bored with your mysteries and your 
hints, Sir Jhary! I become bored with them!'
      'Aye!' Jhary continued to laugh. 'I think it is the best way to respond to 
it all, madam!'

BOOK THREE
A LEAVETAKING

1
SWEET BATTLE, TRIUMPHANT VENGEANCE
      There were nearly a hundred of them now and most of them had flame-lances. 
They had been hastily trained in the use of the lances by Katinka van Bak and 
some of the lances were inclined to be faulty, for they were very old, but the 
weapons gave confidence to all who bore them.
      Ilian turned in her saddle to look back at her troops. Each man and woman 
was mounted, mostly on striding vayna birds. Each hailed the burning banner as 
she turned. The fiery thing, which burned without consuming the cloth, fluttered 
over her armoured head. It was their pride. And they were going to Virinthorm.
      Beneath the great, green trees of Garathorm they rode: Ilian, Katinka van 
Bak, Jhary-a-Conel, Yisselda of Brass, Lyfeth of Ghant, Mysenel of Hinn and the 
rest. All, save Katinka van Bak, were youthful.
      It seemed to Ilian that, while her own crimes had not been forgotten by 
those she led, she and her people were united again. But much would depend on 
how they fared in the battles which lay ahead.
      They rode through the morning and by the afternoon they had come in sight 
of Virinthorm.
      Spies had already reported the departure of Ymryl with his main force. He 
had left less than a quarter of his men behind to defend Virmthorm, not 
expecting any kind of full scale attack. Yet still those defenders were some 
five hundred strong and would have been more than sufficient to defeat Ilian's 
force, had they not been armed with flame-lances.
Yet even the flame-lances only improved the chances of the Garathormians. It was 
by no means certain that they would defeat Ymryl's men. This, however, was the 
only chance they might have to try.
      And they sang as they rode. They sang the old songs of their land. Gay 
songs, full of their love for their rich, arboreal world. They hardly paused as 
they reached the suburbs of Virinthorm and spread out.
      Ymryl's men had garrisoned themselves close to the centre of the town, 
near the large house which had once been the residence of Ilian's family, and 
which had, until lately, become Ymryl's palace.
      Ilian regretted that Ymryl himself was not there. She looked forward to 
taking her vengeance on him, should her schemes be successful.
      Now the hundred riders, thinly spread, had dismounted and situated 
themselves in a circle around the centre of the city. Some lay behind roughly 
thrown up barricades, others lay on roofs, while still others crouched in 
doorways. A hundred flame-lances were aimed into the city when Ilian rode out 
into the broad main avenue and cried:
      'Surrender in the name of Queen Ilian!'
      And her voice was high and proud.
      'Surrender, Ymryl's men! We have returned to claim our city.'
      The few who were on the streets turned to look in consternation, hands 
reaching for weapons. Men in every form of clothing, in all sorts of armour, in 
a score of different shapes, men with fur all over their bodies, men who were 
completely hairless, men with four arms or four legs, men with beastlike heads, 
men with tails or horns or tufted ears, men with hooves instead of feet, men 
with green, blue, red and black skins, men armed with bizarre weapons, the 
purpose of which was mysterious, men deformed, men who were dwarves and men who 
were giants, hermaphrodites, men with wings or with transparent skins, came 
pouring into the streets and saw Queen Ilian of Garathorm and laughed.
      A warrior with an orange beard which came to a point at his belt called 
out:
      'Ilian is dead. As you will be before another minute has passed.'
      In reply Ilian raised her flame-lance, touched the jewelled stud, and 
pierced the mans' forehead with a beam of red light, whereupon a dog-faced 
soldier threw a disc which howled and which Ilian was barely able to deflect by 
bringing up the small buckler she had on her right arm. She wheeled her horse 
around and dashed for cover. Behind her the defenders also sought cover as beams 
of red light darted at them from all around.
      For an hour the fight raged thus, with either side using power weapons 
from cover, while Katinka-van Bak rode from warrior to warrior, giving 
instructions to tighten the circle and contain the defenders in as small an area 
as possible. This they did, not without considerable difficulty, for though the 
enemy had fewer power weapons, they were more skilled in using them.
      Ilian climbed a rooftop to see how the battle went. She had lost about ten 
of her small band, but Ymryl's men had lost more. She counted at least forty 
corpses. But the alien soldiers were plainly grouping for a counter-attack. Many 
had mounted themselves on a variety of beasts, including some captured vayna.
      Ilian dropped back down to the ground and sought Katinka van Bak. 'They 
are planning to charge through, Katinka!'
      'Then they must be stopped,' said the warrior woman, firmly.
      Ilian got back onto her own vayna. The long-legged bird croaked as Ilian 
swung it round. It began to stride away to where Jhary-a-Conel had taken up his 
position in the window of a house looking towards the central square. 'Jhary! 
They charge!' she called.
      And then a packed mass of cavalry came howling along the avenue and it 
seemed to Ilian for a moment that only she stood against it.
      She raised her flame-lance, touched the stud. Ruby light flared, flickered 
from the hip, cut an erratic swathe across the bodies of the leading riders. In 
going down, they got in the way of those behind them and the force of the charge 
was weakened.
      But the lance was now all but useless. The light wavered, spread, merely 
burned the skins of the soldiers as the sun might burn them, and they came on.
      Ilian flung down the lance, drew her slender sword, took her long poignard 
in the hand that also held her reins, and urged the vayna forward. Behind her, 
in its saddle rest, the burning banner cracked and hissed as she gathered speed.
      'For Garathorm!'
      And now she knew joy. A black joy. A terrible joy.
      'For Pyran and Bradne!'
      And her sword sliced through the transparent flesh of a ghostly creature 
who grinned at her and tried to slash her with steel claws.
      'For vengeance!'
      And how sweet it was, that vengeance. How satisfying, that blood-letting. 
So close to death was she, and yet she felt more alive than she had ever felt. 
This was her destiny - to bear a sword into battle - to fight - to kill.
      And as she fought it seemed she did not merely fight this battle but a 
thousand others. And in each battle she had another name, yet in each battle she 
felt the same grim elation.
      Around her the enemy roared and rattled and it seemed that a score of 
swords forever sought to slay her, but she laughed at them.
      And her laughter was a weapon. It chilled the blood of those she fought. 
It filled them with a great and unwholesome terror.
      'For Fate's soldier!' she heard herself shouting. 'For the Champion 
Eternal. For the Struggle Without End!' And she knew not the meaning of the 
words, though she knew she had cried them before and would cry them again, 
whether she survived this encounter or not.
      Now others were joining her. She saw Jhary-a-Conel's yellow horse rearing 
and snorting and thrashing out with its hooves, striking down warriors on all 
sides. The horse seemed possessed of unnatural intelligence. Its actions were no 
mere flailing, no panicky defence. It fought aggressively, with its master. And 
it grinned, displaying crooked yellow teeth, cold yellow eyes, while its rider 
slashed this way and that with his sword, a small smile on his lips.
      And there was Katinka van Bak, tough, methodical and cool as she went 
about the business of slaying. She held a double-bladed battle-axe in one gloved 
hand, a spiked mace in the other, for she did not consider the situation 
suitable for the subtler sword-work. She pushed her heavy, stolid horse deep 
into the enemy and she chopped off limbs and crushed skulls just as surely as a 
housewife might prepare meat and vegetables for her husband's meal. And Katinka 
van Bak did not smile. She took her work seriously, doing what had to be done 
and feeling neither disgust nor relish.
      Ilian wendered at the relish she herself felt. Her whole body tingled with 
pleasure. She should have been weary, but instead she felt fresher than she had 
ever felt before.
      'For Garathorm! For Pyran! For Bradne!' 'For Bradne!' echoed a voice 
behind her. 'And for Ilian!' It was Lyfeth of Ghant, wielding her sword with a 
mixture of delicacy and ferocity which came close to matching Ilian's own. And 
nearby was Yisselda of Brass, proving herself an experienced warrior, using the 
spike on her shield boss almost as effectively as she used her sword.
      'What women we are!' cried Ilian. 'What fighters!' She saw how 
disconcerted the enemy warriors were to discover the number of women who had 
come against them. There were few worlds, it seemed, where women fought like 
men. It had never been so on Garathorm, before the coming of Katinka van Bak.
      Ilian saw Mysenal of Hinn grin briefly at her, his eyes shining as he rode 
past her towards a cluster of Ymryl's warriors whose retreat had been cut off by 
three or four flame-lance beams darting from the tops of nearby houses.
      Two or three buildings had been ignited by the power weapons and smoke was 
beginning to curl through the streets. For a moment Ilian was half-blinded and 
found herself coughing as the acrid stuff entered her throat. Then she was 
through the cloud and joining Mysenal in his attack on the enemy.
      Though she now bled from a dozen minor cuts and grazes, Ilian was 
tireless. She unhorsed one rider with a blow of her buckler and in the same 
movement swept her sword round to take a green-furred dwarf through the roof of 
his gaping mouth so that the point ran deep into his brain. As the dwarf fell, 
Ilian twisted the sword from his corpse in time to parry an axe which had been 
thrown at her by a warrior in purple armour whose pointed steel teeth clashed as 
he tried to draw back his arm to thrust at her with the lance he held in his 
other hand. Ilian leaned out in her saddle and sliced the hand from the wrist so 
that fist and spear dropped to the ground. The stump, spouting blood, continued 
the motion of casting the spear and only then did the warrior with the steel 
teeth realise what had happened to him and he moaned. But Ilian was riding past 
him, to where one of her girl warriors stood over the corpse of her dead vayna 
desperately trying to ward off the blows of three men with reptilian skins (but 
who were otherwise dressed dissimilarly) who were determined to slay her. Ilian 
clove the skull of one reptile man, smashed another unconscious so that he fell 
backward across his horse's rump, and pierced the heart of the last, clearing a 
way for the girl who darted her a quick smile of gratitude before picking up her 
flame-lance and running for an open doorway.
      And then Ilian was in the square with a score of her warriors at her back 
and she called out jubilantly:
      'We are through!'
      Men on foot came running from every house then, those who had not taken 
part in the cavalry charge, and soon Ilian was surrounded again.
      And soon Ilian was laughing again, as life after life was extinguished by 
her sparkling sword.
      The sun was setting.
      Ilian cried to her warriors. 'Hasten now! Let us finish this before the 
night falls and makes our work more difficult.'
      The remnants of the enemy cavalry had been driven back into the square. 
The remnants of the infantry were falling back towards the great house, the 
house Ymryl had called his 'palace' and where Ilian had been born. It was also 
the house where she had shuddered, screamed and called out the hiding place of 
her brother.
      For a moment Ilian's joy was replaced by a feeling of black despair, and 
she paused. The sounds of the battle seemed to fade. The whole scene became 
remote. And she remembered the face of Ymryl, almost boyish in seriousness, 
leaning forward and saying to her: 'Where is he? Where is Bradne?'
      And she had told him.
      Ilian shuddered. She lowered her sword, oblivious to the danger which 
still threatened her from all sides. Five warped creatures, their bodies and 
faces covered in huge warts, flung themselves upwards at her, hands clutching. 
She felt sharp nails dig through the links of her mail. She looked at them 
absently.
      'Bradne ...' she murmured.
      'Are you wounded, girl!' Katinka van Bak appeared, and an axe bit into a 
skull, a mace crunched into a shoulder. The warted ones squealed. 'Are you 
dazed?'
      Ilian forced herself from the trance, using her own sword to hack down a 
wart-covered body. 'Only for a moment,' she said.
      'There's about a hundred left!' Katinka van Bak said. 'They've barricaded 
themselves in your father's mansion. I doubt if we'll have winkled them out 
before nightfall.'
      'Then we must fire the building,' said Ilian coldly. 'We must burn them.'
      Katinka frowned. 'I like not that. Even these should have the opportunity 
to surrender...'
      'Burn them and burn the building. Burn it!' Ilian wheeled her vayna about 
to look around the square. It was piled with corpses. About fifty of her own 
folk still remained alive. 'It will save more fighting, will it not, Katinka van 
Bak?'
      'It will, but...'
      'And spare the lives of some of our folk who still survive?'
      'Aye ...' Katinka tried to meet Ilian's eyes, but Ilian turned her face 
away. 'Aye. But what of the building itself. Your ancestors have dwelled in it 
for generations. It is the finest building in all Virinthorm. There's scarcely a 
finer in the whole of Garathorm. The woods of its construction are rare. Many of 
the varieties of tree which went to build it are now extinct...'
      'Let it burn. I could not live there again.'
      Katinka sighed. 'I will give the order, though it's not to my liking. 
Cannot I offer our enemies a chance to surrender to us?'
      'They gave us no such chance.'
      'But we are not them. Morally...'
      'I'll hear nothing of morality for the moment, thank you.'
      Katinka van Bak rode to do Queen Ilian's bidding.

2
AN IMPOSSIBLE DEATH
      They were grim-faced, those men and women, as they stood with their hands 
resting on their weapons, their faces stained red by the firelight, and watched 
Pyran's mansion burning in the blackness of the night, smelled the smell which 
came from the pyre, listened to the thin, horrible sounds that still issued 
through the thick, black smoke from time to time.
      'It is just,' said Ilian of Garathorm.
      'But there are other forms of justice," said Katinka van Bak in a quiet 
voice. 'You cannot burn away the guilt you feel, Ilian.'
      'Can I not, madam?' Ilian laughed harshly. 'Yet how do you explain the 
satisfaction I feel?'
      'I am not used to this,' said Katinka van Bak. She spoke for Ilian's ears 
alone; she spoke reluctantly. 'I've witnessed such acts of vengeance before, yet 
I like not the sense of unease I feel now. You have become cruel, Ilian.'
      'It is ever the fate of the Champion,' said another voice. It was Jhary's. 
'Ever. Do not fret, Katinka van Bak. The Champion must always seek to rid 
himself - or herself - of a certain ambiguous burden. And one of the means the 
Champion employs is deliberate cruelty - actions which go against the dictates 
of the Champion's conscience. Ilian thinks she bears only the guilt of her 
brother's betrayal. It is not so. It is a guilt which you and I, Katinka van 
Bak, could never experience. And we should thank all our gods for that!'
      Ilian shuddered. She had barely heard Jhary's words, but she was disturbed 
by their import.
      With a shrug, Katinka van Bak turned away. 'As you say, Jhary. You know 
more of such matters than do I. And there would be no Ilian at all to fight 
Ymryl if it were not for your knowledge.' She stalked off into the smoky 
shadows.
      Jhary stood beside Ilian for a while. Then he, too, left her alone, 
staring into the blazing ruins of her old home.
      The cries died and the stink of burning flesh faded until the sweeter 
odours of the wood became predominant. Ilian felt drained of life. And as the 
blaze subsided, she moved closer, as if seeking warmth, for there was an awful 
chill in her bones now, though the night was not cold.
      Still she saw Ymryl's sober features asking her that question. Still she 
heard her own voice replying.
      When Jhary found her it was close to dawn and she was trampling through 
the blackened bones, the cinders and the hot ash, kicking at a charred skull 
here and a broken rib cage there.
      'News,' said Jhary.
      She looked out at him through her bleak eyes.
      'News of Ymryl. He was successful in his war. He has slain Arnald and has 
heard what happened here last night. He's returning.'
      Ilian drew deeply of the acrid air. 'Then we must prepare,' she said.
      'With half our force remaining, we shall be hard-pressed to stand against 
Ymryl's army. He now has Arnald's strength, also - or what remains of it. At 
least two thousand warriors come against us! Perhaps it would be better tactics 
to return to the, trees, harry them from time to time...'
      'We shall continue with the plan we originally devised' said Ilian.
      Jhary-a-Conel shrugged. 'Very well.'
      "Have Ymryl's flame-cannon been found?'
      'They have. Hidden in cellars in a wine-press west of here. And Katinka 
van Bak saw that they were set up in a defensive ring during the night. Others 
are mounted to cover each of the main thoroughfares into the centre of the city. 
It is as well we acted swiftly. I for one did not expect Ymryl to return so 
soon.'
      Ilian began to wade through the ashes. 'Katinka van Bak is an experienced 
general.'
      'We are lucky that she is,' said Jhary.
      Soon after midday the scouts came back with news that Ymryl was using 
similar tactics to Ilian's in approaching the city, closing in from all sides. 
Ilian prayed that Ymryl's scouts had not seen the hastily concealed flame-
cannon. She had put about half her force to operating the power weapons. The 
others she had positioned in hiding elsewhere.
About an hour later, the first wave of cavalry, all shining armour and 
fluttering pennants, came thundering down the four broad avenues which led to 
the city square.
      The square itself was apparently deserted, save for the corpses which had 
been left there.
      The cavalry's tempo began to slacken as the first riders saw what lay 
ahead and became confused.
      From somewhere high overhead there came the silvery note of a horn.
      And flame-cannon roared.
      And where the cavalry had been, in all four quarters, was burning dust, 
embers drifting in the air, ash settling on the streets.
      Ilian, hidden in the trees, smiled, remembering how those same flame-
cannon had cut down her own folk.
      The odds against her had now been improved by a matter of some several 
hundred, but the flame-cannon could not be used again, for they had to be filled 
once more with the substance which fuelled them and that substance required 
delicate handling and much time was involved in pouring it, drop by drop, into 
the chambers. Ilian saw those who had operated the cannon spring up and run back 
to the square, disappearing into buildings.
      Silence fell again over Virinthorm.
      Then, from the west, came a clattering of hooves. The leaf-filtered 
sunlight flashed on jewelled masks, on bright horse-armour.
      From her own position in a tree some hundred yards away, Katinka van Bak 
called:
      'It is Kalan and a Dark Empire force. They have flame weapons, too."
      Baron Kalan's snake mask glittered as he rode at headlong speed down the 
broad avenue. From the houses came the thin, red beams of light, issuing from 
Ilian's remaining flame-lances. Several of the beams seemed to pass through 
Kalan's body without harming him and Ilian thought that her eyes deceived her. 
Even the sorcerer could not be impervious to those deadly beams.
      Others fell, however, before their comrades had time to return the fire, 
aiming their flame-lances at random in the general direction of the houses from 
which the attacks had come until the air was a lattice of ruby rays.
      And still Kalan rode straight for the square, his horse panting as he 
spurred it until its blood spurted from its flanks.
      Kalan was laughing. It was a laugh that was familiar to Ilian and she 
could not place it for a moment until she remembered that it was not unlike that 
laughter she had herself shouted during the previous day's battle.
      Kalan rode until he came to the square and then his laughter gave way to a 
wail of rage as he saw the remains of the great mansion.
      'My laboratories!'
      He dismounted from his horse and walked into the ruins, staring about him, 
oblivious to any danger which might threaten him, while behind him his men 
fought a fierce battle with Ilian's warriors who had emerged from the houses and 
were engaging them hand to hand.
      Ilian watched him. She was fascinated. What did he seek?
      Two of Ilian's warriors detached themselves from the main party and came 
running at Kalan. He turned when he heard them and again he laughed, drawing his 
sword. The laughter echoed eerily in his snake helm.
      'Leave me alone,' he called to the warriors. 'You cannot harm me.'
      And now Ilian gasped. She saw one of the warriors thrust his sword into 
Kalan. She saw the point emerge on the other side of the sorcerer's body. She 
saw Kalan back away, slashing at his attacker with his own sword, cutting a deep 
wound in the man's shoulder. But Kalan was unwounded. The warrior groaned. 
Impatiently, Kalan drove his sword into the warrior's throat so that he dropped 
into the ashes of the mansion. The other warrior hesitated before striking at 
Baron Kalan, driving at the Dark Empire Lord's unarmoured forearm. It was a blow 
which should have shorn the limb from Kalan, but again Kalan was completely 
unhurt. At this the warrior backed off. Ignoring him, Kalan continued his 
frantic search amongst the charred corpses and the embers, calling back to the 
warrior:
      'I cannot be slain. Do not waste my time and I shall not waste yours. 
There is something I seek here. What fool can have wrought such unnecessary 
destruction?' And when the warrior remained where he was, the serpent helm 
lifted and Kalan said, as if explaining to a stupid child: 'I cannot be slain. 
There is only one man who can slay me in all the infinite cosmos. And I do not 
see him here. Begone!'
      Ilian sympathised with her warrior as she watched him stumble away.
      And then Kalan chuckled. 'I have it!' He bent and picked something from 
the dust.
      Ilian swung down from the trees and dropped into the square, confronting 
Kalan across a sea of corpses.
      'Baron Kalan?'
      He looked up. 'I have it ..." He made to show it to her and then he 
hesitated. 'What? It cannot be! Have all my powers deserted me, then?"
      'You thought you had slain me?' Ilian began to advance towards him. She 
had seen that he was invulnerable, yet she felt she had to confront him, for she 
was moved by another of those strange impulses she could not explain. 'Ilian of 
Garathorm?'
      'Slain? Nonsense. It was much subtler. The jewel ate your soul. It was my 
finest creation of that sort, more sophisticated than anything else I have 
invented. It was meant for someone much more important than you, but the 
situation demanded that I use it, if I was not to die by Ymryl's hand.'
      From the distance now came the sounds of battle. Ilian knew that her folk 
were engaging Ymryl's army. Her step did not falter as she continued to walk 
towards Kalan.
      'I have much to avenge myself for on you, Baron Kalan,' she said.
      'You cannot kill me, madam, if that's what you mean,' he told her. 'You 
cannot do that.'
      'But I must try.'
      The Serpent Lord shrugged. 'If you must. But I would rather know how your 
soul escaped from my gem. I had every indication that it was trapped there for 
eternity. And with such a gem I could have pursued still more complicated 
experiments. How did it escape?'
      Someone called across from the far side of the square. 'It did not, Baron 
Kalan. It did not escape!' It was Jhary-a-Conel's voice.
      The serpent mask turned. "What do you mean?'
      'Did you not understand the nature of the soul you sought to imprison in 
your gem?'
      'Nature? How-?'
      'Do you know the legend of the Champion Eternal?'
      'I have read something of it, aye ...' The serpent mask turned from Jhary 
to Ilian, from Ilian to Jhary. And still Ilian continued to pace towards Baron 
Kalan.
      'Then recall what you read.'
      And Ilian stood before Baron Kalan of Vitall and with a movement of her 
sword she had swept the serpent helm from his shoulders to reveal his pale, 
middle-aged face with its whispy white beard, its thinning hair. Kalan blinked 
and made to cover his face, then he dropped his hands to his side, his sword 
hanging by its wrist-thong, one fist bunched around the thing he had sought 
among the ruins.
      Kalan said softly: 'You still cannot slay me, Ilian of Garathorm. And even 
if you could, it would result in terrible consequences. Let me go. Or hold me 
prisoner, if you like. I have matters to consider ...'
      'Put up your sword, Baron Kalan, and defend yourself.'
      'I would be reluctant to slay you,' said Kalan, his voice becoming 
harsher, 'for you offer an intriguing mystery to a man of science, but I shall 
kill you, Ilian, if you continue to plague me.'
      'And I shall kill you, if I can.'
      'I told you,' said Kalan reasonably, 'that I can only be slain by one 
creature in the entire multiverse. And that creature is not yourself. Besides, 
more than you realise depends upon my remaining alive . ..'
      'Defend yourself!'
      Kalan shrugged and held up his sword.
      Ilian thrust. Kalan parried carelessly. Her blade continued on its course, 
deflected only a fraction, and her point entered his flesh. Kalan's eyes 
widened.
      'Pain!' he hissed in astonishment. 'It is pain!'
      Ilian was almost as surprised as Kalan to see the blood flowing. Kalan 
staggered back, looking down at his wound. 'It is not possible,' he said firmly. 
'It is not.'
      And Ilian thrust again, this time striking directly at his heart as Kalan 
said: 'Only Hawkmoon can kill me. Only he. It is impossible ...'
      And he fell backwards in the ashes, causing a small cloud of black dust to 
spurt up around him. The look of astonishment was still printed on his dead 
features.
      'Now we are both avenged, Baron Kalan,' said Ilian in a voice she did not 
recognise as her own.
      She bent to see what the baron had clutched in his hand, prising it from 
the fingers.
      It was something which gleamed like polished coal. An irregularly cut gem. 
She knew what it must be.
      As she straightened up she noticed that the quality of the light around 
her had altered subtly. It was as if clouds had passed across the sun, yet the 
rains were not due yet for another two months.
      Jhary-a-Conel came running towards her. 'So you did slay him! But I fear 
that action will bring more trouble to us.' He glanced at the gem she held. 
'Keep that safely. If we come through this together, I will show you what you 
must do with it.'
      Overhead, in the darkening sky, through the topmost branches of 
Garathorm's massive trees, there came a sound. It was like the beating of the 
wings of a gigantic bird. And there was a stink, too, that made the smell of the 
corpses seem sweet in comparison.
      'What is it, Jhary?' Ilian felt fear filling her whole mind. She wanted to 
flee from the thing which was coming to Virinthorm.
      'Kalan warned you that there would be consequences if he was slain here. 
You see, his experiments created the disruptions in the whole balance of the 
multiverse. By slaying him you have enabled the multiverse to begin healing 
itself, though that will bring further disruptions of what some would call a 
minor nature.'
      'But what causes that sound, that smell?'
      'Listen,' said Jhary-a-Conel. 'Do you hear anything else."
      Ilian listened carefully. In the distance she could hear the barking note 
of a war-horn. Ymryl's horn.
      'He has summoned Arioch, Lord of Chaos,' said Jhary. 'And Kalan's dying 
has enabled Arioch to break through at last. Ymryl has a new ally, Ilian.'

3
THE SWAYING OF THE BALANCE
      Jhary was full of a wild, despairing mirth as he mounted his yellow horse, 
casting many glances at the sky. It was still dark, but the sound of that awful 
flapping had gone and the stink had faded.
      'Only you, Jhary, know what we fight now,' said Katinka van Bak soberly. 
She wiped sweat from her face with her sleeve, the sword still in her hand.
      Yisselda of Brass rode up. On her arm was a long, shallow cut. The blood 
had congealed in the wound.
      'Ymryl has withdrawn his attack,' she said. 'I cannot determine what 
strategy he plans ...' Her voice tailed off as she saw Kalan's corpse still 
lying in the ashes. 'So,' she said, 'he is dead. Good. He had the superstition, 
you know, that he could only be slain by my husband, Hawkmoon.'
      Katinka van Bak almost smiled. 'Aye,' she said. 'I know.'
      'Have you any thought as to what Ymryl plans next?' Yisselda asked Katinka 
van Bak.
      'He has little need of strategy now, according to what Jhary tells us,' 
the warrior woman replied wearily. 'He has demons aiding him now!'
      'You are choosing the terminology to suit your own prejudices,' said 
Jhary-a-Conel. 'If I called Arioch a being of considerably advanced mental and 
physical powers, you would accept his existence completely.'
      'I accept his existence, anyway!' snorted Katinka van Bak. 'I have heard 
him. I have sniffed him!'
      'Well,' said Ilian in a small voice, 'we must continue our fight with 
Ymryl, even if it is doomed. Shall we continue our defensive strategy or alter 
it to one of attack?'
      'It scarcely matters now,' said Jhary-a-Conel, "but it would be nobler to 
die in an attack, would it not?' He smiled to himself. 'Strange how death 
remains unwelcome, for all I understand my fate.'
      They moved through the trees, their mounts abandoned. They were stealthy 
and they carried the flame-lances they had taken from the dead Dark Empire 
warriors whom Kalan had led.
      Jhary led them and now he paused, raising his hand as he looked down 
through the leaves, wrinkling his nose.
      They saw Ymryl's camp. He had made it on the very edge of the city. They 
saw Ymryl, his yellow horn bouncing on his naked chest. He wore only a pair of 
silken breeks and his feet were unshod. His arms were bound about with bracelets 
of leather studded with jewels and he had a broad leather belt round his waist, 
which carried his heavy broadsword, his broad-bladed dirk and a weapon which 
could shoot tiny, squat arrows across long distances. His great untidy mop of 
yellow hair fell across his face and his uneven teeth gleamed as he grinned 
somewhat nervously at his new ally.
      His ally was about nine feet tall and about six feet broad with a dark, 
scaly skin. It was naked, hermaphrodite, and there was a pair of leathery wings 
folded on its back. It seemed to be in some pain as it moved about, gnawing 
hungrily at the remains of one of Ymryl's soldiers.
      But the unnerving thing about Ymryl's ally was its face. It was a face 
which kept changing. At one moment it would be repulsively bestial and ugly, at 
another it would become the face of a beautiful youth. Only the eyes, the pain-
racked eyes, did not change. Occasionally, however, they flashed with 
intelligence, but for the most part were cruel, fierce, primitive.
      Ymryl's voice trembled, but it was triumphant. 'You will aid me now, will 
you not, Lord Arioch. It was the bargain we made...'
      'Aye, the bargain,' grunted the demon. 'I have made so many. And so many 
have reneged of late ...'
      'I am still loyal to you, my lord.'
      'I am under attack myself. Huge forces come against me on many planes, in 
many times. Men disrupt the multiverse. The balance has gone! The balance has 
gone! Chaos crumbles and Law is no more ...'
      Arioch seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Ymryl.
      Ymryl said hesitantly: 'But your power? You still have your power?'
      'Aye, much of it. Oh, I can aid you in your business here, Ymryl, for as 
long as it should last.'
      'Last? What mean you, my Lord Arioch?'
      But Arioch chewed the meat from the last bone and threw it down, dragging 
himself across the ground to peer towards the centre of the city.
      Ilian shivered as she saw the face change to become fat, fleshy, jowelled, 
the teeth rotting. The lips moved as Arioch murmured to himself. 'It is a matter 
of perspective, Corum. We follow our whims ...' Arioch scowled. Ah, Elric, 
sweetest of my slaves .. . all turning - all turning. What means if' And the 
features changed again, to become the features of a handsome boy. 'The planes 
intersect, the balance tilts, the old battles become obscure, the old ways are 
no more. Do the gods truly die? Can the gods die?'
      And, for all she loathed the monster, Ilian felt a peculiar pang of 
sympathy for Arioch as she overheard his musings.
      'How shall we strike, great Arioch?' Ymryl stepped up to his supernatural 
master. 'Will you lead us?'
      'Lead you? It is not my way to lead mortals into battle. Ah!' Arioch let 
out a scream of agony. 'I cannot remain here!'
      'You must, Arioch! Our bargain!'
      'Yes, Ymryl, our bargain. I gave you the horn, that which is brother to 
the Horn of Fate. And there are so few still loyal to the Chaos Lords, so few 
worlds where we may still survive ...'
      'Then you will give us power?"
      Again Arioch's face changed, back to its primitive, demonic form. And 
Arioch growled, all the intelligence disappearing from his face. And he drew 
deep, snorting breaths, and his body began to change colour, to grow in size, to 
flare with reds and yellows as if a mighty furnace roared within him.
      'He gathers his strength,' whispered Jhary-a-Conel, his lips close to 
Ilian's ear. 'We must strike now. Now, Ilian.'
      He leapt, his flame-lance sending out its stream of ruby light. He jumped 
into the ranks of the great army and four warriors were cut down before any 
realised that an enemy had come among them. Now others of Ilian's warriors 
dropped from the trees, following Jhary's example. Katinka van Bak, Yisselda of 
Brass, Lyfeth of Ghant, Mysenal of Hinn - all jumped into the fray, jumped to 
certain death. And Ilian wondered why she hung back.
      She saw Ymryl yell urgently at Arioch, saw Arioch reach out to touch 
Ymryl. And Ymryl's body glowed, seeming to burn with the same fire which filled 
Arioch.
      And Ymryl screamed, drawing his sword, and rushing upon Ilian's handful of 
warriors.
      That was when Ilian jumped, placing herself between her folk and Ymryl.
      Ymryl was possessed. His form radiated a monstrous energy as if Arioch 
himself possessed that mortal body. Ymryl's eyes, even, were the bestial eyes of 
Arioch. He snarled. He came at Ilian with his great sword hissing through the 
air. 'Ah, now, Ilian. This time you shall die. This time!'
      And Ilian tried to block the blow, but so strong had Ymryl become that her 
sword was driven back against her body. She stumbled backward, again barely able 
to ward off Ymryl's next swipe at her. He fought with reasonless ferocity and 
she knew that he must kill her.
      And behind Ymryl, Arioch had grown to huge proportions. His body continued 
to writhe, growing larger and larger, but containing less and less substance. 
The face altered constantly now, from second to second, and she heard a faint 
voice calling:
      'The balance! The balance! It sways! It bends! It melts! It is the doom of 
the gods! Oh, these puny creatures - these men,..'
      And then Arioch was gone and only Ymryl was left, but an Ymryl filled with 
Arioch's terrible power.
      Ilian continued to retreat before the rain of blows. Her arms were aching. 
Her legs and her back were aching. She was afraid. She did not want Ymryl to 
kill her.
      Somewhere she heard another sound. Was it a yell of triumph? Did it mean 
that all her comrades were dead now, that Ymryl's soldiers had destroyed every 
one of them?
      Was she the last of Garathorm?
      She fell back as, with a terrific blow, Ymryl knocked the sword from her 
hand. Another blow split her buckler. Ymryl drew back his arm to deliver the 
death stroke.

4
THE SOUL GEM
      Ilian tried to stare Ymryl in his eyes as she died, those eyes which were 
no longer his own, but Arioch's.
      But then the light in them began to fade and Ymryl looked about him in 
wonder. She heard him say:
      'It is over, then? We go home?'
      He seemed to be looking at scenery that was not the scenery of Garathorm. 
And he was smiling.
      Ilian reached out and her hand grasped the hilt of her sword. With all her 
strength she thrust out at Ymryl and she saw his blood spurt, his face become 
astonished, as gradually he faded into nothingness, as Arioch had faded before 
him.
      Dazed, Ilian staggered upright, not knowing if she had killed Ymryl. Now 
she would never know.
      Katinka van Bak lay nearby. She had a great, red wound in her body. Her 
face was white as if all her blood had gone. She was panting. As Ilian 
approached her, Katinka said:
      'I heard the story of Hawkmoon's sword - the Sword of the Dawn it was 
called. It could summon warriors from another plane, another time. Could some 
other sword have summoned Ymryl... ?' She hardly knew what she was saying.
      Jhary-a-Conel, supported by Yisselda of Brass, came limping out of the 
battle-dust. His leg was cut, but not deeply.
      'So you saved us, after all, Ilian,' he said. 'As the Eternal Champion 
should!' He grinned. 'But does not, I'll admit, always do...'
      'I saved you? No. I cannot explain this. Ymryl vanished!'
      'You slew Kalan. It was Kalan who had created the circumstances which 
allowed Ymryl and the rest to come to Garathorm. With Kalan's death the rift in 
the multiverse begins to mend. In healing itself, it replaces Ymryl and all who 
served Ymryl back in their respective eras. I'm sure that's what happened. These 
are strange times, Ilian of Garathorm. Almost as strange for me as they are for 
you. I'm used to gods exerting their will -but Arioch - he is wretched now. Do 
the gods die in all planes, I wonder?'
      'There have never been gods on Garathorm,' said Ilian. She bent to attend 
Katinka van Bak's wound, hoping that it was not as serious as it looked. But it 
was worse than it looked. Katinka van Bak was dying.
      'They have all gone, then?' said Yisselda, hardly realising, still, that 
their friend was so badly wounded.
      'All - including corpses,' said Jhary. He was fumbling in the pouch at his 
belt. 'This will help her,' he said. 'A potion to kill pain.'
      Ilian put the vial to Katinka van Bak's lips, but the warrior woman shook 
her head. 'No,' she said, 'it will make me sleep. I want to remain awake for 
what little life I have left. And I must go home.'
      'Home? To Virinthorm?' said Ilian softly.
      'No. To my own home. Back through the Bulgar Mountains.' Katinka sought 
with her eyes for Jhary-a-Conel. 'Will you take me there, Jhary?'
      'We must have a litter,' he said. He called to Lyfeth, who had come up. 
'Can some of your folk make a litter?'
      Ilian said absently. 'You are all still alive? But how? I thought you went 
to your deaths ...?'
      'The sea-folk!' said Lyfeth as she went away to help make the litter. 'Did 
you not see them?'
      'The sea-folk? My attention was on that demon ...'
      'Just as Jhary leapt down into their camp, we saw their banners. That was 
why we chose to attack when we did. Look!'
      Moving towards the trees to cut branches, Lyfeth pointed.
      And Ilian smiled with pleasure as she saw the warriors there, each armed 
with a great harpoon-gun, each mounted on huge seal-like creatures. On only a 
few occasions had she seen the sea-folk, but she knew that they were proud and 
that they were strong, hunting the whales of the sea upon their amphibious 
beasts.
      While Yisselda dressed Katinka van Bak's wounds, Ilian went to thank King 
Treshon, their leader.
      He dismounted and bowed graciously. 'My lady,' he said. 'My queen.' Though 
an old man, he was still very fit and muscles rippled on his bronzed body. He 
wore a sleeveless mail shirt and a leather kilt, just as all his warriors did. 
'Now we can make Garathorm live again.'
      'Did you know of our battle?'
      'No. We had spies watching Arnald of Grovent - he who finally became 
leader of those who took our towns. When he set off to march against Ymryl, we 
decided that it was the best time to strike - while they were divided and 
concentrating on attack from other quarters -'
      'Just as we did!' Ilian said. 'It is happy for both of us that we decided 
upon the same strategy.'
      'We were well-advised,' said King Treshon. '
      'Advised? By whom?'
      'By yonder youth ..." King Treshon indicated Jhary-a-Conel who was sitting 
next to Katinka van Bak and conversing with her in a low voice. 'He visited us a 
month or so since and outlined the plan we followed.'
      Ilian smiled. 'He knows much, that youth.'
      'Aye, my lady.'
      Ilian reached into her belt purse and felt the hard edges of the black 
jewel. She was in a reflective mood as she trudged back to where Jhary sat, 
having taken her leave of King Treshon for the moment.
      'You told me to keep the jewel safe,' she said. She took it from her 
purse, holding it up. 'Here it is.'
      'I am glad it is still here,' said Jhary. 'I feared it would be whisked 
back to wherever Kalan's corpse now lies!'
      'You planned much of what has happened here, Jhary-a-Conel, did you not?'
      'Plan it? No. I serve, that is all. I do what must be done." Jhary was 
pale. She noticed that he was trembling.
      "What's ill? Did you sustain a worse wound than we thought?'
      'No. But those forces which pulled Arioch and Ymryl from your world also 
demand that I leave, it seems. We must make haste to the cave.'
      'The cave?'
      'Where we first met.' Jhary got up and ran towards his yellow horse. 
'Mount whatever there is to ride. Have two of your warriors bear Katinka's 
litter. Bring Yisselda of Brass with you. Quickly, to the cave!' And he was 
already riding.
      Ilian saw that the litter was almost ready. She told Yisselda what Jhary 
had said and they went to find mounts.
      'But why am I still in this world?' Yisselda said, frowning. 'Should not I 
have returned to the world where Kalan held me prisoner?'
      'You feel nothing - nothing pulling you from here?' Ilian said.
      'Nothing.'
      Impulsively Ilian reached forward and kissed Yisselda lightly on the 
cheek. 'Farewell,' she said.
      Yisselda was surprised. 'You do not come with us to the cave?'
      'I come with you. But I wished to say goodbye. I cannot explain why.'
      Ilian felt a mood of peace begin to descend on her. Again she touched the 
black jewel in her pouch. She smiled.
      Jhary was standing in the cave-mouth when they arrived. He looked even 
weaker than before. He held his black and white cat tightly to his chest.
      'Ah,' he said. 'I thought I would not be here. Good.'
      Lyfeth of Ghant and Mysenal of Hinn had insisted on carrying Katinka van 
Bak's litter themselves. They made to carry it into the cave, but Jhary stopped 
them. 'I am sorry,' he said. 'You must wait here. If Ilian does not return, you 
must elect a new ruler in her place.'
      'A new ruler? What do you intend to do with her?' Mysenal leapt forward, 
hand on his sword. 'What harm can befall her in that cave?'
      'No harm. But Kalan's jewel still contains her soul...' Jhary was 
sweating. He gasped and shook his head. 'I cannot explain now. Be assured I will 
protect your queen...'
And he followed Yisselda and Ilian, who were now carrying Katinka van Bak's 
litter, into the cave.
      Ilian was astonished at how deep the cave was. It seemed to go on and on 
into the mountainside. And it became colder as they went deeper. Yet she said 
nothing, trusting Jhary.
      She turned only once, when she heard Mysenal's excited voice in the 
distance, shouting: 'We blame you for nothing, now, Ilian! You are absolved ...'
      And she wondered at Mysenal's tone and why he should feel such urgency in 
expressing that sentiment. Not that it meant a great deal to her. She knew her 
guilt, whatever others said.
      And then Katinka van Bak said weakly from her litter. 'Is this not the 
spot, Jhary-a-Conel?'
      Jhary nodded. Since the light had faded, he had carried an odd globe in 
his hand - a globe which gleamed with light. He set this down upon the floor of 
the cavern and then Ilian gasped at what she saw. It was the corpse of a tall 
and handsome man, dressed all in furs. There was no wound on his body, nothing 
to indicate how he had died. And his face reminded her of someone's. She closed 
her eyes. 'Hawkmoon ...' she murmured. 'My name...'
      Yisselda was sobbing as she knelt down beside the corpse.
      'Dorian! My love! My love!' She turned to look up at Jhary-a-Conel. 'Why 
did you not warn me of this?'
      Jhary ignored her and turned instead to Ilian who was leaning dazedly 
against the wall of the cave. 'Give me the jewel," he said. 'The black jewel, 
Ilian. Give it to me.'
      And when Ilian felt for the gem in her purse she found something that was 
warm, that vibrated.
      'It is alive!' she said. 'Alive!'
      'Aye.' He spoke urgently in a low, thin voice. 'Hurry. Kneel beside him 
...'
      'The corpse?' Ilian drew back distastefully.
      'Do as I say!' Jhary weakly dragged Yisselda back from Hawkmoon's body and 
made Ilian kneel. She did so reluctantly. 'Now, place the jewel upon his 
forehead - place it where you see the scar.'
      Trembling, she did as he ordered.
      'Place your own forehead against the gem.'
      She bent and her forehead touched the pulsing jewel and suddenly she was 
falling into the jewel and through the jewel, and as she fell, someone else fell 
towards her - as if she fell towards a mirror image of herself. She cried out...
      She heard Jhary's weak 'Farewell!' and she tried to answer, but she could 
not. On and on she fell, through corridors of sensations, of memories, of guilt 
and of redemption ...
And she was Asquiol and she was Arflane and she was Alaric. She was John Daker, 
Erekose and Urlik. She was Corum and Elric and she was Hawkmoon ...
      'Hawkmoon!' she cried the name with her own lips and it was a battle-cry. 
She fought Baron Meliadus and Asrovaak Mikosevaar at the Battle of the Kamarg. 
She fought Meliadus again at Londra and Yisselda was beside her. And she and 
Yisselda looked upon the battlefield when it was all over and they saw that of 
their comrades only they survived ...
      'Yisselda!'
      'I am here, Dorian. I am here!'
      He opened his eyes and he said: 'So Katinka van Bak did not betray me! But 
what a devious ruse to bring me to you. Why should she concoct so complicated a 
scheme?'
      Katinka whispered from her litter. 'Perhaps you will find out one day, but 
not from me, for I save my breath. I need you two to take me out of these 
mountains, to Ukrainia where I wish to die.'
      Hawkmoon got up. He was horribly stiff, as if he had lain in the same spot 
for months. He saw the blood on the bandages. 'You are wounded! I did not strike 
out. At least, I cannot recall ..." He put his hand to his forehead. There was 
something warm there, like blood, but when he drew his fingers away there was 
only a faint, dark radiance which flickered for a moment before it vanished. 
'Then how - Jhary? Surely not...'
      Katinka van Bak smiled. 'No. Yisselda will tell you how I got this.'
      Another woman said in a soft and vibrant voice from behind Hawkmoon. 'She 
sustained her wound helping to save a country that was not her own.'
      'Not for the first time has she been wounded thus,' said Hawkmoon turning. 
He stared at a face of extraordinary beauty and yet it was a face that had a 
sadness in it. A sadness that he felt he might define if he thought for a 
moment. 'We have met before?'
      'You have met before,' said Katinka, 'but now you must part swiftly, for 
there will be other disruptions if you occupy the same plane for much longer. 
Believe my warning, Ilian of Garathorm. Go back now. Go back to Mysenal and 
Lyfeth. They will help you restore your country."
      'But...' Ilian hesitated. 'I would speak longer with Yisselda and this 
Hawkmoon.'
      'You have not the right. You are two aspects of the same thing. Only on 
certain occasions can you meet. Jhary told me that. Go back. Hurry!'
      Reluctantly the beautiful girl turned, her golden hair swinging, her 
chain-mail clinking. She began to walk into the darkness and soon she had 
vanished from sight.
      'Where does the tunnel lead, Katinka van Bak,' Hawkmoon asked, 'to 
Ukrainia?'
      'Not to Ukrainia. And soon it will lead to nowhere at all. I hope she 
fares well, that maid. She has much to do. And I have a feeling that she will 
meet Ymryl again.'
      'Ymryl?'
      Katinka van Bak sighed. 'I told you I would not waste my breath. I need it 
to keep me alive until we reach Ukrainia. Let us hope the sleigh still waits for 
us below.'
      And Hawkmoon shrugged. He turned to look tenderly upon Yisselda. 'I knew 
you lived,' he said. 'They called me mad. But I knew you lived.'
      They embraced. 'Oh, Dorian, such adventures I have had,' said Yisselda.
      'Tell him about them later,' said the dying Katinka van Bak pettishly from 
her litter. 'Now pick up this stretcher and get me to that sleigh!'
      As she stooped to take one end of the litter, Yisselda said: 'And how do 
the children fare, Dorian?"
      And she wondered why Hawkmoon continued the rest of the journey through 
the tunnel in silence.
      This ends the Second of the Chronicles of Castle Brass