Elric To Rescue Tanelorn

Chapter One BETWEEN WAKEFULNESS AND sleeping, we have most of us had the illusion of hearing voices, scraps of conversation, phrases spoken in unfamiliar tones. Sometimes we attempt to attune our minds so that we can hear more, but we are rarely successful. Between wakefulness and sleeping, I began, every night, to hear voices . . . Had I hung, for an eternity in limbo? Was I alivedead? Was there a memory of a world which lay in the far past or the distant future? Of another world which seemed closer? And the names? Was I John Daker or Erekos'? Was I either of these? Many other names, Shaleen, Artos, Brian, Umpata, Roland, Ilanth, Ulysses, Alric, ed away down the ghostly rivers of my memory. I hung in darkness, bodiless. A man spoke. Where was he? I tried to look but had no eyes to see. *** "Erekose the Champion, where are you?" Another voice, then: "Father . . . it is only a legend . . ." "No, Iolinda. I feel he is listening. Erekose . . ." I tried to answer, but had no voice. Swirling half-dreams of a house in a great city of miracles, a swollen, grimy city of miracles, crammed with dull-coloured machines, many of which bore human passengers. Of buildings, beautiful beneath their coatings of dust and of other, brighter buildings not so beautiful, with austere lines and many glass windows. Of a troop of riders galloping over an undulating countryside, amboyant in armour of lacquered gold, coloured pennants draped around their blood-encrusted lances. Their faces were heavy with weariness. Of more faces, many faces, some of which I half recognized, others which were unfamiliar, people clad in strange clothes. A picture of a white haired, middle-aged man who had a tall, spiked crown upon his head. His mouth moved, he was speaking . . . "Erekose, it is I, King Rigenos, Defender of Humanity. You are needed again, Erekose. The Hounds of Evil rule a third of the world and humankind is weary of the war against them. Come to us, Erekose and lead us to victory. From the Plains of Melting Ice to the Mountains of Sorrow they have set up their corrupt standard and I fear they will advance yet further into our territories." The woman's voice: "Father, this is only an empty tomb. Not even the mummy of Erekose remainsit became drifting dust long ago. Let us leave and return to Necranal to marshal the living peers." I felt like a fainting man who strives to Fight against dizzy oblivion but, however much he tries, cannot take control of his own brain. Again I tried to answer, but could not. It was as if I wavered backwards through time, while every atom of me wanted to go forwards. I had the sensation of vast size as if I were made of stone with eyelids of granite, measuring miles acrosseyelids which I could not open. And then I was tinythe most minute grain in the universe, and yet I felt I belonged to the whole far more than the stone giant. Memories came and went. The whole panorama of the twentieth century, its beauties and its bitternesses, its satisfactions, its striFing, rushed into my mind like air into a vacuum. But it was only momentary, for the next second my entire being was ung elsewhereto a world which was Earth, but not the Earth of John Daker, not quite the world of dead Erekose, either. There were three great continents, two close together, divided from the other by a vast sea containing many islands, large and small. I saw an ocean of ice which I knew to be slowly shrinkingthe Plains of Melting Ice. I saw the third continent which bore lush ora, mighty forests, blue lakes and was bound along its northern coaMoorcock, Michael is the author of 'Elric To Rescue Tanelorn' with ISBN 9780345498632 and ISBN 0345498631.