Michael Moorcock - Castle Brass 2 - The Champion of Garathor

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The Champion of Garathorm

By Micheal Moorcock

Chronicles of Castle Brass 02

Other Mayflower Books by Michael Moorcock

THE BLACK CORRIDOR

THE JEWEL IN THE SKULL

MAD GOD'S AMULET

THE RUNESTAFF

THE SWORD OF THE DAWN

THE KNIGHT OF THE SWORDS

THE QUEEN OF THE SWORDS

THE KING OF THE SWORDS

THE STEALER OF SOULS

STORMBRINGER

THE SINGING CITADEL

THE ETERNAL CHAMPION

PHOENIX IN OBSIDIAN

THE TIME DWELLER

BEHOLD THE MAN

THE FINAL PROGRAMME

COUNT BRASS

The Chronicles of Castle Brass

Being a sequel to the High History of the Runestaff of which this is the second volume

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be

lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form

of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition

including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This book is published at a net price and is supplied subject to the Publishers Association

Standard Conditions of Sale registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956.

For Trux

A Note to the Reader

While it is a sequel to the previous volume in the series called The Chronicles of Castle Brass,

this particular book may also be read as a sequel to the second book in the Eternal Champion

series, Phoenix in Obsidian.

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

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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

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 be-neath 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 Yis-selda 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 last-ing 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 inclina-tion, 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 towns-folk. 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 sol-diers. 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 repre-sented 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

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presence of Count Brass on these occasions or else he preferred to ignore his old friend until

Count Brass would clear his throat or other-wise 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 manip-ulate 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 con-vince 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 in-trospection 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, cap-tain, 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 Em-pire 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 ex-plain 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, study-ing 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

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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 for-mal. Merely extending the usual invitation to visit her when-ever 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 sug-gested. '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 him-self more wine. 'Women require these

affirmations, you know. Even queens.'

'Flana is above such feelings. She is too intelligent. Too sen-sible. 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 re-sembles 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 sardon-ically 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 under-stood 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 con-sidered 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 cer-tain 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, think-ing sadly of Hawkmoon and what he had

become. He won-dered if it was altogether a good thing that the defeat of the Dark Empire had

brought tranquillity to the world. It was pos-sible 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

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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.

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 pur-poses 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 jour-ney 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. Some-where. In another place.'

'We once agreed, you and I, that there was no life after death,' Count Brass reminded his friend.

'Besides - would you resur-rect 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, dis-turbed 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 mad-ness 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 be-fore 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 con-tinue to

follow this path. I know that it will lead me to Yisselda.'

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'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, hysteri-cal 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 horse-man to the other side of the courtyard,

or pick up Count Brass himself and send him off away from Londra in another direc-tion 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 con-ceive 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 Lon-dra. He watched as Captain Josef Vedla rode forward and ord-ered 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 deci-sion.

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 no-tions 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 fare-well. 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

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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 dark-ness 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 ord-inary, 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 con-trolled 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.

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 chang-ing 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 con-clusion.

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 sha-dows 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.

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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,

pecu-liar, 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 reflec-tion.

One morning he awoke from such a slumber and instead of rising, as was his habit, and going

directly to his tables, he re-mained 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 re-semblance was

mostly in the way the head was held, in the ex-pression, in the eyes. There was a wide-brimmed hat

on the long, black hair and a small black and white cat sat on the shoul-der. 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 mad-man.'

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,' mut-tered 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 slay-ing 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 sor-cerers 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 lis-ten. Listen, Hawkmoon. You are talking to yourself. You mut-ter. 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.

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'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? Poi-soners?'

'Oh, no, my lord!'

Hawkmoon controlled himself. 'No, of course not. I apprec-iate 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 re-sponsibilities,

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 mes-sage.'

'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 be-fore.

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 custo-dian 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 sur-prise, 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.'

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 Lobko-witz 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

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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 per-formed

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 imag-ination. '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 re-fused 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 car-ried 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.' Ka-tinka van Bak poured a cup of apple juice for

herself and swal-lowed 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

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Michael Moorcock - Castle Brass 2 - The Champion of Garathor

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