Michael Moorcock - The Vanishing Tower

Elric settled himself in the unfamiliar saddle. "You spoke of Tanelorn. It is for the sake of Tanelorn that I find myself in this dreamworld of yours."

Prince Corum's face was eager. "You know where Tanelorn lies?"

"In my own world, aye-but why should it lie in this one?"

"Tanelorn lies in all planes, though in different guises. There is one Tanelorn and it is eternal with many forms."

They were riding through the gentle forest along a narrow track.

Elric accepted what Corum said. There was a dreamlike quality about his presence here and he decided that he must regard all events here as he would regard the events in a dream. "Where go we now?" he asked casually. "To the castle?"

Corum shook his head. "First we must have the Third Hero-the Many-named Hero."

"And will you summon him with sorcery, too?"

"I was told not. I was told that he would meet us drawn from whichever Age he exists in by the necessity to complete the Three Who Are One."

"And what mean these phrases? What is the Three Who Are One?"

"I know little more than you, friend Elric, save that it will need all three of us to defeat him who holds my guide prisoner."

"Aye, " murmured Elric feelingly, "and it will need more than that to save my Tanelorn from Theleb K'aarna's reptiles. Even now they must march against the city."

The road widened and left the forest to wander among the heather of high and hilly moorland country. Far away to the west they could see cliffs, and beyond the cliffs was the deeper blue of the ocean. A few birds circled in the wide sky. It seemed a particularly peaceful world and Elric could hardly believe that it was under attack from the forces of Chaos. As they rode Corum explained that his gauntlet was not a gauntlet at all, but the hand of an alien being, grafted on to his arm, just as his eye was an alien eye which could see into a terrifying netherworld from which Corum could bring aid if he chose to do so.

"All you tell me makes the complicated sorceries and cosmologies of my world seem simple in comparison, " Elric smiled as they crossed the peaceful landscape.

"It only seems complicated because it is strange, " Corum said. "Your world would doubtless seem incomprehensible to me if I were suddenly flung into it Besides, " he laughed, "this particular plane is not my world, either, though it resembles it more than do many. We have one thing in common, Elric, and that is that we are both doomed to play a role in the constant struggle between the Lords of the Higher Worlds-and we shall never understand why that struggle takes place, why it is eternal. We fight, we suffer agonies of mind and soul, but we are never sure that our suffering is worthwhile."

"You are right, " Elric said feelingly. "We have much in common, you and I, Corum."

Corum was about to reply when he saw something on the road ahead. It was a mounted warrior. He sat perfectly still as if he awaited them. "Perhaps this is the Third of whom Bolorhiag spoke."

Cautiously, they rode forward.

The man they approached stared at them from a brooding face. He was as tall as them, but bulkier. His skin was jet black and he wore upon his head and shoulders the stuffed head and pelt of a snarling bear. His plate armour was also black, without insignia, and at his side was a great black-hilted sword in a black scabbard. He rode a massive roan stallion and there was a heavy round shield attached to the back of his saddle. As Elric and Corum came closer the man's handsome negroid features assumed an astonished expression and he gasped.

"I know you! I know you both! "

Elric, too, felt he recognised the man, just as he had noticed something familiar in Corum's features.

"How came you here to Balwyn Moor, friend?" Corum asked him.

The man looked about him as if in a daze. "Balwyn Moor? This is Balwyn Moor? I have been here but a few moments. Before that I was-I was... Ah! The memory starts to fade again." He pressed a large hand to his forehead. "A name-another name! No more! Elric! Corum! But I-I am now..."

"How do you know our names?" Elric asked him. A mood of dread had seized the albino. He felt that he should not ask these questions, that he should not know the answers.

"Because-don't you see?-I am Elric-I am Corum-oh, this is the worst agony.... Or, at least, I have been or am to be Elric or Corum...."

"Your name, sir?" Corum said again.

"A thousand names are mine. A thousand heroes I have been. Ah! I am-I am-John Daker-Erekose -Urlik-many, many, many, more.... The mem ories, the dreams, the existences." He stared at them suddenly through his pain-filled eyes. "Do you not understand? Am I the only one to be doomed to understand? I am he who has been called the Champion Eternal-I am the hero who has existed forever -and, yes, I am Elric of Melnibone-Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei-I am you, also. We three are the same creature and a myriad other creatures besides. We three are one thing-doomed to struggle forever and never understand why. Oh! My head pounds. Who tortures me so? Who?

Elric's throat was dry. "You say you are another incarnations of myself! "

"If you would phrase it so! You are both other incarnations of myself! "

"So, " said Corum, "that is what Bolorhiag meant by the Three Who Are One. We are all aspects of the same man, yet we have tripled our strength because we have been drawn from three different ages. It is the only power which might successfully go against Voilodion Ghagnasdiak of the Vanishing Tower."

"Is that the castle wherein your guide is imprisoned?" Elric asked, casting a glance of sympathy at the groaning black man.

"Aye. The Vanishing Tower flickers from one plane to another, from one age to another, and exists in a single location only for a few moments at a tune. But because we are three separate incarnations of a single hero it is possible that we form a sorcery of some kind which will enable us to follow the tower and attack it. Then, if we free my guide, we can continue on to Tanelorn...."

"Tanelorn?" The black man looked at Corum with hope suddenly flooding into his eyes. "I, too, seek Tanelorn. Only there may I discover some remedy to my dreadful fate-which is to know all previous incarnations and be hurled at random from one existence to another! Tanelorn-I must find her! "

"I, too, must discover Tanelorn, " Elric told him,

"for on my own plane her inhabitants are in great danger."

"So we have a common purpose as well as a common identity, " Corum said. "Therefore we shall fight in concert, I pray. First we must free my guide, then go on to Tanelorn."

Til aid you willingly, " said the black giant.

"And what shall we call you-you who are ourselves?" Corum asked him.

"Call me Erekose-though another name suggests itself to me-for it was as Erekose that I came closest to knowing forgetfulness and the fulfilment of love."

"Then you are to be envied, Erekose, " Elric said meaningly, "for at least you have come close to forgetfulness...."

"You have no inkling of what it is I must forget, " the black giant told him. He shook his reins. "Now Corum-which way to the Vanishing Tower?"

"This road leads to it We ride down now to Darkvale, I believe."

Elric's mind could hardly contain the significance of what he had heard. It suggested that the universe-or the multiverse, as Myshella had named it-was divided into infinite layers of existence, that time was virtually a meaningless concept save where it related to one man's life or one short period of history. And there were planes of existence where the Cosmic Balance was not known at all-or so Corum had suggested-and other planes where the Lords of the Higher Worlds had far greater powers than they had on his own world. He was tempted to consider the idea of forgetting Theleb K'aarna, Myshella, Tanelorn and the rest and devote himself to the exploration of all these infinite worlds. But then he knew that this could not be for, if Erekose spoke the truth, then he-or something which was essentially himself -existed in all these planes already. Whatever force it was which he named "Fate" had admitted him to this plane to fulfil one purpose. An important pur pose affecting the destinies of a thousand planes it must surely be if it brought him together in three separate incarnations. He glanced curiously at the black giant on his left, at the maimed man with the jewelled hand and eye on his right. Were they really himself?