To Rescue Tanelorn Read Free Page B

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 shrinking—the Plains of Melting Ice. I saw the third continent which bore lush flora, mighty forests, blue lakes and was bound along its northern coasts by a towering chain of mountains—the Mountains of Sorrow. This I knew to be the domain of the Eldren, whom King Rigenos had called the Hounds of Evil.
    Now, on the other two continents, I saw the wheatlands of the West on the continent of Zavara, with their tall cities of multicoloured rock, the rich cities of the wheatlands—Stalaco, Calodemia, Mooros and Ninadoon.
    There were the great seaports—Shilaal, Wedmah, Sinana, Tarkar, and Noonos of towers cobbled with precious stones.
             
    Then I saw the fortress cities of the Continent of Necralala, with the capital city Necranal chief among them, built on, into and about a mighty mountain, peaked by the spreading palace of its warrior kings.
    Now a little more came clear as, in the background of my awareness, I heard a voice calling
Erekosë, Erekosë, Erekosë…
    The warrior kings of Necranal, kings for two thousand years of Humanity united, at war, and united again. The warrior kings of whom King Rigenos was the last living and aging now, with only a daughter, Iolinda, to carry on his line. Old and weary with hate—but still hating. Hating the unhuman folk whom he called the Hounds of Evil, mankind’s age-old enemies, reckless and wild, linked, it was said, by a thin line of blood to the human race—an outcome of a union between an ancient queen and the Evil One, Azmobaana. Hated by King Rigenos as soulless immortals, slaves of Azmobaana’s machinations.
    And, hating, he called upon John Daker, whom he called Erekosë, to aid him with his war against them.
    “Erekosë, I beg thee answer me. Are you ready to come?” His voice was loud and echoing and when, after a struggle, I could reply, my own voice seemed to echo also.
    “I am ready,” I replied, “but appear to be chained.”
    “
Chained?
” There was consternation in his voice. “Are you, then, a prisoner of Azmobaana’s frightful minions? Are you trapped upon the Ghost Worlds?”
    “Perhaps,” I said. “But I do not think so. It is space and time which chain me. I am separated from you by a gulf.”
    “Already we pray that you may come to us.”
    “Then continue,” I said.
             
    I was falling away again. I thought I remembered laughter, sadness, pride. Then, suddenly, more faces, I felt as if I witnessed the passing of everyone I had known, down the ages, and then one face superimposed itself over the others—the head and shoulders of an amazingly beautiful woman, with blonde hair piled beneath a diadem of precious stones which seemed to light the sweetness of her oval face. “Iolinda,” I said. I saw her more solidly now. She was clinging to the arm of the tall, gaunt man who wore a crown—King Rigenos.
    They stood before an empty platform of quartz and gold, and resting on a cushion of dust was a straight sword which they dared not touch. Neither did they dare step too close to it for it gave off a radiation which might slay them.
    It was a tomb in which they stood. The Tomb of Erekosë—my tomb. I moved towards the platform, hanging over it. Ages before, my body had been placed there. I stared at the sword which held no dangers for me but was unable, in my captivity, to pick it up. It was my spirit only which inhabited the dark place—but the whole of my spirit now, not the fragment which had inhabited the tomb for thousands of years. The fragment which had heard King Rigenos and had enabled John Daker to hear it, to come to it and be united with it.
    “Erekosë!” called the king, straining his eyes through the gloom as if he had seen me. “Erekosë—we pray.”
    Then I experienced the dreadful pain which I suppose a woman to go through when