Sojan the Swordsman ; Under the Warrior Sky

by Michael Moorcock

  A stinging sensation made my face go numb. A root from The One had popped up from below and struck my face; it was like being hit by an angry jellyfish.

  Leaping upwards, my feet landed on the middle of the thing. I grabbed at one of its tentacles to steady myself, and then I thrust forward with my sword. The tentacle burned my arm where it held me, and my sword thrust was useless. I hacked at the tentacles that popped at me like whips, managing to cut a few of them apart. Tentacles and roots snatched at me and picked me up and tore my feet free of The One’s base. The great beast tossed me like I was nothing more than a worrisome flea.

  I smashed into the bones and flesh of the dead the dying, and then I was up again, scrambling to the peak of that pile, toward The One.

  And when those fast moons sailed across the sky again, I saw its one hard, yellow eye peeking out from under a hood of flesh that protected it, and below that I saw spittle sparkle on its beak, which was huge, like that of the largest parrot you could imagine.

  But more importantly, I saw coming up behind it, leaping like a grasshopper, her cloak falling away from her like a snake shedding skin, Choona, my lovely warrior.

  During its preoccupation with me, she had come from the rear, and now she was bringing her sword down violently on its head. There was a noise like a gunshot, followed by the cracking of Choona’s sword, and then the thing’s tentacles and roots grabbed her.

  I gave it all I had, leaping, and gliding, using the abilities Jack had taught me, abilities I didn’t know I possessed until that moment. I went up, and along with me went multiple projections of myself, three to be exact. Three and me. I was as much the core of a hive mind as The One now. My multiple selves charged up with me. Straight up we went. When we were even with that hard, yellow, boiled egg eye, we threw our swords, all of them solid, made with the power of my mind; we threw them with all our strength. We were greeted with a happy sight. Our swords buried to the hilt in that eye, down deep in that powerful and repulsive brain. The tentacles and roots went loose, letting go of Choona, causing her to tumble down the mound.

  I had lost my footing as well. I was weak from the mental exertion. The multiple Braxs faded. My legs were like rubber, and then they folded under me.

  I bounced and bumped until I hit the ground. When I looked up, The One’s tentacles were tearing my sword out of its skull; the other swords, though they had been real enough on contact, had gone the route of my astral selves.

  I grabbed up a human skull from the mound, cocked back and threw it like a football. It was a good throw. It hit the injured, wobbling beast and knocked it off its pedestal. It went tumbling backwards from the mound.

  I rushed around the mound after it. Choona was on her feet and heading in the same direction. When we came to The One, it was no longer moving.

  I took a deep breath, let my thoughts loose. They reached out and touched—

  —nothing.

  The One was finished.

  The war had gone well. It was a riot. And with the death of The One, the Dargat lost their grips on the blue giants; their hive minds died, and they dropped off of their hosts like bloated dog ticks. The giants were now about their own devices. They and the mantises retreated, or were captured, and I must admit, killed without mercy. It would not have been my will, but before I could stop it, all of them were slain. This was not a world of great consideration for the enemy.

  There was much celebration that daybreak, and all through the day, and night. The following morning, before we moved out, we set fire to The One’s corpse. The flames turned it to black cinders in instants. Those humans who were alive in the mound were so far gone they were put to death as a form of mercy. They were no longer human. They weren’t really living. They were existing. They were shells that writhed, their brain matter turned to mush.

  We were a day out from our victory when it happened.

  Booloo, Choona, and myself drifted off from the others to a spot where the great limb we were on ended, at least on that far side. We dismounted and stood on the edge and looked out over the great world of trees. Below we could see mountains and clouds and little thin lines of water that had to be raging rivers.

  We were enjoying the sights, though I was feeling kind of woozy. I thought perhaps it was due to my battle with The One. I wasn’t exactly sick, but I felt a little disoriented.

  Then there was an eruption of arms and legs from a growth of foliage nearby, and one of the mantises, wounded, crazed, charged out of it with a sword.

  I wheeled.

  I was in direct line with it.

  I drew my sword and sidestepped and planted it so that it went straight though the mantis’s chitin chest. But, as fate would have it, my disorientation slowed me down, didn’t allow me to dodge fully out of the way. The thing collided with me in a whiplash motion, knocking the both of us off the edge of the limb, out into the void of what might as well have been a bottomless world.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Back to the Beginning

  I glanced up as I fell. I saw Choona and Booloo, on their knees, looking over the edge, their eyes wide, and just to the side and above me, the lighter body of the mantis drifted like chaff.

  And then something even more unexpected happened. I had become so much a part of their world, I had forgotten mine.

  I had temporarily forgotten the ball and that at some point it would call me back. That had been the source of the disorientation I had felt. It was happening. I was being pulled back.

  I saw my hands and arms turn to light, and then there was brief sensation of being back in the ball, and the next moment I was striking the wall of the laboratory so hard the ball burst apart, shattering all over the floor and dropping me like a ton of bricks.

  When I gathered myself enough to sit up, I saw that I was in the room from where I had departed. The place had been ravaged. And across the way, the glass that had been between this room and the room that held the universe was knocked out, leaving only pieces of jagged glass.

  The universe was gone.

  I searched the place from one end to the other. It was wrecked. Computers were smashed; all of the equipment was destroyed. Rooms were emptied out and there was no one present. I walked around confused and dazed. What had happened here?

  The kitchen was still pretty much intact, though everything in the refrigerator was spoiled. I found candles for light. As the night fell, I sat in the kitchen at the counter where the cooks had worked, and ate potted meat from a can by the light of those candles.

  That night, I slept in my old room.

  I had no idea what I was going to do. Everything that meant anything to me was in that universe, on that world, in the eyes of that woman, Choona. Now it was all lost to me, including, it appeared, the entire universe. Had that been why I had been sucked back? The universe had been destroyed?

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

  And then I heard movement down the hall. I had a flashlight I had found, and I carried it with me, but didn’t turn it on. I had it for a weapon. I didn’t need its light. Even in the dead dark I knew my way along that hall. I had traversed it often when I was healing up from the plane crash.

  I saw light shining through a crack in the kitchen door, peaked through and saw a bearded man sitting there. His hair was stringy, his clothes looked ragged. He had a large battery-powered lantern light sitting on the counter. He was eating from a can with a spoon.

  It was Dr. Wright.

  I pushed the door open.

  I said, “Hello, Dr. Wright.”

  My God,” he said, “you’re alive.”

  “Yes.”

  “It brought you back?”

  “Not what I wanted. How long have I been gone?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve lost count. Six months maybe. I’ve been hiding here. I’ve no place to go. I have perhaps three or four months worth of food left. They destroyed most things, but there are a lot of canned goods all over the place.”

  “What ha
ppened here?”

  “They shut us down.”

  “The government?”

  He nodded. “The special ops. We were . . . eliminated. The workers were killed, the place was trashed . . . All gone.”

  “But you?”

  “I had a hiding place for just that sort of situation,” he said. “They probably have no idea I wasn’t killed. You see . . . It was such a mess. Terrible weapons. People blown apart.”

  “You’re the only survivor?” I moved to the counter and stood near him. “Yes,” he said. “You really went? You went into the universe we created?” Using English again felt strange. “I didn’t want to come back. I liked it there. But the ball brought me back, and now it’s destroyed. Of course, it doesn’t matter, so is the universe and the world, The Warrior Star, Choona.”

  “What? Who?”

  I told him briefly of my adventures. When I finished, he said, “Not all is lost.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The universe. I stored it the week before they came.”

  “Stored it?”

  “You’ll like this. In a bottle.”

  “A bottle?”

  “You sound like a parrot,” he said.

  I grabbed his arm. “Explain yourself, now.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “And I’ll hurt you worse if you don’t tell me about the universe . . . In a bottle.”

  “Superman comics. The old ones. He put the city of Kandor in a big bottle. I realized that with a bit of mathematical formulae, a lot of instrumentation, I could do the same. I had a feeling that we were soon to be put out of operation. I thought I had more time. I was going to make it portable, take it with me. Now, I have no place to go.”

  “Show it to me,” I said.

  The doctor’s office was trashed, but he touched something close to the baseboards, a hidden button, and the wall slid back. It smelled like sweat and old food in there. It was large enough to house a desk and a chair. There were empty shelves and a few books.

  He sat the battery lantern on his desk. It lit up the room a little. In the corner was a large jar, and inside it were the cosmic swirls of a universe. I bent down and looked inside. The contents seemed to go on forever, and in the center of one of millions of solar systems was a little dot. That was the sun of Juna, and there was a large star that I decided must be The Warrior Star. It was all speculation on my part. From my point of view they were nothing more than dots in the foreground. The bottle had a wooden cork jammed into its mouth. That made me smile.

  “How does it exist here?”

  “It takes care of itself, just like our universe, our solar system. Once it was put into play, as long as it’s contained, it exists.”

  “Then I can go back?”

  “No. The machinery, the device and the equipment that allowed that . . . All destroyed.”

  “Then you can rebuild it?”

  “No. No, I can’t. It would take billions of dollars and a lot of help. It can’t be done.”

  That night I slept in my old room and thought about things, and in the middle of the night I got up and went to Dr. Wright’s hideaway. He had left it open; the wall still slid back.

  I awoke him. I said, “I can go back.”

  He stirred, half awake. “I’m sorry, Brax. You can’t.”

  “I can,” I said, and I explained to him about the meditation, my ability to travel by astral projection. He looked at me like I was crazy.

  I sat on the floor, legs crossed, and within seconds, effortlessly floated. “My God,” he said.

  He reached out to touch me. But there was nothing there. I tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

  “Heavens,” he said. “You can really do it. I thought it was impossible.”

  “So did I,” I said. “But now I think I can go back to Juna, just by using my mind.”

  “It’s an amazing idea, but . . .”

  “Listen,” I said. “If I do, what will become of the bottle? What will become of you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve thought about that a lot.”

  “You believe they think you’re dead?” I said.

  “I do.”

  “Then walk out and take the bottle with you. Protect it. It’s your greatest work. There is a world inside of that bottle, inside that universe, and I know now that it’s my home. No telling how many other worlds are there, inside that silly corked bottle.”

  So now I sit here writing all that has happened to me. I don’t know if anyone will ever read it. When I finish writing it, the doctor will take it with him. He knows a writer named Joe Lansdale that he believes might be able to do something with it, though he assumes, and perhaps correctly, that no one will believe it’s a true story, just something from his imagination. Of course, he has to get out of here and make his way down to the southern United States where Lansdale lives. That’s a tall order right now.

  As for this being believed, it doesn’t matter. I have recorded this for my own satisfaction.

  But tonight, before I sat down to finish this, I finished something else. Dr. Wright and I have been planning for several days now. We have put together enough supplies, found enough clothes and necessary items for him to in fact walk out. The weather is at its best. It’s summer here. I gave him a map. I know this area enough to at least set him off in the right direction. We even found a rifle and ammunition so that he can protect himself if the need should arise.

  I know of a cabin where he can stay. A place my old boss owns. He seldom uses it. It will most likely be empty. It’s a chance worth taking. It’s a place to pause before he moves on. And if he’s lucky, he will make his way to some place more permanent, someplace safe. There he will protect the universe he has created; I depend on his ego for that.

  When I finish this, I am going to say goodbye to Dr. Wright. And then, if I am fortunate, if what Jack Rimbauld taught me is well learned, I will try to imagine the world of Juna, the city of Goshon, and my sweet Choona.

  If my abilities allow, I will concentrate, meditate, and I will send my astral self across time and space to my new home. I will separate that self from my body here. If I do it right, my former true self will die, and my new self will become solid and permanent on Juna.

  If not, then I will go blindly into the jar and lose my way and cease to exist. For me, the chance of being with Choona again is worth it.

  So I go now to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the jar. I will close my eyes and imagine the world of Juna and myself being there.

  If Lady Luck is with me, I will leave this worthless husk behind, and I will return to Choona, my one true love, and live the life that is truly meant for me.

  If you read this, I hope you have wished me luck.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  MICHAEL MOORCOCK (1939-) has been recognized since the 1960s as one of the most important speculative fiction writers alive. Born in London, Moorcock began editing the magazine Tarzan Adventures at the age of 15, and quickly gained notoriety for his character Elric of Melnibone, an antihero written as a deliberate reversal of recurring themes he saw in the writings of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Many of his works, including the Elric books, the Sojan tales, and stories of his popular androgynous secret agent Jerry Cornelius, are tied together around the concept of the Eternal Champion, a warrior whose many incarnations battle to maintain the balance between Law and Chaos in the multiverse, a term popularized by Moorcock referring to many overlapping dimensions. In addition, Moorcock has also been recognized for his non-genre literary work, and his influence today extends into music, film, and popular culture. His writing has won numerous critical accolades, including the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

  Well known and loved for his Texas Mojo storytelling style, JOE R. LANSDALE (1951- ) is the author of more than twenty novels and two hun
dred short works, including Act of Love, The Nightrunners, Cold in July, Savage Season, The Bottoms, and the “Hap and Leonard” and “Drive-In” series of novels, as well as scripts for both comics and film. Two of his stories, the cult classic “Bubba Ho-Tep” and “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” have been adapted for film. He has had the honor of being chosen to complete an unfinished Tarzan novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, one of the founding authors of the sword and planet genre, published in 1995 as Tarzan: The Lost Adventure. Lansdale has also been a student of the martial arts for more than thirty years—learning how to take a punch being a self-admitted ingredient of good Mojo storytelling—and he is a two-time inductee into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame. He has won the Edgar Award, the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Grinzani Prize for Literature, the International Horror Guild Award, and six Bram Stoker Awards, and in 2007 he was named a Grand Master of Horror.

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