"Michael Moorcock - The Eternal Champion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

THE WINDS OF LIMBO
THE SHORES OF DEATH
THE BLOOD-RED GAME
THE FINAL PROGRAMME
BEHOLD THE MAN
THE BLACK CORRIDOR


*Interconnected series


PROLOGUE

They called for me.

That is all I really know.




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They called for me and I went to them. I could not do otherwise. The will of the whole of humanity
was a strong thing. It smashed through the ties of time and the chains of space and dragged me to
itself.

Why was I chosen? I still do not know, though they thought they had told me. And now it is done
and I am here. I shall always be here and if, as wise men tell me, time is cyclic, then I shall
one day return to the part of the cycle I left and which I knew as the twentieth century A.D. in
the Age of Men, for (it was no doing or wish of mine) I am immortal.




CHAPTER ONE

A CALL ACROSS TIME


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. These illusions are called hypnagogic
hallucinations-the beginning of the dreams we shall later experience as we sleep.

There was a woman. A child. A city. An occupation. A name: John Daker. A sense of frustration. A
need for fulfilment. Though I loved them. I know I loved them.

It was in the winter. I lay miserably in a cold bed and I stared through the window at the moon. I
do not remember my exact thoughts. Something to do with mortality and the futility of human