He is rescued by another party from the wholesome human settlement of the Scarlet Fjord, led by Bladrak. Many of the hunters are killed and, though he succeeds in killing the stag, Urlik is left for dead. Finally they hunt the sea-stag to its island lair. On the trip, Urlik begins dreaming of the Black Sword then, while he is awake, a mysterious bell tolls, a Screaming Chalice appears, and a voice orders Urlik to take up the Black Sword. There he meets the debauched Bishop Belphig and the ascetic Lord Shanosfane.īelphig eventually invites him on a hunt for the fearsome sea-stag. He encounters a party of humans who take him to Rowernarc. He finds himself transported into the body of Urlik Skarsol, driving a chariot pulled by polar bears across an ice sheet. ![]() Then the dreams of eternal struggle, that tormented him in The Eternal Champion, begin again. When the story begins, Erekosë has ended the war and found peace. He reflects that he is like a phoenix, immortal by virtue of being reborn time and again, yet he is trapped in the obsidian cave like a fly in amber. The title Phoenix in Obsidian comes from a scene halfway through the book, when Erekosë, in the guise of Urlik, spends a short time in an obsidian cave. Like Stormbringer, Urlik's Cold Sword is vampiric and sentient, and it demands the blood of friends as the price for its aid. As Urlik, he finds the Black Sword in its purest, most virulent form. In The Eternal Champion, Erekosë bore the sword Kanajana, a weaker version of Stormbringer. With nothing to do and no foe to fight, Erekose wonders who could have called him and searches for a way to return to his lost love. But nobody in Rowernarc seems to fear them-nobody, indeed, seems concerned with anything but whiling away the time until death. At Rowernarc, the Obsidian City, he hears of the Silver Warriors from the Moon, which long ago crashed into the other side of the Earth. This time he is Count Urlik Skarsol, Lord of the Frozen Keep, sleeping hero of a frozen and dying Earth. Having resolved the human-Eldren war, Erekosë finds himself once again called to a strange world to defend Earth from invaders. The trilogy is part of a larger cycle about the Eternal Champion as defender of the Multiverse. Phoenix in Obsidian continues the story, which is concluded in The Dragon in the Sword. ![]() He had been called to lead humanity against its Eldren foes, but ended up taking the Eldren's side. The first book in the series, The Eternal Champion, told the story of John Daker, an average 20th-century man who suddenly found himself incarnated as Erekosë, a legendary hero of Earth in the distant past (or distant future). First published in 1970, it is the second book in a series that follows the adventures of the Eternal Champion as he is flung from one existence to another. ![]() Phoenix in Obsidian (alternate title: The Silver Warriors) is a science fantasy novel by Michael Moorcock.
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