“Corum: The Prince with the Silver Hand”, by Michael Moorcock

 

 

341 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041882

 

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. Corum: The Prince with the Silver Hand was the twelfth in this series and the second volume featuring the character Corum Jhaelen Irsei, “The Prince in the Scarlet Robe”, and includes the tales The Bull and The Spear, The Oak and The Ram and The Sword and The Stallion. This second trilogy featuring Moorcock’s doomed survivor of a dead race shows that the man was more than just Elric (much as Robert E. Howard was more than just Conan). And the fact that Corum merited a second trilogy suggest that the public knew it, too.

The Bull and The Spear begins with Corum living in wedded bliss with Rhalina – this is not to last, of course, for the Vadhagh race have lifespans greater than a human’s, and so he watches as Rhalina grows old and dies, along with everyone else he knows. As time goes by he becomes increasingly isolated from the world at large, his days of wine and roses seemingly over. All too soon adventure calls in the form of strange voices that come to him in his dreams. When he disregards said dreams, Jhary-a-Conel, a Companion to the Champion, arrives and convinces Corum that the voices must be heard which turns out to be a request for help by the descendants of Rhalina’s people from the future. I won’t spoil it any more for you, but one thing about The Bull and The Spear that stood out for me was Corum’s isolation from…everything. The Mabden (humans) have nothing to do with him but, for all that, his legend continued to grow as the stories become more and more embellished and people began to “build shrines to him” and they made “crude images of him to which [they] prayed as they had prayed to their gods…It had not taken them long to find new gods and it was ironic that they should make one of the people who had helped rid them of their old ones”. To me, it would appear that Moorcock is noting an irony that is very much present not only in our own history, but also in our present society.

In The Oak and The Ram the tale begun in the previous book continues as the encroaching threat of the Fhoi Myore is threatening to unleash a storm of icy death upon the last remaining inhabitants in a dying world. Corum, assisted by his allies, begins a quest for Amergin, High King of the Mabden, who is trapped by a dark spell cast by the Gods of Limbo. Utilizing two legendary talismans – those would be the Golden Oak and the Silver Ram – Corum must restore the High King and defeat the forces of evil. This continuation in the tale of Corum was – there’s no other word for it – weak; not bad, really, but it doesn’t really break new ground and feels more like a retread of the previous book, almost like a soft reboot. As Moorcock is one of the kings of fantasy pulp, you can expect a lot of action and deep dialogue as the characters attempt to Save the World…Again, but this felt more like everyone was on a treadmill as plot points were repeated and declarations were made and so on and so forth and…I dunno, it just felt like things kept going ‘round in circles and nothing was really advancing – until they were, and then it just felt…fake? The tone was off, too, for while The Bull and The Spear was rather dark and deep, The Oak and The Ram was something else entirely. Can’t describe it better than that. Overall it feels like a filler book, which shouldn’t be surprising in a trilogy.

Lastly is The Sword and The Stallion which tells the tale of Corum’s Last Stand against the Fhoi Myore. Within, former friends become enemies while past foes become allies in after tragic circumstances as Corum soldiers on wielding his accursed sword (there’s always an accursed sword, isn’t there?) and riding his ancient stallion that guides his blade of truth (read the book). All the while this never-ending race war hurtles towards its inevitable, tragic conclusion as Corum fulfills a dark prophecy that could sever the world from Chaos and the mad gods – or erase all life from the world once and for all, all done in proper pulpy style. All in all, a tragic ending to Corum’s second trilogy, full of despair, cruel irony and themes of Greek Tragedy (recall that the original trilogy ended on a surprisingly happy and wholesome note. Weird, I know). Friends die, lovers betray and prophecies are fulfilled, rarely to anyone’s benefit. While the ending is sad and even a bit frustrating in many ways, it all feels rather poetic and in tune with how things were being set up for such a bittersweet finale, where death, betrayal and sacrifice are the only ways to achieve ultimate peace and freedom for the few survivors of the world. While the first trilogy was overall superior, this second trilogy of Corum more than holds its own and, seeing as the tone is so different, makes for a worthy, independent successor.