RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
SYNOPSIS OF ERLOS (105k Words)
Erlos is a huge and beautiful civilization which inhabits seven orbiting cities above the surface of the planet Elotia, whose inhabitants still plough their fields with oxen. The Erlotian and the Elotian civilizations have little to do with one another. In fact the punishment of 'earthdeath' or banishment to the surface of Elotia, is the worst an Erlotian can receive.
Moody 250 year old Eldrinda Benkilte becomes new ruler of Erlos after his father is killed in a skirmish. But, after a jealous and implacable enemy poisons his wine with the ceisorundra virus of madness, he is forced to abdicate the throne to his sister Auldrius:
“I think I’ll just disappear for a while.”
Auldrius gave her brother a deep look.
“To Elotia,” he explained.
“Six hundred years it’s gone on so far, this war,” she sighed ...
So he becomes a hermit on Elotia, living off roots and berries in the mountains.
While these events are happening around Eldrinda, the son of another king is born upon the surface of Elotia, on the continent of Aazyr. His name is Sorac of Aazyr. They meet and their destinies intertwine. The quest of Sorac runs as a sub-plot through the book.
Eldrinda has by now regained his sanity and realizes it is time for him to return to Erlos, to lead them in a desperate mission through fifth-dimensional space to finally destroy their ancient adversary.
He succeeds, after various symbolic adventures, and so Erlos inherits an empire of a hundred thousand devastated worlds which they must heal.
Now at last Eldrinda can visit the strange blue world that has obsessed him all his life. But the enemy who poisoned him sabotages his atmosphere craft, forcing Eldrinda to use the rebirth chamber, a ‘lifeboat’ device with which all Erlotian atmosphere craft are equipped.
The rebirth chamber will choose, for the doomed occupant of the craft, an unborn embryo of the highest life form on the world where he is going to crash -- in this case the planet earth -- an embryo that would otherwise be stillborn. It chooses for Eldrinda Benkilte the body of Douglas Perry:
… Douglas Perry, was born with a chunk of the back of his brain missing. The back of his skull looked strangely caved in. His breath did not smell good and his eyes were small black pebbles that glittered with intensity. His parents had provided a home for him at a private institution for adults with autistic and other mental difficulties on a farm outside the small dry town of Malmsbury near Cape Town, while he waited for Erlos to rescue him. I was writing an article about the farm for a magazine … Douglas was looking for someone to write his story and so, with all its twists and turns, this always is Douglas Perry's story, written in the form of a novel as he himself tried to present it, rather than as a biography ...
In the meantime Sorac of Aazyr has escaped after 12 years of slavery in Llozd’s brutal emerald mines only to begin a terrible journey across the desert of the Naar, driven mad by sun and thirst, to reach the sacred land of Coreyan.
He returns to Aazyr naked upon a winged white stallion with the weapon of Mycyl in his hand, to battle the weapon of Aba Mainyus and the demented emperor who wields it:
… For seven days and nights the contest continued, and the city rang with the sounds of it, until at last both blades were broken, and the two men had fallen asleep, each one standing where he had fought, leaning one upon the shoulder of the other, each snoring loudly, and each one still holding in his hand the hilt of his shattered weapon ...
On the planet earth, Erlos at last arrives to rescue Eldrinda. The 27 year old body of Douglas Perry dies. Eldrinda is taken back to Erlos to be reborn there as Obekellah -- having now lived in three different bodies. In flashbacks during the story Obekellah returns again to earth from our own future, to help us reshape that future by constructing orbiting cities. But by changing its own past, Erlos can never return to its own 'future', and so we ourselves become Erlos.
The main text of the book ends with Sorac’s grand coronation upon Elotia. There is a final twist when Sorac, exhausted, decides at the last moment to pass the crown of Aazyr to Jac, the hot-tempered thirteen year old son he has never had a chance to get to know:
“It’s heavy,” Jac said.
“Yes. You will have to grow a strong neck,” Sorac said.
He turned and walked out through the huge hall, and all the people there parted to make a way for him. He stood in front the great doors as they opened for him, and then he walked out through them and on into the mountains …
Appendix One: contains detailed information about each of the seven cities of Erlos, their states and rulers and configurations, and explains how they function and their relationship to one another.
Appendix Two: contains all Douglas Perry's original letters, writings and drawings.
Erlos is a huge and beautiful civilization which inhabits seven orbiting cities above the surface of the planet Elotia, whose inhabitants still plough their fields with oxen. The Erlotian and the Elotian civilizations have little to do with one another. In fact the punishment of 'earthdeath' or banishment to the surface of Elotia, is the worst an Erlotian can receive.
Moody 250 year old Eldrinda Benkilte becomes new ruler of Erlos after his father is killed in a skirmish. But, after a jealous and implacable enemy poisons his wine with the ceisorundra virus of madness, he is forced to abdicate the throne to his sister Auldrius:
“I think I’ll just disappear for a while.”
Auldrius gave her brother a deep look.
“To Elotia,” he explained.
“Six hundred years it’s gone on so far, this war,” she sighed ...
So he becomes a hermit on Elotia, living off roots and berries in the mountains.
While these events are happening around Eldrinda, the son of another king is born upon the surface of Elotia, on the continent of Aazyr. His name is Sorac of Aazyr. They meet and their destinies intertwine. The quest of Sorac runs as a sub-plot through the book.
Eldrinda has by now regained his sanity and realizes it is time for him to return to Erlos, to lead them in a desperate mission through fifth-dimensional space to finally destroy their ancient adversary.
He succeeds, after various symbolic adventures, and so Erlos inherits an empire of a hundred thousand devastated worlds which they must heal.
Now at last Eldrinda can visit the strange blue world that has obsessed him all his life. But the enemy who poisoned him sabotages his atmosphere craft, forcing Eldrinda to use the rebirth chamber, a ‘lifeboat’ device with which all Erlotian atmosphere craft are equipped.
The rebirth chamber will choose, for the doomed occupant of the craft, an unborn embryo of the highest life form on the world where he is going to crash -- in this case the planet earth -- an embryo that would otherwise be stillborn. It chooses for Eldrinda Benkilte the body of Douglas Perry:
… Douglas Perry, was born with a chunk of the back of his brain missing. The back of his skull looked strangely caved in. His breath did not smell good and his eyes were small black pebbles that glittered with intensity. His parents had provided a home for him at a private institution for adults with autistic and other mental difficulties on a farm outside the small dry town of Malmsbury near Cape Town, while he waited for Erlos to rescue him. I was writing an article about the farm for a magazine … Douglas was looking for someone to write his story and so, with all its twists and turns, this always is Douglas Perry's story, written in the form of a novel as he himself tried to present it, rather than as a biography ...
In the meantime Sorac of Aazyr has escaped after 12 years of slavery in Llozd’s brutal emerald mines only to begin a terrible journey across the desert of the Naar, driven mad by sun and thirst, to reach the sacred land of Coreyan.
He returns to Aazyr naked upon a winged white stallion with the weapon of Mycyl in his hand, to battle the weapon of Aba Mainyus and the demented emperor who wields it:
… For seven days and nights the contest continued, and the city rang with the sounds of it, until at last both blades were broken, and the two men had fallen asleep, each one standing where he had fought, leaning one upon the shoulder of the other, each snoring loudly, and each one still holding in his hand the hilt of his shattered weapon ...
On the planet earth, Erlos at last arrives to rescue Eldrinda. The 27 year old body of Douglas Perry dies. Eldrinda is taken back to Erlos to be reborn there as Obekellah -- having now lived in three different bodies. In flashbacks during the story Obekellah returns again to earth from our own future, to help us reshape that future by constructing orbiting cities. But by changing its own past, Erlos can never return to its own 'future', and so we ourselves become Erlos.
The main text of the book ends with Sorac’s grand coronation upon Elotia. There is a final twist when Sorac, exhausted, decides at the last moment to pass the crown of Aazyr to Jac, the hot-tempered thirteen year old son he has never had a chance to get to know:
“It’s heavy,” Jac said.
“Yes. You will have to grow a strong neck,” Sorac said.
He turned and walked out through the huge hall, and all the people there parted to make a way for him. He stood in front the great doors as they opened for him, and then he walked out through them and on into the mountains …
Appendix One: contains detailed information about each of the seven cities of Erlos, their states and rulers and configurations, and explains how they function and their relationship to one another.
Appendix Two: contains all Douglas Perry's original letters, writings and drawings.
Ah well, I suppose those agents need a chuckle now and then 
