Eric Beck

**Eric Beck** is an aspect of the Eternal Champion. He is similar to John Daker in that he is from the modern world, specifically the 21st century, and was thrust into the Game of Time by his destiny and against his will.

## Background

Eric Beck was born on a modern-day Earth from a human zygote that split into himself and his twin brother, Grayson. Both were white-haired, red-eyed, light-skinned men, like Elric, but unlike Grayson, Eric was nearly blind without glasses. Gray was a junkie who wanted to control everything, including the unnamed woman Eric loved. When she would not love him, Gray tried to control her by getting her addicted to drugs. When she still loved Eric instead, Grayson murdered her, and Eric watched her die in his arms. Unfortunately, a court of law acquitted Grayson of all charges. Gray later dyed his hair black, changed his name to Garrison Bow, and became leader of the extreme Law Party. Eric became a game designer for an RPG called Chaos War, but as he was an Eternal Champion, he was plagued by dreams of his other incarnations.

## The Balance Lost

In his first and only appearance, the graphic novel Elric: The Balance Lost, Eric is quickly thrust from his average life into the role of the Eternal Champion. After being rescued from the Law Party by M'v Okom Sebpt O'Riley, Eternal Champion and last survivor of a world destroyed by the Singularity Fleet of Law, she tells him he's also an Eternal Champion and convinces him to join her. She helps him steal the Murakamo-No-Tsurugi, an aspect of the Black Sword containing its whole power, from New Orleans's Mayor's widow Colinda Dovero. Having been the lover of several "champions éternels," she comes to their defense when they are attacked by Garrison and the Law Party, who also try to steal the sword. Garrison duels Eric and his Black Sword with its counterpart, the white Sword of Law (which may imply it is Mireen, the white sword of law wielded by Lord Arkyn of Law). With the Law Party protected from the Banning Gun's soul-sucking powers, Banning sacrifices her own soul to power it enough to stop Garrison from killing Eric, who takes the gun and the Murakamo-No-Tsurugi through a rift to Corum's world.

With help from the Singularity Fleet, Garrison takes the Black Sword from his brother. Eric soon joins Elric, Corum Jhaelen Irsei, and Dorian Hawkmoon in the defense of Tanelorn from the armies of law and chaos encroaching upon it, during which he reclaims his Black Sword and discards the Banning Gun. While the two armies are busy fighting each other, the Champions and their companions use the Chaos Shield, which Hawkmoon recovered from the Order of the Flies, and the Holy Grail/Runestaff, which Corum recovered from a tribe of outworlder refugees he was defending, to repel the armies long enough to enter the city. They are met by Sepiriz, who informs them of the cause of these armies of extremes: the Cosmic Balance has been destroyed.

He tells the four that they must restore the Balance, or Tanelorn, and the Multiverse, will surely be lost. He claims the Balance is a physical thing as well as a metaphorical one, so while Tanelorn is the *spiritual* heart of the Multiverse, they can only restore the Balance at its *physical* heart: Ko-O-Ko, the Lost Universe. Sepiriz says they already have all the tools they need to restore it: Eric's sword, the shield, the Grail Staff, and the Horn of Fate, which he'd previously helped Elric recover from the Raped Planet.

Sepiriz sends the four Champions with Captain Billy-Bob Begg to the Spammer Gain, which brings them to the Lost Universe. There, the find the Physical Balance, in the form of a massive traditional balance scale, destroyed. They also find the ones who've destroyed it and amassed the forces of Law and Chaos into a war against one another. To Corum's total shock and disbelief, the culprits are none other than the Lost Gods, Kwll and Rhynn. They explain to him that they are playing a massive game of chess for control of the Multiverse, using it as the gameboard and the forces of law and chaos as the pieces, with Kwll having chosen the side of Law. The Lost Gods then transport their armies from Tanelorn to the Lost Universe so they may take a more active role in their game. Elric uses his Ring of Kings and Eric's Black Blade to summon the Warriors at the Edge of Time, an army of veteran Eternal Champions, to battle the other armies while they restore the Grand Balance. On the way, the two emphasize over the guilt they carry for causing their fiancées' deaths at the hands of their kin.

Once they arrive at the Balance, Eric remembers Sepiriz's words about it being both physical and metaphorical and the Objects of Power being all they needed to restore it. He fashions them into a makeshift scale that causes the Physical Balance to begin repairing itself. However, Rhynn soon destroys what little repairs they'd effected. Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon realize their only hope of stopping the Gods long enough to complete the repairs is to form the Four Who Are One as they did to slay Agak and Gagak in The Quest for Tanelorn. Unfortunately, Eric is pulled from the joining by his brother, who challenges him to a final swordsmans' duel to the death. This forces the others to instead become the Three-Who-Are-One, a massive six-armed, two-legged, three-faced Eternal Champion as big and strong as the Lost Gods, who wields a single giant Black Sword against them.

While the Three battle Rhynn and Kwll, Eric and Garrison fatally stab each other with their swords. Recalling a story Billy-Bob told him about twin brothers who could traverse the Multiverse by sharing a single form, Eric forgives and embraces Gray, causing them to merge into a single being. The fused Beck stands naked holding the two swords aloft, becoming a perfect living metaphor of the Balance. As metaphor and reality are the same in the Lost Universe, the Physical Balance is quickly repaired, as is the Multiverse. Rhynn and Kwll tire of their game and leave, sending their armies from whence they came. As the army of the Balance fades, the Three become unjoined, and notice all that's left of the Becks are their swords. As they start to depart as well, Hawkmoon wonders if the Becks went to their final reward or joined the army waiting at the edge of time, and if they would join them as well one day.