Corum Jhaelen Irsei

**Corum Jhaelen Irsei (**the Prince in the Scarlet Robe), also known as **Corum Llaw Ereint** (Corum of the Silver Hand) is one of the last of the Vadhagh and an incarnation of the Eternal Champion.

## Background

After living a life of leisure and study, Corum was suddenly thrust into bloodshed and sorrow when he returned from a trip abroad to find that the Mabden chieftain Glandyth a Krae had slaughtered his entire family. Glandyth and his men captured and tortured Corum with the intent to kill him. He escaped by using his natural powers as a Vadhagh, and began a quest for revenge against the Mabden and their creator gods, the Sword Rulers.

## Slaying the Sword Rulers

The chieftain of the Denledhyssi Mabden who genocided his race, Glandyth-a-Krae, eventually captured and tortured the prince. During his torture, Corum's left hand was amputated and his right eye was put out. As a replacement, he was given the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn by the sorcerer Shool. After that, he defeated Arioch and Xiombarg and banished them from the Fifteen Planes.

To defeat the final Sword Ruler, Mabelode, Corum ultimately returned the Hand and the Eye to the Lost Gods in return for their destruction of the Chaos Lords and their minions. While Corum narrowly killed Glandyth-a-Krae in single combat with the help of Rhynn's timely distraction, the Lost Gods completed their task. They also killed the Lords of Law for good measure, forever freeing his and perhaps all universes from their influence. From then on, he took to wearing a metal plate over his empty eye socket like an eye-patch and a new silver hand he'd made to replace Kwll's.

## Slaying the Fhoi Myore

After outliving his Mabden bride Rhalina, Corum travels to the far future, and dedicates the remainder of his life to fulfilling his promise to her to protect her descendants, the Tuha-na-Cremm Croich. He fulfills his vow by helping them slay the Fhoi Myore, seven powerful giants who nearly wiped them out, as well as his murderous doppelgänger, the Karach. After all of his foes have been defeated, Corum's former enemy Prince Gaynor the Damned and the Dagdagh offer to take them to a land of peace. But despite the warnings of Gaynor and the Dagdagh, Corum chooses to stay with his new lover Queen Medhbh instead. But the Dagdagh had secretly used his harp to turn her heart against him. So as soon as Corum returns to her, Medhbh betrays and mortally wounds him with a weapon the Dagdagh had her create from the Karach's remains in order to fulfill a prophecy to purge the world of all gods, demigods, and sorcery. Ultimately, he was killed with his own moon-colored Black Sword, Traitor, by his own silver hand, which Medhbh had enchanted.

## The Quest for Tanelorn

Corum was revived on the Dark Ship that Sails Between Worlds, which he boarded hoping to reach the past. There, he joined Elric, Erekosë, and Dorian Hawkmoon in leading a team of warriors, which included Brut of Lashmar and Otto Blendker, on an assault on the sorcerer twins Agak and Gagak in a broken dream of Tanelorn, where they killed Gagak from within. After joining bodies and becoming the Four Who Are One, they slayed Agak, then separated and burned its corpse. Hawkmoon, Erekose, and Brut of Lashmar stayed in Tanelorn, while Corum, Elric, and Otto Blendker returned to the Dark Ship. Soon after, Corum was "borne off by friends with chariots which could ride upon the surface of the water".

## Elric: The Balance Lost

Still mourning the death of his Mabden bride Rhalina, Corum departed the Dark Ship and returned to his home world to seek his death. But when he got there, he found Jhary-a-Conel in need of rescue from persecution at the hands of Mabden cultists of Law. Fortunately, Corum was still owed a favor by the water Sidhe Ilbrec, so his giant horse Splendid Mane appeared to them, and on his back they rode across the surface of the sea to the city of the Pukawatchi. This led to them joining Eric Beck and then Elric and Dorian Hawkmoon on a quest to restore the Cosmic Balance.

They traveled to Tanelorn, then rode with Captain Billy-Bob Begg on the Scaling Ship Spammer Gain to the Lost Universe Ko-O-Ko. When they got there, they found that, to Corum's total shock and disbelief, the ones who shattered the Cosmic Balance were none other than the Lost Gods, Kwll and Rhynn. When Corum asked Kwll about it, he said that the brothers were playing a massive game of chess using the Multiverse as their gameboard and the forces of Law and Chaos as playing pieces in order to settle an argument without dismembering each other again.

After the Eternal Champions summoned the Warriors at the Edge of Time to fight the armies of Law and Chaos, Corum joined with Elric and Hawkmoon to form the Three-Who-Are-One, a massive six-armed, two-legged, three-faced Eternal Champion. They fought Rhynn and Kwll long enough for Eric Beck to restore the Balance, causing the Lost Gods to forget their argument and tire of their game. Having completed their final adventure together, Elric opened the Moonbeam Roads and returned Corum and Hawkmoon to their own worlds.

## Death

At Moidel's Mount, Corum has one last conversation with Kwll, then one with the spirit of the Black Sword. Then to free himself from the sword, Corum falls to his death at the foot of Moidel's Mount, joining the countless statues of fellow Eternal Champions, Companions, and Consorts in Tanelorn.

## Appearances

* The Knight of the Swords
* The Queen of the Swords
* The King of the Swords
* The Vanishing Tower
* The Bull and the Spear
* The Oak and the Ram
* The Sword and the Stallion
* The Quest for Tanelorn
* Elric: The Balance Lost

## Gallery

Fighting the MabdenCorum concept artCorum statueCorum and AriochCorum among the Mabden