This Argon text is from the now-dead link http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/5934/theeye.htm, except that here we've highlighted all the typo-type clear errors for ease in judging Eye of Argon reading contests.
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This is a fannish legend. It was discovered in an APA by
a SF Bay Area fan in approximately 1970, and has been
passed on, as the transcriber's note at the end mentions.
It has been the object of competitive readings. The
transcriber (not I) wishes to remain anonymous.
There are no copyright notices on the original, and it
pre-dates the current law, so it is NOT protected in any
way.
There is a transcriber's note at the end.
THE EYE OF ARGON by Jim Theis
The weather beaten trail wound ahead into the dust
racked climes of the baren land which dominates large
portions of the Norgolian empire. Age worn hoof prints
smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against
the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless sun cast
its parching rays of incandescense from overhead, half way
through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered
about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments
of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving
mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdonsome
cargoes of their struggling overseers.
"Prepare to embrace your creators in the stygian
haunts of hell, barbarian", gasped the first soldier.
"Only after you have kissed the fleeting stead of
death, wretch!" returned Grignr.
A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the
massive barbarians hide enameled shield as his rippling
right arm thrust forth, sending a steel shod blade to the
hilt into the soldiers vital organs. The disemboweled
mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded
sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets
of escaping life fluid.
The enthused barbarian swilveled about, his shock of
fiery red hair tossing robustly in the humid air currents
as he faced the attack of the defeated soldier's fellow in
arms.
"Damn you, barbarian" Shrieked the soldier as he
observed his comrade in death.
A gleaming scimitar smote a heavy blow against the
renegade's spiked helmet, bringing a heavy cloud over the
Ecordian's misting brain. Shaking off the effects of the
pounding blow to his head, Grignr brought down his scarlet
streaked edge against the soldier's crudely forged
hauberk, clanging harmlessly to the left side of his
opponent. The soldier's stead whinnied as he directed the
horse back from the driving blade of the barbarian.
Grignr leashed his mount forward as the hoarsely piercing
battle cry of his wilderness bred race resounded from his
grinding lungs. A twirling blade bounced harmlessly from
the mighty thief's buckler as his rolling right arm cleft
upward, sending a foot of blinding steel ripping through
the Simarian's exposed gullet. A gasping gurgle from the
soldier's writhing mouth as he tumbled to the golden sand
at his feet, and wormed agonizingly in his death bed.
Grignr's emerald green orbs glared lustfully at the
wallowing soldier struggling before his chestnut swirled
mount. His scowling voice reverberated over the dying
form in a tone of mocking mirth. "You city bred dogs
should learn not to antagonize your better." Reining his
weary mount ahead, grignr resumed his journey to the
Noregolian city of Gorzam, hoping to discover wine, women,
and adventure to boil the wild blood coarsing through his
savage veins.
The trek to Gorzom was forced upon Grignr when the
soldiers of Crin were leashed upon him by a faithless
concubine he had wooed. His scandalous activities
throughout the Simarian city had unleashed throngs of
havoc and uproar among it's refined patricians, leading
them to tack a heavy reward over his head. He had barely
managed to escape through the back entrance of the inn he
had been guzzling in, as a squad of soldiers tounced upon
him. After spilling a spout of blood from the leader of
the mercenaries as he dismembered one of the officer's
arms, he retreated to his mount to make his way towards
Gorzom, rumoured to contain hoards of plunder, and many
young wenches for any man who has the backbone to wrest
them away.
-2-
Arriving after dusk in Gorzom,grignr descended down a
dismal alley, reining his horse before a beaten tavern.
The redhaired giant strode into the dimly lit hostelry
reeking of foul odors, and cheap wine. The air was heavy
with chocking fumes spewing from smolderingtorches encased
within theden's earthen packed walls. Tables were
clustered with groups of drunken thieves, and cutthroats,
tossing dice, or making love to willing prostitutes.
Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby
bench, Grignr advanced wishing to wholesomely occupy his
time. The flickering torches cast weird shafts of
luminescence dancing over the half naked harlot of his
choice, her stringy orchid twines of hair swaying
gracefully over the lithe opaque nose, as she raised a
half drained mug to her pale red lips.
Glancing upward, the alluring complexion noted the
stalwart giant as he rapidly approached. A faint glimmer
sparked from the pair of deep blue ovals of the amorous
female as she motioned toward Grignr, enticing him to join
her. The barbarian seated himself upon a stool at the
wenches side, exposing his body, naked save for a loin
cloth brandishing a long steel broad sword, an iron
spiraled battle helmet, and a thick leather sandals, to
her unobstructed view.
"Thou hast need to occupy your time,
barbarian",questioned the female?
"Only if something worth offering is within my
reach." Stated Grignr,as his hands crept to embrace the
tempting female, who welcomed them with open willingness.
"From where do you come barbarian, and by what are
you called?" Gasped the complying wench, as Grignr
smothered her lips with the blazing touch of his flaming
mouth.
The engrossed titan ignored the queries of the
inquisitive female, pulling her towards him and crushing
her sagging nipples to his yearning chest. Without
struggle she gave in, winding her soft arms around the
harshly bronzedhide of Grignr corded shoulder blades, as
his calloused hands caressed her firm protruding busts.
"You make love well wench," Admitted Grignr as he
reached for the vessel of potent wine his charge had been
quaffing.
A flying foot caught the mug Grignr had taken hold
of, sending its blood red contents sloshing over a
flickering crescent; leashing tongues of bright orange
flame to the foot trodden floor.
"Remove yourself Sirrah, the wench belongs to me;"
Blabbered a drunken soldier, too far consumed by the
influences of his virile brew to take note of the superior
size of his adversary.
Grignr lithly bounded from the startled female, his
face lit up to an ashen red ferocity, and eyes locked in a
searing feral blaze toward the swaying soldier.
"To hell with you, braggard!" Bellowed the angered
Ecordian, as he hefted his finely honed broad sword.
The staggering soldier clumsily reached towards the
pommel of his dangling sword, but before his hands ever
touched the oaken hilt a silvered flash was slicing the
heavy air. The thews of the savages lashing right arm
bulged from the glistening bronzed hide as his blade bit
deeply into the soldiers neck, loping off the confused
head of his senseless tormentor.
With a nauseating thud the severed oval toppled to
the floor, as the segregated torso of Grignr's bovine
antagonist swayed, then collapsed in a pool of swirled
crimson.
In the confusion the soldier's fellows confronted
Grignr with unsheathed cutlasses, directed toward the
latters scowling make-up.
"The slut should have picked his quarry more
carefully!" Roared the victor in a mocking baritone
growl, as he wiped his dripping blade on the prostrate
form, and returned it to its scabbard.
"The fool should have shown more prudence, however
you shall rue your actions while rotting in the pits."
Stated one of the sprawled soldier's comrades.
Grignr's hand began to remove his blade from its
leather housing, but retarded the motion in face of the
blades waving before his face.
"Dismiss your hand from the hilt, barbarbian, or you
shall find a foot of steel sheathed in your gizzard."
Grignr weighed his position observing his plight,
where-upon he took the soldier's advice as the only
logical choice. To attempt to hack his way from his
present predicament could only warrant certain death. He
was of no mind to bring upon his own demise if an
alternate path presented itself. The will to necessitate
his life forced him to yield to the superior force in
hopes of a moment of carlessness later upon the part of
his captors in which he could effect a more plausible
means of escape.
"You may steady your arms, I will go without a
struggle."
"Your decision is a wise one, yet perhaps you would
have been better off had you forced death," the soldier's
mouth wrinkled to a sadistic grin of knowing mirth as he
prodded his prisoner on with his sword point.
After an indiscriminate period of marching through
slinking alleyways and dim moonlighted streets the
procession confronted a massive seraglio. The palace area
was surrounded by an iron grating, with a lush garden upon
all sides.
The group was admitted through the gilded gateway and
Grignr was ledalong a stone pathway bordered by plush
vegitation lustfully enhanced by the moon's shimmering
rays. Upon reaching the palace the group was granted
entrance, and after several minutes of explanation, led
through several winding corridors to a richly draped
chamber.
Confronting the group was a short stocky man seated
upona golden throne. Tapestries of richly draped regal
blue silk covered all walls of the chamber, while the
steps leading to the throne were plated with sparkling
white ivory. The man upon the throne had a naked wench
seated at each of his arms, and a trusted advisor seated
in back of him. At each cornwr of the chamber a guard
stood at attention, with upraised pikes supported in their
hands, golden chainmail adorning their torso's and barred
helmets emitting scarlet plumes enshrouding their heads.
The man rose from his throne to the dias surrounding it.
His plush turquois robe dangled loosely from his chuncky
frame.
The soldiers surrounding Grignr fell to their knees
with heads bowed to the stone masonry of the floor in
fearful dignity to their sovereign, leige.
"Explain the purpose of this intrusion upon my
chateau!"
"Your sirenity, resplendent in noble grandeur, we
have brought this yokel before you (the soldier gestured
toward Grignr) for the redress or your all knowing wisdon
in judgement regarding his fate."
"Down on your knees, lout, and pay proper homage to
your sovereign!" commanded the pudgy noble of Grignr.
"By the surly beard of Mrifk, Grignr kneels to no
man!" scowled the massive barbarian.
"You dare to deal this blasphemous act to me! You
are indeed brave stranger, yet your valor smacks of
foolishness."
"I find you to be the only fool, sitting upon your
pompous throne, enhancing the rolling flabs of your belly
in the midst of your elaborate luxuryand ..." The soldier
standing at Grignr's side smote him heavily in the face
with the flat of his sword, cutting short the harsh words
and knocking his battered helmet to the masonry with an
echo-ing clang.
The paunchy noble's sagging round face flushed
suddenly pale, then pastily lit up to a lustrous cherry
red radiance. His lips trembled with malicious rage,
while emitting a muffled sibilant gibberish. His sagging
flabs rolled like a tub of upset jelly, then compressed as
he sucked in his gut in an attempt to conceal his
softness.
The prince regained his statue, then spoke to the
soldiers surrounding Grignr, his face conforming to an
ugly expression of sadistic humor.
"Take this uncouth heathen to the vault of misery,
and be sure that his agonies are long and drawn out before
death can release him."
"As you wish sire, your command shall be heeded
immediately," answered the soldier on the right of Grignr
as he stared into the barbarians seemingly unaffected
face.
The advisor seated in the back of the noble slowly
rose and advanced to the side of his master, motioning the
wenches seated at his sides to remove themselves. He
lowered his head and whispered to the noble.
"Eminence, the punishment you have decreed will cause
much misery to this scum, yet it will last only a short
time, then release him to a land beyond the sufferings of
the human body. Why not mellow him in one of the
subterranean vaults for a few days, then send him to life
labor in one of your buried mines. To one such as he, a
life spent in the confinement of the stygian pits will be
an infinitely more appropiate and lasting torture."
The noble cupped his drooping double chin in the
folds of his briming palm, meditating for a moment upon
the rationality of the councilor's word's, then raised his
shaggy brown eyebrows and turned toward the advisor, eyes
aglow.
"...As always Agafnd, you speak with great wisdom.
Your words ring of great knowledge concerning the nature
of one such as he ," sayeth , the king. The noble turned
toward the prisoner with a noticable shimmer reflecting in
his frog-like eyes, and his lips contorting to a greasy
grin. "I have decided to void my previous decree. The
prisoner shall be removed to one of the palaces
underground vaults. There he shall stay until I have
decided that he has sufficiently simmered, whereupon he is
to be allowed to spend the remainder of his days at labor
in one of my mines."
Upon hearing this, Grignr realized that his fate
would be far less merciful than death to one such as he,
who is used to roaming the countryside at will. A life of
confinement would be more than his body and mind could
stand up to. This type of life would be immeasurably
worse than death.
"I shall never understand the ways if your twisted
civilization. I simply defend my honor and am condemned
to life confinement, by a pig who sits on his royal ass
wooing whores, and knows nothing of the affairs of the
land he imagines to rule!" Lectures Grignr ?
"Enough of this! Away with the slut before I loose
my control!"
Seeing the peril of his position, Grignr searched for
an opening. Crushing prudence to the sward, he plowed into
the soldier at his left arm taking hold of his sword, and
bounding to the dias supporting the prince before the
startled guards could regain their composure. Agafnd
leaped Grignr and his sire, but found a sword blade
permeating the length of his ribs before he could loosed
his weapon.
The councilor slumped to his knees as Grignr slid his
crimsoned blade from Agfnd's rib cage. The fat prince
stood undulating in insurmountable fear before the edge of
the fiery maned comet, his flabs of jellied blubber
pulsating to and fro in ripples of flowing terror.
"Where is your wisdom and power now, your magjesty?"
Growled Grignr.
The prince went rigid as Grignr discerned him glazing
over his shoulder. He swlived to note the cause of the
noble's attention, raised his sword over his head, and
prepared to leash a vicious downward cleft, but fell short
as the haft of a steel rimed pike clashed against his
unguarded skull. Then blackness and solitude. Silence
enshrouding and ever peaceful reind supreme.
"Before me, sirrah! Before me as always! Ha, Ha Ha,
Haaaa...", nobly cackled.
-3-
Consciousness returned to Grignr in stygmatic pools
as his mind gradually cleared of the cobwebs cluttering
its inner recesses, yet the stygian cloud of charcoal
ebony remained. An incompatible shield of blackness,
enhanced by the bleak abscense of sound.
Grignr's muddled brain reeled from the shock of the
blow he had recieved to the base of his skull. The events
leading to his predicament were slow to filter back to
him. He dickered with the notion that he was dead and had
descended or sunk, however it may be, to the shadowed land
beyond the the aperature of the grave, but rejected this
hypothesis when his memory sifted back within his grips.
This was not the land of the dead, it was something
infinitely more precarious than anything the grave could
offer. Death promised an infinity of peace, not the
finite misery of an inactive life of confined torture,
forever concealed from the life bearing shafts of the
beloved rising sun. The orb that had been before taken
for granted, yet now cherished above all else. To be
forever refused further glimpses of the snow capped
summits of the land of his birth, never again to witness
the thrill of plundering unexplored lands beyond the crest
of a bleeding horizon, and perhaps worst of all the denial
to ever again encompass the lustful excitement of
caressing the naked curves of the body of a trim yound
wench.
This was indeed one of the buried chasms of Hell
concealed within the inner depths of the palace's despised
interior. A fearful ebony chamber devised to drive to the
brinks of insanity the minds of the unfortunately
condemned, through the inapt solitude of a limbo of
listless dreary silence.
-3 1/2-
A tightly rung elliptical circle or torches cast
their wavering shafts prancing morbidly over the smooth
surface of a rectangular, ridged alter. Expertly chisled
forms of grotesque gargoyles graced the oblique rim
protruberating the length of the grim orifice of death,
staring forever ahead into nothingness in complete
ignorance of the bloody rites enacted in their prescence.
Brown flaking stains decorated the golden surface of the
ridge surrounding the alter, which banked to a small slit
at the lower right hand corner of the altar. The slit
stood above a crudely pounded pail which had several
silver meshed chalices hanging at its sides. Dangling at
the rimof golden mallet, the handle of which was engraved
with images of twisted faces and groved at its far end
with slots designed for a snug hand grip. The head of the
mallet was slightly larger than a clenched fist and shaped
into a smooth oval mass.
Encircling the marble altar was a congregation of
leering shamen. Eerie chants of a bygone age, originating
unknown eons before the memory of man, were being uttered
from the buried recesses of the acolytes' deep lings.
Orange paint was smeared in generous globules over the
tops of thw Priests' wrinkled shaven scalps, while golden
rings projected from the lobes of their pink ears. Ornate
robes of lusciour purple satin enclosed their bulging
torsos, attached around their waists with silvered silk
lashes latched with ebony buckles in the shape of morose
mis-shaped skulls. Dangling around their necks were oval
fashoned medalions held by thin gold chains, featuring in
their centers blood red rubys which resembled crimson
fetish eyeballs. Cushoning their bare feet were plush red
felt slippers with pointed golden spikes projecting from
their tips.
Situated in front of the altar, and directly adjacent
to the copper pail was a massive jade idol; a misshaped,
hideous bust of the shamens' pagan diety. The shimmering
green idol was placed in a sitting posture on an ornately
carved golden throne raised upon a round, dvory plated
dias; it bulging arms and webbed hands resting on the
padded arms of the seat. Its head was entwined in golden
snake-like coils hanging over its oblong ears, which
tappered off to thin hollow points. Its nose was a
bulging triangular mass, sunken in at its sides with tow
gaping nostrils. Dramatic beneath the nostrils was a
twisted, shaggy lipped mouth, giving the impression of a
slovering sadistic grimace.
At the foot of the heathen diety a slender, pale
faced female, naked but for a golden, jeweled harness
enshrouding her huge outcropping breasts, supporting long
silver laces which extended to her thigh, stood before the
pearl white field with noticable shivers traveling up and
down the length of her exquisitely molded body. Her
delicate lips trembled beneath soft narrow hands as she
attemped to conceal herself from the piercing stare of the
ambivalent idol.
Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney,
cycloptic face of the bloated diety. Gaping from its
single obling socket was scintillating, many fauceted
scarlet emerald, a brilliant gem seeming to possess a life
all of its own. A priceless gleaming stone, capable of
domineering the wealth of conquering empires...the eye of
Argon.
-4-
All knowledge of measuring time had escaped Grignr.
When a person is deprived of the sun, moon, and stars, he
looses all conception of time as he had previously
understood it. It seemed as if years had passed if time
were being measured by terms of misery and mental anguish,
yet he estimated that his stay had only been a few days in
length. He has slept three times and had been fed five
times since his awakening in the crypt. However, when the
actions of the body are restricted its needs are also
affected. The need for nourishmnet and slumber are
directly proportional to the functions the body has
performed, meaning that when free and active Grignr may
become hungry every six hours and witness the desire for
sleep every fifteen hours, whereas in his present
condition he may encounter the need for food every ten
hours, and the want for rest every twenty hours. All
methods he had before depended upon were extinct in the
dismal pit. Hence, he may have been imprisoned for ten
minutes or ten years, he did not know, resulting in a
disheartened emotion deep within his being.
The food, if you can honor the moldering lumps of
fetid mush to that extent, was born to him by two guards
who opened a portal at the top of his enclosure and shoved
it to him in wooden bowls, retrieving the food and water
bowels from his previous meal at the same time, after
which they threw back the bolts on the iron latch and
returned to their other duties. Since deprived of all
other means of nourishment, Grignr was impelled to eat the
tainted slop in order to ward off the paings of
starvation, though as he stuffed it into his mouth with
his filthy fingers and struggled to force it down his
throat, he imagined it was that which had been spurned by
the hounds stationed at various segments of the palace.
There was little in the baren vault that could occupy
his body or mind. He had paced out the length and width
of the enclosure time and time again and tested every
granite slab which consisted the walls of the prison in
hopes of finding a hidden passage to freedom, all of which
was to no avail other than to keep him busy and distract
his mind from wandering to thoughts of what he believed
was his future. He had memorized the number of strides
from one end to the other of the cell, and knew the exact
number of slabs which made up the bleak dungeon. Numorous
schemes were introduced and alternately discarded in turn
as they succored to unravel to him no means of escape
which stood the slightest chance of sucess.
Anguish continued to mount as his means of occupation
were rapidly exhausted. Suddenly without no tive, he
wasrouted from his contemplations as he detected a faint
scratching sound at the end of the crypt opposite him.
The sound seemed to be caused by something trying to
scrape away at the grantite blocks the floor of the
enclosure consisted of, the sandy scratching of something
like an animal's claws.
Grignr gradually groped his way to the other end of
the vault carefully feeling his way along with his hands
ahead of him. When a few inches from the wall, a loud,
penetrating squeal, and the scampering of small padded
feet reverberated from the walls of the roughly hewn
chamber.
Grignr threw his hands up to shield his face, and
flung himself backwards upon his buttocks. A fuzzy form
bounded to his hairy chest, burying its talons in his
flesh while gnashing toward his throat with its grinding
white teeth;its sour, fetid breath scortching the sqirming
barbarians dilating nostrils. Grignr grappled with the
lashing flexor muscles of the repugnant body of a
garganuan brownhided rat, striving to hold its razor teeth
from his juicy jugular, as its beady grey organs of sight
glazed into the flaring emeralds of its prey.
Taking hold of the rodent around its lean, growling
stomach with both hands Grignr pried it from his crimson
rent breast, removing small patches of flayed flesh from
his chest in the motion between the squalid black claws of
the starving beast. Holding the rodent at arms length, he
cupped his righthand over its frothing face, contrcting
his fingers into a vice-like fist over the quivering head.
Retaining his grips on the rat, grignr flexed his
outstretched arms while slowly twisting his right hand
clockwise and his left hand counter clockwise motion. The
rodent let out a tortured squall, drawing scarlet as it
violently dug its foam flecked fangs into the barbarians
sweating palm, causing his face to contort to an ugly
grimace as he cursed beneath his braeth.
With a loud crack the rodents head parted from its
squirming torso, sending out a sprinking shower of crimson
gore, and trailing a slimy string of disjointed vertebrae,
snapped trachea, esophagus, and jugular, disjointed hyoid
bone, morose purpled stretched hide, and blood seared
muscles.
Flinging the broken body to the floor, Grignr shook
his blood streaked hands and wiped them against his thigh
until dry, then wiped the blood that had showered his face
and from his eyes. Again sitting himself upon the jagged
floor, he prepared to once more revamp his glum
meditations. He told himself that as long as he still
breathed the gust of life through his lungs, hope was not
lost; he told himself this, but found it hard to
comprehend in his gloomy surroundings. Yet he was still
alive, his bulging sinews at their peak of marvel, his
struggling mind floating in a miral of impressed
excellence of thought. Plot after plot sifted through his
mind in energetic contemplations.
Then it hit him. Minutes may have passed in silent
thought or days, he could not tell, but he stumbled at
last upon a plan that he considered as holding a slight
margin of plausibility. He might die in the attempt, but
he knew he would not submit without a final bloody
struggle. It was not a foolproof plan, yet it built up a
store of renewed vortexed energy in his overwroughtsoul,
though he might perish in the execution of the escape, he
would still be escaping the life of infinite torture in
store forhim. Either way he would still cheat the gloating
prince of the succored revenge his sadistic mind craved so
dearly.
The guards would soon come to bear him off to the
prince's buried mines of dread, giving him the sought
after opportunity to execute his newly formulated plan.
Groping his way along the rough floor Grignr finally found
his tool in a pool of congealed gore; the carcass of the
decapitated rodent; the tool that the very filth he had
been sentenced too, spawned. When the time came for
action he would have to be prepared, so he set himself to
rending the sticky hulk in grim silence, searching by the
touch of his fingertips for the lever to freedom.
-5-
"Up to the altar and be done with it wench;" ordered
a fidgeting shaman as he gave the female a grim stare
accompanied by the wrinkling of his lips to a mirthful
grin of delight.
The girl burst into a slow steady whimper, stooping
shakily to her knees and cringing woefully from the priest
with both arms wound snake-like around the bulging jade
jade shin rising before her scantily attired figure. Her
face was redly inflamed from the salty flow of tears
spouting from her glassy dilated eyeballs.
With short, heavy footfals the priest approached the
female, his piercing stare never wavering from her
quivering young countenance. Halting before the terrified
girl he projected his arm outward and motioned her to
arise with an upward movement of his hand. the girl's
whimpering increased slightly and she sunk closer to the
floor rather than arising. The flickering torches outlined
her trim build with a weird ornate glow as it cast a
ghostly shadow dancing in horrid waves of splendor over
smoothly worn whiteness of the marble hewn altar.
The shaman's lips curled back farther, exposing a set
of blackened, decaying molars which transformed his
slovenly grin into a wide greasy arc of sadistic mirth and
alternately interposed into the female a strong sensation
of stomach curdling nausea. "Have it as you will female;"
gloated the enhanced priest as he bent over at the waist,
projecting his ape-like arms forward, and clasped the
female's slender arms with his hairy round fists. With an
inward surge of of his biceps he harshly jerked the
trembling girl to her feet and smothered her salty wet
cheeks with the moldy touch of his decrepid, dull red
lips.
The vile stench of the Shaman's hot fetid breath over
came the nauseated female with a deep soul searing
sickness, causing her to wrench her head backwards and
regurgitate a slimy, orange- white stream of swelling gore
over the richly woven purple robe of the enthused acolyte.
The priest's lips trembled with a malicious rage as
he removed his callous paws from the girl's arms and
replaced them with tightly around her undulating neck,
shaking her violently to and fro.
The girl gasped a tortured groan from her clamped
lungs, her sea blue eyes bulging forth from damp sockets.
Cocking her right foot backwards, she leashed it
desperately outwards with the strength of a demon
possessed, lodging her sandled foot squarely between the
shaman's testicles.
The startled priest released his crushing grip,
crimping his body over at the waist overlooking his
recessed belly; wide open in a deep chasim. His face
flushed to a rose red shade of crimson, eyelids fluttering
wide with eyeballs protruding blindly outwards from their
sockets to their outmost perimeters, while his lips
quivered wildly about allowing an agonized wallow to gust
forth as his breath billowed from burning lungs. His hands
reached out clutching his urinary gland as his knees
wobbled rapidly about for a few seconds then buckled,
causing the ruptured shaman to collapse in an egg huddled
mass to the granite pavement, rolling helplessly about in
his agony.
The pathetic screeches of the shaman groveling in
dejected misery upon the hand hewn granite laid pavement,
worn smooth by countless hours of arduous sweat and toil,
a welter of ichor oozing through his clenched hands,
attracted the purturbed attention of his comrades from
their foetid ulations. The actions of this this
rebellious wench bespoke the creedence of an unheard of
sacrilige. Never before in a lost maze of untold eons had
a chosen one dared to demonstrate such blasphemy in the
face of the cult's idolic diety.
The girl cowered in unreasoning terror, helpless in
the face of the emblazoned acolytes' rage; her orchid
tusseled face smothered betwixt her bulging bosom as she
shut her curled lashed tightly hoping to open them and
find herself awakening from a morbid nightmare. yet the
hand of destiny decreed her no such mercy, the antagonized
pack of leering shaman converging tensely upon her
prostrate form were entangled all too lividly in the grim
web of reality.
Shuddering from the clamy touch of the shaman as they
grappled with her supple form, hands wrenching at her
slender arms and legs in all directions, her bare body
being molested in the midst of a labyrnth of orange
smudges, purpled satin, and mangled skulls, shadowed in an
eerie crimson glow; her confused head reeled then clouded
in a mist of enshrouding ebony as she lapsed beneath the
protective sheet of unconsiousness to a land peach and
resign.
-6-
"Take hold of this rope," said the first soldier,
"and climb out from your pit, slut. Your presence is
requested in another far deeper hell hole."
Grignr slipped his right hand to his thigh,
concealing a small opaque object beneath the folds of the
g-string wrapped about his waist. Brine wells swelled in
Grignr's cold, jade squinting eyes, which grown accustomed
to the gloom of the stygian pools of ebony engulfing him,
were bedazzled and blinded by flickerering radiance cast
forth by the second soldiers's resin torch.
Tightly gripped in the second soldier's right hand,
opposite the intermittent torch, was a large double edged
axe, a long leather wound oaken handled transfixing the
center of the weapon's iron head. Adorning the torso's of
both of the sentries were thin yet sturdy hauberks, the
breatplates of which were woven of tightly hemmed twines
of reinforced silver braiding. Cupping the soldiers' feet
were thick leather sandals, wound about their shins to two
inches below their knees. Wrapped about their waists were
wide satin girdles, with slender bladed poniards dangling
loosely from them, the hilts of which featured scarlet
encrusted gems. Resting upon the manes of their heads, and
reaching midway to their brows were smooth copper morions.
Spiraling the lower portion of the helmet were short,
up-curved silver spikes, while a golden hump spired from
the top of each basinet. Beneath their chins, wound
around their necks, and draping their clad shoulders
dangled regal purple satin cloaks, which flowed midway to
the soldiers feet.
hand over hand, feet braced against the dank walls of
the enclosure, huge Grignr ascended from the moldering
dephs of the forlorn abyss. His swelled limbs, stiff due
to the boredom of a timeless inactivity, compounded by the
musty atmosture and jagged granite protuberan against his
body, craved for action. The opportunity now presenting
itself served the purpose of oiling his rusty joints, and
honing his dulled senses.
He braced himself, facing the second soldier. The
sentry's stature was was wildly exaggerated in the glare
of the flickering cresset cuppex in his right fist. His
eyes were wide open in a slightly slanted owlish glaze,
enhanced in their sinister intensity by the hawk-bill
curve of his nose andpale yellow pique of his cheeks.
"Place your hands behind your back," said the second
soldier as he raised his ax over his right shoulder blade
and cast it a wavering glance. "We must bind your wrists
to parry any attempts at escape. Be sure to make the knot
a stout one, Broig, we wouldn't want our guest to take
leave of our guidance."
Broig grasped Grignr's left wrist and reached for the
barbarians's right wrist. Grignr wrenched his right arm
free and swilveled to face Broig, reach- beneath his loin
cloth with his right hand. The sentry grappled at his
girdle for the sheathed dagger, but recoiled short of his
intentions as Grignr's right arm swept to his gorge. The
soldier went limp, his bobbing eyes rolling beneath
fluttering eyelids, a deep welt across his spouting
gullet. Without lingering to observe the result of his
efforts, Grignr dropped to his knees. The second
soldier's axe cleft over Grignr's head in a blze of
silvered ferocity, severing several scarlet locks from his
scalp. Coming to rest in his fellow's stomach, the iron
head crashed through mail and flesh with splintering
force, spilling a pool of crimsoned entrails over the
granite paving.
Before the sentry could wrench his axe free from his
comrade's carcass, he found Grignr's massive hands clasped
about his throat, choking the life from his clamped lungs.
With a zealous grunt, the Ecordian flexed his tightly
corded biceps, forcing the grim faced soldier to one knee.
The sentry plunged his right fist into Grignr's face,
digging his grimy nails into the barbarians flesh.
Ejaculating a curse through rasping teeth, grignr surged
the bulk of his weight foreard, bowling the beseiged
soldier over upon his back. The sentry's arms collapsed
to his thigh, shuddering convulsively; his bulging eyes
staring blindly from a bloated ,cherry red face.
Rising to his feet, Grignr shook the bllod from his
eyes, ruffling his surly red mane as a brush fire swaying
to the nightime breeze. Stooping over the spr sprawled
corpse of the first soldier, Grignr retrieved a small
white object from a pool of congealing gore. Snorting a
gusty billow of mirth, he once more concealed th e tiny
object beneath his loin cloth; the tediously honed pelvis
bone of the broken rodent. Returning his attention toward
the second soldier, Grignr turned to the task of attiring
his limbs. To move about freely through the dim recesses
of the castle would require the grotesque garb of its
soldiery.
Utilizing the silence and stealth aquired in the
untamed climbs of his childhood, Grignr slink through
twisting corridors, and winding stairways, lighting his
way with the confisticated torch of his dispatched
guardian. Knowing where his steps were leading to, Grignr
meandered aimlessly in search of an exit from the
chateau's dim confines. The wild blood coarsing through
his veins yearned for the undefiled freedom of the livid
wilderness lands.
Coming upon a fork in the passage he treaked, voices
accompanied by clinking footfalls discerned to his
sensitive ears from the left corridor. Wishing to avoid
contact, Grignr veered to the right passageway. If
aquested as to the purpose of his presence, his barbarous
accent would reveal his identity, being that his attire
was not that of the castle's mercenary troops.
In grim silence Grignr treaded down the dingily lit
corridor; a stalking panther creeping warily along on
padded feet. After an interminable period of wandering
through the dull corridors; no gaps to break the monotony
of the cold gray walls, Grignr espied a small winding
stairway. Descending the flight of arced granite slabs to
their posterior, Grignr was confronted by a short haalway
leading to a tall arched wooden doorway.
Halting before the teeming portal portal, Grignr
restes his shaggy head sideways against the barrier.
Detecting no sounds from within, he grasped the looped
metel handle of the door; his arms surging with a
tremendous effort of bulging muscles, yet the door would
not budge. Retrieving his ax from where he had sheathed it
beneath his girdle, he hefted it in his mighty hands with
an apiesed grunt, and wedging one of its blackened edges
into the crack between the portal and its iron rimed sill.
Bracing his sandaled right foot against the rougjly hewn
wall, teeth tightly clenched, Grignr appilevered the oaken
haft, employing it as a lever whereby to pry open the
barrier. The leather wound hilt bending to its utmost
limits of endurance, the massive portal swung open with a
grating of snapped latch and rusty iron hinges.
Glancing about the dust swirled room in the gloomily
dancing glare of his flickering cresset, Grignr eyed
evidences of the enclosure being nothing more than a
forgotten storeroom. Miscellaneous articles required for
the maintainance of a castle were piled in disorganized
heaps at infrequent intervals toward the wall opposite the
barbarian's piercing stare. Utilizing long, bounding
strides, Grignr paced his way over to the mounds of
supplies to discover if any articles of value were
contained within their midst.
Detecting a faint clinking sound, Grignr sprawed to
his left side with the speed of a striking cobra, landing
harshly upon his back; torch and axe loudly clattering to
the floor in a morass of sparks and flame. A elmwoven
board leaped from collapsed flooring, clashing against the
jagged flooring and spewing a shower of orange and yellow
sparks over Grignr's startled face. Rising uneasily to
his feet, the half stunned Ecordian glared down at the
grusome arm of death he had unwittingly sprung. "Mrifk!"
If not for his keen auditory organs and lighting
steeled reflexes, Grignr would have been groping through
the shadowed hell-pits of the Grim Reaper. He had
unknowingly stumbled upon an ancient, long forgotton booby
trap; a mistake which would have stunted the perusal of
longevity of one less agile. A mechanism, similar in type
to that of a minature catapult was concealed beneath two
collapsable sections of granite flooring. The arm of the
device was four feet long, boasting razor like cleats at
regular intervals along its face with which it was to
skewer the luckless body of its would be victim. Grignr
had stepped upon a concealed catch which relaesed a small
metal latch beneath the two granite sections, causing them
to fall inward, and thereby loose the spiked arm of death
they precariously held in.
Partially out of curiosity and partially out of an
inordinate fear of becoming a pincushion for a possible
second trap, Grignr plunged his torch into the exposed gap
in the floor. The floor of a second chamber stood out
seven feet below the glare. Tossing his torch through the
aperature, Grignr grasped the side of an adjoining tile,
dropping down.
Glancing about the room, Grignr discovered that he
had decended into the palace's mausoleum. Rectangular
stone crypts cluttered the floor at evenly placed
intervals. The tops of the enclosures were plated with
thick layers of virgin gold, while the sides were plated
with white ivory; at one time sparkling, but now grown
dingy through the passage of the rays of allencompassing
mother time. Featured at the head of each sarcophagus in
tarnished silver was an expugnisively carved likeness of
its rotting inhabitant.
A dingy atmosphere pervaded the air of the chamber;
which sealed in the enclosure for an unknown period had
grown thick and stale. Intermingling with the curdled
currents was the repugnant stench of slowly moldering
flesh, creeping ever slowly but surely through minute
cracks in the numerous vaults. Due to the embalming of
the bodies, their flesh decayed at a much slower rate than
is normal, yet the nauseous oder was none the less
repellant.
Towering over Grignr's head was the trap he released.
The mechanism of the miniaturized catapolt was cluttered
with mildew and cobwebs. Notwithstanding these relics of
antiquity, its efficiency remained unimpinged. To the
right of the trap wound a short stairway through a recess
in the ceiling; a concealed entrance leading to the
mausoleum for which the catapult had obviously been
erected as a silent, relentless guardian.
Climbing up the side of the device, Grignr set to the
task of resetting its mechanism. In the e event that a
search was organized, it would prove well to leave no
evidence of his presence open to wandering eyes. Besides,
it might even serve to dwindle the size of an opposing
force.
Descending from his perch, Grignr was startled by a
faintly muffled scream of horrified desperation. His hair
prickled yawkishly in disorganized clumps along his scalp.
As a cold danced along the length of his spinal cord. No
moral/mortal barrier, human or otherwise, was capable of
arousing the numbing sensation of fear inside of Grignr's
smoldering soul. However, he was overwrought by the
forces of the barbarians' instinctive fear of the
supernatural. His mighty thews had always served to
adequately conquer any tangible foe., but the intangible
was something distant and terrible. Dim horrifying tales
passed by word of mouth over glimmering camp fires and
skins of wine had more than once served the purpose of
chilling the marrowed core of his sturdy limbed bones.
Yet, the scream contained a strangely human quality,
unlike that which Grignr imagined would come from the
lungs of a demon or spirit, making Grignr take short
nervous strides advancing to the sarcophagus from which
the sound was issuing. Clenching his teeth in an attempt
to steel his jangled nerves, Grignr slid the engraved slab
from the vault with a sharp rasp of grinding stone.
Another long drawn cry of terror infested anguish met the
barbarian, scoring like the shrill piping of a demented
banshee; piercing the inner fibres of his superstitious
brain with primitive dread dread and awe.
Stooping over to espy the tomb's contents, the
glittering Ecordians nostrills were singed by the
scorching aroma of a moldering corpse, long shut up and
fermenting; the same putrid scent which permeated the
entire chamber, though multiplied to a much more
concentrated dosage. The shriveled, leathery packet of
crumbling bones and dried flacking flesh offered no
resistance, but remained in a fixed position of perpetual
vigilance, watching over its dim abode from hollow gaping
sockets.
The tortured crys were not coming from the tomb but
from some hidden depth below! Pulling the reaking corpse
from its resting place, Grignr tossed it to the floor in a
broken, mangled heap. Upon one side of the crypt's bottom
was attached a series of tiny hinges while running
parallel along the opposite side of a convex railing like
protruberance; laid so as to appear as a part of the
interior surface of the sarcophagus.
Raising the slab upon its bronze hinges, long removed
from the gaze of human eyes, Grignr percieved a scene
which caused his blood to smolder not unlike bubbling,
molten lava. Directly below him a whimpering female lay
stretched upon a smooth surfaced marble altar. A pack of
grasy faced shamen clustered around her in a tight
circular formation. Crouched over the girl was a tall,
potbellied priest; his face dominated by a disgusting,
open mouthed grimace of sadistic glee. Suspended from the
acolyte's clenched right hand was a carven oval faced
mallet, which he waved menacingly over the girl's shadowed
face; an incoherent gibberish flowing from his grinning,
thick lipped mouth.
In the face of the amorphos, broad breated female,
stretched out aluringly before his gaping eyes; the
universal whim of nature filing a plea of despair inside
of his white hot soul; Grignr acted in the only manner he
could perceive. Giving vent to a hoarse, throat rending
battle cry, Grignr plunged into the midst of the startled
shamen; torch simmering in his left hand andax twirling in
his right hand.
A gaunt skull faced priest standing at the far side
of the altar clutched desperately at his throat, coughing
furiously in an attempt to catch his breath. Lurching
helplessly to and fro, the acolyte pitched headlong
against the gleaming base of a massive jade idol.
Writhing agonizedly against the hideous image, foam
flecking his chalk white lips, the priest struggled
helplessly - - - the victim of an epileptic siezure.
Startled by the barbarians stunning appearance, the
chronic fit of their fellow, and the fear that Grignr
might be the avantgarde of a conquering force dedicated to
the cause of destroying their degenerated cult, the saman
momentarily lost their composure. Giving vent to heedless
pandemonium, the priests fell easy prey to Grignr's
sweeping arc of crimsoned death and maiming distruction.
The acolyte performing the sacrifice took a vicious
blow to the stomach; hands clutching vitals and severed
spinal cord as he sprawled over the altar. The disor
anized priests lurched and staggered with split skulls,
dismembered limbs, and spewing entrails before the enraged
Ecordian's relentless onslaught. The howles of the maimed
and dying reverberated against the walls of the tiny
chamber; a chorus of hell frought despair; as the granite
floor ran red with blood. The entire chamber was
encompassed in the heat of raw savage butchery as Grignr
luxuriated in the grips of a primitive, beastly blood
lust.
Presently all went silenet save for the ebbing groans
of the sinking shaman and Grignr's heaving breath
accompanied by several gusty curses. The well had run dry.
No more lambs remained for the slaughter.
The rampaging stead of death having taken of Grignr
for the moment, left the barbarian free to the
exploitation of his other perusials. Towering over his
head was the misshaped image of the cult's hideous diety -
- - Argon. The fantastic size of the idol in
consideration of its being of pure jade was enough to
cause the senses of any man to stagger and reel, yet thus
was not the case for the behemoth. he had paid only
casual notice to this incredible fact, while riviting the
whole of his attention upon the jewel protruding from the
idol's sole socket; its masterfully cut faucets emitting
blinding rays of hypnotising beauty. After all, a man
cannot slink from a heavily guarded palace while burdened
down by the intense bulk of a squatting statue, providing
of course that the idol can even be hefted, which in fact
was beyond the reaches of Grignr's coarsing stamina. On
the other hand, the jewel, gigantic as it was, would not
present a hinderence of any mean concern.
"Help me ... please ... I can make it well worth your
while," pleaded a soft, anguish strewn voice wafting over
Grignr's shoulders as he plucked the dull red emerald from
its roots. Turning, Grignr faced the female that had
lured him into this blood bath, but whom had become all
but forgotten in the heat of the battle.
"You"; ejaculated the Ecordian in a pleased tone. "I
though that I had seen the last of you at the tavern, but
verilly I was mistaken." Grignr advanced into the grips of
the female's entrancing stare, severing the golden chains
that held her captive upon the altars highly polished face
of ornamental limestone.
As Grignr lifted the girl from the altar, her arms
wound dexterously about his neck; soft and smooth against
his harsh exterior. "Art thou pleased that we have
chanced to meet once again?" Grignr merely voiced an
sighed grunt, returning the damsels embrace while he
smothered her trim, delicate lips between the coarsing
protrusions of his reeking maw.
"Let us take leave of this retched chamber." Stated
Grignr as he placed the female upon her feet. She swooned
a moment, causing Grignr to giver her support then
regained her stance. "Art thou able to find your way
through the accursed passages of this castle? Mrifk!
Every one of the corridors of this damned place are
identical."
"Aye; I was at one time a slave of prince Agaphim.
His clammy touch sent a sour swill through my belly, but
my efforts reaped a harvest. I gained the pig's liking
whereby he allowed me the freedom of the palace. It was
through this means that I eventually managed escape at the
western gate. His trust found him with a dagger thrust
his ribs," the wench stated whimsicoracally.
"What were you doing at the tavern whence I
discovered you?" asked Grignr as he lifted the female
through the opening into the mausoleum.
"I had sought to lay low from the palace's guards as
they conducted their search for me. The tavern was seldom
frequented by the palace guards and my identity was
unknown to the common soldiers. It was through the
disturbance that you caused that the palace guards were
attracted to the tavern. I was dragged away shortly after
you were escorted to the palace."
"What are you called by female?"
"Carthena, daughter of Minkardos, Duke of Barwego,
whose lands border along the northwestern fringes of
Gorzom. I was paid as homage to Agaphim upon his
thirty-eighth year," husked the femme!
"And I am called a barbarian!" Grunted Grignr in a
disgusted tone!
"Aye! The ways of our civilization are in many ways
warped and distorted, but what is your calling," she
queried, bustily?
"Grignr of Ecordia."
"Ah, I have heard vaguely of Ecordia. It is the hill
country to the far east of the Noregolean Empire. I have
also heard Agaphim curse your land more than once when his
troops were routed in the unaccustomed mountains and
gorges." Sayeth she.
"Aye. My people are not tarnished by petty luxuries
and baubles. They remain fierce and unconquerable in their
native climes." After reaching the hidden panel at the
head of the stairway, Grignr was at a loss in regard to
its operation. His fiercest heaves were as pebbles
against burnished armour! Carthena depressed a small
symbol included within the elaborate design upon the panel
whereopen it slowly slid into a cleft in the wall. "How
did you come to be the victim of those crazed shamen?"
Quested Grignr as he escorted Carthena through the piles
of rummage on the left side of the trap.
"By Agaphim's orders I was thrust into a secluded
cell to await his passing of sentence. By some means, the
Priests of Argon acquired a set of keys to the cell. They
slew the guard placed over me and abducted me to the
chamber in which you chanced to come upon the scozsctic
sacrifice. Their hell-spawned cult demands a sacrifice
once every three moons upon its full journey through the
heavens. They were startled by your unannounced
appearance through the fear that you had been sent by
Agaphim. The prince would surely have submitted them to
the most ghastly of tortures if he had ever discovered
their unfaithfulness to Sargon, his bastard diety. Many
of the partakers of the ritual were high nobles and high
trustees of the inner palace; Agaphim's pittiless wrath
would have been unparalled."
"They have no more to fear of Agaphim now!" Bellowed
Grignr in a deep mirthful tome; a gleeful smirk upon his
face. "I have seen that they were delivered from his
vengence."
Engrossed by Carthena's graceful stride and
conversation Grignr failed to take note of the footfalls
rapidly approaching behind him. As he swung aside the
arched portal linking the chamber with the corridors
beyond, a maddened, blood lusting screech reverberated
from his ear drums. Seemingly utilizing the speed of
thought, Grignr swiveled to face his unknown foe. With
gaping eyes and widened jaws, Grignr raised his axe above
his surly mein; but he was too late.
-7-
With wobbling knees and swimming head, the priest
that had lapsed into an epileptic siezure rose unsteadily
to his feet. While enacting his choking fit in writhing
agony, the shaman was overlooked by Grignr. The barbarian
had mistaken the siezure for the death throes of the
acolyte, allowing the priest to avoid his stinging blade.
The sight that met the priests inflamed eyes nearly served
to sprawl him upon the floor once more. The sacrificial
sat it grim, blood splattered silence all around him,
broken only by the occasional yelps and howles of his
maimed and butchered fellows. Above his head rose the
hideous idol, its empty socket holding the shaman's
ifurbished infuriated gaze. His eyes turned to a stoney
glaze with the realization of the pillage and blasphemy.
Due to his high succeptibility following the siezure, the
priest was transformed into a raving maniac bent soley
upon reaking vengeance. With lips curled and quivering, a
crust of foam dripping from them, the acolyte drew a long,
wicked looking jewel hilted scimitar from his silver
girdle and fled through the aperature in the ceiling
uttering a faintly perceptible ceremonial jibberish.
-7 1/2-
A sweeping scimitar swung towards Grignr's head in a
shadowed blur of motion. With Axe raised over his head,
Grignr prepared to parry the blow, while gaping wideeyed
in open mouthed perplexity. Suddenly a sharp snap
resounded behind the frothing shaman. The scimitar,
halfway through its fatal sweep, dropped from a quivering
nerveless hand, clattering harmlessly to the stoneage.
Cutting his screech short with a bubbling, red mouthed
gurgle, the lacerated acolyte staggered under the pressure
of the released spring-board. After a moment of hopeless
struggling, the shaman buckled, sprawling face down in a
widening pool of bllod and entrails, his regal purple robe
blending enhancingly with the swirling streams of crimson.
"Mrifk! I thought I had killed the last of those
dogs;" muttered Grignr in a half apathetic state.
"Nay Grignr. You doubtless grew careless while
giving vent to your lusts. But let us not tarry any long
lest we over tax the fates. The paths leading to freedom
will soon be barred. The wretch's crys must certainly
have attracted unwanted attention," the wench mused.
"By what direction shall we pursue our flight?"
"Up that stair and down the corridor a short distance
is the concealed enterance to a tunnel seldom used by
others than the prince, and known to few others save the
palace's royalty. It is used mainly by the prince when he
wishes to take leave of the palace in secret. It is not
always in the Prince's best interests to leave his chateau
in public view. Even while under heavy guard he is often
assaulted by hurtling stones and rotting fruits. The
commoners have little love for him." lectured the
nerelady!
"It is amazing that they would ever have left a pig
like him become their ruler. I should imagine that his
people would rise up and crucify him like the dog he is."
"Alas, Grignr, it is not as simple as all that. His
soldiers are well paid by him. So long as he keeps their
wages up they will carry out his damned wished. The crude
impliments of the commonfolk would never stand up under an
onslaught of forged blades and protective armor; they
would be going to their own slaughter," stated Carthena to
a confused, but angered Grignr as they topped the
stairway.
"Yet how can they bear to live under such oppression?
I would sooner die beneath the sword than live under such
a dog's command." added Grignr as the pair stalked down
the hall in the direction opposite that in which Grignr
had come.
"But all men are not of the same mold that you are
born of, they choose to live as they are so as to save
their filthy necks from the chopping block." Returned
Carthena in a disgusted tone as she cast an appiesed
glance towards the stalwart figure at her side whose left
arm was wound dextrously about her slim waist; his slowly
waning torch casting their images in intermingling wisps
as it dangled from his left hand.
Presently Carthena came upon the panel, concealed
amonst the other granite slabs and discernable only by the
burned out cresset above it. "As I push the cresset aside
push the panel inwards." Catrhena motioned to the panel
she was refering to and twisted the cresset in a
counterclockwise motion. Grignr braced his right shoulder
against the walling, concentrating the force of his bulk
against it. The slab gradually swung inward with a slight
grating sound. Carthena stooped beneath Grignr's corded
arms and crawled upon all fours into the passage beyond.
Grignr followed after easing the slab back into place.
Winding before the pair was a dark musty tunnel,
exhibiting tangled spider webs from it ceiling to wall and
an oozing, sickly slime running lazily upon its floor.
Hanging from the chipped wall upon GrignR's right side was
a half mouldered corpse, its grey flacking arms held in
place by rusted iron manacles. Carthena flinched back
into Grignr's arms at sight of the leering set in an ugly
distorted grimmace; staring horribly at her from hollow
gaping sockets.
"This alcove must also be used by Agaphim as a
torture chamber. I wonder how many of his enemies have
disappeared into these haunts never to be heard from
again," pondered the hulking brute.
"Let us flee before we are also caught within
Agaphim's ghastly clutches. The exit from this tunnel
cannot be very far from here!" Said Carthena with a slight
sob to her voice, as she sagged in Grignr's encompasing
embrace.
"Aye; It will be best to be finished with this
corridor as soon as it is possible. But why do you flinch
from the sight of death so? Mrift! You have seen much
death this day without exhibiting such emotions."
Exclaimed Grignr as he led her trembling form along the
dingy confines.
"---The man hanging from the wall was Doyanta. He
had committed the folly of showing affections for me in
front of Agaphim --- he never meant any harm by his
actions!" At this Carthena broke into a slow steady
whimpering, chokking her voice with gasping sobs. "There
was never anything between us yet Agaphim did this to him!
The beast! May the demons of Hell's deepest haunts claw
away at his wretched flesh for this merciless act!" she
prayed.
"I detect that you felt more for this fellow than you
wish to let on ... but enough of this, We can talk of such
matters after we are once more free to do so." With this
Grignr lifted the grieved female to her feet and strode
onward down the corridor, supporting the bulk of her
weight with his surging left arm.
Presently a dim light was perceptibly filtering into
the tunnel, casting a dim reddish hue upon the moldy wall
of the passage's grim confines. Carthena had ceased her
whimpering and partially regained her composure. "The
tunnel's end must be nearing. Rays of sunlight are
beginning to seep into ..."
Grignr clameed his right hand over Carthena's mouth
and with a slight struggle pulled her over to the shadows
at the right hand wall of the path, while at the same time
thrusting this torch beneath an overhanging stone to
smother its flickering rays. "Be silent; I can hear
footfalls approaching through the tunnel;" growled Grignr
in a hushed tone.
"All that you hear are the horses corraled at the far
end of the tunnel. That is a further sign that we are
nearing our goal." She stated!
"All that you hear is less than I hear! I heard
footsteps coming towards us. Silence yourself that we may
find out whom we are being brought into contact with. I
doubt that any would have thought as yet of searching this
passage for us. The advantage of surprize will be upon
our side." Grignr warned.
Carthena cast her eyes downward and ceased any
further pursuit towards conversation, an irritating habit
in which she had gained an amazing proficiency. Two
figures came into the pairs view, from around a turn in
the tunnel. They were clothed in rich luxuriant silks and
rambling o on in conversation while ignorant of their
crouching foes waiting in an ambush ahead.
"...That barbarian dog is cringing beneath the weight
of the lash at this moment sire. He shall cause no more
disturbance."
"Aye, and so it is with any who dare to cross the
path of Sargon's chosen one." said the 2nd man.
"But the peasants are showing signs of growing
unrest. They complain that they cannot feet their
families while burdened with your taxes."
"I shall teach those sluts the meaning of humility!
Order an immediate increase upon their taxes. They dare
to question my sovereign authority, Ha-a, they shall soon
learn what true oppression can be. I will ... "
A shodowed bulk leapt from behind a jutting
promontory as it brought down a double edged axe with the
spped of a striking thought. One of the nobles sagged
lifeless to the ground, skull split to the teeth.
Grignr gasped as he observed the bisected face set in
its leering death agonies. It was Agafnd! The dead mans
comrade having recovered from his shock drew a jewel
encrusted dagger from beneath the folds of his robe and
lunged toward the barbarians back. Grignr spun at the
sound from behind and smashed down his crimsoned axe once
more. His antagonist lunged howling to a stream of
stagnent green water, grasping a spouting stump that had
once been a wrist. Grignr raised his axe over his head
and prepaired to finish the incomplete job, but was
detered half way through his lunge by a frenzied screech
from behind.
Carthena leapt to the head of the writhing figure,
plunging a smoldering torch into the agonized face. The
howls increased in their horrid intensity, stifled by the
sizzling of roasting flesh, then died down until the man
was reduced to a blubbering mass of squirming, insensate
flesh.
Grignr advance to Carthena's side wincing slightly
from the putrid aroma of charred flesh that rose in a puff
of thick white smog throughout the chamber. Carthena
reeled slightly, staring dasedly downward at her gruesome
handywork. "I had to do it ... it was Agaphim ... I had
to, " she exclaimed!
"Sargon should be more carful of his right hand men."
Added Grignr, a smug grin upon his lips. "But to hell
with Sargon for now, the stench is becoming bothersome to
me." With that Grignr grasped Carthena around the waist
leading her around the bend in the cave and into the open.
A ball of feral red was rising through the mists of
the eastern horizon, disipating the slinking shadows of
the night. A coral stood before the pair, enclosing two
grazing mares. Grignr reached into a weighted down
leather pouch dangling at his side and drew forth the
scintillant red emerald he had obtained from the bloated
idol. Raising it toward the sun he said, "We shall do
well with bauble, eh!"
Carthena gaped at the gem gasping in a terrified
manner "The eye of Argon, Oh! Kalla!" At this the gem
gave off a blinding glow, then dribbled through Grignr's
fingers in a slimy red ooze. Grignr stepped back, pushing
Carthena behind him. The droplets of slime slowly
converged into a pulsating jelly-like mass. A single
opening transfixed the blob, forminf into a leechlike maw.
Then the hideous transgressor of nature flowed
towards Grignr, a trail of greenish slime lingering behind
it. The single gap puckered repeatedly emitting a ghastly
sucking sound.
Grignr spread his legs into a battle stance, steeling
his quivering thews for a battle royal with a thing he
knew not how to fight. Carthena wound her arms about her
protectors neck, mumbling, "Kill it! Kill!" While her
entire body trembled.
The thing was almost upon Grignr when he buried his
axe into the gristly maw. It passed through the blob and
clanged upon the ground. Grignr drew his axe back with a
film of yellow-green slime clinging to the blade. The
thing was seemingly unaffected. Then it started to slooze
up his leg. The hairs upon his nape stoode on end from
the slimey feel of the things buly, bulk. The Nautous
sucking sound became louder, and Grignr felt the blood
being drawn from his body. With each hiss of hideous
pucker the thing increased in size.
Grignr shook his foot about madly in an attempt to
dislodge the blob, but it clung like a leech, still
feeding upon his rapidly draining life fluid. He grasped
with his hands trying to rip it off, but only found his
hands entangled in a sickly glue- like substance. The
slimey thing continued its puckering ; now having grown
the size of Grignr's leg from its vampiric feast.
Grignr began to reel and stagger under the blob, his
chalk white face and faltering muscles attesting to the
gigantic loss of blood. Carthena slipped from Grignr in a
death-like faint, a morrow chilling scream upon her red
rubish lips. In final desperation Grignr grasped the
smoldering torch upon the ground and plunged it into the
reeking maw of the travestry. A shudder passed through the
thing. Grignr felt the blackness closing upon his eyes,
but held on with the last ebb of his rapidly waning
vitality. He could feel its grip lessoning as a hideous
gurgling sound erupted from the writhing maw. The jelly
like mass began to bubble like a vat of boiling tar as
quavers passed up and down its entire form.
-END OF STORY-
Transcriber's note:
No mere transcription can give the true flavor of the
original printing of The Eye of Argon. It was
mimeographed with stencils cut on an elite manual
typewriter. Many letters were so faint as to be barely
readable, others were overstruck, and some that were to be
removed never got painted out with correction fluid.
Usually, only one space separated sentences, while
paragraphs were separated by a blank line and were
indented ten spaces. Many words were grotesquely
hyphenated. And there were illustrations. I cannot do
them justice in mere words, but they were a match for the
text. These are the major losses of this version (#02) of
TEoA.
Otherwise, all effort has been made to retain the
full and correct text, preserving even mis-spellings and
dropped spaces. An excellent proofreader has checked it
for errors both ommitted and committed. What mis-matches
remain are mine.
I shall endeavor to keep a copy of the original
available for viewing, so it may be appreciated in all its
fullness. But as a labor of love for those whose
3rd-generation copies have now succumbed to the bitter
vicissitudes of time and entropy, worn away by the ravages
of countless re-readings before enthralled audiences, yet
who have found that the heady flavor of its stylistic
paragraphs has seeped into their soul and still grips it
with a fervid grasp, I dedicate this machine-readable
version of the inimitable The Eye of Argon.