The Eye of Argon Read online

  The Eye of Argon

  by Jim Theis

  Published by

  Ansible Editions

  94 London Road, Reading, England, RG1 5AU

  ae.ansible.uk

  Copyright © 1970 by Jim Theis.

  Illustrations copyright © 1970 by Jay T. Rikosh.

  This Ansible Editions ebook published May 2015.

  Cover image based on page 30 of OSFAN #10, 1970.

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-913451-55-4

  For the publication history, see Transcriber’s Note, A Short History of The Eye of Argon and Original Appearances.

  This free ebook version of The Eye of Argon is exclusive to the unofficial TAFF website at taff.org.uk. If you enjoy reading it, a donation to TAFF is a fine way to express your appreciation.

  Contents

  The Eye of Argon

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 3½

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 7½

  The Lost Ending

  Transcriber’s Note

  A Short History of The Eye of Argon

  Original Appearances

  -1-

  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 th
e 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 purnishment 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 we
re 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.

  -3½-

  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.