The Eye of Argon - Jim Theis, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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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
a 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 ofGorzam ,
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
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