-6-

"Take hold of this rope," said the first soldier, "and climb out from your pit, slut.

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

The folds of his g-string? I don't even want to think about that.

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

A leather wound, huh? Must be an S&M thing.

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.

Emeralds, no doubt.

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.

Now that the soldiers' clothes have been described in painstaking detail, we will now kill them off with no impact whatsoever on the plot.

hand over hand, feet braced against the dank walls of the enclosure, huge Grignr

Funny, I always pictured him as being maybe five-one, five-two.

ascended from the moldering dephs of the forlorn abyss. His swelled limbs,

I hear he's off the steroids, actually.

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,

Suddenly he's the Tin Woodsman!

and honing his dulled senses.

He braced himself,

He couldn't afford a professional orthodontist.

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."

They're school counselors gone bad!

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.

There's no time for that now! You had all those hours in the dungeon to -

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

Wow, Grignr really enjoys his mindless slaughter...

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.

Either that's a touching, poetic image or this story has finally driven me completely insane.

Stooping over the spr sprawled

Spit it out, man!

corpse of the first soldier, Grignr retrieved a small white object from a pool of congealing gore.

Al's cousin from West Virginia.

Snorting a gusty billow of mirth, he once more concealed th e tiny object beneath his loin cloth;

To join the other tiny obj...

the tediously honed pelvis bone of the broken rodent.

"Excuse me, sir, this rodent is broken."
"Do you have a receipt?"
"Uh, no, I don't."
"No refunds or exchanges without a receipt."

Returning his attention toward the second soldier, Grignr turned to the task of attiring his limbs.

While leaving his torso completely naked. (That's segregation for you.)

To move about freely through the dim recesses of the castle would require the grotesque garb of

... Liberace!

its soldiery.

Utilizing the silence and stealth aquired in the untamed climbs of his childhood,

Must have been a lot of hills.

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.

We're back in the Loire Valley, I see.

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 left it where it was, as he preferred to eat with his bare hands.

he treaked,

???

voices accompanied by clinking footfalls discerned to his sensitive ears from the left corridor. Wishing to avoid contact, Grignr

... never felt comfortable with intimacy, dooming his relationships.

veered to the right passageway. If aquested as to the purpose of his presence,

I think we're all aquesting as to the purpose of our presence, don't you?

his barbarous accent would reveal his identity, being that his attire was not that of the castle's mercenary troops.

Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I thought he just finished dressing himself like a soldier!

In grim silence Grignr treaded down the dingily lit corridor; a stalking panther creeping warily along on padded feet.

... was several thousand miles away.

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,

Put the thesaurus away, for pity's sake!

Grignr was confronted by a short haalway

Suddenly the story's in Dutch?

leading to a tall arched wooden doorway.

Halting before the teeming portal portal,

Wow, that's a really "portal" kind of portal. And teeming with... portality?

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

I see one evidence, two evidences, three evidences...

of the enclosure being nothing more than a forgotten storeroom. Miscellaneous articles required for the maintainance of a castle

"Such as?"
"Oh, you've got your portcullis cleaner, chlorine for the moat..."

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.

Trust me. There is nothing of value in this story.

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.

Good one, Grignr!

A elmwoven board leaped from collapsed flooring, clashing against the jagged flooring and spewing

Eww!

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!"

Get that cat off the typewriter!

If not for his keen auditory organs

Ears?
Let's not jump to conclusions.

and lighting steeled reflexes, Grignr would have been groping

... a 17-year-old waitress.

through the shadowed hell-pits of the Grim Reaper. He had unknowingly stumbled upon an ancient,

... Mariner.

long forgotton booby trap; a mistake which would have stunted the perusal of longevity of one less agile.

Or even killed him.

A mechanism, similar in type to that of a minature catapult

... except for the new passenger-side airbag and anti-lock brakes.

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.

Thank you for describing the trap in painstaking detail now that it's failed to work and we no longer care about it.

Partially out of curiosity and partially out of an inordinate fear of

... commitment.

becoming a pincushion for a possible second trap, Grignr plunged his torch into the exposed gap in the

... plot.

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.

Quite a meticulously organized clutter, wouldn't you say?

The tops of the enclosures were plated with thick layers of virgin gold, while the sides were plated with white ivory;

Not an oxymoron; in this story, ivory could be chartreuse for all we know.

at one time sparkling, but now grown dingy through the passage of the rays of allencompassing mother time.

If it's 7 pm in Greenwich Mean Time, what time is it in Allencompassing Mother Time?

Featured at the head of each sarcophagus in tarnished silver was an expugnisively carved likeness of its rotting inhabitant.

Eww! That's pretty expugnisive.

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,

As opposed to brand-new relics.

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

... flew around the cage for a while and then ate some gravel.

was startled by a faintly muffled scream of horrified desperation. His hair prickled yawkishly

What is this? "Jabberwocky"?

in disorganized clumps along his scalp.

He should try a new conditioner.

As a cold danced along the length of his spinal cord. No moral/mortal barrier,

That's the most awkward play on words I've ever seen.

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.,

He did all that with his thews?

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

... champagne for a romantic candlelit dinner.

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,

Would a spirit have lungs? I thought lacking a body was a big part of being a 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,

"Hello, barbarian. I'm a long drawn cry of terror infested anguish."

scoring like the shrill piping of a demented banshee;

Or of H.P. Lovecraft's lawyer.

piercing the inner fibres

Y'gotta eat yer inner oat bran if y'want t'git yer 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

... thus contradicting Newton's Second Law. Grignr was astounded.

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.

I get the feeling that Grignr did that not so much to find out where the cries were coming from, as just because it's fun throwing corpses around.

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.

But not a whole lot like it, either. And enough of the "Rats in the Walls" homages, OK?

Directly below him a whimpering female lay stretched upon a smooth surfaced marble altar.

Everybody: "What a coincidence!"

A pack of grasy faced

Grassy? Are they the ones with the molded forms?

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,

Ah, so she's amorphous! That explains how she can be slender and voluptuous at the same time...

stretched out aluringly before his gaping eyes; the universal whim of nature filing a plea of despair

"Where do you want this plea of despair filed, sir?"
"Just put it under Universal Whims for now and I'll get to it later."

inside of his white hot soul; Grignr acted in the only manner he could perceive.

He's a method actor. Before the story started he'd been hanging out with professional barbarians for three months so he knew how a real barbarian would react.

Giving vent to a hoarse, throat rending battle cry,

"Stop, evildoer!"

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

Skeletor! Cool! Now where are Beast-Man and Man-E-Faces?

standing at the far side

... was Gary Larson.

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,

"Why, Grignr! Are those new earrings?"

the chronic fit of their fellow, and the fear that Grignr might be the avantgarde

Avant garde? Avant garde? I don't think anyone is going to think Grignr is avant garde in any way, shape or form.

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

... the Covenant. Their faces melted.

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

Today's episode of "The Eye of Argon" is brought to you by the letter 'G'.

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

Sure, ignore the beautiful craftsmanship and only think about what it's worth. Jeez, Grignr, you're a regular Cortez.

protruding from the idol's sole socket; its masterfully cut faucets

... were worthy of a Hilton ensuite.

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,"

This must be the slut the soldiers are always going on about.

pleaded a soft, anguish strewn voice wafting over Grignr's shoulders as he plucked the dull red emerald

He said it again! He said it again!

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

Not yet... oh dear, no sense of timing!

in a pleased tone.

(falsetto) "Is that a rat's pelvis in your g-string or are you just pleased to see me?"

"I though that I had seen the last of you at the tavern,

It all comes together! This is obviously a work of exhaustive planning and foresight!
(Yet somehow, that makes it even more pathetic than if he'd just knocked it off one night in a drunken stupor...)
Anyway, I'm glad the girl's back; after the last time we met her I care deeply about her as a character.

but verilly I was mistaken."

Grignr speaks in phony Elizabethan English too? I pictured him as more the "Grignr smash!" type.

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?"

As Divine Brown said to Hugh Grant, in court.

Grignr merely voiced an sighed grunt,

Now that's the Grignr we know and love!

returning the damsels embrace while he smothered her

(falsetto) "Grignr, honey, I'm getting mixed signals here!"

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

"Honey, whatever you decide, I'm behind you all the way."

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.

I'm feeling a little whimsicoracal myself.

"What were you doing at the tavern whence I discovered you?" asked Grignr

... whimsicoracally.

as he lifted the female through the opening into the mausoleum.

"I had sought to lay

"That was obvious! Now tell me something I don't know."

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!

Oh, I'm swooning!

"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,

Save the cultural critique and let's get out of here.

but what is your calling," she queried, bustily?

Is it possible to query something bustily? (The author apparently had the same question.)

"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.

I notice his culture's disdain for baubles didn't stop him from grabbing the first gemstone he could find.

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

... after some bad clams down at the Clam Shack. He was up all night!

as pebbles against

... Bam-Bam.

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

I never know how to pronounce these Slavic surnames.

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

Insert joke about having to read THE EYE OF ARGON here.

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."

It would've been downright perpendiculed!

"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."

Say what you will about Grignr, you can't knock his keen sense of irony.

Engrossed by Carthena's graceful stride and conversation

He respects her mind! He's a sensitive 90's kind of guy!

Grignr failed to take note of the footfalls rapidly approaching behind him. As he swung aside the arched portal linking the chamber with

... the Pamela Anderson Home Page.

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.

You mean it's over! At last!