Hell, I haven't published a novel. But I've tried harder, and got further, than most. I remember trawling huge numbers of sites trying to find some master plan, some unstoppable secret weapon to help me get my first novel published. What I can tell you is that the guides that are out there are largely contradictory and often misleading. And whilst the business of writing and publishing novels is a difficult, time-consuming, and ruthless one, there are a few golden rules that you can try to stay within if you're really serious about becoming the next Stephen King, Philip Pullman or (god help us) Dan Brown.

Write a brilliant and/or commercial novel

To get published, a novel needs to either be brilliant or commercial. Ideally, it needs to be both. The Honda corporation has long asserted that a good product will sell itself, and this is probably true, but conversely R.L. Stine's kids horror books weren't exactly darlings of the critical media but probably made the guy enormous mountains of cash. You might imagine that for you to get your novel published, you'll need to send in a hefty manuscript which when read by an experienced and kindly publisher's employee, will suddenly set their world on fire and then bang, you're published. As we'll realise, this is a bit disconnected from the truth. That said, you do of course need to write something that makes a very good impression on the readers at the sinister corporate HQ of your chosen manuscript recipient. But remember that a novel, upon publication, is a commercial entity like anything else when the reader first sets eyes on your manuscript among countless others, there's one line they'll be particularly fixated on. The bottom line. Publishers are out to make a profit – the more huge, the better. Remember this and you have a chance.

Make your manuscript appropriately

You won't be able to visit the publishers personally and describe to them in great detail how you're epic Tolkien-esque fantasy is supposed to work. Your manuscript, a copy of part of or the entirety of your work that you send to them, must speak for you. Of course this means that your story must be clear and easily understandable – but it means other things as well. Think about what your manuscript actually consists of – seventy handwritten, painstakingly copied pages? I think not. Print your manuscript in a sensible font and size and on good quality paper, and print in perhaps tens of times. Buy plastic binding coils from a decent stationer and use these to make a smart binding for your text – you don't want pages to be flying around everywhere when it arrives, getting mixed up with period romances. Make sure the pages are numbered and that your name and the novel's title appears at least on the cover page, if not at the top of each page. Make chapters, paragraphs and sections out clearly.

Also, think carefully about how much of your novel to send off. The first chapter or a full third? Even the whole thing? Sometimes it's best to keep your cards close to your chest and send a small portion that ends on a cliffhanger. Alternatively, if you send the whole thing and they like the start, they might digest the rest and you're in there. Of course, if you're ending is poor, keep it back long enough to improve it, before they tear you apart.

Decide where to send your manuscript

This is a big decision, and you should devote a lot of thought to it – where are you going to send your manuscript? Most people would send it straight off to a publisher – I'd strongly discourage this. Publishers of any repute are huge, bustling, horrific places that don't take kindly to unsolicited submissions – like yours. Instead, I'd send your manuscript to a literary agent. These are much smaller bodies which act as an intermediary between writers and the huge publishing houses. There are various advantages to sending your text off to one:

1. They receive fewer manuscripts than a publisher, and can give yours more time
2. If you're lucky, they're more likely to respond to you personally
3. There are lots more to choose from
4. If they accept you, they do the legwork in attempting to entice a publisher

If you search around on the net, you'll soon find lots and lots of websites for these literary agents. They act as the gatekeepers for the publishing business – always scouting for the next big thing. Because of this, they often accept, or even encourage, unsolicited manuscripts. It's just a case of deciding which of them to send your text off to. Except – you shouldn't choose just one. Generally, the waiting time for a response is at least a month and so you should use a shotgun method – using the many copies of your manuscript or excerpt, send them off to multiple literary agents either all at the same time or on a staggered basis. The more you send, the better your chances of publication.

How to send your manuscript

This seems obvious – just put it in the post, yes? Not quite. Firstly, you're going to need a covering letter for each of the manuscript copies you send out. This should be a formally-addressed piece, brief but descriptive, giving the barest details about your plot and what you're trying to achieve. Don't grovel, and don't sound desperate. Try to give off a carefree attitude, as if you've got a thousand other agents to send this to. Because of course, you have.

Take account of how much the postage is going to cost you – if you're sending a 200,000 word novel in its entirety on A4 to twelve agents, the cost is going to stack up. Budget carefully if you're hoping that literary fame will drag you out of poverty. The other thing is, it's normal practice to send a stamped and addressed envelope with your manuscript so that the agent can freely send your text back to you. You don't expect them to pay, do you? Obviously, this envelope needs to be big enough.

Deal with waiting

If you get any response at all within a month count yourself lucky. This process takes time. Don't get impatient, and definitely don't badger the agent. They've no obligation to send you anything, but don't worry, they almost certainly will.

Types of responses

There are a few basic types of responses, one of which you can expect from each of the agents you send to.

1. Outright rejection
2. A letter written by the agent with their comments
3. Nothing

As you can tell, numbers 1 and 3 are pretty bad so you're hoping for 2. 1 is pretty damn likely and 3 is pretty damn unlikely. If 1 happens, you may well receive a little pre-printed card that simply and politely thanks you for your submission but informs you of your rejection. If a few months go by (say, three or four) you'll know that 3 has probably happened. If 2 happens, you can have a little celebration. You'll feel really proud, I can tell you. Basically the agent will address a letter to you personally and will send it to you in with your returned manuscript. It's possible that this letter is in itself, a rejection. If it is, however, you'll probably have received some constructive criticism from a professional, in which case, don't feel too bad. Take it on board and if you want to, try again, or re-edit your text. Alternatively, the agent might ask you to either contact them or send them more of your text if you didn't send them the whole thing in the first place. We're really entering into a grey area here – there's really no telling in many ways what the agent will actually do. They're human beings after all, and they may well have mixed feelings about your work. You'll have to hope that you strike it lucky, because there's a lot of luck involved in the whole process.

Conclusions

There's no way around it – this is a tricky business. But I must stress the first point again – you really need to be sure that what you've written is worth the cost and effort of attempting to get support from a literary agent to help you get it published. Bear in mind the vast volume of writing that both agents and publishers receive every day, let alone every month or year. Masses of it is dreadful tat, which they quickly eliminate – but no doubt there's also a lot of competition between the better pieces out there. Make sure that yours can see off the competition, in some way or another.

Once you're sure of that, my method should see you well up to the final stages. By that time it will become so personalised that there's no way anyone can predict how the interplay between writer and agent/publisher will play out. Remember that the whole game is about making yourself seem professional, passionate about what you're doing, and remaining determined. If you're truly passionate enough about the whole idea, even if you've tried my suggestions and failed – no doubt you'll one day find a way. Sometimes the way to achieve something lies beyond the realm of prediction or suggestion. But I can hardly write an article about that, can I?

Good luck.

The first film to be based on Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. This was produced by New Line Cinema, who also made the Lord Of The Rings films, and they are obviously hoping to repeat that success with these films.

Set in a parallel world, where humans have external souls or 'daemons', usually in the form of animals. A young girl, Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards - great name!), living in an alternative Oxford, embarks on series of adventures which take her to the island of Svalbard in the arctic ocean.

On the way she encounters a Texan airship captain, Sam Elliot, and hires the services of an alcoholic armoured fighting polar bear, voiced by Ian McKellen. Daniel Craig, the latest Bond,  plays an Indiana Jones type adventurous scholar and his co-star from Casino Royale, Eva Green, plays the queen of the witches.

Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee head up the sinister Magisterium, a thinly disguised take on the Catholic Church, assisted by Nicole Kidman as the morally ambiguous Mrs.Coulter. And can I put in a good word for the always excellent Jim Carter as the King of the Gyptians, a much underrated actor in my opinion.

The anti-clerical, pro-atheistic elements from the books, don't come over very strongly here. I suspect they have been deliberately down played. There are brief references to "The Authority", and the Magisterium's costumes bear a strong resemblance to those of a certain universal church, but that's about it. It will be interesting to see how it's handled in the next films.

I enjoyed this film greatly, but then I had read the books and was familiar with Pullman's worlds. I'm not so sure how well it works for anyone who hasn't read the book. There is a lot of hurried voiceover explanation at the start of the film, which indicates they haven't had time to let the often complex themes develop and come across through the natural flow of the plot. To me it sometimes felt like the film served more as an (extremely well done) illustration of the  book, rather than a free standing work to be enjoyed in its own right.

Hopefully it will all make more sense to viewers, when the second and third films are released, which will depend on the success of this one.

Overall, I liked and would recommend this film. But do read the books too - they're well worth it!

I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks.

"I walk across the dreaming sands under the pale moon: through the dreams of countries and cities, past dreams of places long gone and times beyond recall." -Neil Gaiman (from The Sandman)

In my previous list I found it relatively straightforward to define what I thought good Science Fiction consisted of. But how do you define good fantasy? In fact, how do you define fantasy at all – isn't all fiction fantasy to some extent? Still, I'm here now so I'm going to have a stab at it.

Good fantasy literature I think requires two vital elements to be present:

Imagination – the ability to dream, to create new wonders, to explore new realms and bring them to life. In fantasy the ideas can be original or not, that is not important. Often the re-use of the old, of archetypes and legends, is of crucial importance in fantasy, which is a form of literature that connects us with our deep past. On the other hand, I personally value originality in approach, and I notice that this list seems to consist largely of works by unique, one of a kind writers. It's the power of their imagination which is so vital, which makes their works so unforgettable.

Storytelling – the story must captivate the readers or listeners. This ancient art goes back many aeons to the first cro-magnons huddled around the cave fires, listening to the shaman's tales of the mysterious world(s) beyond… And it is just as important today. Fantasy is about stories, things have to happen, events have to unfold, quests have to be fulfilled, monsters killed or perhaps heroes (as the case may be), uppances have to be comed, and consequences have to be faced. Homer knew this when writing the Odyssey, as did all fantasy writers (and tellers) since.

So, once more into the breach. Here's my list. As ever, I make no claims for literary scholarship or objectivity. This is purely subjective and consists of whatever I happen to remember as outstanding tales. They are all different in style and feel, yet each captures, for me, that elusive spirit of Great Fantasy. I'm aware that I have missed out many other excellent writers and books by limiting it to 10 - maybe I'll do a second list some time.

In no particular order:

1. The Dying Earth - Jack Vance

2. The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King - JRR Tolkien

3. The Earthsea series - Ursula K. Le Guin

4. The Sandman - Neil Gaiman

5. The Book Of Wonder - Lord Dunsany

6. Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake

7. The Night Land - William Hope Hodgson

8. A Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin

9. The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson

10. Mythago Wood - Robert Holdstock

1. The Dying Earth, by Jack Vance

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This was author Jack Vance's first work, written while serving in the merchant navy in the Pacific during the Second World War.

It's more a series of interlocked short stories than a novel, all set in the far distant future when the sun is about to sputter and expire, and science has long given way to magic. It's full of wizards, magicians, thieves, rogues, half men, demons and sages.

Vance sprang on the to fantasy field with many of his trademark features fully present in this book.

The language is rich and baroque. The humour dry and subtle. From the humblest bumpkins to the cruellest monster, all the characters talk in formal mannered English, as if they have stepped from the pages of a Jane Austin novel. Vance also delights in creating wonderfully imagined names for characters and creatures – Mazirian the Magician, Turjan of Miir, the sisters Tsais and Tsain, Chun The Unavoidable (my favourite!), deodands, grues, erbs and twk-men (who ride dragonflies and trade in salt).

Spells are long multi-syllabic formulae which have to be crammed into the minds of the adept, before they can be uttered, after which they are spent. Some examples include Lugwiler's Dismal Itch, The Spell of Forlorn Encystment (which "constricts the subject in a pore some forty-five miles below the surface of the earth"), Phandaal's Gyrator ("levitates the victim and spins him so fast he disintegrates in a spray of gore"). Other magical adjuncts include Live Boots (a variant on seven league boots, but which tire after use).

Perhaps better known for his (excellent) science fiction, Vance has written several other works of fantasy over his long and distinguished career. He returned to the world of the Dying Earth for his Cugel books – The Eyes Of The Overworld and Cugel's Saga – wonderful tales of a rogue's adventures and misadventures as he struggles to recompense a wronged magician. He also wrote a number of short stories later collected as Rhialto The Marvellous, concerning the affairs of a rather fractious 'club' of rival magicians.

Vance's fantasy is unique and original. There is absolutely nothing else like it. You can see traces of inspiration from previous generations of writers such as Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith, but precious few have ever followed in his footsteps (perhaps with the exception of Gene Wolfe, but his work has a totally different feel).

If you're into clichés, LOTR retreads, heroic quests against standard issue dark lords, action packed blood, guts and sex – forget it, you won't like this.
But if you love imaginative writing, rich language, subtle wry humour and sheer zest for life, Jack Vance is the master.

2. The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King, by JRR Tolkien

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….to give it its full and correct title (as recounted by Frodo Baggins). Probably the most famous fantasy novel of all time, so it hardly needs any introduction from me.
But when I first read it years ago it was still relatively obscure and arcane. People who had read it were almost like a secret cult, that could quote the odd word of elvish or orcish at each other, to the baffled stares of the other kids at school.

Nowadays of course that's all changed, especially after the three blockbuster films of recent years (which were surprisingly well done and true to the spirit of the books, amazingly enough). This was brought home to me when my barber starting discussing the character and motivation of Gimli the dwarf, only to be contradicted by the random guy who came in to buy some cigarettes!
Still, this work sets the benchmark in fully imagined and created worlds, with their own languages, history and geography (I used to love the fold out maps which were stuck in the back of the old hardback volumes I first read!).

Professor Tolkien's imagination was second to none, and his love of the English language and his use of good, old fashioned, simple yet lyrical prose, fills this work. His background as a scholar of Anglo Saxon (or Old English) also comes over strongly.

This tale of hobbits, men, elves, orcs, ents, wizards and dark lords, heroic quests, temptation and redemption, is the masterwork of its kind. Sadly, it has been copied countless times by inferior imitators once publishers realised there was a huge market for this kind of thing, and Tolkien wasn't going to supply any more.

Still, this is the original and the best. Unequalled.

Footnote: Interestingly, the posthumously published but never really finished Silmarillion was his real epic of mythology for the English people. The Lord of the Rings started out as a mere sequel to his children's book The Hobbit, as the writing style of the early chapters clearly shows. The Silmarillion is more of an acquired taste, and will never achieve the popularity of tLotR, but it has many passages of sublime epic grandeur which can equal or at times exceed the later work, in my opinion.

3. The Earthsea series, by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Originally a series of three books:

• A Wizard of Earthsea
• The Tombs of Atuan
• The Farthest Shore

They tell the story of a young boy with talent potential for magic, who is 'discovered' by a mage and sent to a school for wizards. (School for wizards? Sounds familiar, eh? Yes, but this was published a good 30 years before a certain Harry Potter was ever heard of. And without wishing to disparage HP and co, these books are vastly superior IMHO, though completely different in tone and subject matter so perhaps it is unfair to make comparisons.)

Set on the world of "Earthsea", a dusting of islands and archipelagos sprinkled across a vast sea, with no continents to speak of (helpfully a map is provided), the story continues as the boy Sparrowhawk / Ged matures and comes to understand himself and his place in the world.

Words and names are the keys to the magic in this system. To know the true name of a person or thing is to have power over it. But to be able to use that power wisely is the true test.

Dragons feature strongly here, not as evil mindless monsters but as wise ancient beasts, still fearsome and terrifying but with a strange mystical beauty. Another aspect I particularly liked, was the depiction of the land of the dead, with its dry dusty cities and its fixed unmoving stars overhead, and the long dry stone wall separating it from the world of the living. Tremendously evocative.

Le Guin writes beautifully as ever, and the work is once more infused with an underlying almost Taoist philosophy. She is also well known for her excellent science fiction and is one of two authors on this list to feature on my Top Ten Science Fiction list as well.

Much later, Le Guin followed up with several other books set on Earthsea: Tehanu, Tales From Earthsea and The Other Wind. Also well worth a look, my favourite being Tales From Earthsea which expands on some of the ancient tales and legends touched upon in the earlier books.

4. The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman

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Sandman is an epic graphic work written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by countless artists (including Dave McKean, Charles Vess, Jill Thompson, Michael Zulli and many others). It was originally published in a series of 75 comics, later compiled into 10 volumes in graphic novel format.

It is a vast and sprawling work, ranging across time and space, dipping into mythologies and legends from all eras and all cultures. Norman Mailer apparently described the series as "a comic book for intellectuals."

The main character is Morpheus, Lord Of Dreams, aka The Sandman. He is one of The Endless a pantheon of 7 immortals or archetypes who transcend time and universes. They comprise Dream ( i.e. the Sandman), his older brother Destiny, his elder sister Death, brother/sister Desire, younger sister Delirium (formerly Delight), another sister Despair, and a brother Destruction. I particularly like the depiction of Death as a young attractive girl, vaguely gothic, with a friendly attitude and a nice sense of humour. Adds a new twist to the classic stereotypes.

It's a difficult work to describe, it's so wide ranging and inventive. The story jumps around all over the place, from present times to Shakespeare's day, to the fall of Lucifer, to the Inn at Worlds' End, to ancient Greece, to ….

I've never read anything like it. Gaiman has pulled together so many strands and inserts so many digressions and tangential tales, and yet it still works in telling a compelling story of the fall and rise of the personified 'Dream'.

He has also written a number of other excellent books, including Stardust (see film review here), American Gods, Neverwhere (set in a mystical underground London), and Mirrormask (also made into an interesting animated film). In addition, he recently co-wrote the screenplay for the new Beowulf film (see review here). And he's a personal friend of another of my heroes: Gene Wolfe (see Top Ten Science Fiction). What a star!

Anyway, Sandman is, in my opinion, his masterwork to date. Well worth exploring. And reading it is a voyage of exploration, I promise you.

5. The Book Of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany

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Lord Dunsany was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. His full name was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. Much of his best work was written in the Edwardian period (late 19th , early 20th Century).

He wrote a few novels, including The King Of Elfland's Daughter, but to me his best work consisted of his short stories. These were published sometimes in magazines, and in collections such as The Gods Of Pegana, Time And The Gods, A Dreamer's Tales, The Book Of Wonder, 51 Tales, Tales Of Wonder, Tales Of Three Hemispheres. He was also an acclaimed poet and playwright in his day. He fought in the First World War and eventually died in 1957.

I've selected The Book Of Wonder fairly arbitrarily for this list, but I could have chosen any of them to be honest.

His stories are wild, imaginative, original, bizarre, funny, touching, poetic and dream like. With titles like "The Hoard Of The Gibbelins", "The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller, and of the Doom that Befell Him", "The Bride of the Man-Horse", ""The Injudicious Prayers of Pombo the Idolator" and ""How One Came, as Was Foretold, to the City of Never", you get an idea of what you're going to get. All marvellously written and imagined tales, full of archaisms, wit, suspense, horror, tears and laughter (not necessarily in that order).

Many of these stories were illustrated by the remarkable artist Sidney Sime, who captures the grotesque and fantastic atmosphere perfectly. In fact, on several occasions the illustrations came first, and Dunsany was inspired to write a story around whatever Sime had happened to draw! There was evidently a special creative magic in the partnership of these two. (Sime's work was on display in a small dedicated gallery in his home town of Worplesdon in Surrey. I visited it once and it was excellent to see, but I'm not sure if it's still open.)

Dunsany's work has been republished many times since his death, in numerous permutations and collections. These are well worth seeking out.

His work inspired later generations of writers in the fantasy field, including Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Jorge Luis Borges, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock and Neil Gaiman amongst others.

6. Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake

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Gormenghast is actually a trilogy consisting of:

• Titus Groan
• Gormenghast
• Titus Alone

The first two books tell a more or less continuous story, of the birth and upbringing of Titus, 78th Earl of Groan and ruler of Gormenghast Castle. This castle is a huge sprawling conglomeration of buildings and accretions added piecemeal over the centuries. In many ways, it has been said, the castle is the true hero of these books. It seems to exist in a world of its own, with little to no contact with the outside world.

It is set in an indeterminate period, vaguely nineteenth century in feel. The heavy hand of ritual and a strong resistance to change dominates all proceedings.
Characters are rich and well developed (and marvellously well named), and the overall feel is something like Dickens on acid (to put it rather crudely). We meet Swelter the cook, Flay the loyal retainer, Lord Sepulchrave, Lady Gertrude, Nannie Slagg, Steerpike the subversive social climber, Lady Fuchsia, Dr. Prunesquallor, Rottcodd, Barquentine master of ritual, Sourdust and many others.

The first two books take place in the castle. The third leaves it behind and we meet a new range of bizarre characters. My favourite is Muzzlehatch, with his motor car surmounted by a cow's skull lashed to the grille. (Yes cars appear here, and we find ourselves in the early/mid 20th century all of a sudden!)

Peake was a true genius – a celebrated poet and artist, before he became known as a novelist. All of his work demonstrates a love of life and a wonderful mad, wild humour. Sadly he died at an early age shortly after completing these books, and a projected 4th volume never appeared.

The man was totally unique ('sui generis', is I believe the correct term). Nobody since has ever managed or attempted anything remotely in this league.

7. The Night Land, by William Hope Hodgson

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A deeply strange and weird tale, set in the far future when the sun has actually gone out. First published in 1912.

The remnants of humanity are concentrated in the Last Redoubt, a huge pyramidal structure extending from deep underground up high into the sky, where the air is thin and the people had adapted accordingly. The Redoubt is powered by energy sources deep below the earth's surface.
Outside a range of mysterious and monstrous beings lurk, the Watchers, waiting for the time when the energy finally gives out and they can make their move. Outside lie many terrors including, "The Thing that Nods", "The Road Where the Silent Ones Walk", "The Place of the Ab-humans", "The Country Whence Comes the Great Laughter", "The Plain of Blue Fire", "The Place Where the Silent Ones Kill", and so on.

I wouldn't want to go out there; I'd stay in the pyramid, thank you very much! But the hero receives a signal from a hitherto unsuspected second Redoubt on the other side of the world, and he sets out to travel there. But he must make his way past unspeakable terrors and threats (including the aforementioned 'presences') to get there.

Hodgson also wrote The House on the Borderland, set in Ireland and dark realms beyond.
His work could be described as Dark Fantasy, Horror or possibly Science Fiction – it has elements of them all. But who cares? Categorisation wasn't so important in those days, just good storytelling. (And that's the way it should be now, in my opinion!)

8. A Song of Ice and Fire, by George RR Martin

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This is an ongoing series of books, consisting of (so far):

• A Game Of Thrones
• A Clash Of Kings
• A Storm Of Swords
• A Feast For Crows

It is set in a medieval world, approximately at the level of the 15th Century and the Wars of the Roses in England. So it's full of knights, armour, castles, damsels, honour, chivalry, tournaments, and spectacle. Also deep intrigue, skulduggery, cruelty, political machinations, rival factions, shifting alliances, kingmakers and usurpers. And sex. Also dragons, magic and conflicting religions. And an impending ice age.

The island of Westeros is placed roughly where Britain is in our world (i.e. at the edge of the Western Sea ) and there is a greater continent to the east. There is a great Wall to the north to protect the more 'civilised' realms to the south from the terrors beyond (c.f. Hadrian's Wall), with its dedicated band of protectors - the Nights Watch, comprised of broken men and society's outcasts but with its own strict moral code. In the lands to the east are various rich and decadent kingdoms, and the Dothraki – fierce nomad horse warriors (Hun/Mongol analogues).

None of these elements is particularly original in themselves, but put together they form an intelligent, compelling and exciting whole. This is a work where the sheer drive and power of the narrative just hurtles along and drags you with it. Martin has a penchant for sudden twists and turns in the plot line, and he frequently kills off his leading characters with gay abandon (in the old sense of the word!). And he just loves cliff-hangers.

Rattling good adventure, with plenty of action and intrigue in a well imagined world. Red blooded yet highly intelligent with it – a rare and precious combination in my opinion.

Like thousands of other readers, I am waiting impatiently for Martin to finish the next volume A Dance with Dragons. A long awaited invasion of Westeros is due soon, I think.
Get hooked on this great series now, is my recommendation.

9. The Broken Sword, by Poul Anderson

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Poul Anderson was perhaps better known for his SF, but he wrote at least a couple of excellent fantasy works, of which this is one.

It takes place in Viking times. A human child is swapped for a faery one, and the adventures of the changeling are described. Depictions of wars amongst the elves and then the Norse pantheon follow. An excellent digression brings us into the territory of Irish myth and legend, where we meet the Daoine Sidhe (not used enough in 'fantasy' literature, I feel).

A relatively short work, but a little gem. Anderson manages to pick up two or three entire European mythologies and plays them straight, in pretty much unadulterated form, as the basis for his tale. It flows well and it's highly entertaining. It's simplicity of style, coupled with the sophisticated applications of its source materials, convey Anderson's true mastery and his evident love and respect for his own rich cultural heritage.

A charming work and one which inspired me to look more deeply into some of those old legends of our forebears, who once lived here on the edges of Europe in an allegedly 'dark' age…

10. Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock

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First in a series of books by Holdstock, which are set in Ryhope Wood, somewhere in rural England.
On the map, this ancient woodland is only several acres in extent, surrounded by farmland. But you enter it at your peril, as once inside you can travel for many weeks without ever reaching the 'heartwoods' at the centre. Furthermore, it is populated by 'mythagos' – real flesh and blood people and creatures, but created somehow from deep within the human subconscious, where racial memories, archetypes and distant ancient myths reside. The traveller somehow unconsciously creates and modifies these beings every time he or she enters the wood, and the effects are greater the deeper one penetrates into the forest.

The mythagos themselves originate from stories and legends ranging from relatively recent times back to the last ice ages and the first hunter gatherer inhabitants of these islands. Thus they include highwaymen, Robin Hood (and/or Hood variants), dark knights, horned gods, wild boar deities, Celtic gods, and pre-Celtic and stone age mythic figures. They are dangerous and frequently hostile to intruders.

Shortly after the Second World War, a man returns to his somewhat dilapidated home near the edge of the woods, where he discovers his missing father's notebooks. (Guess where the father has gone missing?) He investigates for himself and starts to make forays into the wood.
A marvellously atmospheric work, it captures somehow the feel of the English countryside and its woodlands and fields, which can be ordinary and familiar, damp and muddy, yet at the same time feel ancient, mysterious and secretive. (Or have I just been eating too many of those wild mushrooms when walking the dog there?).

The books play with ideas of Jungian psychology, deep fears and joys and ancient half remembered tales, and yet they are grounded in a very solid depiction of the English landscape.
Highly original, evocative, thoughtful and at the same time great storytelling. Recommended .

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This is hailed to be the single worst fantasy novella in existence; the challenge is, if you can read more than a page without falling over laughing, you're definitely some kind of professional newsreader. Or somesuch.

Anyway, I figured I'd post it up here; this is too good to be missed.

—

THE EYE OF ARGON

by Jim Theis

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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 feralblaze 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.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 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 blood 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 cries 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 wishes. The crude implements 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 its 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 clamped 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 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 feed 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 man's comrade, having recovered from his shock, drew a jewel-encrusted dagger from beneath the folds of his robe and lunged toward the barbarian's 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 prepared to finish the incomplete job, but was deterred halfway 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 advanced 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 dazedly 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, dissipating 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 this 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, forming 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 stood 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 slimy thing continued its puckering; now having grown to 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 lessening 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 AVAILABLE COPY

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Stardust is a film is based on the book of the same name by Neil Gaiman. I've been a big fan of Gaiman's work for a few years now, especially the epic "Sandman" graphic novel series, also other works like "American Gods".

Stardust was a nice little book, slightly different from Gaiman's other work. An almost whimsical fairy tale, but with plenty of his usual dry humour. Clearly inspired by Lord Dunsany's "The King Of Elfland's Daughter", it starts off in a quiet English village near a Wall, which separates our world from Beyond, and tells the story of what happens to a mortal who happens to cross the Wall.

When I saw they were making it into a film, I had the usual mixed feelings. Would they ruin it completely or would it retain some of the charm of the original work?

The answer is they haven't done too badly. Big budget. Big star cast, including Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfieffer, Claire Danes, Sienna Miller and even Ricky Gervais (playing himself, as far as I can see). It's got witches, ghosts, a talking star, and a good goat.

Lots of special effects. Maybe a bit too glossy and in your face, at the expense on missing out on some of the subtleties of the book, but I guess that's inevitable. And the humour a bit more obvious than it needed to be perhaps. Minor gripes though.

On the whole, a very enjoyable, light hearted fantasy I would say. Good fun, with lots of originality.

I'm now curious to see what they'll do with Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass", when it comes out in December. The armoured polar bears looked good in the trailer I saw. I'll post a review when it comes out. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to see Beowulf this week. Watch this space…

This is easily the most fascinating novel that I have ever read. It’s set several thousand years in the future, after a nuclear apocalypse and the striking feature of the novel is that it is entirely written in a degenerated form of colloquial English. The first sentence is a great example of the language:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen.

It's difficult at first, but once you get into the novel it isn't that hard to understand, and by the end of the book you really begin to appreciate the incredible task that the author, Russell Hoban, undertook in writing this. It’s a fantastic way of creating a believable post-apocalyptic society, and by the time you finish the book it really does feel like you have learnt a new language.

It isn’t simply the language and communication in the book which make this such a fantastic novel. Russell Hoban has a unique take on themes such as knowledge, power and oneness, seamlessly switching between wonderfully humorous remarks and haunting visions of the future. It is barely three pages into the book when we begin to see Hoban’s dark side, with Riddley recounting a story of two parents eating their own child, which gives the book an unsettling atmosphere throughout.

Hoban’s vision of a world where the primary forms of communication are Puppet Shows and children’s songs is truly enchanting. He takes so many irrelevant aspects of modern society, such as the Punch and Judy show, and transforms them into integral features of his post-apocalyptic world.

This is a wonderful novel, and without doubt on of the best presentations of a post-apocalyptic society that I have ever come across. Don’t be put off