The Eye of Argon - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Chapter 1

The story starts with a violent swordfight between the barbarian Grignr and some soldiers. Grignr is on his way to Gorzom in search of wenches and plunder.

Chapter 2

Grignr arrives in Gorzom and goes to a tavern, where he picks up a local wench (with a "lithe, opaque nose"). A drunken guard challenges him over the woman; he kills the guard, but is arrested by the man's companions and brought before the local prince, who (on the advice of his advisor) condemns him to a life of forced labour in the mines. This chapter contains the first of several occasions when the word slut is applied to a man, presumably as an insult.

Chapter 3

Grignr sits despondent in his cell, thinking of his homeland.

Chapter 3½

A scene of a pagan ritual involving a group of shamans, a young woman to be sacrificed and a jade idol with one eye: a "many fauceted scarlet emerald", the Eye of Argon.

Chapter 4

Grignr sits bored and anguished in his cell and is losing track of time. He battles a large rat and it inspires him with a plan, involving the corpse of the rat.

Chapter 5

The pagan ritual proceeds, with a priest ordering the young woman up to the altar. When she fails to proceed, he attempts to grope her. She disables him with a hard kick between the testicles, but the other shamans grab and molest her.

Chapter 6

Grignr is taken from his cell by two soldiers. He takes the rat pelvis he has fashioned into a dagger and slits one soldier's throat. He then strangles the second and takes his clothes. He wanders the catacombs for a time, finding a storeroom, and narrowly avoids being killed by a booby-trap. Below this room he finds the palace mausoleum. He resets the booby-trap in case he is being pursued.

He hears a scream apparently coming from a sarcophagus. He opens it to find the scream is coming from below. He opens a trap door and sees a shaman about to sacrifice the young woman. He ploughs into the group of shamans with an axe and takes the Eye. The young woman, Carthena, turns out to be the tavern wench. They depart.

Chapter 7

One priest, who had been suffering an epileptic seizure during Grignr's attack, recovers, draws a scimitar and follows Grignr and Carthena through the trap door in the ceiling.

Chapter 7½

The priest strikes at Grignr but he triggers, and is killed by, the reset booby-trap before his sword can connect. Carthena tells Grignr of the prince, Agaphim, who had condemned him to the mines. They encounter Agaphim and kill him, as well as his advisor Agafnd.

They emerge into the sunlight. Grignr pulls the Eye of Argon out of his pouch to admire. The jewel melts and turns into a writhing blob with a leechlike mouth. The blob attacks him and begins sucking his blood. Carthena faints. Grignr, beginning to lose consciousness, grabs a torch and thrusts it into the blob's mouth.

Traditional photocopied and Internet versions end at this point, incomplete since page 49 of the fanzine had been lost. The ending was rediscovered in 2004 and published in The New York Review of Science Fiction #198, February 2005. The authenticity of this "lost ending" is still disputed by many.

The Lost Ending (Remainder of Ch. 7½)

The blob explodes into a thousand pieces, leaving nothing behind except "a dark red blotch upon the face of the earth, blotching things up." Grignr and the still-unconscious Carthena ride off into the distance.