Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.
- Joseph Campbell
“The myth of the one, the individual, the anointed and fortunate man created by the expansionary needs of the ancient world—we have all been raised to believe in this myth.”
The man on the small wood-grained Beovision television set wore a dull, grey suit jacket that nearly blended in with the beige background which made the purchase of a colour receiver seem quite redundant.
“But this myth is fading fast. Today it is virtually impossible for anyone to simply journey out into the world, without purpose or meaning, or for that matter, without either money or passport.”
The most vibrant thing visible on the bulbous glass screen was the host’s tie which sported a spiralling pattern of what could best be described as several shades of brown.
“And soon it will not be possible to be self-sufficient on a small scale either. Many feel a sense of powerlessness when confronted by the ‘system’ that we are trapped within. Regulations, restrictions, and the front desks of many a government office give us all a feeling of not being in control of our own destiny.”
As the host droned on in his poor attempt at a watered-down BBC English, he kept shifting his gaze from the autocue beside the camera lens down to the book in his lap that he was pretending to read from.
“This is where the fantasy hero comes into play. He is the individual in its purest form. His society is simple and easy to understand. He has a fighting chance against ‘the other.’ The free, lonesome barbarian with only a sword and a horse to his name is the individualist we’ve all been raised to be, but which we are not allowed to be.”
He closed the book with a measured motion of his right hand that came off as just a little theatrical and held it up to the camera. It was a slim little reader’s guide type paperback with a black and white stock image on the cover, presumably taken from some old pulp magazine from the 40s, showing a bare-chested, muscular man with a ray gun held firmly in one hand and a beautiful blonde clinging to the other.
“That was an excerpt from Rayguns, Revolvers and Flashing Swords: Analysing the Appeal of the Pulp Hero by literary critic Winston Dale.”
He placed the book on a small chrome and glass side table next to a decorative ashtray.
“In lieu of getting to speak with the author himself, a known recluse who’s never been interviewed, this book offers a fascinating insight into the appeal of the immensely popular Greywolf series. But regardless of what lies behind our fascination with the barbarian hero, one thing is clear, people can’t get enough of it, and the question on everyone’s lips right now is simply when the next novel will be released. Readers across the world await with great anticipation after the previous book teased a conclusion to the lifelong conflict between Greywolf and his evil twin brother Alaric. But will author Robert Wagner manage to deliver on these expectations?
“The book’s release date has already been pushed twice, and as long as Wagner’s exact whereabouts remain a well-kept secret, known only by the director of his publishing house, Excalibur Press, who knows when we’ll—”
The image of the host collapsed into a thin white line that rapidly disappeared, leaving behind a blank screen. A slender arm belonging to a scruffy-looking, bleary-eyed man in his 30s retracted from the on/off switch. With the TV set turned off, the atmosphere of the already darkened study became even gloomier than it had been before, not that it seemed to bother the sole occupant in his threadbare bathrobe.
A single beam of light, accentuated by a thick haze of cigarette smoke, emanated from a small gap in drawn curtains that bore a wild, frenzied pattern of colours that just screamed 1970s (or at least a corporate interpretation of it). They had been purchased a few years prior when the man had felt a momentary need to modernise—a very short-lived fancy, and now he found them quite tacky, though, despite being blessed with a lot of free time, he had never found the time to replace them.
Hanging limply at the end of the arm not used to shut up the television were a bottle of not-so-old Scotch and a green-tinted whiskey glass which he had just fetched from the small kitchen in the next room while listening to the programme out of morbid curiosity—a decision he had quickly regretted.
Close to the television set, perfectly placed (though unintentionally so) in the beam of light was a cluttered desk covered in various books and other stationery generally used for the task of writing. Most prominent of these was the old-ish typewriter from the 50s positioned in the place of honour squarely at the centre of the desk. The metal flake paint glittered ever-so-slightly in the smoky beam of light. Like the man, it seemed a little out of date, but unlike the man, it was the only thing in the room that seemed reasonably well taken care of.
The man lumbered over to the desk, placed the bottle and glass on one of the few exposed sections of wood—the bottle clinked gently against a cheap ashtray filled with cigarette butts—and he dropped himself into the chair with a heavy sigh.
After a few seconds of staring at nothing in particular, he reached for the bottle and poured some of the amber liquid into the glass. He took the glass, leaned back in his chair and turned to face the blank TV screen. He took a sip.
He had the bearing of the type of man you’d want to avoid eye contact with while passing him in the supermarket, not because he looked threatening—quite the opposite—but because there was an air of unfriendliness about him. The way he dragged his feet, his slouched posture, his slightly unkempt ginger hair, and the complete lack of any discernible fashion sense, all pointed to a man who had stopped caring about the world around him, and yet, there were signs of intellect there as well. He had a high brow that made him look older than he probably was, he possessed a sharp gaze that seemed to take in the people around him, he was neither fat nor sickly thin (though he was closer to the latter), and you’d be hard-pressed to call him unclean. His clothes, though bland and somewhat mismatched, tended to suggest a man that had once perceived himself (probably justly so) as both creative and intelligent. Even the patterned bathrobe he was presently wearing had a tweed-ish quality to it.
Had the world not been filled with so many men just like him he might have been a somewhat fascinating combination of minor contradictions. Instead, he was the kind of person that was easy to ignore, and to the few who paid him any attention at all, it was rightfully suspected that this was precisely what he wanted. He ignored them, so they ignored him.
For a moment his dull gaze shifted to the left-hand side of the desk on which were strewn several books of various sizes. Some were paperbacks and some were hardbacks. Most of the latter had laminated covers that bore library markings. They were all historical books that covered Mediaeval England and the Vikings, though they weren’t what one would consider academic books. They hadn’t been much help to the man anyhow. He was hardly known for historical fiction, so he wondered why he even bothered.
The paperbacks, though of an entirely different sort, did share one feature with the hardbacks; the presence of Vikings, or rather, one Viking. More the idea of a Viking, really.
They all featured larger-than-life illustrations of a tall, muscular, long-haired blond warrior wearing little else but boots, furry trunks and a winged helm, who had more in common with the Norsemen of German opera and American comic books than the complex ancestors of the Scandinavians. To further emphasise this, he was always depicted mid-battle with some hideous monster—sea serpents, black knights with red-glowing eyes, or some kind of troll-ish troglodyte.
The paperbacks were all done in a unified design to show they were part of a series. In large, bold letters on a black banner above the cover illustration, and bigger than the title of each book, was the name of the author; Robert Wagner. Further down, crossing the bottom right corner, they all bore a smaller yellow ‘ribbon’ that proudly announced “A Greywolf Novel.”
While the hardbacks had multiple makeshift bookmarks poking out between their off-white pages, the paperbacks were dog-eared and covered in a chaotic jumble of handwritten notes that could only make sense to the person who had made them (though even that was questionable at times).
Still thinking about the TV presenter’s words, the man turned further left in his chair, and looked despondently at a bookcase within arm’s reach which housed the large collection of pristine paperbacks he’d once been so proud of.
The spines were emblazoned with bold and dramatic titles such as; Death Rides a Black Horse, The Knights of the Crimson Circle, Where Wolves Go to Die, Prisoner in the Domain of Darkness, and The Call of the Raven, to name but a few. On the lower shelves the titles were repeated in French, then German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Spanish, Italian and finally in Japanese.
They, like the well-worn handful lying on the desk, bore the same bold author’s name of Robert Wagner. Of course, that wasn’t the man’s real name. He didn’t care much for his real name. It lacked a certain—how was it he had put it once in a letter to his publisher?—it lacked a certain “gut punch,” which he felt was necessary to compliment the contents of his books. His real name, he had explained, would seem a little underwhelming when paired with Greywolf the Norseman.
His publisher had not objected.
For now, however, we’ll humour them both and refer to him by his chosen pen-name.
He turned away from the bookcase. Having found no solace in the wood-panelled monument to his past accomplishments, he looked back at the typewriter with a remorseful, almost pleading expression.
The 1958 Hermes 3000, though well-taken care of, was beginning to show its age and some of the keys stuck, but Wagner didn’t have the heart to replace it, even if it was tempting to replace it with a modern Selectric. It had been his first typewriter after all, a gift from his mother—the only person who had encouraged his writing as a child—and every Greywolf adventure had begun its life at those now well-worn keys. Replacing it would be like cutting off an appendage. In many ways it had become an extension of him. Maybe it was appropriate then that it was starting to degrade. In some strange, almost supernatural way it was as if it was emulating its user. He too was past his glory.
Wagner turned away from it, took another swig from the glass, then reached into the wastebasket beside the desk and retrieved the topmost lump of crumpled paper. He put away the glass and placed the wrinkly ball on the desk in front of his typewriter. He reluctantly began smoothing it out with both hands, revealing two separate pages of text.
“All right,” he mumbled to himself, “let’s see if you’ve improved overnight.”
He began reading.
One moment the woodland edge stood empty, the next, a man stood poised warily at the edge of the plateau.
There had been no sound to warn of his coming, but a flock of birds took fright at his sudden appearance and rose in a clamouring cloud. He scowled and glanced back the way he'd come, fearing the fight of the birds—
Wagner frowned.
Fight of the birds? he thought, then made a grumbling noise.
He took a pencil out of a cup and crossed out the word “fight” and wrote above it the correct word; “flight.” He continued reading;
He scowled and glanced back the way he'd come, fearing the flight of the birds had betrayed his position.
Since noon Greywolf had often been able to catch sight of his pursuers, so close had they gained on him. He knew they would almost inevitably overtake him by nightfall.
The fanatical acolytes of Baal-Dagoth would not let go of their prey so easily...not after what he had done. A wolfish grin touched his lips at the thought.
He shifted his inward gaze to the horizon before him. His keen eyes had spotted something, not by any conscious thought, but by well-honed instincts. He squinted his eyes as he surveyed the landscape. There it was!
Deep within the valley he could now make out the first of the wayfinder stones that would lead him to the treasure he sought.
He looked back the way he had come. To the civilised man there would have been no signs to show that he had passed; but there was evidence visible to his wilderness-shaped eyes, and therefore, he knew, to the equally keen eyes who pursued him.
He made his way down the hill with comparative carelessness, here and there crushing a grass-blade beneath his fur-booted feet. Let them follow, he thought grimly. Once he reached his goal, it wouldn't matter if they caught up with him.
A chill breeze swept over him the moment he stepped onto the withered grass that covered much of the large valley, and now, as the dim light from the overcast sun faded with the approach of dusk, it seemed to him as desolate as the blind side of the moon.
The deadly silence that brooded over the landscape reminded him of the haunted valley of tombs in faraway Egypt. There too he had sought treasure. There too he had expected to face death, and face it he had. And yet his current immobility was not due to hesitation. He was merely searching for the standing stone he had spotted from atop the plateau, and once rediscovered, he took one last glance over his shoulder to look for any new signs of his pursuers, and finding none, he headed into the valley.
He reached the first stone just as the sun dipped behind the mountain behind him, casting the whole valley in shadow.
The well-honed instincts of his savage soul told him that unseen eyes had fixed their lethal gaze upon him, but as he once more examined his darkened surroundings, he found no signs of life. He was alone as if he were the last man alive on earth. His focus returned to the stone.
His kindred Norsemen looked on these menhirs with aversion; they thought the Druids had reared them; but the Celts supposed the Picts, that long lost race of men, had planted them. But Greywolf now knew well what inhuman hands had reared those grim monoliths in lost ages.
Spotting the second stone not far away he continued on into the twilight. This continued for another hour, during which the valley seemed veiled in an unnatural gloom caused by more than the approach of nightfall.
The final stone stood at the edge of a dark forest, from which emanated an eerie green glow so that the gaunt and gnarled trees stood etched like the ribs of some twisted skeleton in which a spectral witch-fire burned.
Something about this forsaken place, thought Greywolf, stank of fear and death. He could almost smell the eldritch odour of forgotten terrors on the breeze. The night grew darker and the wind colder. All the eerie premonitions of danger, which Greywolf had experienced since first entering this valley at sundown, returned to him now in full force, and for the first time since he set out on his venture, he experienced a brief moment of doubt, the merest flicker of a desire to turn back and leave this ungodly place unmolested.
As always, he silenced these doubts, and stepped into the forest.
The bramble was thick. Long, gnarled branches were silhouetted against the unnatural glow within the forest, which Greywolf now saw pulsating as if a thing alive. The shadowplay made the branches appear like sickly thin, bony arms, and he could have sworn that they moved of their own accord, reaching out for him, intent on halting his passage as if the very forest itself was trying to warn him of the ancient horrors that awaited him at the centre.
The silence of the forest was so primaeval that the tread of a soft-booted foot was a startling disturbance. His eyes and ears were keenly alert. But it was instinct more than any warning by the external senses which brought him to a halt.
His hand reached for the hilt of his axe. The silence seemed absolute.
He whirled catlike and spotted within the bramble the merest glimpse of a horrible face; ashen, fanged and wild-eyed, hidden within a black hood.
A fierce cry rose from Greywolf's lips as his axe went up; the thing answered with an inhuman shriek and in an instant the Norseman was accosted from all sides.
At the bottom of the wrinkly page Wagner had written a single hand-written note: ‘Figure out details of fight later.’
Wagner gave an annoyed sigh.
Lazy, he thought, then realised he was admonishing himself.
He shrugged, picked up the 2nd piece of paper and began reading from the top.
The acolytes of Baal-Dagoth would plague him no more.
Wasting no further thoughts on his vanquished foes, Greywolf stepped over the pile of slain monks and his attention returned once more to the spectral light.
He came at last to a large clearing surrounded by a circle of black trees grimly decorated with the bones and skulls of men hanging from cords of blackened rope. At the centre of the clearing stood a lone plinth of natural rock, atop of which rested the source of the glow; a large green jewel the size of a child’s head, large enough to buy a man his own kingdom! Was this then the heart of Baal-Dagoth the witch had spoken of?
Greywolf approached as if drawn to it hypnotically. He halted before the plinth and stared into its glimmering depths as if it were a magnet to draw the shuddering soul from his body.
With a detached feeling he watched his own arms reach out for the gem and as he gripped it in his powerful hands the gnarled trees and the starry skies above reeled drunkenly to Greywolf’s sight. He staggered and cried out in great pain. He tried futilely—
Wagner gave an annoyed grunt and crossed out the word “futilely.” He could tolerate a lot in literature, but pointless (and clumsy to read) adverbs were not one of them.
He tried to let go of the gem, but his hands refused to obey his commands. The sky itself became a titanic wheel which rained stars as it spun.
The gem throbbed like a beating heart in Greywolf’s frozen hands, and each pulse sent a shudder of luminous green coursing through the veins of his strong sinewy arms as if the cursed crystal had grafted itself to his flesh.
Greywolf fell to his knees, and gradually he felt the pain begin to fade. But the relief came at a dire cost.
The memories of his life began to fade; his childhood in Northumbria, his journeys to the far corners of the earth, they all became like a remembered dream. Even his name vanished in the perpetual mist that swallowed up the world around him.
All was gone except for the silhouette of a tall, lean figure looming triumphantly before him.
“Your greed and stupidity have finally robbed you of all that you once were...brother.”
The last word was spit out, carrying the weight of a hatred decades in the making, but the clouded mind of the kneeling warrior had forgotten all, even the identity of his life-long nemesis, his warlock twin brother; Alaric.
“The gem of Baal-Dagoth has drawn your soul from your body and the empty husk that remains will serve me well in my conquest of the infinite realms.
“Had you bothered to heed to the warning of the witch, you would have learned that once the gem has absorbed your soul only the utterance of your name can release you from its curse—that is, your true name, the name given to you at birth, the name that only one living person still knows...me.”
The pale, half-visible figure gave a cruel, evil smile.
Greywolf raised his head, and his blank-staring eyes burned an unearthly green.
There was nothing more on the paper.
Wagner frowned and looked to the side at nothing in particular while thinking; Why would his name be tied to his soul?
He picked up the green-tinted glass with his free hand, took another swig, followed by a sour, pained expression.
“That’s what I get for writing while drunk,” he mumbled to himself.
He put the empty glass down on the desk and was about to crumple up the two pages once more and toss them in the bin when the doorbell rang.
With an all-too-familiar twitch he spun around in his chair to face the direction of the sound. He felt a brief, instinctive flash of anxiety, collected himself and, with a grumble that no one but he could hear, reluctantly dragged himself out of the chair and headed down to the front door.
On a modest and unexceptional terraced house surrounded by other identical terraced houses in an equally unexceptional street that had a slight slope to it, a dark front door with no window in it was quietly opened to a mere crack. Wagner peeked out and found a young man barely out of his teens wearing a dark-blue uniform waiting for him at the bottom of the three stubby steps that lead up to the door.
For a moment he thought the young man was about to try and sell him something and was prepared to quickly close the door when he spotted the Buzby button on his jacket. He recognised the little cartoon bird from those annoying ‘make someone happy with a phone call’ adverts on the TV. That alone was cause enough for Wagner to contemplate ignoring the lad and quietly closing the door a second time when the delivery boy, who’d been distracted by something further down the street that Wagner couldn’t make out through his crack, suddenly noticed the slightly older man standing in the half-open doorway and said;
“Barney Benson?”
“Yes,” Barney said in an attempt at a casual tone that failed to hide his annoyance.
Unperturbed, or potentially just inattentive, the delivery boy held up a small clipboard.
“Telegram for you.”
“Telegram?” Barney said, eyeing the lad suspiciously. “They still send those?”
“Yeah, some still do. Mostly older folks, especially when someone’s died.”
The delivery boy produced a cheap little pencil from his pocket with his free hand and held it and the clipboard up.
“Sign here, please,” he said curtly.
Barney signed his real name on the little receipt at the bottom and handed the pencil back. The young man unclipped the telegram and handed it to Barney.
It was a small piece of flimsy yellow paper with white strips of typed text glued on it.
“Must be really important,” said the delivery boy.
Barney scoffed. “I bet.”
The delivery boy leaned in curiously, seemingly fascinated by the telegram that he had undoubtedly already read.
“Are you an author?” he asked after a few awkward seconds.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, it’s just that I happened to glance at the signature at the bottom there,” he said with a hint of deflection, having guessed Barney’s suspicions, “and I recognised the name of the publishing house. I read a lot of their books, you see. I’m especially fond of the Greywolf ones, real exciting stuff that.”
“Pulpy trash. You should read some proper literature.”
The lad looked a little hurt but overall managed to keep his composure.
“To each their own, I suppose. You mind me asking what it is?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” Barney said brusquely.
The young man pulled back a little, his back straightened slightly and he seemed to recover his manners.
“Sorry sir. Didn’t mean to pry. Have a good day.”
Barney ignored the delivery boy as he stepped away, got onto a red motorbike parked by the road, and disappeared down the road.
He read the telegram in frustrated silence.
WE NEED THAT FIRST DRAFT STOP
WE CAN’T KEEP PUSHING THE RELEASE DATE STOP
RETAILERS ARE GETTING IMPATIENT STOP
AND RECONNECT YOUR BLOODY PHONE STOP
= H.P. LANSINGER - PUBLISHING DIRECTOR EXCALIBUR PRESS + +
Barney crumpled up the note (it was practically a muscle memory by now) and was about to defiantly toss it away—a momentary thought of it getting caught in the breeze and floating down the street until it got caught up in a dirty puddle somewhere gave him a brief moment of vengeful satisfaction—but the nagging voices of reason made him reconsider. He gave a deep sigh and stepped back into the house, closing the door behind him.
He sat back down by the desk and tossed the telegram down beside the typewriter.
“Name, soul, why not?” he mumbled to himself while thinking of his publisher. “I’ve written worse. Besides, magic doesn’t have to make sense. If Lansinger asks...I’ll just say it's symbolic.”
He cracked his knuckles and seemed poised to start typing.
“OK, Greywolf, your soul is gone and Alaric commands you to do his evil deeds, and only your true name, which only he knows, can free you.”
He stared at the empty page in the typewriter for a couple of long seconds.
“Now what?”
He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling while he pondered the possibilities.
“He did say no other living people knew his name. The ghost of his father could appear before him and…no, I already did that in Isle of the Dead. And his wife already defied the gods to save his life in Song of the Valkyries.
His tone turned bitter.
“Besides, if I hear another critic say ‘Deus ex Machina’ I will be remembered as both a second-rate author and a murderer.
“How’s that for a publicity stunt, Mr. Lansinger?” He held up his right arm, thumb and index finger extended as if reciting a headline, “‘reclusive author channels inner barbarian, slays critic with battle-axe.’”
He gave a mirthless chuckle and slumped forward, almost prostrating himself before the typewriter. His eyes fixed on the centre of the empty white void of the page.
Greywolf has lost his soul,” he whispered, “in more ways than one.”
After a moment of silent pleading to the creative muses he no longer believed in, his gaze turned to the bottle to the right of the typewriter. He reached out for it and poured himself another glass. Without hesitation he lifted the glass and gulped down the amber liquid. He pinched his eyes shut and let out a low sound halfway between a sigh and growl.
As the initial burning sensation began fading, he opened his eyes and in his lower periphery spotted something glinting in the green-tinted lowball glass. He lifted it up closer to his eyes and examined it closer. There was something reflected there, warped by the curvature of the glass. He strained his eyes to focus on the mirror image—it wasn’t on the desk seen through the glass, so it had to be something behind him, and it was growing larger. A second later it came into focus and he could see the clear outline of a double-bladed battle-axe.