EL OJO DE ARGÓN - FRAGMENTO INICIAL

So I decided to do a little translation of The Eye of Argon (remember? The worst fantasy story ever?) with as many misspellings and convoluted words as the original...

EL OJO DE ARGÓN - Capítulo 1

Ensayo de Sandra Dermark

(Todas las faltas de ortorgrafía son inrencionales)

La senda desgastada por el tempo serpenteaba adelante por los polborientos climas de la tierra hierma que domina grandes porciones del imperio norgoliano. Betustas pisadas de cascos, axfisiadas por las mobedizas arenas del tiempo, reluzían con un fulgor mate en la polvorienta corteza terrestre. Un sol de justicia lanzaba ardientes rallos de incandecencia desde arriba, a medio camino de su revolición diaria. Pequeños roedores correteavan por ahí, ocupando sus mentes con los logros diarios de sus miserables vidas. Yovía polbo sobre tres exaustas monturas en nuves ccegadoras, mientras llebavan el pesado cargamento de sus eslforzados superbisores.

--¡Prepárate a abrazar a tus creadores en las estigias cvaernas del infierno, bárbaro! --prorrumpó el primer soldado con zvoz entrecrtada.

--¡Sólo después de que hayas besado al veloz corcel de la muerte, miserable! --respondió Grignr.

Una veloz oja de brillante acero revotó en el enorme escudo de cuero delbárbaro mintras su musculoso brazo derecho selanzó hacia delante, undiendo un agilado acero en los organos vitales del soldado. El mercenario evsicerado sa calló de su siya de montar y se deslpomó en picado sobre la nublada pradera, rociando el sedento y polvoriento suelo con gotitas escarlata del fludo vital que escapaba de su cuerpo.

El entusiasmado bárbaro rotaba sobre su ehe, y su melena de un rojo fuego se agiteba, conbulsa, en las úmedas corrientes de aire al enfrentarse al ataque del compalñero de armas del soldaod vencisdo.

--Maldito bárbaro, Gritó el soldado al obserbar a su camarada muerto.

Una reluziente cimitarra propinó un pesado golpe aobre el picudo hielmo del bárbaro, trayendo numbes más densas al nubladio cerebro del ecordiano. Desaciéndose de los efectos del contundente golpe fobre su cabeza, Grignr dirigió su acesro riveteado de escarleta hacia la crudamente forjada coraza del soldado, shocando sin ningun daño con el costado izkierdo de su adversairo. Elc orcel del soldado relinció cuendo este dirigió al caballo hacia atrás, lejos del pentrante acero del bárbaro.  GRignr espoleó a su montura hacia delante mnentras el roncamente penetrante girto de guerra de su raza criada en despoblado resonaba desde sus potentes pulmones. Una hoja giratoria rebotó sin causar daño alguno sobre el enscudo del ptotente ladrón mientras su musuloso brazo derecho hendía hacia arriba,clasvando un pie de acero cetgador que rasgó por completo la expuesta garganta del simerio. uN boqueante gorogoteo de la boca contorsianada del soldado moentras caía sobre la dorada arena a sus pies, y se retocría agonizante en sulecho de muerte.

THE EYE OF ARGON

#EyeOfArgon

Described as "the worst fantasy novella ever", The Eye of Argon is a story by Jim Theis, who was 16 when he wrote it. It's the tale of Grignr, a foul-mouthed barbarian warrior who is trying to escape the dungeons of Evil Overlord Agaphim and rescue a young woman named Carthena from a pagan cult who want to sacrifice her to their idol — a statue with one eye called "The Eye of Argon". (A "scarlet emerald", complete with some interesting plumbing.)

Published in the fanzine OSFAN 7, in 1970, the story is well known for its abundant cliches, shoddy spelling, flat characters, wooden dialogue and overly colourful writing. Every woman is a "wench", eyes are "emerald orbs". Almost nothing is ever "said" — instead it is "queried" or "ejaculated" or "husked" or "stated whimsicoracally". There's an extended scene involving elderly priests groping Carthena, and a scene where Grignr has sex with (or possibly just hugs) a "half-naked harlot... with a lithe, opaque nose". One cult member randomly faints by an epileptic fit in battle, and another suffers a savage, multi-paragraph groin attack.

The most widely-known and circulated copy of the story comes to an abrupt and unsatisfactory halt, and for many years it was believed that the ending was lost forever (or even, in some quarters, that the story was never completed). Recent years have seen the separate discoveries of two intact copies of the fanzine in which The Eye of Argon debuted, so it is now known how the tale ends. (With multiple exclamation marks, it turns out.)

At science fiction conventions, The Eye of Argon is now a sort of parlour game. All participants sit in a circle with a hard copy of the story, and the first one starts reading aloud — pronouncing every word as it's misspelled, and including every adjective. When they finally burst into laughter, the copy is passed to the next person. If a person manages to make it through more than a page, the copy is sometimes passed anyway, on the grounds that the reader must have special training as a news anchor.

I heard of this story and had to read a little TEoA to get the gist of it. And the story begins like this (none of the misspellings are mine, but the author's):

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.

Trust me, it gets eeeeeven better:

Grignr slipped his right hand to his thigh, concealing a small opague 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.

Eeeeeeeeveeen beheading a rat to eat it, for Grignr not to starve behind bars, is described in all its gorious glory:

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.