"What do I hafta do?" he panted, lecherous visions still dancing in his head.
She did not seem to notice his burning gaze. "Were Elagabalus but free of the Tower of the Bat, he and Zamaria could wed and save the kingdom from the sorcerer's wicked domination. The omens have shown you to be the only man with a prayer of rescuing him, if you but will."
"I will! I will!"
"Truly, it is a task only a fool or a hero would undertake with so little hesitation," she said, giving him the benefit of the doubt. "The Tower of the Bat is easy to enter, but hard to leave.
"We have, indeed, only the dying babbles of men who have pressed beyond the outworks, but it is known that in the topmost pinnacle of the Tower of the Bat squats the invincible Boring Beast, which must be slain ere Elagabalus is saved. Will you aid Zamorazamaria in her hour of need, O Condom? It must be now, for if Elagabalus is not freed, King Philiboustros will give my mistress's hand to Sloth-Amok tomorrow."
The princess's hand did not much interest Condom, but if she was anything like her maidservant, he had a good healthy yen for her adjacent giblets. Still, there was that damned danger. He paused a while for thought; his reasoning advanced with the sluglike pace that marks the barbarian. "I'll do it!" he said at last.
The serving-maid's lips parted in the first smile he had won from her. She bent down and, wincing, kissed him passionately. "Gracious Condom!" she said, skipping back before he could pin her to the bed. "There is not a moment to lose if the kingdom is to be saved. Listen closely, for I have here a charm to aid you…"
An hour later Condom was crouched before the frowning gate of Sloth-Amok's fortress. He was frowning himself, trying to remember what the charm was for.
After ascending the feared Thirteen Steps (these were made from the skulls and bones of virgins over the age of seventy-three, a story in itself), Condom at last confronted the Tower of the Bat. Having searched in vain for a knocker (he kept thinking of Zamaria's wench), he smote the door with his huge fist.
Only silence answered.
He drew his mighty axe and began to chop away at the iron-bound wood. Suddenly, a small panel above the door flew open. One of Gulp's beady little eyes peered through. "What are you doing, you idiot? Can't you read the sign?"
Condom squinted up at Gulp. "I don't see no sign."
"Under your feet, cretin."
Condom looked down. "'Welcome'?" he guessed.
"No, lackwit. It says, 'Go away!' is what it says. So go away!" Gulp slammed the panel shut, leaving the barbarian with a perplexed scowl on his face. He muttered something impolite and resumed his assault on the door.
Gulp reappeared. "No one home!" he snapped, and vanished.
"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Condom grumbled peevishly. He started down the dolorous stairway, but paused and turned back. "I don't care if you're there or not. Here I come!"
Chips flew as the axe smashed into the rock-hard timbers. "What do you think you're doing, you overthewed oaf?" Gulp cried. "Who in the seventeen distinct and different hells do you think you are?"
"I'm, uh, Condom, the Trojan, and if you don't get out of my way, I'll chop pieces off you, too." With a last brutal stroke, the barbarian reduced the entranceway to the Tower of the Bat to a pile of fagots. Gulp fled, screeching in dismay.
The Trojan climbed the Tower's gloomy stair to its end, only to find himself in a place any man in full possession of his faculties would have paid his soul as ransom to avoid: the chamber of the Boring Beast.
Know, O peerless Prince, that though the Beast is long vanished from this world, his progeny live on: the dealer who at great length extols the virtues of a worthless slave, the mage full of praise for his latest worthless nostrum, or your minister of finance. But the Boring Beast, O Prince, surpassed these in its capacity for ennui to the same degree as Your Radiance surpasses his humble servant, myself. For the dread Beast was wont to drone on and on over this and that, saying nothing whatever at such inordinate length as to freeze the ardor of the doughtiest warriors?and these brave men and bold, and not to be despised in battle, and men who always fought at the fore and never gave way… I crave pardon, O Prince, for even the thought of the Boring Beast conjures up its image. Suffice to say, any fool caught in its spell could no more escape than bird from mesmerizing snake. And into its dominion the Trojan now thrust himself.
At first he had no notion of aught amiss; the chamber he entered seemed deserted, save for a pile of gray furs in one corner. Condom paid the drab heap scant heed. Nor did he dwell on the row of still bodies before it, once-mighty men now no more than mummified skin stretched drum-tight over dry bones. The spell of the Beast had held them enthralled until they perished.
And now its colorless voice threatened the Trojan with the same desiccation. The Beast was talking, it seemed, of the state of its bowels, but so dull were its words that little meaning came to him, only a monotonous drone that made his mouth sag open in a huge yawn. In his chamber, Sloth-Amok peered, chuckling, into the scrying-kettle as he watched the Boring Beast ensorcel the barbarian.
Condom's eyelids began to droop; so, unbeknownst to him, did those of Sloth-Amok. The great sorcerer had never before witnessed the Beast toying with a victim, and found himself quite unable to resist the field of tedium it projected. With a soft snore, he fell face-first into the split peas.
As fate would have it, Condom put up a stronger resistance to Elagabalus's dreary guardian. He had forgotten the charm he had been given, small white tablets created specifically against this menace by the renegade mage Amphet-Amun. But his own resources were not so meager as might be thought. For one thing, he had often hunted wild bores through the forests of his native land. For another, he had the true barbarian distrust of speeches; as he himself had trouble stringing more than three words together, he naturally found listening to anyone else's long-winded talk unpleasant. Stifling a yawn, he moved toward the Boring Beast, languidly raising his axe. "Will you for Crumb's sake shut up?" he growled.
The Beast did not yet understand that its soporific techniques were failing. "Now I have always found that a brew of salt water and radishes makes a good cathartic," it informed him confidentially.
"Enough!" Condom roared. His gleaming blade bit deep into the Boring Beast's flabby gray flesh. Its cry of agony, this once, produced no ennui; not since the day it had bored its eggshell open had it been so rudely beset. Again and again Condom smote the insipid monster. At last his axe pierced its bladder of boredom. Pent-up anesthetic gases hissed free. The Beast fell with a final low, inane wail; within moments Condom swooned beside it.
When he woke, his head ached abominably, both from the aftereffects of the gases which had sustained the Beast and from the onset of a devastating hangover. He rose, groaning; even the dim light of the Beast's chamber seemed far too bright. And from the door behind the monster's corpse came insistent pounding and a voice whose words were muffled by the thick wood of the portal.
Condom wished the noise would go away, but whoever was making it kept right on. He also raised his voice, so the Trojan finally understood what he was saying: "Who has come to rescue Elagabalus?"
With a will, the barbarian took his axe to the door. He tried to ignore the racket he was making. As soon as he had hacked through the stout timbers, a pale hand snaked through the hole to turn the outer knob, which, the Trojan discovered, had not been locked. The door swung open and Elagabalus stepped out.