This ancient manuscript was found by a spelunker in the Ozarks while exploring an underground cavern. Of the pages that were recovered, there is little which remains legible. It appears to be a fictionalized history.
CHAPTER ONE
In many lands he was known as the Always One. People in some parts of the world spoke of Savage Noire; but always and everywhere he was spoken of with awe; at least by those that had the reckless temerity to speak of him at all.
On Jan. 15/2088, he raised his head from sleep. For many months now he had been troubled by that foreboding sense of change. He had experienced this kind of change before. This was not the small disruption of meager transaction, where someone gained a little and someone lost. No. This was much bigger. The fabric of the Universe was being altered. Ancient powers were awakening and gathering, and the bitter winds brought the smell of acrid blood to his nostrils. For a long moment he stood silently while his eyes pierced the surrounding darkness with a deep and unfathomable sadness. Then, just as silently, he started westward in an effortless trot, moving with a fixed purpose towards Snow Mountain. When the sun struggled reluctantly over the eastern rim of the world, he was still moving forward at the same inexorable pace. For he was the Always One, and his time had come...again.
(several missing chapters)...
CHAPTER 8
Foxtemptress was sleeping on satin sleeps, but there was nothing sleek about her dream. She was having the same one again. The dream had started two months ago when autumn had crept into the arms of her icy master, and hidden her golden tresses beneath his white bonnet.
She tossed uneasily while the creature moved slowly toward her. He walked confidently, knowing she could not avoid him, and knowing she did not really want to. Now she was seated at her piano, playing a concerto by Rachmaninof. She had summoned him again. Damn! Each night she played the music to ward him off; she dredged up desperately obscure pieces as a camouflage against his insidious awareness. But Damn! Every night it was the same. No sooner had she begun to play, than he came into view, walking easily and arrogantly toward her. He seemed to come down out of a white mountain, unhurried and supremely confident. His eyes were flecked with red and his nose was doughy. His grin was like a magnet, compelling her to meet him half way across the valley where the grass was pleasantly green and watered by a melodious river of azure water.
Faster and faster she played, and closer and closer he came; walking and grinning, grinning and walking. Now her delicate hands fairly flew over the keyboard. The music was pounding, pounding, pounding, reaching an undeniable crescendo. His hands were reaching for her now, and suddenly she realized (as she had in all the dreams before), that this was not a man at all. Then his gnarled claws ripped the silk blouse off of her soft breast, and his tongue snaked out of his evil twisted mouth to stroke her erect nipples. His red flecked eyes were popping in and out of his evil twisted head on long stalks; in and out, and in and out. And now her own hands were tugging at her jeans. God! What was the matter with her?! The piano kept playing like some exuberant spectator at a bestial wedding feast. And then her fingers were playing another instrument along the rich curve of her (editor's note: here a line or two is missing)...she was sitting backwards on the stool, leaning back naked against the keyboard, her thighs...(more missing lines, possibly a whole page or more)...and from somewhere deep inside she found a final dying ember of strength, and she screamed "no, no, no!".
She was awake and trembling furiously; her thighs clutched her hand convulsively and then the sobs began. In the distance, the sound of footsteps faded away, accompanied by a strange, chilling laughter.
CHAPTER 17
(several missing paragraphs)
Foxtrapped tried desperately to free her dainty wrists from the ropes but it only made her shoulders ache unpleasantly. She was bound with her back against an old oak tree while a lanky man with a surly face spit chewin between her feet. Yur right purty, ain't ya now. Ya know what I think. I think my bottle of T-Bird would look good in your mouth. Foxtrapped winced. But at that moment a huge hulking man (for he was a hillbilly) sidled over from the campfire. "Maybe, my bottle of T-bird would look good in yur mouth, Kasha". Neither man moved for an instant, for it was a showdown, but the man called Kasha had a black scowl, and his right finger twitched closer to his sidearm.
"Lee, check on the horses; and Kasha, you git the fire stirred up. Any more arguing over that girl and I'll kill you both". It was too dark to make out the features of the man who was coiled like a rattlesnake on the other side of the dwindling fire, but there was no mistaking the authority of his voice. Terror jumped across the faces of both men, and ran around their eyes making them squint...(several missing pages)
...It was three hours before dawn when a huge black dog padded silently into camp. He went to each of the sleeping men and paused each time to gaze grimly at them. He seemed to be struggling with a moral dilemma, but after a time he simply sighed and left as silently as he had come. One of the men, the one known as Druss, rolled to his side and stared malignantly after him and spat...
CHAPTER 78
(missing pages)
...At that moment, 200 pounds of black fury hurtled out of the shadows and landed menacingly between foxvision and the Gargatch. Ranger seemed slight before the formidable bulk of the Gargatch; but there was something equally dauntless and absolute in the eyes of both. A strange elated smile crept into Sauron's eyes, and then widened degree by degree, until his whole face was twisted into a devilish mask of purest exalted evil. "We meet again, Savage Noire!".
Sauron moved quickly toward Ranger, then swiped viciously with a right claw; but Ranger was already twisting to the side, and came clear with a spinning motion underneath Sauron's arm. His large fangs barely missed the creatures rib cage. Then he tumbled and rolled clear, circling to face his opponent for the next onslaught. Now Ranger spoke telepathically: "I remember when you were just Lee...Lee the Hick--a plain and simple man, but good".
Sauron laughed and threw back his head exposing the peasant features. "Yes, Solon. That was another time, before Druss taught me the meaning of power--and the power of meaning". He laughed again.
It was ancient experience and wisdom versus gargantuan evil in a seemingly invincible body. The battle raged back and forth across the greensward, and Foxtresses now saw that the grass was sprinkled with large quantities of red. The contestants closed and separated with such incalculable speed and violence that Foxpurity could scarcely be sure of where or when the damaging wounds had occurred; but now she noticed with an intense sinking of the heart, that Ranger was beginning to pant laboriously, and Sauron's blows were coming closer and closer to their inevitable triumph. Ranger's right flank was soaked and sticky from a terrible gash in the shoulder area; and although Sauron had wounds of his own, the creature was sure-footed, and his ugly grin increased, even as Ranger's eyes grew more intense and determined. But there was no hiding the extreme pain that flickered behind those courageous eyes.
Foxhoney huddled deeper into herself as she watched the Gargatch gaining more and more of the advantage. She knew she should attempt to do something, anything, to assist the brave animal, but she had been struck dumb at an early age. Her limbs seemed frozen in a horrible dream and an icy hand gripped her heart. She tried desperately to suck air into her little lungs, but her rib cage was like a stone prison, slowly closing its heavy walls around her. Only her eyes (beautifully accented with a soft blue mascara) remained under her control, and what they saw tormented her like more than a thousand hells.
Now the Gargatch was speaking: "In a short time you will meet your death, Savage Noire. In a way it is regrettable! I could have found a high place for you in my magnificent legions; I think I would have placed you only beneath myself; certainly ahead of that arrogant bungler, Pausuador of Kasha! But you prefer to ally yourself with these weak and insignificant fools, these small minded clowns that dare to oppose my sovereignty. Now you will lie beside them for all eternity! And I will place your severed head in a high place, to warn others against such ridiculous hubris. Prepare for death, Savage Noire!".
Ranger was not really listening to Sauron's words, although he remained unceasingly alert to his movements. He had heard similar braggadocio thousands of times in the past, and always he had somehow lived to walk away from their fallen bodies.
This time he doubted he would walk away, but he would be well satisfied to draw the match with a double death. The girl was a pretty little thing and deserved better that living with a demon. In any case, he welcomed the opportunity to regain his breath, and to center his equilibrium for the final moments; for there was absolutely no doubt in his mind--there would be no more talking in this encounter.
He had fought in so many battles over the long and tiring years. He remembered surviving icy winters that decimated literally every living creature around him. And there were times in the hot sandy deserts when his bones were almost left with the others--to entertain unborn generations of academics. He remembered particular opponents that had sworn to kill him: Clarence of Bithemore who has left that thin scar beneath his left ear...running nearly to the center of his throat; Lobo the Mad, the fierce wolf-dog of the Eastern woodlands, who had made only one mistake after cracking both of Ranger's front legs. The list went on and on...
...there was his most dangerous opponent--Larienteema--later to be known as Druss. Their last struggle had taken place in front of Lord Frontenac the pitiless (known as Nasty, for short). Ranger had been losing and had staked everything on one final desperate gamble. The people had watched in horror as Ranger had lept at the Dark Wizard, then suddenly rolled in midair, leaving his underbelly exposed to the mighty swordsman; but as Larienteema had moved his sword downward in a lightning skewering motion, Ranger had...
Sauron had finished his speech and now stepped closer to Ranger, narrowing the gap of life. With disbelieving eyes, Foxsiren watched the great black dog launch himself from 15 feet away in a twisting roll. Then he was five feet away and Sauron began an ecstatic disemboweling movement with his tremendous right claw. But suddenly, in midair like some inhuman gymnast, the Always One twisted miraculously in the opposite direction, slipping somehow under Sauron's arm...and now his teeth were two feet from his throat. This was an opportune time for Sauron to recover his momentary imbalance, and with a tremendous scoop of his left claw he laid him lifeless on the grass. Where the mighty dog warrior had been, there was now only a limp puppet pelt, with a huge hole spouting bright red blood from its side.
Sauron turned and strutted slowly toward Foxsorry. She had never seen such arrogant pleasure in a face. He seemed to have grown in size; now he was truly victorious, undeniably unstoppable. "None of you will stand in my way any longer," he boomed. "You will suffer horribly for daring to challenge my mastery. Who is master now!".
She tried to distract him with a joke: "If a couple is married in Missouri and divorced in Arkansas, are they still brother and sister?". Sauron was momentarily distracted but after scratching his head briefly, he pushed the question aside.
His breath was putrid as he bent menacingly over her, and his jagged black teeth approached her face. And he was talking and talking and talking, but she could not hear what he was saying; because she was seeing what he could not, and would never see: a huge ball of black fury launched itself from the sidereal shadows, and Savage Noire, with one mighty flip of his gigantic jaws, ripped Sauron's throat open from ear to ear.
(The only remaining fragment appears to be the last sentence of the book)
...And far away, on the other side of the world, Solon put his head on his mighty paws and ___ept. (Scholars are divided as to whether the author intended this fragmented last word as "slept" or "wept", and they spend a great deal of time in learned discourse over it. One distinguished academic has even hypothesized that the word could be "crept", and this has engendered an entirely new direction to the literature).
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