CONSULT THE MAPS OF OG-GRIM-DOG’S WORLD HERE
AN OGRE OF THREE HEADS
It was night-time at the Flayed Testicles. Drinking time.
Conversation swirled around the inn, laughter erupting from one corner, dark and secret mutterings in another. Men and women talking and drinking, with nowhere better to be and nothing better to do. You could say it was an inn like any other in the land of Magidu.
Except for the landlord.
Tea towel permanently draped over one shoulder, he was the oil that kept the wheels turning, serving food and drink with cheery amiability, a dirty joke for the women and a wink for the men. Respectful yet familiar; controlled yet approachable. And no-one ever tried to make trouble in his inn. For he was an ogre, and he was an ogre of three heads.
It could have been awkward addressing an ogre of three heads. Which pair of eyes to look at? Use one name or all three? But this ogre insisted on being called Landlord, and Landlord only. And if you called out this name, then invariably you found three pairs of eyes all looking your way, each head giving you their undivided attention.
And so it was that this night, the regulars called out this name, a name that was not really a name at all. No longer demanding to be served his ale, though that would continue to flow all night, never fear. They demanded something they had found to be even more valuable, and something never watered down, either. They called out for a story. For, in the quiet and peaceable backwater that was Magidu, they loved a bloodcurdling story, and no-one told a story quite as peculiar, or marvellous, or chilling, as the Landlord. The Landlord’s stories were outlandish, outrageous, preposterous, completely unbelievable. Yet, when he told them, the Landlord’s customers all agreed it sounded like he had been there himself. This, they would tell each other, is the mark of a truly great storyteller. Not to mention, with three heads, he was very good at doing all the voices.
The conversations died down, the anticipation heightened. The Landlord took his time wiping down the bar, letting the tension build as all great performers know to do.
But this night would be different from all the other nights.
It wasn’t because of the Landlord or his regulars. It was because of a newcomer.
Sitting at the table at the front of the inn was a small, bespectacled man. His clothing was old-fashioned and worn-looking. It had the effect of making him look older than he really was.
As the Landlord wiped at his bar, getting ready to begin, he couldn’t help but notice that large segments of his audience were distracted. People were gesturing at the man on the front table, a quill in one hand hovering over a piece of parchment, apparently ready to record whatever words might be emitted from the Landlord’s mouths.
The genial mask slipped somewhat.
‘What are you doing?’ asked one of the heads.
‘I intend to record what you say,’ answered the man matter-of-factly.
‘Why would you do that?’ asked a second head.
‘Because I know who you are. You are Og-Grim-Dog.’
Gasps erupted around the inn. A name—they had a name. No longer the Landlord, this ogre was Og-Grim-Dog, one name for each head, together forming a whole.
‘You must have me mistaken,’ said the second head.
‘Mistaken?’ asked the man, the pitch of his voice rising at the end of the word. ‘How many three-headed ogres are there?’ he said, a little smugly.
‘You’d be surprised,’ suggested the third head.
‘Come on,’ said the man in a chiding voice, wafting his quill at the ogre. ‘You are Og-Grim-Dog, infamous across Gal’azu.’
The regulars at the Testicles muttered at this. Had their Landlord really come here from Gal’azu—the dangerous, edgier province to the east? Could it be? Could it be that his stories, so fanciful and fantastical, were episodes from his previous life?
‘Everyone in my homeland knows at least one story about your exploits,’ continued the newcomer. ‘But I have travelled here to find out the truth. To sift the facts from the fabrications, to peel back the layers of myth-making, the exaggeration and the misrepresentation; to record for posterity, what really happened. Once I have done my work, broken in and bridled the fable with my tools—this quill, this ink, and this parchment—I will have copies made and distributed, so that all may know the truth of it.’
‘You dare to make such a claim?’ demanded the Landlord’s first head, in a deep growl of a voice that none here had ever heard before. The ogre before them seemed to grow, and the Testicles shrank. As if awakening from a stupor, or a spell, they could see the hard, grey skin; the giant teeth; the thick black hairs sprouting from knobbly warts. And it was only then that the regulars of the Flayed Testicles recognised their terrible folly, of frequenting an inn owned by a three-headed ogre.
‘You, with your puny tools, a feather and a small bottle of ink, will break and shackle our legend? We are Og-Grim-Dog! We have been loved and reviled! We have been the Hero of the Hour, the Darkest Villain, and everything in between! We have saved this world and travelled to worlds beyond it! We have deployed weapons of death beyond your imagination! They have called us The Destroyer! The Unclassifiable! We graduated top of our class in Rhetoric! We once shagged a—’
The second head coughed. ‘Remember, we agreed not to mention that,’ it said under its breath.
‘Oh yes, sorry,’ replied head one. It turned back to the man, a mean and fiery look in its eyes. It opened its mouth, revealing its teeth, each the size of a human’s hand. It made its hand into a fist, the size of a human’s head. The newcomer crumpled under the glare and the hostility and the threat of imminent, bloody violence. ‘You think you can distil the life of Og-Grim-Dog into some words on a page?’
The inn became silent. It was the silence of a question left hanging in the air.
‘Maybe,’ squeaked the man.
The silence transmuted, to the sound of the Flayed Testicles holding its collective breath. They hadn’t come out tonight to watch a man be torn apart and eaten in three separate, ogre-sized mouths. Having said that, it would be something to tell the grandchildren…
‘Very well,’ said the ogre, in a surprisingly calm voice. ‘You accept the challenge. But know this. Failure on your part will result in not only your death, but the death of every man, woman and under-age drinker in this inn.’
A third silence. The silence when everyone thinks to themselves, I could have stayed at home tonight.
‘Agreed,’ said the stranger, apparently entirely comfortable about risking the lives of all present.
The regulars of the Testicles stared at the man with antipathy, but he seemed oblivious. He dipped his quill into his ink pot and held it at the ready. ‘Where shall we start?’ he asked.
‘Let’s start in the middle,’ suggested the ogre’s third head.
‘Why the hell would we start there?’ demanded the first head angrily.
‘A non-linear narrative is more flamboyant,’ explained the third head.
‘More pretentious,’ countered the first.
‘It’s also a better stylistic choice for this project,’ continued the third head, warming to the subject, ‘which is based on our recall of our collective memories.’