But then she puts her blind eyes up to his face and she says to him: you’re not savage enough to be my lover. If thou hadst been Himself, earlier this day, she says to him, He would have torn out yon rival’s limbs and fed them to the Aeways Starving’t Dawgs. Then she says to him, there’s only one thing my lover likes as much as pitiless violence, and she climbs up on top of him and they make savage love.

*

The Old Gods, also known as The First Powers, stand assembled here in conference.

Their true names are subatomic and so unpronounceable by incarnates.

We have given them the name of Father, Grandfather and Son, for they are wedded too.

They are stood in the presence of Fate, who is bound in adamantine chains and imprisoned in the heart of The Singularity.

Fate stands charged with having congress with mortals in the form of a celestial swan.

How can Fate be charged or admonished or in any way chastised when it is his nature – forged, let us not forget, in the turning inside out of our own minds – to shepherd people to their ends? The Father protests.

Is that all we have become? The Son demands. Are we simply shepherds of lambs? Fishers of men? But where is the sport?

It was in sport that I made love to a mortal woman in the guise of a great beast, Fate booms, from his place of imprisonment in the heart of The Dead Zone: The Place Of Endless Echoes.

And now it is too late, The Grandfather says. Divinity has fallen.

As Gods ye have the power to bring time itself to an end, Fate booms, do ye not?

The Old Gods, also known as The First Powers, look solemnly at each other.

What is the name of your son? The Son asks him. What name has she given him? The Calamity? The Troubles? The Fall?

She should have named him Destiny, Fate sighs.

The Father pulls a face.

Instead she has christened him The Anomaly, Fate says.

And what of his powers?

He has become a story. His powers are inexorable.

And where does this story take place?

On the island of Hibernia.

And how long does it last?

Until the end of time.

Next time: Neutrino, The Anomaly and The X-Ray Kid Enter The Anti-Matter Universe!

*

Okay, so it’s decided, we’re sending Barney to do the dirty, it has got to be done, whether I’m a true fan or not. I says to him, see while you’re in there, pick me up some more copies of that Savage Sword of Conan would you? Will I fuck, he says. Do it, I says to him, it’ll be good cover. Besides, I says to him, that’s your excuse to loiter round the shop till the right moment. Plus I really wanted to get some more issues, is the honest truth. What the fuck is this thing called, this thing, this Sexy Sword of Conan thing, Barney says to me. Fuck sake, don’t ask for that, I says to him. It’s Savage Sword of Conan. Just think about what you’re about to do to the boy, I says to him, then it’ll all come flooding back.