Tiw's Cup

In the normal state of things we are fairly simple creatures with only two prime motivators - Sex and Death.

I capitalised them and made them bold because I'm not just talking about sex and death. I'm talking about everything that they represent, effectively the carrot and the stick that in various forms prompts we poor donkeys to keep walking, regardless of the load that we're forced to bear.

In general, Sex represents all the good stuff. The sweet flavours, physical pleasures and groovy sensations that are the comfort zone that we strive to stay warm within. Death on the other hand is the pain, the cold and the absence of comfort that we all naturally dread, and the whole of human joy and misery can be found in the merry dance that worms its way endlessly between one and the other.

Some of the merry dancers will try to gravitate toward the Sexiness of it all because they believe that you only get one turn around the floor and that you should grab what you can. Others lean towards the Deathliness because they believe that the dance is some kind of test and that there are prizes at the end for those who can defer their gratification, (a bit of a risky policy in my humble opinion).

Finally there are those who wander the middle path and carefully pick their way between the other dancers indulging in none of the available adventurous potential. We shall ignore these people because their lives are a complete waste of fucking time and they just get in the way of us real men.

Let's go back to the first bunch. Those who love the Sexiness. These are the Hedonists. Unashamedly self-indulgent they eat everything, drink everything, smoke everything, try all the lovely drugs and are always on the lookout for a girl with bigger tits. They are shallow people but tremendous fun at parties. The only ones who fail to be entertained by a good Hedonist are people from the second bunch. I'd use the term death eaters because it's perfect but unfortunately already taken. You can't entertain Death lovers because they make a point of not being entertained. Being terminally bored and pale faced is sexy to them.

Hang on a minute! Doesn't that make both sides of the dance floor sexy? Well yes, because this dance floor isn't flat or circular. It's shaped like a Mobius strip. It only has one surface and which ever extreme you care to dance toward you'll inevitably end up at the other. Think about it. The final outcome of the true Hedonist can only ever be stagnation and boredom because in the end nothing is ever enough - hence we find Death. On the other hand, deprive your senses of stimulation and they seek it out. That's why sensory deprivation floatation tanks make you feel so good. You come out of the darkness into the normal world and life's a fucking cartoon for the next few hours because your senses have turned up the volume. So in seeking Death we find the sexiness of our lives enhanced (adrenalin junkies take note, there will be a test).

So, here endeth the lesson and now down to business...

Tiw's Cup - Outline. 
Tiw's Cup is a cocktail of drugs imbibed by the Viking Berserkers before they go into battle. It's their way of making our metaphorical dance floor very much smaller. So small in fact that Sex and Death end up wearing the same party dress, with hilarious results.
A thousand years later, put a profoundly Hedonistic adventurer in the same room with the ancient recipe, take a seat, crack open a beer and watch the fireworks.

This is a third person narrative told almost entirely in flashback. The beginning and the end are in the same place. I thought that would be appropriate, bearing in mind the above lecture.

Characters.
Ethan - A great guy. A very intelligent man born to wander the earth looking for the next good time. He's done it all and almost all at once. Eventually, burned out and bored, he dissolves into alcohol and waits for the end until a passing remark by a fellow drunkard alerts him to the fact that there is a path as yet untrod. This is where the tale truly begins because for Ethan, too much is not enough...

In the true spirit of the story I'm giving it away as a complete feebie but only for a limited time. The Hedonists amongst you will appreciate the sexiness of getting something for nothing whereas my dear friends on the morbid end of the spectrum will thoroughly enjoy not enjoying watching the Hedonist in the tale pay a hefty price for his idiocy.

YES. It's free to all who have read this far! But if you feel guilty about accepting it then leave a review here or on the smashwords site as payment for all my hard work.

Tiw's Cup - Introduction.

As a reader of dark fiction you are no doubt familiar with the tingle of uncertainty that a good horror story can bring. Indeed, it's probably the very reason that you pick a story like this up in the first place. Some people dive to horrendous depths on a single breath to experience that thrill while others will scale to dizzying heights with little more between them and bone crushing death than a moist fingertip hooked onto a nub of fragile rock. But what do these people do when they've done everything? How do they cope with an existence made monochrome by the absence of adrenalin? And what will they do if they then discover that there is one more step left to take? Tiw's Cup is the first of Uncle John's Bedtime Tales…

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Tiw's Cup.

The mist was lifting, leaving only the bitter cold behind. It bit into his face with icicle teeth as he drew a deep breath and turned his stiffened neck to look around him. He couldn’t remember anything, not even his name.

Ethan, his own voice eventually told him. His name was Ethan.

Ethan sat, his back propped up against the mouldering dampness of the wall. The half light revealed something of his surroundings. An old room; empty and smelling of rot. Wires hung out of the walls like burst veins. Floorboards, dry like old bones. The windows dusty and pock marked with brick holes placed by the young engaged in dismantling the old.

And all this blood.

The survival instinct is a singular entity. Ethan didn’t care where the blood had come from, only that it wasn’t his. He felt no pain and was therefore gently reassured.

The mist lifted further. Ethan sat for a short eternity between thoughts. His body, rigid and heavy, felt no inclination to move. This pale mist, an odd composition of thickness and light felt almost tangible to him. In normal circumstances thick fog allows you to see that which is close up but obscures the distance. This mist, which filled the room, seemed to work the opposite way around. But it was lifting, Ethan felt sure. It was only a matter of time.

His cold mind though still somewhat solid and lethargic forced his eyes to rest on his bare feet. At least he assumed that they were his. These were dirty and misshapen, bulbous and swollen, but they seemed to be in the right place so they must be his. Damn this fucking fog! Where the hell was he?

This question was not uncommon in Ethan's life. Anyone else would have had grave cause for concern if they had been in a situation that prompted this question more than a few times in their entire span. But in Ethan's life this question came up a lot! Ethan was an adventurer, a spiritual warrior, a Byronic hero. Waking up in strange places with no memory of the previous night was what he did. From an early age he’d been considered intellectually gifted. He could speak intelligibly at six months old and read pretty much anything by the age of four. His parents positively celebrated him but they were inevitably missing something. He was beyond them in virtually every aspect by the time he was nine. That’s not to say that Ethan was arrogant or dismissive, far from it. He loved his parents deeply but his inner nature drew him into fundamental conflict with their orderly lifestyle.

He wasn’t going to university. There would be no PhD. No scientific breakthrough or miracle surgery. No concert pianist or prime minister.

Ethan had decided to live instead.

They had accepted his decision in grave silence, and their unvoiced disappointment had torn him down more effectively than all the anger, tears and emotional blackmail that they could have used had they loved him less than they did.

There was so much in the world to be appreciated and Ethan was spiritually inspired to appreciate it. He’d left home at eighteen with a rucksack and two hundred pounds. He’d picked a road at random and stuck out his thumb.

There had been women on his travels. He was known by name in almost every brothel in Europe it seemed. He’d shagged his way around the world, eaten every conceivable delicacy, stood atop mountains and drunk the oceans dry.

And then of course there were the drugs. Opium in China, hashish in Morocco, peyote in Mexico, LSD in San Francisco. You name it; Ethan had snorted, swallowed, smoked, popped, sniffed, chased or mainlined it. He had screamed into the face of God after drinking virola juice in Columbia and awakened ten days later emaciated and caked with shit, strapped to a stinking, bug ridden mattress in a far away hovel. He’d almost died of dysentery.

What a fucking rush.

But what if anything, had he learned? Ethan was quick but he still never quite figured it out. The big lesson, that hedonism dulls the senses. You can only take so many stimuli before the brain begins to close down and ignore them. So to get the same buzz you have to go further, take more, and do more.

So he did.

Spiritual greed is greed nonetheless. His body had suffered. At twenty seven he looked like a man of fifty. Only his eyes betrayed his true age. They burned in their darkened sockets like emerald flares. He would not live a long life. But it would be a life to make the Gods envious.

At the peak of his own self destruction he’d been sitting, or rather slumping in a bar in Reykjavik, listening to a silver bearded academic piss head rattling on about how the Viking invasions of Western Europe were still affecting world politics. His Absinthe glass was empty, this made him sad.

‘If we still had it’, the piss head slurred, ‘we could rule the world.’

Ethan picked his forehead up from the table.

‘Had what?’

‘Tiw's cup.’ Piss head belched. ‘Tiw's fokking cup!’

‘What?’

‘The Berserkers.’ Piss head's eyes rolled in their sockets. ‘The Viking warriors, feared by everyone. They drink from Tiw's cup and go completely fokking insane. They run into battle naked and kill everything that moves. The recipe was lost. If we still had it….’ His voice trailed off, his drunken stupor victorious.

Sometimes the smallest of things are significant. The discarded cigarette that begets the forest fire. The irritating glint in the foaming rapids that entices the salmon to the hook.

Ethan was caught. His bored spirit had found new hope in the small promise of a stone yet unturned. It stirred once again engaging the help of his rusty but still remarkable intellect. He spent the next few months in libraries, museums and internet cafes looking for references to the magical brew known as Tiw’s cup. He found manuscripts, extracts and historical notes that pushed him into lateral avenues of folk lore, botany and neurochemistry. There were new languages and dialects to absorb, places to go, people to see. Ethan's life turned around.

It took four years, but in the end a small sheet of paper held the sum of his relentless enquiries. He had it, ‘Tiw's Cup’, the recipe for divine madness. The ingredients were surprisingly easy to obtain. Common sense dictated that they had to be freely available throughout Western Europe. Psilocybe mushrooms formed the basic juice, Lobelia, Wormwood and Lopium followed although the quantities varied with each account, throw in a little Hemlock and garnish with a pinch of ergot of rye. There seemed to be no real complexity involved. The reason for this was simple. It didn’t work. He’d locked himself away in a hostel room and thrown the key out of the window because he didn’t want to risk hurting anyone. Having cooked it all up he downed it in one gulp, wincing at its bitterness. He’d buzzed for the next six hours, had a few strange visions, laughed until his ribs ached, vomited liberally and then fallen asleep. All in all it was nothing that he hadn’t done many times before.

There had to be some missing ingredient or at least an aspect of the preparation that formed a catalytic effect. For weeks he returned to his precious photocopies. Manuscripts, legends and the odd learned dictation formed the core of his research. After hundreds of ever decreasing mental circles there was one in the end that threw him a lifeline.

A photocopy of a single historical reference which at first glance had seemed too superficial to be of any importance, but being the man that he was he had copied it anyway. The key it seemed was in the phrasing. It said simply ‘the drink was made for each warrior…’ at least that’s the way he’d interpreted it. Ethan wasn’t that hot on the use of redundant Scandinavian possessive terms. This implied that the brew was customised to suit the individual. But how the hell was that supposed to happen? He threw the papers down and sat in silence. Ethan's intellect, powerful as it was, seemed lost. As his thoughts ground slowly to a halt a small light went on somewhere inside him and in the silence his heart screamed the answer.

Blood.

When he’d drunk the virola juice the shaman who made it told him to breathe into the mixture otherwise it wouldn’t work because the spirits of the tree wouldn’t recognise him. Ethan had laughed, but blown into the pot anyway. He knew nothing of spirits, he just wanted the buzz.

He’d read various accounts of druids and witches using blood to bind potions to specific people. It was common practice in medieval medicine and in some areas of the world it still is. There was a downside of course, the risk of severe allergic reaction. Everything’s fine the first time you take it, but take it again and you’re dead. The problem is that you don’t know whether you’ve reacted or not until it’s too late.

He knew he was right this time. He felt it with the firm certainty that always accompanied the solution to a difficult problem. He would make the potion again but this time he would add his own blood.

Over the next few days Ethan had found a more suitable venue for his grand experiment. He’d been out in a small patch of woodland hunting amongst the roots of the old birch for Psilocybe mushrooms. The September weather had put a thick layer of mud and leaves on his already distressed training shoes and the clothing that he habitually wore, jeans and a loose fitting sweater, were proving of little help against the cold damp air. As it started to rain he’d looked up from his quest to find shelter. He’d noticed the old house then, set back amongst the thickest part of the wood. It had been well and truly abandoned though Ethan could barely imagine why such a formerly grandiose place had been left to decay. Perhaps the owner had more money than sense.

On closer inspection the house proved to be empty as Ethan had suspected although still quite secure it seemed. This would be a good place. Quiet and secluded, away from everyone and any possibility of disturbance. And if he became sick well he’d just have to deal with it. A bottle of brine was guaranteed to empty his stomach within minutes if needed. He’d bring some with him.

He’d returned to the house two days later. It was twilight and the air was cold. He’d already prepared the brew minus the blood. He’d brought a razor blade for that job. Ethan wasn’t fond of pain but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Unfortunately he’d found the house to be more secure than he’d initially estimated but there was an outhouse around the side that may have something in it that he could use to pry open a window. As luck would have it he found an old toolbox which held various bits and pieces that were perfect for a spot of breaking and entry.

Having levered open a small window he climbed inside. The smell of mildew greeted him as he sneaked into the hallway looking for the stairs. This house could be safely categorised as spooky or possibly borderline creepy. His mind flicked back to his childhood, watching TV with his parents. Tales of mystery and imagination. ‘Not for people of a nervous disposition’ the announcer had said every week before the program began. Talk about the power of suggestion. That single phrase had scared him far more profoundly than the incredulous rubbish that had followed for the next hour. Ethan chuckled to himself as he mounted the dark staircase. Adrenalin was already focussing his attention on the slightest of movements.

He checked out the bathroom. No water, just grime on the mildewed shower curtain and puss coloured lime scale where the bath tap had once dripped. There were dead flies on the windowsill and hanging by the legs from the rotting lace curtain. The toilet bowl was dry and coated with dirt but at least he’d have somewhere to shit and puke should the need arise.

The bedrooms were next. Each one was much the same as the others with its high ceilings ornate with intricate plaster covings and pale squares on the walls where pictures had once hung. He chose the one nearest the bathroom; it was as good as any. The window overlooked a small roof that would serve as an escape route if needed. He tried to open it but found his strength insufficient for the task. He went back downstairs for the toolbox and having loosened the reluctant sash frame he put the tools away in the corner.

He fished two tee light candles from the pocket of his jeans and placed them on the floor. He lit each one carefully with a dark blue disposable lighter that he’d carried around for months. He had to tilt the lighter right over to get to the short wick and he cursed aloud as he burned a finger on the tiny yellow flame. The house seemed to shudder at his voice as if sound itself had become a thing long forgotten.

As each of the tee lights warmed through their flames grew slightly brighter and the room became alive with dancing shadows and although they couldn’t possibly have had any significant effect on the temperature of the room Ethan would have sworn that he felt warmer and more comfortable.

He sighed heavily and the flames flickered and the shadows danced. He reached into his other pocket and retrieved a small jar. He was glad to take it out because it had been digging into his hip as he moved. He’d no idea of the dosage required or how much blood he’d have to put in. Perhaps only a few drops would suffice, perhaps not. He unscrewed the lid of the jar and placed both jar and lid carefully on the floor between the candles. He reached into his back pocket to claim the razor blade which he’d wrapped in several layers of paper. He unwrapped the blade and it glinted in the pale candlelight.

Holding his left hand over the open jar he approached the base of his thumb with the blade. He hesitated, unable to make the cut. He cursed his own cowardice.

‘It’s just subconscious self defence.’ he assured himself. ‘Just make the fucking cut.’

He swiped at his hand hoping to somehow cut himself by accident. Oddly enough this actually worked although he had to keep pinching the pitifully shallow wound to milk the liquid out. He managed two drops, watching each one adopt the shape of a swirling toroid as it penetrated the relatively clear liquid in the jar. He stirred it in with his finger.

So then, this was it. He raised the jar as if making a toast. He imagined for a moment that Tiw the Norse war god had opened a lazy eye to witness an event not enacted for over a thousand years. A mild shiver played along Ethan's spine.

‘Tiw,’ he spoke aloud, ‘it’s been a while. Can you still do it?’

He gulped down half of the brew. At least two of the ingredients were potentially lethal so if he survived the next hour he’d consider drinking the rest then. He sat back and waited.

Twenty minutes elapsed. Ethan became impatient, then frustrated. But something was happening. Nothing special, just his heartbeat, slowing but becoming harder, almost audible. Some of the alkaloids in the brew were depressants so it was no great shock that his cardiac rhythm was affected. But it was loud, very loud, fearfully loud. His vision grew foggy, as if a mist had descended on the place. He expected more, flashing lights, voices perhaps, but nothing materialised and after a while the beat of his heart subsided. His disappointment turned to desperation as he picked up the jar and threw the remaining brew to the back of his throat. He slammed the jar against the wall where it exploded into twinkling fragments. Hitting the floorboards hard with his fist he swore into the empty room.

His knuckles, grazed by the impact, began to sting but this sensation was short lived and quickly replaced by something else, something totally out of context and unexpected.

Pleasure.

A warm, relaxed and almost orgasmic sensation sprouted from his injured hand and expanded out towards his elbow. But it didn’t stop there. It reached his shoulder, increasing in intensity, almost burning.

‘Fucking hell!’ Ethan gasped. His body grew hotter, his skin felt inflamed, irritated. Soon the heat became unbearable. He tore at his clothes, scratching at the flesh of his stomach as he pulled at his sweater. Again the orgasmic wave began. Sprouting from the scratches, pouring into his loins and down his legs. ‘Shit, shit, fucking Jesus shit!’ Ethan pulled off the rest of his clothes. He had to get naked, to cool off or he’d explode. He stood motionless in the cold darkness, totally internalised. He knew what this was.

Sensory transference. It was common enough with LSD. The brain confused the sensory input streams and misinterpreted everything. You could see sounds as colours and hear colours as tones. Pictures and words became the same thing mingled and indistinguishable. But this was different. Pain into pleasure? He slapped himself across the face and the wave started immediately. Blasts of hysterically intense sensations pushed into the nerve roots in his teeth and ears, flashing like lightening in his mind's eye. Ethan became ecstatic. Laughing manically he slapped himself again, caving in and falling to his knees under the relentless pressure of orgasm after orgasm. His knees hit the floor and pleasure burst forth like liquid fire engulfing his testicles. He could sell this stuff. He would be seriously fucking rich.

He dropped forwards onto all fours. His skin was reddened and he was sweating profusely. As his hands touched the floor the waves started, immersing his head and neck in spasmodic jolts of ferocious pleasure. So it wasn’t just pain that triggered the pleasure response Ethan noted. It was any tactile sensation at all. A sickness fell upon him as he crouched in the darkness. A side effect of the lobelia. His stomach heaved but nothing came up and as his abdomen cramped the wave sprouted again. This time it washed him away.

‘Fuck this is good.’ Ethan groaned, barely able to hold himself up. He reached for a piece of the broken jar and with some hesitance jabbed it into his thigh. The pleasure wave hit him so hard that he lost control of his bowel. But it wasn’t the same as before. A different type of pain generates a different sensation of pleasure. Slaps and bangs were good but cuts, Ethan thought to himself, cuts were totally fucking groovy! He jabbed the glass shard into the same wound and then twisted it. He howled and fell, rolling onto his back and giggling hysterically. He shit himself again and then ejaculated. Breathing hard he rolled his head back and forth on the floorboards feeling the powerful pleasure response now subtle in comparison to the electrifying jolts leaping from his gushing thigh. He watched his blood expand across the dusty floor caring nothing for it. Then he caught sight of something that may as well have been the Holy Grail.

‘Oh yes.’ Ethan laughed. ‘Come to daddy.’ It took approximately seven orgasms to reach the toolbox but it was going to be worth the effort.

Ethan giggled, heaving open the rusted lid. He picked out a large hammer, nodding his approval. He splayed his hand out on the floor and slammed the hammer down hard on his index finger. He collapsed instantly, all his strength blasted away by a pleasure so intense that he would have cheerfully died right there. He gathered himself up and hit it again and again.

‘Fight it Ethan,’ he moaned ‘you can take this shit all fucking day.’ He launched a frenzied attack on the rest of his fingers but in the end it still wasn’t enough. Hedonism dulls the senses. He kept hitting though just to make sure, right up until he spotted the pliers.

He reasoned carefully as he picked the heavy rusted grips out of the box. If busting a finger sent him to heaven then pulling a tooth should fire him straight up almighty God's arse and out of his mouth. He chose a large molar. At least then nobody would notice the gap. His plan misfired, but in a good way. Instead of gripping the tooth and working it loose he squeezed too hard and the tooth shattered. His eyes rolled back and his arms fell limp at his sides. He knelt for a while in a pool of hot urine convulsing softly. When he finally became lucid he went straight for another molar but something inside him shouted fuck it and in a twenty second flurry he smashed every tooth in his head and begun grinding the stumps together while choking on the pieces. He did indeed fly up God's arse.

Having no more teeth left him at something of an impasse. What he wouldn’t have given for a litre of boiling water and a rubber tube. Then he remembered the razor blade.

‘Cuts are good.’ he reminded himself, ‘Cuts are our friends.’

The veins and arteries run longitudinally, Ethan remembered from secondary school biology, so cutting across lost you more blood per inch of incision than slicing up and down. Feeling smug at his reasoning he picked the silver edged blade from the blood crusted floor and ran it lightly down the inside of his left thigh. The pleasure wave was initially sharp but quickly died off and then slowly built to a more acceptable intensity. Ethan was disappointed. He wanted an explosion. After waiting a little longer he put the blade in the same wound and dug deep. The explosion came, pushing him beyond pleasure and into transcendence. Floating freely amongst the gods for an eternity made instant Ethan was truly at one with all things. He would have stayed there. He would have died a thousand horrific deaths for one more second but the gods drew back, and as they abandoned him he wept. A weakness overtook him. He inspected the wound in his leg through tearful eyes. His femoral artery was open and his life was pouring out, spreading like a scarlet vine at his feet.

He lurched over to where his clothes lay and scooped up his jeans. Ripping the thin leather belt from the loops he wrapped it around his thigh at the groin and jerked it tight. He stood swaying in the dim candle light. There was fear. There was dread. There was realisation.

The magic was failing. The potion was wearing off.

He wanted more.

Ethan wanted to live amongst the gods again. He’d worked hard for it. He deserved it. To be away from them, only that was death.

He screamed, kicking at the walls and cracking the ancient plaster away, the bones of his toes shattered under the impact. Not enough.

He punched the windows. The skin of his forearms peeled and the tendons split and shrank back. Not enough.

Each remorseless act bore waves of pleasure that died away like birth strangled children.

This was the moment that the berserker became. Not in the gaining of his power, but at the loss of it. Screaming and crying Ethan bowed his head and ran at the nearest wall. The cracking of his skull echoed through the cold dark house. He finally fell, unconscious to the floorboards.

Several hours later, as daylight hinted at the possibility of its arrival, Ethan awoke.

The mist was lifting and Ethan knew the truth. Soon the magic of Tiw's cup would be completely gone and he’d be cast into a world of unimaginable pain. He reached down slowly and deliberately to untie the thin leather tourniquet from his thigh and as the fount of his life spewed forth Ethan thought that he may be lucky after all.

What a fucking rush.

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Tiw's Cup is one of Uncle John's Bedtime Tales. The full collection of ten stories is available in ebook format on smashwords.

For those who really do prefer a print version Uncle John's Bedtime Tales is available from:

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