Once upon a dreadful time

Entrails

Across bound after bound flew Hradian through the dark.

The fingernail-thin sliver of a moon had long set, and only the glittering stars illumined the night in those realms where the sky was clear. But in one, rain hammered at her mercilessly and she cursed the gods above, and in another she raged through blinding snow, and in still another she hacked and coughed as she veered among sulphurous fumes spewed from mountains of fire. Muttering maledictions, she hurtled across clear but frigid air above snowy peaks, only to shout, “It’s about time!” as she sped beyond another marge to come into warm summer.

Yet soon, above chill desert sands she flew, ranting because the heat of the day had fled in the darkness. And so it was as onward she went o’er realm after realm, moaning, cursing, raving, screaming, or laughing in glee at her very own cleverness.

But at last in the silvery light of dawn she passed through a final marge to come into the odiferous reek of the great mire.

In the bogland below, bubbles slowly rose to the slime-laden surface to plop and eject their hoards of miasma; things slithered and wriggled and splashed, some with sinewy bodies and grasping claws, others with no legs or hard shells and great jaws, still others with slimy skins and long tongues. Black willows spread clenching and avaricious roots through the reeking muck and dangled long whiplike branches down, and dark cypress wrenched up out from the sump and ooze to spread gray-lichen-wattled branches wide. Mossy fallen logs decayed in the quag to add heat to the rot of the swamp bottom, with dead creatures putrefying alongside until something happened by to rip and rend at the rancid flesh.

And above this foetid morass flew Hradian, heading for the center of the vast mire, where her cottage lay.

Weary, at last she spiralled down to alight upon the flet of her cote, where a great bloated toad squatted.

“I have it, Crapaud-the key! The key!” cried Hradian, dancing about in spite of her fatigue. “Oh, Crapaud, we were so clever, so very clever, and our potion worked to perfection. We became the slut Liaze to all eyes, to all senses, we did. And, oh, how we duped that fool Luc, into thinking we were her.” Hradian flashed the silver amulet on high, and cried, “And now we have the key.

And after I rest, we, you and I, Crapaud, we will discover just how this amulet can be used to free our master Orbane.” Then Hradian squatted and stared the toad in one of its gummy eyes. “What say you to that, my fine familiar?” Seeming to realize that something was expected of him, Crapaud swelled the sac of his throat and emitted a gaseous croak, rather much like a great noxious belch, filling the air with the stench of his utterance.

“Exactly so,” cried Hradian, and she leapt to her feet and strode into the hut, where she flung off her clothes and fell into her cot. Moments later she was sound asleep.

Crapaud waddled to the entry and peered inside and emitted a plaintive rasp, but Hradian did not stir from her slumber.

After a second throaty grate went unanswered, the toad hitched about and lurched to the edge of the flet and fell into the water.

After all, he was quite hungry, and whether or no the witch gave him leave to hunt, still he had to eat. Awkwardly stroking, legs askew, down into the slime he struggled to finally disappear.

. .

The day came and went, and even as twilight faded and night drew on, a squashy splop awakened Hradian, and in the dimness she could just make out the distended form of a dripping Crapaud waddling past the doorway, with long, mucuslike tendrils of bog ordure clinging to the toad’s warty hide and trailing behind to drag over the dark and reeking swamp-bottom footprints he left in his wake.

Hradian slapped a hand to her chest to find at her throat the amulet upon its chain. “Ah, my love, the talisman is indeed here. We thought it might have been a magnificent dream, but instead it is a glorious fact. We did indeed fetch the key for ourselves, we did. Oh, clever us. Our sisters could not have done what we did, now could they? Ah, no need to answer, for we know it is true.”

Hradian swung her feet over the edge of the cot and stood, the amulet the only thing on her person. After squatting at the edge of the flet and above the swamp water to relieve herself, she stepped to the fireplace and swung a kettle over the hearth.

In moments she had a fire ablaze. She opened a cabinet and took up an herb jar and spooned some black leaves into a pot.

Then she fetched a strip of dark jerky and stood at the window and chewed the stringy meat. A crescent moon hung low on the horizon, and she watched as it sank among the black willow and dark cypress, the grey moss dangling down from the branches diffusing the already dim light.

“As soon as it disappears, my love, then we set about finding the key to the amulet. -No, no. Wait! We set about finding the key to the key.” Hradian cackled at her own bon mot. “We are so clever, we are.”

The kettle began to steam, and Hradian poured hot water over the herbs in the pot. She took up a knife and stirred the brew. Then she thumbed the blade and frowned. Using a whetstone, she honed the knife to razor sharpness, then stepped to her cot and cached the blade under one edge of the mattress.

Sipping her drink, once again she moved to the window, and watched the last of the horns of the crescent moon sink beyond the rim of the world. “Good, Love, it is now gone, and our best work always is done in the moonless dark of night.” She turned to the doorway. “Crapaud, Crapaud! I need you now.”

The monstrous toad waddled to the opening.

“Fetch us a Bogle.”

Crapaud yawed ’round and floundered to the edge of the flet and fell into the swamp. After a number of ungainly strokes, he managed to disappear under the surface.

Hradian looked about the cabin. “Ah, my love, you know that a human would be better, but they are stubborn and would fight back. Of course, an Elf would be better yet, or a true Fairy, but they are even more powerful. Besides, no humans, Elves, or Fairies are at hand, and so a Bogle it must be. Certainly it will mess the floor. The cot as well. But we shouldn’t mind, for we will soon be dwelling in a castle of our own, won’t we, love.

With servants and lackeys and, oh, yes, handsome young muscular men. And soft beds fit for a princess, fit for the princess we will be. No! Not princess, but queen! Or empress. Hmm. .

What do they call a queen of all the world? Never mind, my love, we can call ourselves whatever it is we wish.” Even as she mused over what title she would bestow upon herself, a great croaking din arose in the swamp. “Ah, my Crapaud has sent forth the call. It is much easier than making a fetch of ourselves, isn’t it, my sweet?” Hradian felt her excitement rising, and, thinking of what was to come, she stepped to the cot and lay down and made herself ready.

A splop sounded on the flet, and Hradian drew in her breath, but it was only Crapaud returning to his station.

A time passed, and the racket without fell silent.

“Oh, oh, love, he is almost here.”

And with a heaving splash, by the firelight Hradian saw in the doorway a Bogle standing, swamp bottom dripping from his dark form, his male member tumescent in anticipation.

. .

It was as Hradian was riding on top, she could see in the Bogle’s eyes the peak coming, and it was at his climax that she ripped the keen knife through his stomach and up into his heart, and she shuddered and screamed in orgasmic pleasure in that same moment.

Dark blood spurted over her chest to gush down her loins and spill onto the bed, where it streamed to the floor, pooling below.

Reveling in the flood, Hradian waited until the surge ebbed to a trickle, then freed herself and stepped away and called,

“Crapaud, Crapaud, I need you now.”

The huge toad waddled in.

“Taste the blood, Crapaud.”

Crapaud’s long tongue lashed out and splatted into the puddle under the cot, then disappeared back into his mouth.

Heaving and grunting, Hradian rolled the slain Bogle off onto the floor, and after a struggle she managed to get the corpse onto its back.

Hradian reached out and touched the toad between the eyes.

“Now, Crapaud, lend us your power.”

The toad seemed to fall dormant, and, clutching the amulet in one hand, and pawing with the other, Hradian began sifting through the Bogle’s blood-warm entrails, seeking an omen, seeking a clue as to just how to use the talisman. After but a moment she said, “Huah, there is no mystery to the talisman at all. Had we known it was this easy, Love, we wouldn’t have had to kill the Bogle. Oh well, no loss that.” Once more she touched the toad. “Awaken, Crapaud, I am finished.”

Crapaud opened his eyes, and emitted a croak.

“Yes, yes, you can clean up the mess.”

Another croak sounded.

“Very well, that, too. After all, you will need sustenance while I am gone.”

And Hradian took up an axe and, grunting with effort, she hacked the corpse to pieces for her familiar to consume in the days to come.

Even as Crapaud’s long tongue flicked forth to snatch one end of the entrails, the viscera uncoiling as the toad gulped away, Hradian, now sweating and blood-smeared and spattered with grume and bits of dark flesh, stepped out to the flet, where, using a pail, she dipped up a bucketful of swamp water.

She muttered a spell over the sludgy liquid and watched as it cleared, and then sluiced herself down.

Several more times she dipped and sluiced, and finally clean of all sign of her gruesome handiwork she strode back into the hut and threw on her long black gown, the one with the danglers and streamers and lace.

After she buttoned up her high-top shoes, she turned to Crapaud, the toad yet swallowing length after length of intestine, rather like trying to gulp down a very long rope all of one piece a foot at a time, the rope stretching from stomach through gullet and throat and out the mouth to the blood-drenched remains of the corpse. “Ward the cote, Crapaud. I go to fetch our master from the imprisonment foisted upon him by those who should grovel at his feet, or rather, by those who will grovel at our feet, and soon we’ll be living in a castle fitting to our station, a magnificent dwelling past all compare.” Crapaud tried to reply past the gore-slick viscera, some of it ingested, most of it yet to slither out from the lower half of the hacked-apart torso, yet all that he managed to utter was a choking belch.

Hradian snatched up her besom and stepped to the flet and, with a high-pitched shriek of joy, she took to the air. And soon she was nought but a dark form streaming tendrils of shadow, a silhouette growing smaller and smaller to finally vanish against the stars.

And in the cottage behind, Crapaud continued to swallow and swallow and swallow the seemingly endless gut.