Once upon a dreadful time

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.

Tocsin

Morning dawned at the Castle of the Seasons and, as the sun cleared the horizon, buglers stood on the battlements and sounded a special call. Faire-goers looked up to see what was afoot, but only a few of them knew that it was a signal requesting Sprites to attend King Valeray.

Even as the clarions sounded, from dawnwise a Sprite and a bumblebee came winging. And waiting on the ramparts for them stood Flic, and he heaved a great sigh of relief as Fleurette and Buzzer sped toward the merlons.

As they alighted, Flic embraced Fleurette, while Buzzer, somewhat agitated, hummed her wings and paced ’round the two. “She missed you,” said Fleurette, “as did I.”

“What of the crows?” asked Flic.

“They did not cross through the border.”

“Ah,” said Flic, relieved.

Fleurette glanced down into the courtyard, where nine men prepared for travel, with several others at hand. “What is going on, and does it have ought to do with what we saw?”

“Indeed, and I’ll tell you along the way, for we are going to the Fairy King Under the Hill.”

“Right now?”

“Oui.”

“But Buzzer needs nectar, and I could use a sip or two.”

“Worry not, my love, for honey awaits.”

Fleurette frowned. “The Fairy King? But did you not tell me he was capricious and might give us an onerous duty to perform?”