“All better then?” Skruc grinned. He began to dice the mushrooms amongst a cloud of yellow gas. Morwen managed a smile for her own sake and sat down by the fire. Eggs scuttled into the room eager to see what was going on but Skruc shooed him away. “The gas affects spoggarts,” Skruc explained. “I would wager it’s something to do with a spider’s eternal optimism. ‘Something is going to land in this web, I just know it.’ It overrides the boggart’s suicidal tendencies.”
Skruc began to sing a diddy as he worked.
Chop the mushrooms, boil the water
Brew a potion for slaug self-slaughter
Fill them with despair and gloom
Help them to their waiting tomb
Hone the knife, smile and gloat
Another one’s slit his slimy throat
“You don’t appear suicidal,” Morwen said.
Skruc tossed the diced mushrooms into a pot of boiling water. “Revenge is a wonderful incentive to keep one going.” Over the next three hours the mixture boiled away to a single vial of brown sludge. “Liquid madness,” Skruc said passing it to Morwen.
When Morwen returned to the vat, the brewmaster was filling another barrel for the guards’ afternoon drink. “You again,” he said spotting Morwen. Morwen didn’t have time to be discreet or play games. She grabbed the brewmaster by his scrawny throat and upended him into the vat. The boggarts, who were lounging around on the cave floor playing with bone dice, decided they wanted to help. They needn’t have gone to the trouble, instead of struggling, the ancient souse began to drink.
“Whoa, what a way to go,” Szat said.
Morwen agreed. When the brewmaster stopped blowing bubbles they released him. He floated to the surface, a brown lump bobbing up and down in the murky vat.
“He doesn’t make a very appetising corpse, though,” Morwen said.
“He looks like a turd,” Szat said. The boggarts’ laughter sounded like the snarling of a pack of dogs.
Morwen finished filling the barrel and poured in the vial of poison. “We’re going to set every boggart free.”
Morwen slopped a ladleful of sluugouak into a guard’s grubby mug. “Where’s the brewmaster?” he asked.
Morwen shook her head.
“Ah,” the guard said and gave a knowing wink. He downed his drink and let out a satisfied belch. “Full bodied with a rich, earthy aftertaste. Is it a new recipe?”
“A secret ingredient,” Szat said. “The brewmaster put himself body and soul into this mix.” The other guards crowded around jostling one other to get their share. Morwen filled up their mugs and hurried to the next group. The slaugs gulped down the liquor and licked their lips. The mouth slapping was replaced by desolate sobs as the slaugs crumpled and wept inconsolably.
Stopping at the entrance to the cave where Goron was a prisoner of the queen’s lust, she looked back. Guards wailed in each other’s arms. Those beyond comfort disembowelled themselves—it seemed the most popular suicide option. A few drowned themselves in the slime lake, and one even peeled himself like a banana. The bloodletting attracted a crowd of spectators.
Morwen released the four boggarts carrying the barrel, and they hurried to join the others, who were already in flight. She sped down the tunnel leading to Gagurt’s quarters. The green glow from the mushrooms lit up the huge grin on Morwen’s face. She could not help but think of Goron trapped in the chambers of a nymphomaniac slaug for the night. What state would he be in? Oh well, she would deal with whatever awaited her with magic.
The smirk died when she entered the cavern. The queen was dead. If the mound of meat with hues of necrotic purple was her majesty. Four guards and Bok lay squashed on the ground in a puddle of goo and gore like their garden cousins. Goron naked, but basted with a thick slime, had squeezed himself into a recess. He was curled into a semi-foetal position and rocked to and fro with his arms wrapped protectively around his lower body.
“Are you okay?” Morwen said reluctantly patting his slimy shoulder.
He flinched at her touch, eyes wide from the horrors he’d seen.
“What went on in here?” Morwen asked wiping her hand on the wall.
He blinked rapidly and shook his head to dislodge the hold his memories had on him.
“The beginnings of a lifetime of celibacy.”
“She’s dead,” Morwen said.
“You killed her? You killed Gagurt?” Skruc said. He stepped towards her slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
“Goron did. He throttled her.” Morwen grasped her throat and lolled out her tongue.
Goron squeezed his eyes shut at the memory and shuddered.
Eggs squealed, jumped on the table, upsetting dirty plates and mugs, and in a blur of legs began to tap dance.
Skruc, his grin meeting at the back of his head, grasped Morwen by the wrists and whirled her around. The warlock became a smudge of sallow flesh emitting indignant cries as Skruc completed fifty revolutions around the room before they collapsed in a jumbled heap.
Goron roared with laughter. Morwen disentangled herself from Skruc and shoved him aside. Glaring at Goron, she stomped to the fireplace.
Not satisfied with his celebrations, Skruc jumped up on the table with Eggs and joined in the dancing.
Morwen indulged Skruc in his triumphant caper before coaxing him down and reminding him it was time to fulfill his end of the bargain and change them back to humans. The wizard skipped over to his apothecary, selected a glass jar marked ‘hen’s heart’ from the shelf, and peered inside. “Oh dear, I seem to be all out.”
“What do you mean?” Morwen said. She was fed up with feeling like a snot-sogged handkerchief. Slime coated everything she touched, and after two days as a slaug, she hadn’t yet figured out how to go to the bathroom.
“I need hen’s heart to make the shape-changing potion and the jar’s empty.” The
