The Labours of Magog
Once upon a September afternoon, as the cows gossiped about the coming autumn and the teakettle whistled a cheery tune, the giants Gog and Magog dozed before the orange hearth. Their arduous journeys behind them, the brothers were home and all was right with the world.
The knock on the door was not loud but it sent Gog leaping out of his chair, cracking his head against an exposed beam.
“Oww!” he wailed.
“What?” Magog sat up in sleepy startlement. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s my head,” said Gog crossly.
“Bit late to start fretting about it now,” muttered Magog as he settled back to slumber.
“Oh, very witty,” grumbled Gog as he opened the door. “Hello, what’s—” He slammed the door and barred it with his bulk. His hairless head was as white as an egg, his yellow eyes like wobbly yokes. “The B-blue Witch,” he stammered.
Magog jumped up. “The Blue Witch! Here?”
“Not herself, you butter-brain,” snapped Gog. “It’s one of her servants come for the book!”
“The book? Not the bestiary you –”
“Yes!”“But –”
“I know,” wailed Gog.
Magog started in several directions at once. “What will we do?”
“Quickly,” Gog hissed. “Through the back garden!”
The brothers ran through the kitchen and out the back door, but crashed to a halt on the gravel path. Magog stared around his brother at the queer creature before them: taller than a man but thinner, it had a long needle-like beak protruding from the head of a black goat, and an overcoat of raven feathers above knobby heron legs. “Is that the witch’s servant?” Magog whispered.
Gog turned incredulously from his brother to the grotesque figure that waited amongst the herbs. “Of course it is, you clot! Or did you invite a sickle-nosed goat-man to tea?”
Unhurried, the strange visitor folded one leg up under his overcoat and with spindly fingers readjusted his cracked spectacles. “When you thieved my mistress’s book, villain, did you chance to read finale inscription?”
The giants looked at one another. “What inscription?” said Magog.
The creature sighed and dirge-like recited:
Thief who would steal line or verse,
Pay heed to my most certain curse:
Until your vile theft is rectified
Misfortune shall with you abide,
And you shall rue what you have wrought
As all your works shall come to naught.
Magog shrunk behind his brother, but Gog was irked. “Who are you, who would come into our kitchen garden and threaten us with doggerel and cheap bookery!”
“I am Misfortune,” said the black creature dolefully.
“Oh, my scented sandals,” said Magog, backing into the kitchen.
But Gog was not so easily frightened. “Well,” he said, arms akimbo, “what of that? What will you do against Gog the Mighty?”
Soundlessly the creature leapt high into the air and alit on the cottage roof. “I shall abide,” it said as it sat beside the chimney.
“Hy!” shouted Gog, wrenching up the garden’s sundial off its pedestal. “Come off of there, varlet!”
When it made no move to compel, Gog flung the sundial like a discus at the trespasser. But his grin crumbled when the sundial missed its mark by mere inches and slammed into the chimney, demolishing it in a rain of bricks.
Magog rushed out the door. “Frith and Furth!” he cried. “What was that?”
“That muddy wretch has destroyed our chimney!” Gog fumed and sputtered. “Fetch the ladder, brother. I’ll knock that cur off our roof!”
As Magog retrieved and positioned the ladder (accidently breaking the kitchen window in the process), Misfortune brushed red dust off its coat; as Gog ascended the ladder, the bizarre creature checked its pocket watch; and when the rungs snapped under Gog and sent him tumbling down upon his brother, the unwelcome visitor merely readjusted its posture and settled itself comfortable on the roof.
Disentangling themselves, the giants retreated inside. “What shall we do?” moaned Magog, pacing up and down. “Gog, what shall we do?”
“By thunder!” growled Gog as he limped across the sitting room and wrenched open the closet, “I’ll—ow!” Cursing, he swatted aside the boxes that rained down on him. “Where is the muddy – ah!” He pulled from the clutter a colossal longbow made from a single elm tree. “Magog, bring me my arrows.”
Magog sighed and went to a chest at the foot of his bed. “Gog,” he said as he handed over a dusty quiver. “This is folly. You’ll come to harm.”
“Harm?” scoffed Gog. “I may not be a great archer, but I can shoot a chicken off a roof!”
“We are cursed!” said Magog. “The Blue Witch has cursed us because –” he dropped his voice to a whisper “—because you stole her book.”
“Rubbish,” said Gog.
“And we can’t return the book,” continued Magog, “because you lost it.”
Having stung the bow, Gog slung the quiver over his shoulder and limped to the front door. “Then I shall shoot this ‘Misfortune’ and our trouble will be at an end.”
After his brother slammed the front door, Magog resumed his pacing. “Tears before bedtime,” he muttered.
There was loud snap and a cry from the front garden. The door opened slowly and Gog hobbled inside, a red welt above his black eye. He threw down the quiver and the broken halves of the bow before falling into a chair. “You’re quite right, Magog,” he said through split lips and around chipped teeth, “we’re curthed.”
As the evening grew old, the brothers fretted and puzzled till the sky unleashed a roaring deluge that made conversation impossible. With a scowl and a shrug, Gog and Magog mimed goodnight and went to their beds.
While dawn was yet a cruel rumor, the giants were woken from uneasy slumber by a leaking roof. The stove would not light and the fireplace was full of chimney so they had a cold breakfast of hard bread and mice-nibbled cheese surrounded by pots and pans slowly filling with rainwater.
“I can’t stand it,” said Magog, his eyes on the ceiling. “To know that . . . creature is roosting above our head like some evil . . . rooster.”
“Pay it no heed,” said Gog.
“But this is cruel hard,” whined Magog.
“Pay it no heed,” repeated Gog stubbornly.
Magog did his best to follow his brother’s advice, but after three days of burnt crumpets, sour milk, ripped clothing, broken mirrors, spilt salt, and lost keys, he could endure it no longer. “No more,” he announced as he came in out of the rain and put down a dented milking pail. “Both Damona and Boann have been taken lame. What have you there?”
Gog was holding a scroll in trembling hands. “This arrived by albatross.”
“An albatross,” said Magog brightly. “They’re good luck! Maybe our fortunes are changing.”
“It was struck by lightning,” Gog said, pointed to a charred carcass on the floor.
“Oh. What does the letter say?”
“It’s from Humbug. He’s sorry he missed us on his last visit and to make amends he will join us for Glomentide.”
Magog went white and fell onto a chair.
“He plans, also, to bring his new bride.”
“A wife?” moaned Magog. “Mire and muck! What monstrous hag would marry Humbug?”
“Peace, brother, peace.”
“But we can’t have both of then crashing around, we’ll be ruined! We must dosomething.”
“Quite right,” whispered Gog. “This is itsdoing,” he pointed to the ceiling.”
Magog looked up fearfully. “This house is cursed.”
“Then we shall leave this house, secretly. Prepare yourself; we must be ready to flee at the first opportunity.”
Magog nodded grimly. “I shall,” he whispered before slinking off to the kitchen.
Soon the giants were packed and ready, but – as luck (or perhaps Misfortune) would have it – the days became clear and clement, the nights bathed with silver moonlight.
The brothers awaited their opportunity.
“It’s your own fault,” said Gog some days later. “I told you not to do anything.”
“But I’m bored,” said Magog, sucking his paper-cut thumb.
“The dragon waits for the knight,” said Gog sagely.
Long, empty days crawled past till at last the giants awoke to find the world smothered in a thick, wet fog. “The knight has come,” they whispered to each other before shouldering their packs and sneaking out the back door.
All was a soft grayness, the fog so foggy that the giants could not see their feet. Soon they were lost in the murk, but they hurried on, telling themselves that “away” was the only direction that matter.
They were mistaken.
With a wooden snap, Gog dropped out of view; only his belated and astonished scream hinted at what had happened as it receded beneath Magog’s feet.
“Gog!” Magog dropped to his knees and felt for a ground that wasn’t there. “Gog? Gog!”
From far below there came a wet thump and a soft groan.
“Gog!” Magog began rummaging through his pack. “Do not move, brother. I am coming.”
“That would be unwise,” said a doleful voice through the fog.
Magog started, accidently dropping his pack into the void. “Who’s there?”
In answer, a briny breeze arose, chasing away the mist to reveal an open well at Magog’s feet, Misfortune perched on its rim.
“You!” Magog jumped to this feet, nearly upsetting himself and plummeting after his brother. “You, vile imp!” he cried when he had regained most of his balance. “Be gone or. . . or I shall smite you!”
“That would be unwise,” repeated the sorrowful chimera. “Your brother tried to escape me and fell into a forgotten well he himself dug twenty years before. Consider what ill luck awaits you.”
“Have pity,” begged Magog, stepping carefully away from the lightless hole. “Torment us no longer.”
“I torment only the thief and his companions,” Misfortune said. “Leave your brother and I shall not follow.”
“Never,” said Magog.
Misfortune shrugged its feathered shoulder. “Then stay and share his fate. But know this: only she who sent me can recall me.”
“The Blue Witch,” Magog faltered.
“Even she,” Misfortune intoned. “If you would save your brother from my ministrations go and plead with her. But leave your hope behind.”
Magog hesitated. “Well, that doesn’t sound awfully promising . . .”
“Go!” Gog’s disembodied cry echoed up the dark well. “Go at once!”
Magog leant out warily and looked down. “But brother –”
“It’s the only way to lift the curse,” shouted Gog. “Beg her forgiveness, promise her anything. Please, Magog, you are my only rescue.”
“Of course, brother,” Magog shouted back. “I shall go at once, quick as I can. Stones preserve you!”
“Thank you, Magog,” shouted Gog. “Stones preserve us both!”
Magog retreated from the well, but he did not set off. Turning to the fowl-goat, he said softly: “will my brother come to harm”
“Like enough,” said Misfortune.
“Will he . . . die?”
“He shall not escape me so easily.”
Not overly reassured, Magog nodded grimly and hurried away.
Later than he’d hoped but sooner than he’d wished, Magog stood before the rimy stone of the fastness of the Blue Witch. Tugging his beard for courage and reminding himself of his brother’s peril, Magog knocked on the colossal doors.
In answer, a shutter opened far above and a fat, frumpy and familiar figure leant out a window. “Who is it?” the figure cried. “What do you want?”
“I wish an audience with the Blue Witch.”
“Agog! You, blackguard! Wait there.” The shutters slammed shut.
Taken aback and abash, Magog fidgeted for a few moments till a frigid wind blew open the towering doors to reveal a pale-faced young woman swaddled in cloaks and muffs and hats. She ripped away her scarves and spat wool from her blue lips. “You, villain! Have you and your treacherous brother not caused me enough trouble?”
Magog bowed his head. “Have we caused you much trouble?”
“Much trouble?” The charwoman tore off her woolen hat to reveal a pair of long slimy feelers. “She’s given me snail’s ears! And this, this is her mercy! Till Wednesday last I had duck’s feet as well.”
“Oh, Ingfrid!” cried Magog. “I’m truly sorry.”
From deep within the glacier, there came a roaring screech: “who is at my door?” Before an answer could be made, a frigid, sucking vortex snatched Ingfrid away and pulled even Magog inside. The great doors slammed shut behind him, as he slipped and stumbled along corridors of ice. Through snowy galleries and down frozen stairs, they were carried till at last they were tumbled through a misty antechamber and flung beyond.
Magog untangled his limbs and gathered up his wits. He was in the midst of a winter-bound hall: its dark walls hoarfrosted, its frozen floor glowing with a bottomless green glimmer, its lofty roof hidden by roiling storm clouds. Beside him Ingfrid lay in her furs like a stunned animal and before him, atop a dais of granite was the Blue Witch, unmistakable in her frightful majesty. On her icy throne she hunched within robes of sable fur, hair like frozen straw jutting from beneath a rusty crown, blue and boney hands clutching a simple crutch that lay across her lap. Her stony eyes bulged from a cracked face as she stared at the giant. When she spoke, her voice was like an avalanche, thundering through the hall and dislodging the icicles hanging from her nose. “Who are you?”
Shivering with fear as well as cold, Magog bowed deeply. “Your Majesty, I—”
“Are you the thief you robbed me?” roared the witch.
“No, your Majesty, I am Magog. It was my brother—”
The witch jabbed her crutch at him. “Do you have my book?”
Magog fell back a step. “No, your Majesty, I—”
“Then why have you come?”
“To plead on my brother’s behalf, your Majesty. To beg forgiveness or – if not forgiveness – then mercy. Please allow me to make amends. How may I appease your Majesty? What payment can I make? What service or penance can I perform?”
“You want to make amends?” With a serpentine tongue the witch licked her sharp teeth. “Payment? Penance?” She slumped back on her throne and closed her eyes. For a few moments she made a noise like a bubbling swamp, then she snapped open her eyes and rocked forward. “Sluggard!”
“Here, your Majesty,” said the now-upright Ingfrid.
“Bring me the hail-watch.”
With a curtsey, Ingfred hurried from the hall.
Not soon enough for Magog – who had been left to squirm under the witch’s relentless gaze – Ingfred returned, dragging behind her a great cart containing an even greater hourglass. Tall as a tree, the silver and gold timepiece consisted of two large crystal bulbs: the upper one empty, the bottom one full of hailstones.
Laboriously, the Blue Witch stood and took up her crutch. “You’ll serve me, giant,” she said as she hobbled down the steps. Twisted and bent, she stood almost twice as tall as Ingfred and nearly half as tall as Magog and yet her malevolent presence overflowed the hall and loomed over them both. “You’ll be my slave,” she sneered. “And jump when I call.” Like flint and steel, her bony fingers sparked when she snapped them. Magog did indeed flinch and she laughed as she limped past him. “And you’ll do it until all the hail has run from this hourglass.”
When she fell silent, Magog ventured: “and then you will release Gog from your curse?”
“What?” The witch pounded her crutch in umbrage. “Yes, yes! Then I’ll release your thieving brother.”
“Then we have an accord,” said Magog. “By the Stones and Stars, I –”
“Fah!” she snorted. “Keep your rocks and your twinkles. You won’t cross me. I’ll turn you into a dung duck if you do!” With her crutch she hit the hourglass and it leapt up and flipped itself over, causing the hailstones to trickle into the lower bulb with a clatter. “Now giant, you’re my slave!”
Swallowing his fear, Magog bowed humbly. “What is your wish, your Majesty?”
The Blue Witch leant on her crutch and chewed her teeth for a moment. “I’m tired,” she announced. “Go away. Sluggard!”
“Yes, your Majesty?”
“Take this brute away and find him a room somewhere.”
Ingfred led Magog along frosty corridors, down frozen cascades that served as stairs, and past sconces above pools of slush. At last they came to a grotto carved from the endless ice: the door was ice; the walls and vaulted ceiling were ice; the floor was carpeted with snow; there was an icy wardrobe and a giant four-poster block of ice for a bed; there was even a fireplace carved mockingly from the ice.
“Th-this is my room?” said Magog around chattering teeth.
“I’ll bring you some furs,” said Ingfred. “The witch will blame me if you freeze to death.”
He was huddled in his thin cloak when she returned, staggering under a pile of furs. These she dumped on the bed to reveal a pair of tall lanterns strung around her neck. She lit the lanterns as Magog draped himself in furs.
“I shall bring your breakfast in the morning,” she said as she placed the lanterns on either end on the mantleshelf.
Magog peered at her from within a mound of fur, like a miserable bear. “Ingfred,” he said softly. “Had I know Gog had taken the bestiary I would have insisted that he returned it at once.”
“Your brother is a fool,” she said.
“Quote possibly,” he admitted. “But he meant no harm. I’m truly sorry for what has happened.”
She sighed and left him alone.
The next morning, Ingfred returned with a wheelbarrow of cold cod fillets and a hogshead of tea. Magog ate the meager meal, too embarrassed by Ingfred’s scowl to ask for milk or sugar. When he had emptied the barrow and drained the cask, she loaded the one into the other and wheeled them out of the room.
“You are to go to the Great Hall,” she said over her shoulder. “The witch will have tasks for you. I shall bring your supper tonight.”
“Thank you,” said Magog meekly.
When she returned with his supper, Ingfred found the giant sprawled limply upon his icy bed. He was bruised, snow-capped, and frostbitten; his clothes ripped and his beard frozen.
“Giant,” she called softly. ‘Giant. Magog!”
With a groan, he rolled over, smashing one of the posters and bringing the glacial canopy crashing down. “N-no more,” he moaned. “I can do no more. Not another foot.”
“Supper,” she said, wheeling in another wheelbarrow and another barrel.
The light of understanding returned to his eyes and Magog sat up straight and eager. “Oh, thank the Stars!” He gulped down handfuls of fish and quaffed from the barrel.
Ingfred frowned. She had long stoked a hatred of the brothers giant, remembering how they had betrayed her hospitality and called down the anger of the Blue Witch upon her, but the sight of Magog – so meek and ill-used – dampened her choler. “You are sorely hurt, giant. Did the witch punish you so dearly?”
“I wonder I’m not dead,” grumbled Magog. “She forced me to excavate a new storey for this ridiculous igloo of her’s.”
Though she was secretly glad of the new rooms, the scullion said, “Come with me to the hot springs and I shall fetch salves and bandages.”
“Thank you, Ingfred,” said Magog. “You are kind.”
She turned away quickly. “Hurry,” she said. “The witch will blame me if you die after only one day of servitude.”
* * *
Perched on the edge of the well, Misfortune consulted its pocket watch, sighed a weary sigh, and began to preen its feathery overcoat.
Far below, Gog squatted in the wet darkness, girded round by slimy stones. “Tell me, fiend,” he shouted up at the circle of daylight far above him, “do you enjoy tormenting me?”
Having finished its ablutions, Misfortune stared wistfully at a flock of woolly clouds. “I find no joy here, brute. My mistress is cunning and strong and holds me with ancient and binding indenture. I do what I must.”
Gog whipped ooze from his face. “Can nothing be done?”
“Not by you,” said Misfortune. “Now, I advise you to be silent, before you bite your tongue.”
* * *
Magog toiled long under the yoke of the Blue Witch. Each morning, in the dark before the day, they would set forth: she in her mammoth-drawn sled, coughing and cackling and waving her crutch; he jogging behind. And each morning the sun rose and looked with bewilderment on the labours of Magog. To recover a lost bauble, she commanded him to drain Loch Mere. He moved Drumloon Hill ½ mile to the south to improve the view from her boudoir. He wrestled the trolls of Hegg, 2 falls out of 3, to settle a wager. And he spent a week shoveling out her mastodon stables. Buried beneath an avalanche of such days, Magog began to despair.
So it was that Ingfred, while shoveling out the second-best sitting room, heard the sounds of sniffing and sneezing echoing from the Great Hall. There she found Magog on the icy steps beneath the empty throne, huddled in his whale-skin mackintosh and weeping piteously. Drop-by-drop, her anger with the giants had thawed until now, at the sight of Magog’s meek misery, it melted completely.
“Giant,” she said. “What vexes you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It is the witch’s doing: to refill Loch Mere – which I emptied not a fortnight ago – she has summoned an imp to tell me sad stories so that I might fill the lake with my tears.”
The charwoman nodded sympathetically. “I know this imp. Its stories are indeed sad, but they are just tales and not worth remembering.”
“It is not merely the imp’s stories,” he brushed frozen teardrops from his face, “but that they call to mind my poor brother, who even now languishes at the bottom of a well, tormented by another of her vile imps. And look!” He pointed to the colossal hourglass that still stood in the hall. “The hailstones are not yet half drained away. I fear Gog will be dead before I have appeased the witch!”
Ingfred frowned at the hail-watch and its steady rattle of ice, then she beckoned the giant lower that she might whisper in his cavernous ear. “Tomorrow,” she said, “when she summons you, I shall tell the witch you have the pox and she will wail and curse but in end she will leave you behind, for she is vain and will not wish to be seen with a poxy servant. Now, when you hear her leave, you must come quickly to the frogery where I shall be waiting to tell you something of great import.”
Though perplexed, Magog nodded to show that understood her instructions.
In the morning he lay abed and, as foretold, he heard the Blue Witch cursing and crashing her way through the fortress. He heard the front doors slam shut. He heard the mammoths thunder and trumpet into the distance. But it was not until he heard the robin resume his song that he got up, dressed, and hurried off to keep his appointment.
Following Ingfred’s directions, he came to a colossal iron door and stood goggling at what he discovered beyond. The enormous room was warm and moist, without even a glimmer of frost or ice, its air thick with a sweet, acidic tang. On countless shelves and tables a bewildering assortment of amphibians waited in hundreds of jar, bowls, and tanks. There were frogs of every description: golden and ghostly, huge and tiny. There were toads barbed and bearded. There were bottles of pickled tadpoles and a meticulous catalogues of tortoise shells. There was a rainbow of dried salamanders, and a collection of walking fish and legless mud lizards.
The housemaid stood at a newt-strewn table, studying a two-headed specimen. She smiled when she saw Magog. “Welcome. This,” she said rather unnecessarily, “is the frogery.” She gestured proudly at the room and seemed to be waiting for Magog’s reply.
“Well,” said the giant, trying to be polite. “It certainly has a lot of frogs.”
Her eyes lit up with scholarly zeal. “Oh, yes! Frogs are ever so important to true witchery. And not just frogs, but amphibians of all kinds: newts’ eyes, salamander wool, turtle horn, though strictly speaking—” she stumbled over the glazed look of Magog’s face, “yes, well, the important thing is that we can speak without being overheard.”
“Good,” said Magog. “What shall we speak about?”
“Rebellion,” she grinned. “We have been slaves too long; we must destroy the Blue Witch and win our freedom.”
Magog looked dubious. “I have struck a bargain with the witch and I shall honor it.”
“And what of me?” she cried. “Am I to be her drudge till I die?”
The giant sighed. “I am sorry for your lot – truly I am – but the witch has promised to release Gog from her curse at the end of my servitude.”
Ingfred shook her head. “Your servitude will never end; every night the witch adds new hailstones to the hourglass. She will never release you or your brother.”
“What!” Magog’s angry fist shattered a row of shelves into a hail of stones and toads. “Why that wretched, wicked, hag! I’ll grind her up to grit my garden path!”
“I fear,” said Ingfred, emerging from under a table and flicking masonry from her cloak, “that even your great strength would be no match for her magic.”
“Oh, Ingfred,” he said sheepishly. “I’m awfully sorry. Are you hurt?”
“No, no,” she waved away his apology. “But I have a way to defeat the witch.” She moved to a huge display of poison arrow frogs and began dismantling it as she spoke. “Many years ago, I came to the Blue Witch to trade my service for her knowledge. But the wintry crone is jealous as well as false: she worked me near to death but her lessons were fragmentary and of little use and soon stopped altogether. Still I stayed, playing the simple charwomen, but all the while spying on her sorcery, reading her books, and squirreling away enchanted trinkets.” Having cleared away the colorfully frogs, she manipulated the display case to reveal a hidden nook. “Now I have stolen her secrets and mastered her magic.”
“Then why have you not overthrown her already?” said Magog. “What do you need of me?”
“Because,” Ingfred reached deep into the secret compartment, “the witch has one wondrous tool against which I cannot contend.” She pulled out a long, wooden box and laid it on the table. “I need you, mighty giant, to destroy this item.”
“Ah,” said Magog. “Her crown.”
“No.” She smiled.
“Her amulet?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Her crutch,” she opened the box and lifted out the witch’s battered and rusty stick.
“Her crutch?” said the disappointed giant. “What kind of magical item is that?”
“One which no thief would covet. The Blue Witch may be cruel and ugly and jealous—”
“—and deceitful,” added Magog.
“—but she’s not a fool. She hid her greatest treasure is plain sight where none would recognize it.”
“Except you.”
Ingfred bowed.
“But how do you have this if its so important to her?”
“I crafted a forgery – not as powerful as the original – but sufficient to fool her for a little while. And this morning I switch the one for the other.”
“Why not use it yourself if it is as powerful as you say.”
“I cannot. Its power is her power. Not only is she cruel and ugly and jealous—”
“—and deceitful—”
“—she is also lazy. She has placed a piece of her magic within the crutch so that she might call upon it more easily.”
Magog twisted his beard thoughtfully. “So, if I were to destroy the crutch . . .”
“Its magic would be lost and she would be weakened,” said Ingfred. “Long enough for me to destroy her.”
“It is a good plan,” he took the crutch and tested its strength.
Ingfred gathered some jars, open a great yellow book on the table before her, and placed a daisy-chain of dried newts around her neck. “I am ready,” she announced.
“Wait.” Magog frowned. “Will this lift the curse from Gog?”
Ingfred thought a moment. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But when I have defeated the witch I shall do all in my power to help your brother.”
“Very well.”
The crutch was stronger than it appeared and Magog grew increasingly embarrassed as he struggled to break it. He blushed when he could not snap it in twain; he mumbled apologies when he failed to crush it underfoot; and he swore uncouth Giant curses when smashing it against the stone fixtures produced only chipped stone and scattered toads. Desperate, and trying to avoid Ingfred’s anxious eye, he jammed half the crutch firmly into a narrow fissure in the wall and leant on the other half with all his mountainous weight.
And then, with a quiet snap, the crutch broke asunder. There was whiff of charcoal, a dribble of orange slush, and the pieces of the magical tool crumbled away like dry mud.
“What happens now?” asked Magog, brushing clean his hands.
The charwoman eyed the door grimly. “The Blue Witch will know immediately that her crutch has been broken and she will rush hither. For not only is she cruel and ugly and jealous and lazy—”
“—and deceitful—”
“—she is also wrathful.”
Indeed, even as Ingfred spoke there came a noise like a hurricane and a frozen gale shook the fortress and cracked the walls.
“Attend giant,” said Ingfred as she threw off her furs to reveal a glistening cloak of salamander hide. “For you shall never witness such a contest again!”
The door to the frogery exploded then and upon seeing the Blue Witch engorged with rage, wreathed in icy fire, her iron teeth sparking against one another, Magog choose to ignore Ingfred’s invitation and hid himself as best he could. Knocking aside several cord of neatly stacked dried turtles, he crawled inside a massive vault and pulled shut the door. There, crouched in the darkness, amid a treasure trove of jeweled toads, winged frogs, and glowing newts, he held his breath and tried to quiet his pounding heart. Outside the strongroom, a terrifying battle was raging: thunderbolts and trumpets shook the floor; brimstone and honeysuckle filled the air; purple lights and weird visions flashed across even his dark hiding place. Magog shivered and boiled, itched all over, and felt strangely insubstantial.
He awoke, with the taste of licorice in his mouth, to a gentle rapping on the heavy armoured door. “Magog?” said a muffled voice. “Are you in there? You may come out. It is finished.”
Slowly – his fingers still feeling like icing, his head like custard – Magog pushed open the door and peered out. Ingfred smiled at him. She was taller than he remembered, wore a gown of butterfly wings, and her snail ears were gone, but otherwise she was as she had been. The same, however, could not be said of the frogery: its stone walls were melted, buckled, and thick with flowering ivy; its furnishing had been blasted, shattered, or reshaped into astoundingly realistic statues of imps, bears, and fishermen; its ceiling was now hidden beyond a thicket of glistening spider webs; its floor soft and spongey; and its myriad of amphibians – previously pickled, dried, stuffed, or frozen – were now scurrying over one another and rising a cacophony of confused croaking.
Magog emerged from the vault and unfolded himself. “Fo-fum,” he whispered as he gazed about in wonder, popping a cackling bubble as it drifted by. “What’s all this?”
Ingfred glanced around the transformed room as if seeing it afresh and shrugged. “just the usual mayhem of a magic duel.”
“Are you . . . unharmed?” he asked.
She prodded herself cautiously. “I believe so.”
“And the Blue Witch?”
“There is her Glacial Majesty,” said Ingfred, gesturing to a colossal salamander.
Magog bent and picked up the squirming beast between his thumb and forefinger. It was over 2 yards long, with glistening blue skin mottled with liver spots, and two eyes like rusty pennies. Its stubby legs flailed uselessly and its wide toothless jaw worked soundlessly. “What will you do with her?” he asked.
Ingfred readjusted her gown. “My revenge is complete,” she said. “You may do with her as you wish.” With a comb she began fixing her hair, all the while watching the giant carefully from behind her locks.
Magog held the salamander close to his face, wiggling it like a worm and looking for the Blue Witch in its beady eyes. “Ah, well,” he sighed as he dropped the witch into a tank of similarly glassy-eyed newts. “A fitting end, I call it, and enough for me. Lift the curse from Gog and that will be the end of of the matter.”
Ingfred was tapping on the glass. “Hmm? Oh, the curse! Quickly, to the library.”
When Magog reached the well there was no sign of Misfortune, unless it was the ring of misshapen toadstools that had sprouted around the pit. “Gog,” yelled Magog, as he pulled a rope from his pack. “Gog! Are you there? Gog?”
A long, loud silence gave way to a weak and wobbling whisper: “Brother . . . is that you?”
“Yes, it’s Magog. Grab the rope and I’ll pull you up.”
Gog emerged from the well, pale, thin, and dotted with sores. “Is . . . is it gone?”
“Yes, Gog. The curse is lifted. You’re free!”
The luckless giant teetered like a bled giraffe before falling into his brother’s arms. “Thank the Stones,” he murmured, before passing out.
FIN.
**
Copyright 2018 Matthew A.J. Timmins
The knock on the door was not loud but it sent Gog leaping out of his chair, cracking his head against an exposed beam.
“Oww!” he wailed.
“What?” Magog sat up in sleepy startlement. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s my head,” said Gog crossly.
“Bit late to start fretting about it now,” muttered Magog as he settled back to slumber.
“Oh, very witty,” grumbled Gog as he opened the door. “Hello, what’s—” He slammed the door and barred it with his bulk. His hairless head was as white as an egg, his yellow eyes like wobbly yokes. “The B-blue Witch,” he stammered.
Magog jumped up. “The Blue Witch! Here?”
“Not herself, you butter-brain,” snapped Gog. “It’s one of her servants come for the book!”
“The book? Not the bestiary you –”
“Yes!”“But –”
“I know,” wailed Gog.
Magog started in several directions at once. “What will we do?”
“Quickly,” Gog hissed. “Through the back garden!”
The brothers ran through the kitchen and out the back door, but crashed to a halt on the gravel path. Magog stared around his brother at the queer creature before them: taller than a man but thinner, it had a long needle-like beak protruding from the head of a black goat, and an overcoat of raven feathers above knobby heron legs. “Is that the witch’s servant?” Magog whispered.
Gog turned incredulously from his brother to the grotesque figure that waited amongst the herbs. “Of course it is, you clot! Or did you invite a sickle-nosed goat-man to tea?”
Unhurried, the strange visitor folded one leg up under his overcoat and with spindly fingers readjusted his cracked spectacles. “When you thieved my mistress’s book, villain, did you chance to read finale inscription?”
The giants looked at one another. “What inscription?” said Magog.
The creature sighed and dirge-like recited:
Thief who would steal line or verse,
Pay heed to my most certain curse:
Until your vile theft is rectified
Misfortune shall with you abide,
And you shall rue what you have wrought
As all your works shall come to naught.
Magog shrunk behind his brother, but Gog was irked. “Who are you, who would come into our kitchen garden and threaten us with doggerel and cheap bookery!”
“I am Misfortune,” said the black creature dolefully.
“Oh, my scented sandals,” said Magog, backing into the kitchen.
But Gog was not so easily frightened. “Well,” he said, arms akimbo, “what of that? What will you do against Gog the Mighty?”
Soundlessly the creature leapt high into the air and alit on the cottage roof. “I shall abide,” it said as it sat beside the chimney.
“Hy!” shouted Gog, wrenching up the garden’s sundial off its pedestal. “Come off of there, varlet!”
When it made no move to compel, Gog flung the sundial like a discus at the trespasser. But his grin crumbled when the sundial missed its mark by mere inches and slammed into the chimney, demolishing it in a rain of bricks.
Magog rushed out the door. “Frith and Furth!” he cried. “What was that?”
“That muddy wretch has destroyed our chimney!” Gog fumed and sputtered. “Fetch the ladder, brother. I’ll knock that cur off our roof!”
As Magog retrieved and positioned the ladder (accidently breaking the kitchen window in the process), Misfortune brushed red dust off its coat; as Gog ascended the ladder, the bizarre creature checked its pocket watch; and when the rungs snapped under Gog and sent him tumbling down upon his brother, the unwelcome visitor merely readjusted its posture and settled itself comfortable on the roof.
Disentangling themselves, the giants retreated inside. “What shall we do?” moaned Magog, pacing up and down. “Gog, what shall we do?”
“By thunder!” growled Gog as he limped across the sitting room and wrenched open the closet, “I’ll—ow!” Cursing, he swatted aside the boxes that rained down on him. “Where is the muddy – ah!” He pulled from the clutter a colossal longbow made from a single elm tree. “Magog, bring me my arrows.”
Magog sighed and went to a chest at the foot of his bed. “Gog,” he said as he handed over a dusty quiver. “This is folly. You’ll come to harm.”
“Harm?” scoffed Gog. “I may not be a great archer, but I can shoot a chicken off a roof!”
“We are cursed!” said Magog. “The Blue Witch has cursed us because –” he dropped his voice to a whisper “—because you stole her book.”
“Rubbish,” said Gog.
“And we can’t return the book,” continued Magog, “because you lost it.”
Having stung the bow, Gog slung the quiver over his shoulder and limped to the front door. “Then I shall shoot this ‘Misfortune’ and our trouble will be at an end.”
After his brother slammed the front door, Magog resumed his pacing. “Tears before bedtime,” he muttered.
There was loud snap and a cry from the front garden. The door opened slowly and Gog hobbled inside, a red welt above his black eye. He threw down the quiver and the broken halves of the bow before falling into a chair. “You’re quite right, Magog,” he said through split lips and around chipped teeth, “we’re curthed.”
As the evening grew old, the brothers fretted and puzzled till the sky unleashed a roaring deluge that made conversation impossible. With a scowl and a shrug, Gog and Magog mimed goodnight and went to their beds.
While dawn was yet a cruel rumor, the giants were woken from uneasy slumber by a leaking roof. The stove would not light and the fireplace was full of chimney so they had a cold breakfast of hard bread and mice-nibbled cheese surrounded by pots and pans slowly filling with rainwater.
“I can’t stand it,” said Magog, his eyes on the ceiling. “To know that . . . creature is roosting above our head like some evil . . . rooster.”
“Pay it no heed,” said Gog.
“But this is cruel hard,” whined Magog.
“Pay it no heed,” repeated Gog stubbornly.
Magog did his best to follow his brother’s advice, but after three days of burnt crumpets, sour milk, ripped clothing, broken mirrors, spilt salt, and lost keys, he could endure it no longer. “No more,” he announced as he came in out of the rain and put down a dented milking pail. “Both Damona and Boann have been taken lame. What have you there?”
Gog was holding a scroll in trembling hands. “This arrived by albatross.”
“An albatross,” said Magog brightly. “They’re good luck! Maybe our fortunes are changing.”
“It was struck by lightning,” Gog said, pointed to a charred carcass on the floor.
“Oh. What does the letter say?”
“It’s from Humbug. He’s sorry he missed us on his last visit and to make amends he will join us for Glomentide.”
Magog went white and fell onto a chair.
“He plans, also, to bring his new bride.”
“A wife?” moaned Magog. “Mire and muck! What monstrous hag would marry Humbug?”
“Peace, brother, peace.”
“But we can’t have both of then crashing around, we’ll be ruined! We must dosomething.”
“Quite right,” whispered Gog. “This is itsdoing,” he pointed to the ceiling.”
Magog looked up fearfully. “This house is cursed.”
“Then we shall leave this house, secretly. Prepare yourself; we must be ready to flee at the first opportunity.”
Magog nodded grimly. “I shall,” he whispered before slinking off to the kitchen.
Soon the giants were packed and ready, but – as luck (or perhaps Misfortune) would have it – the days became clear and clement, the nights bathed with silver moonlight.
The brothers awaited their opportunity.
“It’s your own fault,” said Gog some days later. “I told you not to do anything.”
“But I’m bored,” said Magog, sucking his paper-cut thumb.
“The dragon waits for the knight,” said Gog sagely.
Long, empty days crawled past till at last the giants awoke to find the world smothered in a thick, wet fog. “The knight has come,” they whispered to each other before shouldering their packs and sneaking out the back door.
All was a soft grayness, the fog so foggy that the giants could not see their feet. Soon they were lost in the murk, but they hurried on, telling themselves that “away” was the only direction that matter.
They were mistaken.
With a wooden snap, Gog dropped out of view; only his belated and astonished scream hinted at what had happened as it receded beneath Magog’s feet.
“Gog!” Magog dropped to his knees and felt for a ground that wasn’t there. “Gog? Gog!”
From far below there came a wet thump and a soft groan.
“Gog!” Magog began rummaging through his pack. “Do not move, brother. I am coming.”
“That would be unwise,” said a doleful voice through the fog.
Magog started, accidently dropping his pack into the void. “Who’s there?”
In answer, a briny breeze arose, chasing away the mist to reveal an open well at Magog’s feet, Misfortune perched on its rim.
“You!” Magog jumped to this feet, nearly upsetting himself and plummeting after his brother. “You, vile imp!” he cried when he had regained most of his balance. “Be gone or. . . or I shall smite you!”
“That would be unwise,” repeated the sorrowful chimera. “Your brother tried to escape me and fell into a forgotten well he himself dug twenty years before. Consider what ill luck awaits you.”
“Have pity,” begged Magog, stepping carefully away from the lightless hole. “Torment us no longer.”
“I torment only the thief and his companions,” Misfortune said. “Leave your brother and I shall not follow.”
“Never,” said Magog.
Misfortune shrugged its feathered shoulder. “Then stay and share his fate. But know this: only she who sent me can recall me.”
“The Blue Witch,” Magog faltered.
“Even she,” Misfortune intoned. “If you would save your brother from my ministrations go and plead with her. But leave your hope behind.”
Magog hesitated. “Well, that doesn’t sound awfully promising . . .”
“Go!” Gog’s disembodied cry echoed up the dark well. “Go at once!”
Magog leant out warily and looked down. “But brother –”
“It’s the only way to lift the curse,” shouted Gog. “Beg her forgiveness, promise her anything. Please, Magog, you are my only rescue.”
“Of course, brother,” Magog shouted back. “I shall go at once, quick as I can. Stones preserve you!”
“Thank you, Magog,” shouted Gog. “Stones preserve us both!”
Magog retreated from the well, but he did not set off. Turning to the fowl-goat, he said softly: “will my brother come to harm”
“Like enough,” said Misfortune.
“Will he . . . die?”
“He shall not escape me so easily.”
Not overly reassured, Magog nodded grimly and hurried away.
Later than he’d hoped but sooner than he’d wished, Magog stood before the rimy stone of the fastness of the Blue Witch. Tugging his beard for courage and reminding himself of his brother’s peril, Magog knocked on the colossal doors.
In answer, a shutter opened far above and a fat, frumpy and familiar figure leant out a window. “Who is it?” the figure cried. “What do you want?”
“I wish an audience with the Blue Witch.”
“Agog! You, blackguard! Wait there.” The shutters slammed shut.
Taken aback and abash, Magog fidgeted for a few moments till a frigid wind blew open the towering doors to reveal a pale-faced young woman swaddled in cloaks and muffs and hats. She ripped away her scarves and spat wool from her blue lips. “You, villain! Have you and your treacherous brother not caused me enough trouble?”
Magog bowed his head. “Have we caused you much trouble?”
“Much trouble?” The charwoman tore off her woolen hat to reveal a pair of long slimy feelers. “She’s given me snail’s ears! And this, this is her mercy! Till Wednesday last I had duck’s feet as well.”
“Oh, Ingfrid!” cried Magog. “I’m truly sorry.”
From deep within the glacier, there came a roaring screech: “who is at my door?” Before an answer could be made, a frigid, sucking vortex snatched Ingfrid away and pulled even Magog inside. The great doors slammed shut behind him, as he slipped and stumbled along corridors of ice. Through snowy galleries and down frozen stairs, they were carried till at last they were tumbled through a misty antechamber and flung beyond.
Magog untangled his limbs and gathered up his wits. He was in the midst of a winter-bound hall: its dark walls hoarfrosted, its frozen floor glowing with a bottomless green glimmer, its lofty roof hidden by roiling storm clouds. Beside him Ingfrid lay in her furs like a stunned animal and before him, atop a dais of granite was the Blue Witch, unmistakable in her frightful majesty. On her icy throne she hunched within robes of sable fur, hair like frozen straw jutting from beneath a rusty crown, blue and boney hands clutching a simple crutch that lay across her lap. Her stony eyes bulged from a cracked face as she stared at the giant. When she spoke, her voice was like an avalanche, thundering through the hall and dislodging the icicles hanging from her nose. “Who are you?”
Shivering with fear as well as cold, Magog bowed deeply. “Your Majesty, I—”
“Are you the thief you robbed me?” roared the witch.
“No, your Majesty, I am Magog. It was my brother—”
The witch jabbed her crutch at him. “Do you have my book?”
Magog fell back a step. “No, your Majesty, I—”
“Then why have you come?”
“To plead on my brother’s behalf, your Majesty. To beg forgiveness or – if not forgiveness – then mercy. Please allow me to make amends. How may I appease your Majesty? What payment can I make? What service or penance can I perform?”
“You want to make amends?” With a serpentine tongue the witch licked her sharp teeth. “Payment? Penance?” She slumped back on her throne and closed her eyes. For a few moments she made a noise like a bubbling swamp, then she snapped open her eyes and rocked forward. “Sluggard!”
“Here, your Majesty,” said the now-upright Ingfrid.
“Bring me the hail-watch.”
With a curtsey, Ingfred hurried from the hall.
Not soon enough for Magog – who had been left to squirm under the witch’s relentless gaze – Ingfred returned, dragging behind her a great cart containing an even greater hourglass. Tall as a tree, the silver and gold timepiece consisted of two large crystal bulbs: the upper one empty, the bottom one full of hailstones.
Laboriously, the Blue Witch stood and took up her crutch. “You’ll serve me, giant,” she said as she hobbled down the steps. Twisted and bent, she stood almost twice as tall as Ingfred and nearly half as tall as Magog and yet her malevolent presence overflowed the hall and loomed over them both. “You’ll be my slave,” she sneered. “And jump when I call.” Like flint and steel, her bony fingers sparked when she snapped them. Magog did indeed flinch and she laughed as she limped past him. “And you’ll do it until all the hail has run from this hourglass.”
When she fell silent, Magog ventured: “and then you will release Gog from your curse?”
“What?” The witch pounded her crutch in umbrage. “Yes, yes! Then I’ll release your thieving brother.”
“Then we have an accord,” said Magog. “By the Stones and Stars, I –”
“Fah!” she snorted. “Keep your rocks and your twinkles. You won’t cross me. I’ll turn you into a dung duck if you do!” With her crutch she hit the hourglass and it leapt up and flipped itself over, causing the hailstones to trickle into the lower bulb with a clatter. “Now giant, you’re my slave!”
Swallowing his fear, Magog bowed humbly. “What is your wish, your Majesty?”
The Blue Witch leant on her crutch and chewed her teeth for a moment. “I’m tired,” she announced. “Go away. Sluggard!”
“Yes, your Majesty?”
“Take this brute away and find him a room somewhere.”
Ingfred led Magog along frosty corridors, down frozen cascades that served as stairs, and past sconces above pools of slush. At last they came to a grotto carved from the endless ice: the door was ice; the walls and vaulted ceiling were ice; the floor was carpeted with snow; there was an icy wardrobe and a giant four-poster block of ice for a bed; there was even a fireplace carved mockingly from the ice.
“Th-this is my room?” said Magog around chattering teeth.
“I’ll bring you some furs,” said Ingfred. “The witch will blame me if you freeze to death.”
He was huddled in his thin cloak when she returned, staggering under a pile of furs. These she dumped on the bed to reveal a pair of tall lanterns strung around her neck. She lit the lanterns as Magog draped himself in furs.
“I shall bring your breakfast in the morning,” she said as she placed the lanterns on either end on the mantleshelf.
Magog peered at her from within a mound of fur, like a miserable bear. “Ingfred,” he said softly. “Had I know Gog had taken the bestiary I would have insisted that he returned it at once.”
“Your brother is a fool,” she said.
“Quote possibly,” he admitted. “But he meant no harm. I’m truly sorry for what has happened.”
She sighed and left him alone.
The next morning, Ingfred returned with a wheelbarrow of cold cod fillets and a hogshead of tea. Magog ate the meager meal, too embarrassed by Ingfred’s scowl to ask for milk or sugar. When he had emptied the barrow and drained the cask, she loaded the one into the other and wheeled them out of the room.
“You are to go to the Great Hall,” she said over her shoulder. “The witch will have tasks for you. I shall bring your supper tonight.”
“Thank you,” said Magog meekly.
When she returned with his supper, Ingfred found the giant sprawled limply upon his icy bed. He was bruised, snow-capped, and frostbitten; his clothes ripped and his beard frozen.
“Giant,” she called softly. ‘Giant. Magog!”
With a groan, he rolled over, smashing one of the posters and bringing the glacial canopy crashing down. “N-no more,” he moaned. “I can do no more. Not another foot.”
“Supper,” she said, wheeling in another wheelbarrow and another barrel.
The light of understanding returned to his eyes and Magog sat up straight and eager. “Oh, thank the Stars!” He gulped down handfuls of fish and quaffed from the barrel.
Ingfred frowned. She had long stoked a hatred of the brothers giant, remembering how they had betrayed her hospitality and called down the anger of the Blue Witch upon her, but the sight of Magog – so meek and ill-used – dampened her choler. “You are sorely hurt, giant. Did the witch punish you so dearly?”
“I wonder I’m not dead,” grumbled Magog. “She forced me to excavate a new storey for this ridiculous igloo of her’s.”
Though she was secretly glad of the new rooms, the scullion said, “Come with me to the hot springs and I shall fetch salves and bandages.”
“Thank you, Ingfred,” said Magog. “You are kind.”
She turned away quickly. “Hurry,” she said. “The witch will blame me if you die after only one day of servitude.”
* * *
Perched on the edge of the well, Misfortune consulted its pocket watch, sighed a weary sigh, and began to preen its feathery overcoat.
Far below, Gog squatted in the wet darkness, girded round by slimy stones. “Tell me, fiend,” he shouted up at the circle of daylight far above him, “do you enjoy tormenting me?”
Having finished its ablutions, Misfortune stared wistfully at a flock of woolly clouds. “I find no joy here, brute. My mistress is cunning and strong and holds me with ancient and binding indenture. I do what I must.”
Gog whipped ooze from his face. “Can nothing be done?”
“Not by you,” said Misfortune. “Now, I advise you to be silent, before you bite your tongue.”
* * *
Magog toiled long under the yoke of the Blue Witch. Each morning, in the dark before the day, they would set forth: she in her mammoth-drawn sled, coughing and cackling and waving her crutch; he jogging behind. And each morning the sun rose and looked with bewilderment on the labours of Magog. To recover a lost bauble, she commanded him to drain Loch Mere. He moved Drumloon Hill ½ mile to the south to improve the view from her boudoir. He wrestled the trolls of Hegg, 2 falls out of 3, to settle a wager. And he spent a week shoveling out her mastodon stables. Buried beneath an avalanche of such days, Magog began to despair.
So it was that Ingfred, while shoveling out the second-best sitting room, heard the sounds of sniffing and sneezing echoing from the Great Hall. There she found Magog on the icy steps beneath the empty throne, huddled in his whale-skin mackintosh and weeping piteously. Drop-by-drop, her anger with the giants had thawed until now, at the sight of Magog’s meek misery, it melted completely.
“Giant,” she said. “What vexes you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It is the witch’s doing: to refill Loch Mere – which I emptied not a fortnight ago – she has summoned an imp to tell me sad stories so that I might fill the lake with my tears.”
The charwoman nodded sympathetically. “I know this imp. Its stories are indeed sad, but they are just tales and not worth remembering.”
“It is not merely the imp’s stories,” he brushed frozen teardrops from his face, “but that they call to mind my poor brother, who even now languishes at the bottom of a well, tormented by another of her vile imps. And look!” He pointed to the colossal hourglass that still stood in the hall. “The hailstones are not yet half drained away. I fear Gog will be dead before I have appeased the witch!”
Ingfred frowned at the hail-watch and its steady rattle of ice, then she beckoned the giant lower that she might whisper in his cavernous ear. “Tomorrow,” she said, “when she summons you, I shall tell the witch you have the pox and she will wail and curse but in end she will leave you behind, for she is vain and will not wish to be seen with a poxy servant. Now, when you hear her leave, you must come quickly to the frogery where I shall be waiting to tell you something of great import.”
Though perplexed, Magog nodded to show that understood her instructions.
In the morning he lay abed and, as foretold, he heard the Blue Witch cursing and crashing her way through the fortress. He heard the front doors slam shut. He heard the mammoths thunder and trumpet into the distance. But it was not until he heard the robin resume his song that he got up, dressed, and hurried off to keep his appointment.
Following Ingfred’s directions, he came to a colossal iron door and stood goggling at what he discovered beyond. The enormous room was warm and moist, without even a glimmer of frost or ice, its air thick with a sweet, acidic tang. On countless shelves and tables a bewildering assortment of amphibians waited in hundreds of jar, bowls, and tanks. There were frogs of every description: golden and ghostly, huge and tiny. There were toads barbed and bearded. There were bottles of pickled tadpoles and a meticulous catalogues of tortoise shells. There was a rainbow of dried salamanders, and a collection of walking fish and legless mud lizards.
The housemaid stood at a newt-strewn table, studying a two-headed specimen. She smiled when she saw Magog. “Welcome. This,” she said rather unnecessarily, “is the frogery.” She gestured proudly at the room and seemed to be waiting for Magog’s reply.
“Well,” said the giant, trying to be polite. “It certainly has a lot of frogs.”
Her eyes lit up with scholarly zeal. “Oh, yes! Frogs are ever so important to true witchery. And not just frogs, but amphibians of all kinds: newts’ eyes, salamander wool, turtle horn, though strictly speaking—” she stumbled over the glazed look of Magog’s face, “yes, well, the important thing is that we can speak without being overheard.”
“Good,” said Magog. “What shall we speak about?”
“Rebellion,” she grinned. “We have been slaves too long; we must destroy the Blue Witch and win our freedom.”
Magog looked dubious. “I have struck a bargain with the witch and I shall honor it.”
“And what of me?” she cried. “Am I to be her drudge till I die?”
The giant sighed. “I am sorry for your lot – truly I am – but the witch has promised to release Gog from her curse at the end of my servitude.”
Ingfred shook her head. “Your servitude will never end; every night the witch adds new hailstones to the hourglass. She will never release you or your brother.”
“What!” Magog’s angry fist shattered a row of shelves into a hail of stones and toads. “Why that wretched, wicked, hag! I’ll grind her up to grit my garden path!”
“I fear,” said Ingfred, emerging from under a table and flicking masonry from her cloak, “that even your great strength would be no match for her magic.”
“Oh, Ingfred,” he said sheepishly. “I’m awfully sorry. Are you hurt?”
“No, no,” she waved away his apology. “But I have a way to defeat the witch.” She moved to a huge display of poison arrow frogs and began dismantling it as she spoke. “Many years ago, I came to the Blue Witch to trade my service for her knowledge. But the wintry crone is jealous as well as false: she worked me near to death but her lessons were fragmentary and of little use and soon stopped altogether. Still I stayed, playing the simple charwomen, but all the while spying on her sorcery, reading her books, and squirreling away enchanted trinkets.” Having cleared away the colorfully frogs, she manipulated the display case to reveal a hidden nook. “Now I have stolen her secrets and mastered her magic.”
“Then why have you not overthrown her already?” said Magog. “What do you need of me?”
“Because,” Ingfred reached deep into the secret compartment, “the witch has one wondrous tool against which I cannot contend.” She pulled out a long, wooden box and laid it on the table. “I need you, mighty giant, to destroy this item.”
“Ah,” said Magog. “Her crown.”
“No.” She smiled.
“Her amulet?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Her crutch,” she opened the box and lifted out the witch’s battered and rusty stick.
“Her crutch?” said the disappointed giant. “What kind of magical item is that?”
“One which no thief would covet. The Blue Witch may be cruel and ugly and jealous—”
“—and deceitful,” added Magog.
“—but she’s not a fool. She hid her greatest treasure is plain sight where none would recognize it.”
“Except you.”
Ingfred bowed.
“But how do you have this if its so important to her?”
“I crafted a forgery – not as powerful as the original – but sufficient to fool her for a little while. And this morning I switch the one for the other.”
“Why not use it yourself if it is as powerful as you say.”
“I cannot. Its power is her power. Not only is she cruel and ugly and jealous—”
“—and deceitful—”
“—she is also lazy. She has placed a piece of her magic within the crutch so that she might call upon it more easily.”
Magog twisted his beard thoughtfully. “So, if I were to destroy the crutch . . .”
“Its magic would be lost and she would be weakened,” said Ingfred. “Long enough for me to destroy her.”
“It is a good plan,” he took the crutch and tested its strength.
Ingfred gathered some jars, open a great yellow book on the table before her, and placed a daisy-chain of dried newts around her neck. “I am ready,” she announced.
“Wait.” Magog frowned. “Will this lift the curse from Gog?”
Ingfred thought a moment. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But when I have defeated the witch I shall do all in my power to help your brother.”
“Very well.”
The crutch was stronger than it appeared and Magog grew increasingly embarrassed as he struggled to break it. He blushed when he could not snap it in twain; he mumbled apologies when he failed to crush it underfoot; and he swore uncouth Giant curses when smashing it against the stone fixtures produced only chipped stone and scattered toads. Desperate, and trying to avoid Ingfred’s anxious eye, he jammed half the crutch firmly into a narrow fissure in the wall and leant on the other half with all his mountainous weight.
And then, with a quiet snap, the crutch broke asunder. There was whiff of charcoal, a dribble of orange slush, and the pieces of the magical tool crumbled away like dry mud.
“What happens now?” asked Magog, brushing clean his hands.
The charwoman eyed the door grimly. “The Blue Witch will know immediately that her crutch has been broken and she will rush hither. For not only is she cruel and ugly and jealous and lazy—”
“—and deceitful—”
“—she is also wrathful.”
Indeed, even as Ingfred spoke there came a noise like a hurricane and a frozen gale shook the fortress and cracked the walls.
“Attend giant,” said Ingfred as she threw off her furs to reveal a glistening cloak of salamander hide. “For you shall never witness such a contest again!”
The door to the frogery exploded then and upon seeing the Blue Witch engorged with rage, wreathed in icy fire, her iron teeth sparking against one another, Magog choose to ignore Ingfred’s invitation and hid himself as best he could. Knocking aside several cord of neatly stacked dried turtles, he crawled inside a massive vault and pulled shut the door. There, crouched in the darkness, amid a treasure trove of jeweled toads, winged frogs, and glowing newts, he held his breath and tried to quiet his pounding heart. Outside the strongroom, a terrifying battle was raging: thunderbolts and trumpets shook the floor; brimstone and honeysuckle filled the air; purple lights and weird visions flashed across even his dark hiding place. Magog shivered and boiled, itched all over, and felt strangely insubstantial.
He awoke, with the taste of licorice in his mouth, to a gentle rapping on the heavy armoured door. “Magog?” said a muffled voice. “Are you in there? You may come out. It is finished.”
Slowly – his fingers still feeling like icing, his head like custard – Magog pushed open the door and peered out. Ingfred smiled at him. She was taller than he remembered, wore a gown of butterfly wings, and her snail ears were gone, but otherwise she was as she had been. The same, however, could not be said of the frogery: its stone walls were melted, buckled, and thick with flowering ivy; its furnishing had been blasted, shattered, or reshaped into astoundingly realistic statues of imps, bears, and fishermen; its ceiling was now hidden beyond a thicket of glistening spider webs; its floor soft and spongey; and its myriad of amphibians – previously pickled, dried, stuffed, or frozen – were now scurrying over one another and rising a cacophony of confused croaking.
Magog emerged from the vault and unfolded himself. “Fo-fum,” he whispered as he gazed about in wonder, popping a cackling bubble as it drifted by. “What’s all this?”
Ingfred glanced around the transformed room as if seeing it afresh and shrugged. “just the usual mayhem of a magic duel.”
“Are you . . . unharmed?” he asked.
She prodded herself cautiously. “I believe so.”
“And the Blue Witch?”
“There is her Glacial Majesty,” said Ingfred, gesturing to a colossal salamander.
Magog bent and picked up the squirming beast between his thumb and forefinger. It was over 2 yards long, with glistening blue skin mottled with liver spots, and two eyes like rusty pennies. Its stubby legs flailed uselessly and its wide toothless jaw worked soundlessly. “What will you do with her?” he asked.
Ingfred readjusted her gown. “My revenge is complete,” she said. “You may do with her as you wish.” With a comb she began fixing her hair, all the while watching the giant carefully from behind her locks.
Magog held the salamander close to his face, wiggling it like a worm and looking for the Blue Witch in its beady eyes. “Ah, well,” he sighed as he dropped the witch into a tank of similarly glassy-eyed newts. “A fitting end, I call it, and enough for me. Lift the curse from Gog and that will be the end of of the matter.”
Ingfred was tapping on the glass. “Hmm? Oh, the curse! Quickly, to the library.”
When Magog reached the well there was no sign of Misfortune, unless it was the ring of misshapen toadstools that had sprouted around the pit. “Gog,” yelled Magog, as he pulled a rope from his pack. “Gog! Are you there? Gog?”
A long, loud silence gave way to a weak and wobbling whisper: “Brother . . . is that you?”
“Yes, it’s Magog. Grab the rope and I’ll pull you up.”
Gog emerged from the well, pale, thin, and dotted with sores. “Is . . . is it gone?”
“Yes, Gog. The curse is lifted. You’re free!”
The luckless giant teetered like a bled giraffe before falling into his brother’s arms. “Thank the Stones,” he murmured, before passing out.
FIN.
**
Copyright 2018 Matthew A.J. Timmins