Weirdbook #44

LET ME BE YOUR SWAMP SNAKE, by Adrian Cole-2

“These are no ordinary frogs. Mutants.”

“Figures—they’re reptile frogs?”

“In a manner of speaking. Sebok’s Staff has control over crocodiles, alligators, reptiles, and other things. In your hands, Nick, it would give the Frog God pause for thought.”

“Okay, give me the tool and I’ll finish the job.” I held out my hand, more in hope than expectation.

“She doesn’t have it,” said the Mire-Beast. “We have to fetch it.”

“That’ll be the pain bit.”

“Deep in the swamp there is an altar,” said the Bog Witch. “Sebok’s Staff is secured there. The altar is on a small islet, surrounded by the Frog God’s host. You must pass through it to get to the altar. The two of you have powers of your own. Strengthen your resolve and the staff will be yours.”

I turned to the Mire-Beast. “Your loins girded up?”

The vast hulk was incapable of smiling, but it growled and I took it as assent.

“You have your guns?” the Bog Witch asked me. So she knew about my twin Berettas.

I patted my coat. “Don’t go many places without them, ma’am.”

“One more thing,” she said, her blind eyes fixing me. “There is a guardian.”

“Naturally. There always is.”

“She will not part with Sebok’s Staff willingly.”

“Who is she?”

“The Sleeping Sister. Sissyllys. You will know her when you see her.”

The interview appeared to be over, and I’d landed the job. My huge companion trudged across the back of the mound and we were off, pushing through the cramped vegetation, trying to blot out the ceaseless noise of the swamp. I drew my guns. My guess was, our progress would not be smooth.

The Mire-Beast was far more efficient than any machete would have been in my hands, creating a passage for me. The worst I had to deal with was the threat of an attack, and innumerable insects, which I laboriously swatted as we worked our way deeper and deeper into what seemed to be an endless green hell. In the muck around our path, things slithered and hopped in the pools, or slid through low branches, coiling and uncoiling, hissing, but somehow not inclined to strike. Probably the Mire-Beast exuded a psychic will, radiating a warning to all but the most powerful of the swamp denizens to back off. I did loose off a couple of shots when things got too suggestive of pending aggression, and it did the trick. My guess was, it wouldn’t last.

I got that right.

The squat trees parted to reveal a wide expanse of thick, muddy swamp, its surface glazed with green scum, flat and featureless, its edges cloaked in vapors that rose up from it in billowing yellowish clouds. It was an enclosed world, near-silent and stinking of rot. The path I was on dropped out of sight below that festering mire, so there was no way I could progress. And I sure as hell had no intention of letting the Mire-Beast carry me across. He didn’t offer.

Instead he lowered himself into the gunk like it was a health spa. I watched as his great bulk was immersed up to his shoulders and he waded out from the shore, looking for something. Around me in the gloom I heard the gathering of flapping, winged things, probably looking for lunch. Right then I was on the menu. Hell, I was the menu.

“Some kind of raft would be useful at this point,” I called.

The Mire-Beast ducked under the surface, bubbles breaking it to mark his path along the bottom of the swamp. He burst up from below, muck and slime slithering off him, and pointed along the bank. “Stone pathway,” he said.

I moved around the swamp on unstable chunks of the bank until I reached the indicated place. There were big stones there, an inch or two below the surface, leading outwards. “Seriously?” I said to my companion.

Just to demonstrate how tickety-boo it all was, he jumped up on to the first of the submerged stones and crossed from one to the next without sinking. I held both my guns and made my move, balancing myself carefully. Okay, I could do this. I was trying to remind myself what the blue blazes I was doing here, but no sane reasons popped into my head. I just kept moving, further and further out across the swamp. I wasn’t wearing my best shoes—that was my other pair—but these were going to be ruined.

Now the swamp was coming alive. Things stirred in its glutinous expanse. Croaks increased in volume and shadows moved like serpents through the vapors. I appeared to be standing in the middle of an open area, a long way from shore. Vulnerable. Something broke surface ahead and I almost fired off a couple of rounds at it, I was that nervous.

“The causeway,” said the Mire-Beast. To underline his point, he swam forward and hauled himself up on to the flat, wooden area. I moved over the last of the submerged rocks and likewise climbed up. A low, wooden jetty, the thing wound onward into more mist, but it was above swamp level and at that point in my journey, most welcome. Something snapped at the place I had just vacated. I swung round, about to fire, but whatever it had been had gone back under.

We got moving along the causeway. It was slippery, many of its boards rotten, and I was almost pitched over the side as sections of it lurched, unstable and potentially collapsing. We were definitely no longer alone. Out in the mire, many things were following us, their bulging eyes popping up and observing us. The Bog Witch had warned me that we’d have to pass through the ranks of the frogs to get to the island. They didn’t disappoint. On the plus side, they were only small critters. It was just the number of them. That number had a lot of naughts on the end.

As they swam in droves alongside the causeway, it became clear that some of them weren’t that small after all. I commented on this to the Mire-Beast.

“Those are the toads,” he said.

“Anything else out there I should know about?”

He chose not to respond. Instead we moved on, more speedily. Behind me I heard the wet slap of something on the boards. I turned and saw a shape, large and bulbous, gleaming with swamp muck. It opened its mouth and I could see deep into its maw. It was toothless but as welcoming as a man-trap. I fired at it and the creature croaked indignantly and hopped back into the swamp.

The Mire-Beast had pulled up, flexing his huge clawed hands. Beyond him I could see the causeway was blocked. At first it looked like a fallen tree but then the whole thing wriggled and split up into about a thousand small, hopping shapes. A wall of frogs, reinforced with a score or more of the bigger toads. All those boggling eyes, fixed on us, was a disconcerting sight. The amphibian army did not want us to pass. Behind us more of the things were hopping up onto the causeway. I felt it shift under me, like it was about to turn belly up. Right then I did not want to plop into the mire.

Instead I rushed forward, both Berettas blazing away. The result was instantaneous. Numerous creatures burst under the blizzard of lead, their pulped flesh scattering over the swamp, while others hopped aside. Those that played it all heroic and came at us, including some toads as fat as pigs, ran into the maelstrom that was the Mire-Beast. In a blur, he swung this way and that, sweeping the croaking monsters hither and yon, in most cases ripping them into chunks of meat. Some reached him and tried to fasten those slimy, fish-wet mouths on his torso, but they had no effect. They tried it on me, too, but I had enough time to blast them into a drizzle of blood and gore. Sure, it was messy. But we got through and out the other side.

The swamp on both sides of the causeway was heaving as if we were somewhere out on a heavy sea swell, bracing against a storm. My guess was, bigger things were going to emerge from the swirling chaos and make a play for us. I was about to ask the Mire-Beast how much further to the island, but I saw it ahead. It was a big hump, maybe a couple of hundred meters across. A few trees poked up from its curve, but it looked solid enough. Behind us the frogs and their bloated chums were gathering and preparing for a second concerted attack, but we hightailed it across the last of the causeway and on to the island. We turned and what I saw almost stopped my heart.

The swamp surface was no longer visible. It had been replaced by the amphibian host. I mean, those things were packed so close to each other—big ones, small ones, monsters—all you saw was frog flesh. Or toad flesh. Or—well, whatever the hell the rest of them were. All set on cuddling up to me and my companion, and not in the nicest possible way. I thought maybe I’d slightly underestimated the task set for me here. I’d reloaded my guns and prepared to let fly once more, but the Mire-Beast called me to him.

“They can’t get on to the island,” he said. “It’s protected. They’ll completely surround it, but that’s all.”

“That’s all?” I echoed. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“Sebok’s Staff repulses them.”

He ignored my little rant and shambled on across the island, pushing through thick leaves and creepers until we came to the central glade. It was some fifty meters across and had been paved some time in its past, the big slabs of its floor cracking and pushed up in places by the rampant vegetation. A few pillars poked up from the thick grasses round its edge, broken and looking as if they been gnawed on by something with very large teeth. Across from us, looming over the whole place was a spectacular statue, carved either in bronze or some other tough metal. My blood felt suddenly cold as I looked up at the thing. Statue it may be, but it was terrifying.

It was the raised head of a serpent, three times my height, its mouth open, its fangs gleaming in the light from overhead. Something dripped ominously from them. The eyes were two immense jewels, probably rubies given their deep red color, and they were wide open. I was damn sure if I moved from side to side they’d follow me.

“Don’t worry about the teeth,” said the Mire-Beast. “That’s not poison. This thing is a constrictor.”

I saw now the body of the creature, curving down from the enormous head and wrapping itself around the rim of the clearing. It was big enough to have taken on a couple of freight trains, with room for most of the trucks. But it wasn’t poisonous and better still, it was a statue. In front of it there was a big flat stone resting on two short, squat ones, something from the Stone Age maybe. Resting on the stone’s surface, which was strangely free of any kind of growth, was a long staff, topped with a weird shaped head cut from something off-white. Bone.

“The Staff of Sebok,” said the Mire-Beast.

“Help yourself,” I said. “Let’s use it to clear a path back to the sane world.”

Before my companion could comply, there was movement to one side of the clearing and we were joined by the weirdest guy I’d ever clapped eyes on. Seriously, I have seen some freaky people, but this guy scooped the award for Mr Impossibly Ugly. Essentially he was a human frog. Ridiculously wide, with batrachian skin, blotched and slimy, an inflated gut and huge thighs, he hopped forward and kind of crouched close to the flat stone. His head was enormous, with no neck or visible ears, but the eyes and nose were not far off being human. I wasn’t sure the mouth was, although this amphibian amalgam spoke, albeit in a basso profundo.