Frog Kiss
He had gotten used to it by now. The frog tasted cold and slimy against his lips, with a taste like brackish water, mud, and old compost. But Keric gave it a dutiful smack on its mouth, hoping that it wouldn’t suddenly turn in to the fat old king, who had also been enchanted, along with several more desirable members of the royal family.
But the frog just looked at him, squirmed, and then urinated on Keric’s palm. Nothing. Again. He took a dab of red pigment from his pouch, smeared it on the frog’s head, and then tossed the creature through the trees and marsh grass. He listened to it plop in another pool. Another one tried and failed.
Around him, the sounds of thousands of frogs croaked in the dense swamp, loud enough to drown out the whine of mosquitoes, the constant dripping of water, and the occasional belch of a crocodile.
Sweat and dirty water ran in streaks from his brown hair, down his cheeks, and avoided the frog slime around his mouth. He had caught and tested more than three dozen frogs already, but it would be years before he could find them all—and that was only if any members of the frog-cursed royal family remained alive in the deep swamps. A crocodile splashed somewhere out in the network of cypress roots and branches. Somehow Keric couldn’t imagine the brittle old Queen Mother deigning to eat flies, not even if they were served to her by someone else.
When the evil wizard Cosimor had taken over the kingdom less than a year before, he had followed the traditional path of sorcerous usurpers by capturing the entire royal family and transforming them into frogs and then turning them loose in the sprawling, infected swamps of Dermith.
Cosimor had intended to tax the kingdom to its death, drive the subjects into slavery, and generally keep himself amused. But less then three weeks later the wizard had died choking on a fish bone—no vengeful curse, that; simply poor cooking. Now the kingdom had been left without any rulers, not even the incompetent but somehow endearing royal family.
Keric, who lived in a hut on the fringes of the Dermith swamps, trapping muskrats and selling the fur in the noisy walled town, had decided to try to find the royal family in its exile, free at least one of them with a kiss, and then count on his reward. A palace of his own, perhaps? Gold coins stacked as high as an oak tree? Fine clothes. He pulled as his dripping, mud soaked rags. Yes, fine clothes first. And then perhaps the hand of one of the princesses in marriage?
He spat drying slime away from his lips. But first he had to catch the right frog—and they all looked alike!
He slumped down on a rotting log covered with Spanish moss, then looked across at the piled undergrowth to see a bloated old bullfrog sitting under a drooping fern. Plainly visible on the frog’s back were three equally spaced dark blotches, just like the supposed birthmark carried by every member of the royal family! Was this the old king, then? The fat duchess, the king’s sister? It didn’t matter to Keric—the frog sat right in front of his eyes. It had always taken him too long to see what was right in front of his face.
He didn’t want to hesitate too long. Keric shifted his body forward and then lunged, splaying out his mud-caked fingers. He skidded through a spiderweb, needle-thin fronds, and dead leaves, but the bullfrog squirted away from him. He scrambled and grabbed again.
He didn’t see the girl until she leapt out from the bushes in front of the bullfrog, opened up the mouth of a large squirming sack, and swept the frog inside. The bullfrog made a croak of alarm, but then the girl spun the sack shut. “Got him!” she said, giggling. Then she sprinted away through the underbrush, leaving only disturbed willow branches dangling behind her.
“Hey!” Keric shouted and jumped to his feet. He ran after her, flinging branches out of the way. He splashed through puddles of standing water, squished on sodden grass islands, and ducked his head in buzzing clouds of mosquitoes. All around, the other frogs continued their songs. “That one was mine!”
“Not anymore!” He heard her voice from the side, in a different direction from where she had disappeared. He looked in time to see her running barefoot down a path only she could see. Barefoot!
Keric ran after her. He found himself panting and sweating. He had grown up in and around these swamps. He considered himself an exceptional woodsman in even the deepest parts of the morass. He could outrun and out-hunt anyone he had ever known. But this girl kept going at a pace he could not hope to match. He stumbled, he missed solid footing, he splashed scummy water all over himself.
“Wait!” he shouted. He heard only the crocodiles growling.
“If you’d look over here, you’d have a better chance of seeing me!” She laughed again.
He whirled to see her across a mucky pool, not twenty feet from him. Without thinking—since he was wet and filthy anyway—he left the path and charged across the way. “Give me my frog!”
Keric tried to run with both feet, but each step became more difficult as the ooze sucked at his boots. He had to get the bullfrog with the three spots. He knew it was somebody from the royal family. The girl probably didn’t know what she had. Maybe she wanted to eat it!
He sloshed onward, but before he had gone halfway across the pool, he felt the muck dragging him down. He sank to his waist, but found he could not take another step. He continued to submerge in the ooze. “Oh no!”
From the spreading cypress tree over his head, he heard the girl’s voice. “You should be more careful out here in the swamps. Plenty of dangerous things out here. Crocodiles, water moccasin snakes, milt spiders bigger than your hand, poison plants.” Keric looked up to see her sitting on one of the branches, holding onto the frog sack with one hand and munching on a dripping fruit in the other. “But you really have to watch out for that quicksand. That’s especially bad.”
“Would you help me out of this?” He looked at her. He had sunk up to his armpits and felt the cold muck seeping into his pores. The mud crept to the tops of his shoulders. Keric had to lift his head to keep his chin out of the ooze. “Um, please?”
“I don’t know. You were chasing me.” She finished her fruit and tossed the pit down. It splashed beside him.
“I’ll tell you what you’ve got in that sack of yours.”
“It’s frogs.”
“No, if you’ll just let me kiss one of them I’ll show you something magic!” He had to talk rapidly now. The quicksand had reached his lips.
“Oh, you mean that! Sure, I’ve got the whole royal family here.” She reached in and pulled out another frog, this one sleek and small. It also had the three identical splotches. “You don’t think you were the only one to get the idea for finding the frogs in the swamp, do you?”
To be continued...
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