An eye peered back through the keyhole.
“No, not today, I’m afraid.”
“But I’ll never learn how to tell apart moon moss from maiden moss without your help.” Janek hated leaning over to speak eye-to-eye with his teacher like this. It made him feel like he was begging.
“Take Balbina along to help.”
“Balbina!” Janek scoffed. “She can’t tell the difference between moss and a tree Kuwalden’s beard!”
“Today is—not a good day for me. No, I think I’d better stay in.”
“It’s a great day!” protested Janek.
Balbina tugged on his arm.
“A perfect day!”
She pulled him away from the rickety old hut overshadowed by the wooden tower pushing out from its back.
“It’s the best day we’ve had all spring!”
Balbina let go of his arm to shove him from behind. He stumbled into the shade of the fresh-green forest.
In the deep shadows, Balbina prodded each clump of moss she found, carefully looking it over, pinching it between her fingers and sometimes sniffing before deciding whether to add it to her basket or not.
Janek mostly complained. “Are you sure you’re collecting the right stuff?” he challenged. Balbina took her basket over to a speckle of light and started checking over the qualities of her selection again. Janek talked over her verbal checklist. “Because I don’t want to be responsible for a sleep potion that actually makes the patient too dizzy to stand.”
Balbina pursed her lips and pointed to a limb behind him and just in sight. “Climb up and check that clump. Maiden moss almost never grows higher than knee height.”
“Almost, you say. That’s comforting. I’ll tell that to whoever comes complaining of their draught.”
Balbina narrowed her eyes, but continued to point.
Letting his grumbles sink under his breath, Janek slung his bag to his back and started to climb. He soon came back down with smug satisfaction smeared all over his face.
“Look at the size of mine,” he bragged, flipping back the leather flap of his satchel.
Balbina touched the uprooted tendrils of the cabbage sized clump of feathery moss. “You didn’t need to take it all.”
“Maybe, if I could put a growing spell on what we have.”
“No.” Balbina scowled. “You know how dangerous that can be especially with living things.”
“You and the naucyciel.” He swung the satchel onto his back again. “You’re too afraid to actually do anything.”
“I think he just doesn’t like the midges.”
“Nobody likes midges! But decent people don’t hole themselves up for weeks to avoid them, especially when they have responsibilities, like teaching.”
Balbina toed aside a bramble. “He showed me one under that special glass of his once. They really do look dreadful when you can see them better.”
Janek scoffed. “So don’t feed them growing spells. Here.” He stopped and scuffled around in a boggy area until he caught a frog. “His own personal midge-guard.”
Balbina looked at the frog with narrow eyes. It looked back out of big bulging eyes. She was just about to scour together a scathing comment when Monty rocked back on his heels. His eyebrows arched up.
“What?” she demanded.
“Have we really taken so long?” He slipped the frog into his bag while swinging a dazzling smile her way. “We’d better work harder, hadn’t we?”
Balbina stared at his retreating figure with full suspicion, but he was working so hard and fast now she had to abandon her suspicions in order to just keep up.
When Janek returned home, he dumped his bag in a corner of the room and began on his new project. If he worked hard, he would have the solution to his teacher’s foolish fear by morning.
Naucyciel Fryderyk was already well into boiling mushroom tinctures the next morning when tremors began to disturb his work. At first he ignored them, pausing in the more delicate procedures to let them pass. As the tremors grew, he glanced at the door from time to time, wondering what might be coming. Approaching war would shake the earth, as would a dragon, but not so sporadically. He had just decided to put his work away someplace safe when an even nearer crash shook the hut free of half its foundation posts. A thud against the door jangled every loose item inside. He winced in anticipation of shattering glass, but before he could see how much damage resulted, the door ripped off its hinges and flew outside. Something green and shiny and flippered filled the doorway for a moment before Monty ducked around the corner.
“Sorry! We still have some refining to do. But you won’t have to worry about gnats coming in. Come look!” Janek grabbed the naucyciel’s arm and dragged him out. Naucyciel Fryderyk tried to resist, but felt like he was fighting through a bog. His legs only moved enough to keep him from falling flat on his face. His throat felt swollen as a milkweed pod and his tongue clung as tightly to his frozen jaw as a tick to a reindeer. All his warnings and protests about swamp dragons pooled at the base of his head unable to push their way farther.
The creature looming above him was arguably more terrifying than a swamp dragon. Towering slightly higher than the thatch roof, the great green bulk had more mass than any swamp dragon he had heard of. It gazed down at him with huge golden eyes.
“In fact, you could stand in the middle of a marsh and not need to worry about any insect with this fellow around.”
Naucyciel Fryderyk barely dared to move, lest the enormous creature mistake him for an insect.
“It’s—big,” he managed to rasp out.
Janek slapped its sticky haunch with pride. “Bet you’ve never seen one this big before.”
He swallowed hard under the weight of those metallic eyes waiting to see if he would buzz. “This—thing—is much too big.”
“Frog. And the bigger it is the more it eats.” Janek slapped it again on its mostly blue flank. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a common forest frog now.”
“Not common.” Naucyciel Fryderyk looked at the creature more sharply now, tipping his head quickly from one angle to another. The eyes were almost silver, and there was very little green left on the creature. Most of it was blue, though there might be the beginnings of darker circles along the flanks. The shape, though humongous in size, was right for a forest frog.
Challenge glinted from Janek’s eyes. “It’s just an impressive size, not a magical creature like a kuwalden.”
“Magical? No, kuwalden are quite the opposite. They tend to unwind any magic around them, and can go about it quite powerfully if they’ve a mind to.” The naucyciel only lectured from habit, his attention funneled entirely to the frog. “Janek, what have you done to it.”
“Oh, not much.” Janek grinned and lifted his hand to slap it on the flank again. “Just—”
Naucyciel Fryderyk darted in to stop him, but the student’s hand landed sturdily on a spot, distinctively purple now.
Naucyciel Fryderyk tried to pull him away. Purple goo stretched in long strands between Janek’s hand and the frog’s spot. “Haven’t I taught you better than to feed growing potions to anything living? Think what might have happened if the wrong creature ended up with it. Think what is happening right now! We must get this off you as soon as possible!”
The goo had stretched four feet now and showed no sign of breaking.
“We need to cut it,” Janek said.
“No, anything would get stuck. What we need—”
Janek shrugged him off, and fell forward with the force of the goo’s stretchy pull. He caught himself on a hazel bush in time to deep from slamming face first into the vivid purple spot. He snarled a sharpening spell over the branch, and slashed at the strand of purple goo. It snapped, sending him reeling backwards.
The giant frog bunched itself together and sprang.
“No, no, no!” Naucyciel Fryderyk danced about in agitation. “We need to make it brittle, not cut it. There’s still a part attached to you now, and if we don’t get it off, you’ll start suffering the affects.”
“What affects?”
“Burning pain. Scent confusion. Tremors. Seeing double Sleep paralysis.” He shook his head. “If we had done it while you were still attached, it might have benefited the poor frog, too.”
“Poor frog? I’m about to have burning pains and you’re worried about the frog?”
Fryderyk gave him a hard look. “How much choice did the frog have in the matter? No, we’ll talk later. First we need to shatter this mucus so you can help me fix this problem. We don’t want the entire town afflicted.
Janek walked at his heels into the cottage. “How soon does it have to come off in order to not have any affects?”
“How badly did you afflict that creature with serums?”
It only took a few minutes for the naucyciel to mix an elixir that made the goo stiffen and crack. A few sharp, careful taps shattered it. He carefully handed down each shard and sealed them in a steel-enforced ceramic fire bowl to go into the furnace later.
“By now there’ll be a fair share of damage,” said the naucyciel, grimly. “We might as well start with making more elixir.”
“Maybe. I should go check on the frog.”
“Don’t you—”
“Naucyciel Fryderyk!” Balbina burst through the doorway. “The mayor need your help! He’s been slimed by–” Her eyes snagged on Janek and narrowed in accusation, but she continued her message to the Naucyciel. “He has burning pains all over his chest and arms, and the chief minister is worried he might be taking leave his senses. He keeps trying to evacuate the town hall because he says he smells smoke in the rosebush.”
“Oh, gentle moss.” A knot began to grow in the naucyciel’s leather apron strap from the constant movement of his fingers. “The symptoms are moving along dreadfully fast. Janek, you didn’t combine quickweed with the growing potion you fed that poor frog, did you?”
“Of course not! I’m smarter than that. I stayed up all night working on this for you rather than rush things.”
Naucyciel Fryderyk raised an eyebrow. “Certainly send some elixir to the mayor as soon as possible. But what we must do is eliminate the problem—the very big problem.”
“Fine.” Janek snapped his cloak behind him. “If my gift is so bad, I’ll take it back. At least there should be fewer midges in the forest.”
“You can’t just turn him loose,” objected the naucyciel. “Or do you want to contaminate the water supply?”
Balbina interrupted with a noise in the back of her throat and shifted from foot to foot.
“Yes, the elixir. We have a little left, just make sure to warn people against touching the creature’s slime. I suppose we should see what we can do to get that monster away from town a little before we settle into the problem.”
“Monster!” Janek spluttered. “It’s just a frog! You’re a monster to midges!” He whirled and started to stomp away. His teacher grabbed the back of his collar with a strong, long-fingered grip. “I’m going home to make a shrinking potion.”
“No, you’re doing it an my place. I don’t trust you out of my sight. And then, we’re going out to look for some marshroots to make an onion-marshroot poultice to salve its pores so it doesn’t excrete the potion right out with more purple slime.”
Balbina left as the Naucyiel dragged the flailing Janek back inside with dogged grimness. Hefting her skirts in one hand, she ran as fast as she dared down the path and back through the town gate. Better to be a little slower than stumble and spill the elixir. When she came to the center of town and emerged into town square, she stumbled to a standstill. Her hand let go the skirts to cling to the nearest building support beam.
Town Hall was completely unapproachable. The frog sat on top, squatted down comfortably, huge silver eyes half closed. Sheets of purple goo hung over the entire building, coating it in a gelatinous shell.
“The mayor…?” Nora wondered aloud tremulously. Her eyes stared at the purple slime like they had been caught in its stickiness, too.
“Still in there.” The voice to her left made Nora start. She pulled her gaze away from the disaster, almost with a physical effort. The mayor’s adjunct stood by the door of the armory, his eyes fastened on the frog as well. His face was pale and tight. “And we’ve only now received word from His majesty that His travel to the the Eastern Hunting lodge has been delayed, and he intends to spend the night here.”
“Oh, but we must get word back to him at once!”
“And say what? Go lodge somewhere else this time?” The adjutant laughed hollowly. “No, that is not something one may tell the king. The frog will have to go. Though I think the king will need to stay in some other building.’
Balbina chewed on the tip of her tongue. “Be very careful,” she warned. “The naucyciel says not to touch the slime.”
“The naucyciel! And where is he in time of need? Locked into that miserable towered hut concocting something equally dire?”
“He sent this elixir.” Nora pushed the bottle at him. “And he’s seeing what he can do to fix the frog.”
“Fix the frog! What he needs to be fixing is the town square! We’ll get further with a mounted charge than waiting on that old fool.”
He started sidling away, reaching out with foot and hand in the direction of the guard house, but never taking his eyes from the purple spotted frog.
Nora used both her hands to hold her skirts as she ran, head down, back toward the naucyciel’s hut. She only tripped once, tumbling into a roll before scrambling up on her way again.
The naucyciel was yelling at a furiously stirring Janek while he himself dashed from place to place, gathering, grinding, and measuring.
“Well, was it enough?” he asked as she lingered in the doorway. “Boy! Don’t let it burn! Stir! Did you learn nothing from last night?”
“I couldn’t get to him. The entire hall was slimed shut, with the frog on top. And now the king’s coming, and they’re going to charge the frog, and I don’t think anyone listened to me about not touching the slime.”
Naucyciel Fryderyk snatched up a ladle and rapped Janek’s head with it. “Stir faster!”
“Ow!” Janek dropped his wooden spoon.
“I said stir! Balbina, grab some baskets. We’re going to need a mountainous amount of marshroot, it would seem.”
Balbina obediently rummaged around, searching for baskets. “May I bring a radish?” she asked.
“Certainly. Are you finished yet, boy?”
Janek threw down the spoon. “Yes!”
Naucyciel Fryderyk tested it with a finger, and sniffed carefully. “This isn’t done. Keep stirring!”
Soon, two large jugs of potion were ready.
“I would be happier if this were the onion-marshroot poultice,” fretted the naucyciel as he strapped one jug to his back and the other onto Janek.
Clamor could be heard from the direction of town.
“If I knew what direction the king was coming from, I would start our search in that direction.”
“He’s on his way to the Eastern Hunting Lodge,” offered Balbina.
“Good. We’ll head toward the Northwest road. You go to the bog, and we’ll meet at the gate when our baskets are full.” Ignoring Janek’s objections, he briskly set off down the forest road.
Balbina knew she would fill her basket up first. Marsh roots mostly grew in wet areas, after all. When her basket was full she began bundling roots into her skirt. When she had as many as she could carry, she headed toward the town gate.
No clamor drifted to her as she drew near. In fact, no sounds at all reached her ears. Her neck prickling, Balbina pushed forward faster. when she broke out of the trees into view of the walls, a glutinous sight met her eyes.
Purple goo strung in lines over the spiked log walls. Blobs of gooey purple littered the ground between the forest line and the town wall. The gate was encased in the slime, no more accessible than the town hall had been. No giant frog was in sight.
“Hello?” Balbina called tentatively. “Hello!” she shouted. No one answered. She set her mouth and stuck out her chin. This called for help. Finding a suitable log to hide her marshroots in for later, she swung by the naucyciel’s hut to grab some more supplies before starting her quest.
Back in the forest, the bottoms of the other two baskets were barely covered. Naucyciel Fryderyk had spotted leaves of one more plant hiding away behind a rocky cascade.
“It’s not as though we can reach it,” objected Janek.
The Naucyciel spared him a disgusted look. “Then keep my jug safe while I go get it. And watch the road in case the king comes along.”
Janek trudged back to the road with the second jug. He put it down beside him to stretch out under a tree and rest. His own jug made an uncomfortable lump on his back, but the naucyciel couldn’t complain about him shirking his duties as long as he kept it on. He was just doing what he had been told.
As his eyes relaxed, he could feel the forest—the subtle sift of the tree as the wind picked up, the needle-cushioned ground beneath him, the pounding of hooves echoing through the earth below.
His eyes burst back open, and he scrambled to his feet to look for the approaching horse.
A man in the king’s livery came careening around a bend of the forest road. He leaned low over his galloping mount.
Janek tried to hail him, but the rider did not heed. As he thundered by, Janek snatched at the horse’s halter. His feet were torn out from under him even as the horse stumbled at the weight suddenly dragging at its mouth.
The rider lurched and scrabbled to keep his seat. “Let go, in the name of the—”
“You must warn the king to beware the purple goo!”
Able to regain his seat now that his steed was standing still, the rider clipped Janek’s knuckles with the handle of his dagger. He relaxed as Janek let go of his horse.
“What, you’ve met the monster of the forest?”
“No, in town!” Janek grabbed at the bridle again.
The rider opened his mouth, but whatever he had been about to say was lost as his horse dropped its head and began to kick.
Janek let go again as he fell, rolling and crawling away from the lashing hooves. The rider held on a little longer, but soon was thrown off. His head cracked against an oak trunk and slid limply to the ground. The horse continued to kick and leap and cavort. Its wild movement brought it closer and closer to the tree Janek had been resting under until its wild hooves smashed through the elixir jar. Gray-green elixir splattered up its legs.
“Stop it!” yelled Monty. “You idiot horse, do you think that you’ll be in less trouble than I will?”
The horse reared, thrashing its forelegs and turning to face him, but even as it rose up, it shrunk. Smaller and smaller it went, until it was the size of a acorn. Janek prodded it away from the remaining elixir puddles with a stick, then picked it up between his thumb and finger. “I could have just let you take the consequences, if you insisted on being—ow!” He dropped the miniature horse, but managed to catch it in his basket. “Did you just bite me?” He nabbed it by the tail.
“What are you doing!” cried the naucyciel, dashing over and snatching the creature from him and cushioning it in a corner of his tunic. “What have I told you about—”
His eyes fell on the king’s man. “What have you DONE?”
“His horse bucked him off! I was just trying to give him our warning for the king. I think he’s still alive,” he added as Naucyciel Fryderyk scurried over to peer at the slumped figure.
“You had better pray so! Here, use your cloak as a corral—and be gentle! If you cause any more harm through your thoughtlessness this day, by the tree’s beards I will use your flayed skin for storing my thistle powder!”
Janek pursed his lips into a pucker, but accepted the horse gently into his bowled cape.
After some care, the stunned messenger began to rouse.
“My horse!” He struggled to sit forward.
“Your horse is in fine spirits,” soothed the naucyciel. “But needs some care before it’s ready to bear any riders.”
“I must go get help—the king has been ambushed by a monstrous beast!”
“Ambushed!” Naucyciel Fryderyk’s restraining hand slackened, and the king’s man pushed it off to pull himself forward. Braced to stand, his eyes turned toward the shrill neigh beside him. He stared, frozen at the tiny horse, still throwing an occasional kick in with its galloping. Slowly he raised his eyes to Janek’s face. “You!” he whispered, and then crumpled again.
“You, what?” The naucyciel’s gaze was positively boiling.
“Nothing! He just hadn’t seen me still here!”
“I would leave you to guard the poor fellow while I went on and finished our task if I could trust you out from under my nose.” The naucyciel chewed on his white whiskers. “The least we can do is hang him from the trees before we go to keep wild beasts from—that’s not what I mean!”
Naucyciel Fryderyk hurriedly showed Janek how to make a giant sling from cloaks and the horse’s gear, which they suspended several feet from the ground. Putting the horse into his own basket of marsh roots, the naucyciel led the way down the road, looking for signs of disaster.
It was in a clearing that they found globs of purple goo. An arrow stuck out from one tree along the edge. No one remained, though a clear path of flattened undergrowth pushed into the shelter of the trees one direction, while more purple glop and broken branches marked another path.
“Someone is injured!” cried Janek. “They had to drag him to safety!”
“Or asleep.”
“What if it’s the king?”
“All the more reason for you to go this way.” The Naucyciel hooked Janek’s arm and led him firmly over to the frog’s path of retreat. “He doesn’t need you causing more trouble.”
The path grew more difficult to follow the deeper they got into the forest. The slime was harder and harder to avoid, but the dense growth made pushing through anywhere else almost impossible.
“This is useless,” complained Janek. “We haven’t even found enough marshroots.”
Naucyciel Fryderyk’s shoulders sagged, but he kept pushing forward.
Ahead came a flutter of movement, and he held out an arm to signal a stop.
“It’s not big enough,” Janek objected.
His teacher ignored him and continued to wait. Then his whole stance brightened. “Balbina!”
Balbina started. She peered ahead to see who was talking to her, then slumped. “I chose the wrong way, didn’t I?”
“No kidding,” scoffed Janek. “You aren’t going to find any marshroots here, even if you hadn’t lost your basket.”
Balbina glanced at him only long enough to nip her lip, then turned to the naucyciel. “They drove it away. It slimed the gate closed first, but it left. I was trying to find where it had gone.”
“A worthy goal!” The naucyciel lifted his eyebrows at Janek.
“Then why are we standing here?” He glowered back.
“Have you come far along this path?” The naucyciel asked Balbina.
“A bit. I can show you where I started.” She led them through the trees. The land got more rocky as they went. Grey rocks prodded their way through the surface of the forest floor, at times holding the trees bent at angles. It became easier to find a foothold without slime, but the required scrambling left the naucyciel short of breath.
“I hope you at least brought the onions if you couldn’t find any marshroot.” Janek lounged against a tree as they waited for their teacher to catch up.
Balbina started to open her mouth, but then her gaze slid past Janek. She frowned.
“Haven’t got an answer for that, have you? Or did you lose all of your words?”
She walked up close to the sycamore tree he was resting by, and took a radish out of her sash.
“That’s not an onion.”
Something greenish plopped on him from the spot Balbina was staring at. He leaped up and wiped vigorously at his cheek. “What—” He glared at Nora.
She looked completely taken by surprise, but then had to turn her head to hide a rising smile.
“Now you’re trying to infect me, is that it?”
“No! I’m not—it’s not—”
A chuckle, as soft as a moth and as rough as bark, came from the tree.
Janek reached for a trailing bit of grey-green moss.
“I’ll tear—”
Almost with them again, the naucyciel dropped his load with a cry and sprang the last distance, bowling Janek over at the knees.
They landed with a solid thud, and slid for half a tumble before being brought to a stop by a boulder. Naucyciel Fryderyk groaned.
“Be glad I took off that jug to rest, or you would be smaller than the horse!” cried Janek.
“Dreadfully sorry,” gasped the naucyciel. His eyes were closed and his face pale.
“I should hope so.” Janek began to squirm away from him, but the old man pulled himself forward, hand over hand with a ferociously tight grip, and then sat on Janek’s stomach.
“I beg you not to take offense in this foolish one’s actions, though doubtless he deserves your displeasure.”
A pair of sharp green eyes peered down from the lower boughs. Study showed those eyes to belong to a gnarled being so well blended with the tree, it was hard to tell where he ended and the tree began.
“Doubtless,” agreed the rough voice. “Are none of your apprentices knowing not to mess with a Kuwalden’s beard? Or do they just have that ill of manners?”
“Balbina’s the one—” Janek was cut off by a slap on the face followed by a hand shove against his mouth.
Balbina blushed. “I knew you this time.” She looked at him shyly. “And I brought some radishes.”
“I thought I smelled their sharpness.” He looked down at her with attention so intense it could cut into secrets as easily as a knife could cut cheese. “Among other scents.”
“I also brought some honeycomb.” She gave a sideways glance toward the naucyciel. Janek protested loudly from behind the restraining hand, but Naucyciel Fryderyk nodded approval.
“We’re on—sort of a quest, you see,” Balbina hastened to explain. “I thought if we should meet you, you might be willing to help, and I would hate to not have a thank you gift if you did.”
“Hmm. I see. Well, let’s see about those radishes.”
Balbina stood on her tiptoes to hand the radishes up, one by one. The little Kuwalden crunched down on them noisily. His stout legs dangled from the branch, his beard trailing down even further than his feet.
Janek uttered some more muffled protests and started thrashing around. Naucyciel Fryderyk bounced sharply an his stomach to push his breath out, and cocked a foot cautioningly as ready to kick.
The kuwalden smacked his lips one more time, then drew a long breath through his knotted nose. “Yes. Well.” He eyed Balbina’s sack. “I suppose you quest has to do with that monstrosity.” He nodded up a small bluff, only just taller than a man.
“So close?” asked Balbina.
“Only if you are willing to acknowledge such a blight as your quest. It might be seen as incriminating, you know.”
Balbina curtsied. “I will go see.”
“Behave,” the naucyciel hissed to Janek before letting him free.
With an air of injured dignity, he got up and retrieved his burden. Ignoring the kuwalden, he followed the others in climbing up the bluff.
The kuwalden did not ignore him, but aimed another spit wad at his back. Janek tensed, but kept going. The kuwalden reached his long beard out and tickled the back of Janek’s neck.
Janek spun around, but before he could do anything, a sapling the naucyciel had just pushed past sprang back and thwacked him so hard he stumbled.
The kuwalden climbed, cackling softly, into the higher branches.
Janek pulled himself to the top of the rocky outcrop, pushing his way past his two companions. At the top, he crouched for a few moments, eyes steady on the giant frog sprawled a spear’s throw away. Its cloudy grey eyes were only half opened, and its entire body shuddered and sagged with a ragged breath. Purple goo spread out in slimy strands around it.
Janek fumbled his bottle free.
“What are you doing?” Naucyciel Fryderyk whispered in alarm from where his head poked up over the rock edge.
“You’ve caused me enough problems,” Janek declared to the giant frog.
Its eyes fluttered once, and it shifted just enough for its mouth to crack open and reveal the top of its enormous tongue.
“And now.” Janek uncapped the bottle. “You are through!”
He ran at the frog, the bottle lifted high.
“Don’t!” The nuacyciel tried to grab at him, but missed.
Janek headed straight toward the lolling frog, nimbly dodging any goo. The frog’s eyes flickered and focused on the youth racing at it. Its mouth dropped open slightly more. As Janek reached its nose, it shifted again.
He dashed the contents of the jar into the enormous mouth and took a few steps back. He did not retreat far enough.
The frog closed its eyes, gave a long, groaning croak, and shuddered, and the slime exploded from it.
Spots, nostrils, eye glands, even its pores, shot out or oozed slime every direction. Janek did not have a chance to move before becoming enveloped in purple goo. He did not move, but whether that was because he was instantly asleep or too encased to twitch was impossible to tell.
Naucyciel Fryderyk pulled at his hair. “Will he never listen?”
“Seems better off to me.” The kuwalden stood between two upthrust roots. His capped head was not as high as the girl’s waist. “Though that can’t be said for the other. I suppose here’s where you were hoping for help?” He twitched a wiry eyebrow at Balbina. She nodded and curtsied clumsily.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The kuwalden walked around the frog slowly, studying it. When he had finished a full circuit, he stood still, so still that if one looked away even for a blink he appeared to be a stump again, his fat twiggy fingers threaded through his mossy beard.
Stillness pressed down all around, then the air began to vibrate. The earth beneath thrummed twice, and then the purple goo began to shrivel away.
The frog itself began to return to a healthy shade of green, its spots fading to brown. Its eyes cleared and darkened to gold. Its swelling began to shrink away, but stopped once it was slick again—and still enormous.
The stillness shivered away, and the forest seemed to breathe again. The frog perked up, posed for action.
The naucyciel sighed. “And I suppose the rest is up to us.”
The kuwalden tossed his beard behind his shoulder. “He’s healthy now, anyway. With a healthy appetite, I might add. I can’t do anything about his size without a counterbalance.” He began to edge toward the nearest tree trunk with some expectant glances at Balbina.
Naucyciel Fryderyk’s face blossomed. “Counterbalance? Like this?” He showed he kuwalden the miniature horse in his basket.
“You’re just full of trouble, aren’t you?” The kuwalden gently plucked the horse up by the middle and brought it closer to the frog. The little horse’s legs hammered the air until at last it was lowered to the ground. The kuwalden let go and it shot forward toward the giant frog.
The frog paid it no mind, but eyed the kuwalden with interest.
The little man stared balefully at the frog and raised stubby arms. As the horse collided with the frog, he spoke a word as stiff and grainy as an oak trunk, and stomped a foot. A loud flash blinded those watching and left them unprepared for the ripple that passed through the ground, making the trees toss and the rocks groan. The unearthly mix between a scream and a neigh was only dimly heard.
Balbina blinked her eyes back to seeing again. The rolling ripple of land sounded far away, and quickly fading, and no giant frog dominated the view. A horse thrashed about on its back for a bit before scrambling to its feet and standing. Trembles shook it and heavy breaths chased through ts nostrils.
Before Balbina could take a hesitant step toward it, the horse bolted into the forest and was gone.
“It’ll find its way back to its stables when it’s ready.” The kuwalden licked the honey out of one cell of the honeycomb he had lifted from Balbina’s pouch. He looked at the small piece with wistful affection. “And you still have plenty of mess to clean up. But that was a big job.” He darted a side glance at the naucyciel before delicately cleaning out another honeycomb cell with his tongue.
“A very big job!” agreed Naucyciel Fryderyk. “Deserving a very big thank you.”
The kuwalden’s eyes fastened on him with bright interest.
“I fear I do not have sufficient honeycomb for the job—”
The kuwalden’s face clouded.
“—but I know just who can help me get more.” He went over and kicked the bottom of the foot of Janek, who was starting to stir.
“Ach, isn’t he like to rile up the bees?” Balbina asked.
“It’s high time he learned to work without riling up someone,” the naucyciel answered dryly.
The kuwalden chuckled. “I know where an especially active hive lives.”
Janek flung out an arm and opened his eyes.
“What?” Grogginess laced his voice.
Balbina settled on the forest floor by him and propped his head up in her lap. “You needn’t listen to them,” she soothed, but then cocked her head. “At least, not quite yet.”
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