Bored of the Rings

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║       DOUGLAS C. KENNEY, H. BEARD      ║
║                                        ║
║             A parody of                ║
║         J.R.R. Tolkien's book          ║
║       << THE LORD OF THE RINGS >>      ║
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THE VERY BEGINNING (of the book)

* * *

"Is that which thou beholdest fair?" spoke the sensuous elfess, seductively parting the folds of her garment and slightly revealing her shaded, curvaceous charms. Frito’s throat went dry. His head was spinning from the ale he had drunk and from surging passion.

She slipped out of her weightless attire and, unabashed by her nakedness, stepped toward the transfixed boggie. (Boggie — from English "bog", "bog scarecrow", "bog-dweller". Compiler’s note here and hereafter.) With her lovely little hand she brushed over the hairy toes of his foot, and he watched helplessly as they curled up like wood shavings from an irresistible, burning desire to possess her.

"Come, it will be good for you," she whispered hoarsely, tugging at the buckle of the belt where his sword hung. Finally she managed to unfasten the buckle and, tossing the belt aside, cooed: "Touch me, do touch me!"

Frito's hand, as if of its own accord, reached for the delicate swell of her elven breast and cupped it. At the same time, his other hand slowly crept along her slender, supple waist, pressing her against his barrel-shaped chest.

"Toes... I adore hairy toes," she moaned, laying him down onto the silvery carpet. With the tiny pink toes of her own feet, she caressed the magnificent fur on the soles of his feet, while Frito’s nose inhaled the warmth of the elfess’s precious navel.

"But I’m so small and hairy, and... and you’re so beautiful," Frito chuckled nervously, clumsily freeing himself from his criss-cross suspenders.

The elfess said nothing, only drew a deep breath and drew him even closer against her divine body.

"Only first, you must do one thing for me," she whispered into his furry ear.

"Anything," Frito sobbed, going out of his mind with impatience. "Anything at all."

She closed her eyes, then opened them and, looking up at the ceiling, said:

"The ring. Give me your ring."

Frito’s entire body went tense.

"Oh no," he cried out. "Not that. Anything but that."

"I need it," she said fiercely yet tenderly. "I must have the ring."

Tears and confusion clouded Frito’s eyes.

"I can't! I mustn't!"

Yet he knew his resolve was already shaken. Slowly, the elfess’s hand slid toward the chain in his waistcoat pocket. Closer and closer it crept toward the ring that Frito had guarded so faithfully...

---

Prologue

ABOUT WHAT BOGGIES ARE

Boggies are an unappealing, obnoxious race whose numbers have dwindled considerably as the demand for fairy tales withered away. Sluggish and sullen, profoundly gloomy, they prefer to lead a lifestyle filled with pastoral filth and squalor. They care for no mechanisms more complex than a garrote, a bludgeon, or a Luger... They were always shy of the Big Folk, or "Big 'uns", as they call us. As a rule, they avoid us nowadays, save perhaps for occasions when a hundred or two of them gather together to run down a lone farmer or hunter. They are short of stature, shorter than dwarves—who consider boggies puny, vile, and incomprehensible, often referring to them as "dreadful boggies." They rarely exceed three feet in height, yet they are quite capable of overpowering creatures half their size, especially if they manage to leap down on them from somewhere above.

As for the boggies residing in the Sty (* pigpen), with whom we shall mainly be dealing, they are exceptionally uniform, for all of them wear shiny gray suits with narrow lapels, alpine hats, and skinny ties. They do not wear shoes, strutting about on a pair of hairy, stubby contraptions that could only be termed legs by virtue of the position they occupy on the body. A pimply, malicious sneer is frozen upon their faces, testifying to a deeply ingrained passion for making obscene phone calls; and when they smile, there is something about the way they wag their half-meter-long tongues that makes a Komodo dragon swallow hard, unable to believe its eyes. They have long, clever fingers, typically associated with hands that spend much time around the throats of small furry animals or in other people’s pockets. They are very adept at crafting various useful items, like marked cards and bear traps. They love to eat and drink, play mumbletypeg with feebleminded quadrupeds, and tell faded jokes made up by dwarves.

They throw dull parties, give cheap gifts, and enjoy roughly the same degree of love and respect from those around them as a dead otter.

They appeared on Earth in the Good Old Days, when the planet was populated by colorful creatures. To see them nowadays, one must down a quart (* 1.1 l) of whiskey. Only the elves have preserved records of that time, but most of them are typical elven twaddle, bawdy drawings of naked trolls, and dishonest accounts of orcish orgies.

All of this took place in the Third Age, the rolled-metal era of Lower Middle-Earth, and records from that period have long since been swallowed by the sea, and their inhabitants by the jars of Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Concerning their homeland, Frito’s contemporaries preserved no records, partly because their literacy level and intellectual development were slightly below that of a young perch, and partly because the study of genealogy led them to the unpleasant realization that virtually every beast in the surrounding woods could lay claim to a branch on the boggie family tree.

And yet, judging by their thick accent and deep devotion to food cooked in pomade, one could easily deduce that once, long ago, they had migrated westward. In their legends and ancient songs, brimming with oversexed elves and lustful dragons, passing mention is made of the region surrounding the Aspirin River, between the Commercial Timberland and the Papier-Mâché Mountains. This is also corroborated by manuscripts preserved in the Great Libraries of Doudor, old clippings from the Police Gazette, and the like.

To this day it remains unclear why they undertook the perilous migration to Oleodor (here and henceforth, most geographical names are brands of pharmaceutical products: medicines, cosmetics, and such; Oleodor being a brand of deodorant), though once again the songs speak of a shadow that fell upon their land and of potatoes ceasing to grow.

Before crossing the Papier-Mâché Mountains, the boggies had already divided into three tribes: the Limpers, the Footstools, and the Naugahydes.

The Limpers—the most numerous—were swarthy, shifty-eyed, and squat. They willingly settled on the slopes of hills...

hills, where they could fool rabbits and goat kids. They earned their living by hiring themselves out to the local gnomes as hitmen.

The Stools were taller and craftier than the Gamelegs, and they lived on the fertile lands around the mouth of the Aspirin River, where they bred shoals and ran river traffic off course by switching navigation markers. They had shiny black hair and were fond of knives. They were most closely tied to Men, upon whom they played all kinds of nasty tricks from time to time.

The most numerous were the Leg-hiders, who were taller and skinnier than the other boggies. They lived in the forests and ran a thriving trade in leather goods, sandals, and crafty knick-knacks. Sometimes they took jobs decorating elven dwellings, but spent most of their time belting out bawdy ditties and harassing squirrels.

Having crossed the mountains, the boggies wasted no time carving out their place in the sun.

They shortened their names and wormed their way into all the village clubs, tossing away their old tongue and old customs like live grenades.

The unusually large-scale migration of Men and Elves to the east allows us to pinpoint the date of the boggies' arrival in those parts with some accuracy. In that very year, 1623 of the Third Age, the Leg-hider brothers—Brasso and Drindo—leading a rabble of boggies disguised as roving grave-robbers, crossed the Halloween River and snatched power from His Highness the King (* It was Argooagle VI, or some other king) at the Battle of Roastbeef. In response to his begrudging consent, they set up toll booths on the bridges and roads, ambushed his couriers, and sent him letters full of innuendo and threats. In short, they settled in for the long haul.

This was the beginning of the history of the Sty, and the boggies, who loved all sorts of restrictions, started a new calendar from the day of the Halloween crossing. They were quite happy in the new land and soon dropped out of the history of Men. An event received with the kind of universal sorrow reserved for the sudden death of a rabid dog. On all decent maps, the Sty was marked with red inkblots, and those rare Men who dared to venture there either vanished or went stark raving mad. Except for these rare visitors, nobody troubled the boggies until the advent of Frito and Dildo. As long as a king reigned in Roastbeef, the boggies remained his nominal subjects, and in the last battle of Roastbeef against the Slumlord Vorax, several snipers sent by the boggies took part. But whose side they fought on remained unsettled. Thus fell the Northern Kingdom, and the boggies returned to their well-organized, simple way of life: eating and drinking, singing and dancing, and paying with bounced checks.

Nevertheless, the easy life in the Sty did not soften the boggies in the slightest. They were still as hard to kill as a cockroach, and dealing with them was just as simple as dealing with a cornered rat.

Although they only attacked when calm and collected, and only killed for money, they remained masters of foul play in gang ambushes. They loved shooting and gladly made use of every gadget to level the playing field, so any dim, sluggish beast turning its back on a pack of boggies was risking its life.

At first, all boggies lived in holes, which is hardly surprising for direct descendants of the rat.

By the time of Dildo, their dwellings rose above the ground, like those of Elves and Men, and differed in no significant way from anthills. As a rule, they were shaped like boils and cobbled together out of mud, manure, rotting straw, and other refuse; some were haphazardly whitewashed by pigeons. As a consequence, most boggie towns looked as though some enormous, foul creature—perhaps even a dragon—had suffered from severe bowel cramps in the area.

There were about a dozen of these fascinating settlements in the Sty, linked together by roads, a postal service, and a government that might have seemed entirely redundant for a colony of mud shanties. The Sty itself was divided into farthings, half-farthings (* a small ancient English coin), and nickels, governed by mayors.

They were assisted in governing by a rather hefty police force whose sole talent was beating out confessions, mostly from squirrels. Apart from these few tokens of law and order, the government's existence went entirely unnoticed in the Sty. Most of the boggies' time was spent growing food and stuffing their faces with it, distilling booze and guzzling it down. The rest of their time was devoted to entertainment and bowel movements.

     HOW THE RING WAS FOUND
   """"""""""""""""""""""""""""

As told in The Valley of the Trolls, which also preceded this tale, Dildo Bugger once set out with a gang of half-witted dwarves and the discredited wizard Goodgulf ( Good Gulf / Deep Pool) to wrest his IOUs back from a dragon. The enterprise was a success; they caught the dragon—a pre-war monster that reeked like a bus—off guard while he was clipping coupons. And though many foolish and pointless feats were accomplished back then, that adventure would concern us even less than it does now, if such a thing were possible, were it not for a petty theft committed by Dildo along the way, simply to keep his skills sharp. In the Mealy Mountains, the company was ambushed by a pack of rabid narcs ( playing on Tolkien's orcs, with an obvious nod to drug addicts), and, rushing to the aid of the pummeled dwarves, Dildo somehow lost his way and ended up in a cavern a considerable distance from the fray. Finding himself at the entrance of a descending tunnel, Dildo suffered a sudden bout of middle-ear infection, and thinking he was hastening to his friends' rescue, he bolted deeper into the cave. After running for some time and seeing nothing but tunnel ahead, he was just beginning to think he might have taken a wrong turn somewhere when he suddenly burst into a vast subterranean chamber.

When Dildo's eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, he made out that the grotto was almost entirely filled by an oval lake, in the middle of which an abhorrent-looking clown named Goddam ( an expletive, mirroring Gollum) was paddling noisily aboard an inflatable rubber seahorse. He fed on raw fish, but occasionally treated himself to wandering travelers like Dildo. And he welcomed Dildo's appearance in his underground sauna with the kind of enthusiasm he would have shown a truckload of gourmet chickens pulling into the cave. But like anyone sharing ancestry with the boggies, he favored a delicate approach toward creatures over five inches ( 12.5 cm) tall and weighing more than ten pounds (* 4 kg), so he proposed to Dildo a game of riddles. Dildo, suddenly struck by amnesia and entirely forgetting about his dwarf companions being turned into mincemeat at the cave mouth, agreed.

They traded countless riddles like: who played the Cisco Kid? And what is krypton? In the end, Dildo won. Stumbling for a riddle, he shoved his hand into his pocket and, feeling a short-barreled .38-caliber pistol, blurted out: "What have I got in my pocket?" Goddam couldn't answer that, and losing his patience, he paddled toward Dildo, muttering, "Just a minute... just a minute." Dildo pulled out the gun and emptied it in Goddam's direction. The darkness prevented Dildo from aiming properly, and he only managed to puncture the rubber floatation device, dumping Goddam into the water. Unable to swim, Goddam reached out a hand to Dildo, begging to be pulled from the drink. At that moment, Dildo noticed a curious-looking ring on Goddam's finger and yanked it off. He would have finished Goddam off on the spot, but pity stayed his hand.

"What a pity the ammo ran out!" he thought as he strode toward the tunnel's exit, Goddam's furious shrieks ringing in his ears.

It is interesting to note that Dildo never told this story; instead, he lied, claiming he had pulled the ring from a pig's snout or won it in a lottery machine—he couldn't recall exactly. Goodgulf, who naturally found this suspicious, extracted the truth from the boggie with the help of a secret potion (* possibly sodium pentothal). He was profoundly amazed that Dildo, who lied continuously and with relish, hadn't immediately concocted an even grander tall tale. It was then, fifty years before our story began, that Goodgulf first guessed that this was no ordinary ring.

And on that point, as always, he was entirely mistaken.

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CHAPTER ONE

IT'S MY PARTY — AND I'LL WIPE ANYONE'S NOSE

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When Mr. Dildo Bugger of Bugg Lane grudgingly announced his intention to provide a free banquet for all the swamp-dwellers of the Sty, the denizens of Boggitown reacted instantaneously—shrill shrieks erupted from every foul, squalid burrow and slum:

— Brilliant!

— Boy, are we gonna gorge ourselves!

Drooling at the prospect of free food, some of the invitees, driven wild by stomach cramps, swallowed their underground food caches whole.

Nevertheless, once the initial wave of hysteria subsided, the swampers returned to their daily business and concerns—falling back into hibernation.

Yet thrilling rumors continued to swell and spread, stoked by enormous barrels of soapy water, herds of oxen, tons of tomato tops, boars' heads, and pyrotechnic supplies arriving on ships into Boggitown. Giant bales of nettles—a popular and remarkably potent laxative—were also delivered to the town. Word of the impending feast even reached the Gallowine, and Styans living abroad began swarming back to the town like leeches scenting a free meal.

No one in the Sty had such a bottomless maw as the elderly gossip Haf Gangrene. Haf had served faithfully as a church watchman all his life, but had long since retired and was now thriving in the lucrative field of blackmail and extortion.

Today he, also known by the moniker Fatlip, was sitting in the grubby tavern The Bag Under the Eye. Mayor Fastbuck had repeatedly ordered the joint shut down due to the suspicious conduct of the tavern's swamp-wenches, who could hoodwink a troll faster than a reader could utter "Rumpelstiltskin." Other regulars, complete fools all, were also present, among them Fatlip's son Spam Gangrene, who was celebrating a suspended sentence for "committing an unnatural act with an underage female dragon of the opposite sex."

"The whole thing smells fishy," Fatlip remarked, inhaling smoke from his foul-smelling nose-warmer pipe. "I mean, the way Mr. Bugger is tossing grub around, when for years he hasn't offered his neighbors so much as a mouldy scrap of cheese."

His companions nodded silently, for it was the absolute truth. Even before his "mysterious disappearance," Dildo had kept his wild strawberries guarded by vicious she-wolves, and nobody could recall him donating so much as a farthing to the Annual Fund in Aid of Homeless Banshees. The fact that nobody ever donated anything to that fund in the first place didn't excuse Dildo, who was famous for his nastiness. He lived entirely to himself, raising his nephew and indulging his obsession with scrawling obscene graffiti.

"And that boy of his, Frito," added bleary-eyed Nat Clubfoot. "Crazy as a woodpecker, that kid."

This was corroborated by the Old Fool from Back-oyster. Indeed, everyone had seen young Frito aimlessly wandering the crooked lanes of Boggitown. Clutching bunches of flowers, he would mutter things like: "truth and beauty," "I think, therefore I swamp," and other such twaddle.

"Aye, an odd sort," Fatlip said. "And I wouldn't be surprised if those rumors about his fondness for dwarves turned out to be true."

At these words, everyone fell quiet, especially young Spam, who had never believed the baseless gossip that the Buggers were "curly-haired dwarves."

Spam declared that genuine dwarves were shorter and smelled far worse than any swamper.

"It's all idle chatter," Fatlip laughed, waving his right foreleg. "Particularly concerning that nameless stray who adopted the Bugger name."

"Too true," piped up Clotty the Puffy Peristalt. "If that Frito isn't the product of crossbreeding, then I can't tell breakfast from supper."

The rascals burst into a chorus of uproarious laughter, recalling Frito's mother, Dildo's sister, who had rashly surrendered her virtue to some half-breed (he was half-swamper, half-opossum) from this side of the Gallowine.

The company latched onto the topic, and there followed a string of crude (except to the delicate ears of a bog-

bogmen) and flat jibes aimed at the Buggers.

"Besides, Dildo always acts... mysteriously, if you catch my drift," Fatlip said.

"There are those who say he behaves as though he has something to hide," spoke an unfamiliar voice from a dark corner.

The voice belonged to a man unknown to the regulars of the "Bag Under the Eye," a stranger whom they hadn't noticed until now. He was clad in an ordinary black hooded cloak such as wizards wear, a black dagger, a black staff, and black menaces. In the place where eyes usually are, an ordinary red flame smoldered.

"Those who say that might well be right," agreed Fatlip, winking at his pals to signal that the punchline was coming. "But those who say so might also be mistaken!"

After the general rejoicing over this typically Gangrenean joke subsided a bit, only a few noticed that the stranger had vanished, leaving behind an unfamiliar stench of a barnyard.

"Still, it's going to be a grand party!" insisted little Spam.

Everyone agreed with that, for nothing delights a bogman quite like the chance to gorge himself silly.

A chilly early autumn set in, heralding a change in the bogmen's diet. If before they would devour a whole watermelon for dessert, now they had to make do with an entire pumpkin.

The younger bogmen, whose portliness did not yet prevent them from navigating the bustling streets of Boggietown, saw proof that a true delicacy awaited them at the feast: fireworks.

As the day appointed for the celebration drew near, carts drawn by mighty he-goats began rolling through the massive town gates, laden with crates and boxes. Proudly emblazoned on the crates and boxes was the rune "X," belonging to the wizard Goodgulf, along with Elvish brand logos. The boxes were unloaded right at Dildo's door. Bogmen, swooning with curiosity, wagged their little tails, marveling at the wondrous contents of the crates.

There were clusters of tubes on tripods, intended for firing some kind of enormous sparklers; fat, winged surface-to-air rockets with comical bulges on the nose end, weighing hundreds of pounds. There was a cylinder of some sort with a dozen tubes inside that could be cranked with a handle, and large "pineapples" that reminded the urchins of pineapples with a ring on top. Every box had a label pasted on it with khaki-colored Elvish runes. The inscriptions claimed that all these toys were manufactured at factories belonging to a fairy named Arsenal.

Grinning broadly, Dildo watched his order being unpacked. He drove off curious brats with a deft flick of his razor-sharp big toenail. Trailing behind the scampering kids came his cheerful shout:

"Go on, beat it! Scram, scram!"

Still chuckling, he returned to his hole, where a guest awaited him.

"That's a fireworks display they won't soon forget," the aging bogman cackled to Goodgulf.

The wizard sat puffing on a cigarette in an uncomfortable armchair of Elf-Modern design. The floor around the chair was covered in intricate scribbles spelling out obscenities.

"I'm afraid your plans must be reconsidered," said the wizard, working a knot out of his beard. "Extermination cannot serve as a method for resolving your personal problems with the local population."

Dildo looked over his old friend with particular approval. The old sorcerer was dressed in a worn, long-out-of-style cloak. A few sequins and bits of tinsel dangled here and there from the frayed hem. Upon his head stood a moth-eaten pointed hat. Across its slopes glowed kabbalistic signs, alchemical formulas, and a few faded drawings of the sort dwarves scrawl on fences. Gnarled hands with bitten nails gripped an oblong, beetle-eaten piece of wood that could serve a dual purpose—as a "magic wand" and as a back-scratcher. Just now Goodgulf was employing it in the latter role. He was staring at the toes of what a modern person would call black sneakers. Once upon a time, they had been boots.

"Look at you, Codpiece," Dildo chuckled. "Peddling sorcery again?"

Goodgulf didn't even take offense at hearing his schoolboy nickname. He adjusted his garments with dignity and replied:

"It is not my fault that the uninitiated scoff at my power. My wonders shall yet astound many and strike terror into their hearts!"

Suddenly he waved his scratcher, and darkness fell upon the room. Through the dark, Dildo could make out rays emanating from Goodgulf's robes, upon whose chest an Elvish inscription glowed utterly inexplicably: "Kiss me in the dark, baby!"

Just as abruptly, the room grew bright again, and the conjurer's glowing sign went out. Dildo rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"Listen, Codpiece," Dildo said. "That garbage went out of fashion along with ruff collars. Small wonder you have to scrape by doing card tricks at night carnivals."

The friend's sarcasm didn't faze Goodgulf.

"Mock not the powers that lie beyond your comprehension, you hairy-footed punk," he said, as five aces materialized in his hand. "For you have yet to witness the might of my spells."

"All I see is that you finally learned how to handle the spring up your sleeve," the bogman giggled, pouring ale into his old companion's goblet. "Cut the crap and tell me why on earth you've blessed me with your visit. Cheers!"

Before answering, the wizard spent a minute struggling with his eyes, which had crossed toward the bridge of his nose, then fixed Dildo with a stern look.

"It is time to speak of the ring," he said.

"Ring? What ring?" Dildo asked.

"You know perfectly well which one," Goodgulf said. "Of the ring that lies in your pocket, Mr. Bugger."

"Oh-h-h, THAT ring," Dildo said with an expression of utter innocence. "And here I thought you were talking about the ring you lost in my tub while playing with the rubber ducky."

"This is no time for witticisms," said Goodgulf. "For evil has awakened, danger is at the borders."

"But..." Dildo began.

"Strange things are brewing in the East..."

"But..."

"A fly has drowned in the inkpot..."

"But..."

"A drop of tar has spoiled the honey-pot."

In desperation, Dildo clamped his paw over the wizard's mouth.

"Do you mean to say... You mean," he whispered, "THAT A BALROG HAS CREPT INTO THE FIREWOOD?"

"Quite possibly," confirmed the half-suffocated wizard.

It seemed Dildo's worst fears were beginning to come true. After the party, he decided, there will be plenty to think about.

Although only two hundred invitations had been sent out, Frito Bugger should not have been surprised that several times that number showed up for the banquet.

All of them fit splendidly beneath a gigantic awning specially erected over a long, massive table that strongly resembled a trough.

Frito stared in astonishment at the legions of greedy maws tearing into joints and FLESH, INDIFFERENT TO EVERYTHING ELSE. A few faces in this grunting, smacking press flanking the table seemed familiar to him. Even fewer were faces not smothered in gravy. Only now did Frito grasp the meaning of Dildo's favorite saying: "A bogman's mouth can only be shut with a huge slab of meat."

Still, it's a very fine party, Frito decided, ducking a flying ham. From specially dug pits, mountains of grub were being hauled out, instantly vanishing down the guests' muscular gullets. For dispensing ale, Dildo had engineered a special pipeline, and hundreds of gallons of strong ale vanished by force of gravity into the muscular bellies of the guests. Frito watched mournfully as his fellow bogmen noisily shoved potato tops into their faces, stuffing smaller scraps of meat into their waistcoat pockets and purses—for later.

There was an incessant din of gnashing teeth, choking gullets, and groaning, pulsing bellies. The clatter of working jaws nearly drowned out the sounds of the Styers' national anthem, being sloppily played by a specially hired band.

      We, the bog-folk, a shaggy breed,
      Who gorge until we drop and bleed.
      We respect all folks like a brother,
      We're unlikely to eat one another.

      Always hungry, always dry—
      One day my belly will burst up high.
      We gobble up mutton, gobble up swine,
      A merry tribe of repulsive swine.

Chorus: Eat, eat, eat, eat,
        Eat, eat, eat, eat...

      Bog-folk, quick, to the table stride,
      Grab your forks and spoons on cue,
      Pack your bellies deep inside,
      Eat it all to the very last sinew.

      If it's edible—sink your fangs,
      We won't take off our bibs till death.
      We make merry and never grow up,
      Come on by! We'll sing, play, and burp with every breath!

Chorus: Eat, eat, eat, eat...

Frito wandered along the table, searching for the familiar figure of Spam.

"Eat, eat, eat..." he hummed under his breath.

Why did he feel so lonely among these merrymakers? Why did he feel like a stranger in his own village? Frito stared at the rows of teeth tearing through meat. Forked, half-meter tongues peeking out from hundreds of mouths glistened wet and pink in the rays of the setting sun.

TO BE CONTINUED...