...The city itself dated back to the Olden Days when Beltelephon the Senile decreed rather inexplicably that there be built in this flat land a royal ski lodge of wondrous beauty. Unfortunately the old King cashed in before he saw ground broken and his hydrocephalic son, Nabisco the Incompetent, typically misread the late codger's vague blueprints and ordered somewhat more prestressed concrete than necessary for the original design. The result was Minas Troney or "Nabisco's Folly."

For no good reason, the city was made in seven concentric circles topped with a commemorative double statue of Beltelephon and his favorite concubine, whose name was either Nephritis the Obese or Phyllis. In any case, the final architectural effect was that of an Italian wedding cake.*

*The historian Bocaraton notes that this may have been intentionally "emblematic of the crumbs inside."...


...As the three slowly wound their way toward the Palace of Benelux the Steward, the citizens of Twodor gaped at them briefly and walked immediately to their nearest optometrist. Curiously the boggies stared back at the dwellers: men, elves, dwarves, banshees, and not a few Republicans were among them.

"Any convention burg gets a pretty mixed bag," Goodgulf explained.

Slowly they ascended the last, creaking set of moving steps and alighted at the first level. Pepsi rubbed his eyes at the edifice before him. It was of lavish design with broad lawns and sumptuous gardens. Rich marble paved the path beneath their feet, and the tinkling of many fountains sang like silver coins. At the door they were rather rudely informed that the dentist was not at home and they-must-be-looking-for-the-old-coot-round-back.

There they found a run-down palace wrought of stoutest Masonite, its walls aglow with fiery inlays of rock candy and old bicycle reflectors. Over the reinforced plywood door was a sign reading The Steward Is Out. Beneath that was another announcing Out to Lunch, and beneath that, Gone Fishing.

"Benelux must not be here, if I read these signs aright," said Moxie...


...Just then a peephole in the door opened and a beady eye inspected them.

"W-w-what you want?" the voice demanded.

"We are wayfarers here to aid the fortunes of Minas Troney. I am Goodgulf Grayteeth." The Wizard took a crumpled slip of paper from his wallet and handed it through the hole.

"W-what's this?"

"My card," replied Goodgulf. It returned immediately in a dozen pieces.

"Steward not home. On vacation. N-n-no peddlers!" The peephole closed with a small slam.

But Goodgulf was not easily duped and the boggies could tell from his eyes that he was angered by this impudence. His pupils were crossing and uncrossing like a juggler's oranges. He rang again, long and loud. The eye blinked at them and a smell of garlic floated from the hole.

"Y-you again? Told you, he's t-t-taking a shower." Again the hole shut.

Goodgulf said nothing. He reached into his mao jacket and extracted a black ball that Pepsi at first thought was the mallomar with a string attached. Goodgulf lit it with the end of his cigar and tossed the ball unto the mail slot. He then ran around the corner with the boggies in tow. There was a large boom and when the boggies peeked around to look, the door had magically disappeared.

Pridefully the three walked through the smoking portals. They were confronted by a seedy old palace guard who was wiping the soot from his smarting eyes.

"You may tell Benelux that Goodgulf the Wizard awaits an audience."

The doddering warrior bowed resentfully and led them through the airless passageways.

"T-the S-steward isn't going t-to like t-this," croaked the guard. "H-hasn't been out of the p-p-palace for years."

"Do not the people grow restive?" asked Pepsi.

"T-their idea," drooled the old guide...


..."I fear I am the bearer of dark tidings and sad. Sorhed's foul narcs have slain thy own beloved son Bromosel and now the Dark Lord wishes thy own life and thy realm for his own unspeakable designs."

"Bromosel?" said the Steward, rousing himself on one elbow.

"Thy own beloved son," prompted Goodgulf.

A flicker of recognition passed through tired old eyes.

"Oh, him. Never w-w-writes except for m-money. Just l-like the other one. T-t-too bad about t-t-that."

"Thus we have come with an army a few days ride behind to revenge your grief upon Fordor," Goodgulf explained.

The Steward waved his feeble hands with annoyance.

"Fordor? N-n-never heard of it. No two-bit w-w-wizard n- neither. Audience over," said the Steward.

"Insult not the White Wizard," warned Goodgulf as he drew something from his pocket, "for I have many powers. here, pick a card. Any card."

Benelux selected one of the fifty-two sevens of hearts and tore it into confetti. "Audience over," he repeated with finality...


...Hundreds of narcs, their minds aflame with cheap muscatel, threw themselves at the gates. Behind them tramped companies of renegade trolls and rogue pandas, slavering with hate. Whole brigades of psychotic banshees and goblins raised their shrill voices in a loathsome warcry. At their rear marched niblicks and vicious mashies who could lay low many a brave Twodorian with a single stroke of their deadly meat tenderizers. From over the rise appeared a bloodthirsty mass of clerk-typists and the entire June Taylor Dancers. A sight most horrible to behold.

This, Goodgulf, Moxie and Pepsi watched from the walls. The boggies were much afraid.

"They are so many and we are so few!" Pepsi cried, much afraid.

"True heart is the strength of ten," said Goodgulf.

"We are so few and they are so many!" cried Moxie, afraid much.

"A watched pot never boils; whistle a happy tune," observed Goodgulf. "Too many cooks spoil the brouhaha."

Reassured, the boggies donned their greaves, corslets, gauntlets, and shoulder padding and slathered themselves with Bactine. Each was armed with a double-edged putty knife, it's blade both keen and true. Goodgulf wore an old deep-sea diver's suit of stoutest latex. Only the well-trimmed beard was recognizable through the helmet's little round window. In his hand he carried an ancient and trusty weapon, called by the elves a Browning semi-automatic...

...From all points of the compass the joyful Twodorians saw great armies approaching with marching bands, fireworks, and showers of colored streamers. To the north was Gimlet leading a band of a thousand dwarves, to the south the familiar pronged bulk of Eorache in command of three thousand berserk Sheepers; from the east appeared two great armies, one of Faraslax's seasoned Green Toupees and one of Legolam's manned by four-thousand sharp-nailed interior decorators. Lastly, from the west, rode gray-clad Arrowroot leading a party of four warbadgers and a cranky Cub Scout.

In a trice the armies converged on the embattled city and set upon the panicking enemy. The battle raged as the trapped attackers were mowed down with sword and club. Terrified trolls fled the murderous Roi-Tanner hooves only to be hewn to pieces by the dwarves' picks and shovels. The bodies of narcs and banshees littered the ground and the Lord of the Nozdrul was encircled by piqued elves who scratched out his eyes and pulled his hair until he ran on his own sword with embarrassment. The black pelicans and their Nozdrul pilots were pecked from the air by anti-aircraft gulls and the dragon was cornered by the Cub Scout and peppered with rubber-tipped arrows until it suffered a complete nervous breakdown and collapsed with a heavy thud.

Meanwhile, the heartened Twodorians rushed from the walls and flew at the fiends yet inside the city. Moxie and Pepsi drew their putty knives and wielded them deftly. Soon, not a fallen corpse had a nose to call his own. Goodgulf busied himself throttling narcs from behind with his rubber air hose and Arrowroot was very probably doing something or other that was pretty much brave. When later questioned about the battle, however, he usually went rather vague...


..."That was close indeed," said Spam, still shaking from their narrow escape from Schlob a few days before. Frito nodded feebly but still could not really piece together what had happened.

Before them the great salt flats of Fordor stretched to the feet of a giant molehill which held Bardahl, the high-rise headquarters of Sorhed. The wide plain was dotted with barracks, parade grounds and motor pools. Thousands of narcs were swarming frantically, digging holes and filling them up again and polishing the dusty ground with enormous buffers. Far in the distance the Zazu Pits, the Black Hole, spewed the sooty remains of hundreds of years of National Geographics into the air over Fordor. Right before them, at the foot of the cliff, a thick, black pool of tar bubbled noisily, from time to time emitting a heavy belch.

Frito stood for a long time, peering out from under his fingers at the distant, smoking volcano.

"It's many a hard kilo to the Black Hole," he said, fingering the Ring.

"No lie, bwana," said Spam.

"This nearer tar pit has a certain holelike flavor," said Frito...

"Round," agreed Spam. "Open. Deep."

"Dark," added Frito.

"Black," said Spam...


..."Hello," said a gray lump behind them. "Long time no see."

"Goddam, old shoe," crooned Spam, and dropped a coin at Goddam's feet.

"Small world," said Frito as he palmed the Ring and clapped the surprised creature on the back.

"Look!" cried Frito, pointing to an empty sky. "The Winged Victory of Samothrace." And as Goddam turned to see, Frito looped the chain over his neck.

"Holla," cried Spam, "a 1927 indian-head nickel!" and dropped on his hands and knees in front of Goddam.

"Whoops!" said Frito.

"Aiyeee," added Goddam.

"Floop," suggested the tar pit.

Frito let out a deep sigh and both boggies bade a final farewell to the Ring and its ballast. As they raced from the pit, a loud bubbling noise grew from the black depths and the earth began to tremble. Rocks split and the ground opened beneath their very feet, causing the boggies much concern. In the distance, the dark towers began to crumble and Frito saw Sorhed's offices at Bardahl seam and shatter into a smoking heap of plaster and steel.

"Sure don't build 'em like they used to," observed Spam as he dodged a falling water cooler...


...So it was that the Great Ring was unmade and Sorhed's power destroyed forever. Arrowroot of Arrowshirt and Eorache soon were wedded, and the old Wizard prophesied that eight monocled and helmeted offspring would soon be smashing the palace furniture. Pleased by this, the King made Goodgulf Wizard Without Portfolio to the newly conquered Fordorian lands and gave him a fat expense account, to be voided only if he ever decided to set foot back in Twodor. To Gimlet the dwarf, Arrowroot granted a scrap-metal franchise on Sorhed's surplus war engines; to Legolam, he granted the right to rename Chikken Noodul "Ringland" and run the souvenir concession at the Zazu Pits. Lastly, to the four boggies he gave the Royal Handshake and one-way tickets aboard Gwahno back to the Sty. Of Sorhed, little was heard again, though if he returned, Arrowroot promised him full amnesty and an executive position in Twodor's defense labs. Of the ballhog and Schlob, little was heard either, but local gossips reported that wedding bells were only centuries away...

Chapter Ten:
Be it Ever So Horrid

...It was but a short time after Stomper's coronation that Frito, still in his tattered elvin-cloak, wearily trod the familiar cattle run to Bug End. The flight had been swift, and, save some air pockets and a mid-air collision with a gaggle of migrating flamingos, quite uneventful.

Boggietown was a filthy mess. Piles of unclaimed garbage littered the soupy streets and bloated boggie-brats somehow managed to track their goo up the tree trunks; no one had even bothered to clean up the litter from Dildo's party. Frito found himself oddly pleased that so little had changed during his absence...

"Been away?" croaked a familiar voice.

"Yes," said Frito, spitting at the old Fatlip with traditional boggie formality. "I am home from the Great War. I have unmade the Ring of power and vanquished Sorhed, evil ruler of far Fordor."

"Do tell," sniggered Fatlip as he made a thorough search of a nostril. "Wondered where you got the queer duds."

Frito passed on to his own hole and waded through a mound of papers and milk bottles to his door. Inside, he made a fruitless inspection of his icebox and returned to his den to make a small fire. Then he tossed his elvin-cloak into a corner and collapsed with a sigh into his easy chair. He had seen much, and now he was home...