Disenchanted (5 page)

He got to his knees and scrambled away from the sound of Corbet’s advancing footsteps. This was not going as well as he had hoped.

“You fight well for a messenger, boy,” said Corbet snidely. “It will be a shame to cut your throat.”

Boric turned to face Corbet, who had stopped advancing to gloat. Boric got to his feet. He could at least die with some dignity. Corbet would probably spare his life if he revealed his identity, but Boric was too proud to do that. Better to die as a messenger than to save his skin by confessing to his charade. Corbet brought his sword back, poised to strike.

“Sir,” said a small voice to Boric’s left. Boric turned to see the boy he had entrusted with his possessions running toward him. The boy was holding, on his outstretched palms, a sword in a scabbard.
Brakslaagt
.

“Wait!” shouted Boric. Corbet had already begun his stroke. The boy was running right into the path of its arc.

The boy stopped in front of Boric, offering him the sword. Boric grabbed the hilt of Brakslaagt with his right hand and the top of the scabbard with his left, thrusting his upper torso forward and his arms apart. His left arm sent the boy flying into crowd and his right arm brought the sword up to meet Corbet’s. The sound of the blades clashing was like hailstones on a tin roof. Boric straightened and took a step back.

The two men regarded each other for a moment.

“Nice sword,” said Corbet. He was trying to sound jovial but there was an undercurrent of worry in his voice.

Boric sliced the blade through the air several times. It was surprisingly light, considering its strength and durability — assuming it was made of the same material as Corbet’s sword. Whatever the weakness of this steel was, it hadn’t yet revealed itself.

“Thanks,” he said. “It was a gift.” Boric thrust at Corbet’s midsection and Corbet knocked the blade to the side, answering with a sweep at Boric’s neck. Boric parried and followed with a swift chop at Corbet’s left side, which Corbet dodged.

Boric had to admit Brakslaagt felt good in his hand. It was light for its size, but well-balanced and substantial. Sharp, too — the edge of the blade gleamed as if it has just been honed. One good slice with that blade and the slicee would be dead. And Corbet’s sword appeared to be its equal. It was time to end this before someone got hurt.

Corbet jabbed at Boric’s groin and Boric parried and sliced at Corbet’s neck. Corbet ducked and sliced at Boric’s legs. Boric parried.

The two men sparred for another minute, Boric’s swings gradually becoming more desultory, giving Corbet the impression that he was tiring. Corbet took advantage of his sluggishness, becoming bolder in his attacks. Finally the moment came that Boric was waiting for: Corbet lunged, overextending himself and exposing his flank. Boric dodged and brought his Brakslaagt down on Corbet’s skull, the flat of the blade striking him with a sickening
thump
. Corbet’s eyes rolled upward and he fell limp to the ground.

Boric walked to the boy guarding his pack. The boy was staring open-mouthed at Corbet.

“Is he dead?”

“Nah,” said Boric. “Just sleeping.” He handed the boy a silver coin. “Thanks for your help. See that the innkeeper takes care of the prince.”

The boy nodded eagerly. He had probably never held a coin made from real silver before that night — let alone two of them.

“Now,” said Boric, “who wants to kill an ogre?”

Episode Two

FIVE

Boric had been trudging along the dark forest path for hours when he came upon a clearing, in the middle of which was a small cottage, the home of the Witch of Twyllic. He regarded the cottage with some trepidation. There weren’t many people Boric the Implacable was afraid of. None, in fact, other than the Witch of Twyllic. But he had no choice: the witch was the only one who might be able to tell him how to break his curse.

Before he could talk to the witch, however, he had to cross the clearing, which meant traversing a good twenty paces of open ground in broad daylight. His eyes hurt just looking at the sunlight reflecting off the cottage’s thatched roof. He could wait until dark, but he didn’t want to spend any longer as a wraith than he absolutely had to. He was already growing accustomed to being a spirit occupying a corpse; soon he feared that he would forget altogether what it was like to be human.

Boric retreated a ways into the forest and took a seat on a moss-covered log. He removed his armor and clothing and inspected his body. The wounds were still there, but they had stopped bleeding and caused him no pain. Even sticking his fingers into the gaping wound in his chest evoked only a sort of dull ache, as if someone was gently pressing the end of a walking stick into his ribs. He shuddered at the sensation.

His flesh was pale and had begun to sag appallingly. Soon he would begin to rot. Something needed to be done before that happened. He stood up and started to get dressed.

Behind him, a twig snapped. Boric sprang for his sword and spun around. Before him stood a small figure wearing a dingy gray robe and a wide-brimmed hat. The Witch of Twyllic. Forty years earlier she might have been reasonably attractive, but half a lifetime in the forest had taken its toll. Her dishwater-gray hair was thin and ratty and her face looked like a piece of paper that had been wadded up and retrieved from the trash.

“What are you doing out here?” she snapped, in a surprisingly shrill tone.

“I, uh…” Boric started. He realized that his voice had turned into a dry rasp.

“I got enough problems without half-naked wraiths lurking about,” said the witch. “What’s your business here, wraith?”

“Well,” said Boric, “I was hoping you could help me. You see, I’ve been cursed.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed the witch. “So was I! Tell me, wraith, were you thrown out of the court of Kra’al Brobdingdon on trumped-up charges of practicing black magic and forced into thirty-eight years of exile?”

“Well, no,” said Boric. “But I was recently killed and by all rights should be drinking mead in the Halls of Avandoor. Instead, as you see, I am occupying my own corpse.”

“We’ve all got problems,” said the witch with a shrug.

“Please,” said Boric. “All I want is to die a natural death before I become even more of a monster. Your knowledge of the dark arts is well known throughout Ytrisk — ”

“Bah!” growled the witch. “Cease your foolish talk and I will do what I can for you. Follow me.”

The witch strode past him toward the cottage.

“I…ah…” said Boric.

“Afraid of a little sunlight, are you?” asked the witch, turning back to face him. “Part of the price of your bargain, I suppose. Well, you know where to find me.” She walked across the clearing and disappeared into the cottage.

Boric cursed and squinted up at the dazzling bright blue sky. Ytrisk was known for its almost invariably gray and depressing weather, but today there was hardly a cloud in the sky. He waited nearly an hour for a little puffy cloud to pass in front of the sun before sprinting across the clearing, his cloak wrapped tightly about him. The sunlight burned even through the thick cloak.

Unable to see where he was going, he slammed abruptly into the door of the cottage. “Open up!” he cried. His upper back and face felt like they were on fire.

“Who is it?” called the witch voice from inside.

“Boric!” rasped Boric.

“Boric who?”

“Boric the wraith! Please, it burns!”

The door opened and the witch regarded him suspiciously. “I don’t get it,” she said.

Boric rushed past her and fell to the floor, shaking feverishly.

The witch shrugged and closed the door, returning to a pot of stew she was cooking. The scent was nauseating.

“Ugh,” Boric groaned, still writhing on the floor. “What
is
that?”

“Rabbit,” said the witch. “You want some?”

If Boric had been capable of vomiting, he would have.

“Oh, I forgot!” exclaimed the witch. “You’re undead. The smell of cooking meat probably nauseates you!”

Boric grunted and nodded his head weakly.

“Pity,” she said. She put a lid on the pot and opened the shuttered windows. The light hurt Boric’s eyes, but it was preferable to the stench of the stew. After some time, he shakily got to his feet and took a seat in a nearby chair.

“Now, what seems to be the problem?” asked the witch.

Boric was beginning to lose patience. “I’m a
corpse
,” he snarled.

“Well, sure,” agreed the witch, “but plenty of corpses get on just fine. Perhaps your problem is that your expectations are too high. Try lying down for a bit.”

“Damn it, woman!” growled Boric. “I won’t be spoken to in this matter. Do you know who I am?”

“I know who you
were
,” laughed the witch. “Boric the Implacable, King of Ytrisk. Who you
are
is another matter. Or should I say,
what
you are. You’re a sack of rotting meat, Boric the Impractical.”

“I came here for your help, witch,” rasped Boric, “not to be insulted.”

“You came here because although I am an embarrassment to the court of Ytrisk, I remain the only one in the kingdom who knows anything of the arcane arts. You cast me out and then go looking for me amongst the trash. I insult you because you’re a fool, Boric the Impractical, just like your mother and father were.”

Boric had seen this coming. Best to get it over with.

The Witch of Twyllic hadn’t always lived alone in a cottage in the woods. She was born the daughter of one of the Librarians of Avaress, in the final days of the Old Realm. Her parents were killed when Avaress was overrun by barbarians and the library was destroyed, and she escaped from the capital to Ytrisk with a merchant caravan, offering her services as a bookkeeper in exchange for safe passage out of the capital. Even at the height of the Old Realm, literacy and knowledge of basic mathematics were rare among commoners. Besides, she took up little space and didn’t eat much. She was only ten years old.

Before she was the Witch of Twyllic, her name was Anna. Anna was essentially a slave to a merchant for two years, but her employer eventually fell afoul of Ytriskian law, and his assets — including Anna — were confiscated. She was put to work as a midwife’s assistant. She had an astonishing memory and had spent most of her childhood devouring the books of the great Library of Avaress; she could recall details from hundreds of the books on subjects from agriculture and anatomy to history and religion. On more than one occasion, she shamed the king’s advisors with her superior knowledge on some obscure matter. But being female, the greatest position she could aspire to in the court was that of head midwife.

Sometime after she had reached that exalted position, and after eight years of faithful service to the court, she was accused of witchcraft and exiled to the periphery of the kingdom. Witchcraft was one of those obscure crimes that was seen so seldom that court officials worried constantly that they weren’t looking hard enough. If it weren’t for the occasional appearance of someone who clearly fit the definition, no one would even know what a witch looked like.

The exercise of magic was not technically illegal in Ytrisk; the court occasionally employed diviners and sorcerers for a variety of purposes. It was only dark magic that was met with disapproval. Dark magic was also ill-defined, but in general it seemed to possess at least two of these three characteristics:

1. It didn’t work or had undesirable side effects.

2. It embarrassed someone in power.

3. It was practiced by one’s enemies or a woman.

Boric, not being a complete idiot, was well aware of the conveniently flexible definition of “dark magic” used by the court, but Anna’s exile had occurred before he was born, and when he ascended to the throne he had bigger things to worry about than the justness of a sentence carried out a quarter of a century earlier. In any case, Boric had figured, the woman should be grateful she was allowed to live. Most witches were executed in a carefully prescribed and logistically complex series of tortures that culminated in the witch being drowned while on fire.

“I am sorry for your misfortune,” said Boric, “but as you know, the sentence for witchcraft is death. My father showed you considerable mercy in — ”

“Your father tossed me out like garbage!” spat the witch. “One more word of Toric’s mercy and I’ll pour rabbit stew on your head!”

“Please,” Boric tried again. “I am sorry for any mistreatment you suffered at the hand of my father.”

“You were king for thirteen years, Boric. You could have ended my exile at any time.”

“It is true,” Boric admitted. “However, I was not privy to the details of your case — ”

“Nor did you make any effort to familiarize yourself with them. In life, you didn’t give me a second thought. But now that you’re dead, you come running to me.”

“Again, I apologize — ”

“Cease your wheedling!” the witch spat. “What is it that you expect me to do for you?”

“I was hoping you could undo my curse. Allow me to die in peace, so that my spirit can rest in the Hall of Avandoor.”

“Your curse!” hissed the witch. “A curse is something forced upon you, like being exiled in the woods for imagined crimes. What you are experiencing is the downside of a bargain that you entered into with your eyes wide open. What did you think was going to happen when you accepted an enchanted blade from a mysterious stranger? Does that sound like the sort of thing that would have a happy ending?”

Boric was speechless for a moment. “You know of my meeting with Brand?”

“I know that he gave six enchanted blades to kings or princes of the Six Kingdoms, one per kingdom. And I know the bargain that goes with the blades. First the blade serves you, then you serve the blade.”

“I guess I figured the bargain ended when I died.”

“You figured wrong.”

“Is there anything you can do about it?”

The witch shook her head grimly. “No one knows how to break the curse of the Blades of Brakboorn. I suspect the answer lies with the seventh blade, Orthslaagt, the one that Brand holds.”