Disenchanted

by Robert Kroese

  “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.”

  “Then I shall hunt down Brand and take Orthslaagt from him — along with his right arm, if I have to!”

  “Fool!” spat the witch. “That is exactly what Brand hopes you will do. You are being pulled toward him by the inexorable magic of the blade. Your humanity is slipping away, Boric, your own volition being replaced by the will of Lord Brand.”

  “Lord Brand!” exclaimed Boric. “He has pretensions to nobility, does he?”

  “He has pretension to more than that, I understand. Occasionally I receive visitors from the east seeking my expertise. One benefit of being officially exiled for witchcraft, you know, is that you get a reputation abroad. Recently news has reached me that Brand is assembling a new kingdom in the east. He rules a petty fiefdom beyond the Wastes of Preel. Some even say he plans to unify all the territory of the Old Realm under his rule.”

  “Ridiculous!” Boric rasped. “The Six Kingdoms have grown fiercely independent since the Fall.”

  “And they are constantly fighting amongst themselves,” added the witch. “A bold man might see an opportunity in the current situation.”

  “All the more reason for me to hunt down Brand and kill him,” said Boric. “He isn’t to be trusted with that sort of power.”

  “If you go to him, you will fall under his power,” repeated the witch. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Then what would you have me do, witch?” Boric demanded. “Run from him until I’m a heap of dry bones?”

  “Consider it a tactical retreat,” advised the witch. “You must fight the pull of Orthslaagt until you are strong enough to deal with Brand on your own terms.”

  “Strong enough!” growled Brand. “My flesh is rotting away as we speak! My humanity is draining away, and I am becoming a monster! I must seek out Brand now, while I still remember what it was to be human!”

  “No!” cried the witch. “You must accept that you are no longer human. You must give up your former ways of thinking and embrace your status as undead. Brand’s power over you arises from your desire to regain your humanity. When you let that go, Brand will no longer be able to control you.”

  “I don’t want to regain my humanity!” Boric protested. “I simply want to die.”

  The witch laughed. “Yes, but you want to die as a human being. You want to go straight from your heroic life to a jubilant afterlife, without this pesky detour into the gray wasteland of
undeath. You must accept that you are a wraith, a foul creature of the night, hated by the living. When you have done that, you will be free to kill Brand and take Orthslaagt from him.”

  “But when I have become fully a wraith, I will no longer want to be free of Orthslaagt!”

  “A paradox, one must admit,” said the witch, nodding. “Sadly, that is the only answer. There is one thing I can do for you, though.”

  “Please,” said Boric. “Whatever you can do, I will be forever grateful.”

  “You should be a bit more hesitant about making eternal commitments,” the witch scolded. “Take your clothes off.”

  The one thing that the witch could do for Boric turned out to be embalming him, wrapping him with cloth saturated in foul-smelling substances that promised to slow the process of decay. The wrappings were tight but oddly comforting; they made Boric feel less like he was going to fall apart at any moment. She left only his eyes uncovered; at first he had objected to having his mouth and nose wrapped but she pointed out that he no longer needed to either eat or breathe — and that unless it was secured, his jaw would probably eventually fall off. He wasn’t sure he actually needed his jaw to speak; his voice seemed to emit from his mouth in some ghostly fashion, utilizing neither the flow of air across his vocal cords nor the movement of his lips and tongue (although he continued to move these muscles, like a puppet mimicking the speech of the puppeteer). Still, losing his jaw would make him look even more monstrous, and it was important that he at least appear human for as long as possible. When he put on his clothing and armor and covered his head with his cloak, he looked almost normal. She had also painted over the markings on his armor with pitch, both so that he’d be less visible in the dark (“a wraith has to be able to skulk”) and so that he wouldn’t be recognized as the former King of Ytrisk.

  By the time she had finished, it was nearly dark outside. The witch lit a lamp and stood back, regarding her work with what Boric could only imagine was pride. She seemed on the verge of saying something when the door to the cottage flew open and three dark figures entered the room, their footsteps eerily quiet. They wore dark cloaks and black leather gloves, their eyes pinpoints of red light burning like coals in faces wrapped in black cloth. Each of them carried a broadsword that was an exact likeness of Brakslaagt.