He was still trying to figure out what Brand was trying to accomplish with his infernal machine when he was gripped by both arms and thrown into the canyon.
Boric stared at his own body lying broken on the canyon floor. Two figures in black stood over him, growling, hissing, and poking at his corpse. Boric wanted nothing more than to float away, to leave his wretched carcass and this accursed place, but there was no denying the inexorable pull of Brakslaagt. No matter how hard he fought, he couldn’t get away, and suddenly it wasn’t some inert hunk of flesh the wraiths were kicking and poking; it was Boric.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Cut that out!”
“You see,” said one of the wraiths. “He is like us. The Master summoned him, and he came.”
“No one summoned me,” growled Boric, getting to his feet. “I am here to learn the secret of the curse of the Seven Blades of Brakslaagt. So that I can be free. So that we can all be free.”
“Are you?” said a voice behind him. Boric spun to see another man approaching. He was tall — certainly not a dwarf, and he looked to be quite young. He was dressed in a simple tunic with no visible sign of rank but somehow managed to convey an unquestionable air of authority. His complexion was fair and the glow of the furnace gave his hair and face a hellish sheen.
“And who might you be, lad?” challenged Boric. “Some eager young sycophant of His Insolence Lord Brand?” The wraiths moved closer to Boric, gripping his arms tightly.
The young man smiled. “His son, actually,” he replied. “My name is Leto. I run the mining operation here.”
“His…” Boric started. Could this really be Brand’s son? He didn’t really look that much like Brand, but it was difficult to tell in the harsh red light. Half of his face glowed like crimson and the other half was in shadow.
“Now, Boric, is it?” said the young man. “Why don’t you tell me about this curse you’re so desperate to break.”
“Don’t toy with me, lad,” growled Boric. “You know full well the curse I speak of. These other good men and I have been cursed to walk Dis as dead men.”
“Really?” asked Leto. “Gentlemen, is this true? Have you been cursed?”
“No, m’lord,” said the wraiths in unison. The one to Boric’s left added, “We wish only to serve Lord Brand.”
“OK, well they’re pretty far gone,” said Boric. “But I still remember what it was like to be human, and I don’t appreciate being jerked around like a puppet.”
Leto laughed. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” he said. “You spent your life treating others as puppets, and now that it’s your turn, you chafe at the wires. Tell me, Boric, what would you do if you were free?”
“I’d leave this petty world and go to my reward in the Hall of Avandoor,” said Boric.
“Oh, the Hall of Avandoor!” cried Leto. “And what will you do there? Boast about the ogre you slew and the trolls you minced?”
“Well, yes,” replied Boric. “And you know, eat mutton and drink mead, that sort of thing.”
“And tell me, oh Boric the Implacable, just how do you think you rate amongst the giant-killers and dragon-slayers?”
“I don’t have, like, an exact number, if that’s what you’re looking for,” said Boric. Yes I do, he thought: eighty-seven.
“Still, wouldn’t you like an opportunity to bump your score up a bit, as it were? Kill another bugbear or two?”
Boric shook his head. “It doesn’t count because I’m already dead. Besides, I’m not sure bugbears are worth much.”
Leto stared at him. “Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?”
“What?” Boric asked. “I’m just saying, they don’t count it as a slaying if you’re dead. Frankly, the rules are pretty arbitrary. I’m totally getting shafted out of an ogre slaying and a dragon slaying.”
Leto shook his head. “Wow. My mother was right about you. I thought she was exaggerating, but she was totally right, as usual. Tie him up and throw him on the next train the Brandsveid. I’m done with him.” Leto turned and began walking away.
“As you wish, m’lord,” said the wraiths, gripping Boric’s arms tightly.
“Wait, your mother?” asked Boric. “Who’s your mother?”
“I believe you met her once,” said Leto, stopping to face Boric. “Her name is Milah.”
TWENTY-TWO
Boric spent the next three days tied up in a cart bound for Brand’s stronghold. The journey was uneventful; the Wastes of Preel consisted of nothing but hundreds of miles of salty muck. Legend held that the Wastes had once been a sea. There were no settlements and no animal or plant life to speak of. It was difficult to traverse by foot, and even if Boric could have worked his way out of the ropes, the two wraiths were traveling with him to prevent his escape. He was going to meet Brand, whether he was ready for him or not.
Was it true that Leto was Milah’s son by Brand? And was Milah with Brand now? The thought made him feel sick. How could she do that to him? Didn’t she realize what Brand had done to him? Or had she been in league with him all along? It did seem a little suspicious that he met Milah only two days after meeting Brand. But what had she been angling for? What did her magic mirrors have to do with Brand and the Blades of Brakboorn? Clearly he was missing something, but what? And who did Leto think he was, anyway? What was he getting at with his dismissive talk about Boric’s curse? It figured that a pretentious upstart like “Lord Brand” would sire an uppity brat like Leto. Boric planned to kill both of them at the first opportunity. Well, after figuring out how to break his curse, of course.
Twice the train stopped and made camp. No one bothered to check on Boric, and why would they? Presumably he was still dead. Occasionally, for shorter intervals, the train would stop so the driver could water the mules. During some of these stops, Boric heard voices and what sounded like another train passing. He couldn’t make any sense of this: there was only one set of tracks. It was possible, of course, that there were side rails that the driver could direct the train onto, but how would he know when to pull over? Even if the drivers used a flag system like that used by the signalmen in the army of Ytrisk, flags could only be seen at a distance of a few miles. Unless there were side rails every couple of miles, the trains would constantly be backtracking to get out of each other’s way. But the passing occurred without incident every single time. Could it be that the schedule of the trains was kept as precisely as that of the dwarves in Buren-Gandt? It seemed impossible. There was no giant hammer here to help them keep time, and how could any such system account for unexpected contingencies like bad weather or a mule with a broken leg? It made no sense.
Nor could Boric figure out why Brand needed such a gigantic mining operation. Assuming the mine at Buren-Gandt was the source of the material used in the swords, what could he possibly need such a vast amount for? Was he making swords to enslave every man in Dis? The possibility filled him with sudden dread. Of course. He recalled the swords of simple but excellent workmanship that half the nobles in Ytrisk were using — the same sort of sword used by Clovis the Technical Dragon-Slayer. Having enslaved the former kings of the Six Kingdoms, Boric had moved on to the dukes and counts. When they died, he would have a wraith army composed of the greatest swordsmen and tacticians in Dis — men who knew the defenses of every castle in the land. There would be no stopping him. The fact that Clovis hadn’t turned into a wraith militated against this line of reasoning, but maybe his sword had been defective. There was no other explanation: Brand intended to enslave all of Dis. All the more reason for Boric to kill him.
On the evening of the third day, the train finally stopped amongst the sound of the clanking of metal and men shouting in a strange, harsh-sounding language. The tarp on his cart was removed and he was hauled out and thrown on the ground by the wraiths. They cut his ropes and pulled him to his feet.
Boric was once again on the floor of a valley surrounded by mountain peaks. But this place had a more desolate, barren feel than Buren-Gandt. Rat
her than reddish-brown, the ground was as gray as ash, and the peaks were jagged and treeless. In fact, no trees or other plant life could be seen.
The wraiths gripped Boric’s arms and spun him around, dragging him toward a massive edifice built into a near-vertical cliff wall. It was easily double the size of Kra’al Brobdingdon, with towers that rivaled Avaressa’s tallest buildings. In front of the castle was the source of all the commotion: a goblin army, easily ten thousand strong, broken into regiments that were marching in formation around the vast and barren valley floor. Was this the army that Brand intended to use to conquer the Six Kingdoms? If so, he wasn’t as smart as Boric had thought: goblins were unruly and undisciplined, excelling only at hit-and-runs and other guerilla tactics. Marching a goblin army across the Wastes of Preel would be like trying to push a chess set across a sandbox.
The wraiths ushered Boric through the marching ground and across a drawbridge that was lowered over the semicircular moat barring access to the front of the castle. Looking down, Boric saw that the moat was actually a chasm in the rock. It appeared to be hundreds of feet deep. Brand had picked the location for his castle well: anyone falling down there wouldn’t be getting up again. Once across the drawbridge, they entered the castle and walked through a long hall lined with goblin guards wearing plate armor and bearing halberds. Reaching the end of the hall, one of the guards pulled aside a sliding metal gate and shoved Boric into a small, square, windowless room. The wraiths followed closely behind.
“Top floor,” said one of the wraiths.
“Huh?” said Boric. He turned to see a small goblin standing in the corner of the room. He leaned into a horn-like device protruding from the wall of the room and shouted, “TOP FLOOR, STAN!”
There was a sound of grunting and the pulling of chains and the whole room jerked upward a few inches, nearly causing Boric to lose his balance. After the initial jolt the room moved more smoothly, and if it weren’t for the sight of floors passing behind the metal gate and the clinking of chains, he might not have even known they were moving. The other wraiths and the goblin seemed to find the situation perfectly normal, so Boric decided not to make a fool of himself by exclaiming about the strange moving room. It was an ingenious invention, he thought; many times he had wished for some sort of magical device to transport him to the top of the eighty-foot guard towers of Kra’al Brobdingdon. Presumably the moving room was a variation on the sort of hoist used by builders to move materials to the upper levels of scaffolds, but he had never heard of such a thing being constructed inside a building — or being used to move people.
At last the room stopped at what Boric assumed was the top level of the castle. The wraiths prodded Boric forward, following close behind him. The goblin attendant remained behind in the movable room, closing the gate behind them. The three wraiths strode through a long, narrow hall, stopping at the end to knock on a heavy wooden door. From within, a soft voice said, “Come.”
The wraiths opened the door. A breathtakingly beautiful woman in a green dress stood just inside. The slightest hints of wrinkles were visible at the corners of her mouth, and her long red hair was streaked with gray. “Leave us,” she said to the two wraiths. Boric stepped inside and she closed the door behind him.
“Milah,” said Boric. “You look beautiful. Just as you did twenty years ago.”
“Thank you, Boric,” said Milah. “I wish I could say the same about you.”
“In fairness, I’ve been dead for over two weeks.”
“Yes, I heard,” said Milah. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry? Milah, your beloved Brand did this to me. How could you betray me this way?”
“How could I betray you?” asked Milah with a laugh. “Boric, you denied knowing me. You let me make a fool of myself. You left me alone in Brobdingdon with nothing!”
“I saved your life!” Boric spat. “And I gave you all the money I had on me. What would you have me do, Milah? Try to sell my father on your crazy mirror scheme? On my wedding day?”
“Yes!” screamed Milah. “Yes, that’s exactly what I expected you to do. Of course at the time I was under the impression that you were a decent human being.”
“Ha!” cried Boric. “This from the woman who is sleeping with Brand, the man who plots to conquer all of Dis with an army of the undead!”
Milah shot Boric a puzzled look, then burst into laughter. “That’s what you think Brand is up to? Conquering the Six Kingdoms with an army of wraiths? What would be the point of that?”
Boric was taken aback by this response. “What do you mean? The point would be to, you know, conquer all of Dis and rule it with an iron fist.”
“But what kind of world would that be?” asked Milah. “Mass killing, thousands in slavery, and walking corpses running rampant across the land? Do you think Brand is some sort of monster?”
“Of course he’s a monster!” Boric cried, baffled at Milah’s denseness. “Have you not seen the goblin army he’s assembled outside?”
Milah’s hand went to her forehead. “Oh, Boric. Poor, silly, deluded Boric.”
“Mock me if you wish, woman,” growled Boric, “but your lover Brand is a madman bent on conquest. Beware the day your beauty fades, woman, because Brand will cast you aside the moment you are no longer of use to him.”
Milah raised her hand as if to slap Boric, but thought better of it. “You wouldn’t even feel it, would you?” she said. “You feel no pain, much less shame. Any humanity that you once had is rapidly slipping away. You aren’t yourself. And for that reason, I forgive you your insult. I wish your mother had the comfort of knowing you weren’t in your right mind.”
Boric was now even more baffled. Milah was making no sense at all. “My mother?” he asked. “My mother has been dead for eight years. And I never showed her anything but respect.”
Milah burst into laughter again, then stopped abruptly. “By Varnoth,” she gasped. “You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know.”
“What in Dis are you talking about, Milah? Don’t know what?”
“Did you never wonder why you don’t look like either of your brothers? Why they were such ugly, bumbling dolts, and you…were not? Or, for that matter, why the Witch of Twyllic happened to be found guilty of practicing ‘dark magic’ just days after you were born?”
Boric’s mind reeled. “But that’s not…how could they have…”
“Gulbayna and the Witch…that is, Anna, were pregnant at the same time. Anna was the head midwife at Kra’al Brobdingdon at the time. Gulbayna’s baby was stillborn, and she blamed Anna. Two days later, Anna gave birth to a strapping, ten-pound baby that uncannily resembled your father, King Toric. Gulbayna’s baby was buried quietly and Anna was brought up on charges of using dark magic. She was given the choice of being exiled and giving up the baby or being burned alive with her son in her arms. She chose exile. Everyone in Ytrisk knows the rumors, Boric. Well, everyone but you, apparently. I’m sorry to have to tell you this way.”
Boric stood in silent shock. What Milah said made perfect sense. How had he not figured this out sooner? Had he just not wanted to know?
“I’m sorry, Boric,” said Milah. “I really thought you knew. And I’m sorry for thinking you were a monster all these years. Despite the way you treated me, I don’t think you’re a monster. You’re just really, really dense. You probably actually thought you were protecting me by disavowing any knowledge of me or the mirrors.”
Boric raised his hands in supplication. “Of course I was,” he protested weakly, still trying to come to terms with what she had told him. “If I’d have let my father set you up with a laboratory with money from the royal treasury and you failed…”
“Ah, there’s the Boric I know,” said Milah. “Condescending even in defeat. Didn’t I tell you once that you talk too much? Come with me, Boric. I want to show you something.”
TWENTY-THREE
Boric stood with Milah on a scaffold overlooking a cavernous ro
om beneath Kra’al Brandskelt. Below them, hundreds of workers toiled at workbenches and operated large, strange-looking machines. The room was hot and stuffy and filled with the clanging of tools and machines. But the most startling thing was the workers themselves: they were of virtually every race in Dis. There were elves, dwarves, humans, and goblins, all working side by side. Boric was amazed to see that some of the larger machines were actually operated by ogres, who seemed perfectly content to use their brute strength to pull levers or turn wheels rather than tear people limb from limb. Boric never would have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes — or what was left of his eyes, anyway.
“How do you…” Boric started.
“How do we what?”
“How do you keep them from killing each other?”
Milah shook her head, smiling. “Why would they kill each other? This is a cooperative enterprise. They all need each other to get the work done. And they’re paid on a piece rate, so the more work they do, the more they get paid. This may surprise you, Boric, but there are ways of dealing with problems besides killing things. Even the ogres understand that.”
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