Disenchanted

by Kroese, Robert

  Boric eschewed the advances of the homely and simple-minded daughters of nobility, favoring the sturdy, supple, and quick-witted (if not exactly well-read) daughters of farmers and fishermen. There was no question of him marrying one of these girls, of course — if he was ever to amount to anything more than overseer of the pumice mines of Bjill he was going to have to marry a woman with at least some small claim to nobility. His brothers teased him that as the youngest prince of Ytrisk he would be forced to marry some toothless daughter of the chief of another barbarian tribe — or perhaps even Princess Urgulana of Peraltia, who was rumored to be seven feet tall and possessed of both the complexion and personality of a tree trunk. Boric shuddered at the thought. Yet another reason to make certain his father honored his pledge to make the son who killed the ogre his heir. As the future king, of course, Boric would face an even narrower pool of eligible candidates. He supposed he’d end up with Princess Jaleena of Avaress or Princess Schmuske of Blinsk. But that was all in the future. There was still time to play. Milah was as hale and pretty as any of the farmers’ daughters he had met and precocious as well. Yes, she talked too much, but he could overlook that.

  They arrived at the town of Tyvek, halfway between Plik and Brobdingdon, just before sundown. Milah had reapplied her beard and pulled her hood low to avoid awkward questions. Messengers often traveled in pairs for safety but they never traveled with female companions. The fact that Milah was herself wearing a messenger’s uniform would only provoke more questions. Best to continue the ruse that she had started.

  This decision prompted another awkward exchange, however. Messengers were notoriously thrifty; they rarely had two silver coins to rub together. Generally during a layover they slept in the common room of the local inn, although it wasn’t unheard of for a messenger to pay for a private room. Boric wasn’t about to spend the night in a crowded room packed with drunks and ruffians, and he could hardly expect Milah to. But two messengers traveling together and sleeping in separate rooms would definitely seem an anomaly. This close to the capital it wouldn’t be inconceivable for someone to recognize Boric if he called attention to himself — and that would raise questions about his companion. All he needed was for his brothers to get hold of rumor of him fornicating with a commoner while on an important mission from the crown.[8] So in order to avoid drawing attention to himself, Boric paid for a single room, assuring Milah that he would sleep on the floor.

  He needn’t have bothered. He had barely closed the door when she had pushed him onto the bed, unstrapped his sword, and began pulling off his boots.

  “Milah, wait,” he protested. “I have something to tell you about my father…”

  “I don’t really want to hear about your father right now,” said Milah, removing her cloak and shirt. Underneath was a laced bodice that seemed to be padded below her bosom, making her shape more mannish. She appeared significantly less mannish with each loosening of the laces.

  “It’s just, what I told you about my father…”

  Milah paused on the verge of removing the bodice. “Did you lie to me?” she asked, with sudden sternness.

  “No!” cried Boric. “But I didn’t tell you everything.”

  “Oh,” said Milah. “Well, there will be time for that.” She pulled off the bodice and climbed on top of Boric.

  “Okay,” said Boric. “If you’re sure you don’t mind…”

  “Shhh,” said Milah. “You talk too much.”

  [8] Boric was always very careful not to let his brothers find out about his dalliances in Brobdingdon, knowing that they would use any evidence of fornication against him. This was sheer hypocrisy, of course: his brothers, not possessing Boric’s good looks or charm, were well known by the proprietors and staffs of all the local brothels.

  THIRTEEN

  Solace eluded Boric even in the stillness of the grave-like cellar. Lacking breath and a heartbeat, he found it difficult to gauge the passage of time, and meaningful rest — to say nothing of actual sleep — was an impossibility. Boric did not tire and he did not recuperate. He simply existed, forever.

  No, thought Boric. Not forever. There had to be a way to break the enchantment. He wracked his memory, trying to recall everything he knew or had heard about the seven Blades of Brakboorn. He had spent some time after returning to Kra’al Brobdingdon researching the swords, but much of what he had found was — it seemed at the time — superstitious nonsense. He wasn’t interested in fairy tales about magic spells and curses; he wanted to know how the swords had been made. What strange alloy — lighter, stronger, and more resistant to corrosion than even the best steel made by the master swordmakers of the Old Realm — were these blades made of? Who had made them? How had they been forged? When had they been created and why? To most of these questions he had found no satisfactory answers. According to legend, the swords had been designed by the Elves of Quanfyrr and forged by the Dwarves of Brun, but no one knew why, when, or how. Boric had dropped the matter when concerns of state became more pressing, content with the knowledge that Brakslaagt was a damned good sword. He didn’t even know how old the swords were, or whether Brand had commissioned their creation or had simply come into possession of them after they had been created.

  He was still pondering how little he actually knew about the Blades of Brakboorn when there was a knock on the door. “Boric?” came a voice he recognized as Chad’s. “It’s dinnertime.”

  “Not hungry,” replied Boric.

  “Erm,” said Chad. “It’s just that, well, the mayor is throwing a dinner in your honor. You should probably ought to be there.”

  Boric cursed to himself. “Where is it?”

  “In the town center.”

  “I can’t…”

  “The sun has just gone down.”

  “Oh.” That meant he had been in the cellar for, what, ten hours? It could have been minutes or days for all he knew. “All right, I’ll be out in a moment.”

  The town center was, in a sense, the inverse of the town hall: it was a large bowl-shaped impression in the ground ringed by several massive oak trees. The center of the bowl was roughly flat and covered with a littering of straw. A dozen or so tables and chairs had been set up in the flat area. One of the chairs, a rickety assemblage of twigs that seemed to have been thrown together in haste, was nearly twice the size of the rest. Next to the makeshift chair—presumably custom-built for Boric—sat the mayor, and the rest of the table was occupied by the other New Threfelton functionaries he had met.

  Dinner was not completely intolerable. Boric didn’t eat, of course, but the light was dim enough that he didn’t have any trouble pretending to eat while tossing his food to the stray dogs — some of them as large as threfelings — that ran unchecked beneath and between the tables. The threfelings ate as ravenously as half-starved dogs themselves, and soon the meal was over. Boric was about to slink off to his cellar when the mayor clapped him on the shoulder. “Wait till you see the entertainment, Boric!”

  Boric groaned and made to sit back down. Visions of threfeling dancing girls appeared in his mind.

  “No, no,” said Chad. “You should ought to get up. They’re moving the tables.”

  Indeed, the tables and chairs were being carried away and the crowd was fanning out, the attendees sitting in a circle on the grass slope surrounding the flat area. Boric went with Chad to the top of the amphitheater so that he could sit without blocking the view of any of the other spectators. When the flat area was clear, a sort of mobile stage, maybe two feet high and thirty feet in diameter, was wheeled into the center. A curtain hanging from a wire frame concealed the platform. When the crowd had quieted down, the curtain fell, revealing a small figure dancing gaily about the stage. It was about half the size of a threfeling and wore brown trousers, a green cotton shirt, and a leather jerkin, and carried a wooden bucket. It pranced around a cluster of small bushes, pantomiming berry-picking.

  “Say,” cried Chad. “I think that’s me!”

  B
oric saw that it was true. The puppet was a likeness of Chad, with exaggerated features to make him recognizable at a distance. At first he thought that the puppet was being operated from underneath, but realized that the way it danced it must be a marionette. And indeed, he could see now that the puppet was suspended by very fine wires. But how was that possible? There were no rafters above. Where were the puppeteers? Peering into the sky, he realized that they must be hidden amongst the branches of the trees overhanging the amphitheater.

  A burst of laughter from the crowd caused him to refocus his attention on the stage: another character, nearly twice the height of the Chad puppet had arisen from beneath the stage. It wore gleaming metal armor and its face was covered with ragged bandages. It carried a silver sword and was doing a sort of dance as well, in time with Chad but on the opposite end of the stage. The two characters hadn’t yet noticed each other.

  “And that’s you!” howled Chad, poking Boric in the ribs with his elbow.

  Boric regarded his likeness humorlessly. What in Grovlik’s name was it supposed to be doing? The puppet was jerking about the stage furiously, like someone possessed. The crowd laughed uproariously.

  Finally it dawned on Boric what the puppet was doing: it was trying to rid itself of its sword. The puppet was flopping its arm around, trying to let go, but the sword was obviously attached to the puppet’s hand. Boric found himself grinding his teeth and letting out a long hissing sound.

  After a minute or so of the puppets dancing around the stage, oblivious to each other, they backed into each other and leapt in fright. The two puppets spun to face each other. The Boric puppet jabbed at the Chad puppet with its sword, but the Chad puppet hopped out of the way. The Boric puppet hacked and slashed at the Chad puppet, becoming increasing agitated in its movements, but the Chad puppet simply frolicked out of its way. The crowd was in hysterics. Chad was holding his sides, tears running down his cheeks. Boric’s hiss turned into a rumbling growl.

  Not fully aware of what he was doing, Boric got to his feet and strode down the slope, leaping several threfelings with each bound. He jumped onto the stage and dove at the Boric puppet, which dodged his advances. Boric landed on his face and the puppet crept closer, menacing Boric with its miniature sword. Boric’s arm swept out as if to knock the puppet off its feet, but of course this was impossible. The crowd roared with laughter and Boric pulled himself to his feet. If he had been thinking clearly, Boric would have pulled his own sword and cut the puppet’s wires, but he could think only of the humiliation this accursed thing was heaping on him. He intended to tear it to pieces with his bare hands. But first he had to catch it — and every moment the puppet eluded him forced him to further involve himself in this farce, increasing his humiliation.

  As he pursued the Boric puppet around the stage, he became aware that laughter was erupting from the crowd seemingly at random. Boric paused, peering at the crowd, prompting a new round of gales. He turned to look behind him and saw the Chad puppet mimicking his stance. While he had been chasing the Boric puppet, the Chad puppet had been chasing him.

  Boric let loose a howl of rage. “You dare to mock me, threfelings?” he roared at the crowd. “You who share your dinner with dogs? You who live in warrens of mud carved into the hills of a land left behind by civilization? You runt half-breeds born of hedgehogs and goblins? I’ll cut out your stomachs and feed them to your dogs! I’ll rip out your entrails and strew them across your pathetic hills! I’ll…”

  He would have gone on, but he could no longer be heard over the crowd’s laughter. Evidently they had taken his insults and threats as part of the performance. As he trailed off, the audience broke into a standing ovation. Whistles and catcalls echoed through the amphitheater along with shouts of “Bravo!” and “More! Give us more!”

  For a moment, Boric’s bony hand hovered over the pommel of his sword. How many of the threfelings could he slaughter before he tired or they put a stop to it? All of them, he realized with sudden horror. He would never tire and they could never stop him. He would just kill, and kill, and kill…until every living threfeling had been exterminated.

  Boric jumped off the stage and ran off into the night, the cheers of the threfeling crowd echoing after him. He was nearly a half-mile outside of New Threfelton before he could no longer hear the crowd.

  “Boric!” called a voice behind him. Chad.

  “Leave me alone!” cried Boric, who kept walking.

  “Why are you leaving?” asked Chad, running to catch up.

  “I don’t belong here, amongst the living. I’m a monster.”

  “You don’t seem like a monster.”

  Boric stopped and turned to face Chad. “Do you know what’s under these bandages? Do you know what I am? I could have killed those people. All of them. That wasn’t an act, Chad. I nearly did it.”

  “I don’t can believe that,” said Chad.

  “Then you’re a fool, Chad.”

  “I know you weren’t acting,” said Chad. “You were really mad, I could tell. But you wouldn’t have hurt anybody.”

  Boric grunted.

  “It was just a show,” said Chad. “They were just poking a little fun at you. It’s what threfelings do. We don’t can take anything too seriously.”

  Boric said nothing.

  “You can leave tomorrow if you want,” offered Chad. “But not tonight. If you leave now, the townspeople will think they did something to offend you.”

  “They did do something to offend me.”

  “Not on purpose. My people pride themselves on their hospitality. Featuring you in the play was just their way of welcoming you.”

  “Some welcome.”

  Chad snorted. “Boy, you’re really full of yourself, aren’t you?”

  Boric glared at Chad. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Where did you live? I mean, before whatever happened to you happened.”

  “A city called Brobdingdon, in Ytrisk.”

  “Do you have ogres in Brobdingdon?”

  “Of course not. Once there was an ogre menacing the southern part of the country, but I hunted him down and killed him.”

  “Of course you did,” said Chad. “Just out of curiosity, though, what would happen if an ogre showed up just outside of Brobdingdon one day, baring its teeth and threatening to kill a local peasant who was out picking berries?”

  “I know what you’re getting at,” said Boric, “but this is a completely different — ”

  “For that matter, what would happen if you showed up in Brobdingdon, looking like you do? With your face covered and waving that sword around? Do you suppose you’d be welcomed with open arms? Or do you think maybe your friends and family would do something worse to you than feature you in a puppet show?”

  Boric hung his head. Chad was right. He had no right to expect any sort of hospitality from the threfelings. They probably made him a guest out of sheer terror. What else were they going to do? In his defense, though, it wasn’t the mockery that bothered him. At least it wasn’t mainly that. It was that he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t just a puppet himself. Had he been acting on his own volition for the past few days or was this all part of Brand’s plan? And what did his resistance matter if his humanity was rotting away along with his flesh, dooming him to be a soulless servant to Brand? But he couldn’t tell that to Chad, of course.

  “All right,” said Boric. “I will stay for tonight. But tomorrow I must leave.”

  That seemed to satisfy Chad. They returned to town and caught the rest of the puppet show, which consisted of more parodies of local residents, most of which were completely lost on Boric. Afterward, he retreated to a dark alley where he could watch the night sky. He found it comforting to be able to see the stars moving across the sky in their predetermined paths. It was good to know that the universe’s rhythms continued even if his own heart refused to beat.

  FOURTEEN

  Boric and Milah left Tyvek early the next morning. The road narrowed a
fter Tyvek, so they rode single file and didn’t speak much. Milah seemed to be growing nervous about her meeting with Boric’s father, and Boric was cursing himself for not telling Milah the truth. The truth was that his father wasn’t some noble with access to the king; he was the king. And he didn’t become king by throwing a hundred thousand gold pieces at every alchemist’s daughter who rode into town with a crazy idea. Maybe if Boric vouched for her he could get half that amount, and he could probably spare twenty thousand from his own coffers, and then, with some initial success they could attract some investment from other… No! What was he thinking? He couldn’t afford to spend either his money or his goodwill with his father on this girl’s schemes. Even if she was successful in creating a much improved version of the mirrors, it would take her years. And how would it benefit him? He could see some advantage to being able to instantly communicate orders to officers miles away, but the army already had an effective semaphore system using flags, and when the flags couldn’t be used, a runner could carry a message ten miles in less than hour. The mirrors would have to be vastly improved to be worth an initial expenditure of one hundred thousand gold pieces.