Disenchanted (25 page)
Authors: Robert Kroese
“Who in Varnoth’s name is Leto?” growled Yoric.
“That would be me,” said Leto. “I suggest you keep reading.”
Jeddac frowned at the paper. “That’s all there is to…oh, wait. ‘P.S.: If I am stabbed in the back by that coward Randor, my murderous brother Yoric is responsible. P.P.S.: Yoric may try to fool you with a forged will. Don’t fall for it. This is the real one.’”
“As you can see,” said Brand, “it’s dated the very day that Boric died. It’s witnessed by me and the kings of Skaal, Peraltia, and Quirin.”
“This is absurd,” Yoric protested. “Boric couldn’t possibly have met with those three kings the day he died. They were hundreds of miles away! And how convenient that this will was supposedly witnessed by the very same kings that you now have in captivity. You probably put them on the rack until they agreed to sign.”
“I assure you,” Brand said with a smile, “no torture was necessary. You may just have to accept the fact that your fellow kings don’t like you very much, Yoric.”
“You see?” said Yoric. “He’s practically admitting that this will is a forgery! And although you may have secured the signatures of the other three kings under duress, I can tell you for certain that Boric’s signature is forged. The loops on the ‘B’ are all wrong.”
“Really?” asked Brand, taking the will from Jeddac and studying it intently. He held it in front of Boric. “What do you think?”
“Looks real to me,” said Boric.
“And how would
you
know, wraith?” growled Yoric.
Boric pulled back his hood and carefully unwound the wrappings covering his face. The three kings recoiled in horror at what they saw.
“Because I’m Boric,” he said, his rotten flesh contorting into a horrific grin.
Jeddac and Rapelini agreed to the terms.
Boric stood once again on the balcony of the top level of Kra’al Brandskelt as the first light of dawn gathered above the mountains to the east. The armies of the Six Kingdoms were retreating across the Wastes of Preel toward their homes. Among them was the newest king, Leto. Yoric was in chains in a wagon at the rear of the convoy.
“You did it, Boric,” said Milah, coming up behind him. “You made peace between Brandsveid and the Six Kingdoms.”
Boric nodded wearily.
“Brand isn’t too thrilled that you’ve made Leto King of Ytrisk, though.”
“He’ll get over it,” said Boric. “It’s good for him to have a little friendly competition. Anyway, I owed it to Leto. And to the people of Ytrisk. He’ll be a good king. He promised me that his first official action as king would be to revoke the proclamation of exile against the Witch…that is, against his grandmother, Anna.”
“You’ve done something remarkable, Boric,” said Milah. “You’ve opened up the possibility of a bright new future for the Land of Dis.”
Boric peered into the glow on the horizon. “Too bright for me, I’m afraid.”
“We’ll find a cure, Boric. A way to break the enchantment.”
Boric shook his head. “I’ve already found the cure,” he said.
“What? How?”
Boric turned to face her. “Your husband, Brand, he’s not a bad guy,” said Boric. “But he needs to be careful, or he’s going to turn into the very thing he hates. You need to watch him, make sure he does the right thing.”
“I’m not following you, Boric.”
“He wanted to slaughter all those people, Milah. After going on about how there were better ways to solve problems than violence, he wanted nothing more than to obliterate any threat to his regime. And frankly, I kind of wanted to kill them all too. I only stopped him because it seemed counterproductive. And cowardly.”
“So Boric the Implacable has become a believer in peace?” Milah teased.
“I’m not sure I’m a believer in much of anything anymore. I’ve just become a lot less enthusiastic about killing things.”
“Disenchanted,” said Milah.
“Yeah,” said Boric, stepping toward the half wall separating him from the abyss below. “I need you to give Brand a message for me,” he said.
“Of course,” replied Milah. “But why don’t you just…”
“Tell him that the sword isn’t holding onto him. He is holding onto the sword.”
With that, Boric drew Brakslaagt one last time. He held it for a moment over the wall and then released his grip. The sword fell from his hand and disappeared into the abyss. Boric turned away as the first rays of the sun shot across the eastern sky.
“Good-bye, Milah,” he said, and fell to the stone floor, dead.
Boric never felt his body strike the stone floor, but he did hear the distant beating of wings: Viriana the Eytrith had returned on her faithful steed Bubbles the wyndbahr. Boric got to his feet, ignoring Milah sobbing over his inanimate corpse, and walked to meet Bubbles as he alighted on the balcony.
“Hey there, boy,” said Boric, rubbing the giant animal under its chin. “Good to see you.” Bubbles licked Boric’s face excitedly.
Viriana slid off the wyndbahr’s back.
“Good to see you too,” said Boric to Viriana. He was struck again by her beauty; she was, in her own way, as beautiful as Milah had been twenty years earlier. And Viriana’s blond tresses always had that fetching windblown look, like she had just gotten off the back of a wyndbahr. He continued, “I’m a little surprised you bothered to come back. I imagine I’ve slipped a few notches in the rankings, what with sparing the lives of prisoners, letting the Six Armies escape, and throwing away my sword. I guess I’m just not cut out to drink mead with the likes of Hollick the Goblin-Slayer.”
“No, I suppose not,” she said.
“So where are you taking me? Not the Hall of Avandoor, surely. Some afterlife equivalent of the little kids’ table?”
Viriana laughed. “Boric, let me explain something to you about the Halls of Avandoor. You’re familiar with Grovlik and Magartha, right?”
“Of course,” said Boric. “Grovlik is the great father-god who created the land of Dis. Magartha is his wife, goddess of living things.”
“And what do you know of Kirilan?”
“The land of the dead? As much as anyone, I suppose. It is said to be a dark, shadowy land where the spirits of the dead roam aimlessly forever. Except for the greatest warriors, who are allowed to partake in the eternal feast in Avandoor.”
“Yeah, not exactly,” said Viriana. “I’ll tell you the real story.” She began:
“Grovlik created Dis, and Magartha filled it with living creatures. But shortly after she filled Dis with life, Magartha’s creations began to die. This didn’t particularly bother Grovlik; he pointed out that new creatures were being born all the time to replace the ones that died. He figured that everything balanced out. But Magartha was saddened by death — particularly the death of human beings, who had such short lifespans to begin with. She created a new land, an even better land than Dis, called Kirilan, where the spirits of those who died could go after death. Some people — murderers and other scum — she didn’t bother to resurrect, but anyone who had tried to live a good life was transported to Kirilan to be given another chance at happiness.
“But soon Magartha faced a problem: Kirilan was a bountiful land, where there was plenty for everyone. There was no need for warfare or fighting. So what to do with all the warriors who had died bravely in combat, men who were basically good-hearted but whose lives had been devoted to fighting and killing? Such men weren’t content with a quiet life of gardening or fishing. Not only that, but they threatened to disrupt the idyllic existence of the other residents of Kirilan with their brawling and carousing.
“So Magartha in her wisdom built a great fortress on an island in the middle of the Kirilan Sea. The whole fortress was one gigantic banquet hall filled with the most wonderful food and drink imaginable. She filled the hall with all the great warriors who lived in Kirilan, telling them she was treating them to a feast in honor of their bravery and skill. As more great warriors died, she sent them to the banquet hall as well, and soon it was the most amazing gathering of warriors anyone had ever known. They regaled each other with their stories, each one attempting to outdo the last. The food and drink never gave out, so the banquet just went on and on. It’s been going on now for over a thousand years.”
“So all this time,” Boric started, “I’ve been trying to get into…”
“A prison, yes,” answered Viriana. “Avandoor is an ancient word meaning something like asylum. Don’t get me wrong, the food really is first rate. And I suppose they have a good time, in their own way. Most of them probably never even think about trying to escape. And that’s a good thing, because there
is
no escape. Even if they could get outside the castle, they’re in the middle of a vast ocean, hundreds of miles from the nearest land.”
“But how can they just keep eating and drinking forever, without ever, you know…”
“People exist in only in spiritual form on Kirilan,” answered Viriana. “You don’t have the same physical compulsions as you do here on Dis. Nor are there the same consequences. One can eat and drink constantly for years without ever getting completely full — or suffering a hangover. And before you ask: no, there are no women in Avandoor.”
“None?” asked Boric. “What of the women warriors of legend, such as Iliana the Huntress?”
“Oh, there are female warriors,” replied Viriana. “But women fight out of necessity, not bloodlust. They don’t find it difficult to adapt to a peaceful life on Kirilan.”
“Wow,” said Boric, trying to take in all this new information. For his part, he had had enough fighting and killing. Sitting next to Hollick the Goblin-Slayer for all eternity now sounded like the worst punishment he could imagine. He wouldn’t mind spending a few hundred years with Viriana, though.
“So then,” Boric started, “if people don’t have the same sort of compulsions on Kirilan, then I suppose they don’t, you know…”
“Oh, we do,” Viriana replied, smiling coyly. “Just not as a matter of compulsion. It’s more like pure recreation.”
“Oh,” said Boric. Kirilan was sounding better by the minute. “So I, um…that is, do you have plans for dinner?”
“It depends,” said Viriana. “Do you actually like mead?”
“Of course not,” said Boric. “Horrible stuff.”
“Good,” replied Viriana. “Get on the wyndbahr, Boric. We’re going for a ride.”
With thanks to Joel Bezaire, Colleen Diamond, Nicklaus Louis, Medeia Sharif, Michele Smith, Charity VanDeberg, and my lovely wife, Julia, for their support, comments, corrections, and suggestions.
Robert Kroese’s sense of irony was honed growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan — home of the Amway Corporation and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, and the first city in the United States to fluoridate its water supply. In the second grade he wrote his first novel — the saga of Captain Bill and his spaceship, Thee Eagle. This turned out to be the high point of his academic career. After barely graduating from Calvin College in 1992 with a philosophy degree, he was fired from a variety of jobs before moving to California, where he stumbled into software development. As this job required neither punctuality nor a sense of direction, he excelled at it. In 2009 he called upon his extensive knowledge of useless information and love of explosions to write his first novel,
Mercury Falls
.
Disenchanted
was originally published as a Kindle Serial in November 2012.
This book was originally released in episodes as a Kindle Serial. Kindle Serials launched in 2012 as a new way to experience serialized books. Kindle Serials allow readers to enjoy the story as the author creates it, purchasing once and receiving all existing episodes immediately, followed by future episodes as they are published. To find out more about Kindle Serials and to see the current selection of Serials titles, visit
www.amazon.com/kindleserials
.
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