Disenchanted (17 page)

NINETEEN

Boric made his way to the edge of the roof and lowered himself through a window. The library occupied six large rooms in a temple-like building. Boric understood that it was essentially a diminutive replica of the original Library of Avaress, which had been burned during the riots after the Fall. The original library had been a vast structure with dozens of rooms, each containing thousands of volumes — most of which had been lost in the fire. Many of the books in the new library had singed covers, and one entire room was filled with fragments of books that still needed to be reassembled and bound. There were desks where scribes could work, filling in gaps of books from copies, many of which had been borrowed from the libraries of the other five kingdoms. Boric himself had recently given approval for a temporary trade of some fifty volumes from the Brobdingdon Library to Avaressa. The process of recovering knowledge that had been lost in the Fall was laborious and time consuming; it had been going on since the Rise of the Six Kingdoms and, given the paltry resources dedicated to it, would probably take another hundred years. Even then, it would be incomplete: there had been only one copy of many of the books that were destroyed.

Boric spent the rest of the night poring through ancient books, looking for information on the Seven Blades of Brakboorn. It became clear in short order that he was not going to find a book entitled
Breaking the Curse of the Seven Blades of Brakboorn
. The blades were only mentioned in a handful of relatively recent volumes, and the information was scant. Most of it Boric already knew, and there was no mention of any sort of curse. This told him something, though: the blades had almost certainly been created after the Fall, after the library burned.

He next turned his inquiries toward Brand, the mysterious stranger who had given him the sword, but found nothing at all. As far as the Library of Avaress was concerned, there was no “Lord Brand,” nor any other person of any importance named Brand in the Land of Dis. So was he someone else, traveling under an assumed name? But the witch had told him that Brand was forming a seventh kingdom beyond the Wastes of Preel — and she had used that name, Brand. So if it was an assumed name, it was one that he had stuck with for twenty years.

Boric was startled by the sound of a door opening in the next room. Looking up, he saw that the first light of dawn was filtering through the windows. He hastily grabbed up all the books on the table in front of him and retreated to a dimly lit storage-room. With any luck, he could remain there undiscovered until nightfall.

He had managed to retrieve books on a great variety of topics and, having a full day to kill, he read extensively in several of them. What he found was that no matter where he started — metallurgy, history, magic — the thread eventually dead-ended in the same place: in Quanfyrr, home of the elves.

The elves, a reclusive and disagreeable people, were thought to live somewhere in the heart of the Thick Forest,
^[9]
to the east of the Dagspaal range. No one knew exactly where, because the elves rarely left the forest and humans rarely entered it — and even more rarely exited. Xenophobic and self-sufficient, the elves almost never traded with merchants from the Six Kingdoms; their only known export was evil talismans. In fact, if it weren’t for the occasional appearance of some accursed artifact of one kind or another, the powers that be in the Six Kingdoms might have dismissed elves as mythical creatures.

For the most part, elves are a flighty and impractical people who spend their time singing songs of a mythical golden age when elves ruled the land of Dis and reflecting on abstract philosophical questions,
^[10]
but occasionally some mischievous elf will get it into his head to design an evil talisman of some sort — generally a ring or sword, but sometimes a more mundane object like a shovel or pair of britches. The quasi-historical ancient myths of the Old Realm relate one instance in which the Lands of Men were nearly overrun by a great army of shit trolls commanded by a peasant who had come into possession of an accursed chamber pot. The latest instance of havoc caused by someone running amok with an evil artifact of elven design,
^[11]
occurring just before the Fall of the Old Realm, prompted King Calapus to send an envoy to the Thick Forest to impress upon the elves the importance of keeping better tabs on their “malevolent talismans.” The elves were at first quite agreeable, swearing that no evil artifacts had been unaccounted for, promising not to create any more of them, and pledging to give the king’s servants full access to the forest to see for themselves. Of course, the Thick Forest is unaccountably vast and mostly impenetrable; the king’s inspectors were completely reliant on the elves to guide them to sites where evil artifacts might conceivably be stored. The elves sent the inspectors on a merry wild-goose chase through the forest that lasted nearly a year before Calapus lost patience, recalled the inspectors, and sent an army to subdue the forest. Five years later, having accomplished nothing but the decimation of his own army and the burning of several thousand acres of forestland, Calapus declared that his point had been made and withdrew his troops. A month later Calapus was beheaded by a mob in Avaress and the Old Realm fell apart.

If anyone knew how to break the curse of the Blades of Brakboorn, it was the elves. The damned elves, thought Boric. He had always hated the elves.
Everyone
hated the elves. When he was King of Ytrisk, Boric had repeatedly tried to open lines of trade with the elves to get his hands on some of their wares — like more of the rope that he had used to kill the Ogre of Chathain, which had been a gift to his father from one of the officers who had led the assault on the Thick Forest. But the elves always spurned him, insisting that they had no need of “shoddy goods that aren’t designed to last a human lifetime, let alone an elven one.” He’d have led an invasion of the forest himself if he hadn’t been certain that it would be suicide, and a pointless suicide at that. The only thing he had returned with from that meeting was a headful of elven songs that were as catchy as they were self-aggrandizing and insipid. Even now, he could barely think of the elves without finding himself humming one of their puerile tunes. The worst of them all was the “Elven Creation Hymn,” which went:

Ten thousand years ere and ten thousand years more

The spirits of Dis began their great charge

Casting leaves to the sky and dirt on the floor

A forest to make, both wondrous and large

They filled it with birds and with rocks and with plants

And with boars and with elks and with all manner of bugs

With bees and spiders and a billion or so ants

Scurrying under moss carpets and lichenous rugs

The forest, they saw, was a fine piece of work

Having trees and shrubs and plenty of deer

Devoid of all filth and all rubbish, humans and orcs

But what race can we find who deserves to live here?

Elves, elves, we are the best

Elves, elves, forget the rest

Elves, elves, casting our spells

Elves, elves, ringing our bells

And so on. It was enough to make one want to stab oneself in the head — assuming one weren’t already a walking corpse.

Going to the elves meant heading deep into the mostly uncharted Thick Forest. But what other option did he have? He reflected that if the elves refused to help him, he could at least wreak some vengeance on them. Formidable as they were, the elves were unlikely to have any defenses against the undead, he thought. And even if they did, maybe he could at least manage to slaughter a few dozen of them with Brakboorn. The thought would have warmed his heart were it not an inert, rotting chunk of flesh.

When the sounds of footsteps and pages turning ceased outside the storage room door, Boric ventured out into the library again. The building was dark. He went down to the first floor and opened the door. The streets were empty except for a stray dog who growled menacingly at him. Boric growled back and the dog ran away, whimpering.

Boric skulked down side streets and alleys, avoiding any sign of life. Most of the citizens were in bed, but lamps still burned in some houses and shops, and city watchmen patrolled the streets in pairs. He made his way to the city wall and began to climb. Scaling the wall was arduous but not impossible; the masons hadn’t coated the inside of the wall with stucco as they had the outside: the wall was intended to keep barbarians out, not to keep the citizens inside. He was already halfway up the twenty-foot wall when he felt a pinprick in his lower back. Trying to focus on not losing his grip with his charred, skeletal right hand, he ignored it and continued climbing. The pinprick was followed by another, and another. Scowling, he turned to see a lone archer standing in the street some fifty feet away. He was stringing another arrow. Already three of them protruded from Boric’s back.

“Can you stop that?” Boric called down to the man. “I really need to concentrate here.”

The archer let loose another arrow, skewering Boric’s good hand.

“Not helping,” said Boric, waving his hand in a vain attempt to dislodge the arrow, the head of which protruded three inches from his palm.

“Just doing my job,” said the archer, stringing another arrow. “No one’s allowed to climb the wall after dark.”

“So if it was daytime, I could climb to my heart’s content?”

The archer thought for a moment. “No one’s allowed to climb the wall. If it was daytime, you’d get a warning first.” He loosed another arrow, which lodged in Boric’s left thigh.

“Can you stop that for a moment?” Boric asked. “Let’s think about this rationally. The wall is meant to keep people
out
, right? Barbarians and such?”

“Lot of strange rumors going around,” said the man. “Talk of spies and wraiths and goblin armies. Can’t take any chances.” He pulled another arrow from his quiver.

Boric decided to try another tack. “Eventually you’re going to run out of arrows, you know.”

The archer shrugged again and strung another arrow.

“And as you can see, they aren’t having much of an effect. You’re just delaying the inevitable. When you run out of arrows, I’ll finish climbing and be gone. And you’ll be out two dozen arrows. Tell me, do you have to pay for your own arrows?”

The archer hesitated.

“Because you’re not getting them back, you know. You’ll lose all your arrows and have nothing to show for it. What are you going to tell your captain? That you shot all your arrows over the wall?”

“I’ll tell him I was trying to stop a wraith from escaping the city.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you want to stop a wraith from escaping the city? Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you
want
the wraiths outside the city?”

The archer scratched his head. After a moment, he shrugged again and shot another arrow into Boric’s back.

“Tell you what,” said Boric. “If you stop shooting now, I’ll give all your arrows back when I get to the top. But if you keep shooting, you lose all the arrows.”

The archer paused to consider this. After some time he replied, “You promise you’ll give them all back?”

“On the grave of…well, on my own grave, I suppose. I haven’t been a wraith very long; I don’t really know how the oaths work. You’ll just have to trust me.”

The archer shrugged again, which Boric took as agreement. He continued his climb, even slower now because of the arrow protruding from his left hand. Finally he reached the top.

“All right, give me back my arrows,” called the archer.

With some difficulty, Boric worked the arrow free from his hand. The tapered head kept it from going backward; he had to pull it all the way through, leaving a pinky-sized hole in his palm. The arrow in his thigh was slightly easier. He threw them both down to the archer and began feeling around for the arrows in his back.

“Come on, then, I haven’t got all night,” said the archer.

“Well, you should have shot me in more accessible places!” growled Boric.

“Hello, what’s all this?” he heard another voice say. A second archer had joined the first.

“Waiting for this fellow to give me back my arrows. He swore on his own grave.”

“His own — ”

“I’m a wraith,” called Boric, trying to work an arrow out of his back. “Nice to meet you.”

The second man waved to Boric. “Why don’t you stop him?” he asked the first archer.

“I tried,” protested the first. “Arrows don’t work on the undead.”

“Nonsense,” said the second archer, and shot an arrow into Boric’s back.

“Hey!” Boric yelled. “I’m not giving that one back!”

“See?” said the first archer. “Pointless.”

“Well if that doesn’t just beat all,” said the second archer.

A third voice joined the discussion. “You two! What are you doing there? Why is that man on wall? Shoot him down at once!”

“No good, Captain,” said the second man. “Watch.” He shot another arrow into Boric’s back.

“For Grovlik’s sake,” growled Boric. “Stop that! How do you expect me to — ”

“Let me try,” said the captain, taking the first man’s bow. He shot an arrow into Boric’s back.

“Told you,” said the first archer.

“Keep shooting and I’m not giving your arrows back!” Boric shouted.

“You have to,” said the first archer, sounding aggrieved. “That was the deal.”

“No, the deal was that you stop shooting me and I give back the arrows you already shot. You can’t keep shooting me and expect to get your arrows back.”

“I didn’t shoot you; they did,” retorted the first archer. “I can’t be held responsible for every night watchman who stumbles through here with a bow.”

“It’s
your bow
!” Boric growled.

“Well, now you’re just nitpicking,” said the man.

“Look, can we agree that it’s not in anyone’s interest to keep shooting arrows into my back?” asked Boric.

The men conferred among themselves and finally came to an agreement. “No more arrows,” said the captain. “And you give back all the ones we’ve already shot.”