Robert Boyczuk - The Reality War.pdf

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The Reality War
by
Robert Boyczuk
Magic! Bertwold thought, grinding his teeth and staring at the castle
wedged neatly -- and quite impossibly -- in the heart of the pass. Nothing good
ever comes of magic! Beside him, Lumpkin, his crew chief, mined his nose
abstractly, evincing no interest whatsoever in the castle.
The two men stood at the juncture where the road turned from gravel to
dirt. All work had ceased; picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows lay in the long grass
next to the idle road crew. Behind them the paving machine huffed in a quiet
rhythm, its bellows rising and falling, as if it were a beast drifting off to sleep.
The digging and grading machines had already been shut off and lay like giant,
inanimate limbs on the road. Bertwold had fashioned them thus -- in the shapes
of human arms and legs -- to assuage the King's distrust of machines. But now
their very forms irritated Bertwold, reminding him of all the hoops he had already
had to jump through to win the Royal contract.
And now this.
Clasping his hands behind his back, Bertwold stared miserably at the
castle.
Its outer walls were fashioned of basalt, rising seamlessly from the
ground to a height of nearly ten rods. Each corner boasted a square tower
surmounted by an enormous ivory statue. Curiously, all four of the carvings
appeared to be of imperfect figures, each lacking one or more limbs. The statue
on the nearest corner was missing a head and sporting two truncated stumps
where there should have been arms. Within the castle itself, visible above the
crenellations of the walls, were apical towers of coloured emerald and ruby glass;
and between them, the tops of ovate domes that shone with the lustre of gold and
sparkled with the cool radiance of silver. Thin, attenuated threads, the colour of
flax, (walkways Bertwold reckoned, though they were empty) wound round and
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connected the buildings in an intricate pattern that was both complex and
beautiful to behold -- and, he thought with a slight degree of irritation in his
engineer's mind -- altogether impossible.
"How long has it been there?" he asked at last.
"We're not sure, boss," Lumpkin said. "It was there when we came out
this morning to start work."
"Have you sent anyone to ... " Bertwold hesitated, not sure exactly what
might be appropriate in this case. "... to, ah, ring the bell?"
"Well, no, sir. I tried to order a man to do it, but they're scared of its
magic, you see...."
Turning to Lumpkin, Bertwold tapped him on the chest with his
forefinger. "Then you go find out who lives in that thing, and what they're doing
there. You, personally. Don't send a labourer." Lumpkin opened his mouth, as if
to say something, but Bertwold cut him off. "Or I'll find someone else who's
hungry for a promotion." Lumpkin clamped his mouth shut. "In the meantime,
I'll get the men back to work. We're still at least half a league from the castle, and
there's plenty of road yet to lay. As far I know, there's nothing in the contract that
prevents your men from working in the presence of the supernatural."
Lumpkin, now a shade paler, nodded and swallowed hard. Spinning on
his heel, he stumbled away, the gravel crunching under his bootsoles.
Bertwold sighed. He had not counted on this when he had won the
King's commission to build the greatest road the land had ever seen. He looked at
the castle, imagining the pass as it had been yesterday and the day before, and
every day before for as long as men remembered, a wide, inviting V of sky that
gave onto the tablelands beyond.
Why would anyone want to drop a castle there?
Lady Miranda peered through the arrow slit. Ants , she thought, watching
as a clutch of figures emerged from a tent and scattered, busy with their
unfathomable, pointless tasks. Insects .
She looked at her right hand, then at her left, and pursed her lips.
Between the two there weren't enough fingers remaining to end this quickly.
Perhaps if she asked Poopsie....
No , she thought, he'd never agree . He was still off somewhere sulking.
It had been as much as she could do to convince him to move the castle from that
horrid swamp to where they were now, even though he'd undershot their
destination by over a hundred leagues. If she had been the one with the talent for
moving it would have been done right; but hers was transubstantiation, of little
use in such endeavours. She knew he should have offered his entire leg and not
just the shin, for the gods were capricious and not entirely to be trusted. But that
was Poopsie, always trying to cut corners, to save a finger here, a toe there, and
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ending up paying a much higher price for it in the long run. She'd wanted to warn
him, but had, with difficulty, held her tongue. Now he'd have to go an entire arm
or the other leg to unstick them if they ever wanted to leave this absurd spot.
And they must.
The mortals would never leave them alone until both she and Poopsie
had been whittled down to their trunks. Humans were ants, swarming over their
betters and bearing them down by dint of sheer numbers. Crush a hundred and a
thousand would return. Their thick-headedness was simply incomprehensible.
Like the one who had disturbed her sleep yesterday morning.
Lumphead, he had called himself. Lumphead, indeed! A thoroughly nasty, bug of
a man. Imagine, the nerve, asking her to move the castle! Never! she had
shouted, outraged at the impudence of the request, though it was the very thing
for which she wished. How dare he! Her anger rekindled for an instant as she
remembered his effrontery -- and how she had reacted instinctively, without
thinking. Then she smiled, recalling the startled look on Lumphead's face as she
had reached out and touched his nose, and broccoli had sprouted in its place.
It had been worth her little toe.
Bertwold tried hard not to stare at Lumpkin's nose.
Instead he watched his three sappers wrap burlap around the explosives
before carefully packing them on small, two-wheeled carts. Another coiled
varying lengths of fuse around his shoulder.
"Ready, sir."
Bertwold nodded at the fusilier who had addressed him. "Then let's get
on with it."
"Yes, sir!"
The men lifted the handles to their carts and began jogging along the dirt
path towards the castle, the wheels raising small clouds of dust. Ha! Bertwold
thought as he watched his men draw closer to the base of the wall, Let them
magic their way out of this!
Lady Miranda's beauty was legendary. At least in her presence.
Studying herself in the mirror, she daubed an exact amount of rouge
beneath her eyepatch. She frowned, then turned her head so that her face was in
profile, her patch blending in with the dramatic shadows and angles of her
sculpted features. She had changed into a slinky black velvet number that
matched the colour of the patch. Yes , she decided, perhaps I can use it to good
effect . The patch certainly added to her air of mystery, making her flawless skin
appear even more striking. Picking up a silver-handled brush, she began stroking
raven hair that fell to the small of her back. She smiled. Ya still got it, baby , she
thought. Then, with just a slight degree of irritation: Lord knows I might need it
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soon . She sighed. Certainly she'd been careful, very careful, to dole out her
magic in small doses over the years, saving it for only the most pressing
occasions. Her appearance had, after all, been her saving grace: it was how she'd
attracted Poopsie -- and his countless predecessors. She'd managed to remain
relatively whole while her suitors had whittled themselves down to slivers of flesh
to gain her favour. But Poopsie had reached the point where he was becoming
more and more reluctant to do so. He, along with his ardour, was thinning out.
That's what had landed them in this cursed mess in the first place.
The mirror chimed, snapping Miranda out of her reverie; its surface
shimmered like a wind-blown lake, distorting her reflection. A moment later a
pasty-faced cherub wearing a headset appeared where her reflection had formerly
been. "Ladyship," it intoned in a thin, reedy voice. "The bugs are restless." The
cherub disappeared and was replaced by a scene outside the castle. Several
figures toiled along the road, dragging wooden carts behind them. The view
narrowed, drawing in on the men. Visible, some rods behind, and exhorting the
men on loudly, was that hideous Lumpy fellow whose nose she'd transformed the
previous day; and beside him stood another man, a head taller, and broad of
shoulder. A breeze flicked his locks of golden hair restlessly in the wind.
Miranda ordered her mirror cherub to zoom in.
She sucked in a breath. He was a big fellow. A towering, bear of man,
arms locked defiantly across a barrel chest, a scowl twisting up his face. And a
striking face it was. Eyes grey as sea mist, nose long and straight, cheeks
prominent and sculpted like her own. And four perfect, fully-formed limbs.
Miranda's heart skipped a beat. Why , she wondered with no small amount of
bitterness, couldn't more immortals look like that?
"Milady, the ants draw nigh ...."
A V creased Miranda's brow; she shifted her attention back to the figures
dragging the carts. Explosives , she suddenly realized with distaste.
She expelled a sharp breath and cursed loudly. They would be at the
gates in a few minutes. It was too late to find Poopsie.
Gathering up her skirts, she dashed out of her sitting room and down the
stairs, taking them two at a time and emerging in the courtyard. She ran over to
the front gate and knelt in the dirt, her velvet gown forgotten. Placing her palm
flat on the ground, she concentrated on the two remaining fingers of her left
hand and began chanting under her breath. Almost immediately her fingers
stretched, then liquefied, soaking into the earth and transmuting the hard-packed,
washed out dirt to a lumpy beige mass centred around her palm. It glistened in
the sunlight. The transmutation grew, milk-white circles forming in pockets on its
surface. It continued to spread, now moving away from Miranda, following the
path under the gate and out towards the men trotting up the road.
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Bertwold watched the sapper slip and fall. The man tried to rise, but the
more he struggled the further he sank into the ground. He managed to drag
himself up slightly on the protruding edge of his cart, but his efforts only mired
the cart deeper. He wiped his face with the back of his arm and spat something
from his mouth. " Oatmeal! " he screamed.
"What did he say?" asked Bertwold.
"Ootmal," said Lumpkin, his voice altered since his nose had been turned
to broccoli. "The rood's ben tooned to ootmal."
"Oh," Bertwold said. "I see."
Two of the men -- along with the cart -- had already slipped beneath the
surface. Another had managed to half-swim, half-crawl to safety at the side of the
road where the ground was firmer.
Bertwold stared at the castle and ground his teeth.
A moment later there was a muffled roar. The oatmeal road exploded
upwards like a fountain; it showered down in thick droplets splattering all those
who had gathered to watch, a large lump narrowly missing Bertwold and plopping
wetly atop Lumpkin's skull.
Miranda reached the ramparts just in time to see the ensuing explosion.
She laughed aloud as the oatmeal rained down on her enemies. Chew on that,
silly mortals! she thought. Vulgar food for vulgar pests! That big one didn't seem
quite so haughty now that he was wearing a suit of oatmeal.
Miranda felt exhilarated, alive. And something else, too. A strange, yet
not wholly unpleasant, tingling. Perhaps this was just what she needed. Nothing
like a bit of a excitement to shake the dust from your bones.
She clambered onto the thick ledge of the crenel so she would be visible
to those below. Then she waved, looking directly at the big man, laughing and
knowing her laugh would be carried clearly on the tongue of the wind to those
annoyingly perfect ears ....
There was no denying she was beautiful.
Bertwold stared through his brass telescope at the infuriating women.
She sat on the parapet, brushing her hair as if nothing were amiss, acknowledging
his presence by blowing him an occasional raspberry. Cheeky impertinence! he
thought. He was angry at her -- and angry at himself for finding that damned
eyepatch so fascinating!
"Weel?"
"Well, what?" Bertwold answered irritably. He stepped back from the
telescope, and made a mental note that, at a more discreet moment, he would
suggest a thorough steaming might help Lumpkin in the preservation of his
wilting nose.
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