The Winter of the Witch Page 11

  Now Vasya was listening closely. This was her own history, laid out casually by a lake-spirit in a country far away. Her grandmother’s name had been Tamara. Her grandmother had come from a distant land, riding a marvelous horse.

  “The sorcerer took the golden mare and left the lands by the lake,” continued the bagiennik. “Tamara rode after him, weeping, swearing to recover the mare, swearing that she loved him in the same breath. But she never came back, and neither did the sorcerer. He made himself master of a great swath of the lands of men. No one ever knew what happened to Tamara. The old woman, in grief, shut and guarded every road to this place except the road through Midnight.”

  There were a hundred questions darting through her head. Her tongue snatched up the first. “What happened to the other horses?” Vasya asked. “I saw a few of them last night and they were wild.”

  The water-spirit swam in silence awhile; she did not think he would answer. Then the bagiennik said, his voice deep and savage, “The ones you saw are all that remain now. The sorcerer slew all that strayed away from the lake. Occasionally he caught a foal, but they never lasted long—they died or they escaped.”

  “Mother of God,” Vasya whispered. “How? Why?”

  “They are the most marvelous things in all the world, the horses of this land. The sorcerer couldn’t ride them. He couldn’t tame them or use them. So he killed them.” Almost too low to hear, the bagiennik added, “The ones that were left—the old woman kept them here, safe. But she is gone now, and there are fewer every year. The world has lost its wonder.”

  Vasya didn’t speak. Her memory was a welter of flame, and Solovey’s lifeblood.

  “Where did they come from?” she whispered. “The horses.”

  “Who knows? The earth brought them forth; their very natures are magic. Of course men and chyerti want to tame them. Some of the horses take riders willingly,” added the bagiennik. “The swan, the dove, the owl, and the raven. And the nightingale—”

  “I know what happened to the nightingale.” Vasya could barely say it. “He was my friend and he is dead.”

  “The horses do not choose unwisely,” said the bagiennik.

  Vasya said nothing at all.

  After a long silence, lifting her head, she asked, “Can you tell me where the Bear has imprisoned the winter-king?”

  “Beyond recall; long ago and far away and deep in the dark that does not change,” said the water-spirit. “Do you think the Bear would risk his twin winning free now?”

  “No,” said Vasya. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t.” Suddenly she felt unutterably tired; the world was huge and strange and maddening; nothing seemed real. She neither knew what to do nor how to do it. She laid her head on the chyert’s warm back and did not speak again.

  * * *

  SHE DIDN’T NOTICE THE LIGHT change until she heard the murmur of water on pebbled cove.

  In the time they’d been swimming, the sun had tilted west, cold and yellow-green. She was in summer twilight on the cusp of night. The golden day was gone, as though the lake itself had swallowed it. Vasya rolled with a splash into the shallows and stumbled onto the shore. The shadows of the trees stretched long and gray toward the water; her clothes were a cold heap in the shade.

  The bagiennik was only a smudge of darkness, half-submerged in the lake. Vasya rounded on him in sudden fear. “What happened to the day?” She saw the bagiennik’s eyes beneath the water, shining rows of teeth. “Did you bring me into twilight on purpose? Why?”

  “Because you killed the sorcerer. Because you did not let me kill you. Because word has gone out among the chyerti and we are all curious.” The bagiennik’s answer floated, disembodied, out of the shadows. “I advise you to make a fire. We will be watching.”

  “Why?” Vasya demanded again, but the bagiennik had already sunk beneath the water and disappeared.

  The girl stood still, furious, trying to ignore her fear. The day was rushing down around her as though the forest itself was determined to catch her at nightfall. Used to her own unthinking endurance, she now had to contend with the weakness of her battered flesh. She was half a day’s walking from the house by the oak-tree.

  The season will turn, the domovaya had said. What did that mean? Could she risk it? Should she? She looked up at the gathering dark, and knew she couldn’t make it back before nightfall.

  Stay then, she decided. And she would take the bagiennik’s poisonous advice, and use the last of the light to gather firewood. Whatever dangers haunted this place, better to meet them with a good fire, and a full belly.

  She set about gathering firewood, angry at her own credulity. The forest of Lesnaya Zemlya had been kind to her, and that trust was still there, though this place had no cause for kindness. A brilliant sunset reddened the water; the wind whistled through the pines. The lake was perfectly still, golden with sunset.

  Ded Grib reappeared as she was chopping up a deadfall. “Don’t you know you mustn’t pass the night beside the lake in a new season?” he asked. “Or you will never get the old season back. If you go back to the house by the oak-tree tomorrow, it will be summer and no spring at all for you.”

  “The bagiennik kept me in the lake,” Vasya said grimly. The girl was recalling white, sparkling days in Morozko’s house in the fir-grove. You will return on the same night you left, he had told her. She had, even though she spent days—weeks—in his house. She had. And now—would the moon wax and wane in the wider world, while she passed a single night in this summer country? If you could spend a day in the lake in minutes, then what else was possible? The thought frightened her, as even the bagiennik’s threats had not. The patterns of day and dark, summer and winter, were as much a part of her as her own breath. Was there no pattern here at all?

  “I didn’t think you’d come out of the lake at all,” the chyert confided. “I knew the great ones were planning something for you. Besides, the bagiennik hates people.”

  Vasya had an armful of firewood; she flung it down in fury. “You might have told me!”

  “Why?” asked Ded Grib. “I can’t interfere with the great ones’ plans. Besides, you let one of the horses die, didn’t you? Maybe it would have been justice, if the bagiennik had killed you, for he loves them.”

  “Justice?” she demanded. All the rage and guilt and trapped helplessness of the last few days seemed to spill out. “Have I not had enough justice these last days? I only came here for food; I have done nothing to you, nothing to your forest. And still you—all of you—”

  Words failed her. In bitter anger, she seized a stick and flung it down on the head of the little mushroom.

  She wasn’t prepared for his reaction. The cloudy flesh of his head and shoulder sheared away. The chyert crumpled with a shriek of pain, and Vasya was left standing, appalled, while Ded Grib went bloodlessly from white to gray to brown. Like a mushroom kicked over by a careless child.

  “No,” said Vasya in horror. “No, I didn’t mean it.” Without thinking she knelt, put her hand on his head. “I am sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I am sorry.”

  He stopped turning gray. She realized she was crying. She hadn’t realized how deep the last days’ violence had gone inside her, hadn’t realized that it was still inside her, coiled up, ready to lash out in terror and rage. “Forgive me,” she said.

  The chyert blinked his red eyes. He breathed. He was not dying. He looked more real than he had a moment ago. His broken body had knitted itself.

  “Why did you do that?” asked the mushroom.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Vasya. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I never meant to hurt anyone.” She was shaking in every limb. “But you’re right. I did—I did…”

  “You—” The mushroom was examining his cloudy-gray arm with puzzlement. “You gave me your tears.”

  Vasya shook
her head, struggling to speak. “For my horse,” she managed. “For my sister. Even for Morozko.” She scrubbed at her eyes, tried to smile. “A little for you.”

  Ded Grib stared at her solemnly. In silence, Vasya struggled to her feet and set about preparing for the night.

  * * *

  SHE WAS ARRANGING FIREWOOD on a bare patch of ground, when the mushroom-spirit spoke again, half-hidden in a leaf-pile. “For Morozko, you said. Are you looking for the winter-king?”

  “Yes,” said Vasya at once. “I am. If you don’t know where he is, do you know who might?” The Bear’s words—his freedom for your life—beat at the back of her skull. Why had he done it? Why? And a deeper memory still, Morozko’s voice saying, As I could, I—

  Her firewood was stacked in a neat open square, with kindling laid between the bigger branches. As she spoke, she was arranging pine-needles for tinder.

  “Midnight knows,” said Ded Grib. “Her realm touches every midnight that ever was. But I doubt she’ll tell you. As to who else might know—” Ded Grib paused, obviously thinking hard.

  “Are you helping me?” Vasya asked in surprise. She sat back on her heels.

  Ded Grib said, “You gave me tears and a flower. I will follow you, and not the Bear. I am first.” He puffed out his chest.

  “First to what?”

  “To take your side.”

  “My side in what?” asked Vasya.

  “What do you think?” replied Ded Grib. “You denied both the winter-king and his brother, didn’t you? You made yourself a third power in their war.” He frowned. “Or are you going to find the winter-king to join his side?”

  “I am not sure what difference it makes,” said Vasya. “All these questions of sides. I want to find the winter-king because I need his help.” That was not the entire reason, but she was not about to explain the rest of it to the mushroom-spirit.

  Ded Grib waved this away. “Well, even if he does join your side, I will always have been first.”

  Vasya frowned at her unlit fire. “If you don’t know how to find the winter-king, then how do you mean to help me?” she asked cautiously.

  Ded Grib reflected. “I know all about mushrooms. I can make them grow, too.”

  This pleased Vasya inordinately. “I love mushrooms,” she said. “Can you find me any lisichki?”

  If Ded Grib answered, it went unheard, for the next moment she drew a sharp breath, and let her soul fill with the searing memory of fire. Her pile of sticks burst into flame. She added twigs with satisfaction.

  Ded Grib’s mouth fell open. All around, a whispering rose, as if the trees were speaking to one another. “You should be careful,” said Ded Grib, when he could speak.

  “Why?” said Vasya, still pleased with herself.

  “Magic makes people mad,” said the mushroom. “You change reality so much you forget what is real. But perhaps a few more chyerti will follow you after all.”

  As though to punctuate his words, two fish flopped out of the lake and lay gasping, red-silver in the light of Vasya’s campfire.

  “Follow me where?” Vasya demanded in some exasperation, but she did go and take the fish. “Thank you,” she added grudgingly in the direction of the water. If the bagiennik heard, he didn’t answer, but she didn’t think he’d gone away. He was waiting.

  For what, she didn’t know.

  12.

  Bargaining

  VASYA GUTTED THE FISH AND wrapped them in clay to roast in the coals of her fire. Ded Grib, true to his word, scampered off and brought her handfuls of mushrooms. Unfortunately, not only did he not know which were lisichki, he didn’t know which were edible. Vasya had to pick through alarming handfuls of toadstools. But the good ones she stuffed into her fish, along with herbs and wild onion, and when they were done, she burned her fingers eating them.

  A full stomach was pleasant, but the night itself was not. The wind blew sharp off the lake, and Vasya could not shake the sense of being watched, of being measured by eyes she could not see. She felt like a girl hurled unwary into a tale she didn’t understand, with folk all around waiting for her to take up a part she didn’t know. Solovey’s absence was a gnawing misery that did not ease.

  Eventually Vasya fell into a chilly doze, but even sleep was no respite. She dreamed of fists and enraged faces, of shouting for her horse to run. But instead he turned into a nightingale, and a man with a bow and arrow shot him out of the sky. Vasya jerked awake with her horse’s name on her lips, and heard somewhere in the darkness the thud of uneven hoofbeats.

  * * *

  SHE HAULED HERSELF UPRIGHT, stood barefoot in the cool summer bracken, painfully stiff. Her fire was down to a few red-edged coals. The moon hung low on the horizon. A light was coming through the trees. She thought of men with torches, and her first instinct was to flee.

  But it wasn’t torches, she realized, squinting. It was the golden mare, alone. Her glow from the night before had dimmed; she was stumbling on a bad foreleg, her breast spattered with foam. Vasya thought she heard whispers in the wood beyond the horse. A foul smell gusted on the wind.

  Swiftly, Vasya threw wood onto her little campfire. “Here,” she called.

  The mare tried to run, tripped over nothing, turned her steps to Vasya. Her head hung low. In the newborn firelight, a gash in her foreleg was clearly visible.

  Vasya picked up her ax and a flaming log. She couldn’t see what pursued the mare, though the smell of it thickened all around them, rotten-ripe, like carrion in the heat. Holding her pitiful weapons, she backed toward the water. Vasya had no love for the living spark that ignited Moscow. But—she had failed her own horse. She would not fail this one. “This way,” she said.

  The mare had no words in reply, nothing but terror, communicated with her whole body. Still she came toward Vasya.

  “Ded Grib,” Vasya called.

  A patch of mushrooms, glowing sickly green in the darkness, quivered. “You had better survive this. What good will my being first be, otherwise? Everyone is watching.”

  “What—?”

  But if he answered she did not hear, for the Bear stepped softly out of the trees, into the moonlight beside the water.

  * * *

  IN MOSCOW, HE HAD looked like a man. He still did, but it was a man with sharp teeth, and wildness in his single eye; she could see the beast in him stretching out like a shadow at his back. He seemed stranger, older: at home in this impossible forest.

  “I suppose this is why the bagiennik wanted me to spend the night in the forest,” she said, standing tense. Hoarse, snarling breaths sounded from the undergrowth. “He did want me dead, after all.”

  The unscarred corner of the Bear’s mouth curled. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Stop puffing up like a cat. I didn’t come to kill you.”

  The burning log had begun to scorch her hand. She flung it onto the ground in between them. “Hunting the firebird then?”

  “Not even that. But my creatures will have their sport.” He hissed at the mare, grinning, and she shied back, her hind feet in the water.

  “Leave her be!” Vasya snapped.

  “Very well,” said the Bear, unexpectedly. He seated himself on a log beside her fire. “Won’t you sit with me?”

  She didn’t move. His dog-teeth gleamed sharp and white in the gloom when he smiled. “Truly, I do not desire your life, Vasilisa Petrovna.” He opened his empty hands. “I wish to make you an offer.”

  That surprised her. “You have already offered me my life. I didn’t take it; I saved myself. Why would I take anything less from you?”

  The Bear did not answer directly. Instead, he looked up at the tree-fringed starlight, breathed deep of the summer night. She could see the stars reflected in his eye, as though he were drinking the sky after long darkness. She did not want to understand that joy. “I passed uncounted lives of men bound to a cl
earing at the edge of my brother’s lands,” said the Bear. “Do you think he was a good steward of the world while I slept?”

  “At least Morozko did not leave destruction in his wake,” said Vasya. Beside her the mare was bleeding into the water. “What have you been doing in Moscow?”

  “Amusing myself,” said the Bear matter-of-factly. “My brother did the same once, although he likes to play the saint now. Once we were more alike. We are twins, after all.”

  “If you are trying to make me trust you, it isn’t working.”

  “But—” the Bear went on. “My brother thinks that men and chyerti can share this world. These same men that are spreading like sickness, rattling their church-bells, forgetting us. My brother is a fool. If men are unchecked, one day there will be no chyerti, no road through Midnight, no wonder in the world at all.”

  Vasya did not wish to understand why the Bear raised his eyes in wonder to the night sky, and she did not want to agree with him now. But it was true. All over Rus’, chyerti were faint as smoke. They guarded their waters and woods and households with hands that did not grasp, with minds that barely remembered. She said nothing.

  “Men fear what they do not understand,” murmured the Bear. “They hurt you. They beat you, spat on you, put you in the fire. Men will suck all the wildness out of the world, until there is no place for a witch-girl to hide. They will burn you and all your kind.” It was her deepest and most wretched fear. He must know that. “But it doesn’t have to be so,” the Bear continued. “We can save the chyerti, save the land between noon and midnight.”

  “Can we?” asked Vasya. Her voice was not quite steady. “How?”

  “Come with me to Moscow.” He was on his feet again, the unscarred half of his face ruddy in the firelight. “Help me throw down the bell-towers, break the grip of the princes. Be my ally and you will have vengeance on your enemies. No one will dare scorn you again.”