“Amazing,” Ivan whispered from her side. Even Håkon had come closer and seemed more relaxed. The Nightingale had a name—Alfhercht—and a voice. And, if Anya wasn’t imagining things, even the beginnings of a tiny smile trying to unfurl on his lips.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The four of them stood in a circle, passing the notebook back and forth as they each took a turn conversing. Anya began, with the question that had been eating her up since the night before: Why are you here?
Alfhercht wrote: My brother.
She inhaled sharply. There were two of them. Two elves. Was Alfhercht’s brother as powerful as he was?
Alfhercht continued writing: The tsar holds him prisoner. For two years. I can’t leave him. The tsar won’t give him back. The tsar wants me prisoner too. I can’t get my brother out. His hand trembled as he finished writing.
Anya glanced between her two friends. Håkon frowned, his forehead creased. Ivan’s eyes were still bright. The tsar held Alfhercht’s brother prisoner and wanted Alfhercht as a prisoner too. Why? What had the elves done?
Ivan held out his hand for the pencil. Then he wrote: If we get your brother out, will you leave?
Anya put her hand on Ivan’s, covering his question to Alfhercht. “What about Vasilisa? She said she’d get my papa, but only if we brought the Nightingale alive.”
Ivan glanced at Alfhercht. “So we should . . . take him to prison?”
“No,” Håkon snapped. “Do you remember what Lena told me? She said, ‘They need your help.’ It’s the elves. It’s got to be.”
“Maybe.” Anya frowned. “We should talk to Vasilisa. Tell her the Nightingale just wants to take his brother and go home.”
Håkon said, “Do you think she’d care?”
“If she wants the road to be safe, she should care,” Anya said. “Whether he’s imprisoned or goes back home, it’s the same result. The road is safe.”
“I don’t think she’d care,” Håkon mumbled. “She wants to punish him, not solve a problem. She wouldn’t let him go.”
Ivan held the notebook up so Alfhercht could see his question.
Alfhercht didn’t need to write his response. He nodded emphatically and then began to whip his hands through the air, talking, almost frantic.
Anya put her own hands up, palms out and still, signaling for him to stop. She shook her head. “We don’t know what you’re saying.”
Alfhercht huffed, performed a few more gestures, and then snatched the pencil from Ivan. I want to go home.
Håkon wrote next: So do we. Then: Do you know where your brother is?
Alfhercht nodded. Dungeon. A special one underneath the city.
Ivan frowned. If you know where he is, why haven’t you gotten him out?
Alfhercht’s eyes hardened, and he bit his lip. He wrote with short, stabby strokes: Monster. He underlined the word and tapped hard on it with one finger.
Anya gulped. There’s a monster?
He nodded and underlined the word again.
“How does he know there’s a monster?” Ivan asked. “Has he been there?”
Alfhercht watched Ivan with a deepening frown. He reached a hand up and grabbed a thread, flicking his wrist up and throwing monster back in Ivan’s face. Then he snatched the pen and scribbled: I was a prisoner before. I escaped. My brother was hurt. Not fast enough.
Anya looked between Ivan and Håkon. All Alfhercht wanted was to take his brother out of the prison and go home. They could help him do that, and free the city from his attacks.
Papa would have told her that was a good plan. You should always do what you can to help those weaker than you.
But Alfhercht wasn’t weaker than she was. He could do magic she couldn’t even dream of. He was bigger than she was, too. Even without magic, he was stronger.
She could see Papa in her mind, wagging a finger at her. That’s not what strength and weakness are.
If Anya set two elves loose—two elves that the tsar wanted kept alive in his dungeons—would Vasilisa leave Papa in Rûm? Would she put Anya in prison instead? What would happen to Ivan and Håkon? Did Vasilisa want the Nightingale’s threat to be gone, or did she just want to deliver what her father had asked for? Would the tsar be happy that his subjects could use the road safely?
Alive. Like the dragons.
Had the dragons been in a special dungeon too?
Had they been guarded by a monster?
Papa’s voice in her head warmed her. Do what you know is right, Annushka.
She knew what was right.
We’ll help you, she wrote. We’ll get your brother out. You can go home.
Alfhercht didn’t smile with his face, but something about his countenance changed. He traced one finger over the last word, home, and he nodded.
* * *
Ivan, Anya, and Håkon waited at the bottom of the tree. Alfhercht had let them out after they had agreed that he couldn’t go into the castle looking like a feral, forest-dwelling highwayman. He was inside the tree, loudly rummaging through boxes and bags of things he’d collected over the months of robbing people. Anya, Ivan, and Håkon had already rummaged. They’d found the bags Anya had dropped when Alfhercht had attacked them, but those didn’t have much in them that would help against a monster. They took away some small weapons—a dagger for each of them—and some long votola cloaks that Alfhercht wordlessly insisted they take.
They had all been standing in tense silence, thinking. Anya didn’t know what Ivan and Håkon were thinking about, but she definitely couldn’t stop wondering what exactly awaited them in the secret prison. She shifted from foot to foot. “What kind of monster do you think it is?”
“Under the tsar’s castle?” Ivan asked. “I don’t entirely believe there is one. I mean . . . the tsar’s spent years and years hunting down all the magical creatures in Kievan Rus’ and either killing them or driving them out. A monster sounds like it would be a magical creature. Why would he have one in his own castle?”
“Maybe it’s a dragon,” Håkon said. “And Alfhercht calls it a monster because he doesn’t know any better. If it is, we’re going to set it free.” His voice was tinged with the barest trace of hope.
“Regardless,” Anya said, “we’re going to help him get his brother out of there, and send them home.”
Ivan and Håkon nodded, then Ivan said, “The princess said she wanted the Nightingale brought to her alive, and then she’d bring your papa back.”
“I know,” Anya said softly.
“Do you think she’ll still do that if you just let him disappear?” Ivan asked.
“I don’t know,” Anya mumbled, trying her best not to look at Håkon. “But it doesn’t matter. And yes, Håkon, if there’s a dragon, we’re definitely setting it free.”
Håkon smiled to himself as the tree opened up and Alfhercht stepped out.
Anya almost didn’t recognize him.
He had replaced his torn, dirty clothes with some that, although worn, were clean and without gaping holes. The rubakha was simple linen, dyed blue, with a black belt around his waist. His trousers were dark brown, jammed into brown boots. A fur-trimmed cap obscured the crazy haircut he sported, and he had washed the dirt and paint off his face.
“You look . . .” Anya struggled to find a word that aptly described him now.
Håkon said it before she could. “Human.”
Alfhercht looked down at himself, appraising the outfit he’d put on, and shrugged.
At that moment, Anya realized Ivan was no longer standing next to her. She turned and looked around for him. He was nowhere. She was about to ask Håkon if he knew where Ivan had gone, and then she saw movement in the trees a distance off. Ivan peered out from behind one, his brown skin blazing red, even from Anya’s distance. He had pulled his cap down almost entirely over his eyes.
Anya looked back at Alfhercht. Then at Ivan. To Alfhercht again. And she groaned loudly. “Not now, Ivan!”
Ivan ducked back behind the tree, th
en popped out with a fake-confident swagger.
“Not what?” he asked, voice shaky. “Oh, Anya.” He laughed. “You’re so. You’re just a. Person. You know. Hey! Alfhercht! Your boots are. Boots.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “The dungeon? Off we go!” He marched north.
Alfhercht and Håkon both looked floored, as is appropriate when your friend hides behind a tree and starts spouting gibberish. Alfhercht pointed south of Kiev, eyebrow raised, and Håkon followed him through the forest.
Anya called, “Ivan, this way!”
“I knew that!” Ivan yelled, running past her, following Alfhercht far enough away that, Anya suspected, he was sure Alfhercht couldn’t smell him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They followed Alfhercht through the woods without speaking, Ivan trailing behind the group by at least twenty feet. At one point, Alfhercht stopped and turned back to look at the group following him, and he stared at Ivan with a puzzled expression on his face. When he moved his hand to speak—one hand palm-up, with a perplexed shrug to his shoulders—it was obvious what the meaning was: What are you doing?
Anya answered for Ivan. “He’s a fool.”
Alfhercht let his hand drop and sighed, then pointed in the direction he had been heading. Then he pinched his fingers almost together.
Almost there. Anya was pretty sure that’s what he meant. She swallowed hard.
The elf continued walking, and Håkon came abreast of Anya. “I wish I were a dragon again,” he muttered.
“Me too,” Anya said. “I mean, you’re fine like this. I’m just glad you’re here at all.”
He nodded toward Alfhercht. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“Yes.” Anya looked down at her hands. “Why else would he want us to go into the dungeon with him?”
“I don’t know,” Håkon said. “I just have a bad feeling about all this. Something’s going on that we don’t know about.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Håkon nodded at Alfhercht. “The tsar kept Alfhercht and his brother in there for two years. Alive. Do you think . . . maybe the other dragons are still alive too?”
Anya said softly, “I don’t know.”
“Maybe,” Håkon said softly. “Lena said I’m the last, but maybe she just meant the last free dragon. I could find them. Let them out.”
He looked hopeful. Anya touched the key through her dress. Maybe that was what the key was for. Freeing the other dragons. Or whatever other magical creatures the tsar had stashed in his secret dungeon. She thought of her domovoi. How far did the tsar’s crusade against magic go? Would he wipe out the creatures of the fields and forests, and then come for the creatures of their home? What would happen to Kievan Rus’ as a nation if only the tsar and his henchmen could use magic?
Alfhercht looked back and put a finger over his lips, shushing them. Anya scowled. They hadn’t been talking loudly. But he must have been able to see sound threads coming from them anyway. He pointed up to their left, where the towers of Kiev’s walls were just visible past the trees. Anya pressed her lips together, realizing his shushing was a warning. A guard on the wall would hear them if they were too loud, so she heeded Alfhercht and didn’t say anything.
They stayed off the roads and followed the city wall south and then east. Alfhercht stopped every now and then to look around for a second, and then started walking again. He never cocked his head like he was listening; he always looked instead.
Anya thought of Babulya. She couldn’t see anything, threads included. Could she hear the threads instead? Or feel them better than other people? Anya hadn’t ever thought about it before. When she got home, she’d have to ask.
They went far enough east to leave the city walls behind, and then Alfhercht went north. He moved through the forest without making a sound. His skin shifted colors and shades, dappled in the autumn light filtering through the trees, and sometimes he matched the trees around him so well that it looked like he was made of bark. If he hadn’t been wearing human clothing, Anya suspected he would be nearly impossible to see. As he was, sometimes he looked like a bunch of clothing floating through the forest. Then he’d stop and turn back to them, and his skin would change so she could see him easily.
The forest ended abruptly at the bottom of a cliff. At the top stood the city’s wall. Alfhercht led them around, still hidden in the shelter of the trees, until the Dnieper thrashed ahead of them. In the side of the cliff was a cavern, mouth gaping open like a snoring beast.
Alfhercht pointed at the cavern, eyebrows up.
“In there?” Anya said softly.
Alfhercht nodded.
Anya heard Ivan approach carefully behind her. He said, “Does he want us to go in there?”
“Yep,” Anya said.
Ivan let out a slow breath. “To fight a cave monster.”
“I like caves,” Håkon said.
“We’re not all drag—” Ivan glanced at Alfhercht, even though the elf wasn’t looking at him. Still, what would he think if he knew Håkon was a dragon in disguise? Ivan amended his comment. “We’re not all what you are.” He took a deep breath. “Well, unto our fates we go, right?”
Before Ivan could march out of the trees, something moved at the cavern’s mouth. The four of them scrambled for cover, each taking shelter behind a different tree or bush, as two men walked into the forest.
Ilya and Alyosha spoke as they emerged from the cave.
“Those are some nice caves, Ilya,” Alyosha said.
Ilya beamed. “Aren’t they? Tsar Kazimir is working with me to turn them into a monastery. That way, we can provide a place for study and prayer, away from the business of the city.”
Alyosha said, “But it’s under the city.”
Ilya ignored the younger bogatyr’s jab. “Someday.”
Alyosha laughed. “Someday, when you’re done battling evil?”
“I think I’ll be done soon,” Ilya said. “You’re young. You’ve got so much time ahead of you for more adventures. But I’m old. I’m tired. I want to settle down.”
“Like Dobrynya?”
“No,” Ilya said. “Though Dobrynya is no young man either, he’s been at the tsar’s side since he was a boy. He’ll be there until there’s no side to be at, I think. But I want no adventure. No obligation to the castle or to Kiev. I just want to read until I’m too old to see.” He laughed. “I’ll get better at reading, hopefully.”
Alyosha nodded, plucking at his sleeve. “I’ll settle down soon.”
“And you sound so happy about it.”
Anya wrinkled her nose. Alyosha didn’t sound happy at all. He sounded more like he was talking about a prison sentence.
He sighed. “She hates me. I don’t even know why.”
Ilya laughed. It boomed through the forest, echoing away. “You don’t? I do!”
“Well,” Alyosha snapped, “aren’t you so wise?”
“No!” Ilya continued laughing. “I don’t need to be wise to know the princess doesn’t want to be married at all. It’s not you. It’s anyone.” He paused. “Well, it is you, some. You broke her things!”
“It was just a stupid sword!” Alyosha said. “She has a hundred others!”
“And you didn’t apologize, either,” Ilya said.
“Apologize for breaking a flimsy—”
“Yes, Alyosha.”
“She’s got to get married sometime,” Alyosha said. “What else is she going to do?”
Ilya clapped Alyosha on the back with a force that would have broken another man in half. Alyosha jerked forward but was unharmed. “She’s going to be tsarina some day, and she’s going to be great at it. That girl’s got the heart of a bear inside her.”
“Are you saying a bear should be tsar?” Alyosha said sourly.
Ilya patted Alyosha on the back again, softer, several times. A There-there pat if Anya had ever seen one. “When that bear sits on the throne of Kiev, I will gladly serve her. And you will
too.”
“I’ll be her husband.”
“Will you?” Ilya stroked his chin.
“Yes!” Alyosha walked away from Ilya.
The older bogatyr put his hands on his hips. “I think, my dear Alyosha, that if you want to win that bear’s heart, you should stop expecting it to be happy in a cage.”
Alyosha paused in his storming off, glancing back momentarily, and then he continued away. Ilya let out a soft laugh that ended in a sigh and lingered at the cavern mouth. He put a hand on the rocky lip. “He’s still young. He’ll figure it out.”
Anya waited for Ilya to leave, but he didn’t. In fact, it didn’t look like he was about to go anywhere at all. He stayed at the cavern mouth, deep in contemplation. Anya looked up. The day was getting on. It would be dark before they knew it. She didn’t want to be in a spooky, monster-guarded dungeon at all, but especially not at night.
Anya waved to Ivan to get his attention, then Håkon, and Alfhercht last. She pointed to herself and Ivan, then to Ilya. She moved her hand like it was a mouth, talking. Then she pointed to Håkon and Alfhercht. With her fingers like legs, she pantomimed sneaking.
She and Ivan would distract Ilya so Håkon and Alfhercht could sneak into the cavern. Then Anya and Ivan could go in after Ilya had gone.
Alfhercht looked unsure, and Håkon frowned. Ivan may or may not have been paying attention to her between his furtive glances at Alfhercht.
Anya scowled and stood. She grabbed Ivan’s sleeve and marched to where Ilya brushed soil off the stones around the cave mouth. She called, “Gospodin Ilya!”
He whirled, eyes wide, then confused. When he noticed them, he said, “You must be Anya!” He looked at Ivan. “Where did you find her?”
“Uh,” Ivan said. “In the woods. She was just, uh—”
“I was collecting leaves,” Anya said. “What’s this place?”
Ilya said, “Well, this is one entrance to a whole lot of caves under the city.”
“Oh wow,” Anya said. She scooted around Ilya with Ivan, positioning herself so Ilya would have to turn his back to where Håkon and Alfhercht were hiding. “All the way under the city?”
Anya and the Nightingale Page 16