Invasion

by Dmitrii Mansurov

  A small thing with suction cups and dusters popped up from the base of the Central console. It spun around the axis and cleaned the floor from the water droplets thoroughly. The princess was no longer surprised. It just wasn't possible. Instead, she simply stared at the unknown animal in front of her. A little later, she realized that the animal was actually an ordinary magic duster. Maria tried to take it into her hands, but the duster moved aside and answered with a dissatisfied hum.

  "Come-come-come," the princess tried calling to it. The duster didn't react and continued to sweep the floor. "Come here! I command you!"

  The duster froze, rolled to the delighted Princess, and, unexpectedly for her, quickly slipped into the base of console. The metal flap behind it clanged down, almost hitting the princess's fingers in the process. Maria didn't like it, so she began to press all buttons in a row indignantly. She wanted the duster to come back. The remote blinked rapidly and the sirens blared from the hissing speakers, replacing the forest sounds.

  Those watching Kashchey's castle saw how misty rays flew out of the towers and spread in all directions, turning the space into tornadoes. After that, the protective forcefield appeared. It expanded, mowing down all the vegetation around the castle for a distance of two miles like a knife. The castle became crystal clear and echoing copies of it materialized here and there. Then it turned mirror-like, and the sun glares flashed throughout the forest. And when the wind blew the dust into the street, something even more unimaginable happened. The castle began to emanate the air waves that repeated its shape flawlessly, and then everything subsided at once.

  ***

  Kashchey sensed that both the dust and the wind were gone, so he opened his eyes. He realized that he should probably clean his home at least once in a thousand years. For example, only now did he see that his floors were actually made not from stone but from gold! And not just the floors. Free of dust, the ceiling turned out to be covered with amazing patterns that spread around a sparkling chandelier. They were flashing with myriads of stars before falling apart in the shapes of colored comets.

  The pile of gold collected by Kashchey over the centuries looked depressingly dull in comparison.

  "Burum, Burum," Kashchey murmured in complete confusion. Did this mean he now had to throw away his collection of coins and start gathering castles and palaces? But how to carry them?

  The castle brightened. The ceilings flared with yellow and the air became filled with the freshness following a thunderstorm since the ozone synthesizers turned themselves on automatically. The castle turned from black and white to emerald green, with golden tips decorating the roofs of the towers and the battlements. The windows acquired a brown tinge, weakening the glow of the sun and mimicking the shadows of the evening hour.

  "I thought I was dying," Kashchey muttered thoughtfully. "Turns out I haven't even lived yet."

  The stars under the ceiling were extinguished. Gradually, the walls began to shine, changing the color to purple, and the ceiling flawlessly mimicked the view of the night sky that stretched above the castle. Kashchey felt the need to immediately sit down. Otherwise, he would fall over from admiration. The abundance of other bright emotions and pride filled him to the brim, and it all stemmed from the knowledge that all this beauty belonged to him!

  Suddenly, he was struck by the strange thought that if everything went like this, no one would have to pay him. On the contrary, he would be obliged to pay the princess an astronomical sum of money!

  "That wasn't part of the plan,” he mumbled.

  ***

  The research spacecraft came under one of the beams from the castle and made an emergency landing directly at the place over which it'd been hanging. The sensors froze, as if they had been "photographed," and the captain fell back into depression. First the shock from his encounter with the humanoids and now this! Calling the strange planet a whole bunch of colorful metaphors, he tried to improve the situation. Eventually, he discovered that the devices seemed to be working, but they were doing it in such a slow mode that the execution of the simplest command would take several hours. It was like the rays had paralyzed the equipment. Such weapons were rarely encountered even in the most highly developed worlds. They were that expensive and classified. To fall under the power of such weapons on a backward planet at the edge of the Galaxy? Impossible! There were centuries of development to go before the locals could achieve such a level!

  This led to far-reaching delusions of grandeur.

  “I'll create an interplanetary commission to intervene in the internal affairs of this planet,” he decided. “A grandiose interplanetary scandal is coming!”

  He'd receive a lot of money that he could use to buy a new, cutting-edge spacecraft.

  The captain was enthusiastically pulling the high-quality wool over his own eyes, forgetting that his ship was hanging on the branches of old trees, ready to fall with the first strong gust of wind.

  ***

  Time flew like a bullet on normal days, but Yaga was eagerly awaiting nightfall and the passing hours mockingly stretched to infinity. Yet the laws of physics couldn't be argued with, so the time allotted for waiting eventually came to an end.

  "Finally!" Yaga exclaimed as the last ray of sunlight disappeared in the darkness of the night. The flying broom rushed toward its target, nearly breaking the sound barrier. Yaga stopped at Babak's house and looked in the window. As expected, the princes sat surrounded by half of the village, sharing the latest gossip that covered ten years of capital life. Yaga giggled. How little the people needed to feel happy! She flew to the window of the attic that Babak had rebuilt into a room. Ivan was sleeping quietly on the bed there, having no idea who had come to interrupt his dreams.

  It was extremely easy to open the closed window. Yaga bent down to avoid hitting her head on the frame and approached the bed with a goat. The linen bag opened its mouth in a warm welcome and in a second, Ivan was inside. Yaga abruptly turned around and her broom kicked the wooden toys from the shelves. Not on purpose but solely because of the tightness and darkness reigning in this room. The figurines of animals, people, and birds dropped to the floor and went silent. Alena spoke then,

  "Ivan, why aren't you sleeping?" Footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs.

  Cursing the universal law of meanness and no longer caring about staying quiet, Yaga rushed to the window and heard the frightened cry of the girl. The broom went sideways from a sharp turn. Something else fell from the shelves and broke. Yaga hurt her forehead by colliding with the window. Ivan woke up and began yelling so loudly that even the cockroaches behind the stove felt sick. The princes with the swords burst into the room suspiciously quickly, as if they'd been dreaming of leaving the crowd of grateful listeners for a while. Yaga flew out into the street and gained height so abruptly that she almost fell off the broom, nearly dropping the bag in the process.

  "She stole him! She stole my brother!" Alena shouted somewhere from below. She and the princes watched as Yaga swept past the moon, rubbing her bruised forehead.

  "That hag!" Yaroslav muttered. Artem gritted his teeth.

  "Who is that witch?" he asked angrily.

  "Baba Yaga," Alena said.

  "Who is that Baba Yaga?" Artem corrected himself. Alena looked at the prince.

  "I don't use insults for anyone," she explained. "This was the real Baba Yaga."

  "I'll chop her legs off!" Artem threatened without looking at anyone. "That'll teach her a lesson!"

  "Too late," said Babak, who had just entered the room. The peasants poured out into the yard and were now watching Yaga's flight under the starry sky. "Her leg has already been chopped off," Babak added.

  "Then the other leg!" Artem said stubbornly.

  Sobbing, Alena ran to Babak and buried her face in his shoulder. Artem quickly went down to the first floor and put on a helmet and his chain mail.

  "Yar, stay here in case she comes back!" he said and turned to the peasants. "How can I find her? Does she
come here often?"

  "She won't come back," Yaroslav said. "She took what she needed already. I'll come with you."

  "It's dangerous!" the peasants warned, before gladly explaining how to find the hut in a dense forest and how not to get lost. So many events, and all of them in just one day! The memories would be enough for the next three hundred years, for them, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren as well.

  "And what if she needs someone else, not just Ivan?" Artem said. "Maybe this was a feint, and her main goal is to kidnap Alena?"

  "Too deep," Yaroslav replied. "Strategic objectives of any enemy primarily concern bringing as much panic as possible and pushing the thoughts of the enemy in the wrong direction."

  The peasants kept thoughtfully silent. Then they looked at each other and nodded their heads. The prince had a point... probably.

  "Nevertheless, I beg you to stay!" Artem looked at his brother intently, and when Yaroslav realized what was happening, a barely noticeable smile stretched the corners of his lips.

  "Be careful!" he warned. "I don't want two families to be missing a brother."

  "Do you know where to go?" he asked the villagers

  The peasants first described the place where Yaga was sent during her raids, but they quickly realized that this address was too blurred in space and time. After that, they pointed out a more or less accurate place, and the prince rushed off to rescue Ivan.

  When the prince rode away into the darkness of the night, the peasants slowly went home.

  "This is strange," Babak said thoughtfully. "Yaga has never touched children before. What's gotten into her?"

  "So she doesn't eat them?" Yaroslav asked in a whisper, cautiously glancing at the stairs.

  "Do you think she lacks food in the woods?" Babak replied in the same low voice, glancing in the same direction. "No, it's something else... The prince won't get killed alone, will he?"

  "What could Yaga possibly do to him?" Yaroslav waved this concern away dismissively. "He's a better warrior than I am. He's like an animal when in a battle."

  "I was like this, too," Babak nodded. "A long time ago."

  "You were a warrior?"

  "I was everything," the old man chuckled. "Are you interested in legends? Then sit down. I'll tell you a lot of interesting things. The sleepiness is gone anyway."

  "Babak, why are you called this way?" the prince asked suddenly. "You don't look like a decrepit, grumpy old man."

  Babak smiled.

  "I was quite vicious when I was young. It's difficult to attack bears while being gallant and all. So people used me as a scarecrow. They told their children that I would come for them one dark night, with a bag on my shoulder, and that I'd take the disobedient ones to a dark, very dark forest. To frighten the children even more, they called me Baba Yag, and then shortened the name to Babak. That's how I got my nickname. Babak. And what you said about being an old man, it's just horror stories. I'm like a children's version of Kashchey. He's a thousand and I'm a hundred years old."

  So the legendary children's "Kashchey" began to tell stories from his life, one more terrible and exciting than the other. The bearskins that filled the hut convincingly proved that Babak could do more than simply talk. Yaroslav looked at him and thought, 'No wonder children are afraid of his name. Such a person can fight an entire army and win.’

  ‘But where did he get such strength and knowledge about military affairs, if he's a great commander?!' the prince thought. 'I know all the generals, but I've never heard about Babak!'

  The old man went on speaking, and his slightly sly look vaguely revealed that Yaroslav's unsuccessful attempts to figure out his origins didn't go unnoticed. But he wasn't going to reveal his secret.

  The clock owl announced that it was three when a scream came from upstairs, interrupting Babak's stories. Alena emerged.

  "There's someone outside!" she said worriedly. "He’s looking in the window!"

  Yaroslav's eyebrows shot to the sky when he imagined the size of this peeping Tom. His first thought was that a big-eyed owl had looked into the window, but the peasants must have seen owls before, right? Could Alena have confused the silhouette of a man with the shadow of a tree? No, there were no trees nearby. Or did some of the jokers decide to stand on each other's shoulders?

  Curious peasants? But what's so interesting about a dark room? He was puzzled.

  Babak frowned. The good-natured expression on his face faded away, replaced by the expression of a predator who's preparing for an attack. He was always ready for trouble.

  "Did you take a good look?" he asked. Alena nodded.

  "He... he... he had strange eyes. They were glowing in the dark, and they were so terribly angry!"

  "Probably he got hit in the face," Babak suggested. "So he had huge black eyes as a result."

  Yaroslav shivered. The number of evil spirits grew rapidly as he got farther away from the capital. Among the educated and progressive residents of the capital, ghosts were non-existent. They were too scared they'd get kidnapped, dissected, and studied for the benefit of science. But the rural places... they were home to all evil. And if the real and legendary Baba Yaga lived here somewhere, then there had to be even more nightmarish creatures around here.

  "This is something new," Yaroslav muttered. "What a strange place. Evil forces are all around us! And in the palace, no one had ever mentioned such horrors."

  Outside the window, a silhouette flashed quickly. Yaroslav blinked, but the flash was gone. Had he imagined it or was it an attempt to add horror to the story of the alleged witness?

  "Just great," Yaroslav said, taking the sword from the sheath. "I don't understand the varieties of these evil forces here, or if this is Yaga or some goblin who's suffering from insomnia. I have no idea who it could be. I don't even know whether my sword will work against this creature if it attacks, but I'll fight ‘til the end. Mine or his."

  Babak nodded, and Alena asked,

  "Are all princes so... verbose?"

  "We talk more simply," Babak said, glancing at the girl in surprise. "The enemy will die from his own weapon! Help me move the table to the wall. When they break in, we should have plenty of room for maneuvering."

  "They?" the Prince clarified. Babak nodded again.

  "Here it is again!" Alena pointed at the window. The creature must have realized that it was useless to hide and make others panic, so it stopped and stared at them. Long fangs peeked out from the open mouth and flashed in the light of a dozen of candles.

  "Does he polish them or something?" Babak wondered.

  In the eyes of the monster, there was a seething, unquenchable rage.

  "What a face you've got there, mate! I haven't seen such before," Babak said calmly, taking up his club. "We should fix it a little."

  The vampire blinked in surprise. Someone banged on the door.

  "Hide upstairs!" Babak ordered Alena. "Close the door and let no one in. Shut the window and the shutters! Light the oil lamp. There are three on the shelf unless they were thrown to the floor. If anyone breaks in, throw something at them, and do it as strongly as you can!"

  The vampire repeated his futile attempts to scare people, growing more and more confused, and the door and the walls continued to shake under the force of blows. The air was filled with cutting, creaking, and howling sounds specifically to achieve the same psychological effect.

  "Well, come in, uninvited guests!" Babak offered, holding his club.

  The knocking suddenly stopped. Yaroslav looked out the window incredulously. The monster had disappeared.

  "Have you noticed that the frame flared with blue light?" Yaroslav turned to Babak in astonishment. "Or am I imagining things?"

  "I have," Babak said. "I can assure you that I have never seen anything like this outside my windows before... Have our uninvited guests grown exhausted?"

  "They want us to open the door ourselves and check the street," Yaroslav suggested. "Expect us to buy the calm before the storm?"r />
  "Many would have bought even the idiotic ‘Give me some water!’ said by the man who has just tried to break into the house and kill the tenants."

  A battering ram made with improvised means crashed into the door.

  "Ah, so you went to retrieve a battering ram? Why make everything so complicated?" Babak asked curiously and unlocked the deadbolt. Six running monsters crashed into the house with a thick log in their outstretched hands. With shouts of intimidation, the vampires galloped around the room excitedly, hit the table away, then rammed into the wall with the window and pushed it outside for some reason. Only then did they realize that something went wrong.

  The flame of the candle flickered but didn't go out.

  "Fangy ones, where are you from?" Yaroslav asked. Not saying a word, the vampires turned and rushed to attack them, but they slowed down halfway to throw away the useless ram.

  "Very funny," Babak uttered grimly. He twisted the club, and before the first vampire could approach properly, he got hit on his forehead and collapsed lifelessly on the floor. Yaroslav raised his sword. The vampires bounced off, and the slowest of them clutched at his dissected chest, hissing angrily.

  "Oh, at such pace, we'll have them down in a minute!" Yaroslav exclaimed happily, but the smile slipped off his face when he saw how a wound that would be deadly for an ordinary person tightened and closed on the vampire's body, leaving no traces. "Got another club?"

  "No.”

  The vampires were getting ready to attack again but something flared dazzlingly behind the prince's back, so they jumped and covered their eyes. The prince broke the main commandment of the warrior that stated, 'Never lose sight of the enemy.' He turned his head to see what was crackling and burning behind him. Why was there no smoke?