The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  The Vixen was gone, as suddenly as she appeared, and Ingrid was alone in the meadow under the pale green light, utterly bewildered, except for the pulling that led her down a path she could not measure toward an end she could not guess.

  It is a dream. I was promised. It is only a dream.

  Because she could no longer bear to stand still, Ingrid continued on into the dark trees again. The woods continued on for some time. Ingrid could not even feel the ground beneath her feet now. She might as well have been standing still while the woods flowed about her.

  But slowly, gradually, the trees began to change. Maples and oaks intruded on the pines. A small creek ran silently between mossy banks. Ingrid stepped across it. On the other side, a birch tree pulled its branches back to let her pass. As it did, Ingrid saw a house swim into her vision as if from a fog.

  It was a low, thatched building of gray stone. It looked as if it could be a cliff side, formed by wind and weather wearing away the soil rather than an edifice built by human hands. A low stone fence surrounded it, and a winding stone path led to its low door.

  There was nothing in the least alarming about the place. It was an old homestead, well tended and sturdy. Yet, Ingrid found herself hesitating beside the gate. The pull had released her. She was where she was supposed to be.

  “Ingrid,” said a voice within the dark doorway. It was the same voice that had called her from the boat. “Come in to me.”

  Ingrid did not even think to disobey. She stepped across the threshold, and was suddenly dizzy, as if she had been swept up and carried some distance.

  The inside of the cottage was as neat, and as solid, as the outside. The dim light that filtered through the doorway gave Ingrid the impression of heavy furniture carved of dark wood, a stone hearth without a fire, a broom, a dirt floor and, in the far corner, an angular shadow that it took a moment for Ingrid to realize was a loom.

  A shadow emerged from the darkness of the cottage and stepped into the square of pale, green light that fell through the cottage’s single window. Dizziness took hold of Ingrid again, but it cleared swiftly and she saw the shadow had become a tall, slender woman. Years had etched themselves into her face, but each line held both beauty and strength. Her eyes were clear and filled with purpose. A waterfall of white hair, unbound like a girl’s, hung down past her shoulders. She wore a simple black dress and held her capable hands folded neatly over a white apron.

  Ingrid had never known either of her grandmothers, but what she felt now was a mix of longing and comfortable love that surely must be what she would have felt for them.

  “You are a good child,” said the woman, nodding her approval. Her voice was melodious, nothing at all like the wild voice of the Vixen.

  “Who are you?” asked Ingrid, her voice faltering. It seemed strange to speak after so much silence, and she sounded so clumsy to herself.

  “I am grandmother and I am crone,” said the old woman. “I am the one who sent for you and the one whom you heeded.”

  “Yes,” said Ingrid, although she did not know why. Had she truly been expecting a name? That seemed presumptuous somehow.

  “I called you here because I have a task that needs doing. I need you to hear me and to complete it.”

  Ingrid hesitated. She yearned to do as she was told. She felt the gentle authority of this woman and, again like a child, she wished for her approval.

  It’s only a dream, she told herself. What’s wrong with giving a promise in a dream?

  “Ingrid.”

  Ingrid turned to the window. Avanasy stood in the yard. The world seemed to ripple unpleasantly where he stood. The neat fence was at the same time pickets and bones. The gray stones were simultaneously skulls. The house rocked where it stood.

  “Ingrid!” he called again. “Come out to me!”

  “Granddaughter, stay yet awhile,” said the woman behind her. “Let the man cool his ardor for you while you attend your elders, as you should.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.” But Ingrid’s words had no force. Even as she spoke them, she felt herself drifting toward the door. The floor shifted and shuddered under her feet. Bones, she thought again. Why were there bones in the roof beams and bones underfoot? She could not see them, but she knew they were there.

  “Ingrid!” called Avanasy again.

  “Bind you by the threshold, bind you by the word,” said the old woman behind her. “Bind you by your promise to me.”

  “But there was no promise,” said Ingrid vaguely, and the door fell open in front of her.

  The house seemed to have grown stilts, for now she looked down a long stair at Avanasy.

  He seemed insubstantial, somehow, as if he were nothing more than a shadow among shadows. Yet, she felt drawn to him, as she had been drawn to this house.

  “Come away, Ingrid.” He held out his hand, beseeching. “Come to me.”

  “I will,” she assured him. “But there is an old woman inside who needs my help.”

  “No, Ingrid, she means to harm you.” Why could she not see clearly? This place had seemed so solid, such a part of the earth. Now it rocked under her like a restless boat, and all that was dark seemed to be bleached and white.

  “How can she hurt me? This is only a dream. You told me so.”

  Distress creased Avanasy’s face. “I was wrong.”

  “Only a dream, Granddaughter,” said the old woman. “Say you will help me and you will soon wake to your lover.”

  “No!” cried Avanasy, starting forward. He stopped short, as if something blocked his way. “Ingrid, promise her nothing until she tells you her name.”

  “Name?” The world swam again. Avanasy drew further away, although he did not move. The doorway tipped and tilted, and Ingrid gripped the frame to steady herself, but the rocking would not cease.

  “You go too far, sorcerer,” said the old woman behind her, her voice suddenly stern and hard as stone, as bone. “Leave her now and you will have her again when I am finished.”

  “She has not told you her name, has she?” said Avanasy doggedly, oblivious to the distress he caused. “Shall I tell you what it is?”

  “Take care, sorcerer.” The Grandmother’s voice grew shrill and strange, and Ingrid shivered to hear it. “Your flesh and your iron are far away. You may be compelled to stay here.”

  “Then you will deal with me, Baba Yaga.”

  At those words, the world split in two. The stone house and its gardens fell away on either side of Ingrid, leaving behind a room built of bones. Skulls and skeletons of a hundred different animals hung from rafter beams that curved like gigantic ribs. Human skulls framed the fireplace, gaping and grinning. Even the loom in the corner was built of the gruesome ivory. Where the Grandmother had stood so tall and strong now hunched a withered crone who was little more than a skeleton herself under her tattered black robe. Her lips drew back in a grimace of anger, exposing teeth of black iron, and she leaned on a stained and begrimed pestle.

  Ingrid opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. Baba Yaga pointed one bony finger at her, and Ingrid felt the touch of it as if it pressed against her heart.

  “Ingrid! Come to me!” cried Avanasy. “Wish it so! Ingrid!”

  Ingrid backed away even as Baba Yaga’s hand curled shut. Ingrid knew the ancient witch meant to cradle her heart in that hand. As impossible as that was, it was also true, and fervently, desperately, she wished she was on Avanasy’s boat, standing beside him, looking out across the banks.

  And she knew the way. She felt it in her fingertips, a faint but certain tugging, and all she had to do was follow. Now she cried out as she turned and ran, and in a minute she was flying. All the world around her was a blur of blacks, browns and greens. She felt a pain in her side as if claws raked her, but it was brief, and she ran on, flying and running all at once.

  And she saw herself, lying limp and corpse white in the little wooden bunk, and then there was darkness, and then she opened her eyes.

  The boat rocked har
d underneath her and, for a dizzying moment, Ingrid thought she was still in the bone-framed house. But her hand gripped honest wood on the side of her bunk. Her stomach heaved hard with the motion of the vessel for the first time since she was a tiny child, and she had to swallow hard to keep it from spilling out.

  What happened? Strange dreams. No, not dreams. Avanasy.

  That thought rallied her sea legs and Ingrid threw back the blanket and ran to the ladder. Brisk wind smacked her face as soon as she emerged onto the deck. She had the vague impression of an iron-gray sea and a horizon that might have been the hazy coast or a bank of clouds.

  Avanasy slouched beside the rudder, slack-jawed and staring. Ingrid hurried to his side and saw the cord binding his hand to the tiller.

  “Avanasy?” she called, but his eyes did not blink. She reached immediately for the cord, but hesitated. What if this was one of his spells? What would happen to him if she broke it? He had saved her from the bony-legged witch, whether that had been a strange dream or a stranger reality, but what would she do if she now had to save him?

  Ingrid sat back on her heels. Only the rise and fall of Avanasy’s chest told her he still lived. She could not hear his breathing over the sounds of the wind and water. She brushed back her hair where it whipped into her face. The wind was rising. The ropes creaked.

  That she could do. She could trim the sails. She could keep the boat upright. She could pray.

  The rigging was unfamiliar to her, but it was all neatly done, and it did not take her much looking to understand how the lines ran. She left the mainsail alone, but brought in the stemsail, lashing it tightly. The horizon had darkened. There was land out there, growing closer. That meant shoals, and coves and currents, none of which she knew. Ingrid bit her lip.

  Here I am in this new world, and I am useless. Tears stung her eyes. What do I do, Avanasy?

  She yearned hard for her answer, and in response came an unaccountable sensation of floating, of drifting far too free, like a boat without mooring. There was danger in this, she knew that too, but still she reached. There was so much out there, the answers, Avanasy.

  No, Ingrid.

  Ingrid’s eyes snapped open. She had not even realized she had closed them. She had leaned out over the gunwale, and she did not remember that either.

  Had that been Avanasy? Or the wind? What was happening?

  She wanted to reach out again, but realized that in another moment she would have fallen right over the side.

  She remembered the last time she had seen Avanasy so incapacitated. He’d asked her to sit by him, to sing, to bring him back into the world.

  Ingrid pushed aside all thought of feeling foolish and steeled herself. She put her arms around him, laying her hands over his slack hands.

  “Here I sit on Buttermilk hill

  Who could blame me cry my fill?

  Every tear would turn a mill,

  Johnny’s gone for a soldier …”

  She sang of loss, and of sorrow, of a woman who had given everything and was left alone, and she felt whole, rooted impossibly through the deck to the surging ocean, and she felt Avanasy stir.

  “Oh my baby, oh my love,

  Gone the rainbow, gone the dove,

  Your father was my only love …”

  “Ah!” Avanasy cried out. His head snapped up and for a terrible instant his whole body went rigid with pain. His spasm swung the tiller wildly and Ingrid tightened her hands over his automatically to bring it around again.

  Avanasy cried out again, but Ingrid could make nothing of his words. She could only hold him close. In a moment he subsided, and blinked slowly.

  “Ingrid?”

  She opened her mouth to answer him, but before she could speak, he seized her face with his free hand, bringing her forward to kiss her hard and desperately on the mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he released her. “I’m so sorry, Ingrid. I didn’t know.”

  “Know what, Avanasy? What happened?”

  “I can’t tell you. Not yet. We need earth and stone under us for those words, not shifting water.”

  “What …”

  “Trust me in this, Ingrid. Please.”

  Ingrid closed her mouth, her spine stiffening. Avanasy did not look at her. He instead lifted his knife from where it lay and cut himself free. In another moment, he was busy with line, canvas and tiller. Ingrid sat on the stern bench, scant inches from him, but she felt as if she were suddenly miles away.

  The wind blew through her shawl and dress, and she shivered from the cold. She did not clearly know what had happened, but this much she did know. In the space of this moment, all had somehow changed.

  The house of bones that bore the name Ishbushka turned on its great, scarred legs. Its windows opened like blank and bleary eyes on the shifting world around it. Beyond the ragged fence of bones that marked its territory, the Vixen sat on her haunches and watched.

  “So, you will send another to do your work for you?” The Vixen’s tail swished back and forth. She spoke softly, but she knew Ishbushka’s mistress heard every word. “She is an unnatural thing, to be sure, but did you really think you could hide her from me?”

  The house stopped its restless motion and bent its monstrous legs to kneel on the ground. The rotted door fell open toward the Vixen, who did not even blink. In the doorway stood Baba Yaga, leaning on her pestle, her tattered black robes clinging to her bony frame.

  “You have stolen what is mine,” rasped the Old Witch. “I will have it back.”

  The Vixen yawned. “Prove that I have stolen it then. Call me out according to the law.” She let her mouth hang open in a wide grin. “But then, you would have to leave your house, wouldn’t you?”

  Baba Yaga bared her iron teeth. “You think you’ve won this game. You do not even see the next move, let alone the end of it. You have no idea how far my power reaches.”

  “At the moment, I’d say it reaches to the edge of your charming yard.” The Vixen flicked her tail again. “As I’m sitting here quite undisturbed.”

  “Think that, then,” sneered Baba Yaga. “You’ve thought many a more foolish thing.”

  Ishbushka’s door shut and the house heaved itself back to its taloned feet to resume its alert and watchful turning. The Vixen gazed at it awhile longer, her own lips drawn back to show just a gleam of her sharp, yellow teeth.

  You think I do not see the end of this? she thought. Are you certain you know which game I am playing?

  And she was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  Avanasy would not look at her.

  For her own part, Ingrid found herself remaining determinedly silent. She wrapped her arms around herself and concentrated on the approaching shoreline. It was a rocky coast, as gray as the ocean and about as inviting. A thin border of stunted and twisted trees surmounted the cliffs. As they sailed closer, Ingrid could see the shore was ragged, with countless tiny coves and points. An excellent place for catching shellfish, or for smuggling, but an awful place for boats.

  Still, Avanasy seemed to know the shore well. He adjusted the sails with precision for the erratic wind and was an expert hand with the tiller. No wonder Papa had found him such a good sailor, if these were the waters he learned on.

  But he still would not look at her.

  The land curved around to the port side. Gradually, Ingrid saw that one of the broader cliffs was topped with a mass of stone that had a more regular shape than the tumbled boulders they had been seeing. It was a fortress, squat and massive, with fat turrets obviously meant for keeping watch over the ocean.

  “That is Fortress Dalemar,” said Avanasy, shouting to be heard over the wind of the water. “When we have landed, I hope to gain us news from there.”

  Ingrid did not answer him, and she found herself wondering what reason there could be for her own black mood. A whole new world spread out before her. Avanasy sat beside her and she once again wore his ring on her finger. Whatever had happened during thei
r strange crossing, it was over. They were safe on a sea that was obviously familiar to Avanasy, who was an excellent sailor. He had promised her an expianation soon enough. Where was her patience? What was the matter with her?

  The truth was, she felt torn. Not between excitement and fear, or any other two emotions she could name. Rather, she felt as if some physical force was literally tugging at her insides, separating out some vitality from the core of her, and it was wrong, this feeling. She knew it. Yet, who was she to say that it was not just the sensation of being taken to a new world? There was no way to tell, until she could ask Avanasy, and Avanasy would not answer until they reached land, and he showed no signs of steering them to harbor just yet.

  They sailed around another sharp point, close enough for Ingrid to see the breakers rolling against the rocky beach. In the tiny cove sheltered by the point worked a cluster of people. Some sorted through heaps of seaweed, some cast nets into pools, confirming her thoughts about shellfish. The workers all straightened up as the boat came into view, raising their hands.

  “Do they know you?” asked Ingrid.

  “I hope not,” answered Avanasy. “It is custom, and good luck, to bless any sail that is sighted.”

  “Ah.”

  They lapsed into silence again.

  At last, Avanasy sailed them through a channel between the rocky shore and, judging from the way the waves broke against them, what must have been some ragged shallows. The cove here was wider than the other, and some sand actually showed between the stones, but the cliffs behind it were high and unbroken, and the way in was narrow. The piles of seaweed on the beach told Ingrid that this was low tide. Yet, this inviting cove was deserted, probably because of the risky entry.

  Avanasy sailed them up close to the shore, and finally tossed out the anchor. Without being asked, Ingrid took in the mainsail and lashed it down. Avanasy climbed out into the shallows and gave her his hand. Ingrid pulled off shoes and stockings, knotted the laces so they could be slung about her neck, stuffed the stockings into the shoes, hiked her skirts up around her knees and took his hand. Together they waded to shore.