by Sarah Zettel
Fool, fool, fool! Avanasy’s teeth ground together. With an effort of will he managed set all that aside. At his feet, Ingrid’s skin glowed white in the darkness. He could not let anger at himself cloud his mind.
“It is a grand statement,” he told the knight. “By what does your mistress swear?”
The knight’s helmet tipped back, just a little, as if he lifted his head to look down his nose at Avanasy’s presumption. “She swears by nothing. Who are you to require an oath from the Old Witch?”
“No one,” he admitted. “But if she does not swear, how may I trust her?”
The pennant snapped once, sharply in the wind. It was a sound like a branch breaking. “She has sent her messenger, man. Let that be enough for you.”
“Then,” said Avanasy, feeling the weight of his iron knife in his hand, “let her messenger stay until my wife is returned to me.”
“This woman is not your wife.”
Avanasy should have been afraid, and he knew it. This was the servant of a true power. This was no boggle or spirit of the roof tree to be bribed with a bowl of milk and pretty compliments. This one could kill him if it would. Its mistress could haunt his dreams and ride him mad in the darkness.
But Ingrid lay still as death at his feet, and no other fear could touch him. “I say that she is my wife, and I say you will stay until she is returned to me.”
“You are arrogant, sorcerer. You forget yourself.”
“Forgive me.” He inclined his head without taking his eyes off the shadowy presence. “Perhaps it is only that I have been too long from Isavalta. Nonetheless, you will stay. If your mistress will not swear, you will stay.”
“I have no more words for you.” The rider wheeled his horse around.
Avanasy charged. Knife-first, he leapt for the horse’s reins. The animal reared and a heavy hoof struck Avanasy’s shoulder, felling him to the ground, but his grip held and he swung down his blade. The iron cut through the fabulous cloth the rider wore and stuck fast. The horse reared again, but the rider could not be ripped free from the iron blade and he fell, heavy and silent, to the ground beside Avanasy.
Avanasy, pain burning through his shoulder, ground the knife in deeper until the rider hissed like a snake. He struck out, but his blows had no force. The cold iron that impaled him drained him of strength. The horse, acting for all the world like a mortal beast, bolted into the darkness and was lost to his sight. Perhaps it had gone home to its mistress. Good. Then he would not have to waste attention crafting a message for her.
“Now,” he said to his prisoner. “We will wait together, you and I, and when your mistress returns what is mine, I will return what is hers.”
“You are a fool, man.” The rider’s voice was thick with unaccustomed pain. “You will pay for this, and pay again.”
“I know it well,” answered Avanasy. “In the meantime, we will wait.”
Overhead, the night turned and Avanasy held his grip on the iron knife. Beside him, Ingrid lay cold and motionless, and all of Avanasy’s soul cried out to her.
Come home, my love. Come back to me.
Ingrid watched herself fall unconscious into Avanasy’s arms. She watched his eyes widen with alarm as he caught her.
Avanasy! cried Ingrid. Avanasy!
But she could make no sound, and, all unbidden, she felt herself drift away like smoke.
No! No! She tried to scream, tried to dig in her heels, but she had no sense of place. No touch of the world seemed to reach her. She was air and vapor, and the wind blew her away into the night, out over the seas, faster than thought, until she could not see land, until she could not see stars.
Avanasy!
But for all the force of will in it, her cry was soundless. Darkness of earth and darkness of sky merged, and Ingrid was nowhere. From blackness thick as sleep, dreams emerged, strange flashes of images. She saw a young man and woman wearing clothes stained and wrinkled from long travel. They shouted at each other with heartbreaking fury. She saw herself as a child, holding onto the waistband of Grace’s skirt so Grace could lean out over the edge of a bluff and spread her arms into the wind coming off the lake, pretending she could fly. She saw herself as she was, standing on the deck of an unfamiliar ship, leaning far too far over the gunwale and reaching down for Avanasy, who stood on the shore.
And she saw a stranger, a young woman with auburn hair and strong features that reminded her sharply of Avanasy. The woman stood beside a trio of gravestones and struggled not to weep. Ingrid’s heart went out instantly to the stranger, but she could not tell why.
The images all faded, and instead a formless light shone from the darkness. Ingrid started and tried with all her strength to reach it. She found she could move, but it was like wading through syrup. The light was bright as the sun and slowly it took shape. Now it was a horse and rider, both shining so brightly Ingrid felt she should not have been able to look at them. They trotted away from her. Unable to bear the idea of being left alone in the darkness any longer, Ingrid strained forward, reaching with all the force she possessed, and the light grew brighter, and brighter yet, until the darkness retreated, and Ingrid could see.
She stood under the branches of an ancient birch tree, its branches tossing this way and that, although Ingrid could feel no breeze. A brook ran fresh and free at her feet, but it made no sound. On the other side stood a woman in working clothes and thick boots. Ingrid looked into her brown eyes and saw … herself.
The woman on the other side of the brook was Ingrid’s double. Hair for hair, thread for thread. Ingrid realized she should have been afraid, but she could not be. All she felt was anger radiating at her from her twin, or, was this more than twin? Avanasy had spoken of Ingrid as a divided soul, with a portion of herself in the Land of Death and Spirit. Was this that place again? Was this her other self?
If it was, then this other Ingrid was steeped in fury, but not at Ingrid — at the force that brought her here. It was violation, it was wrong. Her other self lifted her hand, in greeting, in warning or in blessing, Ingrid could not tell. The other did not speak, and Ingrid could find no voice in her throat.
“You’d better go in,” said someone behind her.
Ingrid jerked her head around. Behind her, a cat sat on a fence of ancient pickets much mended with human bones. The cat washed its paw and smoothed down its ears, and looked up at Ingrid with an expression of impossible intelligence.
Behind the cat waited another impossibility. A house, a thatched cottage, ancient and covered with the stains of years, but it turned on a pair of taloned and scaled legs, each as thick around as Ingrid’s own waist. It was a thing out of nightmare, and Ingrid shrank away from it. At the same time, she recognized it. This was what Avanasy had shown her when she thought she stood in a pleasant stone cottage with an old woman who might have been her grandmother.
This was Baba Yaga’s house.
Ingrid felt her other self at her back, straining to reach her, but the brook ran between them, and she could not cross. She pressed her fist against her forehead. She wanted no more of this — this unaccountable knowledge drifting into her head from outside. She wanted her voice, she wanted to understand in the normal way. She wanted herself, alone and solid. She wanted to weep, but she could not cry any more than she could speak.
“You’d better go inside,” said the cat, tucking its legs underneath itself as it settled down on the gatepost. “You would not like what she sends out to fetch you.”
Ingrid’s anger drowned out all other feeling. What was happening? How dare she … interfere like this?
But I will not find out here.
Knife-edged warning reached Ingrid from her other self. If she went inside she would be trapped. This was different from last time. The other’s knowledge filled her. Avanasy’s ring would not pull her out again.
Ingrid tightened her will and strode up to the gate of bones. With painful slowness, as if its hinges were rusted past redemption, it opened for her. The cat
watched her with disinterested eyes as she moved as close as she dared to the house, turning on its monstrous, crooked legs, its talons gouging the ground.
She stood there, watching it turn slowly and silently, impossible, ridiculous and terrifying all at once.
You know I’m here, she thought toward its owner. I will not come into your parlor, spider. If you want me, you must come out.
A wave of contempt as palpable as a raw wind engulfed Ingrid, and she withered under the force of it, but not completely, for her other self made a wall for her back. She was supported and sheltered by that other. Not much, but enough, just enough so that she could stay where she was and resist.
After a long moment, the house ceased its restless turning. Carefully, the scarred and scaled legs bent until its steps touched the ground, and the door fell open toward Ingrid. She felt as if she were looking into some terrible open maw.
Baba Yaga squatted in the threshold, as gaunt and tattered as the spirit of famine. She leaned on her filthy pestle that was as thick around as both of Ingrid’s arms. Two huge, black mastiffs waited at her side. Both bared their yellow fangs, and Ingrid could feel their growls, low and sullen, vibrating through the air.
“I have need of you, woman,” she said, and Ingrid could see the black iron of her teeth as she spoke.
Ingrid stiffened. This place was all bone and blood, and she was in danger. She knew that. But she also knew boundaries had been crossed here, and wrong had been done. It made a difference.
“So I gathered,” she said simply, and tried to hold back her relief at being able to speak. The witch’s regard seemed to have made her more solid, more real in this place of horrors and fancies, and that idea sent a tremor of fear through Ingrid.
“I will not be brooked.” The witch thumped her pestle on the floor, and the whole house shuddered. “Aid me and you will have aid in return. Cross me and you will be held until you yield. There is nothing else.”
“What could you possibly need me for?” Ingrid spread her hands.
“You will find me the Vixen and bring back what she has stolen from me. When that is done, you may depart.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Nonetheless. You will do this thing I ask.”
The words fell against Ingrid like a weight, pressing her down until it was a struggle to think of anything else. Images of foxes and meadows, and a round green hill flashed unbidden through her mind, and she remembered with crystal clarity the creature who had spoken to her when she was here before, who had sent her off to the Old Witch, just to see what would happen. She knew all at once that her other half could lead her to the Vixen again, and she would do this thing because the Old Witch bade her, and because she could do nothing else.
But there was the crossing of boundaries, that bit of wrong, that bit of freedom.
“No,” said Ingrid.
Baba Yaga pointed one long, crooked finger at Ingrid. On either side of her, the mastiffs raised their hackles. “I give you this last warning, woman. I know your name, I know your future and your past. I see the warp and weft of your tapestry life. Without me, your death is sure. Think carefully before you wake my anger.”
It was too much, it was too strange and the fear of it too great. Despite that, she would not place herself in the power of this creature, this hag. She could not. But she could not move.
Then the witch’s head went up as if she had caught some strange scent. She bared her iron teeth in a death’s head grin.
“So, your man thinks to take a hostage. Thinks to have and keep what is mine in exchange for you.”
Avanasy? Some caution outside herself kept Ingrid from saying his name out loud.
Baba Yaga snapped her teeth and they came together with a hollow clang.
“You try my patience, you two. This is the second time you have refused me and he has tried to pull you from me. Very well.” She turned her black, black gaze on Ingrid, and for a moment Ingrid felt she would burn to a cinder from the heat of it. “There will be a third time, and you will beg to do my bidding, because only I know how the Firebird may be caged. Go freely. I am done with you. Now, you may see if you can find your own way home.”
At those words, Ingrid found she could not stay still. The dogs advanced, snarling. The house lifted itself up onto its legs, and without feeling her own movement, she was outside the gate, which swung shut with the slow straining of dry and rusted hinges.
And they all faded away, leaving her alone beside a brook in a piney wood staring at her own double.
Avanasy? she choked. Her voice was gone again. What substance she had possessed had dissolved, leaving behind only vapor and desperate sensibility.
What am I to do? she thought toward her double, and knew that other self was consumed with anxiety. Why can’t you speak to me?
For a moment, she thought to cross the brook that separated them, but as soon as it entered her mind, the thought filled her with loathing. It was more wrong to go closer to her reflection than it was her being here in the first place. She did not know why this was so, only that it was.
Ingrid wished she could cry. She wished she could scream, but all releases seemed denied her. Already, she was drifting, pulled by some current she could not feel. It was as if the bank flowed and the brook stayed still.
No! She steeled herself again. No!
That act seemed to root her in place, at least for a moment. It occurred to Ingrid that if she failed to will herself to some destination, her destination might be chosen for her, and who knew what else was out here. It might even be worse than Baba Yaga.
Ingrid lifted her eyes to her other self, and wrapped her determination around herself. She willed herself to turn, to follow the current of the brook at her feet. Her other self turned with her, and together, side by side in the silence that this spirit land enforced, they began to travel downstream.
Avanasy ached. His hand ached from holding his knife. His shoulder burned from the blow it had taken. His soul ached from seeing Ingrid still and lifeless on the sands.
His prisoner’s body pulled against the iron knife that held him pinned, and his encased spirit pulled against Avanasy’s command enforced by that iron. He pulled toward his mistress, and his mistress would know it soon, if she did not already. Grimly, Avanasy held on, because to let go would be to leave Ingrid alone. Overhead, the stars wheeled toward morning, and his pain settled into his bones, and he still held on.
Then, the rider lifted his head as if he heard a distant sound.
“Your woman is free,” he said. “You may not hold me any longer.”
“But she has not returned,” croaked Avanasy. His hand had begun to go numb with cold and effort. All he could feel now was the pain that throbbed in time to his heartbeat.
“My mistress did not take her,” sneered the knight. “And now my mistress does not hold her. You have no more right to me, and even your iron cannot claim me.”
The pull which Avanasy had fought all night turned into a sudden wrench, and Avanasy cried out, but he could not hold on and the rider tore himself free. Before Avanasy could stumble to his feet to try to strike out again, the rider snatched his black javelin up from the ground where it had fallen, and was gone.
For a moment, Avanasy only stared at the suddenly empty night. Then, he roared out in wordless frustration and stabbed his knife deep into the ground. But it changed nothing. Ingrid’s body still lay abandoned.
He crawled to her side and cradled her head against his chest. He had to think. He must think clearly. Where could she be now? What path could she have taken? The Rider said Baba Yaga had not to pulled her forth. This must be true or by the laws that governed bargains between the mortal world and the Land of Death and Spirit he would not have been able to break the hold Avanasy placed on him. All the magics Avanasy knew were for binding that which was already together. He knew no spell to call a spirit back into its body. Not a divided spirit. Even if he could go in search
of her, could he find her in the vastness of the Silent Lands? Did he have the strength to walk that road now?
“Oh, Ingrid,” he breathed as he held her yet more tightly. “I will try. I must. But, love, help me to find you.”
Ingrid felt the current again, a gentle undertow to her awareness. At first, she tried to steel herself against it, but then she realized this current had a familiar touch. She looked across to her other self and that other self nodded once.
Avanasy.
Ingrid pushed forward. The world around her had grown thick and sluggish again. She was no longer vapor as she had been, but nor was she yet solid. Movement was difficult, even with the current. She had weight now, but not flesh. Will, but not strength, and she was growing tired.
Help me. Love, reach for me. Please, I’m here.
Soft, so soft Avanasy almost did not feel it, Ingrid’s breath blew across his hand. He froze, his heart pounding, but no other breath came. He chafed her wrist gently. “Here, love. Here, please, I am here.”
He pressed two fingers against her wrist, and felt the tiniest trace of living warmth. Beyond that, there was the flutter of a heartbeat, and another. But that was all.
“Yes. Here.” He drew her even closer. “Here.”
Her breath touched his cheek again, and her chest rose and fell, once, and again.
“Yes.” He kissed her mouth, breathing into her with his breath, and willing her with all his strength to find her way home.
Weight and form, distant but real. Ingrid felt her sluggish blood in the netting of her veins, the frame of her bones and the binding of her sinews. But it was all too far away, and she was so tired. What had she done to become so tired? She could not reach out, but she knew where her hands were. She could not cry out, even though now she knew where her voice lay. She was weighted down with weariness and fear, struggling through a world that grew thicker with each passing instant.