AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Chyerti do,” she said.
“Chyerti do tricks,” he said. “Men and women are far stronger.” He paused. “Or they go mad.” He knelt beside the chest she had opened. “And it is easier to fall prey to fear and madness, when the Bear is abroad.”
She drew a deep breath, and knelt beside him before the open chest. In it lay the golden bridle.
Twice before she had seen it, once in daylight on Pozhar’s head and once again in a dark stable, where the gold paled to nothing beside the mare’s brilliance. But this time it lay on a fine cushion, glimmering with an unpleasant sheen.
Morozko took the thing in his hands, so that the pieces of it spilled like water across his fingers. “No chyert could have made this,” he said, turning it over. “I do not know how Kaschei did it.” He sounded torn between admiration and horror. “But it would, I think, bind anything it was put on, flesh or spirit.”
She reached down flinching hands. The gold was heavy, supple, the bit a horrible, spiked thing. Vasya shuddered in sympathy, thinking of the scars on Pozhar’s face. Hastily she undid the straps and buckles, reins and headstall, so that she was left with two golden ropes. The bit she flung to the floor. The other pieces lay in her hands like quiescent snakes. “Can you use these?” she asked, offering them to Morozko.
He put a hand to the gold, hesitated. “No,” he said. “It is a magic made by mortals, and for them.”
“All right,” said Vasya. She wound the golden ropes one about each wrist, making sure she could snap them loose quickly, at need. “Then let’s go find him.”
Outside there came another crack of thunder.
23.
Faith and Fear
KONSTANTIN FINISHED QUIETING THE CROWD at the Grand Prince of Moscow’s gates. The Princess of Serpukhov’s carriage was being unharnessed; the woman herself had already disappeared, with her attendant, up the terem-steps.
One day, Konstantin thought grimly, he wasn’t going to soothe the people of Moscow anymore but rouse them to savagery once again. He remembered the power of that night: all those thousands receptive to his softest word.
He craved that power.
Soon the devil had promised. Soon. But now he must go back to the Grand Prince, and make sure that Dmitrii gave no hearing to Aleksandr Peresvet.
He turned to cross the dooryard, and saw a little, wispy creature blocking his way.
“Poor dupe,” said Olga’s dvorovoi.
Konstantin ignored him, lips set thin, and strode across the dooryard.
“He lied to you, you know. She’s not dead.”
Despite himself, Konstantin’s steps slowed; he turned his head. “She?”
“She,” said the dvorovoi. “Go into the terem now, and see for yourself. The Bear betrays all who follow him.”
“He wouldn’t betray me,” said Konstantin, eyeing the dvorovoi with disgust. “He needs me.”
“See for yourself,” whispered the dvorovoi again. “And remember—you are stronger than he.”
“I am only a man; he is a demon.”
“And subject to your blood,” whispered the dvorovoi. “When the time comes, remember that.” With a slow smile, he pointed up the terem-steps.
Konstantin hesitated. But then he turned toward the terem.
He hardly knew what he said to the attendant. But it must have worked, for he stepped through the door, and stood a moment, blinking in the dimness. The Princess of Serpukhov, without once glancing his way, swooned. Konstantin felt an instant’s disgust. Only a woman, come to visit her fellows.
Then a servant ran for the door, and he recognized her.
Vasilisa Petrovna.
She was alive.
For a long, electric moment he stared. A scar on her face, her black hair cropped short, but it was her.
Then she bolted and he shouted, hardly knowing what he said. He followed her, blindly, casting around to see where she’d gone—only to see the Bear in the dooryard.
Medved was dragging a man in his wake. Or—not a man. Another devil. The second devil had colorless, watchful eyes, and was strangely familiar. The edges of him seemed to bleed into the shadows of the failing day.
“She is here,” said Konstantin raggedly to the Bear. “Vasilisa Petrovna.”
For an instant it seemed the second devil smiled. The Bear spun and struck him across the face. “What are you planning, brother?” he said. “I see it in your eyes. There is something. Why have you let her come back here? What is she doing?”
The devil said nothing. The Bear turned back to Konstantin. “Summon men; go and get her, man of God.”
Konstantin didn’t move. “You knew,” he said. “You knew she was alive. You lied.”
“I knew,” said the devil, impatient. “But what difference does it make? She’s going to die now. We’ll both make sure of it.”
Konstantin had no words. Vasya had lived. She’d beaten him after all. Even his own monster had been on her side. Had kept her secret. Could it be that everyone was against him? Not only God, but the devil too? What had it all been for: the suffering and the dead, the glory and the ashes, the heat and the shame of that summer?
The Bear had filled the gaping hole of his faith with his sheer electrifying presence, and Konstantin had come, as though despite himself, to believe in something new. Not in faith, but in the reality of power. In his alliance with his monster.
Now the belief shattered at his feet.
“You lied to me,” he said again.
“I do lie,” said the Bear, but he was frowning now.
The second devil raised his head and looked between them. “I could have warned you, brother,” he said, his voice dry and exhausted. “Against lying.”
In that moment two things happened.
The second devil suddenly disappeared, as though he’d never been there at all. The Bear was left gaping at his empty hand.
And Konstantin, rather than go out and join the palace guard in searching for Vasya, plunged back into the terem without a sound, his soul aflame with desperate purpose.
* * *
THE WILD-EYED DOMOVOI MET Vasya and Morozko just outside the treasure-room. Vasya said, “What is happening?”
“It is dark now; the Bear is going to let them in!” cried the domovoi, every hair standing on end. “The dvorovoi can’t hold the gates, and I don’t think I can keep the house.”
