Mistress of the Solstice (20 page)

Ivan waited.

“His tales always have a meaning, boy, and
they’re directed by the listener. You can figure things
out if you just listen carefully. I know you can use your head.
Sometimes.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. Remember who you are. Don’t let
him talk you into forgetting.”

Ivan remembered the draw of Wolf’s gaze. If the power of
Bayun the Cat was similar, this advice would be hard to heed.

“Above all, don’t confuse the real
with the false.”

“What?”

“The beast will try to confuse you, trick you with
illusions, until you won’t know what is true anymore.
Don’t let him. Think of anything you can that is real.
Don’t let go. Or else, you are
lost.”

For a second there was pity and sorrow in Wolf’s gaze.
Ivan looked away. This was much more unnerving than the contempt of
last night.

“Good luck.” Wolf turned
to depart.

“Wait!” Ivan
called out. “Are you just going to leave me like
this?”

“Like what?”

Ivan shrugged. “I guess, I hoped you’d
stay around…Until I’m—done.”

Wolf rested his muzzle on Ivan’s shoulder.
“Remember, boy, cats and wolves don’t
‘stay around’ each other. Ever. Not even
in death.”

He leapt past Ivan and disappeared behind a thick
hazelnut bush. The fleshy leaves wavered, then went still in his
wake.

The path was so thin that at times it was hard to find through the
wavering grass. Obviously, Bayun’s lair was not popular
with visitors.

The mighty oak squatted on the hilltop like a monstrous bird on its
perch, spreading wing-like branches over its wide nesting grounds. The
earth rose under the pull of the massive roots, forming a hill as if by
the sheer will of the ancient tree. It was hard to imagine that
anything might have been there before the tree. Even the rocks, bared
by the cliff behind it, looked small and uncertain by comparison, as if
knobby root fingers had tucked them into place to finish off the
impressive roost.

As Ivan made his way up the hill, he saw no movement. The path on the
hill became more defined, curving around the tree like a loose rope
thrown carelessly into the thick grass. It was barely visible in the
long evening shadows.

Ivan paused, waiting.

“Anyone home?” he asked carefully.

There was a rustle in the branches above his head and, moments later,
the ground on his left shook noiselessly. Even then, it appeared as if
the large shape that blocked the waning sunlight had grown out of the
grass, instead of dropping from the branches above. Its movements,
though they looked slow and lazy in their quality, were so swift they
were hard for the eye to follow.

Ivan stared.

It looked like a very large house cat, smaller than Wolf, yet too big
to be confused with an ordinary animal. Sitting down, its head reached
just above Ivan’s waist. Its long fur was pitch-black,
outlined against the blood-red sunset like a halo of darkness. Then
Ivan saw the eyes.

The creature’s eyes were jewel green and they shone out
of the blackness, as if emanating a light of their own, bright even
against the sunset background. Ivan shivered under their gaze as if
he’d been burned with cold green hellfire.

It was the most beautiful creature Ivan had ever seen.

The giant cat stirred.

“Ivan the Fool of the Twelfth
Kingdom,” he mused. His voice was soft and deep,
like a purr. He seemed to whisper, yet the sound echoed through Ivan
like thunder.

A cat’s face filled Ivan’s vision and
he saw, for a brief moment, a pink tongue flick out of its mouth lo
lick razor-sharp fangs. Then it was gone.

“What do you seek, boy?” Bayun
whispered. “What tale do you want to hear? Perhaps,
of your own deeds turned into a song? Listen…”

The soft purr of his voice filled
Ivan’s ears. The cat’s voice drew, no
less captivating, than the green of his gaze. Instead of words,
images filled Ivan’s head, as if he was watching events
take place in front of his eyes. No, not watching—acting. Living them
through the soft purr of the cat’s tale.

The evening smell of damp grass filled
Ivan’s nostrils. He was no longer on the hilltop
under the giant oak. He was facing the oak, but
the oak was gnarled, looming over the
straight path that led to the castle wall.

At first glance it seemed safe. One could walk right through without
stopping.

But there was a web of water droplets crossing the path. The deadly trap
on the way to the Mistress’s tower. If one walked
through, one would be lost. Ivan would lose his mind and never reach
the castle. He would walk out into the swamp and perish in its
bottomless depths…

This was not how it happened in real life, but more beautiful, like in a
song. Any discrepancies did hot matter as he immersed himself in the
tapestry of the cat’s tale.

 

Marya

I
van in the Mirror reached out and touched a hanging droplet of water.
His hand followed in a spiral pattern, and with a sigh the magical mist
unraveled itself, disappearing like thin smoke into the night wind.

I drew away from the Mirror.

How had this boy learned to unravel my mist? It had taken my father and
I a month to put it in place. No one was supposed to know how to remove
it.

Perhaps I’d do better to learn his story from the
start.

“Tell me about his past,” I ordered
the Mirror.

The fog disappeared to reveal a frightened little boy perched on a thin
branch of an apple tree. The boy’s face was lean and
freckled, but I could easily recognize his eyes, blue like
cornflowers.

Two older boys stood on the ground laughing, swinging the tree back and
forth.

“Hurry up, Ivan!” the oldest boy
shouted. “Get that apple over
there!”

“Will it really give our father his youth back,
Vassily?” the other boy on the ground whispered
doubtfully.

“Of course not, Fedor, you idiot!”
Vassily hissed back, shaking the tree violently.

“I can’t get the apple,
brothers!” Ivan shouted from above.
“The tree is trying to throw me
off!”

“That’s because it
doesn’t want you to get the apple! Do you think our
father’s youth is easy to get?”
Vassily answered, smothering an evil laugh.

“All right!” Ivan shouted, and in
the Mirror I saw a tear run down his pale strained face.

I watched the pictures flash by, so absorbed I forgot to tell my Mirror
to stop or to condense the sad tale.

I saw little Ivan fall from the tree just as he grabbed for the apple
hanging from the furthest branch.

I saw his brothers watch him crawl on the ground—Vassily with cold
satisfaction, Fedor with mild concern—as young Ivan fought tears of
pain, smearing the blood dripping from his nose all over his face with
the back of his hand.

I saw them present the case to their father, the Tzar, in a way that
made little Tzarevich Ivan look like a complete idiot
who’d suddenly imagined that an ordinary apple from
their orchard could make their father young again.

And I watched such stories go on and on until, against
Ivan’s protests, he firmly and finally became known to
everyone in his household as Ivan, the Fool.

I admired the evil wit of Tzarevich Vassily who set his traps, one by
one, with the skill of a born schemer. It was obvious to anyone, that
of the three sons of the widowed Tzar it was not the wicked Vassily, or
the simple-minded Fedor, but Ivan with his sunny personality for whom
his father had the highest hopes. And so his older brother cleverly
made sure that his father’s hopes were diverted from
Ivan to himself.

He played on Ivan’s good nature and love for his father
to make the boy do the stupidest things. Their six
years’ difference in age made Vassily sound so mature
and honest, both to little Ivan and to their elderly father.

Vassily’s superb mind invented more and more complicated
yet seemingly logical tasks for his little brother, which, combined
with Ivan’s desire to help, infallibly proved him to be
a fool in the end. It took a fool indeed to believe Vassily after so
many failures. And yet, every time I heard Vassily speak in the Mirror,
I felt I could believe him myself.

Ivan, at Vassily’s bidding, went out
into the middle of the town plaza to kneel, sprinkling the road dust
onto his head. Vassily had told his youngest brother that the
Crossroads man—his own invention fashioned after Leshy and his
kind—would then come and grant Ivan three wishes. As Ivan was brought
before his father, dirt-covered and defiant, I saw him give Vassily a
long look. He was getting older and wiser. But the damage had been
done.

“Enough,” I told the Mirror, taking
a deep breath and shaking off the misery I’d just
witnessed. I’d made the mistake of letting my
compassion slip my guard. There was nothing terrible in what
I’d seen. It wasn’t an unusual game,
and the best man always won.

“Show me why Ivan came to our
kingdom,” I ordered.