Mistress of the Solstice (21 page)

Again I saw the same palace in the Twelfth Kingdom, but this time the
Ivan I saw was much older, a young man, not yet in his full strength,
but already so painfully similar to the image in my head.

What is it that gives him such power? He is a simple-minded fool, kind,
trusting, and good-natured. Everything I was taught to despise in a
man.

Vassily was right. Yet I couldn’t stop watching.

Ivan’s father spoke in a voice full of concern.
“It is a hard time for our kingdom, my son. The evil
Tzar Kashchey of the Thirty Ninth kingdom demands that we pay tribute.
He has destroyed many lands that lie to the east. I have no choice.
Yet, if I accede to his demands, it would weaken us so that we would
not be able to defend ourselves. At such a time, perhaps it would be
better if you stayed?”

Kashchey
, I thought. My
father’s hand reached far indeed. I felt a surge of
pride for the power of our kingdom. Blessed be Kupalo and His ancient
powers.

“I must go, Father,” Ivan said
gently. “I am not of much help to you here. Yet, I
may come across something useful in the other kingdoms.
Besides—”

The old man nodded.

“It is a tradition, I know,” he
said. “We send young men out into the world before
they come of age. Your brother, Vassily, rode out six years ago and
returned last year with beautiful Tzarevna Varvara from the Third
kingdom, a Tzar’s daughter he rescued from the evil
Tzar Kashchey.”

What a lie!
I thought.
Nobody had ever rescued a maiden from my father. Vassily had turned
whatever happened to his credit again.

“I am proud of Vassily. He came back a hero, with a
beautiful bride, and I hope he will succeed me to make a great ruler
for our kingdom.”

I, for one, agreed with the old Tzar’s choice of heir.
Vassily, smart and ruthless, would make a good ruler. Not a do-gooder
like Ivan.

“Now, Fedor, he came back empty-handed. He
didn’t gain much glory, but he had a chance to see the
world and to gain some skills on his own. You,
Ivan,” the old man hesitated, looking at his
youngest son with discomfort. “Must you really
go?”

I realized I was clenching my teeth. What would I ever do if my own
father showed such distrust in me? I think such a look alone could kill
me. But the Ivan in the Mirror didn’t seem to care. Or
was he so skillful at hiding his pain?

“Yes, I must go, father,” he
answered with his usual easy smile. “I
don’t want to be your shame for the rest of your
life.”

His smile was overwhelming. It glowed like a stream of light, it
absorbed his father’s protests, as steady and
inevitable as time itself.

“Gods be with you, Tzarevich Ivan,”
the old man said, blessing him with a weary hand.
“Right or wrong, you are my son and I love
you.”

The old man turned and re-entered the palace, his head bent, and Ivan
rode away.

He needs a better horse,
I
thought as I watched the skinny disaster of an animal putting one
unsteady foot in front of another on the dusty road. Why, this beast
must be at least twenty years old, if not more. Hardly a befitting
steed for a young Tzarling.

I ordered the Mirror to stop.

I could spare no more time for this. I needed to settle the question of
who had betrayed the secret of my father’s Death, and
how to get the Needle back before it landed in unfriendly hands through
its bearer’s foolishness.

The Raven wasn’t on his perch. In fact,
he’d been missing since my last nocturnal adventure.

“Show me Raven!” I told my Mirror.

 

Ivan

I
van stirred.

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember who he was or
why he was sitting on the grass beneath a tall oak, listening—

—
to the
cat’s purring tales…

The soft, whisper-like voice drew him in. He couldn’t
hear the words. Only images that poured into his head with an intensity
so overwhelming for his tired mind—

—
so hard…

A woman, ancient as the trees, stretched her gnarled arms over the still
body of a warrior. His severed head lay next to the bloodied stump of
the neck, its eyes still open. Under the mask of death the face was
very young, boyish.

The woman chanted, passing her hands, dark and roughened as if covered
with tree bark, over the still, outstretched limbs. Then she dropped
her arms to her sides and sat still.

—purr, purr…

A furry shape leaned against him. He reached out and absentmindedly
scratched its ear—

—
T
he
old woman labored to her feet, put two fingers into her mouth, and
whistled. The sound was so strong that the wind it raised flattened the
leaves of the nearby trees. A thunder rolled through their branches in
response, and a large, heavy object landed next to her, planting itself
deep into the damp forest floor.

It was a giant mortar, but instead of a pestle, a broom stuck its
bristled head out of the mortar’s opening.

The woman bent down and lifted the dead body with the care of a mother
lifting her child out of a crib. One marveled at such strength in a
woman so old. Yet, in the tale, it all made sense.

She carefully wrapped the severed head in a cloth and put it into her
apron pocket. Then she eased the body into the mortar and jumped in
herself.

A broom appeared in her hand. Leaning out of the mortar, she swept the
forest floor. The swirl of wind in its wake lifted the mortar and its
load into the air, raised it higher and higher, and carried it above
the trees and into the distance.

—
purr
—
purr
—

He was so thirsty. If only he could have but a drop of water.

He lifted his tired head, but there was no water in sight. And the tale
drew him, caressed him as it flowed on the waves of the
cat’s deep purr…

It was another place, many kingdoms away. The old woman had climbed out
of the mortar and was searching for something. A bloodied lock of blond
hair stuck out of her bulging apron pocket.

Why do we keep coming back to this tale? The man is already dead,
isn’t he?

He wanted to weep for the fallen warrior, but he had no tears left.

No water.

The woman settled into the thick grass, humming softly to herself. It
was a tune both familiar and strange. One could swear it was the most
common song, yet as soon as the sounds died out, he
couldn’t remember any of them.

I—remember—nothing…

The woman stirred, suddenly alert. The tinkling sound of water disturbed
the forest stillness. It was soft and pleasant, just like the
woman’s song.

She kept singing as she crept through the
grass toward the sound of the water. And there, at the side of the
small hilltop, was a stream.

The woman took out the severed head and laid it on the grass. From the
same pocket she produced a vial and filled it from the stream. She
moved carefully, as if afraid to touch the water. Then she gave a
shrill whistle and the heavy mortar came stumbling toward her through
the forest undergrowth. The headless body dangled over its edge, arms
flapping against the side.

The old woman took the body out and spread it on the ground. She took
great care to adjust the head to the body, pressing it against the
stump of the neck so that the young man looked merely wounded. With one
hand, she held the head tightly against the neck. With the other, she
sprinkled the water from the vial onto the wound.

The liquid foamed as it touched the skin. The
foam consumed the blood and covered the cut. It bubbled, pristine white
on the creamy white skin. And then
—

…purr, purr…

The cut was no longer there. The head was melded on its neck just like
it was supposed to. There was no sign that only moments ago the head
and the body were separate from one another.

The woman kissed the vial and sprinkled again,
this time on the corpse’s forehead. There was a sigh as
it touched the skin. And a change. At first Ivan
couldn’t name it. The body was still pale, but it was
no longer
—

—no longer dead.

The fallen warrior stirred. His eyelids
fluttered open and he looked up at her. And now tears stood in the
woman’s eyes. They brimmed her wrinkled eyelids and ran
down her face, making their way among the folds of her wrinkled skin,
dry like ancient bark.

She cried for the living where she had no tears for the dead.

“Have I—fallen
asleep?” the man asked. Through the hoarseness of
the freshly mended throat his voice was as young as his appearance. No
more than a boy.

“You slept too long,
Ilia.” The woman nodded, smiling through her tears.
“Time to wake up.”

A cat’s face filled Ivan’s vision. The
jewel-green eyes were no longer dreamy.

“I am tired of you, boy,” the cat
said. “I think you are ready to jump off the
cliff.”

Ivan didn’t question it. He clambered to his feet, stiff
from too many hours of sitting on the hard ground, and wordlessly
walked toward the precipice beyond.

He looked over the edge. There were bones down there. Many bones. He
could just make out the white balls of skulls scattered among them, far
below.

A pack of crows on the nearby boulders looked at him expectantly.

“Go on, boy,” the cat said from
behind. “Jump.”

He took another step forward.

Why did I come here?

Who am I?

He was thirsty, so thirsty he couldn’t think straight.

Water.

Am I here because of the water?

He turned and looked at the cat.

“Water,” he croaked with a dry
mouth. The sound of his voice was so strange, so ugly compared to the
cat’s deep purr.

“There’s water down
below,” the cat told him. “After
you jump, you can have all you want.”