was his name. Arkady had spent months in the fellow’s company. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he would have remembered the name immediately.
For the merest instant, a twinkle of amusement flickered across Surplus’s face. “It’s been quite some time,” he said. “I’ll wager you have a story to tell.”
“Yes, I-”
“That was not an invitation.” Surplus held out a paw and helped Arkady up onto the driver’s platform alongside him. Then, when he was settled, the ambassador said, “Your destination and your purpose, young man. As quickly and efficiently as you can manage it, if you please.”
Arkady spilled out his soul.
When he was done, Surplus looked thoughtful. “Hmmm,” he said. “Well, I had known some of this already. But your tale explains a great deal.”
Timidly, then, because everything else he had tried this evening had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong, Arkady said, “And you, sir? Where are you bound?”
“As it chances, I am at loose ends. I have just now returned from a long conversation with the guards at the Pushkin Museum who, against all odds and expectations, remain alert, undrugged, and determinedly on duty. I could not convince them to let me have the merest glimpse of the hoard of Trojan gold which is their chiefest treasure and, indeed, were it not for diplomatic immunity, I strongly suspect I would be cooling my heels in prison right now. I was considering my next move when I spotted you.”
“You must take me directly to the Terem Palace, then.” Tears welled up in Arkady’s eyes. “Please, sir, it is vital. The Duke of Muscovy must be warned about this terrible conspiracy.”
Surplus pulled up the horses and stared up over above the silhouetted city rooftops. “Only a minute ago, I would have told you that your quest was literally impossible, for vast numbers of people had created an impenetrable wall before the Kremlin’s entrance. Now, however, I strongly suspect that conditions have changed.”
Following Surplus’s gaze, Arkady saw a paleness in the night sky which only slowly resolved into the form of a man so large that his upper body was visible over the intervening buildings. This miraculous figure was perfectly naked. Its head moved from side to side, eyes wide and liquid. Its expression was as innocent as a baby’s.
Arkady crossed himself. “It’s an omen. A vision. A sign from Almighty God.” Then he scowled. “But what the devil can it possibly mean?”
“It means,” Surplus said, shaking the reins and putting the horses in motion again, “that by the time we get there, our path to the Kremlin should be free.” Then, as they clopped down the cobblestones, he handed his handkerchief to the young man. Gesturing at the carpetbag of tools he had assembled for the night’s business, he added, “There’s a bottle of mineral water in that basket by your foot. You should clean your face-you’re a terrible mess.”
They had not gone five blocks before they began to pass fugitives from Red Square and the Alexander Garden. First came young men running with all their might, and then young women and older men running vigorously, and then a scattering of people of all ages and categories scurrying along as fast as they could manage. The density of folk trying to escape the prodigious giant thickened until Surplus had to slow the horses to a walk to avoid running anybody down.
“You are a man of extraordinary good fortune, Arkady. It took me weeks of unrelenting effort to arrange a meeting with the Duke of Muscovy,” Surplus remarked. “Yet you, in a single-”
A creature out of nightmare, with the body of a man and the head of a tremendous leather-beaked bird, rose up out of the crowd and, stepping onto the coach’s running board, pulled itself level with Surplus and Arkady. The monstrous apparition held onto the door with one arm and with the other pointed at them a device very much like a muzzle-loading gun, only with a kind of upside-down jar atop it. It pumped a bellows, and a puff of black smoke engulfed Surplus and Arkady.
When the smoke cleared, the inexplicable chimera was still clinging to the coach. Without dropping the reins, Surplus swung about, lifted up both his feet, and kicked as hard as he could. The bird-man tumbled from the carriage and was quickly left behind.
Surplus waved a hand before his face. “Well!” he said. “That was certainly a dramatic and meaningless event. Are you all right, Master Arkady?”
There was no answer, so he turned in his seat, suddenly concerned. Arkady’s face was unrecognizable. His eyes were wide and staring, his mouth set in a rictus of a grin. But there was a touch of determination in it as well, buried down deep.
“The Duke of Muscovy,” he said. “The Duke of Muscovy.”
Baba Yaga flew across the city, bottle in hand. She had no desire to stay and play with she-forgot-exactly- whoever-it-was who had given it to her. She was hunting bigger game tonight.
Against the flow of panicked citizens she ran, pushing her way through the crush of bodies choking Resurrection Gate, some of whom were trying to flee inward and others outward. She did not much like people and the more of them there were the less tolerable she found them, but this experience was different. They slammed into her and punched and clawed at her, even as she forced her way through them. Their hysteria made her invisible to them and their fear filled her with dark glee.
Glancing back over the gate, Baba Yaga saw a naked giant shifting slowly against the darkness of the sky. It meant nothing to her. She might easily have gone right past the giant and so up the causeway. But it did not fit her mood to do so. Instead, she went straight to the Kremlin’s west wall, stuck the bottle of rubbing alcohol in her jacket pocket, and began to climb. She scaled the soaring wall like an enormous bat, digging into the mortar between its bricks with her long, sharp fingers-choosing this means of entry not for any specific reason or purpose, but just because she could.
Even for her, however, doing so was a prodigious feat. When at last Baba Yaga topped the wall, she was gasping with exertion and sweat rolled freely down her face.
She was mopping her forehead with the bandanna when a man’s voice said, “One of your creatures has arrived, demon.”
“Not one of mine,” a machine-voice replied.
“Should I kill her, then?”
“You are a zealot and your delusional beliefs would make her death mean nothing to you. The pleasure of this woman’s death is mine.”
Even as they spoke, however, Baba Yaga was pulling the cork from her bottle and cramming the bandanna deep down its neck. “I am terror and Old Night,” she said. A box of matches appeared magically in the palm of one hand. “I am the fear you cannot name. I am she who cannot be placated. If you think you can kill me, you are welcome to try.”
“All things are possible with God’s help.” The first speaker held a klashny, but he did not raise it to his shoulder. Not yet. Baba Yaga recognized him by his clothing. He was a strannik, a worshipper of the White Christ, and doubtless the one she sought. The White Christ did not frighten Baba Yaga any more than did the Red Odin or even the Black Baal. She was old, old beyond human reckoning, older than language and older than fire. She had coalesced in the darkness that came before the gods. When the first sacrifice had been laid upon the first altar she had been there to snatch it away from its intended recipient. When first ape-man had been killed by an envious brother, it was she who had guided the murderer’s hand.
The strannik stood watching, doing nothing. The real danger came from the machine-creature crouched at his feet. It launched itself at her in a silver blur.
Baba Yaga set fire to the rag stuck in the bottle. She had time to do so, she reckoned. It would take a good three-quarters of a second for the demon to reach her.
When it did, she side-stepped the creature and smashed the bottle on its back.
The underlord went up in flames.
Burning, it spun about and tried to seize her in its arms and metal jaws. But Baba Yaga knew a trick worth two of that. She reached into the flames and, grabbing the man-wolf by its ankles, flipped it over.
The underlord would have fallen on its back had the fight not occurred at the very lip of the rampart. Instead, it fell with a long electronic wail down the side of the Kremlin, burning all the way to the ground. When it hit the stones of Red Square, its screech stopped abruptly. Though it continued to burn, it did not move.
Baba Yaga turned to the man in black. “You are a strannik,” she said. “There were three of you.”
