Deathless

bogatyrs? They aren’t too bright, usually, but bless me if they aren’t a handsome species. They’re always the youngest of three sons. They’re always the honest type, dumb as toenails but big in the trousers. And the Yelenas, they always fall in love and run off. I remember one Ivan came with a wolf, a huge grey monster of a beast. The wolf did all the work, tricking Koschei into telling them where his death was, telling Ivan what to say so that Yelena the Bright would swoon in her seat for him, even though he was a youngest son with no inheritance and mud under his nails. The two of them rode off astride the wolf when it was all said and done. They left Koschei bleeding in the snow. When they’d safely gone, he picked himself up and washed the blood off. He stood watching the road for a long time, like he thought she might come back. But what can you do? Gone means gone. He didn’t come out of the Chernosvyat for weeks. Chairman Yaga won’t even say the name Ivan anymore, she hates them so. If she meets one on the street—snick, snick! She eats him up on the spot, and belches like a grain commissioner, so everyone will know she isn’t sorry.”

“You knew them? You slept curled up with them and you know where they are? But you don’t try to rescue them?”

Naganya scowled. “Chyerti don’t go in for rescuing. If you eat rotten fish, you’re bound to get sick. If you’re a faithless spittoon of a woman, you end up in the factory. It’s only common sense. And besides, people being miserable is natural. Just like it’s natural for an imp to enjoy them being miserable. As a system, it works terrifically well.”

Marya picked at her nails. She knew the answer before she said it. “And if I end up there, you won’t come for me, either?”

Naganya the vintovnik looked away, her oily hair falling into her face.

“Well,” said Marya softly. “If I ever meet a man named Ivan I shall eat his heart before he can wish me a good morning.”

Nasha grinned, eager to skate over such uncomfortable subjects. “That’s on account of how you’re one of us, Mashenka! Spleen and sleeping, marrow and mind. Now, there’s raskovnik to dig up, and not much time.”

“If we need a human, how can we ever get back to a city without Volchya-Yagoda and an armful of weeks to spare?”

“There’s border places. Places where the birches are thinner than paper, and you can tear through. Places where the Tsar of Life and the Tsar of Death fought so hard that their territories lie crushed right up to each other, on either side of a pebble, in the leaves and root of a turnip, on a cat’s tail and his tongue.”

“I should try to see him again, before we go. Baba Yaga can’t keep me out if he hears my voice. Surely he will wrap me up in his arms and tell me—”

“Don’t, Masha.” Naganya fidgeted. “The war is going badly.”

“The war is always going badly.”

* * *

Marya and Naganya took a young horse, green and fleet and hungry, and trotted down Skorohodnaya Road in the evening light, the vintovnik tucked in front of Marya herself, clutching the saddle horn with her wooden hands. Twilight drifted lazily, taking its time bringing down a violet-pink haze. The last rays of sun winked on their stallion’s ears.

“I make horses nervous,” Naganya fretted. The safety in her cheek cocked and uncocked sharply, echoing down the road. “Surely this one will rear and drop me! And then roll over on top of us both!”

“I chose a young one, who has not yet heard that you sometimes shoot people. It will be all right.” The horse snorted; snow bleated from his nose.

Naganya twisted in her seat as the road dwindled behind them and the wood rose up, dark and excited, icy and rustling. She grabbed her friend by the chin. “Marya, listen like your ears are bottomless! Border places are dangerous. Very disreputable things live there. You must be careful or Koschei will smelt me for losing you. If you see anyone you know, or someone with a silver star on their breast, you mustn’t talk to them, not even to curse them or ask their names. You mustn’t get off the horse. If your foot touches the ground, I won’t be able to help you. Even the enemy’s pebbles bite and are fierce. I shall find the old lady for you. I shall push her across the field.”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“Tfu! She expects you to cheat! Masha, whom I love: These tasks do not test your strength or your wiliness; they test your ability to cheat, which is the truest measure of a devil. They are designed to be impossible if you play fair. What should you do instead? Walk into no-man’s-land unprotected and be lost forever?”

“Is that what the others did? Did you tell the Yelenas these things?”

“Yes! And they refused to listen because they were innocent maidens without a lie in their hearts or a smear on their souls. Don’t be innocent, Marya. Innocent means stupid. Follow your friend, who is a goblin and knows better, and we’ll have raskovnik salad before dawn.”

But if I am not innocent, are there lies in my heart? Smears on my soul? Am I a devil? What does it mean, to be one of them? Marya resolved to sort it all out when she had a moment to think through it, when Baba Yaga’s soup pot was not dangling over her head.

The forest deepened, the birches filling with crows, the underbrush with red, pointed hedgehog eyes. Overhead, violet seeped out of the sky and black crept up until only the sharp, cutting stars sliced through the night. Naganya’s body warmed against her own; she worked the trigger in her throat gently to keep her oils from freezing. Finally, the wood opened up into a wide glade where the snow flowed even and smooth as water. A dozen houses glowed and smoked and did the sorts of things village houses do in the dark of winter. Naganya whooped, her cry echoing through the owls like one of their own. An old woman crept out of one of the smallest houses and into the snow. Once she had passed the ring of light cast by all those windows, she squatted in the field, the hissing of her urine loud in the silent evening.

“We’ve luck like a mushroom hunter tonight, Marya! Look at her, all fat and full of juice!” Naganya hopped lightly off the horse, neither sinking in the snow nor leaving tracks, but dancing on it like a mayfly on a lake.

“Why is it safe for you and not for me?” whispered Marya Morevna.

“Because you’re still a girl.” The vintovnik grinned. “Girls have to obey rules. Chyerti break them.”

The rifle imp scampered off through the snow. Marya nudged her horse along to keep her friend in sight.

“Pssst, babushka!” Nasha hissed. “Old lazy slattern! How many babies have you got off your man, hm? Spend your life with your legs open, do you? Just leaves room for the devil to slip in!”

The old woman started and looked around her—right at Naganya—but saw nothing.

“Shame on you, baba! Haven’t even got the decency to get up to witchcraft in your old age! Just lie about, why don’t you? Screech at brats got from half your neighbors. Plump my pillows! Feed me cherries! ”

The old woman shivered, peering hard into the dark.

“Babushka! Put your ankles together for once! What if Christ comes back tonight and the first things he sees are your saggy old bones pissing in the snow like a horse? Straight back to paradise with him, on the double quick, that’s what!”

The woman leapt up, drawing her knees together with a dry knocking sound. Naganya dove down and clapped her irons on the old lady’s legs, giggling.

“Marya,” came a soft voice. But Marya reminded herself not to speak to anyone, and stared straight ahead.

“March, Comrade Lazybones!” cried the vintovnik. She boxed one of her own ears, stamped her foot, and shot three bullets out of her mouth with the soft psht psht psht of a silencer. The shots landed all around the old grandmother but did not hurt her, only made her leap forward like a spooked cow. “Faster! Faster! The police are after you! Run! You remember how to hike up your skirts!”

The woman bawled and stumbled, her ankles tangling up in the manacles. “Don’t fall or I shall have you arrested for wasting your life on babies and borscht!”

“Marya,” said the voice again. Marya squeezed her eyes shut. I will not answer, she thought frantically.

Naganya nipped at her human’s heels, spitting silenced bullets and whacking at her toes with bayonets Marya had not known she hid under her arms.

“Don’t cry, you wrinkly old camel! Just think of the stories you’ll have to tell all the other spitting beasts! The