The Usurper's Crown (40 page)

This was Baba Yaga’s house.

Ingrid felt her other self at her back, straining to reach her, but the brook ran between them, and she could not cross. She pressed her fist against her forehead. She wanted no more of this — this unaccountable knowledge drifting into her head from outside. She wanted her voice, she wanted to understand in the normal way. She wanted herself, alone and solid. She wanted to weep, but she could not cry any more than she could speak.

“You’d better go inside,” said the cat, tucking its legs underneath itself as it settled down on the gatepost. “You would not like what she sends out to fetch you.”

Ingrid’s anger drowned out all other feeling. What was happening? How dare she … interfere like this?

But I will not find out here.

Knife-edged warning reached Ingrid from her other self. If she went inside she would be trapped. This was different from last time. The other’s knowledge filled her. Avanasy’s ring would not pull her out again.

Ingrid tightened her will and strode up to the gate of bones. With painful slowness, as if its hinges were rusted past redemption, it opened for her. The cat watched her with disinterested eyes as she moved as close as she dared to the house, turning on its monstrous, crooked legs, its talons gouging the ground.

She stood there, watching it turn slowly and silently, impossible, ridiculous and terrifying all at once.

You know I’m here,
she thought toward its owner.
I will not come into your parlor, spider. If you want me, you must come out.

A wave of contempt as palpable as a raw wind engulfed Ingrid, and she withered under the force of it, but not completely, for her other self made a wall for her back. She was supported and sheltered by that other. Not much, but enough, just enough so that she could stay where she was and resist.

After a long moment, the house ceased its restless turning. Carefully, the scarred and scaled legs bent until its steps touched the ground, and the door fell open toward Ingrid. She felt as if she were looking into some terrible open maw.

Baba Yaga squatted in the threshold, as gaunt and tattered as the spirit of famine. She leaned on her filthy pestle that was as thick around as both of Ingrid’s arms. Two huge, black mastiffs waited at her side. Both bared their yellow fangs, and Ingrid could feel their growls, low and sullen, vibrating through the air.

“I have need of you, woman,” she said, and Ingrid could see the black iron of her teeth as she spoke.

Ingrid stiffened. This place was all bone and blood, and she was in danger. She knew that. But she also knew boundaries had been crossed here, and wrong had been done. It made a difference.

“So I gathered,” she said simply, and tried to hold back her relief at being able to speak. The witch’s regard seemed to have made her more solid, more real in this place of horrors and fancies, and that idea sent a tremor of fear through Ingrid.

“I will not be brooked.” The witch thumped her pestle on the floor, and the whole house shuddered. “Aid me and you will have aid in return. Cross me and you will be held until you yield. There is nothing else.”

“What could you possibly need me for?” Ingrid spread her hands.

“You will find me the Vixen and bring back what she has stolen from me. When that is done, you may depart.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Nonetheless. You will do this thing I ask.”

The words fell against Ingrid like a weight, pressing her down until it was a struggle to think of anything else. Images of foxes and meadows, and a round green hill flashed unbidden through her mind, and she remembered with crystal clarity the creature who had spoken to her when she was here before, who had sent her off to the Old Witch, just to see what would happen. She knew all at once that her other half could lead her to the Vixen again, and she would do this thing because the Old Witch bade her, and because she could do nothing else.

But there was the crossing of boundaries, that bit of wrong, that bit of freedom.

“No,” said Ingrid.

Baba Yaga pointed one long, crooked finger at Ingrid. On either side of her, the mastiffs raised their hackles. “I give you this last warning, woman. I know your name, I know your future and your past. I see the warp and weft of your tapestry life. Without me, your death is sure. Think carefully before you wake my anger.”

It was too much, it was too strange and the fear of it too great. Despite that, she would not place herself in the power of this creature, this hag. She could not. But she could not move.

Then the witch’s head went up as if she had caught some strange scent. She bared her iron teeth in a death’s head grin.

“So, your man thinks to take a hostage. Thinks to have and keep what is mine in exchange for you.”

Avanasy?
Some caution outside herself kept Ingrid from saying his name out loud.

Baba Yaga snapped her teeth and they came together with a hollow clang.

“You try my patience, you two. This is the second time you have refused me and he has tried to pull you from me. Very well.” She turned her black, black gaze on Ingrid, and for a moment Ingrid felt she would burn to a cinder from the heat of it. “There will be a third time, and you will beg to do my bidding, because only I know how the Firebird may be caged. Go freely. I am done with you. Now, you may see if you can find your own way home.”

At those words, Ingrid found she could not stay still. The dogs advanced, snarling. The house lifted itself up onto its legs, and without feeling her own movement, she was outside the gate, which swung shut with the slow straining of dry and rusted hinges.

And they all faded away, leaving her alone beside a brook in a piney wood staring at her own double.

Avanasy?
she choked. Her voice was gone again. What substance she had possessed had dissolved, leaving behind only vapor and desperate sensibility.

What am I to do?
she thought toward her double, and knew that other self was consumed with anxiety.
Why can’t you speak to me?

For a moment, she thought to cross the brook that separated them, but as soon as it entered her mind, the thought filled her with loathing. It was more wrong to go closer to her reflection than it was her being here in the first place. She did not know why this was so, only that it was.

Ingrid wished she could cry. She wished she could scream, but all releases seemed denied her. Already, she was drifting, pulled by some current she could not feel. It was as if the bank flowed and the brook stayed still.

No!
She steeled herself again.
No!

That act seemed to root her in place, at least for a moment. It occurred to Ingrid that if she failed to will herself to some destination, her destination might be chosen for her, and who knew what else was out here. It might even be worse than Baba Yaga.

Ingrid lifted her eyes to her other self, and wrapped her determination around herself. She willed herself to turn, to follow the current of the brook at her feet. Her other self turned with her, and together, side by side in the silence that this spirit land enforced, they began to travel downstream.

Avanasy ached. His hand ached from holding his knife. His shoulder burned from the blow it had taken. His soul ached from seeing Ingrid still and lifeless on the sands.

His prisoner’s body pulled against the iron knife that held him pinned, and his encased spirit pulled against Avanasy’s command enforced by that iron. He pulled toward his mistress, and his mistress would know it soon, if she did not already. Grimly, Avanasy held on, because to let go would be to leave Ingrid alone. Overhead, the stars wheeled toward morning, and his pain settled into his bones, and he still held on.

Then, the rider lifted his head as if he heard a distant sound.

“Your woman is free,” he said. “You may not hold me any longer.”

“But she has not returned,” croaked Avanasy. His hand had begun to go numb with cold and effort. All he could feel now was the pain that throbbed in time to his heartbeat.

“My mistress did not take her,” sneered the knight. “And now my mistress does not hold her. You have no more right to me, and even your iron cannot claim me.”

The pull which Avanasy had fought all night turned into a sudden wrench, and Avanasy cried out, but he could not hold on and the rider tore himself free. Before Avanasy could stumble to his feet to try to strike out again, the rider snatched his black javelin up from the ground where it had fallen, and was gone.

For a moment, Avanasy only stared at the suddenly empty night. Then, he roared out in wordless frustration and stabbed his knife deep into the ground. But it changed nothing. Ingrid’s body still lay abandoned.

He crawled to her side and cradled her head against his chest. He had to think. He must think clearly. Where could she be now? What path could she have taken? The Rider said Baba Yaga had not to pulled her forth. This must be true or by the laws that governed bargains between the mortal world and the Land of Death and Spirit he would not have been able to break the hold Avanasy placed on him. All the magics Avanasy knew were for binding that which was already together. He knew no spell to call a spirit back into its body. Not a divided spirit. Even if he could go in search of her, could he find her in the vastness of the Silent Lands? Did he have the strength to walk that road now?

“Oh, Ingrid,” he breathed as he held her yet more tightly. “I will try. I must. But, love, help me to find you.”

Ingrid felt the current again, a gentle undertow to her awareness. At first, she tried to steel herself against it, but then she realized this current had a familiar touch. She looked across to her other self and that other self nodded once.

Avanasy.

Ingrid pushed forward. The world around her had grown thick and sluggish again. She was no longer vapor as she had been, but nor was she yet solid. Movement was difficult, even with the current. She had weight now, but not flesh. Will, but not strength, and she was growing tired.

Help me. Love, reach for me. Please, I’m here.

Soft, so soft Avanasy almost did not feel it, Ingrid’s breath blew across his hand. He froze, his heart pounding, but no other breath came. He chafed her wrist gently. “Here, love. Here, please, I am here.”

He pressed two fingers against her wrist, and felt the tiniest trace of living warmth. Beyond that, there was the flutter of a heartbeat, and another. But that was all.

“Yes. Here.” He drew her even closer. “Here.”

Her breath touched his cheek again, and her chest rose and fell, once, and again.

“Yes.” He kissed her mouth, breathing into her with his breath, and willing her with all his strength to find her way home.

Weight and form, distant but real. Ingrid felt her sluggish blood in the netting of her veins, the frame of her bones and the binding of her sinews. But it was all too far away, and she was so tired. What had she done to become so tired? She could not reach out, but she knew where her hands were. She could not cry out, even though now she knew where her voice lay. She was weighted down with weariness and fear, struggling through a world that grew thicker with each passing instant.

But then, then, she felt Avanasy’s kiss, and she felt her being, flesh and spirit, yearn to respond, but she did not know how.

But the weight was hers, and the will was hers, and she could feel her hand. She would raise her hand, she would touch him. She would hold him. She would.

Avanasy, almost not believing what he saw, watched, filled with hope and fear, as Ingrid’s hand struggled to lift itself.

“Yes.” He kissed her again. “Yes, love. Come back to me.”

Ingrid felt herself sinking into the ground, into the weight of her flesh, into the sluggish flow of her own blood, and into Avanasy’s embrace. She was still so cold, so far away, and yet, too, she felt the warmth of her bones gathering around her. She could raise her hand now, could touch his cheek, and feel its warmth and roughness underneath her palm as her hand traced its way down his back to his shoulder to his arm to his hand where he held her. She kissed him and held him close, for if he let her go now she would fly away again.

“Hold me, hold me,” she said and she knew she spoke with her true voice. Avanasy gathered her close in his arms, kissing her endlessly, taking her breath, breathing again into her. She felt him weary, and in pain, yet she also knew his desire quickened his blood, as her desire quickened hers, growing insistent, pulling her home, and she embraced him, wrapping his hands around her so he might caress her, the warmth and strength of his touch bringing her closer to him still.

She had no other thought — no care for propriety, or fear of abandonment. She wished him close, wished no barrier between them, and he knew her need and he laid her down and covered her and she was able to wrap herself around him so that they could lie close, and closer yet, and she knew nothing but joy, and she opened her eyes and she saw Avanasy and she was whole and alive and for that one moment they were together in life and love, and the morning star shone down from a brightening sky, and Ingrid knew this was all the blessing that they would ever need. This was their true marriage, whatever ceremony might come afterward.

For a while after that she slept. She woke at last to the dawn, and the feel of Avanasy stroking her hair. She turned to look up at him, and found him gazing down at her, and his cheeks were wet with tears.

“You found me,” she rasped, her voice dry in her throat.

Avanasy shook his head. “No, you found your own way. I think it must be ever so with you.”

She took his hand to still it and also to pull herself up. She was covered in sand, and hungry as a bear, but she didn’t care. “Do you know what happened?”

“I think I do. I think that touch of the ghost that troubled your sister loosened your soul from your body.”

Not even reflex made her say that was impossible. She was far beyond doubting any word he spoke of sorceries and spirit. “But … why now? It’s been months.”