Morozko reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigarette. He spat sparks onto its end and took a contemplative drag. The moon cut a sliver in the star-pricked sky. Morozko watched as silver vila militias flew on high, heralding a storm.
“Great, it is going to blizzard,” Morozko said, coming to a rickety bridge. He peered at his reflection in the moonlight and cast his cigarette into the water. His image rippled: white hair braided back, youthful faced, with a proud point to his ears like all nechist.
What was Morozko doing, carrying Baba Yaga's bundle like some errand boy? He was keeper of Tsar Dmitri's inn between realms. Sure, he was the inn’s grocery boy, but this was a bit too degrading. What in thrice nine kingdoms was he doing babysitting? Morozko looked into the water, with half a mind to drop Anya in. Giving her to Dmitri would be like sealing his fate as Ded Moroz’s heir. He would become a glorified present deliverer to grubby children throughout the whole Soviet Union.
The stream's surface stirred. A curtain of hair pooled below. Morozko walked away, banishing all thoughts of leaving the girl behind. “Not with that crazy fish.”
“Kolya?” Elizaveta emerged from the stream. The rusalka's flesh shone fish-silver in the darkness. Her wet hair froze. “What did you bring me?”
Elizaveta, Morozko thought. Sweet girl but completely clueless. Too kind for the seductress rusalka, she had sought haven in Dmitri’s kitchen years ago. Now Elizaveta was content to sing her pond weed songs while roasting fowl over a fire. She had never so much as drowned a single peasant or taken a vodyanoi merman to bed, though there were many rowdy vodyanoi that fancied the airheaded rusalka. In fact, she had probably been dented on the head at death. What else would explain her vapid kindness? She had drowned herself over a sailor like Lorelei, but that was many years ago. Now she only loved her baking and her cleaning and her ragtag nechist family.
“Kolya, you are staring at me like I am a ghost. What are you carrying?” Elizaveta repeated.
“Nothing, loon-wife.” Morozko backed away. He tripped on a root and fell to the ground, rolling so that he did not hurt Anya.
Anya awoke, crying out.
Elizaveta froze. “Is that a human?” She touched her midriff. "Rusalka are barren. But now I can finally have a daughter. Oh Kolya, you should never have! Whatever will Dmitri think?”
“Morena’s frost, no! This is Baba Yaga's brat. Why would I give her to you?”
Elizaveta narrowed her eyes. “Why did not babushka eat her?”
Morozko sighed, smoothing his coat. He rocked Anya. “Quiet, mooncalf." Morozko turned to Elizaveta. “The hag has gone demented, that is why. She wants us to raise Anya. As if Dmitri would have any use for a girl not yet out of diapers.”
Elizaveta’s eyes swirled. “Anya, eh? How mysterious.”
Morozko shrugged. “She is an orphan I would guess, from anywhere. There is not a country babushka does not raid children from. From what I can tell, Baba Yaga thinks it is all a grand prank: a human raised by spirits. I cannot see Dima liking this.”
“Dima can suck a mushroom. He can turn as small as one, anyhow. Leshys have such a strange magic. Oh, mooncalf, you poor little lost girl!” Elizaveta said, making to hold Anya.
Morozko backed away. “Chernobog's black heart, you have pond scum for brains swimming around in your fishy head! Mooncalf isn't her name. She is Anya, and she is mine. She will make a nice decoration. I think I will place her in a cage on my dresser. You can clean out the poop.”
“But you wanted to eat her.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Let me just hold her!”
Morozko relented.
Elizaveta glowed, cradling Anya and tucking her deep into her swaddling. “Oh sweet child,” Elizaveta crooned. “Little Annushka. You are sweet as a fish's tail, more darling than pondweed. I love you already like a new mother her dearest child.”
Morozko rolled his eyes.
Elizaveta kissed Anya's cheek, but paused and wrinkled her nose.
“Her mouth smells like fern flower juice.” Elizaveta glared at Morozko. “What the hell did you do? Did you give a human girl an alcoholic mixer?”
Morozko looked at a tree. He began to whistle.
“Kolya!”
“Fine. I fed her witch’s brew. She was hungry!”
Elizaveta's eyes widened. “Idiot! How could you hurt such an innocent child? Have you no heart?”
“You know for a fact that I do not. I am all steam and fire.” Morozko scoffed. “Pfft. Anyways. Witch’s brew will strengthen her. It is a harsh world that Anya will live in. Better to drink up now rather than later when the decades have beaten weariness into her puny human bones.”
“You know how that magic works! Whatever nechist feeds a human fern flower juice marks them as their own, just as lovers on Ivan Kupalo mark their union by mixing fern flower nectar. She is bound to you now through raging blizzard and bone-melt summer suns. Oh Kolya, what have you done?”
“I am only counteracting Baba Yaga's claim! The hag cannot have her all to herself. Anya belongs to us all,” Morozko said, stubborn.
The howling of wolves silenced them. They shared a furtive look.
Morozko stiffened. “Curse it, it is Dima,” he said. “Quick, hand her to me.”
The blizzard intensified, snow like a slaver's whip. The vila were skirmishing over territory, Dmitri’s battalion waging icy war against Tsar Vladimir the Bent, Dmitri’s jealous brother to the North’s ragtag forces. Their icy arrows and frosty spears and icicle swords brought the fury of nature down upon Buyan. Morozko tucked Anya into his coat and let steam pour from his skin, ridding her of the cold. Maybe she would look better on his desk. He could teach her to sing like a songbird and dress her up in exotic outfits like a dancing monkey perhaps. Humans could not be that hard to teach tricks.
The vila forces moved their enemies to the left, clearing the sky. But in their absence the woods stirred. A flurry of animals - foxes, caribou, bears - spiraled out from the birch. In the distance a great figure, tall as the tallest fir, moved across the land. He oversaw his flock of beasts. It was Dmitri, the leshy lord of the forest.
He sang a lilting melody, his dinner plate eyes like clover. The leshy's great antlers were rimed with frost. The leaves in his green-gold hair formed a halo in the buffeting wind. Birds nested in his beard, and his bluish skin was like water. He carried a cudgel, signifying his sovereignty over beasts.
Dmitri paused in his song, eyes zeroing in on Morozko. The wolves that thronged round Dmitri's ankles let out plaintive cries.
Their howls froze Morozko's bubbling marrow. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Dmitri's wrath.
Steeling himself, Morozko called out to his tsar: “Dima, get your head out of the clouds and come home with us. There is fresh blini with caviar waiting and medovukha if you are so inclined.”
Dmitri's pupils dilated. “I need vodka to warm my sap,” he grunted. With great strides he approached, shrinking all the while until he was the size of a burly man. Dmitri buried his hand in the mane of a white wolf. He spread his other arm wide in welcome. “Kolya. Liza. Kinder faces never graced Mother Mokosh's earth.” His voice was like the mountains. “What tricks have you two been up to?”
Elizaveta glanced at Morozko. “Help. This is your fault!” she mouthed.
Dmitri's nostrils flared. “A human girl?” he said, cheer gone. In a bolt of lightning he was at Morozko's side. “I smell a child on you, son.” The tsar lifted Morozko's coat and saw Anya hidden within the thick white furs.
Dmitri’s eyes were cold emeralds. “I told you to never bring mortals to my realm again,” he said. Dmitri kneaded his brow. “I know that you have a taste for humans - that banniks delight in trespassing souls - but this is inexcusable. I pardon your unappetizing habits on Earth, but this is the realm of nechist, our home. Her kind does not belong here, not any longer. The girl cannot be your plaything. Return her at once to whatever hole you fished her from.”
“I would,” Morozko said through gritted teeth, “except that Baba Yaga dropped her into my arms like a demented stork. She is meant as a present to you for whatever idiot reason babushka has. I swear that hag is senile!”
“What?” Dmitri breathed.
“Babushka wants us to raise her,” Morozko muttered. “She would at least make a cute decoration.”
The problem with gods is that often, they like to stay hidden. And the most sacred place in all Buyan, the World Tree, where Perun nested in the branches and Veles snaked round the roots, was not really a tree, but a woman.Mother Mokosh, whose name Russian peasants centuries ago would swear on by taking dirt into their mouths – Mokosh’s body - and spitting it out, like the Greeks making an oath on the River Styx, echoed a tradition that may as well have been Neolithic.To swear on Mother Mokosh was to swear on the vitality of the land, summoning the very magic that bound Buyan together. But that magic was failing, reckless, with vines choking forests, greenery growing like mad beyond even the leshys’ control. Dmitri’s forest was nearly unnavigable, and the tsar went out each day, pruning and plucking, trying to put a stopper on the wilderness.Anya and Morozko stowed what little they had in the oversized bac
They backpacked Europe, hostel by hostel. It was Anya’s insistence that they travel simply, no planes, all train, bus and foot. Morozko mastered the art of smoking when you were a walking refrigerator. Anya learned to pack light. Both needed time to heal – one had lost his body, the other had lost her soul.Despite the marvels of the Old Word – the museums, the culture, the castles and cathedrals - Anya could not sleep. When she shut her eyes, she saw the deathless girls, each whispering silently, tears on their cheeks like pearls. Alina was always at the forefront, swirling into dust.It had been a year since they set out on their journey, though Anya’s body had stopped aging. Physically, she would always remain eighteen, perpetually frozen in time. She turned, restless, in Morozko’s arms, glamoured like him, for now light poured from her throat. It made sleeping even more diffic
“I missed you too. You do not, um, mind that I look like this now, do you? I thought, in order to save you, that I had to become something else. Someone I am not.”Anya avoided stepping on a mushroom. “Well, your skin is cold, but you are still you. You put on Ded Moroz’s crown for me. If you can accept me as I am now, as a – as Bilobog, or whatever, then I can still love you.”Morozko stopped, taking both of her hands into his. “Anya, I would not care if you became a hag. I would still adore you. Remember? I am your sidekick. All I want is your happiness.”Anya leaned into him. “Thanks, Kolya. You mean the world to me, too.”Their lips met.Aym coughed up a hairball. It landed square on Morozko’s cheek, interrupting their kiss. Aym purred with laughter as Morozko wiped the matted fur from his f
Morozko could barely see through the fury of the storm. Lightning split an amethyst birch in two, setting the jewel tree aflame. From behind the fallen tree slunk an orange tabby. “It is about time that you arrived,” purred Aym. Morozko stopped in his tracks. “Pus in boots? How the hell did you get here?” Aym laughed. “I have my ways. You look rather blue – sadness at my mistress’s disappearance must have taken a toll on you. I would say that you are practically frozen in sorrow.” Ivan rounded a corner on Greyback. His eyes gaped wide. “Something has changed,” he breathed. “I can feel it in my soul, now bound to another master. Actually, no – mistress? A – a goddess? But how?” Aym wove in between Greyback’s legs, purring. “You wouldn’t happen to have any cream, would you, bud? The deathless lands have lackluster food, and that’s an understatement.”
Morozko and Ivan did not encounter any other ghosts. Morozko suspected Maria Morevna held her spectral sisters at bay, already having claimed Ivan as her own. He wondered if Ivan’s deaths each night at Maria’s hands was the tithe they were paying to enter the deathless lands, for everything here had a price. Food was scarce, game nearly nonexistent, and they often went hungry.The morning of the summer solstice came, and they arrived at a steep rim of mountains that ringed the deathless lands. A great lair of a cave lay atop the tallest mountains: the domain of Zmei Gorynych.Greyback made quick work of the scree with Ivan on his back, and Morozko rose as a winter storm to the mountain’s peak. Still, the summit was tall, and it took them half a day to scale it. In the interim, the sun sang her solstice song, luring Zmei out of his cave. The dragon took wing and courted his celestial love with a radiant d
Ivan Tsarevich and Morozko trekked farther each day. Ivan told Morozko of the legions of cherti that guarded the deathless lands, of the women who had crumbled to dust upon trying to leave Kashchei’s kingdom. Their spirits haunted the thick black forests bordering the area. So many maidens that had been spirited away over the centuries now lingered there. Bodiless, they roamed the wilderness, leading travelers astray to try and suck the life out of them. There were packs of vucari, Greyback’s people, who would as likely help a traveler as eat them. Finally, there was Zmei Gorynych, the fearsome three-headed dragon who guarded the portal to the deathless lands.“Zmei leaves his cave once a year, on the summer solstice,” Ivan said as he turned hares over a spit for their dinner. “A being of fire, Zmei cannot resist the call of the sun. He flies as close as he can to her, fancying the star his lover, a