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Chapter 43: Even Gods Can Be Killed
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2021-09-28 01:50:12Ivan 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
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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
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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.”
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“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
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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
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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
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Baba Yaga was aback her mortar and pestle with her witch-daughter Morena, the wind-wild goddess with a body like a birch. Morena flew aback a broom in a red velvet cloak and black rags of a dress. They were flying as fast as an eagle over the Caucasus Mountains, sending their flocks of crows and owls to harvest ingredients: poisonous herbs and dwarven treasures, alongside a fair amount of children’s first breaths and mother’s last words. This spell would be one in a long line against Chernobog, the Black God, who longed to unseat Morena and her consort Jarilo from the heavens and spread sterile, cold perfection with the infection of his cursed deathless lands upon Buyan. Nature abhors a vacuum, but vacuums abhor nature, and Chernobog was the void that ate all he drained of blood and left his victims cold and lifeless. Russia was both light and dark, poison and honey, and black Morena was the queen of immortals. Passionate but feral, she
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Morozko became famed for his treatment of guests at banyas and his divination prowess. Word traveled of the tenderness with which he beat bushels of green peeled venik against patron’s backs. He could steam and ice the different pools just so, and his reputation began to precede him. Morozko worked for different leshys in different kingdoms who had carved Buyan up between them in a patchwork thanks to games of chess and war. Leshy tsars sometimes lost half a forest to an ill-thought bet. Winners led their pampered squirrels in great migrations to their new lands.First Morozko traveled on foot, then on horseback when he had saved enough money. He possessed his mother’s wandering heart, always searching for a place to belong but never finding it. He was camping by the Volga River one night when he heard the click-clack creak of a hut on chicken legs. A hag with iron teeth and a fence of bones sat smoking her pipe in a
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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
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 47: Promenade
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
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 46: Falcon Wild
“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
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 45: Gardens To Tend
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.”
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 44: A Goddess Is Born
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
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 43: Even Gods Can Be Killed
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
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 42: Ivan Tsarevich
Morozko was on the shadow-side of Saint Petersburg, in Buyan’s reflection of the metropolis. He rode the train aimlessly, smoking cigarette after cigarette. All of his searching had turned up ash. Dirt. Nothing. There was no sign of where Kosti had disappeared to, and the fear of what had happened to Anya was a bird freezing in its cage in his snowy ribs, where his heart would have been, if Anya was in his arms. Instead, she had flown away, because he had been foolish enough to make his wish on a firebird girl.Morozko caught his reflection in the dark window. There were his lips, a dark blue, and his cheeks sunken in like a junkie’s. His hair was hardened with ice. He could barely smoke cigarettes now: the cold of his mouth put them out. He cursed his new form under his breath.Morozko touched the window’s glass and traced Anya’s face in the oily smudge. Just her eyes, really, a
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 41: Lion in a Cage
Anya sank onto the bed, head in her hands. “No,” she whispered. “That is not right. You disgusting liar.”“Would I lie to the daughter of a goddess?”“The gods are gone. They abandoned Buyan eons ago. You are delusional, you bastard.”“Which is perhaps why Baba Yaga found you on Earth, little demigod.” Kashchei sat beside Anya and put his arm around her. She was too panicked to resist.“No.” Anya looked out the open window, at the treacherous beauty of the land of the deathless. Anya clutched the firebird pendant at her throat and inhaled sharply.“And here Baba Yaga has raised you all this time, keeping you in the dark about your heritage so you could be her perfect little pawn.” Kashchei tapped his shoeless feet on the ground. “Cruel, really. Keeping your true family from you.”&l
Jack Frost's Bride Chapter 40: Glazed
Ded Moroz's eyes seemed to pick the meat clean from Morozko's bones. Father Frost stroked his hoary beard, glacial icicle spiked crown resting atop his brow. His courtiers thronged round his throne, whispering at the scandal of his scion, the bannik bastard born out of wedlock to Snegurochka.“So,” Ded Moroz boomed. “You wish to be reinstated to the family legacy and become my heir? A responsibility you have shirked since your birth, all to save some orphan witch?”Morozko sweated, the furnace in his belly roaring. “Yes,” he said, temple throbbing under the scrutiny of his forefather, a man he had never wanted please.A thin smile graced Ded Moroz's lips. “I cannot say that I am glad that it has taken so long for you to accept your heritage. But for the love of a woman, you are willing. So be it. I will give you your crown, my grandson.”Morozko let out t
