R. GARCIA ROBERTSON

The Bone Witch

WOODMEN'S AXES RANG between tall straight pine trunks, sounding sharp and clear in the hot summer noontide. Katya could hear the axes even before she smelled the horse droppings, or tasted woodsmoke in the air. Moving cautiously as civilization neared, she slid from tree to tree, stopping now and again to freeze against a mossy pine trunk, whispering the invisibility spell taught her by the Bone Witch. So long as she did not move nor speak, Katya could not be seen.

When visible, Katya was a green-eyed, barefoot witch girl in her teens, with unruly black hair and a wicked smile, wearing a homespun dress with a bright red-orange firebird embroidered on the bodice. Silent as a shadow, she stole softly between the tree trunks, stopping only to disappear. Having lived half her life in the boreal woods, Katya knew every bird cry and animal call, but had only scattered memories of what lay beyond the trees in the land of people -- bad memories mostly, making her especially wary. She had to cross the settled lands -- not their whole length which stretched from Far Barbary to Black Cathay -- just the narrow part lying before her, the valley of the Upper Zog leading into the Rift. And she had to get a mounted knight, three horses, and a national treasure across as well -- all clearly visible. No easy task, but better than trying to brave the Rift. Axes rang louder as she spotted the first stands of stumps marking a settlement.

"Chi-chi-chi-chi." The red squirrel's high, staccato warning came from downwind. Turning to look and listen, Katya tensed, stiffening into immobility while whispering the Bone Witch's spell. The squirrel's high-pitched chatter was not the man cry; instead it said wolf -- which puzzled Katya. What wolf would be silly enough to come within the sound of axes?

Straining her ears, listening for the soft pad of wolves, she heard berry bushes rattle, followed by a hollow clop-clop, growing louder. Ponies, coming from downwind or she would have smelled them. Whoever rode them was headed for the settled lands, just like her, but Katya did not mean to wait and let them catch up -- having problems enough already. Turning visible, she slipped off toward the settlement, threading through the stands of stumps, heading for the ring of axes.

Trees parted, and she came on a cleared swath dotted with stumps pointed at a broad blue band of sky -- as if a giant scythe had sliced through the boreal forest, felling trees like ripe wheat. Katya froze and vanished, sharing the forest folks' fear of open sky. She had heard of wild rocs that would take her as easily as a hawk hitting a mouse. On the far side of the cleared space she saw a tangled abatis of sharpened stumps and cross-felled trees, rearing high over her head; the settled land's defense against fire, foes, and plague.

"Chi-chi-chi." The red squirrel's wolf cry sounded again, even closer, and she took off, hiking up her skirts and dashing into the cleared space, sprinting toward the tall tangle of trunks and stumps. Any roc that got her had to work quick.

Crossing the cleared space, she went straight up the pile of trunks, climbing with her skirt rolled around her waist -- no easy task, since the trunks were tightly interlaced, with their branches trimmed to sharp points. Scrambling up the barricade without so much as tearing her dress, Katya turned at the top, lying down along a log to look back, curious to know who was behind her. She had enemies aplenty, and not just wild rocs or leopards lurking in the woods, but two-legged foes more dangerous than a troll-bear. Whispering her spell, she waited, hearing woodsmen's axes in the distance, and warning cries from the far side of the cleared space.

Dire wolves broke cover behind her, big and black with bone-crushing jaws and bright white teeth. She gave thanks to the squirrel for warning her. Coming from downwind, the pack would have been on her before she ever heard them. They shot across the cleared space, straight on her trail, showing they had her scent.

Horsemen came next, nomads carrying tufted lances and mounted on tough shaggy ponies, with short powerful recurve bows tucked into red-leather Cathayan saddles. Tartars. Katya had never seen them before, but she recognized them from the Bone Witch's descriptions. Like Kazaks or Kipchaks they had lacquered armor and terrifying weather-beaten faces--but their curiously shaped caps, Cathayan saddles, and sky-blue trousers marked them as Tartars. And they rode piebald Tartar ponies, stocky bigheaded mares with stiff manes, that looked like the horses painted on the cave walls alongside woolly rhinos and sabre-toothed cats. Crossing the clearing, the horsemen reined in when they reached the tree-trunk barricade.

Heart hammering, she lay atop the tall abatis, watching to see what they would do. Katya could not imagine why Tartars would be trailing her -- though that did not make them any less her enemies. Tartars could be merciless foes to anyone unlucky enough to cross their tracks, or they could be scrupulously just, even generous, all depending on their needs. Katya was not about to climb down and test these Tartars' intentions. She wore a witch's rune around her neck that protected her from magic, but not from fang and claw, or Tartar arrows.

Spreading out, the riders inspected the base of the barricade, probing the sharp tangle with tufted lances. Their trained wolves ran back and forth a bit, casting for her scent, then clumped right below Katya and began howling at her, smelling what they could not see. Katya held her breath, fearing the wolves would come climbing up the tree trunks after her. Attracted by the commotion, the Tartars trotted over, scanning the top of the abatis and peering between the trunks. Seeing nothing, they talked for a bit in their unintelligible tongue, then turned and followed the line of the barricade northward, calling their wolves to heel. After a moment's hesitation, the pack took off after them.

Breathing out, Katya broke her spell, sliding back along the log, then climbing down the far side of the abatis, happy to have it between her and the Tartars. And their wolves. She had no idea what Tartars were doing on this side of the Iron Wood, but it would not be anything good. Beyond the barricade the pine forest thinned, broken by stump stands and leafy groves of second-growth beeches and poplars. Slipping swiftly away from the abatis, she ran right into the big rough hands of a woodcutter.

"Where did you come from?" the woodsman demanded, looking big as a haystack, with a sooty straw-colored beard, and wearing a smoke-stained smock over loose trousers roped at the waist. He stank of sweat and onions, and his right ear was missing, cut off for failing to heed his boyar. Felons were taken naked into the woods and nailed by the ear to a tree, then left with a knife to cut themselves free, carrying out the sentence themselves. Had she not been fleeing dire wolves she never would have blundered into something so huge and smelly, and half deaf. He demanded again, "Where are you from?"

"A convent." Lying instinctively, Katya picked the safest, most irreproachable place imaginable. "The Sisterhood of Perpetual Suffering, by the shores of the White Sea."

"Your head is not shaved." Rightly suspicious, the woodsman would not let go of her. His free hand held the peasant's all-purpose axe, able to frame a cottage or carve a spoon -- the only weapon a serf could own. "Who ever heard of a long-haired nun?"

"Not a nun," she scoffed at the woodsman's ignorance, "a novice only, on my way to take holy orders. If you will pray let me on my way, the nuns will not like the delay. ..."

"But the White Sea lies hundreds of leagues away." The interfering woodsman did not swallow her tale of a nonexistent nunnery.

"That is why I must hurry," she insisted. How could he stand in the way of her becoming a nun? What would the Sisters of Suffering say?

Keeping a tight grip on her, he cocked his head to listen. "I heard wolves just now. What are you doing here?"

"Visiting my poor mother." Katya had no mother, rich or poor, but she would cheerfully invent a whole family to satisfy this big busybody. "I cannot become a nun without Mother's permission. But now that I have it, nothing needs keep me. ..."

"Your mother lives in the wild woods?" His head was still cocked, listening for sounds from beyond the abatis.

"Lives in the woods?" She scoffed at that foolish thought. "Of course not -- but this is mushroom season. Mother is a humble mushroom picker. I come from a family of pious fungus gatherers."

"Who is her lord?" the woodsman demanded. "Who is yours?"

"As I said, the Sisters of Perpetual Servility."

"You said suffering before." He continued to eye her suspiciously.

"Same thing. Servility. Suffering." Any serf should see that--but this one snorted, and dragged Katya off toward the sound of the axes. Unable to vanish, she had to stumble along behind the huge woodsman, trying to avoid being clipped by his steel axe. Sooty hands left sweaty black marks on her skin.

Ahead of her, two dozen sweating serfs were busy felling a tall stand of pines, sending one of the biggest crashing down as she arrived. With a cheer, the serfs swarmed over the forest titan, trimming off branches with axes and attacking the fallen trunk with giant two-handed saws. Her captor called to his fellows, "Look what I found in the forest." Katya had come hoping to look without being seen, and now she was captured by the town crier.

"What is it?" Grimy-faced men called down from atop the log, "A wayward nymph? A wood sprite?"

"A new young wife?" one suggested, leaning on his huge saw.

"What will your old one say?" asked an axeman.

"Good riddance." They all laughed good-naturedly, looking her over and smiling, glad to have an excuse to take a break and gawk at a helpless girl. She told her story again, including her imaginary mother and her invented nunnery. None of them were much impressed. "See her green eyes. She's a witch girl."

"No I am not," Katya lied. "I am going to be a nun." By now she almost believed it.

"Or a Tartar spy," someone suggested. "Tartars were seen lurking in the woods."

Her captor glanced back toward the tall trees. "I saw no Tartars, but I heard wolves howl beyond the abatis."

"Maybe she is a werewolf." No one saw her as a nun.

"Whatever she is, the bailiff needs to see her," Katya's captor concluded. His fellows agreed, and having decided her fate, went cheerfully back to work. But her captor had found his way out of woodcutting, and dragged her down the footpath toward town, past fat docile animals that would not last a day in the woods, grazing on stubble or pecking at sooty garbage. Like most forest villages, Diymgorat had a single wooden plank street, this one leading from a dock on the Upper Zog to the great intricately carved church that dominated the town's log huts and lean-tos. Diymgorat meant Smoketown, and the village lived under a black pall from the charcoal burning and ironworks upriver. Summer air tasted of soot and iron, and children's smiles shone against black smudged cheeks. Even the tall wooden church, with its wide gables, carved birds, and troll faces, had a layer of dark ash on its onion dome.

Her captor sat her down on a log beside the bailiff's leather door, telling Katya, "Do not move." Then he called for the bailiff. When the bailiff came to the door, the woodsman pointed to where she sat and swore. Katya was gone.

Sitting still and invisible, staring into the street, she saw civilization go lurching by -- finding it about as bad as she remembered. Soot-black charcoal burners sloshed through the mud, making for an open vat of beer set up before a lean-to tavern, where iron workers stood drinking with serf women wearing lilac kerchiefs, ruddy-faced from bathing naked in the Zog. Some of the men had pawned coats and trousers for beer; several were passed out bare-assed in the mud. Katya listened to the woodsman swear she had just been right here, telling the bored bailiff all the theories about her, from wood sprite to Tartar spy, making no mention of her brief career as a novice nun.

Men at the beer tub toasted the death of the Bone Witch, whom they had held in great fear. Then they drank to "His Highness the brave and lordly Prince Sergey, who killed the gruesome witch in her white bone lair."

Murdered was the word, but Katya did not say it, sitting still and unnoticed, hidden by the Bone Witch's spell. She had seen the Bone Witch die, and been unimpressed with Prince Sergey's courage -- it had taken a half dozen lances of the royal Horse Guards to kill an unarmed old woman. And still the Bone Witch got the better of them.

"Hail, brave Prince Sergey, who earned his seat in Heaven." Serfs heartily toasted that lie, then praised the saints, damned Satan, and swore death to the Tartars. Lying did not bother Katya -- a well-told lie always satisfied, while the truth just aroused suspicion -- but she envied the beer swilling, being thirsty and seated in the sun. Crossing the settled lands would be as hard as Katya had imagined. She had barely taken two steps before getting grabbed, dragged into town, and stranded on the doorstep of the local law. She would almost rather be in the Rift. How would she get through the settlements and across the Upper Zog with her noisy knight and horses? It would be hard enough getting off this bailiff's doorstep and back to the woods.

Bells tolled in the tall wooden church, as the great carved churchyard gates swung wide. Out trotted a column of armored riders in Horse Guards blue-and-white, with black pennants hung on their lances, followed by white-robed priests swinging smoking censers. Behind the chanting priests lurched a gold-draped funeral carriage, with a lord's charger trailing behind, his silver-studded saddle empty. Riding after the war horse was Prince Sergey's personal butler holding the prince's banner, bearing the lightning stroke of Ikstra. Katya knew that butler, and the butler knew her - yet another reason to stay invisible. Behind the butler came the local boyar, Baron Boris of Zazog, a well-fed warrior aboard a gray charger, wearing blackened armor beneath a green silk surcoat. After the boyar came mounted retainers in Zazog black and green.

Serfs fell to their knees around her, abasing themselves before the local boyar and Prince Sergey's funeral cortege. Sensing the moment for a speech, Baron Boris rode forward to address his awed inferiors kneeling in the mud. Rising in the saddle, he shouted over bent heads, "Be penitent, be humbled, the Prince who defeated the Bone Witch was brought low by a leopard, felled in his hour of triumph. Called to join the Almighty." This had only a passing relation to the truth, but Katya was not tempted to leap up and correct him.

Baron Boris let his lie sink in, then went on in shocked tones, "Alas, not everyone has your pious simple-minded devotion. Foreign traitors mean to profit from Markovy's misfortune. At the very moment that our beloved Prince Sergey was struck down by a leopard, the dastardly Castellan of Byeli Zamak, Sir Roy d'Roye, so-called baron of France, betrayed our trust and stole the sacred Firebird's Egg -- rightly belonging to the kings of Markovy. Whosoever sees this foreign devil must report him at once, or share in his evil deed, and burn beside him."

Bad as that sounded, Baron Boris added, "This vile heretic has an accomplice, a godless witch girl with dark hair and green eyes, who escaped with this false knight into the forest. ..."

That brought up heads all around her. Diymgorat's bailiff hastily announced that such a girl was seen that very morning. Her woodcutter captor told how he had hauled her out of the woods and into town. Several drunken serfs spoke up as well, saying they saw the girl the woodcutter dragged in from the forest.

Delighted to hear they almost had her, Baron Boris ordered the serfs to search their log hovels and tiny gardens at once. Serfs rushed to obey their boyar while the object of their search sat and watched. Katya could not believe the commotion around her, and could not guess how she would get out of it. Her throat was parched and she could not sit forever in the heat, watching people down beer and search for her. Trying to take her mind off her thirst, she thought of her knight, hoping he had stayed where she left him. He was indeed a foreigner, and likely to get lost without warning. Several half-starved dogs came up to her, sniffing suspiciously, but that was the closest they came to finding her.

Dejected serfs returned to fall facedown in the mud before the boyar's stirrup, confessing failure. Rising higher in his saddle, their master sternly admonished them, "Wretched worthless oafs, the witch girl was here this morning -- find her and bring her to me. Until then all hearths are extinguished. You shall eat your meals cold, and wash in cold water. And find me the Castellan of Byeli Zamak. Witches and heretics must not have the Firebird's Egg. Burn no fires. Bake no bread. Brew no porridge until you bring them to me."

Here the Prince's butler spoke up saying he had seen the fabulous Firebird's Egg, holding it in his hands, "I felt the Firebird Egg's living warmth. The Egg is no legend, it is the hope of Markovy, and the luck of her kings; it must not fall into foreign hands."

Groveling in the mud, grateful serfs blessed the baron's lenience, kissing his boot, swearing on their base souls to do better, vowing not to eat or sleep until they had obeyed their boyar. Baron Boris cheerfully promised real punishments if they failed, then signaled for the funeral cortege to proceed. Horse Guards escorted the gold-draped wagon toward the river dock, where a barge waited to take the body down the Zog to the Dys, which would bear it to Ikstra and the family crypt. Glad to see the last of Prince Sergey, Katya did not follow the funeral's progress, since turning her head would have made her instantly visible. Instead she waited like a bird in hiding, hoping the street would empty out, and she could somehow get away.

Bit by bit, the street did empty. Baron Boris's retainers closed down the log tavern, sending the clientele staggering off. Women came out to bemoan the boyar's ban on fires, asking how they were supposed to cook and wash, telling their men to scour the woods for her, "or there will be no porridge tonight, and cold beer for breakfast tomorrow." By and large the men obeyed, trooping off into the woods, leaving only some women behind, industriously using up the last of the hot water to wash themselves, and their clothes, letting their bare bodies dry in the hot summer sun.

As people returned to their hovels, a two-wheeled wagon came jolting along, headed for the forest road, carrying a butt of beer and a bag of bread. Seeing no one looking her way, Katya braced herself. When the cart came between her and the women, she jumped up and leaped aboard, dropping down between the beer butt and the wagon's side. Freezing again, she whispered her spell. Looking straight back over the wagon bed, she saw a big woman in a berry-dyed skirt come running out of the bailiff's log house, followed by a pair of wide-eyed naked toddlers. Shouting and waving, the woman called after the wagon, but the driver did not even slow.

More women joined the chase, some throwing down their washing and picking up their skirts, others dashing naked after the wagon, trailing yapping dogs and grimy children. Quickly catching up with the disinterested driver, they demanded he stop, yelling that, "The bailiff's wife saw that witch girl leap onto your wagon."

Unable to see the driver's reaction, Katya stayed stock-still, staring out the back of the wagon at the ring of women's faces. All of them looked worried and tired, some outright fearful, wanting to satisfy their boyar before he devised new torments. Hard to blame them, but she was not about to leap up and turn herself in. She heard the driver's seat creak as he looked about, then announced blandly, "There is nothing there but bread and beer. Go back to your babies."

"She must have jumped out," the bailiff's wife declared. "Did you see which way she went?"

"I saw nothing at all," the driver insisted, proudly proclaiming his ignorance. "Absolutely nothing."

"Useless fool," the bailiff's wife shouted at his back as the wagon ambled away. Katya watched the women disperse, and saw Diymgorat's single wooden street disappear as greenery closed in. Ahead she again heard the ring of axes. Breaking the spell, she looked to see it was safe, then reached into the bread bag and took two braided loaves. Sliding back the top of the beer barrel, she took a deep drink that went straight to her head, making it swim in the heat. Another drink and her problems did not seem so bad. This cart would take her back into the woods, where she had nothing to fear but wolves and Tartars -- then she would find her knight and devise some scheme for crossing the settled lands, or so she hoped.

Without warning, the wagon jolted to a stop, and Katya just had time to replace the top on the beer, before shrinking back into a corner to disappear. Men jumped aboard the bed of the wagon, big sooty charcoal burners, wearing smudged smocks and blackened leggings. Tossing the bread bag down to the ground, they wrestled the beer out of the wagon, nearly squashing her with the barrel. Then to her horror, they began heaving big balks of wood into the wagon. Here was where she had to get off.

Leaping over the wagon rail, Katya nearly landed atop a surprised charcoal burner, who gave a startled cry and dropped his chunk of timber on a black bare toe, producing an astonished oath. Hitting the ground running, she shot off, holding her skirt about her waist, with the bread loaves tucked inside. Shouts rang out behind her, followed by curses and running feet. Dodging between stands of stumps and leafy second-growth trees, she heard heavy footsteps gaining on her.

Dropping down behind a stump, she disappeared. Frozen in place, she watched the charcoal burners go charging past, rattling the brush with their bulk. She kept to her crouch, hands pressed to the ground, feeling their huge footsteps fading. But by now Diymgorat had awoken to the uproar with church bells ringing and dogs yapping. Worse yet, the tall log barricade loomed ahead of her. She could never climb the spiked abatis and cross the cleared space beyond without getting caught, not with dogs and woodsmen at her heels. Her only chance was to head upriver toward the Rift, hoping for a break in the barricade.

She set out running, drawing more shouts from downriver. Ground rose up ahead of her, forming a sheer amphitheater of steep hills crowned with dark pines. To her right the forest barricade curved to meet the base of the hills, and to her left lay the smoky ironworks lining the Upper Zog. There was a single sharp notch in the hills, where the Zog broke through the frowning heights, cutting a steep-sided cleft leading up to the Rift. Unless she found a gap in the barricade, her only escape would be up that narrow canyon.

Hearing dogs getting closer, she redoubled her efforts, knowing her favorite trick of running and vanishing would not work with dogs. Dogs would track her by scent, and be all over her, forcing her to move and be seen. Finding no gap in the barricade, she looked hastily behind her, seeing her pursuers gaining fast.

"Katea-katea-katea," Katya heard the firebird call her name. Looking to her left, she saw the little flame-colored jay flitting between the birches, heading toward the notch in the hills, calling for her to follow, "Katea-katea...."

She instantly obeyed the bird, breaking left, crashing through the birch thicket, heading for the steep slope at the opening of the canyon. This flame jay was the only bird that called to her by name, and so far he had never betrayed her. Bursting out of the birch thicket, she heard the roar of rapids ahead, where the swift-running Zog tumbled out of the Rift, cutting a cleft in the hills, and powering trip hammers in the iron mills below. She hated to be heading into the Rift, a place she had wanted to avoid completely. Bad as the settled lands might be, she feared the Rift even more. Much more. But now she had no choice.

"Katea-katea," the bird called back to her. Scrambling over rocks and gravel, she scanned the steep ravine ahead. Sheer walls rose up on one side of her, and on the other a vertical cliff dropped straight down to the roaring river, hundreds of feet below. Winding between the cliff edge and the canyon walls was a narrow trail, no more than a dozen yards across. She started up it, desperate to stay ahead of the men and dogs, even if it meant braving the Rift.

She did not get far. Blocking the narrowest part of the trail was a tight knot of thick-armed men in stained leather, blacksmiths from the iron works holding their huge hammers, some wearing slit-eyed welding masks. Her heart sank. Woodsmen, dogs, and charcoal burners were crashing through the birches behind her, and brawny iron workers blocked the way ahead -- warned by the church bells that something was amiss below. Several of them saw her, shouting and pointing.

Moments like this made Katya wish she could really disappear. Sinking to her knees, she wanted to just lie down and cry, unable to believe the firebird had betrayed her; despite being a notorious trickster, mimic, and nest robber, the flame-colored jay had never played her false before. How utterly unfair. What had she done? She was not hurting anyone, or taking anything. She only wanted to cross the little valley and go on her way. Why would they not leave her alone?

Being down on her knees, she did not see the armored rider until he burst in among the blacksmiths, wearing Horse Guards blue-and-white over steel plate, and whirling a great jagged war hammer, shouting a hearty, "Bonjour!"

Terrified blacksmiths broke and ran, taken from behind by a mounted madman. Big blunt welding hammers were no match for his Lucerne hammer, a four-foot shaft with a steel head that had a hook on one side and three wicked curved blades on the other, made to inflict ghastly jagged wounds. None of the iron workers waited to test it.

Leaping up, she threw herself against the canyon wall, clinging to the rock and vanishing. Blacksmiths galloped past, tossing aside their heavy hammers and bellowing in fright; their serfs' instinctive fear of trained men-at-arms making them helpless against an armored horseman. Behind them came the mounted knight, swinging his gruesome hammer to shoo them along -- not trying to kill, just encouraging their flight. "Katea-katea." The firebird flew in triumphant circles, happy with the havoc he helped create.

Reining in not far from her, the knight in Horse Guard colors sat easily atop his gray charger, his Lucerne hammer swinging idly at his side. He pushed back the visor on his crested helmet, revealing a handsome clean-shaven face and fashionable bowl-cut bangs. Smiling, he called out, "Mademoiselle, I know you must be here somewhere."

She stepped happily away from the rock wall, glad to see her knight had not stayed on the hilltop where she left him, and had in fact come looking for her. "How did you find me?"

"Mon Dieu, how could I not?" He extended a steel-clad arm to her. "The whole valley is an uproar, with bells ringing and dogs barking. And birds making a horrible racket -- including this persistent jay, who absolutely insisted I come take a look. When I saw the ironsmiths blocking the pass, I decided to ride around and see why."

Seizing his hard mail wrist, she felt his gloved hand close on her bare forearm. Whenever they touched was special, but this time more than ever. After her exhausting chase and helpless terror, his firm gloved fingers felt tremendously reassuring -- sending shivers all through her, even though it was not flesh-to-flesh. Scrambling up onto his charger's leather-armored crupper, she looped her arms about his steel waist, hugging his strong body to her, laying her head against his armored back. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you so very much."

"You are most welcome, Mademoiselle." He could not turn to look at her because of his helmet, but she could hear the smile in his voice. "Pray see if our gentlemen friends are returning."

She laughed and shook her head. "Do not worry. They will not stop running until they get to Diymgorat."

Into the Rift

HUGGING HER knight's hard armored sides, Katya rested her head on his steel back, exhausted but happy, feeling the comforting sway of the horse beneath her. Safe again. She had hardly ever felt safe since the day the Bone Witch died; and when she did, it was almost always with her knight, who was smart, gallant, and a French baron to boot -- Sir Roy d'Roye, Chevalier de l'Étoile, et le Baron d'Roye. He treated her nonchalantly, calling her "Mademoiselle," but she could tell he loved her, even if he was shy about showing it.

"Where are we going?" she asked, glad to leave that grimy settlement behind, but wary of going deeper into the Rift.

"To where I left the horses." He turned his gray charger up a side canyon carved by a swift streamlet descending the pine hills bordering the Rift. The firebird flew ahead of them, calling raucously, making for the stunted pines above.

When they got to where the horses were tethered the flame jay was sitting on the palfrey's pack saddle preening his red-orange plumage. From the hilltop Katya got a sweeping view of the valley below, flanked on the east by the forest barricade, with the Upper Zog winding through the steep canyon, then flowing past smoking ironworks and the tiny village of Diymgorat, headed for the flatlands and the river Dys. No wonder her knight found her so easily, since the hill looked straight down on the trail where the blacksmiths had stood. Behind her the hills rose even higher, and the canyon widened, merging with the Rift. Somewhere up there was the Iron Wood and beyond that, Burning Mountain, where they needed to go.

Dismounting, she helped her knight down, then offered him braided bread, being ravenously hungry herself -- not having eaten since dawn. She did not like to sneak on a full stomach, which dulled her senses; but she was done with sneaking through the valley below -- too many dogs and people. "Much too difficult," she decided.

"What is too difficult, Mademoiselle?" asked her knight, doffing his helmet and accepting the bread.

She sighed and sat down on soft pine needles, taking a bite of bread, savoring the fresh warm taste. "Trying to make it through the settled lands without being seen -- it is impossible. I thought they would be stupid and unsuspecting, but there is a boyar down there setting the serfs to search for us. As well as what is left of Prince Sergey's Horse Guards."

"Which boyar?" Baron d'Roye asked, working his words around a mouthful of bread.

She shrugged, the only noble Katya cared about being the one sitting next to her. "A big one in green silk and black armor."

"Baron Boris of Zazog," d'Roye declared between bites. "He betrayed Byeli Zamak to Prince Sergey." Before meeting her, Baron d'Roye had been Castellan of Byeli Zamak, the White Castle, holding it for the infant Prince Ivan -- until Prince Sergey sacked Byeli Zamak, searching for the Firebird's Egg. "Baron Boris is arrogant, treacherous, and brutal, his taste in wine is vile, and he never uses a fork except to pick his teeth."

Katya had never even seen a fork, but took her knight at his word. "And Tartars as well."

He looked at her quizzically. "As in steak tartare?"

"Tartars from Black Cathay, with wicked bows and worse-looking wolves." She shivered at the thought of them. "They nearly got me."

Having taken off his gloves to eat, d'Roye reached over and touched her cheek, sending another sort of shiver through her. "Mademoiselle is scared?"

"Terrified, actually." Tartars scared her more than all the boyars in Markovy, but that hardly mattered at the moment. Turning her head, she softly kissed his hand.

Baron d'Roye grinned. "Mademoiselle is the bravest lady I have ever met."

Sometimes. Right now she felt incredibly nervous, just sitting and sharing braided bread with her knight. Now that they were alone and relatively safe, depraved ideas danced through her head. Everyone knew women were silly sinful creatures, morally void and naturally promiscuous, best kept under lock and key, while being a soulless witch girl made Katya more wanton that most. Boyars kept their wives and daughters in harems and convents, making it more likely to see a unicorn than a noblewoman on the loose. Serfs could not afford such luxuries, and their wives drank and bathed with men, their innate wantonness kept in check by the husband's whip hand. Markovite marriage custom required the bride to kneel and kiss the groom's dog whip, begging him to use it on her whenever she strayed -- one of the reasons why Katya was in no rush to marry.

But her knight was a foreigner, full of foolish chivalry and silly delusions of feminine purity. Aside from a few chaste kisses, he treated her like a little sister, or niece, totally ignoring her incorrigible depravity. Until she saw him bathing and shaving, she had thought he was a eunuch. Now she knew he was "protecting" her from his own base male instincts. Charming, though absurd.

"We will have to go through the Rift," she warned him. "Which frightens me a lot. But if we cannot get through the settled lands, that is the only way to the Firebird's Nest."

His hand went from her cheek to her shoulder, then slid down her arm coming to rest on her hip -- the first time he had ever let himself be familiar. "What is so bad about the Rift?"

"Everything." She shuddered at the horrors of the Rift, glad to have his firm comforting hand on her hip. "Troll-bear lairs, ghosts, ghouls and lycanthropes, renegades and outlaws. Wild rocs and nine-foot cobras that can spit venom in your eye. And were-leopards; not the nice ones either." And the Rift had no trees, not even metal ones, no overhead cover at all.

"What about witch girls?" He was not taking the terrors of the Rift seriously, using his hand to bring them closer. "Would pretty witch girls go into the Rift?"

"Apparently." She let him pull her nearer, her heart hammering harder than when she lay atop the barricade looking down on Tartars. "Though any witch girl with a whit of sense ought to know better."

"Then I will go as well." He meant it. She had seen him cheerfully take on two armed men and a werewolf--all at the same time, and all for her. "For I would be with you, whatever the danger." Leaning closer still, he kissed her, letting their lips linger, not at all the way he would kiss a niece, or even a cousin. The hand on her hip squeezed harder, and he whispered, "Let me show you how the French do it."

His free hand cupped her head, and he kissed her again, deeper and more passionately, doing surprising things with his tongue. Unbelievably thrilling, but all they did was kiss, his other hand never left her hip. When he was done, he asked, "Do you like it?"

"Very much." Katya had seen drunken serfs lying with their mouths together, never suspecting this gross act was the most thrilling thing on Earth. And her heart told her this was just the beginning. Her knight smelled of sweat and leather mixed with the man-smell that all sane forest creatures knew and feared, but she alone found incredibly compelling. Luckily a couple of layers of armor lay between them, otherwise there would have been no stopping her. She asked shyly, "Have you known many women?"

D'Roye looked taken aback. "Some few. I am French, after all."

"Are you married?" Horrible thought.

Somewhat." That question made him even less comfortable.

"What do you mean?" It never occurred to her that her knight might have a wife -- or a family. Showing how new she was to this.

"My parents betrothed me as a boy," d'Roye confessed, "to an heiress whose lands adjoined ours. We were married when I turned twenty -- but that was all long ago and far away."

"Is she dead?" Katya asked hopefully.

"Mon Dieu, no!" d'Roye hastily crossed himself. "Her name is Marie, and she is quite well, thank heaven. But when I was exiled, she moved back in with her parents. Last I heard she was having the marriage annulled."

"Did you love her?" This was the question she feared most, but had to ask.

"Absolutely not." He looked aghast at the notion. "She is pious and arrogant as the pox, with a mean pinched face and a fondness for flagellation, keeping a bullwhip in the bedroom for intimate moments. Marie would have made a perfect wife for Baron Boris -- but we disliked each other even as children. Still our lands matched, and marriage is mainly business; for love you must look elsewhere."

"Any children?' Marriage did not sound much like she imagined.

"No, not by me anyway.' He heaved a rueful sigh. "Marriage killed what little attraction we could muster.'

"Good!" Katya kissed him happily. "Annulled, or not, the marriage is meaningless."

"How so?" He sounded intrigued.

"All marriages performed by schismatics on foreign heretics are meaningless." According to Mother Church, everyone outside of Markovy was living in sin, and all their children bastards.

D'Roye sounded doubtful. "His holiness Pope Pious might disagree."

"Only because he is a heretic too," she pointed out. Markovite Patriarchs and Roman Popes had lived under mutual excommunication since the tenth century. "He is the antipope, a lying celibate schismatic doomed to burn in hell for his sins -- what would he know about true marriage?"

Baron Roy d'Roye laughed, giving her hip another squeeze. "Fear not, Mademoiselle, however many women I have been with, married, maiden, or crone -- none were the least like you. You are unique, utterly and completely special."

That sounded much better, as if all the other women merely prepared him for her. "How am I special?"

He looked her over carefully. "You are the first female of any sort that I ever saw disappear -- unless you count visitations by the Virgin."

She pooh-poohed the miracle of invisibility. "That is nothing, just a spell the Bone Witch taught me when I was ten."

Baron d'Roye smiled at her natural modesty, saying, "You found me wounded and friendless in the woods, with a hefty reward on my head -- and you have been feeding and caring for me ever since, without a thought for yourself, or what you might make by turning me in to my enemies. Never have I known anyone so cunning and resourceful, and so artlessly caring." He kissed her again, deftly guiding her lips to his with one hand, making her feel her youthful awkwardness was incredibly precious, a treasure to be cherished, as magical as the Firebird's Egg.

When she came back to Earth, Katya looked about shyly. No one was coming up the trail, but it was dangerous to tarry too long. She whispered to her knight, "Wonderful as this is, we must be gone. Word of where we are headed will get downriver, and we must go deeper into the Rift to stay ahead of pursuit."

Baron d'Roye acceded to her forest expertise, helping her mount her black mare. Handing her the lead rope for the big bay palfrey that served as a sumpter horse, he added, "And what other wood nymph would criticize the pope on morals and theology?"

Leading his charger to a sandy spot by the streambed, he knelt and dug down with his big double-edged saxe knife. Setting aside the knife, he dug the last few inches with his hands, then reached in and withdrew the Firebird's Egg, wrapped in an embroidered tapestry -- all that remained of the legendary firebirds, giant flying guardians of Markovy. King Demitri took the Egg from the Nest atop Burning Mountain, making it his talisman, letting him defeat the Poles, Kipchacks, and rebellious boyars, putting an end to the Time of Troubles, and restoring the Mikhailovich dynasty to the throne. For decades the Egg had lain in the vaults of Byeli Zamak, until Baron Boris betrayed the castle to Prince Sergey -- forcing the castle's commander to flee into the forest with this prize, where he met Katya. And every day since d'Roye took it from the cold castle vaults, the Egg's leathery skin had grown warmer and livelier, pulsing like a hard round heart.

She led the sumpter horse over, and d'Roye slid the precious Egg into the bay's packsaddle. This was the quest put on them by the Bone Witch, to return the Firebird's Egg to its nest atop Burning Mountain. Baron Boris was only half right, the Egg was the luck of the Markovite kings, but it was their curse as well. As long as King Demitri had the Egg, he had never been defeated in battle -- but otherwise things had been dismal; King Demitri lost his wife and all but one of his children before dying and leaving his infant son Ivan ruling over a nation on the brink of civil war. According to the Bone Witch, Markovy's sole hope was to return the Egg to the Nest. And only that absolute need to get to Burning Mountain could tempt Katya into the Rift -- one of Earth's truly terrible places.

Descending the steep streambed, they worked their way along the cliff-side trail overlooking the deep canyon of the Upper Zog. Spotting pony droppings, she reined in and dismounted, kneeling over the horse turds, sniffing and poking them, finding them fresh and moist -- not a good sign. Picking up the largest, she broke it apart with her hands, then showed her find to d'Roye. "Horse nomads came through here this morning, maybe the same Tartars I saw by the forest barricade."

"How can you tell?" asked d'Roye, wrinkling his nose -- clearly unaccustomed to reading feces.

"Here, see these grains among the grass." She sorted through the broken dropping. "That is millet. Boyar's horses are fed on barley. And here is a rice grain -- we do not eat such things."

"Happy to hear it," her knight declared. "I myself pass up anything found in horse droppings."

"It could be from Kazaks or Kipchaks," she added hopefully, "but I doubt it." That stray kernel most likely meant some Tartar had given his favored mare a rice ball reward. She held up the pony turd for her knight's inspection. "See how it is still warm at the center."

He swore he would take her word for it. Brushing off her hands, she washed them in a little stream tumbling down the rocks toward the Zog; then they set out again, heading deeper into the Rift, feeling a warm wind spring up out of nowhere, blowing slow but steady at her back. Letting her black mare watch the trail, she kept looking over her shoulder at the sheer cliff face above. Aside from the rushing river far below, everything was silent and still. Too still. Here she did not have the wood's hundreds of eyes watching over her. Troll-bears you could smell, but were-leopards and lycanthropes could be stalking silently through the rocks above, waiting to catch them unawares.

At the head of the canyon, the Rift widened and flattened out, and the Upper Zog sank to a trickle in a big sandy bed dotted with boulders. There they saw the first sign of how terrible a place they were entering. Lying in the middle of the trail was a woman's head, whose owner had been pretty, with long blonde braids and good teeth; but there was a black bruise under one eye, and the head had been in the sun for some time. Long lines of ants stretched away from the mouth and nostrils.

Her knight was aghast and started to get down, but she stopped him. This was just the sort of spot a lycanthrope would pick to await the unwary. He told her, "I was only going to give her a decent burial. She was young and fair, and I cannot just leave her head to the ants."

"She is buried," Katya explained, ignoring the head, looking up at the boulders instead. "There is a body attached to that head. Being buried to the neck and left to die is the penalty for killing your husband." Yet another reason not to wed.

"But we must at least bury her the rest of the way," he insisted; so she stood watch while her knight heaped sand onto the head, covering the mound with rocks. Then they set out again, over sand and grit that gave way to hard flat shale as the Rift widened, its steep walls sinking down to bare white bluffs. After a time, d'Roye asked, "What if a man kills his wife?"

"You mean like if he beats her to death?" She relaxed, glad to see frowning cliffs replaced by clear open views. Anything could be lurking at the base of the bluffs, but they were safe for the moment. "He gets a new one."

Her knight looked back toward where he had buried the head. "Hardly seems fair."

"But only up to three," she warned, least he think men could do anything in Markovy. "Mother Church allows a man only three marriages. Any man who whips two wives to death must be careful with his third."

"Or do his own washing." D'Roye said he could see the wisdom of setting a definite limit.

"Do they do things differently in France?" she asked, eyeing the ground ahead for sign of trouble.

"Somewhat," her knight admitted, still sounding shaken by what he had seen.

She was shaken but not surprised. Being unhallowed ground, the Rift was where the law did its worst deeds. "What happens in France if a wife kills her husband?

"We burn her alive." D'Roye had thought that penalty harsh until he came to Markovy.

"How much more civilized," Katya exclaimed. "We are, alas, a very backward people, only burning witches and Catholics."

"Sensible policy," d'Roye declared, being a Catholic in love with a witch-girl.

"So if we married, you would not beat me?" Strange customs might prove useful.

"I am married to someone else," he reminded her, "a baroness in France named Marie d'Roye."

"Only according to the pope," she protested. "And what would he know? "

"What indeed," d'Roye agreed. "If I refused to flog my unloving wife for fun; why should I beat you?"

"How would you ever hope to control me?" Katya considered herself a handful, being wanton, willful, and raised by a witch.

D'Roye laughed, saying, "I would have scant hope of that. Mademoiselle is a wild wood nymph, who will never be tamed." He looked her over with a grin. "Except, perhaps by love.' She smiled back at her knight, who risked his life to bury dead strangers, but would not touch a pony turd.

A black line appeared on the bluffs ahead, growing thicker and blacker as they proceeded. D'Roye asked, "What is that?"

She wondered at his innocence. Her knight, who knew so much about kissing and killing, was naive about the simplest things. "That is the Iron Wood."

"Truly?" He rose in his saddle, scanning the bluffs. "I have never actually seen it, even from this distance."

"It is closer than you think." She pointed out a dark patch growing nearby, slim black saplings topped by curled iron leaves, looking like fireplace pokers stuck in the sand. "The Rift has only a sprinkling of iron trees, and is heavily logged to supply the ironworks on the Zog. See those stalks chiseled off at the base?" Little black stubs dotted the ground around the stand of saplings.

Her knight nodded, staring past the black patch at the huge metal forest covering the bluffs. "Why does the Iron Wood not grow into the Rift?"

She shrugged, "No one knows why it grows at all." Nothing grew well in the Rift, and the bareness frightened Katya -- with no berries to pick, nor game to hunt, food would soon be a problem. The Rift felt like a giant funnel flanked on both sides by the Iron Wood, narrowing as they went deeper; reminding Katya of a carnivorous plant the Bone Witch used to have in her hut. Flies would crawl down the tall funnel-shaped stalk, drawn by the smell of nectar, then fall into the sticky trap below -- she used to hear them buzzing angrily inside the stalk, until they drowned in nectar and were digested by the plant.

"Katea, katea," the firebird called out a warning, and Katya looked around, seeing nothing.

"Look, up there," her knight pointed a gloved finger at the wide open sky. She looked up, expecting to see a wild roc diving down at her; instead a dark object drifted overhead, a big black inflated parasail, with a ship-shaped hull hanging beneath it, a Tartar sky-boat.

"Something else I have heard of but never seen." D'Roye sat in the saddle, staring up at the sky-boat, watching it slowly catch up with them. "What propels it?"

"Wind and magic," she replied, wishing it had been a wild roc. "Light gas in the sail keeps the flying ship aloft, and Tartar shamans are wizards at calling up the right wind." Which explained the warm gentle breeze blowing at their backs -- it sent the sky-boat drifting ahead of them, sinking steadily lower throughout the afternoon. Finally the wind died and the sky-boat sank down, disappearing between the iron-bound bluffs ahead. Dismounting, they dined on braided bread, and some pickled meat given to them by the Bone Witch. She told her knight, "I should go on ahead, to see what the Tartars are doing."

"We should both go," d'Roye suggest ed, loath to see her leave on her own.

She shook her head. "They know we are coming, and will be lying in wait. It will be hard enough for me to get close. With you and the horses there will be no chance at all.' She hated being so blunt, but this was life or death.

"Am I so useless?" asked Baron d'Roye, Chevalier de l'étoile, and former Castellan of Byeli Zamak.

"No, no," she assured her injured knight. "This very morning you saved me from dogs, woodsmen, and iron workers. I would not be here but for you." Katya meant it with all her heart, but right now she needed to see what these Tartars were up to, and hopefully steal some food. She could not cater to knightly honor. "And you must guard the Egg while I am gone."

"Ah, yes, the Egg. The fabulous Firebird's Egg." From the way he said it, she could tell Baron d'Roye cared far more for her than for the magical Egg and the future of Markovy. "How could I forget?"

"Please, my love. I will be back as quick as I can." She had no intention of leaving her knight alone in the Rift--not for long anyway. "Just watch over the Egg while I am away."

He looked at her intently, no longer insulted, grinning instead, saying, "You really do love me."

"Of course," she replied, "I never tried to hide it. You were merely slow to notice."

D'Roye shook his head ruefully. "Mademoiselle must be wary, for love is a very dangerous thing."

Again she was Mademoiselle -- he never called her Katya. "As dangerous as sneaking up on Tartars?"

"Easily," he laughed.

"How so?" To her, love seemed nothing but good. Her only heartache came from the fear he might not love her.

Drawing her closer, he stroked her cheek with his finger. "Because you love with all your heart."

"Is that wrong?" she asked, kissing his finger.

"No," he told her, "love is never wrong, but it is dangerous. For that is how we are hurt." He guided her lips to his, and kissed her, a long lingering kiss that turned her mouth inside out.

When he started to draw back, she would not let him, pulling him back with her hand. "Wait, do not stop. I am not done." He kissed her harder, more passionately, until Katya thought she would burst with joy. Saying that was enough, she whispered, "Wait here. I will be back as soon as I can -- maybe with food."

"And wine -- if Mademoiselle can find it."

She nodded happily, stripping down to her silk shift to move easier, then setting off. Tartars drank fermented mare's milk -- but she had not the heart to tell her knight that. Following the Zog upstream over pebbles and bare rock, she walked in the water when she came to dirt or sand, to keep from leaving tracks. Luckily there was no wind now -- trying to sneak up on dire wolves with a wind at your back was sheer suicide. Flitting ahead of her was the firebird, letting her count on some warning at least.

At a patch of big boulders the flame jay left the stream, flying from rock to rock, headed toward the far bluffs. She decided to follow the bird, rather than blunder on alone upstream, where thirsty and hungry things might be waiting. Moving quick as she could over the boulders, she leaped from one to the next, running along their backs.

Topping a low ridge, she caught sight of the Tartar parasail and froze, whispering her spell. All she saw was the parasail, and not the sky-boat beneath it, but she knew it marked the Tartar camp. Dropping down behind the nearest rock, she began to work her way forward between the boulders, stopping every so often to vanish and listen. Nothing. Without birds and squirrels the Rift could be deathly still. Then as the rock field thinned, she spotted the Tartar sentry, lying prone atop an outcropping. She would not have seen him at all, but the firebird flew close by him and he looked up.

She froze. He wore one of those weird Tartar caps with big ear flaps, and he followed the firebird's flight with his eyes, then turned back to slowly sweeping the area downstream, looking from one line of bluffs to the other, then back again. His gaze passed over her, and as soon as he was looking away, she moved, running lightly forward, then freezing when his head turned back toward her. It was like a game she played as a girl, one of her favorite memories from her childhood in the settled lands. One of the bigger boys would turn his back, and let the little kids try to sneak up on him. Whenever he spun about you had to freeze, or go back to where you started if he caught you moving. She nearly always won, but had never expected to play the game against a sharp-eyed archer who would shoot her if she slipped.

Flitting from boulder to boulder, the firebird caught his attention, drawing his gaze away from the deadly game of dare base. She ran the last little bit, freezing against a boulder below and behind him. He must have heard her, because he spun about, looking straight at her. They stared at each other, then he turned and went back to sweeping the lower Rift, ignoring the flame jay's antics.

Safely past the sentry, she slipped through the last of the boulders, coming on a wide clear space with a spring-fed pool at the lower end. Two yurts and the sky-boat sat on a raised bank beyond the pond. She could see straight into their camp, except for a few spots hidden by the last of the rocks. There were no dogs and only the horselines were guarded. There was no guard at all on the sky-boat, which swayed slightly above the ground, held down by silken lines.

While she stood watching, two bowmen emerged from one of the yurts, carrying buckets, followed by a woman carrying a cloth bundle. Even from a distance, Katya could tell the woman was no Tartar, since she had a long blonde braid and walked like a Markovite, Tartars being notoriously bowlegged. All three of them walked down to the edge of the pond, where the men deposited their buckets and headed back toward the yurt, leaving the woman to wash and draw water.

Katya waited until the men were back in the yurt, and the horse guards were looking the other way. Then she walked calmly down to where the woman knelt by the pond, filling a bucket. Looking up, the woman started, nearly spilling her pail; looking pretty, but harried, with keen blue eyes and cupid's bow lips. "What are you doing here?"

Katya nodded toward the Tartar camp, "Spying on them."

"Good luck." The blonde woman laughed, and went back to filling her bucket. "Where did you come from?"

"Markov, from the royal palace. Prince Ivan himself sent me to see what these Tartars are up to." Since she had to claim some authority, it might as well be the highest.

"Six-year-old Prince Ivan?" Setting aside her full bucket, the woman sounded skeptical.

"That is him. I am his older sister." She proudly made herself a princess.

Scooping up another bucket, the woman began to fill it. "Forgive me, your highness, for not bowing. But as you see, I am already on my knees."

Letting the lese majesty pass, she asked, "Are you Markovite?" "No, I am a Pole." Finishing that bucket, the Pole swiftly picked up the next. Even the presence of a princess did not tempt her to slow.

"You speak very well for a foreigner." Her own knight had a dreadful French accent, which Katya found charming.

"I have a good ear for languages." Seizing the final bucket, the blonde woman started to fill it.

Katya asked, "What are you called?"

Watching her bucket fill, the Pole shrugged round strong shoulders. "Tartars call me Borte, which means Blue-Eyes."

"Charming." The young Pole did have big round blue eyes, which must have pleased the Tartars.

"Actually, Borte means Blue-Eyed Wolf Bitch," the blonde admitted, "but I usually leave off the bitch part."

"But you must have a birth name."

Blue-Eyes shook her head, "If I hear it said, I may start to cry. Borte must do for now."

Men emerged from the nearby yurt, calling out in Tartar. Horse line guards looked her way, and Katya froze, whispering her spell. Tartars came striding over -- the same two who led the woman to the pond -- wearing leather armor and worried looks, glaring about with their bows strung. One said a few curt words to Blue-Eyes who looked about in surprise, then mumbled a reply in Tartar. Slinging their bows, the Tartars picked up the flail buckets and carried them back to the yurt. When they reentered the yurt, and the horse guards looked away, Katya relaxed and reappeared. Looking up from her washing, Blue-Eyes seemed more amused than shocked. "So, you are back."

Nodding toward the nearer yurt, Katya asked, "What did they say?"

"They asked who I was talking to," replied the Pole, starting to pound her wash.

"What did you tell them?"

Chuckling, the blonde beat blue Tartar pants on a rock. "To myself apparently."

"And they believed you?" Everything she had seen of the Tartars said they were lethally smart.

"They think I am a little crazy." Wringing out the pants, Blue-Eyes stared at her. "You are real, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes. Very real," Katya assured her. "You may touch me if you like."

Blue-Eyes went back to her washing. "Well, you come and go, claiming to be a princess. And I am a little crazy."

Studying the horse line guards, Katya asked, "What are the Tartars like?"

Without looking up from her washing, Blue-Eyes considered the question. "They are men, only more so. And smart, devilishly smart, smart enough to get along without women. Their women run the camps and herds at home, so their men can go where they please, taking what they want. If you are what they want, they treat you well -- but give them the least trouble and they will kill you, figuring there are more where you came from."

Katya shuddered. "That must be horrible."

"Very." Without looking up, the blonde woman told her, "I was part of a wedding party, bridesmaid for my cousin who was marrying a handsome Markovite landgraf. On the way to the wedding we were ambushed by Tartars. All the men were killed, along with the bride's mother and grandmother. Then they went through the younger women, killing the ones they did not want. I was spared because I am pretty and I speak several languages. You would do well to develop some useful talent, unless you mean to survive on sex alone."

"Besides turning invisible,?" Katya asked, hoping not to have to please the Tartars at all.

"Oh, no. They will love that." Blue-Eyes looked up to see if she was still there. "They like anything new and useful. And they will see plenty of uses for you."

No doubt. She hoped the Tartars would not see her at all. "How long will they be here?"

"Not long," Blue-Eyes guessed, spreading out her wash on the rocks. "There is no grass for the ponies. They are only here to meet the sky-boat, which has something important aboard."

"What?" Katya looked at the sky-boat, tethered to the ground on the far side of the yurts. Up close, she saw the light boat-shaped hull had four big wheels, so it could be hauled like a wagon when the parasail was deflated. "What is important enough to bring them to this forsaken place?"

"Something, or someone they took from your people. Tartars are incredibly smart." Blue-Eyes shook her head, "Way smarter than our men. Before going to war they like to know everything about their enemy -- all his strengths, all his weaknesses. What he wears, what he eats, what he fights with, how many warriors he has, how many horses. Where they can find water and pasture. Whatever might prove useful." Katya understood, being here on the sly herself. Most Markovites thought it a mortal sin just to learn a strange tongue, and were far more worried about avoiding foreign heresy than getting to know their neighbors -- much less their enemies.

"And when Tartars come in earnest, they want people with them who know the land or speak the language; corrupt lordlings, disgruntled exiles, kidnapped peddlers, or just women who are good with languages." Laying out the last of her wash, Blue-Eyes bid her good-bye and went back to her yurt, leaving Katya standing by the pond, wondering what to do next. So far she had neither food, nor any notion of what the Tartars were doing here.

At least there were no dogs. Setting out toward the sky-boat, she worked her way between the yurts, playing hide and seek with the guards at the horse lines, vanishing when they looked her way. Men were talking in the yurts, and Blue-Eyes sang as she worked. Horses snorted at her, but no men saw her, though a couple looked straight through her, wondering what spooked the horses. One of the Tartar horses was wearing Prince Sergey's silver-studded saddle, not a good omen, but Katya could not tell exactly what it meant. She finished up standing beneath the sky-boat, listening for signs of life in the wheeled hull swaying overhead.

Not a sound. Anyone aboard had to be asleep. Seeing a light silk ladder hanging from the stern, she guessed the last man off had left it hanging for when they returned. As soon as the horse guards were not looking, she swarmed up the ladder and slipped over the rail.

Freezing as she hit the deck, she saw no one between her and the deckhouse -- which was good, since deck space was so limited she would have landed in the man's lap. She surveyed the silk and bamboo deckhouse, seeing no sign it was occupied. No one came out to see who rocked the boat. She put her ear to the paper door. Nothing came from within but the strong smell of incense. Lifting the latch string, she slid back the door, deciding anyone inside had to be asleep.

Or dead. Laid out on silk cushions was the corpse of Prince Sergey, looking very good for someone who had been dead almost a week. Dressed in a royal silver and blue robe, Prince Sergey seemed like he was sleeping, except for the puncture wounds on his neck where the were-leopard had bit down, snapping his spine. Someone had thoughtfully sewn the wounds closed, making the battered prince more presentable.

One look was all she needed. Katya had seen the leopard clamp down on Prince Sergey's pompous neck, and thought "good riddance" -- never wanting to see His Highness again, alive or dead. Now here he was again, where he had absolutely no right to be, aboard a Tartar sky-boat deep in the Rift. Not wanting to know what the Tartars meant to do with the prince's body, she slid the paper door closed, and turned to go.

Too late. She felt the boat rock gently beneath her -- someone was coming aboard. Resisting the impulse to freeze, she realized there was too little room on the tiny deck -- anyone who boarded would be right on top of her. Corpse or no, she had to hide in the cabin. Sliding back the paper door, she slipped inside, closing it behind her just as a man's hand topped the rail. Crawling around to the head of the corpse, she flattened herself against the silk cabin wall, pulling a couple of big feather cushions on top of her. Hidden from sight and feel, she whispered her spell and waited.

First into the cabin was a Tartar shaman, looking like Death done up for a dance, wearing a necklace of monkey skulls, long wild hair, and a white smoke-stained robe -- white being the color of death in Black Cathay. His face was painted like a woman's and his cheeks were scarred to keep his beard from growing. Sitting down cross-legged before the corpse, the shaman began a shrill keening chant, so high-pitched that he might really have been a woman. Or a castrated priest. But then what were the facial scars for, if not to curb his beard? Thankfully, her witch's rune kept the he-she from sniffing her out.

Behind the sexually ambiguous shaman came two hard-eyed Tartar officers wearing steel caps and leather breastplates, who seated themselves at either side of the door -- the senior one wore a tunic trimmed with sable, showing he was a division commander, and the younger one wore the red fox trim of a regimental commander. Last of all came Blue-Eyes who sat beside the shaman at the feet of the corpse, setting out a sheep's shoulder blade heaped with incense.

Heart hammering, but otherwise still, Katya lay watching through a crack between the cushions as the shaman burnt yet more incense, going on with the shrill chant. From time to time he would give falsetto instructions to Blue-Eyes, who rose and anointed Prince Sergey's eyes, ears, and mouth with a mixture of mare's milk, Cathayan spices, and fresh sheep's blood; coming so close that Katya could smell the heady spices, even through the thick incense. As the keening rose to a crescendo, Katya's skin crawled. This was necromancy, blackest of the black arts, used to invite in ghosts, ghouls, and night walkers. She had seen the Bone Witch do it, hobnobbing with the dead and near dead on Halloween nights. Never her favorite sort of magic.

What happened next made her like it even less. Prince Sergey's corpse responded to the chant, slowly lifting its head, as if trying to see who was wailing away at his feet. Seeing that badly chewed head rise up next to her nearly shocked Katya out of her spell. It took all her concentration to keep still as the dead Grand Duke bent at the middle and sat bolt upright. With no neck bone to support it, His Highness's head hung to one side, but that did not stop him from speaking. "What the devil are half-breed barbarians doing in my bedroom?

Bowing their heads slightly, both Tartars politely introduced themselves, and Blue-Eyes translated, "This is Kaidu, noyan of the Forest Tumen, and Mangku his van minghan commander. I am called Borte."

Unable to do more than blink and breathe, Katya lay listening to the dead prince's reply. "Tell these unbaptized apes they are squatting before Prince Sergey Mikhailovich, Grand Duke of Ikstra, Baron Suzdal, and uncle to Crown Prince Ivan."

Blue-Eyes said a few words to the noyan in Tartar, then turned back to the pompous corpse. "Kaidu wishes to know what could bring your august personage to this poor humble woodland."

"Does he?" asked Prince Sergey. "Well, it is hardly his concern, is it? Damned impudent, even for some squint-eyed chimp in armor."

"Nonetheless, he wants to know. You are dead," Blue-Eyes reminded the prickly deceased. "And the dead speak only the truth."

"Every idiot knows I came here to secure the Firebird's Egg."

After a few curt words in Tartar, Blue-Eyes asked, "Why is the Firebird's Egg so important?

His Highness scoffed at their ignorance, "The Firebird's Egg is the luck of the Mikhailovich Kings, Markovy's greatest treasure. It is what makes us invincible, able to pummel brainless barbarians like these."

Blue-Eyes conferred with the Tartars, then asked, "So long as you have this Egg you believe you cannot be beaten?

"Whoever holds the Egg is invincible," declared the corpse. "Dare come against us, and dogs will defecate on your graves."

Kaidu smiled and nodded, thanking Sergey for the warning then he had Blue-Eyes ask, "Where is the Firebird's Egg now?"

"Stolen," Prince Sergey hissed, "taken by a traitorous heretic and a treacherous witch girl."

Blue-Eyes asked, "which traitorous heretic?"

"Sir Roy d'Roye, Chevalier de l'Étoile and baron of France, the former Castellan of Byeli Zamak."

"And what treacherous witch girl?"

"How would I know her name?" Sergey snorted. "The one that goes invisible."

Katya saw the Pole's blue eyes go wide, but her voice did not falter. Hearing her translation, the Tartars leaned closer, asking soft questions. Blue-Eyes pretended ignorance, "what do you mean invisible?"

"Transparent, not there, gone as glass. I did not believe it myself until I saw her disappear."

Blue-Eyes dutifully translated, and the question came back, "Where are they now? The knight, the Egg, and the invisible witch girl?"

"How should I know?" asked the indignant corpse. "These questions are tedious. Having monkeys for mothers does not make you amusing."

"You are dead, and need not be amused," Blue-Eyes replied, "you must merely answer truthfully." Despite his bluster, the princely corpse was clearly the shaman's puppet, called back to answer questions with no will of his own. And the questions kept coming. Having failed to find the Firebird's Egg did not mean the Tartars were finished. They wanted to know all about young Prince Ivan. Was he well? Did the boy show promise? Which boyars were most likely to betray him? What was the strength of the royal Horse Guards? How many horsemen could each boyar muster? Which would be open to bribes? Did any have weaknesses for drink or women? Or pretty young eunuchs? Endless questions and heavy incense eventually put Katya to sleep.

She awoke with a start, instantly visible. Luckily she was alone, unless you counted the corpse. Prince Sergey's Tartar interrogators had left, taking Blue-Eyes with them. Dawn light showed through the silk walls, and Katya guessed she had slept through most of the short summer night. Prince Sergey looked none the worse for his interview--in fact the act of sitting up and answering questions had infused him with a weird lifelike glow, putting a flush in his cheeks, though it had done nothing for his glazed eyes and severed spine. Easing past the prince, she opened the paper door a crack.

First light filtered into the cabin. Looking out, she found no one aboard, and the camp beyond asleep, aside from a pair of nodding guards on the horse lines. She slid down a silk line to the ground, keeping the skyboat between her and the horse guards. As quickly as stealth allowed, she crossed the camp and skirted the pond. Blue-Eyes had taken in her laundry, but lying by the pond was a bundle containing cooked millet, dried fish, and a jar of kumiz, fermented mare's milk, all left for her - probably at dusk, because during the night a female leopard had come down to drink, and wet pug marks showed she sniffed the bundle before heading deeper into the Rift. Make that a were-leopard.

Clutching the gift from Blue-Eyes, she set out running, straight back the way she came, only slowing to slip past the Tartar sentry. Running atop the boulders, she headed downstream toward where she had left her knight, hoping he had waited for her. Gone far longer than she had intended, she was returning with terrible news. Katya did not have to be a seeress to know these Tartars would soon be looking for them; Prince Sergey had practically dared the nomads to find the Firebird's Egg, or face humiliating defeat.

Even before she reached the river, Katya felt she was being watched. Looking over her shoulder, she saw nothing, but that meant little. Hearing the firebird's warning behind her, she shifted direction, heading straight downwind. When she found the right rock, she froze against it and waited.

Within seconds a lycanthrope slipped past her, shaped like a man, but with wolf's fur covering his body, and a beast's hairy face and hideous fangs. Unable to see or smell her, he moved off downwind quickly, trying to catch up with his quarry. She let him get ahead of her, then turned downstream again, running as fast as she could. When he realized he had lost her, the lycanthrope would cast about for her scent, and no doubt find it, but by then she hoped to be with her knight.

She smelled his campfire first, then the horses. There was something so charming and artless about her knight's inability to take precautions. Being a French baron, he naturally assumed he would beat whatever the Rift sent his way, and was lounging about the campfire with his armor off and his sword within reach, wearing just his shirt, hose, and quilted arming jacket. Very fetching. Such serene security was just what her jangled nerves needed, and he had barely said a happy, "Bonjour," before Katya was in his arms, hugging him as hard as she could -- his welcoming kiss was as wonderful as she remembered. Her knight asked, "What has happened, Mademoiselle? Have you missed me so much?"

"More," she told him, "much more. It was horrible. There are two yurts of Tartars looking for us, with a he-she shaman and a talking corpse. And a lycanthrope too, though not with the Tartars." He just meant to murder and eat her.

Her knight sounded confused by the summation. "What talking corpse?"

"You know him, Prince Sergey -- the one bitten by the leopard. But there was a woman too, a live one who gave me this." She showed him the bundle Blue-Eyes left her.

"Umm, millet." He looked over her shoulder into the bag. "I am almost hungry enough to eat it."

"There is fish as well," she told him, burying her head in his chest, feeling on the verge of tears.

"And what is in the jar?"

"Wine," she answered weakly, afraid to tell him kumiz came from a horse.

"Wine? Really?" He grinned down at her. "Oh, wondrous wood sprite, what would I do without you."

That was what she most wanted to hear, that he needed her, because she so very much needed him. "We are in desperate danger, and must make for the Iron Wood -- before the Tartars discover we are here." These Tartars terrified her. Avoiding Baron Boris's hapless horde of serfs, Horse Guards, washerwomen and charcoal burners was hard enough, but the Tartars were deadly efficient, flying through the air, keeping keen watch, kidnapping Prince Sergey's corpse, then turning it into a talking puppet. She had barely gotten out of their camp alive -- and only because their wolves were away, aside from the Blue-Eyed Bitch.

Her knight tried the "wine," declaring it, "Sweet, but with a bite. Why is it so milky white? What grape does it come from?"

"You do not want to know." She pulled him toward the horses, saying, "Come, we must be going." She had to get them out of the open Rift, into the relative safety of the Iron Wood, where they had only ghouls and werewolves to worry about. Her knight complied, donning his armor and saddling his charger, happy to have the spiked mare's milk, which made his kisses even more sweet and intoxicating.

Heading for the near bluffs, she kept looking back, expecting to see Tartars on their trail. But the bouldered Rift was bare behind her, and she saw nothing overhead but a pair of wild rocs, circling between her and the sun -- to think she used to be afraid of them. Her knight told her, "I too missed you. And feared for you too, when you did not return by nightfall."

She shivered, thinking how she spent the night sleeping next to Prince Sergey. "I was safe enough. Safer than now in fact." She glanced back over her shoulder, seeing nothing but sand and rock. "They did not know where to look for me." But soon they would be sweeping the lower Rift looking for her and the Firebird's Egg. Prince Sergey had come back from the grave to botch things one last time, exposing her secrets, and setting the Tartars on her.

"Mademoiselle need fear nothing while I am at her side." His helmet off, he smiled over at her, looking impossibly brave and handsome. "Baron Roy d'Roye, Chevalier de l'Étoile, is your champion. I have sworn to see you safe through this quest, pledging my life and honor for my lady's safety."

That was what she feared most, that he would give his life protecting her. She asked shyly, "Am I truly your lady?"

His grin widened. With his helmet off, she could see his fashionable pudding bowl haircut getting long in the back. Life on the run played havoc with your coiffure. "You are my lady, you are my love. How could you ever doubt it?"

"You are married to someone else," she reminded him, "your wife in France."

He laughed, "Having a wife in France has nothing to do with love. Marie married in order to be Baroness d'Roye, not out of any fondness for me. Why should I love her for that? I love you for your beauty and your courage, and for your deep and loving heart. I have known no other woman who...."

She never found out what made her so singular. "Katea, katea," came from the firebird, and she looked back over her shoulder. This time they were there. Dire wolves, an entire pack, coming silently over the rocks behind them.

Pointing them out to her knight, she told him, "That means Tartars. We must get up that draw ahead, and into the Iron Wood, before they catch us in the open."

Urging their horses to run, they sped for the notch in the bluffs, a steep bouldered side canyon leading up to the dense line of dark metal trees. Glancing back, she saw the first of the Tartars, a dozen men and more than three score horses, each rider having several remounts, letting them run down any quarry -- when not at war, Tartars killed fast, fierce animals to stay in practice. Katya and her knight had only their sumpter horse, bearing the precious Egg buried deep in the pack saddle, wrapped in tapestry and a spare coat of mail. At the rate they were gaining, the Tartars would soon be in bow range. She showed them to her knight, saying, "We have to get up that gully and into the Iron Wood." There the dense metal trees would nullify Tartar arrows and numbers.

At the base of the gully, the first arrows arched toward them, falling short, but not by much. As the ground rose up, their horses slowed, while the Tartars raced over the rocky flats, firing as they came. Arrows began to land between them -- flight arrows, getting lift from their broad heads and long tail feathers. As the gully narrowed, Katya dodged between boulders, leading the sumpter horse, while her knight brought up the rear, his armor being proof against the light flight arrows.

Suddenly the line in her hand snapped taut, as the sumpter horse stumbled and went down. Reining in, she looked back and saw the palfrey had been hit in the hind leg. Another arrow hit the fallen horse in the belly. A third shaft struck the pack saddle. And inside that pack saddle was the Firebird's Egg. She had to go back for it.

Turning her mare about, she headed back down the gully -- meeting her knight who was pounding up the draw, headed the other way. As they shot past each other, he twisted in the saddle, calling to her, "Katya, come back!" -- the first time he had ever called her by name.

With her name ringing in her ears, she reined in beside the downed sumpter horse. Fortunately the horse had not fallen on the side holding the Egg, since she never could have lifted the beast. Tearing at the pack saddle straps, she struggled to untie them and get at the Egg. As she tugged at the straps, an arrow buried itself in the leather saddle inches from her hand, another nicked her shoulder, tearing her shift without drawing blood.

Suddenly her black mare gave a horrible shriek. Hit in the neck, the horse collapsed almost on top of her, thrashing and struggling, kicking up dust and pebbles. Panicked, she pulled harder on the straps, aiming to snatch up the Egg and disappear.

Before she could, a mailed arm came down around her waist, lifting her into the air. Her knight had come back for her, reining in his armored charger next to her fallen mare, then scooping Katya up onto his saddle. "Wait," she gave a startled shout, "we must get the Egg."

"No time," her knight told her. Arrows rattled off his armor as he turned again to head back up the gully, aiming for the iron trees at the top. Her knight had abandoned their quest, choosing her over the Firebird's Egg.

Aghast at the loss of the Egg, Katya clung to her knight's armored body as they pounded up the rocky draw. By now Tartars at the base of the gully were firing heavy armor-piercing arrows, and in seconds the fast-riding horse nomads would come swarming up the ravine after them. An arrow hit the charger's leather-armored rump, making the big warhorse squeal horribly. Another arrow hit the horse, and another. Katya could not understand how she had not been hit -- the Bone Witch had to be watching over her.

At the top of the draw the wounded stallion lurched and staggered, eyes aflame and nostrils flaring in agony. Ahead, Katya saw the first of the iron trees, but knew they would never make it. Hit repeatedly, the overloaded horse fell in an armored heap, flinging Katya to the ground. Hard flinty earth slammed into her, scraping her skin and making her head ring. She fetched up against a big boulder, giving her some protection against arrows, or being trampled by overeager pursuers.

First on his feet, her knight turned to meet the nomad charge, swinging his hideous Lucerne hammer with both hands. Here at the top of the draw, the gully was so narrow only one rider could come at him at a time -- nor could the nomads below get a clear shot at him, with their fellows in the way. Tartars had to take on Baron d'Roye one at a time, and hand to hand.

Which proved impossible. No leather-armored Tartar stood a chance against the Swiss-forged blades of his Lucerne hammer. Curved steel sliced through wicker shields and studded leather like they were parchment and linen, inflicting ghastly wounds and pulling riders from the saddle. Light Tartar lances glanced off his armor, and the nomads never got close enough to use their short deadly scimitars and Khyber knives. Riderless horses bolted past him, or went down beneath the bright sharp hammer, tumbling back into the gully to land in a thrashing pile atop their former masters. More Tartars kept coming, until the top of the defile was jammed with dead and wounded, forcing the men struggling up from behind to dismount, and be hewn down on foot.

Katya saw a single arrow arch overhead, whistling as it went. At the top of its arc the whistling arrow exploded in a bright flash, leaving a puff of black smoke hanging in the blue above. As the feathered tail of the arrow fluttered down, the attack ceased. No more Tartars came scrambling over the grisly barricade of fresh corpses and dead horses. Eerie silence descended, broken only by high-pitched neighing from a wounded horse. Her knight looked anxiously about, until he saw her flattened against the boulder. Smiling, he signed for her to stay down, starting toward her.

Heavy armor-piercing arrows arched over the barricade, falling silently out of the sky like iron hail. Pressed against the boulder, Katya was hard to hit, but her knight was caught in the open. Hit in the shoulder, he staggered and spun about, dropping his war hammer, then losing his balance as another arrow pierced his armored hip.

Seeing him fall, Katya dashed to his side, sprinting through the deadly hail. Looping her arm under his good shoulder, she dragged him into the lee of a dead horse. Arrows continued to fall, most hitting the ground behind them, with a couple thudding ominously into the horse they were huddled against. They would not be safe until they reached the iron trees, so she tried to draw the arrow out of his hip. Luckily, armor piercing arrows had sharp hard points that came out as easily as they went in. His hand came up and stopped her, "No, my love, you must go."

She shook her head. "I have to get you to the trees." Glancing up, she searched for a gap in the falling arrows, trying to gauge the right moment.

He pulled her hand to his lips, saying, "I will never make it, but you must live." Looking down she saw life oozing out of his shoulder, and knew he would not get up. Tears burned her eyes as he kissed her hand, calling her Katya again. "Katya, sweet Katya, I love you so. I only held back from fear of hurting you -- and now I have." He kissed her hand again, then let go, pushing her away, "Run, my love, please run. Please save yourself."

Unable to speak, she leaned down and kissed him on the lips, then she turned and ran, dodging through the falling arrows, not wanting to watch her knight die.

Firebird

SQUIRMING BETWEEN metal trunks, Katya heard arrows rattling the iron branches, but none found their way down to her. Safe for the moment, she hung her head and cried, crawling on hands and knees between the trees. She had lost her love, her sweet, handsome caring knight, as well as the magical Firebird's Egg that was the hope of Markovy. Both taken by Tartars. She remembered Blue-Eyes's story of the massacred wedding party; how the Tartars casually crushed those people's lives just to get a few useful captives and trivial information. Now the horse nomads had destroyed her life as well, treating settled people the way boyars treated serfs, as mere things to be used or discarded. She ached for her simple life in the woods, where the Bone Witch had protected her -- but the Bone Witch too was dead.

Hurt and sorrow welled up inside her, thinking of all that her knight had done for her. His jokes, his strange tales of the wide world beyond the trees, his gentle touch, and passionate kisses that promised more. Now there was no more. No knight, no Egg, nothing. Her life had become a useless husk, holding only pain and loss. And she could not even just lie down to die; for if she did the Tartars and their wolves would find her -- then things would get even worse. Hearing water ahead of her, she crawled toward it, hoping to hide her trail. Most Markovites had a superstitious fear of the Iron Wood, with its witches, ghouls, troll-bears and were-beasts; but to Katya it was a second home, far less strange than the settled lands. Usually she much preferred the living wood -- with its food, warmth, and hundreds of friendly eyes -- though right now the metal wood's cold, bleak lifelessness matched her misery.

She found the stream, a small feeder headed down toward the Rift, and crawled along in it, adding her tears to water that would flow into the Zog. After a couple of hundred paces the wood thinned, and Katya could stagger upright without getting spiked by low branches. She sloshed along searching for a good place to leave the stream. Usually she looked for an overhanging tree, or a grassy bank that would not take prints, but here the branches could not be climbed, and the banks were rock or dirt. Smelling a troll-bear's lair, she instinctively froze, feeling caught between Tartars trailing her and the troll-bear ahead.

Cold water tumbled past Katya's ankles. Why was she even worried? The troll-bear would merely kill and eat her. Tartars would do worse, far worse -- they would make evil use out of her, then kill her. Or worse yet, let her live, seeing all the harm they did with the Firebird's Egg. Put that way, there was only one choice, and she went straight on past the troll-bear's lair, not flinching at the gnawed ox bones scattered about, or the half-eaten leopard carcass hanging from a spiked branch. No dire wolf with half a brain would come within a whiff of this place.

And no troll-bear came rushing out to devour her. But as the troll-bear's stench faded, so did her sense of purpose. Where to now? She had been running away from the Tartars -- not toward anything. Katya no longer had her quest to guide her, nor the Bone Witch's hut to go home to, so where was she headed? Downstream apparently, because that was the way she was going, following her fallen tears. Iron trees thinned, becoming fewer and shorter, and soon she made out white bluffs between their trunks. Somewhere ahead of her the stream followed a gully or ravine back down into the Rift. Did she want to go there? She stopped and considered. Was being in the Iron Wood better or worse than the open Rift? Were lycanthropes and were-leopards worse than Tartars and rocs? Tough choice.

"Katea, katea, katea...." The firebird's warning decided for her, coming from close behind her, a sure sign she was being stalked. Katya headed off at once, splashing downstream and cross-wind, leaving the iron trees, making for the bouldered Rift below. Finding a spot to leave the stream, she headed upwind, running over the rocks to leave as little trail as she could. Coming to a tall boulder, she went up its backside and lay down on top, looking back along her trail. She froze there, whispering her spell.

Minutes passed, and she wondered if the firebird was playing with her, trying to cheer her up by frightening her senseless -- just the sort of trick the flame jay would enjoy. But not this time; a lycanthrope came loping along, nostrils flaring, sniffing out her trail. She let the wolfman pass, then slid down the front of the rock and backtracked to the stream, putting the lycanthrope upwind of her, with no trail to follow. Eventually the man-beast would realize what happened and double back, but by then she would be far away.

Finding another good spot to leave the stream, she stripped off her silk shift and sat down naked on a boulder, meticulously drying her feet so as to leave no wet prints. Then she dressed and set off swiftly over the rocks, heading downwind, giving the lycanthrope no trail to follow. Katya kept looking over her shoulder, but saw nothing, letting her breathe easier....

...And ran right into a loop of rope. Dropping silently over her head and shoulders, the lasso snapped tight around her torso. Spinning in surprise, she tried to twist free, but found her arms pinned to her sides.

Atop the nearest boulder stood a grinning Tartar, holding the other end of the taut rope. He had been hiding there, waiting for her, and had either seen her descending the draw, or just guessed that she would use the stream to hide her trail, then double back into the Rift. Either way he had her, so she stopped struggling; it only tightened the lasso.

Leaping happily down off the rock, he coiled the rope to keep it tight, talking softly to her in Tartar, acting like he had lassoed a young mare and did not want to spook her. Small chance. She was far beyond being spooked. Too crushed and heartsick to be frightened, Katya thoroughly hated this Tartar, hardly caring what happened to her so long as she saw him dead. Here was one of the men who killed her knight, a hideous nomad who had come from beyond the Iron Wood to murder, rape, or enslave whoever struck his fancy. It would take more than a few kind words in Tartar to quell her anger. But he did not need to know that, so she shyly returned his smile. Nor did he act like a murderer, grinning eagerly, plainly happy to have her, and trying to interest her in talk. He asked her a question in Tartar, and she nodded and smiled wider, as if she understood and agreed. All the time plotting his demise.

He led her down the bouldered draw toward the open Rift, heading downwind, while she kept looking back, working the lasso away from her elbows, up toward her shoulders. They recrossed the stream she had waded down, and ahead she saw a bend in the trail, where the path dipped down a bit, then turned sharply to circle three big boulders. With the wind at their backs, their scent was going straight toward the rocks, and the Tartar was making unnecessary amounts of noise, breathing heavily and brushing the bushes with his bowlegged gait. Like most born horsemen, he did not walk well. From above, the firebird sounded a warning.

Hanging back as they approached the three rocks, Katya kept the rope taut. When he disappeared around the turn ahead, she ran silently toward him, putting sudden slack in the line. Using that slack to loosen the lasso, she slipped swiftly out of the loop. Letting the line drop, she froze against the rocks, reciting her spell. Surprised, the Tartar turned to see what had happened to her, stepped back into sight and stared straight at her, stupidly holding his limp rope. As he stared suspiciously through her, the lycanthrope leaped on him from behind. Leather armor was no match for the lycanthrope's superhuman strength, and the Tartar never even touched his scimitar. In seconds the wolfman was feeding happily on the horse nomad -- some parts of Markovy were absolutely unsafe to invade.

Blood lust dulled the were-beast's senses, and the wolfman did not look up as Katya quietly slipped away downwind. What now? Her knight was dead, so was the Bone Witch, and she owed her freedom to one of her direst enemies. Where should she go, besides away from here? Downriver to turn herself in to Baron Boris, and be burned for her troubles? Hardly likely. Home to the woods, where she had lived with the Bone Witch? Perhaps, but there was little left for her there, since Prince Sergey had burned the Bone Witch's hut. And she knew now she needed people. She did not want to be a hermit in the woods, with only birds and squirrels to talk to -- but which people? No one had been half so appealing as her lost knight. Moving slowly, senses alert, Katya headed downwind, determined to be safe wherever she was going. At least the forest would feed her.

Katya did not see the leopard coming. Despite being extra alert, she did not hear, smell, or sense the were-beast in any way. Nor did the firebird sound an alarm. Without warning the were-leopard sprang from nowhere, landing in front of her, startling her even more than the Tartar noose. Leopards she knew; they should not take her by surprise.

But this leopard changed right before her startled eyes, rising up, becoming upright and losing her spots, turning into a naked old woman, gaunt but strong, with wrinkled features, bone-white skin, and a wild halo of ivory hair -- the Bone Witch.

Crying with relief, she threw herself into the Bone Witch's arms, and the witch drew Katya to her withered breasts, stroking and comforting her, saying, "Katya, I told you I would come if you needed me." When Prince Sergey killed her, the Bone Witch came back as a were-leopard to take her revenge, showing how fruitless it can be to fight the undead.

"What am I to do?" Katya begged between sobs, happy to see the Bone Witch, even in this unearthly form.

"Have you forgotten the Egg?" asked the Bone Witch, the same way she used to remind Katya of her chores around the hut. "You must take it to the Nest on Burning Mountain, and when you get there bury it in warm white sand."

"But I do not even know where the Egg is," Katya protested, wanting solace and affection, not more impossible tasks to perform. "Tartars must have it now."

"Indeed they do," the Bone Witch sounded proud of her pupil. "The Firebird's Egg is aboard the Tartar sky-boat. Get it, and I will help you take it to Burning Mountain."

Easy for the Bone Witch to say, being already dead and beyond most normal worries. Katya asked, "How will you help?"

"You will see," replied the Bone Witch, who had enjoyed being mysterious even before she died. Giving her a withered kiss, the witch wiped her tears away, telling her to be brave. Nodding obediently, Katya watched the Bone Witch sink back down and become a leopard again, then slink silently away. At least it sounded like Katya would get to Burning Mountain, and have a chance to put the Firebird's Egg in the sand. So what else could she do? Clearly the Bone Witch had raised her for this, and meant to see it done.

With the Bone Witch watching over her, she decided to head straight for the Tartar camp -- which at least had the advantage of surprise, since it was the last thing any sane fugitive would do. With the flame jay's help, she slipped past the sentries. Luckily all the wolves were out looking for her, but Borte, the Blue-Eyed Wolf Bitch, was sitting by her yurt, spinning wool into thread. Busy with her work, Blue-Eyes did not see her until she stepped softly into view. "You?" Blue-Eyes looked up from her spinning, asking in surprise, "What brings you back?"

Katya nodded at the sky-boat. "The Firebird's Egg is aboard that flying ship."

"I know," Blue-Eyes sighed." They are using it in their magic." From the way the Pole said it, Katya could tell they were using Blue-Eyes too, and the young woman was tired of talking to the dead.

"We must get it from them." Katya found herself sounding like the Bone Witch, whose eerie, otherworldly confidence was contagious.

"Must we?" Blue-Eyes arched an eyebrow. "Not everyone can appear and disappear as they please; some of us must live here all the time."

Unfair, but Katya could see she must be a mystery to Blue-Eyes, coming and going without warning, urging her to betray her masters, risking grotesque punishments. And Katya could disappear with the Egg, but her spell would not cover another person -- leaving Blue-Eyes to make painful explanations. Just talking to malicious spirits was a heinous crime. "Well, I am going to try," she told the Pole. "Pray for me."

Blue-Eyes gave a noncommittal nod, and Katya set off on her own, sliding past the horse line guards, vanishing when they looked her way. Get in, get the Egg, and get out -- scary, but not impossible. Finding the ladder down, Katya guessed no one was alive on the sky-boat, and quietly climbed aboard. No one on deck. Sliding back the paper door, she peered into the cabin, seeing through a haze of incense that Prince Sergey was gone.

Her knight lay in his place, Baron Roy d'Roye, Chevalier de l'Étoile, hands clasped on his sword, his saxe knife still in his belt. He looked so calm, he might have been sleeping, but Katya knew he was dead, lying unnaturally stiff and not breathing. His armor was cut away around his wounds, which were neatly sewn shut, like Prince Sergey's had been. His head was propped up facing the door, with eyes closed, resting on the Firebird's Egg.

Tears welled up as she shut the door behind her, slipping over to his side. Afraid to touch his dead flesh, she cupped her hand over his lips, feeling for breath. Nothing, but his skin had a natural healthy glow, as if he were resting in the quiet space between breaths. She reached down and grasped the Firebird's Egg, finding its leathery skin was warmer than ever, and pulsing with life. Saying a prayer for the dead, she started to pry the Egg loose from under his head; then stopped, staring at the wound on his shoulder, seeing skin had grown back around the stitches. Chills went up her arms and down her back -- his wound was healing, faster even than a living man's would. She knew hair and fingernails grew after death, but this could only be caused by the warm, magical Egg pressed against his shoulder.

How could she take the Egg away, when it was healing her love, giving him a semblance of life? By tomorrow he might be warm to the touch, breathing even. She would never know if she took the Egg away. But leaving him and the Egg to the Tartars would not do her knight any good.

While she sat frozen by her dilemma, the sky-boat rocked gently beneath her. Someone was coming aboard. Carefully replacing the Egg, she curled up behind her knight and vanished. Presently the paper door opened, and a blonde head poked in, asking, "Are you here?" Blue-Eyes looked frantically about, whispering loudly, "They are coming!"

There was only one escape. Jerking the saxe knife from her knight's belt, she pushed past the startled Blue-Eyes, going out on deck, where she started slashing at the silk lines tying them to the ground. Blue-Eyes looked aghast, asking, "Are you mad? Just disappear!"

With no time to explain, Katya kept attacking the lines, saying, "Come with me, please."

"Do I have a choice?" Blue-Eyes asked, as the sky-boat tilted alarmingly, held down on one side, but not on the other. Shouts in Tartar came from below. Scrambling to the opposite rail, Katya began cutting the lines there. Blue-Eyes walked across the tilted deck and released the stern line, then the ladder, right in the face of a surprised and angry Tartar.

Suddenly they were free, lurching off downwind, with Tartar arrows arching after them. Flying free, but not very high nor fast, they drifted low over the Rift, so low they would never clear the bordering bluffs, floating well within arrow range of the mounted Tartars racing after them. She called to Blue-Eyes, "Why are we not flying away?"

"Too heavy," Blue-Eyes shouted back. The sky-boat had two women, an armored body, and the Firebird's Egg. "We have to dump the sand bags."

"Sand bags?" She saw Blue-Eyes upend a bag of sand tied to the rail, spilling it out to lighten ship. An arrow flew between them as Katya leaped to help, grabbing a bag and flipping it over the rail, then cutting it loose, sending the bag with the sand. Anything to get some altitude.

And it worked; with each sand bag emptied or heaved overboard, the sky-boat rose higher, and their pursuers fell farther away to windward. In moments the horse nomads dwindled, reduced to tiny figures riding dwarf ponies. Encouraged, Katya, seized another bag, hauled it over the rail, and cut it free. As she watched the bag fall away, an arrow burst through the light wicker bulwark, hitting her hard in the side, startling her like a blow from a stone.

Shock washed over her, and she stepped back in surprise, staring at the feathered shaft sprouting from her side, barely a hand's span from her navel. There was no pain, and little blood, just a red stain on her shift, slowly growing bigger. She remembered her knight lying at the top of the draw, his life oozing away. Now it was her turn.

"That should do it," Blue-Eyes sounded satisfied, emptying one last sand bag, then turning to her, thrilled to have escaped the Tartars. Seeing the arrow, Blue-Eyes was instantly at her side, holding her up, warning, "Do not touch it!"

Not a chance, she had no intention of handling the arrow, which was starting to hurt alarmingly. Katya could see by the shaft that it was not a slim-pointed armor-piercing arrow, but a broad-headed flight arrow that twisted and turned as it went in, tearing open your insides. She was good as dead already. Gently Blue-Eyes laid her down on the deck, bending over her and saying, "This is going to hurt horribly. Can you stand it?"

"Do I have a choice?" she asked weakly, staring up at the huge gas-filled parasail, trying not to look at the arrow.

"That's the spirit." Blue-Eyes gripped the base of the shaft, and the silk shift next to it. "I learned this from Tartars, who know all about arrow wounds." Blue-Eyes started to pull on the shirt, easing the silk out of the wound. "When an arrow hits a loose silk shirt, the point carries it into the wound. If you pull out the fabric, it will bring the point with it, retracing the arrow's path as the silk unwinds, keeping it from doing further damage."

Damage already done to her had Katya on the verge of fainting, and every tug on the fabric hurt like fire. Her hands clutched at the deck, her nails digging into the thin wickerwork as she fought not to move. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back, breathing in short sharp gasps. Finally she did faint, slipping thankfully into a black void -- if this was what death was like, then it was not so bad.

When she awoke the bloody arrow lay on the deck beside her, and Blue-Eyes was sewing the wound closed. By now the prick of a needle felt like nothing compared to the fire in her side. Her silk shift was a mess, torn and matted with blood, mixed with yellow medicinal powder. She asked, "Will I live?"

"Possibly." Blue-Eyes would not deign to cheer her up. "At least I certainly hope you do."

So did Katya. Gazing up at the taut black parasail, she asked, "Where are we headed?"

Blue-Eyes shrugged. "Downwind. I assumed you had some plan, some place where you were going."

Burning Mountain, deep within the Iron Wood, but it seemed silly to say that now, flat on her back and bleeding into the wicker deck. She thought of her knight, lying dead in the cabin. "What happened to Prince Sergey?"

"They buried him deep in the Rift, with his eyes, ears, mouth, and anus sewed shut, to keep his spirit from walking."

Katya grimaced, "Sounds ghastly."

"Hideous, I had to do the sewing." Blue-Eyes wiped off her needle and put it away. "Are you thirsty?"

"Parched." Katya's body cried for the fluids that had spilled out the hole in her side. Blue-Eyes propped her up, which hurt terribly, and held a sweet-smelling clay jar to her lips. She sipped and sputtered, expecting water but getting something startlingly tangy. "What is this?"

"Rice wine." Blue-Eyes encouraged her to drink some more. "It will help with the pain."

She drank until her head got dizzy and her body felt numb. Then she asked for help staggering into the cabin. Blue-Eyes shrugged, "If you want to lie down by a corpse."

"I do not mind," Katya whispered, "he is my knight." Blue-Eyes thought it strange, but all the Pole knew of love was being raped by Tartars. Half-carrying Katya into the incense-filled cabin, Blue-Eyes laid her down beside her knight, covering her with a blanket and a fur-lined Tartar flying jacket, then left, closing the paper door. Laying her head alongside the Firebird's Egg, Katya passed out again.

She did not wake until the morning, when Blue-Eyes brought her wine and millet, saying she had better come on deck. "You must see what is ahead."

Gingerly, Katya tested her side, seeing if she could stand. It hurt, but not enough to keep her off her feet. Lifting her shift, Katya saw angry red flesh closed by Blue-Eyes's neat stitches. Bleeding had stopped, forming a scab -- a good sign. Examining her knight's shoulder, she found his wound totally closed, and used his saxe knife to take out the stitches; a foolish gesture, but she could not resist. His skin felt warm to her touch, almost alive. An anxious Blue-Eyes helped her pull on the Tartar flying jacket, and stagger out onto the tiny deck, where the Pole had made herself a bed of cushions and blankets. Looming ahead of them downwind was a huge cone-shaped mountain, rising right in the sky-boat's path. Wisps of white smoke billowed from the flat snow-clad peak, trailing away from them. Katya nodded. "Burning Mountain. It is where we are headed."

"I can see that," Blue-Eyes protested. "What are we going to do about it?"

"We have to figure a way to land," Katya told her. "This is where I mean to go. Atop of that mountain is the Firebird's Nest, and that is where I am taking the Egg."

Blue-Eyes looked incredulous, "Why, in God's name"

Why indeed? Despite the pain in her side, she could stand and talk, even think clearly -- one night alongside the Firebird's Egg did that. Given a week she would be fine, and the Egg was healing her knight as well. Who knew -- it might even bring him back to life? She was sorely tempted to give it a chance. But that was not what the Bone Witch wanted, not with Burning Mountain drawing steadily closer -- the witch had promised help getting there, and here it was. Katya desperately wanted to live, and to have her knight back, yet the Egg that was healing him had to return to its Nest. She would not make the mistake King Demitri made, who stole the Egg, thinking he could use the magic for himself and somehow avoid the curse. True, the Egg was healing them, but where had the wounds come from? Her knight had survived numerous losing battles, only to die guarding the Egg. And until now she had never been scratched. Katya told the Pole, "This Egg is the luck of the Markovite kings, but there is a horrible curse on the Egg as well -- we must return it to the Nest it was stolen from."

Barely believing what she was hearing, Blue-Eyes hastily crossed herself, just like Katya's knight used to do, muttering. "You Markovites are insane."

"Most likely," Katya agreed, "but do you think you can land me on that mountain?"

Blue-Eyes stared at the fiery mountain drifting toward them on the wind, looking as though she wished she had stayed with the Tartars. "I do not see how we can miss it."

As the mountain bore down on them, they searched for a landing site, selecting a broad tilted snow-field near to the peak, which meant lightening the ship even more. Blue-Eyes began pitching things over the aft rail, and presently called out to Katya, "We have company coming."

Peering upwind, Katya saw what looked like a flock of rocs with thick black wings, but was actually half a dozen Tartar sky-boats coming up behind them. Tartars knew how to tilt their parasails to accelerate as they climbed, so the nomads were gaining even in a straight chase downwind. Fearing they might catch her before she even got to Burning Mountain, Katya went into the cabin to fetch the Egg. Seeing her knight's shoulder nearly healed, she kissed the bare warm flesh, then gently drew the Egg out from under his head. "Good-bye, my love," she whispered, "I hope to be with you in the Land Beyond."

Back on deck, Blue-Eyes helped her into oversized Tartar boots and fur-lined leggings, stuffing cloth in the boots to make them fit. Then they strapped the Egg to her belly, as though it were a baby, crossing a long length of cloth over Katya's shoulders and around her middle -- the flying jacket went on over it all, making her feel like an Eskimo. With the Egg pressed against her wound, her pain miraculously vanished, and she might actually make it up the mountain if Tartars did not put more holes in her. Glancing back, she saw the nomad parasails were gaining, and she could make out the boat hulls hanging beneath them, but not the men on board.

She looked forward, toward the white-topped peak, finding the ship was level with the snow-field, headed for a bumpy landing. Up close, she saw that the flat peak was a steaming volcanic caldera, ringed with snow and ice, looking like a vast ice-witch's caldron. Boiling Mountain would have been a better name. Hugging the Egg to her belly, she drew hope and strength from its pulsing warmth -- until she thought of her knight, who needed that magic as much as she, and started crying again.

Stuffing rice balls and jerky into the jacket, Blue-Eyes helped her over the aft rail, holding onto her arms to steady her. Face-to-face across the rail, Blue-Eyes saw her tears, and asked, "Do you really want to do this?"

No, not at all. She wanted to be with her knight, nursing him back to life -- but no one was giving her that choice. Not the Bone Witch. And not the Tartars. "Yes," she lied, "this is the only way."

Looking down, she saw the first of the snow field drifting beneath her, coming closer as the mountain tilted upward. The dark shadow of their parasail slid silently over the dirty snow. Blue-Eyes leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, saying, "Hannah. My name is Hannah."

"Katya," she replied with a teary smile. "They call me Katya."

Jolting to a stop, the sky-boat hit bow-first, plowing into the snow. Blue-Eyes let go of her, and Katya pushed off, falling backward to protect the Egg. She hit hard, rolling over the wet summer snow, finding it not near so soft as it looked -- fortunately her big boots and Tartar jacket cushioned her fall. As soon as she let go, the lightened sky-boat lifted off again.

When she looked up, the boat was already drifting away over the snow field, with Blue-Eyes at the stem rail, rapidly lightening ship, trying to make it over the mountain's white shoulder. Lying still in the snow she whispered her spell. On her back, staring straight up, hugging the Egg, she could not see the low flying sky-boat, and could not tell if Blue-Eyes had made it or not. If Hannah had made it. No longer a tool of the Tartars, the Pole had reclaimed her name.

Presently the nomad sky-boats appeared, drifting slowly across the sky. She counted five sails, passing almost straight overhead. Where was the sixth? It was too much to hope that it had hit the mountain. Suddenly the sixth one appeared right on top of her, coming in low to search the snow field, examining the spot where their prey had touched down. She saw Tartars leaning over the rail, their breath misting in the cold air, looking for her with dark alert eyes. All they saw was a hole in the snow.

Keeping still, she let her pursuers pass above her, then float away downwind. She counted to nine hundred, slowly, giving them plenty of time to leave. When she was sure it was safe she looked up, seeing nothing, no Blue-Eyes, no Tartars, just white blinding snow, stretching as far as she could see. Somewhere above her beyond the slanted snow field was the Firebird's Nest.

She started out over the wet heavy snow, her oversized Tartar boots leaving big deep prints, a horribly obvious trail, easily seen from the air. Too bad. She was putting herself beyond such worries, climbing a snowclad volcanic peak in the heart of the Iron Wood, hundreds of leagues from food and shelter, with nothing to sustain her but rice balls and jerky. Cold and hunger would find her long before the Tartars. Hugging the Egg tighter, she marveled at how it held her up, taking away her pain -- without it she doubted she could even stand, much less slog through wet snow.

Yet slog she did, over white snow field and a gray ash-covered glacier that groaned underfoot as Burning Mountain melted the ice from below. Great gaping cracks split the glacier, forcing her to cross unstable crevasses on tilted blocks of ice and cinder, tall dirty icebergs overlooking steaming craters filled with milky blue acid lakes. Gray glacier gave way to steep cinder slopes dusted with snow, leading up to the cone. Putting one foot in front of the other, she did not stop until she reached the crater top, and looked down into the vast steamy cauldron, feeling Burning Mountain's hot sulfurous breath in her face. Below she could see her goal, a steaming acidic green lake bordered by clean white sand, and ringed by fiery wormholes leading down through the basalt to the hot column of magma that made the mountain.

Sitting on a gray rock spattered with yellow crystals, she celebrated by eating one of her rice balls, washing it down with handfuls of snow. Snow, air and rice ball all tasted of sulfur, and above her the Tartar sky-boats were back, circling like vultures. Winding downward through the hot updraft, the sky-boats could maneuver at will, even going upwind. Impressive, but they had to come much closer if they meant to get her.

Descending into the steaming cauldron, she negotiated slopes of slippery black grit and knee-deep volcanic ash, threaded by hot streams of melted snow bright green with algae -- the first sign of life she had seen on the mountain. Fumaroles painted sulfur yellow and rust orange sent up roaring columns of searing toxic steam. Every so often one of the bigger vents would belch suffocating ash and poison gas, forcing her to bury her face in her sleeve until she could breathe again. At the bottom lay three steep cinder terraces, each wider than the last, ending in the white beach of shining volcanic sand bordered by colorful heat-loving algae. Clouds of steam wafted off the simmering chlorine-green lake, stinging her eyes and making her head swim.

Kneeling down, Katya dug into the white crystalline sand, hollowing out a warm hole; then she untied the Firebird's Egg, kissed it good-bye, and for the final time slid it into the ground, covering it up with sand. She had done it, returned the Egg to the Nest, completing her impossible quest. Hopefully the Bone Witch was happy.

Pain returned at once, nearly knocking her senseless. Collapsing into a heap on the sand, she lay groaning in agony, surprised at how much it hurt since the wound itself was nearly healed. Felled by pain and fatigue, she did not care to climb out of the crater and hike down the frozen mountain, dodging Tartar sky-boats on the way. She could see them now and then through the steam, vulture-like shadows circling closer. No thanks, unless the mountain really erupted, she was staying right here.

Slipping into a stupor, Katya dreamed she was back in the Bone Witch's hut, the way it was before Prince Sergey burned it, with doves cooing in cool eaves formed by long white mammoth bones. The Bone Witch was there with her wild white mane, wearing her child-bone necklace and winding sheet dress, saying, "Well done, Katya, well done."

Katya beamed in her sleep, happy to have done one thing right, despite horribly botching everything else, losing her knight and her life. "I tried."

"I will miss you terribly," the Bone Witch went on, looking fondly for once. "Though you were the death of me, you were a delight at the end of my much too long life."

Fearing the witch was leaving, she asked, "What shall I do?"

"Why, take care, my child." The Bone Witch managed to sound kindly. "Always comfort the weak and dare to do right. Make me proud." With that the Bone Witch did disappear, and Katya slept.

Warm sand shook, as the mountain stirred. She could hardly believe it. What a nightmare. Katya had finally gotten half-comfortable, sound asleep and barely in pain, and now Burning Mountain had started to erupt beneath her. Struggling awake, she rose painfully to all fours, as the chlorine green lake began to boil over, throwing up a thin hot acid rain that burned as it fell. Tartar sky-boats were racing off downwind, clearly having seen their fill.

Cinder slopes heaved around her, and sparks spewed upward, blowing away the acid rain. Glowing strands of lava flew through the air, trailing dark glassy threads that broke off and danced in the updraft. Glad to have her Tartar jacket, Katya shaded her eyes with her sleeve as a magnificent fireball shot into the sky, sending flames streaming in all directions. It was the Firebird, not the little flame jay that guided her and gave warning, but the huge magical bird itself, born in fire, and brighter than a thousand suns. Spreading his shining wings, the Firebird kept Katya from harm as fire fell out of the sky like snow.

Slowly the mountain subsided, shaking stopped, and nature turned quiet, as the newborn Firebird stood over her, bigger than the biggest roc, his rainbow plumage the color of fire; crimson and ruby, blazing yellow, deep purple, lava orange and lightning white, with electric blue plumes around his big golden eyes. His head was next to her, and his long red tongue licked her wound. For a while she just lay there, marveling at the bright huge bird while his healing tongue licked her side. When he was done, the wound had healed and her pain was gone -- so were the stitches, plucked out by the bird's sharp bill.

Rising to her feet, she looked the Firebird full in the face, and he bent down to greet her, begging for affection the way sparrow nestlings did when she held them in her hand, thinking she must be their mother. Reaching up, she stroked him softly, between his big golden eyes. Both she and the Firebird were orphans -- but from now on they would have each other, and Katya told him so. "We will face the world side by side, since you are new to it, and I have been there. Together we can make the Bone Witch proud."

He nodded his plumed head, showing he understood, and she saw herself reflected in a gold saucer-sized eye. Her hair had turned bone white in the fire, becoming a wild ivory tangle, just like the Bone Witch must have had when she was young.

Climbing onto the Firebird's broad back, Katya found a spot where she could sit, sheltered by his plumage, with her legs straddling his neck. Leaning forward, she told the young bird to fly, and they took off, spiraling up into the great updraft rising from Burning Mountain -- their first time in the air, but both took to it easily. Below black patches stained the snow, broken Tartar sky-boats crashed on the downwind side of the peak, their parasails ignited by the brilliance of the Firebird's eruption. Katya the Bone Witch and the newborn Firebird flew triumphantly over them, winging away in search of her knight.