Death Becomes Him
Marina Frants

"Someone's coming," Baba Yaga announced from the kitchen. "A man on a horse."

Vassilisa put aside the stocking she was darning, got up from her chair, and walked over to the window. She saw no sign of a rider, and heard nothing but the usual forest noises. But if Yaga said someone was coming, then someone undoubtedly was. Vassilisa turned away from the window.

"Is this good news or bad news?" she asked.

Yaga looked up form the stewpot she was stirring to aim a gap-toothed grin at her apprentice.

"Depends on what you consider good, doesn't it?"

Vassilisa rolled her eyes. "Are we going to talk to him, hide from him, or add him to the stew?"

The last suggestion was only half-serious. In the six months Vassilisa had known her, Baba Yaga has shown no taste for human flesh, no matter what the stories said. She did, however, use human bones for some of her more powerful spells, and if their visitor had hostile intentions, he stood a good chance of ending up in pieces in the pantry.

Yaga looked mildly annoyed. "I suppose we'll talk to him. He's bringing a gift."

Once again, Vasssilisa took the statement on faith. Yaga always knew what was going on in the forest. She could talk to the dead trees, the dry leaves, the bones in the ground. Vassilisa was slowly learning to do the same, but it still took her a great deal of painstaking, exhausting, and often smelly ritual to perform spells that Yaga could cast with a thought.

She returned to her sewing, resisting the temptation to pester Yaga with questions. If the rider was bearing a gift, then he was probably going to petition for a favor, which meant he was very desperate indeed. Favors from Baba Yaga tended to come at a high, and often unexpected, price. Vassilisa had found that out six months before, when she came seeking a way to save her village from the Tatars, and ended up leaving that village forever to become Yaga's apprentice. Not to mention housemaid, gardener, and general errand-girl.

Outside below the windows, a horse snorted nervously and stamped its hooves on the ground. A man's voice called out, "Hello? Anyone in the house?"

He repeated his call four times before Yaga poked her head out the kitchen door to glare at Vassilisa.

"Well? Are you going to go out and speak to him?"

"I'm pretty sure he's not looking for me," Vassilisa grumbled, but she put down her sewing again, and went to fetch the ladder.

She caught a glimpse of the visitor as she opened the door—a tall, broad-shouldered young man in a shabby cloak, riding a chestnut horse. He was looking up at the hut's windows, one hand shielding his eyes against the sun. Vassilisa felt terribly self-conscious as she climbed down, presenting shabby skirts and faded stockings to his view. Most of the time, she rather liked living in a hut that stood on chicken legs. It kept most of the forest critters out—legs simply shook off and stomped anything that tried to climb them. But at times like this, she really wished she could teach the damn things to squat.

By the time she reached solid ground, the rider had ismounted. He stood at the gate, watching Vassilisa with a puzzled frown.

"Baba Yaga?" he asked in a tone of shocked disbelief.

Vassilisa fought down a snicker. It had to be a bit disconcerting, she supposed, to come searching for a legendary ancient sorceress, and be presented with a freckle-faced young woman in a homemade dress.

"No," she said, and didn't know whether to be amused or insulted by the expression of relief on his face. "I'm Vassilisa, Yaga's apprentice. You can tell me what you need."

He hesitated for a moment, then swept off his hat and bowed to her, just as politely as if she'd been Yaga herself.

"Thank you. My name is Aleksei. I need your—Yaga's—help. I've brought payment . . ." He turned to untie a bulging sack from his saddle. The sack looked heavy, and rattled when he dropped it to the ground. Aleksei dug inside it, and pulled out an oversized gold goblet with a green enamel base and a circle of emeralds around the lip of the bowl. He held it out to Vassilisa, who nearly dropped it. She had never held anything made of gold before. The goblet was much heavier than it looked.

"I have more," Aleksei told her earnestly. "As much as you want. You can have this whole bag if Yaga helps me."

Vassilisa turned the goblet over in her hands, frowning. She couldn't imagine what they'd do with it. It was much too large and heavy to actually drink from. Sell it, maybe? They'd need to travel all the way to Kiev to find a buyer who could afford such a thing. Vassilisa shrugged. It hardly mattered. Knowing Yaga, the price would end up being something else entirely.

"What do you need?" she asked.

Aleksei hesitated again, staring down at the ground and shifting from foot and foot. Finally he opened his cloak to reveal a knee-length coat of chainmail underneath.

"It's this armor," he said.

"What's wrong with it?" It looked like very good armor, well-made and brightly polished, much finer than the rest of Aleksei's clothes.

Aleksei looked at Vassilisa with pleading eyes. "I can't get the cursed thing off!"

Vasillisa bit her lip. She wasn't going to laugh. Aleksei didn't strike her as the brightest person she's ever met but he was, presumably, capable of undressing himself. So there had to be a real problem there.

"Tell me all about it."

Aleksei, it turned out, had discovered an abandoned castle about a week's ride to the north, and gone in to explore it. He had found mice, bats, spiders, dust, and a great deal of treasure lying about, but no people. No living people, anyway.

"There was a skeleton on the floor in one of the treasure chambers," Aleksei said. "Buried under a pile of gold. The bones were scorched, and his clothes were all burnt away, but the armor was still bright and shiny. Not even dust had settled on it. I figured it had to be enchanted, so I . . ."

"So you robbed him."

Aleksei gave her a defensive look. "He didn't need it anymore, did he? I thought it would protect me in battle."

"It didn't protect the previous owner," Vassilisa pointed out. Aleksei blinked.

"No, I suppose it didn't. I hadn't thought of that. So can Baba Yaga help me?"

Vassilisa tucked the jeweled goblet under her arm and returned to the ladder.

"I'll see what we can do."
* * * 
"Hmph." Yaga lifted the goblet in her gnarled hands, and tapped one crooked nail against the stem. "Useless piece of junk. Still, the boy did bring a gift. I guess you'd better help him."

"Me?" Vassilisa sputtered. "What am I supposed to do? I don't know how to get that armor off him!"

Yaga fixed her with a narrow-eyed frown, the kind she usually got when Vassilisa bungled a spell, or forgot a lesson, or didn't get the dishes clean enough.

"And what do you do when you don't know?"

That was one of the earliest lessons. Vassilisa sighed. "You find someone who knows, and ask."

"And who would know, in this case?"

Vassilisa opened her mouth to answer, and quickly closed it again. Her first impulse was to say the wizard who enchanted the armor, but they didn't know who it was, and had no way to find out. She thought about it for a moment.

"The previous owner?"

"Good girl. The man's bones are still in the castle, aren't they? Go and talk to him."

"But—" Vassilisa began, then stopped. Why was she arguing? Yaga wasn't asking her to do anything she hadn't done before. Doing it for practice in the warm safety of the hut might be more comfortable than doing it for real, but the process was the same, wasn't it? "All right. I'll go get ready." She headed toward the small closet where she and Yaga kept the dried herbs used in their spells.

"Take the flying mortar!" Yaga called after her. "I can't spare you for two weeks, you know! There's spring cleaning to be done."

"I don't know how you managed before I came along," Vassilisa muttered, busily sorting through rows of little jars on the closet shelves. "Which reminds me—what are you going to demand for payment?"

"Payment?"

"Well, you're not going to take that silly goblet, are you? As you said, the thing's useless. So what will you take?"

"When you came to me, did I tell you the price in advance?"

"No."

"Then don't ask stupid questions now."
* * * 
"Are you sure Baba Yaga cannot come herself?" Aleksei asked for what had to be the hundredth time. "It could be dangerous, after all . . ."

"The castle is abandoned," Vassilisa snapped. "You said so yourself. Nothing there but bats and mice and a dead man with no armor. That much, I think I can handle."

"But—"

"She's busy!"

It was clear that Aleksei did not think that Vassilisa could help him. It was getting to be insulting. All right, so she wasn't a great sorceress who knew everything and could cast spells with a thought. She could do this . . . couldn't she?

Sighing, she hiked up her skirt and climbed into Yaga's mortar—a narrow waist-high bowl carved from a single oak stump—which she'd dragged from its little shed in the back of the garden.

"Hand me that bag, will you?"

Aleksei handed her the tattered sack where she'd packed the herbs she would need for the spell. Vassilisa resisted the urge to dig through it again. She had already gone over it three times. Everything was there. And this endless checking and rechecking would only serve to convince Aleksei that she didn't know what she was doing. Vassilisa clutched the sack to her chest and leaned forward as far as she could to make room for Aleksei behind her.

"Climb in," she ordered.

It was a tight squeeze. The mortar really wasn't made for two people. Vassilisa wrinkled her nose as Aleksei's chest pressed against her back. He smelled like . . . well, like someone who hadn't taken his armor off for a week. She tried to take shallow breaths as she recited the activating spell on the mortar.

They lifted into the air with a lurch and a wobble, and a startled yelp from Aleksei. Vassilisa ignored him, and concentrated her thoughts on guiding their flight. The wind whipped her hair back and lifter her shawl off her shoulders, so that she had to clutch the ends in one hand to keep it on. She loved this. All the hours spent cleaning Yaga's dishes and scrubbing Yaga's floors were made worth it by these moments of magic.

The forest rushed by below them in a green blur, flat at first, then sloping upwards as they entered hillier country. Aleksei's arms were wrapped tightly around Vassilisa's waist, but she barely remembered he was there. She almost missed his cry of "There!" but caught herself in time and guided the mortar down.

It was a strange place to build a castle. No towns nearby, not even a village. Just trees. The castle, with its moss-grown walls and crumbling towers, looked as if a giant hand had picked it up somewhere else, and dropped it carelessly in the forest. Vassilisa brought the mortar down in the central courtyard with only a slight jolt. She climbed out, and hopped up and down a few times to work the kinks out of her knees.

"All right, Aleksei. Lead the way."

The inside of the castle was dim and musty. Most of the wooden doors had rotted away, and all the windows were broken. The ceiling of was lost in shadows. Vassilisa could hear scurrying sounds in the corners. Every now and then, a dark shape fluttered overhead—birds or bats, she couldn't be sure.

It was easy to retrace Aleksei's steps from the footprints he'd left in the dust on his first visit. They walked through wide, echoing corridors, brushing aside the occasional cobweb as they passed, until they reached an arched doorway. The door hung at an angle, one hinge rusted all the way through, the other barely holding. It squeaked ominously as Aleksei pushed it open. Vassilisa followed him in and froze, staring.

She'd never seen that much wealth in her entire life. She'd never even imagined that much. There were mountains of coin, piled higher than Aleksei's head. There were gems of all colors, strewn about like pebbles. Jeweled belts and necklaces lay tangled in the dust, rings glittered on the stone floor, surrounded by rat droppings and dead bugs.

Vasilisa had never given much thought to possessing great riches, but the sight still held her transfixed for a moment. She imagined herself draped in velvet and brocade, with jeweled slippers on her feet, dancing at the Prince's court in Kiev. She picked up a diamond necklace from the floor and held it to her throat.

The sight of the gems glittering against the faded linen of her dress restored her perspective. She shook her head, and let he necklace fall from her fingers. This wasn't what she came for.

"Show me the bones."
* * * 
The skeleton lay atop a glittering spill of gold and silver. It must've been there a long time. The bones had faded to a dull white, except for the parts that were scorched black. A dented helmet, tarnished with age, adorned the skull.

"I didn't realize he'd be so long dead." Vassilisa knelt at the skeleton's side. Most of the dead man's clothes had been burned to blackened shreds, but a few small tatters remained. She could see a glimmer of gold thread on the brittle fabric, indicating that the dead man had been more than just a wandering peasant. "It'll make the spell harder."

"Can you do it?" Aleksei looked dubious. Vassilisa glared at him.

"Of course I can do it!" I think. "Clear me some space on the floor, will you?"

She poured a handful of tinder into a shallow clay bowl and lit it, nursed the spark to a steady flame, then poured on the herbs from her jars, one pinch at a time. The flame turned yellow, then blue, then green. a bittersweet smell permeated the air. Vassilisa closed her eyes, clasped the piece of cloth in her fist, and leaned forward to breathe in the smoke.

Yaga always claimed that this part wasn't necessary. Useless trappings, she said, a prop for the weak-willed. The power in spell came from the caster, not from dead plants and smelly smoke. That was all very well if you were as old as the forest, and could speak to rocks and raise the dead with a thought, but when most of your life had been spent tending a vegetable garden and raising chickens, and magic crept up on you unawares, your will needed a prop. Vassilisa took another deep breath, and chanted the spell.

The words floated upwards on wisps of scented smoke. Vassilisa's eyes remained closed, but white sparks danced across her vision, like afterimages of lightning. The piece of cloth in her hand felt hot. She let the heat flow through her, and out into the air again, searching for any remnant of the dead man's spirit, demanding that he speak.

"What?!" The voice rang in her head, startling her into gasping in too much smoke all at once. Vassilisa fell back, coughing, but kept her eyes closed.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"You're the one who dragged me back from the dead, you tell me!" The voice sounded ill-tempered. The dead often were. Vassilisa's instinct was to apologize, to offer an explanation, but Yaga had warned her not to try. Arguing with the dead was a fruitless task, she said. They had all the time in the world, and would keep you talking until the spell wore off, just for spite. You had to command them, not convince them.

She let more power bleed into her, then sent it after the voice, repeating her question with more insistence.

"Who are you?"

There was a short, resentful silence before the answer drifted into her thoughts like the smoke.

"Ivan Tsarevitch."

A tsarevitch? Vassilisa bit back another apology, this time for speaking out of turn to royalty. She needed to get to the point before the flame in the bowl burned out and the spell wore off.

"You were wearing an enchanted coat of armor when you died. What does the spell do?"

"Nothing bad." This time, the voice held a note of exaggerated innocence. "It's a protection spell. Go ahead, put the coat on."

Spiteful bastard. "Someone already has. How does he get it off?"

Silence. Vassilisa opened her eyes just long enough to throw another handful of herbs on the fire.

"How?"

"Kill Koschei the Deathless."

"What?"

"You heard me." Now Ivan sounded smug. Vassilisa was beginning to get an image of him, a golden-haired, blue-eyed, arrogant fellow in fine clothes, smirking at her with his arms folded across his chest. But she had no idea if this was really him, or just the image he wanted her to see, or simply her own imagination putting a face to the snide voice. "This is Koschei's castle. I came here to kill him, for he was threatening my father with sorcery. I didn't want to go." The smirk changed to a scowl. "He's a sorcerer, what was I supposed to do against him? So Father had this armor made for me. It will turn any blade and deflect any arrow. It also wouldn't come off until I either died, or spilled Koschei's blood."

Vassilisa decided that she didn't blame Ivan for being ill-tempered. That was a rotten thing to do to someone. She suspected that Ivan had been a troublesome younger son.

"What happened?" she asked.

"He killed me, of course. What need does a sorcerer have for blade or arrow? He threw a ball of flame at me."

"I'm sorry."

"Good. I'm glad somebody is. Can I go now?"

Vassilisa released the spell, and watched Ivan's image fade from her mind. It was a waste of time feeling sorry for him, she told herself. He'd been dead for decades, there was nothing she could do for him. Better to concentrate on Aleksei.

He was squatting a few feet away, watching her with concern.

"Are you all right? You were talking to yourself."

"I'm fine." Vassilisa's mouth felt sticky, and her eyes stung, but it was only a side effect of the smoke, and she was used to it. "You, on the other hand, are in trouble."

Aleksei's face grew steadily paler as Vassilisa related her conversation with Ivan Tsarevitch.

"B-b-but," he stammered when she was done, "Koschei hasn't been heard from in years!"

"That's because he's dead," Vassilisa said with a sigh.

"He is? How do you know?"

"Yaga told me. And don't ask me how she knows. But Koschei the Deathless is now Koschei the Dead, which makes it difficult for you to kill him, doesn't it?"

Aleksei's shoulders slumped. "What do I do then?

"I don't know. Let me think." Vassilisa stood up and paced. The sensible action would be to go back and ask Yaga for advice. But that would mean admitting defeat in the first independent task Yaga had ever assigned her. She couldn't do it. It was too embarrassing. "Blood. Ivan said blood."

Aleksei blinked at her. "What about it?"

"At first he said you must kill Koschei to get the armor off. But later, he said you must spill his blood. There's a difference."

"What difference? He's dead!"

"Then there must be a body somewhere." Vassilisa stopped packing, and stooped down to repack her bag. "Let's go find it."
* * * 
Finding a single dead body in an empty castle proved daunting. There was no crypt in the castle, and nothing on the grounds that looked like a grave. Vassilisa and Aleksei trudged up and down the corridors, checking every room as they went.

"What will we do when we find him?" Aleksei asked, as they climbed yet another flight of stairs.

"I can cast a spell to restore his body. Then you spill his blood, and we'll see if that helps."

"You're going to bring Koschei the Deathless back to life?" Aleksei looked as if he wasn't sure which one of them had gone mad.

Vassilisa rolled her eyes. "Of course not! I couldn't, even if I wanted to. But I can bring his body back to the way it was before it rotted. It won't last long, without a spirit to keep it together, but you only need a few seconds to spill blood."

She stopped, because the staircase had come to an end. They stood at a long, narrow landing with a single door at the far end. Vassilisa gave it a push, but it wouldn't budge. "Locked. But it looks—"

"Let me try." Aleksei launched himself forward, slamming his shoulder against the door. The boards promptly shattered to splinters. Aleksei, caught by surprise, fell through the opening with a cry and a crash.

"—rotten." Vassilisa finished, coming in after him.

The room proved to be yet another treasure chamber, they'd seen a dozen like it in their search. Vassilisa found that the sight of gold and jewels no longer impressed her. The body in the center of the room, on the other hand, impressed her a great deal.

Koschei had not been dead quite as long as Ivan Tsarevitch. Parchment-dry skin still covered his bones, and a few wisps of white hair clung to his skull. His fur-trimmed boots and long coat of sea-green brocade were mouse-chewed and moldy, but still holding together. He lay curled up in a narrow space between two chests full of gems, one hand buried among the glittering stones. Vassilisa shuddered. He must've died there alone, counting his wealth as life slipped away . . . 

She shook off the image, and helped Aleksei to his feet.

"Have your sword ready. A body this old won't stay restored for more than a few seconds."

Aleksei looked slightly ill, but drew his blade without comment.

This was a simpler spell, which was just as well, because Vassilisa was running low on herbs. There would be no need to drag an unwilling spirit into a conversation. All she had to do was convince a pile of long-dead bones that they weren't all that long dead. She didn't even bother to close her eyes as she chanted the spell.

As she spoke, the corpse began to twitch. The withered hands stirred, dislodging a fall of precious stones onto the floor. The skin bulged and swelled in odd places as layers of flesh reappeared over bone. Aleksei made a gagging noise, and crossed himself with a shaking hand. Vassilisa, lost in the feel of the power flowing through her, barely spared him a glance.

"Get ready," she muttered.

And then the flame in her bowl exploded in a blinding red burst that nearly scorched her face off. Vassilisa fell back with a cry. The spell spun out of her control, twisting into something new, something too powerful for her to hold on to. The force of it sent her sprawling to the floor. She lay there breathless, blinking the fireburst's afterimage from her eyes. Her vision cleared just in time to see Koschei rise to his feet.

"Why, thank you, girl." His voice was a soft rustle, like dry leaves in the wind. "I was hoping someone would do that."

Vassilisa tried to suppress a whimper, and failed miserably. What had she been thinking, casting a spell on a sorcerer's body? She must've been delirious. She should've known he'd be there, waiting for a way back.

Koschei advanced on her with shuffling steps. His movements were slow and jerky, his body obviously still trying to remember how to walk. Vassilisa scrambled away from him. Koschei raised one hand. A ball of fire coalesced in his cupped palm.

"Leave her alone!" Aleksei lunged forward. Koschei seemed mildly surprised to find there was another person in the room. He turned, and threw the fireball at Aleksei instead of Vassilisa.

Aleksei proved better at ducking than Ivan Tsarevitch had. He fell flat on the floor, somehow managing to hold on to his sword as he hit. The fireball struck the wall behind him, leaving a black smear.

Vassilisa felt the shimmer of magic in the air as Koschei cast his spell. She tried to grasp it, but it was too wild, and she was too frightened to concentrate. She watched Aleksei climb to his knees and then drop again, just in time to avoid a burst of flame that melted a pile of silver nuggets into slag.

"Look what you did!" Koschei sounded peevish. "You made me spoil my treasure." He lifted his arm again.

Vassilisa grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a gold candlestick—and threw it. It hit Koschei's arm, spoiling his aim and giving Aleksei a chance to take shelter behind a tall stack of gold bars. Unfortunately, it also focused his attention on her once again.

Vassilisa scrambled back in time to avoid being cooked, though too late to keep her skirt from getting singed. She could barely see or breathe from the smoke, but now that she had survived the first few seconds of Koschei's attack, her fear was receding. The sorcerer was powerful, but he was also slow and clumsy. And every time he cast a spell, the maelstrom of magic in the air grew calmer, more manageable.

Vassilisa clambered over to where Aleksei was squatting behind his golden barricade. He gave her a grim look, frightened but not hysterical.

"Distract him," Vassilisa whispered.

Aleksei's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to object, closed it again, gave a resigned shrug, and moved into the open.

Vassilisa crouched low on the floor to keep out of Koschei's sight, and closed her eyes. She had never tried this sort of spontaneous magic before, but Yaga insisted it could be done, and now was certainly a good time to try. To help herself concentrate, she imagined her little bowl of herbs in front of her, the tiny spark of flame in the center, the smell of pungent smoke in her nose. The presence of real smoke in the room actually helped. She touched the magic swirling about her, and waited for the lull that signaled Koschei's latest attack. When it came, she reached out with her mind and began, ever so slowly, to reverse her earlier spell.

She knew it was working when she heard Koschei scream. The air seemed to tremble as he struggled against her spell. Vassilisa groaned. He was so strong, she felt like she was trying to push a mountain from its base. But his body was weak, still more used to death than to life, and it gave her something to work with. Vassilisa held on to the spell, despite the growing pain in her head, knowing that her advantage grew with every passing second.

Koschei's scream turned into a whimper, then a groan. There was a thud as something soft and heavy hit the floor. The mountain of magic that Vassilisa was pushing against suddenly gave way, then vanished. Vassilisa opened her eyes.

Koschei's body was sprawled facedown on the floor, motionless. Vassilisa did not need a closer look to know that he was dead again—the flesh was already beginning to rot. Aleksei knelt a few paces away. His sword was on the floor next to him, and he was holding an oversize gilt platter in front of him as a shield. His hair and clothes were singed, but he seemed unharmed.

"Hurry up!" Vassilisa shouted at him. "Spill his blood while he still has some!"

Aleksei dropped the platter, snatched up his sword again, and shuffled over, still on his knees, to Koschei's side. He lifted the blade with a grunt, and brought it down in a sweeping arc, striking the dead sorcerer's head off his shoulders with a single blow.

"Just making sure," Aleksei muttered as a stream of black blood oozed across the floor.

For a few moments, the two of them just sat there. Vassilisa felt as if she'd run all the way across Russia. Aleksei looked no better. Talking seemed like more effort than either one of them could manage.

"Well," Vassilisa wheezed after a while. "Can you get it off now?"

"I'm afraid to try," Aleksei said, but he reached to undo the first fastening.

It came apart easily. Too easily, in fact. The heavy chainmail tore like the flimsiest fabric. Aleksei looked startled at first, then broke into a wide grin as he ripped the coat off in pieces.

"Yes!" He jumped up and danced a wobbly jig around the room, tossing scraps of armor in all directions. "It worked!"

Vassilisa picked up one of the scraps. It felt like ordinary chainmail, heavy and not at all fragile. But then she pulled at one edge, the rings came apart like strands of cobweb. Vassilisa shrugged, and let the piece fall.

"Well," she said, "I guess we can call the trip a success then."
* * * 
"I hope you know how lucky you are," Yaga grumbled as she smeared burn ointment on the spots where Vassilisa's eyebrows used to be. "Koschei at the height of his power would've turned you into dust without breaking a sweat."

Vassilisa glared at her. "I said I was sorry. Stop lecturing me."

"I'm not lecturing. I'm talking sense. But do you listen to me? Some apprentice you are." Yaga stoppered the ointment jar and put it back on the shelf. "There. You're done."

"Thank you. Are you going to go talk to Aleksei now?"

"No."

"Oh. Should I ask him to come in here, then?"

"No."

Vassilisa blinked in confusion. "But . . . you were going to tell him your price. For helping him."

"I didn't help him. You did the work, you name the price."

"Me?" Vassilisa's voice rose in a squeak. "But I—"

"But nothing. You've earned it. Go claim your reward."

Something in her voice, and in the thoughtful way she looked at her, made Vassilisa bite back any further objections.

"I can ask for anything I want? And you'll let me have it?"

"Me? What do I have to do with it? It's your reward. And your decision."

Vassilisa's head was spinning as she climbed down to the yard again. My decision. Had she imagined it, or did Yaga put an extra stress on that last sentence, as if she'd meant more by it than what she actually said. My decision. But what did she want?

Aleksei had just finished resaddling his horse, and was tying up the saddlebags. He stopped when Vassilisa approached, and turned to watch her with a nervous expression.

"Is Yaga coming down?" he asked.

"No." Vassilisa shifted from foot to foot, feeling awkward and nervous. What did she want? What did Yaga want? What did Aleksei have to give? She didn't know. But she suspected that if she asked for half his treasure and a ride to Kiev or Novgorod, that he would give it. And Yaga would let her go.

No more living in a forest, away from the world. She could be a rich woman in a big city, and never darn another sock or scrub another pot. She could dance at the Tsar's palace in jeweled slippers.

And trip over my own feet, most likely. 

Vassilisa leaned against the fence and looked around at the hut, and the vegetable garden, the cat asleep in a sunny spot, the chickens milling around the coop. She remembered what it had felt like, to fly the mortar above the forest. She remembered the power coursing through her as she defeated Koschei.

"Well?" Aleksei prompted.

Vassilisa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The cup. The one you offered earlier. Yaga's changed her mind. She wants it now."

"Oh." Aleksei looked relieved and disappointed at the same time. "All right."

Vassilisa climbed back into the hut, not waiting to watch him ride away. Yaga was in her rocking chair, sipping tea from a mug, looking insufferably pleased with herself.

"So?" she demanded. "What did you get?"

"Here." Vassilisa thrust the goblet at her. "We can use it for a flowerpot or something."