The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  His words might have been a spell in and of themselves, for all at once the crowd poured out the door, each person rushing to their own home to search out what was needed. Only one wizened woman stayed behind to kneel carefully next to Ingrid and Iakhnor’s mother.

  “I’ll take her now,” she said kindly. “I’m old, and if I’m to be cursed, I can be spared.”

  It was doubtful the mother even knew she was being passed from one set of arms to the other. She simply sagged against the old woman, insensible in her grief.

  Avanasy bowed over the boy for one more moment, his lips moving in prayer, or perhaps in promise before he rose. “Ingrid, I’ll need your help.”

  “What did she mean?” asked Ingrid as she followed him out into the sharpening night wind. “If she’s to be cursed?”

  “It is believed that the mother of a dying child can pass the curse on,” he said, weaving a path back toward the god house. “That was why no one would stand by her, lest in her frenzy, she say their name and strike them down with the illness.”

  Ingrid wanted to proclaim that for superstitious nonsense, but here, who was she to say?

  “Ingrid, I have a delicate question to ask you.” Avanasy halted and turned toward her.

  “What is it?”

  He dropped his voice to the lightest whisper. “Are you virgin?”

  Ingrid felt all her blood rush to her face. “Avanasy!”

  “Forgive me, but it is important. As part of the spell, a ring of salt must be sowed around the village, and the salt must be dropped from the hands of a virgin woman.”

  Ingrid tried to swallow her discomfort, but it was difficult. Speaking directly of such matters was not something she was accustomed to. “Yes,” she said finally. “I could do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  The god house now had a steady stream of people trickling in and out through its low doorway. Each person carried a covered dish or little cloth bundle. These they laid on the altar before kissing the icon and receiving a nod of approval from the keeper. As they departed, the villagers still glanced sideways at Avanasy and Ingrid. The suspicion Ingrid saw there tightened her throat. Avanasy did not seem to notice. He frowned up at the sky, which was fading from pale gray to the color of slate with the coming night.

  “Time enough, but barely,” he muttered. “Ingrid, see if the keeper has a container that can hold all the salt and fill it. No one must touch it but you from now on.”

  “I understand,” she said, but in truth she did not. This was Avanasy’s world, and his work, and that would have to be enough for right now.

  Once inside the god house, they found a birch branch leaning beside the hearth with the red petticoat laid beside it. Avanasy claimed them at once, drawing his knife to trim the branch into a pole and to slice the petticoat to ribbons. At Ingrid’s query, Keeper Hajek produced an earthen soup pot and Ingrid began pouring the coarse and lumpy salt into it as fast as she could open bundles and empty dishes. The light was fading rapidly, and she could feel the tension thickening in the air.

  She caught glimpses of Avanasy as she worked. He sat cross-legged, his eyes distant, his hands busy wrapping strips of red cloth around the birch pole so that they crossed each other, and crossed again, making a complex pattern, bright red against the white bark. She could have sworn he did not see what he did. His lips moved the entire time, working on some pattern of their own with breath and word that she could not hear.

  At last, Avanasy stood. “Come,” he said to her. His voice was hollow. He was not there, not truly. His magic, his working, had laid hold of him and he was in a place beyond. Perhaps he was in the Land of Death and Spirit. Ingrid had no way to know.

  She rested the pot of salt against her hip and followed him.

  The entire village lined the rough path toward the cliff. This time, however, Ingrid was ready for their stares, and only lifted her chin. Avanasy paid no notice to them at all. His eyes were locked rigidly ahead of him, and his hand clutched the birch pole.

  When they passed through the gate and stood just outside the rough wall, Avanasy rested the birch pole on the ground. He had sharpened one end, Ingrid now saw, so that it dug into the dirt.

  “Sow the salt into the line I draw,” he said in his pale, hollow voice. “We must go twelve times around the village. We must not stop or falter, no matter what you see or hear, or the working will not hold.”

  “Yes,” said Ingrid. It was all she could say. This was so strange, so incomprehensible, all she could do was agree, and keep following.

  Slowly, Avanasy began to drag the sharpened birch pole through the dirt. “I call out Triaseia, who is the maiden with the unbound hair, who is the daughter of the red rusalki, who is the one who has taken hold in Dimska’s place. I call out Triaseia who makes Iakhnor shake, by my heart and by my breath, by Dimska, Vyshko and Vyshemir. I call her out and I forbid her entry, by the transparent line I draw, by white birch and red cloth and salt sown by maiden’s hands.”

  Avanasy’s words were hollow no more. They were heavy with purpose and fell like stones through air that had suddenly and inexplicably stilled. Ingrid forced herself to concentrate on her strange task. She scooped up a fistful of salt, allowing the grains to trickle in a tiny snowfall into the furrow Avanasy’s staff plowed. They settled all but invisible into the dark earth. She could not look up to see how far she and Avanasy had traveled in their circuit, or what would be coming next. She had to keep her eyes on the furrow stretching out before her and let her salt fall carefully down. In all the world there was only the salt, Avanasy’s heavy, droning words, and the furrow, fading from her sight in the gathering dark.

  Suddenly, she heard a rushing wail, as if all the sounds of sea and wind had suddenly returned, and her eyes rose to see a woman, like a ghost but more solid, pale as death. The ends of her hair swept the ground unhindered by any ribbon and her dress, without any sash to bind it, fluttered in a wind Ingrid could not feel. Her fingers raked the air, reaching for Avanasy. Ingrid’s chest tightened as the wraith reached for her.

  The woman vanished, and Ingrid saw they were again at the gates of the town.

  “I call out Ogneia,” said Avanasy, without pause, without any change to his tone or the weight of his words. “Who is the maiden with the unbound hair, who is the daughter of the red rusalki, who is the one who has taken hold in Dimska’s place. I call out Ogneia who makes Iakhnor burn, by my heart and by my breath, by Dimska, Vyshko and Vyshemir. I call her out and I forbid her entry, by the transparent line I draw, by white birch and red cloth and salt sown by maiden’s hands.”

  Time vanished, sense of place and self vanished. The moon must have risen, because she could see the furrow black against the silver ground. The salt glowed white as it showered down from her fist. She should have been cold. She should have been tired, but she was aware of these things only dimly. The words carried her forward, the words and her task. Salt was lifted from bowl to hand to be poured into the dark line of the soil. The salt rubbed her hand until it was so tender she imagined she could feel every grain that spilled through her fingers. The pale maidens — Ledia, Gneteia, Grynusha, Glukheia, and all their sisters — with their ghost-locks, and with their wails that sounded like the sea, appeared one by one. They hooked their clawed fingers into the wind itself in their fury, only to vanish, dragged into the earth by the weight of Avanasy’s working.

  After a time that might have been a few hours or a few hundred years for all Ingrid could tell, they came again to the gates. One more pale maiden rose and choked on the air and drowned in earth, and Avanasy did not move on. He stood, leaning on the birch staff, and Ingrid blinked stupidly up at him, dazed by her efforts, by all she had seen and by the magic.

  Together their knees buckled and, slowly, almost carefully, they fell to the ground, slumping forward to lean against each other. As the darkness took hold of her, Ingrid was aware of Avanasy’s breathing and of three words. “It is done.”

  After that, f
or a time, there was nothing else. Then, it seemed to Ingrid she must be dreaming, for she stood at the edge of the village, just beyond the salted furrow, and saw herself and Avanasy lying on the ground. She watched while the fishers flowed out of their huts. Under the direction of Keeper Hajek, they lifted Avanasy and her empty, distant body and carefully bore them away, leaving her alone there in the night.

  Then, she heard a noise. She turned and saw a man on horseback. He wore chain mail and a thick coat and carried a pennant in his right hand, and all about him was as red as blood or sunset. He looked down on her for a long moment, but she could not distinctly see his face. She opened her mouth to speak, but she could form no words.

  The man wheeled his horse around and urged it into a trot until they were both lost in the darkness. Curiosity washed through Ingrid to know where he had gone, and she moved to follow, but then, just as strong, she felt a tugging in her heart, calling her back to the village, back across the salt furrow, back to sleep and herself, and the world swam and was dark again.

  Baba Yaga stood at the door of her house, Ishbushka. Two huge black dogs flanked her. Ishbushka’s taloned legs rested for the moment as its mistress watched the lands out beyond her mended fence of bone.

  Eventually, the thin and dying birch tree that stood beyond her gate drew back its branches. From behind it rode a bloodred horse guided by a rider who himself was dressed in the same red and who carried a plain red pennant in his gloved fist.

  The gate in the bone fence swung open to admit him. The rider walked his horse up to Ishbushka’s ragged and splintered steps. He stood in his stirrups and bowed low to the witch. In turn, she bared her iron teeth to speak.

  “What did you see?” she asked.

  “The woman’s spirit is housed secure enough by her flesh when the sun is in the sky,” he replied. “But at night, its will is to fly free.”

  “Good,” said the witch, laying one crabbed hand on her dog’s head. “Very good.”

  “Shall I fetch her to you, mistress?” inquired the rider.

  Baba Yaga looked out past her rider, past her fence, past her lands. Currents flowed and changed. The taste of the world was changing, and there were those who thought she could no longer demand her share. They would learn of their error before much longer.

  “You shall not fetch her yet, but soon, my Red Sun. Soon.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “You are certain, old woman?”

  Garrison Commander Mareshka was in a black mood. The dispatches coming out of Vaknevos spelled nothing good. The empress in confinement. The border patrols being stepped up. The garrison forts all being ordered to inspect and repair their walls, and to prepare to receive new levies of men. Something was in the wind, and it did not bode well for what had, so far, been his quiet command.

  Pirates and smugglers did not as a rule favor these waters. There were too few people to help shelter them, or to buy what they brought. Those who came were ready to pay for safe passage. His men were in general surly, but he’d never met a crew of bored soldiers that weren’t. He kept them as busy as he could with regular patrols and drills, and made sure the rotations for supply duty out to Musetsk, the nearest town big enough to have both liquor and women freely available, were regular.

  He was not in the least pleased to have been roused from his bed by his over-lieutenant, saying there was a fisherwoman in the keep swearing up and down that the traitor Avanasy was asleep in her village.

  “He gave his name to the keeper of our god house,” she said. She, withered old creature that she was, did not seem in the least tired. She held her chin high and her back straight with the force of her righteousness. “He has given a display of his power. It is the sorcerer. I will swear to it.”

  “No need.” Mareshka waved his hand, ending the gesture by clapping it over his mouth to stifle a yawn. “Who did you tell before coming here?”

  The woman’s wrinkled chin rose a little bit higher. “No one. I am here alone.”

  “Then if we bring him in, and it is him, yours alone is the reward.” Mareshka tried to brush a few of the wrinkles out of his uniform coat.

  “Keep it,” spat the old woman, and the force of her tone made Mareshka look up in surprise. “Just get him away from us.”

  Curiosity narrowed Mareshka’s eyes. “What’s he done to you, old woman?”

  “He is a sorcerer.” Anger burned in her words. “That is enough.”

  As you please. Mareshka shrugged and turned in his chair toward his over-lieutenant, who had stood at ease beside the door during the entire conversation. “Over-Lieutenant Dajik, you will pick four men. Make sure they carry cold iron. Mistress Malan’ia will guide you to her village …”

  “Not I.” The old woman stepped away. “I must get back before light. There are fools who will turn on me if they know what I have done here.”

  Mareshka shrugged again. “You will take her directions to her village,” he amended. “You will arrest Lord Avanasy, and you will bring him back here.”

  “He has a woman with him,” Malan’ia warned. “She’s clever and glib as he is.”

  “And you bring any companions he has as well,” Mareshka said smoothly to his over-lieutenant. “Is there anything else I should know, Mother?” He let his voice take on an edge, hoping the vindictive creature would realized this was her one chance to give him complete information, or things might not be so pleasant for her.

  In response, the woman folded her arms across her breast and bent her knees in a peasant’s reverence. “That’s all, master,” she said.

  It had better be. “Very well. Over-Lieutenant, you have your orders, and you will see that Mother Malan’ia is escorted to the gate.”

  “Sir.” Dajik put his hand over his heart and bowed. Then he stepped smartly back, pushing open the door to allow Malan’ia to stride through with remarkable speed for one so old.

  When they were gone, Mareshka yawned hugely and knuckled his eyes. Out past the door, he heard the rumble of Dajik’s voice, probably giving orders to his under-lieutenant to get Malan’ia out of the fort. So, he waited.

  As he suspected, a moment later Dajik knocked and walked back into the office.

  “Yes, Over-Lieutenant?” inquired Mareshka, folding his hands across his stomach.

  “Sir.” Dajik reverenced again. “Sir, I just wanted …” Mareshka raised his eyebrows and waited. “Do you honestly believe we will catch Avanasy napping in some fishing village?”

  Mareshka lifted one corner of his mouth in a slight smile. “I believe if we do, you and I will find ourselves with commendations and bonuses for our trouble. If not, it will let us see how some of your men do going into a village to drag out someone who may be more popular there than they are.”

  “Do you think he’s being willingly harbored, sir?” Dajik’s brow wrinkled.

  “I think our fishwife did not want her neighbors to know what she was doing for a reason,” Mareshka replied. “You have your orders, Over-Lieutenant.”

  “Sir.”

  Dajik left, and this time Mareshka heard his boots marching down the hallway. Mareshka sighed and rubbed his eyes again. With all that was ringing around his head, it probably wasn’t worth returning to bed to toss and turn for the few hours of darkness that remained. Instead, he took himself out into the stone hallway, up a narrow, curving stairway and out onto the battlements. The salt wind from off the ocean hit him on the back of his neck, making him shiver, and at the same time bringing him instantly awake. The night’s patrol saluted him smartly with their pikes as they marched by, and Mareshka answered the gesture with his hand over his heart.

  Mareshka turned inland. The stars still shone brightly overhead, but the moon had long since set. Dawn was a thin, white line on the horizon. Mareshka leaned his hands on the parapet and gazed across the dark carpet of the land, trying to guess what was happening. It smelled strongly like war. But war against who? And what was it that brought Avanasy back into Isavalta just when the e
mpress had retired from public view? Mareshka shivered again, this time more from his thoughts than from the wind. It smelled strongly like war, and that war stank.

  In a little while, he heard the rumble and creak of the gates cranking open. A cluster of men on horseback, four of them bearing lanterns, rode out, heading due east along the rutted road. As their hoofbeats faded, the gates cranked shut, and quiet fell again.

  Mareshka stared out into the coming dawn for a while longer, turning his uncomfortable thoughts over in his head. Then, because there was nothing else to do, he turned and went back down the stairs.

  As a result, he did not see the single rider emerge from the rubble by the cliff’s edge and slowly and carefully follow his men.

  Ingrid woke alone to a dim room, raging thirst and utter confusion. For a long, tense moment she recognized nothing around her. The shadows were all the wrong shape and why was she wrapped in blankets on the floor instead of in bed with Grace?

  Fragments of memory surfaced gradually. The voyage and its dreams, which were not dreams, the village, Avanasy and the magic.

  Where is Avanasy?

  Ingrid disentangled herself from the rough blankets and got to her feet, appalled to find her knees weak enough to tremble underneath her.

  “Good morning, mistress.” Keeper Hajek ducked through the doorway, toting a bucket in his gnarled hands. “I have brought us water.”

  Ingrid thought she might fall to her knees in gratitude as Hajek handed her a clay dipper. She drank ladle after ladle from the bucket before she felt her thirst begin to ebb.

  “Thank you, Keeper Hajek,” she was finally able to say. “Do you know where Avanasy is?”

  “He is with Iakhnor.” Hajek took a deep draft from the dipper.

  “How is the boy this morning?”

  Hajek lowered the dipper to reveal a large grin. “The boy is complaining because his mother is keeping him in bed another day. The fever’s tokens have vanished.”