Dancing with Bears

by Michael Swanwick

  “Chortenko’s reign will begin with rioting and a fire that will destroy much of Moscow.”

  “In the aftermath of this disaster, he will have to raise taxes steeply.” “This will cause rioting elsewhere in your land.” “The riots will be suppressed.” “But at such a cost that taxes will have to be raised again.” “Which will destabilize the economy.” “Requiring new sources of income.”

  “Which can be acquired only by force.”

  “Muscovy will be able to survive only through constant conquest and expansion.”

  In greater and greater agitation, the duke thrashed about, flinging his arms wildly to one side and the other. Effortlessly, the underlords evaded his blind blows. Always they darted back to his ear again. “No,” he said. “I will stop… you. I know how.”

  “And how will you do that, Majesty?” “You have no soldiers.” “You have no messengers.” “Your servants have betrayed you.”

  “You have lost Moscow already.”

  Weakly raising his arms upward, the duke said, “Lord God…hear my prayer. Aid me, I beg you.” His expression was one of mingled horror and yearning. “Send me…a miracle.”

  “Fool! There is no God.” “There are no miracles.” “Soon there will be no Russia.” The Duke of Muscovy screamed. And then he awoke.

  …18…

  With a noise like thunder, the Duke of Muscovy smashed through the roof of the Terem Palace, scattering tiles and timbers into the night.

  Only to discover that he had woken out of his dreams and into something even more phantasmagorical. Below him was his beloved city…and yet it was smaller and shabbier than he had imagined it. Smokes and stinks rose from its every part. There were buildings on the point of collapse that were still being lived in. A fine silt dust discolored all the streets and sidewalks. Much of Moscow was in bad need of a coat of paint. Nevertheless, it was his city and he loved it dearly.

  So overcome was he by the cunning way that every street and building in his mental map had a physical counterpart and all of them precisely detailed in every particular, that the duke forgot entirely the purpose which had driven him into full consciousness. For he had, of course, immediately seen that the False Tsar was the weak point in Chortenko’s plans; if he were killed, the revolution would collapse in an instant. Then, without their figurehead and justification, all those forces allied in the duke’s overthrow would turn upon each other. And there were many ways that Lenin could be killed. The Duke of Muscovy had thought of them all.

  But the thrilling discovery that the world was real acted upon the duke like a drug. All thoughts of Chortenko, of the underlords, of the revolution, and of those plans to counter it which a moment before had seemed so important to him, flew away like jackdaws.

  Grinning with wonder, the Duke of Muscovy clambered clumsily over and through his palaces, collapsing walls and crushing floors beneath his feet. Down on the pavement, tiny horses reared in the air and toy soldiers threw down their guns and fled. The sky was flecked with stars and a big orange harvest moon hung low over Moscow.

  Oh, what a night!

  There was something wriggling in each of his hands. Without even sparing them the most cursory of glances, the Duke of Muscovy tossed away the underlords he had scooped up before standing, one to either side. He heard each of them smash against distant pavement and knew that they had been destroyed. But he did not care. Such petty considerations were swept away in the magic of the moment.

  Naked, the duke strode down the causeway of the Trinity Gate. He crushed a wagon and a soldier or two beneath his feet, but that hardly mattered. There was a scattering of klashny fire from a bold trio of soldiers, followed by a stinging sensation across his chest, as if he had lightly brushed against a thistle. But the sensation faded quickly, and the men ceased firing when he bent down and crushed them with the flat of his hand.

  Joyfully, the Duke of Muscovy made his way through the Alexander Garden, ignoring the screaming thousands who fled before him.

  He waded into the city, a colossus, spreading destruction in his wake.

  A carriage rattled up the cobbled street behind Arkady. He did not at first look up, but simply kept plodding doggedly along. Then, as the carriage came alongside him, the coachman reined in the horses.

  “Arkady Ivanovich? Is that you?”

  Arkady turned. He did not recognize the blue-and-white vehicle as belonging to Chortenko, as any Muscovite of substance would have, and thus his heart leapt up at this unexpected bit of luck. The passenger compartment was empty, so he looked up at the driver and was confronted by the last person in the world he would have expected to see.

  It was the Byzantine ambassador, the dog-man whom his father had found wandering in the wilderness and brought home with him, thus setting in action every hideous thing that had happened to Arkady since. Surplus. That was his name. Arkady had spent months in the fellow’s company. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he would have remembered the name immediately.

  For the merest instant, a twinkle of amusement flickered across Surplus’s face. “It’s been quite some time,” he said. “I’ll wager you have a story to tell.”

  “Yes, I-”

  “That was not an invitation.” Surplus held out a paw and helped Arkady up onto the driver’s platform alongside him. Then, when he was settled, the ambassador said, “Your destination and your purpose, young man. As quickly and efficiently as you can manage it, if you please.”

  Arkady spilled out his soul.

  When he was done, Surplus looked thoughtful. “Hmmm,” he said. “Well, I had known some of this already. But your tale explains a great deal.”

  Timidly, then, because everything else he had tried this evening had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong, Arkady said, “And you, sir? Where are you bound?”

  “As it chances, I am at loose ends. I have just now returned from a long conversation with the guards at the Pushkin Museum who, against all odds and expectations, remain alert, undrugged, and determinedly on duty. I could not convince them to let me have the merest glimpse of the hoard of Trojan gold which is their chiefest treasure and, indeed, were it not for diplomatic immunity, I strongly suspect I would be cooling my heels in prison right now. I was considering my next move when I spotted you.”

  “You must take me directly to the Terem Palace, then.” Tears welled up in Arkady’s eyes. “Please, sir, it is vital. The Duke of Muscovy must be warned about this terrible conspiracy.”

  Surplus pulled up the horses and stared up over above the silhouetted city rooftops. “Only a minute ago, I would have told you that your quest was literally impossible, for vast numbers of people had created an impenetrable wall before the Kremlin’s entrance. Now, however, I strongly suspect that conditions have changed.”

  Following Surplus’s gaze, Arkady saw a paleness in the night sky which only slowly resolved into the form of a man so large that his upper body was visible over the intervening buildings. This miraculous figure was perfectly naked. Its head moved from side to side, eyes wide and liquid. Its expression was as innocent as a baby’s.

  Arkady crossed himself. “It’s an omen. A vision. A sign from Almighty God.” Then he scowled. “But what the devil can it possibly mean?”

  “It means,” Surplus said, shaking the reins and putting the horses in motion again, “that by the time we get there, our path to the Kremlin should be free.” Then, as they clopped down the cobblestones, he handed his handkerchief to the young man. Gesturing at the carpetbag of tools he had assembled for the night’s business, he added, “There’s a bottle of mineral water in that basket by your foot. You should clean your face-you’re a terrible mess.”

  They had not gone five blocks before they began to pass fugitives from Red Square and the Alexander Garden. First came young men running with all their might, and then young women and older men running vigorously, and then a scattering of people of all ages and categories scurrying along as fast as they could manage. The density of folk tryi
ng to escape the prodigious giant thickened until Surplus had to slow the horses to a walk to avoid running anybody down.

  “You are a man of extraordinary good fortune, Arkady. It took me weeks of unrelenting effort to arrange a meeting with the Duke of Muscovy,” Surplus remarked. “Yet you, in a single-”

  A creature out of nightmare, with the body of a man and the head of a tremendous leather-beaked bird, rose up out of the crowd and, stepping onto the coach’s running board, pulled itself level with Surplus and Arkady. The monstrous apparition held onto the door with one arm and with the other pointed at them a device very much like a muzzle-loading gun, only with a kind of upside-down jar atop it. It pumped a bellows, and a puff of black smoke engulfed Surplus and Arkady.

  When the smoke cleared, the inexplicable chimera was still clinging to the coach. Without dropping the reins, Surplus swung about, lifted up both his feet, and kicked as hard as he could. The bird-man tumbled from the carriage and was quickly left behind.

  Surplus waved a hand before his face. “Well!” he said. “That was certainly a dramatic and meaningless event. Are you all right, Master Arkady?”

  There was no answer, so he turned in his seat, suddenly concerned. Arkady’s face was unrecognizable. His eyes were wide and staring, his mouth set in a rictus of a grin. But there was a touch of determination in it as well, buried down deep.

  “The Duke of Muscovy,” he said. “The Duke of Muscovy.”

  Baba Yaga flew across the city, bottle in hand. She had no desire to stay and play with she-forgot-exactly-whoever-it-was who had given it to her. She was hunting bigger game tonight.

  Against the flow of panicked citizens she ran, pushing her way through the crush of bodies choking Resurrection Gate, some of whom were trying to flee inward and others outward. She did not much like people and the more of them there were the less tolerable she found them, but this experience was different. They slammed into her and punched and clawed at her, even as she forced her way through them. Their hysteria made her invisible to them and their fear filled her with dark glee.

  Glancing back over the gate, Baba Yaga saw a naked giant shifting slowly against the darkness of the sky. It meant nothing to her. She might easily have gone right past the giant and so up the causeway. But it did not fit her mood to do so. Instead, she went straight to the Kremlin’s west wall, stuck the bottle of rubbing alcohol in her jacket pocket, and began to climb. She scaled the soaring wall like an enormous bat, digging into the mortar between its bricks with her long, sharp fingers-choosing this means of entry not for any specific reason or purpose, but just because she could.

  Even for her, however, doing so was a prodigious feat. When at last Baba Yaga topped the wall, she was gasping with exertion and sweat rolled freely down her face.

  She was mopping her forehead with the bandanna when a man’s voice said, “One of your creatures has arrived, demon.”

  “Not one of mine,” a machine-voice replied.

  “Should I kill her, then?”

  “You are a zealot and your delusional beliefs would make her death mean nothing to you. The pleasure of this woman’s death is mine.”

  Even as they spoke, however, Baba Yaga was pulling the cork from her bottle and cramming the bandanna deep down its neck. “I am terror and Old Night,” she said. A box of matches appeared magically in the palm of one hand. “I am the fear you cannot name. I am she who cannot be placated. If you think you can kill me, you are welcome to try.”

  “All things are possible with God’s help.” The first speaker held a klashny, but he did not raise it to his shoulder. Not yet. Baba Yaga recognized him by his clothing. He was a strannik, a worshipper of the White Christ, and doubtless the one she sought. The White Christ did not frighten Baba Yaga any more than did the Red Odin or even the Black Baal. She was old, old beyond human reckoning, older than language and older than fire. She had coalesced in the darkness that came before the gods. When the first sacrifice had been laid upon the first altar she had been there to snatch it away from its intended recipient. When first ape-man had been killed by an envious brother, it was she who had guided the murderer’s hand.

  The strannik stood watching, doing nothing. The real danger came from the machine-creature crouched at his feet. It launched itself at her in a silver blur.

  Baba Yaga set fire to the rag stuck in the bottle. She had time to do so, she reckoned. It would take a good three-quarters of a second for the demon to reach her.

  When it did, she side-stepped the creature and smashed the bottle on its back.

  The underlord went up in flames.

  Burning, it spun about and tried to seize her in its arms and metal jaws. But Baba Yaga knew a trick worth two of that. She reached into the flames and, grabbing the man-wolf by its ankles, flipped it over.

  The underlord would have fallen on its back had the fight not occurred at the very lip of the rampart. Instead, it fell with a long electronic wail down the side of the Kremlin, burning all the way to the ground. When it hit the stones of Red Square, its screech stopped abruptly. Though it continued to burn, it did not move.

  Baba Yaga turned to the man in black. “You are a strannik,” she said. “There were three of you.”

  “There still are.”

  “You think so?” From one pocket, Baba Yaga drew a gobbet of flesh. She threw it at Koschei’s feet. “I tore that from the one called Chernobog.” She dipped her hand into another pocket. “Him I ran into by chance and oh but he was hard to kill! So hard that I simply had to have more. Before he died, he told me where I could find Svarozic.” A second hunk of meat joined the first with a wet thud. “He also was great fun. And he, in turn, told me where I could find you.”

  “Lying bitch!” Koschei said. “Svarozic cut into his own brain to ensure that he would never break his vow of silence.”

  Baba Yaga laughed and laughed. “You’d be surprised how much information can be conveyed by gestures, given the proper motivation.”

  Koschei got off one shot before Baba Yaga tore the klashny from his hands and threw it over the side, after the underlord. He tried to punch her in the stomach, but she ducked his blow and yanked his feet out from under him. He fell flat upon his back.

  “Show some spunk, pilgrim! Get up and fight.” BabaYaga stamped down three times, hard, where Koschei’s face had been, while he threw himself from side to side to avoid her heavy shoes. Then he was on his feet again, hunched like a wild animal and breathing heavily. His eyes were two hot coals framed by raven-black hair.

  “The patriarch Jacob wrestled with an angel,” Koschei said. “Clearly it is my destiny to contend with you-and defeat you as well.”

  “Count your fingers, strannik.” Baba Yaga opened one hand to reveal a fresh-severed pinkie.

  Koschei looked down in astonishment at his bleeding hand. Then, with a roar, he charged.

  But Baba Yaga deftly feinted to one side and then side-stepped him on the other. “You’re down to eight!” she crowed.

  Head down, Koschei waded into Baba Yaga, showering her with blows. Several landed solidly before, somehow, she dove between his feet and then slammed both her elbows into his back.

  He fell forward on his face.

  “Six!”

  More slowly this time, Koschei stood. With a stunned expression, he held up his three-fingered hands before his face. Blood fountained from four finger-stumps.

  “First your fingers, then each ear,” Baba Yaga said in a singsong voice, almost as if it were an incantation. “Your nose, your toes, your what-you-fear.”

  Something inside Koschei broke.

  He fled.

  Baba Yaga chased the strannik down from the wall and between the churches and palaces and across the plazas and open spaces of the Kremlin, regularly issuing little shrieks and screams so that he would know she was mere steps behind him. They ran all the way to the south wall. Koschei was in a blind panic, and so had as good as trapped himself. She drove him down the wooded slopes of the Secret
Garden until he came up against the wall and there was nowhere to go but forward, into the Secret Tower.

  Koschei did not notice the faint tendrils of smoke oozing out from under the door.

  Seizing the knob in his mutilated hand, Koschei threw open the door and plunged within.

  But opening the door provided fresh oxygen for the fire smoldering deep below, and a path upward for its flames. They rose up with a mighty roar, engulfing the strannik and all in an instant turning the tower’s roof to smoke and gases.

  Baba Yaga did not stay to admire her work. Moving like a swirl of darkness, she disappeared into the night.

  All of which was a fine piece of theater. Indeed, it was almost operatic.

  But there was a coda:

  Down in the city, coming around a corner, Baba Yaga collided with somebody directly under a street lantern. Who of course shrieked in fear at the sight of her. But then, strangely enough, the woman seized Baba Yaga’s arms and stared hard into her face. She began to shake her head apologetically, but then stopped and studied her features even more minutely. Finally, she said, “Anya? Is that you? Everyone at the university thought you were dead.”

  A shock ran up Baba Yaga’s spine. “What…?” she said. “What did you just call me?”

  “Anya.” The young woman looked unaccountably familiar. Her expression was one of extreme concern. “Anya Alexandreyovna Pepsicolova. Don’t you even remember who you are?”

  Terrible confusion rose up within her, then. She balled a fist and punched this disturbing young person in the stomach. Then, with a high-pitched sound that might have been a scream, she fled, looking for someplace to hide.

  After her first moment of shock, Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma realized that Chortenko’s advances were an opportunity in disguise. In the new government, he was sure to be a center of power second only to Lenin himself. So he was an ally to be cultivated. And the baronessa knew how to cultivate a man.

  There were unsavory rumors about his sexual practices, of course… But gossip always painted a darker picture than did simple fact. Anyway, before he had lost interest, the baronessa had indulged her husband’s brutal appetites from time to time and had survived those experiences well enough. She did not anticipate any serious problems there.