The Winter of the Witch

by Katherine Arden

“What do you want?” returned the chyert, so near that he could murmur the question into Konstantin’s ear.

  In the priest’s soul was a desperate mourning. I prayed—all the years of my life, I prayed. But you were silent, Lord. If I am making bargains with devils it is only because you abandoned me. This devil looked as though he were following his thought with an easy and a secret delight.

  “I want to forget myself in men’s devotion.” It was the first time he had ever spoken the thought aloud.

  “Done.”

  “I want the comforts that princes have,” Konstantin went on. He was going to drown in that single eye. “Good meats and soft beds.” He breathed out the last word. “Women.”

  The Bear laughed. “That too.”

  “I want earthly authority,” Konstantin said.

  “As much as your two hands, your heart, and your voice can compass,” the Bear said. “The world at your feet.”

  “But what do you want?” breathed Konstantin Nikonovich.

  The devil’s hand curled into a clawed fist. “All I wanted was to be free. My bastard brother penned me up in a clearing on the edge of winter for life after life of men. But at long last he wanted something more than he wanted me confined and I am freed at last. I have seen the stars and smelled the smoke, and tasted men’s fear.”

  Softer, the devil added, “I have found the chyerti faded to shadows. Now men order their lives to the sound of damned bells. So I am going to throw the bells down, throw down the Grand Prince while I am about it; set fire to this whole little world of Rus’ and see what grows out of the ashes.”

  Konstantin stared, fascinated and afraid.

  “You will like that, won’t you?” asked the Bear. “That will teach your God to ignore you.” He paused and then added more prosaically, “In the short term, I want you to go tonight where I bid you and do what I tell you.”

  “Tonight? The city is unsettled; midnight has come and gone and I—”

  “Are you afraid that you might be seen out past midnight, consorting with the wicked? Well, leave that to me.”

  “Why?” said Konstantin.

  “Why not?” returned the other.

  Konstantin made no answer.

  The devil breathed against his ear, “Would you rather stay and think of her dying? Sit here in the dark, and lust after her, dead?”

  Konstantin tasted blood where his teeth had come together on the inside of his cheek. “She was a witch. She deserved it.”

  “That does not mean you didn’t enjoy it,” murmured the devil. “Why do you think I came to you first?”

  “She was ugly,” said Konstantin.

  “She was as wild as the sea,” he rejoined. “And full, like the sea, of mysteries.”

  “Dead,” said Konstantin flatly, as though speaking could cut off memory.

  The devil smiled a secret smile. “Dead.”

  Konstantin felt the air thick in his lungs, as though he were trying to breathe smoke.

  “We cannot dally,” said the Bear. “The first blow—the first blow must be struck tonight.”

  Konstantin said, “You tricked me before.”

  “And I might again,” returned the other. “Are you afraid?”

  “No,” said Konstantin. “I believe in nothing and I fear nothing.”

  The Bear laughed. “As it should be. Because that is the only way you can play for everything, when you do not fear to lose.”

  6.

  No Bones, No Flesh

  DMITRII AND HIS MEN TORE apart the fire on the river. Sasha worked alongside the others in the most hopeless and terrible desperation. In the end, a field of smoldering logs lay glowing across a stretch of pitted and steaming ice. The cage looked just like the rest of the charred wood; they could barely tell which pieces had formed it. The crowd had fled; it was the coldest and blackest part of the night. They stood in a field of dying fire, caught between the cold earth and the spring stars.

  The terrible strength that had animated Sasha’s limbs suddenly vanished. He leaned against his mare’s smoke-smelling shoulder. Nothing. There was nothing left of her. He could not stop shivering.

  Dmitrii pushed the loose hair from his brow, made the sign of the cross. Low he said, “God rest her spirit.” He laid a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “It is for no man to undertake justice in my city without my leave. You will have vengeance.”

  Sasha said nothing. But the Grand Prince was surprised at the look on his cousin’s face. Grief, of course, anger. But also—puzzlement?

  “Brother?” said Dmitrii.

  “Look,” Sasha whispered. He kicked one log apart, and then another, pointed to the remains of the cage.

  “What?” said Dmitrii warily.

  “No bones,” said Sasha, and swallowed. “No flesh.”

  “Burned away,” said Dmitrii. “The fire was hot.”

  Sasha shook his head once. “It didn’t burn long enough.”

  “Come,” said Dmitrii, looking worried now. “Cousin, I know you wish her alive, but she did go in. She could not have come out again.”

  “No,” said Sasha, drawing a deep breath. “No, that would be impossible.” But still he glanced again at the red and black hellscape of the river, and then abruptly went to his horse. “I am going to my sister.”

  Startled silence. Then Dmitrii understood. “Very well,” he said. “Tell the Princess of Serpukhov that I—that I am sorry for her grief, and yours. She—was a brave girl. God be with you.”

  Words, only words. Sasha knew that Dmitrii could not wholly regret Vasya’s death; she had been a problem he didn’t know how to solve. Yet—the fire had contained no bones. And Vasya—you could not always predict Vasya. Sasha wheeled his mare and kicked her to full gallop up the hill of the posad and through the gates of Moscow.

  Dmitrii turned, scowling, to snap orders and marshal his guards. He was very weary, and now there had been two fires in Moscow, the second, in its own way, as destructive as the first.

  * * *

  SASHA FOUND OLGA’S GATES SMASHED, the dooryard trampled. But Dmitrii had sent all of his own men-at-arms that could be spared. They had established some kind of order, kept the outbuildings from looting. The dooryard was quiet.

  Sasha passed Dmitrii’s men with a soft word. A few of the grooms had straggled back after the crowd went down to the river. Sasha roused one in the stable and thrust him the reins of his mare, barely pausing.

  The snow of the dooryard was daubed and spattered with blood, and there were the marks of boots and blades on the door to the terem. A fearful serving-woman opened at last to his knocking; he had to persuade her to let him in.

  Olga was sitting by the hot brick of the stove in her bedchamber, still awake and still dressed. Her face was drawn and gray in the candlelight; exhausted shadows smeared her milky beauty. Marya was weeping hysterically into her mother’s lap, black hair flung about like water. The two were alone. Sasha paused in the doorway. Olga took in his filthy, blistered, soot-streaked appearance and blanched.

  “If you have news, it can wait,” she said, with a look at the child.

  Sasha hardly knew what to say; his faint, terrible hope seemed foolish in the face of the blood-spattered dvor, in the face of Marya’s wild grief. “Is Masha all right?” he said, crossing the room and kneeling beside his sister.

  “No,” said Olga.

  Marya lifted her head, wet-eyed, with marks like bruising about the lids. “They killed him!” she sobbed. “They killed him and he would never hurt anyone but the wicked, and he loved porridge and they shouldn’t have killed him!” Her eyes were savage. “I am going to wait for Vasya to get back, and we are going to go and kill all the people that hurt him.” She glared about the room and then her eyes welled once more. The rage drained out of her, fast as it had come. She fell to her knees, hunched up s
mall, weeping into her mother’s lap.

  Olga stroked her daughter’s hair. Up close, Sasha could see Olga’s hand tremble.

  “There was a mob,” said Sasha, low-voiced. “Vasya—”

  Olga put her finger to her lips, with a glance at her sobbing child. But she shut her black eyes the briefest instant. “God be with her,” she said.

  Marya lifted her head once more. “Uncle Sasha, did Vasya come back with you? She needs us; she will be sad.”

  “Masha,” said Olga gently. “We must pray for Vasya. I fear she has not come back.”

  “But she—”

  “Masha,” said Olga. “Hush. We do not know all that happened; we must wait to find out. Mornings are wiser than evenings. Come, will you sleep?”

  Marya would not. She was on her feet. “She has to come back!” she cried. “Where would she go if she didn’t come back?”

  “Perhaps she has gone to God,” said Olga, steadily. She did not lie to her children. “If so, let her soul find rest.”

  The child stared between her mother and her uncle, lips parted with horror. And then she turned her head, as though someone else in the room were speaking. Sasha followed her gaze to the corner by the stove. There was no one there. A chill ran down his spine.

  “No, she hasn’t!” cried Marya, scrambling free of her mother’s arms. She scrubbed at her wet eyes. “She’s not with God. You’re wrong! She’s—where?” Marya demanded of the empty place near the floor. “Midnight is not a place.”

  Sasha and Olga looked at each other. “Masha—” Olga began.

  There was an abrupt movement in the doorway. They all jumped; Sasha spun, one dirty hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “It is I,” said Varvara. Her fair plait straggled; there was soot and blood on her clothes.

  Olga stared. “Where have you been?”

  Without ceremony, Varvara said, “Vasya is alive. Or was when I left her. They were going to burn her. But she broke the bars of the cage and leaped down unseen. I got her out of the city.”

  Sasha had hoped. But he hadn’t really thought how…“Unseen?” Then he thought of more important things. “Where? Was she wounded? Where is she? I must—”

  “Yes, she is wounded; she was beaten by a mob,” said Varvara acidly. “She was also near mad with magic; it came on her suddenly, in desperation. But she is alive and her wounds aren’t mortal. She escaped.”

  “Where is she now?” asked Olga sharply.

  “She took the road through Midnight,” said Varvara. There was the strangest combination of wonder and resentment in her face. “Perhaps she will even reach the lake. I did all I could.”

  “I must go to her,” said Sasha. “Where is this road through Midnight?”

  “Nowhere,” said Varvara. “And everywhere. But only at midnight. It is no longer midnight now. In any case, you have not the sight: the power to take the Midnight-road alone. She has gone beyond your reach.”

  Olga looked, frowning between Marya and Varvara.

  Incredulously, Sasha said, “You expect me to take your word for it? To abandon my sister?”

  “There is no question of abandonment; her fate is out of your hands.” Varvara sank onto a stool as though she weren’t a servant at all. Something had changed, subtly, in her bearing. Her eyes were intent and troubled. “The Eater is loose,” she said. “The creature that men call Medved. The Bear.”

  Even after Vasya had told them the truth, in the hours after Moscow had caught fire and been saved by snow, Sasha had hardly believed his sister’s tale of devils. He was about to demand again that Varvara tell him properly where Vasya was, when Olga broke in: “What does that mean, that the Bear is loose? Who is the Bear? Loose to do what?”

  “I do not know,” said Varvara. “The Bear is among the greatest of chyerti, a master of the unclean forces of the earth.” She spoke slowly, as though remembering a lesson long forgotten. “His chief skill is knowing the minds of men and women, and bending them to his will. Above all he loves destruction and chaos, and will seek to sow it as he can.” She shook her head, and suddenly she was the body-servant Varvara again, clever and practical. “It must wait until morning; we are all mortally weary. Come, the wild girl is alive and beyond reach of friend or foe. Will you all sleep?”

  There was a silence. Then, grimly, Sasha said, “No—if I can’t go to her, then at least I am going to pray. For my sister, for this mad city.”

  “The city isn’t mad,” Marya protested. She had been following their conversation, her black eyes ferocious, and then had turned her head to listen to that unseen voice near the floor. “It was a man with golden hair—he made them do it. He spoke to them, he made them angry.” She had begun to shake. “He was the one who came last night, who made me come with him. People listen when he talks. His voice is very beautiful. And he hates Aunt Vasya.”

  Olga gathered her daughter into her arms. Marya had begun weeping again, slow exhausted sobs. “Hush, sweet,” she said to her daughter. Sasha felt his face settling into bleakness. “The priest with golden hair,” he said. “Konstantin Nikonovich.”

  “Our father sheltered him. You brought him to Moscow. I succored him here,” said Olga. Her habitual composure could not hide the look in her eyes.

  “I am going to pray now,” said Sasha. “If a devil has come to this city, all I can do against it is pray. But tomorrow I will go to Dmitrii Ivanovich. I will see this priest tried and justice done.”

  “You must kill him with your sword, Uncle Sasha,” said Marya. “For I think he is very wicked.”

  Sasha kissed them both and departed in silence.

  “Thank you for saving our sister’s life,” Olga said to Varvara, when Sasha had gone.

  Varvara said nothing, but the two women clasped hands. They had known each other a long time.

  “Now tell me more of this demon that has come to Moscow,” Olga added. “If it concerns the safety of my family, it cannot wait until morning.”

  7.

  Monster

  IN ANOTHER PART OF MOSCOW, in the black and frigid hour before dawn, a peasant man and his wife lay awake atop his brother’s oven. They had lost their izba, their possessions, and their firstborn in the fires of the night before, and neither of them had slept since.

  A light, insistent tapping came from the window.

  Tap. Tap.

  Below them, on the floor, the brother’s family stirred. The knocking went on, steady, monotonous, first at the window, then at the door. “Who could that be?” muttered the husband.

  “Someone in need perhaps,” said his wife, voice hoarse from the tears she had shed that day. “Answer it.”

  Her husband reluctantly slid down from the oven. He stumbled to the door, over the complaining bodies of his brother’s family. He opened the inner door, unbarred the outer door.

  His wife heard him give a single, sobbing gasp, and then nothing. She hurried up behind him.

  A small figure stood in the doorway. Its skin was blackened and flaking away; you could see hints of white bone through rents in his clothing. “Mother?” it whispered.

  The dead child’s mother screamed, a scream to wake the dead—but the dead were already awake—a scream to awaken their neighbors, sleeping uneasily with the memory of fire. People opened their shutters, opened their doors.

  This child did not go into the house. Instead he turned away and began walking up the street. He walked drunkenly, lurching from side to side. His eyes, in the moonlight, were bewildered and afraid and intent all at once. “Mother?” he said again.

  Above, on either side, the awakened neighbors stared and pointed. “Mother of God.”

  “Who is that?”

  “What is that?”

  “A child?”

  “Which child?”

  “Nay—God defend us—that is little Andryus
ha—but he is dead…”

  The voice of the child’s mother rose up. “No!” she cried. “No, I am sorry; I am here. Little one, don’t leave me.”

  She ran after the dead boy, tripping on the half-frozen earth. Her husband ran stumbling out after her. There was a priest among the awed crowd on the street; the husband seized him and dragged him along. “Batyushka, do something!” he cried. “Make it go! Pray—”

  “Upyr!”

  The word—the dread word of legend and nightmare and fairy tale—was taken up from house to house, as understanding dawned. The word hissed its way down the street, up and back down, growing and growing until it became a moan, a scream.

  “The dead boy. He is walking. The dead are walking. We are cursed. Cursed!”

  Every instant the turmoil grew. Clay lamps were lit; torches made gold points of light under the sickly moon. Cries flew. People fainted, or wept, or called down God’s aid. Some opened their doors and ran out to see what the trouble was. Others barred their doors tight and set their families to praying.

  Still the dead child walked on unsteady legs, up the hill of the kremlin.

  “Son!” panted his mother, running at the thing’s side. She still did not dare touch him; the way he moved, ill-jointed, was not the way the living moved. But in his eyes—she was sure of it—lay something of her son. “My child, what horror is this? Has God sent you back to us? Have you come to give a warning?”

  The dead child turned and said “Mother?” again, in a soft, high voice.

  “I am here,” whispered the woman, putting out a hand. The skin of his face peeled away at her touch. Her husband shoved the priest forward. “Do something, for God’s sake.”

  The priest, his lips quivering, stumbled forward, and raised a trembling hand. “Apparition I charge thee…”

  The child looked up, his eyes dull. The crowd drew back, crossing themselves, watching…The child’s eyes wandered around the assembled faces.

  “Mother?” the child whispered one last time. And lunged.