"Whoever chose you knew how to send you to where the little bitch was napping. I couldn't go there, not even with all the power of Bear. Was it that walking windstorm, that fart in a bottle, Mikola? I don't think so. He knew, he sensed, he stayed near the place, but no, he didn't find you, did he. Someone else. Someone who could look past the frailty of your body and see something useful. Something that could un-... do... my... army." Her fingers clenched tightly on his arm.

"There is muscle there, after all. Not a swordsman's muscles. Not even a peasant's. But lithe. You throw things. Like those boys. You throw things."

She was in front of him now. She slapped his face. Again. Again. Each blow staggered him, but he suddenly had enough volition, enough reflexive control, to regain his erect posture before losing control to her again. His face stung from the blows, and under the stinging on his skin, he felt a throbbing ache in his nose, around his eye. Thus it begins.

And thus it ended. She leaned back against the flight attendants' station and contemplated him. "Finally rutted with her, did you? I heard you. I was listening, just across the street, in the house of the woman whose beloved puppy died. You were humping like bunnies. If there's a baby inside her, I'll show it to her before she dies." She leaned closer, a little more alert. "That bothered you, didn't it. You see, there's pain... and there's pain. But your pain is nothing to me. You were a tool all along. But not my tool. And whatever it was that whoever-it-was saw in you, I don't see it, and I don't have a use for you. So I don't care what happens to you."

He felt a relaxing in his throat. He could speak. But the words she just said gave him hope that she might let him go. And if she let him go, he might find some way to help Katerina. With that hope came silence—he didn't want to say anything that would damage whatever chances he might have.

Of course she knew that, counted on it. She was just toying with him, of course she was. But maybe there was a chance.

She laughed. "You can speak, and yet you say nothing."

All at once he felt the need to speak well up in him; he was going to say something. Anything. So to keep from saying what was in his heart, he said the first thing that came to mind. "You'll never get this thing to fly again."

She was interested in that. "What do you mean?"

"It needs fuel to fly. It hasn't got much left."

"The man who thought he was in charge said that before I let Bear eat him. Keep talking."

"The meadow isn't long enough. It will crash into the trees before it gets into the sky."

"What makes you think my powers won't be enough to make it fly? I can send it straight up in the air if I want."

"If you could," said Ivan, "you already would have."

"Shut up!" she shouted. "I'm not accountable to you. I can make this house do anything I want. Do you doubt me?"

Suddenly the plane moved under him. Unable to control his body, he lurched to the floor, swiping his head against the metal face of the attendants' station as he fell.

"Careful," said Baba Yaga. "It's dangerous to be standing up when this thing moves."

The plane turned, moving this way and that, yawing left and right like a ship with a madman at the tiller. Which was more or less the way things were.

"Into the air!" she cried.

The plane sped up, but the wheels were still bouncing along the ground.

She waved her arms, again, again, each time making the movements more flamboyant.

"Careful you don't bump into the trees," he said.

She brought the plane to a sudden halt. "I have all the time in the world to work on this. There's always a way to do anything I think of. Bear just isn't strong enough. I'll have to find somebody else to bind to me. Maybe I'll use your princess for a while. No, someone much stronger. What about Mikola? Bind him along with Bear, and maybe then I'll make it fly. Or... here's a thought... I'll go back to your country and take your mother. She's a clever one. She'll help me. Or I'll pluck off pieces of your father and feed them to her. Of course, I'll do that anyway. She caused me enough trouble to deserve much worse than that. You think I'd ever let you go? The only thing I regret is, I won't be able to kill you myself. I promised that privilege to another. He's waited such a long while for me to let him have you. Killing you won't get him his eye back—but maybe he'll feel better about having only half his vision after he's persuaded you to pry your own eyeballs out of your head and offer them to him in your open hands."

She waved her hands over her head, uttered a couple of incomprehensible words, and disappeared.

I wonder what language that was, he thought. And then wondered why he would think of such a useless question at a time like this.

18

Unbinding

Katerina did not like to fly. She had already discovered this on the airplane flight from Kiev. She liked it little better on her other commercial flights. But she did not discover the depth of her distaste for it until she inserted herself into the hang glider and soared out over open air. It filled her with bottomless fear; she clung to the handgrips, her body more rigid than the frame. And then, in each trial flight, forced herself to remember what Ivan had said, what he had shown her, what she had seen. She leaned, she pulled, and soon she learned to find the air currents, to stay level. Nothing fancy—no swoops, no sudden curves. Steady. So she wouldn't die. So the terror would end.

She spoke not a word about this to anyone, least of all to Ivan. For she already knew that the only mission to be accomplished with this contraption was to enter Baba Yaga's fortress, and the only one who had any hope of accomplishing anything there was she.

For even though they counted on Baba Yaga being with the army, Katerina knew she would not stay forever. She would be back, and there would be a showdown, and then it would be the strength of all of Katerina's kingdom against Baba Yaga and the power she had harnessed from a god.

So when Baba Yaga seduced Dimitri all those weeks—or was it months?—ago, she had more in mind than whatever mischief Dimitri might accomplish on his own. Whether he lived or died, one thing was certain: In her confrontation with the witch, Katerina would be weaker because her kingdom was less unified.

She had only one surprise: the child inside her. Mother Esther had taught her how to use that magic. "I used it when I had my son inside me," Mother said. "As he grew, his power was part of me. For those months, I felt like the goddess of creation. And then he was born, and became his own man, and I was just myself again. But for that time—I pray that it's enough to make a difference for you, Katerina, if you are pregnant by the time you face the Widow in her den."

Yes, well, I'm pregnant, all right. I only hope the power that the baby brings to me will compensate for the greater fear I have now, the fear of something happening to harm the child.

The day of battle. She had bound herself thrice over to her people, in ceremonies among the women before she left. So she could feel it, like a vague unease in the back of her mind, the fear of the men as they prepared for battle. She felt the sudden sharpening of alarm, the rush of anger and dismay as the enemy appeared.

"It's time," she said.

As they had practiced, the strong young men picked her up, glider and all, and ran together down the slope until the wind caught the wing and she rose above them, gliding away over the treetops. Behind them, she heard them wanly cheer.

Then it was just her, the fragile kite that held her aloft, and the space below her—a distance far too high, so a fall would kill her, and far too low, for she had little faith that she could glide as far as Baba Yaga's fortress.