19

Healing

Sergei was in bad shape when Katerina got to him, and some around him were already whispering, "He's dead." But King Matfei greeted his daughter with a fierce hug, then pointed to Sergei and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I thought you could talk again," said Katerina.

"I forgot," said King Matfei. "He's still alive. Can you help him?"

She knelt beside him, put one hand on his forehead, the other on his chest. "The wounds are many, but none of them are grave. It's the shock of it that's killing him." She began to call for herbs, and some of the men, who had gathered herbs of healing for their wives, went in search of them. Not all were found, but she had enough, along with the great power that surged through her now, to stop the bleeding and to still the panic that was making his body withdraw into itself.

He slept.

"Take him back home," she said. "But the rest of us must go and burn down the ruins of her house."

"Where is the Pretender?" asked her father.

"At the bottom of the ruin. But perhaps not dead. And she'll make her escape if we don't destroy her now."

Only Ivan and Katerina and a handful of others remained with Sergei, making a sledge to carry him home. Before they were half-done with it, Ivan said, "Never mind, there's no need for this. I'll carry him."

"In your arms? You'd never make it all the way—a day's march!"

"You have the power to make him lighter, don't you? And he won't be in my arms, he'll be on my back."

"You can't do that unless he's awake to help hold on."

"He is awake," said Ivan.

"I feel like my arse is on fire," said Sergei.

"That's where the bits of bronze from the grenades hit you, as you were falling on the king."

"Is the king all right?" asked Sergei.

"He watched over you like his own son until Katerina came to heal you."

Sergei looked at Katerina, then at Ivan again, and smiled. "You're both here. That means you won."

"Bear is free, so her power is broken," said Ivan.

"All that she did with his power is undone," said Katerina. "Father can speak again."

Sergei suddenly sat up, then put his hand to his head. But still he persisted—he had to look at his deformed leg. "Well, Mother was wrong," he said. "She always claimed that it was a curse of the Widow's that crippled me."

"Not all the ills of the world began with her," said Katerina. "I'm sorry."

"With all the magic in the world, you'd think there'd be some power to make me whole."

"The spells I cast on you just now," said Katerina. "I've never had more strength in me, with the love and hope of all the people inside me, and it worked to start the healing of your injuries of today. But if I had the power to heal your leg, it would be healed right now."

"I know," said Sergei. "Father Lukas always said that I was crippled to show forth the greatness of the works of God. I never understood how a crippled leg did that." Then, suddenly, a sob burst from him. "I hated him, but he died so bravely."

He started to get up. Ivan helped him, and he and Katerina supported Sergei between them, bearing him to the body of Father Lukas. "We can't leave him for the vultures," he said.

"We won't," said Katerina. "When the Widow's house is a beacon light, then the king will return, and rewards will be given, and bodies buried, and punishments meted out."

At the word punishment, Sergei began looking for Dimitri's body. The whole lower part of it was shredded by the bomb. From the rictus of his face, it seemed that he remained conscious long enough to feel the pain as his lifeblood slipped away. "After all his mockery of me, all his life," said Sergei, "it was the crippled boy who finished him."

"Don't gloat," whispered Katerina. "I did it too, but it's wrong. He's to be pitied, not triumphed over."

"He never had pity for me, or anyone," said Sergei. "It took longer for the king to know it, but I knew what he was from childhood on."

"He was the twisted one, Sergei," said Katerina. "Compared to him, you have always been whole."

In his weakened state, in his grief for Father Lukas, the kind words were more than Sergei could withstand. He burst into tears. Katerina held him, and Ivan's arms encompassed both of them.

The search for survivors or for wreckage of the plane ended when the crew and passengers of the missing 747 wandered out of the woods in western Ukraine. The airplane was found soon after—in the midst of dense forest, where it could not possibly have landed. It was as if some giant hand had gently set it down amid the trees. Closer examination revealed that trees that had once stood where the plane now was were sheared off to fit the exact contours of the plane's body and wings.

The passengers were debriefed for two days while frustrated relatives clamored to see them. When the families were finally reunited, the passengers were reluctant to speak about their ordeal, and government spokesmen in Ukraine endlessly repeated the mantra "We are taking all appropriate measures" as if it meant something.

Rumors flew. Every group of terrorists was suspected, as was every government with a conceivable interest and many without. The tabloids were full of stories of alien abductions (how else could the airplane have appeared where it did?) and speculations about whether a new Bermuda Triangle was forming farther north, or whether the old one was merely beginning to give up its captives.

Every comedian got three days' worth of jokes out of it, including Sam Kinison, who, after reciting all the theories, burst into his trademark scream. "It was the Wicked Witch of the West! They got back because there's no ------- place like home!" He got a pretty good laugh.

Baba Yaga

The house collapsed, but none of the beams could fall on her. The worst that happened to her was a mouthful of dust. Then she began to climb through the wreckage. No doubt they'd burn the place, and she'd rather not remain inside.

Everything lost. Everything broken. And that princess—who could have guessed the power that she'd have? No more head-to-head competitions for Baba Yaga. She had met her match, more than her match. In a way, the falling of the house had saved her life. It was only a matter of time before that little bitch would have destroyed her.

So let her have the kingdom. What good was a kingdom anyway? Whining people to govern, rents and taxes to collect, which everyone tried to steal from her at every step in the process. What good had any of it done her? She'd played at it, but the game wasn't worth the cost.

She was still Baba Yaga, though, wasn't she? Her books might be buried and soon burned, her spells might have been broken, but she could still do magic.

That house-that-flies, for instance. She could make another one like that. Maybe smaller, so it didn't take so much strength to get it off the ground. And come to think of it, it wasn't the flying that was so important, it was the mobility. In the forest here, a huge building that wouldn't fit between the trees was useless—of course it had to fly, and then where would it come to land? No, what was needed was a tiny building, a simple hut, but with legs on it, like those chicken legs, which would pick up and move where she wanted it to go.

That way no one would ever be certain where she was. She might stay in a place for years, harvesting pleasures large and small from the surrounding countryside, then give the command and let her house carry her away to another place. And, come to think of it, the house could stand up on its legs whenever she was gone, and spin around so its door would face away from any intruder. No one could get inside. That way her possessions would be safe. No more nasty little princesses undoing centuries of work.