Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga was astonished and delighted with these houses-that-fly. Long lodges like the halls of great lords, into which a hundred people crowded themselves, and then they scooted along the ground on their skinny chicken legs until they rose like geese into the sky, trailing smoke behind them from their sideways chimneys.

She knew at once that the princess and her unmanly husband had gone into one of these flying houses and traveled to a faraway place.

Why? To escape Baba Yaga, of course. There are no trails in the sky, no scent of Katerina's magic left behind. And they'd go a long way, too, to a land where Bear had no power, so Baba Yaga would be weaker yet. They thought that would stop her from following them.

It was always pleasant when an intended victim imagined himself to be safe; that added zest to her life, for it meant that the surprise would be all the more delicious. But for such a person really to be safe, that was unbearable, that sat in her belly like bad meat, churning, aching. They were not going to get away just because they had friends with such powerful magic that they could make houses fly.

Inside the airport, though, everything was confusing. Everybody seemed to know where they were going, which line to stand in. Lines meant nothing to her, of course, but when she tried to go past one particularly long line, a burly man stopped her, quite forcefully. Baba Yaga was appearing as an old woman at the time, so he wasn't rough with her, just kept explaining to her, talking more and more slowly, but none of it made sense. The people in the line had brought gifts, apparently, which they placed into the gaping mouth of a large box. The box engulfed it, and the people passed through a gate, and then they got their gift back on the other side. This made no sense at all. She had no gift, but without one, she apparently couldn't get through, even though people got their gifts back.

So Baba Yaga put on Shadow, the charm that made her unnoticeable. It wore her down to wear it—it took strength from her, apparently, with Bear so far away—but she used it only long enough to take away a woman's bag. A light one. She carried it to the box, put it in. The porch of the box moved, drew it inside. Then they let her pass through the gate.

Only it made a loud noise as she passed through it. They indicated she should step back and walk through again. Again the noise. They asked her questions she didn't understand. They took her by the arm and led her to a place where someone began to wave a wand around her. She had no idea what spell they were casting on her, but she had no intention of finding out. She drew out Shadow, put it on, and they didn't notice when she moved away. They shuffled around a little, looking vague and distracted. She walked off and left them wondering why they thought they were wanding somebody at the security gate, when no one could remember seeing anybody set off the alarm.

Exhausting as it was, she kept the shadow charm around her neck past the other gates. There was no important magic at any of them. She didn't know how the floor in front of the box moved, and she didn't know why the loud sound came when she walked through; but if it was magic, it wasn't much, because a simple charm like Shadow fooled them all. It shouldn't have. It was for common people, not for wizards, it would never work with wizards. But apparently wizards were in short supply in this place.

Finally she came to the place where she could see the houses-that-fly through large windows, magnificent clear windows without leading. How could such windows be sustained without magic? And yet she detected no trace of a spell on them. A lot of old prayers had been whispered here at the windows, and especially near the doorways that led down to the houses-that-fly, but that was god business, humble petitioners, obedient servants, nothing to do with the way that Baba Yaga used power.

She walked through an open doorway and made her way to the entrance of the house. She touched the wall of it. Hard, like the blade of a sword. Cold and smooth. She loved the feel of it. But where was the flying spell? She could smell strange things in the air, but recognized none of it. She slipped through the entrance and found row on row of chairs, all facing the same way. Soft chairs, like thrones, and she sat in an empty one.

She watched the people around her and learned how to lower the table, how to fasten a belt around her—what for, she couldn't imagine, but they all seemed to take it seriously. Finally the only people moving around were the servants in livery and one middle-aged man. The man held a piece of paper in his hand, and the servants kept looking at it. They moved up and down the rows of seats, looking down at the paper, then up at letters written above the seats, checking, checking. Checking what?

Finally she realized: Every seat in this house was full. Every person in here had a paper, and the writing on the paper told where they were supposed to sit. She was in the seat that this man was assigned to, but because she wore Shadow, they kept overlooking the place where she was. Therefore they couldn't find his seat. And until they found his seat, they were not going to let the house rise into the sky.

The ingeniousness of the system intrigued her. The wizard who created all this magic used ordinary people without a speck of power, and yet they had managed to stymie Baba Yaga herself, simply because they were so stupid that they would fuss around, go back and forth, talk and argue, but the plane would not rise into the sky until they found this man's seat. If Baba Yaga took off her charm, they would know she was in his chair, and they would try to get her to leave because she didn't have the paper she needed. She might kill a few of them for daring to refuse her—but she knew that the wizard who designed this system would have foreseen the possibility, and the house simply would not fly.

Well, have your cursed chair, you poor stupid fools. I'll stand.

She got up and moved away from the chair.

At once the servants found the seat and the man settled into it. Baba Yaga had left an itch in the upholstery—it would get through his clothes after an hour or so. And it would keep working on everyone who ever sat in the chair. It was one of her favorite curselets.

She was standing near one of the servants when she took a black-handled whip from the wall and spoke to it, as if invoking a god. Only, her voice was repeated throughout the house. Baba Yaga couldn't understand much of what she said. Only a few words, like Kiev and to and...

To, The woman was telling the people what the destination of the house was. Only then did Baba Yaga realize that of course the houses didn't all fly to the same place. Certain houses went to certain places, and everyone knew where except her—no doubt because the information was written on those nasty little papers, which she couldn't read, or it was said aloud in a language that she couldn't speak.

The door to the house-that-flies was closed, and she couldn't open it.

The house began to move; it almost knocked her down when it started.

If she was taken away from here, she didn't know how she'd find her way back. And since she didn't know where Katerina and Ivan had gone, there would be no hope of finding them without this as her starting place. She had failed.

She almost took out that little cloth and draped it over her head. But it made her too... not frightened—she wasn't frightened—too ashamed at the very thought of giving up, going back home empty-handed, blocked by a wizard who used cattle like these as his servants. She would not do it.

She pulled off Shadow and began to weep loudly, shifting her appearance so she looked like a frightened, confused country woman she had robbed out in the farm country a few days ago. Not knowing the language hampered her, but she hoped they'd just assume she was old and senile.