Enchantment

At least she had no fear of the glider falling apart, however jury-rigged the thing might be. She had bound it together with spells, each knot and joint and seam and stitch, so that the natural forces that pried at things could not tear this thing apart, not as long as she was in it, gliding over the forests of Taina.

It was all Taina, for even the lands that Baba Yaga had long called her own had once been part of her father's kingdom, though it was before her father was ever king. If they defeated the witch, it would be Taina land again; if not, then Taina would cease to be. Some other name would come upon the place. As in fact it would no matter what. She thought of the history that Ivan had told her about, the names this land had borne. Great empires had washed across this land—the Golden Horde, Lithuania, Poland, Russia. And now in Ivan's time, Ukraine. But all were foreign names here, in the end. The land was Taina, underneath it all. The place of her people.

What would she do in Baba Yaga's stronghold? She did not know. Destroy, that's all the plan she had. Find the spells, the potions, the supplies she used, and utterly destroy them. Burn down the place, if it would burn, if she could counteract the protective spells. She had learned much from Mother Esther about the art of protecting a house, and by implication therefore the art of unprotecting one. She knew what to look for. She would find it. But would she find it soon enough?

And before she burned it down, she had to find the people from the airplane, and any other captives Baba Yaga might have. It wouldn't be right for the freedom of Taina to be bought at their expense, not without at least trying to free them first.

The updrafts that she needed were all there. She found them and circled slowly, rising, rising. She felt the progress of the battle. How much longer? Not long at all. Pain. Triumph. Terror. How could she make sense of this?

The walls of the hilltop fortress loomed. Earthen walls, with palisades on top, but not a soldier watching. There were other sentinels that never fell asleep. But none were looking up into the air. Katerina passed over the walls in silence.

Then there were the desperate moments of maneuvering to land within the narrow confines of the stronghold. If there had been archers on the walls, she would have been pierced a hundred times as she descended—no, plummeted—to a brutal landing in a rick of hay. The hang glider crumpled around her, but she had let go in time, and none of her limbs was broken. Or perhaps that was a testimony to the power of the charms she learned from Mother Esther.

She struggled from the hay, gasping, coughing, then stood in silence to get a feel for the magic around her. There would be few traps inside, she knew, because even Baba Yaga wouldn't want to be bothered with her slaves constantly getting caught in her defenses. Still, there might be talismans that betrayed her presence, calling out to Baba Yaga: Come. An intruder has passed this way.

Or perhaps Baba Yaga was so confident she didn't need such things. She would sense an intruder herself, would never be taken by surprise as long as she was home. And if she was away, then upon arrival she would sense that someone wrong was here.

No use speculating. If she had any traps or warning talismans, Katerina did not detect them. Either she would be caught or she would not.

What mattered now was to find the heart of the magic in this place. Even that was easy enough. There was nothing subtle about the layout of the place. Baba Yaga's house was the central building; her most precious places were below the ground.

The halls were lined with shelves of charms and amulets and talismans, stored to be able to equip an army—and these were only the extras, after the army had been equipped! So grandiose were Baba Yaga's dreams that she imagined someday she'd need all these devices.

Katerina was tempted to take some, to study them. But no, the artifact would always serve its maker, so if she tried to use one, it would work against her. These would burn when the house burned.

Where did she make these things? Where were her ingredients? And where were all her prisoners?

She found them together, in the most obvious place. A large round room, with a fire and a cauldron and many pots, for mixing what she mixed; tables, mirrors, and a large bed. Around the room, chained to the walls, the passengers of the hijacked flight, sleeping as best they could, though only those chained to the lowest rings on the wall could lie down to sleep, and many had to stand. Some of them eyed her incuriously as she came in. She could see that they had eaten little during their confinement.

She hurried to the nearest set of chains and tried to see how they were fastened. Soon enough she saw that powerful spells of binding had been used, so powerful that she could not see a way through them.

How were they made? The spells had to be constructed here. Some of it was done with voice and hands, and there was no hope of guessing the word of unbinding; but if she could see how the spell was made, she could figure out a way to unravel it, or at least could try.

Someone spoke to her, but she didn't understand him. It was English that he spoke. So she answered him in her own language, lacing it with every Ukrainian or Russian word that Ivan and his parents had taught her. It didn't work for the man who had spoken—apparently he knew only English—but several others understood and translated for her. "Watch out," they said, in Russian. "Watch out for the bear."

A bear? Ivan's bear from the chasm?

She turned to see the hulking animal shamble into the room on all fours. Seeing her, it rose to its feet, a huge beast that had to be at least twice the height of even as tall a man as Ivan.

So here she was, having accomplished nothing, already caught.

But the bear did not roar or threaten her, unless simply standing there was something of a threat.

"My wife is not at home," the bear said.

Said! In human speech! She had heard old tales, of course, but had never heard real language from an animal before.

"You'll have to come again later if you wish to kill her," he said. "You are here to kill her, aren't you? You didn't come all this way just to rattle these people's chains."

This was not at all the tone that she expected from Baba Yaga's husband.

"Speechless?" said Bear. "I understand. The sight of me can take a woman's breath away. Baba Yaga fell quite in love with me the first time we met. I was here to kill her; she thought I had come because she called me. I found, too late, that here was one human who knew spells that could bind even me, who had never been bound. So if you happen to fall in love with me as well, be sure to unbind me from Baba Yaga before you expect me to run away with you."

"I don't love you," Katerina said.

"Ah, she talks after all. I'm a bear, and I was talking more than you!"

"I'm not here for you. I'm here to free these people."

"Now, that's too bad. She's got them rather permanently fastened here. I expect she plans to keep them on display for years and years, until she sweeps away the bones and brings in a new set."

"She loves death so much?"

"It's not death she loves, my dear. It's victory. Power over the vanquished. She can get an amazing amount of gloating time out of each of these poor corpses."

"They aren't corpses yet," said Katerina.

"Well, they will be soon enough. She tried to get me to kill them for her, offered them to me for sport, but I don't kill for sport. Well, usually not."

"You're missing one eye."

He growled, turning the blind eye away from her. "Thanks for reminding me."

"You hate her, don't you?"

"I'm sure I would, if I were at liberty to do so. But you see how it is—I'm ecstatic with devotion for my beloved hag. No husband was ever more faithful. I only have eyes—or rather, eye—for her."