A Necessary Evil

Baba Yaga, Crone of the Steppes, a crafty magus and a misshapen skull pass an evening together, making promises and telling lies.

I spent the better part of a year searching the Caucus mountains.

My gifts sought for her through prophecy, the casting of rune bones, the bones of murderers most foul, for any trace of her. If I failed to find her by midwinter, all would be lost.

I threw my bones, interpreted their meaning and ran as fast as the wind could carry me. But she was always gone by the time I got there.

Torn and rent earth surrounded by broken trees healing in twisted shapes. Only a single burned and tortured skull would mark her passage. Likely some unfortunate petitioner seeking her favors but failed to answer her riddles or questions correctly.

These signs would crumble to dust when I touched them, lasting only long enough for a wail or sigh to escape, the wisp of trapped soul essence, the only sign they had ever been alive at all.

I focused my efforts and I drew closer. Though the air was cool in the morning and filled with a rich, sound-deadening fog, the ground was still warm when I found the third skull, blackened as if by a fierce flame. She had just left. The skull laughed maniacally before disappearing into dust in my hand.

Disgusted, I drew upon my power, and took to the skies, my enslaved elementals carrying me above the forest whilst I felt the flow of natural energies bound within the mountains. Then I searched for that which disrupted that flow. She would be there.

I found the fourth skull, the most horrible fourth, a month later. It sang an aria, something beautiful in a language I did not know. I wanted to drop it, but the song brought tears to my eyes as I listened. It lasted an hour and I stood transfixed. I used my power to open the earth and place the skull within it. I closed it as the song ended.

The fifth skull lit from within and spoke. “Bring me birch, silver in name, bring me silver, from conflict it came.” The first snow of the year blanketed me that night. I sped away, having acknowledged me, I now must meet her task.

I found what she sought, by the light of the full moon, a staff of silvered birch she’d use for a broom to sweep behind her, hiding her passage. The silver I carved from within the hand of a brigand, still covered in blood. He had claimed it from the local townsfolk by violence. The money whispered of its power over men, its ability to raise the ire in men’s blood and its love of such work. This was the blood-addled silver she sought.

I let the bones and the wind carry me again.

I arrived where the winds who carried me, met, swirled and deposited me, in expectation of meeting her, the great witch of the steppes.

The wind whistled in the glen while I sat. Then the ground shook, first a bit, then faster, more powerful and rhythmic.

Horses, it seemed. Three of them surrounded me but kept their distance, one white, one black, one red. Each with a horseman clad in like colored cloaks. These were her heralds, her dark messengers who, as legends went, snuffed the life of anyone simply unworthy to meet the Crone of the Steppes.

They stood, watching me from within their cloaks, their beasts pawed the ground, as if for grass, but eating not. The glint of armored legs and swords hung from their hips, denoting their familiarity with war and death. The armor they wore was from a century ago, at least and the pall of age hung over them.

Then a second set of sounds, slower, deeper, almost as if they were the heartbeat of the Earth itself. I felt the night grow cold, the moonlit sky darkened with clouds, the trees parted. With this arrival, Night fell.

Before I could move or retreat, a fence of bones grew from the very ground, each capped with a skull glowing with infernal light. The ground shook wildly, as what appeared to be a house on legs, strode into view. It walked backward on the feet of a great rooster, the height of two, maybe three men. Then it turned and the eyes of its windows, and the lamps of its door shone light upon me.

It burned me, surely as if I had been set aflame. Only my Craft and mastery of fire subdued the flames of my suddenly burning furs. It howled fiercely and spun wildly. It tried to trample me while I put out the sudden conflagration and I scrambled to avoid its mighty feet.

I sought to use my powers for protection, to no avail. I was without fang or claw.

She appeared crunched up over a mortar, swishing a broom behind her, floating in the air near her monstrous home. She was gnarled, knobby knees near her chin, her long cadaverous arms swinging her broom, left, then right, an oarsman of terror. Her clothes hung from her appearing more like rags used to bury someone, long dead.

She slid to her house and the house settled its rant and scrunched down on its long legs. She stroked it lovingly, the door suddenly shot open and a long black tongue flicked out a bottle which landed at my feet. The sticky tongue left a nacreous shine on the bottle.

The Crone of the Steppes nodded to the house again and chunks of wood rained down from its roof landing in a neat pile by the front door. She walked up to it and struck a match on her iron teeth before flinging it into the pile of wood. A bonfire appeared in seconds lighting the fenced in region, the hag, the home and myself.

I didn’t dare sit down yet.

“Who sent you? Or have you come on your own for a favor? Only one of these is the right answer. The other is death.”

“I am Geira, Dýrfinna to the king of Aufland. I come not in his name but for my child. Only your wisdom could save her now.”

“You are a magus? I sense in you the makings of a powerful witch. Why would you seek power over men rather than power over life and mastery of nature? Remember, lie not.”

“I serve men in order to protect my family. But I have no love of them or their works. A man in power harmed my family when I was but a child. Only the kindness of another would give me a chance for revenge. He honed my gift with men’s magic since that was all he knew. It mattered not. I would have my revenge.”

“Then why seek out Old Baba Yaga or her sisters? We have very little interest in the affairs of men, lest it suit our needs. When my larder runs low, a man thigh or two can bring some flavor to the pot. But I have no use for men, perhaps save one.” She paused. “What would you ask of me? Make it quick I have things to attend to.”

“Cure my daughter, the poison used against her comes from ancient Kemet, something said to have killed Osiris. My powers have frozen her in time, but by the end of winter she will never waken, passing into the Underworld.”

“A challenge, eh? Did you bring me what I asked for? Are you prepared to pay the price of your success in finding me?”

“Yes, oh Crone, I know of your price. Blood-soaked silver, moon-drenched birch, as you asked.” I dropped them at her feet. Two pewter mugs flew from the windows of the hut, one striking me, catching me unaware, the other landing on the end of the crone’s current bedraggled broom.

“These are but trinkets, they are not my price. Drink while I prepare. We have one more guest.” She stepped away and came back with a large bundle of ragged sticks and what appeared to be a dusty burlap sackcloth. She threw them down and a mug landed before them. She put the silver into the cup. A skull landed on top of the burlap.

“Now we are all assembled. Pour a libation for us all, child and Koschey will tell you the price of your gift.”

I poured the wine, blood-red in the lamps from the window’s eyes, viscous with a smell of earth. I raised my glass and drank from it. A skeletal hand rose from the burlap and poured the wine upon the skull. Where the wine touched, flesh was restored. Slowly, with a sound of clicking wooden sticks, the burlap came to life.

“Our deal is done. I have provided you with the means to save your daughter. You must make another with Koschey.” With that, she stretched the remaining silver into a wire and grew focused on wrapping new straw around her new broom handle and tying it off with the silver.

Koschey, called the Wild Man of the Steppes, called the Deathless, the consort of Baba Yaga, at other times her nemesis, returned to life with the sound of bamboo, snapping into place. The long bones came together, slowly rising from the earth into a giant whose long arms held claws that glimmered in the firelight.

Though he was little more than flesh and bone and was barely covered in a cloak likened unto flesh his voice was clear and strong, “I have little love of tricks like this haggard crone.” He pointed to Baba Yaga, his uncut fingernails and unnaturally long arm heightened his air of supernatural horror. “Defeat me in a race to your daughter’s side and I will return her to life. Otherwise, I claim her life as my reward for a race won.”

“I double that wager, oh Deathless One, for a favor from thee. If you arrive before me, then you can claim my life as well but if I should win, you will claim the man who cast this curse upon my daughter. I would be free of his perfidy forever.”

He walked to me. I didn’t dare retreat. His hand flashed out before I could even move and drew blood across my lower jaw. My flesh parted like paper. Blood flowed.

Baba Yaga looked up from her work, her eyes glowed and the internal light in her home glowed in sync. “No need to be rude, Koschey. She is cheeky but her request was well within your powers to grant. She has done her homework.”

“Don’t tell me how to make my geas, and I will delay my trip back here to kill you, Baba Yaga.”

“Yes, dear. I hope to see you soon.”

“You will.”

With those words, his battered skeleton ran to the Black Horse, called Night and his rider pulled him onto its back. Koschey the Deathless threw the Black Rider from the horse, a lifeless husk of dusty black robes. He raced into the darkness toward the rising moon and my home.

I threw my bones and called my wind. I would win this race.

Baba Yaga reached up and healed my face before I could take flight. “My price is seven years of your service, should you be successful. If not, I will torture your soul until it pleases me to let you go. You will know me when I come for you, Geira, Dýrfinna to the King.”

Her hand smelled of a cold bog, rich with the scent of nature, of growth, of putrification of quiet, inexorable death.

“Mind you, Koschey will cheat. You will have to play rough to win.”

I opened myself to my power, and felt Baba Yaga step back. The clouds overhead sang out to me, their energy ripe for transformation. I wove the layers of clouds together, felt the rippling of lightning forming. Koschey was already vanishing into the distance. My lightning strike knocked him cleanly from his undead steed. He sat unmoving for quite some time.

My wind steed carried me away to the west and I saw Koschey rising as I passed over head. Deathless. Perhaps only Baba Yaga could kill him.

Baba Yaga returned to making her broom. “Quite a Dýrfinna, indeed. We will meet again.”

“Her royal highness requests your presence. Dýrfinna Geira.” The manservant spoke from the door never making eye contact with Geira’s staff or the High Sorceress, herself.

“Let her know I will be there shortly, Page Wilhelm.” I saw my daughter run into the room with her young friend, a child about the same age and likely one of the children of her servants. Though such mingling and friendships were frowned upon the role of Dýrfinna was a law unto itself. The child had so few friends, it made no sense to deny her the one she had.

“Mother, you said we would have a new governess today. Is she still coming?” Freya was everything her mother wasn’t. Blonde, tall for her age, strong, like her father… Even at ten, the child was already nearly as tall as her mother.

“Mistress, the nanny has arrived.”

“There she is Freya, hopefully you two will be able to get along while I am away with her Highness. Let’s go down to meet her.”

The woman at the door was not the governess Geira expected. The High Sorceress gathered her power but there was something familiar about the woman, her carriage, her gaze carried an immense age.

“Everyone out.” Geira used her authoratative voice and everyone snapped to, except for the children who moved behind the sorceress. Her two guardsmen gave her a second look, indicating that she need only nod and they would neutralize the threat.

If it were anyone else, she would believe it, the Dragoons of Aufland were legendary. But this woman was a living legend. Geira shook her head and the guardsman waited outside.

“Baba Yaga sends her regards and was most amused by your ploy. I am her sister and I will be your daughter’s governess. I will be instructing her in a Witch’s art. Your family has too much talent for it to all fall into the lap of Men. You may call me Sasha.”

“This was not part of our bargain.” Geira began.

“Tut, tut. Neither was this.” Sasha waved her hand and the children fell asleep, slumping to the floor. She reached into a bag and pulled out an iron crown. A crown crusted with blood.

“Your daughter has wonderful blonde hair, just like the former king of Aufland.”

“It is a common color here.” Geira replied, coldly.

“But not for you. Your hair is raven black.”

Sasha took the crown from the bag and slowly looks it over as if seeing it for the first time. “For what it is worth, both Baba Yaga and Koschey were amused by your deception and after losing, completed it because he hadn't had a chance to commit regicide in quite some time.”

“I trust he was amused. He snatched the king from his afternoon hunt for fox and quail. Right off the back of his horse, under the eyes of his guards and magi.”

“On a day you happened to not be with the king. I don’t think you understand. It is because you managed to pull the wool over their eyes is how I got to be here. Baba Yaga and Koschey want to watch you and make sure you don’t do anything else which may reveal their existence.”

“Your word my daughter will be safe, or I will bring this castle down up all our heads.”

“She will be safe and for seven years, you will serve, as you promised. Deception is appreciated, if frowned upon. Baba Yaga does not like to be made a fool of, though she may admire you for your efforts. Your daughter’s education begins immediately. A question, if I may?”

Geira stopped to pick up her staff and ermine wrap. “If you must.”

“Why this way? Why serve him up to two legends in the mountains? Your powers are great enough you could have wrest the throne from him.”

“It simply isn’t done. When I knew he poisoned my daughter, I knew I would have to kill him. But if a woman kills a man, and it can be proven, she dies horribly, broken slowly on the rack. When a man kills a woman, no one notices, certainly few men are prosecuted. When a man kills a child, even if it is his own, no one cares. That goes double for bastard offspring of a philandering king.”

Geira, now Dýrfinna to the Queen, walked to her door snatching the iron crown from Sasha. “When a legend does a deed, people either discount it, or fear it. Neither promotes serious investigations. Be sure she gets to bed early, she can be a bit surly in the mornings.”

Geira focused her power and the crown turned to a rusty powder, aged decades in seconds. The three jewels landed in her hand and she tossed them to her new governess. Sasha smiled and turned her attention to the waking children.

Sasha thought to herself as the children woke and began asking questions, Baba Yaga was right, times were changing. This Dýrfinna of Aufland is a ruthless, ambitious woman. A woman with the ear of a Queen trying to hold onto her throne. The Emperor of Rus should sleep with one eye open...

A Necessary Evil © Thaddeus Howze 2014, All Rights Reserved