Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

Baba Yaga flew across the city, bottle in hand. She had no desire to stay and play with she-forgot-exactly-whoever-it-was who had given it to her. She was hunting bigger game tonight.

Against the flow of panicked citizens she ran, pushing her way through the crush of bodies choking Resurrection Gate, some of whom were trying to flee inward and others outward. She did not much like people and the more of them there were the less tolerable she found them, but this experience was different. They slammed into her and punched and clawed at her, even as she forced her way through them. Their hysteria made her invisible to them and their fear filled her with dark glee.

Glancing back over the gate, Baba Yaga saw a naked giant shifting slowly against the darkness of the sky. It meant nothing to her. She might easily have gone right past the giant and so up the causeway. But it did not fit her mood to do so. Instead, she went straight to the Kremlin’s west wall, stuck the bottle of rubbing alcohol in her jacket pocket, and began to climb. She scaled the soaring wall like an enormous bat, digging into the mortar between its bricks with her long, sharp fingers-choosing this means of entry not for any specific reason or purpose, but just because she could.

Even for her, however, doing so was a prodigious feat. When at last Baba Yaga topped the wall, she was gasping with exertion and sweat rolled freely down her face.

She was mopping her forehead with the bandanna when a man’s voice said, “One of your creatures has arrived, demon.”

“Not one of mine,” a machine-voice replied.

“Should I kill her, then?”

“You are a zealot and your delusional beliefs would make her death mean nothing to you. The pleasure of this woman’s death is mine.”

Even as they spoke, however, Baba Yaga was pulling the cork from her bottle and cramming the bandanna deep down its neck. “I am terror and Old Night,” she said. A box of matches appeared magically in the palm of one hand. “I am the fear you cannot name. I am she who cannot be placated. If you think you can kill me, you are welcome to try.”

“All things are possible with God’s help.” The first speaker held a klashny, but he did not raise it to his shoulder. Not yet. Baba Yaga recognized him by his clothing. He was a strannik, a worshipper of the White Christ, and doubtless the one she sought. The White Christ did not frighten Baba Yaga any more than did the Red Odin or even the Black Baal. She was old, old beyond human reckoning, older than language and older than fire. She had coalesced in the darkness that came before the gods. When the first sacrifice had been laid upon the first altar she had been there to snatch it away from its intended recipient. When first ape-man had been killed by an envious brother, it was she who had guided the murderer’s hand.

The strannik stood watching, doing nothing. The real danger came from the machine-creature crouched at his feet. It launched itself at her in a silver blur.

Baba Yaga set fire to the rag stuck in the bottle. She had time to do so, she reckoned. It would take a good three-quarters of a second for the demon to reach her.

When it did, she side-stepped the creature and smashed the bottle on its back.

The underlord went up in flames.

Burning, it spun about and tried to seize her in its arms and metal jaws. But Baba Yaga knew a trick worth two of that. She reached into the flames and, grabbing the man-wolf by its ankles, flipped it over.

The underlord would have fallen on its back had the fight not occurred at the very lip of the rampart. Instead, it fell with a long electronic wail down the side of the Kremlin, burning all the way to the ground. When it hit the stones of Red Square, its screech stopped abruptly. Though it continued to burn, it did not move.

Baba Yaga turned to the man in black. “You are a strannik,” she said. “There were three of you.”

“There still are.”

“You think so?” From one pocket, Baba Yaga drew a gobbet of flesh. She threw it at Koschei’s feet. “I tore that from the one called Chernobog.” She dipped her hand into another pocket. “Him I ran into by chance and oh but he was hard to kill! So hard that I simply had to have more. Before he died, he told me where I could find Svarozic.” A second hunk of meat joined the first with a wet thud. “He also was great fun. And he, in turn, told me where I could find you.”

“Lying bitch!” Koschei said. “Svarozic cut into his own brain to ensure that he would never break his vow of silence.”

Baba Yaga laughed and laughed. “You’d be surprised how much information can be conveyed by gestures, given the proper motivation.”

Koschei got off one shot before Baba Yaga tore the klashny from his hands and threw it over the side, after the underlord. He tried to punch her in the stomach, but she ducked his blow and yanked his feet out from under him. He fell flat upon his back.

“Show some spunk, pilgrim! Get up and fight.” BabaYaga stamped down three times, hard, where Koschei’s face had been, while he threw himself from side to side to avoid her heavy shoes. Then he was on his feet again, hunched like a wild animal and breathing heavily. His eyes were two hot coals framed by raven-black hair.

“The patriarch Jacob wrestled with an angel,” Koschei said. “Clearly it is my destiny to contend with you-and defeat you as well.”

“Count your fingers, strannik.” Baba Yaga opened one hand to reveal a fresh-severed pinkie.

Koschei looked down in astonishment at his bleeding hand. Then, with a roar, he charged.

But Baba Yaga deftly feinted to one side and then side-stepped him on the other. “You’re down to eight!” she crowed.

Head down, Koschei waded into Baba Yaga, showering her with blows. Several landed solidly before, somehow, she dove between his feet and then slammed both her elbows into his back.

He fell forward on his face.

“Six!”

More slowly this time, Koschei stood. With a stunned expression, he held up his three-fingered hands before his face. Blood fountained from four finger-stumps.

“First your fingers, then each ear,” Baba Yaga said in a singsong voice, almost as if it were an incantation. “Your nose, your toes, your what-you-fear.”

Something inside Koschei broke.

He fled.

Baba Yaga chased the strannik down from the wall and between the churches and palaces and across the plazas and open spaces of the Kremlin, regularly issuing little shrieks and screams so that he would know she was mere steps behind him. They ran all the way to the south wall. Koschei was in a blind panic, and so had as good as trapped himself. She drove him down the wooded slopes of the Secret Garden until he came up against the wall and there was nowhere to go but forward, into the Secret Tower.

Koschei did not notice the faint tendrils of smoke oozing out from under the door.

Seizing the knob in his mutilated hand, Koschei threw open the door and plunged within.

But opening the door provided fresh oxygen for the fire smoldering deep below, and a path upward for its flames. They rose up with a mighty roar, engulfing the strannik and all in an instant turning the tower’s roof to smoke and gases.

Baba Yaga did not stay to admire her work. Moving like a swirl of darkness, she disappeared into the night.

All of which was a fine piece of theater. Indeed, it was almost operatic.

But there was a coda:

Down in the city, coming around a corner, Baba Yaga collided with somebody directly under a street lantern. Who of course shrieked in fear at the sight of her. But then, strangely enough, the woman seized Baba Yaga’s arms and stared hard into her face. She began to shake her head apologetically, but then stopped and studied her features even more minutely. Finally, she said, “Anya? Is that you? Everyone at the university thought you were dead.”