Orson Card - Enchantment

But he did nothing, for his body did not respond to his will.

"Close the door!" she commanded him.

Now he could move, but only to comply. He tried to resist, but his efforts didn't even slow him down. He had seen the flight attendants as they tried to close the door with him inside; he had little trouble doing what they had done, and closed the door.

Maybe there was someone outside who could figure out a way to break into the airplane. But he doubted it. He was alone here with Baba Yaga, unable to raise a hand or speak a word to defend himself. Whatever Mother's spells were supposed to do, they were useless against this spell of binding she had cast upon him.

"Face me," she said.

He turned and looked at her. She was hideous—not just old, but her face deformed by the malice that had driven her for years. And now her face burned with hatred for the defeat he had just inflicted on her.

"You think you beat me?" she said. "This army is nothing. I'll have Taina tied in knots, husband slaying wife, mother killing babies, till no one is left alive, except the ones who wish that they were dead. All because of you and what you did today, with your vile magic from your terrible, mechanical land."

Of course he could not answer.

"Ah, he wants to speak, he longs to speak. But I don't want to hear your voice just yet." She walked around him in a slow circle, looking him up and down. "You're not much. What does she want with you?" Then she laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, that's right, she didn't choose you. Who did? That's the question, isn't it? Who chose you?"

Ivan wanted to answer defiantly, to utter some witticism that would prove his courage and give her something to remember and resent after he was dead. But then again, if he could speak, chances were his voice would tremble and betray his fear, giving her something else to mock.

"Don't be frightened," she whispered. He could feel her breath as she pulled herself up to get her mouth closer to his ear. "Don't be so afraid that you piss on yourself like a baby."

At her command, he felt his bladder release his pent-up urine down his leg.

Do you think this bothers me, Baba Yaga? It's no worse than what happened to poor Sergei. Besides, it isn't me doing it, it's you.

"Whoever chose you knew how to send you to where the little bitch was napping. I couldn't go there, not even with all the power of Bear. Was it that walking windstorm, that fart in a bottle, Mikola? I don't think so. He knew, he sensed, he stayed near the place, but no, he didn't find you, did he. Someone else. Someone who could look past the frailty of your body and see something useful. Something that could un-... do... my... army." Her fingers clenched tightly on his arm.

"There is muscle there, after all. Not a swordsman's muscles. Not even a peasant's. But lithe. You throw things. Like those boys. You throw things."

She was in front of him now. She slapped his face. Again. Again. Each blow staggered him, but he suddenly had enough volition, enough reflexive control, to regain his erect posture before losing control to her again. His face stung from the blows, and under the stinging on his skin, he felt a throbbing ache in his nose, around his eye. Thus it begins.

And thus it ended. She leaned back against the flight attendants' station and contemplated him. "Finally rutted with her, did you? I heard you. I was listening, just across the street, in the house of the woman whose beloved puppy died. You were humping like bunnies. If there's a baby inside her, I'll show it to her before she dies." She leaned closer, a little more alert. "That bothered you, didn't it. You see, there's pain... and there's pain. But your pain is nothing to me. You were a tool all along. But not my tool. And whatever it was that whoever-it-was saw in you, I don't see it, and I don't have a use for you. So I don't care what happens to you."

He felt a relaxing in his throat. He could speak. But the words she just said gave him hope that she might let him go. And if she let him go, he might find some way to help Katerina. With that hope came silence—he didn't want to say anything that would damage whatever chances he might have.

Of course she knew that, counted on it. She was just toying with him, of course she was. But maybe there was a chance.

She laughed. "You can speak, and yet you say nothing."

All at once he felt the need to speak well up in him; he was going to say something. Anything. So to keep from saying what was in his heart, he said the first thing that came to mind. "You'll never get this thing to fly again."

She was interested in that. "What do you mean?"

"It needs fuel to fly. It hasn't got much left."

"The man who thought he was in charge said that before I let Bear eat him. Keep talking."

"The meadow isn't long enough. It will crash into the trees before it gets into the sky."

"What makes you think my powers won't be enough to make it fly? I can send it straight up in the air if I want."

"If you could," said Ivan, "you already would have."

"Shut up!" she shouted. "I'm not accountable to you. I can make this house do anything I want. Do you doubt me?"

Suddenly the plane moved under him. Unable to control his body, he lurched to the floor, swiping his head against the metal face of the attendants' station as he fell.

"Careful," said Baba Yaga. "It's dangerous to be standing up when this thing moves."

The plane turned, moving this way and that, yawing left and right like a ship with a madman at the tiller. Which was more or less the way things were.

"Into the air!" she cried.

The plane sped up, but the wheels were still bouncing along the ground.

She waved her arms, again, again, each time making the movements more flamboyant.

"Careful you don't bump into the trees," he said.

She brought the plane to a sudden halt. "I have all the time in the world to work on this. There's always a way to do anything I think of. Bear just isn't strong enough. I'll have to find somebody else to bind to me. Maybe I'll use your princess for a while. No, someone much stronger. What about Mikola? Bind him along with Bear, and maybe then I'll make it fly. Or... here's a thought... I'll go back to your country and take your mother. She's a clever one. She'll help me. Or I'll pluck off pieces of your father and feed them to her. Of course, I'll do that anyway. She caused me enough trouble to deserve much worse than that. You think I'd ever let you go? The only thing I regret is, I won't be able to kill you myself. I promised that privilege to another. He's waited such a long while for me to let him have you. Killing you won't get him his eye back—but maybe he'll feel better about having only half his vision after he's persuaded you to pry your own eyeballs out of your head and offer them to him in your open hands."

She waved her hands over her head, uttered a couple of incomprehensible words, and disappeared.

I wonder what language that was, he thought. And then wondered why he would think of such a useless question at a time like this.

Unbinding

Katerina did not like to fly. She had already discovered this on the airplane flight from Kiev. She liked it little better on her other commercial flights. But she did not discover the depth of her distaste for it until she inserted herself into the hang glider and soared out over open air. It filled her with bottomless fear; she clung to the handgrips, her body more rigid than the frame. And then, in each trial flight, forced herself to remember what Ivan had said, what he had shown her, what she had seen. She leaned, she pulled, and soon she learned to find the air currents, to stay level. Nothing fancy—no swoops, no sudden curves. Steady. So she wouldn't die. So the terror would end.