Orson Card - Enchantment

"Who is it!" she howled. "Whose power are you drawing on! Answer me! How are you so strong!"

But Katerina did not see why Baba Yaga deserved to have an answer of any kind. All that mattered now was to get out of Baba Yaga's house before the timbers gave way and the whole thing collapsed on top of her.

If there were other captives in the building, Katerina could only assume that they had been set free when the airplane passengers were loosed, and had made their own way out of the house. There was no time to search for them. Katerina cast only a couple of spells, to hold some roofs in place until she had had time to leave the room. Behind her, the building tore itself apart.

She came outside just as Ivan ran up to the gate. They saw each other, ran to each other and clung, laughing and crying, as Baba Yaga's house collapsed upon itself, burying the witch beneath it.

"We did it," said Katerina. "But how did you break her power over Bear?"

"I gave the message to him," Ivan said. "He ate it."

"And that was it?" She laughed. "That note was it? We accidentally left it on the plane, so it was there for you to find?"

"Accidentally," said Ivan wryly.

She understood, and asked the question that was also on his mind. "Who sent it?"

"I don't know," said Ivan. "But Sergei was injured badly, saving your father's life. Have you strength enough to come to him? Do you know how to heal him?"

"I know some healing arts," said Katerina. "Tetka Retiva and Tetka Moika taught me a little, before they stopped visiting. Whether it's enough, with all the power of Taina inside me, with the power of our child as well..."

"Let's go find out," said Ivan. And they set off at a weary run along the road.

Healing

Sergei was in bad shape when Katerina got to him, and some around him were already whispering, "He's dead." But King Matfei greeted his daughter with a fierce hug, then pointed to Sergei and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I thought you could talk again," said Katerina.

"I forgot," said King Matfei. "He's still alive. Can you help him?"

She knelt beside him, put one hand on his forehead, the other on his chest. "The wounds are many, but none of them are grave. It's the shock of it that's killing him." She began to call for herbs, and some of the men, who had gathered herbs of healing for their wives, went in search of them. Not all were found, but she had enough, along with the great power that surged through her now, to stop the bleeding and to still the panic that was making his body withdraw into itself.

He slept.

"Take him back home," she said. "But the rest of us must go and burn down the ruins of her house."

"Where is the Pretender?" asked her father.

"At the bottom of the ruin. But perhaps not dead. And she'll make her escape if we don't destroy her now."

Only Ivan and Katerina and a handful of others remained with Sergei, making a sledge to carry him home. Before they were half-done with it, Ivan said, "Never mind, there's no need for this. I'll carry him."

"In your arms? You'd never make it all the way—a day's march!"

"You have the power to make him lighter, don't you? And he won't be in my arms, he'll be on my back."

"You can't do that unless he's awake to help hold on."

"He is awake," said Ivan.

"I feel like my arse is on fire," said Sergei.

"That's where the bits of bronze from the grenades hit you, as you were falling on the king."

"Is the king all right?" asked Sergei.

"He watched over you like his own son until Katerina came to heal you."

Sergei looked at Katerina, then at Ivan again, and smiled. "You're both here. That means you won."

"Bear is free, so her power is broken," said Ivan.

"All that she did with his power is undone," said Katerina. "Father can speak again."

Sergei suddenly sat up, then put his hand to his head. But still he persisted—he had to look at his deformed leg. "Well, Mother was wrong," he said. "She always claimed that it was a curse of the Widow's that crippled me."

"Not all the ills of the world began with her," said Katerina. "I'm sorry."

"With all the magic in the world, you'd think there'd be some power to make me whole."

"The spells I cast on you just now," said Katerina. "I've never had more strength in me, with the love and hope of all the people inside me, and it worked to start the healing of your injuries of today. But if I had the power to heal your leg, it would be healed right now."

"I know," said Sergei. "Father Lukas always said that I was crippled to show forth the greatness of the works of God. I never understood how a crippled leg did that." Then, suddenly, a sob burst from him. "I hated him, but he died so bravely."

He started to get up. Ivan helped him, and he and Katerina supported Sergei between them, bearing him to the body of Father Lukas. "We can't leave him for the vultures," he said.

"We won't," said Katerina. "When the Widow's house is a beacon light, then the king will return, and rewards will be given, and bodies buried, and punishments meted out."

At the word punishment, Sergei began looking for Dimitri's body. The whole lower part of it was shredded by the bomb. From the rictus of his face, it seemed that he remained conscious long enough to feel the pain as his lifeblood slipped away. "After all his mockery of me, all his life," said Sergei, "it was the crippled boy who finished him."

"Don't gloat," whispered Katerina. "I did it too, but it's wrong. He's to be pitied, not triumphed over."

"He never had pity for me, or anyone," said Sergei. "It took longer for the king to know it, but I knew what he was from childhood on."

"He was the twisted one, Sergei," said Katerina. "Compared to him, you have always been whole."

In his weakened state, in his grief for Father Lukas, the kind words were more than Sergei could withstand. He burst into tears. Katerina held him, and Ivan's arms encompassed both of them.

The search for survivors or for wreckage of the plane ended when the crew and passengers of the missing 747 wandered out of the woods in western Ukraine. The airplane was found soon after—in the midst of dense forest, where it could not possibly have landed. It was as if some giant hand had gently set it down amid the trees. Closer examination revealed that trees that had once stood where the plane now was were sheared off to fit the exact contours of the plane's body and wings.

The passengers were debriefed for two days while frustrated relatives clamored to see them. When the families were finally reunited, the passengers were reluctant to speak about their ordeal, and government spokesmen in Ukraine endlessly repeated the mantra "We are taking all appropriate measures" as if it meant something.

Rumors flew. Every group of terrorists was suspected, as was every government with a conceivable interest and many without. The tabloids were full of stories of alien abductions (how else could the airplane have appeared where it did?) and speculations about whether a new Bermuda Triangle was forming farther north, or whether the old one was merely beginning to give up its captives.

Every comedian got three days' worth of jokes out of it, including Sam Kinison, who, after reciting all the theories, burst into his trademark scream. "It was the Wicked Witch of the West! They got back because there's no ------- place like home!" He got a pretty good laugh.

Baba Yaga

The house collapsed, but none of the beams could fall on her. The worst that happened to her was a mouthful of dust. Then she began to climb through the wreckage. No doubt they'd burn the place, and she'd rather not remain inside.

Everything lost. Everything broken. And that princess—who could have guessed the power that she'd have? No more head-to-head competitions for Baba Yaga. She had met her match, more than her match. In a way, the falling of the house had saved her life. It was only a matter of time before that little bitch would have destroyed her.