Orson Card - Enchantment

Toward Katerina. The hairs tied around his wrist. She was calling him. He should have known that she'd anticipate his lack of skill in the woods.

It wasn't long after that before he followed his "intuition" into a wide, moon-washed clearing, perfectly round, with a pit in the middle of it, and a pedestal rising in the middle of the pit. Katerina was waiting for him in the moonlight.

Ivan looked around to see if anyone else was there.

"No one," she said. "The place is hidden from anyone but us, because the bridges are ours. Even the Widow can't see, though she put me here, and her bear to guard me. If she couldn't see here, who else would ever find me?"

Ivan hardly listened. He was trying not to be shy of his nakedness. Then he laughed at the impulse. He had nothing to hide from her now. Not only had she seen him before, she was now his wife.

He had almost reached her when he saw movement behind her, at the edge of the woods. "If this place is hidden," he said, "who's that?"

She turned, startled, afraid. "Come out!" she said. "Show yourself!"

A shadow emerged from the wood, moving with a strange, rolling gait. When it reached the moonlight, it turned into Sergei.

Ivan called out in greeting, but Katerina was annoyed. "How did you find this place?"

"I followed you," he said.

Ivan laughed. "So much for this place being hidden."

"It is. Sergei must have a right to be here."

Ivan shrugged. "I don't know how these things work."

"I'll be gone soon enough," said Sergei. "I only brought these for Ivan." He held out the wool robe and linen tunic Ivan had been wearing.

"But that's your robe," Ivan said.

"I'm not naked."

"Trade me, at least," said Ivan. "Your own proper robe for you, and I'll wear the one that Father Lukas burned holes in today." He pulled the tunic on over his head. The cloth snagged on the rough and broken skin of his chest and thighs, and his wounds stung as the linen brushed them. But it was good to be dressed again. "Thank you, Sergei," he said.

In the meantime, Sergei had doffed Father Lukas's castoff clothing, and Ivan pulled it on. It smelled of smoke. Burnt wool—a nasty odor. Wool and fire and something else, too. Horsehair. Was there horsehair woven into the robe?

No, of course not. Father Lukas wears a hair shirt. The private penance of those who feared they were not humble enough. Ivan rather liked the fact that at least Father Lukas knew his own primary sin and was trying to deal with it.

Sergei wriggled inside his own clothes, clearly pleased to have them back.

The comedy was over. Everybody was going to be back where they belonged. Ivan had no idea what he would tell people back in America about this. Or even what he'd tell Cousin Marek. I went for a run in the woods, and I got lost for a few weeks, and here I am...

A few weeks? Eleven hundred years had passed while Katerina lay on that pedestal, and yet it had taken only a few months in Taina. If that proportion held true, even the weeks he had spent here could be a century or more. His family might be gone, the world might be so changed that he'd be unable to function in it...

Get a grip. Don't borrow trouble. The pedestal is one thing, a magic place. The rules of time might be identical, or time might flow in unpredictable ways. There was nothing he could do about it.

Katerina took him by the hand. At once he could see the bridge to the pedestal—her bridge. She led him across. Sergei stood, watching them, mesmerized.

"How do you do it?" he said. "Walking through the air?"

"There's a bridge," said Ivan. "But only Katerina can see it. Katerina and whomever she holds by the hand."

"Where will you go?" asked Sergei.

"Home," said Ivan. "I'll go home, and Katerina will return to you, and—"

"I'll do no such thing," she said.

They reached the pedestal. She did not let go of his hand.

"What do you mean?" asked Ivan.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

"You can't do that."

"Why can't I? Hold my hand and lead me across your bridge."

"But your people need you."

"If I stay, then I'm a bride abandoned by her husband with the marriage unconsummated. The Pretender will be down our throats in a few days. But if I go with you, then I'm a bride off on a journey with her new husband. Let the old hag wonder whether or when the marriage becomes complete."

"I can't hear you!" Sergei called. "Are you talking about leaving us, princess?"

"I'm traveling with my husband, to visit his parents," said Katerina.

"What will I tell the others?"

"Tell them that. It's no secret. Tell everyone."

"What about this place? Can I show them this place?"

"No," said Katerina. "Tell them it's enchanted and you can't find it again without me to guide you."

"But I could find it quite easily," he said.

"I have no doubt you could," said Katerina. "But if you tell them it's enchanted, they'll believe you and won't press you to say more."

"You mean... lie?"

Katerina burst out laughing. So did Ivan. Sergei smiled shyly. They had liked his joke.

"You've been a good friend to me," said Ivan.

"And you to me," said Sergei. "But what will happen to the parchments? Where did you hide them, princess?"

"In my room. In the rag chest, where no man would touch it."

Sergei didn't like thinking about what women used those rags for.

"But as soon as you can," Katerina said, "you must get them and bring them here. To this enchanted place."

Sergei winced at the thought of actually rummaging through her intimate things. But there was a hopeful meaning to the assignment as well.

"So you will come back. Won't you?" Sergei asked.

"Yes," said Katerina. "If I can."

"And you, Ivan?"

"What for?" asked Ivan. "I'm no good at living here."

Sergei couldn't argue with him. Neither could Katerina.

"All the same," said Sergei. "I hope you do come back."

"Maybe," said Ivan. "Maybe long enough to find out where those manuscripts will be hidden. So I can discover them in my own land."

It still made no sense to Sergei. He shook his head and watched as Ivan walked to the edge of the pedestal and seemed to step off into nothing.

Ivan disappeared. All at once, the moment he set foot on the invisible bridge, he was gone. And a moment later, as the princess followed him, she was gone, too.

Sergei stood there for a few moments, gazing at the place where they had been. This was serious magic here. Not like the spells and curses that were commonplace in the village, and which didn't work half the time anyway. To make two people disappear in the moonlight—it made Sergei wonder. If I had magic power like this, it wouldn't matter that I have a crippled foot. And for a moment he imagined himself standing before Baba Yaga, the two of them on a great stone between two mighty armies, facing each other, five feet apart. She would raise her hand and cast a spell at him, chanting unspeakable words, and he would laugh, wave off her pathetic powers, and utter a single word of power. No, not a word, even. He would trace the shape of a rune in the air, and she would turn into a goose and rise honking into the air, terrified, confused, filled with a sudden inexplicable longing to fly south forever...

Just a dream, and a foolish one at that. Sergei was God's servant now, with no powers of his own, only the power to obey. But for a few moments he had been part of great events. Grand adventures. None of the boys who had grown up with him, with their two equal feet, their smooth walk, their level stance, none of them had been trusted to stand here with the princess and her husband. None of them had been given the task of writing down all the old stories, so they could live on in another time and place.