Catherynne Valente - Deathless

“If we shoot in the city, we may hit someone who is not playing our game,” said Marya sleepily. The small of her back still burned pleasantly from Koschei’s nails.

The vintovnik struck the pillow with her walnut fist. “That’s the fun of it! Ah, well, if you want to be a baby about it, we can go out into the wood. Probably won’t get anything but squirrels, and none of them ever turn into girls.”

“All right, Nasha. And if I get a frog, she’s all yours.”

The imp snuggled closer. “Do you still love me, then, Mashenka?”

“Of course, Nashenka. Punishment doesn’t mean you aren’t loved. On the contrary. You can really only punish someone you love.”

Naganya clicked her ironworks happily.

Marya opened her eyes in the dark, staring up at the carved ceiling, which showed a scene of a great fringed wyrm beset by boyars. “Have I ever told you about the first time Koschei punished me?”

“Koschei punished you ?”

“Oh yes, many times. But the first time was because he asked me not to speak, and I spoke anyway. I didn’t say anything much; I just told him I was feeling better. But it wasn’t what I said, it was that I’d broken my word. Even if you think it was cruel of him to tell me not to speak, I had promised.”

Naganya wriggled, fretting. Even though the punishment was long done, she could not help worrying for her friend.

“And so when I first came to Buyan, he did not let me come into the Chernosvyat with him, or have supper, or meet any lovely rifle imps with names like mine. He left me at the stables to look after his horse because I had broken my promise.”

“Well. You could still breathe, I’m sure.” Naganya could not help needling—it was her nature.

“Some things are worse than not breathing,” Marya said softly. “When you are so far from home, and frightened, and have been sick a long time, and no one knows you at all, and you miss your mother and your old house, and you don’t know if you are to be married or killed, to be left in a stable alone without a word is very bad. But I got out the shovel all the same, even though the blade was half as tall as me. I mucked out the horse’s stall—and that beast makes a mess, I can tell you, all manure and exhaust and broken mufflers! After a while I was hardly crying at all, but my arms ached like death. I brushed his coat and rubbed him down with oil, with him snorting and his eyes glowing all the while. He was still white and cream-colored, as he was while I was sick.

“‘Why do you change colors like that?’ I said, not expecting an answer. ‘It makes it hard to choose the right oil!’

“And he rumbled at me, ‘I’m not the horse who fetched you in Petrograd. That is my sister, the Midnight Nag. Then you rode my brother, the Noontide Horse, who is red as sunrise. You and I have only just met. I am the Dawn Gelding, and you must ride all of us to get here. My name is Volchya-Yagoda.’

“‘He named you wolf-food ?’ I asked, since I didn’t know Koschei’s humor then.

“Volchya snorted again, and sparks flew out of his nose. ‘Aren’t we all?’ he said.

“I began to brush his horribly tangled mane. Every time I pulled his scalp he nipped me, and Volchya’s nips are like the bites of a sword. I wept a great deal, I recall. And in the cold, even weeping hurts. It comes in jerks and hitches, and your tears half freeze to your face. I didn’t know how to keep from crying then. When I finished, his hair shone red with my blood, and he looked like his brother. Night had gotten fat and black outside, and the city frightened me. Where did Koschei live? Where could I get food? Where could I drink or sleep? So I reshod Volchya, to put off having to decide those things. I pulled off his old tire-tread horseshoes and hammered on fresh iron ones. I knew how to do this, for when I was young and I wore a red scarf, we all had to learn to maintain the policeman’s horses after school. In case of another war, you understand. So I ran my hand along his fetlock—so soft and hot!—and he put his leg right into my hand. When I had finished, Volchya-Yagoda looked at me with those huge, fiery eyes and lay down right there in his clean stall.

“‘Come,’ he said. ‘Sleep by me, and he will fetch you in the morning. Share my water trough and my oat bag.’

“Well, Nasha, I drank and I ate, even though the oats were dry and tasteless. I found a sugar lump in the bag, and Volchya let me have it. I lay down next to his big white belly and shut my eyes. It was like sleeping next to the stove in my old house. Because, Nasha, even when you have been wicked, sometimes there is a warm bed and a warm friend somewhere, if only you know where to look. I learned that from Volchya, though I don’t think it’s precisely what I was meant to learn. And just as I was drifting off to sleep, broken and exhausted and still bleeding a little from a nip or two, Volchya-Yagoda said softly in my ear, ‘Sleep well, Marya Morevna. I think I like you best. None of the other girls gave me new shoes.’”

“And did he come for you in the morning?”

“Oh yes, and all was forgiven. You cannot punish someone unless you wish to forgive them, after all. What would be the point? And I told him what Volchya said.”

“And? What did Papa say?”

“He said, ‘You must have been mistaken. There have never been any other girls.’”

In the dark, Naganya the vintovnik frowned and clicked her tongue against her teeth.

Marya Morevna slept with her fists curled tight, held at the ready, next to her chin.

Madame Lebedeva exhaled a thin, fine curl of smoke from her cigarette, nestled in its ivory holster. She reclined in a plush blue chair, her angular body sheathed in a sleeveless gown of swan feathers, speckled with tiny glass beads. Madame busied herself with flamboyantly not eating her cucumber soup. Bits of chervil and tarragon floated in the green broth, lonely and unattended. Lebedeva leaned in confidentially, but she needn’t have—the crowded cafe produced enough din to hide any secret she cared to share.

“I’m thrilled to my bones to be able to bring you here, Masha, dear.”

Marya thanked her again. Madame Lebedeva had made up her eyes specially for their luncheon, or more precisely, for the komityet that controlled entry to the exclusive magicians’ restaurant. Her lids glittered, frosted with the lightest onion-green powder. She had chosen it to match the soup, which she had decided to order weeks ago. Marya could have eaten in the little chalet whenever she liked, of course, being forbidden nowhere in Buyan. But Lebedeva had earned her privilege, and hand in hand, the pleasure of lording her privilege over her friend. “I’m insensate with rapture, I tell you. It’s all on account of my having produced a cikavac, of course. A trifle, really. For one possessed of such grace as I, to conceal an egg under the arm for forty days and shun the confessional is barely worth mentioning! Such a dear little creature, too. But the reviews! Oh, they have savaged me, Masha!”

“Savaged?”

Lebedeva tapped her cigarette; ash drifted. “ Savaged . They said it should have looked like a parakeet, not a ‘ridiculous miniature pelican.’ Apparently, I shouldn’t have cut my nails during the forty days, which is why it understands animal tongues but doesn’t grant wishes. And my selling it to that vodyanoy was an act of blatant mercantilism and I ought to be questioned. Critics, my darling, are never happy unless they are crushing something underfoot. A pelican! I ought to eat his eyes.”

A waiter in a crisp white shirt appeared noiselessly at their side. He bowed with genteel solicitude. “More soup, Madame?” His bald head shone in the lamplight, save for the strip of wild white hair that flowed down the center of his skull like a horse’s mane. Lebedeva’s face blossomed.