Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

“Oh! We forgot to introduce ourselves!” Yaroslav blurted out. “I’m Prince Yaroslav, and this is Prince Artem, my younger brother. We are running… that is, we are riding to rescue Princess Maria from Kashchey the Immortal.”

“Strange folks you are, princes,” Alena noted. “How are you riding without horses?”

“We *are* riding!” Yaroslav protested. “The horses just… fell behind.”

“Wait… Kashchey has kidnapped the princess?” Alena was horrified.

“Not just that,” Artem said. “He chased away the guards, put a lot of people to sleep, scared away the future kings, and knocked out all the windows in the palace. And he didn’t give my brother a chance to ask for Princess Maria’s hand in marriage!”

“You didn’t have to say that!” Yaroslav pushed Artem with his elbow.

“You should definitely meet Babak!” Alena exclaimed.

“Who?” the princes looked at each other incredulously. “Isn’t he a character from a fairy tale?”

“Kashchey is also from a fairy tale but that doesn’t stop him from hurting people,” Alena noted reasonably.

“Why should we see him?”

“He knows a lot about these places, and he’ll be happy to tell you how to quickly get to Kashchey’s castle. Come, I’ll show you the way!”

“Is it far?” Artem asked, feeling that his legs didn’t want to obey him.

“No, it’s just behind the hill!” Alena waved her hand.

“Great!” Artem was delighted. ‘ If I end up having no strength to move forward, I’ll just roll down,’ he decided. “We gladly accept your invitation, dear stranger!”

“Oh!” Alena was startled. “I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Alena, and this small goat is Ivan. He’s my younger brother. He’s been enchanted.”

“How is that?” the princes were surprised.

“He drank some water from a puddle,” Alena explained. “So he became a goat.” The brothers looked at each other.

“Right!” Yaroslav cried out. “So that’s where the goats came from! They drank water from the puddles as well.”

“Stupid goats! To drink from the puddle…”

“This is exactly what I meant.”

“Who are you talking about?” Alena asked.

“Our horses, who else?” the princes sighed.

“Princes, I adore you! You came here just at the right moment!” Yaga was excited, watching them from behind the bushes. She was the one who had stolen Alena’s basket. Someone else’s food is always tastier than your own, especially when you yourself have none. “The farmers will all gather together to check the news and I’ll have a chance to steal Ivan.”

Kashchey was standing in the middle of the dusty hall, shouting, urging the princess to return to the habitable part of the castle. As he feared, wandering around the abandoned site turned out to be deathly boring. Kashchey tried to understand how the princess had passed through thousand-year layers of dust without disturbing them and without sneezing to the point of exhaustion while he himself failed. After sneezing for half an hour, Kashchey decided that enough was enough. This torture was one of the most brutal ones, so he decided he would use it when necessary. But now he dreamed of one thing — for the dust to remain on the floor. Otherwise, the next death of his would be the most agonizing and savage one in all his miserable life.

The princess turned out to be a particularly tricky person since the tracks led into the hall from all three doors. It was as if she had entered through all the entrances at the same time, walked to the center of the hall, and disappeared there. Kashchey spread his hands in turmoil. The princess proved that smart people could be encountered even among the royals.

“Very clever!” he grumbled. At this point, it was a challenge. The game he had started was accepted and played much better than he had ever expected. A smart opponent meant a long game. He had to be careful, or he’d get lose himself!

“Princess! Consider the following. The king won’t have any money left in the treasury for your salvation! He will have to fight with the neighbors to collect the full amount! Do you really want to start a world war? Hey!”

No results.

“Oh, that damned royal arrogance and self-confidence!” Kashchey raised his fingers to his mouth and whistled briefly. A ghostly horse rose from under the ground without raising any dust. “Find the princess and bring her to me!” Kashchey ordered, and the horse flew into the hallway, not worrying about not raising the dust at all. Kashchey coughed. “Waa…wait! Stop!!!”

The horse came back.

“I’d better do that myself,” Kashchey said hoarsely, covering his mouth with a sleeve. “Or you will find the princess and smother her with dust! Go get some rest. You’re free! But walk slowly!!!” And gently…”

The princess opened her eyes and tried to understand where she was. She failed. How weird.

Maria sat up and stared at the floor. It was smooth, not wooden. And a bed with an unusual design. Maria got angry then. The ball was about to happen, and someone decided to pull these stupid jokes. And then she went cold. The ball had already happened! Had she been wearing her ball gown for nothing?

Wait… If the ball had already happened…

And then she remembered everything.

“Kashchey!” she screamed desperately. “What have you done?!”

No one answered. Mister Good Sinister was resting on the first floor, away from the bedroom of the princess.

“I have to get out!” she decided and walked to the exit. The door was locked tightly. And there was a keyhole there. It was flat, not like the usual ones. But it was worth trying it. No harm in trying. The faithful lockpick that Maria had been carrying with her since she became interested in locked rooms in the palace and the secrets they stored didn’t disappoint. It’d been given to her by a thief she caught secretly. He owed her a favor because she persuaded the king to send him away rather than execute him.

Five minutes of agony, and the door surrendered.

Maria quickly rushed to the exit of the castle but the sight of Kashchey sitting with his back to her made her stop on time. Tiptoeing out of the dangerous place, she decided to find another way out. As far as she knew, every castle had a back-up or a secret exit in case of unforeseen disasters like siege, earthquake, or big cleaning. She felt that the castle had managed to avoid the last trouble, and the last time it was cleaned happened before its construction. And Kashchey alone failed to cope with keeping it clean since the thickness of the dust was startling. To live normally in such a castle, a crew with about two or three hundred cleaners had to be present. The magi were right: the castle was deserted and abandoned since its creation. According to their stories, it appeared that it was erected by six gods in ten days, and before flying to heaven, they warned everyone against approaching it, animals and people both. No one knew when Kashchey appeared, but everyone knew that he held a special place even among the evil.

People said someone had visited him once and told him about the gods’ ban. But whether that someone was a weak speaker or whether Kashchey was more stubborn, the plan ended with nothing. The brave man remained alive and even received a coin for his efforts — after a good kick under a place known to many, of course. No one managed to achieve any other result. And maybe it was for the better.

On her way, she constantly came across the doors with readable but completely incomprehensible inscriptions. It seemed that the letters were written in a random order and stuck to the door as they wished, not caring about the meaning they created. Whenever she tried to enter, the words appeared on the transparent stone with the first clear meaning, “Opens with the help of the Central console!” Maria tried to recall all the ways of legal and illegal opening of the doors, from rough blows with a club to the application of lockpicks, but there was nothing similar to the inscription in her memory. So she decided to do the break-in later, if the main quest failed.