Sacrifice and Power

  Dusk deepened. A mist rose up among the trees as Vasilisa rode on - she sensed the land was sinking, lowering with the flow of the gully whose winding path she followed west. All streams led into rivers, and all rivers led to the Cherech, the lord of all waters in Klyazma. And if she could follow the Cherech, she would follow the path home.

  All she had to do was ignore the dead man that walked by her side, keep riding, and she would be home.

  “Home, is it?” asked Chirlan, a smile evident in his tone. “You can never go home, you know this.”

  I have gone mad, she told herself. Mad with grief, or sorrow, perhaps. But mad all the same.

  The sorcerer walked in stride alongside her horse, and even mounted, he seemed to tower over her, his black cloak making him seem like a shadow cast by one of the trees. At first she tried to outride him, spurring her horse into a gallop for a mile, trampling through side trails and stubborn undergrowth that would confound any man.

  Yet no matter how fast she rode, no matter how many twists and turns she made, the sorcerer was always there, walking with unhurried grace. He would appear ahead of her, standing on the road, or at her side, walking as if the miles she put between them simply evaporated.

  When her horse could gallop no longer, Vasilisa abandoned speed for stubbornness. He was a figment of her own mind, and so he could be ignored as one ignored phantoms in the corner of the eye. Yet the sorcerer spoke, and his words were like knives as the cold seeped through her threadbare robes.

  “Home,” he repeated. “A keep on a hill? A room and a hearth? A throne and a crown? You know better, don’t you? Belnopyl is not your home anymore - because you are no longer the same.”

  The leather reins creaked as Vasilisa gripped them tightly. “And you’re no longer a man. Nothing but a ghost,” she muttered under her breath, turning away from his gaze as he looked down at her. “An echo. A trick of a grief-maddened mind.”

  “And yet you are speaking to me,” he replied, his voice a low whisper. “You can deny me if you like - like how you deny your gifts. But I am a part of you now, as much as those crystals in your heart. Neither of us can be set aside.”

  She yanked the reins, drawing to an abrupt halt. The woods were silent, save for the soft rustling of leaves in the wind and the murmur of the stream. She looked at Chirlan, meeting his golden gaze.

  “Why do you torment me so?” Vasilisa asked. “In dream and in waking. Why? You are dead - I saw your corpse.”

  Chirlan tilted his head, his expression unreadable. “Did you? Death is a peculiar thing. It’s not always the end. Sometimes, it’s a door. A beginning. You died once already - and yet you live, stronger than ever before.”

  “Why are you here?” she demanded again, her voice rising. “Why me?”

  “Because you are the one who matters,” Chirlan spoke softly. “The Dreamers are coming, Vasilisa. You have a role to play in their return - one that you cannot deny.”

  The sorcerer slowly raised a hand, and gestured about the forest. Then, she realized how the land about them had changed.

  The trees, so thick with summer’s green not long ago, were wan and sickly. The underbrush, once teeming with life, was withered and brittle, suffocated by the ash. Even the stream beside her horse seemed sluggish, its waters clouded with grime.

  “The world is dying,” spoke the sorcerer. “Not just this forest. Not just Klyazma. The whole of it. The masks of mens’ honor will slip away, and the ones to rule the earth will be sword, famine, plague, and the beasts of the earth who walk in the skins of men. This fate will not be denied.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” she said, her voice hard as iron. It was a certainty that belied the dread creeping up her spine.

  “And how will you stop it?” Chirlan asked, his smile sharp as a blade. “How can you even think to begin, if you deny your own self? How can you hope to save others, when you will not even save yourself?”

  To that, Vasilisa had no answer.

  She continued to ride, and soon the gully became shallower and the land began to flatten. In another hour she broke free of the forest, and found herself overlooking a vast floodplain. The full moon turned the myriad waterways into silver veins that ran across the land, all emptying into the Cherech. The great river twisted and turned into the horizon, then disappeared into the high reeds and bogs further north. Mists curled and smoked up from silver pools of stagnant water, and Vasilisa could just barely make out the half-rotted walkway that cut through the reek.

  “The Gravemarsh,” she whispered, more for Chirlan’s benefit than her own. “Treacherous in the best of times - and in times of war, it is said the land turns against invaders that menace Belnopyl. Stribor’s men will flounder trying to chase after me there.”

  “If you do not drown first.”

  “Then at least it will be an end to your damn quibbling,” she huffed. “I’ll drown, then come back as a ghost myself to shut you up.”

  In the windless and sullen night, the mists hanging over the Gravemarsh soon revealed their treachery. Beneath the silver wisps the ground quickly gave way to a thousand small mires and little waterways, and all were choked with mud. In some places, the land had already swallowed the causeway and the wooden boards altogether, leaving vast stretches of shallow water and suckholes. Vasilisa quickly dismounted from her horse and walked ahead of the beast, testing the path ahead one step at a time. Soon she was covered up to her knees in black slime and dirt, and her damp clothes clung tight to her exhausted body, weighing her down even more.

  Chirlan walked unburdened by the mud and damp, his feet hovering just above the surface of the still waters. The deep night obscured all but his glowing eyes, but even so Vasilisa sensed his amused grin at her struggle.

  “Help me, or begone,” she muttered as she struggled through the reek.

  “But I am helping,” Chirlan replied, his tone dripping with mockery. “I am here to guide you, and at every step of the way you turn me aside.”

  “All you’ve done is speak in riddles, and tried to turn me into a monster. If that is all your help amounts to, then I would rather drown.”

  “Fine, then let it not be said I have not done my part.” The sorcerer sighed as he strode over to her, offering a hand to help her out of a suckhole. The golden jewelry that bedecked his clawed fingers shone white beneath the moon. “Take it, and I’ll help see you through. My gentle hand, for my endless wisdom.”

  Those words sent a shiver up along her spine. Was it mockery? No, his words were too similar, too specific, and there was a knowing air in his tone. How had he known? She had spoken those same words long ago, to a snake at the bottom of the world. Your gentle hand for my endless wisdom.

  The mud clung stubbornly to her boots, sucking her further into the marsh with each step. Her arms ached from hauling herself forward, and the night was colder than it had any right to be. She glanced at his hand, then back to his glowing eyes. No, it was not a pact she intended to make a second time. I’ve only two hands, after all. How can I rule with both hands promised away?

  “On second thought, keep your hand - and your endless wisdom. I don’t need your help,” she said at length, pushing forward another step. Her foot snagged on a buried root, and she caught herself on a rotten road marker, her breath coming in sharp gasps.

  The sorcerer did not move, but his grin widened. "You don’t need my help? No, of course not. You’ve done so well on your own thus far." His voice turned sly, needling. "Dragging yourself through the muck like an animal, blindly staggering across a land that no longer answers to you. Crying for a home you will never have.”

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  She bit back a retort and kept moving, one hand gripping the reins of her horse while the other felt for stable ground. She had a home - Belnopyl, the city that men called the Jewel of the Cherech. And in that city, the Great Hall her ancestor Raegnald built, and which a hundred princes before her had called home. And in that Great Hall, a room with a green door where she could hear the birds singing in the morning. It was a lifetime ago now that she had heard such a song. She told herself it was all still there - the city, the Great Hall, the window and the birds - separated only by the miles. But the words of the old, dead boyar Vratislav haunted her. They say Belnopyl burns.

  And if his words were true - that her city lay in ruins, that her blustering father and sweet mother were dead…

  What lay there for her then?

  Everything. I will rebuild. We bury the dead, we heal our wounds into scars, and we will live on. She had cried enough tears for a lifetime - and tears would not save those who still lived. I am still Vasilisa, Princess of Belnopyl, of the blood of conquerors by steppe and sea.

  Chirlan followed, his steps silent and effortless.

  He gestured out to the Gravemarsh, the fetid pools and high reeds that ran endlessly from east to west. “I heard from the myths of your people that this marsh was once a forest, you know—proud and unyielding, until it drowned and rotted in its own stillness. This is the fate of anything that refuses to change. Your people will rot the same way unless you change them, and it begins with yourself. Princesses and royal houses come and go, but gods do not.

  “And yet you deny yourself this purpose,” Chirlan muttered, crouching down next to her. He is a figment of your own broken mind. Do not listen.

  The path grew more treacherous, the mud deeper, but she pressed on. In the distance, she could make out a high ridge that stood tall among the reeds - an Elder Oak stood in the centre of the hill. There, standing on firm, dry land, she could find rest and hope to dream away Chirlan.

  “What do I see? A god who was humiliated by a backwards parlor magician,” Chirlan sniffed, his tone hardening. “A god who allowed herself to be made a prisoner and plaything by savages and brigands.”

  The sorcerer leaned in closer, his lips nearly brushing her ear. “A god who abandoned the one she loves.”

  Guilt crashed through her stomach, weighing her down like a rock. Yesugei…She had saved him once before, given one of the crystals in her heart so that he might live. She had opened his mind, and let him peer into her soul - a closeness beyond anything else she could imagine. And yet, when they were on the precipice of freedom, she had left the nomad princeling out in the plains of the enemy, lying crushed beneath a stolen horse. Why did she listen to him, damn it all? Why did she turn away when she could have gone back? I was afraid, wasn’t it? I was weak.

  “Shut up,” she snarled. “Shut up, damn you.”

  “You love him, don’t you?” Chirlan smiled. “And yet you abandoned him.”

  “I had to run. If I went back, we both would have been caught.”

  “If you embraced your gift, you could have destroyed them all - Stribor’s men and the nomads.”

  “How?” She asked, her voice shaky. “Dammit, how? How can I use a gift I can hardly understand? How can I use a sword that has no grip?”

  “It begins with killing fear. Let me show you.”

  He extended his hand again, and this time Vasilisa took it, if only to avoid sinking further into the muck.

  His grip was cold, but firm, and he pulled her free with startling ease. For a moment, their eyes met, and Vasilisa saw something there—a flicker of something deeper than amusement, something almost mournful. He released her hand and stepped back, gesturing to the ridge in the distance.

  “Close your eyes. See the other world - the world the Dreamers walk.”

  She shut her eyes tight. At first she saw nothing but darkness, but at the sorcerer’s guidance she let her mind wander. She felt the soft ground beneath her feet, the stillness of the fetid air…and then against the darkness of her eyelids, she saw a splash of bright light. The world slowly came into being, but where the world of the living was shrouded in darkness, here she saw blinding against which she could not close her eyes.

  The Gravemarsh was alive - every reed flickered with white fire, and the boggy expanse was a sea of silver flame. The stagnant pools were brimming with the tiny lights of swimming fish and waterbugs, and in the distance the Elder Oak stood like a great tower of fire, lashing up at the cold, dead moon.

  There is strength everywhere you look. Take it, shift the earth - command it.

  She felt the ground beneath her feet, and poured her will into it. Darkness surged into the earth, burrowing deep through the mud until she grasped hold of the bedrock buried beneath the centuries of muck. With a titanic effort she shifted the stone and drove it up to the surface. Black stepstones erupted with a rumble from the bogs, forming a stone causeway to the Elder Oak. Hot blood gushed from her nose, and Vasilisa opened her eyes in surprise.

  All around her, in the world of the living, death reigned.

  The high reeds around her were rotted and limp, as if they’d aged by a thousand years. In the silver pools she saw the fish had risen to the surface, covered in foul slime.

  Horror rose up to her throat with the urge to gag. Chirlan’s smiling voice mocked at her back, “This is the price of the salvation you wish to bring.”

  Vasilisa turned to glare at him as she wiped the gushing blood from her face. Pain lanced through her skull, like water bursting from a dam. “You knew this would happen.”

  “Of course I did.” He stepped closer, his feet still hovering just above the blackened marsh. “And so did you, in your heart. Power demands a toll. The blood-sorcerers give flesh, the Ormanli give suffering and blood. You, my lady Vasilisa, must give the same.”

  She turned away, unwilling to meet his gaze, and set her sights on the causeway she forged from the earth. The stone path rose starkly from the bog, cutting a jagged line toward the ridge. In the shroud of death, the world had fallen silent - the marsh itself was holding its breath, mourning its sudden, unnatural death.

  “Is there no other way? Will it always be like this?”

  Chirlan lowered his head, his words heavy. “Yes. That is the nature of power, and that is the nature of your path, Vasilisa. They will call you savior, even as they curse your name.”

  She closed her eyes, forcing herself to steady her breath. There was no going back now. What was done was done. She tightened her grip on the reins of her horse and stepped onto the stone bridge.

  The causeway held firm beneath her boots, but each step felt heavier than the last. The silence pressed down on her, broken only by the soft clop of her horse’s hooves. By the time she reached the ridge, her exhaustion was like a weight dragging her down.

  The Elder Oak loomed above her - no longer a tower of flame, but a dark silhouette against the starry sky. Beneath its gnarled limbs, the ground was dry and firm, a rare sanctuary in the endless mire.

  Vasilisa led her horse to the base of the tree and tied the reins off to a knot. Leaning against the massive trunk, she closed her eyes, trying to block out the world and the lingering presence of the sorcerer who danced at the edge of her thoughts.

  She was nearly asleep when the sound of rustling reeds caught her attention.

  Her eyes snapped open, and she sat up shakily, her hand going instinctively to the hilt of the Apostle’s cleaver. The reeds several feet from the ridge bent unnaturally, followed by the squelch of mud and splash of water.

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she rose to her feet and planted the Shargaz into the ground before her. Its weight was reassuring, a solid anchor in the shifting shadows.

  “Who’s there?” she called, her voice cutting through the silence.

  For a moment, there was no reply. The reeds stilled, and all was quiet. Then, from the darkness, a timid voice answered.

  “Don’t hurt us!”

  The voice was familiar to her, as were the dirty faces that appeared from the reeds. Nesha, lady of Yerkh, appeared from reeds - followed closely by her subjects. Some Vasilisa recognized from the swirling smoke of Balai - fat Marmun, the newlyweds Vasilishin and Valka, Gastya, Doru, and Khavel. Others were unfamiliar, new faces, but just as terrified, just as hopeless. Lost souls, all.

  “Lady Vasilisa, is that you?” Nesha asked. “How did you escape? Did the gods themselves send you to us?”

  “They didn’t send me,” Vasilisa murmured. Not the ones you pray to, anyhow. She straightened her back and forced steel into her voice. “But you’ve made it this far, and you’ll go further still. I’ll see to that.”

  The relief in Nesha’s face was mirrored in the others, but Vasilisa couldn’t shake the gnawing unease in her gut. She cast her gaze about the ridge, but the sorcerer was gone. And yet, his words echoed in her mind: You will walk over the corpses of many more.

  She turned back toward the Elder Oak, gesturing for the refugees to come up onto the ridge. “The ground here is solid. We can all rest here for now. Tomorrow, we move.”

  As the refugees settled beneath the tree’s sheltering branches, Vasilisa stood a distance away, staring into the darkness of the Gravemarsh. For a moment, she thought she caught the glint of glowing eyes in the distance, and a faint chuckle drifted on the still air.