Mistress of the Solstice (9 page)

But it was hardly the aim of anyone’s life to keep it
contained. No more was it true that water never fled. Perhaps Leshy was
referring to an ocean?

Many storytellers spoke about the sea, a great pond of water without
shores that led to wondrous kingdoms and magical lands. Some of these
tales mentioned “ocean”, the grand
pond of water that collected the seas into itself to wash their waters
around the edge of the world. Surely water this wide would cause
anyone’s death if ever allowed to roam free.

But a common, everyday thing? Hardly.

I flow like a river, I wash like a sea,

I circle—

What could it possibly be?

Ivan sighed.
Don’t give in to the
panic
.
Fear is your
enemy. Fear is what Leshy hopes for. Fear is the making of a
kikimora
—

Stop.

Concentrate.

Flow. Wash. Circle. Yet, not water. What else can possibly do all these
things?

Ivan glanced at Leshy. The Forest Man was busy, poking at one of the
wood ears that creased the fallen birch trunk with a knobby finger.
Each time he poked, a dimple appeared on the surface under his finger.
Ivan imagined he could see movement.

He looked closer and drew back in disgust.

The wood ear was an opalescent mass of worms that glistened faintly in
the light of a rising moon. Breaking off from the lump, the worms dug
under the white birch bark to reemerge inches away, like divers that
swim underwater and pop out their heads to see where they are.

Ivan moved away along the log. A whole section of it collapsed to become
a crawling mass of worms that spread out and poured over the edge of
the swamp-island to disappear into the dark glistening water.

Leshy giggled.

“How’s the riddle
comin’, smart boy? Ready or not, it’s
time!”

Ivan took a breath.

Don’t show your
fear
.
Leshy feeds on
fear. Don’t—

But what should I do?

“Come, boy!” Leshy said.
“There’s no shame in losing. Think of
all the fun we could have out here in my swamp! Just you and me, eh?
You have but to say the word to the old man.”

He beamed and crept along the log closer to Ivan. For
the first time Ivan noticed the chill the Forest Man emanated. Or,
perhaps, the chill hadn’t been there before?

A sting in his hand made him look down. A mosquito, perhaps the very
same one that had bothered him earlier, was using
Ivan’s stillness to feed on his hand. Ivan smashed the
annoying insect, leaving a splash of blood on his pale skin.

He raised his hand to rub the blood off, and paused.

The aim of your life is to keep me contained.

Of course. What kind of a fool was he, to think so long?

“Blood,” he said.

Leshy cocked his head to one side.

“Fancy,” he said.
“How careless people are when dealing out nicknames.
If I remember correctly, our good Nikola the Wise met his doom upon the
very same riddle. He kept blabbering about an ocean or something. Why,
I don’t even know what an
‘ocean’ is…Blood.
Hmmm.”

Leshy glanced at a small fir tree rising out of the swamp. There was a
barely audible sound, like a breath drawn in, and the tree withered
right in front of Ivan’s eyes. The fresh green needles
turned yellow, then brown, and then crumpled off the branches, suddenly
thinned and gnarled like an old woman’s hands. Leshy
watched with a cold gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. Then he turned
to Ivan and gave him a meaningful look.

“All right, Ivan the Fool of a Misleading
Nickname,” he said, “since
you’re so good at riddles, I’ll give
you my hardest one yet. No one has ever been able to guess this one.
Off the top of my head, I don’t even think I recall the
answer myself.” He giggled.

Ivan took care not to show any reaction. Intimidating an opponent was an
ancient and effective tactic. He had been told that Leshy used it a
great deal. The best way to handle it was not to pay any attention. If
he could manage to do so.

He listened.

“I’m always a welcome one, always a
treasure,

Yet sometimes resented beyond any measure.

But when I decide that I must slip away,

You’ll fight to return me, you’ll beg me
to stay.”

Ivan took a breath. “Only one
answer,” Wolf had said. Which meant, among other
things, that there had to
be
an answer.

“Always welcome” yet
“sometimes resented”. What could
it be?

A child?

Most people he knew welcomed children, yet some would do anything to
avoid having one; such as, a family with too many mouths to feed; or a
maiden who had ruined her prospects of a good marriage by being a bit
too careless in her adolescent games.

There went the “always welcome”
part, and with it went the answer itself. However confusing, everything
in the riddle had to be consistent with the sole answer that fit all
parts of the rhyme.

If, of course, Leshy always followed the rules. According to Wolf, it
was a given. Yet, watching the shifting moods on
Leshy’s face, it was easy to suspect foul play.

“I’m beginning to freeze,
boy,” Leshy complained. He cast his eyes on a nearby
puddle of swamp water. After a brief moment, steam started to rise off
its still surface. By the time Ivan caught his breath, the water was
boiling like soup in a kettle. The pale shape of a dead frog floated up
and disappeared back in the turmoil.

Concentrate
.

“He will do anything to distract
you,” Wolf had said.
“Don’t let him.
That’s how he wins.”

Leshy looked away, and the water slowly calmed again. The faint smell of
fish soup tainted the air, topped by the heady aroma of wild rosemary
on a hot day.

“I don’t understand
it, boy. Why do you resist your fate so much? It’s so
nice and cozy here in the swamp. We’re all so looking
forward to playing with a sweet one like you…You do like to play,
don’t you, boy?” He crept a few
inches toward Ivan.

The chill he’d emanated earlier was
gone. Instead, Ivan caught the scent of
beresklet
berries—flowery and bitter at the same time. The faint smell of stale
water gave the
beresklet
scent a moldy touch, but Ivan couldn’t tell if it was
coming from Leshy himself, or from the swamp around them.

He did his best to ignore the old man and focus on the riddle.

What was it that everyone welcomed and treasured and yet sometimes
resented beyond measure? What was it that one would do anything to keep
when it decided to slip away?

Love?

Yes, it seemed likely.

“Ready yet?” Leshy asked.

Yes,
Ivan almost said, but
something held him.

Think some more
.
You only get this one shot.

“Oh, come now,” The Forest Man
pouted. “Why d’you insist on being
sooo boring?…It is so beautiful here at night. Once you sees it,
you’ll never want to leave!”

He swept his hands, as if opening an invisible curtain. Suddenly the air
filled with swarms of fireflies. They looked like fairies; at a
distance Ivan could imagine seeing them carry small lanterns in their
delicate hands. It became bright like daylight. Ivan could even see
faint rainbows shining in the glassy wings.

“See?” Leshy said
by his ear. He was so close that Ivan jumped, his heart pounding.
How did he get behind
me?
He suppressed the urge to draw away, to show
his fear.

The Forest Man reached a finger past Ivan and poked the nearest flying
shape. With a faint pop it burst apart, splashing Ivan with a tiny
droplet of goo.

It took all the courage Ivan had to keep still as the beautiful
fairy-like creatures popped all around him, leaving behind ugly reddish
splotches that looked so much like blood.

The light faded.

“Aaah,” Leshy sighed.
“I could do this all night long. Such fun, these
light beasties, don’t you find?” He
turned to Ivan and gave him one of his mischievous grins.
“Ready yet?”

Ivan swallowed. He had almost forgotten about the riddle. Wolf had
warned him, and yet, it had been so hard—

Think. Concentrate.

Was “love” the answer to the last
riddle?

Love was certainly a feeling everyone welcomed and treasured, and
certainly one that from time to time brought more pain than happiness.
Yet, from all Ivan knew about love, there was never a time for it to
slip away. True love was the most permanent thing he knew. Except,
perhaps, time itself.

Of course, there were many ways to look at love, including the sickly
sacrifice done in the name of love that dominated this kingdom. But
Ivan firmly believed one thing: true love, if one ever had the
privilege to experience it, was stronger than anything in the world.

Even stronger than death.

And then he knew.

He turned to Leshy and met the old man’s eyes.

“Life,” he said.

There was a pause. A long one.

“I lied,” Leshy told him.
“This wasn’t my hardest riddle. In
fact, it was an easy one. Care to try again?”

Ivan smiled, relief washing over him. He didn’t realize
how tense he had been until he felt his hands tremble from the released
stress.

“I suppose not,” Leshy mumbled.
“Of course, I didn’t really want you
in my swamp, boy. What would I do with such a smart one as you? What
would my sweet Nikola think of one who’d cracked the
very same riddle that brought about his doom, without as much as a
flinch?” He paused, studying Ivan with a strange
glint in his eyes. “On the bright
side,” he continued, “this way I
gets to know what it was that prompted you to come here in the first
place. Tell me, boy: what do you seek from Leshy?”

Ivan took a breath. “There is a net. A net that can
capture a certain bird.”

Leshy’s expression was unreadable. “A
bird. That’s what our fool seeks. A bird. And what bird
might that be, boy? A dove, perchance?” He broke out
in giggles, bouncing up and down on the old log.

Ivan waited for the laughter to stop.

“A raven,” he said.
“There’s only one such net in
existence, and you have it.”

“Now, now,” Leshy wiped his tears,
amber like drops of tree sap. “No need to get
impatient. Who told you I have the Net, clever
boy?”

“Someone who knows.”

“Secrets, eh? ‘Old
father’ you called me. Begged me to play. I thought we
were friends now. Do friends have secrets from each
other?” He looked at Ivan for a long moment.

Ivan looked back, his face carefully blank.

“All right,” Leshy nodded.
“Fine. Be this way.” He sighed.
“As it happens, I do know where the Net is. It
isn’t far at all. But you have to go and get it
yourself, smart boy.”

“Where?” Ivan suspected his trial
wasn’t over yet.

Leshy stretched out a hand that looked like a gnarled
beresklet
branch, warts
and all. “You see that blinky light out
there?”

Ivan looked. There was indeed a tiny greenish light shimmering among the
swamp vapors. Cold, death-like, it was quite different from the warm
firefly glow.

“It’s a glowing
piece of wood,” Leshy said. “A
rotten tree stump. One of my
kikimoras—Oksana is her
name—she likes to carry a light when out in the swamp.
She’s guarding a tree with a hole in it. Talk to her.
Perchance, you could even learn her nickname. I don’t
recall it myself. Then, when you’re done, reach into
the hole if you dare, and you’ll find the Net. Or find
yourself without a hand.” He giggled again.

Ivan ignored the last remark. No physical harm was supposed to come to
him as a result of winning Leshy’s game. The only thing
he had to worry about was keeping his sanity.

If, of course, Leshy always followed the rules.

He had so far, hadn’t he?

“Oh, yes. One more thing. You probably need a
guide.” Leshy snapped his fingers and the tormented
shape of Nikola the Wise appeared again. The kikimora’s
wild eyes burned through Ivan.

“Nikola will show you a safe path through the swamp.
I’m sure he’d love to.
Won’t you, dearie?”

Nikola’s gurgling laugh choked in his throat under
Leshy’s heavy gaze.

“Off you go!” Leshy commanded.
“Shoo!”

He stepped behind the birch log into the shadow of the
fir growth. After a moment, it seemed as if there had never been
anything else there but bushes, sickly from the swamp water that
surrounded their exposed roots. None of them resembled
beresklet
at all.

The only reminder of the Forest Man’s presence was the
withered brown shape of the little fir tree and the reddish splotch of
a squashed firefly on Ivan’s hand. He hastily rubbed it
off, and followed Nikola’s ghostly shape.

At first it was easy to find a dry path. As they moved deeper into the
swamp, Nikola jumped from one patch of dry land rising out of the swamp
to another, and Ivan took care to copy his movements. Dark water
glistened all around, like eyes peering at them through the stiff swamp
grass. Nikola had no need to jump, except for Leshy’s
orders to show him the way. For once, Ivan appreciated the code of the
Immortals and the Forest Man’s care.

The island appeared from the moonlit mist like a ghostly ship, the tall
aspen in its center rising like a mast out of the swamp moss. As
Nikola’s feet touched the island, he disappeared into
thin air with a last look at his lucky follower. Ivan did his best to
ignore the longing in Nikola’s tortured gaze. He could
do nothing about the other man’s fate.

The blue-green swamp light floated toward him, so different from the
yellow and red shades of a real fire. It seemed very pale, barely
visible against the moonlight. Ivan realized now that it
didn’t really flicker. It only appeared flickering when
its bearer moved.