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There hung Koschei the Deathless, fettered by twelve chains. Koschei entreated Prince Ivan, saying:
'Have pity upon me and give me to drink! Ten years long have I been here in torment, neither eating nor drinking; my throat is utterly dried up.'
The Prince gave him a bucketful of water; he drank it up and asked for more, saying:
'A single bucket of water will not quench my thirst; give me more!'
The Prince gave him a second bucketful. Koschei drank it up and asked for a third, and when he had swallowed the third bucketful, he regained his former strength, gave his chains a shake, and broke all twelve at once.
'Thanks, Prince Ivan!' cried Koschei the Deathless, 'now you will sooner see your own ears than Marya Morevna!' and out of the window he flew in the shape of a terrible whirlwind.
- “Marya Morevna” (1890)
Deep in the woods, a single sick rose twisted its way up through the snow.
From a young age Iarina knew the shape of good and evil. Good was warm, human, charming; evil was the figure she glimpsed late one night out of her bedroom window staring up at her as she froze closing the curtains. It was quite clearly there one moment and the very next not - a lurking shadow, suddenly reduced to a brief flash of white and then nothing. Iarina could not explain this. It was like nothing she had ever seen, not outside of the TV, and so her teenage mind performed a strange leap of logic and snapped straight to the events of a faerie tale she had been told earlier that evening.
Iarina’s mother liked to spend the winter nights weaving rich tales about the Faeries, the Dreaming Folk, like the Baba Yaga and the Firebird. These were the tales she had been told as a child, and her mother had been told as a child, and so on. These were old stories, stories with ancient roots in the cold Russian dirt – so it saddened and soured her when they failed to take hold with her teenage daughter. The slums of St Petersburg were a dismal and messy place that felt like a bit too much for a small, poor girl to take in. Iarina would rather be listening to easy stories of dashing American superheroes and tyrant aliens than grim complex faeries. It had been a while since Putin’s sardonic smirk had gently draped a new Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe, and the only escape from the perpetual uncertainty of politics was into simple uncomplicated fantasy.
This was why it came as a surprise when Iarina ran down the stairs one night and demanded a retelling of Marya Morevna. Her mother was taken aback, but complied gratefully until Iarina asked her to stop.
“Mama,” she said, “I saw him outside my window.”
Iarina, it seemed, had developed a fear of the archetypically brutal Koschei - Коще́й - the Deathless.
“The other tales I told you, they were based on respect,” said her mother. “A Baba Yaga? Something to be feared, yes, but also something to which you defer. If you treat her correctly, she will protect you.” She truly believed in the things she spoke of. “These are forces of nature, Iarina. Sheer elements. But Koschei?” She scoffed. “Koschei is a warning about trust. About deceiving appearances. He is not a god, a king or a spirit. He is dead. That was the punishment for his hubris.”
“But Mamulya – ”
“Don’t you ‘But Mamulya’ me.”
“Mama, you said to fear the Baba Yaga and her like, but…”
Iarina stopped, because it felt like someone was listening, and jumped when her mother spoke.
“…But?”
“But those stories are just fairy tales.”
Koschei was the Wife-Stealer, the hunter of young women, the ancient predator of Slavic folklore. No wonder, then, that he particularly struck a fearful chord with Iarina, who had to avoid men like him on her way to and from school each day. The trouble was Koschei was magical, and immortal, and probably much faster than anybody else she knew. Despite the fact that handsome young Ivan Tsarevitch had long ago killed the Deathless and burnt his lying corpse, something of him felt pertinent. Real. Current. Iarina had to admit that she fancied the concept of Ivan Tsarevitch, to the extent that her admiration of Prince Ivan was the only thing that matched her unnatural terror of Koschei. She was sure Ivan would carry her away as he had warrior princess Marya Morevna. She was sure.
A farmer by the outskirts of St Petersburg came across a great field of roses encroaching on his property. He went inside to call the police. They laughed at him, but five minutes after he put down the phone he was dead.
For a long time, Iarina had a vaguely embarrassing thing for Superman. Superman was simple and kind and good and wore bright colours to show that he meant well. He was a sort of prince, she thought, combining her two interests of aliens and superheroes rather neatly.
Then Ivan came along to vie for her affections, and of course he rapidly usurped the Big Blue Boy Scout, because he was Russian. Iarina knew of no Russian Superman. If he existed, she reckoned, he would be dour and grey and complicated. Ivan was not complicated. He had a sword and he killed bad men and was handsome and swept princesses off their feet.
Ivan kept Koschei and the Faeries at bay.
Trudging through the snow back home in the dark mid-afternoon, Iarina thought she saw movement in the gap between a couple of concrete shacks. A flurry, a flush of rich tail, like an animal out of a Disney movie just behind a thick pile of trash. Iarina came to a halt, staring curiously at the pile, and was about to take a step towards it when she noticed a pair of cruel eyes looking back at her from one of the windows. They peered coldly through a gap in the blinds, glaring bright yellow like a hungry tiger.
Iarina ran home and didn’t look back.
The roses crept along the roadside and down into the sewers. The smell was sweet like rotting death, like caramelised bones, a kind of corpse brûlée. It drifted on the breeze and suffocated three people in their beds. Despite the sugary stench, some insisted on picking the roses. Those who did shrivelled like dead petals and in minutes became screaming skin husks by the roadside.
“Iarina,” said her mother, “you’re being ridiculous.”
“You’re just saying that,” Iarina responded. “I can tell by your pale face and clammy hands.”
Her mother was silent for a long time. Iarina waited patiently if unhappily, but when the response eventually came it was terse and vague.
“I do not believe in Koschei,” her mother said. “He is a tale for unhappy widows to muse on and nothing more.”
“But Mamulya - ”
“No more questions. Go to your room.”
“Please!”
“Go to your room!”
Nothing more was said, though the silence was fraught with the ghosts of arguments.
Iarina found herself praying for Prince Ivan’s tenuous existence. She felt lost, scared, alone; she needed a confidant or protector or partner. The other girls at school ignored her already, and now that her mother had refused to support her the long walk home became bleak and harrowing. Iarina needed Ivan, because Koschei's shadow frequently tripped down the alleyways and loomed like a great tower under puddles of streetlight. She could swear there were eyes watching her too, ravenous demon eyes searching incessantly from the stark rooftops.
Iarina prayed, and hoped, and feared.
The roses had crawled a dark circle round the underside of the city, snaking grotesquely through the buried pipes and tunnels. They did not hesitate for the icy winter, spreading their knotted, thorny roots down into the brick and turf to take hold – and then, all of a sudden, it was time.
Iarina was lost.
These were streets with which she was familiar, streets she knew by their coarse individual feel on her feet. She could have charted her course home in her sleep. So why was she in unknown alleys, worn cobbles strange beneath her sole?
The mist closed in, bringing with it a flake or two of snow. The street was quiet.
So, so quiet.
So quiet that when Koschei stepped out of a narrow passageway just in front of her, Iarina couldn’t even scream for fear of disturbing the silence.
Koschei the Deathless looked like he had killed the Grim Reaper and climbed inside its skin. He made for a towering, skeletal figure in a smoky black shroud, and out of the peaked hood burst a pair of bright yellow predator's eyes. Iarina felt that hunting yellow, the colour of fear, as it wormed its way into her brain and down her spine.
So she turned and ran. Koschei reached for her, thin pale fingers stretching from the ragged arm of his cloak, but she slipped past his clammy grasp and ducked into another fog-swollen alley. Her feet pounded at the cobbles, Koschei’s hobbling step gaining pace rapidly from behind. Iarina flung herself round a corner onto a wider street, then back into another passageway, breath hissing through her teeth in short, panicked strokes. Fists balled, movement violent, adrenaline coursing. Legs like pistons – swinging round a drainpipe – throwing down a stack of empty crates – blood pumping like a drum through ears – harsh inhalations – clutched side – frantic searching gaze – painful exhalations – a cry –
“HELP!”
And as if to answer her call, there stood wonderful, strange, beautiful Ivan.
The Prince Tsarevitch was swaddled in rich fabrics, gold and red and woven like tapestries. His mouth was wrapped against the chill, but as Iarina stared at him in amazement and relief he pulled the scarf aside to reveal his warm, human eyes and confident smile. To his left stood a silvery, glittering unicorn, and to his right a coppery, glowing fox. Iarina recognised its tail as the one she'd seen some days prior slipping behind the trash in the alley. To think she’d been that close to safety, and had she followed her instincts then she would never have had to worry about Koschei at all. Ivan gestured in a kind of old-fashioned bow, and the animals inclined their heads towards her. It seemed as if he was about to speak, but then a dusty dry breeze wafted over Iarina from behind.
Koschei stood there, hunched, eyes glaring a blaze of red. Rage peeled off him like steam, his stance one of utter hatred. As Iarina stepped back towards Ivan, Koschei's glare flicked towards her for a second and darkened slightly before returning, brighter than before, to Ivan.
“Stop,” said Koschei in a mangled, unrecognizable voice, but Ivan waved his hand and the copper fox pounced to intercept. Iarina turned and ran, following Ivan and the unicorn down the barren street.
The gutters were littered with Koschei’s victims, skin shells that might have once been people. Iarina gagged as she fled, the sickly smell invading her nostrils and burning cold fire through her sinuses. Tendrils clasped the bodies, holding them close to the floor, pulling them into the drains. Ivan looked back, checking on her, then started at a roar and a flash of light behind them. Koschei burst through the edge of the mist in pursuit, the molten remains of the copper fox dripping from his clawed fists.
Ivan waved - the unicorn turned and struck, bearing Koschei back into the fog on its horn. Koschei grunted in pain, then vanished from sight. Ivan beckoned frantically, and Iarina followed his reassuring gestures, turning out into an open plaza. Suddenly she recognised this. They were back in the real world, in the city centre. Just up ahead, instantly recognisable, was St Petersburg’s famous Lion Bridge. Ivan’s eyes creased with hope, and the message was clear – over the bridge lay safety.
Either side of the great bridge archway waited stone carvings of those great alert cats, guarding the causeway stoically. Before the Prince and Iarina could reach the gate, however, there came another roar and flash of light as Koschei emerged from the mist behind them, bony hands soaked in both his own blood and the silver blood of the unicorn. Ivan stumbled onto the bridge, shook off one layer of the rich fabrics he wore, and draped it over a lion statue.
Ivan stroked the pelt, and the statue came alive, sheathed in gold. Iarina rushed onto the bridge, and the lion sprang at Koschei, just moments behind.
“No!” cried Koschei. “Stop! Stop!” But Iarina was already on the bridge, following her Prince, and Koschei struggled against the beast.
“Iarina Vasiliev!” Koschei pleaded. How did he know her name? “Don’t go with him. You are in terrible danger.”
“Yes, I am,” Iarina retorted angrily, stopping and turning. “From you.”
“From me?” Koschei asked. The lion roared, but Koschei hit it with a burst of purple light and it whimpered back a couple of steps, struck fatally. “I am not here to hurt you, Iarina.”
Iarina stared at him for a long moment. “But of course you are. You are Koschei the Deathless. Wife-Stealer. Girl-Hunter. You are a predator, a murderer, and worse. I can tell by your eyes. They are like an animal's.”
But Koschei's eyes no longer glowed yellow. Now they were soft and sad. He stroked the lion, shushing it as its semi-life melted away in his hands, and spoke.
“If I am like an animal, like a predator, then why am I not the one sending animals after you? The fox is a predator. The lion is a predator. And tell me, why do you think the unicorn has its horn? It is not to make it look pretty.” Although Iarina could not see Koschei's face, he looked expectant.
“It is for killing,” Koschei continued after a moment. He then reached up with both hands, still looking at Iarina, and slowly pulled the cloak back from his face. From under the hood there emerged a striking visage - hair as black as a raven's feather, lips red with her own crimson blood, and that same blood in tracks down cheeks as pale as the snow.
“You see,” said Raven, for it was she, “I am not Koschei.”
Iarina reeled. Who was this woman, this she-Koschei, this contradiction in terms?
“Do you know the story of Koschei the Deathless, Iarina?” the woman asked.
“ – of course,” Iarina said in a small voice.
“Then tell me how Ivan found Koschei in Marya Morevna's tower.”
Iarina stuttered, then began to recite: “There hung Koschei the Deathless, fettered by twelve chains. Koschei entreated Prince Ivan, saying – ”
“That’s it,” the woman said. “He appeared helpless, vulnerable... in short, exactly what a hero like Ivan wanted to see. Somebody to be saved.”
“What are you saying.”
“I'm saying, Iarina, that things are not always what they seem. So yes, I look scary, but...”
Her voice drifted as she looked up over the bridge. Iarina followed, and found Ivan, golden and handsome, standing on the other side.
The lamps lining the sides of the causeway glowed soft and somehow distant in the mist. Iarina's slight frame shivered in the middle of the bridge, over the icy water, trapped between Ivan and the woman Koschei. The strange woman was thin, sallow, unsettling; the colour of her irises twisted and shuddered like a jammed video cassette even though her gaze was calm and fixed. By contrast the Prince was warm, comforting, beckoning with his no doubt toned physique and deep blue eyes. Snowflakes drifted down, melting on Iarina and Raven's flushed faces.
“Why is he so perfect, Iarina?”
“Shut up.”
“The snow is sticking to him and staying there. He's empty and cold inside because he came from the ice and the snow.”
Iarina turned again, desperate. “Shut up!”
“And it hasn't talked once. I don't think it even understands the concept of language.”
“Stop talking! Koschei talked. He used his words to trick Prince Ivan into freeing him, because he was evil and dark and wicked, and so are you!”
Raven shifted. “Why did he appear? How did he appear? He’s a fairy tale, a story, nothing more!”
Shouting now, she gripped the plinths on either side of the bridge's entrance and leaned in. “You wanted a hero, a perfect saviour Prince, and down came the faeries or daemons or something from up in the dark stars or deep in the heart of Russia's collective imagination and made that, that thing there, and it wants you, it needs you, it lives and breathes you and as we speak it keeps eating and eating and it has to stop.”
Iarina was still watching the Prince, who shook his head and smiled, reaching slowly into his robes.
“And I can stop it,” Raven continued, “but you have to make the choice to reject it. You have to do this. You have to turn and walk away.”
“But,” said Iarina, on the verge of tears, “but...”
“But what?”
“But he brought me a rose.”
The Prince was holding it in his left hand, a gnarled beautiful thing, with the thorns and the petals and the scent, and somehow both he and it were utterly disgusting.
Raven's eyes were a deep purple, and Iarina felt a great sadness and love wash over her, and her tears welled up and split dark rivulets down her face.
“Oh, Iarina,” said Raven,
“...Roses only grow in the summer.”
“My father was terrible too.”
Iarina didn’t know how to respond to that.
“I can feel it in you,” Raven said. “I feel what you feel.”
“How?” Iarina asked, somewhat lamely.
“Magic,” Raven responded.
Iarina looked down at the pile of golden robes where the Prince had once stood. “The sun is up already.”
“Time passes quickly in strange places,” said Raven, wiping blood from her face, “and this is one of them.”
The Prince had looked on, motionless, as Raven twisted her hands and tore it into little chunks of writhing maggoty meat and roots full of rot. Now it lay in a hundred different places, a silent blast pattern, a thing departed. The fog, as if on cue, had eased and retreated into the distance.
“It made some sort of circle under the city,” Raven continued. “I think it was building something. Some lost broken magick or other.” She took hold of Iarina and turned her away, walking her back across the bridge. “Truth is, I don’t know what it wanted. Or if it’s dead. Or if death is a state that even means anything to it.”
They reached the broken lion, stepping off the bridge. “For all I know, it could have been an inanimate function just dipping into our universe. Like a gamma ray - infecting one cancer cell, something that spreads, making more, and so on.” Raven looked at Iarina. “But you’re safe now.”
“Are you a Baba Yaga?” Iarina said, after a moment.
Raven looked at her, then off into the distance, then down at her own hands.
“Maybe,” she said. “I’m not sure I’d know if I was.”
“What do I do now?”
“Go home, get some rest,” Raven said. There was a moment, and then the ghost of a kind smile crept onto her face. “Believe in stories.”
For an instant there was a pure white after-image, then a whining tone like a badly tuned radio, and Iarina was alone.
Epilogue
The roses wilted, one by one, stretching back from the woods to the farms to the streets. As they died, they let out little puffs of air, like sighs of relief.
The streets were empty but for a young woman running out towards the slums. Her head was purged of princes, as it had been of Kryptonian strongmen before. Instead it was full of someone else, someone tangible and present and – complicated, for once.
In fact, something that had been said about her father came back to her, and she began to wonder why she had cared for men at all.
One rose, with a Herculean effort, tore its roots free from the dying knotted network. It was an attempt to hold on to life that lasted for a few brief instants before the boot of a running girl came down, flattened it, and kept moving on into tomorrow.