Season of the Witch part 16

Unfortunately, I didn’t get that far.  Probably that had something to do with my being both outnumbered and woozy from blood loss; whatever the reason, I found myself being frog-marched (pun totally intended) into one of the blocked-off-from-tourists rooms in the Kremlin.
It was like entering a totally different place.  Like a palace.
The floor was paved with shiny gold tiles, in different shades, in some kind of diamond design.  Elegant tapestries depicting events long past covered the walls.  Old-fashioned electric lamps shone here and there, making my eyes hurt even with the shaded glasses.  And sitting at the other end of the ridiculously long room was Mr. the Deathless, sitting on a gilded throne.  He was wearing another suit, still old-fashioned, and a heavy-looking diamond-covered crown.
“You heroes are so stubborn and reckless,” he said with a sigh as I was dragged close.  “I was almost done deciding what to do with you.”
I wasn’t going to wait around for you to make up your mind, you dried-up bag of bones! I snarled internally.  But since I was still cursed with silence, I could only give him the message by glaring venomously.
“You’re that anxious to steal this sword?”  Mr. the Deathless produced Kladenets and waved it around, taunting me with it.
I gave him a look, and with a sigh he removed the spell from my throat, allowing me to croak, “If I thought I could get it from you any other way, I would.”
“Really?”  He leaned forward on his throne.  “What’s Baba Yaga going to do to your assistant if you don’t get it?”
“That’s none of your business!”*


Koschei gave me a knowing smile which I figured must have taken him centuries to perfect.  Whether or not he actually had figured out my reasons was irrelevant; as long as he acted like he did, he had the satisfaction of feeling superior and trying to make me squirm.  I knew that trick, however, being very much the connoisseur of it myself, so I kept my face blank.
“This is most entertaining, Mr…?”
He left the phrase hovering, waiting patiently for me to complete it.  I finally said, “Tolstoy.”
One bushy eyebrow rose in a skeptical arch, but I didn’t change the pseudonym.
Unless you plan on feeding me phoenix blood again, I’m not volunteering raz”yem.**
Mr. the Deathless finally sighed.  “Very well, Mr. Tolstoy.  If you insist on using that name.  How about we make this interesting?”
Not another one.
“How?”
He stood up, tossing his robes back from his shoulders and twirling the sword again.
“I’ve been waiting for Baba Yaga to entertain me by trying to get this sword back.  You appear to have been a godsend, Mr. Tolstoy; being immortal can be so boring sometimes.  You might not have noticed, but people of my age like to play games with people like you.”  Ignoring my snort, he continued, “So, I will give you this sword freely-if you can find my soul.”


For those of you with more sensitive eyes, I will refrain from writing the string of curses that ran through my mind at this news.
As best I remembered, Koschei’s soul was kept inside a duck that was inside a rabbit inside a giant egg in an obscure tree, or something like that.  This was next to impossible.
But I conjured up an image of Calla, of her big brown eyes and her kind spirit and all the hell she’d gone through already, and asked, “How long have you kept me here?”
The old sorcerer looked down at me and said, “Ten years.”
My legs buckled, and I almost didn’t hear his laughter as he said, “Just kidding.  Around two days, I believe.”
That means I have about three days left.
“Give me two more days to find it,” I said, hating how pleading I sounded, since it would probably give him an edge over me if he knew I had a time limit.
“You’re not asking for three?”
“Everyone asks for three.  I need two.”
Hopefully I can find it before then, but let’s not trust to miracles.


That smirk was back; he probably at least suspected why I was so anxious.  I hurriedly added in, “And give me back the pack of Baba Yaga’s things.”
Leaning on the throne, Koschei asked, “Why should I give anything to the thief who invaded my home?”
“Because there are rules to this sort of thing.  And I’ll be far more entertaining if I have supplies that I can try to fight with.”
He didn’t look quite convinced, but at least my attitude seemed to amuse him again.  “Deal.”

***

Koschei didn’t bother with a contract.  He just had some of his henchfrogs give me the pack, and then I was booted out of the Kremlin.  That at first made me wonder if maybe the soul was inside the place, but that seemed a little obvious.  So, I went to a nearby restaurant, got a bowl of borscht and some bread, and sat outside eating (wolfing, really, since it was my first time eating in days) while I thought about where to look.
In the stories I’d heard, it was on an island somewhere.  And was the rabbit inside the duck, or the duck inside the rabbit-?
Eventually I gave up and bought a book that talked about Russian fairy tales from a convenient store.  According to it, there were different stories about where the soul actually was (Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird” being just one example), but the general theme persisted of it being kept inside an egg, in a casket, inside a tree.  And in some versions, the egg was inside a duck which was inside a rabbit.***
Leaning back in my chair, I thought about this.  Since whoever could get hold of the soul could control Mr. the Deathless, odds were that he would want to keep it close by, just in case some fool would be lucky enough to stumble across it.  So, since he seemed to have such a tree fetish when it came to his soul,**** the best place to start looking was the nearby forest.
Better get started.

*Hopefully none of you are surprised by my tendency to mouth off in tight situations by now.  If so, then you really haven’t been paying attention if you’ve read my previous books.
**Jack
***Either it had to be the world’s largest rabbit, or the world’s smallest duck.  And how would he get the rabbit to swallow the duck either way?  Wait, stupid question: magic.
****I idly wondered if he’d liked to climb trees when he was younger, before he pulled out his soul and hid it, and that was why he kept it in one.  Assuming that it was actually there.

My Abduction

Last night I was abducted by aliens. As I recall, I had been in bed, fast asleep, when suddenly I woke up, for no good reason that I could figure out. It was dark in my room, with only the faintest light from the cracks in the window blinds. Then I realized that my closet door was glowing and shivering slightly. I thought at first that the monsters inside were breaking their oath, and were about to come and dispatch me (it's a longer story than this one), so I was shaking in my socks. To my surprise, the door flung itself open, and out came a spaceship!

It was a lot smaller than I had expected: only about the size and shape of a really big beach ball. Then I realized that it must be a pod, and that the spaceship must be outside, perhaps hovering above the house! I broke out in a faint cold sweat. The pod cracked open in the middle, and an alien popped out. It was rather small and thin, with glowing, bulgy blue eyes, webbed hands and feet, and ears that looked a lot like a bat's. Those were the most obvious details. When the alien saw me, it pulled out a tiny gun and zapped me with it. The next thing I knew, I was completely paralyzed, and lifted into the air. The pod with the alien still inside floated back towards the closet, with me floating behind, unable to move an inch, except perhaps my heart and lungs, which were doing calisthenics in my chest.

We went into the closet, and as soon as the door closed behind me, a blaze of color swam before my eyes, mixed with sight and sound. I half wondered if I had stumbled into the Twilight Zone. Suddenly, we were on the inside of what couldn't be anything but a spaceship. There were hundreds more of the aliens bustling about, obviously hard at work. The corridor we were in faintly reminded me of the ones aboard the starship Enterprise. My alien guide got out of his pod, which floated away. He then made a pulling motion with the stun gun, and I floated after him into a room. Inside were a dozen of the creatures, all of whom were seated around a table, talking and munching snacks. My heart started beating faster, if possible, when I saw the quantity of surgical instruments at one corner of the table. The alien at the head of the table asked, "Is this the one, Leroy?"
"Yes, sir!" said my capturer, saluting.
"Good. Put her on the table. And turn that thing off; we want her to be able to answer our questions."
Leroy did so, and I instantly found that I could move again. My first action was to pinch myself to make sure I was awake, even though I knew I was, since I had never had a dream this real before, and I wouldn't have remembered to pinch myself in a dream.

I looked at the aliens. They stared back. Some of them were glaring at me. Suddenly, the one at the head of the table, obviously the captain, demanded, "Why haven't you written more of your story on your blog?!" It was as if he'd pressed a button that set the other aliens off.
"We've been waiting to find out what happens next!"
"I want to know if the Kestrel gets the children to safety!"
"Me too! How do they get away?!"
"Stop holding out on us!"
"Please! Please!" I begged. "It's my ghost writer's fault! He's supposed to ghost the next chapter, and he's been too busy to do it!"
"Excuses, excuses," muttered one of the aliens. "I say we just dissect her now."
"No!" snapped one of the others. "She can't write if she's dissected!" That started a new flood of shouting and arguing, and even a short fistfight, until the head of the alien council jumped onto the table and yelled for order.

"Alright!" he said, "You have all made your points clear! Fisher, Jenkins, that's enough! (Two of the guard aliens pulled the combatants apart) Now, I will give you my decision. Because she has a legitimate excuse for not writing more on her blog story about the Freegans, I will postpone this girl's dissection for a couple of weeks. However, if by that time she has not written anymore, well then-" he picked up a scalpel and turned it so that it caught the light. I hadn't known that knives could glint evilly before. It made the hair on my neck stand on end.
"Do you understand?" the captain asked, staring at me with his bulgy eyes.
"Y-yes, sir," I squeaked out, my voice several octaves higher than usual.
"Good," he said, "It is done."

After that, they took me back home, relatively unharmed, unless sheer terror and fear of the inevitable counts as being harmed. I just wanted to say, except if my ghost writer finds time to write the next chapter, that it's been nice knowing you.