her long, thin blade to sever the optic nerve and blood vessels as close to the back as possible - must get the maximum strength from this eye, considering how much the fellow who grew it for her was going to miss it. "There," she said. "Want to see it?"
The man groaned. Taking this for a yes, she held up the eye with its dangling cord. "Now your eye will see for me," said Yaga. "Which will give it a much more interesting career than it would ever have had in your head."
"Please," whispered the man. "Let me keep the other."
"Don't be stingy," said Yaga. "Didn't your mother teach you to share?"
The door flew open.
"My darling husband," said Yaga. "Didn't I tell you to knock first?"
The answer was a roar. Bear shambled into the room on all fours, then stood to his full height and roared again.
"Hungry?" asked Yaga. "I'm almost done with this head, if you want it."
"Who is that eye for?" demanded Bear.
"Why, do you want it?" Whereupon Yaga looked up and realized that yes, indeed, Bear could use an eye, for the very good reason that he had only the one, while his other socket was bleeding. "Did you save the eye?" she asked. "Did you think to bring it back to me?"
"It was crushed," said Bear savagely. "The bastard threw a boulder at me."
"Aren't gods like you supposed to be able to, I don't know, re-grow anything that falls off or out?"
"It didn't fall," said Bear. He sounded downright hostile. "And it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't trapped me there without any powers beyond the natural strength of a bear."
"I was using your powers here, my love," said Yaga. "I couldn't very well let everything fall apart at home just because you're out playing with some princess."
"I want to kill you," said Bear.
"No you don't," said Yaga. He couldn't possibly. The spells that bound him assured that his love for Yaga would be unflagging.
"Well then I want to want to kill you."
"Bear, meet... what's your name?"
The merchant murmured something.
"Do you have to play with your victims like that?" said Bear. "Why can't you kill them first and then take their parts?"
"Things start to corrupt when the body is dead. So I have to take the best parts when they're at their freshest." By now she had finished packing the first eye in clean white ashes. She closed and sealed the box, and set to prodding at the other eye. "You will be a dear and break open the head for me, won't you? I want to get the brain whole, if I can."
In answer, Bear lurched over, grabbed the man's head between his paws, and tore upward so violently that the cords cut right through his throat. With a twist, Bear pulled the head off the spine and dashed it to the stone floor. It split open with such force that the brain was splashed all over Yaga's feet and the rugs as well.
"You clumsy, insolent - "
"Don't start with me!" roared Bear.
For a moment she was afraid of him, for he still carried himself with the power of a god, and she wasn't completely sure that her binding spells would be utterly irresistible, if he got angry enough. Gods were dangerous creatures to enslave. Who knew how deviously they might manipulate the reality around them?
But in a moment, she could see that he really wasn't angry - anger being forbidden to him. The roaring and acting up were the result of pain, and after all, the poor dear had lost an eye. "I should scold you for killing him before I got the second eye out," said Yaga, "but I think your wound is making you cranky and I forgive you."
"Give me the eye you took from that man."
"It wouldn't fit," she said. "And you'd start seeing like a man, which would do you no good at all." She popped the second eye out of the head. Since it was already dead, it wasn't so important to pack it in ash. In fact, she might as well dry it to be powdered later - there were plenty of uses for it yet. "You did waste the brains, you know. I can't even tell which part is which."
Bear stepped in the midst of the pile of brains and twisted his paw.
"Don't be spiteful," said Yaga.
"Kill the girl and take the kingdom if you want it," said Bear. "Forget all this song and dance. You have