always said that it wasn't fair, but to Bear it looked like things had worked out pretty evenly. Nobody had what they wanted. Baba Yaga didn't have Taina, but neither did Katerina. Equality of suffering - what could be more fair than that?
"Well, they can't get away from me that easily," said Baba Yaga.
"Oh?"
"I'll follow them. I'll go into wherever the hell he came from, and I'll tear it apart till I find them."
"Be careful," said Bear. "You don't know what wizards might be waiting for you there."
"If he's a sample of what they've got in that world, then I have nothing to fear."
"If you can get there."
"If those meddling do-gooders can make a pathway to his world, so can I. It will take a little research, but I'll find my way. Besides, I know her scent. I can follow her anywhere. Through time and space, wherever she is - I have the taste of her in my mouth. I'll eat the little bitch for breakfast."
Bear yawned. He had heard all this before.
"I will! Don't think I won't!"
"Whatever," said Bear. "Unfortunately, I'll no doubt be here when you get back."
"It won't take me long," she muttered. "I'll figure out where they went, I'll find a way to get there, and I'll have her back here in a week. Then you can feast on womanflesh! How's that, my beautiful Bear?"
"Fish are better. But I never interfere with my wife in the kitchen."
"Very funny," said Baba Yaga. "As if I cooked."
"As if I would ever trust anything you gave me to eat," said Bear.
"Sometimes you do," she said.
"You always poison me, though."
"If I poisoned you, you'd never know it, because you'd be dead."
"Just a little poison. Every damn time, it's some new potion or powder. I never know if it's going to be dysentery or a headache or impotence or priapism."
"You sound as if I did nothing but abuse you."
"What else?" said the Bear. "You think I don't know why you haven't killed me? Why I'm still around for you to do these things to? Making me run around that pit for a thousand years, for instance! Losing an eye, for instance!"
"He did that. I'll serve him for your supper, too."
"The only reason you didn't kill me long ago is because you can't."
"It's because I love you. And my enchantment of you isn't all bad. You like having the power of speech well enough."
"Gods don't need to speak. They only need to desire, and they have it."
"You wish."
"You've harnessed me and you're using my power somehow and I can't even hate you for it, because whenever I think of how much rage I ought to feel, my whole being is suffused with warmth and passion and lust for your miserable wizened old body."
"You should be a poet, the way you bandy words of love."
"I just thought you'd be interested to know that I've figured it all out."
"It took you long enough, but you are a bear, after all."
"I think I've figured it out before, and then you give me something to make me forget."
"Memory is so fickle," said Baba Yaga. "Just keep loving me, my pet."
"Oh, I do," said Bear. "With all my bitter heart, I love you."
"And you promise that you'll miss me when I'm gone to that place where Ivan and Katerina are hiding from me?"
"I'll smell your scent on the bedclothes and go mad from missing you."
"Give me a kiss then. And come to bed with me. You notice I didn't burn the bed. So you see I do love you."
Bear shook his great head back and forth. "Bed's not burnt, no."
"Then let's burn it now. A bonfire of passion. Many a woman has had her triumphs under the bedclothes, but I... I have tamed a bear! I have slept with Winter and I have made him warm!"
Bear growled a little, but he did as he was bidden.
Chapter 10
Old Gods
There is always a symmetry in magical things, a balance, so Katerina well knew what to expect when she stepped off the invisible bridge into the land of Ivan's birth. Nothing could be carried across the bridge; only what you already had would be restored to you. So yes, of course, the fire-holed priestly robe disappeared from Ivan's body and was replaced by the clothing he had been wearing on that fateful day when he fought his way to the place of her enchantment and kissed her awake. And yes, she felt the cool breeze of evening all over