I will always find you, p.18
I Will Always Find You, page 18
Dawyd began to cry uncontrollably, screaming for his brother to come save him. The poor boy did not realize that Baba Yaga had cast her Spell of Silence upon the cage of bones; he shouted his heart out, but no sound escaped the walls of his small prison.
With her pestle in one hand and her broom in the other, Baba Yaga jumped into her magical flying mortar and set out from her hut to find and capture the lovers.
Elsewhere in the forest, oblivious to the approaching danger, amid the calm, cool waters of the Temnyi Lis river, the Romani witch and Damek frolicked as they washed away the remnants of their lovemaking.
The Hutsul was the first to emerge from the river, feeling completely waterlogged. As he got dressed again, he watched his lover swim freely, without a care in the world. His own heart remained broken, the loss of his mother and now Dawyd, a wound within him he feared would never heal.
Still, Damek thanked the Great Spirit for gifting him the best remedy for sorrow and despair: finding a love with whom to be his true self. A beautiful soul to share his life with through both the joys and the tragedies.
While the Romani witch continued his water play, Damek strolled among the great oak trees.
Not too far into the woods, he heard distant sounds of branches breaking and leaves rustling. As the noises grew louder and closer, he began to feel a sense of unease, almost dread. The pattern of broken branches was happening too quickly for any animal to be considered responsible, as it jumped from tree to tree.
It is as if something is flying through the trees without stopping, crashing through the branches as it barrels forward.
But at Damek’s core, he felt no hawk or host of sparrows was to blame.
Suddenly, Baba Yaga burst forth from the shadows of the dense forest, her imposing figure perched atop her legendary mortar forged from iron. Her nose twitched as she inhaled the rich, earthy scent of the damp woodland air.
Pointing her pestle at Damek, Baba Yaga screeched, “I smell Hutsul blood! Magic blood, blessed by the Great Spirit! It shall be mine. Mine!” She let out a raucous cackle that echoed through the woods, punctuated by a series of snorts.
To protect himself, Damek instinctively reached for his axe, which he had laid against an ancient stump—back at the river.
He cursed his own unpreparedness. Having encountered no dangerous obstacles during the months of fruitless searching, he had too easily let his guard down. He realized he had no chance at casting a magical defence before the beast was upon him; he lacked the quick, powerful spellwork his lover possessed.
Damek barely had time to panic, for the Cannibal Hag proved unnaturally swift. She drove her mortar directly at him and battered his skull with her hard wooden pestle, knocking him unconscious. Before Damek could tumble to the ground, Baba Yaga scooped him up in her long, hairy arms; her limbs possessed uncanny strength. She then commanded her mortar to turn around, and off she returned to her hut.
“Your lover will come for you, handsome one, and I will be waiting.”
Back at the river, alerted to Baba Yaga’s presence by the mystical warning sigils he had been carving into trees while searching for Dawyd, the Romani witch raced out of the water. As he quickly dressed, he repeatedly called out for Damek. To his horror, he was met with silence; his beloved was nowhere to be found.
The Romani witch grabbed one of his pouches upon his belt, which had a small glass vial within. This was his potion for sight beyond sight, containing ingredients of mugwort, vervain, lavender, rosemary, and the dust of a crushed amethyst. It was nearly depleted, but he had no more need to search for Dawyd; the last of the concoction would be used to locate Damek.
Drinking the foul-tasting elixir, the Romani Witch soon saw an image of Baba Yaga clutching his unconscious love. The vision took him on a journey through the woods, deeper and deeper, until he saw a clearing. There, in the middle of the pasture, was the Cannibal Hag’s hut.
As he was about to be taken past the monstrous bone gate into the very lair of the beast herself, Baba Yaga turned and looked right at him—into his mind’s eye. She snickered and dispelled the vision with a brush of her hand.
The Romani witch then heard a most sinister and shrill voice inside his head.
“Come for him, witch—if you dare.”
Fueled by the intense hatred and rage burning inside him, the Romani witch responded in kind: venomously.
“I dare, bitch.”
The Romani witch quickly checked to see that all his magical items and weapons were securely attached to his person, and when he was confident they were, he positioned himself in a running stance.
“Celeritas! Veloces haec crura facito!”
Like the wind, the Romani witch took off through the woods in the direction his vision had shown him. When the path was obstructed by fallen trees or thick bramble bushes, he leapt into the air or smashed through them. Nothing would slow him or block his way.
When he finally saw the clearing in the near distance and then the top of Baba Yaga’s hut, he withdrew the power from the spell and slowed his running to a more natural human pace. When he was at the edge of the treeline, mere footsteps from the clearing, the Romani witch stopped altogether, caught his breath, and stared in shock at the ghastly monstrosity before him.
So it is true—a house upon chicken legs! This is an abomination of magic! A foul mockery of Hecate and Terra’s gifts of witchcraft and nature.
The Romani witch knew he must thoroughly prepare for battle before entering the beast’s diabolical lair. To thwart Abriana’s vision, which foretold his defeat, he had to ensure that his most potent magic was ready and accessible. He needed to carefully consider all possibilities.
From this point on, great-grandmo—no, Abriana! The Romani witch shook his head; he needed to be clear and free from mixed-up thoughts. Through your teachings, Abriana, and my ancient power, my actions shall alter your vision. It must!
Meanwhile, inside Baba Yaga’s hut, Damek lay on the floor, battered, bruised, and bleeding, having suffered defeat at the hands of Baba Yaga, just as Abriana had foreseen.
After regaining consciousness from the head injury which rendered him senseless, the brave Hutsul had quickly become aware of his circumstances, and that he was inside the den of the beast. She had left him propped up against a wall, tossed aside like a child’s forgotten ragdoll.
He had tried to use the power of Zagovory to free himself from the clutches of the monster that abducted him. He stood courageously, invoking the Great Spirit. He cast a charm spell to put the dark witch to sleep; sadly, Damek’s attack had proven utterly ineffective.
His people’s folk magic was never meant for battle; it was protective, healing, and sympathetic, a collection of incantations and charms. A powerful force of passion, but weak compared to Baba Yaga’s dark sorcery.
The core belief behind Zagovory was that spoken words, especially when combined with specific rituals or invocations, could directly influence reality. Only it was meant to happen over time, through ceremony and patience. It was never meant to combat immortals.
Damek was still grappling with the basics of fire control, a far cry from mastering the art of shattering mountains.
Baba Yaga, knowing her latest captive was awake from the moment his eyes opened, had turned and laughed at him. The confrontation between Damek and the Cannibal Hag was over nearly before it began, the victor never truly in doubt in the mind of either combatant.
Still, despite insurmountable odds, Damek was proud that he had been fearless enough to try. Trying in the face of all hopelessness was something he learned from the Romani witch, and he held on to it now for strength and comfort as he waited for either his beloved to save him—or his own death.
Despite believing in his lover’s bravery and power with all his heart, Damek secretly feared that no mortal witch could defeat such a monster.
Suddenly, without any warning, taking Damek out of his troubled thoughts and capturing his full attention, the sturdy wooden door to Baba Yaga’s hut flew off its metal hinges, blown inward by a large object that had crashed into it with tremendous force.
That object was the bone gate.
“I am here, my love.”
Thick plumes of smoke rushed through the open entrance, filling the strange house, a space infinitely larger inside than it looked to be from the outside. Within the smoke, concealed by its density and darkness, walked the Romani witch, who could see and breathe through the stuffy obfuscation just fine.
Baba Yaga was momentarily shocked into stillness; only her eyes moved as she followed the living smoke swirling around her abode. She was impressed that another’s magic was mighty enough to work within her place of power. Amused but not awed.
“Beloved, get out!” Damek shouted, spitting out blood. He was surprised to discover that he was completely unaffected by the smoke and could speak and breathe within it, although he could not see. “Run! Save yourself! Please, I am begging you, go now!”
The Romani witch was profoundly moved by the intense love emanating from Damek. It was a devotion filled with ardent concern and fear, not for himself, but for another. Damek was prepared to be left behind, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if it meant ensuring the safety of the man he loved more than anything else, even his own life.
“You will not die today, my love,” the Romani witch exclaimed confidently, still concealed by the cloak of smoke. “Nor shall I.”
Staring directly at Baba Yaga through the haze, he enacted his first magical attack.
“I call you out, monster! Strangulare! [Strangle!] Occidere eam! [Kill her!]”
Obeying its master’s command, the black cloud altered its form into a massive funnel and assailed the Cannibal Hag. The smoke targeted her open mouth, forcing the gaping maw wider as it drove down her throat into her gullet.
The Romani witch understood the beast was immortal and did not need to breathe air to survive; that was not his intent. He wished to fill her with the partially solid smoke creature, desiring her body to painfully expand beyond its limits. He wanted her organs and flesh to crack and fissure until she burst from the inside out.
But Baba Yaga was having none of that.
Even though her eyes bulged and her throat and belly expanded to inhuman proportions, the Cannibal Hag showed no signs of distress or discomfort. She leisurely moved her arms, hands, and fingers in a pattern of symbols unfamiliar to her assailant. Within moments, the smoke lost all shape and fell to the floor like hundreds of raindrops.
Baba Yaga expelled the intrusive brackish mass within her in one giant, vomitous eruption; the plume of smoke, including everything that coated her kitchen floor, evaporated into nothingness.
Before his enemy could regain her footing, the Romani witch quickly reached for a knife attached to his belt and hurled it at Baba Yaga with astonishing speed. He aimed for the space between her dark, cruel eyes, demonstrating remarkable accuracy.
The Cannibal Hag caught the blade before it struck her as easily as if she were plucking a floating feather out of the air.
“How trite, how mundane,” the Cannibal Hag chastised, insulted by the use of such a basic weapon against her.
But this was no ordinary knife.
“Krúos.” [“Ice.”]
Upon the Romani witch’s utterance of the ancient Greek word, the metal object became intensely cold; it was an enchanted blade.
Baba Yaga shrieked in pain, but before she could drop the offending instrument, the air around her erupted in a cloud of frosty mist, which quickly solidified, encasing her in a hard, frigid block of ice.
“Misdirection, hag,” the Romani witch sneered as he walked haughtily toward the ice boulder. “I knew you would be insulted by my audacity to use such a rudimentary weapon against you, the mighty Baba Yaga! The need to mock, to ridicule me for my effrontery, my insult to you, was too much for you to resist. Trick you with a knife attack, and then use magic against you while you stand there, arrogant and unimpressed.
“And now you are trapped. No voice to speak, no hands to conjure, a mind too cold to think. I win, and I barely got—”
All of a sudden, the ice block shattered, exploding with great force and scattering sharp shards of various sizes throughout the room. Several large chunks of ice struck the Romani witch in the stomach, leg, and face with tremendous impact, abruptly silencing his bravado, his praise toward his own cleverness, now not so warranted.
The violent collisions sent him flying across the room, first slamming hard into a wall and then crashing to the floor, his face cut and bleeding, his stomach, right thigh, and knee on fire.
The pain was terrible.
As he lifted his head, the Romani witch saw Baba Yaga staring at him with a wicked smile, her broom firmly held in her left hand. The grin almost appeared pitying to the Romani witch; only the row of iron teeth and the black, hairy tongue that licked them told him that the grimace was most sinister and taunting.
Damek reached out for his love, but he was too far away and too brutalized to move; both his legs were broken. “My love, please get up—run,” he pleaded, tears streaming down his face.
“That was—interesting,” the Cannibal Hag snickered as she began to sweep ice away from her feet. She showed no signs of physical damage whatsoever. It was as if the spell had never happened, despite the frozen residue all around her showing otherwise.
“It has been some time since I have experienced one of Circe’s enchantments.” Baba Yaga stuck her tongue out and licked the air, the cold still tangible. “An interesting flavour. You improved upon the spell’s potency, the intensity of the cold, even the hardness of the ice. You have talent. Your distinctive magic is delicious. I will enjoy feasting upon it.”
“Feast on this, immortal,” the Romani witch whispered through bloodstained teeth. The wind was still somewhat knocked out of him, but not enough to keep him down. Staggering to his feet, he summoned the fire within. As his eyes turned white, he set his sights on the Cannibal Hag.
“Burn, crone!” Using all his remaining strength, the Romani witch shouted, “Ignis, veni ad me! Ignis, veni ad me! Ignis, veni ad me!”
The fire from Baba Yaga’s great oven burst forth and encircled the Romani witch, whipping about like a serpent, crackling and hissing. Then, the air itself ignited around him; he had taken the fire and enriched it with his own life force, expanding it. It was a blaze totally under his control.
With a level of finesse surprising even to him, considering his physical state, the Romani witch orchestrated a symphony of intricate movements with his hands and fingers. As he always did with his fire magic, he traced ethereal sigils in the air, creating an elaborate, luminous pattern of latent power poised for a remarkable release.
In less time than a cock’s crow, a giant fire serpent, one reaching the hut’s ceiling and wide enough to envelop much of the room, stood between the Romani witch, Damek, and the wildly incensed Cannibal Hag.
“You seek to destroy me?!” Baba Yaga wailed. “I was there when men constructed the great ziggurats of Uruk. I have been one with magic since this land was known as Talianki. I was born before the first pyramid appeared in Kemet. I will show you what true power is, foolish child!”
In a deep, guttural tone, the Cannibal Hag began to speak in a language unknown to the Romani witch. Her misshapen body swayed back and forth as she held the broom tightly; it acted as a powerful talisman through which she could focus her dark sorcery.
The walls of Baba Yaga’s hut trembled violently as if the Carpathian Mountains themselves had erupted, unleashing a deafening roar from their depths.
Chairs, benches, and even a heavy oak table were violently overturned. Grimoires and other rare tomes of dark sorcery, black magic, and malevolent witchcraft, thought to be lost to time but in truth hoarded by the Cannibal Hag, flew maniacally off shelves. Glass jars, clay jugs, ceramics and pottery—adorned with both Hutsul and Kosiv designs and filled with all sorts of foul substances—shattered, spilling their contents everywhere.
The hut reeked of decay and putrefaction.
The Romani witch watched in astonishment as Baba Yaga stood firm, utterly unfazed by the chaos that consumed her home, a chaos of her own creation. She has gone mad! She would destroy the Temnyi Lis forest to teach me humility! I must stop her!
“Draco ignis—impetum fac!” [“Fire dragon—attack!”]
At the Romani witch’s quick, panicked command, the enormous fire serpent lunged toward Baba Yaga to incinerate her.
“úš,” [“Block”] Baba Yaga muttered, still in her swaying trance.
The attacking fire creature was met with an invisible barrier, one that it could not penetrate, no matter how many times it struck.
The Romani witch gasped; he recognized that word as the language of ancient Sumer. This was magic older than any he or Abriana had studied, a magic he feared he had no counter for.
“im.” [“Wind.”] Accompanying the strange word, Baba Yaga twisted her long fingers into arcane, inhuman shapes.
The mighty gale she brought forth, created from naught but her own will and the conjuration and control of the elements, magic learned long ago in ancient Sumer, consumed the fire serpent whole, extinguishing the Romani witch’s final chance to defeat the beastly hag.
“ki hedun!” [“Come here!”]
The Romani witch suddenly felt himself being lifted into the air and pulled in a direction not his choosing, utterly against his will. It was like that night in Éire when the Horned God had yanked him from his spot near the great bonfire; this invisible and unstoppable force was bringing him before another powerful immortal—a beastly creature. Not only were his arms pinned to his sides and immovable, but his mouth was also sealed shut and could not be opened.
He understood all too clearly that Baba Yaga wanted her prey working no more spells or conjurations, no more battle magic to attack with, though all she had faced so far appeared to have more or less simply annoyed he
With nothing to lose, the Romani witch made one final attempt to strike at Baba Yaga, using a strategy he believed she would not anticipate: targeting her mind.
