Methodius Buslaev. Ticket to Bald Mountain

“We in Eden write on birch bark, effortless and pretty. Or on papyrus. Or on eucalyptus leaves. You write and you appreciate the fragrance!” Daph said, teasing him.

“Birch bark is the skin of birches. If so, then I prefer a well-skinned rat,” Methodius said and leaned over, pretending that he wanted to snatch a rat skin with his teeth.

Daphne recoiled in fear. Depressiac, having accidentally dozed off on her shoulder, fell down into the wine fountain and, after jumping out, sticky and disgusting, began to scamper around reception, toppling everything that could be overturned in theory and in practice.

On hearing the noise, Nata, Chimodanov, and Eugeny Moshkin went down.

* * *

About two hours later Julitta arrived. Alone. She was pale and exhausted. She looked bad. Her plump, usually rosy, full-of-life face resembled a balloon from yesterday’s party, which had already begun to deflate. There were blue shadows under her eyes. Having just teleported, she went up to the fireplace hall, went to an armchair, and collapsed into it, worn out.

Daph silently nudged Methodius with an elbow. “Ares!” she whispered. “Why is she alone?”

“I see,” Methodius replied. He was smart enough not to ask questions.

The curious Chimodanov walked around the armchair several times, trying to catch her attention. “Ahem! How was the trip? Got an account for the team? Will you present it?”

Julitta raised her head and looked at him blankly. It seemed, on the whole, that she vaguely understood who was before her.

“Something nasty, huh? I emphasize: I’m indeed also a guard now, huh?” Petruchio continued.

Zuduka’s dangling feet peeped out from under his thin sweater. In spite of its tendency to pull pranks, the monster feared to be left alone. Not possessing vocal cords, it sought other means to express its horror. For example, it located an empty saucepan and banged the walls until everyone in the neighbourhood, having the good fortune to hear it, began to bang their heads against the walls in turn. It also feared the dark, by the way, and spent the night in the same bed with Chimodanov. This gave Nata the excuse to declare that the demonic Petruchio slept with a plush bunny.

“So, where’s Ares? Why are you so utterly sickly?”

“Go away! I’ll get up, and you’ll lie down!” Julitta said through her teeth.

The persistent Chimodanov did not leave her alone. Then Julitta actually got up. And Chimodanov actually lay down, thrown several metres by an unknown force. Meanwhile, the witch – Methodius and Daph were ready to swear – did not even move a finger.

Having dealt with Chimodanov, Julitta laboriously approached the mirror and looked at herself. What she saw was the last straw. The witch again collapsed into the armchair and burst into tears – convulsively, with whines and whimpers. The walls trembled. One of them cracked. A sudden hurricane swept through Bolshaya Dmitrovka. It inflated ads, snatched several umbrellas, rummaged through the books on the second-hand bookseller’s table, shattered a dozen windows, showering the roadway with glass, and caused several minor accidents.

Met, Moshkin, and Chimodanov, no longer lying but sitting on the floor, immediately took a back seat. The witch’s intense emotions were not for their delicate nervous system. Daph and Nata instantly rushed to calm Julitta and give her something to drink. At such moments, girls, as Methodius had observed, act much more sensibly and with more experience. Someone else’s tears, even the most inconsolable, do not frighten them as much.

About ten minutes later, Julitta’s sobs began to subside. She got up, approached the wall, and tore the rug from the wall with a single movement of her hand. Methodius saw a large stone, polished to a shine, with one long and crooked crack cutting it from the top left corner to the lower right.

“Don’t you want to ask me what this is?” the witch asked dully.

“A tombstone,” Methodius answered without hesitation for everyone. He had already had time to become accustomed to the unique stylistics of their establishment.

“Precisely. Not just wizards have zoomers. Don’t you want to watch the news? They can’t not talk about this…” Julitta uttered and sobbed again. However, this sobbing, fortunately, did not develop into hysteria. Strength is needed in order to sob in full voice. Julitta no longer had strength.

The tombstone was wrapped in a dense greenish fog. A flabby face vaguely appeared through the fog.

“Did they smudge my teeth with soil? Put worms in my ears? No again? Away with the makeup technician! What! Yesterday again? It’s clear now why the soap was so terrible in the morning! I hope they’ve at least found the suicide who is going to lift my eyelids in the finale? How did she change her mind and run away? Oh, poor me! Doing everything myself again… What are you whispering over there? Shooting now? I beg your pardon, gentlemen! On air is Venny Vii and his analytical program Cadaveric Eye.”

At this point, Venny, as usual, paused and smiled into the camera, baring his terrible, green-tinged teeth. The acquaintance with those same teeth brought the life of many dentists closer to the end of the rope. Yes, those very dentists whom he loved to visit in his spare time.

“As is known, there are three kinds of news: sensational, simple, and bad,” Vii continued. “We’ll start with the bad. Nagiana Pripyatskaya again won the main prize as presenter of the year… Well, old age – ho, ho! – should be rewarded on merits. Personally I don’t envy Nagiana, especially as the prize was just an ordinary prophetic pharaoh’s mummy. In order that it doesn’t whither and continues to play the oracle, one has to feed it with an eyedropper and sleep with it under the same blanket at least once a week. And in general, Nagiana’s broadcast hasn’t been as successful recently as, say, Coffinia Cryptova’s program. I’m forced to admit this, although this girl also allowed herself to dominate me in spirit: ‘you’ll open your eyes, you’ll stretch out your legs!’ Very funny joke, girl, very funny! One eye specialist asked me roughly with the same zeal to open my eyes.”

Vii’s heavy eyelids trembled threateningly and lifted one-tenth of the way. Hundreds of spectators rushed screaming away from the screens; however, it did not go any further. The eyelids again descended under their own weight and the weight of the clinging earth.

“Other news: the search continues for the fairy Middlelina, suspected of the theft of an artifact from the depository. The raciness of the situation is enhanced by the fact that no one knows precisely what artifact was stolen and what unpleasantness this can cause. Taking into account that Middlelina was never found on Bald Mountain, they are searching for her from now on in the moronoid world. Our noble combat wizards, naturally, report that the circle of search has shrunk. Sure, the earth is round.

“And finally, the sensational! The recent events in the world of guards of Light and Gloom are followed with interest on Bald Mountain. After the definitive destruction of Kvodnon, there is only one individual who can theoretically take his place. This is the well-known to all heir of Gloom Methodius Buslaev. Taking into account that this gifted adolescent not so long ago gave up guns and cars, the high council of Gloom gathered this morning for decision making. And then, my untrue friends, keep your eyes open! You’ll be able to see how everything was… The footage, it goes without saying, was shot with a hidden camera. The operator subsequently… eh-h… was forced to stop the filming. Please!”

Venny Vii snapped his fingers. The tombstone rippled. Methodius saw a long, infinitely long table. The table ended with a short cross-beam like the top of the letter “T”. There, on an unprepossessing office chair, Ligul the hunchback sat in solitude and gnawed his nails. Then he raised his head, grinned, and shouted boomingly, “Summon everyone!”

His voice had not even fallen silent, when the spirit-courtiers started to flicker in the air like specks, in small ripples, like crumpled cigarette wrappers. And a minute had not gone by, when the pig snout of agents started to grunt along the corners of the room. They licked their faces, their black bulging eyes sparkled, the stubbles on their snouts stood on end, and rigid hair curled out of their ears. Attentive, they looked hard at each other. Their mouths were narrow, straight, like the slots of piggy banks. Their intrigue was considerable, the scumbags – there were not enough positions, and every year, the list from Tartarus was reduced. Here the agents were also spinning. Someone just opened his mouth and the rest already caught his words in a notebook. Even now, each pressed a leaflet to his chest, which he hurried to hand over to Ligul personally or at least place on the edge of his desk.

“Go with the denunciations! No time for you now!” the hunchback bellowed.

No sooner had the agents disappeared, when the succubi, rubbing each other, climbed out of windows, cabinets, and doors. They flirted, fluttered, giggled, sighed, and clambered to kiss. The succubi curtseyed on their hind legs and swooned quietly in front of Ligul, robed in ceremonial regalia.

Someone was inadvertently pressed down in the darkness and he yelped loudly. The yelp was immediately drowned in the dissatisfied grumbling of the crowd, seeing it as an attempt to draw attention to himself.

Suddenly all the lightweights fled. The bosses of Gloom – the heads of all the national divisions with their secretaries and entourages – had arrived. The long table was filled so that a pea had nowhere to fall. Ares with Julitta flickered for a moment among the crowd.

Methodius looked around at the witch. She sat white as a sheet. He touched her hand reassuringly. Julitta smiled weakly in thanks.

The camera again stopped at Ligul. Placing his thumbs in his belt, he wriggled the rest of his fingers precisely like the tentacles of an octopus. The division heads waited. A sucking silence filled the infernal Chancellery.

Finally, Ligul grunted and clapped his hands. At the same moment, an enormous silver cup filled with something thick, red, and frighteningly clear emerged on the table in front of him. After removing from his neck a large medal on a chain – a medal, on which someone’s face in relief was discernible, Ligul brought it to the cup, and, unclenching his hand, dropped it to the bottom. All eyes were directed to it. Having taken the cup with both hands, the chief of the Chancellery began to drink greedily. The blood flowed down his cheeks and neck, spilling onto his ceremonial suit.

At last, the cup was empty. Ligul retrieved the blood-stained medal and examined it, as it seemed to Methodius, anxiously. Then he suddenly jerked up the hand with the medal over his head and burst out laughing. And instantly, enthusiastic wild shouts, howls, and laughter, in which there could not be anything human, swept the entire hall.

The lens of the concealed camera, attempting to catch a close-up of the medal, suddenly tossed about. The image wavered and a short shriek was heard. The camera fell and lay on its side, filming feet. Shortly, a hand appeared in the frame, holding by the hair a severed head with a large wart on its nose.

“Well, smile into the camera! Yet another operator from Bald Mountain thought that an invisible cloak would save him!” a voice uttered contentedly. A boot stepped on the lens. Everything disappeared. Eternal night came for the concealed camera.

Venny Vii again appeared on the zoomer screen. A black hanky was clutched in his bluish chubby hand, with which he was wiping away from those closed eyelids tears existing only in his imagination.

“Death at work! How this touches the calloused hearts of the brasses! Now you understand what I had in mind, saying that the operator was forced to stop filming? Ahh! It was my best ghoul. A courageous and completely mindless staffer. Mindless, alas, already in the literal sense of the word.[5] Fortunately, everything that was shot was immediately transmitted through telepathic channels to our centre… And now, my friends, if you’re interested, Venny will report how the high council of the guards of Gloom ended and what it decided. First: Ligul the hunchback is now not only the head of the Chancellery, but also the temporarily acting sovereign of Gloom. Until now, this post was nominally occupied by Kvodnon, who is finally out of the game now.”

“How does he know all this?” Methodius asked.

“Probably enticed one of the agents. Wizards pay rather well for information they’re interested in,” Julitta said indifferently.

“Pay with what? Money?” Chimodanov asked.

“What’s money got to do with it?” Julitta replied with the deepest contempt.

On the screen, Venny Vii brushed away adhered dirt from his shirtfront with a learned gesture. “I’ll continue! The speed of Methodius Buslaev’s degradation has been declared by Gloom as insufficient. The presence of his self – the unsold and un-pawned eidos – has been declared scandalous. It has been decided to appoint him a new guardian until he comes of age. I suspect either Ligul himself or someone he’ll assign to this post. The old guardian, the swordsman Ares, has been indicted and exiled to Lower Tartarus. Ares refused the demand to return his sword. As a result of his arrest, a number of vacancies in some divisions of Gloom have become available.”

“Ares has been seized?” Methodius asked, in disbelief.

“He killed three guards, but then they disarmed him anyway! You should’ve seen how he left! A lion surrounded by mongrels! And they were all jumping and shouting, ‘Death to him!’” Julitta replied, sobbing.

“Yes, everything was neatly arranged! Ligul used the destruction of Kvodnon to appropriate power till Methodius’ maturity. Moreover, Ligul himself or one he sends will train Methodius!” Chimodanov estimated, having had time to delve into the basic power structure.

“But why didn’t they execute Ares?” Daphne asked. The mores of dark guards, very far from sentimentality, were well known to her.

“Ligul didn’t dare. I suspect he’s slightly afraid. Not now, but for the future, just in case. Everything might turn around! For this same reason he spared my life and even allowed me to leave Tartarus. I didn’t expect that!” Julitta said with contempt.

“Afraid of whom?” Daph clarified.

The witch did not answer, only squinted quickly at Methodius. Daphne sighed. She had managed to fall in love with the guy whom even the head of the Chancellery of Gloom fears! And not only fall in love, but tie her wings and her eternity together with him.

Strong blows shook the reception door.

“Who else is there? We aren’t expecting anyone!” Nata said with unease.

The blows did not subside. They did not become more violent, but rather nastier. The one banging this way knew that he was heard and sooner or later it would open. This was the knock of a master of the situation.

“Are we letting him in?” Daph asked.

Julitta shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Why?”

“If it’s a moronoid, the rune will stop him. If not, he’ll enter and…” the witch did not finish and waved her hand.

The sound of a door being opened was heard. Apparently, the one who knocked was tired of waiting for the grass to grow.

“No, not a moronoid…” Daph said quietly, observing how Depressiac’s back acquired the resemblance of a question mark and the short leathery nose cut through three deep folds.

Julitta kept silent. Everyone, including Depressiac and Zuduka, attentively listened as someone walked with a shuffling and unsteady gait in reception below. Now he pushed aside a chair, now he opened the door into Ares’ office and glanced casually in it. Now steps approached the inner staircase. The rickety oak rails began to creak. A gurgling cough was heard. It seemed something vile and repugnant was crawling up the stairs from below.

To Methodius’ surprise, it was not Eugeny Moshkin but Chimodanov who first lost his nerves. “Can you draw the rune of invisibility? Do something!” Chimodanov whispered to Daphne.

“It’s useless. He already knows that we’re here,” Daph remarked.

“Who is it?”

“I suspect the new guardian of our Mety! Speak of the devil!” Julitta said sullenly, after crossing her arms on her chest.

Chapter 3

Boy with a Sabre

Irka sat on a bench in that place beyond Tsvetnoy Boulevard where the Moscow avenues turned steeply up and thought about how to deal with her own immortality. The bench was the most uncomfortable. All the boards except two were completely missing, and Irka was constantly falling into the hole, if she, forgetting, leaned back slightly.

Certainly, it was possible to move, but there were already groups sitting on all the neighbouring benches, therefore, it was necessary to either remain on the uncomfortable bench or sacrifice solitude. Irka chose what seemed to her, as a special individual, the lesser of two evils.

And although before her lay a glorious new eternity, almost wrapped in wrapping paper, Irka’s thoughts were the saddest. She thought about Methodius, who loved another, about Granny, and about what Antigonus had said to her in the evening.

“The powers of the valkyries are enormous, or I’m not a vile monster!” he had stated, smugly examining his own reflection in the puddle. “Valkyries can do everything for others, but nothing for themselves. Having once used her abilities for her own interests, a valkyrie will lose them…”

“Just once?” Irka asked again with horror, keeping it in mind.

“Yes, ghastly valkyrie, that’s right. Won’t you comb my terrible sideburns? It’s so disgusting that I always wait for this moment with impatience!” Antigonus asked.

“I can do everything for others and nothing for myself. What would be better to restrain omnipotence? True, I have living legs, flight, and the possibility to run through the forest at night as a white wolf. In essence, it’s already a lot,” Irka reflected.

Suddenly, looking up, she discovered that her solitude was being disrupted. A young person, having broken away from one of the small groups, was hovering around her. Rather likeable, if compared to an Australopithecus[6] specimen, and slightly older than Irka. He had just finished examining her knees and face, and now first moved away, then approached. On the whole, he behaved like a dog to which meat was thrown directly from a frying pan. It wants to grab it, but fears getting burned.

“Well, earlier nobody cared about me!” Irka thought, perhaps, slightly flattered. She did not like the young person at all, but it was still interesting to listen to him. After all, it was the second time in her life that she was accosted on the street. The first time, two doltish fellows did this at the subway.

Seeing that his presence was noticed, the young person got up the courage and informed Irka that her lace was untied.

“It wasn’t possible to think up something better?” Irka muttered, but still looked down automatically and discovered that her lace was actually untied. “Thanks!” she said.

The pleased young person immediately began to cultivate his success and asked what she thought about love at first sight. Irka said that she thought absolutely nothing about it.

“What music do you prefer?”

Irka, not going into details, assured him that she mostly liked soft music.

The young person, who had already wasted two excellent lines, became shy and hastily resorted to a third, “Are you by chance waiting for me here?”

Irka assured him that he was amazingly shrewd. She was not by chance waiting for him.

“Ahhh!” the young person drawled in confusion. Not knowing what else to say, he informed her that his name was Roma, and asked how old Irka was.

“I’m as old as the world!” Irka said, thinking about the age of the valkyries.

“You tell fairy tales… Then I’m as old as two worlds!” Roma exclaimed.

“Do you have in mind this world and the parallel one? On the whole you look about sixteen…” Irka remarked.

“Seventeen!” Roma corrected resentfully. “And you’re some kind of… you know… not that…”

“Some kind of what?” Irka asked. She was curious to hear something new about herself. After all, the only person you are not capable of assessing sensibly is yourself.

“Well, in short, some kind of not that…”

Irka frowned. “I’m already familiar with this thesis. From here, please, with complex two-part proposals with many secondary terms! And what am I?”

“Well, you say all kinds of words… a brainiac!”

Irka sighed. Alas, this was not news to her. “You guessed it. No point in using a hackneyed cliché. I’m precisely that! And, by the way, if I were you, I’d slip away right now.”

“Why?”

“Because. My older brother is walking towards us!” Irka said, smiling sweetly.

“Yes indeed. And is your grandpa coming towards us by any chance?” Roma mockingly asked.

“Well, as you wish. I warned you,” Irka sighed.

Vaguely sensing something special in her tone, Roma condescendingly turned his head. Behind him, arms crossed on his chest, Essiorh stood and examined him with the dour curiosity of a scientist setting up experiments on guinea pigs. For the first time, the keeper was not in a leather jacket but a white tight-fitting T-shirt, which nicely showed off his sculpted muscles. The belt buckle in the form of a skeleton’s hand gleamed dimly, but meaningfully.

Roma issued a sound that could have been made by a pug, which suddenly discovered that an elephant, having lost patience completely, was running after it with a chainsaw in its trunk. The novice womanizer leaped over the bench with a howl and disappeared into the three and a half trees of the boulevard as successfully as if it was a forest.

Essiorh, it goes without saying, did not pursue him. He looked anxiously at the motorcycle standing at some distance right on the grass of the boulevard and dropped onto the bench next to Irka. “Hello!” he said.

“Hello!” Irka replied.

They had not seen each other for about three weeks. Not since that very night when the keeper had rushed with her on the motorcycle across Moscow. But, in spite of the short duration of their past acquaintance, both now suddenly felt like old friends and were very glad to meet.

“How are you?” Essiorh asked.

“Okay.”

Essiorh looked attentively at her. “Accustomed?” he asked as if casually.

“Accustomed.”

“Wolf and swan?”

“We have full mutual understanding,” said Irka.

Here she was being slightly dishonest. She had a mutual understanding only with the swan. With the wolf, it was more about armed neutrality. Now and then, especially during a full moon, the wolf persistently tried to seize power, and only the will of man restrained it.

“And how’s your terrible monster with the sideburns?” Essiorh asked with a smile.

“Antigonus? Hmmm… In short, he’s now robbing a little shop,” Irka said sheepishly.

“WHAT?” Essiorh was amazed.

“I think the shopkeeper will survive this! In reality, he infiltrated the storage room and is now eating jam somewhere behind the boxes,” Irka explained, smiling.

Not so long ago, the house-kikimor revealed a weakness. The weakness was excusable, but at the same time insurmountable. He experienced an enormous craving for fruit preserves and jam. He was still able to restrain himself for about five or six days, but later could not stand it and disappeared for several hours in some store room, where he ate two, three, or four jars at once. Then he sang songs, slept for half a day, and only then, guiltily sniffling his porous nose similar to a small lemon, reported to Irka. It was completely useless to call him on this drunken day. Antigonus would not appear even in the event that Irka were to be executed.

“Funny,” said Essiorh. “These are all earthly passions! You can’t get away from them. The moronoid world knows how to attract and hold. It entangles with attachments, like a spider’s web. You try to think about eternity and suddenly catch yourself with thoughts constantly straying to a new muffler or that at least the rear tires need to be changed.”

“Nightmare,” Irka sympathized. She understood little about motorcycles, but Essiorh’s tone convinced her that this was something important.

Her attention encouraged the keeper. “You bet! If only you knew how rare it is to come across an unlucky tire and especially unlucky gasoline!” he complained.