The Crown's Game
Page 56
The island, her thoughts whispered, and the wind obeyed, whisking her like champagne raindrops over Nevsky Prospect, past the colorful canals, and across the Neva River and bay. It carried her over the island and swirled down to the gardens. Then it deposited her dissolved quintessence at the foot of the main promenade.
Vika’s sense of self was nebulous; if she’d had a head, it would have felt full of clouds. But although she was not much more than sparkling fog, she retained the impression that she used to be something more. Come back together, she thought, although she was not sure what it was that she was supposed to be.
The tiny bubbles, however, knew. She’d shepherded them all safely to the island, and one by one, they reunited. She blinked, for a moment staring at her hands and feet as if she’d never seen them before. Then the memory of being human rushed back, and she laughed and wiggled her fingers and toes.
“I did it.” Vika touched her arms and legs and neck and head, and yes, every single piece of her was there. She laughed again. She stretched and she spun, and she found that her body worked exactly as it should. “I did it!” She wasn’t tired at all.
After another minute, she remembered to look around her, because she’d come to the island not for the experience of evanescing, but to uncover Nikolai’s move. She stood at the beginning of the promenade in the middle of the island’s gardens, and as she took in her surroundings, she gasped. Where there had been only a canopy of leaves when she’d left yesterday, golden globes now ornamented the branches, suspended by invisible string and floating in the breeze. The soft glow of the lanterns complemented the orange light of the rising sun.
Across the path from her was a new bench. Although Vika was not tired from the evanescing, her breath was a bit unsteady, as if her newly reconstituted lungs were still relearning how to breathe. So she walked over to the bench. It looked ordinary enough, except for a brass plaque on its seat back that said Moscow in both Russian and French. And magic wafted off the bench in a mist of pale-blue vapor.
Will this kill me if I sit?
No one answered except the larks and wrens she’d put in the trees, singing her favorite folk songs.
But Nikolai’s magic reached out, the pale-blue mist curling in wisps around her. The tugging began again in the center of her chest.
So she took a deep breath and dropped down onto the bench. It was reckless, but Vika had done plenty of reckless things before, and for a great deal less in return.
As soon as she made contact with the wooden slats, her chest swelled with warmth as it had at the masquerade. At the same time, the park around her began to fade. Then, like a watercolor, a new scene filled in. She stood along the Arbat, the main thoroughfare of Moscow, surrounded by opulence. Corinthian columns and intricate mahogany veneers adorned the houses, and women in fashionable gowns strolled arm in arm along the street. The entire city had been rebuilt after its citizens had burned it down to prevent Napoleon from pillaging it, and here Moscow was, shiny and proud and new.
It was like being in a dream. Vika could scrape her boots against the dirt, feel the autumn chill upon her skin, even take in the rich smell of mushroom and meat pies wafting in the air. And yet, for all the reality of the scene, the people on the Arbat couldn’t see her. When she said hello, they did not greet her.
She strolled away from the Arbat and continued walking until she came to Red Square. She marveled at the white Kremlin walls and paused to admire the red brick and the cupolas of St. Basil’s Cathedral, built to resemble a bonfire rising to the sky. Vika had never been to Moscow, but it was beautiful to behold.
After a while, she had gotten her fill of churches and monuments and squares. She was ready to leave Moscow except . . . how? It was not as if Nikolai had provided an obvious exit. Her heart pounded faster. She looked all around her, at the people who could not see her and the city that was too fake to be real but too real to be feigned.
Oh, the devil, it was a trap. He’d finally caught her. Her stupid curiosity had led her here, and now she’d be stuck in Moscow forever. It was even worse than being confined, as Sergei used to say, to the jinni bottle that was Ovchinin Island. Now she was literally trapped on a bench in a dream.
A never-ending, lonely dream.
But wait. Dreams could be woken from. Right? Yes, please, please, please, be right.
Vika shook her head from side to side and yawned. She stretched her arms above her head and opened her eyes wide. A few seconds later, Moscow began to fade away, and reality and the island came into view again. She exhaled.
She was free.
And even better, it had not been a trick. Nikolai had not tried to hurt her, just as she had not tried to hurt him with this island. She sighed and leaned back against the bench.
Then it dawned on her how incredible it was what Nikolai had created.
There were other benches along the promenade. If this first one had been such a glorious rendition of Moscow, what else had he done? She stood and hurried across the gravel path—the benches zigzagged across the promenade, each fifty or so yards from the next—and wandered to the next bench.
A subtle fog hung over this one, too. Sea green, rather than blue. It also had a brass plaque on it, but instead of Moscow, it was labeled Kostroma. Kostroma was a small city at the junction of the Volga and Kostroma Rivers, and famous for the venerable Ipatievsky Monastery and the Trinity Cathedral, both beloved by the tsars. Had Nikolai been to all these places? A prick of jealousy twinged inside her.
She wanted to sit on the Kostroma bench, but she was still a little skittish from panicking inside Moscow. So she ran down the gravel path to look at the next one instead. Kazan. The largest city in the land of the Tatars, where mosques and Orthodox churches coexisted, and where the tsar had recently founded the Kazan Imperial University.
After Kazan came Samara, then Nizhny Novgorod, seat of the medieval princes, followed by Yekaterinburg on the Ural Mountains, the border of the European and Asian sides of the empire.
Vika spun in a circle in the middle of the promenade, looking at all the benches behind and in front of and around her, each with a different plaque and a different, subtle mist about it. “It’s a dream tour of the wonders of Russia,” she said aloud.
The next bench was Kizhi Island, known for its twenty-two-dome church constructed entirely of shimmering silver-brown wood, each piece painstakingly interlocked at the corners with round notches or dovetail joints. Legend had it that the builder used only one ax to construct the entire church, and when finished, tossed the ax into the nearby lake and declared that there would never be another ax like it.
Vika’s sense of self was nebulous; if she’d had a head, it would have felt full of clouds. But although she was not much more than sparkling fog, she retained the impression that she used to be something more. Come back together, she thought, although she was not sure what it was that she was supposed to be.
The tiny bubbles, however, knew. She’d shepherded them all safely to the island, and one by one, they reunited. She blinked, for a moment staring at her hands and feet as if she’d never seen them before. Then the memory of being human rushed back, and she laughed and wiggled her fingers and toes.
“I did it.” Vika touched her arms and legs and neck and head, and yes, every single piece of her was there. She laughed again. She stretched and she spun, and she found that her body worked exactly as it should. “I did it!” She wasn’t tired at all.
After another minute, she remembered to look around her, because she’d come to the island not for the experience of evanescing, but to uncover Nikolai’s move. She stood at the beginning of the promenade in the middle of the island’s gardens, and as she took in her surroundings, she gasped. Where there had been only a canopy of leaves when she’d left yesterday, golden globes now ornamented the branches, suspended by invisible string and floating in the breeze. The soft glow of the lanterns complemented the orange light of the rising sun.
Across the path from her was a new bench. Although Vika was not tired from the evanescing, her breath was a bit unsteady, as if her newly reconstituted lungs were still relearning how to breathe. So she walked over to the bench. It looked ordinary enough, except for a brass plaque on its seat back that said Moscow in both Russian and French. And magic wafted off the bench in a mist of pale-blue vapor.
Will this kill me if I sit?
No one answered except the larks and wrens she’d put in the trees, singing her favorite folk songs.
But Nikolai’s magic reached out, the pale-blue mist curling in wisps around her. The tugging began again in the center of her chest.
So she took a deep breath and dropped down onto the bench. It was reckless, but Vika had done plenty of reckless things before, and for a great deal less in return.
As soon as she made contact with the wooden slats, her chest swelled with warmth as it had at the masquerade. At the same time, the park around her began to fade. Then, like a watercolor, a new scene filled in. She stood along the Arbat, the main thoroughfare of Moscow, surrounded by opulence. Corinthian columns and intricate mahogany veneers adorned the houses, and women in fashionable gowns strolled arm in arm along the street. The entire city had been rebuilt after its citizens had burned it down to prevent Napoleon from pillaging it, and here Moscow was, shiny and proud and new.
It was like being in a dream. Vika could scrape her boots against the dirt, feel the autumn chill upon her skin, even take in the rich smell of mushroom and meat pies wafting in the air. And yet, for all the reality of the scene, the people on the Arbat couldn’t see her. When she said hello, they did not greet her.
She strolled away from the Arbat and continued walking until she came to Red Square. She marveled at the white Kremlin walls and paused to admire the red brick and the cupolas of St. Basil’s Cathedral, built to resemble a bonfire rising to the sky. Vika had never been to Moscow, but it was beautiful to behold.
After a while, she had gotten her fill of churches and monuments and squares. She was ready to leave Moscow except . . . how? It was not as if Nikolai had provided an obvious exit. Her heart pounded faster. She looked all around her, at the people who could not see her and the city that was too fake to be real but too real to be feigned.
Oh, the devil, it was a trap. He’d finally caught her. Her stupid curiosity had led her here, and now she’d be stuck in Moscow forever. It was even worse than being confined, as Sergei used to say, to the jinni bottle that was Ovchinin Island. Now she was literally trapped on a bench in a dream.
A never-ending, lonely dream.
But wait. Dreams could be woken from. Right? Yes, please, please, please, be right.
Vika shook her head from side to side and yawned. She stretched her arms above her head and opened her eyes wide. A few seconds later, Moscow began to fade away, and reality and the island came into view again. She exhaled.
She was free.
And even better, it had not been a trick. Nikolai had not tried to hurt her, just as she had not tried to hurt him with this island. She sighed and leaned back against the bench.
Then it dawned on her how incredible it was what Nikolai had created.
There were other benches along the promenade. If this first one had been such a glorious rendition of Moscow, what else had he done? She stood and hurried across the gravel path—the benches zigzagged across the promenade, each fifty or so yards from the next—and wandered to the next bench.
A subtle fog hung over this one, too. Sea green, rather than blue. It also had a brass plaque on it, but instead of Moscow, it was labeled Kostroma. Kostroma was a small city at the junction of the Volga and Kostroma Rivers, and famous for the venerable Ipatievsky Monastery and the Trinity Cathedral, both beloved by the tsars. Had Nikolai been to all these places? A prick of jealousy twinged inside her.
She wanted to sit on the Kostroma bench, but she was still a little skittish from panicking inside Moscow. So she ran down the gravel path to look at the next one instead. Kazan. The largest city in the land of the Tatars, where mosques and Orthodox churches coexisted, and where the tsar had recently founded the Kazan Imperial University.
After Kazan came Samara, then Nizhny Novgorod, seat of the medieval princes, followed by Yekaterinburg on the Ural Mountains, the border of the European and Asian sides of the empire.
Vika spun in a circle in the middle of the promenade, looking at all the benches behind and in front of and around her, each with a different plaque and a different, subtle mist about it. “It’s a dream tour of the wonders of Russia,” she said aloud.
The next bench was Kizhi Island, known for its twenty-two-dome church constructed entirely of shimmering silver-brown wood, each piece painstakingly interlocked at the corners with round notches or dovetail joints. Legend had it that the builder used only one ax to construct the entire church, and when finished, tossed the ax into the nearby lake and declared that there would never be another ax like it.
