The scribe has told us the tale of Prince Ivan, who married off his sisters to three fine birds, won the hand of the wondrously lovely warrior Marya Morevna, and killed Koshchei the Deathless. The tale is full of marvelous things like silver spoons and spirited horses, fiery rivers and snuff-​​boxes, bridges that appear and vanish at the flutter of a handkerchief.

The scribe is very clever. But it didn’t happen that way.

So long ago it wasn’t yesterday, and far enough away to be somewhere else, there lived a man with a story. Every day people would stop and listen to his story. Some would grow angry, some would grow sad, and a few proud folk would laugh.

The man’s story went like this.

”Excuse me, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you and you should know I don’t ever do this; I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of bum or something. But you look like the kind of person who wants to do the right thing and help a brother out. I got laid off from my job last week, and I just found out my mother — her name’s Natasha, she’s only in her sixties — she has cancer. I need to go be with her, but the train ticket’s fifteen dollars and I’ve only got twelve dollars and forty-​​seven cents. Could you spare me fifty cents to buy a ticket? I just need two dollars and fifty-​​three cents to go help my mother. Can you share fifty cents? God bless you, my friend. You’ve done more than you’ll ever know.”

Every evening the man would walk down to the chip shop, and use his fistful of coins to buy a sausage. He didn’t like sausage. But sausage only cost a fistful of coins.

He had to eat outside. The guard in the chip shop didn’t trust him.

The man’s name was Ivan.

There’s a place downriver from the palace where you can go if you’re tired of sleeping in doorways. If you don’t cuss too loud, they give you a meal and a bed. They have Rules posted beside each bed, on pink paper with smiley faces. The Rules aren’t too bad if you know how to hide a bottle. If you’re really good while you’re there, you might get an almost new suit.

Ivan understood the importance of a nice suit. Nobody believes a man in a sweat-​​moldered trench coat, even if he’s just telling you he had a mother. Everybody believes a man in a nice suit, even if he’s telling you to give him money. So Ivan hid his bottle, kept the Rules, and only cussed once.

On the night the world ended, Ivan had worn the suit for less than a week and still looked believable. The guard at the chip shop recognized him anyway. Ivan wandered along the river eating his sausage.

He watched a duck jabbering on the shore, threw it a bit of sausage. A pigeon waddled over, cocked its head at him stupidly. He threw another bit of sausage to the pigeon. A gull screeched overhead, beating its wings. Ivan flung the last bit of sausage into the filthy water. The gull dived after it, gulped.

Ivan stuck his hands in his pockets, and sauntered along the bank as if sauntering would make him forget how hungry he was.

Fireworks spat suddenly and brilliantly above the palace. Ivan heard clapping, laughter, polite music. There were yachts on the river, festooned with fairy lights. Paper lanterns hung in the Royal Gardens. Well-​​dressed people milled about, laughing and chatting, sipping cocktails and eating expensive food.

That was the important bit.

A few days more and it never would have worked, but the suit was still almost almost new. And no one knows everyone at a party.

Ivan sauntered through the Royal Gardens, clutching a whiskey and soda. If anyone had asked him, “And who are you, exactly?” Ivan would have grinned and said, “I’m Ivan” as if the person was supposed to know. But no one asked. It wasn’t the sort of thing you asked. You were supposed to know.

He chatted with Lord So-​​and-​​So, who was a bore, flirted with Lady This-​​and-​​That, who was slightly cute. He ate the lobster and left the caviar. When no one was looking, he refilled his bottle. There were enough drink tables and enough guys in suits that no one said, “You’ve had how many?”

Ivan himself was feeling a little uncertain about how many. So he wasn’t sure which of the many convinced him he had a chance with the radiantly beautiful Princess Marya Morevna.

If you walk without going far enough and run without going fast enough, swim without going deep enough and fly without going high enough, you will come at last to a silent river, dark as midnight. The river runs wide and fast and deep. To cross would be unwise.

If you are wise, you will turn your way downstream to the woods. If you are a fool, you will turn your way upstream to the wilds. It doesn’t matter. Whatever way you go, you will come to a castle as high as the river is deep, as pale as the river is dark, as still as the river is still. Do not look on it — do not linger.

For if you stay, a maiden will come out of the gates and cry to you piteously. If you are evil, you will help her from lust for her wealth or her beauty. If you are righteous, you cannot hear such pleas and turn aside.

There is no ferryman. If you would cross, you must swim.

Ivan — as he chatted with Princess Marya Morevna, telling her how radiant her sapphire pendant looked under the paper lanterns but how dull it looked compared to her eyes — did not know any of this.

He didn’t know he needed to.

Princess Marya Morevna invited Ivan inside. Ivan didn’t know how many she’d had. No one would dare ask. But his stories were more interesting than the military anecdotes of Sir This or the political theories of Lord That. And it was getting cold, Ivan reasoned. Why would the princess put a shawl over that fascinating sapphire gown?

They stood together in the library. It was dark except for the starlight and the occasional firework. She wasn’t touching him, hadn’t touched him yet, didn’t need to touch him. It was enough that she might. She smiled, and he was a man obsessed.

“Are you tired, Prince Ivan?”

That was how he’d introduced himself. Who knows which many thought up that one.

He grinned. “Well, you know, a bit.”

Marya Morevna stepped closer. He could breathe her nearness, the scent of starlight on her hair. Her eyes — so wide and blue in the light, so dark in the shadow — fixed on his. He saw her taunt, her challenge, her fear.

“I’ll make a game for you, then.” Her breath brushed his eyes as she spoke. “Tell me a story without words. Without touching a book.”

“It will be my pleasure, Princess.”

The touch of her hand on his chest burst through him like fire. Her eyes engulfed him, swept round him, pulled him in. There was nothing else in the world. They were everything.

Marya Morevna laughed. Her eyes glittered sudden, mischievous blue. “Catch me first!”

She darted away among the towering bookshelves. Ivan staggered, ran after her. Always she stayed just ahead, just beyond the next shelf, just in the next corridor. The sapphire of her gown flickered in the darkness. Her laugh rippled through the shadows, now further, now nearer. Ivan ducked and turned through the maze of shelves, scrambling under ladders and around carts. He was laughing, all tiredness gone. The whiskey and soda sang in his ears. The library seemed endless, stretching away into shadow.

Hinges creaked, a violent sound in the library’s quiet. Ivan wheeled round a shelf. He was in blind corridor, a narrow wall of bookshelves before him. The wall swung closed like a door. Ivan caught sight of a flash of blue before it shut. Marya Morevna’s laughter rang out, distant, muffled, as if from behind a door.

Ivan ran forward. “Princess?” He knocked on the bookshelf. There was no answer but a great cloud of dust. Ivan sneezed, knocked again. “Princess!”

She was taunting him. He’d seen her go in. If he could get inside, she would be waiting for him. She would — well, he just had to get inside.

Ivan stared at the bookshelf in frustration. The books were old, leather bindings cracking and faded. He couldn’t read the titles. Dry scrolls were heaped upon the books. There — that book there, on the far corner. It stuck out further than the rest. It wasn’t dusty. And it was blue.

Ivan reached for it, stopped with his arm outstretched. Story without words. Without touching a book. Those were the Rules. If he touched the book to open the doorway, he’d have lost the game.

He’d have won something else, the whiskey and soda whispered.

Ivan grabbed the book. It slid into the shelf, clicked. The bookshelf groaned open. Behind it lay deeper shadow. The air rushed over him, cold and stale.

“Princess?” Ivan stepped uncertainly into the gloom. His footsteps clattered on stone. “Marya Morevna?”

Something stirred in the darkness. Something near.

“Princess Marya?”

“ — thssssssss — ”

Hot breath rushed past Ivan’s face with the reek of dying. Ivan leapt back.

“ — thssssssss — ”

Ivan fumbled in his pockets. Whatever there was to scream about, he wanted to see it first. He pulled out his lighter, got a spark on the third try. The flame burst into the darkness.

A man hung splayed on the wall. Chains bound his wrists, his ankles, his neck, his waist. They — twisted him. To breathe would be agony. His bones stretched against his skin. Tattered rags of clothes rotted on his body. His head slumped against his skinny chest, a tangle of black hair and beard spattered with grey.

Ivan snapped off the lighter, stumbling for the doorway. The man spoke again from the darkness.

“ — thirst.”

Ivan struck the lighter again. The man lifted his head. His lips were cracked, his face pale. But his eyes were wide, black, horribly alive.

And Ivan saw the worst part of his torture.

Close enough to smell, yet not to touch, sat a pitcher full to the brim with fresh, clear water.

Ivan dropped to his knees beside the man. He bathed the man’s forehead, his face, let him lap water from cupped hands. All the while the man’s gaze never left him, eyes wide, astonished.

At last the man rolled his head aside, coughed, spoke. “She is cruel.”

“Who are you?” said Ivan.

The man stretched against his chains. “What I am — you see. What I was — who can say?”

“Can I ease your pain?”

The man shook his head.

Ivan tugged at the pins holding the chains in the wall. “I can pry these loose. I can get you out of here.”

The man laughed, a terrible, hacking sound. “A thousand enchantments round every chain. Torture, not death. Oh, she is cruel.”

“Enchantment?” said Ivan. “Is Marya Morevna an enchantress?”

The man laughed again. “She has more magic at her fingertips than — but she has set her mark on you.”

“She’s what?” said Ivan, alarmed. “Why did she do this to you?”

“Because I wanted to learn why goodbye follows hello. I wanted to find why tears follow laughter, and why tomorrow follows today. I wanted to uncover the secrecy of secrets, and unwind the way to ever after. Marya Morevna thought the story should end.”

“What story?”

“Any story.”

Ivan hesitated. “You’re feverish.” He cupped the last of the water in his hands, bathed the man’s forehead. “We’ll get you out of here. We’ll get you help.”

The man laughed again. His laugh was no longer weak.

“She took me for a fool,” he said. “I have found a fool greater still.”

He pulled against the chains, skeletal body straining. The chains burst with blue fire. The man towered over Ivan, his rags and his hair whipping in an unfelt wind.

“Know me,” he said, and his voice was deeper than darkness. “I am Deathless. I am Koshchei. What I was — who can say? What I am — do you see?”

Koshchei the Deathless changed. His face sloped into a sharp beak. His hair and beard flooded along his outstretched arms, over his body, black feathers. He was a raven, with wings thrice the span of a man’s height. He cawed, laughter without merriment, beat his great wings. Through the library he flew, books whirling beneath him like leaves in a gale. Wind rushed through the corridors. He flew out the high window into the night.

Fear seized Ivan, and he ran. Out the library, out the palace, out the gates, pelting through narrow streets, ducking through alleyways, fighting through an unending wind. He ran until he came to the shelter of a bridge, under stone and steel that swept out across the water.

He found his trench coat where he had left it, wrapped it round himself. And, despite pattering from pigeons sleeping above, he slept.

Ivan woke to discover the world had ended.

He crawled out from the bridge, blinking in the grey morning and hoping it was just a hangover. The bridge stood, a ruin, not even reaching the other side. The city had crumbled, as if a thousand years passed in an hour. Rust and ruin stood where steel had been, sand where glass. Wind hissed through desolation, shivering a few scrub weeds clinging to the wreckage. The city was silent — silent as death.

Ivan had a hangover, too.

He stamped his feet to warm himself, wished he hadn’t. He cursed. Something wet pattered onto his shoulder. He cursed again, looked up. A pigeon looked down at him.

“All right now,” said the pigeon.

Ivan stared.

“You know,” said the pigeon, “you sleep late. You should be on your way, you know?”

“You said, ‘you know,’” said Ivan. “You said it twice.”

“You know, I did.” The pigeon tried turning its head upside down. “Go on, mate. Off to the silent river, you know?”

“The what?”

The pigeon flapped. “Look, buddy! I’m doing you a favor here. You fill my gizzard, I fill yours. Koshchei — Deathless guy, you know? He takes things when they die, you know. Koshchei got mad at Marya Morevna for locking him up. That’s nothing. That’s tabloid stuff. But he got so mad, he took everything. He took everything but you. Left the ruins for the birds.”

“Tabloid stuff,” said Ivan. “Everything? Why not me? Why birds?”

The pigeon shrugged. “Can you change into a bird? He likes birds. I dunno. You done him a favor, maybe? But you need to go to the silent river and heal everything — since you’re, like, the only person in the world, you know.”

“What silent river?”

“The silent river.” The pigeon fluttered. “Look, make up your mind, willya?”

Ivan looked around at the ruins. The world had ended. It was, somehow, his fault.

“Oh, all right,” he said wretchedly.

The pigeon flapped. “Hoy, Gray! Gray!”

A gull swooped down, looked from Ivan to the pigeon. “What — ready at last, is he?”

Ivan rubbed his eyes. “A gull?”

“Let’s put it this way,” said the gull. “A favor’s still a favor even after the end of the world. Come on!”

Ivan hesitated, looked at the pigeon. “This is all a bad dream, right?”

“Like, what isn’t, you know?” said the pigeon. “All right now. All right.”

Ivan ran after the gull. It sped through the ruins so swiftly he couldn’t keep up. The gull waited for him on ruined streetlights, letting him walk over, but took off flying again before he could reach it. They came to another place in the river. The gull dived, swift and deep. Ivan jumped after. But the water was slick with oil and salt. He floundered dismally, spluttering. The gull shot out of the water, spiraled up until he was just a dot against the whiteness of the sky.

Ivan crawled out of the water, jumped up and down, beating his arms in frustration. “Come back! That’s too high!”

So he reached the shores of the silent river.

“A fool,” muttered Ivan. “That’s what I am. A stupid, stupid fool.” He trudged along the silent river toward the woods. The castle appeared so suddenly he screamed.

He sat on the desolate shore and stared at the castle, pale as mist across the dark water. As he looked, the gate opened. A maiden came forth, clothed all in gray, her hair dark as twilight and crowned with stars. She stretched out her hands towards him, and cried out piteously.

“Gramercy, gentle sir! Have pity! The queen my mother lies ill unto death. We are imprisoned here by a dishonorable knight who would have us starve until he can do my honor wrong! I beg of you, save us! Come to our aid!”

“No good!” shouted Ivan. “I know the mother shtick. You have to find another story, Marya Morevna!”

Marya Morevna dropped her arms. “You?”

“Last man in the world,” said Ivan.

“You’re responsible for this,” shouted Marya Morevna. “I locked Koshchei up, you let him out!”

“You were torturing him!”

“He’s Koshchei the Deathless!”

“Torture is torture!”

“He wanted to know why after follows before, and why perhaps isn’t the same as because! He’s looking for death — it’s the only thing he can’t understand. He was taking away everything to find it — destroying everything he knows to find the one thing he doesn’t. I’m supposed to protect people. I needed to stop him!”

“Not with torture!”

They glared at each other.

“I’m not happy about this,” said Marya Morevna.

“You and who else?”

“Well? You coming across or aren’t you, Mr. Last Man in the World?”

“Oh damn,” said Ivan. He jumped into the river.

He didn’t expect to land in an office. But he did.

A plump old lady in a severe grey suit sat across the desk. She glowered at him through tortoiseshell spectacles. With a start, he recognized her as the guard from the chip shop.

“Swimming the silent river is not an easy task,” said the guard. “We have implemented the Hero Assistance Program — HAP — to grow the productivity of heroic quests by the reduction of unnecessary risk.” She ruffled through her legal pad. “If you can correctly answer one terribly difficult question, HAP will, for a small fee, ferry you across.”

Ivan sighed. “What’s the terribly difficult question?” He noticed, puzzlingly, that the desk had chicken feet.

The guard pursed her lips, stared at the buzzing light. “What is your mother’s name?”

“Natasha,” said Ivan promptly.

The office vanished. Icy water closed over Ivan’s head.

The river was silent, but it was strong and deep.

“Blug,” Ivan remarked. And added, as an afterthought, “Glup — ack!” The water pulled him under again. He bobbed to the surface much closer to the woods, flailing and splashing. “Gw — augh!”

A duck paddled over. “Hello. You splash a lot.”

“Hwelp?” said Ivan. “Blagh.”

“I’m not really allowed to do this,” said the duck. “But one favor deserves another. Don’t worry, it’ll wear off in about five minutes.”

“Do — glub?” gasped Ivan. “I — blug — drowning — quack?”

“That’s right,” said the duck. “Stop splashing. Swim like a duck.”

Ivan folded his wings, struck out with his strong webbed feet, paddled to shore.

Marya Morevna stared. “A duck? The last man in the world is a duck?”

“Quack,” said Ivan. He hopped out of the water, waddled into the castle.

The castle was a library. Crammed bookshelves stretched in all directions, shadows pricked by the light of reading lamps. Books sat in stacks on desks, on ladders, on shelves — endlessly. Space and dimension made no difference here. The shelves stretched higher and farther, deeper and longer, with books and scrolls and parchments and paperbacks.

Ivan brushed off his trench coat, pulled the feathers from his hair.

Marya Morevna glared at him. “You’re a bum.”

“All right now, sister,” said Ivan. “A man’s a man and all that. No mothers here, so what now?”

“That stupid game we started, idiot,” said Marya Morevna. “A story without words. A story without touching a book? You broke the rules, so Koshchei got out. We need to finish it right to heal the world.”

“Koshchei said you marked me.”

“I chose you to tell the story without words! Koshchei was getting too strong, and I needed the story to control him. You seemed — right.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look, I don’t know!” shouted Marya Morevna. “Sometimes I just have to do stuff. Being an enchantress doesn’t mean you know everything, okay?”

They glared at each other. Ivan saw the anger in her eyes, sheer frustrated rage. He also saw she’d been crying.

“Right,” said Ivan. “Follow me.”

Ivan ran through the library. A story without words. Without touching a book. So, as tantalizing as they were, none of these books meant a thing to him. The story was somewhere else. Something else. Something other.

“Tale of a hero,” he panted. “No good, words. Three bears. Red as maiden’s blush. True love. Words, words, words.”

“Ivan!” shouted Marya Morevna. “He’s coming!”

Books rippled like water, cascaded off the shelves. Out of the shadows the raven flew, the beating of its wings rushing through the halls. Its feathers rippled into hair, its eyes and face started forward. Koshchei the Deathless ran beside them.

“What you seek, you cannot find,” he said. “Story creates words. Words are lost in silence. Silence creates story.”

“Story speaks in silence,” said Marya Morevna, “and silence lasts forever.”

“Roses are red, feet are soft,” gasped Ivan. “Not a mere device. River of fire. Grandmother’s lamp. Shadows, shadows, shadows all!”

“Once you healed me,” said Koshchei the Deathless. “Twice you live. These are words, words. Who are you — do you see? What have you been — do you know?”

“To make my bread,” panted Ivan. “Devil told you. Three brothers. What the good man does. Little blue men. Cease his ceaseless crossing.”

“Only death brings hope,” said Koshchei the Deathless. “And I am Deathless. Who I am — have you seen? What I will be — do you know?”

Ivan stopped suddenly, remembering. “Of course,” he said. “So simple.” He grabbed Marya Morevna’s shoulder. “Look at me, Marya! Look in my eyes.”

Marya Morevna stared up at him, eyes wide and bewildered. She gasped. Her eyes flashed with understanding. “Of course.”

Wordlessly, she put her hand in Ivan’s. And the story with no words swept round them and through them like fire, full of the silence that follows goodbye, the darkness that goes before morning. It sang like perhaps and thundered like because, filled with the echoes of tomorrow and today. And — whether it was in the story or in the blueness of Marya Morevna’s eyes — Ivan thought he saw the happily that goes with ever after.

Koshchei the Deathless smiled sadly. “So simple,” he said. “So terrible. Such a strange gift.” He closed his eyes. Wind rushed around him. His body crumbled, swirling away as feathers, sleek and black.

Ivan and Marya Morevna sighed. They kissed each other then, because it seemed right, and wandered out of the castle to the riverbank.

“You found a story without words,” said Marya Morevna. “How?”

“It was story I could never tell,” said Ivan. “Words can never tell it, really, not all of it.”

They knew, somehow, they would never go back to the city — that they didn’t need it anymore. They walked along the silent river a while before Marya Morevna spoke again. “What was the story?”

Ivan sighed. “My mother’s name,” he said, “was Sonja. She died of Alzheimer’s ten years ago.”

They wandered under the shade of the woods together. For all I know, they’re wandering still.

I heard that story from another guy at the shelter, but I don’t think he believed it.

---

John Patrick Pazdziora is a freelance writer, editor, and critic. His short story ‘Ragabone’ recently appeared in New Fairy Tales. He blogs about fairy tales, fantasy, and other disturbances of reason at The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond.