How Vasilisa the Wise found Vasilisa the Fairest - an Urbis Arcana short story
Russian folk tales are full of recurring characters. And out of all recurring female characters, none are quite as well known as Vasilisa Premudraya - the wise, strong-willed sorceress who was sometimes a princess, and Vasilisa Prekrasnaya - beautiful and virtuous maiden who had her own dealings with the supernatural.
Taken as a whole, the folk tales were contradictory. Vasilisa Premudaya, for example, had many fathers and many husbands, and he extent of her powers varied. So when I thought about incorporating them into Urbis Arcana, I had to decide which part to keep…
And then a thought occurred to me. What if all the Vasilias Premudraya mentioned in the Russian folk tales weren’t the same woman at all. What if they merely shared some essential qualities… And the rest of the story kind of grew from there.
I would like to thank mysticowl and phoenix_anew for the editing, feedback and commentary. I would also like to thank tweelore for helping me name one of the characters. Her name-finding skills are nothing if not impressive.
As always, comments, criticisms and all manner of feedback are strongly encouraged.
How Vasilisa the Wise found Vasilisa the Fairest
an Ubris Arcana short story
I looked out the airplane window - tall skyscrapers, taller than even the high-rises they've been putting up in Moscow, towering above the lake that seemed as big as the sea... Any other time, I might have been impressed, but under the circumstances, I just couldn't be. Natasha was somewhere down there, dying in a foreign city, so far from home.
The memories rushed in, unbidden, and I didn't try to stop them. I welcomed the distraction.
It is a different Chicago, a much smaller Chicago of wooden buildings and muddy streets. The air reeks of burning coal, garbage and oil.
The memories weren't mine. They belonged to Lyudmila Beregova, or, as she's recorded in the Books of Wisdom, Vasilisa Premudraya Smolyanka. Vasilisa the Wise of Smolny. She was one of the hundreds of women who have been chosen to bear the essence of Vasilisa the Wise, and with it, the memories of those that came before.
We are not sure who started it all, or if her name was even Vasilisa. The passing of memories took centuries to perfect. Everything before the reign of Ivan the Terrible was fragmented, half-faded. But over time, our deeds became stories and our stories became fairy tales. Even now, children read about Vasilisa the Wise - the cleverest, most skillful sorceress in all of Russia.
“Vasilisa” is as good of a name as any.
I received the essence when I was only twelve, as Galina Kuz'netsova, Vasilisa the Wise of the Revolution, laid dying in the besieged, starved, bombed-out city. I had no teacher, no one to help me sort through centuries of memories and experience, but I never gave up. I had survived hell on Earth, and the memory of all I had overcome sustained me, forged me, shaped me.
I felt sorry for my successor. Young women in this modern Russia of ours have no idea what it was like to live as I did. I envied that innocence. But we've decided centuries ago that we would pass on everything, good or bad, and I wasn't going to break the tradition.
I had been thinking about my successor a great deal lately. The wisdom of Vasilisa helped me hold off ailments and illnesses, but it wouldn’t hold off death. We tried that, centuries ago, and that Vasilisa went down in the Book of Wisdom as Vasilisa the Insane. Never again.
I had a few years left in me, so I had time to decide, but the decision still loomed. Galina Davydovna chose me in desperation, knowing that if she didn't pass the essence on to someone, and quickly, Vasilisa the Wise would die with her. I wasn't going to let it come to that.
But for now, I had a more pressing concern. Two months ago, I received a letter from Natalya Andreyevna Sorokina, the current bearer of the essence of Vasilisa Prekrasnaya - Vasilisa the Fairest. A sorceress, like me, captured in fairy tales as the most beautiful, most virtuous woman in all of Russia.
Natasha's time was near. And she wanted me to help her find a successor.
I hadn't seen her in decades. Natasha fled to the West after Stalin, the letch, decided that he deserved to sleep with a living legend. Never mind that the she was younger than his daughter.
I hadn't tried to stay in touch. Couldn't risk giving her away. I was amazed she was able to find me after all those decades.
The last thing I wanted to do was fly all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, but Natasha wasn't just anyone. We were sisters, in a way. We understood each other the way no one ever quite could.
I defied Stalin for her. Compared to that, flying over the damn ocean was no problem at all.
It took centuries’ worth of cunning, several high-placed connections and some money exchanging hands to get me a tourist visa and a ticket on such short notice. We kept in touch over the phone; just a few minutes a day...
But when I called her a day before I was supposed to fly out, she didn't pick up. I kept calling her again and again - I kept getting that damned answering machine.
What if she was too weak to pick up the phone?
What if she was already dead? What if Vasilisa the Fairest had died with her?
High above the clouds, my army of phantom warriors is fighting against the creatures of light. I turn around, just for the moment, and I see a blazing sword cut off Sofiya Svetopolyevna’s head. . I throw my power at the blasphemous thing, the damn thing that cost the world…
Sofiya appears behind me as the light creature stares. Oh, thank you Jesus! An illusion! Of course it was an illusion! Vasilisa the Fairest has always been so good with illusions.
I want to scold her, tell her not to ever scare me like that again, but there are more blasphemies coming…
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are coming in for a landing,” the captain's announcement yanked me back to the present. “Please turn off your mobile devices and fasten your seatbelts.”
I had no cell phone, but I fastened my seatbelt.
About time.
***
But, of course, it wasn't that easy. It never was, with those modern bureaucracies. By the time I got through passport control and baggage check, over an hour passed. I would have entered yasnost and walked past it all, but somebody with magical talent was smart enough to ward all the entrances.
I tried to find a pay phone, just to check in on Natasha. Maybe she'd pick it up then. But of course, in this great new world of mobile phones, I had to scry the entire damn airport to find it.
By the time I got there, dragging my luggage behind me, I was ready to hex the entire damn airport and the entire damn city.
I rolled my change in my hand, changed a few coins into American quarters and dialed.
Come on, Natasha, pick up…
“Hello?” a young woman replied in English.
What in hell?
“Pardon me,” I said, my English rusty but serviceable. “May I speak to Natalia Sorokina, please?”
“I'm sorry, who is this?” the woman replied.
“My name is Maya,” I replied. “Maya Gluhova.”
“Oh... Oy, prostite. Ya pytalas' do vas dozvonitsa... Nataya Andreyevna skonchalas' dva dnya nazad.”
The shock of hearing the stranger switch to Russian - accented Russian, but Russian nonetheless - was so great that the meaning of her words didn't immediately register.
I'm sorry. I tried to reach you... Nataya Andreyevna died two days ago.
No...
After everything I've done... She was dead before I even got on the plane.
Vasilisa the Beautiful was gone. Forever. And she died in the West.
“Maya Nikolayevna, are you there?” the young woman said, still in Russian.
“I am... I'm... who are you?”
“I was Natalya Andreyevna’s neighbor. I helped her around the house before she...” her voice shook.
I did remember her talking about a nice Russian girl from an apartment across the hall. That had to be her.
“You're Katya,” I said.
“How did...” A pause. “Oh, of course. She told you about me. I remember now. I'm sorry. Still trying to get a hang of those memories.”
I leaned against the wall. My whole word was swimming...
“So you received...” I managed to say.
“The essence of Vasilisa the Fairest. Natalya Andreyevna gave it to me a few hours before... I'm sorry, I got the memory. They keep popping up.”
I sat down under the phone and leaned against the wall.
Alright, Maya. You are Vasilisa the Wise. Get a hold of yourself. Think.
Natasha was gone. But Vasilisa the Fairest lived on. That was good.
It lived on in someone I didn't know. That could be bad.
“We need to meet,” I said.
“Of course. You have Natalya Andreyevna's address, right?”
“Yes.”
“I'll wait for you in her apartment.”
“Are you sure? I was going to get a taxi, but I don't know how long it will take.”
“Don't worry. I'll wait as long as you need.”
I liked her already.
“Then I'll see you as soon as I can.”
***
Catching a taxi was easy enough. The airport driveway was packed with them. I was going to use my magic to speed us along, but I didn't handle time zone changes as well as I used to. I fell asleep before we even got out of the airport.
When I woke up, the car turned into a side street and stopped next to a light, six-story building. The sun nearly set, and the streetlights were already on. The apartment building wasn't very tall - only three floors, but it was wide. It had an “M”-shaped layout, with a larger section in the middle, two courtyards of both sides and the smaller sections framing the ends.
When I reached the right door and called Natasha's old apartment, I expected Katya to just buzz me in. But she wouldn't have it.
“We don't have an elevator and you got luggage,” she said. “Come into the lobby - I'll come down and help you carry it.”
“That's really not necessary...”
“No, but it's right,” she said.
And with it, the door buzzed and I walked in.
At least now I knew Natasha didn't pick some random person in desperation. We liked picking women who are clever and strong-willed. The Fairest liked to pick girls who were gentle, kind and caring.
I wondered what Katya was like. She had an accent, yes, but her pronunciation and word usage suggested that she knew real, spoken Russian. She knew the right, respectful form of address. Which suggested that her parents taught her.
It was nice to see a Russian family trying to raise a Russian child in the West. It had to be hard, trying to teach good values and manners in a society that valued money and arrogance. But Katya seemed to have turned out alright.
And then, a young girl walked down the stars.
She was a little taller than average, and a little fuller. She was dressed casually - well-worn jeans, sneakers and a white, long-necked, long-sleeved shirt. But it was her face that got my attention. Tan skin. A long, slightly hooked nose. Dark hair, brown eyes.
Churka.
For a second, I wanted to deny that this was Katya, but I couldn't argue with the obvious. The ancient magic, the sheer weight of centuries of memories, had a unique, unmistakable aura.
But it could be faked, a memory from around the 17th century reminded me.
The girl's face shifted from a smile to a carefully guarded mask of pleasantness.
“Hello, Maya Nikolayevna,” she said, her tone careful, measured.
“Katya,” I said, “Is it really your name?”
“The birth certificate says 'Ketevan Ahvlediani,'” a note of irritation crept into her voice, “but everybody around here calls me 'Katya.'”
“Alright, Katya,” I said. “It's nice to meet you.”
I reached out to shake her hand and whispered 'Vyevi'
There was a bright flash of lights...
Maya and I dart into the basement. Maya's evasion and deflection spells wrap us in the cloud, but we still look over our shoulders as we open the door and carefully, quietly shut it behind us.
“So this is it?” I ask
“It's safer to open the Shadow Path here. NKVD still has no idea how the Shadow Paths work, thank God, so they'll look in the obvious places.”
“Okay... I'm scared, Maya,” I said.
“I know. It's going to be okay,” Maya sounds so confident, and I cling to that confidence. “Skeptics will take care of you once you're on the other side.”
“But what then? I've never been to the West. Vasilisa the Fairest hasn't been to the West in almost a hundred years! I don't know what to do.”
“The Skeptics will help you. They owe us, remember.”
“Come with me!”
“I can't,” Maya says. “I need to stay here and cover your tracks. NKVD is going to look for any trace of us, and I need to make sure there's no trail for them to follow. If there's no trail, Skeptics would have plausible deniability. NKVD can check every known entrance, but that would take years.”
“What if they come after you?”
“Don't worry,” Maya says. “I have a plan.”
She sounds serious. It would be just like her to have a plan. She's Vasilisa the Wise.
“I'll write to you,” I said.
“Absolutely not!” Maya exclaimed. “Don't write, don't send a pigeon, don't try to send any kind of message. NKVD might be able to track you, and then all of this would be for nothing.”
Suddenly, the lights flicker, and a man in an all-black suit and a wide-brimmed hat appears right behind us. His hat casts a shadow that never seems to move.
“Your Highness.” He bows his head at Maya.
“We're in a socialist country, Skeptic,” Maya replies curtly. “There's no need for useless titles. Is everything ready?”
“Yes, Your Hi... Maya Nikolayevna. Natalya Andreyevna - I'm ready to go when you are.”
I clench Maya in a hug. I don't want to let go. I want to drag her with me. This is it, and there is so much I want to say and so little time to say it.
“Proschay, Mayushka,” I manage to say through the sobs. Goodbye forever.
“Proschay, Natashen'ka,” she says. She pulls away, and I see tears running down her face. “I'll see you again, Vasilisa the Fairest. Someday.” She turns to the Skeptic. “Go! Now!”
He takes my hand, and we fall deep into the...
… Katya staggered back, and even I had to find my footing.
“What the hell was that?” she cried out.
“A memory only Natalya could have had,” I said, and I was surprised hear my voice shaking. “I had to be sure. I... never thought I'd see it again.”
“It felt like it was trying to squeeze into your mind. Like there was some space it was trying to fill,” realization lit up Katya’s face. “Oh… You don't have that memory. What happened?”
“After I finished covering our tracks, I had the Skeptics erase the memory of the entire escape. Only way to be absolutely sure NKVD wouldn't find anything.”
“That's...” Katya had a look that I recognized as a recall. “That sounds like something you'd do.”
“I should hope so,” I replied. “Tell me - how come you speak Russian so well?”
“My parents taught me,” she shrugged, but there was unease in that shrug. “And this neighborhood used to be pretty Russian when I was growing up.”
“Your parents are Russian?”
“My mom is Russian. My dad is Georgian.” There was a quiet challenge in Katya's voice. “And both grew up in Leningrad. Stayed there until the Soviet Union collapsed and everything went to hell.”
A Russian and a Georgian... It was unusual, sure, but I've seen a lot of unusual things in my life. At least Katya wasn't half-German...
What was Natasha thinking! Vasilisa the Fairest was supposed to be the fairest woman in all of Russia, but she gave the essence to... Maybe she was a nice girl - I've only just met her - but a new Vasilisa the Fairest?
“This won't do,” I said. “This won't do at all.”
“Excuse me?”
This time, the challenge was loud and clear.
“Natalya must have had no choice. She passed on the essence to the closest person. I can understand that. But now that I’m here, we need to fix this.”
“Fix what?” Katya glared. “What exactly is wrong with me?”
“There's nothing wrong with you,” I quickly assured her. “You're just not the right person to carry...”
“Natalya Andreyevna thought I was the right person. She chose me. On her own free will. Not because she was desperate. Not because there wasn't anyone else. She chose me because she thought I was the right person.”
Katya took a deep breath.
“You are Vasilisa the Wise,” she said. “You know that you can't judge a person by the way they look. Or their roots” Then, in an imitation so perfect it had to come directly from Natasha's memory, she said, “Such silly superstitions are beneath civilized people.”
“I don't think you're inferior to any Russian,” I assured her. “Or that you run around the mountains raising goats. That would be silly. It's just... with Vasilisa the Fairest, there is a certain standard.”
“Yeah - we like choosing a Russian girl who is kind, caring and selfless,” said Katya. “I'll let other people decide if I'm kind, caring or selfless, but I got the Russian part down.”
“That's not really true, though. Your father...”
“…Is Georgian. Sure. But if you're going to rule out everyone who isn't 100% pure Russian, then Pushkin wasn't Russian. Neither was Evgeniy Shvarts.”
“You know about Evgeniy Shvarts?”
“My parents have a book of his plays. I know everybody says they like ”The Dragon,” but I've always loved ”The Shadow.” It really gets the whole banality of evil thing down in the way that kind of stays with you, you know?”
I found myself nodding. “Evgeniy was a good man. A man of principle, at the time when it was so much easier to betray your friends. I thought he was foolish, to take risks the way he did, but looking back... I admire his courage.”
“Have you met him?”
“Once,” I said. “I had to be careful who I associate with... Like I said - he was brave. Braver than I was.”
“Natalya Andreyevna would say that being wise doesn't make us flawless. We are just human.”
I smiled a little.
I was starting to see why Natasha chose her.
“I know I'm not what you expected,” Katya said. “But if it helps... Natalya Andreyevna left you a letter. She said it would help you understand.”
A letter?
“What does it say?”
“She transferred Vasilisa the Fairest's essence before she wrote it,” said Katya. “You are the only person who’s supposed to read it.”
“Where is it?”
“In her apartment. Do you want to...”
“I'll get it myself.”
Katya shrugged. “Right this way.”
She grabbed my suitcase with barely any effort and let me up to the second floor, to the apartment on the left. Compared to what I was used to, it was a little roomy, with a decent-sized kitchen, a spacious living room and a separate bedroom.
“It's in there,” Katya gestured toward the bedroom. “Natalya Andreyevna said you'll know where it is.”
“Wait here,” I ordered as I stepped inside.
I closed the door behind me, turned on the lights and nearly gasped.
Photographs hung from every wall - even the one with the window. It was Natasha's life, hanging right there for all to see. Natasha in front of the Statue of Liberty. Natasha with some finely dressed men and women. A view of a large canyon (“Grand Canyon” - a memory from two lifetimes ago informed me). A middle-aged Natasha standing on wooden platform as the train pulled in. Natasha in a wedding dress. Another picture of Natasha in a different wedding dress.
And over on the dresser, right by the bed, the one piece from the life she left behind.
Two girls. One younger, with darker, braided hair, wearing a school uniform with a Young Pioneer scarf tied around her neck. One a little older, with round glasses and a suit with a Komsomol pin.
The last time we've ever taken a picture together.
Natasha kept it… After all this time.
And as I picked it up, I felt a knot of power in one of the dresser shelves.
The enchantment wove its way through every part of the simple white envelope - and the letter within. The enchantment was simple, but deadly in the wrong hands. If anyone but me picked up the envelope, it would burst into flame.
The enchantment touched my fingers, my soul, and faded away quietly.
With trembling fingers, I opened it.
“Dear Maya.
I am so sorry that I didn't get to see you. It would have been so wonderful to talk to you, to find out what you've been up to all these years. And just to see you in the flesh, one last time. Vasilisa the Fairest will see Vaselisa the Wise someday, but it's not the same thing, is it?
No, Natashen'ka. No, it's not.
But I can tell you this. I had a good life. The West will never be Motherland. Nothing can replace it. But I've seen so many things. Visited so many places. Met so many good people. Loyal friends. Tender companions. Do I have regrets? Of course I do. Doesn't everyone? And those regrets are nothing compared to all the joy, all the happiness I've experienced.
I had a good life, and I owe it all to you, Mayechka. You risked so much for me. And I'm so sorry for everything you had to suffer on my account.
Stalin wasn't happy to see his prize run away. He sent NKVD to track me down. If Vasilisa the Wise didn’t know who knew every centimeter of Russia and all the magic that runs through it, they might have caught me.
I should have taken my mother with me. And my brother. Being a hero of the Great Patriotic War didn't matter one bit...
I returned to the letter.
By now, you should have met my successor. I imagine she wasn't what you expected. And I know you're wondering - why did I choose some Georgian girl to take the essence of one of the greatest sorceresses in all of Russia?
Katya and I have been neighbors for a long time. I watched her grow up into a kind, clever young woman. When my magic started to fail, she checked up on me all on her own. Without being asked. Because she was worried about me. She got me groceries, helped me get to the doctor. That's the kind of person she was.
Back in Russia, it seems clear-cut. You are either Russian or you aren't. But in America... once you arrive, you can disappear. I've seen people turn their backs on their country completely and become Americans. I've seen others who raise their children as Americans. And that's fine, I suppose. Far be it for me to impose. But there are also families that try to teach their children about their heritage, even while trying to help them make their way through America.
When Katya left Russia, she was so young. But she was always interested in her homeland. When she got older, she'd come by and ask me questions. She wanted to learn.
Katya read the same fairy tales you and I read. She knew what she'd have to live up to. She respected it. And once I realized it, there could be no other choice.
I'm going to be honest with you, Maya. I’ve known who I was going to choose for weeks now, but I didn't tell you. I knew you wouldn't accept it. I knew you'd try to talk me out of it. You've always been so smart, so reasonable. I didn't want to take a chance that you'd succeed.
I know it's not the choice you would've made. But this is not your choice to make. I carried the essence of Vasilisa the Fairest. I was responsible for it. And I trust Katya to do me proud.
I won't ask you to agree with my choice. I won't ask you to accept it. But I ask you, beg you, plead with you - help Katya. Teach her what I didn't have time to teach her. Protect her. Answer her questions. Don't be afraid to be honest with her.
If you can't do it for Katya - do it for me.
I wish you the best, Maya. Now and forever.
With warmest regards.
Natasha.
I stared at the letter.
Chyort! Damn it all to hell!
Natasha was gone. Vasilisa the Fairest lived on, but Natasha... was gone. Forever.
And I didn't even get to say goodbye.
I carefully put the letter on the dresser and let the tears flow.
“You're like me!” the younger girl smiles. “A bearer!”
“Not so loud!” I chide her. “We're in public!”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” she lowers the volume. “I just didn't expect... I knew there were others, but... I bear Vasilisa the Fairest.”
“You do?” I cry out, and the younger girl smiles.
“Not so loud! We're in public!”
And I laugh.
It felt like an eternity before I could collect myself.
I stepped outside the bedroom. Katya was sitting on the couch.
How long had the poor girl been sitting here?
“Maya Nikolayevna?” She said as she rubbed her eyes. “Are you alright?”
“Not quite yet,” I said. “But I will be.”
I exhaled, trying to steady my voice.
“The lessons will start tomorrow,” I said. “They will be hard, they will be frustrating, but when we're done, you'll be able to tap into the essence of Vasilisa the Fairest without getting overwhelmed. You will learn to harness the skills and experience you now possess. And you will learn how to use them responsibly. Are you prepared to follow my instructions without question?”
As I spoke, the expressions on Katya’s face shifted in rapid succession - surprise, concern, wariness, and finally, determination.
“Of course, Maya Nikolayevna,” she said.
“Good. Now, if you don't mind, I had a very long day. Could you please brew me some tea?”
“Sure thing,” said Katya. “And… Thank you. You won’t regret it.”
We'll see.
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