He collected the three feathers, and stopped in the doorway. It seemed impossible to leave them like this. I'll come back for you, he said. I promise."
The three bird-women said nothing; Alkonost started with her song again, a childish lullaby Sergey had heard too many years ago to remember the words of, but the melody stirred his heart with an unfamiliar longing for the happy time without responsibility, for the time when he could be tucked under the thick quilted blanket and no worry could touch him there. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and squeezed through the slit in the door. He felt lighter somehow, emptier.
He moved his wings, trying to explain. It's like this, see, he said. Nothing will ever be the same again. It's like my life broke in half. Do you know what I mean?"
Yakov nodded. He did. He knew the distinct before and after, he felt the rift that cleaved his life in two separate and irreconcilable parts, where he felt that one had nothing to do with the other; he was a different man now, and he felt like throwing himself on the cold floor of his prison and weeping and striking his fists against the boards when he thought that this rift, this separator, this memory had been pried out of his soul by the bony spirit fingers of the boatman.
"Where are the feathers? Galina asked.
Sergey smirked and lifted his wings. There, among his own dirty-white feathers, there was a brilliantly white one, a gray one, and a black one, their shafts entangled securely in his down.
Yakov picked them out, his stubby fingers particularly ungraceful, and studied the feathers. What do we do with them?"
"A charm, a spell and a curse, Galina said.
Yakov sighed and closed his fist. What does it even mean? Everyone here speaks in stupid riddles, like if throwing words together would somehow give them meaning. Well, it doesn't; it's all gibberish to me. So don't you start talking like that, like you know what's going on."
"Don't tell me what to do and how to talk. Galina almost snarled at him. Who do you think you are? I'm not your wife, so you don't snap at me every time something goes wrong."
He shrugged and handed her the feathers. You figure this one out then."
Galina studied the feathers on her palm, tilting it sideways to catch the light from the window in the end of the hallway. She looked as perplexed as Yakov felt, and he had to suppress a smirk of satisfaction. A charm or a spell? Galina mused. And do any of you remember any fairytales with feathers?"
"Just with flower petals, Sergey said. Remember the one about the seven-colored flower?"
Galina grinned. Sure do. Fly little petal from east to west, from north to south, and come back around, make my wish come true when you touch the ground.
"That's the one, Sergey squawked, pleased. Think it'll work?"
"Not the chant, Galina answered, But let's see what happens when they touch the ground. She loosened her fingers, and all three of them watched as the feathers drifted down to the floor and came to rest, the fine silken fibers wavering in the gentle draft coming from the window at the end of the hallway.
They waited a while; the feathers remained motionless.
"Screw this, Yakov said. Let's get out of here, find Koschey, and see if he knows what that's all about."
"We can't leave, Galina said, and pointed at the door. As if he were stupid.
"Sergey, Yakov said. Can you get to the lock?"
"Hold on, the rook said, and waddled outside through the slot in the bottom of the door. They heard it scraping and panting; an occasional thud signified a fall.
"I can't reach it, Sergey informed them, poking his head through the opening. If you could give me a boost-but even then I don't know if I'm strong enough."
"I am, Yakov said, and lay down on the floor. He squeezed his arm through the opening and waited for the rook to step on his open hand. Once the clawed cold bird fingers wound around his thumb, he turned on his right side, bending his arm upward.
"Just a bit more, Sergey instructed. There. I'm touching it with my beak. There was more scraping and clanging of metal. Can't do it-the lock's too strong."
"Put your beak next to the tumbler, Yakov said. Does it go right or left?"
"Left, Sergey said. Just be careful."
Yakov grasped the bird's legs and put all the strength of his arm into forcing the internal tumbler aside. He worked blind, and his heavy breathing was the only sound in the cell. Sergey was a trooper-Yakov could feel how stiff the rook was, how hard he tried to remain motionless and rigid.
A sharp crack startled Yakov-at first, he thought that Sergey's beak had broken. Galina jumped to the door and pushed it outward, and it gave. Yakov released the bird, picked up the magic feathers, and jumped to his feet. Are you all right? he asked Sergey.
"Fine, he answered from the outside. Just a little sore. Come on, I'll show you the way."
Yakov was not fond of violence; he approached it as something one needed to be stoic about, never deriving either pleasure or distaste from it. He tried to maintain the same perspective once they rounded the corner and encountered one of the Napoleonic soldiers; this one was French. He looked at Yakov with very round, very pale eyes, and his mouth mimicked their round shape. He reached for his musket, but Yakov knocked him to the ground with a single economical punch before he could level his piece.
"What should we do with him? Galina said, looking at the soldier with a worried, almost pitying expression. We are not going to just leave him here, are we?"
Yakov shrugged. What else can we do? I'm not carrying him. He stared at the soldier's waxen face, his concave closed eyelids shot through with a multitude of veins, fine like cracks on a porcelain cup. He'll be all right. In truth, the soldier didn't look like he would be all right-none of them did. They all looked deader than dead, and that didn't sit well with him. Everyone else was alive in here-or at least they seemed to think so. What if they weren't, though? What if he were dead too?
Yakov shook his head and smiled, and followed the rook, which danced and hopped impatiently, down the wooden hall. He wasn't dead; this wasn't some stupid story they used to tell as kids by the campfire, during the blue and endless nights at the summer camp. He still remembered them-stupidities and non-sequiturs, man-eating furniture and menacing but unforgivably dumb serial killers. And dead people who didn't know they were dead until someone told then that they were, and then they crumbled into dust. Even as an adult he remembered the chilled shivers that crawled down his collar then, induced not so much by the stories themselves but by the darkness and the overall mood of joyful conspiracy, the conspiracy of being voluntarily scared, of faking the emotion until it became true.
"Here. Sergey stopped in front of a door, and Yakov looked back, dismayed to realize that they hadn't traveled far, just turned the corner and gone a bit down the corridor that seemed to run around the entire perimeter of the palace.
"You knew they were here the whole time? Galina asked. Why didn't you give the feathers to them?"
Sergey puffed out his bird chest. 'Cause. You're people, you're my folk. These fairytale things-not so much."
"You're a fairytale thing, Galina said. You're a talking bird."
"Regular birds can talk too, Sergey said. Besides, I'm not really a bird."