When he died, he was handed a fiery sword and an absinthe spoon. He tucked the former under his leather belt, and gave the latter a careful looking over. No doubt, the spoon in question was his own, the very instrument of his demise. He run his fingers over the feathered slots of the antiqued silver, and thrust the spoon into the back pocket of his jeans, his elbow encountering an unexpected obstacle in the shape of a pair of wings. He then turned to the faceless luminous figure that endowed him with the accoutrements of the afterlife.
“What do I do now?”
“You guard heaven,” the figure said, and gestured vaguely in the direction of the endless azure expanse, where a golden chariot idled, waiting. “Your name is Simargl. Follow Ra.”
That explained the wings, then.
Simargl nodded his agreement, and headed down a steep aurora borealis to the waiting chariot that cradled a giant, glowing orb. A man in a hawk mask, the driver of the chariot, gave him a slow nod. “You must be our new Simargl. Welcome.”
“What happened to the old one?”
“Nobody lasts forever. Even I am getting old.” The sun god heaved a sigh. “So, I presume you have killed yourself by fire?”
“It was an accident,” Simargl replied, the spoon in his back pocket flaring hot at the memory. “But I suppose it was self-inflicted.”
Ra clucked his tongue, and the chariot started to move, slowly at first but soon gaining speed, forcing the new Simargl to trot after it. “This is what Simargls are,” Ra said. “Suicides by fire.”
The day went on, as the chariot arced through the blue plains. As he trotted along, Simargl noticed that running was much easier on all fours, and that a fiery aura had grown around him. As far as he could guess, he looked more like a winged dog than a man. Just as Simargl started to fear that the azure void would never end, a green glittering jewel caught his eye. When they got closer, the green turned into a fresh meadow, studded with white and yellow flowers, sliced through by a sparkling stream. A cow—a gleaming white cow, and the most beautiful creature Simargl had ever laid eyes on—grazed among the flowers sagely.
“This is the Celestial Cow Zemun,” Ra said, and pointed at the wide berth of tiny white stars that stretched above the meadow. “That’s the Milky Way—she made it.”
“Hello,” Simargl said.
The cow smiled, with a mischievous twinkle in her emerald eyes. “Ah, good. It is about time you got here. Just make sure you do your duty, and don’t give into the lure of the middle world.”
“I apologize for my ignorance—” Simargl started.
“I forget that you’ve just got here,” Zemun interrupted. “You’re in the upper world—not because of virtue, but as a result of the manner in which you died, understand. The middle world, Yavi, contains the living and the lesser beings—banniks, domovois, rusalki . . . they are not enemies, but don’t be distracted by their charms. And then there’s Navi, the land of the dead and Chernobog, and his general Viy.” The cow gave a thunderous sigh, and her eyes moistened. “My daughter Dana is married to Viy’s son, who stole her from me.”
“I’m sorry,” Simargl said.
“Don’t be,” said Zemun. “Just watch over us, so that Navi’s evil doesn’t seep through to heaven.”
And so Simargl did. He followed Ra’s chariot all day long, and at night they usually arrived somewhere else—Zemun’s meadow, Belobog’s tall castle, or Veles’s forest. But wherever he went, he found his gaze straying downward, to the middle world. His vision became such that when he focused on an object, no matter how remote, it stood before his eyes, diminutive but in perfect clarity. He could watch children playing in the gardens, the rusalki swimming and frolicking in the cool waters of the autumn streams, and the bird Sirin’s solemn flight, as it sought to harvest souls and carry them to Navi. At night, he never slept but watched the wonders that unfolded in the lower worlds.
It was only the matter of time before his attention was returned. One of the rusalki, a gaunt girl with transparent eyes, the soul of a drowned virgin, looked up at him and smiled.
“Simargl,” her voice whispered, disembodied and hollow, ringing out in the empty heaven, “come to our feast, come to our rusalii . . . we will play and sing all day, and we will wind long garlands of the water lilies. Come and dance with us, fire dog with the golden fur.”
“I can’t,” Simargl said. “I am guarding heaven.”
The girl sighed. “Oh, surely you can sneak away just for one night?”
“I wish I could,” Simargl said. “Besides, I don’t know how to get down.”
“That’s easy,” the rusalka said. “Just find the rowan tree and climb down the trunk.”
“Maybe some other time.”
The rusalka’s transparent eyes stared upwards, straight at him, but he wasn’t sure if she could really see him. “Tell me about heaven,” she pleaded.
He did. He felt bad for her, for how much she longed to be up there, but was instead bound between the world of the living, and the cold riverbed that was her grave.
She whispered about the rustling sound the small stones made when the current of the river rubbed them against each other, of the long strands of algae that entangled in her hair, of the small curious perches that came to peck at her dead eyes, and cried. “Why can’t I see heaven?” she said between sobs.
“I died too,” he told her. “I was a man once. But I died by fire, and ended up here . . .”
“It’s a painful death,” she said. “Perhaps this is why you went to heaven and not me. Perhaps I did not suffer enough.” Her eyes glistened. “Tell me how you died.”
He explained to her about the absinthe ritual, of how one poured bitter liquor over the sugar lump cradled in the spoon, and lit it on fire. He told her of the sizzling sputter of caramelized sugar, of the slow drip of liquor and melted sweetness through the slots of the spoon. He should’ve been more careful, he admitted. His balance was already affected by his previous intake, and his motions grew languorous and clumsy. He knocked over the silver goblet and the spoon that rested atop it, spilling the flaming, sticky sugar and absinthe mix over his clothes. It burned through his clothes and his couch, caught on the curtains, and the sizzling he heard all around him smelled of charred flesh.
He spoke to the rusalka, whose name was Kupalnitsa, every night. But he never ventured downward. His presence in heaven seemed too important, even though he did keep his eye out for the trunk of the rowan tree stretching between the worlds. He found it one day, when Ra stopped for the night. It seemed that with every day their trips were getting shorter, and Ra hunched more in his chariot. He rarely spoke.
Their resting place that day was a forest, deep and cool, buzzing with mosquitoes. Ra sighed and dismounted from his seat in front of the chariot, leaving the sun in its cradle parked in the narrow opening between tree trunks. He lay on the cushion of moss under a tall spruce, and closed his eyes.
Simargl watched his companion sleep, surprised and saddened to notice how old he had grown. With a heavy heart, he turned away, and decided to take a stroll to take his mind off Ra’s decline. Among the tree trunks, he meandered, never fearing to lose his way, since the sun shone brightly like a beacon in a dense forest. And then he saw another source of light—a column of pure white, streaked with red and yellow.
It was the rowan—the world tree, and its branches studded with ripe red berries stretched above his head, and its trunk pierced the forest floor and continued down, deep below through Yavi, all the way to Navi, the underworld. It was dark there, and the fur on his back prickled: even from this distance, he saw the misshapen creatures that shifted in the darkness, he heard the weeping of the dissolute dead, he smelled the stench of the foul river that carried the dead souls to their destination. And then he saw Viy.
Viy’s eyes were concealed by the eyelids so long they brushed the black sand under his clawed feet, and his fingernails scraped and tore the ground with every step, as they dragged along. Simargl’s upper lip curled and he gave a low growl of warning. Viy heard him, and motioned for his attendants, who carried iron pitchforks, to come closer and lift the terrible weight of his eyelids so he could look.
Simargl jumped away from the tree, uncertain what would happen to him if Viy’s stone eyes met his; he regretted his interest in the underworld, and decided to confine his attention to heaven and Yavi only.
Still, the weight in his stomach told him that he had made a mistake by drawing the attention of evil he thought to repel from heaven.
Ra was getting worse. He was barely able to climb to his seat in the mornings, every joint of his desiccated body creaking with the effort.
“That’s enough,” the Celestial Cow decided when one night they spent their rest time in her meadow. “You son can take up your work.”
“But I can do it!” Ra protested.
“No you can’t,” Zemun said, and looked to Simargl for support.
He had no choice but to growl in agreement. “Every day, we’re traveling less. The day in Yavi is getting shorter and shorter. It’s only December, and their nights are longer than days.”
Ra slumped. “If that is to be my last day as the sun’s guardian,” he said, “I want to die. I don’t want to be a useless old man. Zemun, old friend, lift me up on your horns.”
The Celestial Cow lowered her mighty head obediently, and with a single toss the old god soared high on her horns. He bled from the wounds where Zemun’s horns had broken his skin, and his blood flowed freer and wider, changing from almost black to clear. As the blood—water—flowed, Ra shrunk, and soon there was nothing left but a calm wide river, spilling from Zemun’s meadow all the way down into Yavi.
“Ra-river,” Zemun said. “It is better this way.”
The two of them stood, watching the immobile sun reflect in the calm surface, and then they drank from the river. With every sip, Simargl felt the secret knowledge stirring within him, growing like a tree from its tiny seed until the order of the world stood clear before his mind’s eye. Then, he summoned Khorus, Ra’s son.
Khorus was young and strong, and he didn’t want Simargl’s help. So Simargl found himself free to wander as he pleased, and he took advantage of it. His fiery sword in his paw, he walked across heaven on two feet, making sure that evil did not seep through. He spent most of his time in the forest near the world tree. There, he could talk with Kupalnitsa as if she were right there, next to him, and he could see her clear eyes as if they were level with his face.
She cried and pleaded, and begged him to come down to Yavi, to dance at her pretend wedding; she would never have a real one. She whispered of the dark desires that blossomed in her chest—terrible urges to steal the babes from their cradles, and to lead the passersby astray. Crying, she confessed that she was with the other rusalki when they found a child, lost in a wheat field, and tickled him to death.
“I can’t come to your wedding,” he said.
“Navi would be better than this!” she cried.
“But maybe I can help you.” He reached up to the branches of the rowan tree with his clawed paw, but still the berries hung too far. He picked up his fiery sword and swung, and the berries fell into his open palm like drops of blood. From his drink of Ra-river, he learned that the berries had many mysterious powers. “Take these. They can cleanse the smudges of sin from human souls.”
He opened his paw and watched the berries roll down the trunk, and fall one by one into Kupalnitsa’s cupped hands. All but one—a single berry avoided her, and kept rolling, all the way into the darkness of Navi, where it disappeared like a stone in a deep well.
“Thank you,” Kupalnitsa whispered, and swallowed the berries. Their effect was instantaneous—her eyes gained color, the palest blue of the autumn sky, and her gaunt face lost its hungry look.
Simargl sighed with relief—he could not take her to heaven, but he could help her battle whatever darkness was taking her over. Berries seemed like a small price to pay for saving her from the terrible fate of the rusalki, and he tried to ignore the nagging worry about the single berry that rolled into the underworld.
He patrolled heaven as usual, nodding to Khorus who occasionally crossed his way on his repetitive trip, and to Zemun, whom he visited often. The Celestial Cow was the one who brought it to his attention that things were not the way they were supposed to be.
“Something stirring in the underworld,” she said one night, as they were playing one of their frequent games of marbles.
“How do you know?” Simargl asked.
“Just a feeling I have,” Zemun said. “The same one I got when Viy abducted Dana for his son.” She pushed the bright yellow marble with her muzzle, and it collided with Simargl’s favorite, a clear one with a blue spiral inside. “I didn’t pay attention then, but now I do. The only thing worse than an old fool is an old fool who doesn’t learn. I know Viy is up to something.”
“It’s probably nothing . . .” Simargl’s regretful gaze followed his favorite marble as Zemun swallowed it. “But I accidentally dropped one of the berries from the world tree into the underworld.”
The Celestial Cow gave him a troubled look. “Is that so? Oh Simargl, you may have caused a misfortune! Why did you touch the world tree?”
Stumbling over his words, he told her about Kupalnitsa and her plight, of her fear and hatred of her nature.
The Cow nodded. “I understand. Your gesture was noble, but it had an unintended consequence. You must rectify it.”
“What can I do?” Simargl sat up, huffing, the game forgotten. “Besides, maybe nothing will happen. And if Viy had got that berry and ate it, I have no way of retrieving it. The best I can do is to keep my eyes open and guard heaven.”
“Perhaps,” the Celestial Cow said. “But know this: the berries have strong magic. If you wait too long, the problem might be greater than what you can handle.”
“I’ll go tomorrow,” Simargl said with a sigh.
“Good. Ra-river will lead you. And drink of its water on your journey—Ra will make you wise. Rest now.”
When Simargl awoke the next morning, he noticed that something was amiss. He rose to his hind legs and stretched, as Zemun slept peacefully in her meadow. It was cold; colder than he could ever remember. Moreover, it was dark, and Simargl worried that the evil had struck.
His suspicions were correct. When he resumed his vigil, not a few steps away from Zemun’s meadow, he found Khorus, his mask splattered with dark blood and his throat slit. The empty chariot rested next to him.
Simargl cried over the dead god’s body, his heart rent by guilt—there was no doubt in his mind that Viy was able to enter heaven with the help of the berry, legitimately, and this was why Simargl did not sense his presence. When his sobs had died down, he returned to the meadow, and told Zemun of what had happened.
Without words, the Celestial Cow broke off one of her horns, and it became a large barque, with richly decorated hull of mahogany and amber, and the sails spun out of silk. The masts of the barque, the tallest of cedars, seemed to pierce the low, leaden sky.
“Follow the Ra-river,” the Celestial Cow instructed, “until it leaves Yavi and flows into the river of the dead. Keep a look out for Viy’s fleet.”
“I’ll bring the sun back,” Simargl promised, and set on his journey. His only provisions were the jug of Ra-river water and a handful of rowan berries.
The barque floated down the river, slowly as it traversed heaven, and speeding up as it approached the precipitous drop off its edge. The barque stood at the top of the waterfall for one tremulous moment, and then plunged downward, falling among the froth and sparkling waves all the way to Yavi.
Simargl caught his breath when the barque righted itself and resumed its dignified progress down the Ra-river. Its waters darkened, and he felt uneasy under the leaden sunless skies, boiling with angry clouds.
The inhabitants of Yavi shared his discontent—he saw them all along the river, people and demonic creatures, their gazes turned to the sky, their faces lined with unease. Men and women, children and old people keened and complained. The bowlegged satyrs and the green-haired mavki, domovois and leshys, banniks and kikimoras all gnashed their teeth and cursed those who were responsible for the missing sun.
Their anger and grief touched Simargl, but there was only one face he searched for. Kupalnitsa was not among her sisters. Once or twice he thought he glimpsed her pale face underwater, and wondered if his visions resulted from guilt and longing. Still, he called out her name a few times, but no answer came. He looked at the water, trying to glimpse her again, but the river had turned muddy and foul, and slow menacing shapes moved below the surface—skeletal fishes and undead whales trailing threads of slime and rotting flesh.
When Simargl looked up, he realized that he was underground; the light was the same as in Yavi orphaned by the sun, grey and cold. The stone ceiling cupped low over the barque’s masts, and dangling beards of lichen and mold soiled the white sails a putrid green. He remembered Zemun’s warning when he noticed long sleek shapes darting in and out of the rolling fog upstream—the Viy’s fleet, a flotilla of long sleek boats fashioned from dead men’s nails.
“Simargl,” ominous voices whispered all around him. “Turn back, turn back, fiery dog. Navi will swallow you, drink your blood, splinter your bones . . . there’s no fire here to protect you.”
The hairs on his back stood on end, and a low growl pulled back his lips. Still, Simargl stood on the prow, the fiery sword clenched tightly in his paws. His gaze tried to pierce the darkness of Navi, to find the hidden sun and its abductors, but the stone walls and hissing in his ears rendered him almost blind. He could only clutch his sword and keep his eyes on the Viy’s ships.
They approached, slowly, cautiously. Simargl discerned the dead who manned the oars, and small demons that tittered and rolled around, and leapt high. On the prow of the main ship sat the bird Sirin, its feathers sparkling green and blue. The bird had the face and breasts of a woman, and it sang.
Sirin’s song was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard—it rolled and trilled like a brook born of snowmelt running over stones, it promised and reassured that happiness was close. He needed only to close his eyes and give into the sweet voice. His knees weakened under him, and his hands lost their grip on the hilt of the sword. He fell into her words like a stone into a well, welcoming oblivion and sleep. Sleep was happiness, and he only had to close his eyes, to lie down, and he would be home, away from the sunless sky and dead eyes of the demons. As he sunk to all fours, his front paw touched the blade of the sword, and he hissed in pain—the blade burned deep into his skin, jolting him to awareness.
Simargl took a quick gulp of the water from the jug, and felt the calm wisdom of Ra radiate through his mind, clearing his head of the curse. He chewed on the berries, their tart and bitter taste fortifying his weakened body, and sprung to his feet. The flaming sword in his paw flared brightly, sending the demons scuttling for cover and whimpering in fear.
Sirin stopped her singing and hissed in frustration, and the ship that carried her swung around and disappeared into the fog. Simargl followed the fleeing ship, until he came to the beach covered in black sand and empty shells of hermit crabs. Simargl leapt out of the barque, and chased after the shapes that laughed and skittered in the dusk of the underworld.
“Simargl,” came a tiny whisper from behind him, “wait.”
Kupalnitsa, her face stained by the foul water but unmistakable, smiled at him as she swam to the shore.
“Where did you come from?”
“I latched onto the keel of your boat as you passed through Yavi,” she said.
Her words about Navi being better than her fate were fresh in his memory. “Will you stay here?”
She shrugged, and twisted the hem of her long linen shirt to squeeze out water. “I want to see it first.”
She followed Simargl as he left the black beach and entered the forest of phosphorescent, leafless, weeping trees. Their crooked branches entwined over their heads, forming a cupped canopy.
Simargl kept peering through the dense entanglement of trees and black brambles. He noticed a weak beam of light penetrating through the growth, and turned toward it. But the light did not come from the stolen sun; in a forest clearing, covered with yellow grass, a fine red cow chewed her cud.
“Dana?” Simargl said.
The cow nodded.
“I’m friends with your mother,” Simargl said.
Dana’s brow furrowed. “Mother?”
“The Celestial Cow Zemun. Don’t you remember?”
Dana shook her head. “Give her a berry,” Kupalnitsa said.
Simargl offered the cow a berry that glowed bright red, like a ruby. Dana swallowed it, and her eyes went wide.
“Do you remember now?” Simargl said.
Dana smiled. “And I miss her. Can you take me with you to visit her?”
“If I get the sun back,” Simargl said. “I can help you!” Dana pointed with her hoof. “Over there, it is hidden in Chernobog’s castle. Viy guards it. But please, do not hurt his son, Pan—he is my husband. And remember, you can’t hurt Viy with iron.”
Chernobog’s castle loomed atop a cliff that jutted from the forest like a giant thumb. The building itself seemed like an ugly growth on the rock. At the foot of the cliff, Viy was waiting, his attendants at his side, ready to lift his terrible eyelids. At the sight of him, Kupalnitsa gave a little cry and covered her eyes with her pale hands.
Gripping the hilt of his sword, Simargl approached the monstrous general.
Even though Viy could not see him, he spoke in the gravelly voice. “You came for the sun, guardian of heaven. And you’ve bested Sirin.”
“Yavi and heaven needs the sun,” Simargl said. “And the murder of Khorus and Dana’s abduction will not be unpunished. Prepare to fight, Viy.”
Viy’s laughter, quiet but unsettling, scratched Simargl’s very soul. “I’ll fight,” he said, and snapped his fingers, grating his nails. “Attendants, lift my eyelids!”
Kupalnitsa gasped. “Not his eyes! Simargl, he turn anyone into stone with his gaze!”
Simargl lunged at the attendants, his sword at the ready. He tried to chase them away, but as he swung the sword, he severed one of Viy’s eyelids. No longer held down by its weight, it started to rise. Simargl shielded his eyes with one paw, and thrust at Viy with the fiery sword.
“To the left,” Kupalnitsa yelled from behind him. With only one eye open, Viy could only pay attention to Simargl. “Careful, he’s got an axe!”
Something metal, of great weight whistled close to Simargl’s floppy ear, and something warm trickled down his fur. He felt suddenly dizzy, and took a stumbling step back.
Kupalnitsa cried out directions, and he followed them blindly, thrusting his sword this way and that, and ducking whenever she told him to. He swung, and felt the burning blade encounter something solid. Foul blood spilled from Viy’s wound, and he uttered a slow, halting hiss that froze Simargl’s heart. The dark liquid pumped over the blade of Simargl’s sword, and it hissed and sputtered, and then its fire went out—it was just a regular iron sword now.
You can’t hurt him with iron, Dana said, and Simargl cast away the useless weapon. As Viy advanced on him, injured but still strong, Simargl retreated blindly. He was going to die again, and stay in Navi forever—not as Simargl, but as one of the countless grey souls that inhabited the underworld. The memory of his first death overwhelmed him, and he felt as peaceful as when Sirin was singing to him of quiet surrender, of wordless happiness. He heard the crackling of fire all around him, and felt a burning in his pocket.
The silver absinthe spoon was still there, and he grabbed it just as Viy’s bulk pressed against him. He thrust the spoon at the quavering belly of the general, and Viy gave the most terrible of cries anyone had ever heard, and stepped back. Where the silver touched his warty black skin, a fresh wound bloomed, spreading open, growing wider with every minute. Viy’s flesh sputtered and recoiled from the contact with silver. Simargl chased after him, all the way up the steep steps of the castle. At the doors, Viy turned around, and Simargl flinched and covered his eyes. He pushed the spoon at Viy’s throat, drawing a deep moan from his chest.
“You won,” Viy told him, his lone eyelid brushing the ground. “You can have your sun back.”
Simargl walked through the Chernobog’s castle, and found the sun in the throne room. The dark god himself scowled at him from his throne chair, made of skulls and thighbones.
Simargl bowed to the god, but his gaze was on the sun, sitting bright and unharmed in the middle of the bone floor, spilling its light through the narrow windows.
“Don’t burn yourself,” Chernobog mocked.
Simargl picked up the sun, but it didn’t burn him, and instead clung to him like a child ready to go home.
Simargl carried the sun outside and placed it into the barque. Meanwhile, Kupalnitsa ran to fetch Dana, and the two of them sat in the barque with him.
“I missed heaven so much,” Dana said. “I’m going to visit my mother often, now.”
Kupalnitsa sighed. “I wish I could see it too.”
Dana’s blue eyes turned to Simargl. “What say you, guardian of heaven? Didn’t this girl earn the right to leave Yavi?”
“I suppose,” Simargl said. “I’ll ask Zemun if Kupalnitsa can stay in heaven.”
The barque left the black shores of the underworld and glided upstream, serene like a swan, until the caved stone ceiling of Navi and undead whales fell far behind. The inhabitants of Yavi greeted the return of the sun, and paid no mind to the fiery dog, a red cow, and a pale drowned girl who sat beside it in the marvelous barque built by the Celestial Cow.