VASYA WENT TO THE LAKE to take a long drink, and found the bagiennik writhing, furious, in the shallows. “The firebird has come back!” snarled the bagiennik. “Against all hope, to live again by the water. And perhaps there will be a great herd again, to fly over the lake at dawn. Now you are taking her away on your own foolish errand.”

“I am not forcing her to come with me,” said Vasya gently.

The bagiennik beat his tail against the water, wordlessly miserable.

Vasya said, “When Pozhar wishes to come back, she may. And—if I survive this, then I will come and live by the lake and learn, seek out all the scattered horses and tend them. In memory of my own, whom I loved very much. Will that content you?”

The bagiennik said nothing.

She turned away.

From behind the bagiennik said in a new voice, “I will hold you to your word.”

VASYA COLLECTED HER BASKET, the remains of her fish. From the grass, Ded Grib piped, “Are you leaving me behind?” He was sitting on a stump now, glowing an unpleasant green in the darkness.

Vasya said, dubiously, “I may go far from the lake.”

Ded Grib looked small and determined. “I am going with you anyway,” he said. “I am on your side, remember? Besides, I can’t fall to dust.”

“How comforting for you,” said Vasya coolly. “Why be on my side?”

“The Bear can make chyerti angry, stronger with wrath. But you can make us more real. I understand now. So does the bagiennik.” Ded Grib looked proud. “I am on your side and I am going with you. You would be lost without me.”

“Perhaps I would,” Vasya said, smiling. Then a note of doubt crept into her voice. “Are you going to walk?” He was very small.

“Yes,” said Ded Grib and marched off.

Pozhar shook her mane. Hurry up, she said to Vasya.

THE GOLDEN MARE WALKED into the night, taking mouthfuls of grass as she went. Sometimes if she found a good patch, she would put her head down to graze in earnest. Vasya did not hurry her, not wanting to irritate the gash in Pozhar’s foreleg, but she was anxiously wondering when she would start to get sleepy, wondering how many hours it would take…

No point in thinking of it. She had decided. Either she would succeed or she wouldn’t.

“I have never left the lake,” Ded Grib confided to Vasya as they walked. “Not since there were villages of men there and the children dreamed me alive, when they went mushrooming in autumn.”

“Villages?” asked Vasya. “By the lake?” By then they were walking in a strange glade, with rough grass and mud under her feet. The stars were low and warm in the generous sky: summertime stars.

“Yes,” said Ded Grib. “There used to be villages of men on the borders of the magic country. Sometimes if they were brave, men and women would go in, seeking adventure.”