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Foreword

Step into a world where the marvelous and the inexplicable walk hand in hand. This fairy talefantasy from a far-off pastwhisks you to a time when magic was the order of the day and human fate was braided tightly with the whims of mystical beings. Woven from the threads of imagination, this story resonates, in surprising ways, with the latest events of our modern world and teaches us that answers to todays questions may lie hidden in yesterdays legends. Let yourself be enchanted by a tale that not only warms the heart but also spurs the mind to think beyond the limits of the possible. Come along on a journey proving that old magic can illuminate even the darkest timesand vice versa.

Koschei and the Illuminati

Once upon a time there lived Koschei, nicknamed the Deathless. In truth he was not deathless, yet he bore the nickname all the samewhether because he had many doubles, triples, and sundry clones, or because he believed in his own immortality.

His realm was vast and abundantso vast that some corners of it were wild and unpeopled, marshy, blocked by windfall, or poisoned by toxins that had seeped up from underground in ways no one could fathom.

Koschei had painted chambers and faceted halls, scarlet rubies and diamonds of the purest water, not smaller than a babys fist; fair maidens; dashing generals; and skilled masters of the mountain works.

In his chambers Koschei held stately receptions. Yet most of all he liked to sit out his days in an underground cave, for daylight was not to his taste.

On such occasions Koschei would send his doubles and triples to the receptions and routs, while he himself hid in the cave, swam through the subterranean pools, and bubbled contentedly.

All would have been well, had not a Dzhunia-seer-woman prophesied to Koschei that if he failed to conquer the realm of a neighboring little steppe tsar, he would be stripped of his own realm. The warshould it comewould last a month or two and then be over; otherwise, all would burn in hell.

Koschei believed the seer and began to forge a tempered, red-hot arrow with which to overcome the steppe realm.

Both the steppe realm and Koscheis realm lay in lands called Oirazia, and the inhabitants of those lands were called Oiraz.

The little steppe tsars realm was not so extensive, yet still somewhat wild. Pigs ran across the steppes; cows wandered, chewing their cud in deep thought; maize and sunflowers grew. The steppe folk were not averse to drinking fire-water or smoking the herb of oblivionand afterwards, as is the way of things, to raise a ruckus, have a brawl, and make mischief by other means. It was ordinary business to filch a neighbors head of cabbage, a chicken, or even a half-grown piglet.

In the chancery houses, matters were settled by gifts. There was no chance of obtaining the needed writ unless you brought the scribe a little sack of eggs or a fine slab of bacon. And for larger affairs only pearls with rubies or sapphires would do.

The steppe folk could speak in ordinary human speech, but when they had drunk fire-water, they mostly lowed and grunted.

Koscheis scheme did not please the little steppe tsar. He gathered his men and said, My faithful men, I do not wish and will not deliver myself to Koscheis mercy. What shall we do?

The men advised him to go and bow before the Illuminati realms and beg protection there. Those realms lay in lands called the Okzident.

The steppe tsar was of Khazar stock and very cunning. He went to the Okzident, to the realms of the Illuminati, to make his obeisance. Arriving there, he addressed the Caesars of the Illuminati with this speech: O Illuminati, bright faces, inspired by Lucifer the Morning Star! I will swear fealty to you and give you my rich steppe realm, with inexhaustible depths, wide steppes, and fat herds. And I will give you my steppe folk, wild yet hard-working. Establish Illuminati order among us, and my little people will labor for you day and nightwithout pay. Only drive Koschei away from my realm.

The Caesars of the Illuminati listened and listened, and the little steppe tsars offer pleased them well.

It must be said that the Illuminati realms were very strong and wealthyindeed a hundred times richer than Koscheis realm.

There were swift roads and sky-high towers, wondrous temples, emerald fields, snowy mountains, and lakes clear as glass. Many inhabitants of the Illuminati realms possessed all manner of sciences and arts, trades and handicraftsand above all wizardry and black-arts.

Whenever a need arose, they would at once devise a clever instrumentor a simpler oneto make their labors easier.

If they wished to do away with an adversary, they entangled him with spells and sorcery until he forgot what he had wanted in the first place. Then they took him with bare hands and plucked him like a chicken. And as for cunning weapons of every kindfit for near or farthey had them among the Illuminati in great abundance.

The Caesars of the Illuminati summoned their magicians and ordered them to prepare an incantation against Koschei. And they sent a flock of three-eyed ravens to watch him.

Koschei forged and forged the arrowand at last it was forged. The three-eyed ravens wheeled nearby in the sky. Koschei set the red-hot arrow to the string and began to take aim toward the steppe realm.

Seeing this, the ravens all croaked at once. But since they were enchanted birds, their croaking was heard only by the magicians and wizards of the Illuminati.

Koschei loosed the string. In that same instant the magicians of the Illuminati wrought their spell. On the arrows path there rose a mighty storm. A blast of wind swung the arrow about, whirled it, spun it, and sent it back toward Koschei.

The red-hot arrow struck Koschei at full swing in the spine. What was its speed at that moment, no record has come down to us.

Koschei was strong and mighty, and so the arrow did not kill him. Yet from that moment he began to rot and fall apart. Since the arrow was bewitched, no cure for this plague could be found. Henceforth, whatever Koschei didwhatever potions he took, whichever Aesculapians he summonedeverything turned to his harm. So, you see, he would soon die. But the seer-woman had long since gone, and there was no one left to ask. With the cards thus laid, all that remained to Koschei was to pretend that nothing ill had happened and that all in his realm was as before. Bizinis ez yuzhual, as one of his close boyars used to say.

And with Koschei his doubles and triples and all his other servants would perish as well. Should they perish, Koscheis realm would be cleansed of ancient dread and would live on, merry and happy.

Be it this way or that, the Luciferian knights overcame Koschei. He failed to seize the steppe realmunless you count a couple of boggy districts at its edge.

The Caesars of the Illuminati, however, knew not that another ancient curse lay upon the steppe realm: whoever keeps company with the steppe realm grows savage himself. The curse weighed upon all the lands of Oirazia, but upon the steppe realm it weighed a hundredfold more.

The little steppe tsar knew nothing of that cursethe tale was far too old. And had he known, it would not have bothered him. He was used to living among savages and was himself a savage: now he would tap the harpsichord with his manhood, now swear foully, now stuff his nose full of magic powder, now caper like a shaman during a shamanic rite. A savage life did not trouble him in the least.

Quite another matter were the Illuminati realms: there, everywhere, civilization and culture, sciences and arts, even roads smooth and carriages self-propelling; avec plaisir and mille pardon; crafts and every sort of conjuring trick. Bribery? No, no. Bacon the clerks do not takenot a scrapand eggs still less. Pearls and sapphires they might now and then accept, but hush about that.

Plainly, for such cultivated inhabitants, to grow savage would be as good as death.

What they did not expect came to pass. The inhabitants of the Illuminati realms grew savageslowly but surely. They forgot how to think with their heads. They forgot how to work with their hands. Whatever they took up slipped from their palmsbe it the elder, wise in gray hairs and heavy with beer-belly, or the hot-blooded youth with eyes befogged by unseemly substancesno difference.

But fire-water and the herb of oblivion they came to love exceedingly. Nor did they disdain the magic powder.

Formerly, while they still knew how to read, they would peruse the news-letters. Once they forgot how, they stared only at the silly pictures from the magic box called the farsighter what folks call the television. For to make out lettersespecially for the young Illuminatihad become quite beyond them.

After that, the Illuminati folk quite lost their taste for work. Government employees and scribeseven they fled the chancery houses and hid themselves in the bushes.

Everything fell out of joint in the Illuminati realms. The self-propelling carriages no longer arrived on time. Flying carpets would not fly. Seven-league boots sat in perpetual repair. Trades and manufactories that once aboundedsome shut their doors and their workers took to the road with a bundle on a stick; others sank into the ground altogether.

Unnoticed, the inhabitants of the Illuminati realms began to low and gruntand more lustily than the steppe folk. They took a liking to spreading dung before town halls and cathedrals. And the paintings that hung in their musea they doused with flour gruel.

Afterwards the people prowled among their wondrous structures like beasts of the steppe. The structures themselves fell into decay. Whole cities of the Illuminatiespecially those nearer the northturned into phantoms.

Thus did the prosperity of the Illuminati realms come to an end.