Legend

"Listen well, good people and evil, and especially you, the young: let this story be a lesson to you," the old man began in a singsong voice, wiping his lips.

He emptied a huge mug of homebrew, as big as a bucket, in a couple of gulps.

Giggles burst from Milavka, who just yesterday was racing with the goats and today had become a married young woman. They jumped from her pursed cherry lips like chicks from a pen.

And it wasn't at all that the wanderer was funny or gluttonous, but that Bazhen had secretly grabbed under her dress her tender, bud-like nipple. Everyone saw it, and the old wanderer too, and they all exchanged knowing smiles—oh, Bazhen just can't help himself! Oh, what will happen tonight with our Milavka, what will happen... And she saw that everyone saw, and blushed a deep crimson, and was too flustered to push Bazhen, her newly-made husband, away...

"... This story is old, though not so very old," the old man continued, staring intently at Milavka. "Once upon a time there lived a married couple, or in other words—a husband and wife. Their names were... well, just like yours: Milavka and Bazhen. These are ancient and beloved names in our tribe, and there's nothing surprising in that."

Though Milavka slept in the same bed with Bazhen and wrapped her curly head in a kerchief, they behaved like little children: now splashing each other with stream water, now smearing each other with mud, now deciding to wrestle in the intoxicating grass—and laughing like foals, one more gleeful than the other.

Here and there, Bazhen would throw Milavka to the ground, hike up her skirts, and do with her what children do not do. But even this came out childlike for them, not like how grown, dignified people make love. Bazhen licked her for joy, like a puppy, and Milavka's little face was wet, as if doused with water. And Milavka herself laughed at how sweetly and wonderfully Bazhen butted her with his horn, and squealed with sweetness, like a little mouse.

At night, Bazhen tore the clothes off Milavka and wouldn't let her sleep: he woke her in the middle of the night and poured into her the seed that burst from him like water from a mountain crevice.

"How wonderful," Milavka said to him. "We are people on our own: you are Bazhen, I am Milavka... but when we make love—we become a single wondrous monster. With four arms and four legs... I don't want to be Milavka, I want to always be such a wondrous monster! It's sweet to be one, Bazhenushka. Is it sweet for you?"

"Oh, sweet!" wept Bazhen and suckled her breasts like a small child at its mother's teat...

Milavka and Bazhen had not lived together even two weeks when fierce dushmanlars attacked their village. They seized the young ones right in their bed, asleep, and dragged them out to the village square.

First of all, the dushmanlars cut out Bazhen's tongue, then did the same to Milavka. The dushmanlar chieftain approached Bazhen, grabbed him by his causal organ, hacked it off with a saber, and shoved it into Milavka's bloodied mouth so she would eat it like a dog.

Milavka managed to spit blood into the chieftain's eyes. Enraged, the chieftain gave a sign—and poor Bazhen had to watch as the dushmanlars defiled his wife. Around them, relatives writhed on stakes—fathers, mothers, old folks, and small children.

The dushmanlars tore Milavka's womb to shreds, but the insulted chieftain thought it was not enough. He saw that Milavka was tenacious, strong. He gave his dushmanlars another sign...

Bazhen tore his throat raw, watching the fierce torment his wife endured. The dushmanlars cut off her ears and nose, tore out her breasts with the flesh, severed her arms and legs, and finally skinned her face and head and heavily salted the bare meat so it would pierce to the heart.

The bloody stump, which had so recently been Milavka, writhed in the dust, unwilling to die. The dushmanlars smeared her with their magical potion that heals wounds, bandaged her with rags—and gave her to the dushman children for amusement. And they took Bazhen as a slave.

Bazhen spent two long years on dushman campaigns. He did the blackest work, ate scraps, lapped water from puddles like a beast. And Milavka became a toy for the dushman children. They nicknamed her "Kurtchuk"—"the worm." Their favorite amusement was to roll Kurtchuk in the dust like a sausage, listen to his wrenching howl, and laugh. They kept Kurtchuk in a special cage so he wouldn't fall out of the wagon, fed him by hand, poured wine into his maw, and smeared him with excrement. Kurtchuk's fierce wounds healed, and his whole body was covered in purple scars, like a toad. Especially terrible was his noseless head with bulging, lidless white eyes.

Bazhen's heart was torn to pieces. Sometimes, when Kurtchuk was forgotten in the dust, he would approach him, stroke his scars, and moan. Kurtchuk would writhe in response, unable to answer otherwise.

Time came—enemies attacked the dushman host. In a distant, hot wasteland unknown to Bazhen, a great battle took place. The enemies slaughtered the dushmanlars, and those they didn't slaughter were taken into slavery.

In the heat of battle, a sword slashed Bazhen across the stomach. When the battle quieted—he crawled, bleeding, to the wagon with Kurtchuk, pulled him out, embraced him, and collapsed with him to the ground to die together.

The fierce sun burned. Blood streamed from Bazhen's stomach. With weakening hands he stroked Kurtchuk, rejoicing at the imminent death, and Kurtchuk rubbed against him with his toad-like head...

At that time, old Gyrgley passed by.

People whispered all sorts about him: some called him a sorcerer, some an underground spirit, and some just kept silent, covering their mouths with their hands. It cannot be said that old Gyrgley was exactly kind. His life was dark, and his soul even darker, like a well on a moonless night.

But that's how it is under the sun: even the darkest soul will, now and then, do a good deed. Old Gyrgley saw a wondrous sight: a wounded eunuch embracing, like his own child, a monster with a toad's head, and weeping, with a smile on his face. Another might have been greatly surprised—but old Gyrgley had seen all sorts in his time. He understood what was the matter. And—only God knows why—he decided to help them.

Gyrgley uttered secret words—and magical whirlwinds appeared in the wasteland. They sucked the strength from the wounded warriors lying in the wasteland—there were many of them, not just one hundred—and gave it to Bazhen and Kurtchuk. The warriors instantly decayed, and miracles began to happen with the unfortunate captives. All their severed limbs grew back by themselves; Kurtchuk's face and body were covered with tender skin; curls blossomed on his head like bindweed shoots; his eyes saw again the sky, the earth, and Bazhen...

Before the sun had set beyond the edge of the earth, alive and healthy Bazhen and Milavka stood before old Gyrgley, embracing.

How much joy there was and how many tears—this cannot be told with any words, and cannot even be contained in a song. Bazhen and Milavka endlessly spoke tender words to each other, and in the end merged into one, unashamed before old Gyrgley, and did that for which they had become spouses.

Having quenched their joy, they threw themselves at Gyrgley's feet and thanked him as best they could.

"It's not worth it," the old man told them, "but remember: you owe me a debt. I will come for it when the need arises."

Bazhen and Milavka swore to him to fulfill any of his wishes within their power. Gyrgley smirked—and vanished, as if he had never been. And Bazhen caught a horse abandoned on the battlefield, took weapons and armor from two warriors, dressed himself, dressed Milavka, and they galloped north—away from the foul wasteland.

They did not reach their native land and decided to settle in foreign mountains, by a cave. Bazhen and Milavka learned a hard lesson: they understood that they had nothing on earth more precious than each other. Homeland, tribal honor, ancestral customs—all that was not worth a scratch on Milavka's precious body. Bazhen could not rejoice enough, kissing her beloved breasts, and at night he groaned from nightmares—he dreamed that Milavka had become the breastless Kurtchuk again.

They lived as hermits. They hunted, stored salted meat for winter (fortunately there was much salt in the cave)—and they had enough of what the forest and earth gave. Nearby was a spring with water, clean and cold as snow.

They feared people fiercely. They avoided villages by a tenth road, hid from travelers, planted no garden or vegetable patch, left no traces so no one would see that people lived here. Bazhen made many secret hideouts on the surrounding slopes: jump into a hideout—and only your enemies have seen you! They kept only the horse taken from the battle, and guarded it like the apple of their eye until it died.

No one disturbed

Bazhen and Milavka from making love to their heart's content. Milavka was no longer a child, but a full-breasted beauty, strong and seasoned like a lynx. For days, weeks they could not tear themselves away from each other, could not quench the longing that had eaten at them in captivity, and coupled endlessly to be apart as little as possible.

They had two children: Slavmir and Tsvetava (so Milavka named them according to the grandfather's custom). In spring, summer, and autumn they ran naked, and in winter they wrapped themselves in bear skins.

Be it long or short—seven years passed. To Bazhen and Milavka it seemed that time stood still, and only their children grew from day to day, as if enchanted: yesterday they were still cooing, and today they bring prey home.

One day, an important guest appeared in their cave: old Gyrgley. How he found them, how he reached them—only he knew.

Bazhen and Milavka bowed at his feet, led him to the fire, treated him to meat, gave him homebrew infused with forest herbs to drink. Gyrgley drank a little, took small bites, smirking into his beard. Then he said:

"The time has come to repay the debt. I served you—now serve me."

Bazhen and Milavka very much did not want to leave their small children, but there was nothing to be done. They instructed Slavmir and Tsvetava to hide, eat the salted meat, and wait for their return; they sat with Gyrgley on a wondrous horse—and it soared into the sky, into the clouds and mists. Whether it carried three riders or seven—all were like feathers. Bazhen and Milavka almost smashed against the firmament, the young moon almost got tangled in Milavka's curls...

They dismounted in distant mountains, in wondrous lands, before a cave, but not like their dwelling—one seventy-seven times larger.

"Here," Gyrgley instructed them, "a magic mirror is kept. I have sought it for a full hundred years. That mirror is guarded by a fire-breathing serpent with a bull's head. The serpent has a covenant: not to give it to a human. I tried to overcome the serpent with cunning and sorcery, turned into various earthly and underground creatures—all in vain. As soon as you find yourself in the cave—you become who you truly are. Bring me the mirror, and we shall be even!"

There was nothing to do: Bazhen and Milavka went into the cave. They were terribly afraid, but even more they did not want to offend Gyrgley.

They climbed into the very bowels of the mountain—and saw a terrible serpent. It was as long as a mountain ridge, as thick as a church, and its horned bull's head was like a cliff with two pines.

"Who are you, why have you come?" roared the head, flashing with flame.

"We bow to you, great serpent," said Bazhen with a tremor in his voice. "We have come to you not of our own will. We must repay a debt to a good man. And he demands from us the magic mirror that you guard."

"Do you not know," roared the serpent, "that mirror is not meant to be given into human hands? Man is weak and foolish, such magic is beyond his strength."

"We know that, great serpent," answered Bazhen, "but we beg you to have mercy on us and our debt..."

"Begone!"

The earth trembled, ancient stones danced—and a river of flame gushed from the bull's head. Milavka and Bazhen ran headlong—barely escaping the fire...

"What shall we do?" wept Milavka, burying her face in Bazhen's shoulder. "This matter is beyond our strength, this secret beyond our understanding!"

"You are right," answered Bazhen. He was half-dead with fear for his Milavka and greedily caressed her, rejoicing that she was alive and well.

Little by little the caresses turned into what they so loved to do. etales.ru Stripping naked, Milavka and Bazhen kneaded and tore at each other under the cave's overhang, writhing in the agony of love...

"How sweet it is," Milavka howled like a hungry she-wolf and scratched Bazhen's back. "If only it could always be like this, one body with you..."

"Wait," Bazhen suddenly said. "Remember, long ago you said that when we couple, we cease to be Bazhen and Milavka, and turn into a single wondrous monster with four legs and four arms?"

"I don't remember... Those times are long veiled in mist, they have become a dream..."

"But I remember."

Bazhen explained to Milavka what he had conceived. They smeared themselves with brown mud so the serpent would not recognize them; Bazhen lifted Milavka, who was sheathed on his horn like a scabbard, and carried her back.

"Who goes there, why have you come?" roared the bull's head.

"I am the Overseas Wondrous Monster, four-armed, four-legged," Milavka cried out clearly (the serpent had not heard her voice before). "I have come for the magic mirror."

"What do you need it for?"

"My underground kin wish to look into it, to learn their fate."

"Well, take it then," said the serpent, "only mind you, don't give it to humans! And return it when you learn your fate."

"I will certainly return it! Thank you, great serpent!"

Bazhen and Milavka brought the mirror to Gyrgley. And he, upon seeing them, shouted:

"Begone, unholy spirits! Away from me, away!"

"Do not fear, old one," said Milavka, scraping clumps of mud from her head. "It's us, Milavka and Bazhen, just a bit dirty... Here is your mirror."

Gyrgley trembled with joy, grabbed the mirror and stared into it, petrified like a pillar. Blue veins pulsed on his hands, covered in secret writings...

Bazhen and Mil