Dushe

Veles shooed Dragomir away. “If I could buy bohatiers’ dushe against their will, I’d already have this world in the palm of my glove!”

“God of Trade my ass!” Dragomir gritted his teeth. “Levo!” Dragomir crouched beside Levoslav and held his hand.

Levoslav gurgled, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Dragomir.

“Listen to me, Levo! I really did come from the future! The world is in a catastrophic state! On this day, you died before you could become a god! And the whole world came to despise you!”

Levoslav gasped for air, blood trickling from his mouth.

“Your dushe were lost forever because you died here in Prav. But if you agree to sell me both of your dushe, I promise I’ll find a way for you to find peace!”

Veles watched the scene in disgust. “Such noble promises. If you really are from the future, then tell me this. People of Yav learnt about Levo’s circumstances. But how? You made the world hate him, right?”

Dragomir’s stare stayed empty. “Yes. I deliberately brought his soulless body back to make an example of failed bohatiers.”

“Damn, Drago, I didn’t know you had it in you!” Veles giggled mockingly.

“But I did it to protect the people! So they wouldn’t just throw away their lives after the Eleventh Commandment was in place! I didn’t make my best friend a part of that ritual! Even if he deserved every bit of it!”

“Ritual?” Veles blinked. “Oh, I get it. Haha! I love you, Slavs! What a nation! Since he died here in Prav, his body never decomposed. So he became your plaything!” He giggled.

“Shut up!” Dragomir then turned back to Levoslav, whose breathing grew even more unstable. “Levo, we dreamed of becoming the famed bohatiers! If you don’t help me, I cannot defeat these monsters! Please, lend me a hand one last time!” Dragomir extended a hand towards him, waiting for his reaction. “Will you please sell me your dushe?”

Levoslav gurgled even more. But then… tears escaped from his eyes.

In the end… he reached out… and took Dragomir’s hand.

“Veles!” Dragomir shouted, more an order than a call.

“This is interesting.” Veles rubbed his chin. “But what will I gain from it?”

“I told you! I’ll sell you my right to rewrite the rules! It will play out just like it was supposed to!”

“Hmm… no. I will take the right from you, and one dusha from him. You can have the second dusha.”

“Stop negotiating, you bastard! Once Levo dies, we will never get his dushe!”

“Well, they do call me The Negotiator. So either I take two prizes and you take one, or the deal isn’t happening. Tick-tock.”

“Aaaaghhhh!” Dragomir dug his fingers into his curly hair and pulled at it. “But I have to pass Triglav’s trial, otherwise…!”

“Triglav?” Veles perked up. “Damn, that geezer. I should have known.” He reached for his right glove, but his eyes caught the pocket watch tucked into Dragomir’s right pocket. He paused, then pulled off his left glove instead and extended that hand. “I’ll sell you both of Levo’s dushe, and you’ll sell me your right to write a new commandment.”

The light in Levoslav’s eyes slowly faded. “T-tha..k…y…ou…Dr..go…”

Dragomir didn’t think. He took Veles’ hand.

“Spoken and bound!” The tattoo on the back of Veles’ hand flared to life, glowing brilliant blue.

Two translucent figures stirred within Levoslav’s body.

Slowly, they stepped through his flesh as though it offered no resistance, separating from him until two ghostly reflections of the bohatier stood beside his dying body. Same face. Same hair. Same build. Yet they could not have felt more different.

One dusha shimmered with a faint, pale-golden light. Its eyes remained peacefully closed. The air around it felt strangely warm, almost comforting.

The other was wrapped in wisps of black smoke that never stopped moving. Cold crept across Dragomir’s skin as it emerged. Its eyes were wide open, darting nervously from side to side as though desperately searching for somewhere to go.

A thin thread of light extended from each dusha and wound itself around Dragomir’s hand, binding them to him.

“Fascinating.” Veles watched them. “So this is what happens when dushe are explicitly part of the deal. And yet… he didn’t die…” he lowered his voice.

Dragomir didn’t feel any different, but the glowing tattoo confirmed that the transaction was complete.

“Well, see you around, or something.” Veles waved, disappearing into thin air.

The Steed of Before was already waiting.

Dragomir glanced at his former partner for the last time. He had already drawn his last breath. “Forgive me, Levo. But I think leaving your body here will be for the best.”

Dragomir mounted the mare. With a sharp neigh, the Steed of Before launched into the sky, carrying him and Levoslav’s dushe away. The warm one remained still, eyes closed, while the cold one looked back at its abandoned body. A crack tore through the sky. The mare leapt through, and moments later, they were back in Triglav’s cave.

“Dragomir!” Milena threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. “You’re back, safe and sound!”

“I knew you could do it, Debilmir!” Zduhach patted his back.

Then they noticed the two translucent beings. Milena flinched.

“L-Levoslav…?” She approached the dushe carefully. She reached toward one of them, but her hand passed straight through it as if it were air. Her eyes welled up. “Levoslav…”

“Did Milena know him?” Zduhach asked.

“Yeah… they used to be childhood friends. When he recruited me into the ranks of the bohatiers, I met Milena in their home village for the first time.”

Milena wiped away her tears with the back of her sleeve. “But we stopped talking after that, so it’s not like we were best friends. Well, but that stuff happens in life.”

“Congratulations, young bohatier!” Triglav of the Past spoke. “You passed the trial.”

Dragomir turned his head toward him. “I’ll never forgive you for putting me through all that!”

“Excellent work. You kept the changes to the past to a minimum.”

“To a minimum?! I killed one person and was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of two gods! That’s gotta change something!”

“Fear not. My domain goes far beyond simple time travel. The artifact you brought from the past is gone. It is back where it belongs.” He pointed at Milena’s pocket, where the pocket watch was tucked away. “Levoslav was supposed to die. And neither Stribog nor Mokosh were important enough to cause a significant change in this world.”

“That’s such a cruel thing to say!” Milena cried out. “All lives are important!”

“Dragomir the Bohatier, you may now collect your reward. One question for Triglav of the Future.”

The bohatiers flinched. They knew this was coming but they weren’t ready.

What should they ask? What do they need to know? What shouldn’t they know? What would be the best question that would help them on their quest?

They didn’t know.

After countless suggestions from each of them, they still couldn’t settle on one.

“Does the baby face react only to time-related questions?” Dragomir asked.

“We cannot say,” the Trinity replied.

“So I guess we have to think of a question involving time just to be safe, not to waste our only chance…”

“What if we asked something about that Golden Egg?” Zduhach suggested.

“Maybe we could ask when it’s going to be destroyed?” Milena added.

“But what if it never gets destroyed but something else happens to it?” Dragomir sat on one of the larger rocks. “The answer would be some stupid variation of that annoying ‘we cannot say’.”

“Even the God of Time doesn’t like wasting their time, bohatiers,” Triglav urged them.

“Shut up, we’re holding a strategic meeting!” Zduhach replied.

“I think I’ve got it…” Dragomir sighed. “This might give us more information than any other question but I fear the outcome.”

“What is it?” Milena asked.

Dragomir stood up and walked towards Triglav. “I am ready.”

The Trinity tied the blindfold around Triglav of the Past’s head again and for the first time, untied the blindfold of Triglav of the Future.

“So here’s my question,” Dragomir took a breath. “When is the reign of gods going to end?!”

Milena’s and Zduhach’s pupils contracted as they gulped.

Triglav of the Future slowly opened his mouth.

“Waaaaaaaaagh!” he cried.

“Waaaaghh! Waaaagghhh!”

The god cried so loudly they had to cover their ears.

“What the hell’s going on?” Zduhach shouted.

Triglav’s hands tied the blindfold over the baby’s eyes again and removed the one covering the redhead’s eyes.

“We allowed you to ask the question. But we never said Triglav of the Future could answer it.”

“So that stupid baby face hasn’t learnt to talk yet?!” Zduhach snapped, hitting the rock behind him with his fist.

Triglav of the Present suddenly wrapped his hands around Dragomir’s throat. “Thank you for bringing me Levoslav’s dushe from the past.”

Chapter 26: END