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Thrush had managed to separate Napoleon from him a while ago. He had been headed toward the pre-assigned meeting place but had encountered the Thrush agents who overwhelm him. The knife had been a surprise resulting in a deep wound in his side. After he had been stabbed, they had left him laying on the cold ground as night was falling wishing him luck in his next life.
“Whether he freezes or bleeds to death, we’re free of one irritating Russian. Can’t wait to collect the award for killing Kuryakin. Come on guys, I’ll even buy you a drink,” the one who had knifed him said. Their laughter could be heard as they left him there to slowly die.
He had managed to get up and begin heading toward the rendezvous with Napoleon. After walking for what seems like hours, he began to stagger and teeter on the edge of exhaustion before toppling over and landing on the ground once more now covered in a light snow. No longer cold, he knew a fever was burning through his body.
He laid there for a while until the air became colder and a gruff voice said, “Stop laying down on the job.”
Illya answered with a moan as he attempted to turn over to see who was there.
“What are you some kind of baby needing to be mollycoddled? Now get up boy before you freeze or bleed to death down there?”
“I am not sure I can,” Illya confessed. “Just let me rest and gather some strength back.”
“Really boy, that’s a pessimistic quitter attitude. I didn’t take you for someone who was spineless after seeing how you fought those idiots back there. You stay laying there you wouldn’t have to worry about freezing to death cause that bleeding wound will do you in soon.”
“And you just let them beat the hell out of me?” Anger began to build in the Russian.
“Didn’t seem you needed help until that knife came out. Then it was too late to help you.” The voice justified its actions.
Illya’s anger gave him the strength to get off the ground. Turning toward the voice, he found no one there. He looked around to only find footprints and some chewing tobacco on the snow-covered ground. “You are becoming dim-witted,” he berated himself. “Imaging voices. Obvious the fever is playing games with my mind. Good thing Napoleon can’t see me now, I’d would never live down his teasing.”
Noticing the footprints went in the same direction he was heading, he began to follow them. Trying to keep his head up to watch that the men hadn’t followed him, he found that it was too heavy to maintain. He gave up the fight and watched the impressions to keep moving toward the rendezvous with his partner. He strength began to wane again, but he managed to keep on his feet by using the trees around him to keep upright. Moving slower and slower, he fell to his knees when he tripped on a branch then lowered himself to the ground.
“You’re never going make it boy if you’re not more observant,” the colder air returned with a gruff voice.
“Go away,” Illya demanded to find that he had dozed off.
“Now boy, is that any way to speak to someone trying to help you?”
Illya lifted his head but with the light snow falling all he could see were old torn up boots.
“Then help me or leave. All you do is insult me and call me boy. I’m neither a boy or a pessimistic quitter. I am an exceptionally well-trained UNCLE agent.”
“To me, you look like a poor example of a person much less an agent with any training.”
“Go away and leave me rest.” Illya insisted resting his head back on the ground.
“If I do that boy, you’ll die. Not stop complaining and drink this.” A torn glove hand offered him a dented and dirty flask.
The offer made him realize how thirsty he was. After hearing the cap open, he reached out accepting the flask. After taking a sip, “що це, чорт візьми?”
“What language is that, boy? I can’t understand what rubbish you’re spouting?”
“Sorry, it is Ukrainian. I asked what the hell that was.”
“Take another sip. It will increase your stamina. As to what it is, it’s a little something I brew to help with the consistent cold that surrounds me. Now take another swallow and get up before you freeze.”
“I am losing too much blood to keep going.”
“Don’t look that way to me, boy. Looks like it stopped bleeding,” The voice contradicted him.
Illya looked at his hand finding no fresh blood on it. “That is impossible. The wound is too deep to stop bleeding on its own.”
“Are you going to lay there denying your eyes, or get up and get moving? You have a way to go before meeting up with that partner of yours.”
Illya stood and took a few steps before turning around to ask the man how he knew where he was going and about Napoleon, but once more there was no one there.
“I am going crazy and imagining things” Illya whispered to the cool air around him. Yet when he glanced on the ground before him, he saw fresh footprints in the newly fallen snow that could only have been made just moments ago by boots.
His feverish mind took him back to his homeland where children were raised on spirits both friendly and unfriendly. Shaking his head, he rejected those thoughts and began following the step once more, “I will think about this later.” He kept following the footsteps pushing the thoughts of spirits and ghost out of his mind.
Sweat ran in his eyes and his body shook with exhaustion and cold. His temperature began to climb higher and delusions began. Spirits of his childhood made themselves known. He saw Leshy, the forest king smiling who was directing the Samodivas, woodland fairies, who were weaving in and out of the trees. The snow began to dance to an unheard song, the trees soon began to swag to the same song.
He stopped fascinated at the beauty before him. The snow and cold no longer a concern until he felt the air become freezing again.
“You don’t have time to lollygag about, boy. That bleeding won’t be stopped forever.” A voice surrounded him.
Illya smiled. “They’re so beautiful. So, you are back again to bother me,” He answered feverishly.
Turning around, the Russian saw Morozko, the Russian spirit of the frost and cold from his childhood riding toward him on the trees of the fir grove and birch forest while skipping from tree to tree, crunching and clicking just like his grandmother had told him the spirit acted. When Morozko dropped down from the fir tree before Illya, his eyes following the boots upon his feet as they hit the ground.
Illya felt a slap across his face, “Boy, snap out of it and get moving. The cold will kill you even if the bleeding doesn’t return before you reach shelter.”
“Are you really here?” The Russian asked as he attempted to touch the spirit. His hand went through Morozko. “Just my imagination like I thought. There are no spirits.” He said of the visions that vanished except for Morozko.
Falling to his knees, the boots caught his attention again. “Even those aren’t real.” Reaching out he was surprised to actually touch them. His eyes followed their eyes up to the spirit above him. As he watched, the image faded away.
“Up boy,” came the voice as Illya felt himself being lifted and placed on his feet, “Now, meet your partner before it’s too late.” A gentle push had Illya heading toward his rendezvous with Napoleon.
Each time he started to fall, freezing hands held him up while the Samodivas danced around him, calling for him to follow them. Whenever he slowed down a cold hand gently pushed him to keep him going.
No matter how hard he tried to catch the sight of who was behind him, there was never anyone there yet the fairies continued to dance around him laughing at his bewilderment. “He’s is real, little one. He is the guardian of cold and frost and is holding it back to protect you.” Their voices whispered in the swaying trees.
Ultimately, he saw the building where he was to meet Napoleon. He stopped moving to check around the perimeter for danger. Not seeing any danger through his burning eyes, he was unable to move any further. As he fell into blackness, he felt an icy grip lifting him up.
Coming back to consciousness with the pain of someone pressing against his wound, he heard.
“About time you’re back in the land of the living, Illya.” Napoleon smiled at his partner, “Although, how did you manage to get here with your loss of blood?”
Illya glance at the inside of the old broken-down building. It was filled with broken dust covered items. He was laying on a dirt floor but could feel nothing pressing into his back. Then his eyes found the boots he had been seeing all day.
“I passed out outside in the snow. Thank you for getting me in here. You did bring me in, did you not?” Illya asked his partner with a shaking voice unable to accept what those boots meant.
“Help’s on the way partner. You’re welcome, but I didn’t bring you in here. I found you laying there. Obviously, you must have made in inside yourself, unless you have a friendly ghost that helped you out.” Seeing that his partner was shaken for some reason, Napoleon tried to lighten the mood. “Which reminds me, you’ll be paying for dry cleaning my coat to get your blood off?”
“Just put it on your expense account,” Illya shot back. “Surely Mr. Waverly will understand.”
They sat in silence for a while during which Illya continuously scanned the area.
“Don’t worry. I dealt with those jerks from Thrush. They were so drunk from celebrating ‘killing you off’ I had no problem putting them to sleep for our men to pick up.”
“How did you know I was not dead if they were rejoicing?” Illya asked eyes still searching the area.
“I know you, Illya. You’ve been ‘dead’ too many times that I won’t believe it till I see your cold, pulseless body.” Becoming concern about Illya’s concentration of the surroundings even with his assurances Thrush was eliminated. “What is the problem, partner?”
“Did you see boot footprints in the snow outside?”
“There’s fresh snow covering everything out there, so sorry. There are no prints of any type on the ground.”
Illya started to speak in Ukrainian quietly. The only word Napoleon could make out clearly was Morozko. Deeply frightened eyes embedded in a deadly pale face traveled around the room but always returning to the boots.
“What’s frightening you?” A worried Napoleon moved closer to his partner lifting his head onto his lap while still pressing a cloth on his wound.
“It is just a hallucination or perhaps a nightmare. He can’t be real.” Illya whispered into Napoleon’s stomach.
“Who can’t, Illya? Is it that Morozko you mentioned? What did he do?”
Before Napoleon could get further information, a helicopter broke the silence outside.
“Bring the boots, please.” Illya requested as he was taken out.
Knowing he wouldn’t get any more information out of his partner now, Napoleon grabbed the boots and followed him out to the copter.
Waking up after surgery the to cleaned and stitched up the wounds had been internal and externally, Illya found Napoleon sitting next to him.
“Feeling better, partner?”
“I feel like I tramped through a freezing forest with a knife wound,” the Russian answered back.
“Touchy, aren’t you? Well, at least you don’t look like a ghost anymore. That’s the third unit of blood they have poured into you,” Napoleon nodding toward the IV pole. “One of them is even mine.”
“Please tell me that I will not chase every woman that walks by now.”
“You wound me Illya,” the American placed his hand over his heart. “I don’t chase every woman.”
“My mistake, every single woman.” Illya grinned at him.
Sitting in silence, Illya could tell Napoleon had a question on his mind.
“What do you wish to know?”
“I looked up Morozko. We’ve faced many things in our career. I won’t think less of you if you believe that he helped you.”
“Nothing but just my fevered imagination, my friend,” Illya stated uncertainty.
“And the boots?”
Illya turned serious, “Napoleon, as a child I was raised on the myths of my homeland by my Grandmother but when I was in the orphanage you were beaten if you believed in such silliness. My mind tells me I saw, heard and felt Morozko, Leshy, and the Samodivas, but my upbringing tells me it is not possible.”
Napoleon listened carefully to the conflict in his partner’s voice. “And what does your heart tell you.”
Illya looked at the boots, “They saved me or at least the memory of my grandmother’s tales did.”
“Then, my friend,” Napoleon said, smiling at him. “Take what you feel and accept it. We’ve come across too many things not to believe there are things we can’t explain. I need to give Mr. Waverly our oral report which will not include Morozko and the rest of your helpers. Get some sleep, I’ll be back later.’
“Thank you,” Illya watched his friend leave before turning his eyes to the boots beside the bedside table. A shimming figured filled the boots for a moment. “And thank you, Morozko,” he spoke drowsily.
As the figure faded away, a voice whispered into his ear. “Sleep, my son.”
Looking where the boots had stood, Illya found they had vanished with Morozko.