There are those who accept the system willingly, and there are those who, in a state-of-near-unconsciousness, accept it dreamily. And there are those who, not knowing any differently, follow the masses and, even if they are not permitted entrance, wholly accept its jurisdiction over their sovereign selves. 

—Dymytriev Vassalyv, age 16 

Crimea, 1876 

One day in early spring, Dymytriev, heeding the call to revolution and the selfless Cossack life, came across an invitation that brandished his name. It lay discarded on the ground, an afterthought, before a path leading to a gated wall. 

  Dymytriev had departed from the city of Kazakia, a Crimean oblast, early that morning. For three hours, he followed the distant song of birds along the faintest of paths. Despite hearing their muted, inaccessible melody, he never spotted one. While his mind was at ease with his noble journey, his heart was captured by the unshakeable beauty of the jagged, leafless trees. They were adrift in the barren and yellowing lea that spanned like a drying, melancholic ocean, and stood amidst the futile, unseen, mythical calls of a rusalka tempting him to take his place in a watery grave. 

  He stiffened his collars, even though no tree stirred. As his hand half-covered his mouth, he coughed as if subtly announcing his arrival to some unseen host. It was then that he stumbled upon an invitation sealed with crimson wax. Pressed in the intricate seal spread vines bound by a triangular border, and in its centre was a circle that could have been either an eye or a fountain. At the edges of the seal, the wax had bled into irregular globules and splatter that, on the white envelope, gave the impression of blood. Other than the inordinate concentration of ink at the tip of the final ‘V’, as if the addressee had struggled to remove their quill, the handwriting was exquisite. 

Dymytriev Vassalyv

Although he had noticed the large, wrought-iron gate as he approached, it seemed of little importance. It was guarded by a single sentry. With the invitation lying so near, he could not have thought that the guard and the invitation were unassociated. The gate was guarded by a single sentry. Other than a majestic Tartarian beard, the guard’s face held little grace from its age. His cheeks, like clay once crafted by a heavenly artisan, were slowly becoming un-constituted, their once-smooth edges now grizzled and porous beneath his sunken eyes. Musket in hand, he followed Dymytriev’s approach with his eyes, which peered from under a furred hat held in place by a worn, chewed leather loop. His head did not turn, however; it was as if his very body were paralyzed and unaccustomed to moving.