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– Once one young man on a strong war horse showed up at my place with a sword and demanded that I give him all my magic. But he saw my paintings. Like those you can see in a palace. And for some reason he thought that I use them to get into the royal castles and capture the beauties. So, he stole all the pictures he could find. He also took away empty canvases, so I couldn’t create any portals. Ridiculous. And on his way home he was robbed himself by Nightingale the Robber. The paintings started to spread among forest inhabitants. It is amusing, but the author never gets such wealth as the one who got his works.

– But is it true that your canvases can really transport a person to another place? – Hope wondered, listening to the story with bated breath.

Koschei shook his head.

– Well, that’s the thing, that they can’t. But faith is a powerful tool which does all magic. And this young man believed that the power was in the paintings and convinced others. I went to a great deal of trouble to find all the paintings, except for one, so they didn’t harm anyone. Because one who doesn’t know how to handle magic, is a danger to himself and to others.

Hope realized immediately that the last painting he hadn’t found was her canvas. That's how she occured in the magic forest! But how to come back home? And how did Matvey Ivanovich get this canvas?

– And why did that young man come to you if you say that you have never captured, leveled to the ground or harmed anyone? – the girl narrowed her eyes suspiciously, taking her time to believe in Koschei’s nobility. Everything in this world is deceiving, and only the almighty time knows how to set truth straight. You just have to wait.

He nodded. Koschei decided to trust her with his most important secret, and Gorynych put his head on his paws, ready to listen.

– I was the weakest boy from the whole lake family. But the eldest. So I had to watch the gateway when I grew up.

– What type of gateway? – Hope asked immediately.

– The gateway to the underworld. It’s a family tradition...

– Wait a minute! What do you mean, to the underworld?!

– There are so many different worlds… This is only one of them, – the interlocutor was evasive, answering the question. Hope understood that it was useless to insist, and she didn’t say anything, although her head was already filled with dozens of questions.