Excerpt: Bad Magic

Koschei the Deathless
Koschei is an ancient figure dating back to legends of the Dark Ages. He is mentioned primarily in tales coming from the northern nations. If any historical precedent can be attributed to these stories then he could easily be the first recorded example of a necromancer. He was reputed to be immortal, having separated his living soul from his body and hidden it inside a needle which he in turned placed within in an egg which was inside of a duck which was contained in an iron chest which was buried under a green oak tree on the island of Buyan.
The trick of imbuing objects with pieces of a person’s life force is an ancient practice associated with necromancy. Liches, undead monsters that retain some arcane power unlike most undead servants who lose all memory of their former lives upon being changed, are created by removing the souls of victims and placing them in receptacles known as phylacteries. Tales of Koschei could be allegorical accounts of the creation of the first liches, since Koschei was reputed to have been ugly and skeletal unlike a vampire.
Koschei is said to have been defeated by the warrior queen Maria Morevna and her lover Ivan. The story goes that Maria Morevna defeated Koschei in battle and imprisoned him in an impenetrable cell within her castle. However, shortly after she married, her husband Ivan stumbled upon the cell and was tricked into freeing Koschei the Deathless. Koschei was then able to come upon Maria Morevna by surprise and kidnap her. Ivan pursued them to the island of Buyan where he is said to have recruited the help of the North, East and West winds in freeing his wife. Together Maria Morevna and Ivan defeated Koschei in battle and hacked him into pieces which they then burned. However, since there is no mention in the story of them having destroyed the egg with the needle inside that contains Koschei’s soul he is supposed to have survived though where he went afterward is the subject of much speculation.