But that was over. They were gone now, his half-brothers were dead, his stepmother must be dead: everything he knew und understood was gone—he was drowning, and he caught at last at what he could. Branches, lives—it was all the same.
Finally he was sitting by the water with breath in his body, warmth where cold had been, and three dead men beside him. He had not intended it, god, he had not set out to do murder—it was the ghost. It was all the ghost—
—Well, well, well, something said, then, that was not harmless, either, that reeked of sunless cold and coils.—A boy. A boy with the smell of my old master all about him. My kind, dear master—is it help you want?
Fear washed over him—he had no notion of what, or why, only that the ghost knew its serpent shape, and that killing had drawn this creature here as surely as rot would draw ravens.
You’ve only to wish me, the creature said. I know what you need. I can supply everything you need.
It shivered up the streamside like a passing cloud. It brought cold where it passed. And stopped where a woman stood, a woman Ilyana’s image.
A woman he had murdered once. And rescued from magic. And lost again forever through his jealousy.
He said, in sudden despair, “—Eveshka.”
And the creature who smelled of dark and murder said, suddenly behind him, “The years do turn. Don’t they turn, old master?”
Something was ahead of them, not the mouse, Sasha thought, and said, quietly for Nadya, who was holding only to the saddle on this level ground:
“I’m hearing something. Someone. I don’t know who.”
“Is it my father?”
He shook his head, gazed through the sunlit forest, along the hills behind them. “It’s—” It was something out of the ordinary, not like the thoughts of deer or the earth-smelling habits of bears. He stood up in the stirrups and looked over his shoulder.
“It’s not near us. It’s north of here. Too far to hear—it feels like someone. Several someones. Like voices you can’t hear. I don’t like this.”
“The ones we’re looking for? Could it be?”
He shook his head. “I want them to ignore us. I want them not to see us.”
“I’m scared.”
“We’ve Babi. Wherever he is.” He reached back a hand without thinking, patted a bare knee with half-felt embarrassment. He did not like the feeling from the woods. “It’s not safe. But I’ve nowhere safer to put you.”
There was a little tremor in her voice. “My father said stay with you.” And she added, “I have a knife in my boot.”
“We don’t want them that close.” He had his own misgivings about putting her afoot and out of his sight—misfortune and magic tending to strike at the most vulnerable point. “Don’t be afraid. Just think about the wind, think about green leaves, that’s the sort of thing Missy thinks about.”
She thought about walking houses and wolves and dreadful wizards. She tried to see the leaves instead, and admire the sunlight: everything was brighter in the woods, the whole world was more dangerous and sharper-edged than she had ever imagined. She thought, I shouldn’t be alive, I shouldn’t be thinking thoughts like this—
Yvgenie rode all the way from Kiev for me—and he’s in trouble and we’ve got to save him; but I can’t even think about what to say when I see him. I never felt with him the my I feel now—I never imagined anybody like Sasha and it’s stupid! I can’t tell whether I’m shivering because I’m scared to death or only because he touched me…
Dammit, he thought, we’re fools, both of us are fools. I can’t afford to think of this girl, god, Pyetr’s in deep trouble out there, the mouse is—I need to talk to ‘Veshka right now, and I can’t, I daren’t, because of Nadya.
God, one clear wish—one clear wish and I could break the silence. Two clear thoughts and we all might have a chance; and the girl has me so upset I don’t know my own name.
I brought her here. It’s my fault. Yvgenie is my fault. Or have I been assuming too much all along?
“Where is she?” Eveshka said, demanded everything, and ran through those memories like a fire through dry leaves. He remembered countless faces, he remembered desperation, going barehanded against Draga’s creatures, he remembered dying—and first meeting Eveshka’s daughter by the brook where Yvgenie would die.
He remembered Owl dying and the precarious bridge above the river; he remembered his heart lodged as a guest with Pyetr’s—and knew Eveshka the way Pyetr did, saw her the way Pyetr did, in the sun and the wind, at the helm of the old ferry; he forgave her the way Pyetr did—with the firelight on her face and thoughts in her eyes he could never, ever speak to—
Thoughts like doubt of one’s own life, one’s own right to walk the earth, doubts that echoed off his own wizard-bred despair.
She still remembered loving him. And she hated that. She remembered him wishing harm on Pyetr with no reckoning of Pyetr himself, only his own pleasure in pain and mischief—that was always at the core of what he did and what he chose. He enjoyed mischief. That was who he was. She believed it.
He did not dispute her—but the enjoyment of it he could not now remember, could only recall that he had done it, and knew that of men alive or dead, he regarded Pyetr as his friend: “I never knew anyone who was good, but him, ‘Veshka, allow me that much and don’t argue with me now-listen to me!” A pit was at his back: he could recall all life behind them pouring like a waterfall over an edge that gnawed its way closer and closer to the world and this place. He wanted her to see it, he wanted her to understand he had tried to stay with Ilyana.
“ ‘Veshka, I love her, I was never supposed to fall in love with her. They wanted me to bring her here, to them. But they’re dead, and I couldn’t stop her—”
“Damn you! You couldn’t face me, you couldn’t come to me with your “bring her to them—” What were you going to do, Kavi? What did the leshys intend with my daughter?”
“To make her safe, that’s all they wanted—”
“Was it? Was it now?” The sunlight dimmed before the dark and the anger in front of him. She would kill the boy, he was sure, kill Yvgenie and him and take the magic he had, she was that strong and desperate to be stronger—rusalka no less than himself, a sink of life as deadly as that place beyond the hedge—
While life and magic poured over that rim and threatened to sweep her and him and everything they loved into itself.
“Eveshka,” he said. “Eveshka, don’t help it, don’t—wish against them—”
“Bonesss,” the vodyanoi said.
The whole world tottered for an instant. Breath failed. But she spun about and stalked away from him, and laid her hand on a bare white trunk.
Something whispered, slithering to the other bank: Don’t trust him, pretty bones. He’s not at all nice. But there is a place that wants him, there is a place that would certainly trade for him, trade for something very, very nice—
It was day. The vodyanoi could not abide the sun—except someone enabled him, except Eveshka was listening to the creature. And who was so foolish, god, who but him had ever been so foolish?
Eveshka rolled a glance at sky and woods, looked at him last, desperate, angry for all the long seasons of cold and dark he had damned her to. She hated him, for lying, for pain, for deception and his theft of her peace and her daughter—
She wanted the strength he held. She took it, in one dizzy rush, that left him on his knees; and wanted him from her sight, now, that was the single grace she gave him, because there was a wisp of life left in him and she would not kill— from moment to moment, so long as she could, she would not kill...
“Run, damn you, Kavi! Runl“
He found the strength somewhere. He fled the streamside, blind, raked by thorns—he stumbled and fell and ran again, mindless, until he found himself lying on dead leaves in the sunlight, watching an ant make anxious progress across a sandy, mold-eaten leaf among other leaves, and stop, and quite suddenly— Shrivel and die.
/> His heart gave a painful thump. A leaf fell. Another followed. He wiped his mouth with a gritty hand and tried to get up.
Green, untimely leaves showered about him. His teeth chattered with winter cold as he gathered his feet under him and kept going, where, he did not know, except he felt powerless against what moved him —he, Kavi, Yvgenie: the distinction was no longer exact in his thoughts.
He wiped tears that ran on his face, revolted by the chill of his own hand, and slid as much as walked down the face of the hill, gathered himself at the bottom and stumbled further, thinking—the god help him—that if he could only find the horses—they could carry his failing body in more then one sense.
But there was no trace of them, and from Yvgenie nothing but terror and grief. Yvgenie loved the white mare. Ilyana loved the filly. So did he, for Ilyana’s sake. And his living always required murder, it had before and did again, even of what trusted him.
The sun sank below the treetops. In a deeply shadowed passage Volkhi blew and shook his head, and Pyetr shivered for no reason that he could think of—a passing wish, perhaps, either good or ill, if any magic at all could reach him. Volkhi had his head up, smelling something of interest, that much was certain. Pyetr asked a little more speed of him and Volkhi picked up his pace, pricking up his ears and flattening them again, listening and worrying. The mouse? One could only hope. No, god, it was Patches, riderless, with Yvgenie’s white horse behind, coming slowly down the wooded hillside. His heart said hurry; but he rode quietly so as not to startle them, and saw bloody scratches and countless welts on their hides, thorns snarled in manes…
Sasha could easily have asked them the questions he most wanted to ask. All an ordinary man could learn of them was the evidence of a panic flight through thorn thickets: dirt from falls, scratches all over them, and everything Ilyana and the boy owned still bound to the saddles—god, Ilyana’s book was there along with the rest of her belongings. She would never have parted from that—willingly.
He slid down, slipped Patches’ bridle, tied it to the saddle, and sent the filly off with a whack on the rump—home, he hoped, where young Patches understood home to be; or to Sasha, or whatever refuge she could find on their own. He held on to the white mare for a change of horses, swung up onto Volkhi’s back, argued Volkhi and the mare into an uphill track, and rode along their backtrail, not breakneck, but slowly, observing an occasional print of a hoof on soft ground, a snag of white horsehair in brush. The horses had both gotten away clear: life had escaped Chernevog’s grasp, and if it was Chernevog’s fault what had happened, the horses could not have gotten away without magic.
Which could most reasonably mean the mouse—who, being the mouse, might have driven them off for their own safety, if things were going wrong; but she would not have chosen to send them away with the book and their food and their blankets, not unless something had gone very wrong, very quickly, or she had some destination in mind for them. Like her uncle. Like—the god knew. The book might have every answer he needed, which he might know now if Sasha were with him, which, dammit, Sasha was not—nor could possibly be, this fast.
So he was here—for what little he could do: at least whatever he could do was sooner than he could do it at Sasha’s pace; and if the mouse’s wish or Sasha’s was indeed guiding the horses, Sasha might yet get his hands on the book and the answers in time, and ride to the mouse’s rescue.
Or his, if he was on the right track—and by all evidence he was.
Only granting, please the god, Sasha had ever waked up.
“Babi’s left,” Nadya said, and Sasha looked about at her, saying, “What?” so distractedly she was sorry she had said anything. It was getting toward dark, he insisted on walking and letting the horse follow him, and if he was working magic she might just have ruined things.
“No,” he said.
It was very disconcerting to have someone answer her thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and patted Missy’s neck as they walked. “Pyetr and I do it. I forget. I’m dreadfully sorry.”
“I shouldn’t bother you when you’re thinking.”
“You couldn’t bother me.”
It was an odd thing to say. She was not certain whether it was good or bad. Maybe she was too silly to bother him. Ha uncles called her a damned nuisance when they thought sin was out of earshot. They called her stupid girl—
“You’re not,” he said, and stopped a moment and looked up at her. “You are distracting me. I’m sorry. Please don’t talk to me. I’m trying to think of something.”
“What?”
“A wise wish.”
“Wish us home,” she said.
He had the most distressed look on his face. He stared at her and went on staring. He said, finally, “Home.”
She said, “Mine’s not in Vojvoda. I don’t know where it is but it’s not there.”
He said, “Mine burned.”
“I’m dreadfully sorry—”
“It wasn’t mine, really. Or it was. It didn’t matter. It was just full of papers and things.”
She did not understand. She did not understand how she had troubled him, but she had. She frowned and wondered what she had said so dreadful.
He walked on, and Missy moved with his hand on her neck, at her steady patient pace. She thought, I wouldn’t hurt him. I truly wouldn’t.
“How can a wizard’s house burn? Can’t they stop the fire?”
“Not always,” he said. “I’m dreadful at fires. —God, don’t—bother me. Please! God!”
Her breath seized up in her throat. And he shook his head furiously and laid a hand on her knee, saying, “I wanted you here. I wished you. I wanted—”
“What?”
“A wife. And it’s not fair for us to want somebody. And you shouldn’t think about me and you shouldn’t want to—” He stopped, quite suddenly, then said, “I sound like ‘Veshka.”
She felt fluttery inside. She felt guilty for Yvgenie and guilty for being a wicked girl, her mother would call it, and guilty for upsetting Sasha—it was not fair for a boy to risk his life for her and her not to love him, but it was nothing like Sasha.
“It’s a damned wish,” he said. “It’s magical. You can’t help liking me!”
“I do,” she said, feeling very strange inside. “I do, and maybe it is magical. It feels that way. I never felt like this. I never did…”
He stood there staring at her. Missy had stopped quite still.
“What about Yvgenie?” he asked.
She said, hard as it was to say, “We never—” and stopped there, her face gone burning hot despite the evening chill. She said, “I didn’t love him. I said I’d try to. He’s very nice.” The fact was, she had slept in his blanket and he had slept curled against a tree, because—
—because she had been so dreadfully afraid of strangers. Or of lasting mistakes.
“God,” he said, and shook his head and started walking again.
She did not think he was upset with her. She thought quite the opposite. Maybe it was him hearing what she was thinking again.
He stopped Missy again. He looked so dreadfully upset with her. No, not with her. With himself. Because he was not thinking about the things he should be thinking about, he was thinking about himself, being selfish, and a fool—
She shook her head, refusing to believe that, upset because he was upset—
And not, again. Feelings came and went quickly as breezes. It scared her. Except it was magic, and she loved a wizard, and things like that seemed likely to happen in his company.
He said, “I can’t wish you not. I can’t wish you away. It’s not safe. God, what do I do with you?”
She said, “I don’t know.” A nice girl would never think of looking a strange man in the eyes. But she did. She said, shakily, “I’m in the way, aren’t I?” The woods was not where she belonged. Sasha was walking because the horse was tired. He was out of breath, he was sweating, he looked exasperated and worried, and sh
e bit her lip, not going add her tears to his problems. Which went away, the more she felt her eyes sting.
She said, “I’m not scared of you.” It felt as if every fear she had ever had had gone away from her. And anything the woods could hold was nothing to the fears she had lived with expecting murder at any instant, every day of her life, an had found her mysterious wizard and he was the answer, not the danger. She said, feeling very strange, “I think should think about getting my father out of trouble.”
Because that was what he was trying so desperately think about—and if she was an echo, she could at least that to help him.
She said, “I’m scared of meeting Yvgenie, too, but I think you should help the people you need to help, and not worry about me meeting my half-sister, or my father’s wife…”
He was afraid of that idea. She saw it in his face. He gave a small shake of his head and of a sudden the back-and-forth in her thinking stopped, like a sudden silence, as he started Missy moving again.
She said, because she was stubborn, “They don’t scare me.” Which was a lie. But she was trying to make it true She said, on a cold, dreadful thought, “If my father got killed or something because of me—”
He gave her a strange look and she felt colder and colder, thinking about that. Or maybe it was magic again.
He said, “Pyetr’s damned hard to kill.”
And walked ahead of Missy for a while, in a silence she had never heard in her life—not a lonely one. A cessation of his presence, even when he was right in front of the horse. She watched him, as distant from her as he had been close a moment ago, and thought: He’s thinking about my father.