Chernevog (21 page)

Pyetr stared grimly into the fire and took another drink. A big one. Then he capped the jug.
“
Well, I know what I'm going to do, friend, it's very simple. No magic. Nothing of the sort. I just want within reach of Chernevog. The leshys had the right idea in the first place. Old Misighi was for breaking him in little bits. I should have helped.
”

Chernevog's own wishes might well have prevented that, Sasha thought; but he kept that unsettling thought to himself; he had poured enough into Pyetr's lap tonight, and he was not at all sure he had made Pyetr understand him, about magic and
rusalkas
. He could wish that Pyetr did. But that broke promises— and that wish itself might go astray, Pyetr having no way to feel what it was to have wishes work—what it felt like to wish while one's enemy wished, fester and fester, until there was no time to think and no time to mend things
...

Until the power grew so much and the confusion so great—

Sasha shivered, a twitch of his shoulders. Across the fire, Pyetr settled down in his blankets. Sasha lay back on his own mat and pulled his blanket to his chin, staring up at the sky, and listened to Volkhi moving nearby.

Thank the god most of the baggage had survived.

Thank the god they had Babi with them to guard their sleep. Babi had posted himself between them and the water, as good a watchdog as they could have.

He only wished he knew where the vodyanoi was tonight; and recalling the bannik—why it had come here or why it had power here. Maybe, he thought, the bannik's behavior was like Babi's: Babi had no reason to leave a dvorovoi's duty either, faring off with them about the woods, except that being a wizard's
dvorovoi
seemed to make Babi different. Certainly being a wizard's bannik—might account for almost any odd behavior.

Insoluble by any reason. His thoughts were growing random and chaotic. He worried whether Pyetr had understood anything.

He could still change his mind about what he had said, at least he could wish Pyetr to forget specific things he had said—but that was meddling, too; the god only knew what damage it might do—even put Pyetr off his guard and endanger his life. One could not find a path without a trap in it, and he was scared to the bottom of his soul that he had said things that Eveshka would not forgive and Pyetr might never, ever forget.

God, he did not want to hurt them. Either one.

“
Watch us, Babi,
”
he whispered, before he set his own mind to drift, and deliberately breaking a promise, began to wish them both disposed to sleep
...

After which the earth seemed to move and pitch under him like the river.

A ring of thorns
...

A cold bed, a hard one—he felt the breeze and knew the touch of sun and moon; was aware of the movement of the stars
...

It was the motion of the horse he still felt. It was the dizziness one got from gazing into the heavens—

Sky overhead, blaze of sun through branches, stars glittering through a net of thorns, a long succession of days and nights, careering madly across the heavens
...

He sat upright, caught himself on his hands as Babi hissed
and barreled into his chest, holding him and burying his head under his chin. He hugged Babi back, still trembling, not wanting at all to think how close that had been.

God, he thought, that was Chernevog, the thorns, the stone, the days and the nights. I'm dreaming his dream.

I nearly did it, I nearly waked him myself
...
God, I'm a
fool!

In the same instant he felt a prickling at his nape, looked toward a sudden sense of presence in the dark at his elbow, fearing the slither of something large and snakelike—

There was indeed a shadow, in which eyes-shimmered gold-filmed red, reflecting firelight. But the shape was human, a spiky-haired, ragged urchin.

What do you want? he asked it, while Babi clung to him and hissed like a spilled kettle. The bannik shifted forward, grinned at him, resting bony arms on bony knees. Squatting there in the likeness of a starveling child, it made a rippling move of its fingers.

Sound of hoof beats
...
pale horse running under ghostly trees.

What are you? he asked it. Bannik, what's your name? Are you our bannik—or are you something else?

It grinned at him. Its teeth were sharp as a rat's. It spread its fingers again.

Spatter of blood on a golden leaf—a single drop, shatteringly ominous
...

Perhaps he dreamed that he had dreamed. Now he rode through woods, trees rushing past him, a horse's pale mane flying in his face. Everything was twilight and terror, and falling, golden leaves. He was not sure where the horse was carrying him, or what pursued them, or where hope was, except in getting away from this place before the light finally failed.

The leaves fell, the sun came and went in patterns of dark and light, following a curve across the sky.

Trees stretched their branches, thorns wove like serpents
—
and slowed to graceful leisure. Leaves unfurled, more slowly, so slowly finally the eye could no longer see them move.

Then one droplet hung still, still, on the thorn, impaled there
...

Eventually it fell.

The next drop gathered. One began to think, if one wished, it might stay a little longer, fall just so.

One would know by that small sign, that one was no longer quite asleep.

11

Pyetr put water on to boil—tea, Sasha asked for this morning, late as they had waked,
tea,
for the god's sake, in this damnable vicinity, a delay hard to bear, considering the vodyanoi missing from his den, and
Eveshka
on the river—

In spite of which considerations he himself had slept like a stone last night, suspiciously like someone's intervention, while Sasha complained of unrestful dreams and wrote furiously. But if one dealt with wizards, patience was a necessity, and if the lad wanted tea while he did some quick scribbling in his book, lea Sasha got: it was at least something for a man to do who had no choice but to wait.

So Pyetr delayed the questions that were churning in him this misty morning. He made the requested tea, and set a cup by Sasha's foot and a lump of honeyed grain on Sasha's knee.

Without a glance, Sasha reached after the grain-and-honey, stuffed the whole into his mouth and drank with the left hand-alternate
with
holding the inkpot, god hope he did not confound die two. An elbow braced the pages open, the quill-tip waggled more furiously than it had on the goose. Clearly Sasha was hurrying as fast as he could and an ordinary man could only hope he was coming to useful conclusions.

Pyetr washed his own breakfast down—asked, eventually, in
case spells required it,
“
Are you going to need the fire?
”
and Sasha answering with what he thought was no, Pyetr drowned the embers with river-water and packed as far as he could, except Sasha's book and the ink-pot.

He thought, while he was doing all of this: 'Veshka's not a fool, either. Sasha's right: she at least thinks she knows what she's doing. If she only bothered to tell a body what she's up to—

Or why in hell that tree's alive again—

It had upset him last night. It worried him this morning and occasioned glances down the bank to where it stood, lithe limbs blowing in the wind. He did not understand why it should matter that an apparently dead tree had returned to life, or what obscure connection there should be to that tree and Eveshka's disappearance—except he most emphatically recalled it dying, shedding its leaves out onto the water while Eveshka became alive again. And certainly it had looked dead for all the three years he had sailed back and forth past this place replanting the forest upriver.

Eveshka cared about the woods. She bespelled her seedlings with fervent wishes for their growth. She talked about this tree and that tree as if it was a person. This willow had held her soul once, whatever that meant; and it had survived the whole forest dying, died at the moment she lived, and come back to life suddenly after all this time, and she had never, ever, with her magic, noticed that curious fact?

Or noticing it—happened to mention that trivial matter?

God, he had never even imagined she might come
here
in her flights into the woods.

Surely not.

Sasha closed the book.

“
Are we going now?
”
Pyetr asked.

“
We're going.
”
Sasha put book and ink-pot into his bag. ‘‘You ride. Your turn.
”

“
What are we going to do?
”

“
We're going to go up there,
”
Sasha said,
“
and find out.

“
Good. Finally something makes sense. —Move, Babi.
”
swung up onto Volkhi's back as Babi, perched there, v
anished
out of his way. He set his cap on as Volkhi ambled over to Sasha in a very unnatural attraction for a horse, and he reached down
to take Sasha's pack up.
“
Do we know anything? Have we learned anything in all this reading and writing?
”

One hoped. One did hope.

Sasha dashed that notion with a worried shake of his head.
“
I only think somebody wants us here. Don't ask me who.
”

“
I am asking. Or is it that name we're not saying?
”

“
I don't know,
”
Sasha said, and shook his head again, starting Volkhi walking without laying a hand on him.

“
Well, what?
”

“
I don't know what.
”

“
Sasha-
”

“
I'm afraid he's waking. I don't know how, I don't know why, I don't know if it's something he wished a long time ago or it's just one of those accidents that happens with wishes. Maybe something made the leshys' attention slip. It doesn't matter why. I don't think it matters, at least.
”

“
Don't say Don't know. God, I'm tired of Don't know, Not sure, Don't know why. Just for the god's sake let's make up our minds how
we
want things and dig our heels in, isn't that the way it works?
”

“
It works best,
”
Sasha said,
“
if what you wish is of no possible use to your enemy.
”

They traded off from time to time, from time to time let Volkhi carry the baggage alone to rest from both of them—in a pathless region, Sasha thanked the god, both higher and drier than the boggy ground south of the den, and further from the river now, but not often out of hearing of it. Sasha slogged along during his turns afoot as fast as he could, catching a stitch in his side he wished away, stealing only so much as kept them moving and wishing the while for some wisp of a thought from Eveshka, some break in the silence that went around them—most of all for some sign that the leshys were even aware of their difficulty. But there was no answer from any source, except that fore-boding which had been with him in his nightmare, that they were running out of time and running out of luck, that Eveshka when she had taken the boat had effectively stranded them so far behind there was no hope of catching her on the way, not so long as the wind blew from the south—and blow it did, against all his wishes.

Pyetr in his own turns afoot spared little breath for conversation, made no demands, offered no recriminations for his shortcomings or his bluntness of last night.

Only once:
“
Damn mess,
”
Pyetr said, when they lost time wading a substantial stream, and once again, when, immediately after, Pyetr slipped and took a ducking—
”
I know you've got other worries just now,
”
Pyetr said, standing up dripping wet,
“
but could we have a little attention here?
”

“
I'm sorry,
”
Sasha said in all contrition. It
was
his fault. But Pyetr frowned up at him on the horse, put his hand on his knee and shook at him.
“
Sense of humor, boy. Sense of humor. Remember?
”

That was the way Pyetr got through things, no matter hr. friend was a fool. He realized then Pyetr was trying to cheer
him
up and make him quit a very dangerous brooding and wool gathering.

“
I'm sorry,
”
he said, and only by Pyetr's face realized it was still another damnable Sorry. He tried to joke too, and winced.
“
Sorry.
”