Chernevog (28 page)

“
'Veshka's across the river.
”

“
Across
the river—
”

“
I don't know why. There's something wrong over there. I'm afraid she's in the middle of it and I still can't make her hear me.
”

“
God,
”
Pyetr said with a disgusted shrug, as if it were some town squabble Eveshka had involved herself in. Pyetr walked a step or two aside, swept his cap off and stood there holding it, looking out in the direction of the river.

As if we're deaf to each other, Sasha thought desperately, as if all of us are deaf to him, and he can't make anybody hear him, ever.

God, Pyetr.

Pyetr hit his leg with his cap, turned and motioned with it ahead of them, toward the river.
“
Well, we've got to go there, don't we? Find Uulamets! Uulamets is in the damn middle of
this, that's what's going on. He wants us over there, hell! It's 'Veshka he wants!
”

For a moment it made a terrible, clear sense. It was like Chernevog's warning. It was frighteningly like the things Chernevog had just been saying to him.
“
He brought her back from the dead, Pyetr, he died bringing her back.
”

“
He died getting her away from
him!
He died making sure Chernevog didn't get his way in the world! That doesn't say he's happy being dead, or that he's through meddling!
”
Pyetr shoved his hair back with the cap, pulled it on and caught a breath while Sasha tried to think whether Pyetr was sane or he was. But Pyetr said then, quietly, hand on hip, with a shivery twitch of one shoulder,
“
God, I don't know. I don't like this. I don't like anything to do with him. —Why the shapeshifter? Why did it look like him?
”

“
Was there a shapeshifter?
”
Chernevog asked.

“
You shut up!
”
Pyetr said; but Sasha was thinking that both of those questions were important. He said,

“
There was. It tried to lead Pyetr
off
somewhere.
”

“
What are we doing?
”
Pyetr cried.
“
Asking
his
advice now?
”

“
My advice,
”
Chernevog said,
“
is exactly yours—don't trust Uulamets.
”

“
God,
”
Pyetr said, leaning on Missy's shoulder.

“
The dead aren't loyal,
”
Chernevog said.
“
You can't trust them. Uulamets had no idea what he was doing with that kind of magic, he didn't understand it. I do. Believe me, Ilya Uulamets was never on anyone's side but his own.
”

‘‘God, of course, you're our lifelong friend, you want the very best for us!
”

“
Pyetr,
”
Sasha said anxiously—but Chernevog said calmly, with a wave of his hand in Pyetr's direction,

“
I can't blame him. I only hope you aren't as abysmally stupid as Uulamets was. He didn't know what he was doing, and if he's delivered himself to something that can use him—I don't know what he might be by now. I'm sure you don't.
”

“
The leshys trust him.
”

“
I don't know what the leshys understand and don't understand, and I doubt you do. I'm telling you—
”

“
You're telling us what you damn well want us to believe!
”
Pyetr
said.
“
Sasha—
”

Sasha pleaded for Pyetr's patience with a look and maybe a wish, he had no least idea, but he was afraid not to listen to what Chernevog might say, foolish and dangerous as that attention might be.

And Chernevog, bitterly:
“
You've killed Owl, you've put me in the same trap you've put yourselves in—dabble in wizardry to its limits, but you don't ever deal in magic with your heart in reach, boy! Magic can't wish on its own, magic can't imagine nature—but if you're fool enough to let my enemies get to me as I am now, then I'll remember you, damned if I won't, along with everything else I had to do with.
”

A chill went down Sasha's back; he forgot even to breathe— and Pyetr's hand was on his sword. But Chernevog said, further,

“
Boy, let me free. Something's hunting us, now that we're outside the leshys' keeping—or if it's not yet, it will be, and if I fell, the first thing I'll trade them is two fools, hear me? I won't have any choice.
”

He remembered Uulamets saying, Doubt is Chernevog's weapon
...

He said, coldly, from Missy's height,
“
I'll bear that in mind.
”

‘‘Arrogant young
fool
”

“
No!
”
Sasha cried, as Pyetr went for his sword: it occurred to him that dead, Chernevog was no more catchable than mist or water. He gave that thought to Pyetr, and said to Chernevog, leaning on Missy's white shoulders while she cropped a wildflower or two,
“
What would the vodyanoi give, I wonder, to know what I could tell him about you? I've read your book. I doubt he could read it for himself.
”

Chernevog went a shade paler, wiped his lips with the back of a finger.
“
You'd be an
absolute
fool to do that.
”

“
Not if you're going to work against us anyway. You don't want me dead, Kavi Chernevog, and let me tell you this: you don't want any harm to Pyetr or 'Veshka, either, because you don't want my heart taking over my good sense, now, do you? —Because when you care about something besides yourself, Kavi Chernevog, you take care of your friends, and you don't
want
anything happening to them. I don't need your magic. Wizardry is enough for me—because I believe you, I believe
you made one terrible mistake and you'd give everything you have to be where I am.
”

“
To be a young fool?
”

“
A young fool still has all his choices left, doesn't he?
”

Chernevog said nothing then, only stepped back from Missy in angry, offended quiet. Sasha thought: God, I shouldn't have said those things to him, shouldn't have talked that way to him
...
whatever he looks to be, he's a hundred years older than I am and he knows things I don't even imagine. God, make him mad, Sasha Vasilyevitch, give him a reason if he needed one— he's nothing if not vain.

He said, with Chernevog scowling and Pyetr looking at him us if he had taken leave of his senses,
“
None of this is getting us to the river, is it?
”

“
Right,
”
Pyetr said on a breath, as if that was all he could find to say, and took up Volkhi's reins and swung up again.

Pyetr rode closer to him after that, herding Chernevog in front of both of them. Pyetr was worried, that was clear, and Sasha thought in despair that if he had his choice he would stop right now and write everything down and study for days to see if there was a way out of the wishes he was making one after the other.

But things when they were going wrong never waited for slow wits. That was what Pyetr had been trying to tell him in these most important years of his growing up: Get out of the damn books, boy.

He thought, I had three years, I didn't know that was all the time I was ever going to have. I thought everything would come from the books.

Everything can't depend on me. God, this is all a mistake
...

He felt for the bag at Missy's shoulder, the precious one with the books, he laid his hand on the oiled canvas.

Woven branches. Branches over sand and water
...

They mounted a wooded hill. Gray sky showed between the trees, as if the world ended in nothing but cloud. The sound out of that gulf might have been wind in leaves, but it was the river whispering to them.

Chernevog stopped at the crest, silhouetted against the gray light. Volkhi took the last climb with a sudden effort and Pyetr reined back abruptly, saying, breathlessly,
“
God
.”

Missy made the hill at her own pace and stopped at Volkhi's side, giving Sasha his own look at gray river, gray sky, a thin, long ribbon of vines and logs that arched out and vanished into the mist above the river.

16

“
It's our way across,
”
Sasha declared, as if that thin wooden arch were the most wonderful sight in the world.
“
I thought of logs, myself,
”
Pyetr said, with a fluttering in his stomach,
“
maybe floating across—you know, keeping the horses up, rigging something with canvas and rope—the river's not that fast here
...”

‘‘It's leshy work. They made this for us. They planned for our crossing!
”

“
Good, it's leshy work. Tell that to the horses. —They're not going out on that damn thing, for the god's sake. Look at it!
”

“
You can do it. You rode The Cockerel's porch on the Ice-
”

“
I was drunk, boy!
”
He saw Chernevog gazing out at that thread of a bridge, arms folded, with the god only knew what kind of ill wishes already shaping in his head.
“
It sways in the wind. Look at it! It's only wishes keep that thing up as it is!
”

“
The horses will go. It won't fall, Pyetr. We won't. I
won’t let
us.
”

“
God,
”
he said, and turned and patted Volkhi's neck and apologized—for riding him across The Cockerel's porch, too, while he was at it.

But Sasha was preparing to lead Missy up that muddy slope.

Pyetr took a deep breath, said,
“
Come on, Volkhi, lad,
”
and motioned Chernevog to go ahead of them.

Chernevog shrugged and trudged up the soggy earthen mound to the head of the bridge.

The slope was hard enough for man or horse—Pyetr helped where he could, got out of the way where he could not, and reached the top where Chernevog stood in the wind and the mist.

It was split logs, whole trees torn lengthwise by main force, cobbled together with vines and wishes, and supported from beneath—god, one did not even want to think about the security of those braces—with whole trees set in the river-bed, their broken stubs of branches sticking out about the bridge at all angles.

Two logs wide—at most, and sometimes. Beyond Chernevog the arch of splintered wood disappeared outright into mist and distance.

“
I'm coming!
”
Sasha called out from below.

Meaning there was another horse coming up and this one had to move.

“
Come on, lad,
”
Pyetr said, and tugged gently on the reins, coaxing Volkhi up to the logs while Chernevog turned and walked out onto that splintery, uneven surface.

Volkhi came, looking it over, a first few uncertain steps. Pyetr kept the reins slack, let Volkhi see where he was putting his feet, trusting wizardry would keep Volkhi calm—and the bridge steady. Personally he had no wish to look down, but he had to, at least as far as the surface of the logs, to be sure of Volkhi's footing, to ease him over the joints. Step by slow step, while sweat ran on his face and the wind chilled it.

Past one set of braces, like a shattered forest on either side of him, the pale ribbon of wood stretching in front of them into nowhere. He was all in gray now. Gray to either side, gray below and above, and on the bridge ahead of him, Chernevog, walking faster than he was. The wind blew. The span creaked.

God
...

I'm losing him, he's getting ahead of us
...

“
Sasha!
”
he yelled, risking a look back past Volkhi's shoulder, where Sasha and Missy followed at a distance.
“
He's getting too far ahead of us—
”

Another gust, cold and wet. He suddenly lost his sense of up
and down, felt Volkhi stop behind him, while the bridge quaked and swayed perhaps a finger-breadth, but it felt like it was going
f
or a moment.