Yvgenie (45 page)

He looked up the hill, thinking of wolves, not sure now that any had been there, not sure that they might not yet come over the wooded hill.

Get up, keep moving, the ghost insisted. He recalled that Ilyana was in some dreadful danger, that he had let her go and lost her and that he dared not go back, because he was dying, he much feared so, dying finally and forever, when he had died truly that night in the flood, in a woods in which the dead did not rest. He wanted not to steal strength; but he wanted not to die, either, or to wait for the wolves, and he hauled himself up on his arms and his hands to try to get his feet under him—with the sudden feeling—perhaps it was the ghost—that there was help to be had, that it was very close now—

An arrow hit the bank, among the dead leaves, beside his hand. He flung a look over his shoulder at riders coming down the opposite leaf-paved slope, and tried to run and sprawled again on the leaves in the weakness of his legs. He rolled over and looked at them as they came—god, they were the tsar's men, not his father's; and that made him hope—

Although why they should be here in this woods, he had no notion at all. He only stared at them as they came. He had no strength to flee them, not even to stand on his feet to face them.

They stopped, their captain's horse standing half astride the rill, the mustached captain looking down at him grimly from that vantage as two others rode across to dismount on either side of him. Their armor and their manner recalled Kiev, and streets, and sane places where the Great Tsar ruled, not wizards. They would kill. They would do anything they
p
leased, in the tsar's name. But they might be here on some other cause, they might even be here hunting his hunters.

‘
Yvgenie Kurov,
’
their captain said, as the horse took a step closer, looming over him.
‘
Where's the girl? Where did you leave her?
’

‘
I don't know,
’
he said, and the two men on either side of them came and hauled him up by the arms. Why should the tsar care? he wondered. Why should the tsar take a hand in my father's troubles, or want to find me
or
her?

The ghost said, Because your father is dead, poor young fool, with his servants, the second wife, and all his house, and they intend no traitor's heir survive—nor any question of an heir, born or unborn. The Kurovs are gone, the tsarevitch is scrambling for his life, and heads will roll if some pretender comes out of the woods: that's what I hear in them. I'd
not
fall afoul of Eveshka's ill will. But no one told the tsarevitch that, when he tried to switch dice on
Il
yana's father. ...

He was dazed. Their grip hurt his arms. He found no sense in what the ghost was saying, and the captain of the tsar's men leaned close to ask him and seized him by the hair, making him look up.
‘
Where is Nadya Yurisheva?
’

The name echoed strangely in his ears, recalling— recalling—

—a talk behind the stairs, vows exchanged besides the witnessed ones, with the bride they had contracted for him: they had conspired to try to love each other, his bride behind her walls, himself within his father's treacheries and the Medrovs' climb to influence. Until someone had whispered the fatal secret, a taint of wizardry—
’
Where is she?
’
the captain asked, shaking him, but he saw only forbidding thorns, and ghosts, and the fire and Ilyana writing in her book. He had no idea how he had become so lost, or where he had lost Nadya and fallen in love with a wizard who wanted him for a ghost's sake— For Kavi Chernevog, who had sustained his life and who
with a confidence beyond courage was not afraid of these men, no. Kavi
wanted
them, he felt it coming—

‘
Let me go!
’
he pleaded with them. But the breath and
st
rength that came flooding through his arms was theirs, all
t
he arrogant violence they had brought to this woods. Two horses bolted, free through the woods. Go! he wished them, heard the captain cry,
‘
Kill him!
’
and shut his eyes and wished not, wished all the horses free: it was his own mor
ta
lity, that, and the ghost did not fight him on that point. It was too well satisfied with the life it had in reach, and with
e
very gasp of breath came anger at his victims. He had tried all his life not to hate, had kept his father's wicked secrets, poured all his love into a man whose only passion was cleverness and strength, and fear in the eyes of his dogs and his servants and his sons
…

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
s
tood, 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,
no
t
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
th
e sunlight: everything was brighter in the woods, the whole
wo
rld was more dangerous and sharper-edged than she had
eve
r 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
trou
ble 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
ca
n't afford to think of this girl, god, Pyetr's in deep trouble
o
ut 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 h
is own pleasure in pain and mis
chief—that was always at the core of what he did and
what
he chose. He
enjoyed
mischief. That was who he was. S
he
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 goo
d, 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—
’