by Jeffrey Cook
Noriko nodded slowly, but for some reason, even the word 'prophecy' had her wincing a little. She was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "Everyone had so much to do. I can't help feeling like... well..." She trailed off, looking down.
"You're not abandoning them. Emi survived. Kaida will head up security while Aki recovers. We need you with us."
"I know. And I need you. But this...this isn't how I wanted to get a weapon.”
“I know.”
“It's just all so overwhelming. We can't even get any real news reports. We just know it's bad."
"There's still resistance. And it's not done yet. Three barriers are still standing...probably"
"We hope the Third Tower is still standing, anyway. But there's no guarantee, is there? The prophecy says it will fall. There's no more ifs. There's no more maybes. How do we fix that one?"
"I don't know yet. We really need to get a lot closer and see what's going on."
"You mean after we walk across the largest nation on Earth, and a bunch of Europe besides, through the freezing cold? It's going to take us forever. Especially if we can't use the water. Hobie and I, maybe, but—" she again cut herself off, but looked at him worriedly.
"But it's a very, very long way to go, and I'm already struggling. Yeah. We’ll figure something out, one step at a time. We will."
Noriko sighed, snuggling into him again. "And in the morning, I'll get armed and armored up again, and help with the boat and with your getting around. And I will believe that everything will work out, and we can win. But tonight... can you just hold me for a while?"
"I can do that."
12
This World of Time
Celeste Manoucheka LeRoux
“That is a lot of generations to have a soup pot, Mrs. Roza,” Celeste observed as they washed the dishes.
The woman nodded. “We pass a lot of things mother to mother. Gifts, responsibilities, cookware.”
“I know some of how that is,” Celeste said, smiling. “Now, I learned healing from my uncle—he was also my parrain, godfather—who learned from his aunt, who learned from her grandfather, going way back. But it was my momma who taught me how to season a cast-iron pot. And I've got gumbo recipes from both sides of the family. They're both good. Different, but good.”
Roza smiled thinly. “Tradition is good. We have a lot of traditions, in my family.” She sighed. “Like we always marry good men who go off to defend the land in times of trouble. Sometimes, they even come back.”
Celeste listened—and looked to the little house-clinic's little nursery. “Is little Katya's father...?”
“He has gone to join the forces in St. Petersburg.” Roza paused again as she dried a dish. “I do not think I will be one of the lucky ones.”
Celeste looked down at the ring on a chain around her own neck. “I know a little of how you feel. Here's hoping.”
“I know he just wants Katya safe,” Roza said, with a very heavy pause afterward and a look of uncertainty around the house.
Celeste nodded. A very small witch, the vodyanoi had said. And here they were, just come from very big things.
“We're leaving in the morning, ma'am,” she said softly.
Before Roza could reply, a muffled “Mama!” came from the nursery.
Celeste smiled. “Someone's ears are burning.”
Roza managed a thin smile back as she opened up the tiny nursery and picked up the still-very-sleepy-looking toddler. “Help yourself to roots and such we discussed while I look after her. Then maybe we can put you both down to rest in here.”
“Thank you, ma'am.”
Hobie was stirring from one of the patient rooms. “Anything up?” he asked.
Celeste frowned at him just slightly. “If you aren’t getting real rest, you can help me pack some of the supplies in there with you.”
“Good plan.” Almost as soon as the door closed and they got to work, he said, “We head for the tower tomorrow.”
“A whole lot of cold walking between us and the Gisting,” Celeste observed, frowning again. “
“Yeah. And we have no idea when all this stuff is going to wake Baba Yaga. Maybe it has already.” Hobie, being Hobie, talked about the raising of yet another power with cause to be against them as if trying to remember whether it was Tuesday. “So who knows how we’ll get there, but it will be good to be heading for it, at least. I did tell the vodyanoi that we wouldn't end up cluttering things here.” He paused. “Bet Rhalissa would love to get an in with those vodnici cousins and their soul cups, huh? The way she fuels all that stuff with the spirit-energy of the dead?”
“I'd figure so, from what we know of her. I certainly couldn't say for sure, since I'm the opposite of an expert on death powers and manipulative energies.” And yet a guardian of the dead had taken to her well enough. Celeste could hear her parrain in her memory. 'Your gran and them ain't bad people, not at all, but the job you are signing up for isn't a job. It's a vocation, and it's Who We Are. And there's a way to be.'
“The roots on these flowers look weird,” Hobie said. Celeste looked at him, wondering if he'd changed the subject on a whim or because he'd seen her get too thoughtful. Nils was the smart guy, always the smart guy. Nobody could ever take that away from him, and if someone even tried, Celeste figured Hobie would punch the offender for the slander. But that didn't make Hobie the stupid one.
Celeste refocused and looked at the flowers he was indicating, the snowdrops she was carefully putting away. “Well, 'black roots, white flowers,' is one of the things that traditionally helped people identify snowdrops as a defense against illusion and transformation spells,” Celeste reflected for a moment. “And hallucinogenic drugs. And degenerative neurological disorders. One of Rhalissa's sorority sisters will respect this stuff, at least.” She smiled wryly.
“I don't really want to deal with them. That's not a fight. I mean, with everything that got said in the briefings about Baba Yaga, you don't...” he seemed to lose words, and Celeste understood.
“You don't really know where the practitioner ends and everything else begins,” she said. “Yeah, I know. Kirke's way less … ineffable, but I hope we don't see her either.”
“That's a whole lot of those snowdrops you'll have packed, if we don't,” Hobie observed.
“Better safe than sorry. Besides, they might have uses.” She looked at him, and thought, for a moment, about pressing her luck. Hobie could be such a smart boy. “Like I said, they're useful in treating neurological conditions.”
The casual amusement of discussing virtually unstoppable obstacles vanished from Hobie's face. “Are we going to talk about this? We don't need to. My medical needs are all flesh and bone.”
“Mental illness is real illness, Hobie. It can be treated.” Celeste had been saying this for a long time. But while Nils would at least half-heartedly let her attempt to do something for his leg, even if it could never be much, Hobie never liked her interest in trying to treat whatever the Tainted blood did to his brain.
“I'll bet you have a saint for that,” he said quietly.
“I do. She's best consulted in conjunction with psychiatrists and therapists, but I do.”
“What else does she cover?”
Celeste frowned a little, because that wasn't a pleasant question. But he was still in the conversation. She wasn't going to be the one to stop it. “Patroness of abused children.”
“That makes sense. So I figure her absolute specialty is taking poor unlucky kids that some jackass broke emotionally and fixing them. Heals whatever happens when itty-bitty brains boil in stress chemicals too long. I bet she's really good at that.”
Celeste started to nod slightly, but then Hobie kept going. “You know what I bet she can't do? Make a whole new person. And that's what you'd need here.”
Celeste's eyes widened. “Hobie, how can you say—?”
He interrupted her.
“You don't get it. There's nothing to cure, nothing to fix. This is m
e. It's not ADHD, or some disorder. My family tried everything. Any treatment just made everything worse. Normally, I can sort of get friend from foe. Anything moving might need to be hit, but I can at least aim for the bad guys first... but not when they tried to treat it. Because there's nothing to treat. It's just me. And it's like there's this thing inside, clawing and fighting to get out all the time. And all it does is hate... but it's a part of me, and I'm okay with that. It's part of who I am, part of who I've always been. And when I die, that spark of pure hate dies with me. I'm a monster... and I can accept that. That's what makes me different from the other monsters. Who my friends are, and that I don't just hate. I can direct it, aim it... even if I'm not good, I can do good things, help good people, by finding that one thing I can channel all that hatred towards and give it purpose."
He finally paused, and Celeste struggled to ask the inevitable question. "And what is it that you hate that much?"
"That beautiful people like you have to live in a world where monsters are still a thing."
Those words and the emotional philosophy behind them hung in the air for a few moments. Celeste couldn't even describe the feeling in her stomach. She had to break the silence. “Flattering,” she said wryly. And she wasn't going to misinterpret any choices of words. Trying to question what way Hobie loved her would be missing the point, and she wasn't going to do that no matter how much she hated the point. “But you have to know I'm never, not ever, going to be okay with your thinking that way about yourself.”
“But I'm okay with it. That's what's so great about the Ragnarok story. People like me go down taking out all the other monsters. So that afterward, the rest of you can build a new, healthy world.”
Celeste sighed. “Ragnarok. Hobie, please tell me you haven't been wishing for the end of the world all this time.”
“The world can't even end right! But if it had been that day, on the battlefield at the Academy? Marshall gets the job done. He walks away, and I don't? Peace reigns. Barriers are sealed. Heroes' funerals for all the people who went down achieving it—real ones, nothing makeshift that gets that weird look in your eyes.”
Celeste winced as she listened. Even the little funerals they'd been managing had compounded all their personal tragedies on the fact that they'd never had time for one for Marshall. Barely time to pray for him. Barely time to cry.
Hobie's expression winced to mirror hers, like it often did when he accidentally upset her, but he wasn't done. “The world heals. You all graduate. Nils gets several degrees in something for which he never says or reads another word of Othertongue again. You and Marshall get married, have a bunch of perfect children, and live happily ever after. Nils and Noriko get married, take more precautions to have absolutely no children, and live even happier ever after. Celeste, when I lost consciousness, whatever was left inside me that could think was thinking of that. My golden age.”
The silence reigned, this time, for about a minute, while Celeste, misty-eyed, worked to get her throat to untighten. While stuck unable to speak, she offered the infuriatingly misguided little brat a hug, and he accepted it. Finally, she managed to get her voice working again.
“Hobie,” she sighed. “We all love you.”
“I know,” he said, his own voice tight.
“But you are clearly not quite as smart as I thought you were,” she said, voice taking an edge of 'sassy stereotype.' His slightly bitter laugh was certainly the best she could hope for at the moment.
“Oh, I know,” Hobie said.
Celeste's voice softened, and she didn't stop hugging him. “It doesn't go like that.”
“I know.”
“But,” Celeste struggled a little. “We've... we’ve done good things, and we’re making something like progress again. We all have. We all are.”
“I know.”
"And we're going to keep making progress," she said, trying to sound like she believed it.
"I'm going to kill Matvei," Hobie said, sounding entirely like he believed it, while not having to have faith in anything else.
Celeste held onto the hug a few more moments, then let go. “Can you grab the bundles of plants in the far left corner, too?” she asked, pointing. “Thank Goodness Roza had stuff in storage, and we don't have to gather any roots out from under the snow, even with some winter-blooming stuff.”
“Oh, yeah,” Hobie said absentmindedly. “It’s too cold.”
Celeste gave him a look. “It is, yes.”
“Hey, I'm from Norway, and all my limbs are in normal mammalian working order. I notice it less than some people.” He got her the plants she'd asked for.
Celeste sighed. “At any rate, I suspect we're going to need these."
"What do those do?" Hobie asked.
"They help with stopping blood loss," Celeste said. “And she's got valerian, for sleep, which I'm thinking we'll both need.”
The latter seemed to work, as once they were done, Hobie retreated back to his room, and Celeste managed, between prayer and medicine, to get herself to fall asleep in a prepared bed on the floor of the nursery.
13
Over the Ground
Igarashi Noriko
From the time they left Roza's village, things just got worse. They'd been rested and refreshed. Noriko’s legs were long again, but her head was still a little clearer after an unenchanted night's sleep. They had set out on the road, assuming that would be most efficient. She hadn't figured she'd have to call quite so many breaks. The strain on Nils, as he kept casting protections against being spotted or scried, was just too much on top of the pain. Noriko could practically—and occasionally literally—carry him, but progress still ground to a near-halt.
Hobie, busy carrying the boat, was only moving a little faster. Noriko hoped the boat would give him something else to focus on beyond their pace. That hope seemed to pan out, as there was no worried grumbling about how slowly they were covering the vast distance to the Gisting. That was good. They didn't need that right now—all the more so because Noriko suspected she could give Hobie a run for his money in a complaining competition if she let herself get started. She could tell the little bear-sark wasn't completely distracted, though: every time they did stop, she could see Hobie casting worried glances at his brother.
Celeste was watching, too. "Now that we're off the roads and everything, I have a thought," Celeste said. "I'll need some help with some carpentry and design, though."
"As long as you don't need Nil's help," Hobie said. "He gets a D+ in basic carpentry."
Nils didn't respond, just settling back to rest as Celeste explained the idea, and the other three set to work cutting down a tree, before Celeste used her wood-shaping to make a pair of runners, and gradually, the frame of the boat became the frame of a sled. "Hobie ought to be able to drag that a lot easier," Celeste said.
"Yeah, just get me a basic rope harness together, and it should move pretty quickly," Hobie said. "With all of you riding in it."
Celeste looked hesitant. “All of us? You’re sure?”
Hobie nodded, starting to unpack some rope to start fashioning into a harness with a few knots. "I'm sure. Nils can rest, and it’ll be more efficient. But if you start singing 'Jingle Bells' or 'Over the River and Through the Woods,' we're going to have words."
“We'll be good,” Nils said. “Just go as straight as you possibly can.”
It turned out to be much faster for travel, even with the added weight and Hobie's needing the most difficult terrain broken up as they went. They didn't go far in the sled that first day and managed to spend an uneventful, if uncomfortable, night camped out on the edge of thicker woodlands.
The next day, Celeste and Nils stayed in the sled while Noriko helped to cut away brush and find the easiest route to navigate. Even with the obstacles, they moved much faster than they had along the roadways. Better, the boat turned out to be perfectly usable for its original purpose now and then, when they found waterways in helpful directions.
Their second night away from Roza's proved somewhat more interesting than the first.
"What was that?" Hobie asked. Noriko glanced where he was looking, but didn't see anything. When Hobie started to actively investigate, Nils struggled to stand enough to grab his brother's shoulder, before Noriko caught up and stopped him instead. Though Nils almost never hesitated, Noriko still flinched as Hobie tensed. Even at the best of times, surprising him was less than ideal.
Nils sighed. "Hobie. Think for a minute. Rusalkas.”
Hobie frowned at his brother. "Mermaids? That didn't sound confined to the water. I want to investigate. There's something out there, and it might be dangerous."
Nils nodded. "There's a lot of things out there. They don't all stay in the water. And if I don't miss my guess, they may more dangerous to you than any of us. So please stay in the camp, no matter what. That goes especially, though, if you think you see or hear something, and the rest of us don't."
Noriko gave Nils a quizzical look. “Mermaids?”
"Hobie's being too limited.” Nils looked at his brother. “How did you get the language this well and miss the folklore implications?”
“There was Russian to learn. I learned it. Not all of us search the whole library every time we learn a new word.”
“So these rusalkas are... like the vodyanoi?” Noriko guessed before this became something the Bjornsson boys could tussle over to distract themselves.
“In that there's good ones and bad ones, yeah," Nils said with a shrug, as Celeste finished setting up her portion of the camp and came over to help ease some of the pain and fatigue. "A lot fewer good ones than once upon a time, and a lot fewer of any of them in recent years, but we shouldn't just rely on trends. The term 'rusalka' tends to get associated with many different preternatural species that prey on wanderers in the woods. So the important thing is to avoid wandering. I don't think they're going to approach the camp, but they may try to lead Hobie off. Between the ones that target kids and the ones that target guys, he's the most at risk."