Rusalka (v1.3)

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Pyetr,” he said.

  “I’m all right,” Pyetr said, and lifted his cup to the valley and the swirling mist. “Patience!” he called out with something of his old spirit. “It’s cold this morning; I’d like my tea.”

  But Pyetr’s face looked still quite pale this morning; he had his coat on, and when it came time to put the fire out and pack up, he worked with his jaw clenched and a pained, worried look on his face.

  Babi dropped his cup into the basket. That was his form of helping. And when they had taken up their packs to leave, and Pyetr said matter-of-factly, with a lift of his hand, “I think it’s this way,” then Babi quite readily clambered up Sasha’s leg and up his arm to sit on his pack.

  “You’re heavy!” Sasha complained. “Babi, stop it.”

  Whereupon Babi simply stopped weighing anything.

  But he kept a tight-fisted grip on a lock of Sasha’s hair, until they had worked their way down the misty slope to the soft ground around the pool.

  Then Babi bounded down, growled and hissed and splashed across the pool where the mist began to swirl and move with the passage of a ghostly body: Babi followed that movement, skipping and frolicking like a puppy.

  It certainly seemed to answer one question.

  The mist diminished as they climbed and that clue to Eveshka’s whereabouts they no longer had, but Babi told them, Babi went by his mistress through the fog and by her over the hill, when her step was too light to disturb the leaves.

  But Pyetr knew by other means that Eveshka was there—knew in his heart where she was, knew in his memory how she would move, a swirl of skirts, a sheet of pale hair-That was what he kept thinking, knowing he was a fool, knowing that his memory was making a goddess of a wisp of white, a hazy recollection of a face—

  A sweet and gentle face, and a touch at his heart that made him totally—

  Stupid, he told himself. He had outgrown that mooncalf silliness at thirteen.

  But he had felt like that when he had found her by the pool, he had dreamed of her last night, he kept remembering the night the imposter had come to the house, how he had known from the moment she had looked past him—that his Eveshka would never have done that.

  He knew it the way he had known that about a girl when he was thirteen; and another and another till he learned that a pretty face was no guarantee of good character.

  But this one—

  This one—

  “Pyetr,” Sasha said, catching his arm as they went, “Pyetr, remember.”

  A fifteen-year-old knew better: he certainly should—but he knew things about Eveshka, he had no idea how: he knew the thoughts she had, he knew the anger she felt toward her father and the longing she had that Uulamets be better than he was and wiser than he was; he knew that the loneliness her father had imposed on her had made her do unwise things—

  He knew that she was determined now to rescue a father who had never been anything but grief to her.

  And that he understood all too well, knew it so well it might have been years ago, and himself searching the streets of Vojvoda for a father he knew was in serious trouble—

  Often. Only to fight with him when he had found him. But it never diminished the fear of losing him.

  Now that fear was back—over Uulamets, for the god’s sake, not even his own fear: he understood that; but it was still real, and he knew the dance so well—

  Rotten old man. Ill-tempered ingrate. Unprincipled scoundrel.

  Babi was more personable.

  They stopped at a stream to drink. Sasha cupped his hands and paused, seeing Pyetr sitting on his heels only gazing into the water.

  Don’t, Sasha wished Eveshka.

  And to Pyetr he said: “Do you see her?”

  Pyetr reached out to the face of the stream and disturbed whatever he saw. “Not now,” he said, doing passably well, Sasha decided, under the circumstances.

  But the farther they went in the woods the more worried Sasha became. It was no longer a question of finding master Uulamets in the first few hours; or the first day; or now, in much of the second; and with the weather continuing to threaten and with Pyetr looking paler and more distracted than yesterday, Sasha asked himself seriously how much longer they could afford this search and for that matter, how much help Uulamets was likely to be to them at the end of it—counting that master Uulamets was himself the victim of a serious and willful mistake.

  In fact Sasha began to lay fantastical plots for rescuing Pyetr: the wild notion of drugging his tea, for one, and while Pyetr was in that state seeing if he could break the rusalka’s hold on him.

  But he might lose that fight disastrously, and leave Pyetr with no resistance at all to Eveshka’s demands; or he might misjudge the dosage; or by overcoming Eveshka leave them vulnerable to Hwiuur, or, or, or…

  Reason was not working outstandingly well, either. “Let’s give this up,” Sasha had said several times, and each time Pyetr had simply said no.

  “Let’s go to Kiev,” he had said; and Pyetr maintained there was no hope of that.

  “You don’t even like master Uulamets,” he had objected, and Pyetr had said, It’s not for him I’m doing this…

  “Let’s go back to the boat,” Sasha suggested finally. “Pyetr, we’re walking and walking and you’re getting sick, Pyetr, you’re not thinking right any longer, please listen to me.”

  Babi growled at him.

  Pyetr only shook his head, slowly looked toward him and said, “She’s promised me it’s not far. I don’t think it is. Wish harder. I’m not crazy. She doesn’t want to lean on me, but she has to.”

  “She’s doing too much of it!” Sasha cried. He knew he was not resolved in his own opinion—too much yea and nay, go back and go forward, need of Uulamets and his desire to be free of him—

  In fact today he was the one who most wanted to be safe in Kiev, following the life he imagined with Pyetr for a partner, living a bit by their wits and a lot by Pyetr’s extraordinary luck—which looked now to be at ebb; and seeing such things as snake-handed elephants and gold roofs—which they looked now never to see.

  Sasha sat down on a fallen log and plunged his head into his hands, hurling out a fierce and angry wish that Eveshka leave Pyetr alone a while and lean on him instead.

  A curious thought came to him then, nothing that he could unravel into words, rather an approach of suspicious friendliness, there was no other way to explain it. He felt warmer for the moment; and a little dizzy and a little dazed; and, sure that it was Eveshka, thought: You know what you’re doing to him. You don’t want to hurt him. Can’t you take what you need from the forest?

  No, he felt; impossible.

  He objected she had done that at home. He greatly doubted that she was doing anything other than give way to her own selfish wants—and suddenly doubted all her assurances, equally with the purpose of this approach…

  But she insisted to come closer. She wanted to come closer, and it was an angry presence: he was doing everything wrong; he was wasting his strength, he was endangering Pyetr himself. She wanted to show him better-He felt the danger in his own self-doubt. He tried to open his mouth to warn Pyetr—and felt the temper of someone as young as he was, who ached as much as he did to be loved and was sure that everything and everyone in her whole life had conspired against her, to rob her of everything—

  He understood her: for a single heartbeat he felt people had robbed him, too, and that was the mistake, that quick, that devastating a slip—because she needed more than he even knew what he wanted. He shoved her back and saw Pyetr suddenly slump over, putting his head in his hand—

  He was doing that by fighting her, she told him. He was making her do it; and all she wanted was the means to stop, if he would only let go…

  For Pyetr’s sake, she said.—A heart’s only in a wizard’s way, Sasha. You’re not strong enough to stop me—He doubted he could. He could not help it.—Except, she said, your heart would never let me hurt him. It’s your weakne
ss, but in me it could save us, it could save him, Sasha. Don’t be a fool. Let it go-He was not sure…

  And felt something slip away from him, a painless loss, a little sense of something missing.

  The gap where it had been closed very quickly, so that he could not much miss it—nor want back what lie was not sure he even understood. Nasty trick, he thought with a certain remoteness; but on this side of matters, Eveshka’s reasoning seemed sound, Pyetr was sitting up wiping the sweat from his face and doubtless wondering what had come over him, so certainly Ev eshka had backed away. It even occurred to him that Eveshka had made a mistake if she hoped to get past him, because he was no less determined to protect what was his, and all she had gotten off with was worry and pain, that was what it felt like.

  He wished, for a start, to see her, to know what she was doing; and immediately, effortlessly, saw her standing there looking worried, while Babi, a sometimes-one-thing some-times-another that constantly shadowed her, looked up at her as much like a dog as not.

  He saw Pyetr, too—how pale he was, even yet, how desperate and drained of strength.

  He had none he dared spare; certainly Eveshka had very little but what held her to life; and Babi was entirely beyond his understanding—but life was all around them. Eveshka swore she could not draw from the forest, but he found nothing in his way when he reached for it and gave it to Pyetr—no matter that some of it passed through him to Eveshka: there was certainly sufficient.

  More than sufficient—but it seemed dangerous to pour too much into a man who lacked a way out for it—excepting Eveshka. On the one hand he feared for Pyetr’s state of mind and on the other he did not intend to let Eveshka grow stronger than she was.

  That, he thought, would be the easiest and most natural mistake to make; but he had no pity to lead him into it, merely the shape where pity used to fit in his thoughts—and if she tried anything sudden with him or with Pyetr, he intended no hesitation at all.

  It was Eveshka who seemed afraid. Eveshka who looked at him with anxiousness and at Pyetr with concern, enmeshed in the trap a heart could be to her.

  Good, he thought, and realized—it was a dizzying thought-thai for the first time in his Me he was truly master of the situation.

  It was as if the very air had become healthier, or more plentiful—not so Pyetr realized it immediately: it only seemed to him, after a moment’s profound and unreasonable weakness, that he could breathe freely again, that the exhaustion was less, that he could get up and not feel his knees wobbling. He did that, apprehensive of what might be going on with Sasha and Eveshka that could affect him that way—

  But, looking at Eveshka, he met her glance and stopped—Because there was in her eyes a kindness and a fondness for him he could not at first believe, except in the girl he had first imagined her to be. It persisted while she looked straight at him, and he felt—

  God!

  A moment like that had to pass. He got his breath back and looked past her, he said to Sasha matter-of-factly that he felt better, he thought that they might get moving again—

  In fact he stored that stunned feeling away in his heart and took it out again once they started walking, when he had a chance to look at Eveshka, and saw her glance sidelong back at him in that same gentle way—which he tried to persuade himself was his own imagination.

  God, it could throw a man off his balance. He told himself she was absolutely dangerous when she affected him that way, he told himself he owed Sasha, at least, better sense.

  He kept looking at Eveshka again and again to persuade himself there was nothing different in her than there had ever been; but it was more than just the glance she gave him, it was a well-being in his bones and the change in the way she felt to him—so distressed for what she was and so concerned for him he found himself trying to reassure her.

  I feel fine, he told her in his heart. I’m doing all right…

  “Nice day,” he said cheerfully to Sasha, hoping to get his balance back. “God, I think I’m getting used to this.”

  Sasha said grimly, “Don’t trust her too much.”

  Together, Pyetr thought, Sasha and Eveshka came closer to understanding him than anyone in his life; and they instinctively hated each other. He thought that—if somehow they could get everything straightened out and master Uulamets could get his daughter back-He was not used to pinning his hopes on the impossible—but he could not at the moment believe in their fallibility; he felt too safe. Even when they stopped and rested, when he saw Sasha looking completely down in the mouth, he nudged him with his foot and said, “Cheer up.”

  Then, with the least nagging worry about Sasha’s continued glumness: “—Are you all right?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sasha said.

  That was entirely enough to throw a pall on things. He had a sudden apprehension of trouble Sasha was holding back from him; and he felt Eveshka’s growing anxiety at his back.

  He asked her, if thinking was asking, and with Eveshka it seemed to be—How far? When? and What can we do, if Uulamets can’t rescue himself?

  But he got no answer from her.

  He said to Sasha, “I’m for a little to eat, do you want any?”

  Sasha agreed and took a bit of dried fish—ate it with a spiritless grimness that left Pyetr increasingly cold at heart.

  Babi tugged at Pyetr’s breeches leg. Pyetr passed him a bite, hardly noticing the creature, and put the back of his hand to his mouth, realizing only then that it had started to hurt again—

  He ought, he thought, to tell Sasha that fact.

  If Sasha were listening. Which Sasha hardly seemed to be. Probably, he thought, Sasha was trying to do something wiz-ardly, and probably it had to do—now that his thinking was straighter—with his sudden well-being this day; and probably with his hand hurting him: he felt bruises he did not remember getting, and it seemed to him that he had been altogether foolishly cheerful all afternoon, almost as if he were drunk.

  Whatever Sasha was doing seemed to tire him; and that was decidedly a reason to worry.

  He reached out and touched Sasha on the knee. “You’re not propping me up, are you?”

  Sasha just stared at him. Sasha said, after seeming to think about it, “I’ve found a way to get it from somewhere else.”

  “From where?” Pyetr asked, afraid for that answer.

  Sasha lifted a hand toward the sky, toward the trees, all about them.

  Eveshka sent him warning: he felt the direction of it as clearly as he would have known the direction of her voice. He said, leaning forward and touching Sasha’s knee a second time, “She’s upset with that.”

  “I know she is. But she won’t let you go and I’ll kill her if she kills you, so that’s the way it is. I can do that. The way I am right now I could do it. But that doesn’t get either of us what we want, does it?”

  Pyetr felt more and more uneasy. It was not the boy he knew, talking about killing and being killed so calmly as that: it was colder than threat. He drew his hand away, afraid to look too directly into Sasha’s eyes, afraid to ask more questions—

  As if Sasha was more danger to him at the moment than Eveshka was.

  Then he remembered Uulamets saying:

  If the day comes, boy, that you have your way, believe this for a truth—he’ll be far more at risk from you than he is now from me…

  CHAPTER 20

  THE MIST BEGAN to fall again by afternoon, slow, sifting rain, only enough to moisten the leaves and drip down one’s neck when a tree let fall a drop. Eveshka was a sparkle of such droplets, which fell and hesitated and fell again in continuous motion.

  The touch of her hand left a chill moisture on Pyetr’s fingers as she came close to tug at him and make him hurry—as if, he desperately hoped, they might be close now, although he had never ceased to feel anxiety from her. He had never thought in all his life he would want to see Uulamets, but now he did, Uulamets being in his own reckoning the only help for this disaster—Eveshka and Sash
a locked in silent battle and himself in the middle of it. His wits were clear enough now to know what a muddled mess they had been most of the day and to know—at least when he worked at knowing it—that they were only clear because Sasha was helping him.

  Which they might not be if he shook Sasha back to good sense and rescued Sasha from the wizardry effort that was turning him short-tempered and strange to him. He had Eveshka’s presence constantly flitting through his attention, recollecting to him the feeling he could have, he could still have, if only he would let go and give way to her.

  He wanted to. That was the problem. Wanting her came and went like fever and chill: sometimes he was able to know quite clearly the trouble he was in (Sasha/s influence, he was sure)

  and at others (his own weak will, perhaps: he knew his faults) he wanted what he knew damned well would kill him (but a few moments of that feeling made death seem so absolutely impossible…)

  He wished he had managed better than this; he certainly wished he had advised Sasha better than this—but, then, against a good handful of wizards with their minds made up he did not know what choice was even his any longer, or whether his own will weighed anything in the wizardly gale he knew was blowing.

  He thought, desperately, that Sasha being the wizard he was might have an edge in figuring out things like that; and if Sasha had, then he hoped Sasha had a good reason for spending so much effort on him. In the god’s name why! he asked himself again and again: in the god’s name what good was he, an un-magical man with a sword, with no sense what he was doing, haunted by rain-sparkle and an apprehension in his heart?

  He was more afraid the boy had no purpose in spending so much on him: he was afraid for Sasha’s own generous nature, a boy attempting things he had no understanding of, all to save a fool from his own weaknesses.

  “Tell me what to do,” he begged of Sasha when they were passing through dense trees—no hindrance to Eveshka, but he and Sasha had to hand branches off one to the other and eel around the unbending brush, the limbs overhead all the while shaking water drops down on them. He felt Eveshka suddenly pulling at him with unreasoning anxiety, and it seemed to him that things had gone on entirely too long with no sight of an old man who could not have walked faster than they had.