The Midnight Land: Part Two: The Gift (The Zemnian Trilogy Book 2)

by E. P. Clark

  “My sister doesn’t know you at all,” Slava pointed out.

  “But she knows you rather well,” Olga pointed out in return, although wrongly. “I can see her suspecting me of all sorts of underhanded dealings—although if she took the slightest trouble to inquire into my character, she’d know how ill-founded such suspicions would be—but I don’t see how anyone who’s spent her entire life with you could think for a minute that you would do something like that. Your sister must be a half-wit. I can see her doing something like that, but not you.”

  “Yes,” said Slava. “It is very strange. Always before she would complain of my lack of talent for such things. I can’t see the sister I left behind in Krasnograd when I set off for the Midnight Land saying something like…like what she just said. It is as if she is a different person since I came back—a caricature of her former self. Where she used to be strong, now she is shrieking, and where she used to be forceful, now she is fearful. I do not know what to make of this new Vladya, and I do not know how to handle her either. But I have a feeling that returning to my rooms and awaiting her judgment would be a very bad idea.”

  “I have the same feeling,” said Olga. “I think this is the curse at work.”

  “I agree,” said Slava. “But I do not know how to fight it.”

  “I don’t think you can,” said Dunya softly. “I think it runs downhill, like water,” she went on, speaking more strongly, “and you cannot regather it any more than you can regather water spilled from a bucket, just as we were told. I think we must face the fact that your old sister is gone, and this new, dangerous sister has been put in her place.” She stopped abruptly, looking abashed at her sudden outburst—and at its contents, which, Slava could see, were much too close for comfort to what one of her despised seer-sisters would say.

  “Yes,” agreed Slava, giving Dunya a smile designed to reassure her that her words were welcome. “How unfair that I should be the one to face all the dangers, and she should be the one to get hurt! But I cannot let her hurt me, just because she is suffering. So what should I do?”

  “Run away,” said Olga instantly.

  “I was afraid you would say that,” said Slava.

  “Of course that’s what I’d tell you,” said Olga. “It’s what I would do.” She looked as if she didn’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of such an admission.

  “I was even more afraid you’d be right,” said Slava. Now that the danger and the curse were out in the open, she felt calmer, and able to face them squarely. “But the question is, where shall I run to? Where can I go that will not put me in even more danger than I am already in—and that will not endanger those around me? Half of me tells me I should disappear right now, with nothing more but the clothes on my back, and half of me tells me that if I do that, there will be no turning back and I really will be marked as the traitor my sister believes me to be.”

  “Well, all of me tells me that if you go back to your rooms, you’re dead,” said Olga. “I say we snatch up the little princess and sneak out before anyone thinks to stop us. Dunya, you spirit Slava out of here right now. I’ll take care of Vladya. We’ll meet in the inn in the evening.”

  “Yes,” said Dunya. She stood up, looking much more decisive than she had since they had arrived in Krasnograd. “Let’s go, Tsarinovna. I’ve found us a back way out. It turns out that all that late-night merrymaking was not wasted, after all.”

  “The hidden corridors?” Slava guessed. She almost smiled. “I don’t think my foremothers had them built with this kind of thing in mind.”

  “Oh, I’m sure some of them had them built with exactly this kind of thing in mind,” said Olga. “They were a crafty bunch, your foremothers. And since Dunya and I haven’t had anything better to do since we arrived, we’ve been exploring them. We could get you from one end of the kremlin to the other without anyone being any the wiser.”

  “Some of them are guarded,” Slava pointed out.

  “Yes, and we know which ones,” said Olga. “Now go! No doubt your sister has dispatched guards to your room already—if she still has her wits about her enough to think of something like that. And if not—well, the gods help us all!” She stepped into what appeared to be a closet, and disappeared.

  “Fortunately I have an extra spring cloak, Tsarinovna,” said Dunya, opening a wardrobe and pulling out outer clothing for the both of them. “And you’ll just have to try to keep my extra set of boots from falling off.”

  “Thank you,” said Slava, pulling on Dunya’s spare outer clothing. It was too big, although not as big as Olga’s would have been. At least it disguised her well, she thought. “I am sorry to have drawn you into this.”

  “Not your fault, Tsarinovna,” said Dunya with a shrug. “Now come! We mustn’t lose any time.” She stepped into the same closet that had swallowed up Olga. Slava followed her.

  As she had guessed, it was not a closet, but the entrance to one of the hidden passageways that ran through the kremlin. Dunya began moving down it with swift confidence. Slava did her best to keep up.

  It took a long time—much longer than Slava would have liked—for them to make their way from the guest quarters on the third floor to the exit Dunya had chosen, which came out behind the barracks. Slava had never realized until that moment just how large the kremlin was, and how many parts there were to it. In some places the passageways passed through thick stone, so that they could have been many versts underground for all Slava could tell, and in some places there was nothing more than thin boards between them and the people on the other side of the wall, and they had to time their movements with the sounds from the outside, in order not to give themselves away. They passed her own quarters, and the quarters of other noble visitors, and maids’ chambers, and the kitchens, and more servants’ quarters, and store rooms, and great rooms of state, and many other rooms, until Slava began to fear that they would be lost forever, despite Dunya’s confidence in her ability to lead them to freedom.

  As they passed by the kitchens—unmistakeable for their heat and noise—Slava overheard some of the undercooks speculating about the rumor that the Tsarina had ordered a search for the Tsarinovna, who was said to have run away after her treasonous schemes had been revealed. The wall between the secret passageway and the outer world was very thin here, and even had cracks in places, allowing them to look out into the kitchen if they so desired.

  Slava and Dunya froze for a moment and stared at each other in horror, and then began inching ever so quietly down the passageway again. Slava couldn’t speak for Dunya, but her own heart was pounding so hard it hurt to breathe. Her escape, which up until that moment had been something unreal and faraway, even as she was participating in it, suddenly struck her for what it was: a desperate flight for her life, in which she would be branded a traitor by everyone she encountered and pursued by her own sister until she was caught or this dreadful and ridiculous misunderstanding could be cleared up. For a moment she considered turning back, but when she remembered the strange look that had filled her sister’s eyes as they spoke, she knew that she would find no safety in the kremlin while her sister still ruled.

  “Do you think the search has already started, then?” whispered Slava, once they had reached the reassuring safety of stone again.

  “It seems so,” Dunya whispered back. “So let us be quick!” She turned to look ahead again and began leading Slava down the passageway at twice the pace they had been going before.

  When they came out behind the barracks, after, as far as Slava could tell, crossing the square in an underground tunnel and emerging from an empty storeroom hidden in the barracks’ back wall, they could hear soldiers being mustered on the other side of the building. Probably, Slava realized with a sick feeling, in order to search for her. The empty space between the back of the barracks and the kremlin wall yawned before them. Even worse, the wall was blank. If they reached it, they would be outlined clearly against it. Slava wondered what they would do now: try to walk ac
ross the square without being seen? Give themselves up on the spot in order to cut this hopeless flight short?

  The penalty for treason is death by boiling, Slava suddenly thought to herself. But surely Vladya wouldn’t…she tried to convince herself, but a vision of her sister as she had last seen her rose up before her, and she knew, with a sickening certainty more sickeningly certain than any previous certainty that had ever sickened her that her sister would most likely toss her into the boiling oil herself, and with the same thoughtless sureness that she had once tossed the live shellfish they had been brought as a tribute from Pristanograd into boiling water. Slava had to stuff her hand into her mouth to keep from screaming. Living creatures were boiled alive all the time, and one of them could be her. It would be terrible, she knew, like scalding herself with hot tea only a thousand times more terrible. And yet people would do it and stand by and watch as she died. It would be a thousand times more terrible than her worst nightmare, and yet people would do it if they could.

  Dunya looked at her to see why she was standing there with her hand in her mouth, and Slava made a “where-do-we-go” gesture with her free hand, while still keeping her other hand firmly on her mouth to prevent any sound from escaping.

  Dunya, not daring to speak, nodded in the direction of what appeared to be a small privy wedged in the space between the corner of the barracks and the kremlin wall. A long time ago someone had carved a big X—as one did with a privy that was no longer usable—on the door.

  Walking as quickly as they dared, they crossed the vast stretch of ground—probably at least ten paces, the longest ten paces of Slava’s life—between them and it, and slipped inside. It was so tight inside that they were jammed up against each other, and Slava could tell that Dunya’s heart was racing too. Somehow the cramped space made Slava feel even more desperate and vulnerable—if someone were to come upon them now, they would have nowhere to run.

  Moving slowly and carefully, so as not to make any unnecessary noise, Dunya reached over and pulled on a loose board in the back wall. A whole section of the wall came away, revealing a passageway just large enough to fit someone of Dunya’s size down it, if she crawled on her belly.

  “You’ll have to put it back in place behind you, so they don’t know which way we’ve gone,” Dunya whispered in Slava’s ear. “So you’ll have to start going backwards. I’ll go first, headfirst, to scout. Follow right behind me. There will be a place to turn around in a few yards.”

  Slava nodded, feeling, if such a thing were possible, even sicker than before. She had never before had occasion to squeeze into something so narrow, and so had never realized how much she disliked cramped spaces. The very thought of crawling down that passageway made her whole body hurt with fear. What if she became trapped there…The soldiers mustering on the other side of the barracks shouted something, something about searching for her…

  I have to I have to I have to, Slava told herself. Dunya stood on the seat of the privy and climbed into the passageway. Once she had gotten far enough down the passageway for there to be room, Slava climbed up on the privy seat and, very slowly and awkwardly, and with her skin prickling with fear, climbed up into tiny passageway, turned herself around, reached down and picked up the section of wall, lifted it, her arms trembling with terror and strain, fitted it into place, and then began crawling backwards down the passageway.

  It took her so long, or so it seemed, to reach the place where she could turn around that she began to wonder if Dunya had lied in order to get her to come along, or if she had somehow taken a wrong turning and was crawling backwards down the wrong tunnel, or if this whole thing were a nightmare and she was doomed to crawl along until morning…Suddenly she came out into a junction of two tunnels. Sure enough, there was room for her to turn around. Dunya was waiting for her on the far side.

  “Almost there,” Dunya whispered. “We’ve passed through the kremlin wall, and we’re going to come out one street down from the kremlin, in a back alley. I’ll go first, to see if the coast is clear.”

  Dunya, Slava thought to herself, even though now was no time for such a trivial insight, was from a coastal settlement, and so would of course use phrases such as “the coast is clear.” Slava reminded herself to stay focused on the task at hand, because you could only embroider what was currently in your frame…She had to stop thinking about folk sayings, now was not the time…For a moment, Slava was afraid she was going to burst out into hysterical laughter at the inappropriate manifestation of her own hysteria…Dunya set off down the passageway, still crawling on her belly, and Slava set off after her, and was soon, thankfully, too breathless to laugh, although by the way her shoulders kept shaking, she knew that as soon as she was safe, her body would want to start laughing or crying uncontrollably.

  Even though it was cold in the passageway, Slava was sweating heavily from fear and exertion, and wished she could take off the heavy cloak that Dunya had so kindly lent her, and which was now, she was sure, ruined forever. But it was too tight in there for her to attempt such a thing.

  Despite Dunya’s claim that they were almost there, they crawled for even longer than they had before, or at least so it seemed to Slava, before Dunya stopped and whispered over her shoulder for Slava to wait while she scouted ahead. Slava lay there on the cold dirt floor and prayed more earnestly than she had ever prayed before that Dunya would find their passage safe, and that her, Slava’s, tender new-mother’s stomach would not betray her at this crucial moment and cause her to vomit up all its scant contents on the ground in front of her, because then she would have to drag herself through her own sick, and who would be willing to take them in and hide them then …

  “Come,” Dunya whispered. “Everyone has run to the kremlin to see what the fuss is about—some kind of proclamation is being issued. If we’re quick, we should be able to go quite far without being seen.”

  Probably a proclamation declaring me a traitor, Slava thought to herself, but didn’t waste any time or breath saying it out loud. She heaved herself forward the last few feet, and dragged herself painfully out of the tunnel and into what appeared to be a deserted storeroom.

  “I think it’s a deserted storeroom,” Dunya whispered. “No one ever comes here, as far as I can tell. Now quick! Quick but calm. Follow me, and don’t draw attention to yourself, and don’t look back.”

  They climbed up the steps out of the deserted storeroom into another deserted storeroom, this one at ground level. Dunya peered out of a chink in the wall, and then motioned for Slava to follow her. She opened the door very softly, and then stepped out into the empty street. Slava came along after her, trying to copy her air of indifference. She knew that looking nervous or furtive would only draw attention to them, but she found it very hard to seem calm, and to match Dunya’s calm pace.

  They walked, briskly but not too briskly, down the street in the direction away from the kremlin. A great shout arose from the kremlin square, and Slava glanced back before she could stop herself. But all she saw was the old storehouse. It had been built in such a way that it blocked the view from the street to the kremlin—and, Slava hoped, from the kremlin to the street as well.

  They walked down the empty alley, and turned onto a larger street, also empty. Slava tried to brush some of the dirt off the front of her cloak.

  “Pull your scarf up a little higher, Zhenya: you’ll catch cold,” said Dunya. “You need to take better care of yourself, you know—tripping and falling like that.” When Slava did nothing, she repeated, more impatiently, “Pull your scarf up a little higher, Zhenya.”

  “Oh,” said Slava, understanding what Dunya was doing. “Like this, Masha?” she asked, pulling her scarf up so that it covered her mouth.

  “Just like that, Zhenya,” said Dunya.

  “You should pull your own scarf up higher, Masha,” said Slava. “This spring weather is treacherous.” A hysterical laugh threatened to burst free, and she clamped her mouth down on it just in time.

 
“You’re so right, Zhenya,” said Dunya, covering her face with her scarf too. She turned down another street. This one had people on it. Slava would have stopped and run away, but Dunya continued moving briskly away from the kremlin, her apparent confidence pulling Slava along behind her. To Slava’s relief, the laughter welling up inside her receded at the sight of all these people, and was replaced by a surprisingly steely calm. Although no one was paying them any attention anyway. They were all heading towards the kremlin to find out what the fuss was about.

  They went down another street, and another. Everyone they met was going in the other direction, towards the kremlin. One person stopped Dunya and tried to get her to join them to see what was happening, but Dunya said, “Zhenya and I don’t want anything to do with the troubles of nobles,” in such a cold voice that the woman let them go and they were able to carry on their way, unmolested by any further such attacks of unwanted curiosity.

  After the fifth, or maybe the sixth—Slava had kept her eyes so firmly fixed on the ground that she wasn’t even sure where they were—street Dunya led them into a tavern. No one was there except the tavern mistress.

  “In the back, second room,” she said, nodding to a door behind the counter. Dunya nodded and walked Slava through the door.

  They went down a narrow corridor, lined with doors—probably, Slava thought, rooms for guests. At the second door Dunya stopped and knocked softly.

  “Who’s there?” called a voice that was unmistakeably Dima’s. The relief of hearing him was so great that Slava’s knees started to tremble, so that she almost staggered where she stood.

  “It’s me,” said Dunya. “With our leshaya-girl. No other guests, though.”

  “Just a moment,” said Dima. There was the sound of latches being unlatched, and then Dima cracked open the door and peered out. He glanced up and down the corridor, nodded once to Dunya, and stepped back to let them in.

  “Slava!” screamed Vladislava, as soon as Slava crossed the threshold. She leapt up from the bed on which she had been sitting and threw herself into Slava’s arms. “You made it!”