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

by E. P. Clark

  After spending her entire life trying to forget that the dungeons even existed, Slava supposed it was fitting that she was being dragged down there now. When she did think of them, she envisioned something dark, dank, and horrid, fell into despair over her inability to get rid of them or even free the poor souls held inside them, and ended up by resolving to forget that they existed, because she could as soon destroy them as she could destroy Krasnograd itself. Krasnograd was built on cruelty and killing, as much as she and everyone else would like to ignore that fact. Only now, she thought, she was finally being forced to confront their existence. She hoped she would not be forced to regret a lifetime of weakness in the face of evil. She hoped that the dungeons were not as bad as she had always imagined.

  Her imagination, she realized as soon as she entered, had, as was all too often the case, not let her down. The dungeons were just as dark, dank, and horrid in reality as they had been in her mind’s eye. And they smelled even worse, too. Slava thought of Vladislava being kept here for days and days, helplessly awaiting her fate, and a rage swelled up inside her so strong she didn’t know how she managed to contain it. A lifetime of weakness, she knew, was about to end.

  Wait a little more, Krasnoslava Tsarinovna, the snow hare whispered in her mind. Wait until the moment is right.

  The snow hare is right, Krasnoslava Tsarinovna, agreed the snow fox. Wait until your prey is truly in your power before striking. Wait just a little bit longer.

  Something flitted past the corner of her eye again, but when she turned her head, it was gone, even though there was nowhere for it to go.

  Pay it no mind, Krasnoslava Tsarinovna, said the snow hare, and so Slava made herself look forward again and move along with the others.

  They walked down a long narrow corridor with cell doors every few feet. Some of the cell doors held people behind them, Slava could tell. Some part of her was overwhelmed by the horror and misery of so many people in such horrible and miserable conditions, but that part was carried along by her determination to rescue Vladislava, and she walked past all the doors without even a second glance.

  “I’m bored,” a childish voice said from behind the last door on the left. “And I’m hungry. But mostly I’m bored.”

  “Thank the gods you have nothing worse to complain of,” said Olga’s voice, from behind the same door.

  “We’ve been here for days,” said Vladislava. “When do you think they’ll let us out?”

  “Not soon, I hope,” said Olga grimly, and Slava could tell that Olga was sure that they would only be let out in order to be led to their execution, and even though at this point she might have welcomed that for herself, as something that would at least break up the tedium, she couldn’t bear to think of that for Vladislava, and was praying with all her might that they be left in their little cell for years, if that was what it took to keep Vladislava alive.

  “Slava will come to save us,” said Vladislava confidently.

  “No!” said Olga. “She has to stay away, Vladenka, she has to! And she will, if she has any sense.”

  “She’ll come save us,” repeated Vladislava. “She’s a saver. She won’t be able to help herself. She’ll come for us, and she’ll figure out a way to get us all out of here.”

  “Vladislava!” cried Slava, pushing ahead of the others. She sensed Vladya make a move as if to grab her and pull her back, and Boleslav Vlasiyevich also make a move as if he were trying to catch her, but really he was keeping Vladya from stopping her. “Olga!” she shouted. “Olga! Vladislava! Are you all right!”

  “What are you doing here!” cried Olga, running up and putting her face against the tiny barred window in the cell door, just as Slava came running up to it from the other side. “What are you doing here!”

  “I came for you!” Slava told her. “You and Vladislava! I came as soon as I heard! Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” said Olga. Slava could see that it was not true: her face was badly bruised, and when she spoke, her mouth revealed missing teeth. Suddenly the cold damp of the dungeon seemed too hot for Slava. The snow fox growled a little, and the snow hare jumped down from Slava’s arms and looked back towards Vladya and the guards in a way that made the cleverer of them take a step back in fear. Vladya was not, alas, among that number.

  “Why did you come back?” Olga demanded angrily. “Why didn’t you just stay away?”

  “And leave you to…to your fate?” Slava said. “Never! Under no circumstances!”

  “You shouldn’t have come back,” said Olga. She looked much more tired and defeated that Slava had ever seen her. She supposed that being beaten up, dragged into a dungeon, and sentenced to death would do that to a person.

  “Boleslav Vlasiyevich!” said Vladya sharply. “Open the cell coor! Prepare to bring out the prisoners!”

  Boleslav Vlasiyevich bowed silently and unlocked the cell door with a key on his belt.

  “Bring them out!” ordered Vladya. “Let my sister see the results of her treason!”

  Slava stepped back to allow Boleslav Vlasiyevich to pull open the cell door and usher Olga and Vladislava out. He gave her a brief, private look as he did so. She couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to be pleading or warning. Both, perhaps.

  “Slava!” cried Vladislava, as soon as the door was open. She rushed out and threw herself into Slava’s arms. “You came back for us! I knew you would! I knew you would, Slava, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

  “I see even this child recognizes your capacity for foolishness,” said Vladya, giving Vladislava a poisonous look.

  “What now?” demanded Olga. “I don’t suppose you’re letting us go out of the goodness of your heart?”

  “WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT ME TO BE MERCIFUL!” screamed Vladya, in the voice of a woman rebelling against the cruelties of fate. Slava, her heart squeezing painfully at the thought, recognized it as the same voice she had used to cry out to the gods to save Vladislava. “WHY DOES EVERYONE TRY TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO?!!”

  “No one would dare tell you what to do, Tsarina,” said Boleslav Vlasiyevich, with a quickness of wit Slava would not have suspected in him. She supposed he had had to develop it, in order to stay alive. “Everyone stands in awe of your power, and therefore they beg for mercy, as befits such humble subjects.”

  “Yes,” said Olga, with a pitiful attempt at humility that, Slava could see, was brought entirely about by her desperate desire to save Vladislava. “We beg for mercy, O gracious Tsarina.”

  “You do?” asked Vladya, her eyes shining greedily.

  “Oh yes,” said Olga, her voice so flat and false that Slava was sure Vladya would call her out on her falsehood in an instant, but instead, Vladya’s eyes only shown even more greedily.

  “How will you prove it?” she asked.

  “How do you want me to prove it—O gracious Tsarina?” said Olga. She was staring off into the darkness of the dungeon corridor, and Slava could see that her thoughts were somewhere else entirely, somewhere where there was a chance, no matter how remote, of saving Vladislava.

  “Kneel!” said Vladya.

  Olga got down, slowly and gracelessly, onto her knees, still staring off into the darkness. She had her right arm clutched against her chest as if in pain, just as she always did when she was afraid, and Slava knew that she was thinking, even if she didn’t know it, of that terrible day when she had tried to save herself and failed, and broken only her arm. Vladislava tried to pull away from Slava and stop her, but Slava held her tightly and wouldn’t let her go. The scene was so strange and horrifying that even Vladislava was cowed, and gave in to Slava’s embrace with only the briefest of struggles.

  “Now beg!” commanded Vladya. “Beg for mercy!”

  Something flitted behind the guards’ boots, and then faded back into the shadows. No one other than Slava seemed to have noticed it.

  “I beg for mercy, O gracious Tsarina,” said Olga, in the same strange flat voice. She rubbed her arm and flexed her fingers in
remembered pain. “Mercy for my young kinswoman,” she added. “My young kinswoman Vladislava.”

  “WHAT!!” screamed Vladya.

  “Mercy,” repeated Olga dully, still rubbing her arm. “Mercy for my young kinswoman, Vladislava Vasilisovna. Spare her life, gracious Tsarina, little mother, spare her life out of the bottomless goodness of your heart.”

  “And yourself?!” cried Vladya. “Won’t you beg for mercy for yourself?”

  For a moment Olga’s gaze fixed sharply on Vladya’s face, and, reading the repellent message there, she hastily added, “Oh yes, gracious Tsarina, spare my life too—I beg you.”

  “Beg louder!” screamed Vladya. “I don’t believe you!”

  “Mercy,” repeated Olga, slightly more loudly. “Mercy for myself and my young kinswoman.”

  “Why!?” shouted Vladya.

  “Why?” repeated Olga in confusion.

  “Why did you beg for her life first! Why! What’s so special about her?!”

  “She is my only niece, gracious Tsarina,” said Olga.

  “Many an aunt would sacrifice her niece gladly if it meant saving her own skin! What makes you so much better than the others? What makes your heart so much more motherly than that of other women?!”

  “My heart is not very motherly at all, gracious Tsarina,” said Olga. “I walked away from my own daughter, not once but many times. I knew I was abandoning her to that nest of jackals, and yet I could not force myself to stay. Every time I look at her, I feel ill with hatred, and I wish she had never been born. I will never love her, or even protect her from others, no matter how desperately she needs me. I am a failure.”

  “You did?” said Vladya, her face suddenly smoothing out. “You do? You won’t? You are?”

  “Oh yes, gracious Tsarina,” said Olga. Slava could tell she was puzzled by Vladya’s sudden change of mood, but was willing to go along with it if it meant getting them out of here alive. “I am a terrible mother. I have no love for my only daughter, I admit it freely, and I walked away from her without a backwards glance, over and over again, even though she was suffering and in need of a mother’s care and protection, even though I knew I was betraying her just as my own mother betrayed me.” Olga’s voice actually trembled as she said those words, and Slava could see that for once, she was truly moved by the thought of Lisochka’s suffering and her own guilt before her. She was squeezing her right arm with her left so tightly Slava was afraid she might break it all over again. Even here, at this desperate moment for herself, Slava wished that there were something she could do for Olga, something that would ease the pain, but she knew that, even if they should get out of this alive, there was nothing she could do. Olga had been broken a long time ago, by her mother and her daughter, and there was nothing Slava could do to fix her. Perhaps there was nothing even Olga could do to fix herself. Perhaps she had been broken so badly she was unfixable.

  “Yes, I see: you are a terrible mother,” said Vladya, with deep satisfaction. For a moment, Slava could see, her desperate hunger to avenge herself on the fate that had made her who she was had been appeased. Slava hoped that it might last, but, knowing as she did the depths of her own particular hunger, she knew that her sister’s much deeper and more terrible hunger would not be slaked so easily.

  “Yes, Tsarina,” agreed Olga. Already her voice was stronger: her own failure had already been considered and discarded.

  “And yet you still pleaded for her life before your own!” shrieked Vladya, pointing at Vladislava. Her face had twisted up again in rage, as if whatever thoughts that were floating through her head had floated into some new, more hateful configuration.

  “Yes, Tsarina,” said Olga. “I suppose I wanted to make up for some of my past. I suppose I wanted to save someone, my niece if not my daughter.”

  “NO!” screamed Vladya. “That can’t be it! It’s a plot! It’s all a plot! I see clearly now! You, my sister…you all want to save this little girl! It must be a plot! There can be no other explanation! Well…Well…I show you! I’ll teach you to plot!”

  “NO, Vladya!” shouted Slava. “It’s not a plot! How could it be a plot? We just want to save her and leave! Just let us save her and leave! We’ll leave now, leave now and never come back, just let us go! We only want to save her!” As she was saying the words, Slava again felt a deep sense of wrong, so strong that, when Vladya shook her head in furious denial of what she was saying, her first feeling was not despair, but relief. Something was telling her, louder and louder, that she would not be able to leave this dungeon and walk away a free woman, and all attempts she made to do so would and should be met only with failure.

  The little shape flitted back out from the shadows and stood behind the guards’ boots, catching Slava’s eye even as she tried to look only at Vladya.

  “You’re lying!” Vladya insisted. “Lying again! You can’t even look me in the face! You’ve always been a liar, and a cheat! You’ve always been able to get your way with others, you, you, you liar!” This pulled Slava’s attention away from the little shadow and focused it only onto Vladya, much to Vladya’s satisfaction—but that lasted only for a moment. Feeling the force of Slava’s gaze, her face twisted up even more, and she said even more loudly, “You play tricks on their minds and you get your way with them! I don’t know how you do it, but you do, and, and, and YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT NOW! YOU’RE PLAYING TRICKS ON MY MIND! YOU’RE TRYING TO CONTROL ME!”

  “Yes, Vladya,” said Slava quietly. “Of course I am. You have declared me a traitor and threatened to kill the people I care for most in the world. Of course I am trying to control you.”

  “YOUR KNIFE!” Vladya screamed, turning suddenly to Boleslav Vlasiyevich.

  “Gracious Tsarina…” he said in a faltering voice. “Whatever you do…give me your command, gracious Tsarina, and I will carry it out gladly. Do not sully your own fair hands with tasks that are beneath you.”

  “YOU ALL TURN AGAINST ME!” Vladya screamed.

  “Gracious Tsarina,” said Boleslav Vlasiyevich, drawing himself up straight. “Merely give me your command, and it shall be done in an instant.”

  “Oh?” said Vladya. The rage of a moment ago had left her, and now that she was calm again, she was even more terrifying than before. All the hairs on the back of Slava’s neck rose, and she knew that now was the moment, now the thing that had brought her down here was about to happen. She gently pushed Vladislava aside, and Vladislava, feeling it too, allowed herself to be pushed.

  “Of course, gracious Tsarina,” Boleslav Vlasiyevich was saying. “Whatever you command.”

  “Then kill her,” said Vladya, pointing at Vladislava.

  Olga lunged to her feet, shouting something that was not words. A dozen guards snapped out of their chained state and grabbed her. The little shape took a step closer to Boleslav Vlasiyevich, who somehow failed to see it, even though Slava was certain he had looked right at it.

  “Hold, boys, hold,” he said. “Hold her, and hold steady. Don’t do anyone any harm.” He looked up at Vladya. “Are you certain, gracious Tsarina?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m certain,” said Vladya. “I gave the order, did I not?”

  “She is nothing but a small child, a slip of a girl,” said Boleslav Vlasiyevich calmly. “Little threat at present. And killing her could enrage the princesses.”

  “What do I care of the princesses’ rage?” asked Vladya. “I am the Tsarina. And it is your duty to do as I command without question.”

  “True,” agreed Boleslav Vlasiyevich. “But it is also my duty to protect you, gracious Tsarina, and I would be remiss in my duty if I did not point out the dangers in any course of action you had deigned to take.”

  “Noted,” said Vladya. “Thank you, Boleslav Vlasiyevich. I thank you for your concern. I know you always act only in my interest, Boleslav Vlasiyevich, and I thank you for it. Thank you. I have taken your remarks under consideration, but I believe the gains outweigh the risks. The girl must die befo
re she causes any more trouble. And so must my sister. Dispatch them both at once, and let us be finished with this tiresome business. I have an empire to run.”

  “As you command, gracious Tsarina,” said Boleslav Vlasiyevich.

  “Wait!” cried Vladya. For a moment Boleslav Vlasiyevich’s face twitched as if with hope, but then it was gone and he looked up at Vladya with an expression of calm devotion.

  “Kill the girl first,” said Vladya. “I want my sister to watch. It will do her good. But wait! Don’t kill my sister just yet. I have just remembered that she is a traitor, and the proper punishment for traitors is boiling. We should save her for her own fate.”

  “You are all-wise, gracious Tsarina,” said Boleslav Vlasiyevich. He turned and took one slow step in Slava’s direction, and then another. He was walking as if moving through honey. The little shape was dogging right at his heels, but he seemed not to see it, or not to want to see it. One more step and he would be within Slava’s reach. He stopped and looked straight into Slava’s eyes, and she saw that he was pleading with her, begging her to save him and save them all, because there was no other way out of the dungeon for any of them.

  “VLADYA!” screamed Slava. “STOP! STOP THIS MADNESS!”

  “Beg all you want,” said Vladya with extreme satisfaction. “It won’t do you any good. The time for begging is long over.”

  Slava leaped forward, brushing past Boleslav Vlasiyevich, who made a slow and feeble motion as if attempting to stop her, but stumbled with uncharacteristic clumsiness over the little shape that had suddenly gotten itself tangled in his feet. Somehow, as Boleslav Vlasiyevich failed to rise and stop her, Slava’s hands found themselves around Vladya’s throat. That only lasted for a moment, though, because Vladya pried Slava’s hands off with her own, much stronger and larger hands, and forced Slava to her knees. Suddenly Boleslav Vlasiyevich was on his feet again, his sword drawn.

  “Come here, Boleslav Vlasiyevich,” said Vladya. “I’ve changed my mind. Kill my sister first. I want to watch her die in my arms. I want to see what she thinks of me with her last thoughts.”