Yvgenie

by CJ Cherryh

  Pyetr swatted at Babi. The hand fell limp again, but Pyetr had moved, Pyetr was still alive. Sasha suddenly found himself shaking like a leaf, unable to stop. He tucked his foot up and hugged his knee and watched, fist against his mouth to keep his teeth from chattering, wanting nothing but Pyetr's welfare, not wishing any more proof that the magic had worked than to see Pyetr look at him, whenever Pyetr wanted to, please, sanely and remembering everything since that day in the river.

  Babi got up and waddled over, leaned on his legs and reached for the vodka jug. Something had changed: Babi knew. Babi was willing to leave Pyetr: Babi wanted a drink and Sasha unstopped the jug and poured a good dose into Babi's waiting mouth, libation to all beneficent magic in the twin. ‘Good Babi,’ he said. ‘Good, brave Babi—’

  Pyetr half-opened his eyes, blinking at him through a fringe ill hair. ‘God—where did you come from?’

  '' I was supposed to follow you, remember?''

  Please, Pyetr, remember. Keep on remembering.

  Pyetr rolled onto his back and felt inside his shirt. Made a face and worked his fingers back and forth in the firelight.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘No,’ Pyetr said, sounding confused, and felt again. ‘Blood. It's not me, is it?’

  ‘It was,’ Sasha said. ‘It shouldn't be now. How do you led?’

  Pyetr took a breath, wiped his hand on his ghastly shirt, making another dark smear, and managed to sit up, leaning on his hand, staring dazedly past the fire, to where the horses were. ‘Volkhi—’

  ‘Volkhi's all right. Not a scratch on him, from the vodyanoi, a few scrapes else, that I can tell.’

  ''God.'' Pyetr made a try at getting up and fell on his back before Sasha could catch him.

  ' You can't go anywhere.’

  ‘My daughter, dammit—’

  He could not admit to Pyetr what a fool he had been, or warn him of the changes that might happen. He wanted to amend that wish of his—but he doubted he could, that was the stupid part. He could only wish Pyetr to remember his daughter by the time the spell had run its course—and it would not have, yet, it might not have completed itself for days and years, but there was no stopping it—and telling Pyetr about it—what could it do but frighten him, and make his life miserable?

  God, stupid, Sasha Vasilyevitch, damnably, terribly stupid! You can't wish against nature, you can't wish against time—

  But Pyetr, instead of dying, had breath in him tonight, and warmth, and was determined to ride on alone, right now, if he could. ‘Sasha—we can't sit here.''

  ‘Volkhi's exhausted, Missy can't take it, if you could stay on, which you can't: the spell isn't finished with you; and don't ask me to borrow.’

  ‘I'll ask you.’ Pyetr coughed, and held his shoulder. ‘It's not a time for good sense. Or scruples. The leshys will understand us. It's for them as much as—’

  ‘Not a time to make mistakes, either.’

  ‘Dammit, he's with her, you understand me?’

  ‘Do you know that?’

  ‘I know more than I want to know. The old Snake has a filthy mouth. The young one, Chernevog, damn him—’

  ‘I don't believe everything Hwiuur says. He's left and right and full of twists. And even if it were true, Chernevog's not in any substance any longer. The boy is—and substance deals with substance.’ He felt the heat in his face, but the dark gave him cover. ‘Yvgenie's an honest lad. She could do far worse, Pyetr.’

  Pyetr could have shouted at him that he was a fool and he had no intention in the world of leaving it at 'could do worse,' or 'substance': Sasha heard it all the same. But Pyetr had no strength to go on right now. Pyetr leaned his head against his arm and shook it slowly. ‘God, how, Sasha? How could she do worse?’ And Pyetr thought, wounded to the heart: Why didn't she answer me?

  Because the vodyanoi had taunted him with that.

  ‘I couldn't answer you,’ Sasha said, laying a hand on Pyetr's shoulder. ‘Remember? We aren't hearing each other. And I'm less and less certain our mouse is all the reason for the silence. I think the leshys are aware of it, maybe contributing to it—they did this before, when Chernevog was alive—not helping us, but maybe keeping other things from breaking loose.’

  Pyetr was shivering. Trying not to. Trying to be sane. Pyetr said, as calmly as he could, ‘This isn't going at all right, is it?’

  Sasha put his arms about him, felt the chill and the shivering. ‘Sleep, Pyetr. Go to sleep.’

  Pyetr said not a word. His head fell and his body immediately went heavy in Sasha's arms: he was that far gone. Sasha suddenly found himself trembling, from cold, from exhaustion, from terror. He wanted Pyetr to be all right, he wanted Pyetr's daughter to realize her father needed her, and he wanted things right in the woods—now, tonight, this moment.

  But—perhaps it was the way his latest wish had gone askew; and perhaps the way all wizards' wishes went amiss, past childhood—he was not sure he wanted the mouse here. He was less sure he wanted Chernevog, knowing the mouse might have wished him to be with her: wishes held so many conditions, wishes contradicted each other, and tied themselves in knots on wizards' conditions.

  Fool, 'Veshka would say, in her father's tone.

  And she would be right.

  Yvgenie became aware of breaking daylight at the same moment he discovered his legs were asleep, he was propped against a tree and he had his arms mostly around Ilyana. There seemed no polite way at the moment to move his legs, the stretch of which was making his back ache terribly, so he sat there in pain, trying to recall, god, what had happened last night, or what he had done last night.

  He leaned his head back and looked about at the trees, at the first glimmer of light on the branches, at the horses making a breakfast off spring leaves, and tried not to recall that too vivid sense of life that had driven sense from him.

  Fatal, ultimately, the ghost whispered to him. I lend you pleasure I daren't feel. I'd lose all sanity, else. You're all the protection we have, Ilyana and I...

  He bit his lip, looked desperately up at the branches and thought—

  Sanity?

  He shifted his legs without thinking, and Ilyana stirred in his arms, put her hands on his shoulders and pushed back from him, eyes wide.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ he said, but Chernevog said, softly, ‘Good morning, Ilyana.’

  She looked alarmed and struggled against him to be free. He wanted to let her go, but the ghost pulled her against him and kissed her long and passionately, wanting—

  Oh, god, no!

  The world went dizzy. He forgot to breathe, until she had to, and fought for breath and reason. He made a clumsy reach for the tree behind him and purchase on the leaf-strewn ground, wanting to straighten his legs. He felt—

  —not angry, no—shaken inside and out, and tingling with a feeling he had never had. He did not want the ghost doing that again, or anything else it had in mind. He struggled to stand up, to little avail, and found himself trapped with Ilyana staring at him as if trying to decide which of them was responsible.

  He whispered, ‘I'm terribly sorry,’ then thought that he could have said something more flattering. He tried to amend that—and it still came out, ‘Be careful, please be more careful, miss,’ or something as foolish, as she took his hand, which was filthy with bits of leaf and dirt, and tried to help him.

  Strength came flooding back to his legs, numbness easing unnaturally quickly. He stood up, he disengaged his hand and wiped it clean as something cold whisked through him, something of more substance than a passing chill.

  Owl, he thought.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ilyana asked him.

  He answered, ‘He's very well, thank you, miss.’ And added, with an effort, ‘Please—you oughtn't to trust him that far—’

  He wanted to take her in his arms himself. Instead he shoved away from the tree and staggered off toward the horses, while the ghost inside him—he was sure it was the ghost—said, without words.

  Yvgenie P
avlovitch, you're a fool.

  The boat scraped something and shuddered aside. Eveshka waked with a start as the tiller bucked beneath her arm, saw trees in front of the sail, shoved over hard, and hauled on the sheets, heart pounding as the old ferry skimmed the shoreline. Its hull rubbing its length along some barrier.

  She had not intended to sleep. The wind had carried the boat the god only knew how far—she felt grinding scrapes that threatened to take the side out, and wished desperately for a breeze to touch the sail and give her way to steer away from the shore. None was at hand. The trees were too tall and too near, shadowing her from the wind.

  The boat scraped rock, as the shore wound outward across the bow. She leaned on the tiller.

  The hull glided over sand. Hard. And cleared.

  A breeze. Any breeze, god—no matter the direction.

  The boat glided into calm water, between the shore and the bar, where a small stream joined the river. She worked ‘frantically to bring the bow around, to catch whatever breeze the stream course might let escape to bear on the sail, but the breeze there was scarcely stirred the canvas. Only rain and gale, she feared, might free the boat from this trap.

  She struck the tiller bar with her hand.

  Not an accident. Not by any means an accident.

  Something different rubbed against the hull, then splashed the surface and chuckled with a familiar sound. She left the tiller in its loop of rope and strode to the rail. ‘Damn you, Hwiuur!’

  Another splash. The vodyanoi could not bear the rising sun. There was no chance it meant to put itself in her reach at the edge of daylight: it kept to the shadow of the boat, the deep water, and only soft laughter and a spreading ring of ripples told where it skimmed the sandbar on its way to the open river.

  Something dark red floated in the shadow of the boat, scarcely visible in this change between dawn and day: a scrap of embroidered cloth.

  She had stitched that design herself, sewn wishes into the cloth, to keep Pyetr safe and warm—his coat, that was what! Hwiuur had brought her—

  ‘Hwiuur!’ she shouted. ‘Come back here!’

  But it had the edge it wanted. It spread doubt like poison, it scattered her wishes like leaves on the water. And it laughed, somewhere out of wizardry reach, in that place she remembered how to enter—but dared not, living.

  Sunrise in the deep woods brought scant relief from the clammy chill of earth and air which long since had dampened their clothing and their blankets. Sasha folded up his book quietly searched their packs for food and stirred up breakfast.

  Pyetr opened his eyes hi the midst of this, felt of the blanket across his chest and looked hi his direction.

  ‘Pain?’ Sasha asked him.

  ‘No.’ Pyetr struggled up on his elbows, filthy, bloody and ghastly pale between the beginning dawn and the fire light. He pulled the stiffened cloth away from his shoulder took a look and murmured, ‘God.’

  ‘No argument out of you. Breakfast is just about ready. Hot tea. You're not going off this time by yourself.''

  ‘Don't wish at me!’ Pyetr sat upright too quickly and leaned his head into his hands. ‘I'm sorry. You're right. You were right in the first place. Everything I've done has cost us time.’

  So he did remember. Sasha poured a cup of tea, wishing his hands not to shake with cold and sleeplessness. ‘We do as much as we can do. Despair is never our friend. And we’re not really behind Missy's pace, as happens, though I'd have a bit more sleep.—Here.’

  Pyetr edged over and took the tea, held the cup in both hands to drink it. Sasha turned the cakes and poured his own cup.

  Across the fire, Babi waited, black eyes glittering with his of cakes, one could be sure. There was certainly one for Babi, yes, indeed there was, especially for him.

  ‘Had the salt in my coat pocket,’ Pyetr said. ‘Lot of that did. Damned snake's gotten clever. Where is my coat?’

  ‘I don't know. Gone, I fear. I looked, but the god only knows how far it dragged you. Have mine: it's yours, anyway; and I can wish myself warm.’

  ‘We have blankets. A cloak's all I need.’ All I deserve— was the thought in Pyetr's mind. ‘—Have you heard anything since last night?’

  Sasha slid a cake onto a leaf and set it down for Babi, all his own. ‘No.’ He slipped the other two onto plates and offered one to Pyetr. ‘But we're not going to go breakneck into this.’

  Pyetr scowled at his caution, then said, looking glumly to his breakfast, ‘If I hadn't been so damned stupid—’

  ‘Don't—’ he started to say—stopped himself; but thinking it was enough.

  ‘It’s my f-fault,’ Pyetr declared fiercely, piece by piece, painful concentration against his wish. ‘If you could just for god's sake t-tell her—’

  ‘I can’t. I can't make her hear me. So you listen to me, please, Pyetr.’

  ‘I’ve no damn ch-choice, have I?’

  That cut deep. Pyetr's look did. But he said as coldly and rationally as he could: ‘I don't like you taking the blame for things. Give me time to think.’

  ‘That’s fine, Sasha. But d-do something!’

  He wanted Pyetr not to have to struggle like that. He had not meant that wish for silence, he simply wanted not to be argued with right now, which meant Pyetr had to fight him to talk at all. ‘Pyetr, believe me, the mouse doesn't hate us. She'd have come flying back here if she'd known you were in trouble. She isn't Draga and she's not her mother: I don't believe it, I never believed it, no matter what 'Veshka says—’

  ‘The hell with what 'Veshka says! It isn't the mouse's fault what happened. She thinks she's doing right. I don't have to be a wizard to know that. She's not against us.’

  ‘It's not her fault, and if you want the plain truth, I don't think it was 'Veshka's either. She was in Draga's house before the mouse was born. I honestly believe Draga wanted something that made trouble for us.’

  Pyetr stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. ‘Draga—’ But the thought escaped him and escaped his eavesdropping as well. Something about Eveshka's mother, about the time Eveshka had spent in her mother's house under the hill, about Chernevog and Draga's wishes—

  Wishes could make a man think all around a matter. Wishes could defend themselves, the same as the mouse wishing them off her track. They could well be missing something essential.

  He said, fighting Pyetr for pieces of that thought, ‘Eveshka was up there with Draga when neither you nor 'Veshka knew the mouse existed—Draga wanted the baby, no question. That's how she got her there—she couldn't wish 'Veshka herself, 'Veshka's too strong; but she could wish the mouse there: nobody wished anything about the mouse, since none of us knew she existed—’

  ‘Draga didn't have a damned thing to do with the mouse.'' Some illusions one hated to challenge. ‘In fact Draga or Uulamets either one might have wished Ilyana into existence, Pyetr, forgive me. But we don't know either of them got what they wanted. Wishes can pull other wishes off the mark, make them turn out differently than planned—certainly a young wizard is a scary handful; and unpredictable; and dangerous—but not, not, in my considered opinion, the creature Draga wanted from the beginning, and not under her grandmother's posthumous influence.’

  ‘Who said she was? Who ever said she was?’

  'Veshka.’

  ‘Hell,’ Pyetr said in disgust. ‘She gets those damn moods.’

  ‘No. Sometimes she admits what's in her heart. And she's right to worry.’

  ‘Ilyana's not a sorcerer! She's not Chernevog's kind, Chernevog himself isn't what he was.’

  Pyetr, 'Veshka died—and in her own thinking, she never won her struggle, no matter that her father brought her back to life. She lost. Nobody wins against sorcery—one either uses it or one ultimately loses to someone who does. That's what she believes. She didn't want the mouse badly enough to protect her from Draga—that's what haunts her: she was surprised to know she had a baby, she was under her mother's will, beset with her mother's arguments and she only scar
cely wanted the mouse enough for your sake to keep her alive. Something could have gotten to her—yes.’

  ‘That's not so, Sasha!’

  ‘I agree with you. I don't think you can make anyone good or bad without his consent. I don't think it's being sixteen, or fifteen—I think it's whatever moment you decide what you need and decide what other people are worth to you. I was five when I made my terrible mistake; but I think we taught the mouse her lesson, and I don't for a moment believe she has to kill anyone to learn it. More than that, I think there was a time you should have been here and 'Veshka should have taken the trip to Kiev, if you want the truth; and a time last year we should have taken the mouse downriver to Anatoly's place and let her meet the household, damn the consequences.’

  ‘Why didn't you say that, for the god's sake? Why didn't you insist?’

  ‘I did say it to 'Veshka, I said it to you more than once, if you'll remember, but no one listened. They were delicate years. It wasn't a time for quarrels in the house.’

  Pyetr ran a hand through his hair. ‘God.’

  ‘When 'Veshka wished you to Kiev, I knew you'd be back; I knew the mouse would want you back. What's more, I knew 'Veshka would. She can't turn anything loose. Not her daughter. Not her husband. Not an idea, once it takes hold of her—and she doesn't ask where she got all of them. That’s her trouble, friend. She learned to fight from her father. Her young lessons were all that way. And in teaching the mouse what to do with magic—I had to hold Eveshka off.''

  Pyetr was quiet a moment, staring into the fire. Sasha bit his lip, hoping he had not gone too far, wanting—

  No.

  ‘I won't tell you what to think, Pyetr, only what I think. There always seemed too many quarrels for me to start another. All I could think was—just get her to the age of reason. Eveshka says she wasn't working magic—but she was, she was constantly, in every opinion she holds. How do you convince someone not to hold opinions?''

  ‘How do you convince Eveshka not to hold opinions?