by CJ Cherryh
I wanted Pyetr back to that moment eighteen years ago and other things were inevitably tied to it: what' Veshka was then, what I was—god, a young fool, that's what I was then! I've sent Eveshka back and done the god only knows what to myself in the bargain—
I was fifteen, I couldn't read or write, I didn't know what to do with magic except to be scared of it—
‘Sasha?’ Pyetr said. ‘Sasha, you're white as a sheet. What's going on?’
He had to get down. He had to stop moving and stop things from changing around him. Missy stopped and he slid off, taking his bag of books and the bag of herb-pots with him. He needed quiet. He needed to get hold of things. He went off looking for a place to sit down and catch his breath and heard Pyetr saying, faintly:
‘Better get down.’ And Nadya's quiet, frightened voice: ‘What's wrong with him?’
‘I don't know.’ Pyetr said. ‘Something. Hush, don't ask him questions right now.''
‘Is it magic? What's he going to do?''
‘Hush!’ Pyetr said. ‘Yes, and don't bother him.’
He was grateful. Pyetr was upset, he knew it, but there was no reassurance to give him and he could not afford the distraction of lying. He was not sure what he had felt from the mouse and from Eveshka a moment ago, that was first trouble; he could not totally be sure which feeling he hail gotten from which place north of them: he knew Yvgenie might be a source of that disturbance, the same as Eveshka; and he was not sure of the accuracy of his memory even moments ago: magic could be like that, escaping recollection as quickly as water from a sieve. When a wizard wanted not to think certain things, the wizard in question could very well get his wish, and forget the unpleasantness that could be happening and believe some false thing more palatable, if he was an utter, self-deluding fool…
He found a flat rock to sit on, he set his bags down on the leaves and pulled out a book at random. He opened it and knew it then for his own.
Draga destroyed Malenkova. But Malenkova was too much for her. The beast took her and Draga became its purpose… ultimately that's all Draga was in the world. . . .
Pages back from that: Owl should not have died—
A sword should not have been able to kill a wizard's creature. Pyetr's had done it, in spite of all the wishes that should have protected Owl: Pyetr had killed the creature that held Chernevog's heart, and Chernevog's heart had necessarily come back to him—
But how? Chernevog's wish? Chernevog had grieved for Owl, if for nothing else in his life. Chernevog had not wanted his heart, and tried immediately to put it elsewhere…
Leshys all around us, watching as Owl died, and Chernevog got his heart back, watching to see what wizards in their midst might do.
And when and where did the threads of Owl begin? When Chernevog was a boy—Draga had wanted him to find Owl, and bestow his heart on Owl, because she had a hold on the creature—
‘Damn!’
—Pyetr wanted to kill Chernevog and couldn't. So the leshys took him, held him asleep three long years before they let him wake—if they let him wake. Owl was Draga's before it was Chernevog's. And where is Owl, now, that's another important question.
Owl's with him, I much fear, with him and with—
Get away from that thought!
He made his eyes see the place he was in; and saw Pyetr trying to put a fire together nearby.
‘Pyetr, I think I know something.’
‘What?’
''Who's sustaining Chernevog.''
‘Which 'him'? Who?’
‘Chernevog. I very much think it's leshys. They brought us Nadya. They had Chernevog asleep for all those years. And I think they killed Owl.’
Pyetr looked as confounded as Nadya did. He stood up. ‘They killed Owl. Why?’
‘I don't think Owl's a safe place to have put a heart. I don't think he ever was. I think they destroyed Owl, because they wanted Chernevog to have his heart back. I think—’ One became aware of the whisper of the leaves, of the forest all around them, alive, self-interested, listening to everything that moved. And caution seemed of utmost importance.
‘So we shouldn't worry? I don't think so, Sasha!’
‘I'm not saying that. I'm saying I don't know what kind of a game the leshys are playing. Or what kind they have played.’ God, they had relied on Misighi, they had trusted the old creature, who had held the mouse in his arms—
A nest of birds and a child are the same to them. And was it ever certain what friendship means to them? I rarely saw Misighi after that. And not at all in recent years.
Dammit, Eveshka's worked so long and remade so much that she destroyed, she had almost made her peace with the leshys before the mouse was born, and since, since, she's not gone any time at all into the woods—too busy with housework, she said, since the baby came, too busy once there was a child to take care of—
God, 'Veshka, did I never see? I thought it must be motherhood or something, I thought it must be some natural change, with babies and all—but you loved the forest, you'd mended every damage you could set your hands to, you wished it life with all your heart—and you feared it so much you dreaded letting the mouse out of her own yard and into the woods?
Trust the leshys, I said.—The child knows their names, 'Veshka, of course she's safe. Would Misighi ever let her come to harm?
He bit his lip, saw the bright spark of the fire Pyetr had been making, thought, distractedly: The leshys hate fire. I can't wish it. Maybe that's why we've gotten along. And she hasn't.
—Eveshka, hear me—
But he thought instantly of Nadya, glanced at her and flinched, thinking, God, 'Veshka never did like surprises, and she's not being reasonable, no more than the mouse. There's no telling what either one of them might wish about this girl, or about us—
Burning papers. Stacks and stacks of papers and moldering birds' nest and feathers and old, outgrown clothes—
Breathe the smoke. Let the fire mingle the elements of the problem, pinecones and curious dried beetles, old nests, old clothes, old papers, and lonely, disordered years—breathe it in and let it work—
God, she's my doing. Most certainly she's my doing, this—girl, this lost daughter of Pyetr's, this—calamity—the leshys have dropped in our laps—
She can't be. She can't be what I wished up. She would have had to begin all those years ago, before I even left Vojvoda, before Pyetr and I even met—
Can we even choose? God, where are our choices, if I was Uulamets' wish and everything that got Pyetr in trouble and brought Yvgenie to this woods and put the mouse in danger was only for a stupid wish I was going to make on a rainy night eighteen years later— I felt the whole world shift when I wished someone. And the lightning came and Yvgenie drowned. Was it all for her? Or is magic only riding the currents of what already will be—has to be?
Leaves on the water—
‘Sasha?’ he heard Pyetr asking him. But he could not move, could not get out of the current if that was the case—
No wizard could, if that was the case. There was no way back. He looked at Nadya and thought, The mouse won't accept her. Eveshka won't. How did things get so tangled? And what is the mouse doing out there in the woods, if this is all our doing? When did we ever wish it? Or is it Uulamets' who did it to all of us? And what was the old man thinking of and what did he want in the world, but—
—but—
He drew a panicked breath. And wished the way he Iwi taught the mouse to do when magic began to go amiss—
Sasha fell before Pyetr could reach him, just sprawled on his side, senseless or dead, Pyetr could not tell until he could get a hand inside his collar and feel life beating steadily.
Then he could breathe, himself; but not feel in the least safe, not for himself and not for Sasha or for anyone he loved. It was nothing a sword could get at or an ordinary man even hear going on.
‘What's happened to him?’ Nadya asked, and one could not even be sure of her, if Sasha had misjudged what shape shifters
could do. But one had to trust, one had to deal sanely, and not act in panic.
‘He's fainted,’ he said.’But I don't know whether he wanted it or something else did.’
His daughter looked at the forest about them—but then-was nothing eyes could see. No Babi, either, which was not a good sign. The inkpot had tamed over, the ink had run out and blotted a page of Sasha's book—and if that was any indication of how things were going, it was none he liked. He propped Sasha's head on his knee, put a hand on Sasha's brow and pleaded with him, ‘Wake up, can you? Come on. The ink's spilled, Babi's missing. I don't like this, Sasha. I truly don't.’
Nadya came and sank down close to them, tacked down in a knot with her hands clenched white before her lips. Scared, decidedly, this daughter of his in gilt and tattered silk. Worried. With damned good reason.
10
A wolf—it might be the same wolf—slipped in and out of view, threading a path through the brush, and one could easily feel more anxious not knowing where it was than knowing. It had come closer a moment ago—but Bielitsa had made no protest, not even a twitch of her ears, and Yvgenie rubbed his eyes with chilled fingers, wondering was the wolf a ghost itself, and whether the ghost inside him knew it.
He was convinced there was a place ahead of them where the wolf could not reach, a terrible place, but safe from that danger. He had no clear memory any longer where the boundaries were between himself and the ghost, it was all a struggle now, moment by moment, to keep awake. Perhaps it was bewitchment. Perhaps it was simple weariness. But his hold on the world was slipping, that was the only way he could think of it; and he did not want to alarm Ilyana— everything seemed so precarious and so fragile now, and he did not want to talk about ghosts, or dying.
They reached the bottom of the hill and Ilyana reined in a moment, where there was water. The horses drank, wading into the stream, heedless of danger.
They can't see it, he thought. They can't smell it. It's sun a ghost, like Owl.
It was there again, the wolf was, trotting across the slope in front of them.
‘Do you see it?’ he asked desperately.
‘The wolf?’
‘There,’ he said. But by the time she had looked where he pointed, it had gone.
She patted Patches' neck while Patches drank. Bielitsa gave a little twitch of her shoulders and lifted her head. ‘Probably he's a little crazy. Uncle says they'll kill one that's too different.''
‘Like people,’ he said, and found himself remembering, not knowing what he was going to say, ‘My father had other sons.’
There had been another wife. His mother was dead. His father had had something to do with that, but he could not remember what, he could not remember his father's face, try as he would. He only recalled a silhouette against a window; remembered nothing of home, though it seemed to him a while ago he had known more than that. He saw a gray sky above stark walls. He did not know why that image should terrify him or why people shouting should be so ominous. A dreadful thump, then, shocked through his bones.
The ghost said, against his heart, The man deserved what he got. Can you possibly mourn him? He gave you nothing but pain.
He understood then that it had been his father's death he had just witnessed, and he was sure he had not been there—it had not happened when he had left. He thought, cold and sick at heart: The tsar must have found him out. The tsar must have learned he was plotting against him—but surely it' wasn't my fault—please the god it wasn't my fault he's dead—
Fool, the ghost said. I give you justice and you're sorry? How can you forgive so much evil?
Memory of a gray sky. A feeling of justice done, but he could take no joy in it. The ghost's question seemed wistful and angry at once, as if it truly did not understand. His hands felt chill as he drew up on Bielitsa's reins, going on in the lead, he had forgotten where for the moment, and why, except he felt the wolf's presence closer now, and he wanted them quickly on their way.
How can you forgive him? the ghost insisted to know, determined to know, because he had tried very hard and very long to understand what justice was. He did harm to everyone around him. How can you forgive him? How dare you forgive evil like that?
But Ilyana said, riding beside him, ‘What did he get? Who are you talking about?''
Her question confused him. He knew too many things, knew he had been hours ahead of his father's men when he had reached Vojvoda; and he had known then they would kill Ilyana, and all her house—for nothing that was her fault—
No. The ghost was adamant. No. There had been a river shore.
She had said once, behind the stairs, I don't know the town. I've never been outside the walls. My window only looks out on the garden. —And he had remembered that. And drowned her, for fear of what she was, or might become.
‘Yvgenie?’ she said.
He said, desperately scanning the branches and the sky, ‘Owl's gone.’
‘He'll be back. He comes and goes.—You're not worried about the wolf, are you?’
‘Owl's gone. The black thing is.’ His heart was pounding in his chest, as if he were drowning. He knew that sunlight was still around him, he could see it everywhere, every detail of the branches and the leaves around them, every detail of her face and the sunlight on her hair. He kept remembering that day on the river, that he had known he loved her, quite, quite helplessly, and far differently this year than the boy he had been, the lost boy the woods had sustained in innocence—
There was no more innocence, once awareness came, only a struggle to love, and not to kill—this moment, and the next and the next—
He shut his eyes and rubbed them, with fingers gone quid chill, thinking, I can't remember what's mine any longer, god, whoever you were, Kavi Chernevog, whatever you did, give my memories back to me—or remember your own. I'm losing things. I'm trying to hold on, but I'm so tired—
But he remembered the river too, ill-matching pieces coming together for a moment, and said, ‘He forgives too much, Ilyana. There is evil in the world. There truly is evil. And he's been too close to it. —So have I. And the wicked ones never tell you the truth. Do you know that?’
‘Are you one of the wicked ones?''
‘No.’ He said—and it was a great effort to say, against the need he had for her: ‘Ilyana, don't wish. Don't wish anymore. Don't expect things. You're stronger than you know. Let go and let me lead you.’
She looked at him in dismay. She said, in a voice scarcely louder than the wind, ‘Who are you? Is it Kavi?’
He could not shape the words. He fought them out, not even understanding what the ghost made him say, ‘Ilyana, that place of yours—You're wishing for what doesn't exist. You don't imagine how dangerous that is. You don't know enough, Ilyana. You're getting yourself deeper and deeper into trouble.’
‘But can't it exist? What else is magic, but wishing what isn't yet? It will exist if I want it to—''
He saw the rooftops of Kiev, suns and moons careering above the golden domes, above the banners of the Great Tsar—remembered leaves and thorns, ominous as the echo of axes off snowy walls. He thought, in utter despair: I don't want to do what I'm doing; but he could not remember why he felt so afraid of the place he was going, or so apprehensive of what might befall her there. He looked to the reddening and began to think, It's because it's too late. We can't go back from here. There's only wanting—his wanting, now, I 'm so damned tired I can't keep them apart, even know-what it's doing—god, I'm not even sure it's right—
‘Wizards can do this to themselves,’ Pyetr said, while Sasha slept.
Nadya looked at Sasha distressedly, and darted a look at him as he fed a few twigs into the fire. ‘Why?’
‘Hell if I know.’ But he did know. It was a way out of bud thoughts, dangerous thoughts, which were the straight path to unwise wishes. It was the powerful wizards that did it, so far as he knew of how things worked: small need the village toad sellers had of such defenses—if they could do it at all. To h
is observation only Sasha and the mouse could do it; and Eveshka, he supposed—last resort before one burned down Kiev or something—
Bad thought. Very bad thought.
And do what now? Throw Sasha over Missy's back and keep going blind, completely unable to feel what was going on ahead of them, or what they might run into? He had no idea what had made Sasha do what he had done—or even whether Sasha had done it. Neither could he know whether his hesitation now was wisdom, cowardice, or someone else's or Sasha's wishes. It was only sure that Sasha was in no good way to defend them or himself if they ran into the least hazard in the dark.
‘Just sit still,’ he said, started to settle himself, and saw a glint of metal among Nadya's skirts as she moved her foot. He made an unthoughtful reach after it. ‘What is that?’
Nadya evaded his hand, tucked her skirts about her ankles and gave him an anxious stare, all offended modesty.
But that had been bright, hard metal, not gilt. And, having been a father for no few years, he looked her quite steadily in the eye, expecting an answer, until finally she ducked his gaze, moved her foot and the hem of her skirts and showed a knife-hilt in the side of a very costly and sadly out-at-the-seams boot.
‘What in hell do you intend to do with that?’
She tucked the foot under her, clasped her arms about her ankles and scowled at him.
‘Let's see it.’ He held out his hand with the same no- nonsense expectation. ‘—Come on. Let me see that thing. ‘
She reluctantly drew it and laid it in his palm, an old bone-hilted kitchen knife, honed down to a sliver. He turned it to the light and felt a razor edge with his thumb. ‘You're full of surprises, aren't you? Who is this for? Bears? Bandits? Stray fathers?’
She set her jaw and looked embarrassed. He lifted an eye brow. ‘Well?’
‘You think I'm a fool,’ she said.