Yvgenie

by CJ Cherryh

  While life and magic poured over that rim and threatened to sweep her and him and everything they loved into itself.

  ‘Eveshka,’ he said. ‘Eveshka, don't help it, don't—wish against them—’

  ‘Bonesss,’ the vodyanoi said.

  The whole world tottered for an instant. Breath failed. But she spun about and stalked away from him, and laid her hand on a bare white trunk.

  Something whispered, slithering to the other bank: Don't trust him, pretty bones. He's not at all nice. But there is a place that wants him, there is a place that would certainly ' trade for him, trade for something very, very nice—

  It was day. The vodyanoi could not abide the sun—except someone enabled him, except Eveshka was listening to the creature. And who was so foolish, god, who but him had ever been so foolish?

  Eveshka rolled a glance at sky and woods, looked at him last, desperate, angry for all the long seasons of cold and dark he had damned her to. She hated him, for lying, for pain, for deception and his theft of her peace and her daughter—

  She wanted the strength he held. She took it, in one dizzy rush, that left him on his knees; and wanted him from her sight, now, that was the single grace she gave him, because there was a wisp of life left in him and she would not kill— from moment to moment, so long as she could, she would not kill...

  ‘Run, damn you, Kavi! Runl''

  He found the strength somewhere. He fled the streamside, blind, raked by thorns—he stumbled and fell and ran again, mindless, until he found himself lying on dead leaves in the sunlight, watching an ant make anxious progress across a sandy, mold-eaten leaf among other leaves, and stop, and quite suddenly— Shrivel and die.

  His heart gave a painful thump. A leaf fell. Another followed. He wiped his mouth with a gritty hand and tried to get up.

  Green, untimely leaves showered about him. His teeth chattered with winter cold as he gathered his feet under him and kept going, where, he did not know, except he felt powerless against what moved him —he, Kavi, Yvgenie: the distinction was no longer exact in his thoughts.

  He wiped tears that ran on his face, revolted by the chill of his own hand, and slid as much as walked down the face of the hill, gathered himself at the bottom and stumbled further, thinking—the god help him—that if he could only find the horses—they could carry his failing body in more then one sense.

  But there was no trace of them, and from Yvgenie nothing but terror and grief. Yvgenie loved the white mare. Ilyana loved the filly. So did he, for Ilyana's sake. And his living always required murder, it had before and did again, even of what trusted him.

  The sun sank below the treetops. In a deeply shadowed passage Volkhi blew and shook his head, and Pyetr shivered for no reason that he could think of—a passing wish, perhaps, either good or ill, if any magic at all could reach him. Volkhi had his head up, smelling something of interest, that much was certain. Pyetr asked a little more speed of him and Volkhi picked up his pace, pricking up his ears and flattening them again, listening and worrying. The mouse? One could only hope. No, god, it was Patches, riderless, with Yvgenie's white horse behind, coming slowly down the wooded hillside. His heart said hurry; but he rode quietly so as not to startle them, and saw bloody scratches and countless welts on their hides, thorns snarled in manes…

  Sasha could easily have asked them the questions he most wanted to ask. All an ordinary man could learn of them was the evidence of a panic flight through thorn thickets: dirt from falls, scratches all over them, and everything Ilyana and the boy owned still bound to the saddles—god, Ilyana's book was there along with the rest of her belongings. She would never have parted from that—willingly.

  He slid down, slipped Patches' bridle, tied it to the saddle, and sent the filly off with a whack on the rump—home, he hoped, where young Patches understood home to be; or to Sasha, or whatever refuge she could find on their own. He held on to the white mare for a change of horses, swung up onto Volkhi's back, argued Volkhi and the mare into an uphill track, and rode along their backtrail, not breakneck, but slowly, observing an occasional print of a hoof on soft ground, a snag of white horsehair in brush. The horses had both gotten away clear: life had escaped Chernevog's grasp, and if it was Chernevog's fault what had happened, the horses could not have gotten away without magic.

  Which could most reasonably mean the mouse—who, being the mouse, might have driven them off for their own safety, if things were going wrong; but she would not have chosen to send them away with the book and their food and their blankets, not unless something had gone very wrong, very quickly, or she had some destination in mind for them. Like her uncle. Like—the god knew. The book might have every answer he needed, which he might know now if Sasha were with him, which, dammit, Sasha was not—nor could possibly be, this fast.

  So he was here—for what little he could do: at least whatever he could do was sooner than he could do it at Sasha's pace; and if the mouse's wish or Sasha's was indeed guiding the horses, Sasha might yet get his hands on the book and the answers in time, and ride to the mouse's rescue.

  Or his, if he was on the right track—and by all evidence he was.

  Only granting, please the god, Sasha had ever waked up.

  ‘Babi's left,’ Nadya said, and Sasha looked about at her, saying, ‘What?’ so distractedly she was sorry she had said anything. It was getting toward dark, he insisted on walking and letting the horse follow him, and if he was working magic she might just have ruined things.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  It was very disconcerting to have someone answer her thoughts.’

  ‘I'm sorry,’ he said, and patted Missy's neck as they walked. ‘Pyetr and I do it. I forget. I'm dreadfully sorry.’

  ‘I shouldn't bother you when you're thinking.’

  ‘You couldn't bother me.’

  It was an odd thing to say. She was not certain whether it was good or bad. Maybe she was too silly to bother him. Ha uncles called her a damned nuisance when they thought sin was out of earshot. They called her stupid girl—

  ‘You're not,’ he said, and stopped a moment and looked up at her. ‘You are distracting me. I'm sorry. Please don't talk to me. I'm trying to think of something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A wise wish.’

  ‘Wish us home,’ she said.

  He had the most distressed look on his face. He stared at her and went on staring. He said, finally, ‘Home.’

  She said, ‘Mine's not in Vojvoda. I don't know where it is but it's not there.''

  He said, ‘Mine burned.’

  ‘I'm dreadfully sorry—’

  ‘It wasn't mine, really. Or it was. It didn't matter. It was just full of papers and things.''

  She did not understand. She did not understand how she had troubled him, but she had. She frowned and wondered what she had said so dreadful.

  He walked on, and Missy moved with his hand on her neck, at her steady patient pace. She thought, I wouldn't hurt him. I truly wouldn't.

  How can a wizard's house burn? Can't they stop the fire?’

  ‘Not always,’ he said. ‘I'm dreadful at fires. —God, don't—bother me. Please! God!’

  Her breath seized up in her throat. And he shook his head furiously and laid a hand on her knee, saying, ‘I wanted you here. I wished you. I wanted—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A wife. And it's not fair for us to want somebody. And you shouldn't think about me and you shouldn't want to—’ He stopped, quite suddenly, then said, ‘I sound like 'Veshka.’

  She felt fluttery inside. She felt guilty for Yvgenie and guilty for being a wicked girl, her mother would call it, and guilty for upsetting Sasha—it was not fair for a boy to risk his life for her and her not to love him, but it was nothing like Sasha.

  ‘It's a damned wish,’ he said. ‘It's magical. You can't help liking me!’

  ‘I do,’ she said, feeling very strange inside. ‘I do, and maybe it is magical. It feels that way. I never felt like th
is. I never did…’

  He stood there staring at her. Missy had stopped quite still.

  ‘What about Yvgenie?’ he asked.

  She said, hard as ft was to say, ‘We never—’ and stopped there, her face gone burning hot despite the evening chill. She said, ‘I didn't love him. I said I'd try to. He's very nice.’ The fact was, she had slept in his blanket and he had slept curled against a tree, because—

  —because she had been so dreadfully afraid of strangers. Or of lasting mistakes.

  ‘God,’ he said, and shook his head and started walking again.

  She did not think he was upset with her. She thought quite the opposite. Maybe it was him hearing what she was thinking again.

  He stopped Missy again. He looked so dreadfully upset with her. No, not with her. With himself. Because he was not thinking about the things he should be thinking about, he was thinking about himself, being selfish, and a fool—

  She shook her head, refusing to believe that, upset because he was upset—

  And not, again. Feelings came and went quickly as breezes. It scared her. Except it was magic, and she loved a wizard, and things like that seemed likely to happen in his company.

  He said, ‘I can't wish you not. I can't wish you away. It's not safe. God, what do I do with you?’

  She said, ‘I don't know.’ A nice girl would never think of looking a strange man in the eyes. But she did. She said, shakily, ‘I'm in the way, aren't I?’ The woods was not where she belonged. Sasha was walking because the horse was tired. He was out of breath, he was sweating, he looked exasperated and worried, and she bit her lip, not going add her tears to his problems. Which went away, the more she felt her eyes sting.

  She said, ‘I'm not scared of you.’ It felt as if every fear she had ever had had gone away from her. And anything the woods could hold was nothing to the fears she had lived with expecting murder at any instant, every day of her life, an had found her mysterious wizard and he was the answer, not the danger. She said, feeling very strange, ‘I think should think about getting my father out of trouble.’

  Because that was what he was trying so desperately think about—and if she was an echo, she could at least that to help him.

  She said, ‘I'm scared of meeting Yvgenie, too, but I think you should help the people you need to help, and not worry about me meeting my half-sister, or my father's wife…’

  He was afraid of that idea. She saw it in his face. He gave a small shake of his head and of a sudden the back-and-forth in her thinking stopped, like a sudden silence, as he started Missy moving again.

  She said, because she was stubborn, ‘They don't scare me.’ Which was a lie. But she was trying to make it true She said, on a cold, dreadful thought, ‘If my father got killed or something because of me—''

  He gave her a strange look and she felt colder and colder, thinking about that. Or maybe it was magic again.

  He said, ‘Pyetr's damned hard to kill.’

  And walked ahead of Missy for a while, in a silence she had never heard in her life—not a lonely one. A cessation of his presence, even when he was right in front of the horse. She watched him, as distant from her as he had been close a moment ago, and thought: He's thinking about my father.

  He's doing something. My father said—he wants things and they happen. Anything he wants—

  God, one has to be so careful with him. Careful of him.

  Take care of him, her father had charged her. She had thought—until he wakes. But she began to see what her father find trusted to her, and how very much Sasha needed someone he could trust—

  Someone as brave as her father, someone not afraid of him—no matter what.

  Desolation, ghosts, stones and peeling roots of broken trees, banks of thorns that went to powder in a grasping hand, that was the place Ilyana saw: Owl was still with her—but cast about as she would among the hedges she could not find a way out again, nor, it seemed, could Owl. Ghosts wove pale threads through the hedges and the branches of dead trees, cold to the touch and angry, one could feel it.

  ‘Yvgenie!’ she had shouted till she was hoarse, but only the faint wailing of ghosts answered. He was alone with Patches and Bielitsa in a place where life was fading and the result of that she did not want to imagine—Patches had never asked to be taken out into the woods and lost to a ghost. Her father was looking for her, beyond a doubt, and if she had feared her father harming Yvgenie, now it was Kavi harming her father she had to fear. She thought in despair. God, he couldn't keep up and I wouldn't listen. I've done everything wrong and now I can't get back again. Papa was right and I wouldn't listen to him, I thought I knew better—

  Something moved in the tail of her eye. A wolf sat there, the one that they had followed into this place. It looked alive, yellow-eyed and with fur mostly white, but touched with gray and buff. Behind it, tongues lolling, sat others, milky-pale as Owl. Those were surely ghosts.

  The living wolf got up and trotted away. The others followed it; and Owl glided after.

  Dangerous to wish for what doesn't exist, Kavi had warned her. Now she was on the verge of wanting her uncle to rescue her and most dangerously on the edge of wanting her father, the god forbid she should be so selfishly stupid. Her mother might know what to do, if her mother would even listen to her situation now, of which she despaired entirely: her mother was not inclined to patience; but god, she was in trouble. The leshys were dead. No one had ever told her that such things could happen, let alone that the woods might suddenly change beyond her understanding.

  But they had warned her about Kavi. And she had thought it was so simple—as if loyalty and wishes could sustain him She thought, on the edge of tears: Uncle tried to tell me. Hope never seemed dangerous till this. Now I know what it can do to fools that won't listen.

  Ghosts belong here. Yvgenie doesn't, not yet: he's not dead and he's not a wizard. That's why he could get away and get Kavi out of this place. God, I don't want to follow these creatures—it's stupid. But Owl's going. And if I lose Owl, what other tie have I got to the other side of the hedge?

  Mother, I'm listening now. Uncle, I'm dreadfully sorry… Papa, please don't come after me. Even wizards don't belong here. You couldn't—

  A ghost poured out into the aisle ahead of her, and shaped itself into a great lumbering bear, white as snow. It looked at her over its shoulder, and its face showed a dreadful scar, as if something had burned it once.

  She thought, It's not just a ghost of a bear, it was a real bear once. Something dreadful happened to it. And what does it have to do with me?

  A ghost swept near her, saying, Ilyana, granddaughter, look at me.

  She did look. She saw a man's misty face, fierce and young and very handsome.

  It said, You're my wish, Ilyana. And your grandmother's. We never agreed, so least one of us has to be right. Your father was no one's choosing—or he was your mother's whim. I've no idea. I only know he's made you terribly dangerous.

  She was stung by that. She said, There's nothing wrong with my father!

  A raven had joined the ghost, shaped itself out of the mist and drifted with them, on gray wings. The ghost said, Your father is a gambler—but he's no one's fool. Your mother is a damned good wizard—and that's enough to know. —I wish you to make your own choices, granddaughter. Be what you are.

  ‘But you say I'm dangerous!’ she protested, seeing the ghost fade away. ‘Are you my grandfather Uulamets? You must be! Come back! I'm not through talking to you!’

  But the ghost shredded apart and streamed away through the hedges. The scar-faced bear and the wolves and Owl went ahead of her, and sometimes the ghostly raven, until through a last screen of thorns she could see what shone so pale and strange, a beautiful palace of curious design, made all of white stones, on a hill girt by thorn hedges laced with ghosts.

  The evening light cast strange shadows on the white palace, making odd shadows, making its walls and its towers appear like lace. How beautiful, Ilyana thought, pul
ling aside a last few thorn boughs. How can anything so beautiful be wicked or dangerous? Kavi was wrong.

  Something crunched beneath her foot. She looked down and saw a broken vault of bone—some old skull, buried in the earth. There were more such. Not stones, she thought, gazing up a hill where other such objects lay half-buried all up the hill to the foundation of the palace.

  God, no, not stones that made such lacy walls and towers—but bleached and dreadful bones.

  12

  Birds took sudden flight from beyond the hill. Pyetr saw it and earnestly wished for Sasha, for the mouse—for his wife, if he could truly rely on her now. They were not the only adventurers in the woods, the dead deer proved that; an ordinary man had no way to learn what had raised the alarm in the direction he had to go except to go and see. Slipping up and over the hill afoot was once choice; but that meant leaving Volkhi tied, and, risking him, chancing being surprised afoot.

  So he drew his sword as quietly as he could and kept riding, watching the trees ahead. He rounded the shoulder of the hill at a walk, feeling something eerily familiar and untrustworthy and magical at once.

  He thought: ‘Veshka? Eveshka’s presence had touched him first like that—years ago; when he thought of it, it felt frighteningly like her, not his wife the way she had been for the last eighteen years, not the way she had felt since she had returned to the living. It stirred old nightmares. And an infatuation with his own destruction that had moved him once, in his bitter youth, when now life was very precious. He thought, ‘Veshka, god, is it you?

  A patch of red showed on the hill, the red of blood; of flowers that never bloomed in woodland shade; or a silk shirt that was folly in the woods. Yvgenie.

  But no sign of the mouse.

  Volkhi had stopped unbidden, laid his ears back and swung half about. An ungodly feeling crawled up and down his spine while his own good sense and his experience of a rusalka’s attraction said stay clear, get away, Ilyana was his first obligation. But the boy—