by CJ Cherryh
He reined Volkhi around and around again while he hesitated. He was not making clear choices. But, dammit, he had prayed for Chernevog in his reach. He had set himself deliberately in the way of chance and others' wishes. And the question now was whether he even had the power to ride past, or whether, trying, he would ran head-on into fate.
Then he felt the likeness of an arm reach about him, like ice, and Chernevog whispered ever so faintly, at the very nape of his neck, ‘Pyetr. Dear Owl.’
He made a wild sweep of his arm, but it met only deathly chill and fell numb at his side. His heart struggled, his head spun, and Chernevog said,
‘Your daughter's in danger.’
‘I know she's in danger, damn you.’
‘The harm I could do is only death. Get down. Get down, now, Pyetr Ilitch.’
He wanted not to, he wanted to swing around and lay hands on Chernevog, but that was not a choice; his hands and feet were growing numb and he found himself sliding down from the saddle and staggering his way to Yvgenie's side, where Chernevog wished him to go.
The boy lay like the dead, scratched and bleeding, the red shirt in snags and ruins. For a moment he pitied the boy, wanted to help him—
Then Yvgenie reached and seized his arm and the tingling crept up toward his heart, beyond his power to tear away, beyond his power even to want to escape, or to look away as Yvgenie's eyes opened and looked into his, as Yvgenie's lips said quietly, ‘Dear Owl. You came in time. And brought us horses. How foresighted of you.''
Damn you, he tried to say. But words and sense were beyond him. There was only the feeling of suffocation, that once had had infatuation and desire and everything he loved wrapped with it, and now had only desperation and fear and the memory of his wife as a killer, no different than the men who had hunted him.
He waked lying helpless on the ground and Chernevog was bending over him, brushing his cheek with a gentle touch and saying, ‘Catch your breath, dear Owl.’
His head hurt. His whole body was floating. The leaves against a darkening sky made a dizzying sound. ‘Where's my wife? Where's my daughter, damn you?''
‘Where's Sasha? Following you?’
‘You're the wizard. Figure it out.’
A great breath then, a rapid blink of Yvgenie's eyes and a different touch, at his shoulder this time. ‘I had to leave her, sir, I was afraid—afraid he couldn't stop if he got near her—’ Another breath. Another blink of the eyes as Chernevog caught up his shirt in his fist. ‘The boy's Kurov, do you understand me? Your wife's wishes have come home to roost. A great many dark birds have, do you hear me, Pyetr Ditch?''
‘Kurov!’ Nothing made sense.
‘Didn't he say?’ Again the tingling ran through his bones. And stopped. ‘He must have forgotten that part.''
‘Damn you!’
‘He brought your daughter here. Ill wishes have a way of burning the hand that looses them. Do you understand me now? Your wife wanted harm. And here there is, Owl, harm in Kiev, harm in this woods, harm to you and Ilyana and the woods itself.’
‘Harm from you, you damned dog.’ He made a try at getting up, but his head spun and Chernevog slammed him back to the ground.
‘Listen to me, Pyetr Ilitch.''
One had to. One had no damned choice. And no breath left to protest. One recalled faces, years ago, a dice game in Kiev, with the tsarevitch, a man who had stood aside to whisper to others in a corner. And a lump on his head and a damnably uncomfortable night thereafter with certain men, until they had left him alone in the room with a very small window above a clothes press.
A reeling progress through the dark—
Pavel Kurov. Kurov's house—
‘Out the window and along a rooftop—you certainly never lost your knack, dear Owl. Unfortunately neither has your wife; and your wife has driven your daughter to what she's done, your wife wished harm to me and harm to your enemies, and she's got that, now. That your enemy's son should bring your daughter to this woods is the tendency of wishes— they take the easiest course. Harm does, do you hear me?’
He stopped fighting. It sounded too much like the sort of thing Sasha would say. Had said, repeatedly. Always the easiest course. Always the course that satisfies most wishes at once. Like piles of old pottery, Sasha was wont to say, all stacked up and waiting the moment they all become possible…
Things happen that can happen—
‘Why in hell,'' he said when he had a breath, ‘why didn't you come to me, if you're so damned concerned about my wife?’
‘I didn't know what she'd done. I do now. I talked with her. She took everything I'd gained. She wanted Kurov to suffer. She wanted everyone who ever harmed you to suffer. Do you half understand? She's looking for Ilyana right now and I can't stop her, Pyetr Ilitch.''
‘God.'' He rolled onto one arm and tried to get up, failed and found the boy's arm under his, the boy's face broken out in sweat. Kurov's son. Eye to eye with him.
He was sure it was Yvgenie who said, ever so faintly, ‘I love her. I know you hate me. But I swear to you, I truly do love her.’
‘Love her, boy? You're in the hands of wizards! Do you even know what you want any longer?''
The boy made a desperate shake of his head. ‘I don't care.’
He thought, Fool, boy!
But that described more than Yvgenie Kurov.
He leaned on Yvgenie's arm, he put himself to his feet and staggered after Volkhi, saying, ‘If we're dealing with my wife, you'd better stay to my back.’
A hand landed on his shoulder. He knew before he looked around and saw Yvgenie who he was facing.
Chernevog said, ‘I love her, too, Pyetr Ilitch. The god help us. I had nothing to do with it. I couldn't stop it. Misighi, damn him…’
God, tears welled up. And spilled, in his old enemy's confusion. What did one say?
Fool for believing them, that was what.
‘Pyetr, they wanted me to bring her to them. Misighi did—to be sure she wouldn't—go my way—’
‘What do you mean, go your way? If they wanted to talk to her they could have come to the door any day.—What did they want with her?’
Chernevog shook his head. ‘I don't know. I can't do anything against them, I can't remember things, I'm not strong enough any longer— Being dead's a damned inconvenience, Pyetr.’
‘The hell!'' He grabbed a fistful of silk shirt. ‘You're not a fool, Kavi Chernevog, never try to persuade me you are. What did the leshys intend?’
‘To save her. Their way. But they're dead, Pyetr, they're all dead, and I couldn't stay with her in that place, I'd have killed her—’
‘You're a liar, Chernevog. You've been a liar since you were whelped, a hundred and too damn many years ago—’
‘I'm not lying now, I swear to you, there's something where she is, there's something in that place and I couldn't go any further—the boy's not dead, and I couldn't go—’
‘The boy's not dead! My daughter isn't dead, Snake, don't talk to me about loving her after you ran off and left her somewhere—’
‘Because I'd kill her. Because the boy was dying, and he had the sense to do it, that's the truth, Pyetr Ilitch. I'm not sure I did.’
God, he thought. Chernevog admitting failure? One could almost believe the scoundrel.
If one did not feel at the moment as if something was crawling on one's skin, and know that even thinking about life, Chernevog was wanting it.
‘Get on your horse,'' he said. ‘Damn you, we're going.''
Wishes come true at a time they can. So here I am, damn you, too, Snake: you swore once you wanted my friendship. And isn't that wish of yours older than my daughter?
Yvgenie. Kurov's boy. God.
The shadows were getting longer, and die way more overgrown. Babi skipped ahead of them, stopped and stared at them as if he could not after all these years understand why they could not pass a thicket the way he could.
Babi was upset. Sasha could tell that in the aspect he took, in t
he fact that Babi did not sulk about supper. It was cheese and honey-lumps eaten on horseback, water when they could, vodka to ease the aches where magic was elsewhere occupied; and Nadya had not made one complaint of pain or weariness the day long. She looked so tired as he held up his hands and let her slide off Missy's rump for a little while. Missy took a step down to cool her feet in the brook that offered them a moment's comfort. Nadya knelt to drink and wash her face, a very pale face in the fading light. He began to do the same.
Brush cracked—something coming through the thicket, he thought, a bear or a deer, something large and strong. But Missy thought suddenly of moving trees and grabby-things, and he made a snatch after her bridle, waded into the stream to hold her, wanting her to be reasonable, please, stand still, no moving tree would catch her while he had hold of her.
Brush cracked, and he heard a voice like rolling rocks, saying from a thicket across the stream, ‘Young wizard.’
He wanted Missy to stay calm. He was not. He was shaking as he led Missy across the stream, Missy strenuously refusing his assurances. No. It was a moving tree. She did not like them. They were not nice. They should all run away. Please.
He knew the leshys' names, at least two and three score of them, knew most by sight and some even by the sound of their voices—but this one was so ruined and changed, peeling and hung about with spiderweb and dry leaves and grown over with living vine—he was appalled.
The leshy lifted an arm and reached for him. ‘Don't be afraid!’ he turned to call out to Nadya, as Missy jerked back and the reins burned through his grasp. But Nadya had followed him—much too close for safety. ‘Stay back!'' he cried as leshy fingers wrapped about him and drew him inexorably away from her and upward. Like limber twigs, they were— like being enveloped by living brush-But not harmed. Yet.
‘Where's Misighi?’ he demanded of it, angry, desperate, and all too aware of the strength in the fingers that wrapped about his waist; while from below: ‘Let him go!’ Nadya cried, and pulled at his foot. ‘Let go!’
‘Misighi is dead,’ a deep voice said, deep as bone. ‘So many are.’
Dead, he thought, stunned. Misighi dead? No. He recalled Misighi's booming voice and the last time he had see him— walking by the streamside—
Nadya cried, below him, with a dead branch in hand, ‘Sasha! What shall I do?’ and twiggy fingers reached past him with a crackling and shattering of brush.
‘Run!’ he cried, but the creature had gathered up Nadya too, far too tightly. ‘She can't breathe! Dammit, be careful! You brought her, don't kill her!’
‘Calm, calm,’ it said, and drew them both close to its trunk and smelled them over. ‘This is the same, yes. Pyetr's young one. Who else would attack us with sticks? And the young wizard. Yes, both. Don't you know me?’
He caught a breath. ‘Which are you?’
‘Wiun. It's Wiun, young wizard.’
‘God.’ There was no resemblance, no likeness. Wiun. Their old friend. As mad as Misighi, wandering apart from other leshys, but younger than most, far younger. And—dying? This peeling wreckage? ‘Wiun, god—what's happened to you? The vodyanoi's loose, Chernevog— Chernevog's run off with Pyetr's daughter…’
‘Chernevog. Yes. We know Chernevog.’ A deep rumbling then, as of rocks under a flood. ‘Death in life. Life in death. But he serves the forest.’
‘Chernevog is yours?’
‘Death in life. Life in death. We sustained him. Go to the stone, young wizard.’
‘Wiun! Pyetr has two daughters! Ilyana's in danger—she needs your help!’
‘Death in life. Life in death. Beyond our help. Beyond the old ones' strength. We tried. The last is yours. For all our young ones. Go to the stone, young wizard.’
The voice grew very faint. Wiun let him to the ground with a gentle crackling of twigs. ‘The stone, the stone that fed Chernevog—the sword that gave back his heart—all of these, our working, young wizard! But all we did is failing. Chernevog failed us. We had not the strength—and she was too strong—’
‘Eveshka?’ Sasha asked, out of breath. ‘Is it Eveshka you're talking about?’
‘The stone.’ Wiun let Nadya down to him, and shut his eyes and ceased to move.
‘Wiun?’ he asked, waiting. And: ‘Is he dead?’ Nadya asked after a breath.
‘I don't know.’ He wanted Missy back, and Babi, now, please, quickly. He was shaken himself, and Missy was not going to come near the place, for all his wishing. ‘Come on,’ he said to Nadya, and took her hand and drew her up and up the hill, where he wanted Missy to go now, quickly! One never forgot—never dared forget, in dealing with leshys, how strange they were—and how strong. ‘Hurry. There might be young ones, that don't know us.’
Nadya grabbed her skirts aside and climbed with him, out of breath and with her hair trailing loose from its braids. He pulled her a steep part of the slope, holding on to a sapling, as Nadya panted:
‘I'm all right, I'm all right,’ the way her father would when things were not in the least all right, or sane.
Misighi dead—god, Misighi could not die: Misighi should outlive all of them, like the woods itself—
But Eveshka had destroyed the old woods, down to one last, wicked tree. The whole heart of the woods had died, and if the leshys of that forest were dying… and dying only now—
God, what did Ilyana have to do with? And how did Chernevog fail them?
‘What did it mean?’ Nadya asked him. ‘What did it mean, Go to the stone?’
‘It's a place.'' He felt Missy's presence—she had run along the hill and through thickets. But Missy was not alone. Missy had company she knew. He caught sight of Missy's spotted rump. And another set of markings.
Patches. God—
‘It's another horse,’ Ilyana panted.
Wiun had wanted them here. Magic had. It was no chance meeting. And magic, mindless or mindful, went on attracting pieces that belonged together, the god only hope it would include Ilyana—but he feared not. He feared all sorts of things with scattered pieces falling together as they were.
‘Everything that belongs together,'' he muttered, wanting Patches and Missy both, please, quickly now. ‘Stacks of pottery—’
‘What?’ Nadya breathed, struggling to stay up beside him, fighting her tattered skirts clear of brambles.
‘Pottery. Old wishes. They just damned well hang about waiting. It's dangerous as hell when they start going—one after the other: impossible conditions all over the place and they make each other possible—It's Ilyana's horse. God, she's all over mud and scratches.’
‘Can you ask her where she's been?''
Pyetr had never believed in such things. Nadya came believing them.
All Ilyana's packs were still on Patches' saddle—for whatever dire reason.
He said, with a sinking heart: ‘I don't have to ask her.’
Eveshka sat on the stone, hands blotting out the fading day, thinking deep, deep, into the earth and the stone, wanting the little life that might remain in this grove to wake and listen. She wanted the lifeless hulks to drag up their faded strength—once more—just once more—
But something else came up from the dark, all dripping with malice, saying, ‘Well, well, you let the boy go, and where would he go? Where do you think?’
Pyetr, she thought, trying not to think, and felt a deathly chill. God, no.
‘Oh, they're marvelously agreed. They're very worried about you. Why, do you suppose?’
She wanted the creature away from her. But wanting—was so dangerous from this stone.
‘I know a secret,’ Hwiuur said. ‘I've heard it in the streams. I've smelled it on the wind.’
‘To the black god with you! I don't want your secrets!’
‘But you do, pretty bones. Was there ever a secret you could bear not to know?’
She put her hands over her ears. But that could never silence Hwiuur.
‘Your husband has two daughters. Did you know that, pretty bones?’
She had not. She cursed the thorns, she cursed the hedges, she cursed the magic that shut her out in silence. She tried not to hear what the creature was saying. She refused to think. Or to wish.
‘The leshys protected her all these years. She came along with Yvgenie. What do you think about that, pretty bones?’
Pyetr had gone to Kiev. She had wanted him to leave her. He had taken to his wild ways again—if only for the while. And there were women he remembered from long ago—she knew there were, even not wanting to know. He swore not to care for them. He had not then. But he still remembered them, and other people, and the inns full of voices—
‘Did I say Kiev?’
‘Damn you, Hwiuur!''
‘Aren't you the least bit curious?''
No, she thought. No. And no.
‘Maybe a boyar's daughter. Maybe very rich. So much gold. Golden hair, too. Pale, pale gold. Like his. I've heard she's very beautiful.’ The voice slid to the other side of her and said, close to her ear, ‘All the years Sasha wishes to protect Pyetr's daughter—and he's protecting her all along. Isn't that amusing? You know I don't lie, pretty bones. I never lie.’
‘And you can't tell the truth without a twist in it! Get away from me!’
‘Maybe it wasn't Kiev. There are farms. Maybe she's a farmer's daughter. A goat-girl.’
‘Be silent!’
Hwiuur hissed and writhed aside. She clenched her hands in her lap and stared helplessly at the thorns that walled her out, at hedges shot through with ghosts that whispered now in her hearing, Eveshka, Eveshka, murderer—
She thought, Ilyana, you young fool, don't listen to them, come back, listen to me, Ilyana—your father is in danger. He's in dreadful danger—
From all of us…
I wanted someone like my father. I didn't know what I was wanting. I didn't know what my father is with my mother, and what Kavi is and what she was. Now I know what it feels like. Now I know and I can't do anything. There's nothing I can wish that doesn't hurt and there's nowhere for me to go but with Yvgenie, because—
Something cold shivered through the air while Sasha thumbed pages to the light of burning twigs, deeper in the woods, where Wiun would not be offended. A passing cold moment, he told himself, maybe the spookiness of the gathering night, maybe the thunder muttering in the distance. But it was a hell of a place to leave a page.