Yvgenie (v1.1)

by C. J. Cherryh

  “What are you saying? I was Draga’s choice?”

  “No,” he said in consternation. “No, I don’t believe that. I’m saying I don’t know what he wanted me for. Unless he was sure I could attract his daughter into his reach, and that I could help him—”

  “—Be his damn servant,” Pyetr corrected him.

  “But the point is, if it’s so terrible to have a child that gifted—what in the world did he want with me?”

  “Better not to ask.”

  “No, it’s important to ask. Why was he so upset that she wanted you instead?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I don’t know. I absolutely don’t know. I wish I—”

  He checked himself short of that precipice. He hit the saddlebow in frustration and looked at the trees, the leaves in the sunlight—anything but wish. God!

  Pyetr said: “Nobody could know she was a wizard until she was born. We didn’t know—”

  “But Patches’ spots were a good possibility—considering Missy. And if Uulamets didn’t argue with having a grand-child—which I don’t get the impression he did, he was for it.”

  “Get to a point, for the god’s sake.”

  “That I don’t believe all the danger is in Ilyana.”

  “Oh, god, that’s comforting.”

  He said distractedly, staring ahead into the sunlit green: “We’ve been listening to very few advisors. And doing everything we’ve done on ‘Veshka’s say-so. ‘Veshka’s not the most level head in the household. You have to admit that.”

  “I’ll admit it. She’ll even admit it, once and twice a year. I’ll also admit the mouse is fifteen. And Chernevog’s not a moral guide, Sasha. I know him, god, I know him—”

  “She’s convinced her daughter is dangerous. That someday she’d do exactly what she’s done, and go—where we know not everything’s been all right, for a very long time. But so’s ‘Veshka dangerous. I’m dangerous. My misjudgments certainly are. I’m only hoping I haven’t made one.”

  “In what?”

  Maybe being thinner gave Pyetr that fey, remembered face. There was the tiny scar on his forehead, above the eye—he had gotten that one the year Chernevog had died. That seemed fainter today. Maybe it was the light. Maybe he was being foolish in his worry.

  “Sasha?”

  “I’m not sure Uulamets’ wishes are out of this game not sure ‘Veshka’s right in her worries. I—”

  Birds started up, ravens, rising out of the hollow ahead of them.

  Death was there. That was not unusual. There was no reason to turn aside. It only cast a solemnity on them as they rode further, into a patch of younger trees, where sunlight sifted through bright leaves. Insects buzzed here.

  A deer had died. Such things happened—there were wolves. The sick and the lame died.

  But no four-footed creature had hacked it in pieces, leaving most.

  So many things were amiss with the world. Babi turned up in Ilyana’s lap as they rode, and vanished again—with a hiss.

  “Why does he do that?” Yvgenie asked.

  “He’s upset,” was all she could answer. So was she. The sun showed Yvgenie so pale, so dreadfully pale—but the kiss this morning had had nothing of chill about it. She caught a furtive, troubled glance as they rode, seeing how leaf-dappled sunlight glowed on his face and shoulders, how he cast her kind and shy looks when he thought she was not watching: if her uncle Sasha were in love, she thought, he would look at someone like that; god, she wanted to help him and not to have any harm come to him. He was kind, he was shy and gentle, and thoughtful, for all her father’s bad opinion of boyars’ sons—and even if he had had a terrible father, somebody had taught him kindness. She caught sometimes the image of a fat, gentle-faced woman who had hugged him and held him and told him stories—

  Not flattering stories, about wizards and magic birds; and bears that talked and wicked sorcerers who hid their hearts in acorns—she supposed one could, but acorns seemed a very dangerous place; and bears talked, but nothing like people. So she told him, now that the silence was easier, about bear in the garden, about uncle Sasha and the bees, about—

  About Owl and Kavi Chernevog, and how she had known him for years and years. It was hard to remember he could not hear her pictures, not as easily as her father could. She had to tell them in words, which she was not good at—

  “How did he die?” he wanted to know—and that question echoed around and around in their heads, his fears, hers—

  She did not, she had to admit, know that answer: he gave her a most vivid and grisly image of beasts and fangs and fire and she shivered and wanted not to have any more of it right now, please—

  Because she had the most dreadful growing suspicion that papa was right and that Kavi had done something both wicked and desperate—though, not, she thought, by intent: surely if the boy had been drowning, he could be far worse off than having Kavi find him and hold him among the living—and Kavi would not have made him fall in the brook.

  (Mouse, uncle would say, sternly—don’t hope things are so. Be sure. Know the truth, even if you don’t like it…)

  But Yvgenie reached out his hand, then, across the space between Patches and Bielitsa. A touch of his fingers, that was all it needed for that wonderful tingling to run from her arm to her heart. She felt warm through, as if she no longer needed the sun.

  Perhaps it was Kavi reassuring her and Yvgenie. Perhaps, in the way of ghosts, Kavi could not get their attention during the day, with all the distractions sunlight made. Night was the time for dreams, and things one had to see with the heart—and she was sure that kiss this morning had been Kavi same as the one last night—that had been—

  —terribly dangerous. Don’t trust him that far, Yvgenie said—and Yvgenie had been unfailingly, painfully honest with her. Yvgenie felt some sort of threat to her—

  The warmth changed. The tingling became like needles of ice—scarily different, making her dizzy. She thought, I won’t be afraid, no, I won’t be afraid, dammit, Kavi’s touched me before and he’s never hurt me, it’s only his borrowing—

  And it’s not harmful. Uncle said it was—but papa admitted he’d felt it—and he’s still alive. My mother knew when to stop—and wouldn’t Kavi? Kavi loves me, he’s loved me for years.

  He’s not very strong—he wasn’t on the river shore. The first time he kissed me, he borrowed enough to speak, that was all. He could hardly move the froth on the river: and Yvgenie being so tired, he borrows only a little, only a very little. He’s never threatened me. He said he’d never hurt me, that he had to do whatever I told him—he said he had no choice.

  He said that he wanted it to be in this season, while he was with me—or I’d be alone—

  Wanted what to be in this season, Kavi? What do you want of me? Is it love? Is it something else?

  Suddenly she had a vision of vines and thorns, a great flat stone, and Owl lying on the ground, a real Owl, white feathers dewed with blood—at her father’s feet, her father with the sword sinking to his side. She looked up at her father, grieving for Owl—caring little at that moment if he cut her head off—

  She trembled then, thinking, But Owl’s already dead; and papa would never kill anything—he’s never used his sword—

  But memory scattered. There were gilt roofs. There were great pillars and people in fine clothing, and there was music and dancing while people whispered furtively in corners, about the Great Tsar, and murders—and betrayals she knew and could not, except by killing her own father, betray elsewhere.

  Yvgenie cast a desperate look into the branches over them—

  Seeking Owl, no matter that Owl had not a shred of love for him—only habit. And the hope of mice, that Kavi could lure close: small murders, to win Owl’s affection—but what else did one do, who loved Owl?

  The ground told its own story—horses, men, and the ashes of fire.

  Pyetr kicked at the cinders. “Damn.”

  Sasha said, from Miss
y’s back: “Yvgenie’s father’s men.”

  “ Looking for him, Yvgenie said.” Pyetr untied his sword from Volkhi’s baggage and slung it on. The horses assuredly had as soon be away, fretting at being held, switching their tails and twitching their skins at the mere sound of insects.

  “Where’s Babi? Is he still with us?”

  “A moment ago.”

  “Hope there wasn’t a young one,” Pyetr muttered. “A doe. In springtime. Damn them.”

  It was wizardry led his thought on Pyetr’s track, a simple wondering that brought him to a sight of monsters, a dreadful smell that meant Be absolutely still.

  It knew that much. The rest was muddled in its thoughts, with blood and fear.

  “God,” he muttered, and slid down from Missy’s back. He needed walk only a half a dozen paces to see a dappled hide beneath low hanging branches. Pyetr led Volkhi up beside him and stopped.

  “Damn,” Pyetr said.

  One wished—

  A heaviness came down on them like sudden cloud, a feeling of menace in the sunlight that prickled the nape and constricted the breath. Missy fought the reins. Volkhi shied up and Pyetr grabbed for his bridle.

  The brush shifted, and in a very slender trunk a me green eye opened.

  Shout all one pleased, a leshy might be deaf to it. A leshy might hear instead the softest voice, might hear the break of a branch. Or the sound of a bowstring, where none had sounded in a hundred years.

  This leshy was, as leshys reckoned, young as what it sheltered—perhaps it was wild and speechless. There were such. It offered not a word, only threat and anger.

  “Little cousin,” Sasha said quietly, “my horse isn’t the enemy. She’s a very honest horse, and you’re scaring her.”

  The twiggy fingers that sheltered the fawn could break rock and break bones—and the anger it cast at them was extreme. But breathing seemed easier, then.

  “Where’s Misighi?” Pyetr asked it. “Young leshy, we need him very desperately.”

  The brushy arms folded more tightly, screening the fawn from their eyes.

  “There are good men downriver,” Sasha said. “Take the young one there. They’ll feed it. They’ll know it belongs to the forest and they’ll let it go again.”

  There were both eyes now.

  “Tell Misighi,” Sasha began.

  One never believed a leshy’s moving when one saw it. It blurred in the eye, or it seemed not to be moving at all. There were suddenly a score or more such young leshys on either hillside, and the feeling of smothering grew. Rocks rumbled. The hill might have been coming down. It was a leshy voice, speaking no words that he could hear.

  Come on, he wished Pyetr silently, and led Missy and reached back for Pyetr’s arm, walking with Pyetr past the leshy and its fellows, and on along the cleft of the hills.

  The feeling lifted slowly. He looked back as Pyetr did, and patted Missy’s neck.

  “In no good mood,” Pyetr breathed. “Dammit!”

  “You shouldn’t—”

  “—swear around them. I know, but dammit, Sasha, we need their help! What’s wrong with them! Where are the ones know? Where are Wiun and Misighi, and why won’t they speak to us?”

  That no harm may come of my wishes—that’s the first thing I wish tonight: that my wishes be few and true, that second. And third, I wish my daughter to trust those who love her before she trusts those she loves.

  Hearts are so breakable, Kavi used to say. He used to say, They’re safer where they can’t be touched. And if I could lend her mine tonight I would. But I’m not sorry enough for what I did. I can’t be. I’m not that changed from what I was. I’ve only a strong reason not to want things. And that’s not enough to take to my daughter.

  What do I wish for my daughter? To find the wisdom I lack—because mine fails me. And to find—

  Eveshka bit her lip and decided the quill had dried in the night wind. She did not want to finish that. She put the pen in the case and capped the inkwell.

  She sat before her small fire with her hands clasped before her lips and listened to the laughter out of the dark.

  She thought, Wishing is so dangerous. I’ve never, never nice the day I died, dared wish too much.

  But tonight—

  Kavi, if she can’t hear me, then, dammit, you listen—

  Mouse, Eveshka, I don’t know if there is a way back from what I’ve done. Take your lesson from me, mouse, and forever be careful of your choices.

  Uulamets himself told me—a wizard’s never more powerful than when he’s a child; I didn’t understand why that should be, but it seemed so, and now I know why: because it takes patience to see your wishes come true, and if in waiting for them you lose your belief, you can’t believe in your present ones the way you did the first.

  And the day you make your first mistake—you doubt yourself.

  But master Uulamets told me wrong. It’s not once lifetime that a wizard can work a spell like I worked on jug. It’s any moment you think you can. I might wish you back here. I think I could hold you—if I was sure it was right to do. It seems true too that no wizard can wish time; or if he can wish time, he can’t wish place; or if he can wish place, he can’t be sure of the event.

  Only a child can be so absolute in all—

  Sasha ripped a page, crumpled it and cast it into the fire short burst of fire and a curling sheet of ash. Babi hissed, Pyetr jerked back the cooking pan in startlement—

  “What was that?” Pyetr asked.

  Sasha looked as if something had hit him. Scared. Tern fied. That was not Sasha’s habit either.

  “Sasha?” If there were ghosts or if there were more substantial things he knew how to deal with them. Babi did. But something to do with that book, that Sasha would risk his life for, writing which held things Sasha had to remember—and from which he had just cast a page into the fire— “Sasha? What in hell happened?”

  “I wrote something. I wrote something I shouldn’t have written. Things changed.”

  “What changed?” The hair on his nape prickled. There was a smell of scorched oil and burned paper beneath the trees and he found the presence of mind to rescue the cakes and set the pan aside. “Sasha, make sense, dammit.”

  “You can tell when magic works. You can feel it.”

  “You told me nothing can change what’s written. Can fire?”

  Sasha shook his head and shut the book. “But it can keep another wizard from reading it.”

  “Reading what?”

  Sasha looked at him—terrified, he thought. Distraught. Sasha said faintly, “I—” and stopped.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said, seeing it came hard. And he added, in the case it was something to do with him, “Sasha, I trust you.”

  Sasha put his hand over his eyes and bowed against the book. It scared him more than anything Sasha had ever done—and he had no idea whether to move, to touch him, to say anything—he was used to ‘Veshka’s fits, he had learned the lessons they taught; but one from Sasha scared him. He sat dead still, not moving until a tremor started that had nothing to do with cold.

  If he could wish anything, he wished for Sasha’s peace of mind. If Sasha was hearing him he truly wanted that—

  And he was deaf to whatever storms might be going on unless Sasha wanted him to hear, absolutely could not feel hem—Sasha should remember that, too.

  Sasha lifted his head, with a fear-struck expression. “I wished—wished us to find her, Pyetr. If I wish her to find us, we could do us all harm.”

  One asked—carefully—because it was useful to remember sometimes, such small things magic might make Sasha forget: “Is there that much difference? What is the difference?”

  “It isn’t strength. It’s inevitability. It’s sliding down the slope of what is. She’s the one in motion. All things follow her.”

  Nonsense, it sounded to be; but Sasha saw things Sasha could not describe in words. Sasha called them currents. Or drifts. Or whirlwinds.

  “Wha
t—?” One ought to question—but one ought not to jostle upset wizards—no. One should keep one’s questions behind one’s teeth and tend to supper or something ordinary that might let Sasha climb back up off that slope himself, before someone slipped.

  He carefully poured two cups of vodka from the jug. Looked for Babi to give him his, but there was no Babi. He took a sip and offered Sasha his cup. Sasha took it gently, steadily from his fingers, and Pyetr avoided his glance, not to disturb him.

  Sasha nudged his arm with the cup, said faintly, “Don’t do that.”

  He looked up—met Sasha’s eyes in the flickering of the firelight; honest brown, they were, dark flickering on the surface with firelight, but one could not see past that surface—could not now, could not for years past see past it, to what Sasha did not want him to know. Sasha was not the stableboy any longer, not the boy who had looked to him for advice

  “But I do,” Sasha said. “I still do. I rely on it.”

  “Then the god help us.” He had not meant his voice in shake. “I got us into this. I don’t know why in hell the leshys won’t answer us—”

  “There’s reason.” Sasha’s eyes wandered to the firelit trees about them. “I’ve felt a change in the woods over the years. Misighi said—old wood and young. You rarely see the old ones now.”

  “Trees we planted—all up and down the damn riverside. Even the young ones should know we aren’t any harm here.”

  “Will the fawn? Or should it? Its rules are different, that’s all.” He glanced above them. “They never quite trust us, Pyetr. Maybe they shouldn’t.”

  “What’s this, maybe they shouldn’t?”

  “ ‘Veshka’s in the woods tonight.”

  “In the woods. Where in the woods? Does she know where Ilyana is? Can you talk to her?”

  “I—don’t know. I don’t think I should right now.”

  “Why?”

  “I could change things. Maybe that’s not a good idea.”

  “God. —Maybe your house was afire! Maybe you should have run for the damn door, Sasha! Remember the world, remember your uncle, remember the town gate, for the god’s sake! There are times you just make up your mind and do something!”