CJ Cherryh - Rusalka 2 - Chernevog

by C. J. Cherryh

  He thought, We're on the forest's side. That's all. Maybe the leshys are gone, maybe there won't be any help, but that's still the side we are. It's not wise to forget that. If I'm anyone's, I'm Misighi's. If he's dead, if they're all dead, maybe I'm the wish they made.

  He felt the disturbance in the woods. He felt where the center was, he felt more than one presence there. He thought,

  Draga—

  Uulamets had said, Draga.

  Nothing made sense. One moment riding through the woods in a light drizzle, the next waking in a pouring rain on a horse standing very still, with Chernevog's arms locked about him, Chernevog saying, "Your friend's in trouble. Your friend's in deep trouble."

  ‘‘Where?'' he asked, never mind the rain, never mind his ribs ached where Chernevog had been holding him—he wanted to go there, and he gathered up Volkhi's reins.

  But Chernevog said, preventing him moving, "Listen to me. Don't argue. Listen. I want you to go to him. He's not far from us. I want him to come back here. I don't want to quarrel with him. You're my offer of good faith. Do you understand me?"

  "No." He did not understand. He sat still, unable to move, unable to do anything but answer. "It's a damn trap!"

  "I want you to do this," Chernevog said, "but I'm also explaining to you. If something goes wrong I want you to come back here, immediately."

  He had no such intention. If something went wrong he knew where he wanted to be, and he tried not to think that, because then Chernevog might never let him go. He would do as he was told. Absolutely he would.

  Chernevog said, tightening his arms, "My dear friend, you are so damned poor a liar. And I want you back. I want both of you, dear Owl."

  "Damn you," he said.

  "The best have tried," Chernevog said, and let him go and slipped from Volkhi's back, taking the baggage with him. "I'm wishing you to find him. Follow your vaguest notions. They'll be mine."

  He looked down at Chernevog, taking up the reins. Chernevog gave him nothing but that damnable cold smile, and the idea, he was sure it was Chernevog's, that he had finally to let that cold spot in his heart have its way completely—that being his only guide.

  He knew his directions, he turned Volkhi that way and went, and Volkhi picked up speed—whether Volkhi's inclination, free of half his burden, or whether moving at a wizard's wish, Pyetr did not know: god, he could not answer for himself any more why he was doing this or whose he was.

  The rain diminished again. The heavy drops that splashed in the puddles now were all from the trees. Sasha listened—touching Missy's senses as well as his own, a comforting presence, Missy stretching legs still a little uncertain, and enjoying here and now with a small measure of grain and a lump or two of honeyed cereal. Missy was not much on worry when the woods were quiet, and that was a very good way to think when a young wizard was occupying a very dangerous borderland. He had a little food to settle his own uneasy stomach, and sat wrapped in his canvas, warm against the rain-chill, simply resting and listening to the woods; and reading, to keep his thoughts from straying into noisy wishes, from the only book he had.

  When I was a very little girl I used to sit and watch the people going on their travels. I wasn't supposed to talk to them. I was supposed to stay hidden. But I didn't. They gave me trinkets. I wished them well. I wore flower-crowns and ribbons they gave me and I hid the trinkets from Papa—

  That made Papa mad when he found out and he said he'd wish the road less convenient. . . .

  And, seeking cautiously to know more recent things: Pyetr really doesn't know a thing about gardens. He planted the beans so deep so I don't think wishes could grow them . . .

  Sasha made me so angry today. There are hardly any wishes in this book. Just things that happen, no matter what he says. I don't even wish our happiness. My father's heir—says not to, as if I'm afoot I wish he'd quit suspecting me, every time something goes right or wrong. That is a wish. It could even be dangerous. And I'm not sorry. . . .

  He thought, carefully, It was dangerous. It is. To be blind to her—god, that's very dangerous . . . Why didn't she talk to me? Why didn't she tell me how she felt?

  Maybe she did. Maybe I didn't want to hear. I'm not beyond fault in this, god, I'm not. I should have seen, I should have tried, but she was so damned private about her magic—

  The dreams won't let me alone. I'm so scared . . . I can't want them to stop: that's so dangerous. I'd tell Sasha—but I've heard his advice: Papa would say, Find out what you're doing before you do anything. But I don't know the consequences, god, I can't know, because I don't know what I am. I doubt my own life, I doubt my own substance, I want to know what's still in that cave under the willow—and I'm afraid to know, I'm afraid to go there alone. I can't ask Sasha, he can't keep secrets from Pyetr, and most of all I don't want Pyetr to go in there and find out I'm still in that grave. I don't think he thinks about that now—but after that, how could he forget? When I came back from the dead, did the bones come out of that cave? Where did the flesh come from? Or what am I made of? My father's wishes? I wonder sometimes, what terrible thing Pyetr's sleeping with . . . and what I'm still borrowing from, to keep the life I have. . . .

  We finished the bathhouse. I tried not to want anything about it. I've tried not to think about it. Nothing happened, thank the god. . .

  Missy lifted her head from her search for remaining grains. Her ears were up. Sasha wished her not to make a sound and she stood with a little shiver down her foreleg—listening and smelling.

  Volkhi. And the friendly person. Missy was glad.

  Sasha was not. He shut the book and got to his feet, thinking of shapeshifters and vodyaniye and wishing to the god Babi would show up now, please the god, he did not want this . . .

  It certainly looked like Pyetr coming through the trees. It looked like Volkhi. But eavesdropping could not always unmask a shapeshifter once the creature had gotten well into stolen shape and stolen thoughts.

  Pyetr rode up to Missy, slid off and started toward him, but Sasha wished not, and Pyetr stopped, made a small helpless gesture toward him. That hurt. ”He sent me,'' Pyetr said.’‘He's not far from here. He wants you to come there—''

  "What do you say?"

  ''I don't know,'' Pyetr said shakily. ‘‘I don't know. He's been tolerably reasonable—for a snake." He touched his heart. "It's still with me, you know. He eavesdrops most of the time ..."

  He did not want Pyetr in this pain, he did not want to go back to Chernevog, he wanted Pyetr free, dammit!

  "It's a short ride back," Pyetr said, and gathered up Volkhi's trailing reins. "He wants me back. He says—tell you—don't argue, I don't know what's going on. He says—how do you want me to find it out?"

  "Don't do that to him, dammit! Don't treat him like that!"

  "He says—the question stands." Pyetr gave a twitch of his shoulders, threw the reins over Volkhi's head, looked back. "Sasha, —it's all right. Don't do what's stupid. I thought—you should make up your own mind—I didn't argue. I should have made him work for this. God, don't be a fool—I should never have done this."

  "Wait!" He snatched up the canvas and started rolling it, while Pyetr hesitated with his hand in Volkhi's mane.”Dammit, Missy can't carry me, she's had enough."

  "He says—says she will." He left Volkhi, came and picked up the heaviest of the sacks, stopped then, looking at him as if he wanted to argue, and was in so much doubt—of himself, of what they were doing and where they were going. Sasha did eavesdrop, he took those thoughts, he told Chernevog go to hell, said, to Pyetr, as bluntly and brutally as he could, " 'Veshka's in trouble. Her mother's alive."

  He felt Chernevog's panic; he felt Pyetr's, like a knife to the heart, and said, sharply, snatching up the rest of the baggage. "Don't. I'll talk to Chernevog. If she's wishing you in her direction, everything may be working that way, everything we've done—everything Chernevog's done." He grabbed Pyetr's arm and made him look him in the face. "Pyetr. We're going to deal with this.
He has to. You understand?"

  "Good," Pyetr said in a shaken voice. "Good. I'm glad we're going to do something. I like that idea."

  Sasha flung things onto Missy's back, took Pyetr's assistance up, took the reins, prey to shivers himself—the notion that at any moment they might be overheard here. Whatever-it-was might make another try—by whatever agency.

  He thought, as Pyetr led off, He's not gone, thank the god, he's not gone— But he tried desperately hard not to listen to his heart again, because there was no reason in it at all right now, only fear, and a willingness to give anything he had to give to get Pyetr free.

  Chernevog had stretched one of their two canvases between two birches, made a fire—it was a proper camp Sasha saw when he and Pyetr came riding in, Chernevog rising to meet them. Sasha had his apprehensions that it might indeed be a trap they were riding into—that Chernevog might have some way to use Pyetr and him to his own advantage that his own poor knowledge could not anticipate.

  But Chernevog offered no immediate treachery: in truth he looked disquieted and anxious. They dismounted—Sasha held Missy's mane, and slid off the careful way, face to the horse, not trusting his legs for Pyetr's leg-over slide, having nothing of Pyetr's balance or Pyetr's grace—he thought about that at such a moment, that he was not going to grow up like Pyetr, the chance for that was past, growing up had happened and left him a little awkward, a great deal deliberate—

  He said to Chernevog, not aloud: What you didn't do— deserves something.

  Chernevog said, Everything you can give. And don't ask me to change our arrangement. It's worked so well.

  Snake, Pyetr called him. Sasha drew a deep breath, and said, If things were working well, you wouldn't risk him coming after me.

  27

  It was two wizards standing and thinking at each other in complete silence, that was what went on, for longer than would let anyone think they were sane: Sasha was not happy and Chernevog was not happy—that was what Pyetr saw, standing there with two horses in better condition than they possibly had a right to be.

  Two wizards discussing his wife, and him; and the god knew what else of the world's fate.

  "Uulamets knew it?" Chernevog had said early in this, and after that, nothing, while Sasha frowned. Something went on that made that cold spot next to Pyetr's heart very disturbed.

  He turned his back on it in despair, leaned on Volkhi's shoulder and tried not to think what they might be saying to each other. Wizards did these things, and wizards fought over things that sane people could not even see...

  And the god only knew, the god only knew whether Sasha was holding his own at all, or what Chernevog might ask or want of them, with him for a hostage and his wife being threatened.

  He had his sword. He had his hand on its hilt without thinking he even had it.

  But something stopped him—perhaps the thought that they needed Chernevog; and he no longer knew if it was his thought or Chernevog's cynical dismissal of him.

  Not a damned chance, that thought said. The dark spot stirred and sent a chill down his back.

  He recalled Chernevog mocking him, saying: I'll love what you love, hate what you hate, I've given you that power over me—

  Then adding: Of course it can also go the other way . . .

  —Damned if it can't, Snake. Listen to me!

  He thought of Sasha and thought of 'Veshka, not their worst and not their best either, only the way they were; he thought about that cold spot that slithered about in him and that boy that had long ago shed it into Owl, whatever its condition might be now: that boy had known smothering and spoiling and betraying in his life and Pyetr understood that very well—those guilt-driven, terrified searches after a drunken father, as if a grown man's troubles were at all a young boy's fault—

  The boy he had been could not have understood The Cockerel's mouse-quiet spook of a stableboy—and damned sure the young man could not have understood Eveshka. He would have walked away from Sasha, once, been a scoundrel with Eveshka ... he had wasted a good deal of his life in that condition, seeing only the outside of people and missing the substance. . .

  You've made the same mistake, Snake. Damned if you haven't. You've missed everything so far.

  Snake turned and looked at him—looked straight into him, in a way he only let Sasha and 'Veshka do, in his whole life: but he thought with a shudder, Well, hello, Snake, come on ahead, Snake, I won't stop you.

  Snake was not sure what he was up to or what kind of trap it was, but Snake thought curiously— Will you not?

  Sasha wanted something then. Strongly. Snake did. Pyetr felt it going on, and said, out loud, the only way a plain man was sure things were heard: "Sasha, it's all right. Snake's all right. He's just—"

  He felt pain, sudden drowsiness. "—Scared," he said, "aren't you, Snake?"—straight to Snake's pride.

  Snake felt Sasha behind him, saw him standing in front, Snake felt surrounded and vulnerable and Snake had made that arrogant, foolish bet with him, in giving him his heart, Snake had said himself—

  It can go the other way . . .

  Walk the roof, Snake? Walk it drunk and blind with me?

  Chernevog's face was ghost-white and grim. But he laughed, then—at least life touched that grimness, his eyes lightened, a dark amusement pulled one corner of his mouth. "I'm ever so much older, Owl. Ever so much older than that boy."

  "So am I," Pyetr said.

  There was, in truth, a smile—most appalling, a grin. Chernevog gave a twitch of his shoulders, laughed softly and still laughing, walked away from them toward the fire.

  "God, Pyetr," Sasha said.

  Pyetr wondered that he was not more shaken than he was, and put a hand to his heart, asking himself if that cold spot did not feel a little less uncomfortable.

  Chernevog sat down at the fireside, poked up the embers, looked up and grimly beckoned Sasha, not him, Pyetr understood. To him, Chernevog said, a silent voice he could quite well hear.

  "Ever so much older, Owl. You can't imagine."

  He watched Sasha walk away to that fireside. He stood there thinking there was nothing he could do, and sank down on his heels and watched them there, in that silent conversation—about Eveshka.

  He thought, What about her? What's she done? What's going on? He thought if there were any good news they would not be talking like that, without looking at him, and Sasha would reassure him.

  But Sasha was not inclined to lie to him, Sasha would not tell him a lie that important, that much he was sure of. That Sasha had said nothing at all about Eveshka, and evaded his thinking and wondering and worrying about her—meant it was not good news he had found.

  He thought, She doesn't like to do magic. What's this messing with sorcery? She wouldn't do that. Surely she wouldn't do that. . .

  He recalled how she had kept him about the house, how she had worried and fretted over him, near smothered him with her worrying—

  And loved him. He was sure she did. She loved him, as far as she was able—one got used to Snake, and one could understand a little more how very careful she had been.

  Ever so much older, she might say. Like Snake. Ever so much older, Pyetr. You can't imagine. . . .

  I can't be rid of the dreams. . . Eveshka had written. And, with chilling accuracy, I dream about wolves. . . Wolves tearing me in pieces. 1 dream of water. And being wider it. . .

  Chernevog turned the page, thinking,

  Draga. . .

  He looked up into Sasha's face—a jarring thing still, to see this boy looking at him with such frankness, the way only 'Veshka had looked at him, and he never had trusted. He was afraid now, to take this boy on Pyetr's judgment, Pyetr knowing so little beyond the natural world, so damnably little, and trusting the world worked by what he saw. Pyetr he could believe in, the way he believed in trees and rain and sun. Pyetr was exactly what one saw, and exactly what one believed—and he had relied on that when he had had to rely on something.

  Pyetr had not fail
ed him—he believed that at least from moment to moment, more than he had ever believed anything. He thought, How do I know anything? Draga deceived me from the beginning, down to this very day she could lie to me—I could see her die, and not know she was still alive.

  He had seen Eveshka die—in dark water, drowning, the way he had died in his own dreams, in Draga's house. He gave that thought to Sasha, the whole ugliness, to stop Sasha's intrusive staring at him.

  Sasha said, I know. And said further: Uulamets knew. He lived with her.

  He had not given those dreams to Pyetr, had not hurt him to that extent. Sasha knew that, too. Sasha said, the way Eveshka had said to him once—I owe you.

  Damn, he hated that. He hated it.

  He got up from the fireside, he walked away into the drizzle, saw Pyetr stand up from where he was sitting and look at him anxiously. Pyetr did not threaten him. He felt his fears absurd, looking Pyetr in the face; and absolutely justified, feeling Sasha's presence at his back.

  He heard Sasha warn him back from Pyetr, Sasha quite ready to fight him for Pyetr's safety.

  He turned around again, preferring Pyetr at his back, even with the sword. He said to Sasha, Don't crowd me, boy. I'm not your friend.

  Sasha said, Remember I've read your book. And Uulamets'. And 'Veshka's.

  I've seen yours, he said. It's astonishingly short.

  Mostly, Sasha said—I've studied. I did like your early ideas— some of them.

  He said, I was a fool in those days.

  Sasha said, You had Draga. I had Uulamets—and Draga wasn't herself when she came to live with Uulamets. She wasn't the young girl he remembered, wasn't at all the young girl he knew in Malenkova's house.

  Chernevog shied away from that thought. And came back to it. If Draga was alive, there was no turning his back on any bit of knowledge.

  Sasha said, She was much longer with Malenkova than he was. Years. —What became of her book?