Rusalka

CHAPTER 8

IN THE MORNING it was firewood the old man wanted, another damnable day of sitting about while the poor lad chopped and stacked and sweated.

Pyetr watched, having no wish to admit that he might, perhaps, take his turn. He was healing, with a speed he found alarming—in view of the boy’s claims for this place. Yesterday the wound had been scabbed, this morning that scab was peeling to pink new skin, still tender, but he thought he might well be able to run if he had to.

It seemed imprudent to make that clear to the old man.

So he watched the boy sweat and wear his hands to blisters.

And he slept on the porch in the little sun that reached the house, listening to the ring of the axe and the whisper of the river while the sun lasted.

He kept near Sasha at least, telling himself at one moment that now that he was better he might object to the old man’s lordly orders, he might simply put his sword to the old man’s throat and tell him they were taking the boat, blankets, and whatever in the house they fancied.

But whenever in the circle of his thoughts he was convinced that that was the better course he remembered that his healing was proceeding ungodly fast, and then he would remember that thing the other side of the door last night, and he would think that it might be the prudent course to think it all through one more time.

It was all very unsettling to a man’s stomach.

Meanwhile Uulamets took to his book again, inside, where the light could only be worse, and Sasha sweated and chopped until the stack of wood was higher than his head.

After which Sasha had the washing to do, which meant heating water in a kettle and stirring the clothes about with a stick and fishing them out again to dry.

He could do something, then, he thought, with a little touch of conscience, so he went over and wrung out the steaming clothes and hung them on a bare-branched tree to dry.

Sasha, poor lad, simply washed the wood chips off his shoulders with handfuls of wash water and sluiced it down his sides until his breeches were mostly soaked, but he had nothing else to put on—

Until old Uulamets came out onto the porch and said he should add their clothes to the pot as well, that he had clothes they might wear until their own dried—no, they might even have them; and they should bathe and wash as well.

“God,” Pyetr muttered. “Hospitality. What’s into the old man this morning?”

There was no bathhouse—or there was, but the roof had fallen into it, atop the rusty things stored there. Hospitality meant the warm wash water, and clothes meant two musty, wrinkled coats, a cap in the same condition, shirts and breeches that halfway fell off Sasha and which Pyetr found a little short, but it was still a relief. Uulamets even offered a razor and a bronze mirror, and Pyetr sat on the chopping log and scraped stubble while Sasha washed their clothes, in an ever so much more cheerful frame of mind.

Except when he tried to think why the old man was suddenly so pleasant, after last night, or where the dog was that had tried to come in the door, or whether everything was part and parcel of the drink he had had last night.

He did not at all like the answers he kept coming to, as if reason lay in this narrow borderland, and the conclusions he kept reaching were a pit constantly widening its edges, closer and closer to him.

“Did he talk to you last night?” he asked Sasha finally, while they were sitting at the woodpile waiting for the clothes to dry.

“I told him we wanted to go to Kiev,” Sasha said. “He wished I’d help him with something before we leave. He said he’d be glad to give us food and blankets after that.”

Sasha was not looking at him when he said that. Sasha was gazing out across the yard, toward the gray-limbed forest.

Sasha was not telling him all the truth, he thought. There was a difference between the bright, worried lad who had been so resourceful along the way—and this young man who refused to look at him when he answered, and who spoke with that quiet, measured voice that sounded all too rehearsed.

“What does he want you to do?” Pyetr asked.

Sasha hesitated at that. And still did not look at him when he said, “I think it involves magic.”

Pyetr snorted—and immediately wished he had not reacted that way, because it at once put a barrier between them.

“You’ve told him you’re a wizard.”

“I’m not,” Sasha said. “Not—to rank with him at least. No. I haven’t said anything. But you have.”

“I have?”

“You’ve said you think it’s nonsense. That’s not the kind of helper you’d look for in something—if you were a wizard. When you doubt something—I think that could hurt the spell or whatever, even when you’re as powerful as he is.”

Pyetr kept his mouth firmly shut for a moment and tried to think the way a young and credulous boy might think, who respected wizards and goblins, a boy he firmly intended to get out of this place, even if the boy persisted in being a fool.

Why should I care? he thought. If the boy’s content, leave him. Who made me responsible for fools?

And then he thought in less habitual ways, down paths that had no words around the thought at all, only a remembrance of the boy all but carrying him here, and the boy lending him his coat and offering him most of the food, and the comfort it was to have somebody who looked up to him without his having to exert himself, and who had no barb in his wit such as ’Mitri had had, and no selfishness either.

The fact was, the boy was comfortable to be with. The fact was, the boy, without a penny to his name, was his friend in a way ’Mitri and the rest could not in their limited hearts imagine to be; and instead of thinking of ways to avoid work, and of ways to protect himself from practical jokes and from ’Mitri putting jobs off on him, he found himself feeling he really ought to do something while Sasha was working his fingers to the bone.

That was an entirely unaccustomed feeling, one he did not quite understand, any more than he understood why he did not just slip off this morning, forgetting all debts, and go.

“Don’t trust him,” he said to Sasha in a low voice. “He’s no saner than he was. I don’t ask where he got these clothes. They’re not his size. I don’t think they ever were. The god only knows what happened to the owner. What we ought to do, right now—” He thought of going into the house, taking up his sword and taking what they wanted. But Sasha was too honest to countenance that. “—we should go down to the river and cut the boat loose and just sail out of here.”

After a moment Sasha said, “I don’t think we’d get far.”

“You’re giving the old man too much credit. It’s cups of tea we have to worry about.”

Sasha looked at him then, worried. “No,” he said. “Please. Give it one more day. We did talk, he said he’s willing to help us if we help hun…”

“Help him—help him do what, for the god’s sake? What did he ask you to do?”

“He wasn’t entirely specific—”

“God.”

“He could be a lot of help.”

“For the god’s own sake, boy—”

“I think he has to keep his word, that’s what they always say about—”

“They. They. The fakes in Vojvoda, who lie three times an hour to every client they have. This man will lie, Sasha Vasilyevitch. He absolutely will lie. Harm he might do us, poisoning us, god knows what. But help—”

“He can’t lie in something magical. I don’t think so.” Sasha’s brow furrowed. “You don’t know that the wizards in Vojvoda are all fakes. Maybe a lot of them are like me—just a little magic, not enough to really do anything but push things into happening. But I know things, and I know it’s dangerous to lie. It’s dangerous not to know what you really want. It’s dangerous to make wishes without thinking. I know, Pyetr. I’m not good, but I know how things work because I feel them.” He tapped his chest. “Here. I can’t explain better than that.”

“Good god.”

“Things are just like that. Things come back at you and you know better next time.”

“All your poor life. Boy—”

“I know. I know. You think I’m a fool. But I’m not, Pyetr!”

Sasha got up from the log and walked away.

“Boy—”

Sasha stopped, with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed.

“I never said you were a fool,” Pyetr said. “I do apologize. Most sincerely. You’re a wise young man, and you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re the one who saved my life, not grandfather in there. I don’t forget that.”

“Then listen to me,” Sasha said.

“And do what? Trust this man? I refuse.”

“Just don’t do anything. Not yet. And don’t leave me here.”

The boy was scared. That was clear. The boy had not completely lost his senses.

“Don’t you go anywhere without telling me,” Pyetr said sternly. “If you’re going off with the old man anywhere, both of us are going. That’s my word on the matter.”

“You can’t go. If he’s going to work anything, you understand, it doesn’t help that you don’t believe in it. He won’t like that.”

“This is the man who brought me back from the dead. This is a great master, boy. Have a little respect for his abilities. If he can do what you say he doesn’t need my help. I sincerely doubt he needs yours.”

Sasha looked extremely upset with him.

“Just don’t plan to slip off with him anywhere,” Pyetr said. “You’re too good-hearted. But if it makes you happy I’ll believe anything at least while he’s doing his conjurations. I won’t do anything to offend him. Except go along.”

The clothes dried by evening in a fair wind, the woodpile stood well-stocked, the floor was swept, the fish cleaned, dinner cooked and set and done…

Then Sasha expected the old man to get up from table and take up his wrap and his staff and bid him come along. Uulamets did all of that and Sasha said meekly, “Yes, sir,” and took his new coat from the peg and put it on with never a look in Pyetr’s direction, afraid of the dark outside, afraid of the old man, and equally afraid of what foolish thing Pyetr might do.

Pyetr came and took his coat from its peg, Sasha saw him in the tail of his eye, and Uulamets said, “There’s no need of your going.”

Pyetr said nothing at all, only pulled tight his sash and pulled down the cap from its peg as well.

“Stay here,” Uulamets said plainly.

But Pyetr might not have heard him, for all the attention he paid.

Uulamets was frowning. Uulamets looked in Sasha’s direction. Sasha pretended not to notice Uulamets’ frown or Pyetr’s stubborn insistence, and kept his head down, thinking all the while of the dreadful Thing in the yard and how they had to traverse that ominous dark boundary even to get to the woods.

“Very well,” Uulamets said, gathering up his staff. “Very well.”

And Uulamets flung open the door and led the way out into the dark of the porch.

A heavy flapping of wings left the roof. Sasha glanced up in alarm and saw nothing but a shadow passing. Pyetr was walking close behind him and Sasha was suddenly, selfishly glad of that—glad of it and guilty at the same time, knowing at the bottom of his heart he had wanted Pyetr’s help, and never in his life certain whether wanting counted as a wish. He had a feeling of disasters hovering about them and multiplying, ill-aimed and ready to descend, and most of all he had a sense of something he knew no name for, but it centered about Uulamets like an ill-wish that had no destination and no owner and no one responsible for it. It was danger. It was hazard. And no one was in control of it.

Only he had wanted Pyetr by him. And Pyetr came, slogging along the rough path to the old road and beyond, where Uulamets led, down to the riverside and oif beside the dock of the ancient boat.

“Where are we going?” Pyetr asked when they had gotten that far, but the old man answered him no more than Pyetr had answered Uulamets ; and Pyetr caught Sasha by the arm and stopped him.

“Where are we going?” Pyetr asked again; and Sasha pulled to free himself, knowing better than to try reason with Pyetr, knowing certainly better than to reason with Uulamets. He only wanted to keep the pair of them from arguments and to do whatever Uulamets wanted and to get them safely back again behind solid doors.

Uulamets had stopped. He seemed part of the thickets and the undergrowth, a wisp of something gray and pale in the tangle of bare branches, and he leaned on his staff and grinned in that disquieting way.

“Boy?” he said, a quiet voice, with a deep timbre that cut a guilty soul to the quick—like uncle Fedya’s voice and ten times more so: We have a bargain, it said. Remember, boy?

Sasha tugged to be free, and Pyetr held him fast. “Where are we going?” Pyetr asked again, and Uulamets, leaning on his staff with both hands:

“Up the river. Only a little.” It was a placid voice, a reasonable voice, that made all fears seem foolish. Uulamets smiled pleasantly—impossible that the same features could have assumed that ghoul’s look a moment ago. It must have been a trick of the light, a moment of panic. One was entirely foolish to imagine harm in these woods where they had walked for days unmolested. Uulamets beckoned, still smiling.

One could only move, or feel a fool. Sasha moved. Pyetr failed to stop him this time. Pyetr echoed disgustedly: “A little,” and stayed close with him as Uulamets turned and probed their way ahead with his staff. “He’s mad,” Pyetr muttered under his breath. “Out in the dark, in a place like this. Digging roots at night—”

Branches raked at them. Roots tangled their feet. Sasha reached desperately to catch a branch Uulamets released. It raked his cheek; he winced and kept going, blinking tears of pain, fearing he was going to lose sight of Uulamets in the dark.

“Mad,” Pyetr complained. “All of us are, for being out here—”

The river sound obscured the snap of brush even at close range. Water had undercut the bank and their steps splashed now and again into narrow, unexpected puddles. For a fearful moment Sasha lost view of Uulamets altogether and his imagination instantly painted Uulamets laughing at them, abandoning them to the fearsome creatures which might inhabit this dark shore.

He stepped in water to the knee, and stuck ankle-deep in mud. Pyetr pulled him back and held on to him.

“Let’s go back,” Pyetr said. “He wants to lose us. Let him! Let’s go back to the house.”

But there was Uulamets ahead of them, like a gray ghost beckoning them.

Sasha walked forward. He had no notion why. It only seemed impossible to run with Uulamets standing there to witness it; and foolish to do anything that would challenge Pyetr’s recklessness or the old man’s temper. He had no notion now why Pyetr let him go, or why Pyetr followed, except perhaps Pyetr might be thinking the same as he was about the Thing in the yard, and coming to the conclusion that walking back to the house right now was not the safest thing to do: nothing seemed safe at the moment—certainly not the direction that took him close to Uulamets, in a place where the moonlight and the river-sound combined to trick the eyes and the ears.

One hoped it was Uulamets.

“Here,” the old man said, taking him by the shoulder, “here, there’s a good lad…” and turned him toward the river shore, down toward the water. “See that thornbush?”

“What are you doing?” Pyetr asked, and caught the old man’s arm, but the old man looked at him and Pyetr’s expression changed—as if he had laid hands on some stranger by mistake.

In that moment Sasha’s heart thumped hard with fright, to see Pyetr Kochevikov daunted and to feel the old man’s hand gripping his arm with such painful strength, fingers biting deep even through the coat sleeve. But the old man looked him in the eyes then, lightened his grip, then patted him on the shoulder, and it seemed in the trick of the moonlight that he had never seen such a gentle, fatherly look.

“Good lad,” Uulamets said, and took his hand and pressed a knife into it. “There, there, there’s a lad, right by riverside—that’s where to dig.”

“For what?” he had the presence to ask, although it seemed he must be thick-witted not to understand. Everything seemed distant from him, like a dream. He looked back and saw Pyetr standing distressedly behind them, in a clear space the trees left.

“For whatever you can find, lad,” Uulamets said, pressing on his shoulder. “Dig here. Mind you don’t fall in…”

Sasha edged down to the river margin and knelt there, as the damp of the earth soaked the knee of his breeches. The river-sound was strong in his ears. There was the chance of undermining on this earthen bank: he remembered that in a distant, cool way, only as a fact one must keep in mind—not to lean too close or trust too much to the ground. He began to dig with the point of the knife. He was aware of Pyetr asking: “Has everyone gone mad?” and Uulamets saying: “Hush, be still. Be patient—” as Uulamets withdrew, the river masking all sound but the sharp crack of a thorn branch as it snagged Uulamets’ cloak and broke. The incident seemed significant for some reason-perhaps that every incident was significant in this place, on this spell-bound shore, in this moonlight delving after things of magical potency—but he imagined Uulamets speaking to himself, in a soft, soft singsong.

Volkhvoi, Sasha told himself, wizard, magician holding them both with whispers and the hush and the river itself which sang to them in a murmurous voice and wrapped them in dead branches and moonglow—he could not wake: he could not want to wake. The earth and the leaves smelled of moisture and of rot, the silver of the blade caught the moon and sent dirt flying, laying bare a puzzle of roots which ran from the thornbush to the river edge.

But there was no virtue in thorn roots. He had never heard of any. It was something else Uulamets wanted…

What shall I find? he turned to ask of Uulamets. What am I looking for?—But he was amazed into silence, seeing some movement from the tail of his eye. It was gone when he looked. There was only Uulamets and Pyetr standing in the moonlight, both looking toward him—

And Pyetr’s sudden alarm telling him there was danger beside him—

“Sasha!” Pyetr cried, and Sasha glanced aside, saw that movement in the tail of his eye again, some white thing floating in the air near Pyetr which vanished as he glanced back, Pyetr standing there with his hands up as if it were visible to him and Uulamets leaning on his staff with both hands, his lips moving and no sound coming out—

Sasha hurled himself to his feet at the same moment he saw Pyetr slump bonelessly to the earth. He crossed that space at a run and felt something so cold, so dreadfully cold in the air he breathed, the air seeming dank and rotten.

“Pyetr!” Sasha cried, and cast a look to Uulamets for help. The white thing darted back into the tail of his eye, a wisp that vanished as he glanced toward it. There was only Pyetr—then Pyetr surrounded by that drifting white thing the moment he cast an anguished glance aside to see where the wraith had gone. He realized then he could only see it that way—only from the tail of his eye; and it was not moving: it was hovering continually about Pyetr, whirling and hazing him about…

“Stop it!” he pleaded, seizing Uulamets by the sleeve. “Stop it, do you see it? Help him!”

“Help him?” Uulamets cried in outrage, and thumped his staff on the ground between his feet. “Damn him! He’s not the one!”

The white thing was still there, flitting about Pyetr—and Pyetr began to follow it as if he could see it in front of him. Uulamets plunged after, dragging Sasha by the coat sleeve, bashing dead limbs aside with his staff, saying, “Do you see her, boy? Do you see her at all?”

Sasha tried, turning his head, making himself victim to thorns and branches as they went. It was a ghost they were chasing… he was sure that it was.

“Do you see her?”

“Yes,” he stammered, breathless, willing to go, trying to see, and giving up that sidelong view for the undeniable sight of Pyetr, alone, traveling with swiftness Pyetr had never had on his own in the woods. “Pyetr!” he cried. “Stop!”

But Uulamets shook him like a rat and hit him a dazing blow across the side of his head with the staff. “Let him follow!” Uulamets snarled. “Let him follow. Only say if you can see her!”

He could see nothing in any direction for the moment, being blind with the blow to his head, but he swore that he could, he gasped a breath and another and swore to whatever the old man wanted, for fear of losing Pyetr in the woods if they stopped now—certain that there was no help for Pyetr or him either except Uulamets’ magic, and Uulamets’ good will, however he had to buy it.

“I see her,” he lied, and lied again, when his eyes cleared and he could see Pyetr at least ahead of them, “She’s still there…”

The old man hastened him grimly after, shoving him through branches that scored his face and hands, Uulamets panting and swearing as they went, until Sasha stumbled and lost his footing astride a downed log.

And lost sight of Pyetr in the brush.

“Pyetr!” he called out in fright. “Pyetr!”

“Shut up!” the old man said, wrenching at his collar, and dragged him up.

Pyetr was nowhere to be seen as he struggled to his feet with Uulamets’ fist holding his collar, as Uulamets pulled him along a slope of mouldering slick leaves. Sasha fell again, both of them sliding—

Then he saw something pale lying at the bottom of the ravine, and scrambled down the slick incline toward it, the old man panting after him and cursing him, the both of them scrambling for balance on the slope of dead leaves.

It was Pyetr, lying alone, Pyetr with his face so pale and his hands so cold—

“Where is she?” Uulamets screamed. “Where Is she?”

Sasha hauled Pyetr up in his arms and tried to find life in him, Pyetr’s hands falling lifeless and limp when he tried to warm them, his face wet and cold as if he had come from the river, although his clothes were dry. He had kept the cap somehow.

Sasha took it off and called his name, slapping desperately at his face and finally shaking him. “Pyetr Illitch, wake up—”

Uulamets shoved him aside, knelt down and laid his hand on Pyetr’s forehead. Sasha’s heart jumped then as if he had touched something burning hot; and there might have been pain, but he was not sure, because Pyetr had moved in the same moment. Pyetr’s eyes opened and Uulamets seized Pyetr by the throat and shook him, demanding, wildly, “Where did she go? Fool, where did she go?”

Pyetr did not even struggle. Sasha flung his arms about him, turned his shoulder to get him away from Uulamets and cried, looking up and pointing up the ridge: “There!”

Uulamets rose and stared in that direction, and Sasha hugged Pyetr up against him, feeling Pyetr trying to catch his breath.

“Where?” Uulamets asked sharply, and the staff thumped down beside them.

“She’s gone,” Sasha said, and shielded Pyetr’s head with his arm, expecting the old man would strike them.

But Uulamets sank down onto a rotting log close beside them and let his staff fall against his shoulder. “ What did you see?” he asked wearily. “What did you see, boy?”

“I’m not sure,” Sasha said. He was shaking from head to foot. He had to lie and he was never good at it. He held on to Pyetr as the only source of comfort in this place and had this most terrible imagination that whatever he had seen could be Pyetr at this moment, shape-shifted, ready to rend them both with claws and fangs. That was what travelers said could happen: Pyetr could be lost somewhere and he could be holding a leshy or worse in his arms.

But Pyetr muttered something half-dazed and vulgar just then, and started shivering, too, which convinced him that it was most probably Pyetr he was holding. Pyetr looked about him of a sudden, tried to get up in his confusion, stumbled free of him and sat down hard, facing Uulamets.

“My daughter prefers you,” Uulamets said in a harsh, hoarse voice. “I shouldn’t have been surprised.” Uulamets shoved the staff in their direction, striking Pyetr on the foot. “Where did she go?”

“Your daughter,” Pyetr murmured, and shook his head and raked a hand through his hair. “Your daughter, old man—”

“Where did she go?” Uulamets shouted. Pyetr drew his knees up into his arms and Sasha scrambled forward, thinking the old man might hit him, thus unprotected. But Pyetr drew a large breath and lifted a hand, pointing toward the woods ahead of him; and Uulamets got up and peered in that direction as if there was something to be seen but moonlight and dead trees.

“Can you see her?” Sasha whispered, and Pyetr shook his head, shook it fiercely this time, and sat there until Uulamets walked back toward them.

“We should go back to the house,” Uulamets said, which Sasha thought was a very good idea.

“Yes, sir,” he said, and, taking Pyetr by the arm, pulled and helped him to his feet.

Pyetr had nothing to say, not then nor on the trek home, except once to protest that he could walk on his own, although he was limping, and although he faltered at the rougher places and had frequently to catch his breath and his balance.

“Help him,” Sasha begged of Uulamets, but Pyetr would have none of that either, shaking him off and continuing on until they were back at the dockside, and then by a steep climb up the hill, in the yard itself.

Something went crashing off into the hedge. “Probably a rabbit,” Sasha said, because Pyetr had stopped still at the gate and seemed frozen there. He seized Pyetr by the arm and pulled him along in Uulamets’ track, himself afraid to look back or to wonder what might be watching from the hedge.

Everything was real. He knew that it was and he knew that he was a part of it, and that Pyetr was in the most terrible danger, because that creature, that white thing, was dead, and haunting the riverside, and Uulamets had said, speaking to Pyetr, My daughter prefers you…

“Just a little further,” he said to Pyetr, for Pyetr’s strength finally seemed to give out on the walk-up, or the cold seemed to be too much for him.

Then he felt the chill, too, and saw the white visitor from the tail of his eye.

“Master Uulamets!” he said, holding fast to Pyetr.

Uulamets turned quickly about.

“It was here,” Sasha said. “It was here, following us—”

“Inside,” Uulamets said from the porch, and pulled the latchstring in haste, bringing the door open, bringing a gold flood of firelight out onto them, to make shadows on the porch. “Inside. Quickly.”

As if—Sasha thought—as if, daughter or no, the old man was in dire fear of what they had attracted.