Yvgenie

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—

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 the 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 the 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.

And to lose a book.

“I don’t like this,” he said, and met Nadya’s worried eyes. “God, there’s nothing in it to like, the book stops on a thought and she’d never leave it—Babi. Babi, there’s a good fellow—” He unstopped the vodka jug and poured, and Babi swallowed.

“Find her, Babi. Can you find her?”

He was thinking of rusalki, and lovers, wolves—and Draga. And Babi—Babi turned up on Missy’s rump again, eyes glowing balefully gold in the firelight.

Sasha said, “He can’t. I wish to the god—”

No. Fool. One did not think about safe places or putting Nadya in them. Magic was too fickle and too much was loose. One scarcely dared breathe.

His old master would say, Then do. Use your hands, not your wishes.

He picked up the fire-pot and lidded it, leaving them in deep dusk, thinking: Wolves. And rusalki.

If the leshys are dying—it’s not their silence. It’s stopped feeling like the mouse at all. And it’s not Eveshka. It’s nothing, that’s the dreadful thing. It’s—

—nothing. Wishes just go nowhere against it.

The day was shadowing out of the east, hastening toward that time when ghosts could most easily get one’s attention—no more real at night, Ilyana reminded herself, only that there were fewer distractions for the eye in the dark, and being alone was worst of all.

But she had no desire to go up to that awful doorway. She walked the whole circuit of the hill, hoping another path through the thorns might lead out.

God, but it only came back again, back to the hill and the palace of bone, and all the while the ghostly wolves lay about the door, the bear lazed near them, and Owl, faithless Owl, who should have guided her out of this, kept a watch from a white and dreadful ledge above the porch.

She did not have to see them. She could wish not to see any ghosts at all and they would be gone until her resolve weakened. But she believed in Owl too much to think he was not there, and she was too afraid of the wolves and the bear to ignore them for long. Besides, they tended to move about especially when one was not looking, and she did not trust them. It was not true that ghosts were harmless. Kavi was not, by day or night. If Kavi was here, Kavi would—

—Kavi would be a greater danger than any of them.

A cold lump rose in her throat. She thought, I should try again. I should wish something far cleverer than I have and get out of this place before dark. Uncle would. Mother would. Kavi would think of something if he were here, and uncle was telling the truth, he’s ever so much older—

Owl can see over the maze. Couldn’t Owl have shown him the way—couldn’t he listen to Owl, if Owl is his?

I might. I could wish that. But Owl scares me. He always was a standoffish bird.

If other birds came here I might listen to them. If they did. But all I’ve seen are ghosts…

Darker and darker. She was scratched and chilled by ghosts, and came to the end of the path again, back at the hill, with no more daylight left and countless aisles of the maze untried—but her legs ached, she was hungry and thirsty, and she sank down in a knot to warm herself and to think and to wait.

The dark grew. The doors and the windows of the palace began to glow with the slow movement of ghosts. She did not want even to look at it. But it kept drawing her eyes, the way the bear and the wolves did, and Owl at last left his perch and swept a turn about her, winging his way uphill.

Come back, she wished him, and expected no more obedience than she had ever had from Owl, but he glided about again to settle on her hand, a weightless chill, with baleful and too cognizant eyes.

The wolves and the bear appeared suddenly in front of her. Away from me! she wished them, and the wolves showed their throats and the bear ducked his head and looked away as a bear would from a wish.

They did not leap on her. They did not threaten. She took courage from that and wanted them to lead her from the maze.

But Owl left her fist and flew back up the hill, and the wolves and the bear slunk after him.

—Is that the way out? she wondered, hugging herself against the sudden chill of that thought.

Is the way out to go into that place and deal with what lives there?

I’m not uncle Sasha. I’m not as strong as he is.

But he said I was.

If I dared listen to Owl—if I dared—

“Grandfather?” she asked the empty air.

A horrid thing burst into her view and gibbered at her and fled.

Grandfather, if that was you, behave! I want you. Right now. No nonsense!

“Disrespectful whelp,” a shapeless thing said, a mere wisp in front of her.

If I can’t wish someone who likes me, what chance have I with something that doesn’t? Show me the way out of this place.

“Is that all?” The thing became an upright shape. “Magic brought you here, and you want to run away.”

This isn’t a nice place, grandfather!

“Isn’t a nice place. Isn’t a nice place. Ha. What a grand-child! Whose daughter are you?”

Papa’s. And uncle’s…

“Ha,” the ghost said. “You’re my wish, girl. But so far I like your father better.”

He was going again. She did not understand him. She did not understand what she had done to make him say that, or what he meant—

—Except… papa takes chances.

And this isn’t a place without wishes—my grandfather’s here, and he wished me, but that doesn’t matter: there can’t be a place there aren’t wishes, Kavi was right. When I ran I only took them with me—because I took me where I ran to…

And why would he say he liked my father? He didn’t like him. They didn’t get along, mother always said that. She didn’t get along with him. Nobody could.

Ghosts can’t always tell you all the truth. No more than they can lay hands on you. They can get just so close. Because they can’t do anything in the world—and their wishes aren’t strong enough unless they’re rusalki like—

—mother.

If I’m his wish he had to have made it before he died. And he died bringing mother back. Uncle said.

She looked up at the palace on the hill, at the doorways where ghosts moved.

Did he wish me here? He hated Kavi. Didn’t he?

Is this whole place—my grandfather’s wish? Is he what’s waiting inside?

She drew a breath, thinking how nice breathing was, even here, and took a first step up the hill. Nothing told her right or wrong. Nothing would, she decided, and took several breaths.

Uncle would say, It’s up to you, mouse.

Another handful of herbs. Firelight, fractured in smoke-stung tears. Eveshka drew in a deep breath, deeper still-Papa would say, The magic’s not the smoke, the magic’s not in the smoke—

She recalled an ember in her mother’s hand, fire against unburned flesh—magic, against nature—but not wholly against nature. Easier to wish the air than the ember, and send the heat away as fast as it could come—

Draga tried her with such illusions, but a young wizard’s eye had seen the means: not sorcery, but cleverness. Not magic: seeing to the nature of a thing. Draga’s only great magic, her truly dangerous magic—was her own daughter’s murder: was death, and a naive girl’s wish for life.

The magic’s in the thinking. The magic’s in facing the truth, young fool!

I was the spell you cast, mother, wasn’t I? Kavi only thought he betrayed you. But when you wish something as strong as I am dead—who can know how it might defend itself?

It was such a foolish act, mother. Kavi said you were a fool in all the important ways. Or perhaps you aren’t through with your own wishes yet, and you wished Ilyana born— though I doubt that, one can never be sure. One can never be safe enough.

Time had been that she had resented her father’s meddling, time had been his advice and his teachings had seemed foolish limits. But his daughter wished him back now, if it were possible—wished a ghost out of the earth and longed for even the whisper of his presence.

You never taught me forgiveness, papa, but I try, I do try, the way Pyetr said—and you never trusted him. Why?

Is there foresight? Is it something he would do? Or that I would, for him? Or is it the daughter we would make! Sasha says—the things that will be change with every change we make. Sasha says—that’s why no bannik will stay with us.

So there’s no predicting. Is there?

Pyetr’s hands, fingers so long and agile with the dice-teaching Ilyana—

No, she had said. No. Pyetr, it’s not a toy for a wizard. Not for us—

Why? he had asked. And had not understood her distress.

It disturbs me, she had written in her book that day. I don’t know why. Prediction—that’s what it does. But every time you throw them, every time you hope for an outcome, every time you wish into uncertainty—

Pyetr had said, Try it, ’Veshka. For the god’s sake, it’s just a game.

It’s just a game…

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her hands against her head, thinking: Is that why you feared him, papa?

You drove our bannik away, you wanted to pin the future down and you kept after it with questions and questions until it ran away.

Even looking at the future changes it. You have to walk blind or you’re not walking where you would have—

I could wish things right. I’m stronger than my mother. Or my father.

If I knew beyond a doubt. If there were no uncertainty.

There was a sudden chill in the night, a shift in the wind that carried the smoke aside. And in her heart the old Snake whispered: “Well, well, pretty bones. Do you finally need my help?”

She felt the thoughts that went left and right of reason. Change? Hwiuur was on all sides of a question at once. Hwiuur had no sides. And no real shape, nothing, at least, permanent.

Like Pyetr’s dice.

“Well, pretty bones, how does it fare tonight? Missing its young one? Its young one’s gone where it daren’t.”

One wanted the creature. And so few ever would.

He lunged, he rolled and twisted. She remembered his touch, she remembered the water and the pain of his bite, blindingly sharp.

“Wouldn’t you like to know where your husband is tonight, pretty bones?”

There was cold, there was dark. Time was that she had refused to die. Now there were conditions under which she would not live.

A heart’s so fragile, Kavi had used to say.

But a heart’s capable of more than breaking, snake.

Hwiuur twisted and slithered aside, blithely, powerfully bent on escape and mischief—on Pyetr, and Chernevog, and the boy. She thought of an aged willow, a muddy grave in a dank, watery den.

And thought of lightnings.

“It wouldn’t!” Hwiuur hissed, whipping back about. “It’s bones are there. It daren’t!”

She said, as Pyetr would, “The hell.”

She folded up her book and wished the fire out.

And it was.

Pyetr felt a sudden chill—maybe present company, maybe just the persistence of fear in this nightbound tangle. His hand ached with a bone-deep pain. The misery went all the way to his wrist now—he must have fallen on it a while ago. His right hand. His sword hand, if it came to that—though there was little a sword could do against foolishness or jealousy and he could find no enemy but those and weariness. Volkhi had been on the trail too long now; the god knew the white mare had little left, and he feared increasingly that they were lost: Chernevog swore he knew the way and that he had seen Eveshka not far from here, north and riverward, near the leshy ring—wherever that was, in the dark, and without landmarks.

They came to a thread of water between two hills. “ Soon, now,” Chernevog had been promising him for the last while. Now he said: “Not far.”

Volkhi dipped his head to drink. Pyetr let him have his sip, and the white mare had hers, against a last effort, he told himself, if only the old lad had it left, not to break both their necks.

And when they found Eveshka, the god only hope Chernevog had not deceived him. If Chernevog had lied, and meant some harm to her through him…

He felt a sharp stab of pain from his hand. He looked down the dark stream course and thought of water—of dark coils, and pain, and the mud about willow-roots, and carried the hand against his mouth.

“My hand’s hurting,” he murmured. “It hasn’t done that in years.”

“My sympathies,” Chernevog said acidly. “Is it a cure you want?”

“No, dammit, I mean it used to do this. Hwiuur’s about.”

“The creature was keeping company with Eveshka. Not surprising.”

“What do you mean, Not surprising?”

“He wanted your daughter. But I wouldn’t let him.”

Chernevog was a shadow in the dark. A wizard might have told what that meant, whether fair or foul intentions, but he could not.

“So you aimed him at my wife?”

“You have the worst expectations of me. No. I said I wouldn’t let him at your daughter. God! Give me once a moment’s credence! It’s that way—” A lift of his hand. “I could be there now if I wanted to. But I’ll rather you deal with your wife, Pyetr flitch, thank you.”

Chernevog started off down the stream, that ran as a sometimes glistening thread through this trough between the dark hills, a reedless, leaf-paved passage. Pyetr rode glumly beside him: Sasha had to appeal to him to deal with Eveshka, Ilyana did, and now Chernevog—there was nothing wrong with Eveshka, dammit, she was Eveshka, that was all—and there was more to her than old resentments and present pain. Even if he seemed himself somewhere to have forgotten that. He had not been able to help her. Or nothing that had happened would have happened.

“You amaze me,” Chernevog said.

“Snake-”

An odd feeling came on him then, as if Eveshka had spoken to him. He stopped Volkhi and listened to the night-sounds and listened to his heart.

He did not like what he was feeling. The pain in his hand was quite acute. And he had the distinct impression that Eveshka’s attention had brushed past him and fled him in fear. Eveshka? he thought.

And felt Chernevog’s cold touch on his arm. Chernevog’s horse pressing hard against his leg, the darkened woods become a dizzied confusion to his eyes. He thought, He’s killing me; and tried to free himself, but there was nothing hostile in what he was feeling, rather that the danger was elsewhere close, that Chernevog was holding on to him and finding something of magic about him that Chernevog did not, no more than the last time, understand or wholly trust or have words for—

But he wanted it, and the boy wanted it—

Rusalki both, he thought, and tried to get past that veil of dizziness and confusion to reach Eveshka, thought then of Sasha, and how he had continually been driven to come this way, into Chernevog’s reach—

Things once associated are always associated—he could hear Sasha saying that. No coincidences in magic-He could hear the whole woods, hear the passage of a deer, the midnight foraging of hares and the life in the trees around him; and under it, through it, a sense of balances gone amiss, and something—

He did not want to look at that. But he tried. And it made no sense to him. It just was, and Chernevog was there, telling him he did not have to understand, not even a wizard could, but that it was where the silence came from and where it went, and the leshys had kept it in check so long as they could—the stone and their ring and the heart of their magic, that this thing wanted to drink down—

The leshys were dead. The leshys had misjudged young foolishness, and the self-will of two wizards’ hearts—he had not brought Ilyana to them in time. He had not wanted to. He had loved her too much. There had always been time—next year and next.

Misighi, holding Ilyana in his huge arms… Misighi, who could break stone with his fingers, returning her so carefully, and striding away from them, never to return to the garden fence, never again that close to them—

God, what did they want? What have they done? If they wanted her, could we have stopped them?

Eveshka—would have tried. Sasha would have—I would have—

Whatever a man could do, I’d do to get her away from that thing… Whatever all of them could do, they would do to get her back.

The world went hushed then, so abruptly it only gradually dawned on him he was hearing the wind in the leaves, and Chernevog’s voice saying his name, bidding him not fall off, damn him—that he had no right to be alive, no more than they did, and that they were, him, and the boy and Chernevog together, and that they knew where they had to go—

“Come on, dammit, Eveshka’s going after her.”

He found the reins somehow, he found his seat and turned Volkhi uphill, as Chernevog was headed, not breakneck after the first ten strides. In the moonless dark and on this root-laddered ground, there was no hurrying—like a bad dream, in which haste could manage only a numbingly slow progress over one hill and another and onto a level stretch overgrown with trees and thorn brakes.

Bits of white horsehair hung from thorns here, and Bielitsa made one futile protest against a wizard’s direction; but Volkhi went, panting now, into a barren starlit thicket with no trees to shut out the sky, with only peeling wreckage of dreadful aspect—leshys, Pyetr realized, all dead.

“Eveshka!” he called into that desolation. But no answer came. They rode among dead leshys as far as the stone that was the center and found smoking ashes beside it, where a fire had been.

That, and everything Eveshka owned, her book, her pack, and her abandoned cloak.

“God,” he muttered in despair, but Chernevog wanted his attention toward a gap in the thorns, a broad pathway dark as midnight and more threatening.

Magic had made it. That was where Ilyana was, that was where, Chernevog made him believe, Eveshka had surely gone, and he had no question about following—only about his company.

Magic was slipping loose at every hand. Sasha felt it like pieces tumbling out of his hands and there was no way in the world to go faster. Missy was breathing like a bellows even with Nadya’s lesser weight and the absence of the packs; young Patches, saddleless, with his weight and the books, Babi’s vodka jug and a handful of herb-pots, was blowing lather. It was all confusion of trees and brush and dark hillsides—rough ground, and the god only knew how Nadya was managing, whether it was his distracted wishes for her safety, or her death-grip on the saddle and Missy’s mane. Don’t lose her, Sasha pleaded with Missy, and promised apples and carrots and every delicacy in the garden if she would only keep Nadya on her back and keep out of trouble.

Babi scrambled onto his shoulder. They were close, god, close enough to the mouse and Eveshka that he could feel presence through the silence. And a gulf dropping away into somewhere dark, deadly and deathly. He could not think of the mouse in that place. He could not think of Pyetr and Eveshka there. They would not be. No!

He thought, while Patches found her own way along a spring-fed thread of water, Mouse, listen to me. Listen!

For a moment then he had her, clear and true and very, very, very scared. There was open sky and the smell of the earth and river. He knew that place, he knew the feeling of it—the hollowness beneath—

God—

The mouse caught at him, the mouse was frightened, wanted him the way she had in the yard—and came around him, enfolded his wishes—

No, he had said then. Now he said yes. And did a more frightening thing, and wanted Eveshka to know he was there.

Now.

Beyond the doorway was starlight and river chill and a grassy edge along the shore—beyond the door was a dream, a very sinister one—as calm and as tranquil a place as the ghosts had been horrid, the water glistening beneath the stars and a fat old willow whispering in the dark. But the heart of this place was hollow and cold, one could feel the falseness of safety here. And one remembered that it was still the palace of bone, and that what one saw was not the truth—or the palace was not. The mouse was very scared, and very quiet, and very determined to have the way out—please the god. And grandfather might have wished her to be born and to be here, but she wished to do things her uncle would approve— that was the wisest thing she could think of.

Make up your own mind, a ghost said, and startled her when she saw it drift from the willow-shade. Mother, she thought, with a cold seizure of fear. But the ghost said:

Your grandmother, dear. Is the old fool telling you lies again? Or can’t he tell you?

The bear came out of the shadow, and ambled to her grandmother’s side, seeming far less fierce than she had thought. Her grandmother said:

Listen to me—

It was a wish. And it scared her. There was something in this place, something that made her want to listen, even knowing her grandmother had been wicked—

No such thing, the ghost said. Do you want Kavi alive again? From here it’s easy. Everything is easy—

Uncle would say, Magic is always easy. But is it wise?

Don’t you have any thoughts to yourself, child? What do you want?

She wanted—

Kavi. And knew it was foolish and selfish and wrong. She turned away, toward the dark rim of the woods at the end of the grass. She wanted to leave.

But something drew her to look back—and her grandmother was not there. There were wolves—and other things that spun in confusion, faces screaming, hands grasping—it wanted, and wanted and wanted, and she wanted it to stop changing! Now!

It did. It became a shriveled old woman and a pack of wolves, and it wanted her youth and her life and her heart. Come here, it bade her. Listen to me… and the thing under the earth echoed it and echoed it until she was confused.

No, she said, and told it No again, and it said:

What do you want, wizard?

And she thought, I want—

—and stopped herself at the brink, thinking: You don’t catch me twice, on. Go away!

It broke apart. The wolves did. The bits scattered in light and fire.

Not so dreadful, she thought, letting go a breath she had forgotten. I’m all right. I can wish them—

“Ilyana,” a voice said behind her back. And she had to turn to it—had to—before the echoes of it died in the earth under her feet. It was her mother, white and tattered and dreadful, with shadowed eyes and bloody scratches on her arms, her mother wanting her with more strength than she had ever felt in her life.

No! she bade her mother, and took a step backward.

Look out! her mother wished her. Her mother wanted her to look behind her, and the hair prickled on her neck. She thought—it’s a trick, it’s a trick like the others. She’s making that cold feeling…

“No!” her mother said, and started for her, wanting her as she spun about to escape. Wanted her to stop, warned he of death under the willow’s branches and for a moment the very earth underfoot seemed to tremble.

Another lie, she thought, and cast a look back at her mother. “Don’t come close to me!”

“Ilyana!”

Look, her mother wished her. And wanted what was there into the starlight. Coils rolled out, glistening wet, a head as large as a horse’s rose up and grinned at her with white, white teeth.

Something hit her breast and seized her about the neck, familiar arms, a desperate and frightened Babi: she hugged him without any thought but imminent destruction. She wanted Babi safe. That was all she could think of—could muster no conviction against that Thing her mother conjured—

Her mother wanted it here.

Her mother said, at her back, “Ilyana, Ilyana, comeback, right now. You don’t belong here.”

She could not move. Perhaps it was wishes. Perhaps it was terror. Babi growled and shivered in her arms.

“Ilyana!” her mother cried, and fear and feeling that never had been, for her, not once, not ever, came flooding up, with anger, and desire that was shattering as Kavi’s touch and tender as her father’s. Her mother wanted her safe at home, her mother wanted her away from this dreadful place that she belonged to.

“Bonesss,” the snake said. Hwiuur. She had no doubt. And Babi ducked his head beneath her chin and hissed. So did the vodyanoi, and the air shivered with river cold. “Your mother’s bones are still mine. She wants you safe. But you never should have existed, little mouse. She can be my pretty bones again. And what will you be, I wonder? Supper?”

“Hwiuur!” her mother said, forbidding him.

Hwiuur said, “One or the other is mine. One or the other; and I own you, pretty pretty bones, I only haven’t pressed matters—I only let the old man think he was clever, sending a mouse to catch a creature far-, far cleverer than he was. And ever so patient.” More coils poured out of the shadows, glistening wet and black. “On the other hand—you could give me the mouse. And I’d give you—oh, Kiev. Or whatever. Anything you like, pretty bones.”

“No,” her mother said. And of a sudden someone else was there, god, her father was there, and Kavi, and Yvgenie—

The vodyanoi hissed and lunged and Babi jumped from her arms, ran hissing and barking into Hwiuur’s face. She wished at the creature—hurt and harm and pain—and only got its sudden attention. It reared up and lunged for her and she furiously wished it no! as thunder rolled down on her from behind and hit her in the back.

The world jolted. An arm was around her waist, she was wholly off her feet and against the side of a white horse.

And her father—oh, god—

Volkhi shied off and Pyetr left the saddle, not—not his best dismount, no. He landed on one foot and lost his balance, fell and saw the creature coming down on him, a vast shadow with breath like the grave and there was no time for aim—he shoved his arm at Hwiuur’s face and dumped the whole damned herb-pot, salt and sulfur, in the jaws that closed on it—

—and opened again, with a hiss and a fetid breath that he knew in his nightmares. It hurt, god—it hurt, he all but dropped the sword in his good hand, and a coil whipped over him in its wounded frenzy. He hit it. He kept wondering where help was and got his feet under him and hit it again and kept hitting it, with everything he had, while Babi lunged at it and hissed and snarled.

It grew smaller, and smaller, and its struggles never ceased. Neither did his hitting it, until it was a shriveled black thing, with arms like a man, hiding its face with its hands and wailing, “No more, no more, man, oh, the bitter salt—”

“Let my wife and my daughter go! Let them alone! Do you hear me?” Another whack with the sword. “Do you swear?”

“Yes,” it cried, “yes, yes, no more.”

Eveshka was with him, Eveshka stayed his arm and hugged his shoulder, saying, “It won’t die. It can’t die. They don’t.”

“Ilyana—”

The pain stopped. The fear for the mouse did. The mouse was very well, give or take bruises, with the boy’s arm about her, and she was safe right now, no matter the quality of her suitors—Yvgenie Kurov was a damned fine rider, thank the god: wizardry might keep a man on a horse—but never guide a catch like that.

Hwiuur made a move to slither away. Pyetr hit him. What Eveshka wished he could not tell, but the air felt heavy. And Hwiuur shrank and shrank until he was like a withered, glistening serpent again.

“Make him swear by the sun,” the boy said—but that was Chernevog. “He’s afraid of that, at least. Make him swear.”

“I swear by the sun!” it cried in a faint, high voice. “I’ll never, ever, ever do harm to you. I’ll be your friend. You’ll see, I’ll bring you such nice gifts—I’ll never harm anyone in your house—”

“Nor our children or their children,” Eveshka said, “forever! Nor our friends or theirs!”

“I swear, I swear to everything you say!”

“Hit him,” Chernevog said. Pyetr hit him, and Hwiuur added, “By the sun, by the terrible sun! I swear! Let me go.”

“We have to be away ourselves,” Chernevog said. “This place itself is a ghost. And it won’t outlast the sun.”

He had greatest misgivings. But he lifted his sword and stood back, and let the creature slither away toward the willow.

Babi was faster. Babi pounced and swallowed, and sat up with his small hands folded across his belly

And licked his lips.

The stars were gone. In a while more there would be sun, but Sasha refused to dwell on that thought. He said, aloud or not he did not clearly notice, More wood. And thought, Mouse. Pyetr. Eveshka. Time you were moving.

One did not know clearly that everything was well. But there had been a moment that he felt he could breathe again.

In a bit more Missy made a soft, worried sound, and horses arrived out of the dark. They trotted up to Missy and Patches, trailing reins, glad to find friends. There had been snakes. Volkhi’s rider had ridden him straight at a snake and fallen off in front of it. Volkhi was never going near any snakes again, never, ever. Even if his favorite person wanted to be, he would not. No. and Bielitsa thought the same.

Worrisome. Exceedingly worrisome. He looked at Nadya across the fire they had made on this barren, windy hilltop, and she looked back at him, scared and staunchly not saying a word. For a moment he did not know what more he could do than he had done.

But he wanted his family back. He wanted them to meet Nadya. To have evenings together. By a nice fire. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of evenings. One would not accept otherwise.

And of a sudden he felt very much better. Very much better.

He said, on a long sigh, “Bring them back, Babi, bring them here. Vodka, Babi.”

He unstopped the jug. He poured. Babi was immediately there to catch it, a very satisfied Babi. One could tell.

Then he heard the mouse cry “Uncle Sasha!” and saw the lostlings coming out of the dark, the mouse, hand in hand with young Yvgenie. Pyetr with Eveshka. He felt everything at once, too confused to defend himself from them until Nadya rose and stood beside him.

He put his arm about Nadya as she did and wished her well—wished ’Veshka not to be upset, please. Nor the mouse. Yvgenie said, “Nadya?” and came and took her hand, but to a wizard’s hearing it was very clear where hearts were, and Yvgenie’s was most honestly with the mouse.

“I like her,” the mouse said, quite sure herself where Yvgenie’s heart was. And Kavi Chernevog’s as well, the god help them.

Then Eveshka wished something at Nadya quite strongly, not at him, Sasha thought, but about him—and Nadya said, hugging his arm the tighter, “Yes. I know he is,” leaving him the most distinct impression Eveshka judged him extravagantly kindly, far too kindly, considering his recent succession of mistakes…

Which he did not want to tell Eveshka yet. But he feared he had just let the worst one slip. God, they could see it for themselves: Pyetr was changed. Or the same again. Pyetr might always be the same, for all he knew, and it all was his fault, god—he wanted them not to hate him. He wanted them to love him. Nothing worse could happen to him than losing that. And wishing them not to was desperately, terribly wrong of him. So they should love each other. Not minding him and his wishes. Please.

There was a breathless hush then, in a piled-up calamity of possible wishes, wise and foolish, thick as the fallen leaves. But Pyetr said, “Sasha,” strolled over, kissed his eldest daughter on the forehead, then set a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye, thinking, as if he had only chanced upon the thought—You did something, friend. Didn’t you? Like the damn teacup? The jug that won’t empty? Eveshka thinks so.

“Pyetr, forgive me, I’m—”

“—sorry?” Pyetr shook him gently. He heard a laughter in Pyetr’s voice this morning, a youthfulness that could have no patience with slow-moving wizards and their deliberations. “—Does the teacup care? It’s lasted this long: it might last longer. Who knows?—Who ever knows? Dare we even mention my seeing grandchildren?”