Yvgenie Read online

  Her mother said, without warning, Oh, god—

  Her mother—

  —wanting this boy to slip back in—

  ‘No!’ she cried, wanting her mother not! not! to think of killing.

  The feeling stopped. Her father had her arm, pulled her by that and the boy by the collar and said, in a voice as shaky as she felt, ‘It's all right, mouse, steady, I've got you both.’

  The boy certainly explained something, magic not working, Sasha's house burning, everything going wrong at once. Pyetr did not like this, he wanted Sasha to know, if Sasha was listening.

  Sasha was not. Sasha was busy or Sasha was not doing, well, or magic had failed again, for some reason, none of I which possibilities made him feel any better at all.

  ‘Your uncle's not answering me,’ he said to Ilyana, and Ilyana:

  ‘He's probably holding mother off. She's—oh, god, papa, she wants—wants to kill him—’

  He got the gist of that, grabbed her and hugged the breath out of the mouse, trusting Babi to go for the boy's throat if he made a single hostile move. Ilyana was soaked, cold, exhausted, he was no better; and getting her back to the house was all he cared about at the moment. A man could never count on winning with magic running wild like this— wishes stacked up like so much old pottery, Sasha described it, a whole place heavy with an unstable stack of wishes, all waiting for some reasonable thing to satisfy the impossible condition—

  Like a girl desperately wanting a boy. A wizard desperately wanting someone—

  Damned right Eveshka was upset. He was upset, and he could not feel magic happening around him.

  Ilyana said, against his shoulder, ‘Did uncle's house all burn?’

  ‘I'm afraid there's not much left of it. At least the sparks are all drowned.’ The rain was pouring down again, soaking them to the skin. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don't know.’ She let go of him to kneel and look at the boy—handsome lad, Pyetr saw. Damn the luck. Older than Ilyana, maybe by several years. And that collar under the sodden coat glittered very expensively.

  No farmer lad, that was sure. He dropped to one knee and gently slapped the boy's cold face. ‘Who are you, lad? Do you have a name?’

  Eyes slitted open while he thought uncomfortably of shape-shifters.

  Lips said, faintly, ‘Yvgenie. Yvgenie Pavlovitch.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Kiev.’

  ‘You're rather far from Kiev. The river washed you backwards, did it? Spat you out upriver. How did you get here?’

  The eyes rolled, showed white. The boy had fainted away.

  Didn't at all like that question, did it?

  ‘We've got to build a fire,’ Ilyana said, through chattering teeth. ‘We've got to get him dry, he's freezing.’

  He thought—Hell if I want us alone out here with him. Get him to Sasha, is what we've got to do, and the faster, the better.

  Aloud, he said, ‘In this rain, mouse? A horse's back is the warmest place we can put him; and your uncle needs our help. Let's just bundle him up and get him on a horse. You ride Missy back, you're lightest.’ He got his arms around whatever-it-was and pulled him up against him, the most dangerous position he could think of to be in with something magical, but he aimed him for Volkhi, as, after Missy, the most mannered horse they had.

  In the small chance that this was truly the only shape young Yvgenie Pavlovitch owned.

  * * *

  Eveshka shoved at the tiller and the boat's sail slatted and thundered above the rain. Way fell off immediately, and the boat began to toss as she brought the bow on about, holding with both arms and all her strength against the jolt as the sail came over. The boat reeled at the deepest slack to a sudden, violent gust, and only a wish and the ferry's good trim kept her from rolling over in that instant before the wind slammed into the sail on a new tack and the tiller bucked against her arms. She hated the dark water, she hated the storm; she fought the river and the weather for her life and safely damned what could feel no possible danger from her.

  She could not think now. She should not think now. Rain and tears blurred the shoreline as old River tried to take her a second time. The cold water wanted her back, and the deadliest thought of all was that for everyone she loved it might be the best answer.

  Sasha insisted: The river's not the way, 'Veshka! You can't leave us. You couldn't leave your daughter or Pyetr if you died, and you know that—you know what you'd become!

  Do you hear me, 'Veshka?

  She had heard. She knew. They feared her: Sasha did, Ilyana did—even Pyetr would not trust her help or her opinions.

  She completed the turn and the wind sank. Having done its best to capsize her, the storm settled down to a cold, drenching rain.

  Sasha shoved logs into the bathhouse furnace, slogged back out in the rain to the woodpile and carried his next armload of wood up to the porch and into the house, never minding the mud on Eveshka's floors. Pyetr and Ilyana were coming in with the boy, all of them half-frozen and covered with mud: he had water for washing, he had a stack of towels, clean clothes, dry boots, blankets, water was boiling in the house and in the bathhouse—

  He had hidden all the books in the cellar with the domovoi, the safest and driest place he could think of under the circumstances, and he hoped to the god to be mistaken about what Pyetr and the mouse were bringing home.

  Thorns. Thorns and golden leaves and blood—

  Owl dying—

  No magery. Memory. His mind conjured him that nightmare of Chernevog, the warning dreams—the dreadful stone—

  Pyetr lying in the brush, in the dark, white shirt—dark branches—

  He shuddered at that one. It had come true. Everything had come true, fifteen years ago. It was over with and he did not want to see those things again, or remember their so—l bought bannik—

  Not tonight.

  Himself on a white horse, something clinging to his back—

  But that had only been Missy. Missy had saved his life and saved all of them, thank the god. That dream had come true, and nothing but good had issued from it—

  Patches had come of it. The mouse had. All these things. Chernevog was buried however restless his ghost. No bannik had ever come to the bathhouse to replace that strayed fragment of Chernevog's soul. And if all of it should have strayed back tonight—

  —in whatever form—

  But by the sounds of horses coming along the hedge outside, there was an answer forthcoming, very quickly now.

  He changed to a dry coat at the door (one of Pyetr's old coats, as happened, a little long in the sleeves for him) figuring he was about to do a great deal more trekking about in the rain before he saw any rest tonight. He took down Ilyana's coat from the pegs, picked up a bundle of blankets and opened the door just as the front gate banged, and he spied Pyetr afoot, holding the yard gate open for three very tired, very sore horses.

  ‘The stable gate's open,’ Sasha shouted, on his way down. ‘Just let them go.’

  Ilyana was riding Missy, and they had the boy slung over Volkhi's back, with Volkhi walking free. Patches broke into a jog for the stable, and Pyetr called out, ‘Stop Volkhi, for the god's sake, before he dumps the boy on his head.’

  Sasha wanted Volkhi to head sedately for the bathhouse while he was about it, and met them in the yard. ‘Warm water inside, mouse, once you've rubbed the horses down. Pyetr, here, two blankets. I've got Ilyana's coat. The bath house is fired up and ready for the boy.''

  ‘Good,’ Pyetr said, and trudged after Volkhi, wrapping one blanket about his shoulders as he went. He called back: ‘Ilyana, warm water for their legs, and a rubbing down. I'll help you as soon as I can. Don't over-water or over-feed, mind, a quarter measure of the grain, no more than that.''

  A very tired, very sore mouse slid down as Missy walked for the stableyard gate. Sasha caught her arms and steadied her, and flung her coat around her as Babi ran off after Missy ‘Sorry,’ he said, then, on his own way to the bathho
use ‘Help you when we can, there's a good girl.’

  ‘I'm all right,’ she panted, and overtook him, struggling in the mud, trying the while to put the coat on. ‘Is the house all gone, uncle?’

  She desperately wanted him to be all right and not to sad about his things. The truth was, and he let her know weak-kneed though he was from the scare and with his hand burned and his chest hurting from the smoke, his books were safe and the rest of it was actually a relief: there were no stacks of clutter in his house anymore. ‘Spring cleaning’ he said, and coughed. ‘Finally got around to it.’

  The mouse grinned, the flash of a sidelong glance in tin light from the shutters. He tousled her wet hair as their ways parted at the stable gate. ‘Brave mouse. Watch yourself. Magic's certainly loose tonight.’

  At the bathhouse, Pyetr had pulled the unconscious boy off Volkhi and hauled him in a trailing tangle of blankets for the door. ‘Go on,’ Sasha told Volkhi, slapping him on It side. ‘Good fellow, Volkhi. Warm rags and a rub in the stable.'' He followed Pyetr into warmth and light, in time to pull the door to behind them.

  ‘She seems all right,’ he said to Pyetr, as he took the boy's feet and helped lay him on his back on the bench.

  ‘Thank the god for that.'' Pyetr unfastened the boy's sodden coat. ‘Patches brought her right to this boy. I wish we had another place to put him.''

  Gold thread. Silk. Sasha whistled softly, helping Pyetr rid the boy of his sleeves. ‘No farmer and no fisher, whoever he was.’

  ‘You think he's dead?’

  ‘Not quite sure. He's certainly breathing.'' He picked up a chill white hand, and laid it on the boy's middle, put his hand on the side of the boy's neck and felt the beat. ‘Cold as last winter, though. There's hot water and towels over by the fire. He's already soaked to the skin. I'd say just pile them on him and let him and the towels and all dry in the heat. The fire's good till morning.’

  ‘Good enough.'' Pyetr went and soaked the towels while Sasha pulled the boy's boots off. He came back with an armful and began spreading them over the boy.

  The boy opened his eyes, lifted his head and promptly fell back with a thump on the bench. Pyetr slipped a hand under his neck and shoved a hot towel under his hair. Dark hair, it was. Pale blue eyes that wandered this way and that in confusion. ‘This is a bathhouse.’

  ‘Our bathhouse,’ Pyetr said, setting his foot on the end of the bench and resting his arms against his knee. ‘As happens. He's Sasha, I'm Pyetr, and you're Yvgenie Pavlovitch, the last I heard, who swam all the way up from Kiev to drown in our woods.’

  ‘I rode a horse,’ the boy said, faintly, ‘from Kiev. I—’

  There was a complete muddle in the boy's thoughts: running afoot through the woods, the rain coming down—

  Someone or something chasing him, something to do with his father.

  A fabulous palace, gold and gilt everywhere, a gray-haired, frowning man, not happy with him, no: his father would beat him, and kill the men who had lost him if they did not him back.

  Sasha put a hand on the boy's forehead, wished him calm and the wish fluttered this way and that of an anxious heart. He looked through the boy's eyes and saw two sooted, wild-haired strangers hovering over him, who might intend to rob him or worse. His thoughts leapt around like a landed fish: death, and a demand for ransom, which his father might well pay—if only to have him in his hands.

  Impossible to say whether he was what he seemed. A shapeshifter believed what it was and would not seem otherwise until one managed to find its single essential flaw.

  He said, gently, ‘Yvgenie Pavlovitch, you're in safe hands if you're what you look to be. But this forest is full of tricks and tricksters. We don't dare ourselves trust everything to be what it seems.’

  Yvgenie said, ‘There was a girl—’

  ‘My daughter,’ Pyetr said. ‘She pulled you out of the water: What were you doing in the woods?''

  ‘I—don't—don't remember.’

  ‘Where did you come from?’

  The boy thought (Sasha eavesdropped shamelessly): How did I get to this place? Aloud, he said, ‘Kiev.’ But there were black pits everywhere in his remembering.

  ‘What's your father's name?’

  ‘Pavel...’ The father's features ran like wax, eluding the boy's recollection, and the thoughts began jumping again. Dark places multiplied.

  ‘He doesn't remember,’ Sasha said, laying his hand on Yvgenie's chest, the better to gather up stray thoughts or hostile intentions. He wished the boy's body well, at least: wished it warmth and ease of the aches and bruises it had suffered.

  ‘Is that better?’ he asked.

  Wizard, the boy thought in sudden fright, fearing what he felt happening to him, and not daring protest it.

  ‘Yes,’ Sasha said, ‘I am what you're thinking—which is a good thing for you. Pyetr, put some water on the stones. He's cold through.’

  Pyetr dipped up water and flung it onto the hot stones. The water hissed, fire-shadows jumped, and wind whirled curtains of steam and shadow about the walls. The lad at least could not suffer chill in here—fainting now from the heat, perhaps. Sasha wiped the hair out of the boy's face and slapped his cheek gently to bring him back, but the boy's eyes kept going shut, and his breath was rattling.

  Not good, not at all good.

  ‘Come on, boy,'' he said, and put his hands on either side of the boy's face, wishing warmth and well-being and easy breath, thinking only about that, and not his doubts of the boy's nature. ‘Listen to me, Yvgenie Pavlovitch, you're not to die, do you hear me?’

  ‘No,’ Yvgenie Pavlovitch whispered, with his eyes shut, looking, Pyetr thought, very young, and very handsome, and very rich in his gold collar and his red silk shirt—which meant at least the opportunity to grow up a scoundrel, Pyetr knew it from his own youthful associations.

  But a very ill and almost dead young scoundrel, for all that, and for the first time Pyetr found himself seriously wondering whether he might have been too rough with what might after all be an innocent boy. He listened to Sasha's mumbling over the lad, heard the breath rattling in the boy's chest in a most disturbing congestion, and truly, he did want the boy lo live—

  And be on his way to Kiev or wherever, without having the least to do with his daughter.

  But Ilyana had already seen him, and the mouse was inevitably curious and most damnably, reprehensibly stubborn—which first trait was his and the latter one she had gotten fairly from both sides. Present the mouse a mystery, tell her no, and absolutely there was no stopping her.

  And might this boy be, he wondered distractedly, the answer they had wished for, to win Ilyana's heart away from a most dangerous ghost?

  Or might he be (as he most acutely feared) Chernevog's chosen way back from the grave?

  Why should Sasha's house burn, except to keep Sasha busy while wishes came unhinged and this boy found his way to Ilyana's heart? Lightning had burned Chernevog's house to its foundations, and one could never say Kavi Chernevog lacked a sense of humor, even in his darker moments.

  Their own looming shadows did occasional battle with clouds of steam, jumped as Sasha worked, with a good deal of muttering and an occasional puff of pungent smoke from the fire, firelight glistening gold on his frowning face. Sasha did not look happy, no; and the thought gnawed him the while Sasha did whatever he was doing, that somewhere in the outcome of this night, he might well be losing Ilyana from his life—not, he prayed the god, in the direction of Kavi Chernevog; but at least in her growing up and away from him, now that this boy had come into the question—this Yvgenie Pavlovitch, who, by that silk and gold he wore, might make his daughter very unhappy.

  He prayed if there was a rich father and a palace somewhere involved, that neither should ever involve his daughter, who could have no patience for the scoundrels who went thick as flies about such places—and a young man who lived in such places could not help but entertain scoundrels among his associates, even granted his own impeccable good char
acter.

  —No, surely this can't be our answer. This can't be the boy our mouse will marry. He's something altogether other— thoroughly dead, by the look of him. Damned if it isn't Chernevog! Damn, damn, and damn the scoundrel!

  He paced. He watched. He asked Sasha quietly, coming to lean over his shoulder, against one of the posts that held the roof: ‘If he is a boy, do you think you possibly wished him up? Or did the mouse?''

  ‘I truly don't know,’ Sasha said, moping sweat from his face. ‘I can say he's stronger now than he was, but whether that's good or bad for Yvgenie Pavlovitch I honestly don't know.''

  He did not like the sound of that at all. He muttered, ‘Where's Chernevog's heart right now, that's what I'd like to know.’

  And Sasha said: ‘I can't answer that. I do think we should take a very quick bath, get the mouse inside, and wish her a sound sleep tonight.’

  Yvgenie lay listening, watching sometimes from slitted eyes while water splashed and the wizard and the fair-haired man washed and talked in low voices that rang strangely through his ears. The heat made him dizzy. They spoke names that stirred no memory in him. He thought, What's my father's name? Pavel, of course. But what's the rest of it? What am I doing here and what do they want from me?

  He stole glances at Pyetr, whose features recalled so strongly the girl who had rescued him—who had rescued him and held him when the river had tried to drag him away—she had protested, he remembered her voice, clear above the rain and the rush of water, Papa, please, not head down like that, he'll have a headache—

  He had thought so too—but he had been too far gone to protest being slung over a horse's back like a bale of rags. And he was sure on those grounds he ought not to like or trust this Pyetr, but his heart wanted to—he desperately wanted Pyetr to trust him, and not to frown at him and wish him dead, and most of all, please the god, to stand between him and Sasha the wizard—who might have helped him so far; but whose ultimate intentions he dreaded more than he dreaded Pyetr's scowls.