Yvgenie Read online

  Which was well enough for Babi, but that place was trying to swallow up his daughter, too, in a place no living creature belonged, and he had his mind absolutely made up when he swung into the saddle.

  ‘I'm going to ride ahead.’

  ‘Pyetr—’

  ‘I'm not afraid of Chernevog. God knows, we're old acquaintances. We can talk. The two of us together can make more sense than some people I can—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Sasha—’ He shook his head to clear the cobwebs out, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Dammit, stop it. Tell her! Or just wish me to find her before trouble does.''

  ‘It's far too dangerous!’

  ‘Tell me what's too dangerous, with my daughter headed off into hills in the dark with Chernevog!’

  ‘You haven't any way to feel what's going on!’

  ‘My daughter's in trouble out there! Let me go, dammit!''

  ‘All right,’ Sasha said, ‘all right, but—’

  Sasha yelled something after him, but he reckoned he would hear that while he was riding—or if the silence swallowed him up, he reckoned there was nothing to do but what he was doing.

  Yvgenie said, quietly: ‘We're lost, aren't we?’

  ‘No. Of course we aren't. I know where we are.’

  ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘North.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Where I want to go.'' She was far from lost in the woods; and she was far from alone even in the silence: things near at hand were always talking to her, telling her where they were, even though the whole woods felt quiet and scary and pricklish with silence. She knew where home was, she knew where her mother was, and she would know her Place when she got there.

  But if being lost meant missing supper and wanting a warm fireside, and being scared the way Yvgenie was scared, and having everyone in the whole world upset with them, they certainly were.

  Yvgenie asked, ‘Where is that?’

  ‘We'll know, I said.’ It was Yvgenie asking, she was sure. It was getting dark, he was beyond exhausted, and she had no idea how to answer him in terms ordinary folk understood—she had no idea what he did understand or how to reassure him: she trusted her friend for that; but her friend's long silence worried her, as if—

  He said, faintly, ‘I think we should stop and make a fire if we can.’

  Something was singing in the brush, a lonely, eerie sound. A wolf had howled a moment ago. If she were on foot she might have been anxious herself. Things did not feel entirely right, now that he distracted her. Which might be her mother's doing.

  Some animal crashed away through the brush. Patches jumped, and Bielitsa did.

  ‘It's just a squirrel or something.’

  ‘I really think we should stop.’

  ‘Are you afraid?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  Another wolf called, in the far distance.

  ‘That's another one,’ he said. ‘There must be a whole pack out hunting.’

  ‘Wolves don't hurt you. They're very shy.’

  ‘Wolves aren't shy!’

  ‘Have you ever seen a wolf?'' She wanted not to be angry with him, but he kept worrying at her.

  ‘I don't know, I don't know if I have and I don't even know what I'm doing here!’ He was frightened, he was angry at her, and she wished not: she wished herself safe from him—

  But that was stupid. He could never harm her with his wishes, and now she had stolen his anger away from him, which was wrong, terribly wrong—

  Talk to me, her father would say, when people forgot and wished at him:

  Say it in words, 'Veshka—

  God!

  Pyetr meant to be careful, with his neck and Volkhi's; but he put Volkhi to a far faster pace than old Missy could possibly sustain, down the hill behind Sasha's ruined house, and under trees and over the next rise, into thicker woods, where the night had already begun to settle.

  North. Owl's grave was there—the leshys' ring, where Owl had died, days north of here: a rusalka might haunt such a place, and be drawn there, against all reason—and whether their destination was Ilyana's choice or Chernevog's, it was certain at least that she would not follow the shoreline path, within reach of her mother.

  So it was directly overland, by every advantage of ground he knew, so long as Volkhi could bear it, as fast as Volkhi could travel in this last of the twilight.

  He personally hoped young Patches would do what a young horse would do and leave Ilyana stranded the first time a hare started from a thicket. That was the very likeliest way Sasha's wishes might work to stop them, magic tending to take the easiest course. Patches taking his daughter under a limb was another, not the way he would want, given a choice—but that, too, if it gave him a way to catch her tonight. The specific wish overrides the general, Sasha maintained. Things happen that can happen, things happen when they can happen—and always at the weakest point.

  Well, then, dammit all—the mouse must have wished her father well a thousand thousand times. So had 'Veshka and Sasha—and if the mouse's father was very specifically risking his neck out here in the woods in the dark, then the hell with caution: the mouse's magic might have a hard time tonight, working against itself.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ he urged Volkhi, and took the ways he knew through the woods—having ridden this land many more years than the mouse had. He had planted no few of the trees on these hills, he had seen the land when it was all dead and bare, and Volkhi knew the ground, even granted a deadfall or two: Volkhi footed it neatly through a maze of birch trees and mostly jumped the small brook that wound across their path.

  Splash! and onto the far bank, up across the facing hill, along the ridge and down the other side through a maze of saplings.

  Damned sure Ilyana and the boy could make no such time, except by wizardry—and by all evidences the mouse was being as quiet as she knew how to be, interested solely in putting distance between her and her mother.

  Which he figured most definitely put the matter up to the fastest horse and the surest knowledge of the woods, and twilight daring the mouse to drop her father on his head a second time.

  The wind held fair for the north, in the slow unfoldings of the river, and the star-sheen on the water was light enough to steer by. Eveshka had the rush of water and the singing of the rigging for company, and all too much time for a wizard to think of possibilities, running along a shore she could not touch and a forest that refused to trust her.

  Silence lay heavy there, even yet, not the silence of solitude, but her daughter's fear that excluded her; and there was evil hereabouts—evil as ordinary folk held it, meaning what threatened their lives. In that light, perhaps evil also described her: her understanding did not extend beyond the woods and the river and a handful of wizards, all of which could just as surely threaten the lives of ordinary folk.

  But there were creatures who fed on others' suffering, there were those that relished others' pain: that was what she personally damned for wickedness. And just ahead now on the leeward shore, was a cave that smelled of such wickedness and fear. A willow there had resurrected itself, a tree the leshys abhorred, though they loved all others in the woods. It had its roots in the watery dark, that willow, in a den she had never seen while she was alive. She was anxious passing it and vastly relieved when it fell astern. She wished her husband well; and Sasha, forgiving for now all his failures and shortcomings, knowing her own all too keenly.

  She judged people too harshly. Pyetr would tell her that. Pyetr would say, That's your father, 'Veshka; he would say, with his vast patience: 'Veshka, you ask too much. Of yourself and other people. You're doing what you hated your father doing.

  It might be true—but true, too, that as much as she and her father had quarreled when she was alive, and passionately as she had hated him, he had judged her wilful heart accurately enough, said no when he should have said no, and wished her to stay out of trouble, until a young wizard she thought she loved had lured her onto the river
shore and murdered her.

  She could imagine laughter in that cave tonight. She could imagine doubt and conceit flowing out of it like poison:

  Do you know what your own daughter's capable of, pretty hones? Does she scare you? She certainly should.

  The willow fell further behind. But northward, on the other shore of the river, was a hollow hill, on which, in her dreams, lightnings still crashed. Her mother had been so much like her, so very much like her: Draga, Malenkova's student, Kavi's tormentor and teacher.

  She should have said to Ilyana, calmly, reasonably, while I here had been time, and reason:

  Ilyana, Kavi might be my half-brother. Did he tell you so? My mother hinted at it. It might have been malice. She knew we were almost lovers and she wanted to upset me. But it is remotely possible he's my father's son, of a wizard named Malenkova—his teacher.

  Child, I only tried to make you strong and hard enough. I never wanted you to hate me.

  Now it was too late to say that. It was too late to say other things like: Don't trust Kavi. Don't listen to him. He was my mother's lover, years before he knew me, but they were both, my mother more than he ever was, Malenkova's creatures…

  You don't know about Malenkova. I hadn't time to teach you. And Kavi doesn't remember. He can't. He didn't hear from my mother what I heard—I hope to the god he never did. I'd spare him that—much as he deserves to know what I know—

  She put her hands over her ears and looked at the sky above the sail, as if that could shut out the thoughts.

  Never think about the anger, never think about betrayals, but never, ever think about forgiveness either: every damned lime one trusted Kavi, every time one in the least began to believe him—

  She tried to make Ilyana listen. She went on trying. But the magic reached the forest edge and stopped. Nothing got in, nothing got out, and she began to fear it was no longer entirely her daughter's silence. Not this, not the slow, deep strength of it, that had increasingly the mark of leshys: wizard-magic was not working within its hold, except, perhaps, perhaps, very close at hand, on very familiar, long-associated objects.

  It might protect the forest. But leshys had nothing of wizards' purposes. And leshys could be mistaken in their wider judgments. She wanted them to hear her. She wanted their help. They had served the woods, she had atoned for the killing with planting and with care—but she had no feeling that they heard her—nor any certainty that they had ever forgiven her, or that they had ever understood wizards in their midst. They were younger now, Sasha said. There were so many young ones about—

  And Kavi—

  God, she had not for years longed to shed the body she wore and go, lay insubstantial hands on what might truly answer to that touch. She had not felt this—anger—in years.

  —You damnable fool, Kavi! Even if you love her, don't touch her, don't even think of touching her. You don't want her to want you, god help you if she wants you: you can't stop her, by your very nature you can't stop her—

  For the god's sake, Kavi, tell her how you died!

  Night made the forest a shifting confusion of gray and black. Branches raked and caught, trees floated past the eye like ghosts. The black furball was still with them and the ghostly owl flew ahead of them from tree to tree—guiding them, Yvgenie hoped.

  To a place I know, Ilyana insisted, but he had no confidence in that. He had no confidence he would even get through this night and he desperately longed for the sun. The ghostly owl seemed more real now, so much so he feared if he nodded again he might never wake up. Pain could be more real than Owl was, pain could keep him awake—and he bit his lip and fought the lapses that made his eyelids fall and the sounds of their passage grow dim in his ears. He caught himself from time to time against the saddlebow, found his fingers growing numb. He thought of his father's house, he thought of running away—he knew he had done that, he had, he had tried to take his life in his hands and do something honest that did not involve killing his father, or telling anyone about his father and the tsarevitch—

  But Bielitsa took a sudden shift of direction and he found himself slipping helplessly: a grip on the saddle checked his fall, but only that—he swung completely off Bielitsa's back, still clinging with both hands to the saddle leather as Bielitsa turned to keep herself from sliding downslope on the dead leaves. An embarrassing position, his horse about to fall downhill atop him, himself about to pull her down: he looked quite the fool in the wizard-girl's eyes, he was sure. But he would not have Bielitsa fall, so he let go.

  —And found himself after a dark space on his back at the bottom of the slope with a fair-haired shadow between him mid a tree-latticed moon.

  Are you all right?'' Ilyana asked solemnly. And for some stupid reason he started to laugh. Was he all right? Was he all right? He was lying on his back, head downward on a hill with a dead wizard's ghost slithering about inside his heart, and the girl asked Was he all right?

  But breath ran out, tears of pain welled up and his stomach ached, so that he had to double over on his side—and he found himself facing the black furball's glowing yellow eyes and hedge of teeth. It snarled, spat at him and snapped at his lace.

  Ilyana said, sternly, ‘Babi, behave.’

  He would never of his own will have taken his eyes off the furball. Of his own will he could not get another breath. But his chest moved, and took it, his arm moved and braced under him. The ghost turned his face toward her and said, ‘Wish us well, wish us well tonight, Ilyana. Us and this boy—something's on our trail—more than your father.’

  Leaning there, head downhill, with Babi breathing on his neck, he thought for no reason of an ominous stone overgrown with thorns—Owl had died there. Wolves gathered like tame dogs about Ilyana's skirts. Solemn yellow eyes gazed at him with no glimmer of sanity.

  He blinked the night back around him, and shoved himself up frantically on his hands and knees, uphill, with a stab of pain across his stomach as the furball hissed and snapped at him. He fell back down, sitting. It seemed to him he had never fallen into the flood. Ilyana had been riding with him, just then warning him of ghosts and wizards that lived in this woods, and he had been answering her only a moment ago that there were things much worse than ghosts.

  But he could not remember how he had answered her. Kiev and the gilt pillars of his father's house became a painted, shadowy porch, and the shadowed trunks of trees. Imaginings became wolves, wolves became Owl, and Ilyana drowned while he stood safe on the shore and wanted her to die.

  God, no, that was wrong—he had been the one drowning and she had pulled him from the flood.

  She said, trying to lift him by his shoulder, ‘We've got to go on. Please. Please get up.’

  He tried. He shoved himself to his feet a second time and staggered upslope to catch Bielitsa's trailing reins. He had tried a jump, in the fields near the city wall. He had fallen and hit his head—

  His father, watching from horseback, leaned back in the saddle and called him a fool in front of his men.

  He caught his breath, clung to Bielitsa's neck and pressed his face against her mane, back in the dark and the woods.

  I left Kiev. I had to take Bielitsa—there was nowhere safe for her.

  But where are we running to? Where's safe, anywhere, now?

  He remembered leshys and madness at their hands, a woods of golden leaves—an endless succession of days, while suns and stars careered across the heavens, while autumns and springtimes sped past in torrents of leaves and wind-borne seeds. He remembered anger that shattered stones, forest-things as great as trees and very like them, with feet that were indeed backwards. He knew their names: Misighi and Wiun and Isvis and Priochni, scores of others—while he held Bielitsa's mane to keep himself on his feet, and used Bielitsa's strength to sustain him, knowing even while he look what was not his, that Kavi was betraying them—

  But, god, he was so afraid of dying—

  It needed only a little strength. Please the god and the Forest-things, too
, only enough and not too much… the wizard-girl was in terrible danger of some kind, and he had come back from the grave for her sake…

  But from whose grave—he was for a moment confused, Ilyana touched his sleeve. ‘Is something wrong? Are you all right? Yvgenie?’

  He had a debt to pay. He had no choice. He turned his back to Bielitsa's shoulder, looked into her night-shadowed eyes. ‘He wants—’ The damnable stammer came back. He never would have thought of taking her suddenly in his arms, or of kissing her on the lips, which with his present dizziness, made all breath fail.

  He thought, while he was holding her, god, it isn't me doing this, it's him, it's Chernevog doing it—

  But the whole night spun about them. He lost his breath, with all of life within his reach. The forest was full of it. Nothing could withstand them, nothing would be strong enough if he reached out and took it.

  He wanted to warn her. He wanted to say—don't trust him, Ilyana—because he truly was Yvgenie Pavlovitch, no matter whose wish had brought him to this place. He remembered drowning Ilyana, he remembered dying by fire and by water, and nothing could make sense to him. He thought that he would faint, he grew so dizzy, but life came with it, her life, life from the trees and the woods—from something vastly powerful—

  God, stop it. Stop it, don't do this, it's wrong to do this—

  Even if—god, even if it was the source of his next breath.

  Ilyana fainted in his arms. He wanted to let her go. He fought for the will to do that. And the thing within him whispered, faintly, ‘Death's so long, boy, and so damnably cold.’

  Down one hill and up another, with, Pyetr was sure, his daughter's wishes earnestly trying to mislead him and Eveshka's and Sasha's fighting to guide him. In that toss of the magical dice, the god only knew which would win, but distance did make a difference, every experience he had ever had with wizardry assured him that that was so, and as long as Volkhi could bear the pace he was narrowing that interval-Mouse, he intended to say when he found her and the boy—mouse, if you're going to be a scoundrel, you shouldn't leave your pursuers a horse to come after you—if, that is, you didn't truly want to be caught.