Yvgenie (43 page)

***

Day came creeping through the tangle of branches, with
the
distant muttering of thunder—decidedly not the sound a
ma
n wanted to hear, with wizards involved. Pyetr dipped his ha
nds
in cold water, splashed his face and wiped his hair back
for
the moment it would stay out of his eyes, rocked onto
his
knees and sat with his eyes shut a moment, while
Volkhi
drank.

Not the wisest thing to do, perhaps, going off the
second
time alone, but in coldest sanity he did not think
that sur
prising the mouse or 'Veshka with Nadya in his company was the best idea right now. Jealousy, hurt feelings, he h
ad
seen enough, even between his wife and the daughter he
had
known all her life.

And if an unmagical man had gotten any wisdom about magic after all these years, or about the hearts of wizards, there seemed only one way to put a stop to craziness when wishes got out of hand, and that was to put himself squarely in their way.

Sasha, Eveshka,
Ilyana
. Do what you like. But I'm not on anyone's side. I won't be. Don't think it.

A second splash of water. The air was cold. But he and the old lad had been moving, and he had hurt his hand somewhere, add that to the account of an aching shoulder and aching bones. Nothing against nature, Sasha would say.

But, god, what else have we done in this woods?

Third splash of water. He shut his eyes and let the water run down his neck, numbing the fire in his shoulders and the ache behind his eyes. There was no constant pull and push here, no knowledge turning up unasked—it was quiet, truly quiet, except the wind in the leaves.

At this distance from aggrieved parties the man in the middle could draw a few sane breaths and try to think how many sides there were to this affair
—

No one's side. Not even excluding Chernevog's. Or the boy's. Or my other daughter's. None of you and all of you are my side. And I'm all alone out here—
a
ny wish that's ever let loose about me has its chance. Even Chernevog's. Mouse,
you
chose him. If you want him and you want me, and he
w
ants that boy—magic's got the best chance at me it's had
yet.

I do hope you love your father—because he's going to put
hi
mself where he needs help, mouse, he's going to do it until
yo
u notice.

If you want things to be right, mouse, and you want your
ow
n way, you'd better want the right things. Can you possibly
hea
r me?

No? Then I'd better be moving. Fast as I can, mouse. I was right in the first place. Maybe Sasha can't catch up with me this time. Maybe it'll be up to you. What do you think of that, mouse?

I do hope you think about that.

It
was less and less effort to hold the silence: it seemed to be holding itself, now, and it had a lonelier and lonelier feeling
s
ince last night. They had waked this morning under a blanket of new-fallen leaves, and berry bushes, young trees and
stre
amsides of bracken and silver birch gave way to shaded
s
olitude, aged beeches and oaks far rough
er and stouter than
th
e trees to the south—perhaps, Ilyana thought, they had come to the end of the woods that they knew—at least, de
s
pite Yvgenie's warnings, they had gotten, if not further than others' wishes had ever been—at least well away from any place wizards who knew her had ever been. Perhaps that was the silence. But one hated to break a branch here. One felt fear—whether that it was something in the forest itself or whether it was only the unaccustomed stillness.

But when she wanted Patches to go a little more carefully Bielitsa
brushed
past her, finding a way through the thicket that her magic had not found. It was surely Kavi guiding them again, she thought, and set Patches to follow the gently winding course.

‘
Not a friendly place,
’
she said when he stopped and gave her the chance to overtake him. She had pricked her
finger moving a branch aside, and sucked at it.
‘
Can you feel it?
’

‘
It was never friendly. I
knew
we were close last night. I didn't know how close. We might have reached it
…
But something's wrong.
’

Absolutely it was Kavi now. He slid down from Bielitsa's back, bade her follow and led the way afoot, a long, difficult passage in among aged, peeling trees. Not a wholesome place, she thought to herself: the further they went the more desolate the place seemed, until at last nothing near them was alive. Thorn-bushes broke with dry crackling, the moss went to powder underfoot, trees stood ghostly pale, bare-trunked.

‘
Kavi,
’
she said,
‘
Kavi, stop. There's nothing good here.
’

He looked back at her, so pale, so frighteningly pale and afraid.

‘
There's nothing alive here,
’
he said distressedly.
‘
It's
dead.
’

She thought, Is
this
what he meant, that it was wrong to wish a place where wishes weren't? Is this that place?

It's as if wishes fail here, as if you can pour them into this place, and nothing gets out—

But Kavi was leaving her, going deeper into this place. She was sure it was Kavi now, sure it was Kavi who ignored her pleas and kept going—

It was surely Kavi who led Bielitsa into a ring of dead trees, to a stone slab that might have been nature's work—or not. She pushed her way past a fragile thorn-branch and led Patches through, as Owl came close and lit on the ground before the stone—the same place, god, her father and the sword: it was that stone, it was the place where Owl had died.

And standing all about them, huge trunks, peeling bark, white wood, like trees but not. Nor standing as trees would grow, wind-trained and orderly. There was disarray here. There was randomness.

‘
They're dead,
’
he said, faintly, distressedly,
‘
they're all dead, Ilyana.
’

She looked about them, seeing in the peeling trunks the likeness of empty eyes and the whiteness of bone. She wanted Babi with her, please. She wanted anything alive, besides herself and Yvgenie and the horses, because nothing else here was. She wanted anything magical and wholesome— because magic had gone from this place, magic had died here—not well, or peacefully.

Kavi sank down on the stone as if the strength had gone out of him, too—and she felt alarm, thinking: A rusalka's magical, isn't he? as Owl flew up to perch by him on the stone. He took Owl on his hand and said, faintly,
‘
They wanted me to bring you here. But it's too late now.''

‘
Bring me here? Why? Misighi's my uncle's friend.
Misighi
could come to the house—they don't need anyone to bring me to them. If they wanted me to come here, they could just have asked, couldn't they?
’

He only shook his head in dismay, and for a moment, a very small moment, there seemed hazy edges about him, Kavi's shape and Yvgenie's.

‘
He's afraid,
’
Yvgenie said.
‘
He—
’
Yvgenie's blurred shape got up from the stone and looked into the woods, shaking his head slowly, once and twice. She tried to eavesdrop, and caught only images of Kiev, and Yvgenie's father, und a hallway at night where men gathered and talked of murders. He recalled a stairway, and towers and walls, and leading Bielitsa out into the dark, out the gates of Kiev—

Yvgenie said, looking around at the sky, the dead leshys.
‘
The falling suns. The moons and the thorns. This is the place. He had to bring you here—to them. They wanted him
t
o. He slept for years here. But he forgot and it was too long, i
t
was much too long. He was only a boy—and leshys don't understand little boys. —God it's all full of dark spots—
’

‘
Don't say that—
’
Oh, god, a
stupid
wish, when he was desperately trying to warn her. She wanted out of this place,
s
he felt the life going away from him and Owl as if he was
b
leeding it into the stone and the ground, the longer he sta
yed
here. '' Come away.''

He shook his head, with the most dreadful memory
of
fear, and thorns, and a confusion of suns in the sky.
Ow
I dying, struck by her father's sword.

She came and took his hand, wanting Patches and Biel
itsa
to stay with them: his fingers were cold as winter.
‘
Don't argue with me, please, Kavi, it's not good here. It's not
safe,
Kavi, please listen. Something terrible happened in
this
place, and it's dead, and you can't be near it any longer, K
a
vi please, let's get out of here, let's go on!''

He stood still, resisting her pulling, and gazed out amour the trees.
‘
It's there,
’
he
said faintly, and she looked, and
saw nothing but dead leshys and dead brush.

‘
What's there!
’

‘
Where I was buried. Where I died. Across the river
…
’

The cold was spreading from his hand to hers. She held on, she
wanted
him to leave this place, with all her mind she wanted it, and pulled at him, made him walk, that direction, any direction, if that was al
l he could want—as long as it was
out of this place. Please the god it was out of this deadly grove.

She wished Bielitsa and Patches to follow them. They left the stone behind, they re-entered the maze of thorns.
She
was colder and colder—her fingers could not even feel his, now.

‘
Please, a little further, a little further—
’

Thorns scratched her arms, caught at her skirts and at him and at the horses. Then something cold brushed against her, Something flitted through the brush ahead, and following i
t
with her eye she saw it take
a path she had not realized was
there. She fought through the thorns and saw the way through, if only she could reach it.
‘
There,
’
she said.
‘
There! Ther
e’s
a path, do you see?
’

Babi turned up, at Missy's feet as they went, and Sasha was only half glad of that.
‘
Th
e dvorovoi,
’
Nadya said, the
instant
he appeared, trotting beside them as they rode, and he
said
:

‘
I'd rather hoped he was with Pyetr.''

Nadya held sometimes to his belt, sometimes to his waist—
at
the
moment it was the former, but a fox darted from cover
and
Missy made a little toss of her head, and immediately it
wa
s
the latter, tightly.

‘
Only a fox,
’
he said.
‘
Missy's never trusted them
si
nce—
’

Since he had thought shapeshifters or the like might use that form, and most unfortunately told Missy.

Nadya's arms stayed where they were. She had never rid
de
n a horse, she was thinking, she had never even left the walls of her house and her garden—

Nor seen a fox, nor a bear nor any wild creature. Considering that, she was very brave.

And reconciled to Pyetr, at least she knew certain things
tha
t made her understand him—Sasha most earnestly tried not to eavesdrop, and all the same caught embarrassed and
em
barrassing thoughts about
him
while they were riding, which, god! were no help at all to a wizard trying to think.
One
could hardly tell her not to have thoughts like that: the limit was the eavesdropper's, or his concentration: she was
a
ll unaware and innocent. She was thinking—how he felt so
strong
, although he was hardly taller than she was; how he
must
ride horses and do things other than magic; how just
thinking
about him—