Chernevog (23 page)

God, Eveshka, listen to me
...

He felt vulnerable tonight. Perhaps it was the dream. He thought of the hare—the swiftness of the strike
...

He had never thought overmuch about carrying weapons, he had never even thought of wanting a sword for himself: a wizard with his art was more than armed. A wizard wishing to kill
...

Could.

Pyetr trusted him to do the wise thing, the right thing to save them; he was terribly afraid that he had been making wrong choices all along, and he wondered if it was so much virtue or wisdom had made him hesitate at killing Chernevog as it was his fear of uncertainties.

Or the force of Chernevog's own wishes.

He shivered, listening to Pyetr settling back into his blankets. He thought, I haven't Pyetr's courage. I'm scared of consequences I can't even think of, so scared I can't think straight. Like a damned rabbit—of some shadow in the sky.

If the leshys let him wake—and if Eveshka's gotten herself into something I can't get her out of, god, Pyetr believes I know what I'm doing, and who am I, for the god's sake, to deal with a sorcerer in the first place? Uulamets was scared of him,
Uulamets
couldn't beat him, except with magic
...

He thought, then, clear and cold, God, what am I doing? Magic against Chernevog?

Dmitri Venedikov's dice
...

Fool,
fool,
Alexander Vasilyevitch!

He came free of his trance, scrambled up, looking for his pack.

“
What's wrong?
”
Pyetr sat up and grabbed at his arm.
“
Sasha?
”

“
It's all right, it's all right, Pyetr, I just for the god's sake woke up.
”
He dragged his bag into reach and set out pot after pot of herbs. ‘‘I haven't been reading what I'm writing all these years, that's what. Words. Words and words. They don't mean anything unless you listen.
”

“
What do you mean, reading what you're writing? —What are you looking for?
”

“
Mullein, golden-seal, and violet.
”

“
Violet?
”

“
I like violet.
”

He found the jars he wanted, he unsealed them and flung a pinch of each into the fire, added moss. The fire leaped up.
“
More wood,
”
he said.

“
Sasha?—
”
Pyetr seemed to think better of questions then, and got up and fed in three more sizable sticks.

“
I don't promise,
”
Sasha murmured, trying to keep his thoughts together, examining that Don't-promise for hidden doubt. He amended it, absently: ‘‘But it's a mistake to go at this with magic.
”

“
Can you talk to 'Veshka? Can you find her?
”

“
Maybe. I don't know.
”
He added more violet, breathed the smoke, tried to shut Pyetr's questions out of his mind and keep his thoughts joined, like holding so many skittish horses at once.
“
Magic doesn't belong in nature. Nature's shutting us out, the harder I try to use it. That's what's going on. Nothing against nature.
”

“
What for the god's sake are you talking about?
”

“
Dmitri's dice. Magic and nature. They don't like each other. Leshys are something special. Magical as Babi. Natural as the trees. Like wizards, more than anything else, part this, party that—but they don't know us: even if they like us they can't tell us apart except they smell us over. They never do know us one from the other by our faces. Us, him, no difference, no difference at all to them, if it's wizardry they don't want happening in the woods—
”

“
God. You think the
leshys
are doing this?
”

“
I don't know. I honestly don't know. It's a question of moving pebbles.
”

“
Pebbles?
”

“
The little things. Hush, please, Pyetr, hush!
”
He put his hands over his ears, in danger of losing his thought—the exact way Misighi felt when he was speaking, the things Misighi loved and noticed by choic
e…

Misighi and birch trees. Misighi leaning close to smell and touch. Misighi, who heard the least twig break in his woods—
his
woods, long before it ever b
elonged in any wise to wizards
... He leaned close into the smoke, under the drizzle from the trees, held his hands to the warmth,
f
illed his eyes with the leaping flames, unblinking.

Wood and fire. Natural as the forest. Natural as the fall of rain that snuffed it, the seeds that sprouted after it. —Natural as the fall of a single pine cone somewhere unseen—and the wish that Misighi hear it.

“
Misighi,
”
he whispered,
“
Misighi, 'Veshka's out on the river and we can't find her—can you talk to us, Misighi?
”

He expected that the answer would be faint when it came. He rested there in the warmth of the smoke, he rested his eyes against the heels of his hands till he saw lights, he thought with guilt of the borrowing he had done against the woods, not trusting wizardry, not thinking of Misighi as Misighi truly was—

And maybe, in that thought, Misighi was chiding him for his mistakes: he did feel the woods again, distant and trying to escape him.

But he clung to that elusive sense of presence: he remembered birch trees, he made all his thought simply of birch trees.
“
Misighi,
”
he whispered, and somewhere far away dropped another pine cone.

One had to look ever so carefully to see a leshy when it wished otherwise. One could so easily mistake them. One had to listen ever so carefully to know a leshy's voice—and one might never, ever hear it, if one had one's mind already set only on what one expected to hear
...

It was truly amazing how long the boy could sit still: Pyetr tucked back in the narrow shelter, wrapped up in his damp coat
and his blanket. The magical smoke had no effect on him but to make his nose run—but he saw the concentration in Sasha's attitude, and he was sure something was going on: if it took building fires in the middle of the night and if the boy suddenly said he understood something, then, god, if belief could put some force behind the boy's efforts, then he
did
believe, damn, he did, he would believe in old friends before he believed in anything.

Misighi, he thought on his own, if you're listening—we need help. 'Veshka does. Maybe you do. We're trying to get to you. Listen to the boy, he knows how to say things
...

Babi screeched of a sudden and bounded out of the shelter: Pyetr's heart jumped. Babi took refuge on Volkhi's back, eyes glowing gold in the dark above the fire. But Sasha never flinched.

Is it going all right? Pyetr wondered. Am I fouling things up?

Then he heard something saying
...
he had no idea. It sounded like the sighing of leaves. It felt like a clean wind. It smelled like spring.

It passed, slowly.

That was Misighi, Pyetr thought, with no sane reason in the world to say he had heard a thing. He wiped his nose furiously, stifled a sneeze, found the arm he was leaning on trembling violently and the fist that had been in his chest let go.

Sasha said, a whisper,
”
He's listening. He knows we're here.
”

“
I heard.
”

Sasha sat there a long time on his heels, elbows on knees, firelight shining on scarcely blinking eyes. Pyetr held himself on the shaking arm, dared not move, hardly dared breathe, thinking, eventually,

God, is he all right? Ought I to wake him up? What use am I, except to keep some bear from eating him?

Sasha murmured, finally, scarcely a movement of his lips,
“
The quiet
is
the leshys' doing. They want us up there, fast as we can.
”

“
They damn near got me killed!
”
Pyetr whispered.
“
Don't they know that? They've gotten 'Veshka off alone, the god only knows where she is— If they want us up there, why didn't they damn well
say
so?
”

Sasha said, in the same hushed tone,
“
They're preventing
things, that's all. All magic. They're allowing only what agrees with them. I think they're in some kind of trouble.
”

“
Fine. Fine. We know what kind. Is Misighi hearing from 'Veshka? Did you ask him?
”

“
I asked him. He said—he just said hurry.
”

God, he did not like the sound of that.

“
We've got to go,
”
Sasha said.
“
Now.
”

In the dark. Of course. Now. Immediately.

Pyetr grabbed up mats and blankets and started packing.

Fast.

Daylight found a wholesome woods, wide-spaced growth. A fox crossed a hillside, stopped and wondered at them.

They were out of the vodyanoi's
woods, Sasha said; and in small truth, whether they had suddenly passed within the leshys' healthy influence or whether it was the sheer relief of knowing Misighi was at least aware and answering, Pyetr felt as if they had some real hope: he kept moving as fast as he could possibly walk, despite the occasional stitch in his side, keeping Volkhi's pace and insisting Sasha ride more than he did—
”
It's all right,
”
he said to Sasha.
“
My legs are longer.
”

Ride and walk and walk and rest—the latter only by short stretches: time to splash water in one's face and wash the dust into some spring. Walking warmed wet clothes, wet boots wore blisters, and the whole day became one long confusion of leaf-strewn hills and bracken patches.

But the change in the woods itself was heartening. Leshys' work, for sure, Pyetr told himself: there was hardly a fallen branch in their path, no reason not to go on after dusk and into dark; and when the dark got too deep, they simply unrolled their blankets, tucked down and rested without a fire, with the branches sighing over them.

“
It feels safer here,
”
Pyetr murmured dizzily, on the edge of sleep:
“
It feels healthier. Thank the god.
”

“
You've got to ride tomorrow,
”
Sasha said.

“
Faster otherwise.
”

Sasha said nothing to that. Pyetr had second thoughts then that maybe it was only that his walking
felt
faster, the god knew Sasha pushed himself as hard as he could—

“
Besides,
”
he amended it,
“
you don't think when you're
busy watching your own feet, and my thinking doesn't help us: yours does.
”

Further silence. Then, a shaky:
“
I am trying, Pyetr.
”

“
I know you are. Did I ever say not?
”

“
When I was little,
”
Sasha said on a sigh,
“
when I'd burn myself or smash a finger—I'd want it to stop hurting—and it would. And that would scare me. So I'd want it to hurt again. And then I'd want it to stop, because it hurt. I feel like that sometimes.
”

He thought about that. It was more like Eveshka than he wanted to think about at the moment. He said,
“
I can understand that.
”

“
Can you?
”

“
Nobody knows what they really want. Everybody has doubts. That's the point, isn't it?
”

“
I think it's the point.
”

“
You should have dumped that skinflint uncle of yours in the horse trough, you know that? You put up with too much.
”

“
I was scared.
”

“
You were too damn polite, you truly were. You always have been.
”