Chernevog (29 page)

He got a breath, got his balance, started Volkhi forward and look a hasty look ahead to be sure where he was going.

Chernevog was gone, vanished in the mist.

God, god, god
...

“
Easy, lad, there's a good lad, nice grain and honey-lumps when we get off this damned thing—god!
”

A cold spot went through him, left to right—a ghost, a haunt, Hitting across the arch of the bridge.

“
Seen Uulamets?
”
he asked it, while his heart fluttered like a trapped bird. In daylight, something as pale as a ghost seldom showed.
“
We're looking for him. Lost a wizard up ahead of us just now. Named Chernevog. You might want him. We certainly won't object.
”

Wherever it went, it did not come back. He kept going, nerved against more such encounters, and watched Volkhi's feet and his, taking his own time.

One could finally see the other shore, at least, stealing a quick glance ahead: it showed as a hazy green in the gray.

“
At least it's alive over there. That's—
”

A joint in the logs. Down to one width, here, knotty and uneven. Sweat was running down his neck, while his hands and loot were numb from the wind.

“
—encouraging, isn't it? Lots of green things, I promise you, stay calm, lad, easy, easy—watch the feet, god, don't rush me—
”

He could see the end of the bridge. He could see the other shore—

And a figure waiting in the mist where the bridge ended.

Chernevog. The god only knew his reasons.

A shelter against the misting rain, fire to boil up something edible—that was Sasha's job. A few sips of vodka to settle the
stomach
and Pyetr paid off the promised honey-lumps, curried Volkhi and Missy until his arms ached and his knees were shakier than they had been coming off the bridge. They worked— while Chernevog sat at his leisure and idly, with his fingernails, stripped a leaf down to its skeleton.

That reminded him of that damned bridge out there.

Pyetr wiped his hands on his breeches, put the straw curry brush away in the proper bag, came wobbling back to the fire for a cup of hot tea fortified with vodka.

He sat down next the fire, shut his eyes a moment to rest them and kept seeing gray, empty space and feeling the ground sway. He had done crazier things, he told himself he had: walked The Doe's rooftree on a bet—climbed any number of balconies in Vojvoda—with no wizard to steady him. It had been a sure thing, this time. Absolutely. Even with Chernevog involved. Leshys had built it.

God.

He shivered, let go his breath and took another drink. Sasha nudged his arm and passed him a plate: pancake and a bit of sausage.

There was a helping for Chernevog.

“
Damn waste of good sausages,
”
Pyetr muttered, in no mood for charity.

Chernevog accepted it, and the cup of tea—held the cup out to him, saying, pleasantly enough,
“
A little vodka if you please.
”

Choke, Pyetr thought. But outrageous behavior moved him to outrageous courtesies: a gambler's son, among rich young gentlemen, learned their manner in self-defense. He gave Chernevog his falsest smile, added vodka to his cup, saying:
“
Personally, I wish it were aconite.
”

Chernevog said,
“
Your health,
”
and lifted the cup to Sasha.
“
Is it?
”

“
No,
”
Sasha said quietly.
“
I promise you.
”

Chernevog smiled, ate his supper, drank his tea and vodka along with them, said, somberly,
’‘I miss Owl. I truly do. You're very cruel, Alexander Vasilyevitch.
”

“
How do you know my name?
”

Chernevog shrugged, took a deep drink.
”
I have my sources. I did, at least. Now I'm content to be your prisoner.
”

“
Liar
,
”
Pyetr said.

Chernevog looked him in the eyes, over the cup rim.
“
Your health, too, Pyetr Ilyitch.
”

“
You were talking about Owl,
”
Sasha said.

Chernevog's gaze went distant. Finally it dropped to the cup in his hands.

“
I'll sleep now,
”
he said in a subdued voice.’‘—Good night, Pyetr Ilyitch.
”

Pyetr did not look at him; he drank another sip of his tea and vodka, and listened to Chernevog settle down next the fire.

For a good long while afterward he held his peace, listening to Chernevog's breathing grow more regular. He thought how Sasha could as easily have poisoned the wretch.

Sasha saying—I'm not Uulamets—

Himself: Thank the god—

Sasha said,
“
He's probably asleep.
”

“
Don't depend on it.
”

“
I 'm not. Tea and wishes. And a little something extra. He'll probably have a headache.
”

“
Good.
”
He remembered the muddy yard of Chernevog's house, none so far away, remembered unnumbered hours of hell. Eveshka crying: Kavi, don't! He made a face and took another drink, but he thought that should be his last, fearing too deep a sleep on this darkening, drizzly shore. The ground still felt as if it were swaying, every time he shut his eyes.
“
We should give him another one in the morning. I'll just put him on the horse like a sack of turnips. If we need him at all.
”

“
The leshys had a reason.
”

“
Doubling's my one small talent, remember? I doubt the leshys know that much what they're doing, where it doesn't regard trees. They don't understand us. For some reason he's waked up. For some reason something's wrong over here that has the leshys scared. —For some damn
reason
we haven't cut that scoundrel's head off!
”

“
I know, I know, I'm thinking about that. But he's worried, loo.
”

“
He's worried. Thank the god
he's
worried, I'm so glad to know that. I'm scared out of my skin. I'm worried about my wife, dammit!
”

“
I know, I know, Pyetr.
”

“
No word, nothing.
”

“
Nothing.
”

He shook his head, took another drink without thinking about the jug in his hands. He was thinking about Eveshka out there

alone in the dark tonight, somewhere on this shore, if the leshys were right; and he thought of Uulamets in his grave, as strong as he had ever been—wanting to come back, wanting his daughter, every wish and want a spell to reach out into other people's lives.

The old man had passed some kind of legacy to Sasha—too much, Eveshka was wont to say. He sat here drinking himself to helplessness, like Chernevog, and the boy was under some damn spell.

The bridge is safe, Pyetr, leshys made it—

Two cat eyes opened in the dusk, in empty air—right in front of his knees.

“
God!
”
He scrambled back against the canvas, before he recognized the small shadowy nose that appeared next, with the outline of a round belly.

“
Babi!
”
Sasha said.
“
Thank the god—Babi. Come on, Babi
...
”

“
Vodka, Babi.
”
Pyetr unstopped the bottle, tipped a little into empty air.

The eyes vanished. The vodka splashed onto the ground.

Sasha said,
“
He's upset.
”

“
He got a
good
look at our company. Dammit, Babi, come on back, it's all right!
”

But Babi did not come back. There was nothing but the crackle of their small fire, the occasional spit of a water drop as it dripped off the canvas into the embers.

‘‘Babi probably had a terrible scare,
”
Sasha said.
”
He's probably not far from us, right now. He may not have been, all along.
”

Sasha was trying to cheer him. Pyetr sipped from the jug, set his jaw and stared into the fire thinking-No, dammit, he refused even to think about losing Eveshka. He refused to think how they might have been tricked from the beginning, and how, after the small inconvenience of dying, Ilya Uulamets might have something in mind for them after all-some spell he might have put onto the boy, to bring them all here when he was ready—

But there was Eveshka, for one very major point of resistance in any such scheme: Eveshka had fought lifelong for independence from her father, she had made most of her young mistakes
dying to get free of Uulamets, and she would never be taken in by him now. Sasha argued that, by what was written in his book, Uulamets had never been a truly bad man—to which he had retorted: He was too smart to be bad. He wanted his way—and as
long as he got it he was a perfectly wonderful man.

Uulamets had wanted Sasha, too. The old man had taken Immediately to Sasha, said to himself, Aha, here's a likely, trusting lad—

So we go find him, Pyetr thought. Which gives Uulamets his daughter, his heir, and his enemy all in one basket
...
And where does that leave me?

But, he argued with himself, Sasha won't see the old thief do me in. Neither will Eveshka. He'll have to take me with whatever deal he wants to make with them—and won't the old man hate that?

But what deal? What do wizards want, when they're not scared of causing storms and bringing the tsar down on them?

A man could get a headache thinking about wizards. He asked Sasha, whose firelit, pensive face was hazing more than it should
in
his vision,
“
You didn't give me any of that damn stuff, did you?
”

A look of wide brown eyes. ‘‘No. Of course not.
”

Sometimes Sasha scared him. Sometimes he thought, I haven't got a chance. The boy can do any damn thing he wants. Someday he will.

God help us all.

Pyetr lay down on his side, tucked up like a child, forgetting his blanket. Sasha got up and spread it over him, threw their other canvas over Chernevog, then sat down and pulled his own blanket about his shoulders.

He did wish Babi would come back. But Babi was not answering him any more than Eveshka was, and he was becoming increasingly anxious about trying. What Chernevog had said echoed disquietingly off his recollections of what Chernevog had written, with no ulterior motive—that hearts were dangerous to have when one dealt with magic, because magical creatures could understand hearts: it was wizards' intentions they could not fathom: and wizards could no more fathom them. Babi was one thing. Something like the vodyanoi was quite another, and
leshys did things for reasons that made no sense. What such creatures wanted was very, very different from what people would want—or at least from what good people would want.

He would not write that in his book. He wanted no more writing about magic in his book. He wanted not even to think about it, except—

Except there was something in common about their difficulties lately, and that, magically considered, argued for a common source of their troubles, a single
kind
of wish.

Whatever it was, it scared Babi, and absented Eveshka, and now that they were out of the silence where they might perhaps speak to her—kept her silent, absolutely cut off from them in a way he did not want to admit to Pyetr, not until there was no choice. He still hoped—but he grew more afraid with every assault he made on that silence, afraid that something unwanted might suddenly track him down the thread of that wish. He had no idea why he felt that way, or what it meant beyond a childish fear of bogles and bumps in the night, but that was the case.

The fear of an answer might prevent one, as effectively as the leshys could—that might be the reason; or it might be his own wishes saving a young and naive wizard from disaster. His thoughts kept going in circles like that—but he equally suspected that what Pyetr called his damnable worrying, laid on thick over the years, might be the protection that had saved Pyetr's life in the early stages of this trouble, a web of wishes that had not let a shapeshifter lead Pyetr to disaster in the woods, and that had gotten them to the leshys before Chernevog got loose altogether. Pyetr might ironically be the hardest of them for someone else's magic to get at, after all, seeing he had had two wizards anxious as hens over him for years.