Chernevog (10 page)
Authors: CJ Cherryh
If wishing could make me someone else's daughter, then I would. If it were only me, alone, I'd wish I had no gift and maybe that would stop it: papa always said that was possible. Maybe if I believed that absolutely that
we’d
always be safe here, that would be the spell papa always said a wizard could cast once in his life, the spell that can't be broken
—
Her heart jumped, her hand moved the pen against the flow: ink flew across
the page, a spatter like blood—
He heard Eveshka push a bench back in the other room, heard her running across the floor. She flung the bedroom door open and stood looking at him, in a hush in which the whole woods seemed to participate.
“
Sasha?
”
she said.
He pushed his bench back, rose with the feeling of a terrible
presence- standing behind him—no, farther away, beyond the wall, from a very precise spot at the far side of the yard—a bed of stones—
“
The bathhouse!
”
Sasha exclaimed,
“
the bannik!
”
as he headed for the door. He banged it wide on his way out onto the wooden walk-up, with Eveshka crying:
“
Wait! Wait!
”
and racing behind him to the yard.
But when they had gotten to the ground she rushed past him and ran, braids flying, out the front gate into the road, calling out,
“
Pyetr!
”
Terror was swirling about the yard behind them, Eveshka's wild apprehensions flying out into the woods far and wide, wanting Pyetr
back
here now, within her protection, immediately—
“
Eveshka!
”
Sasha shouted after her, and ran as far as the hedge himself.
“
Eveshka! Wait! We don't know what we're changing, you could
make
something happen, don't call him back!
”
She hesitated in the weeds of the lane, still gazing in the direction Pyetr must have gone; and all Sasha could think of was Eveshka's summons going out, out into uncertainties, agitating everything that was hitherto stable. She clenched her hands and culled again, with a silent, panicked force.
“
God, I can't find him! I can't find anything out there, it's all gone!
”
'‘‘Veshka! If you don't know, for the god's sake, don't wish! We don't know what we're calling him into! Come back here!
”
She stood with fists clenched, cast an anguished look down the way Pyetr had gone, then came running back through the gate, pale of face and breathless, falling in beside him as he turned and struck out for the bathhouse.
“
I can't find him,
”
Eveshka muttered as they went.
“
I want to know where he is, dammit, and I don't know. I don't know where Babi is, I don't know where the leshys are—
”
“
That's not unusual,
”
he said. He could feel the malaise too, silence like a smothering snow settled over the house and yard, In which there was no sense of any presence but that cold feeling from the bathhouse. He was tempted to try a summoning himself, to see if it was his own apprehensions stopping her; but unease was growing in him with every stride he made, and he —- more and more convinced he did not want Pyetr near this
kept feeling: danger both in doing and not doing, danger in every word they spoke and every question they asked at this point
...
“
Sasha, this thing doesn't feel right, dammit, nothing feels right—
”
“
Don't swear! And don't wish anything. We don't know there's any trouble at all where Pyetr is, it could all be here and we could wish him right back into it.
”
“
It
won't
be to us, use your head, Sasha! It doesn't have to come at us, Pyetr's out there alone, he's always the one anything would go for.
”
“
He's got Babi. He's got Misighi if he gets in any real trouble. You know they're the hardest thing to feel, even if they don't mind talking to us. Just calm down, let's see what we're dealing with.
”
She was frightening both of them, anxieties flying back and forth between them as they reached the bathhouse. She flinched from his hand on her arm, wanted him to stop interfering with her, in all respects—and she was so strong in her fright, so terribly, dangerously strong—
“
Calm down!
”
he begged her, catching her hand.
Calm won suddenly, a quick clasp of fingers, a meeting of eyes at the bathhouse door.
“
I know my question,
”
she said on a breath, thinking determinedly of Pyetr, and pulled the door open.
The presence inside retreated into shadows on a gust of wind, an oppressive dread slipping farther and farther from their hold, circling around the edges of their magic. It whispered, it muttered, it racketed suddenly about the walls and shrieked at them.
“
It's not ours!
”
Eveshka cried, collided with Sasha in the doorway and caught his arm.
“
It's not the one I know—look out!
”
Sasha pushed her behind him, demanding of it to know why it retreated from them, wanting to see with his own eyes the shadow that moved around the walls, a crooked shape that might have been a boy and might have been something far less savory, leaping with blinding quickness from bench to bench to firepit.
It hissed at him. It lunged for him with long-nailed fingers and raked his arm: Sasha gasped and jumped back with the
impression of wild eyes and spiky hair and a feeling of cold and dam
p
—
And the most terrible premonition about a place of thorns and branches.
6
Very little was left of the old road: it was getting increasingly overgrown, most confused where the fall of old trees had let in the sun, stretches rife with new bracken, saplings as apt to grow in the roadway as in the woods about. There were the occasional deadfalls, there were washes and slips where the death of trees had let streams run unchecked—rough ground and unpredictable, and Pyetr had had every notion of taking it easy on himself and on
Volkhi
this first outing, simply seeing, sedately and sanely, how
Volkhi
had fared these last several years.
But Volkhi's traveling stride, sure-footed and sensible, ate up the distances, made little of the obstacles, and in the shadowed places, the barren ground beneath the old trees,
Volkhi
threw his head and danced, never minding Babi turning up in his path—actually not odd at all, Pyetr thought, reckoning that a horse probably knew a dvorovoi when it smelled one. Babi skipped and trotted and panted along quite briskly, crossed right under Volkhi's feet, and
Volkhi
never made but a skip and a kick like a colt..
Pyetr laughed aloud, dusted Volkhi's rump with his cap, jumped him over an old log and,
Volkhi
taking it into his head just then to race, ran Babi a wild course for a long stretch down j the old road—but Babi cheated: Babi kept popping up just ahead of them.
* * *
Sweet oils and pine, bay for foreseeing: it was not what one hurried so much as the thought one put into it, master Uulamets would say. They filled the bathhouse with aromatic smoke and steam: they flung herbs into the small stone furnace and wished for visions in the firelit dark.
“
Bannik,
”
Sasha asked it, most respectfully,
“
is there a danger to anyone of this household?
”
“
Not is!
”
Eveshka said.
“
It only knows the future. Bannik, excuse us and show us the fireside this evening.
”
Hut they had nothing from the bannik beyond that first vision, only the creak and pop of settling timbers, ask though they would, however politely and respectfully.
Not their bannik, Eveshka had said: and Sasha was sure it
was
not, not the Old Man of the Bath of Eveshka's childhood, not even the angry creature that had fled from Uulamets, but something much darker—something which, so far as Sasha had seen it, resembled nothing so much as a ragged, feral child—
With claws that had left bleeding scratches on his arm.
“
Ours never had eyes like that,
”
Eveshka said, hugging her arms about her as she paced the circuit of the bathhouse.
“
Ours never attacked anyone, it never made sounds at all, it was just th
is
little old man who sometimes left footprints in the snow— especially when we left him vodka, and he'd get drunk, and you'd go into the bathhouse and he'd sit in the corner and give you visions—but they never made sense. They never were about anything important. This thing—
”
“
I'll get the vodka jug,
”
Sasha said, willing to try anything, and opened the door and hesitated in sudden doubt of Eveshka's safety.
“
I'll be all right!
”
Eveshka said, and waved him out.
“
Go! Let's just for the god's sake do something, shall we?
”
He wished
he
knew why Pyetr was not back. He wished—
He ran out into the daylight and got the vodka jug from where he was sure
Pyetr had left it, beside Volkhi's pen, and raced, breathless, back to the bathhouse and inside.
Eveshka stood waiting, arms folded.
“
Nothing,
”
she whispered to his anxious look, as he shut the door again.
“
God, just let's get it to show us whatever it wants to show us
... ”
He unstopped the jug, splashed a generous dash into the furnace along with the bay and the pine baric and the moss. Fire roared back into his face, dazzled him with light—
Drops falling from thorns, splashing into water
...
Droplets red and spreading in puddles on the stones
...
‘‘Where's Pyetr?
”
Eveshka cried, wishing truth from the bannik, feeling the silence on the woods like suffocation, like drowning
...
The River-thing sleeping deep in his burrow, old Hwiuur, coiled like the snake he seemed
...
She caught at Sasha's sleeve as he staggered upright. She stood there trembling, teeth chattering, saying, though she could hardly hear herself speaking in that silence,
“
I can't make sense of it. Blood and water—blood and water's all I can see of it— Sasha, I don't like this.
”
And Sasha, between breaths, holding her sleeve:
“
I don't see anything at all. It's not speaking to me.
”
Pyetr reined back at a brushy deadfall across the road, walked Volkhi around its end to the other side, then slid off for a rest
—
god, a little ride and already he felt the first hint of soreness that might, by tomorrow, have him walking very carefully.
More than that, Sasha was going to laugh—wish him well and cure the ache Sasha might, but he was certainly going to have his amusement beforehand.
So if one was going to suffer for it, Pyetr thought, rubbing Volkhi down with old leaves, and if one was bound to be sore before the day was done, there was no degree to that kind of ache: as well enjoy the day. Sasha would understand, Sasha would tell Eveshka there was no reason to worry about the horse—
But it was probably not wise to press the point too far, Pyetr told himself on a second thought: just a little way down the road. Eveshka was already upset, and if he was determined to cure her, of her fear of horses, he could hardly afford to have her worrying. So he swung up again to Volkhi's back, wincing a bit as he landed, and started off at an easy pace, Babi trotting along at one side and the other by entirely unpredictable turns.
It was too good to give up quite this early: aches to come and all, there was not a tsar in all the world he envied at the moment,
not for his wife, not for his court, not for any horse a tsar could own.
He'll surely come to some bad end, they had said of him In Vojvoda. Pyetr Ilyitch, the gambler's son, was bound, they said, to be hanged—to which he had come quite frighteningly close, as happened, but for Sasha. And here he was, Pyetr Kochevikov, who never had believed in magic, living with wizards, married to a rusalka who really, truly, was alive again; and riding in a woods with a dvorovoi for company.
Sometimes it all did take a little getting used to. Sometimes he did think of Vojvoda, where there was doubtless a price on his head, and where none of his old friends would ever believe the sight of him hale and well.
And he most particularly hoped his old friend Dmitri Venedikov had bought Volkhi back from the innkeeper to satisfy his debts—because if it so happened that Sasha's innocent wish had Indeed committed horse theft, he sincerely hoped it was from 'Mitri, and by the dumping of
'Mitri in some muddy street— not that he was bitter, god, no, he was too well-content for bitterness toward his old friends, else he would wish (being no wizard and free to do such things) for 'Mitri to break a leg or two, for all the help 'Mitri had not been to him.
In truth, outside of Volkhi's original owner, who had been no good master in the first place, he could think of no one else more likely to have bought Volkhi from his creditors—'Mitri having said, loudly, in his cups, that he had thought his friend should
give
him a horse like that, his friend having been lucky enough to win him with borrowed money—
'Mitri being a boyar's son, after all, and entitled to all that was fine, and Pyetr Kochevikov having inherited nothing from his father except a bad reputation and a close acquaintance with the dice.
Pyetr found himself thinking for the first time in years how the road that had led him to this woods equally well led back again, and how quickly Volkhi could carry him—just far enough for a sight of
Vojvoda’s
brown, shingled roofs above its wooden walls, just for a satisfyingly remote thought of those same muddy streets where he had grown up and almost died, and particularly
f
or the imagination of his old friends' faces.
God.
He reined Volkhi in, suddenly aware that his thoughts had
turned in very foolish directions, that he had been riding for some little time oblivious to the road, and most alarming, that somewhere along the way Babi had stopped running ahead of him. He looked back to find the dvorovoi, reckoning Babi had reached the end of his patience or his boundaries, and saw that the old road, clear enough ahead, was a maze of gray, peeling trunks and leafy saplings behind him.
“
Babi?
”
he called, but the forest was so quiet except for Volkhi's snorting and breathing that it seemed hard to speak at all.
“
Babi, dammit, where are you?
”
“
Down the road and back,
”
Eveshka muttered, pacing up and down, wiping the sweat from her face. Her hand was shaking, Sasha could see it. Eveshka paced another course, said, looking toward the north wall of the bathhouse,
“
He should at least be turning around now, don't you think?
”
‘‘Probably.
”
He knelt, adding wood to the fire. His nose was running from the herbs, his eyes stung.
“
But he's on a horse for the first time in years. Don't worry. He's probably just taking a turn or two—
”
“
Oh,
god,
Sasha!
”
“
Don't worry about him. Babi's with him.
”
“
We don't know he is,
”
Eveshka said shortly.
“
We don't know anything.
”
She paced half the circuit of the bathhouse, stopped, hand over her eyes, wanting simply to know what was going on in the woods, Sasha could feel it up and down his spine, wanting till it echoed around the walls— But there was no answer at all.
“
Don't,
”
he said,
“
don't doubt, 'Veshka, just think about the bannik.
”
“
Banniks don't know what's going on
now,
it's tomorrow they live in, and wizards keep changing that—it's likely we've changed it even walking in here. We ought to be down that road, Sasha, that's where we ought to be! We ought to be seeing where he is and what's going on out there, because we're not going to get anything here!
”
Sasha wiped his nose again, and passed his arm across his forehead.
“
We could equally well bring trouble right to him. We don't know what we're doing.
”
Eveshka shook her head violently, fireglow making her pale
hair and her underlit face all one color in his swimming vision.
“
He's not going to give us anything: if it was going to, it would have by now!
”
“
Maybe we haven't asked a right question, yet,
”
Sasha said, and shut his eyes and tried to find that question, but all he kept getting for vision was Uulamets' memories turning over and over in his head, images of the river shore, a foggy morning, Eveshka walking into that mist, ghost among ghostly trees-Memory or prophecy? God, did Uulamets foresee 'Veshka's drowning—and not even know he'd seen it? Or is it some morning still to come?
“
It's a trap,
”
Eveshka said,
“
papa always said, prophecy's a trap.
”
“
Don't offend it, 'Veshka!
”
She hugged her arms about her ribs, looked up at the rafters with a shake of her head.
“
I've bad feelings. I don't trust this place. I don't like what I'm feeling—I don't like what I'm feeling from the woods—
”
Wind skirled through the open door, hit the fire, flung ash and embers, whipped at them.
The door banged shut and open again, once, twice.
Sasha stood up, looking about him. His shadow and Eveshka's trembled in the rafters and against the wooden walls.
“
Bannik!
”
he shouted.
“
Answer us!
”
Everything seemed fraught with possibilities, yea and nay equally balanced. He felt a sudden sense of suffocation, all the wishes successive wizards had ever made in this place hovering and circling—other, older wishes, mostly impotent, unless they should brush up against a strong new one, and that touch should set some old wish spinning, bring it into new motions, bring it into the current of things—
Leaves in the current, leaf brushing leaf-Motions more and more violent
—
the whole pattern swirling and changing as the current changed—the leaves madly whirling among the bubbles, a small whirlpool and a greater and greater one
—
“
Bannik!
”
he whispered, wishing with all his might for true answers this time, feeling the currents move around him till they bid fair to disturb everything in the world that was fixed.
“
Bannik, answer me! You've come here for a reason. What question are you waiting for me to ask, bannik?
”
A shadow jumped from one bench to the other, and to the rim of the firepit. A stone rattled.
The ferry on the river, by daylight, headed north under all its sail.
“
Is this the future?
”
he asked.
“
Bannik? Is this what will be or is this what we ought to do?
”
Pyetr's face, ghostly pale, lit by lightning
...