R1 - Rusalka (16 page)

"Just don't do anything. Not yet. And don't leave me here."

The boy was scared. That was clear. The boy had not completely lost his senses.

"Don't you go anywhere without telling me," Pyetr said sternly. "If you're going off with the old man anywhere, both of us are going. That's my word on the matter."

"You can't go. If he's going to work anything, you understand, it doesn't help that you don't believe in it. He won't like that."

"This is the man who brought me back from the dead. This is a great master, boy. Have a little respect for his abilities. If he can do what you say he doesn't need my help. I sincerely doubt he needs yours."

Sasha looked extremely upset with him.

"Just don't plan to slip off with him anywhere," Pyetr said. "You're too good-hearted. But if it makes you happy I'll believe anything at least while he's doing his conjurations. I won't do anything to offend him. Except go along."

The clothes dried by evening in a fair wind, the woodpile stood well-stocked, the floor was swept, the fish cleaned, dinner cooked and set and done…

Then Sasha expected the old man to get up from table and take up his wrap and his staff and bid him come along. Uulamets did all of that and Sasha said meekly, "Yes, sir," and took his new coat from the peg and put it on with never a look in Pyetr's direction, afraid of the dark outside, afraid of the old man, and equally afraid of what foolish thing Pyetr might do.

Pyetr came and took his coat from its peg, Sasha saw him in the tail of his eye, and Uulamets said, "There's no need of your going."

Pyetr said nothing at all, only pulled tight his sash and pulled down the cap from its peg as well.

"Stay here," Uulamets said plainly.

But Pyetr might not have heard him, for all the attention he paid.

Uulamets was frowning. Uulamets looked in Sasha's direction. Sasha pretended not to notice Uulamets ' frown or Pyetr's stubborn insistence, and kept his head down, thinking all the while of the dreadful Thing in the yard and how they had to traverse that ominous dark boundary even to get to the woods.

"Very well," Uulamets said, gathering up his staff. "Very well."

And Uulamets flung open the door and led the way out into the dark of the porch.

A heavy flapping of wings left the roof. Sasha glanced up in alarm and saw nothing but a shadow passing. Pyetr was walking close behind him and Sasha was suddenly, selfishly glad of that—glad of it and guilty at the same time, knowing at the bottom of his heart he had wanted Pyetr's help, and never in his life certain whether wanting counted as a wish. He had a feeling of disasters hovering about them and multiplying, ill-aimed and ready to descend, and most of all he had a sense of something he knew no name for, but it centered about Uulamets like an ill-wish that had no destination and no owner and no one responsible for it. It was danger. It was hazard. And no one was in control of it.

Only he had
wanted
Pyetr by him. And Pyetr came, slogging along the rough path to the old road and beyond, where Uulamets led, down to the riverside and oif beside the dock of the ancient boat.

"Where are we going?" Pyetr asked when they had gotten that far, but the old man answered him no more than Pyetr had answered Uulamets ; and Pyetr caught Sasha by the arm and stopped him.

"Where are we going?" Pyetr asked again; and Sasha pulled to free himself, knowing better than to try reason with Pyetr, knowing certainly better than to reason with Uulamets . He only wanted to keep the pair of them from arguments and to do whatever Uulamets wanted and to get them safely back again behind solid doors.

Uulamets had stopped. He seemed part of the thickets and the undergrowth, a wisp of something gray and pale in the tangle of bare branches, and he leaned on his staff and grinned in that disquieting way.

"Boy?" he said, a quiet voice, with a deep timbre that cut a guilty soul to the quick—like uncle Fedya's voice and ten times more so: We have a bargain, it said. Remember, boy?

Sasha tugged to be free, and Pyetr held him fast. "Where are we going?" Pyetr asked again, and Uulamets , leaning on his staff with both hands:

"Up the river. Only a little." It was a placid voice, a reasonable voice, that made all fears seem foolish. Uulamets smiled pleasantly—impossible that the same features could have assumed that ghoul's look a moment ago. It must have been a trick of the light, a moment of panic. One was entirely foolish to imagine harm in these woods where they had walked for days unmolested. Uulamets beckoned, still smiling.

One could only move, or feel a fool. Sasha moved. Pyetr failed to stop him this time. Pyetr echoed disgustedly: "A little," and stayed close with him as Uulamets turned and probed their way ahead with his staff. "He's mad," Pyetr muttered under his breath. "Out in the dark, in a place like this. Digging roots at night—"

Branches raked at them. Roots tangled their feet. Sasha reached desperately to catch a branch Uulamets released. It raked his cheek; he winced and kept going, blinking tears of pain, fearing he was going to lose sight of Uulamets in the dark.

"Mad," Pyetr complained. "All of us are, for being out here—"

The river sound obscured the snap of brush even at close range. Water had undercut the bank and their steps splashed now and again into narrow, unexpected puddles. For a fearful moment Sasha lost view of Uulamets altogether and his imagination instantly painted Uulamets laughing at them, abandoning them to the fearsome creatures which might inhabit this dark shore.

He stepped in water to the knee, and stuck ankle-deep in mud. Pyetr pulled him back and held on to him.

"Let's go back," Pyetr said. "He wants to lose us. Let him! Let's go back to the house."

But there was Uulamets ahead of them, like a gray ghost beckoning them.

Sasha walked forward. He had no notion why. It only seemed impossible to run with Uulamets standing there to witness it; and foolish to do anything that would challenge Pyetr's recklessness or the old man's temper. He had no notion now why Pyetr let him go, or why Pyetr followed, except perhaps Pyetr might be thinking the same as he was about the Thing in the yard, and coming to the conclusion that walking back to the house right now was not the safest thing to do: nothing seemed safe at the moment—certainly not the .direction that took him close to Uulamets , in a place where the moonlight and the river-sound combined to trick the eyes and the ears.

One hoped it was Uulamets .

"Here," the old man said, taking him by the shoulder, "here, there's a good lad…" and turned him toward the river shore, down toward the water. "See that thornbush?"

"What are you doing?" Pyetr asked, and caught the old man's arm, but the old man looked at him and Pyetr's expression changed—as if he had laid hands on some stranger by mistake.

In that moment Sasha's heart thumped hard with fright, to see Pyetr Kochevikov daunted and to feel the old man's hand gripping his arm with such painful strength, fingers biting deep even through the coat sleeve. But the old man looked him in the eyes then, lightened his grip, then patted him on the shoulder, and it seemed in the trick of the moonlight that he had never seen such a gentle, fatherly look.

"Good lad," Uulamets said, and took his hand and pressed a knife into it. "There, there, there's a lad, right by riverside—that's where to dig."

"For what?" he had the presence to ask, although it seemed he must be thick-witted not to understand. Everything seemed distant from him, like a dream. He looked back and saw Pyetr standing distressedly behind them, in a clear space the trees left.

"For whatever you can find, lad," Uulamets said, pressing on his shoulder. "Dig here. Mind you don't fall in…"

Sasha edged down to the river margin and knelt there, as the damp of the earth soaked the knee of his breeches. The river-sound was strong in his ears. There was the chance of undermining on this earthen bank: he remembered that in a distant, cool way, only as a fact one must keep in mind—not to lean too close or trust too much to the ground. He began to dig with the point of the knife. He was aware of Pyetr asking: "Has everyone gone mad?" and Uulamets saying: "Hush, be still. Be patient—" as Uulamets withdrew, the river masking all sound but the sharp crack of a thorn branch as it snagged Uulamets ' cloak and broke. The incident seemed significant for some reason-perhaps that every incident was significant in this place, on this spell-bound shore, in this moonlight delving after things of magical potency—but he imagined Uulamets speaking to himself, in a soft, soft singsong.

Volkhvoi, Sasha told himself, wizard, magician holding them both with whispers and the hush and the river itself which sang to them in a murmurous voice and wrapped them in dead branches and moonglow—he could not wake: he could not want to wake. The earth and the leaves smelled of moisture and of rot, the silver of the blade caught the moon and sent dirt flying, laying bare a puzzle of roots which ran from the thornbush to the river edge.

But there was no virtue in thorn roots. He had never heard of any. It was something else Uulamets wanted…

What shall I find? he turned to ask of Uulamets . What am I looking for?—But he was amazed into silence, seeing some movement from the tail of his eye. It was gone when he looked. There was only Uulamets and Pyetr standing in the moonlight, both looking toward him—

And Pyetr's sudden alarm telling him there was danger beside him—

"Sasha!" Pyetr cried, and Sasha glanced aside, saw that movement in the tail of his eye again, some white thing floating in the
air
near Pyetr which vanished as he glanced back, Pyetr standing there with his hands up as if it were visible to
him
and Uulamets leaning on his staff with both hands, his lips moving and no sound coming out—

Sasha hurled himself to his feet at the same moment he saw Pyetr slump bonelessly to the earth. He crossed that space at a run and felt something so cold, so dreadfully cold in the air he breathed, the air seeming dank and rotten.

"Pyetr!" Sasha cried, and cast a look to Uulamets for help. The white thing darted back into the tail of his eye, a wisp that vanished as he glanced toward it. There was only Pyetr—then Pyetr surrounded by that drifting white thing the moment he cast an anguished glance aside to see where the wraith had gone. He realized then he could only see it that way—only from the tail of his eye; and it was not moving: it was hovering continually about Pyetr, whirling and hazing him about…

"Stop it!" he pleaded, seizing Uulamets by the sleeve. "Stop it, do you see it? Help him!"

"
Help
him?" Uulamets cried in outrage, and thumped his staff on the ground between his feet. "Damn him! He's not the one!"

The white thing was still there, flitting about Pyetr—and Pyetr began to follow it as if he could see it in front of him. Uulamets plunged after, dragging Sasha by the coat sleeve, bashing dead limbs aside with his staff, saying, "Do you see her, boy? Do you see her at all?"

Sasha tried, turning his head, making himself victim to thorns and branches as they went. It was a ghost they were chasing… he was sure that it was.

"
Do
you see her?"

"Yes," he stammered, breathless, willing to go, trying to see, and giving up that sidelong view for the undeniable sight of Pyetr, alone, traveling with swiftness Pyetr had never had on his own in the woods. "Pyetr!" he cried. "Stop!"

But Uulamets shook him like a rat and hit him a dazing blow across the side of his head with the staff. "Let him follow!" Uulamets snarled. "Let him follow. Only say if you can see her!"

He could see nothing in any direction for the moment, being blind with the blow to his head, but he swore that he could, he gasped a breath and another and swore to whatever the old man wanted, for fear of losing Pyetr in the woods if they stopped now—certain that there was no help for Pyetr or him either except Uulamets ' magic, and Uulamets ' good will, however he had to buy it.

"I see her," he lied, and lied again, when his eyes cleared and he could see Pyetr at least ahead of them, "She's still there…"

The old man hastened him grimly after, shoving him through branches that scored his face and hands, Uulamets panting and swearing as they went, until Sasha stumbled and lost his footing astride a downed log.

And lost sight of Pyetr in the brush.