Rusalka by C. J. Cherryh
I’m not a disappointment, Pyetr thought, remembering ‘Mitri, remembering pronouncements from every father in Vojvoda.—Everyone expected me to be a failure.
“They’re coming,” Hwiuur said, and nudged him with his head, jaws against his cheek. “Look, look, just atop the hill.”
Sasha, with Uulamets : he could make them out through the brush, under the gray and flickering sky—the both of them walking steadily toward the house, whether by their own will or not.
“You’ll find out, now,” Hwiuur said, resting his jaw on Pyetr’s shoulder, gusting dank breath into his face.
“God!” Pyetr flinched from under that weight. “Get away from me! Sasha, dammit, run, for the god’s sake!”
“Pyetr?” Sasha’s voice came drifting across the distance, thin and frightened. He saw the boy start to run then.
Toward him.
I’m a damn jinx, Pyetr thought, cursing himself—
In a wizard-quarrel, where every player but himself could load the dice—
A gambler’s son knew a crooked game when he saw it.
“He’s in the house!” Pyetr yelled, and quicker than he could get it out, the vodyanoi’s coils went about him, tightening. “Chernevog’s in the house: get him!”
Sasha had stopped cold, looking at the house, Pyetr saw that as his ribs began to creak—joints cracking with his effort to keep the coils apart.
Suddenly something small, winged, and black flurried into the space between his face and Hwiuur’s, driving its beak again and again at the vodyanoi’s eyes.
And a heart-stopping flash of light and shock burst in the yard, with a crack of thunder.
Sasha sprawled in the mud, scrambled toward master Uulamets while burning bits of the bathhouse were still showering down around them.
While—he thought, Uulamets thought, having wished Chernevog’s bolt aside—the lightnings were reshaping themselves over their heads: their hair was rising on end, skin prickled the way it had when Uulamets had realized that one was corning.
Uulamets had wanted it toward the house, but Sasha had simultaneously flinched, disagreed, feverishly compromised on something belonging to Chernevog—
Remembering his parents’ voices behind a sheet of fire—
“Sasha!” he heard Pyetr screaming, then, while the lightning aimed at them again, while Uulamets a second time wanted the house—
Sasha wished with him of a sudden, scared, knowing Pyetr was in trouble.
The sky tore, the world tore, a seam of bright light. The east tower of the house went white and showered bits of burning wood.
Fire leapt up in the shattered tower and at places on the roof, fire spread on the winds of Uulamets’ intention—wind rushing toward the house.
“Lightning likes tall things,” Uulamets muttered, as Sasha wished a sudden, stolen swirl of wind and sparks toward the vodyanoi—wished Pyetr /ree—while more lightning was readying itself and Uulamets was trying to concentrate their attention and fight Chernevog’s direction of it in less than a heartbeat.
Lightning intended them, the house, them again—struck the mud of the yard beyond them. Sasha flung up his arms to shield himself, the shock flung him flat on his back, and when he scrambled to his knees and to his feet he could see nothing of the tree and Pyetr but that rip in the world, floating over and over through his vision, heard nothing but the roar in his ears—blind and deafened and helpless to know what had happened.
“Pyetr!” he cried, while Uulamets was damning him for a fool, Uulamets was directing his attention to the house, to Chernevog, somewhere in that direction, not dead, and not through with them…
Hwiuur writhed away, lashing wildly with his coils, and Pyetr lurched upward and sprawled in the mud, shocked in every joint, scrambling away from the creature on his knees and one arm, the other collapsing under him, broken for all he knew: he only moved as fast as he could manage, half-blind, all but deafened.
Then his hand fell on something in the mud, a sodden lump tied with string, and he recognized what luck or a wizard’s wish had put under him—with the vodyanoi hissing like steam off iron, thumping about and searching blindly toward him.
He clutched the packet in his fist, rolled over and sat there as it came at him, tore at the string with his teeth, and failing that, feverishly, at the leather.
It came open, as Hwiuur kept coming, as Hwiuur’s cold breath hit him in the face.
He flung the salt wide, scattering it toward the River-thing.
Hwiuur screamed, reared back, Sasha knew what was happening: Uulamets saw it; and flinging an arm about him, Uulamets wished his sight clear, his ears to hear—
“Boy!” Uulamets said, while the light that blinded his eyes turned red, and black, and became a haze. “He’s coming out, boy, Chernevog’s coming out, never mind the River-thing—pay attention]”
Sasha blinked, wiped streaming eyes, and, looking toward the house, saw a fair-haired young man arrive on the porch and walk down toward them, holding a book in his arms.
“Pyetr!” Sasha called out, wanting him with them, suddenly, obsessively, fearing to have Pyetr out of sight: the feeling the lightnings brought was growing again, and of a sudden ghosts swirled about them, cold and shrieking. The lightning was going—was aiming in Pyetr’s vicinity—
It struck the tree instead, and the earth itself shook under their feet.
“Chernevog!” Uulamets shouted into the wind, wanting him, wanting his enemy’s attention and Sasha’s with unequivocal force. “Remember the teaching, remember, young fool, the things I told you about recklessness—”
A thin, blond-haired boy came to the river house, a sullen lad who held more power than was good for any young wizard, arrogant in his ways-Dangerous, Sasha thought. That boy had been a fool, gifted as he was…
Uulamets said, aloud, shouting against the wind: “I’ll teach you a new lesson, boy! There is a way to undo the past!”
“You’ve lost your wits, old man!”
“It’s very simple, Kavi, lad: know its effects; and cancel them!”
“Do you want the past, old man? I’ll give you the past!” Memories of Chernevog’s came, Draga, not Uulamets sitting by the hearth, with an open book: Chernevog a younger boy, no more than ten or twelve; or again, sixteen, in Draga’s bed—
“Draga’s lover!” Uulamets said aloud, and laughed with a sarcasm that made Sasha wince. “Father god, the woman leaves my bed, and takes to seducing pretty boys, no less! God, I should have known: you were too precocious. So it was all Draga. Did she set you to stealing, boy?”
The wailing of the ghosts faltered. “It wasn’t,” Chernevog said, “all Draga.”
“Ask yourself that.”
Another faltering.
“Poor boy,” Uulamets said.
“Poor boy,” Chernevog cried, and Sasha wished Chernevog’s attention centered on them both, wished Chernevog to know what they both knew of Draga; what he knew of Uula mets—himself, Chernevog’s successful replacement in Uulamets’ household—
What they both knew of consequences and wild magic, that from Uulamets—
The lightnings tried to gather. The air shivered with the power, with the ghosts screaming about them.
“I killed her,” Chernevog said, with his hair and theirs standing up, the wind swirling at them. He looked like a crazy man. “I killed her when she went too far with me, old man.—I slept with your wife, don’t you care about that?”
“No more than she did,” Uulamets said. “She used you, boy. She ate you alive.”
The lightning was going to strike, was going to strike, them or Chernevog. Sasha felt his hair rise, felt sparks dancing between his fingers—
And wished it onto the bathhouse again, a course no one was resisting, no one else expecting it. The ground shook, the ghosts screamed.
But of a sudden Pyetr was coming through the roiling smoke behind Chernevog: Sasha saw him, betrayed him with that quick, repented thought—and suddenly realized Pyetr a
Uulamets himself wished, then, and of a sudden—
Fed everything into Sasha’s hands, power that fed straight through to Pyetr, caught for a heart-beat motionless and then moving, Chernevog having caught the last lightning flash in his eyes: Pyetr hit him while he was turning, a single blow with a rock, in the same moment Uulamets himself fell against Sasha, Sasha distractedly, vainly trying to hold the old man as he slid through his arms to the ground.
Chernevog fell, Uulamets had fallen, the ghosts screamed away into silence, and Sasha was on his knees facing Pyetr over Uulamets and Chernevog both, still feeling Uulamets’ memories, but no longer feeling the source of them—only an overwhelming silence where a presence had been.
“Grandfather?” Pyetr asked, in the real-world crackle and roar of the burning house.
“I think he’s dead,” Sasha said, numbly, and saw Pyetr take up the rock again to break Chernevog’s skull once for all.
Maybe it was his wish that stopped Pyetr. Maybe it was Pyetr’s own, that brought his hand down slowly, and had sweat glistening on his face. “What in the god’s name-do we do with him?”
Memory said, so strongly Sasha shivered: Wish only good.
Memory stretched out his hand, the way Uulamets had done with him: he gently touched Chernevog on the brow, wishing him a long and dreamless sleep.
“Pyetr!” Eveshka cried from the direction of the fire: Sasha could see her, on the descent from the house, clinging to the rail and hurrying, smoke-smudges on her face, her tattered blue gown. Pyetr scrambled up and stumbled, catching himself with difficulty, but Eveshka ran, ran all-out toward him and into his arms, saying, “Sasha? Papa?”
Memory said, so clearly Sasha felt Uulamets die all over again: Do it, boy; and take care of my daughter-Memory said: To raise the dead—always costs the living.
And Sasha thought: He meant to kill Pyetr—or me. He didn’t care. He didn’t die for her. I had the way to Chernevog’s back: he had to give me everything to win, that was all.
He did not know what to say to Eveshka.
Finally he did say, because he wanted it over with, and he did not want to exist behind a mask with her: “He passed me everything.”
But he did not think Pyetr would understand.
“Help me get the fires out,” he said, when Eveshka said nothing, nor wept, only stood there, pale and distraught. She looked him in the eyes, then, and he stood up and looked at her with too many and too confused memories.
A long, long moment like that.
“What’s going on?” Pyetr said. “What’s happening, dammit?”
“The fire,” Sasha said to Eveshka. “Help me, please, Eveshka.”
They found the raven dead, a sodden lump of feathers near the splintered tree, and a long, long wallow down to the streamside.
Pyetr gathered it up, smoothed its feathers, felt a genuine sorrow for the creature that had defended him, even if it was a stupid bird; and he took it back and laid it beside Uulamets, where they were making a cairn around him, saying, defensively, “It ought to be with him.”
He had mixed feelings about the gesture then, because it made Eveshka cry, and she had not, until he said that.
CHAPTER 33
THEY MADE a small fire of shingles and bits of shattered wood, close by Chernevog’s sleeping body, to watch him as dark gathered—and close enough to him to keep him from the chill of the wind, the warmth from the charred timbers of the house growing less and less as the day waned, and blowing away from them, along with the smoke. It was a thoroughly stupid charity, Pyetr said as much: “Let him freeze,” was Pyetr’s comment.
But Pyetr had not broken Chernevog’s skull before, and Pyetr might indeed say things, but being a natural man was not obliged to mean them; and Pyetr was less willing to kill Chernevog now that his blood had cooled than he had been with the rock in his hand, or he would have done it. It was either Pyetr’s own reasons that stopped him, or, the god only knew and Sasha did not at this point, it was himself or Eveshka consistently forbidding it, all common sense and perhaps—the point Sasha could not yet work out for himself—all responsibility to the contrary.
So they sat, Pyetr so sore he could hardly get up once he had sat down, Eveshka exhausted and himself finding bruises and sore spots he had no memory of getting, with no assurance of safety. Sasha dared not even take his attention off their prisoner for a moment, for fear of some trick on Chernevog’s part. Pyetr had no defense, except him and Eveshka; Eveshka he was afraid to trust, counting all the years she had been at least marginally
Chernevog’s, and he had no idea what to do, except hold on, stay awake, try to rest as much as he could.
But it seemed a good idea, as Eveshka had said, to search the house before dark, to be sure there was nothing left of Chernevog’s household—to find his heart, if they could, and keep it to be sure of him.
“If there ever was one,” Pyetr muttered.
There must have been, Sasha thought, but Draga had surely gotten it long ago; and Draga was dead, likely taking it with her—which might have ended all hope for Chernevog, who knew?
Still, he did not say that, nor try to influence Eveshka’s thoughts—though he waited in anguish where he had to wait during that search, watching over Chernevog, and wished very hard for their safety, especially Pyetr’s, while Pyetr and Eveshka searched as much of the house as they could reach. He wished to the best of his wisdom that they would find what answers existed and that the two of them would be safe in that maze of unstable, still-smoking timbers, but his heart jumped at every crash and fall of timber from the burned wing.
They only came back, at the very edge of dark, with smoke-smelling blankets, a very substantial basket of food, a bucket of clean water from the kitchens, which had been spared the fire, Eveshka said, and a bundle of clean, dry clothing, Pyetr already having washed and changed his, and Eveshka having pulled one of Chernevog’s tunics on over her gown. “At least there’s this,” Pyetr said, “if nothing else.”
It actually seemed a great deal, on a cold and desperate night. Sasha gratefully pulled a second blanket over him for modesty as well as for warmth and began to change his clothes, which were stiff with mud in patches, and still damp in the seams.
Meanwhile, in the deepening dark, with Chernevog still sleeping the other side of the fire, Pyetr matter-of-factly put water on to boil and made tea, while he took to shaving. Eveshka warmed up the bread they had found, and offered it to them with a little honey.
“He’s very well-stocked,” Pyetr said. “I doubt it’s wishes. Common banditry, most like.” Pyetr finished his chin, between bites of bread, and the tea Eveshka had poured him, then wiped the razor on his knee, held up a finger, gulped down the bit in his mouth and reached into a pocket, as if he had only then remembered something.
He pulled out a bauble on a chain, that glanced red and glittered gold in the firelight. He smiled, caught it in his hand again, then tossed it to Sasha.
“You shouldn’t—” Sasha said.
“What’s the difference—food or gold? A whole box of that stuff and not a heart to be had. Not a rat alive in there. Nor any domovoi or anything of the kind.”
“They’re too honest,” Eveshka said, and then said forlornly: “Where’s Babi gone? Have you seen him?”
Sasha shrugged uncomfortably, and tossed the bauble back to Pyetr, with the thought that Pyetr was probably very right, there was no difference and there was no reason not to take whatever they wanted—if there was any use for such things. “I don’t know,” he said to Eveshka. “I think he’s all right. I saw him yesterday, scared out of his wits. He’s probably home by now.” He hoped so, fervently, and cast a look at the firelit brush around them, wondering what Babi might have met, following Pyetr, or whether Pyetr had seen it.
“I don’t suppose you could wish us home,” Pyetr said, reaching—with a winc
“One doesn’t—” Sasha began to explain, about nature and consequences, but Pyetr said:
“Or wish us the tsar’s horses.”
Pyetr was laughing at him. He was glad, he was very glad to see that, and told himself his anxiousness was exhaustion. “We’ll get there.”
“We’ll get there.” Pyetr motioned with the bottle toward him, offering him a cupful, but Sasha shook his head. Eveshka took a little, sipped it and shut her eyes with a weary sigh.
“Food and sleep,” she said, and then drew a little breath and frowned as if some dark thought had touched her, looking down at the cup in her hands as if she could quite as easily cry.
What’s wrong? Sasha wanted to know—distrusting such sudden shifts, here, in this place, with Chernevog asleep so close to them.
“It’s so good,” she said, aloud; but answered him, alone: I was remembering—what it felt like to need food and sleep—and being dead—
Forget, he wished her, perhaps too strongly; or perhaps nothing he could do was strong enough.
A frown had come to Pyetr’s face. He took another sip of the vodka, cast a second, worried glance at Eveshka, then said, “We’ve got to think about getting out of here.”
“It’s not that easy,” Sasha said.
“I know it’s not that easy! What do we do with him, in the meanwhile? Carry him back like that? Lock him in the shed? Stand him in the garden?”
Sasha cast his own worried glance at Eveshka, who sat with her elbow on her knee, sipping her cup and certainly thinking about what Pyetr was saying.
Stand him in the garden? Ignore Chernevog’s existence? Hope the spell lasts?
A frown knit Eveshka’s brow, fire shimmering in her eyes: a willful, self-centered girl, Uulamets’ memories said, unasked, offering the image of a sixteen-year-old slipping out of the house to meet with Chernevog; a ten-year-old sulking and stormy, insisting on her own way; a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed child, dancing down a summer road, so happy, so innocent one’s heart would ache—