C. Cherryh - Yvgenie

“Where’s Sasha? Following you?”

“You’re the wizard. Figure it out.”

A great breath then, a rapid blink of Yvgenie’s eyes and a different touch, at his shoulder this time. “I had to leave her, sir, I was afraid—afraid he couldn’t stop if he got near her—” Another breath. Another blink of the eyes as Chernevog caught up his shirt in his fist. “The boy’s Kurov, do you understand me? Your wife’s wishes have come home to roost. A great many dark birds have, do you hear me, Pyetr Ditch?”

“Kurov!” Nothing made sense.

“Didn’t he say?” Again the tingling ran through his bones. And stopped. “He must have forgotten that part.”

“Damn you!”

“He brought your daughter here. Ill wishes have a way of burning the hand that looses them. Do you understand me now? Your wife wanted harm. And here there is, Owl, harm in Kiev, harm in this woods, harm to you and Ilyana and the woods itself.”

“Harm from you, you damned dog.” He made a try at getting up, but his head spun and Chernevog slammed him back to the ground.

“Listen to me, Pyetr Ilitch.”

One had to. One had no damned choice. And no breath left to protest. One recalled faces, years ago, a dice game in Kiev, with the tsarevitch, a man who had stood aside to whisper to others in a corner. And a lump on his head and a damnably uncomfortable night thereafter with certain men, until they had left him alone in the room with a very small window above a clothes press.

A reeling progress through the dark—

Pavel Kurov. Kurov’s house—

“Out the window and along a rooftop—you certainly never lost your knack, dear Owl. Unfortunately neither has your wife; and your wife has driven your daughter to what she’s done, your wife wished harm to me and harm to your enemies, and she’s got that, now. That your enemy’s son should bring your daughter to this woods is the tendency of wishes— they take the easiest course. Harm does, do you hear me?”

He stopped fighting. It sounded too much like the sort of thing Sasha would say. Had said, repeatedly. Always the easiest course. Always the course that satisfies most wishes at once. Like piles of old pottery, Sasha was wont to say, all stacked up and waiting the moment they all become possible…

Things happen that can happen—

“Why in hell,” he said when he had a breath, “why didn’t you come to me, if you’re so damned concerned about my wife?”

“I didn’t know what she’d done. I do now. I talked with her. She took everything I’d gained. She wanted Kurov to suffer. She wanted everyone who ever harmed you to suffer. Do you half understand? She’s looking for Ilyana right now and I can’t stop her, Pyetr Ilitch.”

“God.” He rolled onto one arm and tried to get up, failed and found the boy’s arm under his, the boy’s face broken out in sweat. Kurov’s son. Eye to eye with him.

He was sure it was Yvgenie who said, ever so faintly, “I love her. I know you hate me. But I swear to you, I truly do love her.”

“Love her, boy? You’re in the hands of wizards! Do you even know what you want any longer?”

The boy made a desperate shake of his head. “I don’t care.”

He thought, Fool, boy!

But that described more than Yvgenie Kurov.

He leaned on Yvgenie’s arm, he put himself to his feet and staggered after Volkhi, saying, “If we’re dealing with my wife, you’d better stay to my back.”

A hand landed on his shoulder. He knew before he looked around and saw Yvgenie who he was facing.

Chernevog said, “I love her, too, Pyetr Ilitch. The god help us. I had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t stop it. Misighi, damn him…”

God, tears welled up. And spilled, in his old enemy’s confusion. What did one say?

Fool for believing them, that was what.

“Pyetr, they wanted me to bring her to them. Misighi did—to be sure she wouldn’t—go my way—”

“What do you mean, go your way? If they wanted to talk to her they could have come to the door any day.— What did they want with her?”

Chernevog shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t do anything against them, I can’t remember things, I’m not strong enough any longer— Being dead’s a damned inconvenience, Pyetr.”

“The hell!” He grabbed a fistful of silk shirt. “You’re not a fool, Kavi Chernevog, never try to persuade me you are. What did the leshys intend?”

“To save her. Their way. But they’re dead, Pyetr, they’re all dead, and I couldn’t stay with her in that place, I’d have killed her—”

“You’re a liar, Chernevog. You’ve been a liar since you were whelped, a hundred and too damn many years ago—”

“I’m not lying now, I swear to you, there’s something where she is, there’s something in that place and I couldn’t go any further—the boy’s not dead, and I couldn’t go—”

“The boy’s not dead! My daughter isn’t dead, Snake, don’t talk to me about loving her after you ran off and left her somewhere—”

“Because I’d kill her. Because the boy was dying, and he had the sense to do it, that’s the truth, Pyetr Ilitch. I’m not sure I did.”

God, he thought. Chernevog admitting failure? One could almost believe the scoundrel.

If one did not feel at the moment as if something was crawling on one’s skin, and know that even thinking about life, Chernevog was wanting it.

“Get on your horse,” he said. “Damn you, we’re going.”

Wishes come true at a time they can. So here I am, damn you, too, Snake: you swore once you wanted my friendship. And isn’t that wish of yours older than my daughter?

Yvgenie. Kurov’s boy. God.

The shadows were getting longer, and the way more overgrown. Babi skipped ahead of them, stopped and stared at them as if he could not after all these years understand why they could not pass a thicket the way he could.

Babi was upset. Sasha could tell that in the aspect he took, in the fact that Babi did not sulk about supper. It was cheese and honey-lumps eaten on horseback, water when they could, vodka to ease the aches where magic was elsewhere occupied; and Nadya had not made one complaint of pain or weariness the day long. She looked so tired as he held up his hands and let her slide off Missy’s rump for a little while. Missy took a step down to cool her feet in the brook that offered them a moment’s comfort. Nadya knelt to drink and wash her face, a very pale face in the fading light. He began to do the same.

Brush cracked—something coming through the thicket, he thought, a bear or a deer, something large and strong. But Missy thought suddenly of moving trees and grabby-things, and he made a snatch after her bridle, waded into the stream to hold her, wanting her to be reasonable, please, stand still, no moving tree would catch her while he had hold of her.

Brush cracked, and he heard a voice like rolling rocks, saying from a thicket across the stream, “Young wizard.”

He wanted Missy to stay calm. He was not. He was shaking as he led Missy across the stream, Missy strenuously refusing his assurances. No. It was a moving tree. She did not like them. They were not nice. They should all run away. Please.

He knew the leshys’ names, at least two and three score of them, knew most by sight and some even by the sound of their voices—but this one was so ruined and changed, peeling and hung about with spiderweb and dry leaves and grown over with living vine—he was appalled.

The leshy lifted an arm and reached for him. “Don’t be afraid!” he turned to call out to Nadya, as Missy jerked back and the reins burned through his grasp. But Nadya had followed him—much too close for safety. “Stay back!” he cried as leshy fingers wrapped about him and drew him inexorably away from her and upward. Like limber twigs, they were— like being enveloped by living brush-But not harmed. Yet.