C. Cherryh - Yvgenie

She thought, Ilyana, you young fool, don’t listen to them, come back, listen to me, Ilyana—your father is in danger. He’s in dreadful danger—

From all of us…

I wanted someone like my father. I didn’t know what I was wanting. I didn’t know what my father is with my mother, and what Kavi is and what she was. Now I know what it feels like. Now I know and I can’t do anything. there’s nothing I can wish that doesn’t hurt and there’s nowhere for me to go but with Yvgenie, because—

Something cold shivered through the air while Sasha thumbed pages to the light of burning twigs, deeper in the woods, where Wiun would not be offended. A passing cold moment, he told himself, maybe the spookiness of the gathering night, maybe the thunder muttering in the distance. But it was a hell of a place to leave a page.

And to lose a book.

“I don’t like this,” he said, and met Nadya’s worried eyes. “God, there’s nothing in it to like, the book stops on a thought and she’d never leave it—Babi. Babi, there’s a good fellow—” He unstopped the vodka jug and poured, and Babi swallowed.

“Find her, Babi. Can you find her?”

He was thinking of rusalki, and lovers, wolves—and Draga. And Babi—Babi turned up on Missy’s rump again, eyes glowing balefully gold in the firelight.

Sasha said, “He can’t. I wish to the god—”

No. Fool. One did not think about safe places or putting Nadya in them. Magic was too fickle and too much was loose. One scarcely dared breathe.

His old master would say, Then do. Use your hands, not your wishes.

He picked up the fire-pot and lidded it, leaving them in deep dusk, thinking: Wolves. And rusalki.

If the leshys are dying—it’s not their silence. It’s stopped feeling like the mouse at all. And it’s not Eveshka. It’s nothing, that’s the dreadful thing. It’s—

—nothing. Wishes just go nowhere against it.

The day was shadowing out of the east, hastening toward that time when ghosts could most easily get one’s attention—no more real at night, Ilyana reminded herself, only that there were fewer distractions for the eye in the dark, and being alone was worst of all.

But she had no desire to go up to that awful doorway. She walked the whole circuit of the hill, hoping another path through the thorns might lead out.

God, but it only came back again, back to the hill and the palace of bone, and all the while the ghostly wolves lay about the door, the bear lazed near them, and Owl, faithless Owl, who should have guided her out of this, kept a watch from a white and dreadful ledge above the porch.

She did not have to see them. She could wish not to see any ghosts at all and they would be gone until her resolve weakened. But she believed in Owl too much to think he was not there, and she was too afraid of the wolves and the bear to ignore them for long. Besides, they tended to move about especially when one was not looking, and she did not trust them. It was not true that ghosts were harmless. Kavi was not, by day or night. If Kavi was here, Kavi would—

—Kavi would be a greater danger than any of them.

A cold lump rose in her throat. She thought, I should try again. I should wish something far cleverer than I have and get out of this place before dark. Uncle would. Mother would. Kavi would think of something if he were here, and uncle was telling the truth, he’s ever so much older—

Owl can see over the maze. Couldn’t Owl have shown him the way—couldn’t he listen to Owl, if Owl is his?

I might. I could wish that. But Owl scares me. He always was a standoffish bird.

If other birds came here I might listen to them. If they did. But all I’ve seen are ghosts…

Darker and darker. She was scratched and chilled by ghosts, and came to the end of the path again, back at the hill, with no more daylight left and countless aisles of the maze untried—but her legs ached, she was hungry and thirsty, and she sank down in a knot to warm herself and to think and to wait.

The dark grew. The doors and the windows of the palace began to glow with the slow movement of ghosts. She did not want even to look at it. But it kept drawing her eyes, the way the bear and the wolves did, and Owl at last left his perch and swept a turn about her, winging his way uphill.

Come back, she wished him, and expected no more obedience than she had ever had from Owl, but he glided about again to settle on her hand, a weightless chill, with baleful and too cognizant eyes.

The wolves and the bear appeared suddenly in front of her. Away from me! she wished them, and the wolves showed their throats and the bear ducked his head and looked away as a bear would from a wish.

They did not leap on her. They did not threaten. She took courage from that and wanted them to lead her from the maze.

But Owl left her fist and flew back up the hill, and the wolves and the bear slunk after him.

—Is that the way out? she wondered, hugging herself against the sudden chill of that thought.

Is the way out to go into that place and deal with what lives there?

I’m not uncle Sasha. I’m not as strong as he is.

But he said I was.

If I dared listen to Owl—if I dared—

“Grandfather?” she asked the empty air.

A horrid thing burst into her view and gibbered at her and fled.

Grandfather, if that was you, behave! I want you. Right now. No nonsense!

“Disrespectful whelp,” a shapeless thing said, a mere wisp in front of her.

If I can’t wish someone who likes me, what chance have I with something that doesn’t? Show me the way out of this place.

“Is that all?” The thing became an upright shape. “Magic brought you here, and you want to run away.”

This isn’t a nice place, grandfather!

“Isn’t a nice place. Isn’t a nice place. Ha. What a grand-child! Whose daughter are you?”

Papa’s. And uncle’s…

“Ha,” the ghost said. “You’re my wish, girl. But so far I like your father better.”

He was going again. She did not understand him. She did not understand what she had done to make him say that, or what he meant—

—Except… papa takes chances.

And this isn’t a place without wishes—my grandfather’s here, and he wished me, but that doesn’t matter: there can’t be a place there aren’t wishes, Kavi was right. When I ran I only took them with me—because I took me where I ran to…

And why would he say he liked my father? He didn’t like him. They didn’t get along, mother always said that. She didn’t get along with him. Nobody could.

Ghosts can’t always tell you all the truth. No more than they can lay hands on you. They can get just so close. Because they can’t do anything in the world—and their wishes aren’t strong enough unless they’re rusalki like—

—mother.

If I’m his wish he had to have made it before he died. And he died bringing mother back. Uncle said.

She looked up at the palace on the hill, at the doorways where ghosts moved.

Did he wish me here? He hated Kavi. Didn’t he?

Is this whole place—my grandfather’s wish? Is he what’s waiting inside?

She drew a breath, thinking how nice breathing was, even here, and took a first step up the hill. Nothing told her right or wrong. Nothing would, she decided, and took several breaths.

Uncle would say, It’s up to you, mouse.

Another handful of herbs. Firelight, fractured in smoke-stung tears. Eveshka drew in a deep breath, deeper still-Papa would say, The magic’s not the smoke, the magic’s not in the smoke—

She recalled an ember in her mother’s hand, fire against unburned flesh—magic, against nature—but not wholly against nature. Easier to wish the air than the ember, and send the heat away as fast as it could come—