C. Cherryh - Chernevog

“If it’s not old magic,” Sasha said quietly. “And we don’t know: it could be. It could be a hundred years old—it could be anybody who ever lived here.”

That made no sense at all. He was not in a mood to listen to obscurities. But Sasha went on, with that worried, earnest look he had when he was trying to explain the unexplainable:

“A wish lasts. Like that old teacup that ought to break. We don’t want it to break either. I think we might keep that wish going. But I’m sure it’s still Uulamets’ wish keeping that cup in one piece. He’s dead and it still works because we use it. A lot else he wished just doesn’t matter to anybody now he’s gone, so it just fades away and doesn’t do anything—but there might be all sorts of old wishes floating around these woods that we don’t know about. There was Uulamets before there was Chernevog, there was Malenkova before there was Uulamets, the god only knows who taught Malenkova, hundreds and hundreds of wishes could still be working, for all we know, and we don’t know what we’re messing with or what it’s aiming at, or if it’s completely harmless until it bumps into something else and starts it moving.”

“God,” Pyetr said disgustedly.

“It’s all complicated, Pyetr, magic’s always complicated like that, and we can’t go off to the north rattling everything that’s settled and risking the god knows what, going right for what we’re most afraid of—”

“Well, she is, isn’t she? Who knows what ’Veshka’s going to do? —God, it’s Chernevog we’re talking about, not some damn village fortuneteller—not mentioning the ghosts in the woods up there. He murdered her! He had her heart in his hands once! Tell me again she’s got any kind of business going up there!”

“We don’t know for certain that’s even where she went.”

“Well, it damn sure wasn’t to Kiev market! What’s going on out there? What’s making the forest look different every time you look at it and why’s my wife off on the river in the dark if it isn’t his doing?”

Sasha bit his lip. “It could be. But—”

“Could, could, might! —I’ll tell you what I’ll do, friend, I’ll go up there and separate him from his head, that’s what I’ll do, and then we won’t have to wonder! The god only knows why we didn’t do it in the first place!”

“If you ever get there—if you can find your way through the woods—”

“I’ll get there!”

“You couldn’t even find the house!”

“Well, I don’t need a guide to find the damn river!”

“And what happens when we get up there without what we could have brought if we took time to think? —All right, all right, I don’t like what Eveshka’s done, I don’t think it was smart, I don’t think it was the best thing to have done, I want to catch up with her as much as you do—”

“I doubt that!”

“—but it’s no help, scattering like sheep all through the woods with no idea what we’re dealing with!”

“Fine! Pack! Let’s move!”

“Pyetr, god— Go take care of Volkhi, take care of Babi, go outside, just for the god’s sake give me time to think! Maybe I can reach her. Out! Please!”

Pyetr bit his lip. All certainties went sliding away from him— which could as well be Sasha’s doing, even without Sasha’s intending it: that was the kind of thinking that could drive a sane man crazy, especially facing a second night of no sleep, so tired und so scared for what Eveshka might be doing he was all but shaking. Sasha was in no better state, his voice was a hoarse shadow of itself; and without wizardry there was no hope they could overtake the boat tonight.

Pyetr flung up his hands. “All right,” he said, “all right.” He went to the washbasin, threw water into his face and toweled off the dirt, went to the grain bin and slammed it open, to do whatever Sasha wanted, trying not to wonder what might be going on elsewhere or what trouble the boat could get into with Eveshka sailing blind and alone. “I’ll get Volkhi rubbed down,” he said, throwing grain into the bucket. “Talk to her. Turn the wind if you can. If you can’t reach her I want to be out of here tonight, I don’t care if it’s only an hour along the shore, I’m not going to sit here waiting for word and I’m damn well not going to sleep.”

“Volkhi’s exhausted,” Sasha said. “I’m exhausted. Two nights now I’ve had no sleep, for the god’s sake! —Just—let me try. I’ll do what I can.”

“I know. I know you will.” Pyetr filled the bucket, did the mundane things a plain man could. All his life he had known a run of luck only lasted till a fool believed it enough to commit himself. Then the god tipped the dice and everything went to hell.

But, but, he argued with himself, he still had throws left, Sasha was saying he still knew things to try. Sasha and Eveshka could load anybody’s dice.

Only hope to the god it was not Chernevog responsible, or if it was, that Eveshka was not going up there to handle matters alone—because it seemed always the last thing in the world to occur to Ilya Uulamets’ daughter—that she was not the sole, competent in a world of fools and strangers.

—Oh, leave that alone, Pyetr, let me do it!

—Here, stop, you’re making a mess!

—Don’t touch that, Pyetr!

And when, too often lately, she would frown and stare into nowhere, chin on fist—and he would ask: What’s worrying you, ’Veshka?

She would say, Nothing. Nothing at all… As if she were looking past the walls, past everything he could see or think of seeing…

“When I left her here,” Sasha was saying at the edge of his attention, a hoarse and weary voice, “she kept wanting to hear from the leshys: maybe she got an answer. Maybe she just she had to go get one. She left the bread. So she knew we were coming back.”

Pyetr refused to be comforted. He said, tight-jawed, “Any-thing’s possible,” got the vodka jug from the shelf and cut down a couple of small sausages to take along with it. For his supper. And Babi’s. “I just wonder what the hell answer she did get, myself. Or whose. —I’ll take care of outside. I’ll wait out there till you call me. But for the god’s sake let’s not just trust to wishes. Do what you can and let’s get closer to her where we can do some good.”

“I’ll hurry,” Sasha promised him, “as much as you can hurry magic, I promise you.”

It was an eerily uncomfortable feeling Sasha had, entering Pyetr’s and Eveshka’s room—carrying the kitchen lamp into a behind-doors privacy he had never entered since the day he and Pyetr had moved the furniture in. He felt strangely furtive and guilty here—as if Pyetr would object to him being in this room, as if Eveshka herself might have set some wish here that he was crossing. He would never have expected that of her.

But he had his own specific purpose in this room, and wishing nothing else he searched the floor around the wash-basin and the table where one would expect her comb and her brush to be, if she had not taken them with her—a woman thinking of necessities, he thought—and searching by lamplight under that table and against the wall he found the leavings he was looking for—perhaps a last, hasty brushing as she was packing, a few pale strands broken and disregarded on a floor otherwise immaculately swept. He wrapped them around his finger and tucked them into his pocket: that was the link that he wanted, the single personal tie to her, be it ever so slight.

Everything indicated a point of decision, quick packing, reliance on the provisions the boat always had: a very worried young woman who likely had not slept baked bread, slow work, and left it neatly wrapped, two loaves, all the rising tray would hold, for menfolk she surely, desperately, wanted home; then, evidently suddenly, with book, inkpot and scant personal things—she went down to the boat.