C. Cherryh - Chernevog

Filings fell into place, then, papa always wishing at her…

“And you being a wizard-child on both sides… of course what he was doing to protect nature from you was completely un natural: he could only stop you with magic that scared him to work. I think he finally realized how crazy mat was. He didn’t know really what to do. And for all the harm he did, now, I can lot give him a great deal. Malenkova did terrible things to him. She dealt with deep magic. With sorcery, if you want to call it that, though there’s no real distinction except in degree. And if he truly was Kavi’s father—”

Her mother stopped talking. New flowers chained across the wool, one after the other.

“Mother? —If he was Kavi’s father?”

Half a flower more. “Well, the time doesn’t work. Although—” The needle stopped. “I don’t put anything beyond Malenkova. Her magic had no rules.”

“Why? Why would she want a child?”

“Dear, I don’t know she did—for any reason anyone would like to talk about. She’d—”

“Mama?”

Her mother’s lips went to a thin line. She crushed a petal. “If that was so,” her mother said, slowly, “then he’d be exactly what you are—wizard-born on both sides. More than that: your father discouraged you from magic; but Kavi—”

There was silence. Eveshka waited, watched her mother think and almost eavesdropped, she wanted so badly to know.

“If Kavi was hers,” her mother said, “he was conceived for a reason: she was careless—but never in something that inconvenienced her. She was terribly powerful. I can’t even explain to you what she did—but she wanted to get into the magical, she wanted to go into that realm herself—and I’m far from sure all her absences were into the woods, if you want the truth.”

“What would she do with a child?”

“As I said, the time doesn’t work. By years. But that’s not saying time is the same there. As a matter of fact, I’ve very strong suspicions it isn’t. And I’m not sure where Malenkov is .”

“God, mother.”

“One has time for very strange thoughts in a hundred years I’ve turned it over and over and over—what happened, why happened—where Malenkova is. And how Kavi was so—damnnably precocious. That’s why I want you here. That’s why you mustn’t leave and go running off to fight him on your own. You’ll lose. And I’m very much afraid—very much afraid that there’s something in the magical realm with an interest in this world. You have to understand—that’s never been true. But it may be, now. To tell the truth, I don’t know why you were born. I don’t know if you’re what magic’s arranged to counter Kavi Chernevog—or whether you’re something magic’s made to be his match—to bear a child we don’t want to think about.”

Eveshka stood up abruptly, cold to the marrow. Her mother looked up at her, the sewing crumpled in her lap.”Don’t panic You mustn’t panic, ’Veshka. Do you understand me? I want you to listen to me. Don’t make any wishes right now, not about you, not about me, not about your husband, certainly not about that baby—think about flowers, ’Veshka, think about flowers… “

Flowers with thorns. Flowers red as blood…

“’Veshka!”

She caught her breath. Her mother stood up and took her by the arms, looked her in the eyes. “’Veshka, dear, you and I, understand me? You and I… against Kavi. Your father made you afraid of magic. You mustn’t be—or neither of us has a chance.”

Volkhi picked a crooked, trailless course through the young trees, knee-deep in seedlings while the taller, three-year growth was constantly enough to screen anything beyond a stone’s throw from their track.

Find Sasha, Chernevog said. So, perforce, they tried. They tried past noon, and into afternoon, taking a general course westward—Sasha had not been at the burned house, had not, which Chernevog had thought might be the case, gone back to Uulamets’ grave. After that-After that they turned north and west, in the not unlikely case Sasha had gone toward the river, Chernevog said. Chernevog searched with his magic and Pyetr scanned the sunlit, fluttering greenwood with ordinary eyes, looking for a white and brown horse, hoping with half his heart they would find no trace at all, hoping that Sasha was clear away and safe—and fearing he was not. He imagined terrible things—things like Missy felling; or vodyaniye and such lurking in ambush to drag horse and rider down into the brook; or Sasha’s heart just stopping, on a stronger wizard’s wish.

“That’s for easier than will happen to him,” Chernevog muttered at his back, “believe me.”

“Believe you? God… let me go and I’ll find him. Just go back to the house and wait, why don’t you? Snake, I swear to you, if you want him found, if you really, truly do want him found—”

Chernevog said, “If he doesn’t have a chance out there, you have less. Or I would do that.”

“The hell you would.”

“Believe me.”

That was a wish. It smothered thinking for a moment. It suffocated reason.

“You don’t understand,” Chernevog said. “He’s not going to die. That’s not the worst that can happen to him.”

He felt cold through and through, despite the sunlight. He fought believing anything Chernevog said—but sometimes it was so close to his own apprehensions…

“There’s no particular good, no particular evil in magic, Pyetr Ilyitch: one either rules it—or one is ruled; and he’s quite vulnerable. He won’t die, but you’ll wish he had. He won’t be able to. Then you’ll wish you’d helped me with more enthusiasm.”

“Shut up!”

“My friend, be reasonable.”

“I’m not your friend.”

“You’re not my enemy. I assure you, you’re not my enemy.”

“I killed your damn owl,” Pyetr muttered, and pulled Chernevog’s hands loose from his middle. “Keep your hands off me.”

“I’ve no grudges. Owl was very old.”

That callousness turned him sick at his stomach. “Don’t you love anything, Snake? Didn’t you, once? —What do you want, that matters to anybody?”

“Just Owl.” They rode up a slope, Volkhi’s hindquarters bunching in a quick few efforts. Chernevog held to him again— with cause. “Just Owl. And he’s gone. Now you’re in his place. He was fond of mice. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to keep your damned hands to yourself!”

“I’ll love what you love; hate what you hate—I’ve given you that power over me. What more can I do for you?”

That’s a lie, he thought as they rode along the ridge. —Sasha might have done something with his heart, if he could only have gotten it away from me—

“He can’t. It’s much too strong a bond: it’s magical; and I’m far stronger. But it’s true you can command my friendship. Bestow it where you like: that takes no wizardry at all. It’s simply the nature of hearts, when they’re together long enough. You see how much I trust you.”

He wanted Chernevog away from him, he wanted help; he was drowning in Chernevog’s thoughts. He thought distractedly, looking at the trees, Very soon there’s not going to be anything left of me. Sasha won’t trust me if we find him. He shouldn’t. God help me, I’m losing my mind.

“Of course,” Chernevog said, resting his hand on his shoulder “as you probably do suspect by now—it can equally well go the other way.”

Sasha sat tucked up in green shade, beside Missy’s feet, Missy looking quite content to stand with a patch of sun on her back—

Sasha felt it, too, the way he had slowly felt aches in her legs leave and the pain in her gut ebb. It had been hard going for an old horse not used to running and not used to forests.