C. Cherryh - Chernevog

Babi did not immediately appear, but he had the feeling Babi was listening, at least; and he turned the wooden latch and pushed it open, hoping if something was lurking in there it would make a sound now.

There was only the flap of the sail over him, and the hull groaning. He sank down on his heels so he could see into the dark by reflected starlight, and gingerly reached in to drag out the baskets they kept there.

He heard Babi growl behind him. He hoped it was Babi. He turned on one knee, he heard a watery sound, he looked toward that and saw a great slick darkness rise up, up and up in the starlight, and grin down above the rail with sharp-toothed jaws.

“Well, well,” the vodyanoi said, “young wizard. I was wondering about you.”

Sasha felt into his pocket, after the packet of salt he kept there, and wished—

No. He did not wish for the rest of it. He wished the vodyanoi to keep his distance. He said, slowly rising to his feet, “Hwiuur, what do you think you’re doing here?”

“Waiting,” Hwiuur said. “Of course, waiting. Of course you’d come—but where’s your friend, mmmm?”

“Stay back!”

“Mmmm. A horse. A nice fat horse. I might start with it.”

“Stay where you are!”

“Stay where I am… Where I am is in the river, in my river, young wizard, where you’re trespassing, and all alone, aren’t you, young wizard? The dvorovoi has no power on the water-but you could wish him to try.”

That was a very bad thought. So was the fact that this creature was Chernevog’s—and Chernevog might know exactly where he was.

If it was still Chernevog’s.

Hwiuur said softly, weaving to one side, “A bad position, young wizard, a very bad position you’re in.”

“Where’s Eveshka?” Sasha asked it outright, and wanted it to tell him.

Hwiuur leaned slowly to the other side and hissed. “Oh, we want pretty bones, do we? She went walking.”

“Where?”

Hwiuur swayed closer.

“Get back!” Sasha cried, waving his hand at it; and Hwiuur drew back with a hiss.

“Rude, rude young wizard. You want my help and you push me back. Is that at all reasonable?”

“With you it is! Mind your manners. Tell me where she went walking. Tell me where she is!”

“Safe,” Chernevog’s voice said at his back.

He did not stop to think—he dived for the deckhouse door and rolled inside, pulled the door to after him as the whole boat rocked and the rail splintered. He thrust his shoulders back against the baskets and the wall, braced the door with his feet, wishing it to stay shut and Missy to run, get away, fast-He heard someone walking on the deck outside. He heard someone say, definitely in Chernevog’s voice, right next tin-deckhouse door, “It’s quite useless.”

He trembled, lying there in the pitch dark with a basket crunching between his back and the deckhouse wall, feeling the door shake against the soles of his boots as something kicked it. God, he had wished, he had thrown magic at it-He heard the slithering of a huge body, felt the boat tip, heard Hwiuur’s whisper over the deckhouse ceiling, heard the slither of a huge body over the boards.

“Well, now, young wizard. Perhaps now you’ll be sorry you were rude.”

And Pyetr’s voice: “Sasha?”

For a moment he believed it. Then he thought not, knowing where he had left Pyetr, knowing Chernevog would have wanted him out that door with more force than he felt out there, Chernevog could not so conveniently have found him. Chernevog would not have taken second place to the vodyanoi…

“Sasha?” Pyetr’s voice said. “Sasha, I’m in trouble. I’m In deep trouble. Can we have some help here?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and braced the door. He thought, hearing the boards above him creak with Hwiuur’s weight, Everything’s a lie. Everything I hear from it’s a lie. Pyetr couldn’t possibly be here. That’s the shapeshifter, that’s all it is.

It hasn’t a mind of its own, only what it borrows, like the likeness, that’s what Uulamets knew about it—

“Sasha! For the god’s sake, Sasha!”

Nothing more than an echo. It doesn’t know anything, it’s no more malicious than its original so long as there’s no one directing it…

“Sasha! God, Sashal”

Pyetr wouldn’t want me to open this door. Pyetr would never call me out into danger. It’s a damned clumsy trick… But a shapeshifter had no sense to know that. In its own right it had neither shape, nor mind…

“Sasha!” He heard steps running across the deck, heard Hwiuur’s weight slide across the boards and the steps stop abruptly.

Pyetr? he thought, wondering, he could not help it, what was going on out there: and something that felt like Pyetr was thinking. Oh, damn! Pyetr had expected help on the boat and ran straight into a trap-No. He wanted what Pyetr was thinking, and got nothing. Dark. Confusion. Pyetr was asleep somewhere, he tried to assure himself of that, the god grant it was only sleep. He heard Hwiuur move, heard Pyetr yelling, “Sasha, dammit, do something— help me!”

He kept bracing the door, the whole deckhouse creaking around him as the vodyanoi moved—the baskets crackling against his shoulders as he shoved against them… Baskets. God.

He reached back over his shoulder and rummaged in the dark, thinking, Fool, fool! Salt and sulfur—Nothing but clothes in the basket immediately behind him. He tried another, arching his back, straining with both his feet against the door, found clay pots, pulled them out and pulled stoppers one after the other. Marjoram. Parsley. Thyme… “Sasha! for the god’s sake!” Rosemary… “Sasha!”

The missing flour… Sasha dumped it, reached after the next, pulled the stopper— “Sasha!” Salt—He drew his feet up, rolled with the jar in his arms, eeled his way out the open door and scrambled upright on the deck under Hwiuur’s shadowy jaws—slewed the pot wide and sprayed a wide white cloud of salt at Hwiuur’s face and on around, where Pyetr stood with an expression of shock on his face.

Hwiuur hissed and thrashed backward for the water, rocked the whole boat as he went over, dragging bits of the rail with him.

What had been Pyetr melted and ran in little dark threads across the deck and off the edge, like spilled ink.

Sasha sat down hard where he stood, with the half-empty salt jar in his arms, white dust blowing across an empty deck and melting in the puddles of water the vodyanoi had left.

He shook, great tremors that knocked his knees together and made his teeth chatter.

Close, he said to himself, very close. He hoped Missy was all right out there, and that Babi was with her.

Most of all—he hoped Pyetr was all right; but he dared not think about Pyetr now, dared not, please the god—he dared not.

But—he thought, recalling that darkness he had touched when he had sought Pyetr—the shapeshifter until now had taken the shape of dead people, not the living; and Pyetr had not answered him.

His teeth kept rattling. He told himself it was magical and it would damned well take any shape it wanted, that anything else was only coincidence, only what they happened to have seen it do.

The greater danger had been in reaching out like that. Ho dragged his mind away from it, he wondered instead after Missy, wondered, still shaking, where she was.

Quite far away and knee-deep in water, as it seemed. He reassured her: it was safer near him. He wanted her to come back now, the bad things were gone; he wanted Babi to make sure she got here safely—but Babi arrived quite suddenly on the deck, a formidably large Babi, a very angry Babi.

“Go see about Missy,” he murmured. “It’s all right, the River-thing’s gone.”