C. Cherryh - Chernevog

—Thank the god I don’t, Chernevog replied. —And you don’t have to. Listen to me, Alexander Vasilyevitch!

No!

For a moment breath came hard. Tempers rose, anger flared, palpable and threatening; but Sasha wished not, no quarreling, and Chernevog as strongly wished them both to be calm, saying,

Damned stubborn boy! You’ll get us all killed. Quiet!

They had resolved, at least, what creature Eveshka had allied with: one could smell it a distance, one could recognize it, Chernevog said, in his memories of her presence—

Wolves, twenty and more of them. Draga’s wolves. Chernevog recalled them all too well, creatures each with names, and more mind each and alone than they had together—One’s bad, Chernevog had said, with a shudder; but it thinks. The lot of them don’t think—in any reasonable way. Put your heart in that lot—god knows, ’Veshka never could make up her mind. I’m afraid she’s found the one creature that might suit her.

That made Sasha mad, and defensive of Eveshka. But it was also, he feared, true.

Chernevog kept after that thought. Chernevog said, now— Listen, boy, if Draga’s alive in any physical way, the power she had is nothing to the power she can get through ’Veshka. I’m telling you Simple wizardry won’t stop her, I swear to you, it will not stop her. You’ve met magic. You ran from it. Can wit overcome that? Can nature? Are you that damnably, stupidly blind, to go back at it again empty-handed?

Sasha said, back to the point of their disagreement, Listen to me. Give me your help—

Chernevog said, with stinging despite: Turn myself over to you? Bay, you’re not listening! If you want your friend alive, if you want him free—there’s a cost, and I’m not the one here begging help, I’m not the one desperate to get a fool girl out of her predicament!

Sasha looked him in the face, jaw set, said: —No. You’re the one desperate to have my help, Kavi Chernevog, because ’Veshka has every reason to want her hands on you, Draga had you once and she wants you back, and if I go, Kavi Chernevog, and if we go under, at least I’m not damning the people I care about to fight each other—

—No, Chernevog retorted—of course not! You’re damning your friend to be hers, as she is, for as long as she can keep him alive—or for as long as she can keep him out of Draga’s hands, which, between you and me, isn’t damned long, boy! If you think a loving, crazy wife is hell, god help you when you meet her mother. I’m not your worst choice—and believe me you’ve got only two.

Pyetr took another drink, while Volkhi and Missy fretted quietly. The approaching storm had them disturbed. The god hope there was no other reason in the woods around them. He had them tied. He did not trust Sasha’s attention to details at the moment. He very much wished for Babi, he even wished for Uulamets. But the cold touch that swept past him from time to time did not seem to have anything to do with the old man, unless it was that damned raven of his—because whatever was bothering him glided in and out again with that kind of feeling; and as the light faded from the sky, when less and less detail distracted a man’s eye from what his mind saw—he imagined a wide, winged shape…

Continually now, from the direction of the fire, he felt the disturbance of Chernevog’s heart, he saw the frowns and felt there was a quarrel of some sort going on over there, a very dangerous quarrel.

Sasha had said very little to him on the short ride to this place: he had talked about the vodyanoi, and how the rail had gotten broken on the boat. About having found Uulamets, and how Uulamets had moved the pages in the book, how he was certain that Uulamets had done the most he could do—

He’s not like ’Veshka was, Sasha had said. I don’t know if an old man could do what she did—I don’t know if Uulamets would. He protected these woods. What she did to it upset him terribly. I don’t know that he could have made himself do what she did, no matter how he needed it.

Then Sasha had said, And I don’t know if an old man could believe in his own life the way she did. It’s not enough not to disbelieve your own death, I think—that only makes a ghost. What makes a rusalka is a kind of believing I’m not sure one can even do past fifteen or sixteen…

Like the jug, he had said, inelegant comparison.

Exactly like the jug, Sasha had said, and said nothing else for a few moments.

Then: —I think, dead, Uulamets has found so many doubts, so much that wasn’t the way he thought—

Another silence. And:

What I have to tell Chernevog isn’t going to make him happy either. He’s been tricked—unless he’s lied to us all along.

He had said, distressed at that thought: Lied to us—about Draga? He wouldn’t have to. If he was hers, he could have turned us both over to her. He could have done it that night at the house—

Sasha had said: Not necessarily. And gone on to say: I’m stronger than might seem. I know that I am.

Somehow that had failed to comfort him. Are you as strong as he is? he had asked.

And Sasha, a very soft voice, very faint, What’s happened to Chernevog is doubt. What’s happened to me is certainty. I know certain things, I know what I want. That’s why I won’t give up my heart. That’s why I can’t give it up. That’s exactly what he’ll want and I won’t give it.

He had asked, carefully, scared Chernevog was listening: Can you want me free?

And Sasha, equally carefully: I don’t dare. You have his protection. That’s not inconsiderable.

That had upset him. It still did. He thought, Dammit, don’t I have a choice? He doesn’t have to live with this. He doesn’t have Snake putting him to sleep any time it suits him. I hate this! What’s ’Veshka to think if she does reach me? All she’ll touch is Kavi Chernevog…

—Maybe she thinks that already—maybe she thinks we’ve just gone over to Chernevog, that we’re his creatures…

And aren’t we? Aren’t we now? We’re fighting his damn fight, we’re keeping him alive, we’re going right down the track of his wishes, and ’Veshka’s his enemy the same as Draga is.

I shouldn’t have gone after Sasha. I should have fought him on that point. Snake’s using me, exactly the way he said he would. Sasha’s over there in a damn dice game—and at any moment Snake’s going to switch the dice, I know he is. I know that damned slithery heart of his. He’s not done with us… he’s not done with being what he is, he’s only learned how to want us, and want company, and want us—

God, he wants us with him, wants us to be his the way Sasha and I have been together, his to keep—to damn well own, down to the breaths we take. Only he’s not Sasha. He’s not any good-hearted stableboy.

That cold touch brushed his face again. He saw it glide away this time, broad wings, broad, pale wings-Owl.

And beyond the light, a shadow-shape with glowing eyes.

Wolves and tearing jaws—

Eveshka’s face, cold and calm—

He snatched up his sword and scrambled to his feet, while the horses snorted in alarm, pulling at their tethers.

Draga’s face…

And a pull at his heart, so fierce it took his breath away.

“Pyetr!” he heard Sasha cry, a thin and distant voice. He caught a breath, heard a maelstrom of voices, calling to him—

’Veshka’s voice among them, saying, Pyetr, Pyetr, I need you — oh god, I need you —

The bannik pulled the other way. He felt the pain, felt Snake’s heart stirring in wild panic. The bannik flew from where it was and turned up face-to-face with him, wild eyes glaring, hands reaching, nails like claws, teeth like a rat’s—