C. Cherryh - Rusalka

“Fool,” Uulamets said under his breath, interrupting his singing. And handed him another pot, an empty one. “Water.—And be careful. The vodyanoi’s not to trifle with in his element.”

“Was that what it was?” The question jumped out before Sasha remembered the master was incanting. He ducked his head, murmured a quick Excuse me, and hurried up the ridge and down again where he recollected a stream—terrified at the mere thought of going to the river if that was lurking there.

But something came behind him, and he looked back through the dead woods to see Pyetr coming down the slope.

“You don’t have to go!” Sasha said, and held up the pot. “I’m just going after water!”

“What are you, his servant?” Pyetr skidded down the slope. “Let him fetch his own.”

“Please. Don’t fight with him.” He reached the little stream, hardly ankle-deep, and dipped up the water, then hurried back again. “He says that thing was a vodyanoi.”

“It can be whatever it wants,” Pyetr said. “I’ve nothing more to do with it.” Pyetr had, overall, the look of a man who wanted very much to say what he had seen was only a log or a large snake or whatever, but who had gone very much beyond that safe limit. Pyetr stayed with him as he hiked back up the slope and down again to bring the pot to master Uulamets.

This master Uulamets took, and set in a forked stick he held above the fire.

“Listen, grandfather,” Pyetr said, taking a step nearer on the slope, and Sasha winced. “I’ve a notion to be on to Kiev. Whatever we owe you, we’ve just paid it. So we’re leaving. Hear?”

“Onto the river?” Uulamets asked. “Or through the woods? The vodyanoi or my daughter?”

Pyetr scowled, and beckoned Sasha.

“He’s telling the truth,” Sasha said. “Pyetr, we won’t make it.”

“We did well enough. And small help grandfather was, there. ‘Bring me wood. Fetch me water.’ So he can have his morning tea, I suppose—while we fend off his damn pet and whatever-it-was—”

“A vodyanoi,” Uulamets interjected pleasantly, without looking at either of them.

“Vodyanoi. River-thing. Whatever it is, it ran. It didn’t like having its nose hit. Your daughter runs cold fingers down a body’s neck, but the most she’s done is fling a few pots and rattle the shutters. A pretty weak ghost, I’d say.”

“Quite,” Uulamets said. “I’ve kept her that way, deliberately. Go on, go running off alone. One of you will feed her. The other will be extremely sorry. You won’t go, Pyetr Illitch. You’re not a fool. Don’t act like one.”

For a moment everything Pyetr said seemed reasonable; then everything Uulamets said overpowered it, with such a feeling of danger in the woods around them that Sasha felt impelled to look behind him—but he resisted that impulse, jammed his hands into his belt and thought very hard about Pyetr being right.

A chill ran down his neck. A second one. He was sure that something was behind him, even if Pyetr was facing him and showing no sign of anything amiss. For a moment he was not even sure he could rely on Pyetr, or if Uulamets might not have cast some spell on him to keep him blind to danger.

“Stop it!” he said. It was the hardest thing in the world to speak out against the old man. “Master Uulamets, you’re doing that, I know you are.”

“So I am,” Uulamets said, but the feeling did not go away. Uulamets turned his head and looked at Pyetr. “The boy trusts you. He’ll fight me for you, and for a lad of his sensitivities, that’s considerable courage. But he’s quite young. He can be persuaded against his better judgment—by a plausible scoundrel. Very much like my daughter. That’s why I’m patient with him. But you—having none of his sensitivities, and a rebellious and an entirely selfish attitude, in which the god forbid there should be anything in the entire world outside your personal understanding!—have no hesitation about taking this boy off to your feckless purposes, for what? For Kiev? A place no better than the last that failed to satisfy you, or the next, or the next. Your lacks, sir, are in yourself; and you most unfortunately carry that baggage to whatsoever place you find yourself. Most significantly, you pass for a man, sir, in this boy’s eyes, and I suggest you examine the responsibilities of that position.”

“And what do you pass for?” Pyetr retorted. “A wizard. A scholar. A man of learning. About what ? Sitting alone out here in the woods mixing stinking potions and talking to birds and snakes!”

“If you’d had the wit to talk to that one, we’d be better off. Sit down. Stop talking nonsense. What if you’d not had my advice about the sun, what if you’d blithely assumed it was yourself that drove the vodyanoi back, and you’d been fool enough to chase him into his hole? Then you’d have regretted it. So would the boy.”

“It did run from the sword,” Sasha objected. It upset him that the old man said things so hurtful to Pyetr, even if he knew they verged on true. It upset him the more that Pyetr just stood there, angry, and not doing anything.

“Since the sunlight weakened it,” Uulamets said. “Yes. And it’s doubtless not feeling well. Hope that’s the case. I have a job for you.”

“What?”

“There’ll be a cave on the riverward side of this hill. There’ll be a nest there. I want you to put something in it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pyetr said.

“Or you can do it,” Uulamets said with a particularly unpleasant grin. “Soon, I’d say, since I’m relatively sure the vodyanoi’s out of his lair at the moment, and I wouldn’t give odds he’ll stay away long.” Uulamets held up the pot in the forked stick. “This. Just throw it in. You faced down the creature once. You don’t really have to go inside. And of course your sword’s enough to protect you.”

“No,” Sasha said.

“It’s after all for his own rescue,” Uulamets said. “I’ll do it myself if I have to. Or you can. But our brave fellow so wants to prove he’s right about the sword—”

“I’m not a fool!” Pyetr said.

“Of course not. Nor a coward, are you? Shall I do it? I’m certainly not as agile, or as strong…”

Pyetr walked up and held out his hand for the stick and the pot, scowling.

“No,” Sasha said. “Pyetr, don’t.”

“It’s easy,” Pyetr said nastily. “Your wizard says it is.”

“It should be,” Uulamets said, “if one isn’t a fool.”

“Old man.” Pyetr said on a deep breath, and rocking on his feet, “I’ve a great deal more patience than you and far better breeding. Which, considering I was born in a gutter, I’ve never been able to say before.”

With which Pyetr took the pot in hand, flung the stick down, and walked off while Sasha was still standing there numb.

“Let me go!” he said to Uulamets, and felt the release as sudden as the relaxing of a fist.

He ran, then.

PYETR HEARD the boy coming behind him as he crossed the ridge, turned around in mid-step and thought with honorable motives the old man had denied he even owned that he ought to order Sasha straight back to Uulamets.

But he thought then, too, that the boy had made a difference against the thing before, that between them, they had been able to handle it, and that if he got himself killed altogether needlessly, Sasha was in a great deal more difficulty being left to Uulamets’ keeping.

So he stood there until Sasha caught up, then walked on down the slope to the river, passing the uncomfortably warm little pot from one hand to the other.

“Why don’t you let me—” Sasha began.