C. Cherryh - Rusalka

One never knew with Uulamets what was sarcasm and what was not. Pyetr had a surly answer ready, but Uulamets went on looking at them as though they were something on his dinner plate.

“It gave us its name,” Sasha said after a moment.

“Truly remarkable,” Uulamets said.

“So what does it mean?” Pyetr asked.

“It means this woods wants us here.”

“Oh, god! One more in the game!”

“Quite,” Uulamets said. “I wouldn’t swear to which side.” He picked up his book, made a little shooing gesture past that burden. “Out of my light.”

“So are we going to do anything?” Pyetr asked.

“Just stay out of trouble, damn you. Why don’t you go keep my daughter company?”

Pyetr opened his mouth to answer, but Sasha pulled him around by the sleeve and gave him at least that excuse to take the wiser course.

“He has no feeling,” he said to Sasha, and waved an angry gesture in Uulamets’ direction. “Is that the way you want to end up?” It was unfair, perhaps, since Sasha was born what Uulamets was, at least Sasha had had precious little choice in it. “To hell with it. He’s driving me crazy. Just let me alone a while and stop wanting things, can’t you?”

“I can’t stop caring what happens—” Sasha said, and cut himself off and looked desperate.

Maybe thinking about Uulamets and his daughter, who knew?

Pyetr sighed, and folded his arms and shook his head, looking at the ground, feeling better— damn the boy!

He picked up the jug and stalked off with it, wanting and not wanting a drink, wanting it, damn it all, precisely because he suspected Sasha wanted him not to have it, and the whole thing was driving him mad.

So he stood at the edge of the firelight, staring off into the dark of the forest in another quarter to that where Eveshka was, just wanting nothing for a while, except to rest his battered brain and not to have any demands on him, not from Sasha, not from Uulamets, not from Eveshka, that damned bird, or anyone else.

He was quite out of his depth, he decided. Eveshka surely cherished no illusions about his competency; he was reasonably sure Sasha had none left; and the old man’s opinion of him was never in doubt from the beginning.

Babi popped out of thin air, right at his feet, a fur-ball with solemn black eyes and a glistening wet nose.

His heart hardly even jumped, that was how numb he was becoming to things like this. He stared back at the fur-ball, which was presently about cat-sized, and it squatted, staring up at him expectantly, licking its human lips and panting like a dog.

He reckoned what it wanted. He tipped the jug, it opened its mouth and caught the dollop neatly, standing with little black hands on his leg.

That, he looked at askance. But he took another sip for himself. The hand hurt, from which wound he was not even certain any longer. He made a fist and looked at it to try to tell, trying to hope it was the latest wound; but there was a coldness about the pain, like a cut on ice: it was the back of the hand that was hurting—and he did not like that.

He liked less the feeling he got, looking off into the woods.

So it was out there. That was no news to anyone, least of all to him, and he was in a fey and surly mood. He stood there obstinately, reminding himself he had beaten it before, thinking that maybe if he could get it in range he might be worth something after all; and then with a numb sort of chagrin, remembered his sword was lying against a log on the other side of the fire, which he really, immediately, imminently should do something about—He drew back a step—it was like walking in thick mud. The next was harder: he had great difficulty thinking why he was going at all, except, last and most desperate thought—something was wrong and he needed Sasha’s attention.

But Eveshka was insisting to tell him something, which only confused the issue. He stopped, forgetting where he was going or what he had been about to say, except Eveshka was muddling him up—

Something snarled and grabbed his leg. He yelled, spun half about to save his balance and staggered free as Babi snarled and knocked his legs out from under him, become as large as a wolf, as large as a bear as it stood over him. He yelled and tried to get out from under it, and something had his ankle, worrying it and growling as Babi trampled him and lunged that direction.

“That will be enough!” Uulamets said, and Pyetr scrambled for clear ground and looked back at the edge of the woods. The raven was shrieking, Babi had vanished into the undergrowth. “Come here!” Uulamets ordered, and something whipped away through the woods, stirring the firelit brush.

Babi popped up again at Pyetr’s feet, panting, dog-sized and showing a fearful lot of teeth, just the other side of Pyetr’s boots, one of which showed a single set of scrapes in the leather.

“Are you all right?” Sasha asked, shakily, behind him, and Sasha took his arm, but Pyetr was still staring Babi in the face and discovering, quite to his embarrassment, that he had saved the vodka jug and all but broken his elbow hitting the ground.

He flung it. It landed unbroken in a bush, which seemed to him the final insult. He resisted Sasha trying to pick him up, got his own feet under him and dusted himself off.

“So much for your snaky neighbor’s promises,” Pyetr snarled at Uulamets, who had come to stare at him, and glared at Sasha, who brought him the jug, ignoring him for a second, surlier look at Uulamets. “Won’t hurt your friends, will it?”

Eveshka drifted near, her face grave and worried.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, and flung out an arm to clear his path back to the fire. “I’m fine. I don’t need the damn jug!” He stalked back to where his sword lay, at the fireside, thought of taking it in hand and going off after the vodyanoi; but he had already embarrassed himself beyond bearing, and stupidity piled onto fecklessness was no help. He sank down in disgust on the log beside his sword and picked it up, scowling as Babi came up and put his little hands on his knee.

“Thanks,” he said.

Sasha came and put the jug down. “I think my wish on it must have stuck,” Sasha said very quietly. “It just won’t break.”

“You mean I couldn’t turn loose of the damn thing! Thanks! Thanks ever so much! I could have gotten killed!”

“I’m sorry. I’ve patched it. It’s what can happen if you wish things. They can come back on you—”

Sasha looked white as Eveshka. And blaming Sasha was the last thing in his mind. He shook his head and massaged his bruised elbow. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “First thing in the morning, we’ve got to get back to the boat—”

“That solves nothing,” Uulamets said from behind him.

“What do you advise?” Pyetr asked, with the sudden, uncharitable recollection exactly how Uulamets had had the vodyanoi swear. “Damn you, you said it shouldn’t harm you or yours. So what am I? Not inside those bounds? You’re trying to kill me, is that the game?”

“Your own attitudes gave it its exception,” Uulamets said, leaning on his staff. “Think on that.”

Wherewith Uulamets stamped his staff on the ground and went back to gather up his precious book.

“I’ll kill him,” Pyetr muttered.

“You don’t learn,” Uulamets said, with a sidelong look. “Go where you please. Walk to Kiev. Reason your way past the creature.”

Babi patted his leg, and went over and picked up the jug, waddling back with it like a great pale gut.

Pyetr shut his eyes and rested his forehead against his hands—which hurt his elbow, but he was beyond caring.