Yvgenie (29 page)

—Warmth. Light to see with, herbs and wishes and bandages to stop the blood,
do,
fool! Don't sit there! Wish while you're working!

He scrambled up and broke dead branches off lower limbs, the driest wood there was; he untied his baggage from Missy's back, got the medicines and the fire-pot—oily moss for tinder: he tucked a wad in beneath the twigs, struck a spark and wished
it—dammit
!
to light straightaway, no messing about with might-be's.

Candles tipping, spilling wax. The fireplace would not hold a fire, because in his heart he was afraid of it—

Dammit!

Fire took, the least point of light, and faltered. God, he was going to lose it—

—Please, please be all right, Pyetr, don't do this to me. It's no time for jokes, Pyetr, please wake up and talk to me, I'm not doing well at this! Someone's wishes are winning, but not mine tonight—

The mouse is wishing us not to catch her and her generalities are killing us—

So
wish the specific, fool! Decide and do! Specific always
wins!

Sec
ond spark. No infinite number of chances. There was
so
much blood in a body, and magic had to
want
the
fire, believe
in the fire, one spark at a time, not flinch at the
flames
, not set out to fail from the beginning.

R
iver stench clung strong about this place. Fire gave
smoke
, smoke of birch and alder, smoke of moss and herbs—
and
water gave way to it.

No time for medicines. Blood was flowing too fast. He
laid
hands on the wound while Babi's fire-glittering black
followed
his every move.
Babi
was here, too, Babi was
want
ing things to work, no less than he was.

On
e did not need the smoke, one did not need the herbs,
one needed
only think of them—yarrow and willow, feverfew
and sulfur
—

Vodka. Babi's eyes glowed like moons. But Babi stayed
quite,
quite still. And licked his lips.

Think of health. Think of home, with the crooked chimney
an
d all. Think of 'Veshka and the mouse being there,
and P
yetr, and himself—one did not need to touch, one
need
ed only think of touching—and not even that—

But the sky
in that image grayed, and the house weathered,
and
lost shingles—

He br
ought back the sun again. He put the shingles back,
and ad
ded the horses grazing on the open hillside and Babi In the front yard.

C
louds tried to gather. Weeds tried to grow. A board fell
off the
gate.

H
e hit his lip and made it go back. A rail fell off the fence.
But h
e set himself in the middle of that yard, with Pyetr as
h
e was, and wanted the shoulder as it had been.

That was the answer. Shingles fell, thunder rumbled, and h
e
built a small fire in front of him and fed it, while he fed
the
one in the dark of the woods, and breathed the smoke,
pine
and willow.

H
e set the vodka jug bes
ide him in the yard—the unbreak
able and inexhaustible jug: his one youthful magic, the once-in-a-lifetime spell old Uulamets had told him a wizard might cast: no effort at all it had been to want that jug rolling across the deck—not unbroken—but truly whole, so whole it could never afterward be less than it was at that moment.

Scaril
y easy, so easy that he had felt queasy about that spell ever after. He had doubted it could be good, and most of all feared what wishing at some
one
might do—

But he needed that absolute magic now, if only once for the rest of his life, and the jug was the key. He saw the yard, with the wind blowing and the sky going darker; he picked up the jug among falling leaves, locked it in his arms and wanted, with the same simplicity, Pyetr to be with him, the same—the same—as in that unthinking instant he had be-spelled the jug
—

No! Oh, god, that day had not been the best in their lives. Pyetr had not married 'Veshka, yet, had not
had
a daughter then.

God, what have I
done?

But the shingles were on the roof again, the yard was raked and kept. The house was standing solid and intact; but he had no idea who was living in Pyetr's house
…
as it would someday stand. He
had
wished something. He had felt the shift in things-as-they-were and things-as-they-would-be. He wanted to go inside the house and find out who lived there; or failing that, only to go up on the porch and look in the unshuttered windows, please the god, to reassure himself what he had done would not change what was inside—

But he was sitting in front of a dying fire with the vodka jug in his arms, and Pyetr was lying on the ground in front of him, while Babi—Babi had his small arms locked about Pyetr's neck, his face buried in Pyetr's pale hair.

Pyetr swatted at Babi. The hand fell limp again, but Pyetr had moved, Pyetr was still alive. Sasha suddenly found himself shaking like a leaf, unable to stop. He tucked his foot up and hugged his knee and watched, fist against his mouth to keep his teeth from chattering, wanting nothing but Pyetr's
welf
are, not wishing any more proof that the magic had worked than to see Pyetr look at him, whenever Pyetr wanted
to
, please, sanely and remembering everything since that day
in the river.

Ba
bi got up and waddled over, leaned on his legs and
rea
ched for the vodka jug. Something had changed: Babi knew. Babi was willing to leave Pyetr: Babi wanted a drink
and
Sasha unstopped the jug and poured a good dose into
Ba
bi's waiting mouth, libation to all beneficent magic in the twin.
‘
Good Babi,
’
he said.
‘
Good,
brave
Babi—
’

Pyetr half-opened his eyes, blinking at him through a fringe ill hair.
‘
God—where
did
you
come from?
’

'' I was supposed to follow you, remember?''

Please, Pyetr, remember. Keep on remembering.

Pyetr rolled onto his back and felt inside his shirt. Made
a face
and worked his fingers back and forth in the firelight.

‘
Does it hurt?
’

‘
No,
’
Pyetr said, sounding confused, and felt again.
‘
Bl
ood. It's not me, is it?
’

‘
It was,
’
Sasha said.
‘
It shouldn't be now. How do you led?
’

Pyetr took a breath, wiped his hand on his ghastly shirt,
making
another dark smear, and managed to sit up, leaning on his hand, staring dazedly past the fire, to where the horses were.
‘
Volkhi—
’

‘
Volkhi's all right. Not a scratch on him, from the
vodyanoi
, a few scrapes else, that I can tell.
’

''God.'' Pyetr made a try at getting up and fell on his back
be
fore Sasha could catch him.

' You can't go anywhere.
’

‘
My daughter, dammit—
’

H
e could not admit to Pyetr what a fool he had been, or warn him of the changes that might happen. He
wanted
to
amend
that wish of his—
but he doubted he could, that w
as the stupid part. He could
only wish Pyetr to remember his
d
aughter by the time the spell had run its course—and it would not have, yet, it might not have completed itself for
days and years, but there was no stopping it—and telling Pyetr about it—what could it do but frighten him, and make his life miserable?

God, stupid, Sasha Vasilyevitch,
damnably,
terribly stu
pid! You can't wish against nature, you can't wish against time—

But Pyetr, instead of dying, had breath in him tonight, and warmth, and was determined to ride on alone, right now, if he could.
‘
Sasha—we can't sit here.''

‘
Volkhi's exhausted, Missy can't take it, if you could stay on, which you can't: the spell isn't finished with you; and don't ask me to borrow.
’

‘
I'll ask you.
’
Pyetr coughed, and held his shoulder.
‘
It's not a time for good sense. Or scruples. The leshys will understand us. It's for them as much as—
’

‘
Not a time to make mistakes, either.
’

‘
Dammit, he's with her, you understand me?
’

‘
Do you know that?
’

‘
I know more than I want to know. The old Snake has a filthy mouth. The young one, Chernevog, damn him—
’

‘
I don't believe everything Hwiuur says. He's left and right and full of twists. And even if it were true, Chernevog's not in any substance any longer. The boy is—and substance deals with substance.
’
He felt the heat in his face, but the dark gave him cover.
‘
Yvgenie's an honest lad. She could do far worse, Pyetr.
’

Pyetr could have shouted at him that he was a fool and he had no intention in the world of leaving it at 'could do worse,' or 'substance': Sasha heard it all the same. But Pyetr had no strength to go on right now. Pyetr leaned his head against his arm and shook it slowly.
‘
God, how, Sasha? How could she do worse?
’
And Pyetr thought, wounded to the heart: Why didn't she answer me?

Because the vodyanoi had taunted him with that.

‘
I
couldn't answer you,
’
Sasha said, laying a hand on Pyetr's shoulder.
‘
Remember? We aren't hearing each other. And I'm less and less certain our mouse is all the reason for
the
silence. I think the leshys are aware of it, maybe con
tribut
ing to it—they did this before, when Chernevog was
al
ive
—
not helping us, but maybe keeping other things fr
om
brea
king loose.
’

Pyetr
was shivering. Trying not to. Trying to be sane.
Pyetr
said, as calmly as he could,
‘
This isn't going at all
right
, is it?
’

Sasha put his arms about him, felt the chill and the shiv
er
ing.
‘
Sleep, Pyetr. Go to sleep.
’

Pyetr
said not a word. His head fell and his body imme
diately
went heavy in Sasha's arms: he was that far gone. S
asha
suddenly found himself trembling, from cold, from
exhau
stion, from terror. He wanted Pyetr to be all right, he wanted Pyetr's daughter to realize her father needed her, and
he
wanted things right in the woods—now, tonight, this moment.

B
ut—perhaps it was the way his latest wish had gone
askew
; and perhaps the way all wizards' wishes went amiss,
past
childhood—he was not sure he wanted the mouse here.
He
was less sure he wanted Chernevog, knowing the mouse might have wished him to be with her: wishes held so many conditions, wishes contradicted each other, and tied them
selve
s in knots on wizards' conditions.

Fool, 'Veshka would say, in her father's tone.

And she would be right.

Yvgenie
became aware of breaking daylight at the same moment he discovered his legs were asleep, he was propped
against
a tree and he had his arms mostly around Ilyana. There seemed no polite way at the moment to move his legs,
th
e stretch of
which was making his back ache terribly, so he
sat
there in pain, trying to recall, god, what had happened l
a
s
t
night, or what he had done last night.