R1 - Rusalka (32 page)

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I
n the way
of such things, the hand had not hurt until everyone began to make a fuss over it. Now it did; and Pyetr gave it surreptitious, anxious glances between trips back and forth to the boat, fearing he had no idea what—some sudden change, corruption—for the hand to turn black and rot, he had no idea what kind of venom a vodyanoi's teeth could carry. The creature had scratched him before, in the set-to at the knoll, or roots or bones had, and no one had worried then; but Sasha fretted over the wound and made a nasty-smelling concoction of chamomile and wormwood and vodka—which stung, for one thing. More, Sasha himself insisted he had no idea what he was doing, and Pyetr was unhappily constrained to believe Uulamets
could
ill-wish them at any moment.

Think of the cup that broke, Sasha had said, daubing his hand with his smelly potion. That could have been your heart, Pyetr…

Gruesome notion.

…
or he could use the vodyanoi, Sasha had said—just let it loose on us. And it's one thing to fight it when he wants us to win, but if he's helping
it
…

So Pyetr carried loads to the boat. A little trip across the river, Uulamets had said. Hunt down a former student. And Uulamets ordered multitudinous pots hauled out of the cellar, packed into mouldering baskets and ported downhill; after which he loaded them down with huge coils of rope and tackle and a furled sail and spar Pyetr and Sasha together had to manhandle down the eroded slope.

So the old man did know boats. One could learn from him… all of which said to Pyetr that it was only well to keep his head down and be polite to grandfather, however bad it got.

Grandfather wanted the boat loaded, grandfather wanted this and grandfather wanted that: Uulamets and Eveshka were waiting on the porch when they came trudging back up the hill, Eveshka standing in the midst of a number of baskets—food, one guessed, the door of the house being shut, as if that was the last they had to take—food not having figured in the previous levels.

Uulamets loaded them down with baskets, five and six apiece, and they went down the hill to board, after which Uulamets plumped down on a basket on the leaf-strewn deck and announced he would tell them how to rig the sail.

The hand hurt worse since hauling the sail and the tackle down, but it seemed unlikely Uulamets would have any sympathy. Pyetr gave Uulamets a sullen look and followed Sasha forward where the mast lay on the bow in a tangle of mouldering rope.

"I don't suppose grandfather could somehow magic this up," Pyetr muttered, pulling at a rope to see where it was connected.

"He's tired," Sasha said.

"
He's
tired," Pyetr cried.

"Don't-"

"I'm not," Pyetr said under his breath, "I'm not, I won't."

"I'll crawl out there," Sasha offered, and scrambled up astride the mast, hitched himself far out over the water to cut the first rotten rope free, then worked his way back again to take the sound one, sweating and panting all the while Uulamets sat on his baskets and told them do this and do that and how they should tie the knots.

Pyetr thought about knots around Uulamets ' neck, mostly, and made the knots tight, biting his lip until it bled and suspecting very strongly why the hand was aching worse and worse and what the load was on Sasha besides the weight of the rope.

He wished he
could
wish—wish Uulamets right into the river, he would, wish the venom into Uulamets ' veins. Don't ill-wish, Sasha kept saying, but that never stopped Uulamets , he was sure of that the way he was sure it would get worse, and that it would i go on getting worse until Uulamets got what he wanted from Sasha.

It was rig the sail then; more knots; and then haul the mast up and settle it—

"Are you all right?" Sasha asked when it thumped down and settled.

"I 'm fine," Pyetr said between his teeth, while Uulamets was ordering them to take the ropes aft and to either side.

It was hitch the spar to the trailing ropes after that; haul it aloft, heave by painful heave, and secure it.

"Cast us off!" Uulamets called out to them, then, for the first time on his feet, as he headed back for the tiller.

Sasha jumped ashore to throw the ties aboard, jumped back again as the boat began sluggishly to drift free in the current. Uulamets stood at the tiller and swung it hard as far as the rail, after which the bow of the boat came slowly about until it was broadside to the current.

Then the wind which had been fitful and indecisive billowed the sail out, tilted the aged boat alarmingly, so that Pyetr grabbed Sasha and lurched for the nearest rope, with certain visions of drowning and becoming prey to the River-thing and all its relatives.

But the boat kept turning, the sail cracked and snapped and filled again, so strongly it threatened the aged canvas.

The boat drove steadily after that, boiling up froth away from the bow, froth that went away into white bubbles on murky water. On either hand forest passed, leafless trees, gray bark peeling here and there to white bare wood, and never a touch of life.

Sasha sat on the bow beside Pyetr with his feet tucked up—| he was afraid to dangle them over, however tempting it was,' because he did not trust the river in any sense. Pyetr leaned against the bow rail and stared ahead of them, with now and again a glance aft, where Uulamets and his daughter stood—but one could not see their faces from here, with the sail in the way.

Maybe that was why Pyetr chose to sit here. Pyetr had this bruised, utterly weary look—Sasha was sure his hand was hurting, but Pyetr would not admit to it. He only kept that hand tucked beneath his arm, sitting with his shoulder against the rail, staring out at the passing forest. Sasha tried to wish his pain away, tried until he quite lost track of where they were, or that it was daylight on dark water he was seeing, and not mud, roots, and shadows—

But he became aware of the water of a sudden, of a dark shape gliding just under the bow where they were sitting, a shadow beneath the surface—water scattered with yellow willow leaves.

He sprang up and away from the rail, grabbing Pyetr by the shirt—and Pyetr moved without a question, caught a rope with his left hand to steady them both.

But there were only the golden leaves, sunlit on the dark water, swirling away from their passage; and on the shore the source of those fading leaves, a willow leafed out bright gold and dying, against a haze of gray branches.

Eveshka's tree. Hwiuur's den.

No need to call out to master Uulamets to see: he could hardly fail to see. Sasha stood and watched until the v/ind carried them past; and when thac bank was out of sight behind the sail the precarious feeling of the deck urged they sit down—but not, Sasha thought, so close to the rail or in reach of the water. He pulled at Pyetr's sleeve and drew him to sit at the foot of the mast.

Pyetr said nothing to this: he only looked back from that vantage, knees drawn up and his hand tacked against him; but when Sasha looked back there was nothing left to see but Eveshka standing by Uulamets at the tiller, the wind streaming their hair about their faces and fluttering at their clothes—as if they were gazing at something far away.

While the boat surged along with a steady, unhurried force, its sail full, no matter that the river had just bent.

Sasha settled forward again and locked his hands between his knees. The image of the tree haunted him, gold in a world of gray, the leaves on the river… He did not know why that should hang in his mind more than Uulamets at the tiller or the presence of the Thing in the river—he did not know why the sight of falling leaves could be that sinister.

Gold on gray. Dying amid the dead, a last vivid color against the lifeless forest, against the dark water.

Perhaps it was Eveshka's freedom its dying signified.

He had no hesitation to accept magic and he had only small astonishment at winds that obeyed no set direction, only the understanding that it must take many wishes, one shifting to the next, to drive this boat.

But for some reason he kept seeing the gold leaves swirling in the current, and thinking that he should be wiser than he had been, because he should understand these things and he was failing, in some elementary way.

They were going farther and farther from Kiev, further from Pyetr's dreams. That was one thing. He felt guilty for that.

And afraid.

Pyetr did not like boats; he had decided that from the first time the deck tilted under him and the boat gathered speed. When the bow began to pitch and the deck tilted markedly his heart sped, and when the sail would swing and the deck would pitch over in the other direction he clung to the rail he had been leaning on and wondered at what point the boat was going to turn over.

That Uulamets stood back there with his ghostly daughter, that the wind never increased or decreased, that Eveshka's tree was shedding its leaves into the river—and that the vodyanoi swam beside or beneath the boat—what else did one expect? Wizards did what they wanted in this woods, wizards had taken him into their affairs, his hand hurt him miserably and for the first time in his life Pyetr Kochevikov felt completely helpless.

Not that drowning must be the worst that could happen, not that the vodyanoi was not waiting down there to lay its little black hands on him. None of these things was so terrible as that feeling in his stomach: he could not get the rhythm of the boat, to the extent he was likely to lean the wrong way at the wrong time and tumble right off the deck—

Naturally wizards could walk about with perfect balance and easy stomachs. They could wish not to fall off.

But he
knew
Uulamets wanted to drown him; and he was not going to stand up, no more than he was going to lean his head over that rail where the River-thing could grab it.

"Do you want something to eat?" Sasha asked him toward dark.

No. Definitely he did not.

Sasha got up and wobbled his way aft, holding on to the ropes and staggering the last distance while Pyetr watched anxiously and held on to the rail. Sasha made it all the way past the deckhouse to talk to Uulamets—about supper, one supposed.

Or about stopping. He earnestly hoped so.

Uulamets seemed to be talking to Sasha: he could not precisely see from where he was, even by ducking down. Then Sasha staggered back to the low deckhouse where they had stowed their supplies, and made the precarious trip back to Uulamets and his daughter, bringing them food and drink. Finally he came forward again, with a jug and a fistful of food, and staggered and reeled his way precariously to the bow.

Pyetr snatched at him and set him down hard on the boards.

"We'll stop before dark," Sasha said.

Thank the god, Pyetr thought.

Sasha pushed dried fruit and the jug at him.

Not even that.

No. Please god.

The boat pitched suddenly. Sasha grabbed his leg and grabbed the jug before it went sliding off the deck.

And had the temerity to grin at him. Pyetr scowled, jaw clamped, and took a tight hold on the rail. The wind had picked up, humming in the ropes, setting the very timbers of the aged boat creaking. Spray kicked up, a fine mist that slicked the rail and cooled the side of his face.

It went like that for a time, while the sun went down and the spray flew gold—until with a terrible ripping sound the sail parted, the deck pitched, and a rope snapped like twine and sang past their heads.

Pyetr grabbed Sasha, Sasha grabbed in vain at the jug, which went sliding halfway across the deck as the broken rope went on whipping about like a dying snake and the ripped sail fluttered and cracked overhead.

The boat righted itself and tossed like a drunken thing, but it still moved under its rag of a sail, gliding with fair speed toward a dark and tangled shore.

"I don't like this," Pyetr muttered under his breath, as the boat ran in. Trees were coming at them, dark and huge, shoreline branches rushing into their faces.