R1 - Rusalka (54 page)

Color shimmered soft and imageless as the winter lights, growing green and flowing in curtains through his vision.

Greener still, green as spring leaves, the light flowing through him now, no pain, nothing at all—

The sun was all but gone, the ghostly cold spots whirling and diving at them, whispering malice and warnings.

"We know where he is—" one hissed against his ear. "Too late. You won't find him…"

Another: "The night's coming…"

"Too late, too late now—"

"Master Uulamets!" Sasha said, clambering among the roots and the low branches. He caught his balance as the jug swung at his shoulder and caught it again against a tree, as he snatched at Uulamets ' sleeve. "Master Uulamets ,
do
something!"

Uulamets frowned at him and gnawed his lip. "If they're together—" Uulamets ' voice trailed off as he looked upstream and back again. "The vodyanoi," he said. "Damn the creature."

Sasha shivered as cold dived through him and a ghostly voice whispered,

"Too late, too late, she's found him…"

He plunged his face into his hands and
wished
, absolutely, nothing more than Pyetr's safety—but even that he doubted, thinking, Aren't the dead—safe?

"God," he cried, and sank down where he was, not sure of Uulamets , not sure of himself, not sure there was any help to be had.

And by that unsureness knew absolutely that there was no help in him, that everything was gone, all hope, that Pyetr was surely dead-He wished—

—
wished with all his heart that there were hope.

And opened his eyes, saw eyes staring back at him in the shadow, eyes in a fat black ball of fur.

"Babi!" he cried, "find Pyetr!"

Babi vanished again, quick as a thought.

And Sasha dropped his head into his hands a second time, wishing, urgently wishing Babi to help Pyetr, and not sure Babi could do that—against Eveshka.

He's her dog, he remembered Pyetr saying.

And Uulamets offered nothing, wishing only, Sasha was sure, that his
daughter
survive.

Something he was lying on was poking him, that was the first thing Pyetr knew: he was lying in brush, must have fallen, he thought dimly, and remembering Eveshka, decided his most desperate hopes had come true: she
had
found strength enough to stop, was surely waiting for him to rest—thank the god he had not fallen unconscious in the water.

Time to move, he thought, and tried, his vision clearing on something alarmingly too dark to be Eveshka—

A tree, he realized, heart pounding, he was only looking at a tree.

Then it blinked at him, and the brush under him moved and carried it closer to its eyes.

"Time you waked, foolish man."

His heart thumped, once, painfully, and he thought—"Eveshka! Where's Eveshka?"

"I 'm here," she said, and whisked into his view, leaning over him, anxious and beautiful.

"God," he murmured, and looked past her to the leshy that was holding him. "Wiun? Is it you?"

Solemn eyes blinked. A second tree bent close and peered at him, a leprous thing of moss and peeling bark that made him feel far less secure.

"Kill it," that one said, and Eveshka cried, "No, it's not his fault!"

"Not Wiun," Pyetr muttered, and got breath enough to cry out, as twigs moved and closed fast about his limbs, "Wiun's a friend of ours! He said we had permission!"

"Permission," a third one said in a voice like branches creaking.

"Kill him," said the leprous one. "Better dead than feeding this creature." It reached out a twiggy hand and touched him. Eveshka cried out; Pyetr flinched and tried to break free, but more and more twigs wrapped about his limbs while this terrible mossy thing poked and prodded at him and stared at him with one filmy eye. "Break his bones, I would, crack them and scatter them—"

"Let him go!" Eveshka cried. "Please let him go! It was my doing, not his."

"My forest is
dead
the leprous one said,” canting its filmy eye at her. "And there's no touching the one responsible—is there? Give him to me!"

The twigs relaxed as others tightened, drawing him into another grip. "Now, wait," Pyetr said, heart thumping, trying to remain calm, wit being all he had left. "Wait! There's a leshy named Wiun—God! that
hurts
, dammit!"

"Gently," the other said, and a curtain of twigs folded about him from the other side, pulling while the other hung on. "Misighi, be gentle."

"Gentle with this thing!" the leprous one said, but its grip eased, even opened, and Pyetr lay there panting and wondering if there was a chance in the world of running, if Eveshka wished with everything she had. It poked him in the stomach, fingered him all over, held its twiggy fingers quivering between its mad eyes and his face. They wiggled. The great eyes blinked. "Wiun, is it? Wiun the upstart, Wiun the lunatic—"

"We don't want to hurt anything," Pyetr said, "just get back something that belongs to her from the wizard that stole it."

"From Chernevog," it said darkly. "That's what Wiun said."

"You've talked to him—"

"I am talking to him, we're always talking to him, deaf little Man, just like the woods are always talking, can't you hear it?"

One could hear nothing but the leaves. In all that stillness Pyetr tried not to move at all and shivered with the strain.

"You want Chernevog," it said. "That's very ambitious. Do you know Chernevog?"

"She does," Pyetr said, and Eveshka slipped her arms back about his neck, stroked his hair with a cold, gentle hand, kissed him on the temple.

"I know him," she said to the leshys. "And Pyetr's a great fool. Please hold him here."

"No!" he said. "No such thing!"

"Wiun also disagrees," the one said; and leprous Misighi: "I've never felt sorry for a Man…"

Something growled at them, far below. And hissed. Pyetr turned his head ever so slightly, trying to look at the ground and afraid to see how far it was.

"A dvorovoi," the one leshy said. "Who would think it?"

"Babi?" Pyetr asked, tentatively, and felt the leshy's grip shift.

Then he did get a look at how far down it was, and grabbed its twiggy fingers and its arm in panic.

Misighi made a thunderous sound that might be anger, held him snugly with both hands about his middle and said, face to face with him, "Health. But our gift will take you only so far. If our power sufficed in
his
woods, Chernevog would not live the hour."

"He would not," said the other. "But we have no power there. We'll carry you as far we can. We will lend you what strength we can. But it will fade quickly, I fear."

"Wiun says," said Misighi, "to take you to Chernevog."

«
^
»

T
here was
no certainty, there was only the least frail hope in Sasha's heart, and he fought for it against the whisperings of the ghosts:

"Too late, too late," one said.

And others: "Give up. They're dead. You'll all be dead soon…"

While he grew colder and colder from the ghostly touches and despair tried to take root in him.

He wished he knew what had happened to Babi; he wished he could find some sign of Pyetr and Eveshka in this thicket, but fear of what he was going to find crippled both wishes, because he kept seeing Pyetr the way he had found him by the forest pool, locked in embrace with a girl who was mostly raindrops and mist; and worse, that night on the riverside, the first time they had seen Eveshka, Pyetr lying all pale and cold in the brush—

This time—this time, beyond rescue.

Then Eveshka at least, gruesome thought, would have the strength to come back to them. He could not in conscience hate her if that was the case—and he tried to take hope from the fact that she had not; but he remembered what it was to be without a heart, and how one could know with the head that he had to care, and one could think so coldly and clearly what one had to do

And be so angry then—so terribly angry and so much more powerful than her father was now—

She might well go straight for Chernevog, wishing them along behind her.

That thought was so clear and stark in his heart he felt a pang of fear it
was
true, that was exactly what she was doing—

"We're not gaining anything," Uulamets said to him, stopping, leaning against a tree, hard-breathing. "Make a fire."

"We're not giving up!"

"I said make a fire!"

"I'm keeping going," Sasha said. Master Uulamets wanted one thing, Sasha wanted the other, this time with no doubt at all, and he thought master Uulamets might strike him or wish him dead on the spot—

But after a moment Uulamets snarled, "All right, all right, young fool. Where are they?" A ghost dived through him, through the tree itself, and Uulamets winced. "Can you say? Do you have any idea? I don't."

Sasha was not about to confess to confusion. "Ahead of us."

"Do you know that?" Uulamets challenged him.

Saying yes took a lie; and lying—the thought flashed through Sasha's mind, his own recollection or Uulamets '—lying was dangerous. "They've
got
to be ahead of us—"

"Your friend could be lying dead in the brush somewhere, for all we know. We could be far past the spot—"

"He's not dead!"

"Do you
know
that?"

Sasha shivered as a ghost echoed out of the dark: "Dead—"

"I don't
know
that!" he said to Uulamets . "I don't know anything, I don't think you do, but we can't stop—"

"We
have
to stop, boy, your friend has to stop, flesh and bone have their limits—"

"So does Eveshka," he cried, "and you know what they are! The longer she goes, the more she has to take—"

"You don't have to tell
me
that, boy, I know—"

"So what are you telling me? Stop and let her have him?" He trembled with anger, struggled for breath. "I' 11 never forgive you if he dies, I swear, I
swear
I'll—"

Danger, he thought suddenly. Terrible danger.

"Don't be a fool," Uulamets said, grabbing him by the shoulder, and Sasha knew where that thought had just come from. Uulamets shook him, pushed him against the brush and said into his face: "It's our enemy, boy, it's the ghosts, it's
doubt
, that's what's happening to us, use your head, use your wits—" A ghost leaned close, whispering: "No use when there's no hope—" and vanished in mid-word as Uulamets diverted himself to swat at it and snarl: "Perish!"