Another plunk. Another frog, one hoped. Missy felt squishy stuff slipping under her feet and snorted in disgust. She seriously questioned the collective judgment in going farther, nothing here smelled nice, and the dvorovoi thought so, too.
But her person insisted there was a grabby-thing after them that was somehow—here her person grew very hazy—going to get them if they did not go through this place and find the big water.
So she wrinkled up her nose and trod right through the squishy stuff, in water up to her knees—no running on this ground, even though her skin shivered at the smell and the sounds of this place
Willows whispered here. Water sighed. And something groaned and squealed repeatedly as if it were in pain. Missy did not like that sound.
But her person thought of old boards and Missy decided it was. after all a stable, but not one where she wanted at all to stay.
“Babi?” Sasha said, but Babi was off somewhere through the trees, and several things went plunk and splash, while the dreadful groaning went on and on with a curious regularity. He could not hear it with his own ears, but he began to find it familiar, began to hear in it the surge of the water, the groaning of wood against wood.
“Babi?” he asked, wishing the dvorovoi would stay close and with a tiny, unwanted wisp of a wish, wondered if finding the boat meant finding Eveshka.
Dangerous, he thought. Terribly dangerous. He got nothing and wanted nothing but to be Missy for a while, until he could be closer; he was Missy so thoroughly that riding made him very dizzy, and he shut his eyes and let hers do the work leaning on her shoulders and wanting her to keep walking toward the creaking sound, little as she liked it.
Grabby-things, Missy was sure. They were going to leap out of where such things always came from, out of the spot between her eyes she could never see—
She saw a white, huge thing coming out of that spot—a huge, flappy thing, and her heart went thump and her legs did a quick step without her thinking about it; but her person said it was safe, it was cloth on a big thing built of boards, and a nice person had brought it there from a place he knew.
She was not sure about her person’s judgment. It flapped and it groaned and she approached it very carefully—it smelled suspicious.
The boat was snared fast in willows and the groaning was its hull rubbing against broken limbs—it did look spooky, even to his eyes, the sail still spread, veiled in shadowy willow-boughs, the shape of the bow thrusting out of the trees.
It was only wizardry that could have brought it up this branch of the river, against the current, it was only wizardry that could leave lodged it here.
“Babi,” he said softly, slid off and untied Missy’s reins, in the case she had to run in this woods—lapped them about his waist, and wished her to stay here.
She shivered, threw her head, clearly hoping her person did not intend to leave her here long.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and patted her neck, wanting Babi to take care of Missy. He walked farther then, parting the willow curtains, in among the old trees—old trees, indeed, and alive: this shore was past the desolation Chernevog had worked.
But one did not want to think about him.
He heard Missy make a soft, worried sound. But the groaning of the boat against the willows and the flap of the imprisoned sail was enough to distress her. He wanted Babi to take care of her, and he heaved himself up on a willow limb and walked it to the rail of the old ferry, through black, trailing curtains of leaves.
He dropped onto the deck with a thump very loud to his ears. He walked out near the mast and back to the little deckhouse, stopped and looked around him, listening to the flapping of the sail and the sighing and the groaning that gave the boat a voice.
He wanted to know, then, whether Eveshka had left this boat of her own will—that seemed a safe wish. He hoped there might be resources left—they kept the boat stocked with all sorts of things, even apples, and Eveshka alone could not have used everything or carried everything away.
The deckhouse was the first place to look—not the sort of a cubbyhole he was glad to open up and go poking into in the dark, but it seemed worse to him to wait for morning, while-things went further wrong elsewhere. “Babi?” he whispered, thinking if Missy could, please the god, take care of herself for a few moments, and Babi turned up on deck, then he would feel very much better opening this door.
Babi did not immediately appear, but he had the feeling Babi was listening, at least; and he turned the wooden latch and pushed it open, hoping if something was lurking in there it would make a sound now.
There was only the flap of the sail over him, and the hull groaning. He sank down on his heels so he could see into the dark by reflected starlight, and gingerly reached in to drag out the baskets they kept there.
He heard Babi growl behind him. He hoped it was Babi. He turned on one knee, he heard a watery sound, he looked toward that and saw a great slick darkness rise up, up and up in the starlight, and grin down above the rail with sharp-toothed jaws.
“Well, well,” the vodyanoi said, “young wizard. I was wondering about you.”
Sasha felt into his pocket, after the packet of salt he kept there, and wished—
No. He did not wish for the rest of it. He wished the vodyanoi to keep his distance. He said, slowly rising to his feet, “Hwiuur, what do you think you’re doing here?”
“Waiting,” Hwiuur said. “Of course, waiting. Of course you’d come—but where’s your friend, mmmm?”
“Stay back!”
“Mmmm. A horse. A nice fat horse. I might start with it.”
“Stay where you are!”
“Stay where I am… Where I am is in the river, in my river, young wizard, where you’re trespassing, and all alone, aren’t you, young wizard? The dvorovoi has no power on the water-but you could wish him to try.”
That was a very bad thought. So was the fact that this creature was Chernevog’s—and Chernevog might know exactly where he was.
If it was still Chernevog’s.
23
Hwiuur said softly, weaving to one side, “A bad position, young wizard, a very bad position you’re in.”
“Where’s Eveshka?” Sasha asked it outright, and wanted it to tell him.
Hwiuur leaned slowly to the other side and hissed. “Oh, we want pretty bones, do we? She went walking.”
“Where?”
Hwiuur swayed closer.
“Get back!” Sasha cried, waving his hand at it; and Hwiuur drew back with a hiss.
“Rude, rude young wizard. You want my help and you push me back. Is that at all reasonable?”
“With you it is! Mind your manners. Tell me where she went walking. Tell me where she is!”
“Safe,” Chernevog’s voice said at his back.
He did not stop to think—he dived for the deckhouse door and rolled inside, pulled the door to after him as the whole boat rocked and the rail splintered. He thrust his shoulders back against the baskets and the wall, braced the door with his feet, wishing it to stay shut and Missy to run, get away, fast-He heard someone walking on the deck outside. He heard someone say, definitely in Chernevog’s voice, right next tin-deckhouse door, “It’s quite useless.”
He trembled, lying there in the pitch dark with a basket crunching between his back and the deckhouse wall, feeling the door shake against the soles of his boots as something kicked it. God, he had wished, he had thrown magic at it-He heard the slithering of a huge body, felt the boat tip, heard Hwiuur’s whisper over the deckhouse ceiling, heard the slither of a huge body over the boards.