“I did drown, mama!” The pain was nothing. The image scared her. It reminded her—
“You can drown in magic or you can strike out and swim, clear, you don’t have to draw on the natural world. There is a place to get everything your wizardry can use—the right way. It was your fathers damnable teaching that made you a killer. You wouldn’t do what was reasonable, no, you followed your father and you ended up Kavi’s creature—say what you will, Kavi was using you; Kavi’s wishes have been, even while he was sleeping, and he’ll go on using you, against everything you want for yourself, unless you listen to different advice.”
Listening to anyone’s advice frightened her. There had been so many lies.
“Kavi has your husband in his hands,” Draga said, and squeezed hard, while cold panic swept over her. “Don’t wish! Listen! Sasha’s run, he’s had to, he’s completely out of his element. He can’t help your husband at all, he’s in danger himself, and there’s precious little he can appeal to, unless he does resort to magic—alone, untaught, and with your father’s ideas to cripple him. I can’t reach him. You’re the one who has a chance, but you’ve got to listen to me now, daughter, you’ve got to believe for once in your life someone is telling you the truth.”
Something had happened, Pyetr had no idea what, except it meant they were ahorse again, riding in the dark—he had opened his eyes by firelight with the side of his face stinging and Chernevog holding him painfully by the arm, saying, “Get up, get up, pack up. Move, damn you!”
He still had a wobbly, hollow feeling from that sudden waking, he still had no idea what had put fear on Chernevog’s face or what hour of the night it was, but a dream kept coming back to him that Sasha had called his name in profound distress, just before that waking; and he doubted Chernevog would tell him anything but lies.
But Chernevog said, as they rode, “Your friend’s found something, or something’s found him.”
He wanted to know, dammit, he could not help wondering, and Chernevog said, holding to him,
“He’s upstream from us. He went back toward the house and doubled back east and north following the river—looking for Eveshka, I’m sure: it’s what he hopes to do I can’t figure—or how much he understands of anything he’s doing.”
That was a question. Like ghosts, it came at him with fewer distractions in the dark. Pyetr bit the sore spot on his lip and tried to tell himself he had not felt Sasha wanting him, nothing was wrong, that Chernevog was worried was the best thing in the world, and if Chernevog wanted him to make guesses what another wizard would do, Chernevog had to be desperate.
“You felt it,” Chernevog said. “You know he’s in trouble.”
“I don’t know that,” he retorted, “but if you are, that does me good, Snake.”
Chernevog made him think of shapeshifters then, and his thoughts jumped to Uulamets’ likeness, the creature trying to lead him—
“Where?”
—east. To the river…
“My old servant,” Chernevog said. “But slippery. Damned slippery.”
He remembered Sasha saying—the vodyanoi had corrupted Chernevog, not the other way around.
“Corrupted me?” Chernevog asked, and shifted his seat as if that idea had truly startled him. “Corrupted me, god, no!”
Pyetr thought, And you aren’t, Snake?
Chernevog said nothing for a moment, and shifted his hands to Pyetr’s shoulders, both, too friendly for Pyetr’s liking. Chernevog’s presence was very quiet for a moment—enough to make a man’s skin crawl, and Chernevog:
“Be still.”
“Be still, hell.” He gave a violent shrug, remembered Vojvoda for no reason, remembered ’Veshka, remembered the river and Babi and Sasha and planting the garden, all so rapidly he knew he was not recalling these things for his own reasons. He grew alarmed—and got the notion—while it was weaving its way through his thoughts he realized it was not his either—that Sasha’s safety might rely on his willing cooperation.
That’s a damned lie, he thought, but he could not make himself absolutely sure of that. He thought—if it were true—
If it were true—
Chernevog said: “If Sasha thinks the vodyanoi’s corrupted me, then he’s mistaken what he’s dealing with. He’s terribly, dangerously wrong. And so might Eveshka be. You don’t deal with a creature like Hwiuur. You don’t.”
He did not understand, except that no one in his right mind would trust the vodyanoi for anything. He thought, Sasha’s not a fool.
“Sasha’s not wholly a fool. But Hwiuur’s a great liar. He’ll try to frighten you. And if you’re going to deal with magic, Pyetr Ilyitch, you don’t deal with something like him—god, you don’t.” He put one hand on Pyetr’s back, said, quietly, compelling his attention, “Forget about my corruption. It has nothing to do with anything. I’m wanting him to hear you, right now, for whatever you want to tell him, Pyetr Ilyitch.”
He thought, It’s a trap, it has to be.
But immediately it seemed Sasha wanted assurance of him and quick as that he wanted Sasha not to trust the vodyanoi, to make no bargains that did not involve Chernevog’s guidance
No! Pyetr thought, but he doubted anyone was listening to him any longer—he knew Sasha was worried about him, and Chernevog was anxious to find Sasha before Sasha made any bargain with anything, because he needed Sasha, he was afraid Eveshka might have slipped into something that would make her—
He could not think about that. He could not even imagine Unkind of thing trying to shape itself in his mind, Eveshka would never do that, but Eveshka had never wanted to kill anybody either.
Then for no reason he could think of, and very frightened, he was sure Eveshka had conceived a baby, and that it was his, and that nothing was safe or sure in those circumstances. When? he wondered, and, Why not tell me? He was wounded, and fearing she was running from him—but he decided then Eveshka was not, she was concerned for him—
She wanted him the way Draga had wanted Chernevog, nothing to do with his own good.
That was not so. No. And of a sudden he was aware of Sasha wanting his whole attention, of Chernevog behind him again it had seemed otherwise for a moment, as if Sasha and Chernevog were face-to-face—Sasha saying, in words he could almost hear, Pyetr, listen to me, don’t listen to him, it’s very dangerous for you to listen to him.
At the bottom of his heart he was mortally afraid for his sanity. Sasha was telling him to be wary, Chernevog’s hand was holding the reins in his hand and he was leaning against Chernevog with a sense of warmth and ease he told himself was a lie.
Chernevog said, aloud, “Your young friend doesn’t want to be found. But he’s afraid of your wife—he’s afraid of her and he’s afraid of the old man’s ghost, which I think he’s found. At least he’s come to his senses. He’s very much afraid your wife is gone, Pyetr Ilyitch—at least, that she’s fallen into a trap he can’t get her out of—and so am I. He’s very much worried that you may be particularly vulnerable to her—and he wants me to keep you safe and away from her.”
“You’re lying, Snake.”
“He’s going to try to find out what he’s dealing with. I hope he survives it, I truly do: I want to know what he finds out. Most of all we don’t want to lend your wife any help—or any victims. Specially one carrying what you hold. Do we, Pyetr Ilyitch?”
“Go to hell,” he said. He refused to believe Sasha had said any such thing, even if it had elements of reason in it, even if it was thoroughly like Sasha to go to help Eveshka and try to keep his tool of a friend ignorant of it—but trusting Chernevog enough to tell him anything about his intentions was not reasonable.