Not a damned chance, that thought said. The dark spot stirred and sent a chill down his back.
He recalled Chernevog mocking him, saying: I’ll love what you love, hate what you hate, I’ve given you that power over me—
Then adding: Of course it can also go the other way…
—Damned if it can’t, Snake. Listen to me!
He thought of Sasha and thought of ’Veshka, not their worst and not their best either, only the way they were; he thought about that cold spot that slithered about in him and that boy that had long ago shed it into Owl, whatever its condition might be now: that boy had known smothering and spoiling and betraying in his life and Pyetr understood that very well—those guilt-driven, terrified searches after a drunken father, as if a grown man’s troubles were at all a young boy’s fault—
The boy he had been could not have understood The Cockerel’s mouse-quiet spook of a stableboy—and damned sure the young man could not have understood Eveshka. He would have walked away from Sasha, once, been a scoundrel with Eveshka… he had wasted a good deal of his life in that condition, seeing only the outside of people and missing the substance…
You’ve made the same mistake, Snake. Damned if you haven’t. You’ve missed everything so far.
Snake turned and looked at him—looked straight into him, in a way he only let Sasha and ’Veshka do, in his whole life: but he thought with a shudder, Well, hello, Snake, come on ahead, Snake, I won’t stop you.
Snake was not sure what he was up to or what kind of trap it was, but Snake thought curiously— Will you not?
Sasha wanted something then. Strongly. Snake did. Pyetr felt it going on, and said, out loud, the only way a plain man was sure things were heard: “Sasha, it’s all right. Snake’s all right. He’s just—”
He felt pain, sudden drowsiness. “—Scared,” he said, “aren’t you, Snake?”—straight to Snake’s pride.
Snake felt Sasha behind him, saw him standing in front, Snake felt surrounded and vulnerable and Snake had made that arrogant, foolish bet with him, in giving him his heart, Snake had said himself—
It can go the other way…
Walk the roof, Snake? Walk it drunk and blind with me?
Chernevog’s face was ghost-white and grim. But he laughed, then—at least life touched that grimness, his eyes lightened, a dark amusement pulled one corner of his mouth. “I’m ever so much older, Owl. Ever so much older than that boy.”
“So am I,” Pyetr said.
There was, in truth, a smile—most appalling, a grin. Chernevog gave a twitch of his shoulders, laughed softly and still laughing, walked away from them toward the fire.
“God, Pyetr,” Sasha said.
Pyetr wondered that he was not more shaken than he was, and put a hand to his heart, asking himself if that cold spot did not feel a little less uncomfortable.
Chernevog sat down at the fireside, poked up the embers, looked up and grimly beckoned Sasha, not him, Pyetr understood. To him, Chernevog said, a silent voice he could quite well hear.
“Ever so much older, Owl. You can’t imagine.”
He watched Sasha walk away to that fireside. He stood there thinking there was nothing he could do, and sank down on his heels and watched them there, in that silent conversation—about Eveshka.
He thought, What about her? What’s she done? What’s going on? He thought if there were any good news they would not be talking like that, without looking at him, and Sasha would reassure him.
But Sasha was not inclined to lie to him, Sasha would not tell him a lie that important, that much he was sure of. That Sasha had said nothing at all about Eveshka, and evaded his thinking and wondering and worrying about her—meant it was not good news he had found.
He thought, She doesn’t like to do magic. What’s this messing with sorcery? She wouldn’t do that. Surely she wouldn’t do that…
He recalled how she had kept him about the house, how she had worried and fretted over him, near smothered him with her worrying—
And loved him. He was sure she did. She loved him, as far as she was able—one got used to Snake, and one could understand a little more how very careful she had been.
Ever so much older, she might say. Like Snake. Ever so much older, Pyetr. You can’t imagine…
I can’t be rid of the dreams… Eveshka had written. And, with chilling accuracy, I dream about wolves… Wolves tearing me in pieces. I dream of water. And being wider it…
Chernevog turned the page, thinking,
Draga…
He looked up into Sasha’s face—a jarring thing still, to see this boy looking at him with such frankness, the way only ’Veshka had looked at him, and he never had trusted. He was afraid now, to take this boy on Pyetr’s judgment, Pyetr knowing so little beyond the natural world, so damnably little, and trusting the world worked by what he saw. Pyetr he could believe in, the way he believed in trees and rain and sun. Pyetr was exactly what one saw, and exactly what one believed—and he had relied on that when he had had to rely on something.
Pyetr had not failed him—he believed that at least from moment to moment, more than he had ever believed anything. He thought, How do I know anything? Draga deceived me from the beginning, down to this very day she could lie to me—I could see her die, and not know she was still alive.
He had seen Eveshka die—in dark water, drowning, the way he had died in his own dreams, in Draga’s house. He gave that thought to Sasha, the whole ugliness, to stop Sasha’s intrusive staring at him.
Sasha said, I know. And said further: Uulamets knew. He lived with her.
He had not given those dreams to Pyetr, had not hurt him to that extent. Sasha knew that, too. Sasha said, the way Eveshka had said to him once—I owe you.
Damn, he hated that. He hated it.
He got up from the fireside, he walked away into the drizzle, saw Pyetr stand up from where he was sitting and look at him anxiously. Pyetr did not threaten him. He felt his fears absurd, looking Pyetr in the face; and absolutely justified, feeling Sasha’s presence at his back.
He heard Sasha warn him back from Pyetr, Sasha quite ready to fight him for Pyetr’s safety.
He turned around again, preferring Pyetr at his back, even with the sword. He said to Sasha, Don’t crowd me, boy. I’m not your friend.
Sasha said, Remember I’ve read your book. And Uulamets’. And ’Veshka’s.
I’ve seen yours, he said. It’s astonishingly short.
Mostly, Sasha said—I’ve studied. I did like your early ideas— some of them.
He said, I was a fool in those days.
Sasha said, You had Draga. I had Uulamets—and Draga wasn’t herself when she came to live with Uulamets. She wasn’t the young girl he remembered, wasn’t at all the young girl he knew in Malenkova’s house.
Chernevog shied away from that thought. And came back to it. If Draga was alive, there was no turning his back on any bit of knowledge.
Sasha said, She was much longer with Malenkova than he was. Years. —What became of her book?
In my house, he said. You didn’t find it?
Sasha shook his head. No. No, we didn’t. A great deal burned. The rest—the leshys gave us. Hers wasn’t with it.
He had a very cold thought, then—the leshys fading, their missing that book, while they turned all their watchfulness on him—
Draga? Sasha asked.
Chernevog looked Sasha in the face with less and less and less confidence in their lives and in what they knew. He said, Right now I’m not sure of anything.
Sasha recalled what he had met in the woods ahead—that confusion, that violence—that spoke in Eveshka’s voice—