“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.”
CHAPTER 30
THERE 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 snarclass="underline" “Perish!”
There was a sudden quiet about them, then a concerted wailing as if the woods had gone mad, making the ears ache, making any thought impossible for a moment.
Silence then; and the whispers came back, ominously. “You shouldn’t have done that…”
“Perish the lot of you!” Uulamets snarled. “You were nothing when you were alive and you’re less now. Get out of here! Let us alone!”
Another deafening shriek. Sasha clapped his hands over his ears, wanting quiet, the way he knew master Uulamets wanted it, but the sound diminished only while he was thinking about that, and rose whenever he thought about getting on their way, whenever he thought about Pyetr, about anything at all, until there was nothing to do but to endure the screaming and try to move, the two of them, as quickly as they could, while chills lanced through them like swords.
The wailing hurt, it ached, it occupied attention and multiplied missteps in this woods that had not so much as a deer trail, the god knew why no creature would come here. They had not seen the raven since they had first reached the stream they were following, Babi was gone again: they were alone in a streamside darker and darker with overhanging trees, with the white shapes of ghosts reaching at them, so real now Sasha feared it was not only thorns and branches catching at his clothing and his pack.
Then it all stopped, and in the ringing it left was a rustling and crack of brush, and a powerful, quick slither of some heavy body from the streamside.
“Master Uulamets!” Sasha said, as ripples showed beside them on the water, a little sheen in absolute black.
Branches broke above them, as something huge and dark rose straight up.