As for Sasha Misurov, the seductive whisper came, if he would simply stand aside, if he would do that, then Chernevog would make him powerful in his own right, over all the people in the world that had ever despised him, because Chernevog did not discount him, Chernevog recognized his presence with Uulamets and knew that, but for youth, he was far more than Uulamets—
A boy who would pledge himself to Chernevog would be part of Chernevog’s own household, along with Eveshka, along with Pyetr, ageless, ruling over cities and kingdoms if he desired it—
Or he could die, seeing Pyetr die before him—
“If Pyetr’s there,” Uulamets breathed as they walked, “Chernevog won’t kill him, not while he’s got you upset. Trees, boy!”
He was worth nothing, at the end, except as a hostage, a weapon on Chernevog’s side, a point of leverage between Uulamets and Sasha, who were going to walk into this place—
Chernevog perhaps wanted him to know that, or Hwiuur did; or perhaps he had wit enough occasionally to know some things without a wizard to explain it to him: he no longer was sure where his thoughts came from, sitting where Hwiuur had dragged him, in the mud of the yard, at the foot of a dead tree-once Chernevog had gotten from him the little packet of salt that Sasha had given him at the start of their trek.
God, he had never once thought of it; and maybe that was the kind of luck a wizard made for himself. But to have Chernevog take it from him and throw it contemptuously into the mud-Smiling.—God!
“Hold him,” Chernevog said then to the vodyanoi; and to Pyetr: “They’re still coming. The old man’s tricked your young friend, quite the way he’d have used me or his own daughter, ultimately—gotten hold of him in a way your friend wouldn’t choose for himself, I assure you. You might pull him away.”
To you, Pyetr thought, and turned his face against the smooth, cold bole of the tree, expecting pain for that refusal.
“Don’t you owe him to do that?” Chernevog asked.
Only stop fighting me, Chernevog kept saying, in countless ways: I have everything. I’ll give you anything you want…
Eveshka had tried, god, longer than flesh and bone could hold out, while Chernevog who could have killed him with a spare thought kept him alive—
“Eveshka’s reconsidered,” Chernevog said. “I think you understand that. Shouldn’t you do the same? You could save your young friend, who has so much potential. You could amount to something. You could do so much good with your life. And you da nothing.”
Pyetr went—finally, while Chernevog walked off to the house, and the exhaustion and the doubts about Chernevog and Uulamets both overwhelmed him. He hung his head and tried to get his wits about him, ignoring the soft slither of Hwiuur’s coils constantly circling the tree, occasionally sliding over his legs, Hwiuur whispering in his cold, sibilant voice: “Not so glib now, are you? Not so clever after all. Such a disappointment you’ve proved to your friends. And to the woman.”
I’m not a disappointment, Pyetr thought, remembering ’Mitri, remembering pronouncements from every father in Vojvoda.—Everyone expected me to be a failure.
“They’re coming,” Hwiuur said, and nudged him with his head, jaws against his cheek. “Look, look, just atop the hill.”
Sasha, with Uulamets, he could make them out through the brush, under the gray and flickering sky—the both of them walking steadily toward the house, whether by their own will or not.
“You’ll find out, now,” Hwiuur said, resting his jaw on Pyetr’s shoulder, gusting dank breath into his face.
“God!” Pyetr flinched from under that weight. “Get away from me! Sasha, dammit, run, for the god’s sake!”
“Pyetr?” Sasha’s voice came drifting across the distance, thin and frightened. He saw the boy start to run then.
Toward him.
I’m a damn jinx, Pyetr thought, cursing himself—
In a wizard-quarrel, where every player but himself could load the dice—
A gambler’s son knew a crooked game when he saw it.
“He’s in the house!” Pyetr yelled, and quicker than he could get it out, the vodyanoi’s coils went about him, tightening. “Chernevog’s in the house: get him!”
Sasha had stopped cold, looking at the house, Pyetr saw that as his ribs began to creak—joints cracking with his effort to keep the coils apart.
Suddenly something small, winged, and black flurried into the space between his face and Hwiuur’s, driving its beak again and again at the vodyanoi’s eyes.
And a heart-stopping flash of light and shock burst in the yard, with a crack of thunder.
Sasha sprawled in the mud, scrambled toward master Uulamets while burning bits of the bathhouse were still showering down around them.
While—he thought, Uulamets thought, having wished Chernevog’s bolt aside—the lightnings were reshaping themselves over their heads: their hair was rising on end, skin prickled the way it had when Uulamets had realized that one was corning.
Uulamets had wanted it toward the house, but Sasha had simultaneously flinched, disagreed, feverishly compromised on something belonging to Chernevog—
Remembering his parents’ voices behind a sheet of fire—
“Sasha!” he heard Pyetr screaming, then, while the lightning aimed at them again, while Uulamets a second time wanted the house—
Sasha wished with him of a sudden, scared, knowing Pyetr was in trouble.
The sky tore, the world tore, a seam of bright light. The east tower of the house went white and showered bits of burning wood.
Fire leapt up in the shattered tower and at places on the roof, fire spread on the winds of Uulamets’ intention—wind rushing toward the house.
“Lightning likes tall things,” Uulamets muttered, as Sasha wished a sudden, stolen swirl of wind and sparks toward the vodyanoi—wished Pyetr /ree—while more lightning was readying itself and Uulamets was trying to concentrate their attention and fight Chernevog’s direction of it in less than a heartbeat.
Lightning intended them, the house, them again—struck the mud of the yard beyond them. Sasha flung up his arms to shield himself, the shock flung him flat on his back, and when he scrambled to his knees and to his feet he could see nothing of the tree and Pyetr but that rip in the world, floating over and over through his vision, heard nothing but the roar in his ears—blind and deafened and helpless to know what had happened.
“Pyetr!” he cried, while Uulamets was damning him for a fool, Uulamets was directing his attention to the house, to Chernevog, somewhere in that direction, not dead, and not through with them…
Hwiuur writhed away, lashing wildly with his coils, and Pyetr lurched upward and sprawled in the mud, shocked in every joint, scrambling away from the creature on his knees and one arm, the other collapsing under him, broken for all he knew: he only moved as fast as he could manage, half-blind, all but deafened.
Then his hand fell on something in the mud, a sodden lump tied with string, and he recognized what luck or a wizard’s wish had put under him—with the vodyanoi hissing like steam off iron, thumping about and searching blindly toward him.
He clutched the packet in his fist, rolled over and sat there as it came at him, tore at the string with his teeth, and failing that, feverishly, at the leather.
It came open, as Hwiuur kept coming, as Hwiuur’s cold breath hit him in the face.
He flung the salt wide, scattering it toward the River-thing.