But Bielitsa took a sudden shift of direction and he found himself slipping helplessly: a grip on the saddle checked his fall, but only that—he swung completely off Bielitsa’s back, still clinging with both hands to the saddle leather as Bielitsa turned to keep herself from sliding downslope on the dead leaves. An embarrassing position, his horse about to fall downhill atop him, himself about to pull her down: he looked quite the fool in the wizard-girl’s eyes, he was sure. But he would not have Bielitsa fall, so he let go.
—And found himself after a dark space on his back at the bottom of the slope with a fair-haired shadow between him mid a tree-latticed moon.
“Are you all right?” Ilyana asked solemnly. And for some stupid reason he started to laugh. Was he all right? Was he all right? He was lying on his back, head downward on a hill with a dead wizard’s ghost slithering about inside his heart, and the girl asked Was he all right?
But breath ran out, tears of pain welled up and his stomach ached, so that he had to double over on his side—and he found himself facing the black furball’s glowing yellow eyes and hedge of teeth. It snarled, spat at him and snapped at his lace.
Ilyana said, sternly, “Babi, behave.”
He would never of his own will have taken his eyes off the furball. Of his own will he could not get another breath. But his chest moved, and took it, his arm moved and braced under him. The ghost turned his face toward her and said, “Wish us well, wish us well tonight, Ilyana. Us and this boy—something’s on our trail—more than your father.”
Leaning there, head downhill, with Babi breathing on his neck, he thought for no reason of an ominous stone overgrown with thorns—Owl had died there. Wolves gathered like tame dogs about Ilyana’s skirts. Solemn yellow eyes gazed at him with no glimmer of sanity.
He blinked the night back around him, and shoved himself up frantically on his hands and knees, uphill, with a stab of pain across his stomach as the furball hissed and snapped at him. He fell back down, sitting. It seemed to him he had never fallen into the flood. Ilyana had been riding with him, just then warning him of ghosts and wizards that lived in this woods, and he had been answering her only a moment ago that there were things much worse than ghosts.
But he could not remember how he had answered her. Kiev and the gilt pillars of his father’s house became a painted, shadowy porch, and the shadowed trunks of trees. Imaginings became wolves, wolves became Owl, and Ilyana drowned while he stood safe on the shore and wanted her to die.
God, no, that was wrong—he had been the one drowning and she had pulled him from the flood.
She said, trying to lift him by his shoulder, “We’ve got to go on. Please. Please get up.”
He tried. He shoved himself to his feet a second time and staggered upslope to catch Bielitsa’s trailing reins. He had tried a jump, in the fields near the city wall. He had fallen and hit his head—
His father, watching from horseback, leaned back in the saddle and called him a fool in front of his men.
He caught his breath, clung to Bielitsa’s neck and pressed his face against her mane, back in the dark and the woods.
I left Kiev. I had to take Bielitsa—there was nowhere safe for her.
But where are we running to? Where’s safe, anywhere, now?
He remembered leshys and madness at their hands, a woods of golden leaves—an endless succession of days, while suns and stars careered across the heavens, while autumns and springtimes sped past in torrents of leaves and wind-borne seeds. He remembered anger that shattered stones, forest-things as great as trees and very like them, with feet that were indeed backwards. He knew their names: Misighi and Wiun and Isvis and Priochni, scores of others—while he held Bielitsa’s mane to keep himself on his feet, and used Bielitsa’s strength to sustain him, knowing even while he look what was not his, that Kavi was betraying them—
But, god, he was so afraid of dying—
It needed only a little strength. Please the god and the Forest-things, too, only enough and not too much… the wizard-girl was in terrible danger of some kind, and he had come back from the grave for her sake…
But from whose grave—he was for a moment confused, Ilyana touched his sleeve. “Is something wrong? Are you all right? Yvgenie?”
He had a debt to pay. He had no choice. He turned his back to Bielitsa’s shoulder, looked into her night-shadowed eyes. “He wants—” The damnable stammer came back. He never would have thought of taking her suddenly in his arms, or of kissing her on the lips, which with his present dizziness, made all breath fail.
He thought, while he was holding her, god, it isn’t me doing this, it’s him, it’s Chernevog doing it—
But the whole night spun about them. He lost his breath, with all of life within his reach. The forest was full of it. Nothing could withstand them, nothing would be strong enough if he reached out and took it.
He wanted to warn her. He wanted to say—don’t trust him, Ilyana—because he truly was Yvgenie Pavlovitch, no matter whose wish had brought him to this place. He remembered drowning Ilyana, he remembered dying by fire and by water, and nothing could make sense to him. He thought that he would faint, he grew so dizzy, but life came with it, her life, life from the trees and the woods—from something vastly powerful—
God, stop it. Stop it, don’t do this, it’s wrong to do this—
Even if—god, even if it was the source of his next breath.
Ilyana fainted in his arms. He wanted to let her go. He fought for the will to do that. And the thing within him whispered, faintly, “Death’s so long, boy, and so damnably cold.”
Down one hill and up another, with, Pyetr was sure, his daughter’s wishes earnestly trying to mislead him and Eveshka’s and Sasha’s fighting to guide him. In that toss of the magical dice, the god only knew which would win, but distance did make a difference, every experience he had ever had with wizardry assured him that that was so, and as long as Volkhi could bear the pace he was narrowing that interval-Mouse, he intended to say when he found her and the boy—mouse, if you’re going to be a scoundrel, you shouldn’t leave your pursuers a horse to come after you—if, that is, you didn’t truly want to be caught.
But he believed she did in fact want that, in her heart, if only she could be assured he would not harm the boy. She would talk to him at safe distance, far from other wizardly interference. He had not heard a word or a stray thought from Sasha since they had parted company; and he hoped to come within Ilyana’s influence before the night was out. But they were past Volkhi’s first wind now, and he set a pace to hold as long as had to be.
But on the down side of a hill Volkhi began to shake his neck and object to the direction they were going, snorting and dancing about as if he had something entirely unpleasant in his nostrils.
“Whoa,” he said. On a vagary of the breeze he caught a whiff of it himself: river water where none belonged—
And snake.
Something heavy moved in the brush. A voice hissed, “Well, well, well, what have we? Is it the man with the sword? How extremely nice. We’re so pleased to find old friends.”