And if an unmagical man had gotten any wisdom about magic after all these years, or about the hearts of wizards, there seemed only one way to put a stop to craziness when wishes got out of hand, and that was to put himself squarely in their way.
Sasha, Eveshka, Ilyana. Do what you like. But I’m not on anyone’s side. I won’t be. Don’t think it.
A second splash of water. The air was cold. But he and the old lad had been moving, and he had hurt his hand somewhere, add that to the account of an aching shoulder and aching bones. Nothing against nature, Sasha would say.
But, god, what else have we done in this woods?
Third splash of water. He shut his eyes and let the water run down his neck, numbing the fire in his shoulders and the ache behind his eyes. There was no constant pull and push here, no knowledge turning up unasked—it was quiet, truly quiet, except the wind in the leaves.
At this distance from aggrieved parties the man in the middle could draw a few sane breaths and try to think how many sides there were to this affair—
No one’s side. Not even excluding Chernevog’s. Or the boy’s. Or my other daughter’s. None of you and all of you are my side. And I’m all alone out here—any wish that’s ever let loose about me has its chance. Even Chernevog’s. Mouse, you chose him. If you want him and you want me, and he wants that boy—magic’s got the best chance at me it’s had yet.
I do hope you love your father—because he’s going to put himself where he needs help, mouse, he’s going to do it until you notice.
If you want things to be right, mouse, and you want your own way, you’d better want the right things. Can you possibly hear me?
No? Then I’d better be moving. Fast as I can, mouse. I was right in the first place. Maybe Sasha can’t catch up with me this time. Maybe it’ll be up to you. What do you think of that, mouse?
I do hope you think about that.
It was less and less effort to hold the silence: it seemed to be holding itself, now, and it had a lonelier and lonelier feeling since last night. They had waked this morning under a blanket of new-fallen leaves, and berry bushes, young trees and streamsides of bracken and silver birch gave way to shaded solitude, aged beeches and oaks far rougher and stouter than the trees to the south—perhaps, Ilyana thought, they had come to the end of the woods that they knew—at least, despite Yvgenie’s warnings, they had gotten, if not further than others’ wishes had ever been—at least well away from any place wizards who knew her had ever been. Perhaps that was the silence. But one hated to break a branch here. One felt fear—whether that it was something in the forest itself or whether it was only the unaccustomed stillness.
But when she wanted Patches to go a little more carefully Bielitsa brushed past her, finding a way through the thicket that her magic had not found. It was surely Kavi guiding them again, she thought, and set Patches to follow the gently winding course.
“Not a friendly place,” she said when he stopped and gave her the chance to overtake him. She had pricked her finger moving a branch aside, and sucked at it. “Can you feel it?”
“It was never friendly. I knew we were close last night. I didn’t know how close. We might have reached it… But something’s wrong.”
Absolutely it was Kavi now. He slid down from Bielitsa’s back, bade her follow and led the way afoot, a long, difficult passage in among aged, peeling trees. Not a wholesome place, she thought to herself: the further they went the more desolate the place seemed, until at last nothing near them was alive. Thorn-bushes broke with dry crackling, the moss went to powder underfoot, trees stood ghostly pale, bare-trunked.
“Kavi,” she said, “Kavi, stop. There’s nothing good here.”
He looked back at her, so pale, so frighteningly pale and afraid.
“There’s nothing alive here,” he said distressedly. “It’s dead.”
She thought, Is this what he meant, that it was wrong to wish a place where wishes weren’t? Is this that place?
It’s as if wishes fail here, as if you can pour them into this place, and nothing gets out—
But Kavi was leaving her, going deeper into this place. She was sure it was Kavi now, sure it was Kavi who ignored her pleas and kept going—
It was surely Kavi who led Bielitsa into a ring of dead trees, to a stone slab that might have been nature’s work—or not. She pushed her way past a fragile thorn-branch and led Patches through, as Owl came close and lit on the ground before the stone—the same place, god, her father and the sword: it was that stone, it was the place where Owl had died.
And standing all about them, huge trunks, peeling bark, white wood, like trees but not. Nor standing as trees would grow, wind-trained and orderly. There was disarray here. There was randomness.
“They’re dead,” he said, faintly, distressedly, “they’re all dead, Ilyana.”
She looked about them, seeing in the peeling trunks the likeness of empty eyes and the whiteness of bone. She wanted Babi with her, please. She wanted anything alive, besides herself and Yvgenie and the horses, because nothing else here was. She wanted anything magical and wholesome— because magic had gone from this place, magic had died here—not well, or peacefully.
Kavi sank down on the stone as if the strength had gone out of him, too—and she felt alarm, thinking: A rusalka’s magical, isn’t he? as Owl flew up to perch by him on the stone. He took Owl on his hand and said, faintly, “They wanted me to bring you here. But it’s too late now.”
“Bring me here? Why? Misighi’s my uncle’s friend. Misighi could come to the house—they don’t need anyone to bring me to them. If they wanted me to come here, they could just have asked, couldn’t they?”
He only shook his head in dismay, and for a moment, a very small moment, there seemed hazy edges about him, Kavi’s shape and Yvgenie’s.
“He’s afraid,” Yvgenie said. “He—” Yvgenie’s blurred shape got up from the stone and looked into the woods, shaking his head slowly, once and twice. She tried to eavesdrop, and caught only images of Kiev, and Yvgenie’s father, und a hallway at night where men gathered and talked of murders. He recalled a stairway, and towers and walls, and leading Bielitsa out into the dark, out the gates of Kiev—
Yvgenie said, looking around at the sky, the dead leshys. “The falling suns. The moons and the thorns. This is the place. He had to bring you here—to them. They wanted him to. He slept for years here. But he forgot and it was too long, it was much too long. He was only a boy—and leshys don’t understand little boys. —God it’s all full of dark spots—”
“Don’t say that—” Oh, god, a stupid wish, when he was desperately trying to warn her. She wanted out of this place, she felt the life going away from him and Owl as if he was bleeding it into the stone and the ground, the longer he stayed here. “ Come away.”
He shook his head, with the most dreadful memory of fear, and thorns, and a confusion of suns in the sky. OwI dying, struck by her father’s sword.
She came and took his hand, wanting Patches and Bielitsa to stay with them: his fingers were cold as winter. “Don’t argue with me, please, Kavi, it’s not good here. It’s not safe, Kavi, please listen. Something terrible happened in this place, and it’s dead, and you can’t be near it any longer, Kavi please, let’s get out of here, let’s go on!”
He stood still, resisting her pulling, and gazed out amour the trees. “It’s there,” he said faintly, and she looked, and saw nothing but dead leshys and dead brush.