Chernevog (5 page)

Maybe it was time that he did think what else he could do, such as, perhaps, talk to Pyetr about building another house, over on the hill.

A damned, lonely, solitary little house, without even Babi for company in the evenings.

Maybe he knew he ought to, in all justice. Maybe that was why he was all but shivering of a sudden, despite a good coat and a night none so cold, and why he had a growing lump in his throat, and why he decided he had best get himself inside immediately, away from horses and all such temptations, to read and think a good long while by himself without wishing anything at all.

The front door opened and shut. Pyetr lifted his head from the pillow, and Eveshka whispered,
“
He's perfectly all right.
”

There were other small, reassuring sounds, the domovoi settling again in the cellar, Sasha walking about in the kitchen, a log going on the fire, which sent up a small flurry of sparks on their side of the hearth.

But Pyetr heard the sound of the bench pulled back in the kitchen and thought distressedly that Sasha was at that damned book again, scribbling and studying.

“
That's no life for a boy,
”
he said,
“
reading all day and writing all night.
”

Eveshka said nothing. He had only her shoulder.

“
He's eighteen,
”
Pyetr said.
“
He's not going to find everything he needs in that damned book, Eveshka.
”

“
He made a mistake,
”
she said.
“
He's trying to find out why.
”

“
A mistake. The boy wants a horse. Why shouldn't he?
”

‘‘A wizard shouldn't.
”

“
God.
”

“
It's very serious.
”

‘‘Can you help him?
”

She shook her head, motion against the pillow.
“
It's his business. His
q
uestion. He has to answer it.
”

Eveshka's father had given more than a book to the lad. Eveshka's father, when he died, the black god take him, had worked some sudden spell or another and magicked everything he knew into the boy's head, things a boy could have lived quite happily without, things far, far more than reading and writing.

No real memory of things, Sasha insisted. Nothing I can't deal with, Sasha said.

The double-damned, unprincipled old scoundrel.

“
It's not natural,
”
Pyetr said.
“
It's not natural, 'Veshka.
”

But she seemed to be asleep. At least she offered no conversation. So he lay there thinking about his own misspent years in Vojvoda, not regretting many of them, except the quality of the company.

Maybe he would sail down to Kiev after all. Maybe he would finally sail down to Kiev of the golden roofs, with Sasha in tow, just himself and the boy-Shop around a little. Find a tavern. Do something thoroughly reprehensible. Or at least mildly riotous.

If he dared leave Eveshka.

He could not, not that long: Eveshka was far too prone to melancholy. The god knew she slipped too readily toward that state of mind.

So, hell, they would take Eveshka along—show her the golden roofs, the rocs and the crocodiles and the palaces, which everything he had ever heard assured
h
im were abundant in Kiev.

Not forgetting the elephants.

It would do the boy a world of good. Do good for Eveshka too. Show her how ordinary folk lived, show her that people
could
live together, more of them in one place than she could ever imagine.

Wish the boy up a tsarevna, she could, one of the Great Tsar's nieces or such.

No. A pretty beggar girl, who would be ever so glad to fly off to the deep woods and live like a tsarevna for the rest of her life—

A girl who would, wise as wizards, keep her wishes modest.

Sasha pulled the lamp a little closer on the kitchen table, going over the page again which, as best he remembered, ought to record his wish for the horse—which he did very well recall, but he had not even written the matter down, nor made any entry at all for that day, that was the puzzling thing. One hardly wrote down every little thing one did: even in the quiet of the woods there were days one got busy and let records slip a day or two, but he did not remember what could have gotten in the way that day, or why he had forgotten it entirely—when he recalled now how it had upset him at the time.

The day they had first fired up the bathhouse—and all of them had been wondering about
banniks...

But they had felt nothing banniklike since but the slight spookiness a dark bathhouse might have: a whole (if slightly twisted) roof was not an invariable guarantee of banniks, by all he knew. Uulamets' book recollected a shy, slightly daft old creature that had sometimes provided visions—but it had hardly been a happy Bath-thing: Uulamets' bannik had deserted the place after Eveshka had died, Uulamets pursuing it relentlessly for foreknowledge— About his hopes of raising the dead. Not a happy creature, not a happy parting, and, Sasha had thought from long before they had put the roof cap on, certainly nothing he really wanted to provoke to anger. It surely must have been glad, as Pyetr had said, to find some more cheerful establishment to haunt, say, down in Kiev—if (and this was the most substantial of his fears) repairing the bathhouse had not by some law of magic called it back against its will. He recalled he had thought about that possibility, that day.

They had talked about Kiev. He had gotten quite light-headed from the heat—had been quite, quite giddy when he had thought about the horse. They had had to go outside.

God, he thought, what was I thinking then? About banniks? Or was it remembering the bathhouse at uncle Fedya's that made me think of the horse?

Vojvoda. Pyetr and Volkhi and the butter churn-He rested his eyes against his hands, elbows on the table, thinking himself: Or was I worrying about Pyetr? Was I afraid he'd go off to Kiev and leave us and not come back once he saw the gold and the crocodiles and all? Or was I thinking about him and 'Veshka—because I'm afraid I am messing things up with them? Maybe I really should build that house on the hill over there.

But if I'm not right here with them when they argue, to say, 'Veshka, don't wish at him—then who's going to say it? He won't always know until it gets really plain—and she does it, damn it, she doesn't mean to, but she does it all the time.

But maybe my not wanting to leave the house is a wish too, and maybe that's why things are happening that shouldn't, maybe that's what's putting things out of joint.

God, why am I so confused?

Uulamets' teaching said, uncompromisingly: Write down everything you don't understand, —fool.

He certainly had enough to write tonight, about Missy and the black and white cat, along with, the god forgive him, shapeless, resentful, thoroughly dangerous thoughts about his aunt
and
uncle...

He squeezed his eyes shut a moment, got a breath and concentrated deliberately on writing a simple reminder to himself:
Unwish nothing. Start from where you stand and trust only to specifics—with
a shivery thought toward all the peace they had here, balanced on Eveshka's resolve to forget all too many grim things, his, to grow up without foolish mistakes; and Pyetr's, to be patient wit
h
two wizards trying their best to keep their wizardry and their hearts out of trouble.

For most of three years he had found one excuse and the other not to rebuild the old bathhouse, for fear of banniks—for fear of one showing them the will-be and might-be in the life they had chosen here, so long as Eveshka was still so fragile and it was
still uncertain whether wizards could really live with each other at all. But Pyetr had kept after the matter till it had begun to seem silly and inconvenient not to have it. So one particularly frozen, icy day he had given in.

But what was I afraid of? he asked himself, pen in hand. What specifically was I afraid of learning?

Of seeing myself alone? Or Pyetr changed?

Eveshka wanted Pyetr to herself, of course a new wife would— but 'Veshka was not just any wife, Pyetr had a right to his friends, too, damned if he should build any small, lonely house up on the hill and live in it in exile.

He had a right to have something to love him.

Was
that
why I wanted the horse?

Everything was perfect, Eveshka said.

At least Eveshka was happy
...

Or at least—we got along.

Dammit.

He did not understand his own temper. He did not understand why he had a lump in his throat, but he intended to have no patience with it. He rested his elbow on the table, his chin against his hand, and kept writing, merciless to himself and his notions:
Having a heart is no protection against selfishness in that heart-mine or hers.

I don't know yet what I should do to help the situation. I don't know how much is my fault, or how much I dare try to help, or even how much I'm imagining because I'm upset. Master Uulamets taught me all he could in the little time he had, but thank the god, Eveshka had more than that, and maybe I ought to listen to her. I understand how to do things, but I don't always know whether I ought to do them, or why. She does. I need her to tell me where I'm wrong, I need her to keep me from her father's mistakes, most of all, because master Uulamets did make them, he made terrible mistakes
...
and I don't want to be him. Father Sky witness I don't want to turn into him
...

He had taken to the rebuilding of the house with more enthusiasm than Pyetr could possibly understand, clearing out Uulamets' cobwebby past, changing the very outlines of the house Uulamets would recall, pushing master Uulamets and his wishes and his memories further and further into the past. The old man, dying, had wanted a boy wizard to know all he knew; and have
all he had, and a boy who desperately needed that knowledge-fought back as much as he could, knowing his master's mistakes as well as his virtues.

Old memories still attached to this place
...
chaotic, fragmentary recollections, the river when the ferry had been running, travelers on the road; the forest before the great trees had died: mere curiosities, those—

Excepting memories of a woman in this house, one on whom Uulamets had sired a daughter he did not, could not trust.

Excepting his student, Chernevog—also in this house, who
had
wanted that gift he had gotten, and tried to steal it.

I
wish for bodily comfort,
Chernevog had written in his own hook:
I
wish for gold—why not?

Old Uulamets sitting in his shabby little house, old Uulamets teaching foolishness, mistaking cowardice for virtue
—

Uulamets talks about restraint—restraint in a world of cattle, who know nothing, have no power over their own wishes, understand nothing that they want—while we live apart, all for fear of damaging these peasants. Foolishness.

That was Kavi Chernevog, whose reasoning twisted back on
itself
like a snake—whose reasoning was founded on assumptions totally selfish and shortsighted.

Sasha dipped his quill and wrote, mindfully pushing Chernevog out of his thoughts:
The things master Uulamets wanted me to know, like writing, I have to use, and
I don't forget. But what I didn
't use right off just faded, and the things that just come up less and less, I forget. And don't entirely forget, of course, because there's his book to remind me, but there are things that used to be very strong; and now they're just less and less likely to occur to me—I think as much as anything because it's
not the house he knew
anymore
and we're not the way he expected us to turn out.

Mostly he'd be surprised, I'm sure he would be. He'd be mad about Eveshka marrying Pyetr, I have no trouble thinking what h
e
'd say about that.

Maybe that's why I keep worrying about them. Myself, Sasha Misurov, I certainly don't want to have bad thoughts about my best friends in the whole world. I think I have to watch that, and stop being upset with Eveshka, because Uulamets really didn't like people much—not since he married his wife, anyway,
and after he found out she was after his book: Draga made him distrust people and then Chernevog came along
—

Chernevog was his really big mistake.

But what might mine be? Letting myself remember too much? Letting what happened to him make me suspicious?

And selfish. What about the horse? What about me wanting Pyetr to myself again? I'm feeling lonely, and I've got to stop that. There's no good in it. There's not even any sense in it. Uncle's house was awful and nobody ever liked me till Pyetr did. So what do I want to change? Eveshka's mad at me, and she's right: nothing's good that upsets us this much, nothing's, good when a wizard starts wanting love from people, it's not fair to them.