The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “We’ll just make it to Lesnograd at our own pace, won’t we?” Dasha told her as she scrambled clumsily back up on her—the log she had chosen as a mounting block crumbled underneath her as she jumped up, throwing her off balance and causing her to dislodge the saddlecloth and almost end up on the ground underneath Pyatnyshki’s belly. Pyatnyshki stood there stolidly through all her acrobatics, and then moved off down the road at her snail-like pace.

  Shortly after that they encountered a group of travelers going in the other direction. Dasha pulled off to the side of the road to let them go by, hoping they would ignore them, but the leader of the group, a grandmotherly woman, called a halt and shouted out to Dasha, “You shouldn’t be traveling alone, my dove! Where are you headed?”

  “Lesnograd,” Dasha told her. “How far is it?”

  The group leader exchanged disapproving looks with the two people sitting on the cart next to her, who appeared to be her daughters. “Going to Lesnogorod and don’t even know how far it is,” she said. “And no supplies other than that little bundle you’re carrying, and that sword at your side. Don’t you have the sense the gods gave a goose, girl? Does your mother know you’re doing this?”

  “I was separated from my companions,” Dasha told her. “We were heading to my kin in Lesnograd. I’m trying to reach them on my own now.”

  The group leader clucked her tongue. “That was careless,” she said. “You shouldn’t go losing your companions, girl.”

  “No doubt you’re right,” said Dasha. “So how far to Lesnograd?”

  “With normal horses? No more than three days. But on that thing,” the old woman looked Pyatnyshki up and down, and shook her head, “a week at least. There’s no way you’ll make it, girl.”

  “Well, I don’t have much choice,” said Dasha. “So I guess I’ll have to try.”

  “There’s wolves out there, girl, wolves as big as bears.” Dasha brightened at that news, which was clearly not the reaction the old woman was expecting, for she said, “I ain’t joking, girl, I ain’t joking! We saw one of the monsters not two versts down the road, didn’t we, Fisochka?”

  One of the daughterly-looking women nodded emphatically. “Near scared the piss out of me,” she said. “I’d gone off into the woods for a bit, and I heard something big moving, thought it were a bear, and then a wolf’s head bigger than a horse’s looked out at me.”

  “Never heard a scream like that all my life,” said the old woman, with more relish than Dasha thought the tale of her daughter’s terror warranted. “‘She’s a goner,’ I said. ‘A bear’s got her for sure.’ But you came stumbling back, piss still running down your legs, didn’t you, Fisochka?”

  Fisochka nodded. “Don’t know why he didn’t get me,” she said. “There weren’t nothing I could’ve done ‘bout it, but he just pulled back his head and then it were like he were gone.”

  “I don’t think he means anyone any harm,” said Dasha.

  “A monster like that! ‘Course he means harm!”

  “I think he’s just looking for me,” said Dasha. “I don’t think any of us have any reason to fear him.”

  “Was you dropped on the head as a baby?” demanded the old woman. “‘Cause a monster like that, all he wants is harm.” She shook her head. “On your own head be it, though. Zem’ has enough fools already as it is; if the gods choose to rid us of one, it’ll be a blessing, even if your mother don’t think so. This road’ll take you straight to Lesnogorod if you keep on it, but you’ll be eaten by wolves, or worse, long afore you get there, my head for beheading.”

  “Thank you,” Dasha told her. “I’ll be sure to be careful.” She urged Pyatnyshki forward, and after a moment, shaking her head and muttering about fools and girls too silly to let off their mother’s apron strings, the old woman and the rest of her group set off the other way.

  Dasha had gone perhaps another verst when her scalp started to prickle. She shook her head to clear it, but the prickling only became worse. A small fit caused her to slide halfway off Pyatnyshki’s back, although Pyatnyshki herself did nothing more than pause for a moment in her placid amble, before continuing onwards once Dasha had righted herself. Dasha hoped that that would be an end to the fits, but within a few paces her scalp started to tingle again, and a few paces after that she was struck by a fit strong enough to make her cry out, and a few paces later by another one that caused her to smack her face on the crest of Pyatnyshki’s neck. This time Pyatnyshki did do a little sidestep of agitation, before stopping and flicking her ears back at Dasha in concern.

  “It’s all right,” Dasha told her, stroking her neck. She looked off into the woods. Was that…? “Come out,” she shouted. “I know you’re out there. I can feel it.”

  A breeze picked up, blowing away the cloud of flies and mosquitoes around them, and bringing with it a chill all out of keeping with the sultry stillness of the summer morning air. Pyatnyshki’s skin rippled, and she pranced and tossed her head, wanting to bolt forward.

  “Hush,” Dasha told her, stroking her neck again. “You’re not in any danger.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said a voice. Pyatnyshki shied violently and leapt forward, actually managing to gallop for several paces before Dasha brought her back under control and turned her around to face the voice in the woods.

  “Try not to scare her,” she called out. “I don’t want to lose my only mount.”

  “Or I could just eat her, and carry you myself,” said the voice. A wolf stepped out from between the trees, a wolf almost as big as a horse. Pyatnyshki quivered all over, and tried to whirl around and take off. Dasha slipped off her back and put her arms around her neck.

  “Hush,” she said. “Hush, it’s all right, hush. You’re not in any danger.”

  Pyatnyshki seemed extremely doubtful of this, but deigned to stand still, even though she still quivered and shuddered, and foamy sweat was breaking out all over her body.

  “Oh, do let me eat her,” said the wolf. “With her in my belly, I could carry the both of us to Lesnograd in a single day. Wouldn’t that be a fine way for you to greet your kin?”

  “No,” said Dasha. “No one’s eating my horse.”

  “It would be a better end by far than she deserves. She’d be serving us both, instead of wasting your coin as you plod slowly towards Lesnograd. Even without her, you’d be better off: you’d make better time on your own two feet, slow and clumsy as they are compared to mine, than you would on her bony back. Just let me eat her, and we’ll all be better off.”

  “Stop playing the fool and making idle threats, Gray Wolf,” said Dasha. “I’m not letting you or anyone else eat her, just because you think that would be the right thing to do. It wouldn’t.”

  The wolf laughed. How was he laughing? He wasn’t, Dasha realized: she just thought that he was. Was he speaking directly into her thoughts? Or had she fallen into such vivid visions that she could no longer differentiate between fantasy and reality? Was any of this happening at all, or was she rolling and writhing on the ground next to the road, in the grip of a fit that was scrambling her mind like a fresh-cooked egg?

  “Does it matter?” asked the wolf, stalking slowly closer. “Oh yes, I can read your thoughts even if you don’t speak them.” Pyatnyshki squealed and gave a little rear, the biggest movement she was capable of. “Oh be quiet,” Gray Wolf said to her. “I’m not going to do you any harm, since your mistress forbids it. You’re not even that tempting, old and leathery as you are. I prefer fawns, myself: such tasty little morsels.” He grinned, revealing fangs longer than Dasha’s hand.

  “You’re just saying that to annoy me,” said Dasha, as Pyatnyshki grew quiet, as if she had understood Gray Wolf’s words.

  “Am I? Or am I speaking the truth?”

  “You’re speaking the truth,” Dasha told him. “But you’re doing it to annoy me. You’re picking the most annoying truth you can think of and speaking it in order to make me angry.”

  “And is it working?
” asked Gray Wolf, with another grin.

  “No,” said Dasha.

  “You should learn to lie better,” he told her.

  “I wouldn’t need to lie if you didn’t keep trying to mislead me!”

  Gray Wolf snorted in amusement. “How like your mother you are,” he said. He turned his head to look at her sideways. “You would make a fine little morsel too, you know,” he said.

  “Do you have a reason for all this?” Dasha asked. “Or are you just trying to frighten my horse, and annoy me?”

  “Any day in which I frighten a horse, even a run-down old nag like this one, and make a pretty girl like you stamp her feet and cry with rage is a day not wasted, if you ask me.”

  “I’m not going to stamp my feet and cry with rage!”

  “No? You’re only one, maybe two more words away from it, if I’m any judge.” Gray Wolf turned his head to look at her from the other side, and grinned widely.

  “Did my father send you?” Dasha asked. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Gray Wolf stopped grinning. “He’s worried about you,” he said. “Well, ‘worried’ isn’t the right word. He’s crazed with fear, especially since the domovaya came back and said you’d run off from her as well.”

  “Oh.” A pang of guilt twisted Dasha’s belly. “They shouldn’t have driven me away, then.”

  “Something you should tell them yourself, perhaps,” said Gray Wolf.

  “Tell my father to come find me, then, and I will,” said Dasha.

  “And if I go running off to him, who will watch over you?” asked Gray Wolf.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Gray Wolf laughed so hard that ripples spread all the way from his belly to the tip of his tail. “Of all the people in this world, my little girl, you are perhaps the least capable of taking care of herself.”

  “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”

  “Only by great good fortune,” Gray Wolf told her. “I wouldn’t count on it for the rest of your journey. You’re only two days on the road, and you’ve already been abandoned by your companions and fallen off your horse—if you can call that a horse—in a fit.”

  “I didn’t fall off! I dismounted!”

  “You’re still on the ground,” said Gray Wolf.

  “If I go back, or let you come with me, who will protect me from them?” Dasha asked, changing the topic and ignoring the cold trickle of doubt that made her wonder once again whether this were all really happening, or if she were really in a fit on the ground and seeing only the visions in her head. “From you? Who will protect me from my protectors?”

  “None of us would harm a hair on your head, child, no matter how tempting a morsel you might be.”

  “But you’ll call me ‘child,’ and tell me what to do. Who will protect me from that? Who will protect me from remaining a silly, selfish little girl for the rest of my life, just as you all seem to think that I am? Who will protect me from becoming the helpless, useless creature that we both see every time you look at me? Who will protect me from those who believe me to be dangerous, even evil, and in their haste to protect us both will turn me into the very thing they fear me to be? I’ll take my chances with the real wolves, thank you very much.”

  “I should bite you for that,” Gray Wolf growled. “‘Real wolves,’ indeed! Why, I’m twice as real as those tiny, slinking puppies! I’m the realest of all the wolves in all of the woods of Zem’, I’ll have you know! I’m…”

  “I’m sure you’re very real,” Dasha interrupted him. “But you all seem determined not to let me be real either, just an image of something you want but that only exists in your own minds. Go tell my father I am well, and on my way to Lesnograd, and if he wishes, he can come join me. Or he can return to his home: I wouldn’t hold it against him.”

  Gray Wolf sighed, his breath gusting out so hard it flattened the grass in front of him. “He isn’t going to be happy on hearing those words,” he said.

  “It’s a good thing you’re so big and strong and brave and have nothing to fear from anyone, especially a puny human, then,” Dasha told him.

  Gray Wolf grinned at that. “Well said,” he told her. “Very well. I’ll return to him, and convey your message. No doubt we’ll be joining you very shortly. Try not to get eaten in the meantime.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Dasha promised. Gray Wolf gave her another enormous grin, and then bounded back off into the woods.

  Dasha turned back to Pyatnyshki. Her saddlecloth, she saw, was lying off on the ground, several paces away. Dasha took a step in that direction, and had to grab Pyatnyshki’s mane as the ground heaved unpleasantly beneath her feet. Dasha looked around wildly, as if by doing so she could catch sight of the source of the earthquake. Pyatnyshki continued to stand there stolidly, and the trees were still. There was no earthquake. It was Dasha’s knees buckling beneath her. A chill ran up her back, followed by a fit that made her scream and knock her head against Pyatnyshki’s neck.

  “I’m sorry,” Dasha whispered to Pyatnyshki, when she had recovered her senses. “I didn’t mean to hit you like that.”

  Pyatnyshki lipped affectionately at her hair. Dasha looked around again. Her head was already clearing, and with it, the memory of what had just happened. Oh, she could still remember it, but it was as if it had taken place a long time ago, back in her early childhood, as if it had all been so long ago it no longer had anything to do with her. Dasha half-walked, half-staggered over to where she thought Gray Wolf had been standing. There were no tracks.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Dasha told herself. “The ground is dry. I couldn’t expect to find tracks here, even from such a large creature.” She half-walked, half-staggered back to Pyatnyshki, who had been standing there patiently, even though Dasha had dropped her reins on the ground.

  “We need to go get the saddlecloth,” Dasha told her. Pyatnyshki snorted in agreement, or perhaps to clear her nostrils of a wayward fly.

  Dasha led her over to where the saddlecloth was lying. How had it gotten there? She had no memory of coming over here, or of losing the saddlecloth at all. Had it been blown off Pyatnyshki’s back with the gust of wind? That must have been it, she told herself comfortingly. She wasn’t going mad: it was the gust of wind. She picked it up and laid it on Pyatnyshki’s back, and then looked around for a suitable mounting block. There was nothing there, not a single hillock or rock or stump or downed tree. Steppe warriors, such as Dasha’s grandfather had supposedly been, could vault onto their horses’ backs without the aid of so much as a stirrup, it was said, but Dasha had only ever been able to do so on ponies, and Pyatnyshki’s withers were level with her face.

  “I could probably scramble up onto you myself if I really tried,” Dasha told Pyatnyshki. “But I don’t think either of us would enjoy that. We’ll just walk together for a bit. We’ll make just as good time—I hope I’m not offending you—and it’ll do me good to stretch my legs.”

  Pyatnyshki snorted again in apparent agreement. With a last look around, Dasha led her back onto the road, in the direction of Lesnograd. Her unshod hooves, she noticed, left clear hoofprints in the dirt.

  ***

  Walking, even on the flat road at Pyatnyshki’s slow amble, soon reminded Dasha of how sore she was, and let her know that the bruises and blisters from her desperate trek through the woods were still far from healed. If only she had the gift of healing! But that was rare, so rare Dasha had never met a proper healer, the ones who could heal a mortal wound with the touch of their hands. They said her family out in the steppe had the gift, but it had never shown any signs of manifesting in Dasha herself. No: all she’d gotten were these painful fits and useless visions. Why couldn’t she have gotten healing, or farseeing, or anything other than what she had? The gifts of an ordinary sorceress, or maybe nothing at all. Nothing at all would be better than this! Dasha looked back behind her, and saw once again that Pyatnyshki was leaving clear tracks on the road, despite the dry weather. Maybe she
had just dreamed it all, or seen it in a fit. She tried to check herself over for signs that she’d been rolling around on the ground. Hard to tell: she was so dirty and banged up already that a little more rolling on the ground would hardly make a difference. Dasha went back to trudging slowly forward, and tried to put her worries out of her mind.

  That was a dismal failure at first, but after a while—maybe a verst, maybe longer—the tedium of walking slowly in silence and waving away the mosquitoes and midges that, unlike sensible creatures, only seemed to be gaining strength as the sun beat down on the road and raised a shimmer of heat from it, enveloping Dasha and Pyatnyshki in its stifling embrace, dulled her mind to the point where she was no longer thinking of anything at all, or seeing what was around her. She felt as if she were moving through an ever-changing moment, with no past and no future, and no concerns as to what might have happened or might happen later. It was not until Pyatnyshki gave a loud snort and shook her head in a vigorous attempt to dispel the midges that were gathering around her ears and eye that Dasha came awake, as it were, and saw a verst stone ahead of her. They had already gone fifteen versts since setting off that morning, and the better part of five since Dasha had dismounted and started walking.

  “Well, that’s not so bad,” she said to Pyatnyshki. “Let’s have a bit of a break.” She led Pyatnyshki over to the verst stone, and leaned against it. “I wish I had some water for you,” Dasha told her. She had been given a small flask that morning along with her meager food supplies, which were—she checked—barely enough for one meal for one person, but the water was almost gone, and it was—she looked up at the sky—only midday.

  “Maybe we’ll come to a stream soon,” Dasha told Pyatnyshki comfortingly. “Try grazing in the meantime.” She slipped Pyatnyshki’s bit to let her graze more comfortably, and tried to perch on the verst stone, which was too tall for her feet to touch the ground when she was sitting on it, and had a rounded top that kept threatening to send her sliding off unless she sat on the very top of it, in which case it dug painfully into her buttocks. She settled for leaning against its side as she drank the last swallows of water in her flask, and then, mouth as moistened as it was going to be, ate the pies that she had been given. Which was more difficult than it should have been. Even though they had only been baked that morning—or had they? Perhaps they had just been warmed up enough to make her think they had been baked that morning?—they were tough enough that she had to chew each mouthful over and over again till her jaws ached. How could anyone make such bad pies? Not that Dasha knew the first thing about baking pies, but she had eaten plenty of them, and every single one had been better than these. And for the people who lived at that waystation, these were the pies that they ate every single day! No wonder they were so sour and unpleasant. Dasha could feel her own mood souring with each bite. And yet these were the pies they chose to make for themselves? Unless they made one set of pies for guests, and another for themselves…but that seemed like much too clever a scheme for them. Much more likely that they ate tough, tasteless pies, along with watery, undercooked soup, burnt bread, and other unpleasant things every day, and their narrow, unfriendly nature was the result. Or maybe they made bad food halfway on purpose, as a kind of revenge on life for making them unhappy, and made themselves even more unhappy as a result. It certainly seemed like the kind of thing Inna Vlastislavovna and her sons there would do.