The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “Now can we burn them?” the domovaya asked.

  Dasha knew she should say “No,” but when she lifted up her hands, they were wreathed in flames. Without conscious thought, she stepped forward and pressed them against the chest of the man with the fine sword.

  All around her the raiders were screaming…their captives were screaming…the man with the fine sword was shouting and trying to fight off Dasha, but the flames kept burning hotter and hotter…

  “Please.”

  Dasha turned her head. Birgit was standing next to her, clutching her shirt together, tears streaming down her face. “Please,” she said, and Dasha couldn’t tell whether she were speaking Zemnian or her own language. “Please,” she said again. “No. Please no.”

  Dasha pulled her hands from the man’s chest, taking the flames with her. He was no longer on fire, but the whole cabin was filled with smoke and screams. The doorframe was a solid sheet of flame, blocking all hope of escape that way. They were all going to burn to death, or choke to death, if they didn’t put the fire out. But there was no water.

  “We need water!” she shouted. She grabbed the shoulder of the domovaya closest to her. “We need water!” she repeated, giving her a shake.

  It was the domovaya who had wanted to burn everything down before. “Then go fetch some yourself,” she said, slipping out of Dasha’s grasp like smoke.

  “You’ll be faster!”

  But the domovaya was already gone, swarming up the leg of a nearby raider, squirming under his shirt like a cat and doing something that made him scream, a scream that turned to a choking cough as the flames rose higher and the smoke grew thicker. Some of the raiders were still fighting, but most had given up and were clawing desperately at the windows, only to discover that the shutters had somehow gotten latched shut from the outside, and resisted the desperate attempts of those still outside to open them. Dasha started to cough as well, a cough that threatened to turn into retching as the bottom of her lungs tried to fight their way out of her throat and into the clean air, if only they could find any.

  There has to be water somewhere, she thought, biting down hard on her lip to stop the coughing and scanning the inside of the cabin for a bucket, a basin, a ewer, something full of water that would allow her to douse the flames at the door and let them escape. But the only water she could find was what was welling up in her eyes as the stinging smoke ate at them.

  If only I could cry the fire out, she thought. Birgit and I together could…

  Something moved inside of her at those words, as if a separate life were inside of her, struggling to break free. Because there was a separate life inside of her.

  “Vika!” she shouted. “Vika, come out and help us!”

  —Why?— came the voice, welling up from inside of her like the tears in her eyes and the saliva flooding her mouth, threatening to turn into vomit if she didn’t escape soon. –It could kill me, and save our enemies—

  “Because…” Dasha broke into a fit of coughing that choked her and made her gag so much she had to turn to speaking inside her head, sure that Vika could hear her either way. Because this is your chance. To turn what happened to you into something good, something of life rather than death. This is your chance to give life rather than taking it, and achieve the kind of life, life beyond the grave, life beyond our own short span of years, that can only be gotten by giving of yourself to others so that they can live. This is your chance, Vika, to get back what was taken from you so long ago, and which all your stealing couldn’t give you! Please. Put out the fire. Just by the door, so we can get out. Put out the fire by the door.

  —If I do that, then everyone will escape—

  I know. Let them. Just put out the fire by the door.

  —Only if you help me—

  Dasha found herself walking towards the door, her legs moving under Vika's command as they dodged around the flailing and fighting raiders and the shadows that were being thrown every which way and that seemed to tangle up in their feet and trip them. They jumped over the body of a man who was curled up in a ball like a little child, coughing and crying and saying something in his own tongue that Dasha knew even without understanding the words was a prayer. But there were no gods in the cabin, not his, not hers, and even if there were, Dasha doubted they would have done any good. That was not, as she had been told, their business. Their business was Life, which meant that many lives had to be snuffed out. It was Dasha's business to watch over all those little lives, including her own, and keep them from ending, or being taken, too soon.

  The flames at the door spat and writhed like living things, their hands and tongues stretching out towards Dasha, trying to blister her face and suck the air out of her lungs. She knew she should be afraid, in pain, that she should be curled up on the floor like the man at her feet, but it was as if she were watching and feeling all this from the far side of a thick pane of glass or a heavy sheet of falling water. Tears were streaming down her face so fast she didn't know how she could see anything at all. She could because she was seeing through Vika's eyes. Her vision left her body as Vika stepped outside it, a misty shape that could have been just another shadow, just another billow of smoke, but with the golden glow of magic where her eyes should have been, and emanating a breath of life-giving coolness in the furnace that the cabin had become. The misty shape took another step forward and stretched out her hands, plunging them into the flames. There was a hissing like a bucket of water being poured on a camp fire, and a plume of steam rose up to the ceiling. The figure, still bearing Dasha's eyes with it, took another half-step forward and disappeared into the flames completely. For a heartbeat Dasha could see the flames licking all over her face as if she, too, were in their heart, and then a great cloud of steam filled the cabin, forcing her to cover her face as she stumbled back, tripping over the man curled up on the floor behind her.

  When she was able to uncover her face, the flames in the doorway were gone, replaced with sodden ashes and charred wood. “Come on!” she screamed, pointing at the open doorway. “The door’s open! Get out! Get out!” She pulled herself to her feet and whirled around, meaning to grab Birgit and drag her out of there before they were caught in the stampede of the others trying to escape.

  But Birgit was tugging at the man with the fine sword, who must have been the leader of the raiders. He was trying to command the others to leave, and Birgit was trying to pull him to safety. When Dasha grabbed her shoulder and tried to point her in the direction of the door, which was already filling up with the bodies of those who had realized that there was now an escape open to them, she shook her head and jerked out of Dasha’s grasp.

  “Please,” she said again, pulling at the man’s arm and only succeeding in getting him to push her away from him, as he kicked at another man, who was flopping on the ground like a fish out of water, in order to get him to his feet.

  If it had been her, Dasha thought, she would have left him to the flames after what he had done, possibly giving him a good hard kick in the head on her way out to ensure that he didn’t come to and crawl out on his own. Whether this made Birgit stupid or wise she couldn’t decide. But she yanked the flopping man to his feet and pushed him towards the door and then, with more strength than she would have ever thought possible, dragged the man with the fine sword out the door and onto the cool, cool, cool ground outside.

  ***

  At first Dasha could do nothing but kneel there on the ground, coughing and gagging and sucking in the still-smoky air as best she could. But as soon as her eyes cleared enough for her to see the others, she realized that everyone else was doing the same thing, and no one was doing anything about putting out the fire that was still raging through the cabin, or securing the raiders, who were still loose and who outnumbered them, or doing anything else useful. She pulled herself to a half-kneeling position and scanned the area. There were only a couple of domoviye; the rest had disappeared into the shadows. The raiders were pulling themselves upright now
, and looking at her as if they knew who she was. Dasha looked around for an ally. Her eyes fell on Yaromir and Ratibor, who had also managed to escape and were crouching down on the ground nearby. Ratibor had Yuliya under one arm, and Lyokha under the other. He must have dragged them out, saving them from being burned in the cabin.

  “Thank you,” Dasha gasped between coughs. “My faith was justified.”

  But it was Yaromir who heard her. His eyes caught hers, and his lip curled. Dasha turned away before she could be drawn into a fruitless argument with him. The raiders were more important now.

  The raider with the fine sword was pulling himself to his feet, quick and strong despite the coughing that was racking him, as if his strength was returning to him more quickly than anyone else’s. Which it probably was, Dasha thought glumly. She got one foot under her, and then the other, and heaved herself to standing, not sure what she was going to do. Run? They would catch her before she could clear the gate, and anyway, that would just mean leaving her people behind all over again. She looked back over at the raiders’ leader. Despite all her training and the sudden strength that had enabled her to drag him out the cabin, she very much doubted that she would be able to defeat him in any kind of combat. He was the leader of these raiders for a reason, and when it came down to it, she was still a soft-handed girl of seventeen, more given to dreaming than acting. And she had already decided she would lose. If only she had Vika’s abilities…was Vika still with her? Dasha searched inside of herself, but could find no trace of her. Had she dissipated entirely when she threw herself into the fire? Had she sacrificed herself, giving up her non-life, so that they might live? And would they all prove worthy of her sacrifice?

  The leader was already gesturing at Dasha with his sword, saying something in his own language. It did not sound friendly. Dasha’s eyes darted around, looking for a domovaya, a protector, someone who could stand between him and her, but the clearing around the cabin seemed curiously empty, as if it were just him and her, with no one to stand between them and save her.

  But you don’t need anyone, a voice said in Dasha’s head. You already have all the strength, all the weapons you need. Just finish what you started. And a vision rose up before Dasha, so clear she thought it was happening in truth, of her laying her hands upon him and setting him on fire, just as she had done before, only this time nothing happened to save him, and he burned and burned till he was nothing but charred meat.

  NO! she cried out to her vision, but he was already moving towards her, raising his sword, he was going to strike if she didn’t strike first…

  Birgit jumped between them, catching his arm and deflecting the blow before it could land on Dasha. He struck out with his other hand, knocking Birgit across the face and sending her sprawling, but she said—shouted—something at him, and kept shouting until he lowered his sword and used it to gesture at Dasha, asking a question.

  Birgit answered quickly, a long stream of hasty, trembling words. The raider turned and looked Dasha up and down. Then he gestured off towards, Dasha saw, Yuliya, who was dragged forward, a raider on each arm, and held before him.

  “Why did you come, Tsarinovna?” Yuliya hissed at Dasha. “Why didn’t you stay where it was safe?”

  “I had to,” Dasha told her. Which was the truest answer she could come up with. “What does he want?”

  Yuliya said something to the leader, and then flinched back from the torrent of words that poured out of him, and the jabbing motions he made with his sword in her direction.

  “Birgit told him you are a sorceress,” she said when he had finished.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Dasha asked.

  “Many Westerners consider sorceresses to be evil,” Yuliya told her. “But they also fear them.”

  “In that case I’m a sorceress,” said Dasha. “As he’s already seen.”

  Yuliya said something to the leader, who gave Dasha dark look, but seemed eager to keep his distance from her. He then asked Yuliya another question.

  “Birgit also told him,” said Yuliya, her voice heavy, “that you are the Tsarina’s daughter.”

  “And is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Dasha asked. “Ask him,” she added, when Yuliya gave her a despairing look. “Ask him what he would do, if I were to tell him that I am indeed the Tsarina’s daughter.”

  Her voice halting, Yuliya said something to the leader. He grinned fiercely and said something directly to Dasha.

  “He wants to know if it’s true,” Yuliya said. “He wants to know if you really are the Tsarina’s daughter.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Dasha saw a movement in the shadows—a movement of the shadows. She shook her head at it, and it stilled.

  “Tell him,” she said, turning to look directly into the leader’s eyes, “that I am the Tsarina’s daughter, as well as being a great sorceress.” She didn’t know where the words were coming from. It was as if something else were speaking through her, as if her visions had come to life and were dictating to her what she should say, even as she could see them playing across the backs of her eyes, and playing out a moment later in real life. She could already see what was going to happen, which was that the leader was going to laugh and sheathe his sword and say something to Yuliya, who would tell her that he wanted to take her as his prisoner and use her to bargain with the Tsarina, and she would shake her head at the shadows creeping in all around them, before saying out loud, “I agree. But not as his prisoner. I will be his guest, and we will go before my mother together.” Which would make him laugh even more, and tell her well enough, she would be his guest, if she liked the sound of that better, and maybe no one could keep such a strong sorceress—he shuddered at the word, before regaining his courage—prisoner if she didn’t wish it, but it was all the same to him what she said, as long as she went with him and didn’t cause trouble, and then he ordered that she be sat over with the other prisoners before striding off to shout at the other raiders to bring water to douse the flames that were threatening to jump from the cabin to the stockade fence and set the entire forest alight if they didn’t stop them.

  “Tsarinovna!” Yuliya hissed. “What are you doing? You could escape! The domoviye…”

  “No,” said Dasha. She looked meaningfully off into the shadows, certain that the domoviye were lurking there, listening. “This is what I was meant to do. I know it. I can see it in my visions. I have been waiting and watching and doubting and wondering what I should do, why I should come this way, what my purpose is, and it has been revealed to me. I need to go with them. That is why I have come here—why I have been brought here.”

  “But why!?” demanded Yuliya. “Don’t you realize who they are? This isn’t some little girl’s game, Tsarinovna, this is…”

  “I know,” Dasha interrupted her. “And I am not a little girl. I can’t sit back and let others take on the risk and the danger and the pain for me any more. I have to plunge into it myself. I have to dive into this, this traveling with our enemies, in order to understand them, and, perhaps, make it so that they are no longer our enemies.”

  “That isn’t possible, Tsarinovna! Don’t be naïve! That’s not going to happen, or if it does, it will be from our strength of arms. It won’t be because of you!”

  “The visions say it can,” Dasha told her. “And it’s too late to do anything about it now, in any case. I’m here now.”

  “You could still be rescued!”

  “Not till I have accomplished what I have come here to do,” said Dasha. Yuliya pinched her lips shut in a thin, angry line and turned away, refusing to speak to Dasha for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It was a very long night, even though half of it had already passed. The prisoners, of whom Dasha was now one, had been taken—dragged—out of the compound and into the road, where a couple of guards had been set to watch over them while the others fought the fire. Sitting on the ground was uncomfortable, and Dasha couldn’t stop coughing. A
lso, her bladder soon became unpleasantly full, and there was nothing she could do about it other than wet herself, which she was unwilling to do. Yet. The guards didn’t appear to have any intention of letting them relieve themselves, and none of the other prisoners showed any signs of needing to, anyway. Dasha thought about asking Yuliya about what to do, but one glance at Yuliya’s hard-drawn face made her change her mind. As far as Yuliya was concerned, she could tell, this was all her fault. Instead of rescuing them, she had made their situation even worse, and gotten herself captured in the bargain. Which was not untrue.

  Dasha looked over at Lyokha and Mitrofan. They didn’t look any happier with her, and Ratibor and Yaromir looked as if they’d happily kill her themselves. Her own people. Dasha bit back a sigh, and repressed the urge to fidget as best she could. The clarity and certainty of her visions had passed, leaving behind nothing but doubts. Probably Yuliya and the others were right. Probably she had done nothing other than make things worse. She had failed at this as she had at everything else, and would continue to do so for the rest of her life, because she was a failure. She had thought she was treading along the edge of an abyss, but she was wrong. She had already fallen off of that edge, and was tumbling down headlong, failing more and more swiftly with every yard that she fell…

  “Tsarinovna.”

  Dasha jerked out of her reverie and looked up. Birgit was squatting down in front of her, the early rays of the rising sun just visible behind her.

  “Here.” Birgit was, Dasha realized, speaking Zemnian. She must have picked up a few words during her own captivity. How soon would Dasha learn Rutsi or Tanskan or whatever language it was that these raiders spoke? Yuliya had told them that Rutsi was more a collection of dialects than a single language; what was it that Dasha would actually learn from them?