7. Lie Down to Sleep The Morning Is Wiser Than the Evening
7
LIE DOWN TO SLEEP: THE MORNING IS WISER THAN THE EVENING
To say Nikolai was uncomfortable leading this entourage of the undead was an understatement. Nik glanced back at the man briefly and caught him staring at him, transfixed. He shuddered involuntarily and reined in his horse. “Dawn is coming,” he said. “It’s time to break.”
“Very well,” the man replied. The Death Draughtsman pulled up, stopping his horse, then closed his eyes, silently communicating with his army who were traveling not on the road but through the woods on either side of them. Try as he might, Nik could see no more than a shadow or hear anything louder than rustling in the underbrush, which might as easily be mistaken for an animal. Any passerby would never know there was an undead horde lurking within striking distance.
“There,” their leader said, distracting Nik from his thoughts. “They will find shelter from the sun and meet us at dusk. Shall we proceed to make camp, then?”
Nik nodded, tearing his eyes from the gloomy trees. “There’s a small creek, not too far from here. We can water the horses there. I can hunt. Fish, too, perhaps.”
“No need,” the strange man said. “My army will leave game by the river.”
Tilting his head quizzically, Nik asked with barely disguised revulsion, “Do they... eat animals?”
“Not at all,” the Death Draughtsman answered with a wide, white grin. “The animals simply run from them.” He leaned forward in the saddle. “They sense death coming, you see.” He kicked the sides of his horse, causing it to skirt ahead of Nik. “Animals are usually smarter than people.”
“Right.” Nik nudged his own horse, following the frightening man, and had a difficult time sleeping after they made camp, not only because he was trying to sleep in broad daylight but because he couldn’t trust the man across the fire. When he did nod off, he had nightmares about being chased by the undead. He ran but was eventually caught by them and then... consumed. His dreams shifted then to their leader and of how the man had used his power on him in the forest.
* * *
He was back in the gloomy forest, a prisoner. Standing there in front of the Death Draughtsman, his arms held fixed by animated corpses, their stench filling his nostrils, Nik prepared for death, either that or to join the legions of the undead surrounding him. He mourned the loss of his beautiful tsarevna and wondered if the leshi had survived the swamp.
Then, when he wasn’t immediately killed or transformed, he opened his mouth to speak but found he couldn’t. Instead, the Death Draughtsman used a great power, one he could neither see nor hear, one that didn’t seem to depend upon any spell or magic of any kind, and yet Nik knew it was embodied in the man. He was at once terrified, fascinated, and bitterly envious.
With a simple penetrating gaze, the man slipped into Nikolai’s mind as easily as he would slip into another man’s pair of boots. Nik’s vision darkened, and then everything went white. He could feel the cold fingers of the man probing his mind, pulling his secrets out and examining them one by one, discarding the images he cared nothing for and then squeezing the one he sought until it popped into life.
The forceful man chuckled when Nik sobbed in pain, and he heard him say, “Don’t struggle. It hurts more when you do.”
Suddenly, the raw ache swelled and burst like a blister, oozing throbbing memories that lapped through him like boiling acid. He was back in the forest again but for the first time, years before. It wasn’t as diseased then as it was now. There weren’t as many undead to avoid. In fact, the man who found him wasn’t undead, not yet. Not that one could tell. Nik wouldn’t have recognized the man at all if he hadn’t spoken to him first.
Nik had been caught in a trap. Not one of the food traps. They didn’t exist back then. This trap was a simple rope snare meant to catch game. It was a well-made one, too, seizing him by the ankle and hoisting him ten feet off the ground. He hung in midair for the better part of three hours before someone came along, and by then he had lost all feeling in his lower extremities.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” two men said as they walked noisily through the leaves down the trail. “Looks like we caught ourselves something good to take to the boss.”
“Shut up,” the bigger, uglier one replied.
He wore a large hat over his head. His voice was gruff and broken, and he was missing part of his arm, but there was something familiar about him. Prickles stood out on Nik’s neck and arms. It couldn’t be.
“Here. You watch him while I let him down.”
The big one pulled a wicked blade from his belt, and Nik braced himself for a hard fall, wondering if he could time it well enough to knock the big fellow to the ground without gutting himself, yet knock the knife from his opponent’s hand so he could saw off the rope before the other man returned. It wasn’t likely.
He felt the rope give, then he dropped several inches. Deciding to take a risk, he swung. The timing was good. He fell just at the right time and landed right on top of the larger man. The knife came up, but only nicked him on the shoulder and then got stuck in the tunic made by the kikimora.
While the big man scrambled, Nik quickly reached up and grabbed the knife and threw it at the other man coming around the tree. It was a lucky strike, sinking into the man’s throat. He died with hot blood gurgling from the wound and dribbling from his mouth. Swiftly, Nik slipped his foot from the thick boot and yanked the rope from it while the man went to inspect his friend’s wound and retrieve his knife.
By the time he turned back to his prisoner, Nik was gone, made invisible by his magic tunic and the boots made for him by the tree spirit. But what Nik didn’t know was that his attacker was mostly blind and had developed a good ear and strong instincts.
“I hear you, boy,” he said. “There’s no hiding from me. You might as well come out and save me the trouble of searching for you and yourself the pain of further punishment. Trust me—you won’t like what’ll happen to you when I find you if you make me look.”
If Nik hadn’t already been frozen in place, those words would have made his blood freeze in his veins. He might not have recognized the man before, so disfigured he was now, but those words left no mistaking him. The man standing before him was Nik’s very own father.
How had he survived? Nik wondered. It should have been impossible . As the man swished the knife back and forth through the air, trying to find his escaped quarry, Nikolai took a good, long look at the man who he’d left for dead in the inferno that had once been his home, with his lifeless mother and sleeping siblings.
Obviously, survival hadn’t been easy. He wondered if the man had tried to save anyone other than himself. It was unlikely. Nik snorted, a sound that didn’t escape the man.
He stalked closer. Nik didn’t care. Let him come. He wanted to see the damage he’d done up close. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. That this man had lived while his mother and siblings died. He looked closely at what had been raw, burned skin now healed over and scarred. The dead eye and teeth bared on one side of his face where lips should have been. Nik studied the stump of an arm, wondering if it had been too damaged to save, and thought, Good . I hope he suffered and suffers still with the loss of it . Feeling a smirk lift the corner of his mouth, Nik wondered if perhaps providence had given him a second chance to make things right. To make him feel pain once more.
Waiting until the man turned away, he kicked him hard in the backs of his knees, laughing when he crashed down, dropping the knife. Nik scooped it up and leaned over, ripped off the man’s hat, revealing a hole where his father’s ear should have been. “Hello, Dad,” he said, before putting the knife to his throat.
The man swallowed, choked, then said, “Nikolai? Is it you?” Then he began laughing. “I’ve been looking for you, you sniveling little...” Then he sputtered and said nothing else.
“What was that, otets?” Nik clucked his tongue. “It seems you won’t be able to speak any longer,” he said as blood gushed from his father’s cut throat. Leaning down, he added. “Let’s hope this is the last time I have to kill you,” he said before sinking the knife deep in the man’s kidneys once, twice, three times, and then pushing his father’s now limp form over, letting it bleed out on the forest floor.
He took a long moment to stare at his father’s ruined face, the dead eye staring up at the trees and the damaged ear gaping as if scavenger birds had already begun tearing him open. With a grunt of satisfaction, he wiped the bloody knife on the man’s coat, slid it into his belt, and turned back, keeping a careful eye on where he stepped to avoid any other traps.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time Nikolai would meet his father. Days later, Nik had just reached the edge of the dark forest when the reanimated corpse of his father caught up with him. At least this time the man didn’t speak. That was something of a positive change. But he was supernaturally strong, and despite Nik’s repeated stabbing, and the gaping wound at his throat, he refused to die a third time.
Only a lucky strike with a nearby axe that took off his head finally stopped the advances of his undead father. After his father’s third and, he hoped, final death, Nik set out for the Kievian Empire’s capital, hoping to get away from monsters and madness and find a life of normalcy as a soldier. Still, magic had grabbed hold of him and refused to let go.
Now he was back in its clutches again.
* * *
Nik woke from his dream sweating and chilled at the same time, and bile rose to his throat. Had the Death Draughtsman conjured the dream? He shivered. It was almost as if he were back in the old barn of his childhood home, his father standing behind him, forcing him to swallow his own vomit and horse dung once again. Leaning forward, he spat into the smoking ashes of the dying fire and grabbed his water skein, swishing the liquid in his mouth before spitting again.
After wetting his palms and wiping the remains of the dream from his eyes and face, he looked across the fire and found the Death Draughtsman wide awake on his side, watching him.
“Is sleep evading you, droog?” Nik asked nervously.
“I do not need as much as the typical man,” he answered, sitting up. “You do not need to waste time in flattery. I know you do not consider me a friend.” He began rolling up his blankets and added softly, “No man should.”
Nik nodded more to himself than to the powerful man across from him and rose, collecting his few belongings. “Can I ask, then?—”
“Why do I go?”
“Yes. You are already very powerful.”
“That is not the question you really want to ask. Be brave enough to say what you truly wish. Nothing you voice will shock me. I’ve already been in your mind.”
Suppressing a shudder, Nik said, “Very well. The truth, then. I don’t care what happens to the queen or even the tsarevna Stacia or to the empire itself. You can do whatever you like with them. All I want is Veru. They believe I’m bringing you back so you can heal their mother, the tsarina. I don’t know if you can heal her truly or just reanimate her body, and I don’t really want to know. You can make an army of the entire empire if you want. It makes no difference to me as long as Veru is mine.”
Nik heard the snort first, then it was followed by another and another. They grew in depth and volume until dark, deliberate chuckles filled the twilight air with a sinister foreboding that made Nikolai twitch like an unschooled rube before a master. When the laughter died, the man skirted the embers of the fire, uncaring of the edges of his robe.
“You have given me the truth, and I will return it to you in kind. Understand this, young soldier,” he said. “I care not for you or your tsarevna or even the tsarina or the army. There is only one power I seek, and it is found within a few simple relics that have been difficult for me to locate. Help me find them and you shall be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. In fact, I will make certain you obtain”—he placed his long, knobby-knuckled finger on Nik’s chest, punctuating each word—“ every ... single ... wish your black little heart desires, even including the undying love of your tsarevna.”
Nik’s heart beat wildly, partly in fear and partly in hope that he could find what the man sought and thereby win the heart of the woman he loved. He swallowed and wet his dry lips. To have everything he desired. To be able to forget the vile and ugly things of his past and live surrounded by plenty, peace, and beauty. That was what he craved above all else. “What artifacts are you seeking?” he asked.
The man smiled. “I’m happy you asked. Come. Let me draw them for you.”
* * *
As they neared the palace, Nik went over the story in his mind. He was to introduce the Death Draughtsman as a traveling monk, a wandering strannik, named Grigor Sobol Petrovsky. He was to help ensconce the man in the palace where he would use his various abilities to attempt to actually heal the tsarina. In return, the tsarevnas and their mother would show undying gratitude, ply him gifts and treasures, which he would graciously refuse.
Nik would then describe what the monk was truly seeking, relics lost by the church long ago. His only purpose now was to locate and return them. If they could use their vast resources and incredible reach to help him find such items, he would be eternally grateful. Veru and Stacia would be so pleased that their mother could still manage the empire, staving off the need for either of them to ascend to the throne, that both of them would immediately head out in search of the items, Veru with Nik, of course, and the monk would use his ability to prompt Veru to fall in love with Nik, cementing his place in her life.
The plan would work; everything would be perfect. The undead army would stay at a distance, too far away to cause any harm. The soldiers wouldn’t even notice them. Most of their patrols occurred during the daylight hours when they slept anyway. Nothing would go wrong. At least that’s what Nik kept telling himself as he signaled the guards to let them pass the main gates.
At first everything did go according to plan. He was welcomed, just as he’d expected he’d be. Veru was happy to see him, but the concern etched on her face was more pronounced than usual. Even Stacia didn’t bother to raise an eyebrow when he immediately sought out her sister, and neither of them blinked an eye when he introduced the “monk.”
They didn’t even care what name passed his lips or look in the man’s direction. Do they not sense the same danger I do when it comes to the man?
The two of them were immediately ushered in to see the tsarina, which was also telling. Their mother must be in very grave condition if they were immediately led on through. It only took a moment after entering the royal chambers for his suspicions to be confirmed.
To Nik, it appeared as if they’d arrived too late. Their mother, the tsarina, looked dead already. Her body was small and completely still beneath the silken sheets; her tiny, white hands were crossed upon her chest, and though her dark hair was perfectly coiffed, and her pillow fluffed, she was as pale and lifeless as a plucked rose. Then he saw the merest flicker of movement where her breath stirred a ribbon tied at her neck.
Turning to the man beside him, Nik implored, “Is there anything you can do for her?”
The Death Draughtsman narrowed his eyes. “Let me pass.”
He approached the bed and studied the form lying upon it as he might a painting or a statue. Without looking up, he spoke, addressing the various men of religion keeping vigil at the tsarina’s side. “Leave the room. All of you.”
The men started, jowls quivering, incense wafting around their voluminous robes as their soft chanting ceased and they looked at one another and then at the tsarevnas across the vast room. She nodded in consent. One by one they shuffled out through a side door, and it snicked shut.
“Can you help our mother?” Tsarevna Stacia asked.
“Quiet,” he commanded.
Stacia obeyed—which surprised everyone, Stacia included.
Sweat broke out on the man’s face as he concentrated. He held the tsarina’s palm in his hand, pressing it between both of his and remained that way for some time; then he opened his eyes, gasping hard, and placed shaking hands on her temples. Remaining fixed in place, he began murmuring words none of them understood, and the room filled with clouds of color—pink, blue, purple, and gold, all roiling and undulating. Lightning snapped and sizzled and then dissipated.
Finally, the man sat back, away from the tsarina, resigned and with a somewhat stunned expression on his face. Turning to the tsarevna, he said, “She... she does not wish to be healed. And it would appear that... despite my considerable abilities, I cannot force the issue.”
The sisters stepped forward, about to protest, when he held up a hand. “However, she has agreed to allow me to ‘facilitate’ a final conversation between you, assuming the two of you are agreeable.”
“We agree,” Veru said immediately while Stacia nodded stiffly.
“Very well,” the Death Draughtsman said. “Come, then. Take your places on either side of her, and each of you take one of her hands.”
The twins sat down, and when they took their mother’s hands in theirs, the strange man touched their mother’s forehead again. When he did, they were suddenly thrown into a dream, and they heard their mother’s voice.
“My darling girls!”
They spun around, and there was their lovely mother, dressed for a party, with her hair coiled up beautifully and pinned in place by a diamond tiara. Crying, both young women threw themselves into her outstretched arms.
“There, there. Now stop that, you two. Enough of tears. Not now. There isn’t enough time.”
“There would have been enough time if you’d let that man heal you,” Stacia accused.
Mila frowned but cupped her daughter’s cheek and patted it gently. “What that man offered wasn’t healing, my sweet.”
“If Nik trusts him, then I do,” Veru insisted.
Clasping Veru’s hands tightly, the tsarina said, “I know you miss your father. And I know you’re upset with me for leaving you too. But don’t be so afraid of being alone that you give your heart and your trust to just anyone. That goes for both of you,” she said, kissing both girls on their cheeks.
She sighed. “I’d hoped the two of you would be able to work out your differences before it came to this, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a leader and as a mother, it’s that you don’t always get to see the fruits of your labor. Still, you plant in the spring and look forward with faith in the summer that the rains will come and the sun will warm the ground and that there will be a harvest in the fall.”
Mila placed her hands on her daughters’ hearts, and the girls reached up to clasp her fingers. “The seeds of leadership have been planted. Let them take root. But be on guard. There are enemies all about you trying to sow corruption. Shore up your defenses. Promise me that above all else you’ll listen to your good hearts and minds. They’ll always lead you in the right direction.”
“We promise, Mother,” both girls echoed.
“And if you need to trust in someone, trust in one another. You’ve had your disagreements over the years, but the two of you can rely on each other. Help each other when you’re in trouble.”
Stacia and Veru eyed one another but nodded. “We will.”
“And the last thing. Your father and I will always be with you. We’ll watch over you. Do you remember the charm he always wore in battle, the one I wear now?”
“Yes,” Veru said. “It was supposed to protect him.”
“It did, in its own way. What I didn’t tell you is that we have two of them. One is mine and one is his. I’ve carried both of them since his death. Now I’d like each of you to take one. It will ease my mind if the two of you promise me you will always wear them. Tell me you will do this. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” Stacia said.
“I will,” Veru answered.
“Good. They’re hidden in the secret pocket of my skirt. Now... come here and give your old mother a tight hug. It will have to last me awhile.”
They did, and as she squeezed them extra hard, whispering she wanted white gardenias planted where she’d be buried, making the girls sob anew, the dream vanished, and they opened their eyes to see their mother exhale her final breath.