The Goblin Mirror

15

IT WAS NOT AS IF THERE WAS ANYWHERE TO GO, IT WAS NOT as if he had tried to get away and not as if he had done anything wrong except be where his brother had not expected him, but Bogdan insisted on holding Yuri's arm as they walked the tunnel. "That hurts," Yuri cried, trying to twist loose. It did hurt. And Bogdan jerked him hard.

"Behave," Bogdan said harshly.

"I am! But where are we going? We need to find Tamas!"

"We need to find Tamas," Bogdan mocked him, and swung him around to look him in the face. "Do you know where he is? Where is he?"

"I don't know." It happened to be the truth, but me way Bogdan asked him he would not have told anything he knew. "Let me go!"

"What are you doing here?"

"I don't know." That sounded stupid. "I just decided to follow you, that's all!"

"Decided to follow us." Bogdan gave him a shake. "You're lying, Yuri. Where is he?"

"I don't know! You're hurting me! Let go!"

"Let me tell you something. They don't play games here. They don't understand boys here, they don't have any, and if you keep on like that they won't have you, do you hear what I'm saying? Don't play these people for fools. It doesn't work, here. They'll kill you, do you understand, they'll kill our mother, our father, every single one of us, if you try to play them for fools — do you understand me, little brother?"

"I don't know what you're doing with them! Why don't we run away?"

"There is no running away, get that through your head. These are dangerous people. Offend them and they'll go against us. Accommodate them and there's nothing that can stand in our way. Maggiar can rule everything from the mountains west to the river and beyond that. The goblins have no interest in ruling men. We can do that for them. We can be the power, our little Maggiar can become an important place in the world, the important place, and there's nothing in the way of that. They actually want us to succeed, do you hear?"

Maggiar being a power and the goblins keeping promises did not sound reasonable to him. He could not think what to say to Bogdan. He knew he was waiting too long to think of it; and Bogdan lost patience with talking to a mere boy and spun him about and haled him down the tunnel.

Then of a sudden—it was more a change in the place around them than the opening of a door or a gate—they were in a hall blazing with lights, and those lights floating about in arches of green stone that itself rippled with water shadows. Yuri gawked, he could not help it, he was still thinking about how they had gotten into this place, and he had never seen lights floating in the air before, or stone the color of old summer leaves, or a place as rich and powerful as this.

But he stopped gawking then, because goblins came walking toward them from all sides, some no taller than he was, some taller than Bogdan, which few people were, and all of them bristling with spiny armor and with weapons. He was ready for Bogdan to draw his sword and defend their lives from these creatures, but evidently not. Evidently these were the friends Bogdan was talking about. Bogdan only said,

"This is my younger brother. He's mine. Keep your hands off him. Understand?"

Yuri did not like the look in the goblins* eyes. Least of all did he trust the whispering behind them as Bogdan hurried him on along the fantastical hall. He had heard that kind of thing from bullies and wicked boys like his sometime friends back home. He pulled to free himself from Bogdan's grip, wanting to find the tunnel again and get out of here, because Bogdan was being stupid if he thought these were friends. But next to a carving that might have been real lily roots and lily stem, towering up and up, Bogdan set nun against the wall.

"Listen," Bogdan said, bending to look him in the face and giving him a shake. "You're safe if you do what I say. Do you hear me? We can be safe here, you and I, and Tamas can be safe here. There's an army out there burning Albaz, and Burdigen, and all the towns in the valley to the ground— because those people were stupid. That's not going to happen to Maggiar. It's not going to happen to us. . . . because you're not going to make trouble, you're not going to offend these people! Remember that before you act the fool in this place!"

He saw nothing in the way of bad things happening to him or anyone the goblins could catch, except his brother was giving orders to goblins instead of being a prisoner, and his brother was talking about goblins burning towns their gran had told stories about, stories Tamas had handed down to him after she died. He thought he should be happy that Bogdan was alive—but he had far rather know that Bogdan was the brother he remembered.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes," he said, because he did not want his arm broken.

"Come on," Bogdan said, and pulled him along a hallway. "I want you with me. I don't want any misunderstandings."

"What happened to Jerzy and everybody?" he asked, hoping Bogdan would at least remember that something bad had happened at Krukczy Tower.

Bogdan jerked his arm so hard it brought tears to his eyes, paying no attention to his question, and Yuri suddenly had no inclination whatsoever to tell Bogdan about Karoly and Nikolai having escaped the goblins at Krukczy Straz. He was scared, really scared, since Bogdan had chosen not to answer his question about Jerzy and the rest, who had been Bogdan's friends, and the men he was leading. Bogdan had not been his favorite brother, but Bogdan had never, ever acted like this, or talked about being safe with goblins who had shot Nikolai and tried to kill Tamas and master Karoly.

Bogdan took him down one hall and into another, with the floating lights and goblins coming and going. Bogdan gave him to a goblin to watch, while Bogdan went over and talked urgently to a handful of tall goblins that looked more important than the rest, all in armor, all bristling with weapons.

Yuri calculated the chances of kicking his goblin guard in the shins and making a break for a door, but Bogdan had said don't be stupid, and that, in this place where halls happened without ordinary doors, seemed good advice, except not the way Bogdan had meant it: as he saw it, it was a question of biding his time.

So he watched the disgusting sight of his brother talking with his goblin friends, while another goblin was holding his arm, and he (he could not help it) looked up at him to get an undersided view of a goblin face, while the lights were floating around them like fireflies and congregating where Bogdan and the others were talking.

A strange sight, that face was. But he did not like it when the goblin realized what he was doing and glared down at him.

He heard the group with Bogdan say something about other goblins; and he heard Bogdan say something about promising to let him deal with Tamas himself.

So he crossed his eyes at the goblin who was glaring at him and made a face, for good measure. And the goblin clearly had his orders not to bite his head off, and did nothing. A light floated right around the goblin's shoulder and drifted off to join the others bobbing around Bogdan and the rest, where the center of interest was.

So Yuri straightened around and kept a calm face, watching his brother betray Tamas, and Maggiar, and everything and everyone he knew.

Which hurt—hurt worse than anything anybody had ever done to him. It was not a thing boys did. It was something a man did, and that man was a brother of his—which made him somehow dirty, too, and responsible, and completely desperate to find a way out of this trap to warn the people he cared about.

Like finding Tamas, he thought. Tamas was older. Tamas would know what to do first and where to go.

He stood there in a goblin's keeping until Bogdan decided to take him back. Bogdan took him down the hall, past the fantastical lilies and the carved fish and the monsters that lurked in the stone, while a trail of excited lights tried to keep up with them.

"We've got to find Tamas before he undoes everything," Bogdan said as they went. "He's around here somewhere. Come on! Fool!"

They walked a corridor of strange watery darkness, and Tamas asked himself, alone with goblins and the consequences of his confusion, whether he was entirely sane. The ghost had ceased to trouble him, inside, for the moment—Ylena was visible now, apart from him, walking ahead of them— at least he fancied he could see her from time to time, at the instant the eye had to blink: most horrible in aspect, a tattered figure of a woman, all bones and gauze.

"Ylena," he said to Azdra'ik, as the only one who might understand his distress. "I can't be rid of her."

"I see her," Azdra'ik said. "The pretentious baggage. A tag-along."

"More than that, damn it." Azdra'ik had a way of provoking the ghost, and he flinched, expecting its spite.

Azdra'ik said, close by his ear, grasping his arm. "She fears dying—and die she will, if ever goblins leave the earth again. That was the term of her long life. You should be wary of that. Promise her you don't intend to banish us."

He heard that, and his heart gave a thump, as if he were being threatened into an agreement more important than his distracted wits could surround at the moment.

What does he want of me?

"Ask that favor of Eia," he said. "What have I to do with it?"

"As the residence of a power that can damn us? As Ylena's means into the queen's hall? A great deal. I gave her the secret of the mirror and the woman blames me that she was a fool—not my fault, I say."

He was trying to understand Azdra'ik's position. But the witch hovered near him, there at the edge of every blink, a shadowy swirl of living anger. "Let be. Don't quarrel with her."

"Oh, not with her, man, with her successors. Given the choice, your young witch out there—"

A shiver went through the floor—but the tremor was more than in the earth, it was a shock within his heart. A desire that was Ela's. A solitude that was Ela's, overwhelming the ghost's faded spite. This was now. This was imminent danger.

"Someone," Azdra'ik said, "just gained the queen's attention."

"Ela!" He jerked his arm away from Azdra'ik's grip and at once felt an edge near his foot.

"Fool!" Azdra'ik caught him as another tremor ran through the tunnel, making the reflections shimmer—and he did not fall, only by the intervention of Azdra'ik's hand.

And the silence that followed the shaking was smothering. He tried to free himself.

"Be calm, be calm." Azdra'ik released his arm slowly. "You can so easily fall here, man, you can fall to something like death—you can drown in the queen's imagination. Or in the queen's all-demanding will, which I personally count worse."

"Ela's under attack."

"Did you expect not? I asked you—take the mirror. I pleaded with you, take the mirror. Now—now you have second thoughts. The war is launched, man. There is no disengagement. And for good or ill, the mirror shard belongs to the fledgling."

"The witch with a wizard consort," another said, close at hand—which startled him: few of the goblins seemed to have human speech.

"With a wizard consort," Azdra'ik agreed. "That's true. That's never been. It may make a difference, that she wants him more than the queen does."

"She has no consort! Don't assume—"

"Man, you echo of it. The whole mirror does. Do you think we're deaf?"

He was surrounded by goblins, and Ela's presence ran through him like hammer-blows, shock after shock to his bones. He saw only fierce, expectant faces in the dim, watery light, and suddenly—suddenly a sense of that presence so vivid there was no difference between him and her, no housing left for the ghost that clamored outside. He saw into somewhere he could not see with his eyes, into a hall . . . but he could not make it clear. It shimmered—

The lake ... god, the kike, Ela!

One thing touches everything. One thing affects everything. They wanted the lake, Ela, everything for the lake— that is the mirror, in our realm—

"Man!" Azdra'ik cautioned him. "Man, listen to me."

There was light, watery reflections glancing and bouncing off the floor. The way ahead looked like a bubble in the sun. He rubbed his eyes, and started walking with Azdra'ik and his companions about him.

Came a cold touch at his shoulder. Too late for recriminations, he said to the ghost's nagging at him. We're here, madam. We've no chance to be anywhere else. Shut up!

It did not like to be addressed that way. He felt its anger.

And will you die? he flung back at it. We all can die. Easier than not, at this point.

It did not want to be here. The queen wanted it to be here, it believed that beyond a doubt, now. It had touched him, it had tried to hold him and it had gotten swept up in the current of spells—

—of spells ages old and more powerful than she understood. The ghost had kissed an innocent to steal his life and found something far from innocent; she blamed him for that, she railed on him for that, she suspected him of wizardly complicities she could not find ...

Consort, the goblins had said. The witches of the Wood had no such thing. There had been no wizards in Ylena's time ...

But in gran's, he thought distractedly, there was Karoly ...

Fear broke forth in Ela, then a regathered collectedness, as the air in their very faces began to shimmer like the air above a forge: the water-patterns shimmered violently, and then stopped. They faced a man and a band of goblins that reached instantly for swords.

But it was himself, his own startlement, their own reflections, that dissolved into ripples of light and pattern, as if someone had cast a stone into water.

"Tamas?" a boy's voice called out—a boy's shape was the new image it was taking. Yuri's image looked out at him— touched the invisible surface, and made it ripple, but no more than that, and, for a boy Tamas knew beyond a doubt was home and safe—lord Sun, it looked and sounded so very real.

"Tamas!"

"Is it a lie?" he asked Azdra'ik. "He's not here! He's safe over-mountain!"

Yuri's reflection shook its head, remarkable in the likeness that pulled at his heart. "Zadny got away. I followed him and I got here—Bogdan's here. —But don't believe—"

The mirror shimmered violently and something snatched Yuri out of his sight.

Goblin hands snatched Tamas back, on his side, or he would have followed.

"Let me go!"

"Don't," Azdra'ik said, "don't be a fool. It's the mirror that governs such things. Make it give the vision back!"

"I don't know if I want it!"

"Then know!" Azdra'ik shouted at him. "Know once and for all, man, you've few other chances. Will you race it? Yes or no!"

"I want it back!" he cried.

The shimmering steadied, and Yuri came bursting through it, sprawled flat and looked up, still as a fawn before the hunters, his expression all dismay and desperation.

"It's me," Tamas said. But the mirror showed another image before him—: Bogdan, in every detail it was Bogdan.

"Come across," Bogdan said, beckoning him. "Tamas, bring Yuri, and come here."

"No," Azdra'ik said under his breath. "That's the queen's work. Pass through that surface and he can touch you."

"Tamas."

He thought how his company must look to Bogdan, and he had the thought to explain to Bogdan it was safe and he was not a prisoner, but suddenly there were goblins at Bogdan's back, too, a good many of them, a hall, bright with lights, and it was himself who stood in shadow, with his younger brother dazed and trying to choose what was real. It was the look on Yuri's face he could not bear, the doubt between the two of them.

"Yuri," he said. "Yuri, can you answer me?"

"Yes," Yuri's image said, sounding like Yuri's very self if Yuri were frightened out of good sense. " I hear you."

"What should I do, Yuri? Should I listen to him?"

"No," Yuri said definitely enough.

"The boy doesn't understand," Bogdan said. "Tamas, I want you to take Yuri and bring him with you. I've a guarantee of your safety."

"The queen's promises," Azdra'ik said.

"Shut up!" he hissed at Azdra'ik. "Bogdan. Are you free to come to this side?"

"Free, "Bogdan said. "Free, yes. But I want you to come to me. You'll be safe. I promise you."

The rippling surface belled outward and gained a portion of the hall. "Tamas!" Yuri yelled in dismay as the mirror snatched him back, and Tamas made a desperate reach for him, but goblin hands held him back.

"Come on!" Bogdan said. But Yuri was not pleased with where he was. Tamas saw the shake of Yuri's head and stopped struggling with the goblins' hold on him.

"Back up," Azdra'ik said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "We're losing, back up. We can't press it yet."

"No," he said. Backing up and leaving Yuri and Bogdan there—even the illusion of his brothers—he could not risk losing them. He tried to feel Ela's presence. He reached for magic, and intended the wall to waver the other way and give up his brothers, by the god, it would.

He held steady, at least—the surface shook one way and the other, as if a stone had struck it.

"What are you doing?" Bogdan asked.

"Wizardry," said a lisping, soft voice from somewhere among the goblins, at Bogdan's back, "Grandson of Kaiply Magus—the gift you don't own, your brother Tamas clearly does. He has magic enough to make him a power in the world. Did he tell you that on the other side of the mountains, or did he keep it secret from you? Clearly we have the lesser brother on our side."

Tamas heard it, angry at its insinuations, he heard it and he saw Bogdan half-turn to cast a look behind him, and, in the same moment, knew the way he knew his brother's character what that cursed voice had done to them, what a soreness it had touched, the same that he had protected in Bogdan with every duck of his head, every taunt turned and every provocation declined that his brother had offered him.

Damn you, he thought on the instant, a lifetime's evasions all come to this.

"You're no wizard," Bogdan said, angrily. "You're no wizard."

"Bogdan—"

"—I want you to come here," Bogdan said.

"He didn't tell you," the insidious voice said. "But certain ones had to have known. And lay odds that your brother knew—and Karoly Magus. Probably even the servants—"

"I didn't," Tamas said. "That's rubbish, Bogdan, for the god's sake, what are we talking about? Get out of there. Walk out. Give me your hand and hold on to Yuri."

"To do what? To have Maggiarburn? But maybe you don't care about things like that—Tamas Magus."

"Oh, for the god's sake, Bogdan, I never hid anything from you. I don't even know what they say is true, I don't know to this day that it's true—don't listen to them, this is family, this is our family, Bogdan, not some strangers' word on it—"

"Then come over here. Do what I tell you. They're willing to have us rule Maggiar, to have us rule over all the world* on our side of the mountains. They'll let us do as we please, Tamas, one kingdom after another—"

He shook his head. "You. Over here."

"Am I the oldest, Tamas?"

"You're the oldest."

"Do I know better than you do? I'm telling you what to do, little brother."

"No. Bogdan; don't listen to them. We don't have to take their terras. We can beat them. Get Yuri out of there."

"He's very confident," the voice said, thick with fangs— and it began to sound feminine to his ears. "Isn't he?"

"Shut up," Tamas said to the queen—he was sure it was the queen—and the mirror shook.

"Wizard," the goblin queen said. "Come across. You can be with your brothers. You can have any reward you like."

"No."

"Tamas," Bogdan said.

"He won't listen to you," the goblin queen said. "He knows everything."

"He'll listen," Bogdan said, in his no-nonsense way, his side of the mirror advanced as he strode forward, and Tamas backed a pace: he had learned when he was five to back up when Bogdan sounded like that and came in his direction. But his back met a wall of armored goblins—and Yuri was held by goblins on the other side.

"Get hold of him," Tamas said, turning to Azdra'ik, trying to avoid the fight Bogdan was pressing. "Hold on to him."

But that was the wrong thing to have said. Bogdan drew his sword with a rasp of metal that made the mirror shiver.

"Put it away," Tamas said, turning again. "Bogdan. Put it—"

Bogdan sliced through the mirror surface between them and Tamas jumped back as goblin steel rang out. Swords cleared their scabbards on either side, and Tamas was still trying to evade Bogdan's attack, empty-handed.

"No, Bogdan!" A second close pass, the wind of which passed his cheek: he flinched back again, hard against a goblin arm—parry him, was his desperate thought, he drew on the retreat, brought the sword up and Bogdan's blade clanged against it with a shock that jolted his wrists.

"Bogdan, quit it!" he cried, but there was the queen's laughter from beyond the barrier, there was Yuri shouting to watch out. "Bogdan! They want mis, stop it!"

Blow after blow came at him and he kept turning them. No one else was fighting. They all were watching, one side and the other of the mirror surface, and jeers came from Bogdan's side. "Go on," the goblins shouted, and Yuri shouted at them to stop it—but he could not drop his guard without Bogdan cleaving him in two, and Bogdan's strokes were growing wild and desperate, ringing through the blade to his bones. The clangor filled his ears, rang over the wailing protests of the ghost, rang over the goblin voices and into the watery walls that shook to the sound of blades.

Stroke met and next stroke met: he was unwilling to back up, but he had no choice. Azdra'ik was shouting advice at him he could not hear, Yuri was yelling and his arms and his wrists were buckling under the clanging and hammering. Get the sword away from him, was what his good sense screamed at him, but doing that to Bogdan was no easier than reasoning with him when Bogdan's pride was at stake.

"They want this!" he shouted, in the hope that Bogdan was wearing down enough to hear him. "Bogdan, they've got Yuri."

"I'm not a fool!" Bogdan shouted. His face was suffused with anger, his eyes were crazed with it. "You're so damned smart, you're so damned clever, don't you think I know what you were doing getting into our company, you and Karoly—?"

He hardly had the wind to argue. Get it away from him, was all he could think of, trying to wield a goblin sword in a wearying defense, with Azdra'ik's company yelling in his ear and Azdra'ik himself shouting advice he could not consciously hear over the ringing in his ears. He made an overreach with the blade, tried to hang Bogdan's blade with the quillon-spine on his and almost succeeded; but Bogdan's strength jerked the blade half out of his grip before the imperfect hold raked free. He made a desperate recovery. The goblins yelled advice. A familiar hand landed momentarily on his shoulder and shoved him. Azdra'ik shouted, "Attack, fool!"

"Shut up!" he yelled at Azdra'ik, and dodged Bogdan's attack.

"They're coming at Ela, man! We can't hold them forever—"

This as he trod on someone's foot trying to back up, and Bogdan's sword grated and sliced along his shoulder.

"Get out of my way," he panted. "Bogdan, stop it! You're wrong, for the god's sake, Bogdan—" He gave up trying to coddle Bogdan's sense of righteousness. "Papa would say—"

"What? That we're all wizard bastards?" A downstroke beat his blade down. But Bogdan was tiring, too. Bogdan could not take advantage on the recovery: Tamas shoved him back with his shoulder and tried bashing him with the hilt.

The barked quillon drew blood across Bogdan's hand. "Damn you!" Bogdan yelled, looking at it, and launched a crazed attack, blow after blow.

"The edge!" Azdra'ik yelled. "Watch your feet, man!"

He had no more room. A goblin's shove at his back flung him within Bogdan's guard and he used the hilt and the side of the blade, to batter himself free. Sweat was running in his eyes. The goblins were all shouting, both sides at once. He made a second desperate try to trap Bogdan's guard, and trapped himself, the swords bound together, the tines piercing Bogdan's hand—he had him, if he did not let go, he could keep from killing Bogdan or being killed, if he did not let Bogdan get free, but Bogdan was grabbing at his throat and forcing him backward in a frenzy of pain and outrage, step by resisting step—he knew the edge was behind him.

"You'll take us over!" he yelled at Bogdan. "You'll take us over the edge, dammit, don't!"

His foot hit nothingness. He felt himself going, he felt the drop beginning and he let go the sword—he had made up his mind to that—rather than kill them both.

But a hand snagged him by one arm as he let go the sword. Bogdan spun past him with all his weight and both swords— into empty space past his reaching hand. The pull on his left sleeve was hauling him back to solid ground breathless and cold and shaking from head to foot—

"Bogdan!" he shouted into that gulf, in hope that if it was a magical place he might yet find him.

"He's gone!" Azdra'ik shouted into his ear, with his arms around him. "You're here, man. Do you hear me? They won't stop us. Man!" Azdra'ik shook at him. "Listen to me! You've got the power to do something—do it! Use the mirror! Break through the wall!"

One thing touches everything, he thought, for no reason. And: for less reason and with a sudden unreasoning hope: Master Karoly!

Nikolai tried not to think about the stars above the tangle of woods, but he was sure that it was at least rightfully noon, that something magical was in progress, and that if their two ghostly guides were at all reliable they should have found the boy long since.

"They're not getting us anywhere!" he protested to Karoly.

"We're not where we were," Karoly snapped. "And it's not that easy, master huntsman, it's not a deer we're tracking."

"What does that mean?"

"That it's not a deer!"

That was what one got for arguing with a man who thought in circles and heard things when he set his ear against the earth. But from the beginning Ysabel and Pavel had seemed on the track of something the hound was interested in following: Karoly's murdered sister and her soldier lover drifted effortlessly in the lead as they slogged through thicket and up and down hills, Nikolai leading the old man on the pony— with the hound out in front of all of them, running with his nose to the ground, immune to the dark that impeded a human hunter and probably tracking better than both ghosts together, in Nikolai's estimation.

Then of a sudden Nikolai smelled apples, when no apple tree should be in fruit—and that made him think, oddly enough, of the courtyard in Maggiar, an overset basket by the kitchen door, and Michal's horse.

The dog barked, letting every goblin in ten leagues about know where they were.

"Quiet!" Nikolai hissed. "Dog, hush!"

In the same instant he felt a tweak at his hair, which might have been a twig raking him. A slight breeze had started up, a whispering in the brush.

Good lad, someone said. He was sure it was not master Karoly—Karoly did not call him good and no one called him lad these days. It sounded like a woman's voice. He could not be certain.

Loyal to Stani, indeed, the voice said next his ear—no one could fault you that.

"Urzula?" Karoly asked of a sudden. "Urzula, is that you?"

"Just the wind," Nikolai said, wanting to believe in anything but the lady gran next his ear.

But in the self-same moment, on a trick of the wind, he heard a sound he had not heard since his wandering youth: the clash of swords and the sounds of warfare echoing through the woods. Gracja brought her head up, pulled at the reins he was holding, and Nikolai scrambled aside as a shadow of a rider passed right through the brush without disturbing any of it, and passed right through Gracja and Karoly to boot.

A second rider passed, and a third, all shadows, and Nikolai began to shiver in a way nothing had made him do since he was a boy hiding from the soldiers.

But he had the impression he knew who they were without clear sight of any of them: Michal, and Filip, and Jerzy and all his dead comrades, all riding toward the sounds of combat. Zadny barked at them and set up a sudden howl.

That was the only thing that brought him to his senses, because for a moment he felt so light-headed, so slightly connected to his body, that it would have been so much easier to let go and run after them.

He reached out for Karoly's knee, fearing for the old man's life. But: "Follow them," Karoly said urgently. "God, give me up the reins. The boy's in deep trouble!"

The dog crashed off into the woods ahead of them. He handed Karoly up the reins, Karoly flailed at Gracja with his heels and the pony started moving, stolidly, relentlessly forward, while the ghosts went before them with a sighing in the branches, and ghosts of every sort poured in from left and from right of them, drifting shadows in the starlight, afoot, ahorse, some on creatures an honest man did not want to see—those might be goblin dead.

There was a brilliance ahead, some sort of light cast up from the valley below on the thinning screen of trees, and came a howl from ahead of them that Nikolai had heard only once before in his life, at Krukczy Straz when the arrows had begun to fly—goblins leapt up ahead from ambush, with shrieks and waving of swords that glittered in the eerie light.

But that howling changed abruptly when the shadows in their lead poured into their midst. Goblins broke from cover and turned in flight; Nikolai ran, gasping for breath, to add whatever solid force he could to the ghosts, shielded his eyes with his arm and broke through a screen of brush onto a barren hillside, beneath which something shone like a star brought to earth. Shadows flowed down that hill like a river of darkness behind the fleeing goblins, a river on which the light still picked out detail like a helmet or an arm or a mailed shoulder—shadows flowed over the goblins and left them still—except a few that scattered shrieking and gibbering to the four winds, and a handful of stragglers from the ambush that tried to regroup in Nikolai's path.

Nikolai did not stop to think: he laid with blind desperation into what resistance he found, clearing a path, because an old fool on a pony was coming behind him, and there was the light down there, the only relief from the night around them. That was where they had to go and he did not even question the idea, he was only aware as he sliced his way through that Karoly and the pony had flanked him, headed downward past him.

Somewhere he found the wind to take out running after the old man, with a stitch in his side and the light blurring and blinding him. Wizardry for certain, he thought, a white glare unlike sun or fire—centering somewhere about a girl on a motionless horse.

And surrounded by goblins.

"Karoly!" he yelled, half doubled with pain—and ran the faster to overtake Karoly, having the only sword, and seeing the old man going on as if he saw nothing at all but the light.

But these were different goblins, taller, surrounding the girl on the horse as if they stood guard—the goblin queen, Nikolai thought it might be—but if she was, her guard was trusting her magic and not shooting at them or lifting a sword.

Then the girl did move—Nikolai saw it in the jolts of his running: she looked toward them and Karoly stopped the pony as the light in her hand flared like the lightning. He could see everything, the detail of goblin armor, more than those he had seen—hopeless odds, even discounting magic.

Karoly lifted his staff, that thing that had encumbered him through the woods, waved it overhead; and Nikolai fetched up against Gracja's sweating rump for support, unable to run another step; while something happened. The fire grew brighter and brighter and sheeted out across a lake he had not even seen so dark it was—one blaze and another and another until it seemed from where he stood that he could see moving shapes above its still surface.

And came the belling of a hound, off along the lake shore, a pale shape running as if he had taken leave of his senses— "Follow the dog!" Karoly shouted at Nikolai.

"What?" He hardly had a voice.

"You're no damn use here—follow the dog!"

Nikolai caught a breath, shoved off from the pony's side, and started running, only then realizing that the dog would be after the boy, and that the old man might have a reason. He ran limping and splashing through shallow water, his side shot with pain—he hoped no goblins saw him; but some did and ran after him ... and he had no cover and no strength to turn and fight: he only hoped to stay ahead of them and find some cover to duck behind and lose them before he led them onto the boy's trail.

Dark surrounded him of a sudden—he thought he might have lost a moment or passed out still running, because around him was suddenly confined, and dank and cold, lit by a watery light just enough to see—and with the dog's barking echoing in far distance, the armored clatter of pursuit immediately behind him—he kept going, he did not know how, thinking if Karoly wanted him alive Karoly should do something—but he could not keep ahead of them. When they were on him he pulled a staggering halt and spun about to meet them, but they swarmed him, grabbed his left arm and his sword arm, and held on, a solid mass of them, glittering with metal in the watery reflections.

He fought to free himself. They fought to hold on, with no reason in the world they should not swipe his head off and be done.

Which finally persuaded him they did not intend to. He stopped fighting to get a breath, and they let up their hold somewhat.

"Man," one panted, displaying dreadful fangs. And clapped him on the shoulder and pointed down the way he had been going.

It took him a moment to sort his wits out—in the realization they were offering their services at dog-chasing. The heart of hell and the queen of the goblins, Karoly had said about this place ... but in his travels he had found more than one band of discontents.

They let him go, he found the breath to keep going, and he went with an escort with only one human word in their speech. But either they were taking him to their queen or they were going with him to their queen, and either way, that got him in reach of the goblin responsible for this devastation.

That was agreeable to him.

Nothing moved the other side of the barrier, not the goblins, not Yuri, not for the small moments lamas could press the mirror surface: holding everything stone still was the best that he could do. But it was not an effort only with the hands— the instant his thoughts scattered to any other object, changes began to happen, and figures frozen so long as he could hold them, began to move beyond the barrier. He had no idea whether it was any good to try to stop it, he was not sure whether it was winning or not or had any hope, but he tried, and kept trying, although he knew something was dreadfully wrong outside. He had lost any sense of where Ela was, or what had happened—he might be the last hope left; and he had no knowledge to replace her—had no understanding what he was doing or had to do, he only persevered in blind attacks, willing to entreat the ghost, the goblins with him, any ally he would take if he could rescue Yuri from the hands that held him.

Yuri tried not to admit that he was afraid—Yuri scowled in slow movement, Yuri drew back his foot and, god, he knew what Yuri was going to do, he did not want him to do it, for his life he did not, and he held everything still as long as he could—but he felt something slip, then, some vast disturbance that made the barrier change—and of a sudden he lost all purchase. Yuri's foot swung, the goblin winced and doubled, and he—

—he was able now only to shout at the enemies who had his brother. He struck the barrier with his bare hands: but breach it he still could not, could not even feel solidity in what took and took his strength.

The goblins with him added their force—Azdra'ik's was far more than his; Azdra'ik was face to face with him, shoulder to the barrier, and it was the face of a beast he saw, a fear no less than his—Azdra'ik was near to losing himself and all he hoped to win back, and he, of losing Yuri—

Suddenly the surface gave way—dissolved in front of them. An image of an image of an image froze within his eyes, and they sprawled in a heap in the further hall, lights fleeing and bobbing like living things, himself and a handful of exhausted goblins ...

Facing a sheet of glass or water—he could not tell, it shimmered so—but Yuri was there, in the hands of enemies; and most of all, most of all the goblin queen, the face in the mirror, that of a sudden blotted everything out. He got up. Azdra'ik did, and the others, facing the queen on her throne.

"Over-confidence," the queen said, "is a deadly flaw. Do you want the young one?"

"Yes," he began to say, but Azdra'ik stepped in front of him and shouted something he had no idea what, but it was enough to make the queen's nostrils flare with rage, and her cheeks suffuse with color. The queen shouted and stood up with a clatter of bracelets and pointed toward the goblin lord.

No, Tamas thought, no—and saw that small darkness next the queen's arm, that darkness that was the shape of Ela's mirror; and that was what he looked at—dared not take his eyes from that single patch, that single place on the mirror where he had a hope of seeing what he wanted, instead of what the queen wished. When he saw light on that spot, exactly the shape of Ela's mirror, the mirror was whole.

Then—he did not want it; he did not sense that the queen did—something of shadow and of bone and malice slipped into his vision to take everything from him. He saw the woods, the night, the tangled brush, the scattered bones ...

"Stop her!" Azdra'ik shouted at him, shaking his shoulder.

Of a sudden the whole mirror shifted backward, and became a wall of dreadful colors, a rush of goblins toward them with spears and swords.

He took a step back, among Azdra'ik's few, and sought his single spot on the great mirror—and saw the shard rippling with uncertainty. Lights streamed and bobbed about them as goblins fought goblins, as steel blades flashed between him and the mirror. Without taking his eyes from that haziness he drew me dagger he had, Azdra'ik's gift, held it ready to defend himself, as he heard Yuri call out desperately for him.

But in the same moment he heard a hound baying and barking at his back—shadows poured about him in a wave of inky chill, about him and past him, as a yellow hound came skidding onto the marble floors, skidding and yelping in startlement as he skidded through the battle, against the very mirror.

It shimmered—and the queen's image shook.

"Zadny!" Yuri yelled from somewhere, and the startled dog was on his feet in the melee of shadows and goblins— but how that issue was, Tamas did not take two blinks to see. In the whole mirror he saw Ela by the lake.

He saw, around the mirror, Azdra'ik and a band of goblins pounding one another on the shoulders and shouting at each other like human boys . . .

He saw Nikolai, leaning on a goblin arm, limping and breathless, and suddenly Yuri running for him—through the very substance of the mirror. Zadny put himself in his path and dog and boy somehow navigated the battle-ground to reach him.

"Tamas!" Yuri was yelling, trying to hug him. Zadny was jumping at him, trying to get his attention.

But it was not done. It was not done until the mirror was entirely still and until he could see Ela, nothing but Ela's face against the night, completely occupying the mirror.

Master Karoly was in that image. He knew that without seeing him. He knew the presence of ghosts, that warred within the mirror, quarreling, in shouts and shrieks, and Jerzy, lord Sun, Jerzy complaining it was dark and unpleasant-He caught a breath, on his knees with both arms full of boy and dog. He could not move, else. He dared not move or think or wonder, so long as the image remained what it was.

Something was terribly wrong, even if things had gone right for a moment. Yuri took hold of Zadny's collar, not knowing whether to let Zadny try to wake Tamas up or whether he ought not—but when his lap was free, Tamas got slowly to his feet and went on staring at the mirror, regardless of a room full of excited goblins, or anything. "Tamas?" he said, and when he had no answer from Tamas, he looked over at Nikolai and saw Nikolai limping toward him, covered in sweat and hardly able to keep his feet—so he kept Zadny tightly in hand.

Nikolai set his hand on his shoulder, hugged him against his side, and told him they were taking Tamas out of here— "If we have to carry him," Nikolai said.

But a tall goblin said, soberly, "No. It's not over. He hasn't won."

"What's not over?" Nikolai said hotly. "What's to win?"

He did not want Nikolai starting a fight with them, not when Tamas was the way he was. He tugged at master Nikolai's sleeve to stop him.

"The young wizard has his way," the goblin said, "and our people have the hall for the moment. But nothing's certain. "Nikolai made a move to defy him and the goblin interposed his hand. "Fatally uncertain. He might die."

"Don't." Zadny was trying to get away, and Yuri held on to his collar with all his might.

"I 'm going after Karoly."

"Wizard enough is here," the goblin said, and he meant Tamas, plain as plain. "Let him finish his work."

It needed a while, simply to gain a little breath. Ela was there, as shocked, as weary, as desperate. Master Karoly was there. Karoly was the one who said, or thought, "The whole place is hanging by a thread. Don't look away, boy. Well done. Well done."

There were others present. Jerzy was indignant: I've business to take care of. I've no time for this nonsense, damn them, I've a horse in foal—

I'd care for it, Tamas thought, if I were there myself, back in Maggiar.

And Filip: What about my father? He's old. Who's to take care of him?

I won't forget, Tamas said.

Bogdan showed up in that company. But Bogdan was not speaking to him. Tamas was not surprised. He was immensely glad that Bogdan had found his friends again.

Then he heard gran speaking, shooing the other dead away too soon—but she banished one other that he felt lurking in the shadows.

Be off! You're not dead! Don't whine at me, you fool! You made your own mistakes! Leave my grandsons alone!

He was afraid for the outcome. He was not sure gran was a strong enough witch, to deal with Ylena. But he dared not all the while look away from Ela's face. He let all these things go on and he refused to give way to any diversion or trick or to look away from the only sight he was sure of.

Mirela, gran said severely.

No one calls me that, Ela protested, gazing fixedly at him, the same, holding on, only holding on, but afraid.

No one should, gran said sharply. —And you are Pavel's. And descended from Ytresse and Ylysse. That should make you cautious in your tempers, and your wants; if nothing else does. For the rest ... grandson?

"Gran?"

Remember the stories.

"Gran!"

Remember the stories, gran said again, and he could not help it, he was so startled: he began to remember exactly the way gran had told them, the woods and the waterfalls, the cities in the plain—

The lights began bobbing crazily, flitting around the watery walls and bouncing off them like housebound birds, the whole mirror began shaking, Zadny started barking, trying to get loose, but with all of that confusion going on, Yuri held on to him for dear life.

"What's going on?" Nikolai shouted at the goblins, but they looked to have no answers, either, just—

"Look at the mirror!" Yuri cried. It was changing, the reflection within it leaping from shadowy forests to starlit waterfalls, to courtyards and fountains and fields and beautiful places. Lights flitted above woodland pools, and wandered through the wood. Fairies, he realized. "Just like gran's stories!" he exclaimed, his arms wrapped about Zadny's neck and shoulders. "Tamas is doing it! He's doing it!"

Because Tamas had told him the stories, just the way, Tamas had sworn, the very words that gran had told them to him.

Doors banged open, and a wind blew through the hall, fresh and clean, direct from the outdoors.

Then Tamas turned away from the mirror, and Yuri flinched, seeing—he was not sure what he saw in Tamas' face, he only knew Tamas was still gazing off into thoughts that wanted no stupid boy interrupting, or rowdy dog jumping at him, in front of all these dangerous folk.

"Karoly's outside," Tamas said quietly. "Go and wait for me, master Nikolai. Bogdan's gone. Yuri needs to go home."

"Boy," Nikolai began to say. But Tamas only stood there, not angry, not impatient, just—that no argument was going to win with Tamas, even if Yuri had a question of his own-like, What about you going home?

But Nikolai gave him a shove, meaning they should do what Tamas wanted, and Yuri held onto Zadny and made him come away, with Zadny looking back and whining in confusion, because Zadny could not understand. That was what made Yuri saddest, because Zadny was more honest than he could let himself be.

The doors led straight out under the stars. If so many odder things had not happened, Yuri would have blinked at that; but he hardly asked himself where the tunnel had gone. Master Karoly was there, exactly the way Tamas had said. And there was the witch, hardly older than he was, on a horse, among a handful of goblin guards. But the lake was not dark and dreadful now. Fairies darted and flitted above the water. It was all very beautiful.

But it was dark and cold, all the same, walking along the shore. He was glad to see Karoly and Gracja; and master Nikolai met a surprise, too, because there was Lwi, being held by goblins. It was only three words Nikolai spent on Karoly once he saw that: he went and put his arms about Lwi's neck.

And Yuri was glad about Lwi, too. But seeing the witch sitting on horseback looking just the same as his brother did, and, staring off like that, upset his stomach.

"What are they doing?" he asked master Karoly, scared, because Karoly had something of that look, too—looking at things he could not see, listening to things he could not hear, and murmuring answers to them, what was worse.

But at least Karoly seemed not to forbid him asking. And Karoly slid down from Gracja's back and put an arm about him, dog in tow and all. Yuri set his jaw, because it made him feel a lump in his throat, and brought him very close to tears. He wished Karoly would just answer his question and not do that to him.

Karoly still did not answer his question. He only said, "I have him. He's all right. He's very worried about you."

It was Tamas he was talking to, Yuri understood that of a sudden. It made him feel both better and worse.

"I know," Karoly said, but he was still talking to Tamas. "I will. I understand." Karoly gave his arm a hug. "He'll be here."

"Who?" Yuri asked quietly, trying not to interrupt something. But it must have been him that Karoly was talking about this time, because Karoly did not answer him.

Deeper and deeper the change had to go, then, down into the earth, and into realms where strange things moved, old things, that ages of the earth had cast aside. And gran had talked about dragons and such, and said how they were cold and proud, and how one should never promise them anything, so he did not. Gran had said about the creatures of stone and ice, how they were not to trust, but, slow-moving and deliberate, they came above in winters, to howl in the mountain heights, and they had their place in faery.

The greatest and the lesser, and latest the things that could not change: it was only a matter of knitting those things together, one thing touching everything, as it had been.

And last it was a matter of letting go of things that seemed to have grown into one's soul.

And doing justice that had not been done.

He shut off seeing. It was a moment before he could knit Tamas back together, and be different from Ela, or the earth. It was self-blinding. It felt like darkness and smothering. But he endured it, and held himself to it, and eventually flesh and bone grew easier to wear and less heavy. He could open his eyes and move his hand and turn his head toward the goblins that stood watching and waiting for their banishment.

The goblin queen was already below, with every one else of her half-goblin creatures: he had seen to that, among the first things. But he looked at Azdra'ik, at nameless others, and set his hand on the dagger that was Azdra'ik's gift.

"Nothing from you," he said, "comes without attachments. And what did this come with?"

"My help," Azdra'ik said, without flinching. "When you were a young and weaponless fool."

He laughed. He could not help it. And probably there was a spell on the gift. There was when he drew it and gave it back, and caught Azdra'ik's arm in his and said he should come outside.

"Are we dispossessed?" Azdra'ik insisted to know as they walked. "Is that part of this bargain?"

"I named no bargain."

"There has to be one."

"No, no, no, master goblin. There is no bargain. You're in my debt, is what you are. From now on."

"No more than you're in mine! Who bought you free? Who carried you out of the woods? Who—?"

But they were at the doors, and what he had seen in the mirror, Azdra'ik could see for himself, and Azdra'ik freed himself and stood gazing at the lake, with its flitting and gliding lights.

"Oh, man," Azdra'ik said. "This is what our eldest saw. This is what our legends say. Who could know, but us?"

"My grandmother," he said, wondering suddenly about gran's sources.

But something broke the mirror stillness of the lake, and disturbed the skimming lights, something large and dark, that surfaced and dived again.

"What's that?" Yuri exclaimed. But in a moment more he knew for himself, as a trollish head broke the surface. And vanished again.

"Careful!" Karoly said, but Zadny set up a frantic barking, straining to get free, such a lunge he slipped Yuri's grip and evaded Yuri's dive after him.

Straight into the water Zadny ran, splashing and barking, and one and another huge head broke the surface.

"Krukczy!" Yuri shouted.

One splashed. But they kept surfacing and diving so quickly, swimming in a circle, that it was impossible to tell.

"What are they doing?" he asked master Karoly; but Nikolai had come to see, too, and Nikolai muttered, "Lost their minds. Happy, one supposes."

The witch came, with her cloak wrapped about her, walking along the shore. The goblins gathered to watch. And from up the shore—

"Tamas!" Yuri said. "It's Tamas, with the goblins!"

"Four of them!" Nikolai exclaimed, but he was not counting goblins. There were four dark heads in the lake, and Zadny, running back and forth along the shore and barking as if he had lost his wits.

"Krukczy," said the witch, "and Tajny, and Hasel."

"And Ali'inel," Karoly added. "This place."

Their circle had grown tighter and tighter. And a bright spot grew in the water, bright as the sun. Their circle widened and it grew and grew. They dived all at once, in the middle of it.

But the light kept going, until it lit all the lake, bright as day; and then it brightened the ground right under their feet, and crept up their legs and up the sides of the hills and up the foundations of a beautiful tower just past where Tamas and the goblins were.

The light kept going until it had topped the tallest trees on the tops of the hills, and then it went right up into the sky, on all sides at once. And where it began to meet, in the height of heaven, the bright edges came together in a glare the eyes could not look at. It was noon, that was all. The night might never have been.

But Zadny stood looking at the lake, with now and again a bewildered bark, then ran, wet as he was, straight for Tamas.

Yuri ran after him: he could only think of Zadny making some trouble for Tamas. But he stopped in confusion when he saw the goblins, that seemed somehow—different. Not vastly changed. But maybe sunlight favored them—lent them a touch of mystery and magic, a touch of mischief, a touch of merriment. He would not have been afraid of these goblins—in awe of them, oh, yes. He was.

But not Zadny. Zadny jumped up on Tamas while he had stopped to stare and had his dusty armor all wet and muddy.

But it was his brother, because Tamas laughed, weary as he was, caught the hound in one arm and held out the other for him.

"Come here," Tamas called to him. "Yuri, come meet a goblin lord."

At such a chance, how could anyone hesitate?

But all the same, Yuri thought, the night of the third day on the lake shore, watching Tamas walk hand in hand with Ela, and the two of them talking that way wizards talked with each other, that no one but a wizard could hear—all the same, he did not want Tamas to have magic. It was all very fine to have supper with goblins and have trolls living at the bottom of the lake, and fine, he supposed, to have the occasional ghost straying in from the mysterious Wood, where things did not just go away in the ordinary fashion (Ylena's spell, master Karoly said, something about preserving her own life)—but Tamas was very preoccupied, very sad, sometimes, Yuri thought, about Bogdan, and it was clear to him that he was going home and Tamas would not.

I don't know why I have to explain to our parents why, Yuri thought bitterly. I don't know why Bogdan acted like that, except he never could stand to be second to anybody, and I don't know why Tamas and that girl are both like that, Tamas isn't ready to get married yet, and mama certainly wouldn't approve of her. I don't think papa would.

She was brave, though, and a witch (a sorceress, Karoly said) and she was looking right at him right now, giving him the most uncomfortable notion that she and Tamas were talking about him.

He glared at her, and turned his head and glared at the fairy-lights on the lake, and thought about Krukczy.

Tamas was going to keep Zadny. Tamas said wizards might understand Zadny, but the houndsmaster never could, and if he went home with him, he would only get in trouble. And that was all right. Zadny knew who he wanted.

But he did not want to talk to Ela, and Tamas was bringing her in his direction. He watched the fairy-lights instead, and told himself they were very pretty. Seeing gran's land was very well, too, but it was going to be better to see Maggiar.

That, if Tamas happened to be listening to him.

"Yes," Tamas said, disconcertingly. "I know. But I can't help it."

"Don't do that!" Yuri said.

"I'm sorry," Tamas said. But Yuri looked at Ela, all pale and pretty beside him. Master Karoly said she was Azdra'ik's great-grand-daughter and his niece, and gran's cousin. So master Karoly was going to stay behind a year or two, master Karoly said, and see Tamas stayed out of trouble. So he and Nikolai were riding home tomorrow, on Lwi and Gracja. And he did not plan to sleep tonight.

Ela reached out and tousled his hair. That did not endear her to him. But being a witch, and overhearing people, she stopped immediately, and looked unhappy.

He imagined, for some reason, she had never seen a boy. She was curious. She thought he was very clever.

It was very hard to go on being mad at someone who really believed that—which was probably a spell she was casting, who could ever know? A lot of people had been scared of gran. Probably with good reason.

Which was why, Tamas had said, it really was not a good idea for him and for Ela to come back over-mountain just yet. Neither of us knows anything, Tamas had said. We had a lot of help, that's all. And there's an immense lot we have to learn.

Stupid girl, he had said back to Tamas, being surly. Lord Sun, he did not want to remember that now, when Ela was listening. She was not a stupid girl. Not, at least, stupid.

One had to look hard to see if Ela was amused. But he thought she was. He knew Tamas was.

He decided that, on the whole, Tamas would be all right. And Tamas had promised to send him word across the mountains, how he was, how he was getting along.

He did not think, somehow, that Tamas meant writing letters.