He could not answer that well for himself: he ached from running, he was ravenously hungry, which no one reasonably should be, who had just seen what he had seen. He was vastly relieved that the horses were all right; and beneath all that, he felt the complete fool. So far as he knew, Ela's magic had bespelled the creature, brought back the horses and secured their safety, and he had been unjust to lay hands on her and most of all to disturb what might have been a delicate and essential work of magic. He could no longer even swear that he had seen what he had seen either outside or inside the walls—it was slipping away from him, detail by detail, like a dream—but he did know that he found himself deeper and deeper entangled in what Ela would, and where Ela was going, and what Ela wanted.
He asked himself when and where he had passed the point of no return, because he no longer knew how to ride away— not alone because he no longer knew the way home through these wooded hills. He desperately wanted a hope to chase— anything but a blind flight this way and that from successive disasters, anything but a return without answers and without help.
But, damn it all, if magic was the help Karoly had placed all his hope in, a waking dream did not change what was going on in this place, or get them help, or get him home again with any answers.
He thrust the goblin knife into its sheath and that into his belt, and went and sank down on his heels where Ela sat. The mirror was in her hands. It seemed to occupy her attention, quiescent as it was, and he waited a long time to see whether she was doing anything or only brooding on his company.
"Ela," he began finally, most respectfully, most courteously, he thought, "Ela, I want to know where we're going, and why, and what's ahead of us. I want to know why that creature left and why he asked for you and told me to find you. I want to know why master Karoly believed it was so important to talk to your mistress, but he could never tell anyone why; and I want to know why he rode past a goblin warning and never warned us what it was."
"Sometimes you can't," she said faintly.
"Can't what?"
"Can't break through a spell."
"Is that what happened? He wanted to and couldn't?" It opened a sudden hope for master Karoly's character. He wanted to understand Karoly's actions, even if it involved dark and damning things. But she looked away from him, evading his eyes the very way Karoly had done since his dreams began, and with gentle force he touched her knee and drew her attention back, with all the gentleness and patience he could muster. "Is that the kind of thing that happens?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes—else."
Oblique. Always oblique. She still evaded his eyes, even answering him.
"Like the goblin leaving? You made it leave?"
"I don't know." Her gaze roved distractedly about the wall of trees as if she were listening to something, to anything and everything in the world but his voice.
"What's out there, Ela?"
"I don't know."
'I don't know,' began to take on a thoroughly ominous ring—recalling Karoly and the goblin stone, and considering their present situation.
"Ela. Are we in danger?"
"I don't know." A sudden pale glance, starlit. A frown. "Yes. The moon. On the lake. There's danger. There's always danger."
There was no lake. It was a stream in front of them. "From where? What lake? What are you talking about?"
"The goblin queen."
He rocked to both knees on the cold ground. "Why should she be our enemy?"
Another wandering of Ela's eyes, about the sky, the streamside. The leaves whispered louder than her voice. "Because. Because she is. Her kingdom—I don't know if it appears, or if it always is. But she can reach out of it, and this knows where she is." She held the mirror against her heart. "This always knows."
She looked so young—not the witchling now, but a frightened child, pale in the gibbous moon.
"And your mistress said to use this thing."
"My mistress said—if everything foiled, if she wasn't mere when I got back, that I should try to get help here."
My god, he thought. With no more than that instruction, the woman sent a girl off to Kmkczy Straz? A great and powerful witch, Ela claimed to be—and maybe it had been her magic that lent him strength to ride, and not the first meal he had had in days. Maybe it had been her magic just now that had sent the goblin away, and maybe it was her magic that had waked him from the daze that had held him since Krukczy Tower-But, lord Sun, was there not better hope for them than 'try'?
He asked, "Wasn't master Karoly supposed to come back with you?"
"Yes."
"So he was supposed to help you use this thing? He was supposed to know what to do? Is that what was supposed to happen?"
A glance aside from him, at the sky, at the wall, anywhere but his face.
God, he thought, murkier and murkier. He touched her arm gently and made her look at him.
"Ela. What would master Karoly have done with the thing, if he were here? Do you have any idea what that is?"
"Stop her."
"How would he do that?"
Her eyes slipped away from his.
"Ela?"
There was no answer. Their journey had been disastrous from home to the mountaintop—their canvas had ripped. They had had nothing but contention among themselves.
And Karoly—had gone silent when he most needed to speak.
"Ela. If you're a great witch, can you say what you want to say? Can you answer me?"
She did look at him, a pale, distracted glance. The mirror in her lap began to glow with light as she brushed its surface, and she looked at him, truly looked at him.
"I saw a castle," he said. "We were there. Weren't we? I saw a woman. . . ."
"It was a long time ago. The chief of the goblins came here. Right in that very gateway—"
He glanced toward that gate, he could not help it—and the goblin was sitting on the wall, long legs a-dangle. "God!" he gasped, snatched up his bow and scrambled for his feet.
The goblin leapt to the ground. It landed with grace and arrogance, and swept them a bow.
"Well, well," it said, "not paying full attention, are we, young lady? —You truly shouldn't distract her, Tamas. Keeping us away takes constant thought, especially once we've made up our minds about a thing."
It wanted Ela—that was what it had continually claimed. He felt of the arrow he had ready, and laid it to the string. But it made an airy gesture, refusing such unfavorable battle.
"Oh, no, man, there's no need of that. I've merely come to watch."
To watch what? was the natural question. But he disdained to ask it, and the goblin laughed softly and made a second flick of the wrist.
"Ah, ah, ah, pricklish pride. It does lead us by the nose, doesn't it? —I'd advise you give me the trinket, witchling. Or at least put it away and don't use it."
"You killed my mistress," Ela accused it, standing at his elbow. "You killed her!"
"I?" The goblin laid a hand where its heart should be. "I by no means killed your mistress. We were always on the best of terms."
"You just happened by today," Tamas scoffed.
"I just happened? Ah, no. I knew. No sooner than a foolish woman dismissed this girl to Krukczy Straz, the ravens knew and gossiped on the housetop. The whole woods knew. Did not you?"
He did not take his eyes from the goblin. But he saw a flare of cold light in the very tail of his eye, and saw the goblin's face go grim and hostile.
"Forbear, "it said, holding up its hand. "Forbear, foolish girl, put it away!"
"Did you kill her?" Ela's voice cracked like a whip. "Don't lie to me, don't dare to lie, ng'Saeich!"
"No." A short answer. The goblin's nostrils flared and the scale armor on his chest flashed with his breathing.