The ghost had shown him Bogdan—shown him his brother in goblin hands and he had not stayed to ask her whether that vision was true—he had had a sword by him in that cottage and he had clawed his way out the door and fled without even thinking of it, when, if he had been a man, he might have threatened her into telling him the truth, he might have learned enough to help them right there, and he might not then have needed Azdra'ik's rescue, or lost Lwi, or ended up where he was, running for his life with no notion even where he was going.
His footing failed him. He caught himself on Skory's saddle, or thought he had, except he came awake in the dark, flat on his back on cold stone, with a shadow leaning above him.
He was back in the troll's den, he had waked again and it was back—
"Tamas?" Ela said from out of that shadow. —Ela's hands were the hands touching his face. He had to recall where he was, and he almost longed for the troll, and the cellar, instead of the hillside, and the fires, and the flight.
"I haven't used the mirror," she said in a faint voice. "I'd rather not. Tamas, Tamas, are you all right?"
He had a bump on his head. He must have fallen when he reached for the horse—or he might have walked a ways blind and numb, for all that he knew. It was no matter. He was lying down and he had to get up and go on, but even a moment of rest was to cherish. He drifted, half-waking, aware of Ela, thinking that, except the lump on his head, he was more comfortable right now, and closer to sleep, than he had been in days.
"Tamas."
"I know. I know. I'm moving." But it was hard to move at all, and he lay there collecting breaths for the attempt, or however many attempts it might take. Then that tingling feeling began again, and a flickering glow like marshfire fluttered over Ela's arms, over her heart and throat and almost to her face—mirror-magic. She shouldn't do dial, he thought, it's my fault she's doing that, I have to get up—
He tried. He began to rise on one arm, and got as far as one knee when he heard that faint sound of metal he had heard before. His heart sank. He snatched at Ela's hand, wanting no more magic, wanting quiet.
"It's a patrol. Quiet." He saw Skory's shadow, and got up as quickly and quietly as he could. Skory stood with head up and ears pricked—he caught her reins and put his hand above her soft muzzle, distracting her, cajoling her.
For a very long time there was nothing—only that sound, and Skory's alarm, and the soft, soft sound of Ela's cloak and skirts as she came near to wait.
Maybe the patrol was on the other side of the hill, he thought, maybe it was an echo from somewhere, and they were safe within their little cluster of scrub pine and brush.
Then, looking up the hill through the twisted pine boughs, he saw the flash of metal by starlight and the moving of shadows along the slope.
"Hobgoblins," Ela whispered, faint as breathing.
The small ones, he thought; the ones Azdra'ik compared to beasts. The ones that had taken the towers, and left them guarded by human heads when they abandoned the places they had taken, not even caring to occupy them. He kept his hand on Skory, felt her nostrils flare and her head toss in alarm as a wayward breeze carried goblin scent to her—it was not a greeting he had to fear from her, it was a sudden bolt for safety.
And thank whatever god watched them, the wind, that skirled so unpredictably in these cuts and crevices in the hills, was in their faces at the moment—goblin noses might be keen enough to smell them. Goblin hearing might pick up their least movement.
But for eyesight—the one in the cellar of Krukczy Tower had missed him, while these . . . these tramped down the hill and passed so close, so close to them at the worst moment that there was only a clump of brush between them a^id the goblin column, and they still did not see, nor smell, nor hear them. The foremost led the way downhill and the others followed, shadows sheened with figured steel and bristling with bows and spears, that diminished on the slope, and riled away into the dark approach to the valley.
Support for the siege of human towns, he thought, beset with a shiver now that the danger was past. He let go Skory's reins, wiped his hands on his sides, and felt he could breathe again.
"The hills must be full of their armies," he said in a hushed voice, and felt his knees trembling with exhaustion. For his part he would insist they keep going under cover of darkness, but Skory had had her own troubles at the last, had had to consider climbs carefully—Skory had had little rest herself, by day or by night, and, he thought distractedly, perhaps they should leave her and go afoot.
But she was goblin-bait for certain if they did that, and he was by no means certain they ought to go on in the haste they had been using.
(Go back, something whispered in him. Yes, go back. Bring the mirror back to the woods, Tamas. That's the only hiding place.)
He saw the ghost for the instant, white and drifting among the trees. He was not even sure he had had his eyes shut—he thought that they were open, but he could only see the dark, and that figure, and when a rock met his shin, he felt it over with his hand and sat down, propping his elbow on his knee and trying to rub sight back into his eyes, rubbed and rubbed and tried to banish that persisting vision in favor of the hillside, and Ela, and the ordinary rocks and shadows.
Stop it, he ordered the ghost, stop it, let me go, you swore to Azdra'ik—
A hand touched him and he flinched from it, thinking it was the ghost, but the rattle of pebbles agreed more with the hillside, and with the rock he had chosen as his anchor in the world, it felt more like Ela's touch, and he became sure of it when it slid to his hand and closed on his fingers—it was warm and fleshly, and it wanted his attention, sharply insisted on his attention.
(Two innocents, the voice within him said. Two damned fools.)
He jerked his head, thinking as forcefully as he could, Go away! And, beside him, Ela—
Ela slipped her hand from his and rose to her feet in silence. He could see her when he looked up—he saw her walk away from him as far as where Skory stood, and stand there, looking out into the dark. He felt a wall between them, as cold, as palpable as stone. He felt—a memory on his lips, that foolish moment he had thought to teach Ela a lesson. His mouth burned with it. It might have been an instant ago. Foolish, foolish exchange, with a witch ... with the witch of the Wood, no less with all that name seemed to mean in this land, in this war-He saw the pale edge of Ela's face appear from the shadow of the cloak, like the moon from eclipse, felt her eyes on him, a regard both intimate and dangerous, as if— as if trust and mistrust and all she knew hovered only on that moment.
He wanted to be nearer to her—he could not decide to get up, and before he could persuade his weary legs to move, Ela walked back to him, arms hugging the darkness of her cloak tightly about her.
"Something happened to you," she said—as well say he had committed every treason imaginable, it was that tone of voice, it was that feeling in the air between them.
"I told you," he protested.
"I hear hear you."
He was too weary for puzzles. But she meant more than the words, she meant something dangerous, she meant treachery and lies and the fragile hope that he was not lying.
He shook his head desperately. He did not understand, he wanted her to know he did not understand even what she was talking about.
"The way you hear magic," she said. "The way you— know it. I hear you."
"Couldn't you always?" Nothing made sense to him. But he was sure of things he did not know how he knew, he was guessing things he could not possibly know, he remembered her arms about him and how in the last few moments he had felt her presence near him like a shadow in the wind, all in the desperation and scatter-wittedness of the moment—he was dreaming now. He had lost his sight or he had already been dreaming then, and he was sitting on a real stone on a real hillside looking up at her, but he was only dreaming of Ela, as a man drowning in witchcraft might reach out to a safer presence and a safer dream. Don't go away, 'he wished her. The witch will come back. I can't shut my eyes but what she comes back.