Not an ordinary forest, the old man said, and Gracja objected to being saddled—smart horse, Nikolai thought, cinching up. There was no question which of them had to ride today. Their wind-blown wizard looked as if a breeze hereafter would carry him body from soul—his hands were shaking, his steps were wobbling: clearly the old man had had all he could bear, and one could give him credit for courage if not for success with his magicking.
If only the old man could have done something about the boys, or magicked Yuri home, or something useful, but there was no place to put the boy, that was the problem—no place to put the boy and meanwhile Tamas was going deeper and deeper into trouble, so far as the ghosts said anything useful toKaroly.
Even the dog was quiet this morning, pressing himself as close to Yuri as he could get. The dog knew there were things he could not get his teeth into, and things that could chill a body into shivers and haunt his sleep—if a body could get any, with skulkings and prowlings all about their circle last night. The little that Nikolai had slept, he had dreamed of ambush, and Krukczy Straz, and the hillside and the birds circling.
Prophetic, it might be.
Meanwhile the old man was sitting waving his hands at the fire and talking to it. If other old men did that, the neighbors gossiped.
"We'd better get moving," he said.
"He's doing magic," Yuri said.
"He's doing magic. He's been doing magic since yesterday morning." For his part he had as lief sit here and let the old man magic up an answer that would save them going through that gateway, but he had no trust that would ever happen, and no trust that matters were not getting worse for Tamas while they sat here. "Come on, old man, are you learning anything? Or should we douse the fire and be out of here?"
The fire went out. Gone to cold cinders. That was impressive.
"No need to waste your strength," he murmured, rethinking the old man's value and the old man's awareness of the situation. Karoly the pot-wizard he was no longer, and perhaps never had been, that much had been clear since yesterday. "Do you want to get up on the horse, or are we still going?" It had been rush and haste and hurry, before the old man had started meddling with the fire. Half an hour ago nothing would do but speed; and half an hour ago the old man had looked on his last legs.
Now Karoly leaned on the staff that had rested against his shoulder; and changed as he was, more lined in the face, whiter of hair, there was a force to Karoly as he rose that made Nikolai think twice about the dead embers and what a life and a fire had in common.
"War and famine," Karoly said in a low voice. "That's all I see. The cities of the plain are under siege. The world reflects the mirror now, not the other way around. God hope they don't lose it."
"Lose what?" Nikolai had to ask.
"The fragment. The one piece that still reflects this world."
"How do you know it does?"
"Because we're here, working against her."
"You mean—" Yuri asked the question. "If it reflects us not being here—"
"—we won't be here."
Enough to upset a man's stomach. "Then why in hell didn't we go last night?" Nikolai asked, and went and brought Gracja back for the old man to mount. "Wait around here with ghosts prowling around—what worse can the ghosts do to us? They can't lay hands on us ..."
"Don't depend on it," Karoly said—the way Karoly said things and then held his silence, when a body most wanted to understand.
"Get up on the horse." Nikolai held the reins for him, turned the stirrup and helped him up—Gracja vergfed on horse-sized, a stout pony showing her ribs by now, wanting farrier's tools the boy had come away without: and she took the old man's armored weight with a laying-back of her ears and a stolid plod forward before Karoly took up the reins, as if she knew already they were bound for the gateway.
Or maybe it was like the fire just now, and Gracja had her orders.
Fire crackled. Goblins needing to make no secret of their presence, they were beginning breakfast. They spoke together in a language of lilt and necessary lisp, not without reference to the unwilling guests among them, Tamas was certain—good-natured reference, cheerful reference, oh, yes, of course. It was their fire and their breakfast.
They had not disarmed him. But then no one had, who had ever had the choice. Evidently he did not look that much of a threat to anyone—which did not please him, but it was not, master Nikolai would say, an excuse to be the fool they took him for. He had gotten to unsaddle the horses and give them rest, he had brought their personal belongings to where Ela was sitting, next the fire-making, none of which the goblins prevented, but there was always one watching him, leaning lazily on a spear but never failing attention. He set down the baggage, sat down beside Ela, and darted a glance at Azdra'ik talking with one of his fellows.
From Ela there had not been a single word, not a supposition, not an opinion: counting the sharpness of goblin ears, discussing their choices probably was not wise. Ela had the mirror and Ela had chosen not to use it—Ela surely knew the danger they were in and knew the choices, but she was evidently no freer than he was, and he wished he dared advise her: she looked so young and so shattered in her confidence at the moment. Speak, he dared not; and as for knowing her mind—he could make no guess, only anxiously wonder what Azdra'ik was about—whether Azdra'ik thought that, having the witch of the Wood in his hands, he might have use of the mirror; or whether he expected some great reward of his queen for returning it to her.
Spits and forked sticks had gone into the fire, propped on stones, holding flesh black and shriveled already from some previous smoking: their owners set them to heat, each goblin to his own breakfast, as it seemed, no preparation of cakes or bread—and increasingly now his and Ela's place of warmth and refuge near the fire began to acquire companions.
A goblin settled on Ela's other side, and Azdra'ik himself sat one place removed on his side, with a stick on which he impaled something and propped it on the rocks that rimmed the fire, the same as the others had done. All about them now were goblin faces, jutting jaws and flat noses, ears not where ears ought to be. Not untidy creatures, Tamas had to admit: hair, manes, whatever one might call it, were cleanly, black and wavy, some, or straight; loose or in braids; some about the face, some in back. Most wore rings in the ears, and one—Tamas could not help but stare, amazed—had a ring in his right nostril, evidently no inconvenience to the goblin.
And he could not but wonder at the wealth in the armor, of every least goblin in the lot—the most of it was brown and black, plain leather, the sort that foresters might wear; but the knives, the swords, the armlets and other pieces that they wore were blued steel inlaid with brass and gold and silver, and the chain where it showed at sleeve-edges and tunic-hems shone brighter and finer than any he had seen. They were none of them impoverished, who managed ornament like that; nor they had the look of bandits: what they wore was well fitted. Lords indeed—arrogant lords, who laughed, and cast one another grins, with glances back at them.