"Is she? Are you absolutely sure?"
Now that Azdra'ifc said it—-he was less so.
"There," Azdra'ik said, with a nod toward the horizon. "There is the most potent magic I know, that has moved events before now in the world. Whatever magic on this side and that may have done—the queen fences masterfully, feint and double feint and misdirect, press and provide the adversary the chance, do you see: the riposte and the waiting target, be it her heart, the queen has done everything on purpose. Disabuse yourself of all thoughts to the contrary."
"Are you her move—against the witches?"
"You might be. The young witch might be. You can't know. I can't. Even Ytresse betrayed her creator."
"The witch Ytresse."
"The witch Ytresse. My creation, the queen's . . . who's to know?"
"Your creation." Anger gathered out of that dark place in him, a muddle of desire and rage, regarding the creature that had its hand on him—he gave a shudder and knew at the same time it was the ghost, a woman's ghost, who had had a foolish, foolish knowledge of this creature. He could not move, he could hardly breathe collectedly.
"You might say," Azdra'ik said. "Surely Ylena remembers."
"Don't talk to her! Damn you, let me alone."
"So you understand what distraction can do to a witch. And how far this all reaches."
For a moment the sound of Azdra'ik's voice was faint to him. He gazed off into the darkness above the hills, and the valley where the fires of destruction still burned, faint pinpricks of red light in the darkness.
"That I'm here is no accident either," he said.
"This close to the queen's domains, nothing comes by accident. You—and I. Your assumption that you are not the queen's may be true—or false."
"I know whose I am," he said, with a sudden thought of gran, like a breath of free air. "I know who sent me."
"Who?" Azdra'ik asked, curiosity quick and alive in his glance, but Azdra'ik surely hoped for no truthful answer from him.
"Ask me tomorrow." He jerked his shoulder free. "My horse is tired. I have work to do."
"Man," Azdra'ik said, as he began to lead Lwi away. He looked back. "It's good advice," Azdra'ik said.
"I don't doubt it, m'lord goblin. I'll keep it in mind."
He led Lwi over to where Ela was trying to care for Skory. "Here," he said, "rest, I'll tend to them."
"What did he argue?" Ela asked.
"Nothing," he said. "Nothing I regard. Go sit down. They're making a camp here."
"The lake is yonder," Ela said, looking off toward the east. "The lake that the queen bargained for. That's where I have to go tomorrow."
"We both have to go there," he said, and said it not for loyalty, but in argument to what in him loathed and feared the thought. I have to, he thought. If magic brought me here, if gran was what they say, gran had something to do with this.
And would she have told me so much about this land, the way it was—for no reason? That wasn't like gran. That wouldn't be like her. Why did she tell us—if she was a witch— if we weren't someday to be here?
Bogdan and I—both of us—here.
Zadny kept just ahead, constantly just ahead—the hound might at least have trusted him after all this time together, Yuri thought, especially given he had made not a single try to stop him. But for mile after mile through this endless woods, Zadny skittered away from him like a wild thing. Twilight came, and he stumbled blind and exhausted through the brash, shouting "Zadny, Zadny!" and sometimes calling after master Karoly or Nikolai in the hope they might hear him and follow him.
But it was not until he had fallen on his face and lacked the strength to get up again that the wretch showed up and licked him in the face.
"It's too late for that," he said, and struck at Zadny with his arm. But Zadny was too quick for him, and lay down with his chin on his paws, out of reach, watching him until he could get his breath and stop his side aching and get up to his hands and knees.
Then Zadny ran again, disappearing through the brush.
"Dog!" he yelled, hoarse and furious. "Zadny!"
He scrambled after, catching his sleeves on brambles, tearing his hair and his face and hands as he dived through the twilit brush—and onto an open, rocky hillside, where a shaggy lump sat, holding Zadny in his arms.
"Krukczy!" he cried, sitting up and nursing a skinned knee. It was not fair, it was supposed to be Tamas that Zadny was following, it was supposed to be his brother, and it was not.
Then another troll appeared among the rocks. And another one. They shuffled out and squatted down next the first one, and Yuri stared in dismay.
"Krukczy?" he asked, wondering now which was which, and the one holding Zadny bobbed as if he agreed.
"Come find brothers," the troll said, "find brothers."
It was a riddle. It was powerful and it was scary and the presence of the others made him sure he did not understand trolls, but they were all the help he had in front of him, and he thought he even might know their names.
"Hasel?" he asked, and the second bowed. The third was harder. But he said, "Tajny?" and the third bobbed in trollish courtesy. So he did understand the nature of them. And Krukczy had found what he had come for, Yuri guessed, but he had not.
"You've found your brothers," he said, "but I haven't. Let Zadny go. He can find Tamas. I need him."
The trolls drew closer together, until they were like one lump.
"Dangerous," said the one he was sure was Krukczy, and the others nodded.
"Wicked queen," said the one that answered to Tajny. And Hasel, whose tower was only ruined stones, said:
"Wicked, wicked, wicked."
"Long time ago," said Krukczy, "long time even for us— the goblins go below."
"Long time ago," said Tajny, "long, comes magic back to the land. The queen bargained with the witches. Foolish witches."
"Foolish witches," said Hasel. "Foolish queen."
"Wanted the lake," Krukczy said.
"Now we go there," said Tajny. "Mistress is dead. We go there."
"Go find brothers," said Krukczy, and rose with Zadny in his shaggy arms. "Find brothers. Make the queen pay."
"I think we ought to find Nikolai and Karoly first," Yuri protested, unwilling for Krukczy to carry Zadny away, or lead him anywhere without their advice. "Karoly would know what to do."
"Not theirs to do," Krukczy said, already shambling away, and the other two got up silently and went after him,
"Wait!" Yuri called after them, afraid to make over much noise on this open hillside. He ran, got in front of Krukczy and tried to block his path. "It's not that much to wait—we can find them first."
"Not theirs to do," Tajny said, and Krukczy lumbered past him and the other two followed, relentless as a landslide.
What did one do? What was right to do? If he went back into the woods, master Karoly had said it, he had no idea where or when the forest might let him out again, or what he might meet in that shadow, alone.
Zadny, let down to walk, skipped and leaped and went with the trolls, a willing companion.
So he saw nothing wiser to do, himself.
13
EVERY BRAMBLE, EVERY HEDGE, EVERY BRANCH IN THE FOREST reached out to stay them, Nikolai swore it: he was accustomed to pass through a woods as free as a deer's shadow, but his eye could discover no path for himself, let alone for an elderly wizard on an exhausted pony—while Gracja, in Karoly's hands, had her own notion what was the easiest route down a hill—not always the wise one. She fetched up into a dead end, a narrow, leaf-walled wash barriered with a windfallen tree, and Nikolai had to climb over the trunk to reach her head.