Tamas did. He would not have, before the troll, before the tower, before the woods, before he entertained a ghost within him. The firelight on the flat-nosed, jut-jawed profile lent it elegance, even comeliness—or the dreadful sights he had seen had made even a goblin face seem better to his eyes. He found himself glad of Azdra'ik talking to them, even longed to trust the voice, because it was alive, and in this world.
"After hundreds of years," Azdra'ik went on, in the soft crackle of the fire, "after so long a time, the witch Mirela read our stones and our signs and sought us out; and in exchange for a magic she could not do—one night a year we might see the world again. Of course we would agree. What would we not, for the smallest glimpse of moonlight? Then— you know the story—her daughter Ylena also found the way to us. Set me in my mother's place, Ylena begged us, and offered us a year to see the sun and the moon. For that, again—what would we not do? But it was an ugly bargain this witch wanted. We knew what she intended. Some of us spoke for and some against—but our queen in her cleverness said that any wrong Ylena did was a human's choice and a human's crime: that as the guilt of one goblin had damned us, the guilt of this woman was to free us. So she took the witch's bargain. We gained our year, and for all that year-can you imagine? We did everything, everything we had dreamed of since I was born—we walked in the sunlight, we saw the colors, we enjoyed every flavor and texture the world has to offer. We were happy . . . except one thing: that no matter our virtue or our fault, Ylena meant to send us back to exile."
(Virtue, the ghost laughed, and Tamas felt cold inside.)
"So the queen cast a spell, that Ylena should have a child Ylena did not want, despite all her magic—in which—" Azdra'ik made a small gesture. "I was an instrumentality."
"You, "Ela said.
"I was," Azdra'ik said, with a downward glance, "in a position of trust. And it was not a position I cared for, let me say."
The anger, the darkness of the ghost was for a moment more than the firelight, more than the hillside and the earth and the presence around them. "Damn you!" burst from Tamas' lips, and he swallowed down the torrent that wanted to follow, stopped his own arm in mid-reach toward Ela and the mirror and knotted both hands together between his knees, where they were safe, where he could not reach after what Ela would not, not yield to him—
Not, not, not, he told himself, daring not shut his eyes, staring into the fire until the light hurt and burned and he could not see the darkness inside him.
"... he's dreaming awake," Azdra'ik's voice was saying, and he became aware of Ela's hand on his arm, shaking him. "One simply shouldn't bed down with ghosts."
"I didn't," he said between his teeth, acutely aware of Ela's presence. "Don't listen to him."
"Or witches," Azdra'ik said, "but, after all, tomorrow things will be different—in one way or another."
"You were telling us," Tamas said, hands clenched, "what your own share of this is."
"Ah. That."
"Why should we believe anything you say?"
"Man, man, you prejudge us."
"What's the difference, you or the creatures that attacked the towers? What's the difference, you and the ones burning the cities down there?"
"Because we are not burning the cities down there. The queen tricked Ylena and held the land, and had a hold over Ylena's heir. Well enough if it had stopped there, if the queen or even Ylena could have been content—"
The things the goblin was saying roused echoes, memories of great halls, and goblin courtiers, and music, memories of a reflection that swam in liquid silver—a face that was his ... or hers, or the queen's, he was not sure, he only knew he did not want to see it clearly. He bit his lip until it hurt.
"I betrayed the secrets of the mirror," Azdra'ik said, "for one reason: if Ylena could have ruled her mirror, the queen with hers could never have prevailed over the world entirely; Ylena's wickedness aside, if another mirror existed, there would be another power—and if one witch failed our measure . . . even if one witch was with the queen's, her ambition would have led her to wield her mirror for her own interests. Therefore any shaping the queen would cast on the great mirror would always have its rival and neither one could prevail. That was our plan."
Anger grew and grew in him, the ghost troubling him so that he could scarcely sit still. He saw dark behind the fire, a great mirror swirling with baleful images—and he would not, would not consult the knowledge that lodged, screaming for attention, behind his teeth.
"The fragment," Azdra'ik said, "was our unexpected result. Ytresse ruled, then Ylysse, before Ysabel. Any of the three you might have met within the Wood: but when you were lost there, Tamas, my innocent, you strayed straight to the magic that had most claim on your presence. Of all ghosts in that wood, you met only Ylena. And that tells me there's more to this than a fledgling fool's bad luck."
Thoughts tumbled one over the other. The goblin was half shadow, half light. "You," Azdra'ik said, "you—resound— of magic. Yet you're deaf to it. You come from over-mountain to Ylena's doorstep. And the witchling crosses your path, with the fragment. And . . . much against my advice," Azdra'ik said, looking at Ela, "you've looked into the mirror. What you see the queen can see, if she dares invoke your world within the great mirror. You've guessed that, surely. Tomorrow, you have to compel her to see—what you wish. That's the whole business of the mirror. It's so dreadfully simple."
Ela said nothing.
"Do you understand?" Azdra'ik asked. "Do you want-perhaps—a year to think about it? To grow older? To bear children and pass this burden on? The i'bu okhthi can hide you—we will hide you, and set you away in safety where the queen may not reach you."
"No," Ela said shortly.
"Pride," said Azdra'ik. "Pride is a deadly matter."
"I don't believe," Ela said, "that there is anywhere safe."
"What do you say, young Tamas?"
He thought of Maggiar this time. He thought of home and orchards and their woods and the mountain trails that led straight to the heart of this land, and he thought of gran, and Karoly, and how gran had frightened them and Karoly had taken them over-mountain in full knowledge of where he was bringing them.
"There's no hiding," he said. "There's no hiding place even for a single year, that I know of."
A long time Azdra'ik looked at them, one and the other. Tamas thought—even began to hope—that Azdra'ik might know something he did not, and offer them a place.
"None that I would trust implicitly, no. No cradle for fools. No hiding place. Besides that we have no way off this hillside without more magic man we've yet seen, young witch. Make the sun come up. Make the day come. There's your first challenge."
"No," Ela said. "No. I won't fight her about that."
"What will you fight her for?" Azdra'ik asked and the ghost in Tamas listened, oh, it listened, and he trembled.
Ela said, "I'd be a fool to say. Mistress said—never give that away to anyone. I think she meant anyone. And I won't."
Anger welled up, anger he hoped was not his, at her obstinacy, at her damning them to this encounter, at her refusal to argue or to listen ... anger at Azdra'ik, who rose from beside them and walked away to the edge of the fire, a dark and martial figure that might have been human.
Not my anger, he told himself, struggling with the presence in him. Not my resentments, not my advice.