Shut up, he told the ghost, and feared it would find a way yet to harm them. It was vengeful. It had learned treachery at its mother's knee. He—had learned it from Azdra'ik ... he had learned it from Karoly, if he knew how to recognize guile at all.
An unarmed babe, he told himself, a boy who should not have left his father's roof to be put where he was set, to fight a war where truth was bent and what one saw and what was were at war.
Why, gran? Why didn't you teach us more?
Stories about the fairies and green valleys and magic waterfalls? What kind of help was that? Was that all you could think to give your grandsons? They said you were wise. They said you were a great and dreadful witch. And, fairy-tales? Was that the limit of your magic?
Damn it, gran! What are we going to do tomorrow? If I've got one ghost, why not yours? Couldn't you manage that, if witches have the run of the forest?
Hate him, the voice came back, soft and bitter; and he was looking at Azdra'ik's back, thinking that he could never take the creature face to face, that somewhere in this Azdra'ik meant to betray them—that at some time he would have to take the creature, from this vantage if he could, preferably from this vantage, and with no one else to know—because he was not a fighter. And not, evidently, a wizard either, who could bend the creature to anything useful.
Be rid of him, echoed deep inside him. Protect yourself. You have too much value. Think of your own kind.
It left him a different feeling than the first ghost—less violent, more cold. Gran? he wondered. Is that gran? Or is it lying? Or is it something else altogether?
Many of the goblins had gone away from the fire, some to pallets spread about, some to the shadows. He saw them, he felt Ela's touch on his arm and felt her departure, he supposed for sleep. He watched her walk to where they had set their packs, near the horses, was aware as she wrapped her cloak about her, settled down and tucked up against the saddles and the packs. All the camp was settling, and oh, he wanted the idea of sleep—but he feared it, feared the ghost and its treacheries. He only wrapped himself in his cloak for comfort against the wind and decided at least to loose the buckles about his collar and his ribs, and find himself a comfortable way to prop himself, head on arms, simply to rest his smoke-stung eyes and armor-weary shoulders.
To his dim suspicion the ghost did not immediately trouble him. The dark within the shadow of his folded arms was empty and comfortable; he saw only—imagined—he was sure—a night clear and sparkling with stars. Not a bad dream, he decided, not a threatening dream. He heaved a sigh and imagined himself walking along boggy ground that seemed somehow familiar to him. He could not remember when he had acquired the memory, but he thought certainly he had seen it before, every detail of the reeds and the starlit water at their roots, at just this moment, on just this night.
The moon was a sliver of herself, embracing shadow. That, he saw, looking up, and then saw the whole lake, and the dark hills, like a blow to the heart.
No, he thought in fright, wanting escape, because he did know this shore, this lake—he had had this dream before, and it was a trick and a trap that had brought him here.
But before he could look away a movement drew his eye: came a troll past him in the dark, one troll, and another and another. That was enough: he did not want to see more than that. The dream was about to revert to the nightmare in the tunnel, and that might be preferable to this place, but he most wanted to wake up and have no dreams at all.
Then came a pale doglike shape down the hill. It looked for all the world like Zadny, and he could not understand why he would dream about that.
After the dog came a boy, so like Yuri in every way that his heart ached with homesickness. He stood perhaps a moment longer than he should have, watching Yuri chase after the hound who chased the trolls. It made no sense, it made absolutely no sense, except in his attempt to change this dreadful lake shore into something he knew, perhaps his dreams were going to be better disposed to him and show him something he longed to see. The three trolls—that was a bizarre touch, and there was enough of nightmare and of memory both about that apparition to disturb him; but seeing Yuri—cautions fell out of his mind. He even tried to call out to Yuri, reckless of the dark and the wild shore, but in the perverse way of dreams, he could not get a sound out, or run, when he tried—no matter what his effort he could travel no faster than a walk, as if the land resisted him, as if, in this dream, he could not recall the next bit of ground beneath his feet fast enough to enable him to go faster—he could not look down and look at Yuri at once, and he feared something else appearing, every time he took his eyes off his brother.
He walked and walked, while the trolls had gone farther than was safe—there was a guard on the lake that he knew was the goblins' lake, and the three trolls had gone past that point, he was sure they had. He began to be afraid where this dream was going, and told himself that it was of no concern, his dream was powerless to harm anyone, and he could withstand any fright it offered: Yuri was home safe in bed. He was the one in real danger tomorrow. If he hoped anything good would come from the dream, he hoped if Yuri was dreaming, too, Yuri might hear him and wake up with a memory of talking to him, and remember it. Maybe that was what this dream was for. And, if that was the case, he did not want to tell Yuri how afraid he was, or how dreadful this place was, he simply wanted to say—Do what's right, do what's wise, Yuri, mind papa and grow up, and if I don't make it home-No, he did not want to scare the boy. I've had adventures, he would say, if he could. I've met this girl—
No, not that either: Yuri would make fun of him and girls. And how could he explain Ela to his family?
—I don't think mother would like her.
But I think—where would I be without her? And where would she be without me? She's very brave, Yuri. I don't think she ever had a friend but Pavel and her mistress, and that's no way to grow up. I think—
I think I needed someone like her. And you really would like her. If she were your age she'd climb trees and run races.
God, he thought then, she is Yuri's age, isn't she? And in his dream he said:
Yuri, if I get home I'll have the time to do things you wanted to do. ... I really mean to, this time . . .
All these things he made up in his mind to say, so perhaps they were said. He walked along beside Yuri, chattering like a fool about anything he could think to say. But after a time he could go no further, he did not know why, he just stopped, or Yuri was getting ahead of him; and Yuri just kept walking, farther and farther along the shore, where Zadny had gone, where the trolls had.
Come back, he tried to say. Yuri! Come back!
But Yuri trudged along the boggy, reed-rimmed shore until he was part of the shadows.
Then came a slight shimmering of the lake, as if someone had shaken water in a goblet. Water lapped at the reeds. Metal clanged in that impenetrable darkness, like a gate gone shut, and he tried to go forward, but he could not take a step, could not call out, could not move.
And Zadny came running from out of that darkness, running for his very life.
Zadny! he cried silently, as the hound hurtled past him and up the hill. Halfway up, Zadny stopped and looked back, tail tucked, as if he had heard, after all, but he spun about and began to run again, to the top of the hill, where he vanished, as the lake did, as the shore, and the sky, the way dreams began to come apart when they had made their point.
He saw the drifting of a shape in this half-dream. He heard the ghostly voice saying, Fool, it's not a dream, never think things are only dreams, here.
He opened his eyes on dark that promised nothing of morning and gave not a hint of time passed or yet to come. He achieved a few moments of sleep and sleep left him with nothing but troubling images—did not purge his mind of nightmares or break off the chain of sleepless yesterdays and yesternights that ran unbroken through his awareness. His very bones felt now as if a force ran through him, insufficient to sustain him and too intense to make breathing easy. The movement of goblins about their watch, the flicker of the fire, all floated through his awareness, disjunct from every experience, every memory equally important: dreams of home, dreams of the ghost, with never a boundary of dark in which he could say, Asleep, or Awake, or know unequivocally past from future.