(Don't rely on it, the ghost said. Young fool. Her fears can overwhelm her. Fears for you, young fool. She's blind and deaf to what her mistress taught. It's disaster ...)
Azdra'ik's hand landed on his shoulder, startling him, making him look more closely than he liked into Azdra'ik's face.
"Come with me," Azdra'ik said. "I'll show you the way."
"To her?"
"As close as we can, as close as ever you'll wish."
Fear for me? he asked himself, disquieted. When did she ever care for me?
Am I doing the right thing?
They walked along the lake rim, the same path he had dreamed of Yuri taking, following the trolls. And they were not alone. Four of Azdra'ik's company were behind them— he discovered that as he glanced back.
The lake shimmered as it had in his dream, a watery flash of reflection, all around them, and above them. The stars vanished, and a gate clanged shut behind them.
15
IT WAS NOT AS IF THERE WAS ANYWHERE TO GO, IT WAS NOT as if he had tried to get away and not as if he had done anything wrong except be where his brother had not expected him, but Bogdan insisted on holding Yuri's arm as they walked the tunnel. "That hurts," Yuri cried, trying to twist loose. It did hurt. And Bogdan jerked him hard.
"Behave," Bogdan said harshly.
"I am! But where are we going? We need to find Tamas!"
"We need to find Tamas," Bogdan mocked him, and swung him around to look him in the face. "Do you know where he is? Where is he?"
"I don't know." It happened to be the truth, but me way Bogdan asked him he would not have told anything he knew. "Let me go!"
"What are you doing here?"
"I don't know." That sounded stupid. "I just decided to follow you, that's all!"
"Decided to follow us." Bogdan gave him a shake. "You're lying, Yuri. Where is he?"
"I don't know! You're hurting me! Let go!"
"Let me tell you something. They don't play games here. They don't understand boys here, they don't have any, and if you keep on like that they won't have you, do you hear what I'm saying? Don't play these people for fools. It doesn't work, here. They'll kill you, do you understand, they'll kill our mother, our father, every single one of us, if you try to play them for fools — do you understand me, little brother?"
"I don't know what you're doing with them! Why don't we run away?"
"There is no running away, get that through your head. These are dangerous people. Offend them and they'll go against us. Accommodate them and there's nothing that can stand in our way. Maggiar can rule everything from the mountains west to the river and beyond that. The goblins have no interest in ruling men. We can do that for them. We can be the power, our little Maggiar can become an important place in the world, the important place, and there's nothing in the way of that. They actually want us to succeed, do you hear?"
Maggiar being a power and the goblins keeping promises did not sound reasonable to him. He could not think what to say to Bogdan. He knew he was waiting too long to think of it; and Bogdan lost patience with talking to a mere boy and spun him about and haled him down the tunnel.
Then of a sudden—it was more a change in the place around them than the opening of a door or a gate—they were in a hall blazing with lights, and those lights floating about in arches of green stone that itself rippled with water shadows. Yuri gawked, he could not help it, he was still thinking about how they had gotten into this place, and he had never seen lights floating in the air before, or stone the color of old summer leaves, or a place as rich and powerful as this.
But he stopped gawking then, because goblins came walking toward them from all sides, some no taller than he was, some taller than Bogdan, which few people were, and all of them bristling with spiny armor and with weapons. He was ready for Bogdan to draw his sword and defend their lives from these creatures, but evidently not. Evidently these were the friends Bogdan was talking about. Bogdan only said,
"This is my younger brother. He's mine. Keep your hands off him. Understand?"
Yuri did not like the look in the goblins* eyes. Least of all did he trust the whispering behind them as Bogdan hurried him on along the fantastical hall. He had heard that kind of thing from bullies and wicked boys like his sometime friends back home. He pulled to free himself from Bogdan's grip, wanting to find the tunnel again and get out of here, because Bogdan was being stupid if he thought these were friends. But next to a carving that might have been real lily roots and lily stem, towering up and up, Bogdan set nun against the wall.
"Listen," Bogdan said, bending to look him in the face and giving him a shake. "You're safe if you do what I say. Do you hear me? We can be safe here, you and I, and Tamas can be safe here. There's an army out there burning Albaz, and Burdigen, and all the towns in the valley to the ground— because those people were stupid. That's not going to happen to Maggiar. It's not going to happen to us. . . . because you're not going to make trouble, you're not going to offend these people! Remember that before you act the fool in this place!"
He saw nothing in the way of bad things happening to him or anyone the goblins could catch, except his brother was giving orders to goblins instead of being a prisoner, and his brother was talking about goblins burning towns their gran had told stories about, stories Tamas had handed down to him after she died. He thought he should be happy that Bogdan was alive—but he had far rather know that Bogdan was the brother he remembered.
"Do you understand me?"
"Yes," he said, because he did not want his arm broken.
"Come on," Bogdan said, and pulled him along a hallway. "I want you with me. I don't want any misunderstandings."
"What happened to Jerzy and everybody?" he asked, hoping Bogdan would at least remember that something bad had happened at Krukczy Tower.
Bogdan jerked his arm so hard it brought tears to his eyes, paying no attention to his question, and Yuri suddenly had no inclination whatsoever to tell Bogdan about Karoly and Nikolai having escaped the goblins at Krukczy Straz. He was scared, really scared, since Bogdan had chosen not to answer his question about Jerzy and the rest, who had been Bogdan's friends, and the men he was leading. Bogdan had not been his favorite brother, but Bogdan had never, ever acted like this, or talked about being safe with goblins who had shot Nikolai and tried to kill Tamas and master Karoly.
Bogdan took him down one hall and into another, with the floating lights and goblins coming and going. Bogdan gave him to a goblin to watch, while Bogdan went over and talked urgently to a handful of tall goblins that looked more important than the rest, all in armor, all bristling with weapons.
Yuri calculated the chances of kicking his goblin guard in the shins and making a break for a door, but Bogdan had said don't be stupid, and that, in this place where halls happened without ordinary doors, seemed good advice, except not the way Bogdan had meant it: as he saw it, it was a question of biding his time.
So he watched the disgusting sight of his brother talking with his goblin friends, while another goblin was holding his arm, and he (he could not help it) looked up at him to get an undersided view of a goblin face, while the lights were floating around them like fireflies and congregating where Bogdan and the others were talking.
A strange sight, that face was. But he did not like it when the goblin realized what he was doing and glared down at him.
He heard the group with Bogdan say something about other goblins; and he heard Bogdan say something about promising to let him deal with Tamas himself.
So he crossed his eyes at the goblin who was glaring at him and made a face, for good measure. And the goblin clearly had his orders not to bite his head off, and did nothing. A light floated right around the goblin's shoulder and drifted off to join the others bobbing around Bogdan and the rest, where the center of interest was.