"It's me," Tamas said. But the mirror showed another image before him—: Bogdan, in every detail it was Bogdan.
"Come across," Bogdan said, beckoning him. "Tamas, bring Yuri, and come here."
"No," Azdra'ik said under his breath. "That's the queen's work. Pass through that surface and he can touch you."
"Tamas."
He thought how his company must look to Bogdan, and he had the thought to explain to Bogdan it was safe and he was not a prisoner, but suddenly there were goblins at Bogdan's back, too, a good many of them, a hall, bright with lights, and it was himself who stood in shadow, with his younger brother dazed and trying to choose what was real. It was the look on Yuri's face he could not bear, the doubt between the two of them.
"Yuri," he said. "Yuri, can you answer me?"
"Yes," Yuri's image said, sounding like Yuri's very self if Yuri were frightened out of good sense. " I hear you."
"What should I do, Yuri? Should I listen to him?"
"No," Yuri said definitely enough.
"The boy doesn't understand," Bogdan said. "Tamas, I want you to take Yuri and bring him with you. I've a guarantee of your safety."
"The queen's promises," Azdra'ik said.
"Shut up!" he hissed at Azdra'ik. "Bogdan. Are you free to come to this side?"
"Free, "Bogdan said. "Free, yes. But I want you to come to me. You'll be safe. I promise you."
The rippling surface belled outward and gained a portion of the hall. "Tamas!" Yuri yelled in dismay as the mirror snatched him back, and Tamas made a desperate reach for him, but goblin hands held him back.
"Come on!" Bogdan said. But Yuri was not pleased with where he was. Tamas saw the shake of Yuri's head and stopped struggling with the goblins' hold on him.
"Back up," Azdra'ik said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "We're losing, back up. We can't press it yet."
"No," he said. Backing up and leaving Yuri and Bogdan there—even the illusion of his brothers—he could not risk losing them. He tried to feel Ela's presence. He reached for magic, and intended the wall to waver the other way and give up his brothers, by the god, it would.
He held steady, at least—the surface shook one way and the other, as if a stone had struck it.
"What are you doing?" Bogdan asked.
"Wizardry," said a lisping, soft voice from somewhere among the goblins, at Bogdan's back, "Grandson of Kaiply Magus—the gift you don't own, your brother Tamas clearly does. He has magic enough to make him a power in the world. Did he tell you that on the other side of the mountains, or did he keep it secret from you? Clearly we have the lesser brother on our side."
Tamas heard it, angry at its insinuations, he heard it and he saw Bogdan half-turn to cast a look behind him, and, in the same moment, knew the way he knew his brother's character what that cursed voice had done to them, what a soreness it had touched, the same that he had protected in Bogdan with every duck of his head, every taunt turned and every provocation declined that his brother had offered him.
Damn you, he thought on the instant, a lifetime's evasions all come to this.
"You're no wizard," Bogdan said, angrily. "You're no wizard."
"Bogdan—"
"—I want you to come here," Bogdan said.
"He didn't tell you," the insidious voice said. "But certain ones had to have known. And lay odds that your brother knew—and Karoly Magus. Probably even the servants—"
"I didn't," Tamas said. "That's rubbish, Bogdan, for the god's sake, what are we talking about? Get out of there. Walk out. Give me your hand and hold on to Yuri."
"To do what? To have Maggiarburn? But maybe you don't care about things like that—Tamas Magus."
"Oh, for the god's sake, Bogdan, I never hid anything from you. I don't even know what they say is true, I don't know to this day that it's true—don't listen to them, this is family, this is our family, Bogdan, not some strangers' word on it—"
"Then come over here. Do what I tell you. They're willing to have us rule Maggiar, to have us rule over all the world* on our side of the mountains. They'll let us do as we please, Tamas, one kingdom after another—"
He shook his head. "You. Over here."
"Am I the oldest, Tamas?"
"You're the oldest."
"Do I know better than you do? I'm telling you what to do, little brother."
"No. Bogdan; don't listen to them. We don't have to take their terras. We can beat them. Get Yuri out of there."
"He's very confident," the voice said, thick with fangs— and it began to sound feminine to his ears. "Isn't he?"
"Shut up," Tamas said to the queen—he was sure it was the queen—and the mirror shook.
"Wizard," the goblin queen said. "Come across. You can be with your brothers. You can have any reward you like."
"No."
"Tamas," Bogdan said.
"He won't listen to you," the goblin queen said. "He knows everything."
"He'll listen," Bogdan said, in his no-nonsense way, his side of the mirror advanced as he strode forward, and Tamas backed a pace: he had learned when he was five to back up when Bogdan sounded like that and came in his direction. But his back met a wall of armored goblins—and Yuri was held by goblins on the other side.
"Get hold of him," Tamas said, turning to Azdra'ik, trying to avoid the fight Bogdan was pressing. "Hold on to him."
But that was the wrong thing to have said. Bogdan drew his sword with a rasp of metal that made the mirror shiver.
"Put it away," Tamas said, turning again. "Bogdan. Put it—"
Bogdan sliced through the mirror surface between them and Tamas jumped back as goblin steel rang out. Swords cleared their scabbards on either side, and Tamas was still trying to evade Bogdan's attack, empty-handed.
"No, Bogdan!" A second close pass, the wind of which passed his cheek: he flinched back again, hard against a goblin arm—parry him, was his desperate thought, he drew on the retreat, brought the sword up and Bogdan's blade clanged against it with a shock that jolted his wrists.
"Bogdan, quit it!" he cried, but there was the queen's laughter from beyond the barrier, there was Yuri shouting to watch out. "Bogdan! They want mis, stop it!"
Blow after blow came at him and he kept turning them. No one else was fighting. They all were watching, one side and the other of the mirror surface, and jeers came from Bogdan's side. "Go on," the goblins shouted, and Yuri shouted at them to stop it—but he could not drop his guard without Bogdan cleaving him in two, and Bogdan's strokes were growing wild and desperate, ringing through the blade to his bones. The clangor filled his ears, rang over the wailing protests of the ghost, rang over the goblin voices and into the watery walls that shook to the sound of blades.
Stroke met and next stroke met: he was unwilling to back up, but he had no choice. Azdra'ik was shouting advice at him he could not hear, Yuri was yelling and his arms and his wrists were buckling under the clanging and hammering. Get the sword away from him, was what his good sense screamed at him, but doing that to Bogdan was no easier than reasoning with him when Bogdan's pride was at stake.
"They want this!" he shouted, in the hope that Bogdan was wearing down enough to hear him. "Bogdan, they've got Yuri."
"I'm not a fool!" Bogdan shouted. His face was suffused with anger, his eyes were crazed with it. "You're so damned smart, you're so damned clever, don't you think I know what you were doing getting into our company, you and Karoly—?"
He hardly had the wind to argue. Get it away from him, was all he could think of, trying to wield a goblin sword in a wearying defense, with Azdra'ik's company yelling in his ear and Azdra'ik himself shouting advice he could not consciously hear over the ringing in his ears. He made an overreach with the blade, tried to hang Bogdan's blade with the quillon-spine on his and almost succeeded; but Bogdan's strength jerked the blade half out of his grip before the imperfect hold raked free. He made a desperate recovery. The goblins yelled advice. A familiar hand landed momentarily on his shoulder and shoved him. Azdra'ik shouted, "Attack, fool!"