It shimmered—and the queen's image shook.
"Zadny!" Yuri yelled from somewhere, and the startled dog was on his feet in the melee of shadows and goblins— but how that issue was, Tamas did not take two blinks to see. In the whole mirror he saw Ela by the lake.
He saw, around the mirror, Azdra'ik and a band of goblins pounding one another on the shoulders and shouting at each other like human boys . . .
He saw Nikolai, leaning on a goblin arm, limping and breathless, and suddenly Yuri running for him—through the very substance of the mirror. Zadny put himself in his path and dog and boy somehow navigated the battle-ground to reach him.
"Tamas!" Yuri was yelling, trying to hug him. Zadny was jumping at him, trying to get his attention.
But it was not done. It was not done until the mirror was entirely still and until he could see Ela, nothing but Ela's face against the night, completely occupying the mirror.
Master Karoly was in that image. He knew that without seeing him. He knew the presence of ghosts, that warred within the mirror, quarreling, in shouts and shrieks, and Jerzy, lord Sun, Jerzy complaining it was dark and unpleasant-He caught a breath, on his knees with both arms full of boy and dog. He could not move, else. He dared not move or think or wonder, so long as the image remained what it was.
Something was terribly wrong, even if things had gone right for a moment. Yuri took hold of Zadny's collar, not knowing whether to let Zadny try to wake Tamas up or whether he ought not—but when his lap was free, Tamas got slowly to his feet and went on staring at the mirror, regardless of a room full of excited goblins, or anything. "Tamas?" he said, and when he had no answer from Tamas, he looked over at Nikolai and saw Nikolai limping toward him, covered in sweat and hardly able to keep his feet—so he kept Zadny tightly in hand.
Nikolai set his hand on his shoulder, hugged him against his side, and told him they were taking Tamas out of here— "If we have to carry him," Nikolai said.
But a tall goblin said, soberly, "No. It's not over. He hasn't won."
"What's not over?" Nikolai said hotly. "What's to win?"
He did not want Nikolai starting a fight with them, not when Tamas was the way he was. He tugged at master Nikolai's sleeve to stop him.
"The young wizard has his way," the goblin said, "and our people have the hall for the moment. But nothing's certain. "Nikolai made a move to defy him and the goblin interposed his hand. "Fatally uncertain. He might die."
"Don't." Zadny was trying to get away, and Yuri held on to his collar with all his might.
"I 'm going after Karoly."
"Wizard enough is here," the goblin said, and he meant Tamas, plain as plain. "Let him finish his work."
It needed a while, simply to gain a little breath. Ela was there, as shocked, as weary, as desperate. Master Karoly was there. Karoly was the one who said, or thought, "The whole place is hanging by a thread. Don't look away, boy. Well done. Well done."
There were others present. Jerzy was indignant: I've business to take care of. I've no time for this nonsense, damn them, I've a horse in foal—
I'd care for it, Tamas thought, if I were there myself, back in Maggiar.
And Filip: What about my father? He's old. Who's to take care of him?
I won't forget, Tamas said.
Bogdan showed up in that company. But Bogdan was not speaking to him. Tamas was not surprised. He was immensely glad that Bogdan had found his friends again.
Then he heard gran speaking, shooing the other dead away too soon—but she banished one other that he felt lurking in the shadows.
Be off! You're not dead! Don't whine at me, you fool! You made your own mistakes! Leave my grandsons alone!
He was afraid for the outcome. He was not sure gran was a strong enough witch, to deal with Ylena. But he dared not all the while look away from Ela's face. He let all these things go on and he refused to give way to any diversion or trick or to look away from the only sight he was sure of.
Mirela, gran said severely.
No one calls me that, Ela protested, gazing fixedly at him, the same, holding on, only holding on, but afraid.
No one should, gran said sharply. —And you are Pavel's. And descended from Ytresse and Ylysse. That should make you cautious in your tempers, and your wants; if nothing else does. For the rest ... grandson?
"Gran?"
Remember the stories.
"Gran!"
Remember the stories, gran said again, and he could not help it, he was so startled: he began to remember exactly the way gran had told them, the woods and the waterfalls, the cities in the plain—
The lights began bobbing crazily, flitting around the watery walls and bouncing off them like housebound birds, the whole mirror began shaking, Zadny started barking, trying to get loose, but with all of that confusion going on, Yuri held on to him for dear life.
"What's going on?" Nikolai shouted at the goblins, but they looked to have no answers, either, just—
"Look at the mirror!" Yuri cried. It was changing, the reflection within it leaping from shadowy forests to starlit waterfalls, to courtyards and fountains and fields and beautiful places. Lights flitted above woodland pools, and wandered through the wood. Fairies, he realized. "Just like gran's stories!" he exclaimed, his arms wrapped about Zadny's neck and shoulders. "Tamas is doing it! He's doing it!"
Because Tamas had told him the stories, just the way, Tamas had sworn, the very words that gran had told them to him.
Doors banged open, and a wind blew through the hall, fresh and clean, direct from the outdoors.
Then Tamas turned away from the mirror, and Yuri flinched, seeing—he was not sure what he saw in Tamas' face, he only knew Tamas was still gazing off into thoughts that wanted no stupid boy interrupting, or rowdy dog jumping at him, in front of all these dangerous folk.
"Karoly's outside," Tamas said quietly. "Go and wait for me, master Nikolai. Bogdan's gone. Yuri needs to go home."
"Boy," Nikolai began to say. But Tamas only stood there, not angry, not impatient, just—that no argument was going to win with Tamas, even if Yuri had a question of his own-like, What about you going home?
But Nikolai gave him a shove, meaning they should do what Tamas wanted, and Yuri held onto Zadny and made him come away, with Zadny looking back and whining in confusion, because Zadny could not understand. That was what made Yuri saddest, because Zadny was more honest than he could let himself be.
The doors led straight out under the stars. If so many odder things had not happened, Yuri would have blinked at that; but he hardly asked himself where the tunnel had gone. Master Karoly was there, exactly the way Tamas had said. And there was the witch, hardly older than he was, on a horse, among a handful of goblin guards. But the lake was not dark and dreadful now. Fairies darted and flitted above the water. It was all very beautiful.
But it was dark and cold, all the same, walking along the shore. He was glad to see Karoly and Gracja; and master Nikolai met a surprise, too, because there was Lwi, being held by goblins. It was only three words Nikolai spent on Karoly once he saw that: he went and put his arms about Lwi's neck.
And Yuri was glad about Lwi, too. But seeing the witch sitting on horseback looking just the same as his brother did, and, staring off like that, upset his stomach.
"What are they doing?" he asked master Karoly, scared, because Karoly had something of that look, too—looking at things he could not see, listening to things he could not hear, and murmuring answers to them, what was worse.
But at least Karoly seemed not to forbid him asking. And Karoly slid down from Gracja's back and put an arm about him, dog in tow and all. Yuri set his jaw, because it made him feel a lump in his throat, and brought him very close to tears. He wished Karoly would just answer his question and not do that to him.