Karoly still did not answer his question. He only said, "I have him. He's all right. He's very worried about you."
It was Tamas he was talking to, Yuri understood that of a sudden. It made him feel both better and worse.
"I know," Karoly said, but he was still talking to Tamas. "I will. I understand." Karoly gave his arm a hug. "He'll be here."
"Who?" Yuri asked quietly, trying not to interrupt something. But it must have been him that Karoly was talking about this time, because Karoly did not answer him.
Deeper and deeper the change had to go, then, down into the earth, and into realms where strange things moved, old things, that ages of the earth had cast aside. And gran had talked about dragons and such, and said how they were cold and proud, and how one should never promise them anything, so he did not. Gran had said about the creatures of stone and ice, how they were not to trust, but, slow-moving and deliberate, they came above in winters, to howl in the mountain heights, and they had their place in faery.
The greatest and the lesser, and latest the things that could not change: it was only a matter of knitting those things together, one thing touching everything, as it had been.
And last it was a matter of letting go of things that seemed to have grown into one's soul.
And doing justice that had not been done.
He shut off seeing. It was a moment before he could knit Tamas back together, and be different from Ela, or the earth. It was self-blinding. It felt like darkness and smothering. But he endured it, and held himself to it, and eventually flesh and bone grew easier to wear and less heavy. He could open his eyes and move his hand and turn his head toward the goblins that stood watching and waiting for their banishment.
The goblin queen was already below, with every one else of her half-goblin creatures: he had seen to that, among the first things. But he looked at Azdra'ik, at nameless others, and set his hand on the dagger that was Azdra'ik's gift.
"Nothing from you," he said, "comes without attachments. And what did this come with?"
"My help," Azdra'ik said, without flinching. "When you were a young and weaponless fool."
He laughed. He could not help it. And probably there was a spell on the gift. There was when he drew it and gave it back, and caught Azdra'ik's arm in his and said he should come outside.
"Are we dispossessed?" Azdra'ik insisted to know as they walked. "Is that part of this bargain?"
"I named no bargain."
"There has to be one."
"No, no, no, master goblin. There is no bargain. You're in my debt, is what you are. From now on."
"No more than you're in mine! Who bought you free? Who carried you out of the woods? Who—?"
But they were at the doors, and what he had seen in the mirror, Azdra'ik could see for himself, and Azdra'ik freed himself and stood gazing at the lake, with its flitting and gliding lights.
"Oh, man," Azdra'ik said. "This is what our eldest saw. This is what our legends say. Who could know, but us?"
"My grandmother," he said, wondering suddenly about gran's sources.
But something broke the mirror stillness of the lake, and disturbed the skimming lights, something large and dark, that surfaced and dived again.
"What's that?" Yuri exclaimed. But in a moment more he knew for himself, as a trollish head broke the surface. And vanished again.
"Careful!" Karoly said, but Zadny set up a frantic barking, straining to get free, such a lunge he slipped Yuri's grip and evaded Yuri's dive after him.
Straight into the water Zadny ran, splashing and barking, and one and another huge head broke the surface.
"Krukczy!" Yuri shouted.
One splashed. But they kept surfacing and diving so quickly, swimming in a circle, that it was impossible to tell.
"What are they doing?" he asked master Karoly; but Nikolai had come to see, too, and Nikolai muttered, "Lost their minds. Happy, one supposes."
The witch came, with her cloak wrapped about her, walking along the shore. The goblins gathered to watch. And from up the shore—
"Tamas!" Yuri said. "It's Tamas, with the goblins!"
"Four of them!" Nikolai exclaimed, but he was not counting goblins. There were four dark heads in the lake, and Zadny, running back and forth along the shore and barking as if he had lost his wits.
"Krukczy," said the witch, "and Tajny, and Hasel."
"And Ali'inel," Karoly added. "This place."
Their circle had grown tighter and tighter. And a bright spot grew in the water, bright as the sun. Their circle widened and it grew and grew. They dived all at once, in the middle of it.
But the light kept going, until it lit all the lake, bright as day; and then it brightened the ground right under their feet, and crept up their legs and up the sides of the hills and up the foundations of a beautiful tower just past where Tamas and the goblins were.
The light kept going until it had topped the tallest trees on the tops of the hills, and then it went right up into the sky, on all sides at once. And where it began to meet, in the height of heaven, the bright edges came together in a glare the eyes could not look at. It was noon, that was all. The night might never have been.
But Zadny stood looking at the lake, with now and again a bewildered bark, then ran, wet as he was, straight for Tamas.
Yuri ran after him: he could only think of Zadny making some trouble for Tamas. But he stopped in confusion when he saw the goblins, that seemed somehow—different. Not vastly changed. But maybe sunlight favored them—lent them a touch of mystery and magic, a touch of mischief, a touch of merriment. He would not have been afraid of these goblins—in awe of them, oh, yes. He was.
But not Zadny. Zadny jumped up on Tamas while he had stopped to stare and had his dusty armor all wet and muddy.
But it was his brother, because Tamas laughed, weary as he was, caught the hound in one arm and held out the other for him.
"Come here," Tamas called to him. "Yuri, come meet a goblin lord."
At such a chance, how could anyone hesitate?
But all the same, Yuri thought, the night of the third day on the lake shore, watching Tamas walk hand in hand with Ela, and the two of them talking that way wizards talked with each other, that no one but a wizard could hear—all the same, he did not want Tamas to have magic. It was all very fine to have supper with goblins and have trolls living at the bottom of the lake, and fine, he supposed, to have the occasional ghost straying in from the mysterious Wood, where things did not just go away in the ordinary fashion (Ylena's spell, master Karoly said, something about preserving her own life)—but Tamas was very preoccupied, very sad, sometimes, Yuri thought, about Bogdan, and it was clear to him that he was going home and Tamas would not.
I don't know why I have to explain to our parents why, Yuri thought bitterly. I don't know why Bogdan acted like that, except he never could stand to be second to anybody, and I don't know why Tamas and that girl are both like that, Tamas isn't ready to get married yet, and mama certainly wouldn't approve of her. I don't think papa would.
She was brave, though, and a witch (a sorceress, Karoly said) and she was looking right at him right now, giving him the most uncomfortable notion that she and Tamas were talking about him.
He glared at her, and turned his head and glared at the fairy-lights on the lake, and thought about Krukczy.
Tamas was going to keep Zadny. Tamas said wizards might understand Zadny, but the houndsmaster never could, and if he went home with him, he would only get in trouble. And that was all right. Zadny knew who he wanted.
But he did not want to talk to Ela, and Tamas was bringing her in his direction. He watched the fairy-lights instead, and told himself they were very pretty. Seeing gran's land was very well, too, but it was going to be better to see Maggiar.