The Goblin Mirror Quotes

“Oh, man,' Azdra'ik said. 'This is what our eldest saw. This is what our legends say. Who could know, but us?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The anger, the darkness of the ghost for a moment more than the firelight, more than the hillside and the earth and the presence around them.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The firelight on the flat-nosed, jut-jawed profile lent it elegance, even comeliness-or the dreadful sights he had seen had made even a goblin face seem better to his eyes. He found himself glad of Azdra’ik talking to them, even longed to trust to voice, because it was alive and in this world.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Join us at the fire,” Azdra’ik said to Tamas. “I swear to you, I swear to you it’s rabbit and venison, nothing else. Nor has ever been. Come.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“This close to the queen’s domains, nothing comes by accident. You-and I. Your assumption that you are not the queen’s may be true-or false.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Anger gathered out of that dark place in him, a muddle of desire and rage, regarding the creature that had its hand on him-he gave a shudder and knew at the same time it was the ghost, a woman’s ghost, who had lead a foolish, foolish knowledge of this creature. He could not move, he could hardly breathe collectedly.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Azdra’ik’s hand landed unwelcomely on his shoulder. and he looked the goblin full in the face, expecting some fool trick; but Azdra’ik’s griip had no force this time.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The boy is not a killer. He hasn’t the heart to be killer.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The lady leaned forward, and rested ghostly hands on his shoulders. He felt the chill even through armor. And touched ghostly lips to his ever so gently.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“It was the voice on the tower stairs. It was the voice out of his boyish nightmares, the voice drowned in thunder and in rain and sealed behind stone.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“There were times, if one was a boy, it was a good idea not to be noticed.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Why?” he asked Azdra’ik. “Why pay so much? What am I worth to you?”

A long-nailed finger jabbed his chest. “Because, thou innocent boy, if she had had the rest of you she would have gained you, and gaining you-gained substance in this world, among other things neither you nor I would care to see. But thou’rt mine, thou art mine, man-she can’t touch the horse while I hold him nor touch me or thee by the terms we agreed. So walk! You’re bound to the witching by magic nor she nor we can mend, and by the Moon, you’re going to find her!”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Oh, I’ve served you more faithfully than you know-certainly more faithfully than you deserve. Now he’s mine. By the terms you yourself proposed, he’s mine. So begone, Ylena!”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“This is only the beginning,” the witch in the wood said, standing beside him. “Is this someone you love? She’ll find them, every one. She’ll take them all from you, if you stand in her way. Believe what I say, believe what I say, and lend me your strength, boy, and there’s nothing we can’t do.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“For a moment he looked at Bogdan, wanting desperately to believe in his safety-bit it was shameful, it was horrid. Bogdan believed in no one’s promises, and Bogdan was saying trust and believe that the queen had no wicked purposes.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“His body longed to go. He saw that Bogdan already stood there, among the dead-eyed courtiers.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Well,” she said, with that lisp that fangs made in a voice, and stared right into his soul. “Well, well, a venture against me. “How nice.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“He saw her dusky face, dreadful and beautiful at once, with eyes of murky gold. Her braids were bound with silver, her necklaces were silver and gold, her long-nailed fingers were ringed and jeweled and her arms were braceleted from wrist to elbow.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Fair turned foul and fair again, not a human beauty, but beauty all the same, constantly changing with the reelings of the moon, across the night.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“He tried to think what to do, but when he shut his eyes to think he saw a dark tower, surrounded by goblin armies, saw war, men and goblins, a queen against a queen, not knowing how he knew that. He saw the great mirror cracked, and all the world rippled and changed like a reflection in water. Images flitted by, true or false, or what had been or what would be, he had no comprehension. What was happening in this world and the other tumbled event over event in confusion: he saw Lady Moon, in thinnest crescent, shimmering on a mountain lake. A goblin warrior stood on its dark and reedy shore, a knight whose countenance changed from fair to foul with the waxing and waning of the moon’s reflection, with never a sun between.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“He turned back the way he had been facing and thought he saw a shadow between the trees, a woman, he thought, with a cloak drawn tight about her.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Looking about him at the trees, at a woods pathless to his eyes-where, indeed, was he?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“We’re going against the queen of all goblins and you wonder whose magic is stronger?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Mistress got me when I was very small. I thought she was my mother when I was a baby. But she wasn’t.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“His dream of last night came back, when he was wide awake, people and disaster and stones riven with light.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Are just the two of us going to go up and knock on the queen’s gate and say Shame on you, or what are we going to do, for the god’s sake?”

“Banish her,” Ela said. “Unweave her spells.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“There’s a woods past the second gateway. People go in and don’t come back out. My mistress said she wasn’t sure it has another side, or not always the same side, if you can’t see the path.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Murderers. You loose your hounds to do your work, what’s the difference?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The goblin turned up next to him, at the edge of the woods, making the horse nervous, watching him as if he were the object of its intention.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The goblin watched them make a fire, the goblin watched them make breakfast, the goblin watched them eat it, and Tamas glowered at it. His head was throbbing, his eyes felt full of sand, and only motion kept his mind from straying down the same unpleasant and useless paths it had followed all night.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror