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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Looking about him at the trees, at a woods pathless to his eyes-where, indeed, was he?”
― 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

“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

“It glided onto the steps below him, a darkness on which metal glistened, a horrific and elegant armoring he had seen once before, in the cellars of Kruckzy Straz-a jut-jawed countenance beneath a map of dark hair and braids.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“He had found his land of once upon a time, but it was all dark, everything was grim and magical things lived here, oh, yes-trolls and witches. Of gran’s stories-at least there were pine groves, and this brook which the goblins had not so far fouled. That was true. So he could still believe in her, for what little good those stories were.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“They were riding in the sun, and Bogdan asked him-asked him something Tamas was sure-but distressingly enough, he could no longer remember the exact sound of Bogdan’s voice; or see Bogdan’s face except in shadow. Sunlight streamed about them, blindingly bright. Petals drifted down in clouds from the orchards, a blizzard of dying flowers.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“There was never a time they were lost or strayed that Nikolai had not found them and brought them home, only this time was the worst, it was by far the worst.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“She glanced past him and above, and for his part, he wanted to sit down and let the troll and the witch argue out what to do or what more they wanted with him-escape was a far, confusing enterprise, and led probably to the hands of goblins or witches, who knew?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“A slim, slight shadow stood there, wrapped in a dark cloak. A goblin, he thought at first blink-until the figure cast back the hood. A mere girl faced him, pale as the starlight and insubstantial as his grip on the world. She had a cleft in her chin. Would a sorcerer’s illusion add that human detail?”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Things were immediately dull once Bogdan and Tamas had ridden away. Night was worse, with no brothers bickering down the hall. And breakfast was altogether too grim and much too quiet.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“The packet the girl had given him smelled wonderfully of cake and spice; and he wondered who she was, or what he had done to deserve her attention. Other girls were giving out gifts of cakes or garlands to their sweethearts-but he was notoriously, famously shy of girls-everyone teased him for it, she intended to give it to Bogdan, that was most probably the answer.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Yuri had run up looking for him and Bogdan as if nothing else were going on in the yard: Bogdan was busy at the stables, in the deepest throes of packing; but Tamas had excused himself and come for Yuri’s sake; and, faced with changes that would pass without him, was suddenly beset with apprehensions.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Somebody had lost a fine dog, in Tamas’ estimation, the day Zadny had slipped his leash; he had arrived in the ice wind, starved and foot-sore, refusing every hand but Tamas’ own, from which day he was Tamas’ dog, and fastest of all the dogs Tamas used.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“Wizards’ dreams are all true and all treacherous; and if we know always what we dreamed, we’d be no wiser. I put no trust in dreams.”
― C.J. Cherryh, The Goblin Mirror

“A witch wind, country folk called the sudden storm that plunged Maggiar from autumn into winter, that stripped the colored leaves from forest and orchard all in a night.”
― 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