Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ithanalin's Restoration

"You., " Kilisha said. She checked to make sure the bowl and spoon were securely confined, then took a step toward the spriggan. "You let them out, didn't you?"

The spriggan nodded. "Fun?" it said uncertainly.

Kilisha growled and reached for it.

The spriggan, moving far more suddenly than Kilisha would have thought possible, sprang over her outstretched hand, made a right-angle turn on one foot, then dashed out through the parlor door, weaving between the bench's legs and bounding over a rope.

Kilisha followed, calling, "Lock the door!"

The latch clicked helplessly; Kelder had left the door standing open, and the latch could not reach the frame to obey. The spriggan dodged around the edge and vanished into the street.

"Oh, blood and death!" Kilisha muttered, as she narrowly avoided tripping over the ropes and catapulted herself across the parlor. She snatched the door open and ran outside.

The spriggan was heading west; she could just see it, scurrying past three startled pedestrians. She charged after it.

The three passersby stared, and one called out a question, but Kilisha could spare no time for them; she ran on, chasing the spriggan. She had to squeeze around a wagon the spriggan ran under, then dodge around a puddle the spriggan ran through, but she was slowly gaining.

"Apprentice!" someone called, and she looked up just in time to avoid running directly into a woman in green velvet. She skidded to a stop and belatedly recognized Lady Nuvielle.

"I was just on my way-" Nuvielle began.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Kilisha gasped. "No time right now!" Then she stepped to the right and dashed past the startled noblewoman.

The encounter had cost her precious seconds, and the spriggan was almost out of sight. She lowered her head and ran all-out, her skirt and hair flapping behind her. She felt her hair ornament slip out of place, falling down behind her ear, but she ignored it as she ran.

They were almost to Cross Avenue when she finally dove forward, landing flat on the dirt of the street, and grabbed for the spriggan with both hands.

Her right hand missed, but her left closed on one scrawny leg. The creature squawked, waving its arms wildly, but she held on.

"Let go! Let go!" it shrieked.

"Never," Kilisha said, closing her right hand around its plump throat. With her prize thus secured, she slid forward, tucking her elbows under her. Then she pulled in her knees, so that she was on all fours, then slowly and carefully got to her feet, keeping both hands and both eyes fixed solidly on the spriggan.

She stood in the street, aware that the front of her apprentice's robe and her hands and arms were all smeared with black dirt, aware that several people were staring at her, but with her attention focused entirely on the spriggan.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, her voice trembling.

The thought that the spriggan might have gotten away was terrifying; if that happened she would never be able to restore her master to life! Finding an enchanted couch or a runaway bench was one thing; those were unusual, and magical, and could be tracked down somehow. Finding one specific spriggan, though, in all the city, in all the World, a spriggan that not only had the normal stealth and idiot cunning of its kind, not only had a sprig-gan's innate resistance to wizardry, not only could pick locks with its fingernails, but that could not be bound because it held the essence of Ithanalin's athame…

That would have been virtually impossible.

"Do what?" it squeaked, in that voice so oddly reminiscent of Ithanalin's.

"Why did you run away?"

"You scary!"

Kilisha clamped her teeth tightly shut for a moment to keep from trembling, then said, "If you think I'm scary now, you should see what I'll be like if you ever try that again! You are going to stay in my master's house until my master is restored to life, do you hear me?"

"Sprigganalin hear fine!"

"Do you understand me?"

The thing's cars drooped, and its eyes widened.

"No," it said.

"Augh!" Kilisha fought a temptation to fling the idiotic little beast against the nearest wall.

Its eyes widened even further; its cars folded back.

"Listen to me," she growled.

"Sprigganalin listen!" it said, nodding desperately.

"You are going to stay in the house until I say you can go! If you don't, you will never have any fun ever again, I'll make sure of that! Your life will be the opposite of fun if you ever again set a single toe outside the door without my permission. Now do you understand?"

"Spriggans not real good with understanding."

Kilisha's grip on its neck tightened, and it quickly added, "But Sprigganalin stay in house! Promise, promise!"

"Good." Her hold relaxed. "You just remember that promise."

"Remember, yes!"

"Then let's go home," she said. She raised her head to get her bearings.

A good two dozen people were standing in a circle around her, staring at her.

She blinked at them, then said, "What's the matter with all of you people? Haven't you ever seen a wizard's apprentice before?"

Voices muttered, feet shuffled, and most of them turned away.

One boy, a few years younger than Kilisha, pointed and said helpfully, "You're losing your feather."

Kilisha turned her head and discovered that her hair ornament had slid down farther, and was now almost completely loose, one corner hanging from a tangle in her hair.

"Thank you," she said-but she didn't do anything about it. Both her hands were still clutching the spriggan. She just turned and began marching home, trying not to bob her head enough to lose the ornament entirely.

Kelder was waiting on the doorstep. "I see you caught it," he said.

"Yes," Kilisha said, relieved to see him still there. "Is my mistress all right? Is everything else still secure?"

"Your mistress is fine," he said. "And I didn't see anything else get out."

"Good." She looked down at the spriggan clutched in her hand and wished she had some way of confining it-but she didn't. She stepped inside, set it on the floor, and released it.

Kelder watched as the spriggan promptly ran in circles, frightening the bench and chair. "There was another customer while you were out, but I told her the wizard was indisposed, and she went away," he said.

"Thank you," Kilisha said, as she disentangled the leather-and-feathcr device from her hair.

"I really need to go now-but I'll pass the word about your couch."

"Thank you," Kilisha repeated.

For a moment they both hesitated, as if something more was expected but neither of them quite knew what, and then Kelder said, "Well, I'll come back if I have any news." He bowed, then backed out the door, turned, and was gone.

Kilisha watched him go, then looked down at the ornament in her hand and decided against restoring it to its customary place. Instead she thrust it into the pouch on her belt, closed the door, ordered the latch to stay closed, then wagged a finger at the spriggan and admonished it, "You stay in this house!"

The spriggan stopped running and stared up at her. "Stay! Stay!" it said, nodding vigorously.

"Good," she said, as she straightened and marched to the workshop.

Yara was there, peering into the brass bowl. "This looks like overcooked beef gravy," she said, straightening up. "What is it?"

"I don't know what it is," Kilisha admitted. "It's something Ithanalin had cooking when he was interrupted."

"Cooking? Don't you mean brewing?"

Confused, Kilisha said, "Well, something. Heating."

"You're sure it's magic? That Thani wasn't secretly cooking behind my back?"