Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

The food was excellent, though-plentiful servings of well-seasoned roast beef, cabbage soup, stewed apples, and cherry compote. The wine was astonishingly good; when he remarked on it he was informed that Dwomor prided itself on its vineyards, and the only reason they weren’t better known was that they didn’t produce enough of a surplus for significant exports.

He did manage to conduct some business, after a fashion; he added Peren to his permanent list of suppliers and talked to several people about spriggan sightings in the area. He was surprised how few people had ever seen the little pests; a few even professed not to believe in the creatures at all.

That seemed very odd, given that the mirror was in the area. Rather than being attracted by Tobas’s magic, the spriggans seemed to be deliberately avoiding Dwomor Keep. There was clearly something going on here that he didn’t understand, and he wondered whether it was related to whatever secrets Tobas was keeping. If there really was a powerful countercharm of some sort in Tobas’s possession, such as Gresh had previously theorized, perhaps the spriggans feared it.

He had no hard evidence, though, and no one he spoke to seemed to know anything about it, so at last he dropped the subject.

When the meal was over the Lord Chamberlain, who turned out to be the thin old man who had first knocked on the sitting room door, took him aside. “We have arranged accommodations for you, sir; if you would follow me, I will show you to your rooms.”

At that Gresh realized just how tired he was. He had started the day in Ethshar of the Sands, spent more than half the day on the flying carpet, visited Ethshar of the Spices, arrived in Dwomor, and survived a royal supper, all of it after a rather poor night’s sleep. He was happy to follow the chamberlain to a pleasant apartment on the second floor.

All his luggage was still in the bottomless bag in Tobas’s sitting room, though. He mentioned as much to the chamberlain.

“I will see to it, sir.”

Gresh settled into a chair, planning to just rest his feet for a moment; he was awakened by a knock at the door, where he found a footman holding his bag. He accepted it with a polite remark that the man obviously didn’t understand, but the two of them exchanged bows, and then the footman went about his business, leaving Gresh alone.

Gresh considered his situation for perhaps two or three minutes. Then he made his way into the bedchamber, dropped the bag, pulled off his boots, blew out the candle, and fell into bed.

No crying infants disturbed him; no woman’s lingering scent troubled his dreams. He slept well and awoke refreshed and was not surprised to see, upon looking out a window at the angle of the sun, that he had slept long. The morning was well advanced, the sun high in the east.

He was hungry, but not ravenous, and decided that he would prefer not to eat breakfast in the same clothes he had worn to bed. He began emptying his bag. He was unsure how long he would be staying in Dwomor Keep, but he thought he might as well unpack thoroughly.

He had pulled out perhaps half the contents when a knock sounded at the apartment door. He answered it and found Tobas.

“Good morning,” the wizard said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all; I was just unpacking a little,” Gresh said.

“I see. I was wondering what your plans are for today. Will you be heading out to look for the mirror?”

“Actually, I would very much like to get a look at where the mirror first entered the World, and I was hoping you could fly me there this afternoon. I assume it won’t take very long to reach the area?”

Tobas hesitated. “The carpet can’t take you all the way,” he said. “I can get you to the general area and point out a few things-it’s perhaps an hour’s flight-but it isn’t a safe place to fly.”

Gresh stared at him. “Why not?” he asked, baffled. He remembered now that Tobas had said the center of Ethshar of the Sands wasn’t a safe place to fly, either. That part of the city was where the usurper Tabaea died. And this place in the wilderness was where Derithon’s flying castle had crashed. The all-purpose countercharm, if that’s what it was, was presumably involved.

“I can’t tell you that.”

Gresh glared for a moment, then said, “Fine. Get me as close as you can. Shall we meet at midday?”

“I’ll come find you,” Tobas said.

“Fine.”

Tobas bowed, and turned away. Gresh watched him go, then closed the door of the apartment.

Whatever the secret was Tobas was hiding-well, first off, he wasn’t hiding it very well. Second-it appeared that whatever had been done in the mountains and in the overlord’s palace had after-effects. That was interesting-and did it have anything to do with the spriggans’ mirror?

He would probably find out that afternoon. He returned to unpacking his bag.

A few hours later he had sorted out his belongings, changed his clothes, stuffed a few carefully selected items in a small shoulder-pack, stuffed several others back in the bottomless bag, and had gotten lost wandering the castle corridors looking for a bite to eat. The servants he encountered did not include anyone who could make sense of his Ethsharitic or his gestures, but he eventually found himself directed to the Lord Chamberlain, who sent him back to his apartments with assurances that a tray would be sent up forthwith.

The tray did arrive-bread, cheese, wine, figs, and dried apricots-and he was licking the last of the sticky residue of the figs from his fingers when Tobas knocked on the door again.

After admitting the wizard, Gresh finished his glass of wine and re-corked the bottle, then grabbed his little pack. He took a moment to reassure himself that the bottomless bag was tucked out of sight; then he followed Tobas upstairs.

Ten minutes later the carpet rose from the platform outside Tobas’s apartments with the two men on it-and no women or children, nor any luggage but Gresh’s pack.

It seemed much roomier that way.

About forty minutes later they came swooping down over a forested valley, and Tobas said, “There it is.” He pointed at an impressive cliff ahead.

Gresh followed the pointing finger and saw the ruins at the foot of the cliff, barely visible among the trees. He blinked, and said, “Fly level, please.”

“We are flying level,” Tobas replied. “It’s the castle that’s crooked.” Then the carpet veered off, swooping up to the right.

Gresh turned his head to keep the castle in sight.

It was still some distance away, so he could not make out all the details, but he could see the tops of five towers and one gable end protruding above the treetops. As Tobas had said, the castle was crooked; the trees made that obvious, now that he was paying attention. The entire structure was tilted at a ridiculous angle; it was a wonder that any of the towers still stood.

The roofs were red tile, though streaked dark with dirt and moss; the walls were smooth stone, either off-white or a very pale yellow. Gresh was not sure which. It appeared to be a very simple structure, with no ornamentation or elaboration.

The carpet came around in a full circle, and Gresh realized they were descending into a clearing in the forest. “Are we landing?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Can’t we get closer than this?”

“Not safely, no.”

“Wait a minute, then,” Gresh said. He unslung the pack from his shoulder and loosened the drawstring, then began rummaging in it.

The carpet slowed and descended further, making another loop. The trees now hid the castle completely.

Gresh pulled Chira’s talisman from the pack and gestured over it, setting it to detect anything between a foot and half a foot in height, and taller than it was long. That, he thought, should limit it to spriggans. Squirrels and other such creatures should be longer than they were tall, at least when moving. He spoke the command that activated the device.