Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

Nothing happened; the surface did not glow, and no markings appeared.

He reset it for all small creatures, as a test, and promptly located what appeared to be several mice, squirrels, chipmunks, and other animals. He switched the settings back, and it went dead again.

“What is that?” Tobas asked, staring.

Gresh looked up, startled. He had been so involved in working the talisman that he had not consciously noticed that the carpet was now on the ground, and Tobas was standing on it and looking down at him.

“Sorcery,” he said.

“You’re a sorcerer?”

“I know a sorcerer.”

Tobas did not seem entirely satisfied by that response, but before he could say anything more, Gresh said, “Can we get any closer to the castle?”

“On foot, certainly-we can walk right up to it. But it’s not safe to fly the carpet any closer.”

Gresh considered that for a moment, staring into the forest toward the castle, then shook his head. “Get us airborne again and move us around to the…” He glanced up at the sun, then at the disk in his hand. “…the east,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because the mirror isn’t in this area.”

Tobas started to ask another question, then stopped. He sat down and waved a hand, and the carpet rose. “You know, it’s only an hour’s walk to the castle from here,” he said. “We could visit it, if you want.”

“Why would I want to?” Gresh said. “Do you think the mirror might be in there?”

“No,” Tobas said. “In fact, I’m sure it isn’t.”

“Because the same thing that makes it unsafe to fly there would make the mirror…well, it would do something to the mirror?”

“Yes,” Tobas admitted reluctantly. “It wouldn’t work there. That was why I let the spriggans take it in the first place-I never thought they’d get it out of the… out of… away from the castle.”

“You have some kind of powerful countercharm there?”

“What? No, I… Not exactly.”

“But there’s something there that interferes with certain spells. And you used the same thing against Tabaea in the overlord’s palace in Ethshar of the Sands.”

“Not just… Well, after a fashion.”

“Do you know which spells it stops? How certain are you it affects the mirror?”

“It prevents all wizardry,” Tobas said. “All of it. It doesn’t cancel out anything, or counter it, or reverse it-it’s just that no magical effects happen there.”

“So it didn’t break the enchantment on the mirror, when it was in the castle?”

“No. It just…suspended it, I suppose. And the Transporting Tapestry, and everything else. The carpet can’t fly there-it’s just a carpet. For that matter, I suppose Karanissa ages any time she’s in there-but the instant the mirror was somewhere normal, spriggans must have started popping out again. And the tapestry still works, the carpet flies, and Karanissa doesn’t age, as long as they’re somewhere normal. If I use the Spell of the Spinning Coin and then I go in there, the coin still spins-but I can’t spin one when I’m there, even if I immediately leave for someplace else. You do understand that this is a Guild secret and to reveal it may carry a death sentence?”

“You’re revealing it to me.”

“We’re on Guild business, and you’d already figured part of it out, and I can’t see any way to not tell you if you’re going to look for the mirror around here. I don’t think Kaligir would appreciate it if you wasted all his powders and potions by trying to use them in there.”

Gresh grimaced. “That’s a good point. Or even just wasting time searching the area, if you’re really sure the mirror can’t be in there.”

“I’m sure, believe me. No wizardry has worked there in four hundred years. There’s an entire town up on the cliff that had to be abandoned as a result.”

“Four hundred years?”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“So that castle-that was Derithon’s? And Varrin’s Greater Propulsion shut down when it came too close to whatever it is, and the tapestry stopped working, and that was how Karanissa was trapped in there?”

Tobas sighed. “Yes.”

“Does witchcraft still work there? Or sorcery?”

“Witchcraft definitely does; I can’t be entirely certain about sorcery, as I haven’t tested it, but I believe it does.”

“Karanissa might be useful to have along, then.”

“If we were going to the castle, maybe, but you just said we didn’t need to.”

“True. A good point.” Gresh stroked his beard thoughtfully, then glanced down at the talisman he still held. “Take us around… what do you call it? Is there a whole area here where wizardry doesn’t work?”

Reluctantly, Tobas admitted, “Yes.”

“What shape is it? Is it a line, or…?”

“Spherical. We mapped it out years ago; it’s a sphere close to two miles in diameter, centered on top of the cliff. That must be where he stood…” He stopped.

“What? Who?”

“Never mind. It’s a sphere, centered on top of the cliff.”

Gresh nodded thoughtfully. “Two miles. And in Ethshar of the Sands…?”

“None of your business. Much smaller.”

“Of course. And your plan for disposing of the mirror, the one you wouldn’t tell me-is to take it into that sphere and smash it?”

“Yes,” Tobas admitted. “And now that you’ve learned my secret, where did you want to go?”

“Oh, yes. Around to the east, along the edge of the…the sphere.” He looked down at the talisman. “Low and slow, please.”

He did not expect to find the mirror in the woods, of course; unless the spriggan had completely fooled him it was in a cave, not a forest, and in a mountain, not a valley. He did, however, want to find a spriggan or two. He hoped to backtrack some to the mirror, and he was also trying to figure out why so few ever reached Dwomor Keep. It might turn out to be important.

Or it might not matter at all. Now that he knew a little more about it, he had to admit that Tobas’s plan of taking the mirror into the no-wizardry area and smashing it sounded feasible. It was simple and direct, and he couldn’t see anything obvious that might go wrong.

They still had to find the mirror, though. He knew it was in a cave, in sight of a ruin, probably facing east, and at one time it had been in that ruined castle over there, so it seemed very likely that it was somewhere in the mountains just to the west-why would the spriggans have taken it any farther than they had to?

But you never knew, with spriggans. It might be twenty leagues away in Vlagmor; that might explain why so few spriggans troubled Dwomor.

For the moment, though, he intended to start with the area around the castle. He peered intently at the sorcerous talisman in his hand as the carpet sailed gracefully along, skimming the treetops.

They had made roughly a quarter-circle around the fallen castle when Gresh finally spotted a spriggan. “Down!” he barked.

Tobas gestured, and the carpet dove to the ground. Gresh vaulted off, talisman in hand. He left Tobas standing on the carpet, blinking foolishly, as he dashed into the bushes. Mindless of the thorns and branches tearing at his sleeves, he reached forward to where the talisman indicated a small moving object.

“Help help help help help!” a squeaky voice shrieked. “A crazy man is grabbing for me!”

“Come out where I can see you!” Gresh shouted.

“No! You’re grabbing!”

Gresh stopped and straightened up as best he could in the middle of the thicket. “No grabbing,” he said. “Just talk.”

“No grabbing?”

“If you stay in the bushes I’ll grab you, all right,” Gresh growled, as he looked at the disk in his hand. The spriggan was about four feet in front of him, in the thickest and thorniest part of the bushes. If he dove for it he would have just one chance. If he missed, he wouldn’t be able to disentangle himself before the spriggan had put a hundred feet between them. “If you come out and talk, no grabbing.”