Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

“We have fun?” someone ventured warily.

“We might,” Gresh said.

“You put down net?”

“If one of you comes out to talk to me, I’ll put down the net.”

Several squeaky voices whispered to one another; then one spriggan stood up. “Spriggan talk,” it said.

“Good!” Gresh tossed the net onto the carpet, then knelt down in the grass. “Come and talk.”

The spriggan approached cautiously. “You want what?”

“I want to know where the mirror is that you came out of,” Gresh said. “I know it’s in a cave somewhere on this mountain, but I don’t know exactly where. Can you show me?”

The spriggan considered that for a moment, then said, “That not sound like fun.”

“Could you show me anyway?”

“Promise no net?”

“If you show me, I won’t net you. I promise.”

The creature hesitated, clearly thinking hard.

“No tell!” another spriggan called.

“Not think it good idea…”

“I’ll give you candy,” Gresh said, before the spriggan could complete a firm refusal. He reached back and unslung the pack from his shoulder. He had thought he might need to bribe the little pests at some point, and his pack held a pound of honey-drops.

A pound might not be enough for the occasion, though-he glanced around and realized there were hundreds of spriggans surrounding the carpet. They were not bothering to hide very carefully anymore. He had never seen anything remotely close to this many at once before.

“Candy?” the spriggan said brightly. Several other little green heads popped up here and there.

“First show me where the mirror is.”

“Um. Not sure…”

“Well, whoever shows me gets the candy.” He opened his pack, found the bag of candy, and pulled a golden honey-drop the size of his thumb out of the paper sack. He held it up for the spriggans to see. It occurred to him that a candy that a human could pop in his mouth and suck down to nothing in a couple of minutes would be the size of a whole meal to one of the little creatures.

“Oooooh!”

“Show! Show!”

“I show you!”

Half a dozen eager spriggans jumped out of the tall grass, reaching for the candy he held high above their heads.

“Show me, and I’ll give you the candy,” he called.

“This way! This way!” shouted a dozen spriggans, even as a dozen others tried to shush them. Gresh had trouble keeping track of any individual in the tall grass, but he could plainly see the general movement toward the west, toward the exposed stone of the upper slope. He followed, holding the candy high in one hand, the open pack again slung on his shoulder and held in place with the other hand.

“Gresh?” Tobas called.

“Stay with the carpet,” Gresh told him. “In fact, you might want to get airborne, in case we need to make a quick escape.”

“Yes, of course,” Tobas called. The grass rustled as the carpet rose a foot or so. Gresh did not look back, but kept his attention focused on the spriggans as he followed them toward the rocks.

As he walked he studied the stony slope ahead, but he still did not see a cave mouth; it must, he thought, be hidden somehow. Could someone have cast an illusion spell, perhaps? Spriggans seemed to have some magical abilities, such as their talent at opening locks, but surely they couldn’t have done such a thing. Had some wizard done them a favor, for some reason? If not, then the spriggans had been either very lucky or very clever to have found such a well-concealed refuge. There were a few cracks and crevices in the rocks, but no cave…

Then one of the spriggans hopped up on a rock and thrust its hand into one of the cracks. “Here! Here!” it called. “Cave here!”

Several others quickly joined it, squeaking and pointing. Gresh’s heart sank as he broke into a trot.

He began cursing himself for a fool as he approached the rocks. He had been thinking of the cave as one a grown man could fit in, but that was stupid. Why in the World would spriggans want one that big? They would undoubtedly feel much safer with their precious mirror tucked into a cave a human couldn’t fit in-an opening an eight-inch spriggan could slip through would be just a useless crack to a six-foot man!

He strode up to the rocks and peered into the crack the spriggans were pointing to; sure enough, he could see no back to it. Instead of ending, it seemed to open out into darkness inside the stony wall. The crack ran about four feet across the slope, between two stone slabs, and when he thrust in his arm he could not feel anything but cool air.

But the opening was no more than six inches high at its widest point.

He turned and looked at the opposite slope and discovered that the trees hid most of the ruined town from here, but one moderately large stone structure happened to be plainly visible. It was not a castle or tower, but to a spriggan it might well look like one-it was round on one end, and roofless.

That was obviously what his informant had seen. Everything fit. He turned back to the horizontal slit in the rocks.

“The mirror is in there?” he asked.

The shrill chorus of “Yes, yes, yes!” was deafening.

“Candy now!” a spriggan said. The chorus began chanting, “Candy, candy, candy!”

“You promised!” shrilled one voice.

“Can you bring the mirror out, so I can see it?” Gresh asked.

The hundred voices were suddenly stilled. For a moment the only sounds were rustling leaves and the wind in the grass.

Then one shocked voice said, “Not allowed!”

“Mirror stays in cave,” another added.

“Spriggans could die,” said a third.

“Promised candy if we showed cave,” someone said. “Didn’t say fetch mirror.”

“How do I know it’s really in there?” Gresh countered.

The spriggans looked at one another; then a large brownish one said, “Wait.” With surprising agility, it hopped up to the crack in the rocks and trotted into the opening-it barely had to duck at all

Gresh ducked his head, though, to peer into the cave after the spriggan. He shaded his eyes and tried to follow the creature’s movement.

It was sliding down a slope; Gresh could see its brown back as it slipped into the gloom of the interior. The crack did open out, and the spriggan vanished into the darkness.

“Bring light!” the spriggan called.

Gresh blinked, then looked around. He pulled up a clump of dead weeds and twisted them into a makeshift torch, then called to Tobas, “Do you have a tinderbox?”

“Something better,” Tobas called back, as he fumbled at his belt-pouch. “Hold that thing up.”

Gresh obeyed, and a moment later Tobas did something with his dagger and a bit of orange powder, and one end of the bundle of weeds burst into vigorous flame-so vigorous, in fact, that Gresh had to move hastily to avoid being burned. He flung the flaming stalks into the cave.

Then he stooped and peered in after them and saw the brownish spriggan dragging the burning twist of weeds. The flame illuminated the cave’s interior quite well.

Gresh was astonished by what he saw; once past the impossibly narrow entrance the cave was really quite good-sized. It extended at least fifteen or twenty feet back into the mountain, and much of it was high enough that a man could stand upright. It seemed to extend across the full width of the rock face, at least fifty feet from end to end-it was hard to be sure, with only the central portion lit. This whole section of slope, it appeared, was hollow. It looked as if a chunk of the mountainside had folded down upon itself, long ago-as if a cliff or ledge had collapsed and wedged itself across the top of what had been a small gully, covering it completely but not filling it in.