Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

“But just to start, I don’t want to be a dragon,” Tobas said. “Isn’t there something else you can transform? One of your tools? A knife? Or what would it do to you? Haven’t you ever defeated anything powerful?”

“I have no idea what it would do to me,” Gresh admitted, ambling casually across the carpet, past Alorria and toward Tobas. He could understand why someone would be reluctant to be transformed, but he saw no other option. Really, they were fabulously lucky to have someone or something here that could be transformed into something as powerful as a dragon! They needed to take advantage of that good fortune. “That’s exactly why I won’t be trying it on myself. But you defeated a dragon! That’s perfect, Tobas, and I have Javan’s Restorative right here-you know that’s the standard counterspell, don’t you? There’s nothing to worry about. If anything goes wrong, I can change you back in a few seconds!”

“That’s not what worries me-well, yes, it is, but it’s not all that worries me…”

Gresh sighed. They didn’t have time for this. “Tobas, the Guild sent us here to get that mirror. They won’t like it if they find out you refused to help me. Think what they’re paying us! A Transporting Tapestry of your home in Dwomor-isn’t that worth spending a little time under a harmless enchantment?”

“I suppose it is,” Tobas admitted. “But it’s the ‘harmless’ part that worries me. All those spells like the Spell of the Revealed Power where some mysterious magical mechanism we don’t understand decides what the spell will actually do are tricky, untrustworthy things-you can’t be sure just what they’re going to do until you use them.”

“Well, this one should change you into a dragon, shouldn’t it? If we don’t get a dragon, or if there’s something else terribly wrong, I’ll reverse the spell,” Gresh said. “I’ve got the Restorative, and the Spell of Reversal, and Lirrim’s Rectification-I can undo just about anything.”

“I don’t know, Gresh,” Tobas said warily, as the merchant approached. “There’s something we didn’t tell you.”

“‘We’?” Gresh glanced back at the two women on the carpet, Karanissa standing and Alorria seated, both of them watching the two men.

“Yes-they know about it, but I guess Karanissa didn’t think of it. I don’t think that spell will…”

He was interrupted in mid-sentence by a faceful of powder, as Gresh got close enough to fling the glittering blue dust.

There was no point in arguing endlessly; this was their best chance, and Gresh intended to take it.

“Esku!” Gresh shouted the trigger word for the spell as the powder settled on Tobas’s face and shoulders, and a golden glow spread swiftly over the wizard’s entire body. Tobas began to enlarge rapidly, as if he were somehow being inflated, and to elongate. He bent forward at the waist.

Spriggans scattered, screaming like a flock of maddened birds.

“Gresh, you fool!” Tobas bellowed, in a voice that grew louder as he spoke. “The dragon wasn’t the most powerful thing I’ve defeated! I stopped the Seething Death in Ethshar of the Sands!”

The glow brightened, making it impossible to see exactly what was happening to Tobas; Gresh heard fabric tear. The thing that had been the young wizard was on all fours now and still expanding; a tail had thrust out behind it, and wings were unfurling from its back. Gresh had to retreat rapidly to avoid being crushed. Whatever Tobas was becoming was very large, and from the bits Gresh could glimpse through the shimmering glow, bluish-green in color.

Alorria screamed, wordlessly at first, her voice mingling with the shrieks of the spriggans. Finally she cried, “What did you do to my husband?!”

Then the glow abruptly vanished, and Gresh found himself face-to-face with an angry dragon-a very large angry dragon, a good sixty feet from snout to tail-tip, and with a wingspan almost twice that, standing over the torn and shredded remnants of Tobas’s clothes.

Gresh had seen dragons at fairly close quarters before, but never unchained, uncaged, and this close, and so extremely large. He stepped back.

“Gresh!” the monster bellowed, spewing a cloud of sparks and black smoke.

“You can talk!” Gresh said, startled, brushing a spark from his sleeve. He had expected Tobas to lose his voice.

“Of course I can… Oh.” The dragon blinked his immense red eyes, and his voice dropped from a roar like a thunderstorm to a deep rumble. “So I can.”

“Tobas!” Alorria shrieked, clutching the baby to her breast. Alris promptly began to cry hysterically, adding to the cacophony. Dozens of spriggans were still squealing and screaming.

“I’m fine, Ali,” the dragon said, raising his head to look over Gresh at the women on the carpet.

“Fine? You call that fine?”

“Yes, Ali, I do,” the dragon replied. “I’ve been turned into a dragon, but I’m still me. I can talk, I’m healthy and strong. I’d call that fine, given some of the alternatives.” Then he looked down at Gresh again. “You, though, have no idea how dangerous that was! Casting a spell on an unwilling wizard-what did you think you were doing? You’re very, very lucky that you were right, and I turned into a dragon.”

“Well, what else could you have become?” Gresh asked. “What’s more powerful than a dragon?”

“I told you,” the dragon rumbled. “The Seething Death.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Gresh replied. “I never heard of it. It’s more powerful than a dragon?”

“It’s a pool of raw chaos that expands indefinitely, destroying and absorbing everything it touches. The Guild’s masters think it would destroy the entire World if left unchecked, and counterspells don’t work on it!”

Gresh frowned, remembering what Kaligir had said about Tobas’s uneven training. “You defeated it?”

“Yes. I did.” The dragon glared at him.

Gresh started to ask just how Tobas had defeated it, then thought better of it. “The Spell of the Revealed Power doesn’t seem to think so,” he pointed out.

“I should eat you. I really should,” Tobas growled. He ran an immense forked tongue over his lower lip, and Gresh took another involuntary step back.

“Tobas,” Karanissa called. “You’re starting to think like a dragon.”

The dragon looked at his elder wife, then down at Gresh again. He folded his wings. “I think she’s right,” he said. “I’ll need to watch that. But all the same, as I understand it, the Spell of the Revealed Power should have turned me into a bubbling mass of complete destruction instead of a dragon, and if it had, we might all be doomed. You were taking a huge risk, Gresh! You really should have heard me out and not cast the spell.”

“You may be right,” Gresh admitted. He was somewhat embarrassed by his actions. Earlier he had been thinking of Tobas as a dangerous fool for meddling with magic too powerful for him in circumstances where the results might be unpredictable, and here he had gone ahead and done much the same thing himself. It had never occurred to him that Tobas might have mastered anything more powerful than a dragon. He hadn’t really thought there was anything in physical form more powerful than a dragon. Even so, he really should have considered the possibility. “My apologies,” he said. “Apparently whatever guides the spell either considers the dragon more powerful than the Seething Death, or doesn’t think you defeated it.”

“I suspect,” Karanissa called from behind him, “that the spell doesn’t consider the Seething Death a thing at all, and doesn’t it turn the subject into the most powerful thing he’s mastered?”

The man and the dragon both turned to look at her.