Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

It wasn’t any of his business; she had already told him far more than he had any business knowing, and far more than he would have asked, though he had not been surprised when his remark elicited so detailed a response. He had been fairly certain that she would be happy to find receptive ears. Many men professed to find women incomprehensible, but after growing up with his numerous sisters, Gresh thought he had a reasonably good understanding of the female mind. He had provided a sympathetic and non-threatening audience, and Karanissa had taken advantage of his presence to say things she could not tell her husband, her co-wife, or anyone in Dwomor. He understood that perfectly. He had, in fact, planned it. He liked Karanissa, more than he liked Tobas or Alorria, and had welcomed the opportunity to create a bond.

It was probably a foolish thing to do, though. She was a happily married woman, even if she was not completely satisfied with her co-wife. Once their business with the mirror was done, he would never see her again.

She threw him a sharp glance, and he realized neither of them had spoken for several seconds. He wondered how much of his thoughts she had heard. “Nothing to say about the wisdom of giving my husband another child?” she said.

Apparently she had not heard everything he had thought; she had probably been too caught up in her own concerns. “It’s not any of my business,” he said. “I would think that your situation is complicated enough, though. And you have plenty of time, with your eternal youth spell; no need to hurry.”

“Tobas doesn’t have an eternal youth spell.”

“I hardly think that’s an issue at this point. He’s a young man.”

“So are you, but you’re concerning yourself with eternal youth.”

“I’m not as young as he is, and I know I won’t always be young unless I do something about it.”

“Tobas didn’t think of that.”

“Or didn’t want to deal with it. I’m sure your marriage is complicated for him, too, and obtaining eternal youth just for himself would surely make it worse, while getting it for both Alorria and himself-well, he may not feel ready to extend the current situation for hundreds of years.”

Karanissa stared at him. “Do you believe that’s it? I didn’t intrude, and I believed him when he said he just didn’t think of it.”

“You’re a witch, and you know him far better than I do.”

Karanissa continued to stare at him, and Gresh thought he read speculation in her gaze. Was she, perhaps, thinking that Tobas and Alorria might never find a youth spell, and that someday, fifty or sixty years from now, she would be a widow-and if Gresh was successful in his errand for the Wizards’ Guild, he would still be around and still be young?

Or was he just flattering himself?

Her intense gaze became uncomfortable, and he looked down at the mirror. “The half-hour must be almost done,” he said.

Her gaze dropped, as well. “It is; it’s changing right now. I can feel…”

She didn’t finish the sentence; instead she stared silently at the mirror.

So did Gresh. The glass had gone black, and then something began to thrust itself upward out of the mirror-but it was no spriggan. It was neither green nor brown, but glossy black-covered with lush black hair, Gresh realized.

It was larger than the mirror. Some of the fatter spriggans might have had to squeeze a little, but this creature, whatever it was, was somehow forcing itself through an opening much smaller than its own dimensions.

The hair parted on one side as the thing continued to rise up out of the mirror, revealing a brown forehead. Gresh realized that a human head was emerging from the spriggan mirror. The face was turned away from him, toward Karanissa, who was staring at it in shocked horror.

More hair, a pair of ears, a nose-definitely human.

Then came the neck-that was relatively quick, as it did not need to be magically squeezed as much-and then a pair of shoulders, shoulders clad in red fabric…

“Oh, no,” Gresh murmured. “Let me…” He stepped around the mirror and stood beside Karanissa, where he could see the face as the creature continued to force its way up out of the far-too-small mirror.

It was a woman’s face, a dark-skinned oval. Gresh recognized it immediately. After all, he had been looking at it for the past half-hour and more.

It was Karanissa.

Gresh looked up and saw the original Karanissa still standing there, looking down at her duplicate. This wasn’t Karanissa, then; it was a copy.

And the copy had her hands free of the impossibly small glass now and was pushing herself up, just as the spriggans had, except that she was somehow emerging from the mirror despite being much larger than it. Even the slim Karanissa was far more than five inches across.

The mirror was doing something strange to space, obviously.

Then the imitation Karanissa sat back on the stone and pulled her legs from the little glass circle. She was entirely free, and the mirror once again looked like an ordinary mirror.

This Karanissa, at least initially, appeared indistinguishable from the original. She wore an identical red dress, and her hair was styled just like the original’s.

“Well, so much for using Javan’s Geas on the mirror,” Gresh muttered. “But we must have done something that altered the nature of the spell. Are we going to get a plague of Karanissas now, instead of spriggans?” He found himself thinking that that would certainly be an improvement.

The original Karanissa ignored him as she knelt by the rather dazed-looking copy and asked, “Who are you?”

The copy looked up, obviously confused, and said, “I’m a person.”

“I didn’t ask what you are,” Karanissa said gently. “I asked who you are.”

“I’m…I’m a person,” the other said. “That’s all I know.”

“Where did you come from?”

The imitation looked down at her feet, then pointed. “The mirror,” she said.

“Are you a witch?” Karanissa asked.

The copy blinked, then frowned. “I’m not sure,” she said.

“Can’t you tell?” Gresh asked the original.

“No, I can’t,” Karanissa admitted. “Which is puzzling, to say the least.” She looked up at Gresh. “This… this person isn’t all here, exactly.”

“She isn’t…well, you?” Gresh asked. “Could it be that you’re being confused because her identity isn’t entirely distinct from your own?”

Karanissa reached out and put a hand on her imitation’s shoulder; the imitation started slightly, glanced at the hand, then looked up at Gresh. “Do I look like her?” she asked.

“Very much,” Gresh said, startled by the question.

“She’s pretty.”

“So are you.”

The copy lowered her gaze. “Thank you,” she said.

“You know,” Karanissa said, looking up at Gresh, “until I touched her, I wasn’t sure she was really there. I thought she might just be an illusion, especially given how she squeezed through the mirror when she obviously couldn’t have fit.”

Gresh nodded. He was thinking furiously. He did not understand why this duplicate of Karanissa should have emerged from the mirror, but he intended to figure it out. It would almost certainly explain a great deal about how the mirror’s magic worked, and that might well help them end the plague of spriggans forever-if they had not already somehow altered the spell permanently.

He glanced down at the mirror to see whether anything else was climbing out of it; nothing was.

This woman, this copy of Karanissa, was solid, but Karanissa said she did not seem real…

“Lady,” he said, “do you remember anything from before you emerged from the mirror?”

The copy looked up at him again. “Of course not,” she said. “I didn’t exist before I climbed out of the mirror, did I?”