Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

“How you do that?” a large spriggan called.

“Not trust you!” said another.

“Of course, of course,” Gresh said consolingly. “Why should you trust me? I’m just another big nasty human. But here’s what I’ll do, to prove I’m serious. I have here a box of magic powders that the wizards gave me to help me fetch the mirror. The red powder casts a spell called Javan’s Geas-do you know what a geas is?”

“No.” Several spriggans shook their heads or otherwise expressed ignorance.

“It’s a compulsion. What Javan’s Geas does is keep someone from doing something. It can’t make someone do something they don’t want to-it’s not that kind of geas. But it can prevent them from doing something they do want to. You understand?”

That elicited a mixed chorus of “yes” and “no” responses.

“What are you doing?” Karanissa’s voice said inside his head. He glanced at her and saw her frowning. She had not spoken aloud.

“Bear with me,” he told her silently.

“If I put a spell on someone with Javan’s Geas,” he told the spriggans, “and order him not to break the mirror, then he can’t break the mirror-the spell won’t let him. You see?”

“Yes yes!”

“No!”

“Spriggan see!”

“Spriggan not understand.”

Gresh sighed.

“What I’m going to do,” he said, “is turn the dragon back into a human wizard and give him the mirror. You understand that part?”

“Not let you!” one large spriggan squealed.

“What I want to do,” Gresh corrected himself, “is turn the dragon back into a human wizard and give him the mirror. Is that clear?”

The responses were a mix of affirmatives and mild puzzlement. Gresh pressed on.

“Then, when he has the mirror, I’m going to cast Javan’s Geas on him three times. The first time I will command him not to ever give the mirror to anyone else, at any price. The second time I will command him not to ever try to damage or destroy the mirror. And the third time I will command him not to ever take the mirror into any of the places where wizards’ magic doesn’t work. After that, he’ll want to keep the mirror safe. He’ll take it back to his castle and lock it up safely, where no one can ever harm it-and you won’t need to stay and guard it anymore; the wizard will guard it for you. You see?”

The spriggans considered that for a moment, while Karanissa silently asked him, “Have you gone completely mad?”

“Notice,” he told her mentally, “that I never said anything about not allowing other wizards to take the mirror from him, should they decide it to be necessary.”

“If you agree to this,” Gresh called to the spriggans, “then just say so. I’ll work the magic, and we can all go have fun-no more guarding caves!”

“You not hurt mirror?” a spriggan asked hesitantly.

“I swear to you, by my true name and all the gods, that I do not intend to damage the mirror.”

“Wizard not hurt mirror?”

“I swear to you, by my true name and all the gods, that if you let us take the mirror away, I will enchant the wizard Tobas of Telven with Javan’s Geas so that he cannot damage the mirror.”

For a moment, then, the cave was utterly silent, as Gresh looked out over the crowd of spriggans and they stared back.

Then one voice somewhere in the back said, “Fun!”

With that a chorus of squeaking and squealing erupted. Gresh could not make out most of what was being said, but after a moment he got the definite impression that he had convinced a majority of his listeners and that they were attempting to persuade the rest.

“What if Tobas doesn’t agree to go along with this?” Karanissa asked silently.

“I wasn’t planning to give him a choice,” Gresh replied.

With that he reached down and pulled two jars out of the battered wooden box, one of bright orange powder and the other of dark red. Then he asked Karanissa, “Is the magic still reversed?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll have to wait a few more minutes.” He sat down on a convenient rock, the two jars cradled in his lap.

While they waited, Gresh thought over the situation.

It seemed to him that they were reaching a satisfactory conclusion to matters. With any luck his message had been received and understood in the world from which spriggans were reflected, and the mirror would be shut away in a box somewhere, ending the supply of spriggans. That removed it as any serious threat to the World. The half-million spriggans already in existence might be a nuisance, but they could be accepted; he did not want to aid in exterminating them. Ending the existence of half a million beings bright enough to talk, answer questions, and do all the other things that spriggans did struck him as a horrible idea, an unnecessary and unfair slaughter-after all, a good many of the spriggans had never bothered anyone, but had stayed here in the mountains guarding the mirror. That was almost noble, in a way.

As long as the mirror produced no more, Gresh considered the problem to be adequately solved.

His actual agreement with the Wizards’ Guild had been to deliver the mirror to Tobas, and he had every intention of doing that, so there was no problem there-except for the usual one of getting the Guild to live up to its end of the agreement. Tobas would undoubtedly tell them how he had not used any amazing magic or superhuman skills, but had merely backtracked the spriggans with common sense and a little sorcery, and there would also be the issue of not actually ensuring the mirror’s destruction, so the Guild might well try to wiggle out of paying him the promised youth spell. He would need to have arguments ready, pointing out that he was more than living up to his end of the bargain, and that the Guild would be well-served to see that he continued in his business as their best supplier of exotic ingredients.

Aside from preparing his arguments, there were still a few other loose ends, as well. He would need to see that the mirror was secure, tucked away somewhere no one untrustworthy would meddle with it, and where the spriggans couldn’t easily change their minds and steal it. If possible, he wanted to convince the Guild not to destroy it; that would be simpler if he could offer them a way to deal with troublesome existing spriggans. While he wanted the mirror shut away somewhere, it needed to be stored in such a way that if any more spriggans did emerge, the Guild would be alerted, and the matter could be dealt with.

Whoever was in charge of the mirror would want to be very sure that if it did produce more spriggans, those newly emerged spriggans could not carry the mirror off somewhere and hide it, starting the whole thing over again.

Besides the various aspects of the mirror and the spriggans and the Wizards’ Guild, there was one other loose end. He glanced at her.

The reflection of Karanissa’s reflection was sitting on a rock in the dimming twilight, watching the spriggans curiously.

She considered herself a person, but Gresh was not at all sure she was right. Presumably she was just as indestructible as the mirror’s other creations, just as bound to the mirror’s condition. She did not seem hostile or difficult-in fact, she seemed more passive than the original Karanissa-but simply letting her wander off into the mountains did not seem safe or humane.

Karanissa had said she wasn’t whole-perhaps something could be done about that. Gresh looked down at his open pack and the box of magical powders in the top.

Javan’s Restorative would not do any good; she had never been complete. Lirrim’s Rectification, though, might turn her into the fully human creature she was meant to be. She would still look just like Karanissa, but that was not really much of a problem. Gresh had met identical twins who seemed to lead individual lives.