Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spriggan Mirror

Lirrim’s Rectification turned things into what they were meant to be, more or less. It was not always clear just what that was, since whatever power guided the spell did not always seem to use human logic, but in this case Gresh could see very few possibilities. It might do nothing, as it had on the mirror itself, but he thought it was more likely that it would turn a solidified image into whatever it was an image of. If so, it would turn the copy of Karanissa into a human being, and it would turn an ordinary spriggan into a real spriggan.

If it worked that way, then the Guild could use Lirrim’s Rectification on troublesome spriggans. They would become real spriggans, which were presumably mortal and could be harmed, imprisoned, or killed. Such a transformation would surely be an adequate threat and appropriate penalty for misbehaving reflections.

It would also mean there would be no need to destroy the mirror, though doing so would probably be far, far easier than casting Lirrim’s Rectification half a million times.

Of course, no one knew just what real spriggans were like. They were presumably somewhat larger than their images, but there might be other differences, as well. Gresh was not about to try the Rectification on any spriggans. Let some wizard make the experiment.

Gresh was not going to rush into using the spell on the image of Karanissa, either. For the present he just wanted to get the mirror safely stashed away somewhere such as Dwomor Keep. Once that was done…

“There,” Karanissa said. “It’s returned to normal.”

“Ah, good,” Gresh said. He lifted the pack off the mirror and quickly wrapped the glass in soft cloth, then tucked it away in the pack, below the box of powders.

Dozens of spriggans watched him do this; none moved to intervene. Apparently his partisans had convinced the rest.

He hoped his message had gotten through and been acted on-if not, he was going to have spriggans appearing in his backpack, which would be inconvenient, and he would need to find some other way to render the mirror harmless.

“You’ll let us go back to Dwomor now?” he asked the spriggans.

“Make promise! Make promise!”

“Yes, of course-but then we can go and take the mirror with us?”

“Take spriggans with you,” a large one said as solemnly as an eight-inch pop-eyed creature with a squeaky voice could.

Gresh stopped. “What?”

“Take spriggans!” several voices chorused.

Gresh considered for a moment.

They couldn’t mean they wanted to jam all half a million onto the carpet, or even just the thousand or two guarding the cave; even spriggans weren’t that stupid.

“You want to have a few spriggans there to make sure we take good care of the mirror?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“How many?” he asked.

“Five?”

“Four?”

“Six?”

“Lots!”

“I’ll take four,” Gresh announced. “That should be enough.”

There was some squeaking and muttering in response to that, but the objections did not seem very serious, so Gresh ignored them and started for the mouth of the cave.

The sun was well down now, the sky darkening. Clambering over the rocks was not particularly enjoyable in the fading light. Gresh had to watch his footing. Once he emerged onto the meadow, though, he looked up and found a pair of huge red eyes staring at him.

“Has anyone ever mentioned to you,” Tobas said conversationally, “that dragons have exceptionally good hearing?”

Gresh blinked. “I can’t say I knew that,” he replied warily.

“I hadn’t known it myself until I became a dragon,” Tobas said. “But I’ve found it’s quite true. Remarkably so. I heard every word you said to the spriggans.”

“Ah,” Gresh said, noticing just how large the dragon’s fangs were and that he could see a faint smoldering glow coming from somewhere behind those fangs.

“Tobas…” Karanissa began, from behind Gresh.

“Fortunately,” the dragon said, interrupting her, “I think it’s a reasonable agreement. Still, I would appreciate it if in the future you would at least try to obtain my consent before casting spells on me.”

“I was planning to,” Gresh said, trying to hide just how relieved he was. “I just wanted to get the hard part out of the way first, and I was fairly sure it would be easier to talk sense to you than to a horde of spriggans.”

“Hmph,” said Tobas, producing a faint shower of sparks. Gresh quickly brushed off one that landed on the shoulder of his tunic. “Shall we get on with it, then?”

“Keep the Spell of the Revealed Power handy, in case the spriggans change their minds,” Karanissa urged.

Gresh glanced at her, trying to assess whether she was genuinely just trying to offer a helpful suggestion, or if there was some other reason she might want her husband turned into a dragon again, or if she was being sarcastic.

He couldn’t tell. He liked to think he was fairly good at figuring women out, after growing up among twelve sisters, but he could read nothing from Karanissa’s expression. He decided not to worry about it as he readied the jar of orange powder that would cast Javan’s Restorative.

“You might want to tell Ali what’s happening,” Karanissa suggested.

“She’s feeding the baby,” Tobas said.

“All the more reason to avoid any big surprises.”

“Um,” Tobas said. He lifted his head and called, “Ali, Gresh is about to turn me back!”

“Good!” Alorria shouted back. “Your clothes are… well, I did my best.”

Gresh grimaced.

The dragon’s immense head swung back around and lowered down toward Gresh as he raised a generous pinch of orange powder. He flung it at the dragon and shouted, “Esku!”

The transformation was not quite as spectacular in this direction; rather than a golden flash and extensive reshaping, there was merely a flicker of blue, an odd shrinking, and then Tobas was standing in the meadow in human form, naked and blinking.

“Hai,” he said. “That was odd.” His voice was faint and unsteady. He turned his head to one side, then to the other. “It’s so stiff,” he said. “And everything’s so dim and warm and quiet.”

“What’s stiff?” Gresh asked.

“My neck.” The wizard stretched, rolling his head from side to side. “That long neck was really rather convenient.”

“You’ll have to tell us about it sometime,” Gresh said. “But first…” He flung a pinch of dark red powder at Tobas and proclaimed, “Never give anyone the spriggan mirror-esku!”

The powder flashed and vanished.

Another pinch followed before Tobas had even finished blinking.

“Never harm the spriggan mirror in any way-esku!”

Several nearby spriggans applauded at that.

Tobas raised an arm to shield his eyes as Gresh flung a third dose and announced, “Never take the spriggan mirror to a place where wizardry does not work-esku!”

The spriggans applauded more vigorously as Gresh capped the jars of powder and put them away. Tobas stood, looking around at the hundreds of leaping, cheering creatures.

Then Gresh pulled the wrapped mirror from his pack and ceremoniously handed it to Tobas.

“Your mirror, sir,” he said. “I expect my fee will be paid at the first opportunity.”

Tobas accepted it gingerly. He partially unwrapped it and peered at it in the gloom as he said, “You might have waited until I had my clothes on. And I can hardly see anything in this light!”

Karanissa stepped forward with a hand raised; a dull orange glow illuminated the glass disk in the wizard’s hand.

“That looks like it,” Tobas agreed, studying the mirror.

“We saw it produce spriggans,” Gresh said. “Unless there are two of the confounded things, that’s it.”