“And as soon as you have the magical preparations, we trust you and Tobas will depart for the Small Kingdoms.”

“Indeed.” He glanced at Dina. “And might one wizard answer questions for me, instead? A wizard who is very familiar with Lugwiler’s Haunting Phantasm?”

“An excellent suggestion. Then you agree to our terms?”

“Do I really have a choice?”

“No. The Guild has decided you don’t. You will find the enchanted mirror and deliver it promptly to Tobas or another representative of the Wizards’ Guild, and the Guild will pay you the agreed-upon price. Now, have you given any thought to the spells you want to have available?”

“A little.” He glanced at Dina again. “The Spell of Reversal would be useful, and Javan’s Restorative…”

An hour later all the volunteers but one had been sent home to their workshops to begin work on spells Gresh had requested-using ingredients he had provided, of course; their altruism was not unlimited. One, a plump middle-aged woman named Heshka, had stayed to advise Gresh on the workings of Lugwiler’s Haunting Phantasm, flying carpets, Transporting Tapestries, and other relevant wizardry, as well as what little was known about spriggans themselves.

Gresh worded his questions carefully, never asking certain things outright, and concluded that his initial guess had been right-the wizards had tried divinations of every sort, but had never thought to seriously interrogate the spriggans themselves about where they came from, or backtrack them to the mirror. That was typical of wizards, especially city-bred ones-such ordinary, non-magical methods simply never occurred to most of them. A few had at least asked the spriggans about where they came from and had almost always gotten, “Don’t know. Don’t remember,” as the answer.

Gresh began to wonder whether that was actually true. Everyone always assumed that spriggans were too stupid to lie effectively, but Gresh had started to wonder whether they might not be quite as idiotic as they appeared.

As for the spell that created them, Gresh learned more of the mechanics, but Dina’s description had covered most of what he wanted, and Heshka confirmed Dina’s account. The Haunting Phantasm manifested a hideous little creature that only the chosen victim could see, but no one really knew whether the spell created an illusion, created a real creature, or summoned a pre-existing creature from somewhere.

“Illusions don’t trip people or knock bottles off shelves, so spriggans aren’t illusions,” Gresh said.

“They don’t look anything like the phantasm, either,” Heshka pointed out. “No fangs or fur. We have no idea just how wrong the spell went; it may not have resembled the Phantasm at all by the time Tobas finished it. For one thing, he performed it in a castle outside the World. How do we know that didn’t completely alter its nature? No one else has ever tried that. He may not even have made any mistakes other than choosing the wrong place to perform it!”

“Ordinarily, when the spell is complete, and the phantasm is haunting the chosen victim, how is the mirror involved? Does breaking it break the spell?”

Heshka looked startled. “No, of course not. Once the spell is done, it’s just an ordinary mirror; it has nothing to do with the phantasm. I told you, the spriggan mirror is different.”

“So I see,” Gresh said, stroking his beard. “And do you think that might be because the spell was never actually finished? Might it stop making spriggans if the curse were directed at its original intended target?”

“I don’t think so,” Heshka said. “It was directed at its original intended target-didn’t Tobas tell you? The target even held the mirror at one point. If that didn’t complete it, what would?”

“The trigger word?”

“I don’t think he was doing that version-though you might ask him.”

“I take it you’ve spoken with Tobas about this. Who was the original intended target?”

“Well, that might be why it went wrong, too. We’re fairly sure it was an Invisible Servitor. Something artificial, anyway, that Derithon had left running loose in his castle. You really aren’t supposed to cast the curse on anything but humans, but Tobas didn’t know that. He should have known he was in a magically created void because he had already found corridors that behaved unnaturally. Using the spell to curse a magical creature, something that’s effectively a spell incarnate, while you’re in an enchanted castle in a magically created void where space isn’t the same shape was foolish. It’s amazing the spell didn’t do something even worse than a plague of spriggans. I think we can all be grateful that the Haunting Phantasm is a simple, low-order spell.”

“I see,” Gresh said thoughtfully.

The Wizards’ Guild generally tended to be very conservative, and cases like this were a major reason why. Wizardry was absurdly powerful, dangerous stuff that tapped into the raw chaos that underlay ordinary reality. Even simple spells could go spectacularly wrong. That was why wizards screened their apprentices carefully and imposed draconian rules on each other. Mistakes that would be harmless in any sane enterprise could be fatal to everyone in the area when wizardry was involved. It was theoretically possible for a single wizard to destroy the entire World, and while a portion of the Guild might actually survive that, no one cared to put it to the test. The Guild and individual wizards therefore did everything they could to prevent the careless use of wizardry.

This was often a self-solving problem, actually-sloppy or untalented apprentices didn’t survive to become journeymen. The death rate wasn’t as discouraging as it was for demonologists, but it wasn’t zero, either. Even non-fatal mistakes might leave an apprentice with four legs and fur, or trapped in an unbreakable bottle, or otherwise incapacitated.

Tobas appeared to be that rare and fortunate thing, a wizard who had done something very stupid when he was young and survived it unscathed. Gresh would want to watch him very closely. Tobas should have learned from his mistakes, but that didn’t mean he had, and someone who did something stupendously stupid once might well do something stupid again.

At last he could think of no more questions to ask. He thanked Heshka and Dina and sent them both home, noticing as he did that the sun was down and the lamps were lit. Weary, he stretched, and headed to the kitchen, where he discovered that Twilfa had found Akka, the family’s ritual dancer, as he had asked, and had brought her back to the shop. The sisters were chatting over empty plates while a third plate, holding a supper of cold salt ham and honeyed pears, waited for him.

He sat down to eat, but before he could pick up his fork Akka turned and asked, “What sort of dance do you need?”

“A blessing on travelers, I think,” he said, as he cut a bite of ham. “I’m going to the Small Kingdoms on an errand.” He popped the ham in his mouth. “And if you can do anything to make spriggans more cooperative, that would help.”

“And I suppose you’re too busy to actually watch the dance, let alone participate.”

“You suppose correctly.”

“It would be much more effective if you joined in.”

“I don’t work magic, Akka,” Gresh said. “You know that. I’ll use other people’s magic happily; I do it all the time. But I don’t make my own magic, ever.”

“You could at least stand in the center of the pattern.”

Gresh considered that for a moment. The wizards had said it would take two days to get the powders and potions ready. He estimated he would need half a day for his own preparations. That left a day and a half. He had thought he might to use the time for further research and to handle the normal course of business, but now he remembered that the Guild had ordered his customers not to buy from him until he brought back the mirror, so there wouldn’t be any normal business. He wasn’t really sure just what research remained to be done. He might try to catch and talk to a few more spriggans, and he might have more questions for Tobas and his wives, but beyond that, what would he do with his time?