“Four hundred years?”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“So that castle-that was Derithon’s? And Varrin’s Greater Propulsion shut down when it came too close to whatever it is, and the tapestry stopped working, and that was how Karanissa was trapped in there?”

Tobas sighed. “Yes.”

“Does witchcraft still work there? Or sorcery?”

“Witchcraft definitely does; I can’t be entirely certain about sorcery, as I haven’t tested it, but I believe it does.”

“Karanissa might be useful to have along, then.”

“If we were going to the castle, maybe, but you just said we didn’t need to.”

“True. A good point.” Gresh stroked his beard thoughtfully, then glanced down at the talisman he still held. “Take us around… what do you call it? Is there a whole area here where wizardry doesn’t work?”

Reluctantly, Tobas admitted, “Yes.”

“What shape is it? Is it a line, or…?”

“Spherical. We mapped it out years ago; it’s a sphere close to two miles in diameter, centered on top of the cliff. That must be where he stood…” He stopped.

“What? Who?”

“Never mind. It’s a sphere, centered on top of the cliff.”

Gresh nodded thoughtfully. “Two miles. And in Ethshar of the Sands…?”

“None of your business. Much smaller.”

“Of course. And your plan for disposing of the mirror, the one you wouldn’t tell me-is to take it into that sphere and smash it?”

“Yes,” Tobas admitted. “And now that you’ve learned my secret, where did you want to go?”

“Oh, yes. Around to the east, along the edge of the…the sphere.” He looked down at the talisman. “Low and slow, please.”

He did not expect to find the mirror in the woods, of course; unless the spriggan had completely fooled him it was in a cave, not a forest, and in a mountain, not a valley. He did, however, want to find a spriggan or two. He hoped to backtrack some to the mirror, and he was also trying to figure out why so few ever reached Dwomor Keep. It might turn out to be important.

Or it might not matter at all. Now that he knew a little more about it, he had to admit that Tobas’s plan of taking the mirror into the no-wizardry area and smashing it sounded feasible. It was simple and direct, and he couldn’t see anything obvious that might go wrong.

They still had to find the mirror, though. He knew it was in a cave, in sight of a ruin, probably facing east, and at one time it had been in that ruined castle over there, so it seemed very likely that it was somewhere in the mountains just to the west-why would the spriggans have taken it any farther than they had to?

But you never knew, with spriggans. It might be twenty leagues away in Vlagmor; that might explain why so few spriggans troubled Dwomor.

For the moment, though, he intended to start with the area around the castle. He peered intently at the sorcerous talisman in his hand as the carpet sailed gracefully along, skimming the treetops.

The Spriggan Mirror

A Legend of Ethshar

They had made roughly a quarter-circle around the fallen castle when Gresh finally spotted a spriggan. “Down!” he barked.

Tobas gestured, and the carpet dove to the ground. Gresh vaulted off, talisman in hand. He left Tobas standing on the carpet, blinking foolishly, as he dashed into the bushes. Mindless of the thorns and branches tearing at his sleeves, he reached forward to where the talisman indicated a small moving object.

“Help help help help help!” a squeaky voice shrieked. “A crazy man is grabbing for me!”

“Come out where I can see you!” Gresh shouted.

“No! You’re grabbing!”

Gresh stopped and straightened up as best he could in the middle of the thicket. “No grabbing,” he said. “Just talk.”

“No grabbing?”

“If you stay in the bushes I’ll grab you, all right,” Gresh growled, as he looked at the disk in his hand. The spriggan was about four feet in front of him, in the thickest and thorniest part of the bushes. If he dove for it he would have just one chance. If he missed, he wouldn’t be able to disentangle himself before the spriggan had put a hundred feet between them. “If you come out and talk, no grabbing.”

“Promise?”

The spriggan wasn’t moving. “I promise.”

“You first.”

“All right, then. I’m going to step back out of the bushes, and then you’ll come out, and we’ll talk. No grabbing-as long as you talk. If you try to run away, you’ll make me very angry, and you wouldn’t like that.”

“You first.”

Carefully, with much snapping and scratching, Gresh backed out of the bushes until he stood in an open patch beside the carpet. He waited, hands on his hips.

A moment later a small green face peered out at him. “No grabbing?” it squeaked.

“No grabbing,” Gresh agreed.

“Talk?”

“Talk.”

“What talk?”

“I want you to tell me a few things.”

“Fun things?”

“Maybe.”

“What things?”

“Where did you come from?”

The spriggan blinked up at him. “Mirror,” it said.

That was exactly what Gresh wanted to hear. “Where is that mirror?” he asked.

The spriggan hesitated, looking around the clearing; then it stuck an arm out and pointed to the northwest. “That way.”

“How far?”

Spriggans might not be human, but there was no misunderstanding the expression on the creature’s face as it said, “Don’t know.” It obviously thought Gresh was an idiot for asking.

“How long ago did you come out of the mirror? Today? Yesterday? A sixnight ago? Longer?”

“Not today.”

“Yesterday?”

“No. How much more talk?”

“We’re almost done; I just want to find the mirror.”

“Why?”

“I promised I would.”

“Stupid promise.”

“Maybe,” Gresh admitted. “But I made it anyway.”

“You no fun.”

“I know. No fun at all. Where’s the mirror?”

“That way.” It pointed again. “Maybe four days ago.”

“In a cave?”

The spriggan frowned. “How you know that?”

“It’s still in the cave?” Gresh persisted.

“Done talking.” And with that, the spriggan ducked back into the bush and vanished.

Gresh reached for his talisman, then stopped. There was no point in harassing one particular spriggan. There would be more of them out there. Instead he brushed off the worst of the twigs and bits of leaf, then turned and marched back to his waiting companion.

“I heard that,” Tobas said.

“Yes, I would assume so,” Gresh said, as he settled cross-legged onto the carpet. “I didn’t think you were deaf.”

“You were interrogating that spriggan.”

“Well, yes. And you’re stating the obvious.”

“Is that how you plan to find the mirror? Is that how you know more or less where it is?”

“I questioned a spriggan back in Ethshar of the Rocks, yes.”

“But anyone could do that!”

Gresh looked at him. “But did anyone do it?” he asked. “I’m the one who actually thought of it and tried it, so it doesn’t really matter whether anyone else could have.”

“But that’s… You’re charging the Guild Enral’s Eternal Youth for that?”

“You and Karanissa told me the Guild would pay almost any price for the mirror. You never said anything about using esoteric methods to find it. Simple methods often work just as well.”

“But…just asking?”

“Do you have a better idea? You tried scrying spells and oracular deities and all the other possibilities offered by modern magic, and they didn’t work, as I recall. My method has at least gotten us close.”

“By asking spriggans.”

“Yes. After all, they’re the ones who know where the mirror is.”

“But you just… just asking…”

“Yes. You’d be surprised how often asking questions gets answers. Very few people-or creatures-are as obsessed with secrecy as you wizards are.”