Or had she seduced him, perhaps? Gresh suddenly wondered whether the Spell of the Revealed Power might turn Karanissa into the likeness of the long-dead Derithon the Mage and whether that might be useful.

He was not about to test out that theory without some careful planning; he had had enough of throwing spells around recklessly. Tobas had been right to criticize him.

“Still no new spriggans,” Karanissa said, interrupting his thoughts.

Gresh glanced down at the mirror, and as he did he caught a glimpse of a pair of pop-eyes watching him from a corner of the cave. The spriggans did not seem upset by whatever the Spell of Reversal had done. There was no ongoing barrage of squeals, nor were there any wild dashes toward the mirror to protect it.

It might be time to ask them a few questions, while waiting to see whether any spriggans emerged before the Spell of Reversal wore off-or after, for that matter. After all, interrogating spriggans had been more obviously useful than wizardry so far.

“Karanissa, would you…” he began.

He did not need to finish the request; she had heard his thoughts. Her hand flashed out and closed on the spriggan’s legs, and a moment later it was hanging upside-down from her fist, squealing. Several other spriggans were calling protests from elsewhere in the cave.

“Shut up!” Gresh ordered.

The captured spriggan’s complaints died down to terrified whimpering, and the others fell completely silent.

“We aren’t going to hurt you,” Gresh told it. “If you answer all my questions truthfully for the next half-hour, we’ll let you go.”

“Not fun,” the spriggan whined.

“Sometimes life isn’t fun,” Gresh told it.

It nodded desperately.

“Good. Karanissa, why don’t you turn our guest the other way up, so it can talk more easily?”

Karanissa righted the creature, but did not loosen her grip.

“Now, my little friend, what do you know about this mirror?” Gresh asked, pointing.

The spriggan looked down and gulped. “That where spriggans come from,” it said. “That what gives spriggans magic, protects spriggans from harm.”

“It does?” Gresh’s gaze fell to the mirror for a moment, then flicked back to their captive. “How does it protect you?”

“Not tell!” another spriggan called from a dozen feet away. Gresh threw a pebble at it, and it fled with a squeal.

The captive saw its companion flee, then said, “Just does.” It tried to shrug, but the gesture was not entirely successful with Karanissa’s hand restricting its movement.

“It didn’t protect you from being captured just now,” Gresh pointed out.

“No, no. Doesn’t protect spriggan from everything. But spriggan can’t be killed, not while mirror is magic.”

“What?” Gresh glanced down at the mirror; was that the source of the spriggans’ invulnerability? He knew that there was a powerful link between the mirror and the spriggans, or there could have been no fourfold population surge when the mirror was broken, but he had not connected the mirror with the creatures’ reported inability to die from any natural cause.

The spriggan did not try to explain; it just looked unhappy and confused. Karanissa interjected a question. “How do you know it protects you?”

“Didn’t always,” the spriggan said.

“Explain!” Gresh demanded.

The spriggan looked more miserable than ever. “When mirror first make spriggans, mirror was in big stone house in purple sky.” It pointed at Karanissa. “She was there.”

“We know where you mean,” Gresh said, noting silently that the spriggan seemed very sure the mirror made spriggans, rather than bringing them from somewhere else, even though Karanissa had sensed that the mirror was directed somewhere else. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“When mirror was in purple sky place, spriggans had magic, couldn’t be hurt-but wizard tried to lock up mirror, didn’t like spriggans, so spriggans took mirror to other place.”

That accorded with what Gresh had been told by Tobas and his wives. “Yes. That was seven years ago.”

“In dark other place, mirror had no magic, so spriggans had no magic. Some spriggans didn’t care, went wandering around, got in trouble, made people angry, and people cut spriggans! With big scary knives! Sharp ones! Spriggans died!”

A chorus of dismayed squeaks came from other spriggans in earshot; the humans ignored them. “They died?” Gresh looked at Karanissa. “I thought you said they couldn’t be killed by natural means.”

“They can’t,” Karanissa said.

“Spriggans can’t,” the spriggan agreed. “Can’t now, because smart spriggans figured out mirror might be magic again someplace else and took mirror from dark stone house to cave-this cave! And mirror had magic again, and spriggans had magic again, and spriggans not die anymore, ever-well, unless spriggans go where no magic is; spriggans can be killed there. But only stupid spriggans go there; spriggans can feel magic and stay away from bad places.”

Comprehension swept over Gresh. Tobas had not bothered retrieving the mirror originally because he had thought it would be harmless in the no-wizardry zone, and it was-but the spriggans had eventually hauled it out of the dead area, not because they wanted more spriggans loose in the World, but because of the magical link between themselves and the mirror that made them unkillable.

That the spriggans had figured out that the link existed proved that spriggans weren’t as stupid as they looked. The connection certainly hadn’t been obvious to him. He supposed that hundreds of them had discussed the situation at length, and they had somehow worked it out collectively, but it was still impressive.

The link might provide some of the other magical abilities the spriggans displayed, as well, such as their uncanny ability to open any lock-but it wasobviously the invulnerability that mattered most to them. “So that’s why you want to keep it safe?” he asked.

The spriggan nodded wildly.

“You were keeping this secret-why?”

“Not want spriggan-killers to know how to kill spriggans! Not want spell broken, or mirror taken to no-magic place again.”

That was reasonable. Furthermore, Gresh thought, in all likelihood, no one had ever asked them about any of this until he had begun his own investigations. The usual reaction to spriggans wasn’t to try to reason with them or determine their origins; it was simply to shoo them away as quickly as possible.

But they could be reasoned with; Gresh saw that now. They wanted the mirror to preserve their indestructibility. “And you don’t care that it keeps making more spriggans?” he asked.

“Not care much,” the spriggan agreed. “Enough spriggans now. Crowded here, with so many. We send extras off to find wizards-spriggans like magic. And have fun. But keep enough here to guard mirror.”

“You send the extras away, on purpose?” Gresh demanded. “They don’t just wander off?”

“Send them away, yes,” the spriggan said, nodding again. “That way, on easy old road.” It pointed to the north. “Some go off other ways, but most use road.”

And that, it seemed, explained why so few wound up in Dwomor-the road the captive indicated led the opposite direction, north and west toward Ethshar, where most of the world’s wizards were.

“Why didn’t one of you just tell us all this, instead of mobbing poor Alorria and making everything difficult?” Gresh asked. “We can work something out!”

“Didn’t know you weren’t spriggan-killer, maybe?”

“But I said we didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t I?” He looked at Karanissa.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Did you?”

“I think maybe we were too busy with other things,” Gresh admitted. “I suppose the way we kept trying to get at the mirror couldn’t have looked very friendly.” Then he turned his attention back to the spriggan. “So right now, is the magic still working? We changed the spell on the mirror-does that matter?”