But he might not need to use force.

When he had spent several minutes tickling spriggans, reducing half a dozen of them to helpless laughter, he set the last one on the ground and said, “All you spriggans! Every one who can hear me! Come here-I need to talk to you.”

Two or three dozen more emerged from the shadows.

“Karanissa,” he said. “Would you go tell your husband to let some spriggans through, to talk to me? Perhaps a hundred or so?”

Karanissa frowned at him, then turned up a hand. “As you say,” she replied. She clambered out through the hole in the cave wall, out onto the meadow beside the dragon’s tail.

He glanced down at his pack, covering the mirror. That seemed secure enough for the moment, but he put a foot on a corner of the pack, just in case. Then he waited.

A moment later a good-sized group of spriggans came swarming into the cave, and Gresh found himself surrounded by several dozen pop-eyed little creatures, all staring at him in the gathering gloom. None of them seemed inclined to charge him, or to try to grab the mirror-he had half-expected such a maneuver, and had been ready for it.

When the crowd had quieted he looked around. “Oh, good,” he said. “You look as if you’re ready to listen.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Listen.”

“Spriggans listen.”

Gresh nodded. “Here’s the situation, then. Under my pack there is the enchanted mirror you all came from, and that protects you from harm. If it’s broken into pieces, each of you is multiplied into however many pieces there are, and there may be other connections, as well. Most of you know about that-maybe all of you. You don’t want it to be harmed, or to be taken into the places where wizardry doesn’t work, and you hid it away in this cave to prevent anything like that from happening. You’re all still here, instead of out in the World having fun, because you’re guarding the mirror. Am I right?”

“Right!”

“Yes yes yes!”

“That right.”

“We got in here anyway, Karanissa and me, and meddled with the mirror, and our dragon kept you from stopping us-but you kept us from taking the mirror away by getting between us and our flying carpet, where the dragon couldn’t chase you away safely for fear he might harm either the carpet, or the woman and baby sitting on it. So we have something of a stand-off.”

“Right!”

“Yes!”

“You’re hoping we’ll give up and go away eventually-but that isn’t going to work. First off, I’m as stubborn as you are. Second, if we do give up, that isn’t the end of it-the Wizards’ Guild sent us to get the mirror, and if we don’t bring it back they’ll send someone else, and then someone else, until they do get the mirror away from you. They have lots of magic, and they’ll use it. They want the mirror destroyed, and sooner or later they’ll find a way to get it.”

“No!”

“Bad wizards!”

“No no no no!”

“Yes, that’s how it is.” Even in the gathering gloom, Gresh could see the concern and dismay on all those inhuman little faces and the puzzled interest on the reflected Karanissa’s visage. He also saw the real Karanissa climbing back into the cave; he sensed that she was listening carefully, both with her ears and her witchcraft. “But I’ve been studying the mirror, trying spells on it, and I think I’ve figured out how it works. I’ve decided that I don’t want it destroyed, either. If I leave it here with you, though, sooner or later the Wizards’ Guild is going to find it and destroy it. So what I want to do is give it to the wizards, but make sure that instead of destroying it, they lock it away somewhere safe. If I can do that, it won’t be destroyed, and you don’t need to stay on this mountain to guard it anymore-you can go out in the World and have fun, like the other spriggans! What about that idea?”

Several spriggans began cheering and applauding, but others were calling protests and questions, obviously not convinced. Gresh held up his hands for silence, and with a little help from Karanissa’s witchcraft, silence descended once again over the unruly mob.

“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.