With that he reached down and pulled two jars out of the battered wooden box, one of bright orange powder and the other of dark red. Then he asked Karanissa, “Is the magic still reversed?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll have to wait a few more minutes.” He sat down on a convenient rock, the two jars cradled in his lap.

The Spriggan Mirror

A Legend of Ethshar

While they waited, Gresh thought over the situation.

It seemed to him that they were reaching a satisfactory conclusion to matters. With any luck his message had been received and understood in the world from which spriggans were reflected, and the mirror would be shut away in a box somewhere, ending the supply of spriggans. That removed it as any serious threat to the World. The half-million spriggans already in existence might be a nuisance, but they could be accepted; he did not want to aid in exterminating them. Ending the existence of half a million beings bright enough to talk, answer questions, and do all the other things that spriggans did struck him as a horrible idea, an unnecessary and unfair slaughter-after all, a good many of the spriggans had never bothered anyone, but had stayed here in the mountains guarding the mirror. That was almost noble, in a way.

As long as the mirror produced no more, Gresh considered the problem to be adequately solved.

His actual agreement with the Wizards’ Guild had been to deliver the mirror to Tobas, and he had every intention of doing that, so there was no problem there-except for the usual one of getting the Guild to live up to its end of the agreement. Tobas would undoubtedly tell them how he had not used any amazing magic or superhuman skills, but had merely backtracked the spriggans with common sense and a little sorcery, and there would also be the issue of not actually ensuring the mirror’s destruction, so the Guild might well try to wiggle out of paying him the promised youth spell. He would need to have arguments ready, pointing out that he was more than living up to his end of the bargain, and that the Guild would be well-served to see that he continued in his business as their best supplier of exotic ingredients.

Aside from preparing his arguments, there were still a few other loose ends, as well. He would need to see that the mirror was secure, tucked away somewhere no one untrustworthy would meddle with it, and where the spriggans couldn’t easily change their minds and steal it. If possible, he wanted to convince the Guild not to destroy it; that would be simpler if he could offer them a way to deal with troublesome existing spriggans. While he wanted the mirror shut away somewhere, it needed to be stored in such a way that if any more spriggans did emerge, the Guild would be alerted, and the matter could be dealt with.

Whoever was in charge of the mirror would want to be very sure that if it did produce more spriggans, those newly emerged spriggans could not carry the mirror off somewhere and hide it, starting the whole thing over again.

Besides the various aspects of the mirror and the spriggans and the Wizards’ Guild, there was one other loose end. He glanced at her.

The reflection of Karanissa’s reflection was sitting on a rock in the dimming twilight, watching the spriggans curiously.

She considered herself a person, but Gresh was not at all sure she was right. Presumably she was just as indestructible as the mirror’s other creations, just as bound to the mirror’s condition. She did not seem hostile or difficult-in fact, she seemed more passive than the original Karanissa-but simply letting her wander off into the mountains did not seem safe or humane.

Karanissa had said she wasn’t whole-perhaps something could be done about that. Gresh looked down at his open pack and the box of magical powders in the top.

Javan’s Restorative would not do any good; she had never been complete. Lirrim’s Rectification, though, might turn her into the fully human creature she was meant to be. She would still look just like Karanissa, but that was not really much of a problem. Gresh had met identical twins who seemed to lead individual lives.

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.”