“It’s the same one,” Kilisha agreed, turning to see the soldier had come up behind her, far more quietly than she would have thought possible.
“Who’s that?” Telleth asked, looking at Kelder. No one answered; everyone else’s attention was still focused on the spriggan.
“Should I kill it?” Kelder asked, raising his truncheon.
“No!” Kilisha and the spriggan shouted in unison. “I need it alive for a spell, to restore my master,” Kilisha explained quickly.
“The spriggan?” Yara said, emerging from the workshop behind Kelder. At the sound of her voice the rug humped itself up and slithered off the table, falling to the floor in a heap and knocking the spriggan off its feet.
Kilisha sprang forward and caught the spriggan before it, too, could tumble off the table. She called to the children, “Find me a cage or a rope or something! We can’t let this escape.”
Telleth hurried to obey and tripped over the rug, which was straightening itself out and starting toward Yara; Kelder caught the boy before he could fall.
Yara let out a yelp at the sight of the rug climbing over her son’s legs and coming toward her; she backed into the workshop. The table was dancing back and forth nervously, obviously confused by all the excitement, and the coatrack had squeezed itself trembling back into its corner, its hooks extended in every direction.
Kilisha clapped her hands to her head at the sound and confusion and sudden motion, forgetting that she held the spriggan in one of them; the feel of its leathery little body against her ear was supremely disconcerting, and it was all she could do to stop herself from flinging the little creature away headfirst.
“Lirrin, help your brother get that rug off his feet, would you?” Kilisha said.
Lirrin and Pirra both hurried to Telleth, who was now kicking wildly as Kelder held him off the ground and the rug struggled to untangle itself. Before either girl could touch it, though, Telleth gave one final kick that sent the rug flying; it soared free and landed on the floor several feet to the side, where it skidded across the planking for another foot or two before it managed to stop.
Telleth stopped kicking, but not until he had thumped one bare foot into Pirra’s chest and knocked her to the floor, where she sat and wailed. Lirrin hurried to her sister’s aid as Kelder carefully lowered the chastened boy to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Pirra!” Telleth called. “I’m sorry!”
Kilisha was too busy watching the rug to pay much attention to the children. The floor covering had recovered quickly from its fall, and was now humping itself up, inchworm fashion, and crawling toward the workshop door. Kilisha turned to see Yara staring in horror at the approaching object.
“Stay back!” Yara shouted, holding out a hand to fend the rug off.
The rug stopped dead.
“Sec?” Kilisha called. “It loves you, and will do what you tell it!”
“Love you, yes!” the spriggan squeaked in a high-pitched parody of Ithanalin’s voice.
The table danced over and bumped against Lirrin from behind, and the coatrack thumped against the wall.
“What is going on here?” Kelder bellowed. That made the three children cower, the table dance, the coatrack rock wildly from side to side, and the rug skitter sideways, while the spriggan squirmed wildly in Kilisha’s grasp.
A sudden inspiration struck her. “Kelder,” she asked, “do you have something you use to tie people up if you arrest them? Restraints of some kind?”
“I have a cord,” he admitted. He reached into the big pouch on his belt and pulled out a length of rope.
“Here,” Kilisha said, holding out the spriggan. “Start with this.”
“Why?” Kelder asked suspiciously.
“I need it to restore my master,” Kilisha said.
Kelder did not look convinced, but he looped the cord around the spriggan’s wrists and tied a quick knot. Kilisha smiled.
“The ankles, too,” she said. “They’re tricky.”
Kelder grumbled, but tied the spriggan’s legs, tugging the knot tight.
When he was done, Kilisha carefully set the little creature on the floor. “There,” she said.
The spriggan promptly pulled both hands out of the loops, then bent down and pulled at the cord around its ankles. The knots fell apart, and the rope dropped away. It stood up.
“Not like rope!” it said.
“How did you do that?” Kelder demanded, reaching for the spriggan with one hand and the discarded ropes with the other. The little creature danced aside, out of his grasp.
Kilisha didn’t say a thing, but her eyes widened as she realized what had happened. She had seen such a demonstration before, years ago, when she had scarcely begun her apprenticeship.
One of the little-known aspects of wizardry was that a true wizard could not be held by physical bonds if he could touch the hilt of his athame. He didn’t need to hold it, or cut anything, or use any sort of spell-simply touching it would cause his bonds to fall away.
Just as the spriggan’s had.
Which, she theorized, meant that the spriggan now held the piece of Ithanalin’s soul that had been in his athame. Or perhaps it had received his magical talents, including whatever it was that gave an athame that particular ability.
Kelder had recovered his ropes, but the spriggan had eluded him and he was kneeling on the parlor floor, grabbing for it.
“Spriggan!” Kilisha called. “Hold still!” She remembered whose fragmentary self she was speaking to, and added, “Please.”
“Not like rope!” it squeaked.
“I know,” Kilisha said. “We won’t tie you up, I promise.”
“We won’t?” Telleth asked, looking at her in surprise.
“No, we won’t,” Kilisha said.
Kelder looked up and growled, “Speak for yourself.”
“Kelder, we can’t tie it up. It’s impossible.”
Kelder stopped grabbing at the spriggan and looked at her. “Why is it impossible?” he demanded.
Kilisha hesitated, unsure what to say-she couldn’t explain about the spriggan being like an athame; the true nature of a wizard’s athame was a Guild secret, and she could be killed for revealing it.
Finally, as Kelder and the children stared at her expectantly, she simply said, “Magic.”
Chapter Thirteen
It took some time to sort everything out, but in the end Kil-isha was satisfied.
The dish and spoon had been moved the previous night from their cages to solid, securely locked boxes in Ithanalin’s bedroom- Yara had said it made her nervous having them watching her from the cages-and they were still there. The coatrack was leashed in the corner of the parlor. The end table was securely tied to the kitchen table. The rug was rolled up and tied-it hadn’t absorbed any athame magic-and tucked away in the pantry.
Yara and the children had retreated to the rear portion of the house, where Lirrin and Pirra were playing a sort of tag with the animated table.
Kelder had seated himself on the floor, blocking the front door, and Kilisha sat facing him, blocking the door to the workshop.
And the spriggan was sitting cross-legged between them, unbound.
“Tell us what happened,” Kilisha said.
“Don’t want to,” the spriggan said.
Kilisha sighed in exasperation. “I know we can’t tie you up,” she said, “but there’s no reason we can’t hurt you!”
