very important?” he asked. “Aren’t there already enough spriggans in the World?”
“Oh, yes,” one spriggan said brightly.
“Maybe.”
“Not know.”
“Not matter.”
“You go now,” said a larger-than-average one.
Karanissa leaned over and whispered into his ear, “Some of them don’t much like that question-I could feel their dismay when you asked it.”
That was the closest Karanissa had yet come to him, and Gresh tried not to be distracted by the scent of her, or her hair brushing his shoulder. He concentrated on her words.
They didn’t want to tell him why the mirror was important-but it apparently was not for making more spriggans; that was interesting and unexpected. Why did they care about it, then? He had taken it for granted that they wanted to reproduce, like any living creature, and that the mirror was important to them for that reason, but perhaps that was not the case at all. Magical creatures did not always follow the usual rules.
But what else did the spriggan mirror do?
If he could get it to a properly equipped wizard’s laboratory back in the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, the Guild’s experts might be able to figure that out, but out here on the mountainside, with a few feet of rock between him and the mirror, the only way to determine it seemed to be to ask the questions the spriggans didn’t want asked and to coax honest answers out of the little pests.
“What does the mirror do that’s so important?” he asked.
“You go now,” the big spriggan said. “No more questions.”
“But I…”
“You go now.” The threat was now unmistakable, despite the creature’s squeaky, high-pitched voice.
Gresh looked around and saw that the ring of spriggans had thickened and solidified as new arrivals filled in gaps and pushed their comrades closer together. Spriggans were now peering out at him from the mouth of the cave, as well. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them in all.
Enough to fill the cave, that one had said-and none of them were smiling. They didn’t look worried or confused anymore; they looked determined.
“If we go now…” he began, then stopped. He had been planning to ask whether they would move the mirror, but he did not want to give them any ideas that hadn’t yet occurred to them. He turned to Karanissa and said, “Can you…?”
“No,” she interrupted. “Don’t even ask. With all of them in there?”
“We need to get into the cave somehow.”
“No! You stay out of cave!” shrieked a spriggan.
“What we need is to chase them away,” Karanissa said.
“Any ideas on that?”
She turned up an empty palm. “Nothing comes to mind.”
“No witchcraft you can use?”
“Not with so many.”
“No chase spriggans! You go!”
“Go away! Go away!”
“Maybe a spell? Wizardry, or some sorcery from your pack?”
Gresh looked at the couple on the carpet, still happily playing with the baby, oblivious to what was happening to their companions. He tried to think what spells might be useful, and how he might get Tobas’s attention. Why didn’t the wizard look up? Was that baby of his that fascinating? He was supposed to be helping Gresh get the mirror, not counting his daughter’s toes for the hundredth time.
Or there were the powders and potions in his own pack; would any of those help? He reviewed what he had brought.
Lirrim’s Rectification and Javan’s Restorative were counterspells and would be of no use here-though they might be very important once he had the mirror. Javan’s Geas would force someone not to do something; if it worked on spriggans he could command at least a dozen of them not to interfere with him and Karanissa while they retrieved the mirror, but he didn’t have anywhere near enough powder to affect a mob of this size.
And that assumed it worked on spriggans at all, which was by no means a certainty.
The Spell of Reversal had no obvious application, and its exact effects could sometimes be hard to predict.
The Protective Bubble would shield them from any attacks by the spriggans, but they would not be able to reach the mirror through it; magic could pass through it, in theory, but only in severely weakened form, so Karanissa’s witchcraft, which had already proven inadequate for pulling the mirror out of the cave past the spriggans, would not be much use. The Spell of Retarded Time could slow down everything except the person drinking the potion, and he could use that to escape if things turned nasty, or to give himself time to prepare something, but he could not see just how to apply that effectively in the present situation. And Karanissa would need a dose, as well; his supply was not unlimited.
That left the Spell of the Revealed Power.
“What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever defeated?” he asked Karanissa quietly, hoping the spriggans wouldn’t overhear, despite their big pointed ears.
“What? Why?”
“What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever defeated?” Gresh repeated. “Or mastered somehow? Have you ever killed a wolf, perhaps? You did say you’d spent time in these mountains.”
She lowered her voice still further. “Yes, but I never encountered a wolf, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have killed it. I’m a witch; I can soothe animals. I can hear you even if you don’t talk aloud at all-just shape the words in your mind.”
Gresh was not entirely sure how to do that, but he could and did reduce his voice to an inaudible murmur. “Soothing a wolf would count as defeating it; have you ever done that? Even a tame one?”
“No.”
“Do you have anything in your bag that’s been used to defeat a large beast, or a monster of some sort?”
“Gresh, what are you talking about?” He barely saw her lips move, but the words seemed very clear- obviously, she could use her witchcraft to speak as well as hear. “I’m a witch, not a hunter. Why would I have fought monsters?”
“I was just looking for some way to use this spell I brought.”
“What spell?”
“The Spell of the Revealed Power,” he whispered. “It’s a transformation. It turns anyone or anything into an exact replica of the most powerful thing it’s ever built, defeated, destroyed, mastered, or otherwise demonstrated power over. A knife that’s killed a wolf becomes the wolf, a hammer that’s smashed a wall-or built one-becomes a wall, and so on. Have you had any children? As I understand it, a mother of five would become five grown people- she would disappear as herself until the spell is reversed, but she would be all five of her children in the prime of their lives. But I’m not sure. She might just become the strongest of the five.”
“I’ve never had any children,” Karanissa said, and Gresh thought she sounded annoyed at the question. “Just what are you planning to do with this spell? Why are you asking?”
“I’m trying to think of some way to use it to chase away the spriggans so we can get that mirror out of the cave.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Well, I don’t have any triumphs or conquests that would be any use, so far as I can recall, but of course Tobas killed a dragon once. Would that help?”
Gresh blinked and looked at her. Then he turned and looked at Tobas, who had finally looked up from the baby to see what was taking so long.
“How big a dragon?” he asked silently.
Chapter Seventeen
