“So you can read.”
“Yes, I apparently can,” she agreed.
That meant it was possible for a reflected image to have the ability to read. Gresh hesitated, however, at the thought of setting another immortal giant loose among the real spriggans just to send them a message.
But then he realized he didn’t need to send another; the giants who were already there, however many there were, could undoubtedly read just fine-after all, this copy of Karanissa was a reflection of a reflection, not of the original. If she could read, then so could the copies already there.
But could spriggans?
“What’s going on in there?” asked a deep rumble. Gresh looked up to see the dragon that had been Tobas of Telven looking down at him. “How much longer are we going to be here? The sun is down, and even if you turn me human again, and we take off right now, it’ll probably be dark by the time we reach the keep. Why aren’t we doing… Who is that?”
The final question was spoken in an earth-shaking bellow, as the dragon noticed the presence of a second Karanissa. Spriggans squealed in terror.
“What did you do?” the dragon roared. “Where did it come from?”
“We were experimenting with the mirror,” Gresh said calmly. “I’ve figured out how it works and how to make it stop producing spriggans.”
As if to contradict his statement, a spriggan popped out of the mirror just then-the first one since he had first cast the Spell of Reversal. That fit his theory well enough; some brave spriggan had presumably finally ventured into the neighborhood of the other mirror. The new arrival looked up at the man, the two women, and the dragon, then shrieked and ran away into the darkness of the cave’s depths. Gresh heard other spriggans calling comfortingly to it.
“You have?” the dragon asked suspiciously. “What was that I just saw, then?”
“I said I know how to stop them, not that I’ve done it yet,” Gresh said.
“Of course. You did say that. There’s something else you haven’t done yet-you haven’t explained why there are two of my wife there.”
“That was an accident,” Gresh said. He pointed. “That’s Karanissa.” His finger moved. “And that’s a magical image of her that doesn’t have a name yet.”
“An image?” The dragon cocked his head and glared at the reflection with one baleful red eye. “Is it solid, or just an illusion?”
“I’m solid enough,” the image replied.
“It talks.”
“Oh, yes,” Gresh said. “In fact, it’s indestructible, just like a spriggan. I told you, we found out how the mirror works, and we did it by accidentally creating… well, her.”
“It’s permanent?”
“Very much so, yes.”
“Kara, what’s going on? What is that thing?”
Before the real Karanissa could reply, the copy shouted, “I’m a person! Stop calling me ‘it’ and talking about me as if I weren’t here!”
This outburst startled Gresh; until now the reflection had been calm and quiet and cooperative. Like Tobas, he hadn’t been thinking of it as entirely human-he had just been more tactful than the dragon. It seemed there was more to it than he had thought, though.
The dragon stared at the image for a moment; she stared angrily back. Gresh and Karanissa waited.
Finally the dragon said, “I’m sorry, whoever you are. I didn’t realize you were, well, real.”
“That’s better,” the reflection said, crossing her arms over her chest.
The dragon peered at her for a few seconds more, then asked, “But can someone explain to me what’s going on? Do we have the mirror? Can we take it with us and get out of here before it gets dark? How much longer do I need to be a dragon? Ali is getting upset.”
Gresh thought Alorria had been upset for quite some time now, but was not stupid enough to say so.
“I’m not sure what the situation is myself,” Karanissa answered.
“I don’t know what’s going on at all,” the reflection said.
“I do know what’s going on, but I’m not sure how to explain it,” Gresh said. “I know that in, oh, an hour or so I ought to be able to put an end to the production of new spriggans. I don’t know any safe way to destroy the mirror, though, and I’m not sure there is one, or that we should use it if there is.”
That was more or less a lie; Gresh was quite sure there were several ways to destroy the mirror. At least one of them was probably safe. There were spells that could do virtually anything, after all. The problem was that he doubted anyone knew which ones were safe, and he suspected the Guild might try a few that weren’t.
Simply destroying it, given enough magic, couldn’t really be that hard. The trick was to not leave any residue at all, and there were definitely spells that could do that, even if Gresh didn’t know what they were.
He suspected that Tobas didn’t know any of them, either. After all, Tobas might be a wizard, but Gresh was a wizards’ supplier; they were both familiar, at least in theory, with all the common spells. If Gresh couldn’t think of a safe way to destroy the mirror, he doubted Tobas could, either.
There were a few methods that might work-throwing it through a Transporting Tapestry to a place outside the World, letting a warlock destroy it, stuffing it face-down into a bottomless bag, feeding it to a demon. Gresh was not going to suggest any of those. It was all too likely that there were unforeseen flaws in them all.
“If there’s a safe way to destroy it, why shouldn’t we use it?” Tobas demanded.
Gresh’s real reason was simply that he decided he did not want to wipe out half a million semi-intelligent beings, but he did not think Tobas would accept that immediately-especially not when he was in dragon form. The wizard had already acknowledged that his shape was influencing his thoughts and behavior. Gresh doubted a real dragon would hesitate for a second before exterminating the spriggans.
Instead of admitting his unwillingness to play exterminator, Gresh said, “Because it might wipe all the spriggans out of existence, or it might turn them mortal, or it might multiply them infinitely-remember when we multiplied them by four? Destroying the mirror might do the same thing a hundred times over-or a thousand.”
The dragon stared at him for a moment, then said, “That would be bad.”
“I think so, yes,” Gresh agreed.
“So what are we going to do, then, if we can’t destroy the mirror safely?”
“Well, what I intend to do is ensure that the mirror won’t produce any more spriggans. Next, if possible-and I’m not entirely sure about this part-I’ll give it to you, with the understanding that you will not attempt to destroy it. I think I can convince the spriggans to allow that. What I contracted to do was to deliver the mirror to you, the Guild’s representative, so after that I’ve done my job-more than my job, since preventing it from generating new spriggans wasn’t anything I’d promised. If you like I’ll be happy, as yet another bonus, to try to help you convince the Guild that this is an adequate solution to the spriggan problem. I think that’s more than fair.”
“But the Guild…” The dragon hesitated.
“Oh, and I’m perfectly willing to leave you in either human or dragon form, if you think one might be more useful in negotiating with Kaligir and his friends.”
Tobas snorted sparks. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll turn me human. I can’t accept the mirror in this form; I’d probably break it into a dozen pieces and smother you all in spriggans.”
“Good point. Well, you can deliver the mirror to the Guild, if you like-with the appropriate warnings-and let them worry about it.”
“I can, can’t I?” The dragon cocked his head thoughtfully.
“Personally, I’d much rather you just sealed it away in a box somewhere and didn’t let them meddle with it,” Gresh said. “This all assumes that we can actually get it out of this cave, and I’m not entirely certain of that part yet. I do have some ideas.”
“How long is this going to take?”
“Putting an end to new spriggans should take maybe an hour, I’d say. Giving you the mirror and leaving here safely could take five minutes or it could take days, if I can do it at all.”
“It’ll be dark in an hour.”
“I know.”
“Ali won’t like that.”
