he found himself looking at all four spriggans, each of them holding one of the jars of magical powder-two in the sitting room, one on the sill of the open door to the platform, one on the platform itself.
Even as he stared, readying an angry shout, he mentally cursed his own stupidity. He knew spriggans were attracted to magic; he knew the spriggans were getting bored guarding the mirror; he knew they had been told not to touch anything in the workshop. No one had said anything about not touching the contents of the sitting room.
“Put those down!” he bellowed.
All four spriggans immediately dropped their jars.
The two jars in the sitting room landed with a slight thump, undamaged.
The one on the doorsill flew up out of the startled spriggan’s hands, came down hard on the stone, and cracked.
The one on the platform was not so much dropped as flung sideways; it landed rolling, and both Gresh and the spriggan watched in helpless dismay as it kept on rolling, right off the edge of the platform. As the label and clear glass alternated Gresh could see dark powder inside, but he could not be completely certain whether it was blue, purple, or dark red.
A few seconds later he heard the distant sound of breaking glass as it shattered on stonework somewhere far below.
“Oops,” the spriggan on the platform said. It looked up at Gresh with an embarrassed grin.
Gresh stared at it, wanting to scream at it, but unable to think of any words that were even remotely appropriate. Then he marched forward to collect the jars before any more damage could be done and to see which spells he still had.
The two unharmed jars held Javan’s Restorative and the Spell of the Revealed Power.
The cracked jar contained the dark red powder for Javan’s Geas.
The jar of purple powder that could produce the Spell of Reversal was gone.
“Oh, blood, pain, and death!” Gresh cursed, as he hurried out on the platform and looked down, hoping that perhaps part of the jar had survived, intact enough to hold a dose of the powder. Perhaps if he used the potion for the Spell of Retarded Time he could climb down and collect enough of the powder and still get back before the half-hour was up…
“Jar broken,” the spriggan said sadly, as it stood beside Gresh and looked over the edge with him.
“Could fix it?” another spriggan said, coming up behind them.
“Fix how?” the first spriggan asked.
“With magic powder?”
That was a possibility Gresh had not yet considered; he started to say something, but before he could, the spriggan who had dropped the jar on the platform leaned over the edge and shouted, “Esku!” at the top of its squeaky little voice.
There was a red-gold flash, and a suddenly intact jar came sailing up at them; Gresh stepped back, startled, and narrowly missed being hit by it as it flung itself onto the platform and rolled to a stop at the spot where it had been dropped.
Gresh stared at it, astonished. He had not thought of that, and the spriggans had. They had recognized the powder by color and had known how to use it from watching him back in the cave. Furthermore, they had actually done it, and it had worked! He had not known spriggans could actually work that sort of magic-but then, it was the powder that really did it; all anyone else had to provide, once the powder was flung, was the trigger word.
“Jar fixed!” the spriggan said happily, pointing.
“Yes, it is,” Gresh agreed, as a horrible suspicion struck him. He reached down and picked up the jar and held it up to the light.
It was empty.
Words once again failed him; he bit down so hard he thought his teeth might crack. That spell had retrieved the jar, but it had used up all the powder! It had all been flung, and it had all been consumed in one flash-enough powder to work the tenth-order Spell of Reversal eight, or nine, or perhaps even ten more times, all of it gone to repair a cheap glass jar.
He stepped quickly in off the platform, before the spriggans could find a way to break any of the other jars.
“Don’t touch these!” he ordered emphatically, pointing at the three he held. “Ever!”
Then he tucked them all back into the box in his pack, hoping the cracked one wouldn’t shatter, put the lid on, pulled the drawstring tight, lifted the pack onto his shoulder, and hurried upstairs, hoping that Tobas was right about Javan’s Restorative being sufficient.
He was almost at the top when he heard the sitting room door open and Alorria’s voice call, “Tobas? Are you in here?”
“We’re up here,” he called over his shoulder as he turned the corner into the short corridor. He did not wait for Alorria to respond, but hurried to the bedroom.
Tobas and the two Karanissas were just as he had left them, save that all three looked worried.
“What was the shouting about?” Tobas asked.
“The spriggans spilled the powder for the Spell of Reversal,” Gresh explained. “We’ll have to use Javan’s Restorative. And Alorria’s here.” He set the pack on a bedside table and fumbled with the drawstring, which he now found he had pulled so tight it would not loosen.
“Didn’t you say you didn’t think that would work?” both Karanissas said.
“Tobas is the wizard here, and he thought it would-ow!-work,” Gresh said, as he struggled with the pack.
“It ought to,” Tobas said nervously.
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“Well, it can’t hurt you,” Tobas said. “It restores anyone or anything to its healthy normal state.”
The Karanissas looked at one another. “But what’s normal for a magical image?” they asked.
“What’s going on in here?” Alorria asked from the doorway, just as Gresh finally managed to unjam the cord and open the pack.
“We’re just trying a few things,” Gresh said, as he carefully pulled out the jar of orange powder.
“Might she entirely cease to exist?” the Karanissas asked.
Alorria stared at the two women on the bed. “What did you do?” she demanded. “I can’t tell them apart, and they’re both talking at once!”
“It’s possible,” Tobas told Karanissa.
“Tobas!” Alorria shouted. “I asked you a question!”
“A spell went wrong,” Gresh said, as he closed the pack and set it on the floor. “We’re trying to fix it, but the spriggans have been making it difficult.”
“What kind of a spell?”
“Fifth-order,” Gresh said unhelpfully, as he opened the jar.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” the Karanissas said, eyeing Gresh as he approached, orange powder in the palm of his hand.
“I’m not, either,” Tobas said. “Gresh, I know what I said earlier, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“We have to do something,” Gresh said. “What kind of a life can she have like that?”
“How can you tell which one is which?” Alorria asked.
Gresh had been about to fling the powder at the Karanissa on the right, on the assumption that she was the rectified reflection and the spell would restore her to either her former state as a solidified image, or to nonexistence, but he suddenly stopped.
“She might just disappear,” Tobas said. “That would be murder.”
“She might,” Gresh agreed, staring at the right-hand Karanissa.
“She isn’t real!” Alorria protested.
“This one is the copy, isn’t it?” Gresh asked, gesturing at the right-hand woman.
“Yes, it is,” Tobas said. “They didn’t switch while you were away. But really, Gresh, shouldn’t we…”
He stopped as Gresh flung the powder-on the left-hand Karanissa.
“It can’t hurt her,” he explained. “Esku!”
