The Spriggan Mirror

Chapter Twenty-Five

“I don’t understand,” Gresh said, looking from one woman to the other. “What happened?”

Both of them looked at him, which was oddly reassuring, because at least it meant they were no longer in exactly the same position. “Don’t you see?” they said, still speaking in unison. “It turned the reflection into what it was meant to be—but it wasn’t just meant to be human, it was meant to be me!”

“What?”

“We’re both me!” they insisted. “I have two bodies, but they’re both me! I can still remember everything from the moment I emerged from the mirror—we can both remember it—but we’re both Karanissa!”

“Gresh, I think we better undo this,” Tobas said.

The two women turned to look at one another, moving in perfect synchronization. “Oh, how strange!” they said, as they stared at one another. “Yes, I think we should reverse this!”

Gresh stared, fascinated. “But this is... Shouldn’t we... What is it like?”

Karanissa—both of her—looked at him. “It’s very hard to describe,” they said. “When I used witchcraft to hear people’s thoughts it was... Well, no, it wasn’t anything like this, really, because there isn’t anyone else, there’s just me, but I’m in two places at once.”

“Do you see things double, then?”

“No, no—I just see more.”

“Gresh, I don’t think this is the time...” Tobas began.

Gresh turned. “It’s exactly the time,” he said. “We have half an hour before we need to reverse the spell, so why not try to learn more about it while we can?”

“Because we might lose track of time. Could you at least go get the powder for the Spell of Reversal and keep it ready?”

“I think that would be a good idea,” the Karanissas said, turning to look at one another again. “I really don’t think I want to stay like this indefinitely.”

Reluctantly, Gresh acknowledged the wisdom of this. “I’ll go get it, then—and meanwhile, Karanissa, could you please take note of anything particularly interesting?”

As the two women stared at each other they made an odd noise that Gresh took for agreement. He turned and headed for the stairs.

Something green peeked up over the steps, then squeaked and scampered down. That spriggan was clearly bored with watching the mirror do nothing, Gresh thought, as he reached the head of the staircase and started down.

At the foot of the stairs he turned toward the corner, then froze in horror.

He had shoved his pack into the corner by the door to the platform, but he had not bothered to fasten it. Now 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!”

There was a golden flash.

For a moment, no one moved; then the two Karanissas turned to look at one another, but Gresh could see that it wasn’t the same inhumanly synchronized motion they had displayed before. Both were still full-sized, however; the right-hand one had not been shrunk back to her original size.

“That was...” they both began—but their voices were not perfectly matched anymore. They both fell silent; then the right-hand one pointed at the other.

“I think it worked,” the left-hand Karanissa said.

“I’m still rectified, still human,” the right-hand one said. “But we’re separate.”

“I’m just me again,” the left-hand one—the original—said. “I don’t have her memories anymore.”

“But I still have hers,” the right-hand one said. She frowned. “I suppose that means she’s Karanissa and I’m... someone else, a blend of the two.”

“Fine,” Alorria said. “Then you can go back to Ethshar with Gresh. One witch-wife around here is plenty!”

“But I remember—I was married to you,” the right-hand witch said to Tobas. “I’m your wife.”

“Oh, no,” Tobas said. “No, you aren’t. Two wives are plenty. I’m married to her, and her, and nobody else.” He pointed first at Karanissa, then at Alorria.

The nameless woman looked at Karanissa for a moment, and Gresh was certain that even if they were no longer the same person in two bodies, they were still both witches capable of communicating silently. He wondered what was passing between them.

“You need a name,” he said, before Tobas or Alorria could say anything more. “Any suggestions?”

“You could call yourself Assinarak,” Alorria suggested. “That’s the mirror image of ‘Karanissa.’”

“That’s not a name!” Tobas protested.

Gresh caught himself just before he said “Not to mention stupid and ugly” aloud; there was no need to antagonize the king’s daughter.

“And I’m not just a mirror image any more,” the nameless woman protested. “I intend to be my own woman, not just a copy. No, I’ll call myself Esmera.”

“I like that,” Karanissa said. “But then, I would.”

Gresh smiled. He recognized the roots of the name—it was a sort of pun and could mean either “from glass” or “a marvel” in Old Ethsharitic, which seemed very appropriate. “Esmera it is, then. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I take it you’re satisfied with your current condition and don’t want Tobas and I to attempt any further magic?”

“Yes, this is fine—there’s much more to me now than there was before. I can feel what Kara meant about my not being whole before.”

Karanissa smiled at that, and in fact the whole party was now smiling happily at one another—except Alorria.

“Now that you have a name, Esmera, could you please do something so that I can tell you apart from my husband’s other wife?” she demanded. “We’ll need to find you a place to sleep tonight—I’ll talk to the chamberlain. And of course, you will go to Ethshar with Gresh, won’t you? It would be much too confusing having you around here. I don’t think my parents would like it.”

Esmera glanced at Tobas, then at Karanissa, then at Gresh. She turned up an empty palm. “All right,” she said. “I could put my hair up, I suppose.”

“That would do nicely,” Alorria acknowledged.

Esmera started to say something to Karanissa, but before she could say a word Karanissa said, “You can use my things, of course—you know where the combs and ribbons are.”

“Thank you.” Esmera rose, said, “Excuse me, Ali,” to Alorria, then slipped past her and out the door.

“You call me Alorria!” Alorria called after her. Then she turned and started toward the door, clearly intending to pursue Esmera.

“Ali,” Tobas asked. “Where’s Alris?”

Alorria paused. “With my parents and Peren and Tinira,” she said. Her anger vanished, and she looked down at her hands, looking suddenly shyer and more appealing than Gresh had ever seen her. “I was hoping we might have a little time together, just the two of us. It’s been... well, a while. There’s the baby, and we were traveling, and everything. I let you and Kara have the tapestry castle to yourselves in Ethshar of the Sands, and I wanted a turn, but you were all here casting spells...”

“Oh.” Tobas blushed. He glanced at Gresh and Karanissa.

“I’ll go see if I can help Esmera with her hair,” Karanissa said.

“Ali, I need to talk to Gresh for just a moment, but if you could wait for me, I’ll be right there.”

Alorria watched Karanissa leave the room, then looked back at Gresh and Tobas. “Don’t be long,” she said. Then she, too departed, leaving the two men in the room.

For a moment neither spoke. Then Tobas said, “You and I are leaving for Ethshar first thing in the morning, and we’re taking what’s-her-name, Esmera, with us, and not my wives, and you are going to be sure to never leave Esmera and me alone together for an instant and be ready to swear to that if Ali ever asks. Having the three of them in one place is much too complicated.”

Gresh understood perfectly, but could not resist asking, “What do you expect Esmera to do with herself in Ethshar?”

“Anything she pleases. She’s a grown woman, a witch, with four hundred years of memories, even if they aren’t really her memories. She can take care of herself.”

“I think it would be fair to provide her with a small sum of money—traveling money.”

“That seems reasonable. If you insist, I’ll do that, but you could equally well give it to her from that down-payment you got and charge it to the Guild as an expense.”

“So I could; I’ll do that.”

“Thank you. We don’t have a great deal of cash on hand.”

“Will you be bringing the mirror with you?” Gresh asked.

Tobas hesitated, then said, “No, I don’t think I will. Either Telurinon or Kaligir would probably want me to give it to him, and thanks to your spell, I can’t. Better I leave it here, so that the issue won’t come up right away, and we’ll have time to explain the situation.”

Gresh nodded. “A wise choice, and one I was going to suggest. You do realize, though, that the geas won’t do anything to stop anyone from taking the mirror from you? You’re only forbidden to give it. You aren’t required to keep it, or retrieve it if it’s lost.”

“Yes, I know—but it really is my mirror, and I think I want to hold on to it, at least until I get my new tapestry.”

“Good for you. If I might make a suggestion, though, perhaps you might tell them, with the Spell of Invaded Dreams or something of that sort, that you’re coming and that you aren’t bringing the mirror? You’ll want to make absolutely sure of its safety here, too.”

“That’s a good point,” Tobas conceded. “I’ll send a message tonight, and I’ll put Karanissa in charge of the mirror.”

“You could even ask the king to post guards, or at the very least to watch out for spriggans in the vicinity.”

“I’ll consider that.”

Gresh realized he was nearing the end of Tobas’s willingness to listen to advice. “We’ll meet here first thing in the morning, then?” he asked.

“First thing. I’ll pack and see to the rest of it this evening, and ready the carpet. Now, if you don’t mind...”

“Your wife is waiting. Go.”

Tobas went.