The Spriggan Mirror loe-9

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  When he turned his gaze forward again, Gresh saw that the towers ahead were... well, they were straight ahead, and the carpet was rushing directly at them.

  Then they zoomed over Old Eastgate Market, and between the two towers of the gates, clearing the city wall by four or five feet, and they were outside Ethshar of the Rocks and flying east at a phenomenal speed, on their way to Ethshar of the Sands.

  Chapter Nine

  “My home village of Telven is somewhere over that way, on the coast,” Tobas shouted over his shoulder, waving his right arm vaguely.

  Gresh glanced to the south, then frowned. “Isn’t that still the Pirate Towns?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” Tobas said. “The Free Lands of the Coasts, they call themselves. I grew up there. My father was a pirate, Dabran the Pirate, captain of Retribution. A demonologist out of Ethshar of the Spices sent the whole ship to the bottom, with all hands, when I was fifteen.”

  Gresh nodded but did not reply. He was unsure whether Tobas was serious or not, and besides, conversation was difficult over the constant roar of the wind as the carpet sped through the air.

  They were about four hours out of Ethshar of the Rocks, and Gresh had discovered that while riding the carpet didn’t seem particularly dangerous, Alorria had been right that it wasn’t exactly fun. There were frequently bugs splattering against their chests and faces, at least at lower altitudes; the luggage piled around Tobas was speckled with their remains. Birds hadn’t been a problem, but the unrelenting wind of their passage was tiring and annoying and made it impossible to talk comfortably. Gresh also now understood why Alorria wore a coronet and why Karanissa had gone to the trouble to braid her waist-length locks. His own hair was long enough to whip about uncomfortably, flicking across his eyes at inopportune moments. He was sure he looked positively dreadful, with his hair awry and dead gnats smeared everywhere.

  The worst part of flying was that it was boring. A day earlier Gresh would not have believed that soaring through the air at fantastic speeds on a magic carpet could become tedious so quickly, but it had. They had passed over a hundred miles of farms and fields and forests. After the first hour or so they all looked very much the same.

  If he had been able to talk freely with his companions it might not have been bad, but the wind prevented that—the wind, and his uncertainty as to how much he could believe of what Tobas and Alorria told him. Alorria had said that Tobas slew a dragon to win her hand and that he had served for a time as the court wizard to her father, Derneth II, king of Dwomor. However, Tobas had already been married to Karanissa at the time and had been spending most of his time in another world, so it had been complicated. Tobas claimed to have inherited Derithon the Mage’s book of spells, rather than compiling his own, which was undoubtedly a violation of custom and probably of Wizards’ Guild rules but which explained why his training was so uneven. Tobas had served only a partial apprenticeship under a senile and dying master, but the old book allowed him to teach himself much more.

  Now Tobas claimed to be a pirate captain’s son. How would a pirate’s son have wound up apprenticed to a wizard at all? Gresh was beginning to think he wouldn’t have believed any of this if Kaligir hadn’t shown up with those other wizards to provide him with magic. Pirates and princesses, dragons and castles and centuries-old witches and all, sounded like far too much adventure to have jammed into Tobas’s one short lifetime. Good honest magic Gresh understood, and spells gone wrong, so the flying carpet and the spriggan mirror were easy to accept, but the rest of it...

  But four-hundred-year-old Karanissa was there behind him on the carpet, and Tira had said she spoke the truth. Alorria, princess of Dwomor, was there, as well, and no one back in the city had expressed any reservations about her claimed heritage. Kaligir had believed enough of Tobas’s story to agree to pay Gresh’s fee, and to provide him with all those lovely vials and jars, safely tucked away in Gresh’s bag.

  Gresh hoped he had chosen those prepared spells wisely. He had equipped himself with powders that were good for a dozen castings each of Lirrim’s Rectification, Javan’s Restorative, Javan’s Geas, the Spell of Reversal, and as the result of a fit of originality, the Spell of the Revealed Power, as well as seven doses apiece of potions that would provide Varrin’s Protective Bubble or the Spell of Retarded Time. The five magical powders had all turned out different colors, which several wizards had assured him was normal. They were all carefully tucked away in clearly labeled glass jars in a well-padded wooden box, along with labeled vials of the two crystal-clear potions.

  Those spells were all the help Kaligir’s little committee would provide, so Gresh hoped that his heavy emphasis on counter-spells would prove appropriate. He had decided against any levitations; the flying carpet should serve well enough. He had also considered and dismissed a variety of communication spells, illusions, invisibilities, and other simple magic on the assumption that even Tobas ought to be able to provide those. Having those other spells as potions might have been faster, but he hadn’t had that many wizards available to produce them and had preferred to use his limited resources for the most difficult or important spells. His options had not been unlimited; he had had to choose preparations that six wizards could produce in less than three days. It had taken some argument even to get a second potion, since that had required one wizard to perform the spell for Tracel’s Adaptable Potion twice in quick succession.

  With his sisters’ help, he had equipped himself with a few of his usual devices, as well as Kaligir’s contributions; the Spell of the Spinning Coin would keep Twilfa informed of his general state of health, the amulet strapped to his left wrist held a rune that would protect him from most hostile magic, he had a bloodstone tucked away that could be used for the Spell of Sustenance if food ran short, and Dina and Chira had provided half a dozen other talismans of various sorts. He felt reasonably well prepared.

  The one thing he regretted was that he hadn’t managed to include any decent divinations in his supplies—but since the Guild had already tried every known divination in previous attempts to locate the mirror, he had reluctantly chosen to skip those, even though they might have been useful in less direct applications.

  Right now he thought a divination to tell him whether Tobas was embellishing his personal history might have been welcome, but he didn’t have one available.

  “Is that where we gave that man a boat?” Alorria called, pointing.

  “Yes,” Tobas called back.

  Gresh decided not to even ask about that. He did peer off to the south, though, and glimpsed the ocean in the distance, glinting in the afternoon sun.

  They must be past the peninsula that held the Pirate Towns. Tobas’s alleged home must have been near the eastern boundary. That meant it was only another fifteen leagues or so to Ethshar of the Sands, perhaps even less.

  Gresh had been to both the other Ethshars before, in the course of his business, but by ship, rather than flying carpet. Carpet was definitely faster, but all in all, he thought he preferred to take a few days to go by ship.

  And the journey to Ethshar of the Spices, and then across the Gulf of the East to the Small Kingdoms, was almost twice as far.

  While they were in Ethshar of the Sands, Gresh decided, he would unpack enough to get out a book to read. He had brought a few histories, written by various court scholars in the Small Kingdoms, in hopes that by balancing out the various patriotic lies he could glean some useful information about the region’s past. He had on occasion traveled the Great Highway across the northern end of the Small Kingdoms to Shan on the Desert, and he had taken ship up the river to Ekeroa, but he had never before actually set foot in Dwomor or any of its immediate neighbors. The existing maps and reports invariably reflected their makers’ biases as much as any physical reality.

  He had originally thought he would be reading his books in bed by candlelight, but now he thought otherwise. It had not occurred to him when he was packing that riding a carpet would be a go
od time to read, but now he could not think of a better use of his travel time.

  At least the sun was behind them now; for the start of the flight it had been in their eyes.

  Behind him Alris started crying again—all in all she was a well-behaved baby, but four hours of wind would be wearing on anyone, and of course every baby cried sometimes. Gresh glanced over his shoulder.

  “Give her to me!” Alorria said, turning. Karanissa had been holding the baby, giving Alorria’s arms a rest, but quickly handed her back to her mother. Gresh suspected that she was perfectly happy to unload the squalling little nuisance.

  Alorria bounced the child for a moment, cuddling her, then said unnecessarily, “She’s hungry!”

  Gresh had figured that much out from Alris’s gestures and expression, and he knew very little about infants—he had handled his youngest sisters and a few of his nieces and nephews on occasion, but never taken a great interest in them. He politely turned his gaze forward again as Alorria unbuttoned her tunic to take care of the situation.

  “What do you plan to do when we reach Dwomor?” Tobas asked him, shouting over the wind.

  “Find the mirror,” Gresh said.

  “Yes, of course, but how?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Well, yes, but...”

  “Tobas,” Gresh interrupted, “I’ll find it. Leave the details to me.”

  Had they been safely on the ground he might have been less abrupt, but the truth was Gresh didn’t know exactly how he was going to find the mirror. He would improvise, as he usually did. Telling a customer that would be bad business, though.

  He glanced over to the right; the ocean was plainly visible now, and the coastline was sandy beaches. It couldn’t be terribly much farther to Ethshar of the Sands. He peered forward, into the distance, hoping to glimpse the Great Lighthouse or the towers of Grandgate, but as yet he could see no sign of them.

  He shifted in his seat, adjusting his legs to keep them from getting stiff; the carpet soared smoothly onward, undisturbed by his movement. A small boat or spring-mounted wagon would have rocked, but whatever magic kept the carpet in the air was not bothered by such things.

  He wondered why carpets were the traditional way to use Varrin’s Lesser Propulsion. It would make more sense to use boats or wagons, which already had seats and sides, and would be harder to fall off. Why not build things specifically designed to fly through the air, with solid sides, and perhaps a transparent panel of some sort at the front to block the wind and keep the bugs off the luggage? Admittedly, you wouldn’t be able to roll those up and store them in a closet, but was that really so important? Even just enchanting a sofa instead of a carpet would be more comfortable, and that could be used on the ground readily enough; it wouldn’t need any special storage.

  But no, wizards always used carpets. It was traditional. It was what people expected, so it was what wizards did. Wizards were very fond of tradition.

  Of course, one reason for that, he had to admit, was that the traditional ways of doing things were known to be relatively safe. Carpets worked; they didn’t explode or run away or eat people or argue with their owners. There was a lot to be said for that. It might just be that when Varrin invented the spell, hundreds of years ago, he had first cast it on a carpet, and everyone had used it on carpets ever since simply because that was known to work.

  Not that terribly many people used it at all; it wasn’t a simple spell. Gresh doubted there were more than a hundred functioning flying carpets in the World, and some of them, like the one he was on, were decades old.

  Still, you’d think some eager young wizard would experiment a little. Maybe he would ask Dina about it when he got home, suggest that there might be good money in making flying craft a little more sensible than carpets. He had a momentary vision of swarms of sky-boats zipping around above the city, or flying caravans replacing merchants’ ships...

  The Wizards’ Guild might not like that. The merchants and shipwrights and ship chandlers might have reservations about it, too. And homeowners might be a bit wary about large heavy objects overhead, for that matter. He vaguely recalled hearing something about how Varrin’s Greater Propulsion, which in bygone days had lifted entire castles and ships and kept them aloft indefinitely, was considered too dangerous to be used by anyone without special Guild approval exactly because sometimes the things did fall, with very unfortunate effects on whatever happened to be underneath.

  So any plans for marketing sky-craft would require caution—but still, it shouldn’t be impossible to sell a few.

  Behind him he heard Alorria cooing, and then a surprisingly loud belch from Alris. He resisted the temptation to look back, and instead stared ahead over Tobas’s shoulder, looking for Ethshar of the Sands.

  There, at last, he could see the conical turret atop the Great Lighthouse, and then the crenellations around the lamp itself, peeping above the horizon, still tiny in the distance. A little to the left was an almost imperceptible flicker of red that was the banner atop Grandgate. Gresh smiled.

  The remainder of the journey went much more quickly. Having their eventual goal in sight helped immensely, even when Tobas insisted on taking a small detour to the north instead of flying over the central portion of the city. He refused to explain why beyond saying, “It’s not safe to fly over the palace anymore.”

  Gresh didn’t think a direct path would have brought them within half a mile of the palace dome in any case, but it didn’t really matter. He watched with pleasure as they skimmed along twenty feet above the top of the city wall, looping aside to miss the guard tower at Northgate, then swinging out over the Wall Street Field and the rooftops of Northangle, before finally descending onto a street he did not recognize, a few blocks from Grandgate’s north tower.

  The carpet came to a stop a yard in the air, just as it had in front of Gresh’s own shop in Ethshar of the Rocks, and Tobas half-jumped, half-tumbled off the front, then turned and stood, looking uncertainly at Gresh.

  Gresh realized quickly that the young wizard was in the habit of helping his wives down from the carpet, but was unsure whether Gresh would welcome assistance. Gresh solved his problem by rising to his feet and offering Alorria a hand, then ushering her to her husband’s waiting arms. He held the baby long enough for Alorria to reach the ground, then passed her back to her mother.

  Karanissa followed, and before Tobas could release his hold on her, Gresh leapt to the street unaided—where he stumbled and almost fell. His long ride had stiffened him more than he had realized.

  He caught himself, though, and looked around with interest.

  The houses and shops in this city were much as he remembered them from his three previous visits—unlike the taller and often narrow homes of Ethshar of the Rocks, nearly all the buildings here stood just two stories in height, or at most three, often with a steeply sloping tile roof coming down almost to the ground-floor ceilings. The limited height, despite the shortage of land within the city walls, was due to the inability of the sandy soil to support tall buildings without serious engineering; the steep roofs were to shed the heavy spring rains, as there was little snow this far south.

  Wood and plaster were common here, and stone was scarce—neither wood nor stone was easy to obtain locally, given the terrain, but wood was cheaper to ship in.

  To the east the immense towers of Grandgate loomed high above the rooftops, shining in the afternoon sun. The street itself was packed sand, lighter in color than the dark and stony streets of his home city, and lined with houses built wall-to-wall; perhaps one in three had a shop window and signboard to indicate that it held a business as well as a home. Gresh spotted a baker, a vintner, a tinker—the typical things one would see in any residential neighborhood.

  They had stopped in front of perhaps the smallest house on the entire street, a tiny, half-timbered structure with no sign or shop-window.

  “I rather expected you to live on Wizard Street,” Gresh remarked. “It’s nea
rby, isn’t it?”

  “A block and a half west,” Tobas said. “But I couldn’t really afford it. There weren’t any vacant properties, so I would have had to buy out an existing business, and those aren’t cheap. Besides, I don’t really want to run a shop—I was never trained for it.”

  “He’s a court wizard, not a shopkeeper!” Alorria said, as she collected various baby supplies from the carpet.

  “Except we don’t live in Dwomor anymore,” Karanissa said. “The Guild ruined the Transporting Tapestry that came out near there. Which makes it difficult to be their court wizard.”

  “Well, if you didn’t insist on keeping close to the castle...” Alorria began.

  “It’s my home!”

  “And Dwomor is mine!”

  “And neither of them... oh, never mind,” Tobas said. “Be quiet, both of you, and let’s get the carpet and luggage inside.” He drew his belt-knife and cut one of the cords holding the baggage and handed Karanissa a valise.

  “You need to open the door,” Alorria said, as she waited with the baby on her hip.

  Gresh got his own bag and one other, then followed and waited as Tobas peeled a black wax seal off the door-latch—a seal very much like the one he used on his own vault back in Ethshar of the Rocks. That answered any questions Gresh might have had about how Tobas kept his home secure in his absence; the rune on the wax would explode and cripple or kill anyone else who tried to open the door. Presumably there were similar seals, or other magical protections, on the other doors and windows.

  The door swung open, and Tobas held it back while both his wives entered the house; Gresh was close on their heels, and a moment later Tobas followed, with two more bags. He, Gresh, and Karanissa proceeded to fetch the rest of the luggage in, while Alorria tended to the baby’s needs and got her dressed in a fresh gown, until finally Tobas was able to roll up the carpet and bring that, too, inside, closing the door behind him.