The Spriggan Mirror loe-9

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “I’ll clean up,” Gresh said, but as he looked around he realized that while he and Tobas had been talking, Karanissa had already cleared away most of the dishes and other evidence of their supper.

  “We’ll see you in the morning,” Karanissa said.

  “Come on upstairs, Ali,” Tobas said. “We’ll get you and the baby tucked in.” The family headed for the stairs.

  Gresh watched them go, while brushing the last crumbs from the table and taking the empty wineglasses to the scullery tub.

  Something in the mountains of the Small Kingdoms had downed a flying castle, centuries ago. Something in that same area had apparently interfered with two Transporting Tapestries. Tobas had apparently thought the spriggans would not be a problem there, even though he had considered them a hazard in his otherworldly castle. Something associated with Tobas had defeated an incredibly powerful rogue magician, allegedly gutting the interior of the overlord’s palace in the process and leaving nothing of Tabaea but her left foot, when the Guild’s ordinary efforts had failed. And if Karanissa was to be believed, the Guild’s failed attempts had endangered the entire city. And a Transporting Tapestry had been permanently ruined somewhere in the process.

  On top of all that, Tobas was reputed to be an expert on countercharms—though Karanissa denied that he deserved that reputation.

  Gresh frowned.

  He could think of one explanation for everything, though it might not be the right one. It fit with a few other rumors that he had heard about Tabaea’s demise, as well. All of this could be explained if Tobas had stumbled upon an all-powerful countercharm of some sort, presumably one created long ago, perhaps as a weapon in the Great War. Such a charm might have brought down the flying castle, rendered the tapestries and the mirror temporarily inert, eventually destroyed one tapestry permanently, and erased both Tabaea’s magic and whatever magic the Guild had used unsuccessfully against her.

  That would also account for the secrecy; the Wizards’ Guild would not want it widely known that so powerful a defense against their magic existed. It would account for why they were sending Tobas to deal with the mirror, rather than a more experienced wizard. He probably had the charm, if it existed, in his possession and was not willing, or perhaps not able, to loan it to anyone else.

  Gresh had not noticed any jewels or amulets or other obvious magical devices on Tobas anywhere; he carried a knife and pouch on his belt, like most people, but wore no rings or brooches or pendants, so far as Gresh could see.

  The charm might not be anything so obvious, of course; it could be a rune burned into Tobas’s flesh, or a pebble in his pocket, or... well, almost anything. If it existed at all.

  Presumably, Tobas intended to use it on the mirror and make sure the effect was permanent this time. That would be a very satisfactory conclusion to the whole business.

  A general-purpose countercharm like that would be very useful and very valuable—but Gresh told himself not to get greedy or do anything stupid; it wasn’t his, it almost certainly wasn’t for sale, and he was getting paid quite enough for the mirror as it was. Trying to obtain or duplicate this theoretical charm would almost certainly annoy the Wizards’ Guild, and that could ruin his business and get him killed.

  No, he would leave it alone. He would find the mirror, collect his reward, and go on to live a very, very long and prosperous life without it.

  It really was late now, and he was tired. Perhaps in the morning he would think of another explanation for the holes in Tobas’s story and realize that such a countercharm probably didn’t exist at all. He picked up one candle, blew out the other two, and headed for the stair.

  He did make one small detour, though, peering through the other door off the little front parlor. As he had expected, it led to a wizard’s workshop, but a very small and poorly stocked one; the crude workbench was dusty and bare, the four shelves above it half-empty. If the parlor, kitchen, and attic had not already made it obvious, this workshop demonstrated that the little house really wasn’t much of a home to Tobas and his family—at least, not yet.

  He closed the door carefully and climbed the steps.

  Alorria and Alris were sound asleep on the nearest bed; Tobas and Karanissa were nowhere to be seen, but the tapestry shimmered eerily in the candlelight. Cautiously, Gresh set down the candle and closed the drapes over it. He did not want to wake up in the middle of the night and see that ghastly image, or worse, stumble into it while looking for a chamber pot or something.

  He then made his way to the farthest bed, so as to have as much space as possible between Alorria and himself. There he pulled off his boots, peeled off his socks, blew out the candle, and then fell back onto the down-filled mattress.

  His last waking thought was the realization that he could tell by the faint scent lingering on the pillow that this was Karanissa’s bed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gresh awoke in the darkness to the sudden unpleasant and loud discovery that Alris was not yet sleeping through the night. He pushed himself up on one elbow and squinted into the gloom, determined that Alorria was moving, and then, as the baby quieted, he lay back down and tried to get back to sleep.

  He dozed off quickly enough that time, but the second time the baby’s crying woke him, the first faint light of dawn was seeping in the windows, and he had to debate briefly with himself whether to rise or not. He decided not, but getting back to sleep was more difficult, and it scarcely seemed as if he had managed it when he heard Tobas calling his name.

  “Mrph,” he said. Then he rolled over and realized that the windows were bright with full daylight. He raised his head and called, “I’ll be right there!”

  Five minutes later he ambled downstairs to find the parlor empty—the carpet and baggage had all been carried out to the street and reassembled, with two new bags added. Tobas was securing the last few knots as Gresh peered out the door. Both women were standing nearby, looking over the arrangements.

  “You missed breakfast,” Tobas told him, looking up from his labors. “But we saved you bread and cheese to eat on the way.”

  “Try not to get crumbs everywhere,” Alorria added, as Karanissa smiled apologetically.

  “We thought it would be best to let you sleep,” the witch explained. “We didn’t know how late you had stayed up.”

  “Not very late,” Gresh said, with a meaningful glance at the baby Alorria was holding to her shoulder. “But I didn’t sleep very well, so I appreciate it.”

  Alris let out a belch, and white goo dribbled onto a rag Alorria had draped on her shoulder. The baby goggled at Gresh. Gresh smiled back.

  Babies were cute, he thought, but he was very glad he didn’t usually live with one. They were noisy and smelly and needed constant attention, mostly in the form of cleaning up things he preferred not to deal with.

  “Forty leagues this morning,” Tobas said, straightening up. “Stop in Ethshar of the Spices for luncheon, and then across the Gulf of the East this afternoon, and another forty leagues or so takes us to Dwomor Keep. We’ll stay there tonight, and then head out to look for the mirror as soon as you’re ready—perhaps even tomorrow?”

  “I hope so,” Gresh said.

  “You have your bag?”

  Gresh did indeed, and displayed it.

  “Good! Then climb aboard, Ali, and Kara, and we’ll get airborne.”

  Gresh noticed there was no mention of possibly leaving anyone behind, either in Ethshar of the Sands or the castle in the tapestry. He supposed it had been discussed before he awoke and didn’t bother to inquire into the matter. Instead he watched as the women boarded the carpet, then climbed on in his turn, squeezing into his allotted space.

  The route out of Ethshar of the Sands took them between Grandgate’s main towers, leading Gresh to suspect that Tobas simply liked flying between pairs of towers. They passed well over the half-dozen smaller towers between the big ones, however, and over all three layers of walls and gates, missing several opportunities to sh
ow off the rug’s maneuverability.

  Once outside the city the main road headed east by northeast, while their own route was almost due east, so they gradually diverged, the coastal highway angling off to the left while they flew over beaches and sand dunes, with the shining Southern Sea on their right. They had been flying less than half an hour, and Gresh had only just brushed off the last breakfast crumbs, when the beaches, too, curved away to the north, and they found themselves flying over open ocean.

  Gresh found that slightly worrisome at first; if the spell failed and the carpet fell, they might all drown. He quickly realized, though, that he was being ridiculous. They were high enough up that the fall would almost certainly kill them in any case. Besides, he had known the route included a leg across the Gulf of the East; the Southern Sea wasn’t any worse.

  By the time they were an hour and a half from Grandgate they were out of sight of land; the faint line on the northern horizon had finally vanished in the distance. It didn’t reappear for some time, and when it did, Gresh had noticed something else that distracted him.

  “Why is the water a different color ahead?” he asked, pointing. The ocean behind them was a dark gray-blue; ahead it lightened to a slightly greenish shade.

  “Shoals,” Tobas said. “There’s shallow water from here to the western edge of the peninsula, and it looks different because you can sort of see the bottom.”

  “It’s good fishing grounds,” Karanissa called from behind.

  Indeed, Gresh could see boats ahead, a dozen or more spaced out across the water. Earlier he had thought he might have glimpsed sails off to the south, but they were not flying over the shipping lanes, so none had been close enough to identify with any certainty; here, though, the boats were working close in, and there could be no mistaking them. He shifted over closer to the edge of the carpet for a better look.

  “Don’t fall off!” Alorria called.

  “I won’t,” Gresh assured her, but he stopped creeping sideways and sat where he was, leaning over a leather case as he watched the fishing boats. They were casting and hauling in nets; the nets fell into the water dark and empty, but came up full of gleaming silver fish, twinkling in the sun.

  “This whole stretch of coast is lined with fishing villages,” Tobas remarked. “And each one has a magician or two who knows a preserving spell of some sort—usually wizards with Enral’s Preservation, but sometimes witches or even theurgists. Half those fish will wind up in the markets in Ethshar of the Spices, three or four days old, but looking and smelling fresh-caught.”

  “Enral...” Gresh knew that name.

  “Yes, the same one who discovered the eternal youth spell you’ve been promised,” Tobas said. “Preventing decay was his specialty, it seems.”

  That seemed to tarnish the glamour of it, somehow, to learn that his eternal youth spell was related to the magic that kept fish fresh on their way to market—but he was being silly, Gresh told himself. What did it matter how the spell had been developed, so long as it worked?

  They flew over the pale waters of the shoals for almost an hour before finally reaching the coast, where they did, indeed, pass directly over a busy fishing village, where long wooden piers stretched out across the mud and sand to reach water deep enough for the boats. Inland was initially a tangle of salt marshes, sand dunes, and scrubland. There was no ground here worth farming, no path firm and stable enough to be called a road.

  That changed gradually; the ground rose, smoothed out, and dried out. Scattered farmhouses appeared, and the paths winding between them grew broader. The farms remained small, though—these were not the big grain farms of the plain, but herb farms, growing the plants that herbalists and wizards and witches used in their magic, as well as the spices that gave Ethshar of the Spices its name and distinctive odor.

  People were working in the fields and walking on the roads; most glanced up when they saw the carpet whizzing overhead. Tobas waved to them occasionally; the others, further back on the rug, were not really in a position to do so.

  The herb farms and spice plantations began to give way to orchards and vegetable farms, and then Gresh glimpsed sunlight on water, red tile roofs, and brightly colored sails in the distance.

  “Do you have any friends or favorite places in Ethshar of the Spices?” Tobas asked over his shoulder. “Somewhere we might stop for lunch?”

  “I know a few people here, but only as people I do business with,” Gresh shouted back. “I wouldn’t call them friends, exactly. I wouldn’t stop in without letting them know I was coming.”

  “That’s more than we know,” Alorria said, looking up from the baby at her breast. “We always just stop at an inn.”

  “The Dragon’s Tail, near Westgate, is pleasant enough,” Gresh remarked.

  “That’s where I generally go.”

  “We usually stay at the Clumsy Juggler,” Alorria said.

  “I like the name,” Tobas added.

  “I hear it’s a good sound inn, but perhaps a little overpriced,” Gresh replied. Then he remembered that he always got discount rates at the Dragon’s Tail because of his occupation—the proprietor had made a specialty of hosting wizards’ suppliers because that drew in wizards, who could be ruthlessly overcharged. Dragging Tobas and his wives there might not be a kindness; the Guild might be paying his expenses, but he had no idea what the family finances were like otherwise. “But on the other hand, we might try somewhere new.” There were half a dozen inns lining the eastern side of Westgate Market, so they would hardly need to explore any unfamiliar part of the city. Besides the Dragon’s Tail and the Clumsy Juggler there were the Blue Lantern, the Gatehouse Inn, the Market House, and the Pink Rose, or a score of others in the few blocks around the corner on High Street.

  They could avoid the city entirely. “What about the Inn at the Bridge?” Gresh asked, pointing north.

  “That’s an hour out of our way!” Tobas said.

  “Oh.” Gresh had no experience judging speeds and distances from the carpet and had to take the wizard’s word for it.

  It seemed reasonable, actually. Valder’s inn was a day’s travel from Ethshar of the Spices on foot. And they were descending now, swooping down toward the city wall.

  The towers of Westgate seemed puny, insignificant things after the overblown fortifications of Grandgate back at Ethshar of the Sands. Tobas did not even bother guiding the rug between them, but swooped around the north side of the gate before descending into the market square.

  Westgate Market was crowded, unsurprisingly—it was the middle of a lovely day in the month of Greengrowth, and after the tedium of winter and the spring rains most people were eager to be out in the sun. There was no room to land the carpet initially, and Tobas brought it to a halt about ten feet up, the dangling luggage hanging a foot or so above the tallest heads.

  Naturally, several people stared, pointed, and laughed. The people directly below it moved aside, to get a better view, and Tobas let it sink slowly downward.

  “Well, there they are,” he said, waving a hand at the inns. “Pick one.”

  Gresh looked back at the women, but Alorria was busy with the baby, and Karanissa turned up a palm.

  They probably all cheated wizards, Gresh told himself. “The Dragon’s Tail, then,” he said, pointing to the one second from the corner of High Street, with its crude sign of a green zigzag on a background so stylized that Gresh would never have known it was meant to represent sand and sea if the inn’s owner hadn’t told him.

  The carpet glided toward the inn’s door, descending as it went; the watching townsfolk scattered before it. Tobas curved the route around a stall stacked with jars of honey and maneuvered in close beneath the sign.

  There he dismounted and beckoned for Gresh to do the same, as Alorria gathered up the assorted bags and cloths she needed to tend the baby. Karanissa waited patiently at the rear.

  “What about your luggage?” Gresh asked, bringing his own one bag. “Will you be casting spells to
protect it?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tobas said, as Gresh dropped to the earth.

  “Listen, I know only a madman would try to rob a wizard, but this city has its share of madmen—I’ve met a few.”

  “We’ll take care of it.” He accepted Alris, then stepped aside while Alorria slid off the carpet. She turned back for her collection of baby gear.

  Gresh noticed that Karanissa hadn’t moved. “Are you leaving her on guard?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” Tobas said.

  “I’m ready,” Alorria said, as she stepped back with her arms full.

  “Good.” With that, Tobas gestured, and the carpet began to rise. It stopped at a height of perhaps a dozen feet, well out of reach.

  Gresh watched, puzzled. Yes, leaving it in mid-air would keep it safe from ordinary thieves, but what was Karanissa doing on it?

  Then as he watched, she stood up and casually walked off the carpet—but instead of falling she spread her arms and drifted gracefully to earth.

  Witchcraft, of course; Gresh had forgotten that some witches could levitate, since most could not, and even those who could were so limited in what they could do that they rarely bothered. Getting off the ground was apparently very, very difficult—but slowing a fall was relatively easy.

  “It won’t rise without anyone on it,” Tobas explained, as he caught Karanissa and lowered her the last foot or two. “It hovers just fine, but it won’t go anywhere unless someone’s on it.”

  Gresh nodded.

  “Come on, let’s eat,” Alorria said, heading into the inn. The others followed.

  There were no empty tables, but half the inn’s staff recognized Gresh, and so a space was cleared for his party by asking a couple and two unaccompanied diners to move, rearranging the available seating. Alorria’s obvious annoyance at how the servers deferred to Gresh was mollified when one barmaid went into ecstasies of cooing over Alris, and they ate a fine meal with minimal displays of ill temper. Gresh pointed out the skin of an actual dragon’s tail pinned to one wall, but none of the others were particularly impressed.