“I suppose so.”
The two of them stood staring down at the mirror. In addition to Javan’s Geas, Gresh had also tried Lirrim’s Rectification again, to see whether it did anything, but there was no discernible effect.
The sun was definitely behind the mountaintop now, and the Spell of Reversal was due to expire at any moment. Tobas was still standing guard in front of the cave, roaring reassurances to Alorria. The flying carpet was still partially buried in spriggans and quite thoroughly surrounded by them, but none were touching mother or daughter.
A sudden thump startled Gresh; he turned to see Tobas staring down at one of his front feet, which was planted firmly on the ground. Then the dragon’s face contorted, his neck twisted oddly, and he began making a very odd noise.
“What is that?” Gresh asked, startled. “Is he all right?”
“He’s... he’s laughing,” Karanissa said. “I never heard a dragon laugh before.”
“I didn’t know dragons could laugh!” Gresh exclaimed.
Then Tobas lifted the taloned foot, saying, “That tickles!” A spriggan squirmed up out of the spot where the dragon’s foot had been and scampered away.
Gresh called, “What was that about?”
Tobas turned to look at him. “Oh, nothing much,” the dragon explained. “That spriggan tried to slip by me, so I stepped on it. It didn’t squash, though, and it just kept wriggling around under my foot; it tickled dreadfully.”
“Oh,” Gresh said. The dragon put his claw back on the ground and turned his attention back to Alorria, calling new reassurances to her.
Gresh turned to Karanissa. “I guess they really can’t be seriously harmed,” he said. “If being stamped on by a dragon doesn’t hurt them, what will?”
“Nothing,” Karanissa said. “I told you. That’s the problem.”
“I know, I’ve been thinking about it, and our little hostage explained it, but still, seeing it demonstrated like that...” He turned up an empty palm.
“It is strange,” Karanissa agreed. “It’s strange seeing my husband in the shape of a dragon, too—especially since he’s taken it so calmly, once the actual transformation was complete.”
“He’s a wizard,” Gresh said. “He’s supposed to be accustomed to magic.”
“Getting turned into a dragon is hardly normal even for a wizard.”
“I suppose not.” Gresh glanced at the dragon’s tail, then back at the witch. “But you and he have been involved in some odd adventures before this—trapped in a magic castle, slaying a dragon, defeating the false empress...”
“I know.” She shuddered slightly.
“Even just being married to someone with another wife must be a bit awkward at times.”
“Oh, yes.” She sighed. “I told Tobas before he married Alorria that I wasn’t the jealous type, and I’ve tried not to be. I knew Derry had other women sometimes, and that didn’t bother me, so I thought I could handle it. Ali knew what she was getting into, too—I was married to Tobas first, after all. She wanted to marry someone, certainly. She had five sisters. Her parents weren’t going to find princes for everyone, and that meant a hero, so she didn’t have a great many choices. Really, she didn’t have any choice; her parents gave her to Tobas as his reward for killing the dragon, bribing him with her dowry. But she did like him and admire him. She can be very sweet. We all thought it would work out.”
“Well, it has worked out, hasn’t it?”
“Mostly—but I must admit, Ali is not who I would have chosen to live with for the rest of my life. I’ve tried not to be jealous of her, but she hasn’t always done the same for me.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“She feels outmatched. I’m a witch, so I know she does, I’m not just guessing. She sees that I’m a fellow magician for Tobas and four hundred years older than she is, with vastly more experience. She also thinks I’m more beautiful, though Tobas doesn’t, nor most of the other men we meet.”
“I think I’d agree with Alorria on that one.”
“Well, thank you, but most men don’t. They think I’m too skinny, too flat-chested, too dark, too aloof, too tall, too intimidating—whatever. Ali’s just as pretty in the face and anything but flat-chested, not to mention nicely rounded elsewhere. Men may admire me, but they lust after her—not that she believes it. And Tobas—I don’t know how he does it, but most of the time he really doesn’t prefer one of us over the other. It’s amazing. Not that Ali believes that, either, even though we’ve both told her it’s true. Even though she agrees we should be equal partners, she’s always demanding attention, trying to compensate for the advantages she imagines I have.” She sighed. “She’s been especially sensitive ever since she got pregnant with Alris. Sometimes I think I should get pregnant, as well, just to stay even.”
Gresh knew that ordinarily female witches could control whether or not they conceived; he wondered whether Karanissa had actively avoided bearing children, or merely let nature take its course.
And really, she wasn’t an ordinary witch; she was four hundred years old. Even with an eternal youth spell, was she still fertile? Did she know?
It wasn’t any of his business; she had already told him far more than he had any business knowing, and far more than he would have asked, though he had not been surprised when his remark elicited so detailed a response. He had been fairly certain that she would be happy to find receptive ears. Many men professed to find women incomprehensible, but after growing up with his numerous sisters, Gresh thought he had a reasonably good understanding of the female mind. He had provided a sympathetic and non-threatening audience, and Karanissa had taken advantage of his presence to say things she could not tell her husband, her co-wife, or anyone in Dwomor. He understood that perfectly. He had, in fact, planned it. He liked Karanissa, more than he liked Tobas or Alorria, and had welcomed the opportunity to create a bond.
It was probably a foolish thing to do, though. She was a happily married woman, even if she was not completely satisfied with her co-wife. Once their business with the mirror was done, he would never see her again.
She threw him a sharp glance, and he realized neither of them had spoken for several seconds. He wondered how much of his thoughts she had heard. “Nothing to say about the wisdom of giving my husband another child?” she said.
Apparently she had not heard everything he had thought; she had probably been too caught up in her own concerns. “It’s not any of my business,” he said. “I would think that your situation is complicated enough, though. And you have plenty of time, with your eternal youth spell; no need to hurry.”
“Tobas doesn’t have an eternal youth spell.”
“I hardly think that’s an issue at this point. He’s a young man.”
“So are you, but you’re concerning yourself with eternal youth.”
“I’m not as young as he is, and I know I won’t always be young unless I do something about it.”
“Tobas didn’t think of that.”
“Or didn’t want to deal with it. I’m sure your marriage is complicated for him, too, and obtaining eternal youth just for himself would surely make it worse, while getting it for both Alorria and himself—well, he may not feel ready to extend the current situation for hundreds of years.”
Karanissa stared at him. “Do you believe that’s it? I didn’t intrude, and I believed him when he said he just didn’t think of it.”
“You’re a witch, and you know him far better than I do.”
Karanissa continued to stare at him, and Gresh thought he read speculation in her gaze. Was she, perhaps, thinking that Tobas and Alorria might never find a youth spell, and that someday, fifty or sixty years from now, she would be a widow—and if Gresh was successful in his errand for the Wizards’ Guild, he would still be around and still be young?
Or was he just flattering himself?
Her intense gaze became uncomfortable, and he looked down at the mirror. “The half-hour must be almost done,” he said
.
Her gaze dropped, as well. “It is; it’s changing right now. I can feel...”
She didn’t finish the sentence; instead she stared silently at the mirror.
So did Gresh. The glass had gone black, and then something began to thrust itself upward out of the mirror—but it was no spriggan. It was neither green nor brown, but glossy black—covered with lush black hair, Gresh realized.
It was larger than the mirror. Some of the fatter spriggans might have had to squeeze a little, but this creature, whatever it was, was somehow forcing itself through an opening much smaller than its own dimensions.
The hair parted on one side as the thing continued to rise up out of the mirror, revealing a brown forehead. Gresh realized that a human head was emerging from the spriggan mirror. The face was turned away from him, toward Karanissa, who was staring at it in shocked horror.
More hair, a pair of ears, a nose—definitely human.
Then came the neck—that was relatively quick, as it did not need to be magically squeezed as much—and then a pair of shoulders, shoulders clad in red fabric...
“Oh, no,” Gresh murmured. “Let me...” He stepped around the mirror and stood beside Karanissa, where he could see the face as the creature continued to force its way up out of the far-too-small mirror.
It was a woman’s face, a dark-skinned oval. Gresh recognized it immediately. After all, he had been looking at it for the past half-hour and more.
It was Karanissa.
Gresh looked up and saw the original Karanissa still standing there, looking down at her duplicate. This wasn’t Karanissa, then; it was a copy.
And the copy had her hands free of the impossibly small glass now and was pushing herself up, just as the spriggans had, except that she was somehow emerging from the mirror despite being much larger than it. Even the slim Karanissa was far more than five inches across.
The mirror was doing something strange to space, obviously.
Then the imitation Karanissa sat back on the stone and pulled her legs from the little glass circle. She was entirely free, and the mirror once again looked like an ordinary mirror.
This Karanissa, at least initially, appeared indistinguishable from the original. She wore an identical red dress, and her hair was styled just like the original’s.
“Well, so much for using Javan’s Geas on the mirror,” Gresh muttered. “But we must have done something that altered the nature of the spell. Are we going to get a plague of Karanissas now, instead of spriggans?” He found himself thinking that that would certainly be an improvement.
The original Karanissa ignored him as she knelt by the rather dazed-looking copy and asked, “Who are you?”
The copy looked up, obviously confused, and said, “I’m a person.”
“I didn’t ask what you are,” Karanissa said gently. “I asked who you are.”
“I’m... I’m a person,” the other said. “That’s all I know.”
“Where did you come from?”
The imitation looked down at her feet, then pointed. “The mirror,” she said.
“Are you a witch?” Karanissa asked.
The copy blinked, then frowned. “I’m not sure,” she said.
“Can’t you tell?” Gresh asked the original.
“No, I can’t,” Karanissa admitted. “Which is puzzling, to say the least.” She looked up at Gresh. “This... this person isn’t all here, exactly.”
“She isn’t... well, you?” Gresh asked. “Could it be that you’re being confused because her identity isn’t entirely distinct from your own?”
Karanissa reached out and put a hand on her imitation’s shoulder; the imitation started slightly, glanced at the hand, then looked up at Gresh. “Do I look like her?” she asked.
“Very much,” Gresh said, startled by the question.
“She’s pretty.”
“So are you.”
The copy lowered her gaze. “Thank you,” she said.
“You know,” Karanissa said, looking up at Gresh, “until I touched her, I wasn’t sure she was really there. I thought she might just be an illusion, especially given how she squeezed through the mirror when she obviously couldn’t have fit.”
Gresh nodded. He was thinking furiously. He did not understand why this duplicate of Karanissa should have emerged from the mirror, but he intended to figure it out. It would almost certainly explain a great deal about how the mirror’s magic worked, and that might well help them end the plague of spriggans forever—if they had not already somehow altered the spell permanently.
He glanced down at the mirror to see whether anything else was climbing out of it; nothing was.
This woman, this copy of Karanissa, was solid, but Karanissa said she did not seem real...
“Lady,” he said, “do you remember anything from before you emerged from the mirror?”
The copy looked up at him again. “Of course not,” she said. “I didn’t exist before I climbed out of the mirror, did I?”
“We don’t know,” Gresh said. “That’s why I’m asking.”
“Well, as far as I know, I didn’t exist until a couple of minutes ago.”
Gresh looked at the original. “You say she doesn’t seem entirely human?”
“She doesn’t seem entirely real,” Karanissa corrected him.
“Do spriggans? Could she be a spriggan in human form?”
“I’m a person,” the duplicate interjected. “I do know that much.”
“She...” Karanissa tilted her head and studied the copy. “She’s not a spriggan, but there is a similarity. I never noticed it before, but you’re right, spriggans aren’t all there, either. If I hadn’t had real humans to compare her to, I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong with her.”
“There isn’t anything wrong with me!” the duplicate protested.
“Stand up and let me look at you,” Gresh suggested. “Let’s see if you really are an exact duplicate of Karanissa.”
The two women exchanged glances, then rose and turned to face Gresh, standing side-by-side in the fading daylight.
“Oh,” Gresh said. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
The two were identical in appearance in every detail except for one. The dresses were the same fabric, the same cut, belted identically, with the same knot at the same place; the hair was the same length and luster, with every lock and curl matching; the eyes were identical in color and shape; the teeth matched; the nose and mouth were indistinguishable—except for one thing.
The copy was smaller than the original.
She was proportioned exactly like the real Karanissa, but she was about two inches shorter, a shade thinner, and not quite as wide at shoulders, bust, waist, or hips. Her fingers were slightly shorter; her eyes and mouth were slightly smaller. She was the exact image of Karanissa, but somehow shrunken.
Image, he thought. Mirror image.
Gresh looked down at the mirror, then back at the two women.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh.”
He felt simultaneously brilliant and foolish—brilliant because he now was certain of exactly how the mirror’s magic worked, and foolish because it had taken him so long to guess the truth.
It probably explained how Lugwiler’s Haunting Phantasm worked, too.
It explained why spriggans were indestructible while the mirror’s magic was working, but not when it wasn’t. It explained why none of them had names when they emerged, why they sometimes varied in appearance but were sometimes identical, why they didn’t feel entirely real to witches, and why they had no odor. It explained why they emerged at apparently random intervals, and why the mirror had kept working when broken, but multiplied everything by four.
“Oh, what?” Karanissa asked, visibly annoyed.
“They’re images,” Gresh explained. “Mirror images. They aren’t really here in the World at all; they’re in the mirror.” He leaned forward and sniffed at the smaller woman, and as he had expected, smelled nothing a
t all—no scent of woman whatsoever.
She looked puzzled at his action, but did not shy away, or make any comment.
“Images? What?” the original Karanissa asked. “What are images?”
“Spriggans. The ones we see and talk to aren’t real spriggans; they’re just mirror images. The real spriggans are in another world somewhere, a world that has a mirror in it that’s magically connected to this one. I wonder whether the reason Tobas’s spell went wrong in the first place is because he was doing it in that purple void, instead of here in the World. Instead of linking to the world of the Haunting Phantasm, he linked this mirror to the world of spriggans, which is related to the void the same way the phantasm world is related to this one.”
“But the Haunting Phantasm doesn’t keep spewing out pests.”
“The worlds are different, of course, so the rules are different, and the magic is different. Wizardry is like that.” He turned up an empty palm. “Or maybe he just made a mistake; wizardry is like that, too.”
Karanissa shuddered. “Sometimes I hate wizardry.”
The reduced copy—the image, as Gresh now thought of it—looked from one of them to the other, then said, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Spriggan understand,” a squeaky voice said from behind Gresh’s right shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gresh turned to look at the spriggan that had crept up behind him. “Then I’m right?” he asked.
The spriggan turned up an empty hand. “Not know,” it said. “But sounds right.”
“So you’re just an image of a spriggan that looked in a mirror in another world?”
“Think so, yes.”
“That’s why the Restorative and the Rectification didn’t do anything,” Gresh said, as he continued to work out the details in his own mind. “Because the spell didn’t go wrong, it just went differently, so there wasn’t anything to restore or rectify. There’s no intelligence involved, just an enchanted object, so Javan’s Geas can’t do anything—nobody is making our spriggans, they just happen whenever a real spriggan looks at the mirror in the other world.”
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