"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 9 - The Spriggan Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

Chapter Two

Once Dina was safely on her way with a fresh bottle of blood, Gresh locked and re-sealed the vault,
closed the front door, and settled on the other velvet chair. He watched as Twilfa slipped out the back,
then turned to focus on his customer.
“Now, my dear, if you could explain to me what you know of this mirror, I will consider whether
or not I can obtain it for you.”
“Thank you.” The woman nodded an acknowledgment. “My name is Karanissa of the
Mountains. About four hundred and seventy years ago, in the course of my military service, I met a
powerful wizard named Derithon the Mage, or Derithon of Helde. He was much older than I, but we
thought each other to be good company, and before long I found myself living in his castle—a magical
castle floating in a void outside the World entirely. Are you familiar with such things?”
“I’ve heard of them,” Gresh said cautiously. He was wondering now whether he was dealing with
a witch or with a madwoman. Although nothing she had said was impossible, Gresh had never before
met anyone other than wizards who claimed to have lived more than a century, and as he understood it,
manufactured places outside the World were extremely scarce—not to mention notoriously dangerous to
create.
“Well, Derry had made one, which could be reached through a Transporting Tapestry. We lived
there happily for a time, but one day Derry was called away, leaving me in the castle, and he never
returned. The tapestry leading out of the castle stopped working, stranding me there. I found out later
that Derry had died just on the other side of the tapestry, altering the appearance of the room—you
know how Transporting Tapestries work?”
“In theory,” Gresh said. He had heard them described, and of course he knew what ingredients
went into the spell to make one, but had never personally used one. Anyone could simply step into the
image on the tapestry and instantly find oneself in the actual place depicted, no matter how far away it
was—but the image had to be exact, or the tapestry would not work properly, if at all. “I don’t quite see
how his death would change anything, though.” Gresh knew there were spells that would stop working if
the wizard who had worked them died, but they were much less common than most people supposed,
and he was certain that the Transporting Tapestry wasn’t one of them.
Karanissa sighed. “The tapestry came out in a secret room, and Derry died there, and no one
found his body. The tapestry didn’t work as long as his bones were lying on what was depicted as empty
floor.”
“Oh, I see.” He had not realized the tapestries were that specific, but it made sense.
“The point is,” Karanissa continued, “I was stranded in his castle for more than four and a half
centuries. I didn’t know it was that long—he’d put a spell of eternal youth on me, and the castle was
magically supplied with food and water. I used my own witchcraft to let me pass the time swiftly, so I lost
track of time, and had no idea it had been that long. At last, though, a young wizard named Tobas of
Telven happened to find the secret room and the Transporting Tapestry. He found his way into the castle,
and eventually he figured out how to get us both out again. While he was looking for a way out, though,
he went through Derry’s book of spells, studying the situation and learning more magic. One spell he
tried, Lugwiler’s Haunting Phantasm, went wrong, and instead of producing the phantasm, it produced a
spriggan.”
Gresh held up a hand. “What do you mean, ‘produced’?”
“Do you know how the spell works?”
“I think I’ve heard of it.” He had heard Dina and others describe it, but he wanted to hear his
would-be customer’s version.
“Well, it requires a mirror, and in this case, instead of creating the phantasm it was supposed to
create, the spell enchanted the mirror, and the spriggan climbed out of the mirror as if the glass were a
door. A minute or two later another spriggan did the same thing, and a moment after that a third, and they
kept coming. That’s where all the spriggans come from. By the time we got the tapestry working again