well, that was one instance,” Karanissa said. “Ithanalin has been very persistent in demanding Kaligir do something about the spriggans. There have been any number of other ruined spells and spilled potions and wasted ingredients…”
Gresh remembered Dina’s precious blood, spilled on her cat. “Yes,” he said.
“No one’s been killed yet, so far as we know, but it seems almost as if it’s just a matter of time, and the Guild wants Tobas to do something about the spriggans before it comes to that. He created them, Telurinon says, so it’s his responsibility to stop them. And that starts with destroying the mirror—if we don’t do that, it’ll just make more.”
“But first you need to find it.”
“Yes. The spriggans hid it, and we need to find it.”
“So you came to me.”
“When nothing else worked, yes.”
Gresh did not like the sound of that—but then, if the Guild had ordered them to do something about the spriggans back in Snowfall of last year, and they had already been working on the problem for five months, then coming to him had clearly not been their first idea. “What else did you try?” he asked.
“Well, since the Guild wanted us to do it, we thought it was only fair to ask them to help us, so we did. We had Mereth of the Golden Door use every divination in her book, and half a dozen other wizards, as well, but none of them could locate the mirror. We consulted three or four theurgists and even a demonologist, to no avail—the gods apparently can’t even perceive spriggans, let alone identify their source, no matter how roundabout you make the questions, and there don’t seem to be any demons who deal with this sort of thing. Witches don’t have the range—I could have told them that, but Tobas talked to a couple of others just to be sure no one had found a way during the four hundred years I was gone. Warlocks had no idea of how to even begin looking, and the scientists and ritual dancers didn’t do much better.” She sighed wearily at the memory. “So when magic failed us, we decided to try other methods. Lady Sarai can’t leave her duties as the overlord’s investigator and didn’t have any clever ideas, but Telurinon said you were the best in the World at finding hard-to-find things without magic—so here I am.”
“Indeed,” Gresh said. He leaned back, keeping his eyes on his guest.
This was, at least potentially, a problem—and an opportunity.
He made an excellent living supplying wizards with the ingredients for their spells; he had been doing it since boyhood. He had started out running errands for his older sisters—mostly Dina, since wizards used so many odd ingredients in their spells, but also occasionally Tira and Chira and Shesta. Witches used herbs and other tools; sorcerers sometimes wanted particular metals or gems for their talismans and were always looking for leftover bits of old sorcery; and demonologists sometimes needed specific things to pay demons for their services. His business was never entirely for wizards, but wizards certainly made up the bulk of his business.
He had started with his sisters, but then he had begun to fetch things for their friends, and then friends of friends, and then people with no connection he knew of who had heard his name somewhere. Word had spread; by the time he finished his apprenticeship and opened his own shop, he had developed a reputation for being fast, efficient, honest, and discreet.
He had also developed a reputation for being able to get anything, given time.
This reputation let him charge high prices—higher, in fact, than any other supplier in the city. Even so, he had never lacked for business. There were always people willing to pay more for the best.
The problem was that he had to stay the best. He had to maintain his reputation as the man who could get anything a wizard needed. He could never admit that there was something he couldn’t find, or couldn’t obtain once it was found.
So far, no such admission had been necessary; sooner or later he had gotten everything he went after, or else had been able to give good, sound reasons why he would not seek certain things. As he explained to anyone who asked: he would not kill or maim anyone to obtain an item; he would not violate Wizards’ Guild rules, and he tried to obey the overlords’ laws; and some of the things people had attempted to buy simply didn’t exist.
Or at least, he said they didn’t exist, and no one had ever proved him wrong.
This spriggan mirror, though, apparently did exist. If Karanissa was telling the truth, she knew it existed. Fetching it would not break any Guild rules; in fact, the Guild wanted it found. He wouldn’t be stealing it, or breaking any other laws so far as he could see, and he could see no reason anyone would be killed or maimed if he acquired it. By his own rules, therefore, he should have no objection to going after it. Unless he could find a new and convincing excuse, refusing the task would severely damage his reputation.
Finding it, of course, would enhance his reputation. If he could become known as the man who eliminated the nuisance of the spriggans once and for all, he could crank his prices up even higher. He would be a minor hero throughout the Hegemony.
The problem was that if he agreed to get it and failed to do so, his reputation would be not merely damaged, but ruined—and he had no idea how to find the thing! By Karanissa’s account, most of his usual methods would not work.
Of course, no one outside the family knew what his usual methods were—and he liked it that way. Keeping his trade secrets secret added to his aura of mystery and kept the competition down.
“Will you get it for us?” Karanissa asked, interrupting his train of thought.
He really had no choice. “Of course,” he said. “But it may take some time, and it will be very expensive.”
“The Guild has agreed to cover the cost,” she replied. “We will pay any price.”
Gresh blinked at that. Any price?
He had thought he might scare her away; given his reputation for charging high prices, he had thought that when he said “very expensive” she might reconsider and save him the trouble of actually finding the mirror. But the Guild would pay?
When the Wizards’ Guild said “any price,” that meant rather more than when anyone else said it. The Wizards’ Guild had entire worlds at their disposal.
But of course, the witch might not have meant it literally. She could not be a member of the Guild herself and might have misinterpreted what the Guildmasters had actually said. There might be limitations of which she was unaware.
Still, to have access to the Guild’s own coffers—he would be rich! Really rich, not just as well off as he was now. Or perhaps he might be paid with more than money…
That assumed, of course, that Karanissa was telling the truth. Twilfa had not yet returned with Tira, so he had no way of verifying the story.
It also assumed he could indeed retrieve the missing mirror, but he had confidence in his own abilities—far more confidence than he had in Karanissa’s account of herself.
He considered trying to stall Karanissa, by asking her questions until Tira arrived—after all, he would need more information from her before setting out to find this mirror—but he decided against it. This was probably not going to be a quick and easy errand. He would undoubtedly talk to her a good many times, with and without Tira.
He
