.

plates.

      A loud crash sounded from the front of the shop.

      “That,” Gresh said, as he leapt up and dashed down the passage.

      As he had expected, he found a spriggan sitting on the floor below a high shelf, surrounded by broken glass and drying blood. The creature looked up at him as he entered, then sprang to its feet and ran for the door.

      Gresh darted in front of it, cutting off its escape. It stopped dead and looked up at him, crestfallen. Its big pointed ears drooped.

      “Sorry sorry sorry,” it said, in a high-pitched squeak of a voice.

      Gresh smiled. “Of course you are,” he said. “I’m sure you didn’t mean any harm at all, did you?”

      The spriggan stared up at him uncertainly, its bulging round eyes fixed on his face.

      “You were just curious about what was in the bottle, right?”

      Hesitantly, the spriggan nodded, never taking its eyes from Gresh’s face.

      “And you certainly didn’t mean to spill dragon’s blood worth five rounds of gold all over my carpet, did you?”

      The ears drooped even further. “Sorry,” the spriggan said.

      “Do you know how much five rounds of gold is?”

      The spriggan blinked once, its thin, pale eyelids seeming to appear out of nowhere. “No?”

      “It’s a very great deal of money. You now owe me a very great deal of money.”

      The creature looked panic-stricken. “Spriggan doesn’t have money,” it squealed.

      “I can see that,” Gresh said. The spriggan was naked and only about eight inches high; there was nowhere it could hide a purse, or even a single coin.

      Gresh had never bothered to take a good hard look at a spriggan. The first few he had encountered had been glimpsed from afar, or in the process of fleeing, and by the time he saw one close up and relatively still he had lost any interest in the little pests. Now, though, he stared down at the creature that crouched before his feet, studying it.

      It was roughly human in shape—but it also looked a good bit like a frog, an impression aided by its lipless, oversized mouth and bulging pop-eyes. Its shiny, hairless skin was a dull green—Gresh thought he had seen a few that were more of a brown color, but this one was definitely an ugly shade of drab green. It came no more than halfway up his shin; if it stood straight and stretched its bony arms, those long-fingered little hands could probably reach his knee.

      This one apparently had no fingernails; some of them did, though. He remembered hearing that some could use their fingernails to pick locks.

      Why did some have nails, and some not? Was there any significance to the different colors? There were plenty of unanswered questions about spriggans. No one knew whether they had one sex or two—or, Gresh supposed, more. No one knew why they all seemed to speak the same sort of broken Ethsharitic, or whether they had names. Not one had ever, so far as Gresh knew, admitted to having any name but “spriggan.” They generally spoke of themselves in the third person, but Gresh wasn’t sure if that was universal.

      One thing he discovered, having one this close, was that they did not seem to have any odor at all. He was fairly sure he would have been able to smell a person at this distance, but all he could smell right now was the spilled dragon’s blood.

      He was going to need to clean that up, but right now dealing with the spriggan seemed more urgent; the blood and broken glass could wait. He supposed he probably should have kept that in the vault, with the other expensive materials, but wizards used so much dragon’s blood that he had never bothered—he and Twilfa would have spent half the day locking and unlocking the iron door. It seemed as if half the spells used in Ethshar of the Rocks required dragon’s blood.

      The stuff had a sharp, metallic odor, and Gresh’s nose could detect nothing else. On a whim, he leaned forward and sniffed at the spriggan.

      It backed away a step, startled. “No money,” it said. “You let spriggan go now?”

      The creature had no scent at all, so far as Gresh could discern. He could smell the blood and the carpet and a dozen other normal shop odors, but nothing at all that might be the spriggan. That was odd, like so many things about the little pests. “You’ll just have to pay me with something other than money,” he said.

      “But spriggan not have anything,” the spriggan wailed woefully.

      “You can pay me with answers,” Gresh said.

      The spriggan calmed down slightly. It blinked up at him, then looked from side to side, as if hoping to see an explanation standing nearby.

      Twilfa was standing in the passageway, watching the conversation, but there were no explanations in sight.

      “What answers?” it asked warily.

      “You owe me five rounds of gold,” Gresh said. “That’s forty bits. Let’s say each answer is worth, oh, two bits—which I’m sure you’ll agree is very generous of me. Then you owe me twenty answers.”

      “What kind of answers?”

      “Answers to my questions.”

      The spriggan considered that carefully, then brightened visibly, its immense ears straightening. “Yes, yes!” it said. “Answer questions! Then you let spriggan go, yes?”

      “Yes,” Gresh said.

      “Good, good! Have answers, have fun!” It ventured a tentative smile.

      “Don’t get too happy,” Gresh warned. “You still have to give me those twenty answers.”

      “Will! Will! Ask questions!”

      “Indeed I will. First off, did you come out of a mirror, as I’ve heard?”

      “Not know what you heard. That one answer.” It blinked up at him.

      Gresh grimaced. Obviously, he would need to be more careful about his phrasing. “Fair enough,” he said. “Did you come out of an enchanted mirror?”

      “Yes. That two answers.”

      “You’re counting…Can you even count to twenty?”

      The spriggan hesitated. “Not sure,” it admitted. “Can try. Can count to twelve for sure. Twenty is more than twelve, might not get all the way. Try, though.” It smiled happily. “That three answers!”

      Gresh sighed. “I suppose it is. Now, do you know where the mirror you came from is?”

      “No. Not know. That four.”

      “No, it isn’t!” Gresh protested. “That’s not an answer!”

      “Is, too. ‘Not know’ is answer. Just isn’t good answer. You not say good answers!”

      Gresh put a hand to his forehead. “I’m being outwitted by a spriggan,” he said. “I don’t believe this.” Then he lowered his hand and said, “Where was the mirror when you last saw it?”

      The spriggan turned up empty hands. “Not know,” it said. “Five.”

      “You have to give me honest answers, you know.”

      “Did. Have. Will.”

      “How can you not know where it was?”

      “Not good with places. Not good with names. Not remember well. Six.”

      “Well, how did you get here from wherever the mirror was?”

      “Walked, mostly. Ran some. Got thrown once by pretty woman who found spriggan in her skirt—maybe eight, nine feet? Rolled down slope once. Is seven? Yes, seven.”

      “Seven down.” Gresh sighed again, and rubbed his forehead. “Which direction