The Spriggan Mirror. Lawrence Watt-Evans

begin with. One theory is that what the spell actually does is affect the victim’s vision so that he’s catching glimpses of another reality, one inhabited by these hideous little things. Another is that the creatures, whatever they are, are all around us all the time, and what the spell does is to let the victim see things that are normally invisible to us. Mostly, though, we assume it’s just an illusion, that the spell plays tricks on the victim’s mind.”

      “What do the phantasms look like?”

      “How should I know?”

      “You’ve never seen one?”

      “No one’s ever had a reason to put a curse on me, thank you very much, dear brother.”

      “But you learned the spell as an apprentice, didn’t you?”

      She glared at him. “As it happens, no, I didn’t. Have I ever bought rat’s eyeballs from you? I’ve read about it, and I got the formula in a trade with Sensella of the Isle, but I’ve never tried it—Dabran’s apprentice, whatever her name was, made me wary. And even if I had, if I did it properly I wouldn’t see the phantasm.”

      That was mildly inconvenient. Gresh had hoped to get every detail of the spell, perhaps see it performed, in order to give him more background, and it appeared Dina couldn’t readily provide that. She did have the formula, but trying a new spell always carried some risk. He was sure she wouldn’t do it unless he paid for it.

      Of course, he could count that as a research expense and charge Tobas and the Guild for it. He might resort to that.

      “So it can dissipate, or explode, or hit the wrong target,” he said. “Has it ever produced something other than the expected phantasm, that you know of?”

      “Well, now, who knows what the expected phantasm is? For all we know, every victim might be seeing something different. Most of the victims don’t compare notes, and the descriptions usually boil down to, ‘Oh, ick!’ They mostly involve hair and claws and eyes, but don’t get into a lot of specifics—for one thing, the victim usually only sees the phantasm from the corner of her eye, and it’s gone when she looks for it.”

      “Someone could try it twice and see whether they get the same image.”

      “They could. Maybe someone has. I haven’t, and no one’s ever mentioned it to me. This isn’t a spell that gets a great deal of attention, Gresh.”

      “Well, perhaps it should. It appears that on one occasion it did produce something else, instead of a phantasm.”

      “And they want you to recover that particular mirror to see if they can do it again?”

      “Something like that.”

      “It probably won’t work—that spell has half a dozen deliberate variables in it, depending on exactly how you want the curse to operate, as well as all the usual ways to mess it up. The mirror probably isn’t what mattered.”

      Gresh hesitated, debating whether to explain in more detail what he was after, but then decided against it, at least for the moment. Instead he asked, “How do you get rid of Lugwiler’s Phantasm?”

      “It depends how you set it up in the first place. If you had any sense, you made it conditional—it would work until the victim did something, such as apologize, and then it would end by itself. Or it would only work so long as the victim stayed in a particular area, or carried a specific object—then you wouldn’t need a countercharm.”

      “But suppose it wasn’t conditional.”

      Dina sighed. “Let me think. Casting Javan’s Restorative on the victim should work.”

      “Would the victim need to cooperate for that?”

      “To the extent of being present and not interfering in the preparation, yes—though it might be possible to use his true name instead.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t want to try it that way, though; it’s a seventh- or eighth-order spell, and I don’t like improvising at that level. It can be put in a potion or talisman, though, and if the victim drinks the potion or invokes the talisman…”

      “I don’t think that will work in this case, Dina. Are there any other countercharms?”

      “I don’t know. A Spell of Reversal might do it. They say that works on almost anything.”

      “Spell of Reversal? I don’t think I know that one.”

      “That’s because the only difficult ingredient in the usual version is hair from a stillborn child; everything else is simple, basic stuff like candles and water and shiny stones that nobody would bother to pay your prices for. Besides, it must be tenth-order or worse; I can’t do it, and not many wizards can.”

      “So how does it work?”

      “It reverses a process or undoes a spell, so if you’re quick enough and a good enough wizard you can undo some of your worst mistakes. There are rumors it’s even been able to raise the dead if the timing’s just right. You can make a broken jar unbreak itself, a knife unrust, blood flow back into a wound, or a river run uphill. But it doesn’t reverse it permanently—after half an hour or so it wears off and the natural flow is restored. If you’ve reversed it back to before the process started you can try to prevent it happening again—put the jar somewhere safe, keep the knife dry, bandage the wound—but the natural order returns, and that river’s going to run downhill again, the wound is going to bleed, and you can’t stop it.”

      “So how would that work on Lugwiler’s Haunting Phantasm?”

      “I’m not sure it would—but if it did, and you used it quickly enough, you might be able to undo the spell, reverse the process to before the mirror was enchanted, and make it as if it was never cast. Or at least make the victim not have looked at the mirror, or whatever.”

      Gresh nodded thoughtfully; that sounded like a stupendously useful spell. The ability to reverse anything? That could have a thousand applications.

      Tenth-order, though—and it probably took hours to prepare…

      “Can it be put in a potion or talisman?”

      “Not a potion; you cast it on a process, not a person, so a potion wouldn’t work. Maybe it would work in a talisman or a powder; I don’t know.”

      Gresh was about to ask who might know more when the doorbell jingled. He glanced over toward Twilfa, who was opening the door, and her expression prevented him from continuing the conversation. He rose.

      “Tell your master that Kaligir of the New Quarter is here to see him,” said the new arrival, as he stepped across the threshold.