The latch clicked solidly into place, and the rug unfolded, draping itself across the tabletop and revealing its prize.
The captive straightened up and stood there blinking at Kilisha, and she realized at once what it was.
It stood perhaps nine inches in height, naked and sexless, with sagging, dull green skin. It was roughly man-shaped, but with spindly, twiglike limbs, a bulging potbelly, and an oversized head, with immense pointed ears, bulging pop-eyes, and a gaping, lipless, froglike mouth.
A spriggan.
And she thought she knew which spriggan, and why the rug had caught it.
“You’re the spriggan that tripped my master, aren’t you?” she asked.
It blinked woefully at her, and nodded.
“The rug must have my master’s urge for revenge,” she said.
The spriggan blinked again, then spread its spindly arms. “Don’t think so,” it said, in a voice that sounded oddly familiar. Kilisha wondered whether she’d spoken to this particular spriggan before. It might have been hanging around the place for days or months.
“Well, why else would it capture you?” Kilisha demanded.
The spriggan turned up an empty palm. “Don’t know,” it said. “Not have rug’s thoughts.”
That seemed very peculiar phrasing for a spriggan-the little idiots usually didn’t consider anyone else’s thoughts. And that voice sounded more familiar than ever; it was exceptionally deep for a spriggan, almost human in tone...
“Oh, no,” Kilisha said.
“Not have rug’s thoughts,” the spriggan said dolefully, shaking its head. “Not have table’s thoughts. Only have little bit of thoughts.”
“Of Ithanalin’s thoughts, you mean?”
“Yes, yes. Sprigganalin, me. Rest is scattered.”
Kilisha clapped her hand over her mouth. Telleth looked up at her. “Did Dad turn himself into a spriggan?” he asked.
“Not entirely,” Kilisha said, her words muffled by her fingers.
“That looks like the same one that was here yesterday,” Kelder said from behind her.
“Yes, yes!” the spriggan said, nodding. “Saw you at door.”
“It’s the same one,” Kilisha agreed, turning to see the soldier had come up behind her, far more quietly than she would have thought possible.
“Who’s that?” Telleth asked, looking at Kelder. No one answered; everyone else’s attention was still focused on the spriggan.
“Should I kill it?” Kelder asked, raising his truncheon.
“No!” Kilisha and the spriggan shouted in unison. “I need it alive for a spell, to restore my master,” Kilisha explained quickly.
“The spriggan?” Yara said, emerging from the workshop behind Kelder. At the sound of her voice the rug humped itself up and slithered off the table, falling to the floor in a heap and knocking the spriggan off its feet.
Kilisha sprang forward and caught the spriggan before it, too, could tumble off the table. She called to the children, “Find me a cage or a rope or something! We can’t let this escape.”
Telleth hurried to obey and tripped over the rug, which was straightening itself out and starting toward Yara; Kelder caught the boy before he could fall.
Yara let out a yelp at the sight of the rug climbing over her son’s legs and coming toward her; she backed into the workshop. The table was dancing back and forth nervously, obviously confused by all the excitement, and the coatrack had squeezed itself trembling back into its corner, its hooks extended in every direction.
Kilisha clapped her hands to her head at the sound and confusion and sudden motion, forgetting that she held the spriggan in one of them; the feel of its leathery little body against her ear was supremely disconcerting, and it was all she could do to stop herself from flinging the little creature away headfirst.
“Lirrin, help your brother get that rug off his feet, would you?” Kilisha said.
Lirrin and Pirra both hurried to Telleth, who was now kicking wildly as Kelder held him off the ground and the rug struggled to untangle itself. Before either girl could touch it, though, Telleth gave one final kick that sent the rug flying; it soared free and landed on the floor several feet to the side, where it skidded across the planking for another foot or two before it managed to stop.
Telleth stopped kicking, but not until he had thumped one bare foot into Pirra’s chest and knocked her to the floor, where she sat and wailed. Lirrin hurried to her sister’s aid as Kelder carefully lowered the chastened boy to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Pirra!” Telleth called. “I’m sorry!”
Kilisha was too busy watching the rug to pay much attention to the children. The floor covering had recovered quickly from its fall, and was now humping itself up, inchworm fashion, and crawling toward the workshop door. Kilisha turned to see Yara staring in horror at the approaching object.
“Stay back!” Yara shouted, holding out a hand to fend the rug off.
The rug stopped dead.
“Sec?” Kilisha called. “It loves you, and will do what you tell it!”
“Love you, yes!” the spriggan squeaked in a high-pitched parody of Ithanalin’s voice.
The table danced over and bumped against Lirrin from behind, and the coatrack thumped against the wall.
“What is going on here?” Kelder bellowed. That made the three children cower, the table dance, the coatrack rock wildly from side to side, and the rug skitter sideways, while the spriggan squirmed wildly in Kilisha’s grasp.
A sudden inspiration struck her. “Kelder,” she asked, “do you have something you use to tie people up if you arrest them? Restraints of some kind?”
“I have a cord,” he admitted. He reached into the big pouch on his belt and pulled out a length of rope.
“Here,” Kilisha said, holding out the spriggan. “Start with this.”
“Why?” Kelder asked suspiciously.
“I need it to restore my master,” Kilisha said.
Kelder did not look convinced, but he looped the cord around the spriggan’s wrists and tied a quick knot. Kilisha smiled.
“The ankles, too,” she said. “They’re tricky.”
Kelder grumbled, but tied the spriggan’s legs, tugging the knot tight.
When he was done, Kilisha carefully set the little creature on the floor. “There,” she said.
The spriggan promptly pulled both hands out of the loops, then bent down and pulled at the cord around its ankles. The knots fell apart, and the rope dropped away. It stood up.
“Not like rope!” it said.
“How did you do that?” Kelder demanded, reaching for the spriggan with one hand and the discarded ropes with the other. The little creature danced aside, out of his grasp.
Kilisha didn’t say a thing, but her eyes widened as she realized what had happened. She had seen such a demonstration before, years ago, when she had scarcely begun her apprenticeship.
One of the little-known aspects of wizardry was that a true wizard could not be held by physical bonds if he could touch the hilt of his athame. He didn’t need to hold it, or cut anything, or use any sort of spell-simply touching it would cause his bonds to fall away.
Just as the spriggan’s had.
Which, she theorized, meant that the spriggan now held the piece of Ithanalin’s soul that had been in his athame. Or perhaps it had received his magical talents, including whatever it was that gave an athame that particular ability.
Kelder had recovered his ropes, but the spriggan had eluded him and he was kneeling on the parlor floor, grabbing for it.
“Spriggan!” Kilisha called. “Hold still!” She remembered whose fragmentary self she was speaking to, and added, “Please.”
“Not like rope!” it squeaked.
“I know,” Kilisha said. “We won’t tie you up, I promise.”