That didn't explain how the rug had gotten the spriggan back home, though. "Then what?" Kilisha prompted.
"This morning rug hear wife's voice, get excited. Tug at table until table push rug and spriggan against wall, then push up between table and wall until on top. Then rug slap table to tell it where to go, and we run run run after wife!"
Kilisha smiled. It would seem that Cauthen's Remarkable Love Spell had done its job, and yielded not just one of the escapees, but three. The love spell had apparently inspired the rug to find a way to get home with its captive.
"And here we are," she said.
"Here, yes yes."
"And you'll stay here?" Kilisha asked. "I know we can't tie you up-will you stay here until I get everything ready to restore my master?"
"Don't know," the spriggan said, cocking its head thoughtfully to one side. "Is fun?"
Kilisha grimaced. "Don't you want to be put back the way you were?" she asked.
"Don't know," the spriggan repeated.
"It wouldn't be so confusing," Kilisha offered helpfully.
"You'd be you again, an ordinary spriggan. And Ithanalin would be himself again."
"Don't know. Like wizard. Like magic."
Kilisha didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Like you" the spriggan added.
"Then do what I ask, and stay here."
"Mmmmmmm… Maybe," the spriggan said.
Kilisha decided that would have to do. If the spriggan did escape she would just have to capture it again. At least now she knew that she needed it, that a part of Ithanalin's soul had wound up in the little nuisance.
A cage or box might hold the spriggan, but somehow she doubted it. Spriggans were very good at getting through locked doors even without an athame's magic.
Perhaps the rug could be convinced to wrap it up again-but Kilisha really hoped that it wouldn't come to that, because even with the love spell she didn't trust the rug completely. There was a possibility it might either get bored and free the spriggan at an inopportune time, or accidentally smother the creature. She had no idea how vulnerable spriggans might be to asphyxiation.
For now, she intended to just rely on the creature's self-interest.
It had been a good morning so far. She had Ithanalin's body, and the rug and table and bowl and spoon and coatrack and latch and spriggan, and most of the ingredients for Javan's Restoration. She still needed the chair and bench and couch, and jewelweed, whatever that was.
And Kelder had locked the bench and chair in a storeroom near the shipyard.
She had finally remembered her intention to levitate above the city and see if she could spot the missing furniture, and she might still do that later to locate the couch, but fetching the bench and chair seemed more immediately helpful.
Carrying them by herself might be something of a challenge- she could use the Spell of Optimum Strength, even if the potion wasn't ready, but they might struggle, and it might take two trips, which seemed a waste of time-and besides, this soldier Kelder knew where they were and she didn't.
"Kelder," she said, "can you help me bring the bench and chair home?"
"Of course," the guardsman said.
"Then let's go," Kilisha said.
"Do you want to bring anything? Any magic spells?"
"Oh!" Kilisha paused; she realized she hadn't thought about that very hard. She considered for a moment.
Tracel's Adaptable Potion wasn't ready, and since she would have Kelder along to help carry, it didn't seem worth taking hours to work the Spell of Optimum Strength-and what other magic did she have that would be useful in carrying furniture? She could think of only one really useful thing to bring, and it wasn't exactly a spell.
"Just a minute," she said, running back to the kitchen.
A moment later she returned with a coil of rope slung on her shoulder. "Let's go," she said.
Kelder looked curiously at the coil. "Is that magic?" he asked.
Startled, she looked up at him. "No," she said, "it's rope."
"Oh." He stood, looking slightly foolish, as Kilisha pushed past him and opened the front door; then he followed her out into the street.
The morning was wearing on; the sun was high overhead as the pair of them set out toward the waterfront. Kilisha had closed the shop door securely and ordered the latch to behave itself, but all the same she was slightly worried about it, and not really surprised at all when, after they had gone no more than two blocks, the spriggan came running up beside her.
"Like you!" it said. "We have fun!"
Kilisha looked down at it and sighed.
Kelder looked as well, and stopped walking. "Shall I catch it for you, and take it back?"
"No," Kilisha said. She already knew that spriggans were expert at getting in and out of places-their ability to turn up in the workshop at inconvenient times proved that. And this spriggan had an athame's magic, making it impossible to bind; it was probably smarter than the average spriggan now that it held a portion of Ithanalin's intelligence, and might well have a bond of sorts with the animated latch on the front door. The chances of keeping it restrained against its will, even with cages and the Spell of Impeded Egress, were amazingly poor-and if she tried to confine it and it escaped, it would be that much more reluctant to be recaptured.
She would just have to rely on its common sense and the fact that it liked her.
She grimaced. Relying on a spriggan's common sense? Had she gone mad?
No, she told herself, she had simply not been given any better options.
"Fun!" the spriggan said.
"Your legs will get tired if you run after us," Kilisha suggested.
"Don't care. We have fun!" It grinned an impossibly wide and foolish grin.
The silly creature was clearly determined to accompany them, rather than staying sensibly at home. Kilisha glanced at Kelder. "I don't suppose it could ride in your pouch?"
Kelder looked at her, at the spriggan, at his pouch, then back at Kilisha. "No!" he said. "That's the overlord's property. I keep important things in there; I can't have a spriggan playing with them!"
"All right, all right," Kilisha said. "It was just a suggestion." She looked down at the spriggan. "Would you like to ride on my shoulder? You can hold onto my hair to keep from falling off." That would keep it within her reach.
"Ooooooh!" the spriggan said, eyes widening. "Ride is fun! Yes, yes!"
Kilisha stooped down, and the spriggan ran up her lowered arm to perch on her shoulder. It grabbed a healthy handful of hair and shook it, like the reins of an oxcart.
"Ow!" Kilisha protested, as she straightened up. "Not so hard."
"Sorry, sorry!"
The creature did not sound the least bit sorry, but Kilisha did not argue. "Lead the way," she told Kelder, ignoring the stares of the other pedestrians.
Kelder led.
Half an hour later he stopped at the door of an ugly brick structure on Shipyard Street. "This is it," he said.
Kilisha tried the latch. "It's locked," she said.
"Of course it is," Kelder agreed. "I didn't want them getting out."
The spriggan, which had been tugging with one hand at the coil of rope Kilisha carried while its other hand remained tangled in her hair, looked up. "Get out?" it said.
"Yes, there is furniture in there we didn't want to get out," Kilisha said.
"More furniture?" The spriggan shuddered. "Didn't like rug and table. Got squeezed." It pulled its hand out of the loop of rope.