Kilisha tried to turn her head far enough to look at the creature, but it was pressing up against her ear, making this impossible.
"But they're other pieces of the same person!" she said.
"Other pieces of wizard," the spriggan corrected her. "Sprig-ganalin is spriggan and Ithanalin. Spriggan doesn't like furniture."
"Is that why you followed us?"
The spriggan buried its face in her hair, and she could feel it nodding.
"We need to find the foreman," Kelder said, pointedly ignoring her conversation with the spriggan. "He's the one with the key."
"You don't have the key?" Kilisha asked, startled.
Kelder looked at her, equally startled. "I'm a guardsman assigned to collect taxes for Lady Nuvielle-why would I have a key to a shipyard storage shed?"
"Because you put my master's animated furniture in the shed!"
"It's still not my shed," Kelder said. "You wait here; I'll find the foreman."
"Which foreman?" she asked.
"Arra the Carpenter," Kelder said, pointing at the nearest hull. "He should be in there."
Kilisha looked at the mud, the rickety-looking walkways and their utter lack of handrails, and the large, dirty workers. She took a good whiff of the stench of mudflat.
"Go ahead," she said. "I'll wait here."
Kelder glanced at her, then spread an empty hand. "As you please," he said. He crossed the street, looked hesitantly at the steep, rocky slope that separated the street from the shipyards, then started trudging down the road toward Ramp Street, the nearer of the two ramps that led down into the yards themselves.
Kilisha turned and looked out across the shipyards, hundreds of yards of muddy tidal flat spread out at the foot of the steep drop-off on the other side of Shipyard Street. The flats were covered with wooden frameworks of one sort or another. Some were the partially built hulls of new ships, suspended on wooden frames over muddy ditches; others were the cranes and scaffolding used to construct those hulls and put masts and decking into them; and still others were the wooden walkways and bridges connecting everything, keeping the workers up out of the worst of the mud. Assorted sheds and huts were scattered among the frames, and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of muddy workers were moving about, hauling ropes and timbers and metalwork hither and yon.
The whole thing stank of sawdust, seawater, and rotting vegetation. When a spring tide came in the entire flat would be awash, most of it no more than ankle deep, but the channels cut beneath the hulls would fill; completed ships could be lowered, released, and if the workers were quick enough in catching the tide, floated down the broad canal known as the Throat and out to the sea.
If a storm surge came sweeping in through the Throat the solid hulls and scaffolding would survive, and most of the walkways, but the huts and loose pieces would all be washed away; that typically happened once or twice a year. When the Lord Shipwright's budget allowed, magical warnings or protections prevented any se-nous loss of materials or men, but in bad years the shipbuilders just accepted the risks as part of doing business.
Of course, anything really important or valuable was stored outside the shipyard proper, in the sheds and warehouses lining the outer side of Shipyard Street, well above the high-water line.
Kilisha counted four ships abuilding; one had masts up, two were solid hulls, and one was still little more than an oaken skeleton. Kelder appeared to be heading directly for the nearest, a solid but mastless hull.
She was still watching him when she heard a thump on the door of the shed.
Chapter Fourteen
Kilisha leaned close to the locked shed door and called, "Is anyone in there?"
Another thump sounded, but no one answered her. She knocked on the door and called again, "Is someone in there?"
A series of thumps was followed by what sounded like a high-pitched giggle.
"What's going on in there?" she called. She glanced after Kelder, but he had apparently not heard anything; he was already at the corner, starting down the long, curving ramp into the shipyards.
Kilisha frowned, then leaned over and put her ear to the door.
Thump, thump, rattle, another giggle, and then a squeaky voice shrieked, "Fun!"
"Oh, no," she breathed.
There was a spriggan in the shed. She looked quickly at her own shoulder, and was reassured to see Sprigganalin, as it called itself, still perched there, clutching a hank of her hair.
"Hai!" she said. "How did one of you get inside there?"
"Spriggan inside?" The spriggan blinked at her, and grinned broadly. "Oh, fun!"
"Not fun," Kilisha said angrily. "I think the furniture is trying to stomp it to death."
"Oh, stomping not as easy as you think! We go in and help?"
"The door's locked," Kilisha reminded it. "And besides, we don't want to let the furniture out yet."
"Not?"
"Not."
"But-"
Something slammed heavily against the door, and Kilisha was certain she heard a high-pitched shriek.
"Oh, death," she said, putting a hand on the door. It still felt solid, but she was sure something had rammed it, hard, from the other side.
It was probably the bench, she thought.
"Open door?" the spriggan on her shoulder asked.
"I told you, it's locked,' Kilisha growled.
"We unlock it, have fun! Spriggans like fun."
"We don't have the blasted key," Kilisha said, exasperated.
"Don't need key," the spriggan said, as it released her hair and scampered down her arm.
"What?" She stared down at it, frozen in astonishment.
"Don't need key," the spriggan repeated, as it wrapped its legs around her wrist and leaned down toward the lock.
"What are you doing?" she demanded-but she left her hand where it was. She couldn't risk flinging the spriggan aside, and losing a bit of Ithanalin's soul.
"Open lock!" the spriggan said, thrusting a long, thin forefinger into the keyhole.
Kilisha stared, and suddenly saw the solution to a mystery. Here was how spriggans kept getting into the house, no matter how careful she and Yara and Ithanalin were about closing shutters and locking doors. The spriggan's fingernail was a natural lockpick, and the creatures apparently had an instinctive understanding of locks-or at least of how to open them.
The spriggan wiggled and twisted its finger, grimacing, its huge pointed ears flexing as it concentrated on its task-and then the lock clicked open.
"Blood and death," Kilisha swore, still staring.
The spriggan paid no attention as it slid the latch aside and gently pushed the door open.
Something suddenly rammed the door from the inside again, and Kilisha started back as the heavy wooden slab slammed against the frame, then bounced open. The spriggan on her wrist clung harder and whooped with excitement.
"Hello?" Kilisha called, peering into the dark interior of the shed.
She was answered by the pounding of half a dozen wooden feet and the squeaking of not one, but several spriggans.
"Oh, no," she said. She pushed the door open and stepped in.
The interior of the shed was dim and dusty, the only good light coming from the door behind her, but she could see well enough to make out immense coils of rope stacked to the ceiling along one side, and boxes and shelves of black ironmongery along the other.
Unfortunately, one stack of ropes had toppled over, and three boxes of ironmongery had broken open, their contents scattered across the floor.
The familiar straight chair from Ithanalin's parlor stood in one far corner, tipped at an angle, two of its four legs braced against a coil of rope; it was rocking back and forth, plainly trying to dislodge a spriggan that clung, squealing, to its back.