“And what do you propose?” Audra sneered. “That the four of us stay always in sight of each other, watching and waiting? A bad idea, I think! Whoever has the strength to kill us one by one might easily have the ability to kill three of us at once. We should at least scatter throughout the halls and make his life more difficult.”
Xander gave her a searching look. “So-you would rather be unobserved, Audra, would you?” he asked slowly. “What actions are you hiding? Why so secretive?”
“Why so trusting?” she shot back. “Perhaps I feel I have a better chance to protect myself if you three bumblers aren’t nearby to hamper me.”
“For the moment, I see no practical way for us to shadow each other day and night,” I said, mostly just to stop the bickering. “Those of you who wish to keep a fellow company may do so. If you want to spy on each other,” I added with some malice, “I will not stop you from doing that, either. I will examine the body and see what evidence it might yield.”
“Oh, no, you will not!” Audra exclaimed. “I will stand here and watch every threadbare clue you lift from Borrin’s corpse, or every false clue you plant there when you think none of us are looking.”
Xander and Dernwerd exchanged uneasy glances. “Yes-she’s right-I think we had better stay too,” Dernwerd said apologetically. “In case one of us notices something another one overlooks-”
“Fine. Stay. And help,” I snapped. “Let us get this autopsy under way.”
–
But we found nothing helpful except the glimmer of magic. And even it bore no signature we could trace. Eventually I summoned the gardeners and told them they were turned gravediggers. Borrin would be buried beside the trellis of calysian roses that bloomed through all seasons. A better end than he deserved, actually, but it did not seem to be the time to be raking up past differences.
–
None of us heard from our murderer again for three more days. Again, I had permitted classes to resume, though everyone crept through the hallway with a sort of hunched and hunted gait, as if expecting at any moment horror would incorporate out of the very air. I was fairly certain the students and the staff had no reason to worry, but I was just as sure our renegade would eventually strike again at one of the senior wizards.
I was right. The killer came for me.
I had stepped outside for a breath of winter air and was walking along the lovely stone promenade that was attached to the second story of the school and overlooked the gardens. Little to see in the gardens at that season but hardy evergreens and hopeful brown stalks that, in a few months, would be animated by an even more ancient and powerful magic than mine. I always loved gardens in winter. They made me believe that even old and ugly and withered creatures possessed the potential for beauty and rebirth.
I had completed my first pass down the promenade and was just pivoting to make the return trip when I felt the unmistakable frisson of sorcery skitter across my skin. I paused, one foot on the floor, one foot lifted to step.
All around me, unfolding and refolding in infinite permutations, I saw reflections of myself caught in the exact same pose. I knew instantly what had happened, of course. Someone had cast a multiplying curse on me, assuming that I would never have gone out in the world unprotected, but also assuming that I had arrayed myself in a different kind of enchantment altogether. For instance, it might be supposed that I had summoned an artillery spell that was designed to fire off damaging shots as soon as it was activated by someone else’s magic. A multiplying curse goes on and on and on without end-I would have been igniting so many deadly explosions that within minutes I would have died in my own detonations.
Never had my assailant expected that I would have kept my simple old reflecting spell in place. So this replicating curse, while impossibly annoying, was completely harmless. All it did was show thousands of copies of me, millions, putting down my foot and looking around, trying to gaze through my own reflections to determine who had accosted me.
I admit I was not surprised when I was finally able to make out Audra standing on the promenade before me, her eyes closed, her lips moving, as she quickly invoked a different bit of magic. I moved rapidly myself, tossing up a wall of protection that should be able to frustrate even the most virulent curse, for a while at least. Then, through my own still, watchful horde of sentries, I peered at her, trying to guess what she might do next.
She was gesturing more forcefully. Her red hair was unbound and whipping in an ensorceled wind, and her gold robes clung to a body that was more voluptuous than I remembered it being. I had always believed Audra to be constructed of bones, spite, and magic, but clearly dislike had colored my perceptions.
Or desire had colored someone else’s.
I looked more closely. Last time I had seen her, Audra’s hair had not been quite so luxuriant, nor so long. Nor was she usually this tall, and her angular face was far from being beautiful in the normal run of things. And, may I say, I am not in the habit of rating other women’s physical attractions, but in my opinion, she generally had none. At the moment, her bosom was very well endowed.
This was not Audra. This was someone’s idealization of Audra.
I knew of only one truly gifted illusionist who had also been in love with the red-haired witch. Apparently Morben was not dead after all. We had never had a chance to inspect his body, I suddenly remembered. We had assumed that the original death spell was what had caused the corpse to flare to ashes, but that had just been part and parcel of the overall illusion. There had been no body to examine because there was no body. Morben had projected the whole scene of assault and death, then caused the final image to vanish with a flick of his fingers. How could we have been so stupid?
I had just been so happy he was dead.
But if I didn’t show some ingenuity immediately, I would be the one dead, and Morben would be the one who was happy. I could feel him testing my wall of protection, flinging first one angry spell and then another against my magical shield. He was very good at mayhem; he would be able to find a way through it eventually. And then every single copy of Camalyn the Headmistress would fall to the stone floor, choking on death and fury.
I considered the situation, tilting my head to one side. All my reflections did likewise. I was maintaining two simultaneous sets of magic, the reflecting spell and the spell of protection. Morben, meanwhile, juggled two of his own, the illusion of Audra and the attack on me. That level of magical use had probably drained both of us to an approximately equal level.
But if I could reduce my expenditure of energy to one spell only, I should be stronger than my enemy. I would have to work very fast, of course. I would have to know exactly what I was doing before I made a single move.
Morben’s curses hammered at my shield. I concentrated on holding the wall in place while conjuring and dispersing other bits of magic. My mirrored images all raised their hands before them, as if to plead for mercy or feel for an unseen door. I murmured a word, and all my doppelgängers fell away.
The counterfeit Audra whipped around to face me, her beautiful mouth stretched into a disdainful smile. “One of you or a thousand of you, it does not matter,” Morben said in Audra’s voice. “I will slay you all.”
I had never gotten much pleasure out of bandying words with Morben, and I did not bother now. I merely extended my right hand and spoke a single word. “Stone.”