"They won't be able to get in," said Annarais.
"But, we've got to prepare, just in case," replied Damon.
The two apprentices split up, trying to prepare for the arrival of the Stromgald assassin, although neither knew what it would take to stop her. Annarais took the far stairs two at a time. At the top, she raced along the curving walls, heading for the sparring room at the other end of the corridor. She flung the door open and grabbed two metal-shod fighting staffs from their wall bracket near the door.
Meanwhile, Damon looked around the atrium. He closed the wooden shutters on every window and dropped bars into the holds to secure them. Obscured by illusion or not, an open window was a way in. He ran up to the second floor, whose curving, shadowed hallway overlooked the atrium. Here was their kitchen as well as their personal cells, their study rooms, and the sparring room.
He found Annarais in Jervis's cell, standing there with the window unsecured, holding a large, round shell in both hands. The heavy shell had been one of Jervis's treasured finds.
Without looking up, Annarais said, "Master Wane says your life is like the nautilus's shell. It starts very small, and it gets bigger and bigger as you grow. But you know what he forgot? It ends." She put her finger into the empty opening where a living thing had once made its home. "All that's left is something for someone to find on the beach-a trinket."
A mighty boom reverberated through the atrium. Damon jumped, and Annarais's hand flew to her mouth. They hurried out into the hallway and looked one story down to the floor. Another boom sounded from the door into the tower.
"We can't fight her golem," said Annarais.
"We can hide," returned Damon. "Maybe we can get to the training room. Maybe we can even make it to the top, to Master Wane's chambers. He talks to other wizards far away. Maybe he has a magic glass, something we can use to call him. Maybe he can get here, or just get us out." Like closing the shutters, he suspected it was a futile effort at best.
"The training room," said Annarais. "I know the key."
She slipped back into Jervis's room and came out with the fighting staffs. She tossed one to Damon. The booming persisted. Damon followed Annarais to the end of the hall next to the sparring room's door. There stood a wooden door carved with sigils in a wavelike pattern. None of the apprentices had ever been up to the training floor without Master Wane, and he had always opened the latchless door himself. Annarais placed herself in front of it, biting her lip. With her two hands, she made a slow, unpracticed series of gestures and then looked at the door.
"I don't understand." She was becoming more frustrated every minute. "That's exactly what he does. Exactly! Why won't it open?" She repeated the gestures. The boom sounded again, this time accompanied by the sound of metal straining and giving way.
"What are you thinking?" asked Damon.
"I'm trying to get through the damn door," snapped Annarais, her voice strained.
"No," said Damon, putting a calming hand on her shoulder. "What are you thinking while you're doing it?"
"I'm thinking we're both going to die."
"Do the litany. Try it while thinking the door litany. 'Neither life nor death but-'
"I know the damn litany!" yelled Annarais.
Annarais shivered and began again. Her hands moved smoothly as she repeated the gestures. Below them, the double doors bent inward, and the heavy, bronze creature squeezed into the breach, widening it. The door before Annarais creaked open, and the two apprentices darted in. The door shut behind them.
They raced up a narrow flight of stairs which opened into the middle of a curved room lined with racks of scrolls. Near the other end was a row of writing stands where the apprentices practiced their letters and sigils.
Against the wall was a wide, low chest tucked under a window. To the right was the door to Master Wane's chambers. As the Master had made clear many times, only a wizard could open that door. Near was a black curtain, with the mirror behind it. Momentarily, Damon longed to gaze into that mirror and forget everything that had happened today.
"There's got to be something here that we can use," Damon cried, frantically searching the room.
"Maybe there's something in Master Wane's hardwood chest," replied Annarais.
As Damon approached the chest, a flicker caught his eye. Sitting on one of the writing stands was the flat, mirrored disk that Master Wane had used to create phantasms-horrible but insubstantial images of frightening creatures.
Damon remembered sitting with Sabra and Master Wane on the rocky beach, waves gently lapping in the background. The master had reached into his stained gray cloak and produced the disk, laying it gently on the pebbles before them. The disk reflected the sun and blue sky. "The blind see only the truth," he said.
Wane had tucked his age-spotted hands into his cloak and closed his eyes. Sabra reached out for the disk. She pulled it close to her face and peered into it. With a forefinger she pushed at a pimple on her chin. Suddenly her eyes widened, and she dropped the disk on the rocks. Damon looked up and saw behind Sabra a naked, hairless, humanlike form with long, clawed fingers and toes. Its wings made it seem bigger than it really was, but it was the claws, not its size, that looked deadly. It rested on the rocks behind Sabra, and, as she began scooting backward toward Master Wane, it followed her with short hops.
Learning to ignore these horrific visions had been an early lesson for each apprentice, a lesson in distinguishing that which the eye sees from that which the mind knows. "Our magic is the magic of the impossible," Master Wane would often say, "of the impossible made true."
Damon picked the disk up. "Maybe we can use this to distract the assassin," he muttered, and he tucked it into a wide pocket hidden in his shift beneath his frock.
Together, he and Annarais tugged at the chest's cover, but it was sealed tight. They heard crashing noises from downstairs. Damon swore and kicked the chest. Then, abruptly, he grabbed Annarais by the forearm.
"When have we ever seen Master Wane open anything with his hands?" He straightened up and took a deep breath. His eyes closed.
He opened them a moment later when Annarais whispered, "Done."
The chest was open, the cover gone. Probably never was one, Damon thought sourly. He glanced at Annarais. "Go see if you can open that door." She nodded.
Inside the chest was a jumble of items and scrolls. Some Damon recognized from training exercises, most he had never seen before. He pulled out a sextant covered with spikes. What could that be used for? He dropped it back in the chest. Spotting the hilt of a sheathed blade, he extracted it carefully and slipped it into his inside pocket. It clinked against the disk.
He was tossing scrolls and sheaves of paper from the chest, searching for more weapons, when he heard a pounding in the training room. His heart skipped a beat, and he looked up, but it was Annarais beating repeatedly on the door to Master Wane's personal quarters. Damon picked up his staff and hurried to her side.
"If we could get through-" she said, tears of frustration forming in her eyes. "I tried the litany. We'd be safe, but we're not safe, we're going to die. It won't open. Nothing will open. I can't do it."
Damon dropped his staff, grasped her shoulders, and pulled her back against his chest. She shook in his hands as she cried, then Annarais wiped her eyes with her wrist and sniffed loudly. Damon felt a tremendous sympathy well up inside him, an overpowering desire to protect Annarais.
He felt a sudden confidence, an assurance, an acceptance of his own learning. Without a word to Annarais, he stepped forward and placed his hand on the handle of Master Wane's door. He pulled, not with great force but with great confidence.