The door held. Damon's confidence crashed.
The door at the bottom of the stairs shattered. Damon turned and held his staff defensively in front of him. The polished, plodding golem reached the top of the stairs, and its head swiveled to consider the apprentices. Behind it the stairwell stretched like a long, narrow pit in the floor, and Damon could just barely see the assassin lurking there at the bottom of the stairs.
"Take another step and I'll disintegrate you both," said Annarais.
Damon peered at her in astonishment. She was holding a squarish blue stone in her hand. It glowed as if alive. The assassin murmured a word to the golem and ducked back into the stairwell.
Annarais raised the stone and pointed it at the machine. "Don't come any closer."
The golem's feet scraped over the stone floor as it turned toward Annarais and began to walk toward her.
Damon grasped Annarais's arm and raised it. "What is this thing? Can you really do that?"
Annarais answered breathlessly, "Remember, we found it on the beach just after Jervis came. Sabra was left holding it when Master Wane found out." She looked at the golem as it continued its march toward them. She said in a rush, "The master dropped it on the beach and walked away, but Sabra kept it. She learned how to make it work."
The golem was now managing a lurching jog, its arm raised for a blow. Annarais held out the device toward the creature and gave it a quick turn, as if it were a doorknob. A flash like lightning threw Annarais back against the wall, made Damon's hair rise, and enveloped the metal creature. The flash was gone. The golem was coming toward them as if nothing had happened.
Damon sidestepped the machine and ducked its swinging arm. He backpedaled toward the writing stands, and the golem followed. Damon raised his disk and gave it a mental command. Between him and the machine, something took shape. It was a hairless, humanlike creature with long claws, the image that had terrified Sabra. It flapped its wings and hissed as it hopped from foot to foot. The golem brought its spiked ball down through the illusion with a spin of its whole upper body, and then, with the sound of gears grinding, resumed its stance, ready to strike.
Untouched, the illusion continued to caper. The golem struck again, exactly as before. Exactly as before it resumed its ready position. Damon watched as it repeated its attack without variance three times. He remembered what Master Wane had said about machines that mimic life: they're still machines. Unconscious of its own actions, the golem responded as it had been built to respond. In the face of an unchanging foe, its response never changed. It was stuck.
Damon slowly crawled through the discarded scrolls behind a writing stand, trying not to attract the golem's attention. He looked for Annarais. Behind the golem, near the far wall, she was shaking sense back into her head. He waved and started to crawl toward her, still clutching his staff.
Suddenly the assassin vaulted out of the stairwell and crouched on the floor, blade in one hand. She saw Annarais near her then spotted Damon behind the writing stands.
"Very good," she said. Her laugh was surprisingly pleasant and reminiscent of chimes. "Very smart, little fish. I was sure that thing would finish off the two of you. The fact that you both are still alive raises my opinion of you. The first two were easy kills." She tilted her head back and raised her voice. "Wane! Traitor! I hope that somewhere, somehow, you're using your magic to see this. If I can't get you, I want you to see what happens to your precious students."
The assassin took her curved blade in both hands and walked purposefully toward Annarais, who was now holding her staff at the ready. Terrified, she had both her hands near one end, holding the other end out to try to keep danger at bay.
Willing his disk to work again, Damon rose and charged the assassin. Before him, another winged creature took form. The assassin shot Damon a sideways glance and moved in on Annarais faster than she could retreat. With a swift, curving motion, the woman ducked past the end of the staff, grabbed the weapon's center with one hand, and slipped the blade underneath, where it disappeared into Annarais's frock.
Annarais fell back against the wall, and the assassin pivoted to face Damon. Between them, the illusion of the imp blocked their view. Damon denied the imp, refused it a place in his mind. To him, it became a wispy outline through which he could see the assassin. He dropped the disk and charged, both hands on his staff. Damon saw the assassin weave to try to view past the illusion, but his aim was clear. Grunting, he leaped through the illusion, the metal-shod end of his staff bursting through the image and striking the assassin in the left eye. She rolled to the side as his momentum carried him past. The assassin held a hand over her wounded eye, but she swung her sword in such furious arcs that Damon had to pause. The illusion hounded the woman, but she ignored it.
Damon heard Annarais cry out. She had struggled along the wall, grasping her belly, until now she was in front of the mirror. She grabbed the curtain with her free hand and toppled, pulling the curtain down. Heedless of the mirror and of the assassin, Damon ran to her side. There was blood everywhere.
"Damon." It was Annarais's voice, but it didn't come from her. It was in his head. He looked up and saw her reflection in the mirror. There she stood, alive again, just as she had been yesterday. There was his reflection as well, clean and carefree.
"Do you understand?" said Annarais.
Damon did not need to say yes. He saw his yesterday self in the mirror. "You will never become a wizard," he thought to his reflection. "The apprentice does not become a wizard. He is replaced by one. I am not my past."
Movement caught his attention. He looked past his reflection. Stalking him was… a white-robed healer. Damon reached under his frock, unsheathed his knife, and held it pressed flat against his forearm where the assassin wouldn't see it. He turned as she approached.
Behind her, the first image of the imp continued to draw the repetitive attacks of the golem. The second image hopped and hissed, but the assassin was not distracted. Damon dismissed the second image with a thought. He looked at the assassin. He could see the wound he'd given her-a broken cheekbone. It hadn't shown in her reflection. The assassin sneered as she approached.
Damon knew that her mind would be unable to withstand the mirror's magic if she looked at her own reflection, but the assassin fixed her gaze on him. Slowly, deliberately, she stepped closer.
"You hurt me," she said. "So I'm not going to kill you as fast as I killed your friend. I'll make you squirm a little first. None of your little illusions are going to save you." She continued to fix her gaze on Damon and began swinging her sword before her.
"There's where you're wrong," cried Damon. "The phantasms that live in this mirror are real." With his free hand, he gestured over his shoulder at the mirror.
The assassin's gaze flicked to the mirror, to her own reflection-disguised as a healer. Her eyes lost their intensity, and she stood still. Damon saw the struggle raging behind her dark eyes, the intensity of her purpose against the magic of the mirror. Suddenly, she pulled her sword back over her shoulder to strike a blow, her training and determination just barely winning out over the mirror's magic.
"Welcome, healer," said Damon.
His words added to the power of the mirror's magic, and it overcame the assassin's resistance. What her eyes saw and her ears heard, her mind believed. She dropped her sword, and her arm fell to her side.
"Who are you?" asked Damon, almost tauntingly.
"I come from Kjeldor in search of the great Master Wane," said the assassin. She seemed a little confused. Her hands closed into fists and opened again nervously, as if the internal struggle continued, but she played her part.