"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.
"I am a former student of Master Wane," said Damon. "I welcome you to his home." He held out his arms to embrace her, and she returned the embrace in kind. "You are what you see," he said.
"But where is Master Wane?" persisted the impostor, uneasy in the embrace. "I have an ancient artifact which we Kjeldorans need his guidance on." She began to pull away.
"I am what I will," continued Damon. He plunged the knife into the small of her back. The woman started, then backed away in shock. She turned and collapsed, bleeding, the knife sticking from her back. Her eyes were wide with surprise. Damon stooped over her, yanked the knife free, and planted it in her throat. Her reflection remained in the mirror. Damon turned toward it, his back to the corpse.
"Begone," he said, and the reflection was gone.
Annarais's image remained. "Thank you, dear Annarais," he said, and he dismissed her reflection, as well.
In the mirror, he saw the golem, a creature with no mind, still locked in futile combat with the imp, a creature with no body. He was considering what to do with them when something grabbed his ankles and yanked him to the unforgiving floor.
It was the assassin. Blood no longer ran from the gash where Damon's knife stuck in her throat, and her dark eyes were now lit by some eerie force. The black gem in her vest glowed like a cold heart. Her hands, strong as vises, pulled Damon onto his back and under the weight of the living corpse. They clamped onto his neck. His face bulged and he couldn't breathe. He clawed at the assassin's face, but she seemed impervious to pain.
"Your little trick has killed me," said the assassin, in a hollow, ragged voice. The effort of speech made blood dribble past the knife in her neck. "But I am a devotee of the night. Death makes me stronger." She dropped her weight on Damon's belly, and the last of the air in his lungs squeezed out his throat. "You tricked my mind, but my mind has now been sacrificed to the night. You'll have no more luck with your trickery. That's all your kind of magic is-trickery."
Damon's frantic struggles were useless beneath the weight of the powerful, skilled, relentless assassin. He closed his eyes to gather what was left of his concentration. He remembered Master Wane saying, "The mind that is moved is not the true mind."
Damon opened his eyes and cast his gaze at the imp that held the golem in its endless cycle of attacks. He willed the imp to move toward him and the assassin.
Staring down into Damon's face, the assassin continued, "You wizards of the sea and sky think you understand magic, but your magic is soft and harmless, insubstantial as the images you create."
The golem followed the image of the imp, striking and striking with the massive, spike-covered ball at the end of its left arm. Now Damon willed the image to cover the assassin.
"When you are dead," said the assassin, "we shall make a zombie of you, so that you can serve in my lords-"
In a blur, the golem brought its mighty weapon and smashed the assassin's head to one side, cutting off her taunting speech. The impact knocked the corpse off Damon, and as he gasped for breath he willed the imp over the assassin again. The golem, finally striking flesh instead of phantom, smashed the flailing corpse beyond recognition. A blow shattered the black stone on the assassin's chest, and she stopped moving for good.
For a long while Damon rested on his hands and knees regaining his breath, trying to comprehend all that had happened to him. Finally he rose, strode across the training room, and opened the door to Master Wane's chamber, the door that only wizards could open. Behind it he found not stairs but an empty shaft. He levitated into Master Wane's chambers. There he found nothing but a round room, bare walls, bare floors, and five open doorways leading to the balcony that circled the top of the tower. He walked onto the balcony and looked out over the sound.
Damon saw the deep orange sky and the black clouds. At his will, the sky shifted from orange, through red, to purple, and then to blue with white clouds. He chose to see the sky as a nice, clear shade of blue.
There, on the balcony, he awaited his colleague's return. Bound in Shallows Kevin T. Stein
The casino was loud, but clean. Lamps burned expensive oil in the open windows. I glanced over the top of low, double doors. The people inside wore bright clothes of silk and brocade, their hair braided and combed as they moved about with the same expression: vague enjoyment, phantom pleasure. They lost their money to Dumoss-Master Dumoss. They should count themselves lucky.
The sun labored to reach the city through thick clouds. The previous night's dustfall had left everything gray. Since the end of the great war, the Brothers' War, everyone who slept without shelter spent the day beating, brushing clothes to remove the dust. These poor walked past, cursing the brothers, cursing the war that changed everything, even their luck.
I was clean. Last night, I slept in my flat.
My side of the street was choked with shuffling people. Bent over, they didn't look to the casino or its patrons. They only looked at each other-general hatred and distrust inflamed by the great war. I knew they wanted to lash out at something, that they were chewing over their luck. Right now their luck was bad. But when it changed, they would be the ones wearing bright silks, they who braided their hair. They'd raise themselves up by stepping on the lives of those around them. Their anticipation, their lust tightened the air, mouths almost dripping like the muzzles of hungry dogs.