"The sky is not blue, Master," said Jervis in a voice that was almost firm.
"And this rock," replied the master, picking up a good-sized stone from near his foot, "is not hard!" He let it fly at Jervis, who dodged expertly. "Thirty times!"
"Now," continued Master Wane, looking around, "where is my most promising pupil, Sabra? She's as smart as she is beautiful, and that's saying a lot. I'm sure she knows the answer. What did the three of you do-drown her out of envy?"
Sabra? Master Wane had no favorites. Damon lifted his eyes from the sand to take a closer look at the wizard. Had Master Wane taken a bath while he was away? The sense that something was amiss grew into a certainty.
"Sabra!" accused Damon.
Master Wane turned, but it was Sabra standing there, not the master.
"Great heavens," said Jervis. "It's you, Sabra. That's amazing."
"Thank you, thank you," said Sabra, smiling and bowing to Jervis, Annarais, and Damon in turn.
Damon tried to picture what he had seen in his mind. He could remember seeing Sabra's smooth face, not Master Wane's wrinkled visage. He had seen Sabra's brown hair, her young woman's shape, and her apprentice's frock, yet he had recognized her as Master Wane. He was convinced she was Wane. "Sabra! Did you-? How did you do that?" he asked.
"There is seeing, and there is seeing," said Sabra, chuckling. "Annarais, I like your answer to Master Wane's question. I think I'll use it myself."
"You're welcome to it," said Annarais. "I'm sure it's wrong."
Sabra laughed, and the others joined in.
By afternoon the sun had climbed high enough in the blue sky to shine down over the cliff where Master Wane's tower stood. Its imposing presence had guarded the cliff for decades, maybe even longer. Leading up to it, along the sheer cliff wall, was a trail of switchbacks, and next to that was a chilly waterfall fed by thawing glaciers miles and miles inland.
On rare occasions while exploring the abandoned lands around the tower the apprentices had come across broken or burned items that looked as if they had once been of some use. As a game, they would try to fit names and functions to some of the more recognizable pieces. Sabra showed the first of these items to Master Wane, quizzing him about its origins. The squarish stone was warm, even when wet, and buzzed slightly. Wane snatched the blackened, worn blue object away from Sabra, threw it to the ground, and roared, "Remnants of a not-so-forgotten war. These things were made to destroy. No good can come from them, and your ignorance will kill us all!"
The three other youths slinked off, and Sabra was left trembling before Master Wane's wrath. But that seemed a lifetime ago. Now any object they found was secreted among the apprentices' things. They made a pact that the first to achieve a wizard's status would have his choice of the few artifacts.
Now that the sun warmed the beach, the apprentices stripped to their breech-clothes and swam in the chilly water. Master Wane had told them that magic is like the ocean. If you are patient and calm, it will hold you up and take you to fantastic places far away, but if you flail about and lose your concentration you'll go under. Even if you know how to stay afloat, there are dangers lurking under the surface.
From her perch on a slick, craggy rock protruding from the waves Sabra dove into the water and swam into the shallows where the other three were wading and joking.
"Someone's coming along the beach," she said, "someone driving a little wagon. He's just around that bend." She pointed her tanned arm, glistening with seawater, toward a dark cliff farther down the beach. "Let's have some fun."
The apprentices waded up the beach and began wiping themselves dry.
"I don't like this," said Jervis. "No one ever comes down this beach. The roads all washed out two years ago."
"He's probably coming to see Master Wane," said Sabra confidently. "And Master Wane is exactly who he's going to meet."
"Don't get us into trouble." Damon glared at Sabra, but the brown-haired girl only smiled.
"Follow my lead." Her voice was high with excitement. "Close your eyes." The others, now dried and dressed, complied.
In a moment they heard Master Wane's voice. "Open your eyes or you'll miss the demonstration." Sabra was gone, and the master was in her place. "We'll have a little sport," he said with uncharacteristic jocularity.
Out from behind the cliff came a lonely, little wagon pulled by two mules and driven by someone dressed in gowns of white. The apprentices sat on the sun-warmed rocks watching the wagon's slow approach, all except for Sabra, who stood in eager anticipation.
When the wagon was finally within calling distance the homely white-robed woman driving the mules called, "Hail and well met!"
Annarais opened her mouth to respond, but Sabra cut her off. "Approach!" she yelled in Master Wane's voice.
The wagon continued on its way until the driver called the mules to a halt and climbed down. She stopped, surveyed the little group, stepped forward, and addressed Master Wane.
"Hail and well met, my friend. Before you stands a humble healer, come from afar to find Master Wane, who has long been a friend to the Kjeldorans, seekers of peace and justice, and an enemy to the evil rulers of Stromgald. We have need of his expertise."
"But-" Jervis started to protest to Damon.
"Silence!" Master Wane snapped at the apprentice. He faced the woman. "I am Master Wane, you ugly wench."
The others were so shocked they couldn't think to laugh.
"How dare you stand before one such as I, a man of magic and power, when you are but a common wretch? Kneel, or you shall return to your convent in the form of a more useful creature."
Damon glanced at Annarais and Jervis, their faces frozen in disbelief. He didn't like where this was going, but Sabra's little prank had taken him by surprise as well. She was going too far.
The healer knelt and averted her eyes. "My fault, Master. I am but a novice." Her dark eyes flickered, and she brushed a lank strand of black hair from her eyes back into the untidy knot on her head. She reached into her loose robe and hesitated. "The Kjeldoran high priestess asks most respectfully for the benefit of your knowledge."
Damon cocked his head to one side in surprise. Why would the Kjeldorans send someone here, when the Master was there? Perhaps he had not traveled to Kjeldor after all. Maybe something had happened to him! Damon's attention was drawn to the novice's hand as it emerged from her stained robe. She cast her eyes down and revealed a strange, green glass sphere with a short, stoppered neck. With both gloved hands, she held it up in front of her, still not meeting Master Wane's gaze.
"Please, Master Wane, great and powerful one," said the healer, "as you know, there are many excavations across Terisiare where ancient wonders are being unearthed. We are fortunate enough to have found this magical bottle, and we seek to understand its use. Surely one with your insight and wisdom could help us."
Sabra cleared her throat and strode over to the kneeling healer. "I am an important man," she began, "and I have little time for such trivial matters. However, the Kjeldorans are worthy of my time-barely. I will take this artifact to the-to my tower and study it." She reached for the item with one hand. "Give it to me and be gone."
Just as Sabra's hand reached the sphere, the healer dropped it onto the rocks at her feet, and it shattered. Thick, white smoke plumed in the air. The tendrils of smoke touched Sabra and wrapped about her like ropes. The other apprentices saw Master Wane stiffen and fall. Sabra's body went into paroxysms, and blood gushed forth from her nose and ears, staining the rocks. The woman in white stood. Annarais rushed screaming and dropped to her knees beside Sabra, and Damon followed. Sabra was still, but even dead she appeared to be Master Wane.
The healer stripped off her soiled white gloves, revealing bony, greenish hands. She undid the clasp at her throat and shrugged off her dirty robes. Beneath, she wore a close-fitting black leather vest and breeches, crisscrossed with haphazard leather stitches-repairs to cuts the outfit had suffered from numerous combats. Set in the vest, over her left breast, was a black gemstone the size of a peach pit. The skin of her arms and shoulders was mottled and dotted with pox scars. A curved scabbard perched on her hip, the black pommel of a blade protruding. Her face, creased in a humorless smile, revealed thin scars snaking from either side of her mouth to her neck. To Damon she looked as if she had died many times over but had somehow managed to live through the experience.
"It's a trick," said Jervis, arms held tightly across his chest. "It's another of her tricks." Damon caught his eye and made a cutting motion with his hand to silence him.
"Oh, it's no trick, little fish," said the killer. "Your master is quite dead."
"She's dead," whimpered Annarais, stroking Sabra's hair, hair that looked gray. Damon glanced up at the killer to see if she'd noticed what Annarais had said.
Paying scant attention to the apprentices, the impostor gave a sharp whistle. "Little fish," she said, "it suits my lords' purposes that you know why I killed your master. The wizards of the School of the Unseen have been on good terms with my lords in Stromgald, but then this rogue-" she kicked Sabra's leg with a leather-shod toe "-took it upon himself to help the Kjeldorans. His imprudent choice of allies was his undoing. When his peers from the School of the Unseen come looking for their fellow, tell them he met the fate of a traitor, that an assassin from Stromgald defeated him. Such a fate awaits any of the rest of them who favor Kjeldor."
The assassin's wagon had begun to rock. The sound of metal straining against metal came from within. Then the door on the side swung open, and a metal man lurched into the sunlight. The wagon rose noticeably on its springs as the thing climbed out.
"My lords will be pleased," said the assassin. "If they had known that one little aeolipile was all it took to bring this mage down, they would never have supplied me with a golem, or with this." With her thumb she tapped the black gemstone set in her vest, directly over her heart.
The golem strode over to the assassin and stood next to her, head and shoulders taller than she. Made of ancient bronze, it had been scrubbed free of patina. The sun glanced off of its polished hide in speckles of broken color. Under different circumstances Damon might have found the hulking artifact beautiful.
"Pick up the dead man," the assassin ordered the golem.
The lumbering mass rotated its head so that it faced the ground. Its face swung back and forth as it scanned the earth, but it did not move.