"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.

"I don't believe it," said Jervis. His eyes hadn't left Sabra's lifeless body.

Damon put one hand on Annarais's shoulder and gave a quick jerk of his head back in the direction of the tower. He stood up, helped Annarais stand, and without a word they backed away.

"Pick up the corpse!" ordered the assassin. "Put it in the wagon."

Now the golem complied. It grabbed the body by the ankle and hoisted it into the air. Gears whirred as the golem turned to place the body in the wagon.

Damon and Annarais reached Jervis, arms still wrapped tightly around himself.

"It's no trick," hissed Damon. "Let's get out of here."

Jervis's eyes fell on the blood on Annarais's hands. "Angels of mercy," he swore, "it's true."

With the sounds of the metal man behind them, the three apprentices stumbled through the large, black rocks that bordered the beach, waded the frigid stream that fed into the sound, and came to the base of the cliff where a switchback trail began. Jervis glanced back nervously.

"How long will that spell last?" he asked.

"She's dead," panted Damon. "What happened? What was that thing? Who-"

"Jervis is right," said Annarais. "The assassin's bound to notice sooner or later."

"She's going to turn back and get us all," said Jervis. He leaped up onto a boulder and tried to spy over the other stones. "How long do you think Sabra's spell is going to last, now that she's-" Jervis stopped short. "What are we going to do?"

"Keep moving," said Damon. "We've got to get back to the tower. Come on."

Jervis stood still, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

"That's the first place she'll look. We've got to split up, hide, get away, maybe get a boat."

"The tower will be safer," said Annarais. "We can get our fighting staffs. She can't get in. We know our way around, and there's lots of places to hide."

Jervis looked past the trail. Below them was a steep, rocky slope that led to countless recesses, inlets, grottos, and tidal pools. "Go die in that damn tower," he said, "She'll get you, just like she got Sabra. I can make it on my own. I did it before. I'll do it again." Without looking back, he started picking his way recklessly down the jagged rocks of the slope.

"Jervis!" yelled Annarais. "We need to stick together!"

Eyes focused on his precarious path, he yelled, "Shut up. I've got to get to safety."