The Doomsday Mirror - Magicians Contest Entry

The Doomsday Mirror

The surface of the mirror rippled like a summer lake where a stone was cast into its depths. Motes of dust danced in the morning light, passing through the seemingly liquid surface of the reflective glass. Some magician a century before had lingered in this old classroom, murmuring spells and twisting his hands to bind the mirror to another realm...Fillory. The land from a series of children's stories. Whoever cast that first spell had opened a portal to a magical world, a realm where the Beast, a man in a crisp suit, his face covered with a swarm of moths, now reigned like a god of terror. Only someone from Brakebills University, the graduate school for students training in the ways of magic, could defeat the Beast.

Quentin Coldwater raked a hand through his dark hair, brushing it out of his eyes as he stared hard at the mirror's surface. How many times had he faced the Beast because of a time loop? Thirty-eight times according to the Dean of Brakebills.

Thirty-eight times I died...

"Are you sure this is the way to Fillory?" Alice asked.

She hovered at his side, her breath shallow, her blue eyes bright with anticipation and yet he could almost feel the waves of fear rolling off her. She was the most brilliant student Brakebills had seen in years but practicing magic and using it to survive were two very different things.

"I'm sure. There are a thousand ways into Fillory when it wants to let you in, but we know the Beast came through a mirror before he attacked Professor March." He would never forget how the Beast had eaten the man alive while the entire class was forced to watch. That mirror had been shattered during the fight, and the university faculty destroyed the pieces. Quentin had always wondered if another mirror could get them to Fillory.

"How do we get it to open Mr. Fillory Man?" A deep sarcastic voice came from behind Quentin and Alice.

Quentin knew it was Penny. If there was ever anyone who would make fun of his obsession with a magical land like Fillory it was Penny. A scarily intense, olive skinned student who could travel anywhere in the world he wanted in the blink of an eye. In many ways, he and Penny were polar opposites. Light and dark, hope and despair, innocence and sin.

"There's a spell—Alice found it in one of the library's ancient Sumerian spell books. It was for water, or any reflective surface, but theoretically it should work on mirrors. "

"Theoretically?" Penny snapped. "You're trusting our lives on a theory and you want to send us through some doomsday mirror? Fuck, Quentin..." Penny scowled, his dark eyes scanning the mirror's surface as though it would reveal some secret that would save them all. The eerie rippling continued.

"I'm doing the best I can, okay?" Quentin shot back. He and Penny squared off, glaring at each other. They were of a similar tall height, but Quentin was thin where Penny was muscled.

"What am I supposed to do?" Penny shrugged his shoulders back, as though trying to show he wasn't afraid. But they all were.

"Alice must act out the gestures, I'll read the incantation, but we need you to touch us, Penny."

"Touch you? Fuck that shit." Penny stepped back.

"Just our temples, one hand on Alice and one on me," Quentin explained. "It should channel your traveling abilities, helping all three of us cross."

"Huh," Penny just huffed but stepped closer again.

Everything was riding on this. The Beast had taken Julia, Margo and Eliot just hours before. Somewhere in Fillory they were trapped, probably being tortured...Sweat dewed on his forehead as he concentrated on the mirror. The spell was going to take a lot out of him but he knew Penny and Alice would help him. They had to get through the mirror.