It had started with two and now that two had become three, something that Andrey found suspicious in itself. Sorcery was a rare commodity, its practitioners equally rare. To have three powerful practitioners come to light within months of one another was sufficiently unusual to warrant his personal attention. Which was how he found himself picking his way through the ruins of one of the old cities dotting the wasteland - black armoured soldiers fanning out around him - searching for the last of these practitioners.
The ruins were a trap, of course. The question was: for whom?
About him the shattered remains of the old city sprawled in tatterdemalion grandeur, rich with the promise of abandoned technology from ages past - something few living beyond the protection of the Houses could afford to pass up. But the ruins also sheltered the unquiet dead - dormant during the day but almost certain death to any caught out at night. They made the life of any scavenger a dangerous and, usually, short lived affair.
He passed between the tumbled pillars of what had once been a long passageway - originally covered, now broken and open to the sky above. Although much eroded, it was still possible to make out an occasional mark or design on the pillars, the workmanship precise and elegant although long ago stripped of any significance. One end of the passage tailed off into the dust of the plain, but the other ended in an open portal - Stygian against the bright sunlit stone - leading down into the catacombs below the city. It was from this forbidding entrance that he sensed the presence he sought.
This particular trap had drawn particularly rich prey, he thought, but had he cornered her or had she lured him?
He approached the doorway unenthusiastically. Even from this distance he could feel her power - like a tingle of static electricity on his skin - raw, unfocused, but utterly overwhelming. Drawing him as a flame drew a moth.
With a happier outcome, he hoped.
He slipped through the portal into the blackness, waiting just inside to allow his eyes to adjust to the near dark. Unless he misjudged, she awaited him at the end of the narrow corridor in which he found himself - in a chamber just beyond - the strength of her power giving her away. That she appeared to have no way to escape hardly made his task any easier.
For a long while he stood just beyond the portal, gathering himself - feeling the knot of his power beating in time with his heart, no match for hers but comforting nevertheless - contenting himself that he had missed nothing.
He stepped into the chamber.
She was waiting for him, expecting him. She knew him as he knew her.
"It seems you have me trapped," she said, her voice steady but rich with a hidden tension; a touch of fear, perhaps.
He hoped so.
She stood in the centre of the room, dressed simply in jeans and a white blouse, her blonde hair loose about her shoulders. Her sleeves had been rolled up, exposing her lower arms, and about her hands there glowed a nimbus of blue energy - she practically shone with barely contained power. Before her he noted the corpse of a sheep, cut open on a low stone -- she had obviously taken its life energy to augment her own.
"I have thought so before, Lady Katerina, and been wrong."
She laughed slightly at that, but anxiety seemed to choke off the humour.
"I flatter myself that it will be so again, Prince Andrey."
He shrugged almost imperceptibly. With an eye to the coming fight, Andrey glanced about the dimly lit room. A large hall, perhaps once intended for feasting, it was littered with the debris of fallen stonework, all trace of its former purpose lost in decay and disrepair - the only light leaked through from the door and numerous small holes in the ceiling, leaving it dim and shadowed. It would be a treacherous ground for a fight, still...
He turned his glance back to the sorceress. She appeared young, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five and, whilst appearances could be deceptive amongst those who used magic, there was something about her poise that indicated that this was indeed her true age. Perhaps he could use that against her? He had to concede that as well as being deadly she was quite beautiful and, for a mere breath, he allowed himself to admire her: her eyes a bright blue - shining in the dim light - her body slender, long-legged. But her beauty had caused him to underestimate her strength before and he would not make the same mistake this time.
"Is it true that you have murdered the Lady Olga and the Lady Mariya?" she said, her eyes following him warily.
Slowly he circled her, picking his way gracefully about the strewn floor.
"It is true," he said at last. The sorceress allowed her eyes to close for a moment, feeling the initiative still with her. She found it hard to believe, two of the most powerful of her sisterhood dead, but she felt the truth in his words. The question was, how?
"Why?"
"For the same reason I have come for you," he said, slowly closing the distance, circling so she was forced to turn to follow his progress. "You gather power, challenge the accepted order. The families cannot countenance this."
She laughed at that, genuine amusement in her tone.
"Of course, we are such a challenge to the Great Houses - we poor sisters, running and hiding in the wastes."
She watched him pause as she laughed. For a moment she thought him about to speak, but he remained silent.
He was dangerous, she was sure - his movements were feline and bespoke a physical power and speed of reflex that she could barely imagine - but he was no warlock. How had he killed Olga and Mariya? She gathered her strength, drawing upon the fire burning within her - maybe it was time to find out?
"How did they die?" she said.
"Not well."
Stepping, circling, always moving. "The Lady Olga died with my knife deep in her heart."
She sighed sadly. "And Mariya?"
Now he did pause, his eyes hidden in the darkness that seemed to follow him.
"She was taken by the dead."
Katerina shivered. As well as any, she knew the unquiet dead infested these wastes - seeking the life of the living, seeking their flesh - eternally hungry. To be taken by them... A horrible, lingering, painful death. She felt horror of it crawl over her skin and recognized the taste of fear -- she was scared, something that could impair her thinking. Did he count on that?
"How did you defeat them?"
"They made the same mistake that you're about to."
Katerina started, her nerves jangling, his words sparked true fear - turning quickly to panic. Before her, he had suddenly stopped moving, was stood facing her -- what did that mean?
Fear made her grab anxiously at the power coursing through her and, as fast as thought, she felt it build: responding to her anxiety, fuelled by her anger, driven by her fear. She gestured - pointing at her tormentor. In an instant her will shaped her desire and her energy, her power -- filled with all her anger, her fear, her fury -- ripped from her at the shadowy form before her.
Andrey felt the power building, the atmosphere suddenly heavy with static - as if a thunderstorm was building overhead. For just a moment he stood still, absolutely still, unnaturally still -- letting the tension sweep over him. In the instant before release he saw the look of fear sweep over her face, fear of him -- fear of death -- and he moved, exploding into motion even as the energy lanced through the room.
The power flowed from her in a mad rush, fear driving her beyond rational thought -- like a man plagued by a wasp she knew only that she had to kill him before he could hurt her. Power leapt from a nimbus about her hands: bolts of blue energy smashing the rocks where he had stood, blasting the pillars behind into dust, sending rocks and debris flying about the room. Madly, terror driving her, Katerina unleashed blast after blast - all the while screaming at the top of her voice, unseen tears coursing down her cheeks -- the heart of a twisting maelstrom of destruction.
Finally, terror abated.
Gradually she felt her control return and the chaos stilled. In the sudden quiet her hands glowed - the power waiting, held in abeyance. Katerina realized that she could see nothing, the air was choked with dust, her night-vision ruined by the repeated blasts of bright light that she had generated. He was nowhere to be seen. Slowly she circled, peering into the darkness, listening with ears still echoing to the sound of explosions.
Nothing.
By degrees she allowed herself to relax, still tense but forcing her nerves to still. Around her she heard debris falling - settling from the destruction she had wrought - the dust slowly drifting in the breeze from the entrance. Still she waited - tense - power singing in her veins.
She needed to get out. Her power had kept the dead from the ruins while she was here, but having unleashed her power in that uncontrolled way she knew that there would be no shield now to hold them back. When night fell outside they would come. Before that, she knew that sooner or later the soldiers outside would have to come and investigate. Ideally she needed to be away before then... But how?
Stealthily she crept toward the door - alert all the while - peering into the dust and the darkness myopically. At the doorway she paused, looking into the darkness of the corridor. In the distance she could see the crimson light of the outside through the entrance to the catacombs and, just visible in the dim light of the corridor, the shapes of men crouching, hiding in the shadows along its length.
She had to get past them... Preferably without using more power. It had been a foolish, uncontrolled display, she was now prepared to concede, and she didn't want to leave herself further drained if she could help it. Maybe there was a second way out? Or perhaps she could make one? She turned to go back to the far wall.
He was stood right behind her.
She gasped, fear spiking through her. He loomed in the darkness like a piece of night made life, somehow seeming to tower above her though he was only a little taller than her. Before she could react, before she could clear her head enough to think, he grabbed her wrists, lifting her hands above her head, pulling her close against him.
In that movement she felt his power - something insidious, subtle, infinitely dark - and it was as if she were nothing more than a child. She knew that he could have killed her then if he had so wished - but even then, in that fleeting instant of fear and shock, she found herself caught by his beauty: his angular face, his raven black hair playing about his eyes.
His eyes!
Caught, she found herself drawn to them, looking into them.
They burned - his eyes burned! Like sapphires lit by an inner flame -- beautiful, depthless -- she found she couldn't look away, found she didn't want to. They burned into her, deep into her - knowing her, seeing her, stripping her inner-self bare - exposing her. Somewhere outside, far away, she heard herself screaming over and over, a terrified noise full of defeat. But all she could see were his eyes, so beautiful. He was so beautiful.
Slowly at first she felt his power slip into her - her defences gone - and she felt her fear rekindle. Like icy fingers he crawled down her spine, niggling, tickling - arousing. Terrified and helpless she felt her power wink out, snuffed out in an instant, and she felt despair wash through her.
Softly, gently, she felt his presence slide through her chest - touching her, possessing her. Deep within - in her heart, in her soul - she felt the first tingle of nascent lust.
