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"I curse you, Vladmir!" the crone screamed, spittle streaming from her chapped lips. "I curse you with doubt; I curse you to never tell truth from lies; I curse you to never know your own mi-"

The blade plunged deep into her throat, cutting off her curse with a sickening gurgle. Blood flowed across the steel in a black river.

"You fool!" Anya cried, tearing Vladmir's arm away. The dagger left the crone's throat, sending a crimson spray across the bare walls. She collapsed into a heap on the cold stone.

"I grew weary of her screams," shrugged Vladmir.

"She cursed you by name and blood, my love!"

"I fear no curse from a hedge-witch," he spat, wiping the blade against the crone's dirty rags. Blood cloyed thickly, glistening in the gloom.

"Blood has power, Vladmir. If the Dark Gods were listening..."

"Enough of your superstitions! I do not fear the words of this low hag."

"Do not be so sure," Anya said, stepping closer. Anya was as tall as most men - and as strong – but Vladmir stood a whole head above her; she gazed up into his eyes and laid a hand on his arm. "You must leave the blade, my love, lest the taint follow you."

"This dagger is my last connection to my father! When I find him..."

"If his body still draws breath, your father will just be glad to see you hale and hearty. If it does not..."

"He still lives, Anya," Vladmir's heavy brows drew together, as if in defiance of the fates.

"I pray he does. But you must leave the blade."

"No," he replied coldly, shrugging away from her touch. Sheathing the long knife, he strode across the filthy floor to the prone, bloated body of Gregor. A broadsword was lodged firmly in his stomach. The crone's son was a giant of a man, surely eight foot tall and thick with fat. A simpleton, damned as the product of incest.

With a sharp tug, Vladmir tore his sword from Gregor's belly. The steel ripped through flesh and fat alike, spilling Gregor's guts over the floor. The bowels tore open as Vladmir's sword sliced through them, filling the air with a pungent rot.

Anya suppressed a gag.

"We are done here," said Vladmir, wiping his sword and turning down the dark archway which led from the tower. He looked back over his shoulder as he began his descent, as if suddenly remembering something, then continued into the darkness.

      ~o~

They descended the winding staircase in silence, save for the chinking of their mail and the stamping of their boots. Scant moonlight crept in through the windows, half-hidden by grotesque stone idols and spindly wooden effigies. Decaying, half-eaten bodies of rodents and even cats littered the stairs.

They paused at a doorway near the base of the tower. Vladmir stooped into a darkened room and walked over to one of several stout wooden tables. A figure lay upon it, half naked save for torn linen trousers. One shoulder was covered in a foul black rot. Nothing in the room moved: Anya's sharp eyes noticed that no creature littered the floor. The air was too foul even for vermin.

Vladmir brushed the prone figure's lank black hair, gazing deeply into pale, lifeless eyes. Wordlessly, he hefted the body over his shoulders. Anya stepped aside as he left the room.

      ~o~

The villagers were waiting for them when they exited the tower, weak flames trying to lighten the gloom of the night.

"Go carefully, my love," Anya whispered into Vladmir's ear. "That one is Gregor's kin."

"Are you certain?" Vladmir replied, squinting across the crowd. They stood atop a ruined flight of steps, towering over the mob.

"Look at the size of him. How could he be aught else?" The man stood out of the crowd like a wolf amongst starving dogs. His head was bald, but a coarse black beard spread across his chin.

"It is done," Vladmir announced loudly, to a chorus of silence. One man, a priest, judging by the rope which bound his robe, moved away from the crowd.

"So easily your justice is cast," he said. A scrap of grey hair sat atop his head, the aged lines of his face belied by the sharp dark eyes which gazed out. "You had no right, stranger."

"The crone killed my blade-brother," Vladmir replied. "Artur is avenged. You should thank me: for you are released from her thrall."

"What thrall?" the priest asked, opening his arms wide. "She was a healer, much loved amongst the village. She was kin to many here."

"She was a witch. A conjurer of poisons and petty charms, a mother to abominations. She envied Artur his strength and robbed him of what little he had left."

"Artur was gravely wounded when he came to us, stranger. No man could have survived his wounds."

"He was no mere man. He was a Salassian Warrior."

"Warrior or no, he was beyond Morgana's powers."

"You admit the crone had power?" said Vladmir, shifting Artur's weight on his shoulder.

"Considerable," the priest replied, a smile twitching at his mouth. Anya looked to Vladmir nervously, the dying curses of the witch ringing in her ears. She noticed his hand hover over the hilt of his father's dagger, and in that simple gesture she saw the seed of doubt take root in his mind.

"Then you will thank us, some day," he said.

"What of the boy?" the priest asked. Anya eyed the giant in the crowd, loosening a small knife from the leather which bound it to her belt.

"He was in my way," Vladmir replied.

"Gregor!" cried the giant, bursting through the crowd. Roaring in fury, he rushed up the stairs towards Vladmir, brushing the priest violently aside. Before Vladmir could reach for his sword, Anya's arm lashed out. A knife flew through the air; the man collapsed backwards with a strangled gasp. He tumbled down the stairs to kneel on all fours, coughing and wheezing.

"We have no dispute with you, priest," Vladmir said, drawing his sword to a metallic whisper. "We can leave quietly, or we can carve a bloody path through you."

The priest nodded his head and stood aside. Villagers shuffled nervously backwards, leaving a path which led away into the forest.

Vladmir strode boldly through the crowd. Anya followed like a shadow in his wake.

      ~o~

"Perhaps we should build a cairn."

"My love?"

"A cairn. From rocks."

"Why would you do such a thing? The pyre is ready. We must release Artur's spirit."

"The fire will attract unwanted attention."

"And since when did you care who's attention you attract?"

"It is some way yet to Be'lal's Crypt, and we do not know what stalks these woods."

"Hmm. And what will become of Artur's soul while you cower from shadows?"

"Artur can find his own way to his father's halls."

"Find his... what has become of you? You are not normally so..."

"So what?"

"Uncertain."

"I... the only thing I am unsure of is-"

"Bah! Where is the great warrior who conquered my heart? Stop being a craven fool and strike the flame – free Artur's eternal soul!"

"Perhaps you are right." Vladmir sighed heavily. "Very well, we shall respect the old ways."

They stood apart in the darkness, watching the flames consume first the pyre, and soon Artur's body.

      ~o~

They made love as the sun rose. Anya's screams echoed through the valley and the morning chorus arrived a little earlier that day.

      ~o~

It just stood there.

It looked like a man. Clearly, it had been once. But some pestilence had ravaged its flesh. Open sores spread across its face and back, freely weeping blood and pus. Bandages covered most of its body; stained a deep yellow, with spots of black around the abdomen. Its skin was pale, except for where it was purple. Its eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, yellow with cataracts, and its mouth hung open limply, revealing teeth blackened with decay.

And it just stood there, wavering slightly, in the clearing.

"Does it live?" Vladmir asked, from his vantage behind the tree line. They had been watching the once-man for some ten minutes. Artur's pyre lay almost a full moon's turn behind them.

"I can smell it from here," Anya replied. "It must live, to reek so foul."

They watched in silence.

"Anya," said Vladmir, quietly, "do you suppose it could be..."

"What? No!"

"We are not so far from Be'lal. My father often spoke of the Wandering Death..."

"Too far, my love, for this wretched creature."

They lapsed into silence again, watching the once-man. Anya looked closely at its haggard frame. Nestor had been – no, was -  almost as tall as his son, bedecked in jewellery and whiskered in fine white hair. She shook her head – this was not Nestor, father of Vladmir, the Arch-Philosopher of Salassia. Such a man would not suffer the indignity of plague.

"We should do something," Anya said, drawing her long, curved blade from it sheath upon her shoulder.

"What can be done?" asked Vladmir. Anya gave him a devilish grin – a smile which should have made him want to take her then and there. Instead, it filled his stomach with fear.

Anya rose quickly and stepped into the clearing. Vladmir whispered a curse and drew his own blade.

Anya walked in a wide circle around the once-man. It made no sign of having seen her. As she got closer, she saw the tiny flies which buzzed in a confusion around its body; saw the yellow crust around its eyes; the grain of the long, ochre nails which stretched from its bandaged hands.

With a grunt, she struck out with her sword. It whipped through the air into the thing's neck-

-and stuck.

The blade bit deep into the creature's flesh and bone, and would not budge. Wide-eyed, Anya tried to snap the sword back.

And then the thing leapt.

It reached out with uncanny swiftness; grabbing Anya's sword arm and pulling it towards her. She staggered into the thing, trying not to fall into its embrace, into the open maw which hissed like a hundred rattlesnakes. They twisted and flailed, and somehow, her sword wasn't in its neck any more. Rotting flesh filled her nostrils as the creature's jaw widened.

Suppressing a gag and a scream, she desperately tried to hold the once-man back. Its hand bit into her arm like a vice, nails digging deep into her wrist. Its face drew closer, exhaling more rancid air. She distantly heard a shout, but forced all her energies into pushing the thing away.

She kicked out with a leg, catching the creature by the ankle. They collapsed into the mud together – the once-man releasing its grip as they did so. Gratefully drawing a breath of air, Anya wriggled and pushed away from the foul body.

Vladmir stood before her, sword raised, fear in the whites of his eyes.

"Finish-" she began, but was cut off by her own scream. The once-man raked her through the mud, clawing at her backside. She kicked frantically, trying to loosen its grip; she rolled onto her back but the thing was still there, dragging itself between her legs, hand gripping the leather of her bodice. Vladmir kicked uselessly at its withered body - the blows trembled through Anya but didn't register with the once-man.

It pulled itself up closer, Vladmir roaring, Anya screaming, its face leaning in, yellow eyes weeping gaping jaw inching closer-

-and then it was gone. Vladmir's foot ploughed clean through it, snapping the once-man's head from its neck and sending it rolling across mud. The body instantly fell limp. Anya scrambled to tear it off her, until Vladmir bodily lifted it loose and hurled it across the clearing.

Anya rose to her feet angrily.

"You imbecile! You pig-brained cunt!" she screamed into his face.

"I couldn't-"

"That wasn't Nestor!" she pushed him hard in the chest; he staggered backwards.

"How can-"

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Anya..."

"Throw away that damned dagger," she said, beating at Vladmir's broad chest. "Be done with this thing!"

"The dagger?" Vladmir clutched both of Anya's arms, holding her still. "What has the dagger to do with this?"

"Everything!" she replied, kicking at his shins.

"Enough!" he cried, pushing her away. She stood, panting, holding her bleeding arm close to her side. "If the curse ever held any true power, discarding the knife now will achieve nothing."

"How do you know? Be rid of it, Vladmir, and maybe you'll know your own mind once more."

"My mind is fine. That could have been my father, Anya, how could you just take off like that?"

Anya stepped closer, laying her hands on her lover's chest.

"Please, my love" she whispered. "You are not yourself. Do this thing for me."

Vladmir turned away, stalking between the trees in sullen silence.

      ~o~

It was different that night. Vladmir thrust into her with less than his usual vigour. As he collapsed on top of her, he refused to hold Anya's gaze. She ran a hand through his hair, slick with sweat, and gazed into the starless sky.

      ~o~

A week later, they strode beneath the corroded arch of Be'lal's temple. Before them stood the ziggurat which housed the great crypt; a huge stepped pyramid, carved of stone so grey it was almost black. Though the forest had tried to claim the temple – lichen and mosses creeping across the face of the stone like veins – all the trees within the grounds were withered, twisted and dying.

"He was right," Anya breathed. "Vladmir, he was right!" She clapped her hands excitedly.

"We cannot be sure," said Vladmir. "Who's to say this is truly Be'lal's final resting place?"

They walked slowly across the stone pathway, barely visible between the moss and leaves which blanketed the floor. Dark trees reached around and above them, reaching up to a leaden sky.

"Trust your senses my love. Can you not feel it in the air?"

"What is there to feel but cold and damp?"

"Evil," breathed  Anya. "It is everywhere. Just as Nestor predicted."

"Then where is he?"

Anya paused, looking around thoughtfully. Her gaze settled on the staircase leading up to the peak of the ziggurat. A blackened doorway could be made out amongst the shadows. She nodded towards it.

"Where else, my heart?"

"Hmm." Vladmir stepped away from the path, picking up a rotten branch from the floor. He inspected it, then tossed it to one side. He took up another, looked at it uncertainly, then discarded it also.

"Vladmir?" Anya asked. He ignored her. Finally, he took up a branch which suited him and waved it through the air experimentally. He opened a canteen from his belt, drunk a great drought, then soaked one end of the branch. Unravelling a cloth from around his boot, poured the contents of a small bottle over it.

Understanding his meaning, Anya took out two pieces of flint from her belt. Once Vladmir had tied the oil-soaked rag around the branch, she struck a spark. The head of the stick blazed into flame.

They stood in silence a moment, watching the fire dance. Anya drew her blade, nodded to her lover, and they both began the short walk up the steps, hand-in-hand, and into the darkness.

      ~o~

Nothing moved inside the ziggurat. The air was stale. Heavy cobwebs lined the dark stone floors and ceiling. Skeletons loomed in the fragile light of the torch – long dead and brittle with age.

Yet there was evidence of recent activity in those dark hallways: the corridors were lined with dust, but scuffed as if from many shuffling footprints. Great stone doors, presumably once sealed, hung ajar or lay collapsed in the corridor. Someone had been here – that much was plain.

Anya did not know whether that was good news or bad; at least, not until they stumbled across the body of Katarina.

"You are sure?" Vladmir asked, his voice echoing the small chamber.

"It is clear, my love," said Anya, crouched beside a withered body, grey and hard to the touch. "Her signet ring, see? And her spider necklace."

Half-burned candles lined an alcove to her side, arranged in a semi-circle around a human skull. Paper scrolls, worth a fortune back in Salassia, littered the chamber.

"If Katarina died here, than my father is surely close," Vladmir said, rubbing a hand across his chin. "Her death must have been no small thing."

"Perhaps," Anya replied, peering intently at the scrolls. "Though these papers unsettle me. They... they are spells, Vladmir." She looked up to him, worry creasing her face. "Necromancy."

"Truly? Then the man in the woods..."

"That was no plague, my love."

"By the darkest of  gods..." Vladmir leaned heavily against the wall.

"Vladmir," Anya asked, slowly, "why did your father come to this place? Why is his favourite apprentice lying dead amidst a ritual altar?"

Vladmir looked troubled.

"He has always harboured an... interest in dark magic."

"Yes, but only as a student of lore."

"Are you so sure? All those nights in the bone yards..." a shadow crossed Vladmir's face. "Natalya."

"My love, you cannot be serious?"

"I... I do not know," he replied, one hand toying with the hilt of his father's dagger.

Anya rose, brushing dust from herself.

"We will find no answers here. We must press on, we must find the crypt."

      ~o~

It was not, in the end, a difficult task. The trails of scuffed footprints got clearer the deeper they moved into the temple. Bodies littered the dark corridors – some skeletal, as if they had been there for hundreds of years. Others dehydrated and preserved. Most were incomplete, they realised, missing digits, limbs or even heads.

When they heard the chanting, they knew they grew close.

They emerged into a huge hall. Dusty light poured in blue shafts from a ceiling which must have reached a hundred feet high. Great stone columns rose to meet the light. Dark liquid pooled in the narrow gutter which circled the room. And there, up on a dais in the centre, illuminated by the light which focused upon his white head, was Nestor of Salassia.

He kneeled within a circle of candles, each burning with a trembling flame. He chanted in a low voice, murmuring in drab monotone. A dark robe covered him, hiding the contours of his body. From what Anya could tell, he looked desperately thin. Wraith-like. The realisation chilled her.

They climbed the steep staircase to the dais in shocked silence. Nestor did not seem to notice – though he faced them directly, his eyes wide open. They were white: milky, unseeing white. His skin was pale and dry as paper. A wispy, wild beard covered his face and chin, the manicured moustache for which he was famous a relic of the past. Dark stains – clearly blood – tarnished the obsidian base of the dais. A small gulley ran from its centre and down to the gutter, through which blood must have once flowed. Bones lay scattered amongst the candles.

"Have you returned to me, my children?" Nestor croaked in a dry, wheezy voice.

Anya rested a hand upon Vladmir's shoulder. This was not the man they had last seen two years ago, in the hanging gardens of the university which Nestor loved so well. This was not the man they had sought so long to find.

Vladmir brushed her hand away, stepping forward into the edge of the light.

"No, father," he said in a low voice. "It is your true child, your child of nature, who stands before you now."

"V-Vladmir? Can it be?" no hint of emotion crept across the old man's face.

"What has become of you?" Vladmir whispered, his voice cracked with rage. "What have you done?"

"I – I have learned so much, my boy. So much..."

"All these years.... I... what of Katarina?"

"She was a fool!" Nestor spat the word, spittle flaring up in the light. "I, I tried to save her-"

"NO!" Vladmir boomed, the syllable echoing around the chamber. "No more lies, father."

"But I was trapped-" Nestor babbled, his voice rising in terror as Vladmir drew his father's blade from his belt. "What are you doing, boy?"

"I came here to save my father," Vladmir said, stepping towards Nestor, his voice racked with emotion. "And that is what I intend to do."

He seized Nestor by the collar: the old man struggled, babbling incoherently. Vladmir raised the blade high; Anya was sure the tip trembled slightly.

"It was-" Nestor began, but was cut off by the blade plunging into his throat. A single word escaped the old man's lips, oddly clear amongst the sickening gurgles and the blood flowing across the steel in a black river.

"Katarina," Nestor said as he collapsed to the floor.

Vladmir fell with him, staring into his father's unseeing eyes. Blood pooled around the two of them, trickling from the dais and into the gutter below.

Description
"I curse you, Vladmir!" the crone screamed, spittle streaming from her chapped lips. "I curse you with doubt; I curse you to never tell truth from lies; I curse you to never know your own mi-"

The blade plunged deep into her throat, cutting off her curse with a sickening gurgle. Blood flowed across the steel in a black river.

"You fool!" Anya cried, tearing Vladmir's arm away. The dagger left the crone's throat, sending a crimson spray across the bare walls. She collapsed into a heap on the cold stone.

"I grew weary of her screams," shrugged Vladmir.

"She cursed you by name and blood, my love!"

"I fear no curse from a hedge-witch," he spat, wiping the blade against the crone's dirty rags. Blood cloyed thickly, glistening in the gloom.

"Blood has power, Vladmir. If the Dark Gods were listening..."

"Enough of your superstitions! I do not fear the words of this low hag."

"Do not be so sure," Anya said, stepping closer. Anya was as tall as most men - and as strong – but Vladmir stood a whole head above her; she gazed up into his eyes and laid a hand on his arm. "You must leave the blade, my love, lest the taint follow you."

"This dagger is my last connection to my father! When I find him..."

"If his body still draws breath, your father will just be glad to see you hale and hearty. If it does not..."

"He still lives, Anya," Vladmir's heavy brows drew together, as if in defiance of the fates.

"I pray he does. But you must leave the blade."

"No," he replied coldly, shrugging away from her touch. Sheathing the long knife, he strode across the filthy floor to the prone, bloated body of Gregor. A broadsword was lodged firmly in his stomach. The crone's son was a giant of a man, surely eight foot tall and thick with fat. A simpleton, damned as the product of incest.

With a sharp tug, Vladmir tore his sword from Gregor's belly. The steel ripped through flesh and fat alike, spilling Gregor's guts over the floor. The bowels tore open as Vladmir's sword sliced through them, filling the air with a pungent rot.

Anya suppressed a gag.

"We are done here," said Vladmir, wiping his sword and turning down the dark archway which led from the tower. He looked back over his shoulder as he began his descent, as if suddenly remembering something, then continued into the darkness.

      ~o~

They descended the winding staircase in silence, save for the chinking of their mail and the stamping of their boots. Scant moonlight crept in through the windows, half-hidden by grotesque stone idols and spindly wooden effigies. Decaying, half-eaten bodies of rodents and even cats littered the stairs.

They paused at a doorway near the base of the tower. Vladmir stooped into a darkened room and walked over to one of several stout wooden tables. A figure lay upon it, half naked save for torn linen trousers. One shoulder was covered in a foul black rot. Nothing in the room moved: Anya's sharp eyes noticed that no creature littered the floor. The air was too foul even for vermin.

Vladmir brushed the prone figure's lank black hair, gazing deeply into pale, lifeless eyes. Wordlessly, he hefted the body over his shoulders. Anya stepped aside as he left the room.

      ~o~

The villagers were waiting for them when they exited the tower, weak flames trying to lighten the gloom of the night.

"Go carefully, my love," Anya whispered into Vladmir's ear. "That one is Gregor's kin."

"Are you certain?" Vladmir replied, squinting across the crowd. They stood atop a ruined flight of steps, towering over the mob.

"Look at the size of him. How could he be aught else?" The man stood out of the crowd like a wolf amongst starving dogs. His head was bald, but a coarse black beard spread across his chin.

"It is done," Vladmir announced loudly, to a chorus of silence. One man, a priest, judging by the rope which bound his robe, moved away from the crowd.

"So easily your justice is cast," he said. A scrap of grey hair sat atop his head, the aged lines of his face belied by the sharp dark eyes which gazed out. "You had no right, stranger."

"The crone killed my blade-brother," Vladmir replied. "Artur is avenged. You should thank me: for you are released from her thrall."

"What thrall?" the priest asked, opening his arms wide. "She was a healer, much loved amongst the village. She was kin to many here."

"She was a witch. A conjurer of poisons and petty charms, a mother to abominations. She envied Artur his strength and robbed him of what little he had left."

"Artur was gravely wounded when he came to us, stranger. No man could have survived his wounds."

"He was no mere man. He was a Salassian Warrior."

"Warrior or no, he was beyond Morgana's powers."

"You admit the crone had power?" said Vladmir, shifting Artur's weight on his shoulder.

"Considerable," the priest replied, a smile twitching at his mouth. Anya looked to Vladmir nervously, the dying curses of the witch ringing in her ears. She noticed his hand hover over the hilt of his father's dagger, and in that simple gesture she saw the seed of doubt take root in his mind.

"Then you will thank us, some day," he said.

"What of the boy?" the priest asked. Anya eyed the giant in the crowd, loosening a small knife from the leather which bound it to her belt.

"He was in my way," Vladmir replied.

"Gregor!" cried the giant, bursting through the crowd. Roaring in fury, he rushed up the stairs towards Vladmir, brushing the priest violently aside. Before Vladmir could reach for his sword, Anya's arm lashed out. A knife flew through the air; the man collapsed backwards with a strangled gasp. He tumbled down the stairs to kneel on all fours, coughing and wheezing.

"We have no dispute with you, priest," Vladmir said, drawing his sword to a metallic whisper. "We can leave quietly, or we can carve a bloody path through you."

The priest nodded his head and stood aside. Villagers shuffled nervously backwards, leaving a path which led away into the forest.

Vladmir strode boldly through the crowd. Anya followed like a shadow in his wake.

      ~o~

"Perhaps we should build a cairn."

"My love?"

"A cairn. From rocks."

"Why would you do such a thing? The pyre is ready. We must release Artur's spirit."

"The fire will attract unwanted attention."

"And since when did you care who's attention you attract?"

"It is some way yet to Be'lal's Crypt, and we do not know what stalks these woods."

"Hmm. And what will become of Artur's soul while you cower from shadows?"

"Artur can find his own way to his father's halls."

"Find his... what has become of you? You are not normally so..."

"So what?"

"Uncertain."

"I... the only thing I am unsure of is-"

"Bah! Where is the great warrior who conquered my heart? Stop being a craven fool and strike the flame – free Artur's eternal soul!"

"Perhaps you are right." Vladmir sighed heavily. "Very well, we shall respect the old ways."

They stood apart in the darkness, watching the flames consume first the pyre, and soon Artur's body.

      ~o~

They made love as the sun rose. Anya's screams echoed through the valley and the morning chorus arrived a little earlier that day.

      ~o~

It just stood there.

It looked like a man. Clearly, it had been once. But some pestilence had ravaged its flesh. Open sores spread across its face and back, freely weeping blood and pus. Bandages covered most of its body; stained a deep yellow, with spots of black around the abdomen. Its skin was pale, except for where it was purple. Its eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, yellow with cataracts, and its mouth hung open limply, revealing teeth blackened with decay.

And it just stood there, wavering slightly, in the clearing.

"Does it live?" Vladmir asked, from his vantage behind the tree line. They had been watching the once-man for some ten minutes. Artur's pyre lay almost a full moon's turn behind them.

"I can smell it from here," Anya replied. "It must live, to reek so foul."

They watched in silence.

"Anya," said Vladmir, quietly, "do you suppose it could be..."

"What? No!"

"We are not so far from Be'lal. My father often spoke of the Wandering Death..."

"Too far, my love, for this wretched creature."

They lapsed into silence again, watching the once-man. Anya looked closely at its haggard frame. Nestor had been – no, was -  almost as tall as his son, bedecked in jewellery and whiskered in fine white hair. She shook her head – this was not Nestor, father of Vladmir, the Arch-Philosopher of Salassia. Such a man would not suffer the indignity of plague.

"We should do something," Anya said, drawing her long, curved blade from it sheath upon her shoulder.

"What can be done?" asked Vladmir. Anya gave him a devilish grin – a smile which should have made him want to take her then and there. Instead, it filled his stomach with fear.

Anya rose quickly and stepped into the clearing. Vladmir whispered a curse and drew his own blade.

Anya walked in a wide circle around the once-man. It made no sign of having seen her. As she got closer, she saw the tiny flies which buzzed in a confusion around its body; saw the yellow crust around its eyes; the grain of the long, ochre nails which stretched from its bandaged hands.

With a grunt, she struck out with her sword. It whipped through the air into the thing's neck-

-and stuck.

The blade bit deep into the creature's flesh and bone, and would not budge. Wide-eyed, Anya tried to snap the sword back.

And then the thing leapt.

It reached out with uncanny swiftness; grabbing Anya's sword arm and pulling it towards her. She staggered into the thing, trying not to fall into its embrace, into the open maw which hissed like a hundred rattlesnakes. They twisted and flailed, and somehow, her sword wasn't in its neck any more. Rotting flesh filled her nostrils as the creature's jaw widened.

Suppressing a gag and a scream, she desperately tried to hold the once-man back. Its hand bit into her arm like a vice, nails digging deep into her wrist. Its face drew closer, exhaling more rancid air. She distantly heard a shout, but forced all her energies into pushing the thing away.

She kicked out with a leg, catching the creature by the ankle. They collapsed into the mud together – the once-man releasing its grip as they did so. Gratefully drawing a breath of air, Anya wriggled and pushed away from the foul body.

Vladmir stood before her, sword raised, fear in the whites of his eyes.

"Finish-" she began, but was cut off by her own scream. The once-man raked her through the mud, clawing at her backside. She kicked frantically, trying to loosen its grip; she rolled onto her back but the thing was still there, dragging itself between her legs, hand gripping the leather of her bodice. Vladmir kicked uselessly at its withered body - the blows trembled through Anya but didn't register with the once-man.

It pulled itself up closer, Vladmir roaring, Anya screaming, its face leaning in, yellow eyes weeping gaping jaw inching closer-

-and then it was gone. Vladmir's foot ploughed clean through it, snapping the once-man's head from its neck and sending it rolling across mud. The body instantly fell limp. Anya scrambled to tear it off her, until Vladmir bodily lifted it loose and hurled it across the clearing.

Anya rose to her feet angrily.

"You imbecile! You pig-brained cunt!" she screamed into his face.

"I couldn't-"

"That wasn't Nestor!" she pushed him hard in the chest; he staggered backwards.

"How can-"

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Anya..."

"Throw away that damned dagger," she said, beating at Vladmir's broad chest. "Be done with this thing!"

"The dagger?" Vladmir clutched both of Anya's arms, holding her still. "What has the dagger to do with this?"

"Everything!" she replied, kicking at his shins.

"Enough!" he cried, pushing her away. She stood, panting, holding her bleeding arm close to her side. "If the curse ever held any true power, discarding the knife now will achieve nothing."

"How do you know? Be rid of it, Vladmir, and maybe you'll know your own mind once more."

"My mind is fine. That could have been my father, Anya, how could you just take off like that?"

Anya stepped closer, laying her hands on her lover's chest.

"Please, my love" she whispered. "You are not yourself. Do this thing for me."

Vladmir turned away, stalking between the trees in sullen silence.

      ~o~

It was different that night. Vladmir thrust into her with less than his usual vigour. As he collapsed on top of her, he refused to hold Anya's gaze. She ran a hand through his hair, slick with sweat, and gazed into the starless sky.

      ~o~

A week later, they strode beneath the corroded arch of Be'lal's temple. Before them stood the ziggurat which housed the great crypt; a huge stepped pyramid, carved of stone so grey it was almost black. Though the forest had tried to claim the temple – lichen and mosses creeping across the face of the stone like veins – all the trees within the grounds were withered, twisted and dying.

"He was right," Anya breathed. "Vladmir, he was right!" She clapped her hands excitedly.

"We cannot be sure," said Vladmir. "Who's to say this is truly Be'lal's final resting place?"

They walked slowly across the stone pathway, barely visible between the moss and leaves which blanketed the floor. Dark trees reached around and above them, reaching up to a leaden sky.

"Trust your senses my love. Can you not feel it in the air?"

"What is there to feel but cold and damp?"

"Evil," breathed  Anya. "It is everywhere. Just as Nestor predicted."

"Then where is he?"

Anya paused, looking around thoughtfully. Her gaze settled on the staircase leading up to the peak of the ziggurat. A blackened doorway could be made out amongst the shadows. She nodded towards it.

"Where else, my heart?"

"Hmm." Vladmir stepped away from the path, picking up a rotten branch from the floor. He inspected it, then tossed it to one side. He took up another, looked at it uncertainly, then discarded it also.

"Vladmir?" Anya asked. He ignored her. Finally, he took up a branch which suited him and waved it through the air experimentally. He opened a canteen from his belt, drunk a great drought, then soaked one end of the branch. Unravelling a cloth from around his boot, poured the contents of a small bottle over it.

Understanding his meaning, Anya took out two pieces of flint from her belt. Once Vladmir had tied the oil-soaked rag around the branch, she struck a spark. The head of the stick blazed into flame.

They stood in silence a moment, watching the fire dance. Anya drew her blade, nodded to her lover, and they both began the short walk up the steps, hand-in-hand, and into the darkness.

      ~o~

Nothing moved inside the ziggurat. The air was stale. Heavy cobwebs lined the dark stone floors and ceiling. Skeletons loomed in the fragile light of the torch – long dead and brittle with age.

Yet there was evidence of recent activity in those dark hallways: the corridors were lined with dust, but scuffed as if from many shuffling footprints. Great stone doors, presumably once sealed, hung ajar or lay collapsed in the corridor. Someone had been here – that much was plain.

Anya did not know whether that was good news or bad; at least, not until they stumbled across the body of Katarina.

"You are sure?" Vladmir asked, his voice echoing the small chamber.

"It is clear, my love," said Anya, crouched beside a withered body, grey and hard to the touch. "Her signet ring, see? And her spider necklace."

Half-burned candles lined an alcove to her side, arranged in a semi-circle around a human skull. Paper scrolls, worth a fortune back in Salassia, littered the chamber.

"If Katarina died here, than my father is surely close," Vladmir said, rubbing a hand across his chin. "Her death must have been no small thing."

"Perhaps," Anya replied, peering intently at the scrolls. "Though these papers unsettle me. They... they are spells, Vladmir." She looked up to him, worry creasing her face. "Necromancy."

"Truly? Then the man in the woods..."

"That was no plague, my love."

"By the darkest of  gods..." Vladmir leaned heavily against the wall.

"Vladmir," Anya asked, slowly, "why did your father come to this place? Why is his favourite apprentice lying dead amidst a ritual altar?"

Vladmir looked troubled.

"He has always harboured an... interest in dark magic."

"Yes, but only as a student of lore."

"Are you so sure? All those nights in the bone yards..." a shadow crossed Vladmir's face. "Natalya."

"My love, you cannot be serious?"

"I... I do not know," he replied, one hand toying with the hilt of his father's dagger.

Anya rose, brushing dust from herself.

"We will find no answers here. We must press on, we must find the crypt."

      ~o~

It was not, in the end, a difficult task. The trails of scuffed footprints got clearer the deeper they moved into the temple. Bodies littered the dark corridors – some skeletal, as if they had been there for hundreds of years. Others dehydrated and preserved. Most were incomplete, they realised, missing digits, limbs or even heads.

When they heard the chanting, they knew they grew close.

They emerged into a huge hall. Dusty light poured in blue shafts from a ceiling which must have reached a hundred feet high. Great stone columns rose to meet the light. Dark liquid pooled in the narrow gutter which circled the room. And there, up on a dais in the centre, illuminated by the light which focused upon his white head, was Nestor of Salassia.

He kneeled within a circle of candles, each burning with a trembling flame. He chanted in a low voice, murmuring in drab monotone. A dark robe covered him, hiding the contours of his body. From what Anya could tell, he looked desperately thin. Wraith-like. The realisation chilled her.

They climbed the steep staircase to the dais in shocked silence. Nestor did not seem to notice – though he faced them directly, his eyes wide open. They were white: milky, unseeing white. His skin was pale and dry as paper. A wispy, wild beard covered his face and chin, the manicured moustache for which he was famous a relic of the past. Dark stains – clearly blood – tarnished the obsidian base of the dais. A small gulley ran from its centre and down to the gutter, through which blood must have once flowed. Bones lay scattered amongst the candles.

"Have you returned to me, my children?" Nestor croaked in a dry, wheezy voice.

Anya rested a hand upon Vladmir's shoulder. This was not the man they had last seen two years ago, in the hanging gardens of the university which Nestor loved so well. This was not the man they had sought so long to find.

Vladmir brushed her hand away, stepping forward into the edge of the light.

"No, father," he said in a low voice. "It is your true child, your child of nature, who stands before you now."

"V-Vladmir? Can it be?" no hint of emotion crept across the old man's face.

"What has become of you?" Vladmir whispered, his voice cracked with rage. "What have you done?"

"I – I have learned so much, my boy. So much..."

"All these years.... I... what of Katarina?"

"She was a fool!" Nestor spat the word, spittle flaring up in the light. "I, I tried to save her-"

"NO!" Vladmir boomed, the syllable echoing around the chamber. "No more lies, father."

"But I was trapped-" Nestor babbled, his voice rising in terror as Vladmir drew his father's blade from his belt. "What are you doing, boy?"

"I came here to save my father," Vladmir said, stepping towards Nestor, his voice racked with emotion. "And that is what I intend to do."

He seized Nestor by the collar: the old man struggled, babbling incoherently. Vladmir raised the blade high; Anya was sure the tip trembled slightly.

"It was-" Nestor began, but was cut off by the blade plunging into his throat. A single word escaped the old man's lips, oddly clear amongst the sickening gurgles and the blood flowing across the steel in a black river.

"Katarina," Nestor said as he collapsed to the floor.

Vladmir fell with him, staring into his father's unseeing eyes. Blood pooled around the two of them, trickling from the dais and into the gutter below.