The Shining Falcon

Ljuba struggled to get herself back under control. God, that had been a shock! First to find Finist conscious—and frighteningly coherent, too—then to be hurled roughly out of herself and dumped in this… wherever it was, at the mercy of her almost certainly vengeful cousin—

Akh, wait. This place had a strangeness to it, a tingling, electric strangeness that meant they could only have fallen onto a plane of pure magic.

Oh, Finist, you fool! I may be a weaker magician than you in the real world. But here, with Power all around me, I am truly your equal!

With that, she seized magic from the richness all about her, glorying in the ease of it, and hurled it at her cousin in a wild, raw, deadly wave of Power.

Off balance, Finist barely managed to defend himself against the savage attack that had plainly been meant to slay his mind and leave his body helpless. Of course, he thought, she still needs my body as her puppet. Staggering beneath the dizzying impact of that arcane wave, he sighed with relief to feel it striking, recoiling, breaking apart against the psychic wall he'd hastily hurled together.

Ljuba, too, was staggering, dazed by the backlash of unspent force.

Now's your chance! Finist shouted to himself. But he couldn't strike to kill‑curse him for a fool, he couldn't! Even knowing what she was, even knowing what she'd meant to do—he couldn't block the memory of the past. There she lingered in his mind, not the ruthless, lovely woman-who-was, but the girl-who'd-been, the girl he had been too young to know how to help, child‑Ljuba, unloved and so alone…

You idiot, forget your misplaced pity! She's a traitor to the crown; she tried to break your mind. She tried to kill Maria! Will you let her escape?

Shaking, Finist pulled Power to him, all the wild, terrible Power his being could control, and hurled it at Ljuba in one blazing, deadly spear-But the memory of a smooth golden form, warm and radiant in candlelight… the thought of that perfect form lying torn and broken in death…

And even as he hurled that blazing Power, Finist cried out in despair and cast it wide.

* * *

As the terrifying force engulfed her, burning, a horrified Ljuba had only time enough to think, I'm dead! But then that force had hurtled by and burst apart, to leave her untouched, and she nearly laughed in her shaken relief. You can't kill me, can you, cousin? You're not quite free of my potion's control yet! While I…

She stared fiercely at him where he sagged, drained, exhausted, and knew that now he was hers.

Yes, and yet… did she really have to destroy him? Ljuba blinked, astonished to once again feel that sudden, unwanted twinge of… love?

Oh, no, not here, not now! It was a silent scream of rage. There's no time for this!

She'd strike him now, mind to mind, conquer him withy out the need for potions or foolish iron pins. She would use this Power to burn out his will and make Finist and Kirtesk her own.

Then, without warning, the blue-grey haze of this plane was swirling up about her, as though it were Earthly fog seized by a terrible wind—but there couldn't be any wind, not in this place of Not-Quite-Real—sweeping over her in glowing waves. Surrounded by the wild, silent whirlings of Power, she couldn't see or hear or feel—she was alone in nothingness.

Finist! What have you done to me?

What was happening? One moment Maria had been in Finist's bed‑chamber, seeing Ljuba about to strike, sure that she was going to die, the next moment Finist had been struggling to his feet, magic swirling wildly about him. Though his body hadn't moved from the bedside, she had still felt him leaving the physical, leaving her, as surely as she'd felt his emotions when the silver chain had been binding them together. She remembered screaming out:

«No, I can't lose you, not so soon!»

Then, too anguished to think clearly, she had thrown the entire force of her love and longing and despair after him, sensing her mind brushing his just for an instant before a terrible pressure seemed to rend body and spirit apart—

And was this death, this strange blue-grey, swirling fog? Surely not. Because, even though she didn't seem to have a proper body, even though she didn't seem to be breathing, she could still feel, she could still hear, she was still she, Maria Danilovna!

Caught in a fresh surge of panic, she glanced wildly around, trying to orient herself. But there weren't any landmarks here. There didn't seem to be anything here, save this eerie fog—