Several days passed with no news of the demon. The Wizard had shown little evidence of progress in locating it. He knew it was still in the vicinity, since stories of villages being obliterated continued to filter in through his network of spies. Interestingly, so had news of the Camarandians' completion of the dragon bow Prince Erick Greystone would need to slay the demon's airborne steed.

It was well past midnight when the Wizard finally appeared in the prince's sleeping chamber. Dirk was still fully clothed. He sat in a leather-covered wingback chair staring into the flames burning in the fireplace. He looked as though he expected Vector.

"Good evening, my lord. I found it, or rather her," the Wizard stated smugly.

"Hi. A she-devil? Interesting. I was beginning to lose faith in your effort on this matter."

Vector fought the temptation to sneer. There was more important work at hand. "Come, we have to hurry. She has landed near Crystal Lake, only a few miles from Castle Greystone. I do not think she'll stay on the ground long. Besides, Erick Greystone is nearby with the new weapon. It promises to be a remarkable evening."

The Wizard offered the prince his hand in order to transport magically them to the beast's location.

Moments later, they materialized in a wooded area. The forest was normally alive with the sounds of night birds and other creatures at this hour, but on this night it was mysteriously silent. It was as though the sylvan creatures sensed the malice afoot.

Before disappearing behind a mask of clouds, the weak silver glow of a small crescent moon momentarily illuminated a small clearing not ten yards from the place the two men stood. Even in near total darkness, Dirk could see the massive shape of the dragon looming in the clearing. He strained to see a lean shadow standing near the creature's neck.

Clouds passed over the moon. As the silver sliver emerged in the sky, its cold light again bathed the clearing. The pair could see the figure of a woman stroking the scales of the dragon's long, serpent-like neck. The gesture was strangely sensual and appeared to please the beast. Its great head turned toward her. The head was larger than she was tall. The head slowly moved around her frame. It wrapped her gently in a coil of its mighty neck and almost appeared to nuzzle against her entire body before directing its enormous eyes toward the trees hiding the prince and his Wizard.

Realizing they were about to be discovered, Vector raised his arms and uttered an ancient phrase in a magical tongue. A red rune hung in the air for an instant before flickering and finally disappearing. He repeated the gesture, this time with no effect at all.

"Blast it! Something is not right. This isn't working!" he whispered urgently, clearly frustrated. "I need the monocle!"

Dirk had taken his eyes off the she-devil for an instant, distracted by Vector's failed effort to bind her magically. When he looked back toward her, the shadowy figure sat with her legs curled beneath her atop the dragon's enormous head. She was watching them.

Clouds again hid the moonlight, and for an instant, total darkness blanketed the forest. The prince strained to see what the creature was doing, at the same time elbowing the mage next to him roughly.

"Vector, this is no time for games. Do it!" he barked in a hushed whisper.

"Do what?" asked a female voice behind him, startling him. The voice was lyrical. The voice formed the words with a strange cadence, an accent utterly foreign to any land in Aperans. With lightning reflexes the prince turned around, sword already in hand. In the returning moonlight, he found himself an arm's length from the most striking woman he had ever seen. Her height surprised him. At six foot four, the prince towered over most people, but he had a scant few inches on this woman.

Her eyes locked on his, and for the space of a heartbeat he felt genuinely disconcerted. Her eyes were an arresting shade of the deepest violet and seemed to glow with a preternatural fire in the darkness. The large almond-shaped eyes were inquisitive and as she regarded him coldly. Her raven hair was gathered a thick braid fastened high atop her head by a clasp shaped like a snake coiled around the hair. The woman was profoundly beautiful.

The darkness of her hair contrasted with the stark whiteness of her skin. Her skin was so pale that it almost appeared translucent in the silver light. Her high cheekbones and full lips accentuated the otherworldly beauty of her face. Dressed in finery, it might be the sort of face over which wars were waged.

She turned her gaze to Vector, glancing only momentarily at the prince's drawn sword. "Perhaps cast another futile bindrune, sorceror?" she asked, her tone as icy as the winter wind in Karteia. "Save your spells for visitors from Tenaebra!"

Vector's eyes widened. Tenaebra was the word the Sephiroth, a godlike race of demons, used to refer to their home world.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. It was barely audible as she hissed something in a hell-tongue near the Wizard's ear. She spoke to him in the tongue of the Sephiroth, a language used in ancient incantations, a language so magical that it seemed to resonate with the power of Creation. The Wizard struggled to translate the words in his head. "I am outside your reach."

Dirk could see the confusion and wonder in Vector's eyes. The Wizard was clearly not in control of this situation. He briefly pondered whether this creature were even a demon at all. She certainly did not bear any resemblance to the monstrous beings Vector had summoned in the past.

Her otherworldly eyes again met the prince's. Her gaze was as penetrating and relentless as his own. A lesser man might have been utterly intimidated, but Dirk found it merely irritating. He had the strangest sensation of recognition in those eyes, though he was absolutely certain he had never seen her before.

"Who are you?" she asked softly, her gaze never wavering.

As he started to answer, he was overcome by the sensation of her listening to his thoughts. No, not listening...it was more active than that. He felt a presence in his mind that was deeply disturbing. It was as though a thousand fingers were rummaging through the darkest recesses of his experiences and desires, answering the question she had posed. It was dreadful. He focussed all his thoughts into casting her out. The invading presence departed from his mind, leaving a rather disconcerting stillness in its wake. She looked genuinely surprised.

"Dirk Blackpool, Crown Prince of the North," she said, addressing him with the name and title he had never uttered. "Most people never know when I look inside them. That you did points to a rare mind." Her tone was soft and intimate. A small smile spread across her lips. She seemed pleased by whatever she had discovered lurking inside of him during her brief foray through his psyche, which at this moment, only served to irritate him more.

"You're angry at the violation of your thoughts-- outraged someone might now know the parts of your being which you choose to lock away," she added in the same intimate whisper.

The enormous pools of violet regarded him with a depth of understanding that left him feeling annoyingly naked beneath her gaze. There was no judgment or contempt in the eyes, only an unnatural understanding. He struggled to quell his anger and refocus his thoughts. It was imperative that he regain control of himself.

"Your feeble plan to enslave me has failed, dear prince. Are you afraid?"

"I fear nothing, demon," the prince hissed. His grip around his sword tightened.

"Demon? Oh, but you are an insulting one, aren't you? Since I stole so many secrets from your mind tonight, I'll share with you one of mine: I am almost as human as you are, and far more human than your companion. You will have to seek demon servants elsewhere. Now go home, and leave me to my business here. That I let you live tonight you should consider a gift, given only because your psyche pleases me. You are not my enemy here, but if you insist on interfering, you will become one."

Dirk stared at her. Human? Vector seemed rather certain this was a demon. He would discuss this with the Wizard later. If she were indeed human, then she would share her gender's weakness, he thought.

"I'll go when I'm ready," he replied, reasserting his commanding air and refusing to be intimidated by her threats. He was suddenly very sure she had no intention of trying to harm him. There was some sort of ephemeral connection he sensed between them, though he could not quite discern its nature. His self-assurance was growing by the moment. "Actually, speaking of enemies," he continued, "I believe we share one in common."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "And that would be?"

"The Greystone family and its kingdom. I have been at war with them for a long time."

She frowned and a look of impatience filled her face. "Who?"

Dirk had not expected that. Surely her attacks were not random. He could not believe the proximity to his enemies' castle was a mere coincidence. She seemed perplexed by the name. Frustrated, he explained, "Those peasants you have so skillfully annihilated belong to the King Richard Greystone. Surely you must be aware of that?"

"The rose-crested family? They have the misfortune of owning a crest which is identical to that of old playmates in my own realm. That is my only interest. I might as easily have found a reason to be interested in destroying your own holdings." She watched his face, waiting for the threat to register. "Your transient political struggles may provide an interesting backdrop for the destruction I wreck, but you assume too much."

That fleeting feeling of connection again passed through the prince. An unexpected wave of longing crept over him. He began to suspect she had enchanted him with those damnable eyes. Without thinking, his gauntleted hand reached up to touch her as if to confirm that she were real. Surely this was just some strange dream.

The confirmation he sought of her physical existence came in the form of her own reflexes. Her arm moved almost faster than he could see it, blocking his hand and forcing it violently to the side. Her strength was unnatural and shocking. He realized the foolishness of his action too late and cursed inwardly.

Her gaze became icy and filled with boundless cruelty. "Goodbye, wicked prince!" she said. "Remember to stay out of my way. If you behave, I'll let you be the last to die here. "

With that she walked past him. She dared to turn her back to both prince and his Wizard.

Dirk was unsure whether the gesture was profoundly arrogant or simply stupid. He tended to suspect the former. Leaving her back exposed to an attack almost seemed to suggest she did not think him capable of attacking her.

The dragon placed its head on the ground, allowing her to use the spikes on its face to gracefully climb atop it. As she slid down the beast's serpentine neck, Dirk thought about Erick's men and the dragon bow. They were only a few miles from here to the west. He blurted out, "You should fly to the east tonight. Prince Erick Greystone is a short distance from here to the west with a dragon bow."

She stared at him from atop her steed. Her expression remained neutral. "A dragon bow? How inconvenient. Thank you for this information, Prince Dirk Blackpool of Karteia."

"You could at least tell me your name. You seem well enough aware of mine now."

"Zyrdicia," she called back. "Zyrdicia of Lyr."

The dragon's wings snapped suddenly, and the pair ascended leaving a rush of wind behind them. The prince noted with no small sense of satisfaction that they flew to the east.

He looked at Vector for the first time since the meeting the woman. The Wizard was paler than usual. A sickly grin covered the mage's face. Dirk noted that the man looked almost giddy. Without uttering a word, Vector's hand snatched at his master's arm so that he could teleport them back to Castle Blackpool.

When they returned Vector was in a hurry to leave the prince. He refused to answer any of Dirk's many questions, insisting he had much to research. Dirk had rarely seen the Wizard so preoccupied. Vector disappeared only moments after their arrival in the castle, leaving his master alone to ponder the encounter.

The prince undressed and reclined on a silken pillow upon his bed, relieved to be alone. He felt exhausted but sleep eluded him. He wondered for a moment whether the whole, surreal experience might have been a dream, but the gradual emergence of a bruise on his wrist where she had knocked his forearm away said otherwise.

Damn her for her arrogance,he thought angrily. Try as he might, he could not get the mysterious, annoying woman out of his head. Zyrdicia. He was still unnerved by the feeling of her unwelcome presence inside his mind. He had carefully trained himself to shield his thoughts and emotions from the world. It was intolerable that this magical creature had violated his most sacred space so easily.

Living with his father had taught him the necessity of crushing most emotion. His father had been a cruel man, particularly to his eldest son. It seemed inconceivable that this woman had managed to saunter past his mental defenses to briefly witness the pain and bitterness he never acknowledged. What was it that had pleased her so about what she saw? And why did he feel such a nagging connection? He sighed angrily. How fitting that the only woman to ever get inside his head would be hell-spawn. As he finally drifted off to sleep, he realized there was a peculiar comfort in knowing that somewhere, something in the universe had looked inside him and not turned away in horror.

His sleep was filled with dreams of her, the strange creature whose eyes matched the hue of his royal cape, of the northern battle flag. He had vivid dreams of making love to her roughly, brutally. He saw himself slam her naked body against a stone wall then punish her lean, sinuous body with hard, merciless kisses as she begged him not to stop. As he climaxed inside of her, Dirk awoke with a start, bathed in sweat.

He reached beside him in the darkness and felt relieved to confirm that he was indeed alone in his bed. He realized with no small measure of disgust that the sheets were moist and sticky. The wet dream lingered in his mind. Though it was true that his taste in sex tended toward the rough side, he had never been so violent with a woman. He had certainly fantasized about it, but his moral code, twisted as it might often be, prevented him from acting on such barbaric impulses.

He inhaled deeply, annoyed at himself and the momentary loss of control. He had not visited his consort, the witch Bethel, since she had betrayed him and allowed Erick Greystone to escape from his dungeon. She was as spiteful and manipulative as Vector. He found her relentless lust for control of the Karteian throne revolting. Since the betrayal, the prince had preferred self-imposed celibacy to the witch's deceptive embrace. After tonight's dream, however, he pondered whether it might, in fact, be time to relent and again pay the witch a visit.

He needed to know more about the dragon-riding she-devil. He was determined to find a way to gain control of her. The idea of someone other than himself causing terror in the hearts of southern citizens began to gnaw at him. That was, after all, his exclusive duty. He resolved to send a reconnaissance team into Camarand at first light to uncover every detail of every encounter anyone might have had with her.