PreludeBy Kathleen Ryan

Amanda-readers: The Powers That Be havedrafted me to write Vampire books, namely,Clan Novels Setite and Ravnos. This isleaving me about as much free time as goldbullion (I have none of either) and keepingme from my native stomping grounds,namely, Mage stuff. Fortunately, when ]esssaid, "Write me an apprentice piece," I hadsomething ready for the Cerberus Chronicle.Unfortunately, it's a section from chapter

two of the (as yet unscheduled) first novel in the series —which is a little behind the times. What follows fits into thetimeline after Book of Shadows, but before Book of Mad-ness.

Newcomers: I'm sorry if I've just confused you todeath. You don't need to know any of the above to "get" thispiece; it's just the Prelude. I hope you enjoy it.

— Kathleen RyanMarch 18, 1994The Euthanatos ChantryCerberus

Julia Stanislaufsky sits cross-legged beneath thedusty-green leaves of a willow tree. The heel of herright sandal brushes the sandy dirt in a raised bed. Thetoes of her left foot dangle over the pavement on theother side. Her skirt drapes crookedly across both sidesof the planter wall, and her light blouse flutters in thedesert breeze.

Her hands cup a lit candle of raw beeswax. Its tinyflame flares to her will, and changes color under herdirection—yellow to white, white to blue, blue to violet.

"Good job, Jules," says her teacher, sincerely. Fromher seat among the knobby roots of the willow, MitziZimmerman watches the dancing fire carefully. "You didyour homework."

Her apprentice bites down a pleased smile."Can you take it any farther?"Julia nods. Her brow furrows in concentration,

and the flame disappears — invisible to the eye, yetstill lit, consuming its source at a terrible rate. Heatradiates from the base of the wick, and she has to holdthe taper away to keep her face from the blaze.

"Snuff it and take five. You've done very well."

The fire dies instantly. Julia gingerly replaces thecandle in its holder with a nervous eye on the near-boiling wax at its peak. She stretches, stands up, andwalks a few yards out into the courtyard. Uncon-sciously, her feet begin to twitch out a dance — heeland toe, heel and skip. When she notices, she swingsher arms, too, and rubs her shoulders as if to ward awaya chill. But the cool of night is fading quickly, andwhen she turns back to her teacher, knowing eyesthere tell her she is not fooling anyone.

Julia smiles sheepishly, and the wide grin sheswallowed during Mitzi's praise takes over. She lets itloose and laughs — the light on her limbs feels good,the clean air of Cerberus tastes like nothing left onEarth, and this morning, at least, she knows all herlessons. Why not dance? She picks up her skirt andgives her teacher a few more steps — a polka, shethinks, though no one could possibly recognize herwild hops and kicks as such — and Mitzi laughs, too.

That's nice to see, thinks Julia, watching the olderwoman smile. She's hardly ever really happy about anythingthese days... I wonder why I thought that? She isn't unhappy,is she? She doesn't look or sound different...Julia scruti-nizes her mentor with a solicitous eye: An elegantwoman, wearing a straight-cut, unbleached linen dress,which Julia enviously knows will be unstained by thewillow bark when Mitzi stands. She is thin, but not tallenough to be slender. She looks too fragile, Julia realizes,has she always looked like that?

The sun clears the building behind the apprenticeand floods the courtyard. It turns Mitzi's mouse-brown,frizzy hair to gold and her dress to white — but her eyes,the color of autumn oak leaves, do not brighten withthe sun. She has already stopped laughing, and theshadows of the willow branches screen her from thelight.

A chuckle falls from one of the dormitory windowsabove them. Another student—a young man from Java— draws his curtains and waves down at Julia, and the

dance bashfully abandons her feet. He waters the flow-ers in his windowbox, looks off to the southwest, anddisappears again.

Julia's gaze flickers to her own little garden, a patchof red geraniums outside blue-and-white striped drapeson the third floor, and then to the same spot her fellowlooked to: a distant shadow on the chantry's outer wall,a balcony with shuttered doors that lead to a room withno windows. Every apprentice on Cerberus has devel-oped the habit of looking up at that balcony wheneverthey step outside. Some have even begun to wonderwhy so many of their teachers do the same thing.

Julia sits down in the shade of the tree, out ofsight of the students' quarters, and starts fishing:

"Mitz?""Yes?""Why are we practicing out here?""It's a nice day, isn't it?"Julia waits, hoping for more."Senex should be back today," Mitzi goes on. "I

thought we'd meet him.""I thought you said they'd finished four days ago.""They did. California's a long way away, you

know.""Isn't that," says the apprentice carefully, "awfully

slow, though?"Mitzi sips coffee from a tall blue mug beside her and

feels out the direction of the conversation."Not all of them were strong or skilled enough to

simply walk here from Sacramento." During a slow,significant pause, she studies Julia. "You know, you'llget farther with me by asking the real question..."

Julia's eyes flicker to her teacher's, and her protest dieson her lips.

"All right. Why does Amanda get so much specialtreatment?"

"What special treatment?"Julia hesitates . So much talk has been going

around the college that she has not expected to haveto explain herself. She is a new enough pupil to showher sudden doubts in her face, but smart enough tohave them. She proceeds more slowly.

"Well, first off, her room isn't with everyone else's.""She's under quarantine.""What?""Among other things, you're welcome to look at the

scorch marks on her bedroom walls. She's had troublecontrolling her powers."

"She has private lessons with Senex.""She is his student, not a general member of the

college. Do people ask why you have private lessonswith me?"

"Okay," Julia continues, "but why did she get to goon this mission? There are lots of us who've been herelonger than she has, and it just doesn't seem... fair."

"Julia! You don't think I'd let him risk you like that!"

"What?""Amanda's assignment wasn't a privilege. It wasn't

a reward or a favor." Mitzi leans back against thegnarled tree trunk. "It isn't my policy to discuss othermages' apprentices, but this once I'll make an excep-tion. Amanda was chosen because she was both themost expendable person available and the most likelyto survive." She looks toward the distant sun andcloses her eyes. "There is also the fact, which I wouldlike you to think about very seriously, that Amanda isalready a killer."

Julia considers this statement gravely."And you don't think I could do it?""Do you want to?"Julia turns away.She wanders farther and leans over the courtyard's

central pool.The fountain here is modest. One spring murmurs

off-center, barely below the surface of the water. Itshimmers. It wastes no water on spray or ornament. Itwastes no stone on bowls, no metal on statues. Thepolished, gray marble basin is plain, but in the court-yard of Cerberus, it is beautiful — dark, austere, andcool relief from the sun-washed sandstone pavement.

The day sky, so far from the Earth and Sun, is deepviolet. In the wavering mirror water, cloudless indigoframes the apprentice's reflection. She grimaces at herbodiless, dark brown hair - - her pale eyes of nosatisfactory color — not a pretty blue, not a mysteriousgreen, not a stern gray. Her skin is red in the leastattractive places, white over her prominent bones,unpleasantly purple in shadows beneath her eyes,sallow all over. Julia dabbles her hands in the pool todispel the truthful illusion; she knows well enoughthat she is... ordinary-looking. She splashes her fore-arms and wets down the hair behind her ears to tameit. She sips a palmful of sweet water and flicks theclinging droplets onto her face.

A sparrow flutters unexpectedly past her and flut-ters to a perch on the side of the fountain farthest fromthe girl. She freezes so as to not scare him away. Thelittle bird cocks his eye at her, warily, suspiciously, andjerks his head around. He looks at her first from onejet-black bead, then the other, as if to say, "I knowyou're up to something. Don't think I don't. And if Icould just see you straight, I'd be able to tell what itwas. Then we'd find out who was who, missy."

He nabs a drink from the pool and watches heragain. He drinks a bit more and hops to the left. At last,the sparrow catches her breathing. He tips his beak upin indignation, sneaks one last sip, and flies off.

"Ready?""Yeah."

"Enough candles. Here." Mitzi sets a canvas-wrappedbundle before her student. "Go ahead and open it."

Inside the bundle is a very old, very beautifulhourglass. The casework is richly polished boxwood,and it gleams like satin. The bulbs are thick, hand-blown, seamless glass — slightly uneven, rippled bysheer age and gravity. Julia explores the surfaces, for sheis fascinated. Her teacher takes the canvas, folds it, anddrapes it across the stone between them. She reaches forthe glass, and her student hands it solemnly back.

Mitzi flips the glass.Sand begins to pour through. Though the glass is

large and heavy, the neck is wide and the bottom bulbfills faster than Julia had expected.

Mitzi watches it in perfect silence, and Julia triesto follow her example — tries to pull the most out ofthe experience, even though she can't yet see thepoint. Perhaps beneath the surface... she attempts toplumb the depths of the hourglass philosophically,physically, spiritually, symbolically... the meditationruns through time and death and age, winds intocircles, and loses itself in cliche.

She rouses herself from the dreck and looks intentlyinto the glass once more. Her attention wavers. Thewind picks up the willow tree's branches and whipsthem to a frenzy overhead. It turns over dry leaves in thedirt beside them and rattles them along the bed, overthe wall, and into the courtyard to play in the corners.Julia pries her legs out of lotus position and tucks thembeneath her. The sand flows on... out of the pastbulb, shethinks, into the future bulb... perhaps that's the point.Curiosity drives her to look up at Mitzi's face. Herteacher's expressionless eyes meet hers and return to theglass. Julia tries to force her way back into the medita-tion, but she lacks focus.

Voices of other students drift down from the build-ings around them... snatches of conversation,incantations, songs... she hears even the drone of thehoneybees among the geraniums in the dormitory win-dows. A little red bug starts his way up the slopes of theboxwood... Julia watches it with weary, sluggish mind.Her posture slumps, her legs stretch a little, and pins andneedles begin to torment her ankles, knees and toes.

The last grain bounces down from the top bulb. ToJulia, it seems almost impossible that anything else hasever happened, or that the ordeal could actually end.

Mitzi Zimmerman, fresh as ever, says, "Left toitself, this hourglass measures ten minutes exactly."

Only ten minutes... thinks Julia.Mitzi catches the girl's glance. "You are going to

stop it," she orders intently.And to Julia's dismay, she flips it then and there.

"". f

PreludeBy Kathleen Ryan

",---

Alexande! Gericault waits patiently at~e{;Ol.!nte.r.ofas.mallpiikt)!Y. He sips strongblack caffee. from a plain white mug.and setSit biiCkinta itsring~stained sauger. .~'\.

The quiet rhythm .of canversation and'cutlerY arallndhim shatters in a ca$tade ofglass and china.

A heavy, thick-haired waman at thecash register shrieks and begins scalding thebusbay. He fires back a stream .ofcurses and

camplaints - half in broken English, half in his unrecagniz-able native tangue - ending clearly in, "I quit!" He spits anthe flaar befare the cashier, throws dawn his apron and starmsout through the kitchen.

Gericault keeps watch steadily an the franr windaws.

Directly behindhim, ata tablefartwa, an elderly lady digsthrough her handpag and pulls farth a pillbax. She fishes outtWa pale-green tablets and places them gingerly in her mauth.Her pink topgue .flicks briefly aver thin, cracked;red-paintecllips, and she takes the medicine with a glass .ofwater and agrimace. She stares h:if(;llyattQe. Waitingcup, sQi.ledl'lateandvacant chair appasiteher awn. With her right hand, sheempties the pillbox intO herhusband'scoffeei with her left shepicks up his spaan and begins stirring. Her expressiQn neverchanges.

Gericault catches sight afhis subject .inthe street .outside.He pays far his caffee, tips well and rises.

As the Nephandus passes a yaung girl- a callege studentsitting alone at the table clasest ta tQe daar - she wipes afallen tear fram her jaurnal, staps writing paetry, and beginscamposing her suicide.nate. He smiles kindly at her and leavesthe little caffee shap.

Ge.ritault walks like a bllsTne.ssmantaday. In well-cut gr::i.Y'slacks and a slightly rumpled wlJ,ite.oxfard sQirt, he laaks likeanyathe.r cubicle-dwelleron lunchbre.ak - he even gives theimpressian that hiscaat and tie .:lre.hl.!ng up next to hiskeybaard, waiting. His face and haIr are s~lected ta match, andentirely cammanplace.

He steps anta the sidewalk with the exact pasture .ofaman wha has warked desk and mause .one year taa many, andnat a saullaaks at him twice. A wave .oftaurists surges past andhe adjusts his pace td'match. From the curb side, screened bythe sightseers, he scans the group ahead.

He spats the red-haired alchemist easily: A tall, gangly,bayish man, head and shaulders abave the crowd -slauching,then standing straight and maving well, but abviausly uncam-fortable with himself, his height and his fellaw travelers.

Ta the yaung man's side, a teenage-girLinoveralis. Shehaps alang like a broken spring, alert but easily distracted. She

see,,!!sta do mast .ofthe talking.Bhe. t.urns suddenly wirhan etnphatlcrdauble-handed,

splay-fingered gestl.!re.and Qiirkssamething afthe ather manwalkiI1gbesidehe.t ~ the .oldest .of the three. He wearssunglasses, tQough the light daes nat quite call far them, andstalks alang like a tiger, thaugh there is1.1.0need far that, either.He tries ta play itstropg :lnd silent, but the sharp-tangued kidbeside him erodes his' compasure. His stany face breaks inaggravatian and the twaargue.(ar a whale black.

An Asian man in his mid-JOs laaks bad:atthe fight andthrews theredheiid3 wryJ1iilf-srqJle.He clearly means it to bereassuring, but taa much wanysh6\Vs threugh the mask.Theyaunger man trots te catchUp With' the leader and they walk

en, talking quietly. .The Nephandus nates the drama,almest grateful thllt .

Amanda has faund these campanians. If it were .onlyher andthe [>ries.the had ta fallaw. ."

The priest drops .outof sight again, and Gericault.curses.

With effartrhe finds him- an .oldgray miin in a pale-bluepele shift and wrinl<ledtWill trousers:He isthe slewest walker,and says little. The stream of pedestrians winds araund himwithaut taking much Dorice, antleve~Gericault finds it hardta fecus en the frail, staaped figure.

Beside the faded cleric, .Amanda Janssen flaats alang thesidewalk like a pillar .offire. Men stare. Wamen approve orenvy. Children smile and peint at the pretty lady - andGericiiult knaws that nat: .one will remember her clearly afterhe),:pi!!Ssing.If. they see herllgain jn ether clethes, they willhardly rec6gnizeherj if he stops al1e'of her admirers and askswhat she loaks like, the petSOnwiH find 1.1.0rearwards, onlyvague cemparisens. Her features are indescribable and there-fare as ananymaus as his awn.

The Nephandus tears his gaze fram her reluctantly. Atlast he catches sight .ofhis other quarry.

Twa men walk at a peculiarly deliberate pace .onehalf.black ahead .ofhim, dressed in suspiciausly bulky caats, theireyes fastened an the backs .of Amanda and thase with her.There's a pair who could use practice in the art of the Unseen,thinks Gericault. He facuses his senses and takes their mea.

sure: There are minar wards protecting them, armar beneaththeir clathes and weapens at their hands, but these twa arecannan fadder against real Craft. He smiles proudly, anticipat.ing Amanda and her knives wading through the pair's dumbflesh.

r

----"O.~'

The tour group drifts up tIle steps of a museum. Ge[icaultskirtsthe cluster, keeping an eye on thec),l:)~ushunters and

scanningthe crowd for others.

Newparents push a stroller by hiro.

A trio of elderly men shuffles into ea-rshot;trebating

politIcson behalf of the entire street.

A tight knot of young peoplebn:iShes past, laughtngana.umblingabout classes and dowiS, p~rents and money.

In their wake; Geric:aul("car"hesagust of patchouli, aof sll\"Okeandrrblackened, bittersweet odor that he

"ows.w~ll.He breathes the scent;i'~~ep[y:}J.e~t$;the'YClPQr~onhistongue. Burnt man-flesh - brands :..- old brands, and

-agrta/(Tsacrificemore recently. Beautiful children r whose are you?

Withthe most cautious, fleeting touch, he probes the&mgesof their clothes, their skin, their souls. He expects

1 spelled-weaponsandbum-wards and finds them. The rites fbf;'~ . suchmagicksare common enough. But the girl laughing£t loudestcarriesa twisted, unnamable tattoo - burnt, cut and

paintedintothe curves of her pelvis, back and belly. TheNephandusrecognizesthe,thing and wonders what shadow-brotherofhisdaredcarve thatsigil into ll)ririg flesh.

Heinvadesthe girl's thoughtS clelicately, unwilling to.;:tevealhimselftowhatevetmay'watchover'her. What he seeks: 15highinher heart - her skirt chafes her naked skin at every

, ;:~tep,andwiththe painshecl1erishes the memory of the knives," Deedles,hot coals and strong hands of the man who inflicted

i,Lbescars.She cannot help but look for him, and Gericault, '1o[lowsthe reverent glance toher1doL

He walksalone on the other side of the street, his black

;;;'001coatopen to tb.e wind. He wears dark-blue jeans, a hand-

,T:woven'pullover and, despite the chill, sandals.

~ The silent observer withdraws &om the girl and her

master,and looks ahead. Amanda, he realizes, has seen some-

thing.Shelaysa finger on the priest's arm and soft words spreadthe alarm. The message passes up to the stalking man and

leader.Quite casually, the six trade places. In loose formation,

theycontinue walking~Butnowtl5,e.fign~tsaJ:eat the points,thethree weaker bodies are the center, and the team has eyes

allround- even ,tb.erea~,is,co'Vered; the chatty teenager~ revivesherargumentand skipSalong half-backward.

Gericaultapprovesoftheir preparations. They can handlethehired muscle, he is certain, and though the brandedacolytesmight be able to kill one or two members of theSecondSeven,Amanda should surviv~

Atthenext intersection, the Nephandus "influences" thetraffic:Amandaand her party make it across and thebullyboysarepermittedto follow - but the branded students have towait.Inhisownturn, Gericault comes to the curb beside themandpretendsto check his watch. He takes a silver pin from thecuffof his sleeve and pricks his palm. Before the bloody tipdries,he stabs the student closest to hiro, in the nape of theneck.The tiny weapon nearly disappears into the skin. The

'"boy isdead without time to blink and Gericault starts the bodywalking when tl5,eIJgfitslt1tange.

Prom the victim's coofing brain, he drags the name of themurder cult's master - their philosophy professor Shelton

Bruntee - and enough of the trappings of their masses to

recognize the hand of Helekar behind the hunt. Under theNephandus' direction, the corpse follows its fellows from thecrosswalk, but Gericault waits at the new curb. He then crossesthe main street and sets purposefully after Bruntee.

The Euthanatos dearly anticipates an enemy. ThoughBp.lIl,tee;,}VaJksquickly enough to keep his disciples iI).vi~w~~rr ah feeLthe tnage track.ingcthe"torobjth th(;jpin, tJ;1Eji)slender threa 0 L",.-the threa<Lcorihng doser, th&

p(j.werctfasthg~fter him.'~~--Gericault catches up and the ~alk abreast at the

~ttetneedges of the sidewalk. By unspoken consent, theyclimb the steps of an old apartment house - each half-turned

to the other, eyes lowered, defenses high - and enter thedeserted lobby.

Face-to-face now, they study each other. The professor'sbody sags slightly with age - 50 will capture him soon, ifGericault does not - but the sloppy looking extra weight ismusde, aI).dhis lefthand holds an old-fashionedstraight razqr.Brunteestands ready, like an old lion, His hair isblack, grayand wiry,brushedor blownback£romth.e ad in~oa,,&ldmane, croppedtaggedly,at;the'§h()plde,rs. er'cords:aievisible around his neck - humans-Icin,Gericault "remem-bc::ts,~ltan.net.fae."-'~ " tsthedeadboysaw.

TheEU-lli.an~l~ow are red; w, but scrupulouslycleanf:sQayen, " '

Netthetmfgc::.lool&tb th.-eClther'seyes.The attack comes without warning and without a move-

ment - Bruntee strikes through the abyss - an assault like a

battering ram forged of a black hole. Gericault, pleased by the~!J,.Uenge,resists in kind - the consuming ebon fires of the pitswallow the emptiness; their forces match precisely.

Bruntee draws on deeper magicks. The lance of his mindagainst Gericault's. The daws of his spirit on the roots of

Geri<;ault's souL Even the fangs of his A vatar st~ive to qrainKa/i1'Slifeblood from Gericault's very beingj1"&e NeJ?handusc~nrers them all and methodically brings mOre -Weaponstobear.,

Sparks fly from Bruntee's hair, the flO()rcracks beneathhis feet, tiny slips in time confuse him. 1;'hotigh he weClveshisown shields, dasps his hand over the blade of his razor for b'loodand power, and destroys three amulets in the attempt, hecannot break the stalemate Gericault forces upon him. Theprocess reveals every detail of his capabilities and knowledge.Sweat breaks out on Bruntee's forehead. The strain Clfche

casting paralyzes the Euthanatos, and though no one or thingbut the Grand Harvester Voormas has ever &ightened him,Bruntee watches in terror as the mage before him steps closer. . ..

""