Seven weeks passed. Spring passed into summer, and the skies passed from clouded to open and blue and warm. The sheep and cattle and goats dropped their young, and all were born healthy. A score of women within the Llangarlian and Trojan camps also gave birth, and mothers and infants grew hearty and strong. The crops in the fields and the fruits of the trees and vines waxed fat and hearty: this year’s harvest would be the best in a generation.
On the northern bank of the Llan the walls grew to their full height, the gates for the main entrance to the city were built and hung, although not closed, and the preparations for the final dance of the Game neared completion.
Genvissa’s belly swelled towards her daughter’s birth, and the Mistress of the Labyrinth spent much time in laughter and joy as she toured the city with her partner in power, Brutus.
Across the river, in her darkened, lonely house in Llanbank, Cornelia grew stronger. She made a complete physical recovery from her daughter’s tragic birth, and an emotional one, too, for to many a person’s amazement, Cornelia often seemed almost cheerful.
They did not know that, late at night when Hoel and Cador slept, Loth and Cornelia talked quietly for many, many hours.
If there were dark circles under Cornelia’s eyes, it was not through pain or loss, but through mere lack of sleep.
The weeks turned, the walls had their final capstones put in place, Llangarlia basked in the warm summer days, and, finally, the eve of the summer solstice arrived, and it was time for the final dance of the Game.
The Day of the Flowers.
The final dance of the Game, the Dance of the Flowers, was held at dawn on the day of the summer solstice. The initial Dance of the Torches had been held at night, symbolic of the evil it was to trap. The Flower Dance was held at dawn, symbolising the dawn of a new age of prosperity and happiness for the city the Game protected.
Evil would be trapped forever by the sorcery of the flower gate which Brutus and Genvissa would erect at the entrance to the labyrinth.
In the hour before dawn people gathered on Og’s Hill. The Labyrinth still lay open to the sky—after this dance was done Brutus would cause a temple to be built over it, sealing it forever against those who would unravel the Game and ensuring the city’s integrity against all attack.
The dancers were there, in one line this time, and still in alternating ranks of young men and women. Now, however, they bore flowers rather than torches. They wore the flowers in garlands about their heads, and carried them in their hands and, where they had once held a ribbon to bind them, now they held a chain made of flowers. They encircled the labyrinth in a complete circle, but at a distance of some three or four paces, leaving a wide pathway between their line and the outer ring of the labyrinth.
They stood still, awaiting the first light of the dawn.
Brutus and Genvissa, both robed in luminescent white linen, stood in the space inside the circle of dancers and outside the outer wall of the labyrinth. Each stood a quarter circle away from the entrance, one on either side of the labyrinth.
As before, there was an Assembly of witnesses. Many of the Mothers were there, although not as many as had witnessed the initial dance as the need for as many hands as possible to bring in the summer harvest had kept most Mothers close to their homes.
Of those Mothers who were in attendance, Erith, Mais and Ecub were the only ones whose faces looked as though they were there to witness a catastrophe rather than a triumph.
Hicetaon, Corineus and Aethylla were there, together with Deimas and some two score of Trojan elders. They were joined by a similar number of Llangarlians, daughter-heirs of the Mothers in attendance, and some of the elder brothers and sons.
Cornelia was there, standing slightly apart from everyone else, as she had lived slightly apart from everyone else these past months. Her gown was drab, her long, free-flowing hair slightly unkempt, her face very thin and pale…but her eyes were calm and steady.
Loth, watching from ten or twelve paces away, thought that her weight loss and the slightly emaciated lines of her face suited her. She’d lost entirely her girlish demeanour and, while she could not compete with Genvissa’s fertile beauty, still managed a dignity in her lingering sadness that Genvissa could not match.
Cornelia, finally, had grown up.
It would be enough. Cornelia, as Mag had said, knew what had to be done.
“Loth?” whispered Hoel at his side. Hoel had carried Loth from the house to this hill without so much as a puff of breathlessness. Now he leaned down anxiously to where Loth sat on a broad stool, blankets wrapped about him and under the stool so that he could the more easily maintain his balance.
Loth waved a hand dismissively. “I am well enough,” he said. “Now, we should be quiet. Look, they are about to begin.”
The first rays of dawn lit the hill, and the circle of dancers began to move. They danced sunwise about the labyrinth with slow, sensual movements, dipping and swaying, and holding out their flowers as if in offering to the strengthening rays of the sun.
They sang as they danced, a soft, rhythmic hymn that was accompanied by the aching, haunting beat of several drummers sitting to one side.
Inside their circle, Genvissa and Brutus also began their dance.
If the outer circle of dancers were sensual, then Genvissa’s and Brutus’ movements were the height of sexuality without ever descending into coarseness or lewdness. Genvissa was stunning. Heavily pregnant, she nevertheless still moved with a grace and a fluidity that even the most nubile of young virgins would have envied. Her arms extended full and round, her legs, where they emerged from the thigh-length slits in her robe, were long and deliciously limber. Her hair hung free, slipping with raven silky suppleness over her shoulders and back and arms, her face was serene and beautiful, her eyes closed as she danced to the rhythm of drums and song.
Brutus, likewise, danced with the full strength of his confidence and sexuality. His movements were stronger than Genvissa’s, more powerful, but nonetheless subtle and haunting. The armbands of his kingship glinted with every slow, deliberate movement of his limbs.
His eyes never left Genvissa’s beautiful form.
The circle of dancers increased the rhythm and tempo of their movements. As the circle passed towards the entrance into the labyrinth, its line dipped inwards, and as each dancer passed the opening, she or he tossed down the flower they carried in a graceful arc.
The flowers, although apparently tossed without concern as to how they fell, did not pile up haphazardly at the labyrinth’s entrance. Instead each one moved slightly as it fell, so that the gradually accumulating flowers formed a pattern, a weave, at the entrance.
Loth, watching, saw that it was the movements of Genvissa and Brutus that controlled the flowers.
They were weaving them into a gate, or a door, that would permanently seal the labyrinth and the evil within it.
And Brutus to Genvissa, Loth realised. If they completed this dance, no one would ever best them.
He caught Cornelia looking at him, and she inclined her head, softly, sadly.
She took a step forward.
Loth grimaced, both fearing and embracing what approached.
Cornelia took another step forward, no one seeing her, their eyes fixed on Brutus and Genvissa, and her right hand crept towards her robe, towards the deep pocket that ran down its right seam.
Then, as Brutus and Genvissa moved to within two paces of each other, their hands outstretched to clasp over the strange weave of flowers that hovered over the entrance, Cornelia ran forward.
She ran lightly, as if she had suddenly cast aside all her doubts and cares.
She ran quickly, too quickly for anyone to react, even Brutus who could see her approaching behind Genvissa’s back.
She ran surely, truly, and Genvissa never even knew she was there.
As she ran, Cornelia drew from the deep pocket of her robe a knife, wickedly sharp, with a curiously twisted horn handle.
“Mag!” she cried as, with one final, long stride, she slapped her free hand on Genvissa’s shoulder and, as the woman’s head whipped about, her eyes both wild and startled, with her knife hand Cornelia sank Asterion’s malignant blade to its hilt into the base of Genvissa’s neck.
Everything stopped: the breathing of the watchers; the very movement of the dawn stars; the rising of the sun; the running of the deer in the forests above the Veiled Hills.
Then movement resumed. Cornelia, her face and eyes relieved and anxious all at once, took a pace back, as if to avoid the sudden, vicious spurting of blood from Genvissa’s neck. Genvissa, twisting as she sank to the ground so that her eyes, her wild, vicious eyes, never left Cornelia’s face. Brutus, crying out, reaching for Genvissa.
The mysterious weave of flowers collapsing into an untidy heap at the entrance of the labyrinth.
Loth, laughing, the sound soft but joyful.
People, moving.
But none moved as fast or as maliciously as did Genvissa.
She reached to the hilt protruding from the junction of her neck and shoulder and gripped it with both hands.
“Witch,” she hissed at Cornelia, now standing two or three paces away.
Brutus was at Genvissa’s side, distraught, no eyes for anyone but his stricken lover.
He grabbed at her shoulders, and she turned her face back to his.
Blood was now bubbling from her mouth, and her chest was heaving in her desperate effort to breathe.
“You should have killed her,” she whispered. “See this knife? It is Asterion’s knife, and she his tool. You should have killed her.”
Before anyone could react or say any more, her hands tightened about the hilt of the knife, and with a shriek of pure fury she pulled it forth.
Blood spouted from the wound in her neck, and Brutus tried to staunch its flow with his fingers, as if his touch could somehow stave off her death.
“Save the Game,” Genvissa said, her voice now horribly liquid. “Hide it, for Asterion is surely on his way.” Then, with one frantic, desperate look into Brutus’ eyes, she pushed him away with her remaining strength.
Brutus fell back, and Genvissa, stunningly, managed to struggle to her feet.
She swayed, her lifeblood pumping out of her, then caught her balance one final time.
Long enough to do what she needed.
“Think not to have bested me,” she bubbled to Cornelia, her eyes sliding also to Loth. “Think not to have destroyed the Game. Not when I control it.”
And with that she tossed the knife high in the air.
Its blade was thick with blood, and as it flew, so heavy globules of blood also flew, spattering Brutus, Cornelia, and, as the knife descended, Loth also.
As the hot blood hit them, they flinched as if burned.
The knife fell to the ground with a clatter, sliding several paces until it came to a stop just before Corineus.
He had been staring, as appalled and shocked as everyone else, at the desperate trio of Brutus, Genvissa and Cornelia.
Now his eyes slid down to the knife, paused, and then, very slowly, turned to Loth.
Genvissa swayed, and would have fallen had not Brutus risen and grabbed at her.
“Listen, all you marked with blood,” she said, her voice now heavy and barely intelligible, yet nevertheless deep with power and malevolence and with the measured beat of witch-speak. Her hands moved, slow, coarse with death, in a spell-weaving of such force and intent she did not take a single breath throughout its uttering. “Dance with me through deadly vale, through birth again until the day we stand afresh at this gate, the dance to end, the Game to play, the flowers to grow, the walls to hold ‘gainst fear and flame. Dance with me, dance with me, never shake me free.” Her voice was lowering, made horribly incoherent by the blood that filled her throat and lungs. “Dance with me, dance with me, never shake me free,” she bubbled, and, with a frightful grimace on her face, she fell to the ground and died.
Brutus moaned, bending to his knees and burying his face in her breast, and then again against the mound of her belly.
Unremarked, Corineus leaned down and took Asterion’s knife in his hand.
Brutus raised his face and stared at the circle of people still standing at a distance; his features were obscured by Genvissa’s blood.
“You witch,” he shouted hoarsely at Cornelia, laying Genvissa down gently and standing up. “True Hades’ daughter. Do you know what you have done? Do you know what you have done?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You willingly conspired with evil? With Asterion?”
“Yes.” Cornelia’s voice was very soft, and her eyes were deep with pain.
“At the cost of this?” Brutus flung a hand out, indicating the city and the land surrounding it. “The Game has not been completed, you have left the way open for Asterion. You have brought catastrophe to this fair land.”
“No, I have saved it,” she whispered, but he did not hear it.
“Have you no idea of what you have done, bitch?” It was all, now, that Brutus seemed able to say. “Genvissa is dead! Dead.”
“I am sorry, Brutus. I know you loved her.”
That was too much for him. He stepped forward and hit her a blow across the jaw, snapping her head back and sending her tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain.
“What we had begun,” Brutus screamed at her sprawled body, “we had to complete together. Together! Now? Now we—”
“Now?” Loth interrupted in a strong voice. “Nothing has changed much, Brutus, save the length of time between the first dance and the last. Did you not hear Genvissa? We’ll all be back again some day, bound by Genvissa’s hatred and Mag’s need, bound in the struggle with and against her. At least, I can pray that when I come back my legs will be strong once more.”
“Then start praying,” said Corineus. He had Asterion’s knife in his hand, and now he stepped forward and, as Cornelia had done to Genvissa, sank the blade into the juncture of Loth’s neck and shoulder with a sickening crunch. “This I do for Blangan, your mother. I hope, you monstrous bastard, she hunts you down through all eternity.”
Loth was staring at Corineus with eyes filled with pain and, curiously, joy. Blood bubbled out of his mouth but, like Genvissa, he made a last supreme effort to speak. “I will greet her in death with love, Corineus, as I should have done in life.”
Corineus’ face twisted, and he would have said more, but then Loth collapsed, and died, and Hoel shoved Corineus to one side to bend over Loth’s body, grieving.
Brutus stared at Corineus for a long moment, then he sank back to Genvissa and cradled her body in his arms. He looked across to Cornelia, struggling into a sitting position, wiping blood from her mouth. “Bitch daughter of Hades,” he said in a voice flat with hatred. “I wish I had never seen your face.”
Across the Narrow Seas in the long house of Poiteran, the dark-haired baby boy lay waving his arms and legs before the fire.
He was overwhelmingly joyous in his youth and his strength and in the devastation of Genvissa’s and Brutus’ plans.
The Game was begun but not completed. It would sit and wait, wait for Genvissa’s and Brutus’ rebirths, wait for the Mistress of the Labyrinth and the Kingman to return and finish what they had commenced.
Return Genvissa and Brutus would, but not under their terms. Oh no…never that. He would seize control of their rebirth, he would dictate the terms under which Genvissa and Brutus drew breath again; after all, Herron had shown him the manner in which it could be done. A time and a place of Asterion’s choosing, not theirs. A Gathering of all those who had a place in the Game.
Of course, the Gathering would be a little more crowded than Asterion had anticipated. He hadn’t expected Genvissa’s dying curse, the scattering of her thick blood that would pull back with her and Brutus all that it had touched, but that was no matter. Cornelia and Loth, and whoever else had been stained by Genvissa’s blood, were of no consequence and had no role to play in what Asterion planned. They would merely be incidental, witnesses to Asterion’s ultimate victory.
The baby lay, waving his limbs back and forth, admiring their sheen in the firelight. Now all he needed was to grow into adulthood, seize the kingship bands either from Brutus’ aged limbs, or the younger and less experienced ones of his son, arrange the Gathering at a time of his pleasing, twist Genvissa to his will (did she realise in death what she had forgot in life? That in restarting the Game she must become Asterion’s creature entirely?) and take control of the Game, using its power to his will, and his will alone.
Dark, vicious joy surged through Asterion. In time, the power of the Game would be his and, through that, all of the world he cared to take.