“You think that Cornelia would make any haste to meet you? Never!”
G ‘We are Gathered, Heme. Asterion has called us all back for his final play. She must be about, surely. She has to be !”
“Is that desperation I hear in your voice, Skelton?” Heme said.
Jack Skelton narrowed his eyes, studying Herne, thinking. “Is Coel here?” he asked suddenly.
“If he is,” Herne said, “do you think Cornelia will be with him?”
Skelton’s face sagged, and for a moment Herne thought the man might actually weep.
” I am afraid that Asterion has her,” Skelton said. “After what happened last time we were Gathered… I am afraid. …” He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger, and when his hand dropped away Herne saw that Skelton’s eyes were indeed wet. “By God, Heme, I would prefer it that she were with Coel than still trapped by that monster .”
“You have changed,” Herne said. “It is a shame you could not have spoken those words three thousand years ago: ‘It is better she be with Coel than still trapped with that monster.
“I? The monster? Aye, I suppose I was.”
There was a silence, Herne studying Skelton, Skelton staring at the floor.
“Is the way open?” Skelton finally said, raising his head.
Herne nodded. “It will be difficult, but there is a way down.”
Skelton sighed, and looked about the cathedral. “Does no one know what lies beneath, Heme?
Do they come in here every day, and worship, and not know?”
“They are not part of the Game, Skelton.”
Skelton’s mouth twisted. “No, they are merely its victims.” He paused. “Asterion is going to take us out this time, my friend, and I do not think there is anything any of us can do to stop him.”
CbAPGGR coRnefJa speaksHUS IS BORN TROIA NOVA,” SCREAMED A VOICE,
‘and the greatest Kingman among the living!”
Stunned even beyond what had shocked me during the dance, I cried out, and jumped to one side.
It was Hicetaon, only half a pace from me, his voice thunderous. He strode forward, his arms held high above his head, his fists punching into the night sky.
‘Thus is born Troia Nova!” he screamed again, circling atop the hill, dancers scattering about him, laughing and jumping, their torches thrust as high as his fists.
Thus is born Troia Nova and the greatest Kingman among the living! I was still shocked, too shocked to move, even as the celebrations erupted about me. The people who had been watching from the ground below now swarmed up the hill; fires roared into life from hitherto cold pyres; voices lifted in song and triumph; people danced, bodies pressing each against the other; flasks of frenzy wine—by the strange glazed eyes and the slack wet mouths of those who drank of it—were handed about; clothes were stripped off and flesh left to glint naked among the flickering light of fire and torch. I stood there, unmoving, hardly seeing.
All I could remember was the stunning sight of Brutus and Genvissa dancing at the head of the lines of dancers, the power of their movement, the way they had danced together, wove enchantment together.
Wedded together in such power that I had become nothing more than an irritating insignificance.
And where were they now?
I spun about, half moving of my own volition, half being pushed by a group of dancers who had staggered against me.
Where were they now?
What were they doing?
Ah, but I knew what they were doing, didn’t I? They were consummating their marriage of power, this Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth. And with each thrust, with each moan, with each grasping clutch, I was becoming an ever greater triviality in Brutus’ life.
A nothing.
An insignificance.
Not even a body with legs to be parted. Not now.
I sobbed, consumed with panic.
Where were they? Where were they?
If I could stop them somehow, if I could take this one final chance to tear Brutus away from Genvissa… if… if… if…
I turned about again, knowing where they would be, seeking a way down from this damned hill. But just as I took a step forward, Loth grabbed at my arm and spun me about.
His face was twisted, furious, his green eyes dark and glassy, reflecting the writhing light of the fires and the dancing bodies about us.
‘What have they done?” he hissed.
‘They have destroyed my life!” I cried, trying to twist my arm free. “Let me go! Let me go!”
‘Damn your precious life and your little-girl dreams! They are as nothing in the enormity of what they have visited on this land! They have crippled Og, and devastated Mag. Doomed us with that creeping evil they have invited into our midst!”
His free hand waved at the labyrinth, now lost under the sea of undulating bodies and wild, drunken laughter.
‘They have saved you,” said Hicetaon, emerging out of the chaos about us. “Trapped evil forever so that this city will grow in peace and prosperity. Could you do that for your land and your people, useless lump-head?”
My mouth dropped open, then my eyes flew back to Loth. Useless lump-head ?
He was staring at Hicetaon himself, shaken not so much by what Hicetaon had said, but by the utter contempt in which it had been mouthed.
His hand loosened about my arm, and I tore it free, and without even waiting to see what transpired between the two men, I turned and fled.
I RAN AS QUICKLY AS I DARED DOWN THE HILL, PUSHING my way through the throngs of celebrating people. There were Trojans and Llangarlians both, intermixed with happiness and relief—
Genvissa and Brutus had saved them, and woven for them safety and prosperity with the power of their combined magic.
—dancing and singing, sharing from mouth to straining mouth the flasks of frenzy wine—
Gods, what would happen this night? What darkness would transpire?—bodies pressed undulating with dance and want against their neighbors. Everywhere happiness. Everywhere lust.
Everywhere the release that came with the sudden realization that darkness had been vanquished and only days of light and good harvest lay ahead.
Sudden nausea gripped me, and I bent over and retched. Someone grabbed me, and for a heartbeat I thought it was to help, but then hands snatched at my breasts, and wine-thick breath washed over my face. Another hand burrowed under my cloak, and dug in between my legs. I threw my arms out, catching one man with my elbow in a sickening crunch, another in the corner of an eye with the nail of my thumb.
They let me go, and I fled, now not even trying to measure my progress, desperate to get out of the crowds and to find… Them.
I reached the bottom of the hill, and moved eastward, the crowds thankfully thinning the farther I moved away from the revelry atop Og’s Hill.
By the time I’d splashed across the Wai and passed Mag’s Hill, barren save for five people dancing in a ring at its base, there were few people about, and I could lift my skirts and run as fast as my breath would allow me.
The White Mount. Brutus’ palace (not my palace) .
They would be there. Genvissa would ensure they were there, because that would make my humiliation complete.
I reached the mount, paused, then stared upward to the black bulk of the unlit palace, felt my stomach turn over in my belly, then, very slowly, infinitely slowly, began to climb.
The mount was still a building site—only the central portion of the palace had been completed, and once near the top I had to pick my way carefully about stacks of timber, empty mortar pails, and jumbled, careless stone blocks awaiting the attention of masons. Every step was a nightmare. Every step was a step too late. Every step was another thrust against me.
And with every step I reviewed in my mind, in that peculiar clarity that comes with either death or the death of hope, every step in the path I’d taken to losing Brutus. Every whine, every moan, every treachery, whether small or immense, every death that littered my obsessive self-absorption.
When I reached the doorway of the megaron, standing open, I stopped, closed my eyes briefly in an attempt to gather my courage, then walked through.
The megaron was empty, but there was a flicker of light at its far end, in the archway that led to Brutus’ private apartments.
I walked slowly through the megaron, remembering that other megaron where Brutus had made me his wife, and wondered if I now walked through this one to the death of that marriage.
I paused again at the archway, then walked through.
They were lying in a pool of torchlight in a tangle of furs on the floor.
Genvissa, naked, on her back, her body sprawled beneath Brutus.