She reached to the hilt protruding from the junction of her neck and shoulder and gripped it with both her 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 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 1 desperate effort to breathe.
‘You should have killed her,” she whispered. “See this knife? It is Asterio: knife, and she his tool. You should have killed her.”
Before anyone could react or say any more, her hands tightened about’thilt 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 stanch 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 for Asterion is surely on his way.” Then, with one frantic, desperate look in Brutus’ eyes, she pushed him away with her remaining strength.
Brutus fell back, and Genvissa, stunningly, managed to struggle to her fe< She swayed, her life blood pumping out of her, then caught her balani one final time.
Long enough to do what she needed.
‘Think not to have bested me,” she bubbled to Cornelia, her eyes slidü also to Loth. “Think not to have destroyed the Game. Not when ,’ 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 bloc also flew, spattering Brutus, Cornelia, and as the knife descended, Loth alsc 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 cam to a stop just before Corineus.
He had been staring, as appalled and shocked at everyone else, at the de; perate trio of Brutus, Genvissa, and Cornelia.
Now his eyes slid down to the knife, paused, and then, very slowly, turne to Loth.
Genvissa swayed, and would have fallen had not Brutus risen and grabbd at her.
‘Listen all you marked with blood,” she said, her voice now heavy am barely intelligible, yet nevertheless deep with power and malevolence and wit! 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 breatl throughout its uttering. “Dance with me through deadly vale through birtl again until the day we stand afresh at this gate, the dance to end, the Game tc play, the flowers to grow, the walls to hold ‘gainst fear and flame. Dance wit! 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 horrid, frightful grimace on her face, she fell to the ground and died.
Brutus moaned, bending to his knees and burying his face in her breasts, 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 witchl” he shouted hoarsely at Cornelia, laying Genvissa down gently and standing up. “True !
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’m sorry, Brutus. I know you loved her.”
That was too much for him. He stepped forward and hit her a great 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 someday, 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 col lapsed, and died, and Hoel shoved him to one side to bend over Loth’s body grieving.
Brutus stared at Corineus for a long moment, then he sank back to Gen vissa 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 Ha> des,” 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 PO-
iteran, 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 Kingmar, to return and finish what they had commenced.
Return Genvissa and Brutus would— but not under their terms. Ohno… nevei that. He would seize control of their rebirth , he would dictate the terms under which Genvissa and Brutus drew breath again. A time and a place of Asterion’s choosing, not their’s. 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 of 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 realize 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.
Cb£PG6R CUD6CVHAT EVENING, WITH GENVISSA’S NOW-DRIEI M blood still caking his face, Brutus burned her on a grea pyre atop Og’s Hill.
When she was nothing but ashes, Brutus took those ashes, and buried then at the entrance to the labyrinth.
There he stood for many hours, entirely still, grieving, feeling such loss tha he thought he could not bear it.
Then, in that still, dark hour before dawn, Brutus raised his head and lookec east towards the Narrow Seas.
Two or three days’ journey, nothing more, and there sat Asterion. Waiting Evil personified. A baby of no more than a few months old who had infmit< patience and infinite time on his side.
There was little he could do, but what he could, Brutus did. He took fron his limbs the golden Kingman bands, for if Asterion was going to seize th< Game, he would need these. Then, using a combination of his power and thai of the Game’s, Brutus cloaked his actions against Asterion and buried the bands at strategic points within and about Troia Nova, murmuring incantation; as he did so.