concubines.
There, in a box hidden under layers of colorful linen thread, was the knife with which I had murdered Genvissa.
Asterion’s dagger. Oh, yes, I knew who it belonged to, and I knew of the G dark alliance between him and Mag. I also knew what Mag had planned for that alliance.
It made me weep, knowing what lay ahead.
I lifted the knife from its hiding place, the bright threads tumbling about my feet.
‘Brutus,” I said on a sob, and desolate, wretched, more lonely than I think anyone has ever been or will ever be, I put the knife to my throat in that same place where I had sunk it into Genvissa’s neck, and thrust it through my skin and flesh with all the strength I could muster.
The pain… the pain was dreadful and yet, somehow, merciful…
FOURGeejMHEY TOOK THEM, THE WASHED AND CAREFULLY bundled corpses of Brutus and his hated wife Cornelia, tc the well that sunk deep into the White Mount from the basements of the palace. There they were lowered, and placed into a chambei that had been hollowed out in the heart of the mound.
Their mourners thought that the gods would take Brutus and Cornelia intc their care, but instead they were taken by the Troy Game, and it was not intc care at all. Drawn through death, trapped by Genvissa’s curse and the desper-ateness of love and ambition and the need of a great city both trapped and blessed by the enchantment that had birthed it, the Game played on.
SIX MONTHS LATER A MAN LED AN INVASION FORCE across the Narrow Seas. He stood in the prow of the ship, uncaring of the sea spray that drenched him, staring at the faint smudge of the white cliffs in the distance before him.
Naked, and daubed with intricate swirling patterns made with blue clay, he was a young man of uncommon dark beauty, and a man who radiated strength and power and purpose.
In the belly of his ship, and in the scores of ships that surged in his wake, crouched thousands of weaponed men who would lay down their lives for him without an instant’s hesitation.
Their king. Goffar’s son, Amorian.
Asterion reborn.
THEY ATTACKED TROIA NOVA WITHIN TWO DAYS OF landing on Llangarlia’s shores.
Achates and his brothers put up a brave defense, for Brutus had warned them that such attack was likely, but nothing had prepared them for the vi-ciousness and madness of the Poiteran attack.
These crazed, naked, blue-daubed warriors feared nothing, and it was as if they were protected by some dark enchantment, for whenever a Trojan or Llan-garlian sword aimed directly for Poiteran flesh, something turned it away at the last moment, and instead it was the Poiteran blades that sank successfully into their destination.
The Poiterans initially attacked the main western gate, and Achates concentrated his defenses there, but unbeknown to him Amorian knew of the low, hidden arch in the northern wall of the city which allowed the River Wai entry into Troia Nova. Through this arch Amorian led a band of some several hundred Poiterans, and they attacked Achates from behind, surprising him so greatly that it took only the work of an hour to open the gates of the city to the main Poiteran force.
The remnants of the Trojan and Llangarlian force fought their attackers for an entire day through the streets of Troia Nova, the Poiterans slowly driving Achates and his men back towards Brutus’ palace atop the White Mount. In the evening, when the defenders were exhausted and the Poiterans, unbelievably, appeared as fresh as when they had first launched their attack, Amorian himself cornered Achates in Brutus’ megaron.
He laughed in joy when he saw what Achates carried in his hand: the twisted bone-handled knife. A simple feint, a distracting scream, and the knife was back in Amorian’s hand.
Amorian killed Achates with it, slowly, that he might feed from the power of Achates’ life force seeping from his body.
And then Amorian raged, unbelieving, for when he cut away Achates’ clothes, he saw that the man’s limbs were bare.
Brutus was dead, Achates should wear the kingship bands! Where were they? Where were they?
What had Brutus done with them?
A shiver of fear ran through Amorian. How was it he hadn’t known that Brutus had not passed on the bands to his son? Where had Brutus put them? Where?
Infuriated, blind with hatred, Amorian allowed his men free triumph through the city. The slaughter was terrible: infants were thrown to the flames or tossed from blade to blade amid Poiteran laughter; women were raped, the prettiest kept for later amusement, the older or the very young used eight or nine times before having their throats cut; men and boys were savaged, slowly and terribly, and left to die in gutters.
Amorian left the corpse of Achates and walked through the butchery. His mind was consumed with thoughts of the kingship bands, but his outward demeanor was that of the victor. His body glistened with sweat and blue clay and blood, his head was thrown back, eyes laughing, mouth screaming encouragement to his men. Sometimes he paused to take his turn with a woman, sometimes he delayed to murder a child, or its father, and drink of the blood that pumped from the death wound.
As Amorian walked, so evil followed unhindered in his footsteps.
When dawn came, Amorian began a systematic search for the golden bands of Troy. It surely would be no trouble to scry out their location, nor, come to it, that of the labyrinth.
Brutus did not have that much power, surely.
And yet the niggling memory that Brutus was powerful. Had Amorian not once thought of Brutus as a “fine adversary”?
Too fine an adversary, as it turned out. Once Amorian started searching, it did not take him long to realize that both the bands and the labyrinth had been disguised in such a cunning fashion that they repelled any enchantment he used to discover them. Every time he sent out his power it was reflected—
repulsed—back to him. Where were they? By the gate to the city? Under the palace? On one of the hills enclosed by the city’s walls? Where? Where? Where ?
Nowhere that Amorian could discern.
And yet the golden bands, as the labyrinth, were here. Amorian could feel them in his gut… but whatever Brutus had done to disguise them had been so cunning that nothing Amorian could do could discover them.
Finally, enraged, Amorian screamed at his men to destroy the city, to raze it stone by stone, to tear it apart.
Then, surely, he would find the bands and the labyrinth.
They could not be far away.
But, over the next few weeks as his men carried out his will, and Troia Nova fell to the hands and muscles of the Poiterans and the darkcraft that Amorian used to speed their work, Amorian finally, grudgingly admitted to himself that Brutus had woven such an extraordinary disguising about both bands and labyrinth that he would not find them.
Not on his own.
It would have to wait until the Gathering, until both Genvissa and Brutus were reborn and cowering before him.
Then the blood would flow as it never had before…
‘Well,” Amorian said one morning as he walked over the rubble covering the most westerly hill within the city, “I admit you have outfoxed me for thismoment. But this is a temporary reprieve only.
When I bring you back, when I convene the Gathering, you shall grovel before me and you will
tell me where you have hid the kingship bands and the labyrinth. You will. You wt’H!”
He turned about, and surveyed the destruction about him. The entire city was now nothing more than massive piles of masonry, stained here and there with blood, softened elsewhere with the thin smoke of the fires that still burned in buried chambers under the rubble.
Over all hung the stench of well-rotted corpses.
“No one will ever be safe,” he whispered, “not until I have those bands.”
Gpicogue LONDON, MARCH London’s streets were cold and bitter, a mortar and brick echo of Jack Skelton’s heart. He strode towards St. Paul’s Underground station, a small, disinterested part of his mind hoping there would still be a late train to get him back to Bentley’s house.
Mostly, however, he thought of Cornelia and of the Game. How he’d betrayed both of them, one way or the other. How he’d allowed his stupidity and his pride to dictate his actions when he should have listened to his reason and to his heart.
He reached the station, and saw that it was closed. He would have to find a cab to take him back to Highbury.
Skelton turned back to the street. He crossed his arms, as if against the cold, but his hands moved to his biceps as if he sought those ancient golden bands that had once adorned them.