‘Perhaps, when you die, the power will be reunited in me…”
‘No. No, Loth. When I die what I have will die with me. Og will be even more lessened. Genvissa needs to bring in this male magic, Loth, for this land… if not for our peace of mind and pride. She needs to act now , for if we are both dead before she has completed her task, then this land will lie defenseless.”
Loth shook his head, desperate not to accept what his father was saying. “I know what Genvissa proposes makes sense. I know it in here”—he tapped his deformed skull—”but not in here.” He tapped his chest. “Every part of me hates it.”
‘That is your pride speaking, Loth.”
Loth raised his head and stared at his father with his beautiful green eyes. “What if it is not my pride, Father? What if it is the remaining part of Og within me that speaks?”
‘Oh, Loth !”
Both men jumped slightly, as if they were boys caught out in some mischief, then looked behind them.
Genvissa had come through the door, and had now paused just inside it, one hand resting on the door
frame.
She looked breathless, as if she’d run all the way from Mother Mais’ house, and also fearful, as if she’d come back to her home to discover the worst of the night’s monsters cheerily settled within.
Then she smiled, and dropped her hand from the door frame, and walked slowly into the single large chamber of the house. The firelight from the central hearth reflected over her face and body, shadowing her eyes and shrouding her in a mysterious allure that had both men holding their breath.
‘Aerne,” she said, dropping gracefully down beside him, “will you give me some space to speak with your son alone? Perhaps I can soothe his fears.”
Aerne returned her smile, and nodded. “I need to make obeisance to Og anyway. That is always best done outside, beneath the trees.”
‘Take a cloak,” Genvissa said, patting him on the hand as he rose, and ignoring Loth’s grimace at the somewhat patronizing action. “The night has grown cold.”
She waited until Aerne had left, then she moved her stool about the hearth a little so that she sat close to Loth.
‘You do not trust me,” she said.
‘No.”
‘Then perhaps I can give you a reason to trust me.”
He was silent, studying her face.
‘I have a twin purpose in bringing to Llangarlia this strange male”—she paused fractionally, giving her next word added weight—”potency. This man who can replace with his magic what Llangarlia has lost with Og’s failing. True, he will bring with him a new magic, something which can be used to combine with Mag’s power to revive this land… but he can also bring with him something else.”
She paused again, a smile playing about her mouth, the firelight sparking brilliantly in her eyes.
‘He will also bring with him… Blangan. Your mother.”
‘The Darkwitch?” Loth was stunned. His mother Blangan had fled a few days after she’d given him birth. No one had ever seen her again. ” My mother.’ He said the word with hatred.
Now Genvissa did smile, pleased with his reaction. “Aye. He will returr Blangan to Llangarlia.”
Loth was silent, his face introspective, thinking over the myriad implica tions of his Darkwitch mother’s return.
‘Loth,” Genvissa said softly, leaning forward and placing a hand lightly or his leg, “there is a possibility, a faint possibility, that if Blangan is destroyed then so also may be destroyed the darkcraft that she cast over your father. I: she dies, then perhaps Og will revive, and we will not need the magic of this stranger.”
‘What are you saying?” Loth was very aware of Genvissa’s hand on hü thigh, the warmth of it, the
very slight weight of it, and he was dismayed a how easily his body responded to her.
Her hand moved much closer to his groin, one of her fingers straying tan talizingly under the edge of his hip wrap, stroking, its nail teasing. Loth knev very well what Genvissa was doing—with both her words and her hand—bu he was almost powerless to resist it. What she was offering was—he drew in a ragged breath—was what he had always wanted. Power.
‘If you take revenge on the Darkwitch your mother,” Genvissa said very softly, her eyes holding Loth’s, her hand now sliding completely beneath his wrap, “then perhaps Og’s power be revived… in you, his avenger.”
He couldn’t look away from her, and while one part of his mind screamed at him to brush aside her hand, stand, and leave, the rest of his mind was utterly seduced by the possibilities suggested by word and hand.
‘And if that is the case,” Genvissa continued, her voice still very low, her hand stroking very gently, her face, her mouth, very close to his, “then what need will I—and this land—have of this strange man and his strange magic? Og will be resurgent again, in you , and then you and I… you and I…”
There was barely a coherent thought left in Loth’s mind at this point, but he clung to it grimly. “Then if you have no need for this strange man, if all you need is for me to take revenge on Siangan to break the darkcraft which binds Og, why bring him here in the first instance?”
‘Because I need him to bring to us Blangan… and because you might fail. Blangan may be too strong for you. If you fail, then I will need him to—”
‘I will not fail!”
She only smiled, and increased the pressure of her hand.
Loth closed his eyes, fought for some control, and managed to find it. “Why not my father? Why not tell Aerne this? Why not send him to—”
‘Aerne is an old man. Weak. Blangan bested him once before. Neither you nor I nor this land can afford it to happen again. You must do this, Loth. I need a strong man, Loth.” There was infinite promise in the manner she said “need.” “Not your father. Never your father.”
She leaned forward and kissed him, and that was the final weapon that shattered the resistance both of Loth’s mind and of his body.
He shuddered under her hand, and sighed, then nodded.
‘YOU SPOKE WITH LOTH?”
They were in her bed now, sweaty and relaxed from sex.
‘Aye.” Genvissa pushed her body even tighter against Aerne’s. “He has come about to my plan.”
‘My dear”—Aerne’s hand stroked her shoulder, as if apologizing for what he was about to say—”I accept that you need this man to counter Og’s weakness… but will you perhaps confide in me what he will do? How it is that his magic will protect this land?”
Genvissa lay silent for a while, thinking over what she should tell Aerne.
Eventually, as Aerne waited patiently, she decided that a little of the truth might not hurt too much.
‘This man, Brutus, controls part of what is called the Game.”
‘The Game?”
‘Aye… you know that my fifth foremother was not of this land?”
‘Aye.” Aerne smiled and moved his hand to Genvissa’s luxuriant black hair. “Thus these dark curls of yours.”
‘She came from a land in the southern waters of a sea called the Aegean, Aerne. In her world, in this Aegean world, the great men of power used something called the Game to protect their lands. When my fifth foremother came to this land, she truly became as all Llangarlians… but she remembered what she knew of the Game, and taught it to her daughter, as her daughter passed it on to her daughter, and thus to me.”
Aerne felt a flicker of unease. “Do you mean that all the MagaLlans, from the time of your fifth foremother to you, have secret knowledge of power other than that of Mag and Og?”
Displeased, Genvissa propped herself up on an elbow. “Indeed!” she said. “And what a good thing, too, otherwise this land would face certain ruin!”
Aerne laughed softly, apologetically. “Of course, Genvissa, forgive me.”
She lay down again, nestling her breasts against his chest.
‘Please,” Aerne said, fighting down his arousal, “tell me more of this Game.”
Genvissa shrugged, as if the subject was now of disinterest to her. “It is a powerful spell-weaving which uses both male and female power to protect a land against all evil set against it. There are very few left who know how to manipulate the Game, who know how to use it… two people, in fact, myself and this man I have summoned to us, this Kingman.”
And one who will want to destroy it, she thought, butAsterion is far away, and no threat .
‘Once many people within the Aegean world knew how to play the Game,” Genvissa continued, “but over past generations the knowledge has died, as have the people who had access to the Game’s secrets.