Genvissa smiled, thankful Aerne had summoned enough authority to override his son’s suspicions.
Eventually, of course, she would have to do something about Loth.
T DUSK OF THAT SAME DAY, GENVISSA WALKEDthrough a path in the marshlands and water reeds to the northern bank of the Llan.
Behind her, keeping their distance, walked Aerne and Loth, their faces reflecting resignation and
obstinacy respectively.
Several paces behind them came a young girl of some ten or eleven years, Genvissa’s middle daughter, wearing nothing but a brief hip wrap and a drum hung on a leather band that wound over one shoulder and between her small virgin breasts. On this drum the girl beat out a soft, relentless rhythm that sent the blood coursing through the two men.
Genvissa halted at the water’s edge. She was naked, her dark curly hair with its strange russet streak left to flow unbound over her shoulders and back. Unlike her daughter, who had as yet born no children and thus had the thin, unbecoming body of the yet-to-be mother, Genvissa’s body was shapely and seductive: her breasts were well muscled and molded by the years she’d spent breast-feeding her daughters; her hips flared invitingly; her waist was narrow between the two sensuous extremes of breast and hip; her legs were long and smooth and graceful. In many ways the MagaLlan’s body was like the land itself, deep and inviting, mysterious and strong, secreting within itself that magical spark that, at the touch of a man’s body or the caress of the village plow, seeded new life both in womb and in field.
Genvissa was an extraordinarily powerful woman, but her power encompassed far more than the Mag power she held within her womb. She was of a line of five foremothers, singular women all, the first of whom, Ariadne, had brought to this land an exotic dark sorcery.
Ariadne had escaped from Naxos aboard a merchant’s vessel six days before Thera exploded, nurturing both her revenge and her newly-won darkcraft.
She found a home in Llangarlia that accepted her (and, more importantly, added to her power), and she settled, waiting. Waiting for the right moment, the moment when Asterion, now wandering the earth reborn, was far enough away that Ariadne could risk working the final part of her revenge.
That moment had not come in Ariadne’s lifetime, and such was the strength of her hatred and ambition, she had not truly minded. The time would eventually be right, Asterion would be far enough away and, hopefully weak enough that he could not interfere, and one among her daughter-heirs would be the one.
So Ariadne had nurtured her darkcraft, and then handed it down to her daughter-heir, who nurtured and fed it in her own right before handing it, in turn, to her daughter-heir. For well over a hundred years the women had passed it down their line, mother to daughter, each adding to the store of the power that by the time Genvissa’s mother, Herron, had come to her full power had grown into a dark, twisting thing indeed.
It was Herron who laid the foundations for the final part of Ariadne’s plan: the eventual reactivation of the Game far, far from the Aegean world and its gods. First, she had engineered the splitting of Aerne’s Og power so that Og, and through him Mag, would be too weak to interfere. Well might the Gor-magog despise himself for his weakness in losing half of his power to his newly conceived son, and thus crippling Og (and, by association, Mag), but in actuality he’d been the victim of Herron’s spell-weaving rather than his own unwitting error. Aerne and Loth blamed the pitiful Blangan for the catastrophic event—they still lusted for her blood—but Blangan had simply been a means, a vessel to be used.
Blangan had been Herron’s eldest daughter, and thus expendable in a world where it was the youngest daughter who inherited.
Finally, in a final act of darkcraft so powerful it had ended her life, Herron had caused Asterion—at that moment moving from one life to the next—to be reborn into a body calamitously weak and so far
distant that he, like Og and Mag, would be able to do nothing to prevent Herron’s daughter-heir Genvissa in the final fulfillment of Ariadne’s design.
Even though all these women had held the office of MagaLlan, none of them had much regard for Mag herself, although they were content to mouth their respects while all the time drawing on the goddess’ power. They loved this land that sheltered them, but they secretly despised the gods who had protected it and, as generation succeeded generation, plotted to overthrow them.
After all, they had something far better than Mag or Og planned for this land.
Standing at the edge of the Llan, shivering as the cold water lapped at her ankles, Genvissa sent a prayer of thankfulness and honor her mother’s way.
Now it was Genvissa’s turn to build upon her five foremothers’ work and execute the final turn of the labyrinth, place the final piece of the puzzle, work that magic that would allow power once more to rise from the ashes of her fifth foremother’s betrayal.
The time was finally here. Asterion was far, far away and currently trapped in his weakest incarnation ever, and the man Genvissa did need was in place—and far closer than Asterion.
Genvissa shivered again, but this time with desire rather than cold. She’d had many lovers in her lifetime, but they were as nothing when compared to the man who by blood and by shared knowledge, power, and training was destined to be her mate.
The man she needed to bring to Llangarlia.
The man she (as her five dead foremothers) needed to bring all their plans to fruition.
The one man, that single man remaining, who could aid Genvissa in her quest.
A Kingman. The last one left out of the catastrophes that had wracked the Aegean world over the past five or six generations. The one man who had the power to match her step by step in the twin dances of power. The one man who could earn Genvissa’s respect and match her strength and wit. A Kingman, the only one who could weave with her that enchantment that would raise this land to everlasting greatness.
A fitting mate.
A Kingman. Genvissa, still hesitating at the Llan’s edge, placed a hand on her belly. She had two years’ life left in her womb, two years remaining in which to conceive and bear her heir… and she’d be damned if she’d allow Aerne to get this one on her.
Genvissa took a deep breath, then dived headfirst into the river, sliding smoothly beneath its waters and into the power reservoir of the ancient goddess Mag.
DEEP IN HER WATERY CAVE-WOMB, MAG WAILED. THE darkwitch was with her again, draining yet more of her life force, and there was little Mag could do to prevent it. Once Og could have protected her, but now he was impotent, reduced to helpless whimpering as he crawled on his belly through the forests.
For six generations the Darkwitches had held the office of MagaLlan, and for six generations they’d
been binding Mag tighter and tighter in their spell-weavings. At first Mag had been able to resist them; now her resistance was a tame thing, and she was all but the MagaLlan’s pet. She still retained some of G
her power, but it had become a mere servant to the MagaLlan’s wishes.
The MagaLlan before this, Herron, had even used it to cripple her mate, Og.
Now Genvissa was absorbing the last remaining vestiges of Mag’s power, using it to further Genvissa’s own plan for this land. Mag knew that if she couldn’t find the means to counter Genvissa soon, she would fade away as Og had done. Mag’s name might still be invoked, and her power used, but Mag herself would be dead, and Genvissa, and those who succeeded her, would wield Mag’s magic.
But what could she do? What ? Mag needed somewhere to hide, somewhere to lick her wounds and regain her strength. But there was no place in this land, no womanly harbor, in which she could conceal herself. Genvissa knew all the dark spaces of every hill and every woman’s body; there was no escape into any of them for Mag.
Nowhere to go, once Genvissa had drawn away from Mag every last iota of her ancient power, save into extinction.
Mag twisted and wept, and felt yet more of her power drain away.
Her life, once measured in aeons, was now measured in weeks at the most.
FOUR NORTHERN EPIRUS, ON THE WEST COAST OF GREECE x**”*T*’2BVHE
BEACH LAY IN A GLIMMERING WHITE CRES-
cent, semicircled by the steep slopes of a forested mountain, drenched in heavy moonlight. Several hundred men lay wrapped in blankets on the sand, deeply asleep, enslaved to dream, incapable of movement. Five fires had been lit along the line of beach and the ranks of sleeping warriors, but now they were all but dead, cooled into mounds of graying coals. At each fire stood a sentry, leaning on a spear; all five slept, their chins resting on their chests, soft snores rattling through their slack lips.