vision.
Tall and straight, her figure rounded by motherhood, her black curling hair cascading down her back with its peculiar russet lock gleaming in the morning light, she stood proud and beautiful, sure both of Brutus and of her world.
Genvissa. The woman with whom he would play the Game. His partner in immortality.
‘Finally,” he said. Stepping forward, Brutus took her face between his hands and, without hesitation, laid his mouth on hers.
CbAPGGR GbRERNE, WHO HAD LOVED GENVISSA FOR ALL THE years of her life, turned his head aside, shocked that this inevitable moment could cause him so much misery.
Eventually, Brutus lifted his mouth away from Genvissa’s, but only barely, and only very reluctantly.
‘I am Genvissa, MagaLlan of Llangarlia,” she whispered. “And it was my foremother Ariadne who stole the Game from your world and brought it here. It was I , her fifth daughter-heir in direct line, who appeared to you and set your steps on the path for Llangarlia, not Artemis. She lingers cobwebbed with all your other gods. I have the Game now, and all I needed to activate it was you.”
His thumbs rubbed slowly over her soft cheeks. “Then why the pretense of Artemis?”
‘You know why. Because you would have believed her over a strange woman.”
‘Genvissa,” he said, “if you had appeared to me as you stand here now, in my hands, and offered me the same promises as Artemis, then I would have walked barefoot over burning charcoal fields to have reached you. I would have brought you the sun itself, if that is what you had demanded.” He paused. “But toy with me no longer. If indeed you have the Game—”
‘I do.”
‘And if Ariadne was indeed your foremother—”
‘She was.”
His fingers tightened fractionally around her face. “Then that must mean, it must mean, that you are—”
‘You know what I am. You can feel it through your hands. I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth.”
Genvissa laughed as she saw the flare of hunger in his eyes, heard the sharp indrawn breath of jubilation. She pulled herself free, taking a half step back, her eyes shining, her chin tilted up very slightly.
“But this is no place to speak. Not of that. It is too cool and windy, and far too open for what I have to say. Will you join me in the meeting house? I have food spread out, and we shall be more comfortable there.”
Walking past Brutus, her hip and shoulder brushing his, she caught and held Aerne’s gaze for a brief moment, then she led the two men down the hill toward the stone Assembly House, Aerne hobbling with the pain in his stiff muscles and joints, Brutus never once taking his eyes off the supple sway of Genvissa’s body as she walked several paces in front of him.
She trailed power behind her like a scent, and Brutus knew he would never be able to breathe enough of it.
THIS ASSEMBLY HOUSE WAS A BUILDING SUCH AS BRU-tus had yet to see in Llangarlia, although he’d seen similar buildings regularly in his travels about the Aegean and Ionian Seas. The house was rectangular, its stone courses well laid out although its walls were only barely higher than the head of a tall man, and with a slate roof. It had windows, somewhat poorly constructed as if someone had known what windows were but had not been truly able to pass the concept on successfully to the builders, but the openings were nevertheless windows, and Brutus had not seen them in any other Llan-garlian construction.
The building faced east-west, and on the eastern, shorter wall there was a large arched doorway, flanked by two (slightly cracked) columns that supported a (sagging) porch.
The wooden door stood open.
Genvissa led Aerne through, then, hesitating only slightly, Brutus followed.
The interior of the building was composed of a single space. Running parallel to, and two paces inside, the long walls were twin rows of wooden posts supporting the heavy roof. Apart from those wooden posts the space was virtually empty save for a waist-high stone platform halfway down the hall that Brutus supposed could serve either as table or altar.
There were three high stools pulled up to this platform, on which was spread an array of platters
containing food.
Table today, then, not altar.
Genvissa aided Aerne onto one of the stools, then took one herself, while Brutus settled himself on the remaining stool, looking at the table. It contained four or five platters containing a selection of herbs and salads, cooked vegetables, and cold meats and sauces.
Brutus hesitated, deciding, then took one of the small joints of meat and bit into it.
‘Tell me of Ariadne,” he said to Genvissa.
She took a large leaf from one of the platters of herbs, and wrapped a slice of meat in it, biting into it delicately.
Swallowing her mouthful, Genvissa said, “My fifth foremother came to this land a stranger, Brutus.
She was brought here by a merchant who found her and her girl-child on an all but barren island north of Crete. He had thought to sell her as a slave, but the then MagaLlan, who had lost all her daughters to a fever—a sudden and most unexplainable tragedy—recognized that this stranger woman had the aura of power about her, and adopted her as her daughter-heir, training her in the ways of Mag.
‘Ariadne began a new life here with her daughter,” Genvissa continued, “bred on her by her betrayer lover Theseus. She took over the duties of MagaLlan when her adopted mother passed through to the Far World, accepting Mag into her life and Llangarlia as her home. She did this willingly, for both Mag and Llangarlia had accepted her when her own world and its gods had cast her aside.”
‘Her own world and its gods had ‘cast her aside’?” Brutus said, watching Genvissa carefully. “That is not the tale I heard.”
‘Ariadne was a scorned woman, and there is little more dangerous, Brutus, than a scorned woman.”
She half smiled. “That is always good to remember. Ariadne, determined to not only have her revenge on her own lover and world, but to reward the gods and the land which had given her love and succor, determined to steal the Game away to Llangarlia.”
Now Genvissa’s smile blossomed, and her eyes snapped merrily. “She succeeded! And what happened, Brutus, what happened?”
Brutus knew that Genvissa didn’t truly want an answer to her question, but he gave it anyway.
“Irrelevance. Decay. Death. Catastrophe. My world was torn to pieces, Genvissa. And did Ariadne feel the better for it? Did she?”
Genvissa leaned very slightly toward him, her eyes locked in to his. “Would you have me undo it, Brutus? Knowing what loss that would thereby bring to your life? Your ambitions?”
To one side, a silent but watchful Aerne poured out barley beer into three beakers and slid two across the table to Genvissa and Brutus.
Both ignored them.
‘Well?” Genvissa said, very softly. “Could you bear to reject what I offer you?”
‘You cannot afford to have me reject you… can you?”
She laughed, leaning back, and, breaking eye contact with him, took her GG beaker of barley beer and drank of it deeply. “I need a Kingman,” she said, placing her beaker down. “You are he.”
He lifted his arms, the golden bands of kingship glinting. “For the sake of everyone and everything murdered and destroyed by Ariadne,” he said softly, “am I the only one left?”
‘Yes. You are the only one left. All the others, their lines, their heritage, their powers, lie dead in the rubble of the Catastrophe.”
‘Was that merely ill luck, Genvissa, or design?”
‘You are the one I need,” she said.
Unbidden, Brutus suddenly thought of his father Silvius’ death. Gods, was that his hand that had driven the arrow deep into his father’s brain… or…
Genvissa’s eyes crinkled, just very slightly. “You needed to be able to dare the dark heart of the labyrinth, Brutus.”
Brutus dropped his gaze from her, and studied the platters of food.
A long silence ensued.
Eventually he looked back at her, and when he spoke, his voice was even, nonjudgmental, as if he had come to an acceptance within himself.
‘Is it true,” he said, “what I have heard, and seen evidence of, that this land is failing? Rain and cloud has closed in? Livestock dropped from the womb deformed? Children and trees dying to unknown diseases?”
‘Yes,” Genvissa said.
‘So you ask that I and my people rebuild Troy here in this land”—he glanced about at the building they sat in, realizing that someone, Ariadne perhaps, had tried to get the less-skilled Llangarlians to build her something of what she’d known in Knossos—”and that we use the Game—”
‘The Troy Game,'” she said, nodding at his Trojan kingship bands.
‘—to tie city and land together in a magical association to protect both. You want us to use the Troy Game to strengthen this land against the evil that blights it.”