“Hera,” Mag said.
Hera nodded, and smiled, then held out her arms, displaying them. “See what the Darkwitch Ariadne has done to me.”
“Ariadne was the first of the Darkwitches to come to Llangarlia’s shores,” Mag said. “I trusted her.”
“As did we,” said Hera. “Once I was one among many; now I am the only one left, and I am close to death. Soon, what once was many, will be none. Mother Mag, Ariadne’s daughter-heir will do this to you as well—”
“She already has! She has broken the power of Og, and drained me to—”
“Hush, Mag. I know. Listen to me. If I say to you that I can give you the power, the key, to undo Ariadne and her daughter-heirs’ darkcraft, will you take it?”
Mag did not even have to think about it. “Yes.”
“It will be a strange power to you. Can you accept that?”
“Yes.”
“And in order to wield it, to build the circumstances in which you can wield it, you will need to make the most loathsome of alliances. Can you do that?”
“Yes. If it will restore my land, then yes. Yes.”
“Then look below you,” Hera whispered, “and see what the Darkwitches used to destroy me and mine, and are using to destroy you.”
Mag looked down, and to her surprise saw that she no longer stood on a marble floor, but on a plain sandstone floor into which had been carved the outlines of a unicursal labyrinth. She and Hera stood in its very heart, on a flat, grey rectangular stone that had carved in it a most strange set of symbols:
RESURGAM
“It is a prophecy,” said Hera. “I cannot read it, for it is a strange language, but I know what it means.”
She hesitated.
“Yes?” said Mag.
“It means,” said Hera, not lifting her eyes from the stone slab, “I will rise again.”
“You?” said Mag.
Hera shook her head. “I will never rise again. It is hope and darkness which will be reborn, and you must be the one to manipulate them both so that it is hope which prevails. Only you. And I pray you have the cunning.”
She sighed, and the sound shuddered through her. “Mag, we stand in the heart of the labyrinth, and it is this which Ariadne used to destroy me and mine, and which her daughter-heir Darkwitch—Genvissa?—now deploys against you and against your land. It is called the Game, and I am going to teach it to you, Mag, so that you know what you face, and that one day you can teach it to she who can—perhaps—use it for its true purpose rather than the dark one that Genvissa turns it to. Used well, Mag, the Game is a great and glorious thing. Used darkly…”
“I will teach it to…who? Hera, I don’t understand.”
Hera nodded towards the eastern end of the great hall.
There walked a girl on the verge of womanhood. She paced slowly, her eyes looking up and about her, clearly overawed by the surroundings.
She did not see the two goddesses standing in the heart of the labyrinth under the dome.
“Her name is Cornelia,” said Hera, “and she is your last remaining weapon.”
Just then the girl looked up, and started, as if she had finally seen Mag and Hera.
“This,” now Hera cast her eyes upwards, “is her womb, Mag, and in it is not only your succour, but the only hope that you have.”
“And this most loathsome of alliances?”
Hera actually laughed. “Oh, I have so much to tell you, Mother Mag. Bend close now, and listen…”
Far, far away, a youth of haunting dark beauty sat within his scrawled labyrinth in the dirt of the high Himalayan pass.
Before him lay the knife, but Asterion no longer looked at it.
Instead, he stared into the middle distance, his eyes glazed and unseeing as he contemplated the strange alliance he had just witnessed.
Resurgam…it is hope and darkness which will be reborn, and you must be the one to manipulate them both so that it is hope which prevails.
Asterion was astounded. Did they think they could manipulate him? Gods, did they also think he was as weak and helpless as a baby?
Had the entire world gone to fools? It was of no matter, of course. All this only worked to Asterion’s advantage, but he was beginning to wonder if there would be any pleasure in his eventual victory at all.
“Resurgam indeed, my fine ladies,” he said, “but there will be no hope in that black, bubbling day. Not for you, not for anyone.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mesopotama
Within the hour, no casual passer-by could have believed that a battle had recently been fought in the gorge, and that scores of chariots and horses and hundreds of men had been consumed by the river.
The Acheron burbled peacefully over its shallow bed, the cool shadows of trees quivered to and fro at the edges of great pools of sunlight and birds and small animals rustled within the forests that lined the gorge walls.
The only thing that might have indicated a battle were the groups of men who sat cleaning their swords and armour in the patches of sunlight. But none of them was wounded, or even out of breath, and they were calm and cheerful, and if they were cleaning swords then that might have been merely because of the damp of the morning dew.
But if that passer-by had stopped and peered more closely, he might have seen that the swords and armour plate being so carefully cleaned were stained with the blood of men, and that under one tree sat an older man and three younger ones, all dejected, and all carefully guarded.
Deimas, who’d watched from high in the gorge, had drifted down to join Brutus, Membricus and Assaracus. Now the group of four men sat in the shade of a tree some little distance from Antigonus and his three sons. During the brief battle of the Acheron, Brutus had realised quickly Antigonus’ value—his insignia were clearly those of an important man, and the three younger men he’d been calling out to were just as clearly very dear to him—but it was only in the past minutes that Assaracus had told him exactly who he’d captured.
“Pandrasus’ brother? And his sons? Far better than I’d hoped,” Brutus said, noting how the youngest of the sons sat close to his father, and how Antigonus kept a hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if trying to offer him both comfort and protection.
“The boy,” Brutus said. “What do you know of him?”
“His name is Melanthus,” Assaracus replied. “Antigonus’ youngest son, and most dearly beloved because of that.”
“Is he a father before he is a general?” Brutus asked.
Assaracus hesitated before replying. “Aye, I think so. If you’d asked me that fifteen years ago, I would have said he was the general first, but as his family has grown, so Antigonus has grown more devoted to them.”
“Would he put them before his people? His city? His brother?”
“Brutus, be careful what you scheme,” Membricus said, his brow furrowing as he realised what Brutus considered.
“I only do what I must,” Brutus said, rising and walking towards Antigonus and his sons.
“Antigonus!” he said as Antigonus and his sons stood, wary-eyed. “Have my men treated you well? Do you have need for anything I might provide?”
“What do you want of us?” Antigonus said. His posture was tall and erect, his manner dignified. He’d moved very slightly, placing himself between Brutus and his sons.
Brutus nodded at Antigonus to acknowledge his words, but spent some moments studying the three sons. All were tall, handsome young men, and all three were obviously well nourished both with food and love.
And all three, all still very young men, were in various stages of terror, which they could not quite hide behind their cloaks of assumed bravado and defiance.
They were too proud, Brutus realised. Too well nourished by their father and their society in the belief of their own nobility and invulnerability. This day’s debacle must have come as a considerable shock to them.
Brutus’ face remained impassive, but inwardly he regarded the three boys with not a little c
ontempt: they were soft and callow youths, ill-served by their father’s love.
By the gods, had he not seized his heritage by the time he was fifteen? He had not wasted his youth snivelling about his father’s skirts. Antigonus had made a critical error in allowing these boy-women to ride with Pandrasus’ army.
Now, both Antigonus and his sons—and Pandrasus, come to that—were going to have to pay the price of that error.
Brutus’ eyes flickered back to Antigonus, whose stance had stiffened noticeably in the time that Brutus had spent studying his sons.
“What do I want?” Brutus said. “I want to offer you your lives.”
“For what payment?” Antigonus said. “I am no traitor to my king and my city like Assaracus here.” He looked like he wanted to spit, but then thought better of it.
“If I had not been so reviled throughout my life for the blood of my mother, then I might not have turned traitor,” Assaracus said, not overly perturbed by Antigonus’ scorn.
Antigonus gave Assaracus one more particularly baleful glare, then addressed Brutus once more.
“I say again, what payment do you demand for our lives?”
“Only that in the dead of the night that is to come, you approach the gates of Mesopotama and call out to the sentries. You shall tell them that you, and the companions who shall be with you, are fellow Dorians who escaped the slaughter in this gorge and who have only now managed to make your way safely back to the city. You shall ask for entry, and, I have no doubt, you shall be granted it. Pandrasus will be glad to see his brother once more.”
“No,” Antigonus said. “There is nothing you can do to make me agree.”
“No?” Brutus whispered, and then, in a move so fast that neither Antigonus nor his sons could thwart him, he seized Melanthus by the black curls of his head and dragged him away from his father and brothers and to the ground at Brutus’ feet.
Antigonus and his two remaining sons started forward, their faces appalled and angry all in one, but a score of Brutus’ soldiers moved to halt them.
“Father!” Melanthus cried out in a pitifully—and shamefully, to Brutus’ mind—terrified voice. Brutus tightened his already painful grip in the boy’s hair, and twisted his head so cruelly that Melanthus could barely move.
Antigonus drew in a deep, horrified breath, his eyes riveted on his youngest son.
“Father,” Melanthus cried out again, his voice now shrill with his terror. “Father!”
Antigonus groaned at the intensity of his son’s plea, and dragged his eyes back to Brutus.
“Will you do as I ask?” Brutus said, very calm, his own gaze steady on Antigonus.
“I…”
Brutus’ hand drew out the sword at his hip, placing the blade hard against Melanthus’ throat.
The boy squealed and tried to twist away, succeeding only in opening a shallow cut across his throat.
His entire body trembled, jerked, and then, horribly, he voided his bladder, the front of his tunic staining warm and wet.
“Melanthus,” Antigonus cried, his eyes starting from his head.
“You will do as I say,” Brutus said, and in one single, appalling movement, jerked Melanthus’ head far back with one hand and with the other sliced the razor-sharp blade hard across the boy’s throat.
Bright blood fountained across the gap between Melanthus and his father.
Antigonus started forward with a horrified cry, but the Trojan soldiers grabbed him, and Melanthus’ two brothers, and held them firm as Brutus let go of Melanthus’ head.
The boy grabbed at his throat, his staring eyes fixed on his father, his mouth in a surprised “O”, then collapsed to the ground. He curled up into a foetal position, his hands frantically scrabbling at his throat, his eyes desperate, terrified. Then, as the blood continued to spurt with the strength of his heart’s beat, his body fell slowly still.
Brutus, hefting the bloodied sword in his hand, looked to Antigonus. “You will do as I say, or I will take one other of your sons—you may choose which one this time—and if you make me kill all three, then I will, and I will lay their blood- and urine-soaked bodies in the dirt before Mesopotama’s gates so that their mother may see them, and may know that you moved not to save them from the terror of their deaths.”
At his feet Melanthus gave one soft, wet sigh, and died.
“Is that what you want?” said Brutus softly.
He had not once glanced at Melanthus’ dying.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The three sentries on duty atop Mesopotama’s gates had watched the straggling group of some twenty-five or thirty limping, bloodied men approach the gate for some minutes before one of them threw out the verbal challenge.
“Hold! Name yourselves, and your business!”
Some ten paces from the gates, the group came to a stumbling halt, the stragglers at the back taking the opportunity to catch up with the main group.
One of the men stepped forward so that the sentries could see his face clearly. “I am Antigonus, brother of Pandrasus, escaped finally from the nightmare of the gorge. Can you not see me, and know my face?”
Several paces behind Antigonus, Brutus dug the blade of his dagger a little deeper against the neck of Peleus, Antigonus’ eldest son. “Be careful what you say,” Brutus hissed at Antigonus, “and remember that should you betray me once we gain the city, you also betray the life of your sons!”
Antigonus’ back stiffened, but he gave no other sign that he’d heard Brutus.
“General,” the sentry called back, the relief in his voice obvious to all who heard it. “General! We thought you dead.”
Antigonus made a deprecatory movement with his hand, earning another hiss from Brutus. “And I thought myself dead, too, but I, with these my comrades,” he indicated the group behind him, “managed to fight our way clear. We hid in the forests for the day, and have only finally found our way back here at this dark hour.”
“And the Trojan warriors?” the sentry asked.
“Gone, we think,” Antigonus replied. “We saw no sign of them in the gorge as we made our way back to the city.”
“Wait, lord,” called the sentry, “and we shall open the gates for you.”
The sentries, unsuspecting, unbolted the inner gates, leaving them standing open, then drew back one of the two massive cypress and bronze-bound outer gates, allowing the small group of men through.
But when the two sentries who held the door made to close it, five or six of the stragglers at the rear of the group suddenly lunged at them, planting silent daggers in the sentries’ throats, and the men slid to the ground making no more noise than a whispered sigh.
Several of the Trojans pushed the gate to, but did not bolt it.
Others pulled Antigonus and his two sons back towards the gate, keeping knives at their throats as they gagged them with linens torn from the men’s own tunics.
“Assaracus!” Brutus hissed, and Assaracus nodded, threw aside his disguise, and took some twelve men to secure the immediate area and silence any guards on the walls.
When his soft whistle told Brutus the guards had been dealt with, Brutus signalled one of the Trojans waiting at the gates.
The man opened the gate, slipped outside, and mimicked the soft call of a rock partridge.
Instantly, scores of shapes rose silently from their hiding places behind the vines in the fields to either side of the road, and moved forward.
Pandrasus slept badly. He tossed and turned, twisting the fine linen of his sheets into sweat-matted ropes, and causing his concubine, already wearied by the king’s temper during his earlier waking hours, to slip from the bed and sit wakeful in a chair by the window.
When the door opened, and the shapes of strange men slipped into the chamber, she gave a small squeak of terror and drew her hands to her mouth, but, already cowed into total subjection by years of Pandrasus’ mistreatment, made no other movement or sound.
The men hesitated an instant at the sight of h
er, but realised that she would pose no threat.
The next moment they had dragged the naked, sleep-confused king from his bed. Pandrasus fell to the floor, shouting with anger.
“Silence him as best you can,” Brutus said, “although not permanently, then bring him to the megaron once I send word that the palace is secured.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CORNELIA SPEAKS
I had waited atop the walls by the gates, wanting to be the first to welcome home my victorious father and, of course, my soon-to-be-lover-and-husband, Melanthus. If I had not lost my virginity in the morning, then I was certain I would lose it during the coming night.
While I waited I lost myself to daydreams of Melanthus, of his sweet wondrous face, his strong, lithe, exciting body. I remembered how I had felt when he had seized me and caressed my breasts—the sensual flare in my belly, the weakness in my thighs—and as I remembered the sensations flared all over again, and I had to lean against the wall, weak and trembling at the thought of finally bedding my hero.
As hero he surely would be. I had no doubt that Melanthus would have killed ten thousand Trojans—for how could they stand against such as he? My love would return, drenched in the blood of his despicable enemies, and I would wash it from him, slowly, and with many a lingering caress.
At the thought, my face must have grown even more dreamy, for the two sentries standing guard a few paces away grinned at me in a most unseemly manner.
I brought myself under control, wondering if I should remark on their insolence, or if that might only serve to embarrass me further, when the taller of them suddenly looked at something beyond the wall.
He swore—quite foully—and grabbed at his companion.
The next instant both were gone, clambering down the ladders leading to the gate.
I looked over the wall, and gasped.
Four or five chariots were hurtling down the road. The charioteers and archers were huddled deep within the body of the chariots, almost as if they were desperate to hide from something, and the horses ran as if possessed, their training and war dignity entirely forgotten.