Hades' Daughter

by Sara Douglass

  “Yes,” he said. “There is a little warmth left.”

  “If there is warmth left, there is life,” Mag said, her voice fading in and out so that Loth had to strain to hear her. “It must be returned to Cornelia’s body. It is my, our, only hope.”

  “How? How can I put it back inside?” Loth’s voice broke in horror.

  “The baby is lost this time. Poor Cornelia, I had tried to tell her. We can do no more for the baby. But Cornelia we must save. Tear the baby from the womb, Loth, my son, and then take the womb in your hand and slide it back inside Cornelia. You must do this.”

  Appalled, Loth stared at the apparition. Even now it faded, almost gone, and Loth knew that if he didn’t act now, then not only Cornelia but Mag would be lost as well.

  Hauling himself into an upright sitting position, carefully balancing his weight on his dead hips and legs, Loth put both his hands about the solidness of womb and baby. “Tear her out?” he said. “Tear her out? I will destroy the womb if I do that.”

  “What can be torn can be mended. Do it!”

  Taking a deep breath, and closing his eyes even though he couldn’t see what he was doing anyway, Loth dug his fingernails into the walls of Cornelia’s womb, and began to tear.

  It was brutal, horrible work. The womb was strong, banded with muscles that not only bore the weight of Cornelia’s baby, but had the strength to then push that baby out when it was time for it to be born. Loth had to use every ounce of strength he had in his arm and shoulder muscles, and the feel of his fingers tearing deeper and deeper into the smooth muscles of the womb made him retch, once so violently he had to momentarily stop what he was doing.

  But in the end it was done, and he had made an opening large enough to pull the baby through into his hands.

  “Is there nothing we can do—”

  “There is nothing we can do to save the baby,” Mag said, now barely visible, “but everything we can do to save Cornelia and this land. Put it back. Now!”

  Loth laid the limp baby gently to one side, his heart breaking for the loss of its life, then collected the now flaccid weight of the womb in his hand. He paused, his face muscles clenched against what he had to do, then pushed the mass back inside Cornelia’s body. He pushed hard, poking at the mass with insistent fingers, but the womb seemed intent on bulging back out again every time he thought he’d managed to push it just that little bit further inside Cornelia. Eventually, his eyes now screwed shut, he took the womb in his fist and, murmuring prayers against darkness and hurt, thrust the horrid mess as deep inside Cornelia’s body as he could.

  He was glad she was insensible (dead) for he knew that had she been conscious, then he would not have been able to do it.

  But eventually it was done, and the lips of Cornelia’s torn vulva closed in upon themselves again.

  Loth pulled his trembling hand away from Cornelia’s body, and held it to his chest.

  He opened his eyes again, and stared at Mag’s apparition. For a moment it flared strongly, and Mag smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Then, in a voice that strengthened even as the apparition faded back to nothingness, Mag said, “Genvissa must be stopped, Loth, stopped until we have the strength to fight against her. Cornelia will know what to do. Poor Cornelia…”

  There was a sense of terrible sadness, then Mag vanished, and before Loth even had time to move, the door to the house opened, and Erith and Tuenna, Cador and Hoel directly behind them, walked in.

  “By Mag herself,” Erith breathed as one of her sons held up a lamp. “What has happened?”

  She’d been woken with a deep, dread premonition of death, Erith explained, as her sons first lifted Cornelia to her bed, then Loth back to his.

  She’d come as soon as she could, and in explaining this, Loth realised that the events that had seen Cornelia wake with her first pain to that moment when he’d forced her torn womb back inside her body had taken only the shortest space of time.

  Genvissa’s magic had been potent.

  But then, so had Mag’s. Loth had not realised that the goddess had retained enough power to do what she had…and it made him further realise just why Cornelia was so important.

  Cornelia did not simply hold Mag in her womb in the accepted sense that all Llangarlian women understood it—that she held a tiny piece of Mag’s power in her womb—but she literally held Mag within her womb.

  No wonder Genvissa so feared Cornelia.

  Cornelia was her nemesis. She carried within her the single power that might finally defeat Genvissa and the Game.

  Loth lay back on his bed, accepting Cador’s ministrations in washing his body free of Cornelia’s blood, and listened to Erith and Tuenna fussing over Cornelia’s body. The way forward was clear to him now. It was frightening, not only in the darkness of the path they would all have to tread, but in the length of that path and in the horrors he suspected they would all endure along the way.

  He began to laugh, weakly, more from fright and dismay at the thought of the road ahead of them than out of any sense of mirth, keeping it up until finally Erith snapped at him to stop.

  “Has Cornelia come back to life yet?” he said, sobering.

  “Come back to life?” Erith said. “She is bitterly torn, Loth, but she still clings to life. Now be quiet, for Tuenna and I have much work that needs to be done before morning.”

  “Nay,” Loth whispered so that no one else heard him, “I think the work will take much, much longer than this night, Mother Erith. Much longer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Erith came to sit on Loth’s bed in the hour after dawn. Her face was wan, the delicate skin under her eyes a translucent blue with weariness.

  “Cornelia should be dead,” she said. “Why is she not dead, Loth?”

  He said nothing, but his eyes glinted.

  “When first I attended her,” Erith continued, “when Cador and Hoel lifted her to her bed, I saw that pieces—pieces, Loth—of her womb bulged from her body. I did what I could, thinking that fever and death would inevitably take her within the next few days. Yet just now, when I checked, I find that her womb has moved back to its normal place within her belly and it is apparently whole. All the bleeding has stopped, the tears have fused, her skin is cool and dry.”

  “She was dead,” Loth said. “Genvissa’s darkness had torn both her child and her womb from her. Cornelia had bled to death before you arrived.”

  He paused, and Erith waited.

  “Mag came—”

  Erith’s eyes widened, and she drew in a shocked breath and held it.

  “—sick, and tired, and barely visible, and told me to push Cornelia’s womb back within her. She said it was her and our only hope.”

  Erith frowned. “Why?”

  Loth laughed, soft and somehow mirthless. “Can’t you see what Mag has done, Erith? How Mag has avoided Genvissa?”

  Again Erith’s eyes widened, but now with understanding.

  “Mag is in Cornelia’s womb, Erith. Mag herself lives in Cornelia’s womb. It is where she hides from Genvissa.”

  Erith stared at Loth, then turned to look at Cornelia. It made sense, but…“But…”

  “What can we do?”

  Erith nodded, and Loth’s head fell back on the pillow. “We give Mag the time she needs to regain her strength, Erith.”

  “And she can do that in time to prevent Genvissa and Brutus completing the Game?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “What Genvissa and her five Darkwitch foremothers have done, Erith, cannot be undone in a few weeks. Nor in a single lifetime.”

  Erith shuddered, horrified at the implications of what Loth had said.

  “What will we do?” she whispered. “How can we survive that long?”

  “We must,” Loth said simply.

  Later that day, when Cornelia had woken and eaten a little, Loth asked Hoel to carry him over to Cornelia’s bed, and set him on its edge. Balancing himself with his a
rms, Loth nodded at Erith, who brought over a small, blanket-wrapped bundle and placed it on Cornelia’s abdomen.

  “Your daughter,” Loth said softly.

  Cornelia lifted her hand, hesitated, then slowly unfolded the blankets.

  Underneath them lay the body of a tiny, perfectly formed baby girl.

  Cornelia gently rested a hand on the girl’s cold body. She shivered, and tears slid from her eyes.

  “Genvissa did this,” Loth whispered. “Genvissa did this to you last night. She tore the baby from you and killed it in the doing. Genvissa did this to you and to your daughter.”

  The tears trickled down Cornelia’s face. “I know, Loth,” she whispered, “I know.”

  “Cornelia, you have to—”

  She lifted a hand to his mouth. “I know, Loth. You do not have to persuade me. Not any more. I have seen what lies ahead.”

  There was a long silence. Loth bowed his head, then pressed Cornelia’s hand more firmly against his mouth and kissed it before he let it go.

  “I need to do something,” Cornelia said eventually. “After all the death I have caused—”

  “You have caused no death. You have only been the receptacle for other people’s guilt.”

  “After all the deaths I have caused,” Cornelia said again, her voice very weary, “all I can do now is help. Mag grant me the strength I need.”

  Loth felt tears sting his eyes and, balancing himself carefully on his hands, he leaned down and kissed Cornelia softly on the mouth.

  “You are Llangarlia,” he said, very softly, his lips still touching hers. “You are this land. There is a winter ahead such as I think we cannot imagine, but remember that spring always follows winter. And remember that whatever the deceitful promises of this false spring that Genvissa and Brutus have given us, you will be the one to bring this land back into sunlight again, Cornelia. You.”

  “Mag said to me,” she said, “that it would be many years and many tears, but that it would happen.”

  “It will happen,” Loth said, now almost unable to speak through his tears. “It will happen.”

  “So many years,” Cornelia whispered, then raised her hand to Loth’s face, and laid her palm against his cheek.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Seven weeks passed. Spring passed into summer, and the skies passed from clouded to open and blue and warm. The sheep and cattle and goats dropped their young, and all were born healthy. A score of women within the Llangarlian and Trojan camps also gave birth, and mothers and infants grew hearty and strong. The crops in the fields and the fruits of the trees and vines waxed fat and hearty: this year’s harvest would be the best in a generation.

  On the northern bank of the Llan the walls grew to their full height, the gates for the main entrance to the city were built and hung, although not closed, and the preparations for the final dance of the Game neared completion.

  Genvissa’s belly swelled towards her daughter’s birth, and the Mistress of the Labyrinth spent much time in laughter and joy as she toured the city with her partner in power, Brutus.

  Across the river, in her darkened, lonely house in Llanbank, Cornelia grew stronger. She made a complete physical recovery from her daughter’s tragic birth, and an emotional one, too, for to many a person’s amazement, Cornelia often seemed almost cheerful.

  They did not know that, late at night when Hoel and Cador slept, Loth and Cornelia talked quietly for many, many hours.

  If there were dark circles under Cornelia’s eyes, it was not through pain or loss, but through mere lack of sleep.

  The weeks turned, the walls had their final capstones put in place, Llangarlia basked in the warm summer days, and, finally, the eve of the summer solstice arrived, and it was time for the final dance of the Game.

  The Day of the Flowers.

  The final dance of the Game, the Dance of the Flowers, was held at dawn on the day of the summer solstice. The initial Dance of the Torches had been held at night, symbolic of the evil it was to trap. The Flower Dance was held at dawn, symbolising the dawn of a new age of prosperity and happiness for the city the Game protected.

  Evil would be trapped forever by the sorcery of the flower gate which Brutus and Genvissa would erect at the entrance to the labyrinth.

  In the hour before dawn people gathered on Og’s Hill. The Labyrinth still lay open to the sky—after this dance was done Brutus would cause a temple to be built over it, sealing it forever against those who would unravel the Game and ensuring the city’s integrity against all attack.

  The dancers were there, in one line this time, and still in alternating ranks of young men and women. Now, however, they bore flowers rather than torches. They wore the flowers in garlands about their heads, and carried them in their hands and, where they had once held a ribbon to bind them, now they held a chain made of flowers. They encircled the labyrinth in a complete circle, but at a distance of some three or four paces, leaving a wide pathway between their line and the outer ring of the labyrinth.

  They stood still, awaiting the first light of the dawn.

  Brutus and Genvissa, both robed in luminescent white linen, stood in the space inside the circle of dancers and outside the outer wall of the labyrinth. Each stood a quarter circle away from the entrance, one on either side of the labyrinth.

  As before, there was an Assembly of witnesses. Many of the Mothers were there, although not as many as had witnessed the initial dance as the need for as many hands as possible to bring in the summer harvest had kept most Mothers close to their homes.

  Of those Mothers who were in attendance, Erith, Mais and Ecub were the only ones whose faces looked as though they were there to witness a catastrophe rather than a triumph.

  Hicetaon, Corineus and Aethylla were there, together with Deimas and some two score of Trojan elders. They were joined by a similar number of Llangarlians, daughter-heirs of the Mothers in attendance, and some of the elder brothers and sons.

  Cornelia was there, standing slightly apart from everyone else, as she had lived slightly apart from everyone else these past months. Her gown was drab, her long, free-flowing hair slightly unkempt, her face very thin and pale…but her eyes were calm and steady.

  Loth, watching from ten or twelve paces away, thought that her weight loss and the slightly emaciated lines of her face suited her. She’d lost entirely her girlish demeanour and, while she could not compete with Genvissa’s fertile beauty, still managed a dignity in her lingering sadness that Genvissa could not match.

  Cornelia, finally, had grown up.

  It would be enough. Cornelia, as Mag had said, knew what had to be done.

  “Loth?” whispered Hoel at his side. Hoel had carried Loth from the house to this hill without so much as a puff of breathlessness. Now he leaned down anxiously to where Loth sat on a broad stool, blankets wrapped about him and under the stool so that he could the more easily maintain his balance.

  Loth waved a hand dismissively. “I am well enough,” he said. “Now, we should be quiet. Look, they are about to begin.”

  The first rays of dawn lit the hill, and the circle of dancers began to move. They danced sunwise about the labyrinth with slow, sensual movements, dipping and swaying, and holding out their flowers as if in offering to the strengthening rays of the sun.

  They sang as they danced, a soft, rhythmic hymn that was accompanied by the aching, haunting beat of several drummers sitting to one side.

  Inside their circle, Genvissa and Brutus also began their dance.

  If the outer circle of dancers were sensual, then Genvissa’s and Brutus’ movements were the height of sexuality without ever descending into coarseness or lewdness. Genvissa was stunning. Heavily pregnant, she nevertheless still moved with a grace and a fluidity that even the most nubile of young virgins would have envied. Her arms extended full and round, her legs, where they emerged from the thigh-length slits in her robe, were long and deliciously limber. Her hair hung free, slipping with raven silky suppleness over her shoulde
rs and back and arms, her face was serene and beautiful, her eyes closed as she danced to the rhythm of drums and song.

  Brutus, likewise, danced with the full strength of his confidence and sexuality. His movements were stronger than Genvissa’s, more powerful, but nonetheless subtle and haunting. The armbands of his kingship glinted with every slow, deliberate movement of his limbs.

  His eyes never left Genvissa’s beautiful form.

  The circle of dancers increased the rhythm and tempo of their movements. As the circle passed towards the entrance into the labyrinth, its line dipped inwards, and as each dancer passed the opening, she or he tossed down the flower they carried in a graceful arc.

  The flowers, although apparently tossed without concern as to how they fell, did not pile up haphazardly at the labyrinth’s entrance. Instead each one moved slightly as it fell, so that the gradually accumulating flowers formed a pattern, a weave, at the entrance.

  Loth, watching, saw that it was the movements of Genvissa and Brutus that controlled the flowers.

  They were weaving them into a gate, or a door, that would permanently seal the labyrinth and the evil within it.

  And Brutus to Genvissa, Loth realised. If they completed this dance, no one would ever best them.

  He caught Cornelia looking at him, and she inclined her head, softly, sadly.

  She took a step forward.

  Loth grimaced, both fearing and embracing what approached.

  Cornelia took another step forward, no one seeing her, their eyes fixed on Brutus and Genvissa, and her right hand crept towards her robe, towards the deep pocket that ran down its right seam.

  Then, as Brutus and Genvissa moved to within two paces of each other, their hands outstretched to clasp over the strange weave of flowers that hovered over the entrance, Cornelia ran forward.

  She ran lightly, as if she had suddenly cast aside all her doubts and cares.

  She ran quickly, too quickly for anyone to react, even Brutus who could see her approaching behind Genvissa’s back.