Douglass,Sara - The Troy Game 1 - Hades' Daughter

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Book Information:

Genre: Fantasy

Author: Sara Douglass

Name: Hades’ Daughter

Series: Book One of the Troy Game

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Hades’

Daughter

Book One of the Troy

Game

Sara Douglass

During the late Bronze Age, well over a millennium before the birth of C the

Minoan king on Crete held the Athenian king to ransom. Every nine the Athenian

king sent as tribute seven male youths and a like numb female virgins, the cream

of Athenian society, to Knossos on Crete. On< Crete the Athenian youths were

fed into the dark heart of the gigantic rinth, there to die at the hands of the

dreaded Minotaur Asterion, unnj son of the Minoan king's wife and a bull.

One year the Athenian king sent his own son Theseus as part of the sacrifice.

Theseus was determined finally to stop the slaughter, and to this it was aided by

Ariadne, daughter of the Minoan king, half sister to Ast and Mistress (or High

Priestess) of the Labyrinth. Ariadne shared with seus the secrets and mysteries

of the labyrinth, and taught him the mea which Asterion might be killed. This she

did because she loved Theseus.

Theseus entered the labyrinth and, aided by Ariadne's secret magic, b the

tricks of the labyrinth and killed Asterion in combat. Then, accomp; by Ariadne

and her younger sister Phaedre, Theseus departed Crete and shattered labyrinth

for his home city of Athens.

THE LATE BRONZE AGE

THE ISLAND OF NAXOS, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Confused, numbed, her mind refusing to accept what Theseus demanded,

Ariadne stumbled in the sand, sinking to her knees with a sound that was half

sigh, half sob.

'It is best this way," Theseus said as he had already said a score of times this

morning, bending to offer Ariadne his arm. "It is clear to me that you cannot

continue with the fleet."

Ariadne managed to gain her feet. She placed one hand on her bulging belly,

and stared at her lover with eyes stripped of all the romantic delusion that had

consumed her for this past year. "This is your child! How can you abandon it?

And me?"

Yet even as she asked that question, Ariadne knew the answer. Beyond

Theseus lay a stretch of beach, blindingly white in the late morning sun. Where

sand met water waited a small boat and its oarsmen. Beyond that small boat,

bobbing lazily at anchor in the bay, lay Theseus' flagship, a great oared war

vessel.

And in the prow of that ship, her vermilion robes fluttering and pressing

against her sweet, lithe body, stood Ariadne's younger sister, Phaedre.

Waiting for

her

lover to return to the ship, and sail her in triumph to Athens.

Theseus carefully masked his face with bland reason. "Your child is due in but

a few days. You cannot give birth at sea—"

'I can! I can!"

'—and thus it is best I leave you here, where the villagers have midwives to

assist. It is my decision, Ariadne."

'It is

her

decision!" Ariadne flung a hand toward the moored ship.

'When the baby is born, and you and she recovered, then I will return, and

bring you home to Athens."

'You will not," Ariadne whispered. "This is as close to Athens as ever I will

achieve. I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and we only ever bear daughters—

what use have we for sons? But you have no use for daughters. So Phaedre shall

be your queen, not I.

She

will give you sons, not I."

He did not reply, lowering his gaze to the sand, and in his discomfort she

could read the truth of her words.

'What have I done to deserve this, Theseus?" she asked.

Still he did not reply.

She drew herself up as straight as her pregnancy would allow, squared her

shoulders, and tossed her head with some of her old easy arrogance. "What has

the

Mistress of the Labyrinth

done to deserve this, my love?"

He lifted his head, and looked her full in the face, and in that movement

Ariadne had all the answer she needed.

'Ah," she said softly. "To the betrayer comes the betrayal, eh?" A shadow fell

over her face as clouds blew across the sun. "I betrayed my father so you could

have your victory. I whispered to you the secrets which allowed you to best the

labyrinth and to murder my brother. I betrayed

everything

I stand for as the

Mistress. All this I did for you. All this betrayal worked for the blind folly of love."

The clouds suddenly thickened, blanketing the sun, and the beach at

Theseus' back turned gray and old.

'The gods told me to abandon you," Theseus said, and Ariadne blanched at

the blatant lie. This had nothing to do with the gods, and everything to do with

his lusts. "They came to me in a vision, and demanded that I set you here on

this island. It is their decision, Ariadne. Not mine."

Ariadne gave a short, bitter laugh. Lie or not, it made no difference to her.

"Then I curse the gods along with you, Theseus. If you abandon me at their

behest, and that of your new and prettier lover, then they shall share their fate,

Theseus. Irrelevance. Decay. Death." Her mouth twisted in hate. "

Catastrophe

."

Above them the clouds roiled, thick and black, and lightning arced down to

strike in the low hills of the island.

'What think you, Theseus?" she suddenly yelled, making him flinch. "What

think you? No

one can afford to betray the Mistress of the Labyrinth

!"

'No?" he said, meeting her furious eyes evenly. "Are you that sure of your

power?"

'Leave me here and you doom your entire world. Throw me aside for my

sluttish sister and what you think

her

womb can give you and you and your kind

will—"

He hit her cheek, not hard, but enough to snap off the flow of her words.

"And who was it showed Phaedre the art of sluttishness, Ariadne?"

Stricken with such cruelty, Ariadne could find no words to answer.

Theseus nodded. "You have served your purpose," he said.

He focused on something behind her, and Ariadne turned her head very

slightly.

Villagers were walking slowly down the path to the beach, their eyes cast

anxiously at the goddamned skies above them.

'They will care for you and your daughter," Theseus said, and turned to go.

'I have served my purpose, Theseus?" Ariadne said. "You have

no

idea what my

purpose is, and whether it is served out… or only just beginning. Here. In this

sand. In this betrayal."

His shoulders stiffened, and his step hesitated, but then Theseus was gone,

striding down the beach to the waiting boat.

The sky roared, and the clouds opened, drenching Ariadne as she watched

her lover desert her.

She turned her face upward, and shook a fist at the sky and the gods

laughing merrily behind it.

'No

one

abandons the Mistress of the Labyrinth!" she hissed. "Not you, nor

any part of your world!"

She dropped her face. Theseus was in the boat now, standing in its stem, his

gaze set toward the ship where awaited Ariadne's sister.

'And not you, nor any part of

your

world, either," she whispered through

clenched teeth. "No one abandons me, and thinks that in so doing they can

ignore the Game. You think that the Game will protect you."

She hissed, demented with love and betrayal.

'But you forget that it is 7 who controls the Game."

TWO Death came for Ariadne during the final stages of a labor that had

stretched over three grueling, pain-filled days and nights.

She felt the Death Crone's gentle hand on her shoulder as she squatted on

her birthing mat, her sweat-drenched face clenched in agony, the village

midwives squabbling in a huddle on the far side of the dim, overheated room.

'They have decided to cut the child from you," the Crone said, her voice low

and melodious, a comforting counterpoint to her words. "They think that

Theseus, not wanting you, will nevertheless be grateful for his child. See, now

they hand about knives, trying to decide which would be the sharpest. The

fastest."

'No!" Ariadne growled, twisting her head to stare at the Crone who now

stood so close to her shoulder. "No. I

will

not."

'You must," said the Crone. "It is your time."

'And I say it is not," Ariadne said, screwing up her face and moaning as

another crippling contraction gripped her.

'You must—" the Crone said again, but stopped as Ariadne half turned and

gripped the death's claw resting on her shoulder.

'I will make a bargain," Ariadne said. She glanced at the huddle of mid-wives.

They were bent into a close circle, their attention all on the four or five knives

they passed between themselves. First this one was held up to catch the

flickering light from the single oil lamp in the room, now that, as they assessed

each blade's cutting edge for its worth.

Being simple women, untutored in the mysteries, they were unaware that the

Death Crone stood so close among them, nor that Ariadne conversed with her.

'A bargain?" said the Crone. "But I want you. You. What could you give me to

assuage my grief at leaving you behind?"

'I think we can come to a most singular arrangement," Ariadne said, her

words jerking out in her agony. "I can make you the best proposition you've had

in aeons."

The Crone was silent a long moment, her bright eyes resting unblinking on

Ariadne as the woman twisted and moaned once more.

'I shall want far more than just 'a singular arrangement,'" the Crone said.

"Far more.

What

can you give me, Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth?"

The midwives had selected their knife now, and one of them, a woman called

Meriam, had drawn out a whetstone and was sharpening the blade with long,

deliberate strokes.

The frightful sound of metal against stone grated about the chamber, and

Ariadne's eyes glinted.

She spoke, very low and very fast, and the Crone gave a great gasp and

stood back. "

You would go that far

?" she hissed.

'Will you not accept my bargain?" Ariadne said.

'Oh, aye, I accept. But you will destroy yourself, surely, along with—

'You will have me one day, Crone, but it shall be on my terms, not yours. But,

if you want what I offer, then I beg two favors from you."

The Crone laughed shortly. "And I thought you were to be doing all the

giving."

'I will need to see Asterion."

"

Asterion

? The brother you helped murder? You would dare?"

'Aye. I dare. Tell me, is he in Hades' realm?"

'Nay. Hades would not have him. You know this." The Crone paused, her

eyes on the midwives who were now slowly rising, their voices murmuring

bitterly about the effort this Ariadne put them to. "Very well," said the Crone. "I

agree. I can send Asterion to you. And the second favor?"

'Push this child from my body that I may live long enough to play my part in

this our arrangement."

'As you wish, Ariadne. But do not fail in your part of our agreement. I would

be most disappointed should you—

'I will not fail. Now, push this child from me… ah!"

The midwives stepped close to the straining woman on the birthing mat,

Meriam at their fore, a large knife in her hand.

But as Meriam leaned down to push Ariadne to her back, the better to expose

her huge belly to the knife, Ariadne screamed, and there was a rush of

bloodstained fluid between her legs, and then the baby, hitherto unshiftable,

slithered free.

Meriam stopped dead, her mouth hanging open.

Ariadne had sunk to her haunches, and now she looked up from her daughter

kicking feebly between her legs to the gaggle of midwives.

'You may be sure that I will repay you well for your aid," she said.

ARIADNE RESTED DURING THAT DAY, AND WHEN THE sun settled below

the horizon, she dismissed the woman who sat with her, saying that she wished

to be alone during the night with her daughter.

Once the woman had gone, Ariadne put her daughter to her breast and fed

her, and then rocked her gently and sung to her softly, so that she would sleep

through the coming hours.

As soon as the infant slept soundly, Ariadne placed her in a small oval wicker

basket, covered her well with blankets, then placed the basket in a dark corner

of the room.

She did not want Asterion to notice the child and perhaps to maim or murder

her in his ill humor.

Once her daughter was attended to, Ariadne washed herself carefully,

wincing at the deep hurt that still assailed her body, then reached into the chest

of her clothes that Theseus had caused to be tossed onto the beach. She drew

forth a deep red flounced skirt that she bound as tightly as she could about her

still-thickened and soft belly, then slipped her arms into a golden jacket that she

tied loosely about her waist, leaving it unbuttoned so that her full breasts

remained exposed.

Having attended her body, Ariadne now carefully painted her face. She

powdered her face to a smooth, rich cream mask, then lined her eyes with black

and her mouth with a vivid red that matched her skirt. When that was done,

Ariadne dressed her hair. For the finest effect she needed a maid to do it for her,

but there was no one to help, and so she did the best she could, finally

managing to bind and braid her glossy black tresses into an elaborate design

that cascaded from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck.

She was still studying her face and hair in her handheld mirror when she felt

the shift in the air behind her.

Ariadne put down the mirror with deliberate slowness, calmly rose from her

stool, and turned to face her murdered half brother Asterion.

For an instant she thought him more shadow than substance, but then he

took a single step forward, and she saw that his flesh was solid and real… as was

his anger.

'You betrayed me," he said in his thick, guttural, familiar voice. "See." He

waved a hand down his body. "See what your lover did to me."

She looked, for she owed him this at least.

Theseus' sword had cut into Asterion's body in eight or nine places: across

his thickly muscled black throat, his shoulder, his chest, both his flanks, laying

open his belly. The wounds were now bloodless lips of flesh, opening and closing

as Asterion's chest rose and fell in breath

(and why did he need to breathe at all

,

thought Ariadne,

now that he is dead?)

, revealing a rope of bowel here, a lung

there, the yellowed cord of a tendon elsewhere.

Ariadne swallowed, then very slowly lifted her eyes back to Asterion's

magnificent head.

It was undamaged, and for that she was profoundly grateful. The beautiful

liquid black eyes still regarded her clearly and steadily from the bold countenance

of the bull, and his graceful horns still curved unbroken about his broad brow.

Her eyes softened, and at that he snarled, deliberately vicious, spraying her

beautiful face with thick spittle.

'You

betrayed

me!"

She had not flinched. "Aye, I did. I did it for Theseus, for I thought he loved

me. I was wrong. Deluded with love, I betrayed you, and for that I am most

sorry."

He snorted in laughter, and she turned aside her head very slightly." 'Most

sorry'?" He stepped forward, close enough to run prying fingers over her breasts

and her belly. She stiffened at his touch, but did not move away. "You have

given birth to his child."

Her eyes flew back to his. "You shall not harm her!"

'Why not?"

'Do not harm her, Asterion. I beg this of you."

He merely wrinkled his black brow in that peculiar manner of his that

demonstrated mild curiosity. "And why not? Why not? Why should her death not

be

my

vengeance for what you did to me?"

'I will give you vengeance enough, Asterion. For you and for me."

He slid his hand in the waistband of her skirt, jerking her toward him, smiling

at the wince on her face. "What nonsense. I am capable enough of taking my

vengeance here and now."

Their heads were very close now, her aristocratic beauty almost completely

overshadowed by his dark and powerful countenance.

'I want you—" she began.

He smiled, horribly, and his hand drew her yet closer.

'—to teach me your darkcraft."

Surprised, his grip loosened a little.

'You are the only one who has ever learned to manipulate the power in the

dark heart of the labyrinth. Now I want you to teach

me

that darkcraft. I will use

it to destroy Theseus; I will use it to destroy his entire world. Every place that

Theseus lays foot, everything he touches, every part of his world,

everything will fall to decay, and death. And yet even that is not all. I will

combine your darkcraft with my powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth, Asterion, to

free you completely." She paused, using her brief silence for emphasis. "I will

combine our powers together, beloved brother, to tear apart the Game once and

for all. Never again will it ensnare you. That will be my recompense to you for

my stupidity in betraying you to Theseus and my payment to you for giving me

the power to tear apart Theseus and all he stands for."

He held her eyes steady, looking for deception. "You would destroy the

Game? Free me completely so that I may be reborn into life as I will?"

'Yes! This is something that only I can do, you know that… but you must also

know I need the use of your darkcraft to do it. Teach it to me, I beg you."

'If you lie—"

'I do not!"

'If you do not destroy the Game—"

'I will!"

He gazed at her, unsure, unwilling to believe her. "If I give to you the

darkcraft," he said, "and you misuse it in any manner—to trick me or trap me—

then

I

will destroy

you

."

She started to speak, but he hushed her. "I will, for there is one thing else

that I shall demand of you, Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth."

'Yes?"

'That in return for teaching you the darkcraft, for opening to you completely

the dark heart of the labyrinth, you shall not only destroy the Game forever, but

you will allow me to become your ruler. Your lord. Call it what you want, but

know that if you ever attempt to betray me again, if you do not destroy the

Game completely, I demand that you shall fall to the ground before me, and

become my creature entirely."

'Of course!"

His expression did not change. " 'Of course!'? With not even a breath to

consider? How quickly you agree."

'I will not betray you again, Asterion. Teach me the darkcraft and I swear—

on the life of my daughter!—that I will use it to destroy the Game utterly. It shall

never entrap you again."

He nodded, very slowly, holding her eyes the entire time. On the life of her

daughter? No Mistress of the Labyrinth ever used the name of her daughter

lightly. Yes… yes, she was being honest with him.

As honest as Ariadne could be.

He smiled, tight and hard. "Your hatred of Theseus must be great indeed to

arrange such dark bargains with first the Crone, and then with me."

She inclined her head. "He thought to cast me aside," she said. "No one does

that to the Mistress of the Labyrinth."

'Very well," he said. "I accept. The bargain is concluded." His hand tightened

once more in the waistband of her skirt, but this time far more cruelly. "You shall

have the darkcraft, but I shall take my pleasure in it. Pain, for the pain you

inflicted on me. Pain, to seal the bargain made between us."

He buried his other hand in her elaborately braided hair, and with all the

strength of the bull that was his, he lifted her up and hurled her down to the

bed.

THAT NIGHT WAS AGONIZINGLY LONG, AND SHE emerged from it barely

alive, but at the end of it Ariadne had what she wanted.

TWO DAYS LATER, STIFF, SORE, HER BADLY DAMAGED body protesting at

every step, Ariadne made her way into the village's herb garden. In her arms she

carried the wicker basket, and in that basket rested her sleeping daughter.

Behind Ariadne two of the village midwives who had attended the birth of her

daughter watched uneasily from the shadowed doorway of the house Ariadne

had left.

Since her daughter's birth, the midwives—indeed, everyone in the village—

had become aware that Ariadne was highly dangerous. Yet they could not clearly

define the

why

of that awareness. Ariadne had not said or done anything that

could have made the villagers so deeply afraid of her, and yet there seemed to

hover about the mother and her newborn child a sense of danger so terrible, so

imminent

, that few people could bear to spend more than a moment or two in

her company.

The entire community wanted Ariadne gone. Gone from the village. Gone

from the island. Gone so completely that all sense of danger vanished with her.

Gone, taking her daughter and her hatred (and neither woman knew which one

Ariadne loved and nurtured the more) with her.

Ariadne, although aware of the women and their nervous watchfulness

behind her, paid them no heed. She moved step by careful step along the

graveled path between the raised beds of fragrant herbs and flowers. The basket

that contained her daughter she carried with infinite care, and as she walked,

she rocked the basket gently to and fro, singing to her child in a slow, rhythmic,

almost hypnotic voice.

She sang no lullaby, but the secret whisperings of the exotic darkcraft that

she had so recently learned, twisting it together with her own power as Mistress

of the Labyrinth.

Most infants would have woken screaming in nightmare at her dark and

twisted song, but Ariadne's daughter slept soundly to its meanderings.

Eventually Ariadne's singing drew to a close, and she halted, gazing on her

daughter with great tenderness.

'Your father will die," she said, "as all that he touches will die, and as all that

declares its love for him will die, and as all that surrounds him will die.

Everything. Everything.

Everything

."

Ariadne raised her head, and looked before her. She had come to a halt

before a large shrub that delineated the carefully tended herb garden from the

wilds beyond it. The shrub's dense gray-green foliage was broken here and there

by large white, open-petaled flowers.

Ariadne reached out a hand and touched very gently one of the flowers.

They trembled at her contact.

AROUND THE AEGEAN, IN THEIR HIDDEN, MYSTERIOUS places, so also

trembled the flower gate sorceries that guarded the entrances to the founding

labyrinths of several score of cities.

'SUCH DEAR FLOWERS," SAID ARIADNE. THEN, WITH AN abrupt, savage

movement, she twisted the flower free from the shrub.

'Thera," she said, "who shall be the first."

She held the flower in the palm of her hand for a moment, smiling at it with

almost as much tenderness as she bestowed on her daughter, and then,

resuming her strange, low singing, she wound the flower into the wickerwork of

her daughter's basket.

So Ariadne continued, her voice growing stronger, the words she sang

darker. Flower after flower she snapped, pausing in her singing only long enough

to bestow upon each flower the name of a city in which she knew lurked a

labyrinth, a city that depended for its well-being on the labyrinth within its

foundations. Eventually, as Ariadne plucked flower after flower from the shrub,

her child was surrounded by a ribbon of woven flowers about the top of the

basket.

Ariadne's thread. The filament that either saves, or destroys.

WHEN SHE HAD FINISHED, AND HER DARKCRAFT WAS woven, Ariadne

cradled the flowered basket in her arms and smiled at her daughter.

'Soon," she whispered. "Soon, my darling."

She looked back to the shrub. It was denuded of all flowers save one, and at

the sight of that remaining flower Ariadne's mouth curled in secret delight.

That labyrinth was particularly well hidden in a city extraordinarily

undistinguished, and she doubted Asterion knew of its existence. If it survived its

influence would be minimal, her brother would never sense its presence, and it

would not serve to hold him.

But it would be enough for her purpose, when it was time.

When she was safe.

When she was strong enough to dare.

THREE

m

Irrelevance. Decay. Death. Catastrophe. Every place that Theseus

lay foot, everything he touched, every part of his world. This was Ariadne's

curse.

And with it, in gratitude to Asterion for teaching her the darkcraft, Ariadne

did what only she had the power to do.

She unwound the Game—that great and ancient sorcery that underpinned

and protected the entire Aegean world.

IT BEGAN NINE DAYS AFTER ARIADNE TWINED THE flowers into the basket

that cradled her daughter. Meriam, the midwife who had thought to cut Ariadne

open to save her child, was standing in the central village open space, the beach

where Theseus had abandoned Ariadne a bare two weeks previously some sixty

paces distant to the south. It was dawn, the air chill, only the faintest of pink

staining the eastern sky, the birds in their trees chirping quietly to start the day.

Meriam had no thought for the beauty of the beach, the dawn light, or even

for the sweet melodies of the birds.

Instead, she stared frowning at the empty wicker basket lying at her feet.

Flowers, withered and colorless, still wound about its rim.

'Why didn't she take it with her?" Meriam muttered, then bent to pick up the

basket.

In the instant before her fingers touched the basket, one of the flowers slid

free from the wickerwork and fell to the earth.

The instant it hit, the chorus of the birds turned from melody to a frightful,

fractured screaming.

Instinctively Meriam straightened and looked about her, her heart thudding.

Birds rose in chaotic clouds from the trees surrounding the village, milled briefly

in the air, then turned to fly north.

Their screams sounded like the shriek of a blade on a whetstone.

Douglass, Sara - The Troy Game 1 - Hades' Daughter

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