The Heart of the Mirage

by Glenda Larke

  I got up and ran, incoherent with terror.

  It was some time before I could think enough to acknowledge I wasn’t hurt. In spite of their rabid desire to devour me, those creatures hadn’t been able to leave the confines of the Ravage.

  I was unhurt, but I had to walk back to the Mirage City in urine-wet trousers.

  My shleth had long since fled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I spent the next few days thinking about the Ravage. That wasn’t altogether a matter of choice: it impinged on my thoughts whether I wanted to think about it or not. I’d wake in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat, remembering those shapes, recalling their hunger. Knowing I was their target. Not just anyone. Me. I was sure of it.

  I tried to make sense of what had happened. Why were they able to take me back and make me remember past incidents with such lucidity? What were they? When I asked others of the Magoroth, they didn’t seem able to give me a satisfactory answer to explain my regression into the past. They dismissed my assertion that the hatred had been personal. ‘Oh, the Ravage hates everyone,’ they said. Perhaps it did, but it was me it wanted most.

  I spoke to Brand, describing everything I could remember.

  ‘What do those two past episodes have in common?’ he asked.

  ‘I have no idea, beyond the obvious,’ I said. ‘In one I was just sixteen. And I told a lie to punish someone. In the other I was an adult and told the truth to punish someone. The result was the same, I suppose. Both men died. Both were unpleasant men deserving of punishment.’

  ‘Both incidents never gave you a sleepless night.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just seems that maybe they should have. You don’t appear in your best light, Ligea, either time.’

  I thought about that, but came to no conclusions. ‘They are foul, whatever they are, those Ravage creatures.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s it,’ he suggested. ‘They were looking for things in your past that are—’

  ‘Foul? Are you telling me what I did was foul?’

  ‘No, not exactly. But your lack of—’ Once again he stopped, unwilling to speak his thoughts.

  ‘Remorse?’

  ‘No. Not lack of remorse. Lack of thought about what you did. In those days, you could walk away from all you did without wondering if it was right or wrong. Without doubts. Most people would worry about whether they could have done things differently. If their decisions were correct. You never did. It’s very human to plague oneself with doubt after the fact.’

  I stared at him. ‘You think I was inhuman? And yet you loved me!’

  ‘Yes. Because I know what was done to you. And by whom. And how. And I always knew what you could have been. What you still can be, and are becoming.’

  ‘Weak,’ I snapped.

  ‘No. Human.’

  I didn’t want to think about that. I changed the subject. ‘So why is the Ravage interested in that part of my past? Why would they be linked to my…inhumanity?’

  But he had no answer to that.

  I went to bed that night hearing a refrain of facts like a temple litany inside my head:

  The Ravage hates you above all others.

  There must be a reason for such a specific, virulent hate.

  The Ravage and its beasts live inside the Mirage.

  What the Ravage knows about you it can therefore only have learned from the Mirage Makers.

  And what is special about you anyway?

  A puzzle worthy of a one-time compeer. Reluctantly, I thought I was beginning to make sense of it all; the trouble was, I didn’t like the answer, because whichever way I looked at it, I ended up dead.

  When Temellin and the other Magoroth returned with the freed slaves, Pinar was not with them. She had, Temellin said, gone to Madrinya on a private matter, but would be back within a few days.

  I was alarmed. That Pinar, already brittle with jealousy, should allow Temellin to return without her was odd, even sinister. It prompted me to action: I told Temellin I had an urgent need to talk to him; he nodded and said he was busy making arrangements about the ex-slaves, could it wait until the next day? I agreed one more day would make no difference and spent the time trying to think of the right words to say and despising the cowardice that had kept me silent so long.

  But when the next day came, we had other things on our minds. An outbreak of disease among the newcomers from Sandmurram kept all the Magor fully occupied, trying to stop its spread and cure those who had it. I did not sleep for two days, and I doubted any of the others did, either. We were all exhausted and drained; my cabochon was colourless with a lack of power.

  On the evening of the third day, although there had been several deaths among the elderly, the contagion was halted and the ill began to recover. Those Magoroth, myself included, who had been involved with the sick, now found time to gather for a meal. There were a few wan smiles of subdued triumph, but most of us were more interested in the food the servants had prepared.

  Temellin, slipping into a vacant seat next to me, said, ‘We never did get to have that talk. What did you want to see me about?’

  ‘Myself. Who I am. And—’ I stopped. Conversation had died at our table and people nearby were listening. ‘It’s waited this long, it can wait until after we’ve eaten,’ I said, glad, I suppose, to have yet another excuse. ‘We’re both too hungry to give any serious topic full attention. But it had better be today, Temel. It is a matter of some…seriousness.’ I dropped my voice. ‘In private.’

  He nodded wearily and began to eat. The conversation around the table remained desultory as most of us confined our attention to the food and thought of our pallets. When the door opened, it took a moment for it to register with me that it was Brand who stood there and something was wrong. I half rose to go to him, and then sat back down again as the reason for his agitation became obvious. Pinar had entered the room on his heels and she wasn’t alone.

  Aemid was with her.

  Temellin rose, smiling, and went forward to greet his wife, but she hardly seemed to see him. She pointed to me and turned to Aemid. ‘Is that her?’

  Aemid, her face resolute, nodded. ‘That’s her, Magoria. That’s the Legata Ligea, Compeer of the Brotherhood.’

  Not even a troupe of the Exaltarch’s nude dancers could have silenced the room as effectively as that statement did. Pinar turned to Temellin, her lips curling up in a smile of triumph. In her animation, she was both magnificent and beautiful. She said, ‘I knew there was something wrong about her!’ She came forward to take Temellin’s hands. ‘We have been terribly deceived by this woman, Tem. I have never trusted her. I didn’t want to tell you this, but she tried to kill me once, when we were on our way to the Mirage. She knew I was suspicious and thought she could take my life.’ There was just enough truth in that statement to make it credible. I met her eyes coldly and wondered at the woman’s stupidity. Did she think to endear herself to Temellin by denigrating his sister? And if I chose to say she’d tried to murder me first, everyone would hear my truth just as they heard hers. She continued, ‘This was my business in Madrinya. I went to see what I could find out.’

  ‘And what did you find out?’ Temellin asked. His tone was cool, but the bleakness in his eyes was searing.

  ‘This woman with me is the Legata Ligea’s slave, Aemid. She has been with the Legata since she—the Legata—was brought to General Gayed’s household in Tyr as a child. The woman we knew as Derya is the Legata Ligea. She is not and has never been a slave. She may be Kardi, she may be your sister, but she was raised a Tyranian citizen, an adopted daughter of the General. At sixteen she joined the Brotherhood as a novice, and by dint of her talents and ruthlessness she has risen to the rank of Legata Compeer. Her Magor skills have been used to bring about the imprisonment and torture and enslavement of cabochon knows how many innocent people. Tem, she came here to betray us. She has Kardi blood but a Tyranian soul. The infamous Rathrox Ligatan sent her to Kardiastan specifical
ly to bring about your death. Her full intention is to ensure our ruin, to ensure complete Tyranian control over all Kardiastan.’

  The shock of those listening swept the room, buffeting us all. Magoria-jessah, Jahan’s wife, started to cry.

  Temellin stood motionless, his arms now limp by his sides. There was no expression on his face. He turned to Aemid. ‘Is this true?’

  Aemid nodded. ‘Magori, I am sorry,’ she said. She looked at me. ‘I raised this woman, but everything the Magoria-pinar says about her is true. She will destroy you all if you give her the opportunity.’

  They felt Aemid’s belief in her own words; so did I. It rolled over us as tangible as wind-ripples on a sand dune. A sigh of painful tension followed it. A split second later, I was blasted with the sentiments generated by a roomful of baleful Magor. My stomach roiled in response and I almost disposed of the meal I had just eaten.

  The next words were Brand’s. ‘But Ligea has changed her mind,’ he protested. He looked at Temellin. ‘Surely you cannot doubt that! She’s not the same person any more. She has told me the way she feels now; test my truth—’

  ‘You guileless barbarian. Can’t you see how she has fooled you?’ Pinar asked, contemptuous of his apparent naivety. ‘Your protestations are valueless.’

  Temellin didn’t appear to have heard Brand. He turned to walk to where I still sat motionless, and faced me across the table. ‘Is this true?’ he asked quietly. ‘Are you the Legata Ligea?’

  I stood up, meeting his gaze. ‘I was. Once.’ It seems such a long time ago now…

  ‘You were sent here to kill me?’

  ‘To capture the man who was organising the Kardis and causing problems for Tyrans. And note you are still free, Temel. And alive.’

  ‘Did you come to the Mirage with the intention of betrayal?’

  ‘Temellin—’

  He drew his sword and it was already glowing with the gold of its summoning. ‘Did you?’

  I was silent, knowing there was nothing I could say to lessen his anger, or his grief. He was thinking my love had all been a sham, that every moment I had spent in his arms had been a lie. His lack of faith tore wounds in my soul, adding to the hurt caused by Aemid’s willingness to believe the worst of me.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘Yes, I did, at first.’

  Then with a cry of rage and pain he flung his weapon at my chest, as if he could not bear to have contact with its hilt when it impaled me.

  There was no way he could miss. He was only a pace or two away across the table and he hurled the sword with all the strength of his anger. Yet I did not move. I could not move, not when it was he who wanted me dead. Just knowing his intention was death itself to me.

  Only one person made any move to help: Brand. As the sword left Temellin’s hand, he threw himself across the room, a cry of pain wrenched from him as he realised he would never make it in time. But even he was driven to a halt by the unexpectedness—the impossibility—of the sword’s trajectory.

  One moment the blade was hurtling directly at me and I knew I was going to die, the next it was quivering, perpendicular, in the wood of the tabletop, its vibrations singing out over the room as it shivered there.

  In shock, no one else moved or spoke.

  Two tears slid down my cheeks.

  In the end, I was the one who broke the uncomprehending silence to explain. ‘I once fitted my cabochon to your sword hilt, Temellin. You will have to use someone else’s blade.’ I turned my head slightly to where Garis, his white face aghast, still sat with a half-filled spoon in his hand. ‘Garis, give your weapon to the Mirager.’

  Garis did not move.

  Temellin still stood before me, his face now a mixture of emotion: horror at what he had just done jostled with relief that he had not succeeded and guilt that he had tried—and it was all overlaid with biting, tearing anger. At me.

  Pinar’s voice spoke into the silence, adding yet another layer to the shock. ‘Here—use my blade, Tem.’

  But Temellin was already moving, brushing past his wife, thrusting Aemid aside to get to the door. He nodded to Korden as he went.‘Ward her,’ he said. ‘Him too,’ he added, indicating Brand, and he was gone.

  Garis looked up at me, his expression pleading to be told none of this had happened. I placed a hand on his shoulder and said softly, ‘What Brand said was also true.’ Then I started across the room towards Korden.

  ‘Your sword,’ he said.

  I unsheathed it and handed it to him, hilt first. He took it, insolently placing his cabochon in the hollow of the hilt.

  ‘Any cages here, Korden?’ I asked wryly.

  ‘Your room will do.’ He was stiff with anger, but I had an idea not all of it was directed at me. At Pinar perhaps, for the crass, insensitive way she had broken her news and hurt her husband? Or at Temellin for having trusted me in the first place? ‘We are not the Brotherhood,’ he added.

  I inclined my head and shifted my gaze to Pinar, standing beside him. Her face was a twist of misery and bitter rage; in her victory, she had lost everything she had ever wanted, and she knew it. The revelation that—although she had been right, although she had been more perceptive than anyone else—she could still lose was such a shock to her that, for one brief moment, faced with the person she judged to have been the cause of her loss, her mind was bared in a flash of naked emotion. The moment was so brief I doubted if anyone else noticed, but I saw—and was appalled, for my senses glimpsed a jagged red crack across the face of her mind.

  It was an effort to turn away, to touch Aemid on the arm and say, ‘Aemid, you are not well. You should not have made this journey.’ And, in fact, she did look ill; her complexion was grey, her eyes sunken and the skin loose on the bones of her face.

  ‘It was necessary.’

  I shook my head. ‘You should have had more faith in Magor blood. It was not necessary.’

  I walked on to the door.

  They warded me in my own room, encircling it with their sword-spells, using conjurations I had not yet learned and did not know how to break. Then they left me.

  I was so tired I slept immediately. The pain would only begin the next day, when I would see Temellin’s face again and again as he hurled his sword, intending to bring about my death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I woke in the morning to a different room. Tucked away in a cabinet that had not been there before was a practical and welcome addition: a bathroom. The Mirage Makers had evidently noticed my discomfort at having to use a pail supplied the night before by my jailers; I was touched by this sign of pragmatic thoughtfulness.

  The other changes were less useful. There was a large hole in the outside wall as if the Mirage Makers wanted me to feel I was not actually imprisoned at all. I knew differently. I could feel the warding and knew, hole or not, I was imprisoned as effectively as if I were chained. The other walls were now covered with drawings, all ridiculous: people with three eyes and lopsided faces, or with four arms and no legs, or who were half man, half insect. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them, all doing different things—standing on their heads, swimming in the sky, cutting their toenails with an axe, drinking soup from a sieve, birthing flowers from their breasts…If I had been in the mood for absurdities, I could have spent hours examining them, hunting out their riddles, laughing over their delights.

  Instead, I remained most of the day lying on my pallet, looking at a ceiling made of rippling waves of water that defied gravity, and seeing none of it. An Illuser I didn’t know came with my meals. He told me his name was Reftim and he was carefully neutral when he spoke to me. He was a small rotund man, with rounded features, a puffball nose and the face of a market joke-teller, but I sensed his antipathy and did not make the mistake of equating his jovial looks with his character. However, he was polite enough and, in answer to my first question, he told me Brand was also confined to his room. I asked him to tell Temellin I must see him and he promised to pass on
the message.

  But Temellin didn’t come.

  Later in the day, Reftim did bring Aemid to see me.

  She looked wretched. Her face was swollen, her eyes reddened. I wanted to hug her, comfort her, but my sense of betrayal stopped me. She should have had faith in me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her eyes were fixed on the floor. ‘I couldn’t let you betray my land.’

  ‘Our land,’ I amended. ‘I wasn’t going to. You should have known me better.’

  She met my gaze then, and her expression hardened. ‘I did. That’s the trouble. I saw what you became. You became like him. Gayed. You even had the same look in your eyes, the look of someone who doesn’t care what happens to others as long as you reach your goal.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know it’s my fault. And I deserve punishment. I think this must be it—to see you here, imprisoned like this. To know that the little girl who so bravely hid her cabochon from them because her mother told her to…To see her become the woman I see now, trapped here for the rest of her life. All because I allowed it to happen. I failed you. I’m sorry, Ligea. I’m so, so sorry.’

  She started crying and turned from me. Reftim led her through the ward and out of the room. I averted my face so he wouldn’t see the tears welling up in my own eyes. She was right. I had tried so hard to be like Gayed. And I had promised her I wouldn’t pose as a Kardi, only to break that promise without a second thought? That was the person I had become.

  The next day, I asked to see Korden. He came, bringing all his dislike and distrust with him, none of which he bothered to conceal. ‘Well?’ he asked without preamble, but I could see that the room startled him. In addition to the wall drawings, one corner now contained a floating set of multicoloured bubbles, each the size of a man’s fist and full of moving pictures portraying an insane world of animals that became people, people who became flowers, stars that talked and similar absurdities.