by Glenda Larke
Worse, I was unable to utilise my emotions as speech. Having schooled myself always to hide the way I felt, I found it difficult to use deliberate emotional display in order to give another level of meaning to my words. In the end, the Magoroth spoke to me the way they did to the non-Magoroth: in ordinary speech. They were polite enough, but the end result was a subtle exclusion from their ranks.
The person who kept me from going mad with frustration was Garis. If he did use emotion to speak to me, he slowed it down so that I could understand. He took his duties to me seriously and wanted no misunderstanding between us. He'd come to me in my room immediately after the oath-taking ceremony that first morning and told me it was time for my first lesson. 'We'll start with the art of building wards,' he'd said without preamble. 'Now the first thing you have to be aware of -'
There were two kinds of power available to a wearer of the gold cabochon, I discovered. The first was power that came through the sword, the second was power straight from the cabochon. 'All the most powerful wards are built with the aid of the sword,' he said. 'So these are not available to the two lower ranks of the Magor.' He unsheathed his sword and fitted it into his left palm. 'There's one thing you must never do, and that's put your cabochon into another's sword hilt.'
'Why not?' I asked, guiltily remembering I had done just that with Temellin's weapon.
'Once you have tuned a sword, any sword, to your cabochon, it can never be turned against you, even in the hands of an enemy. Nor can it be used to build a ward you could not break. Of course, none of the Magoroth would turn his sword on another Magor, but to deliberately tune another's sword to your cabochon is to show your distrust of a fellow Magor, and that would be a terrible insult. It is never done.'
'I'll remember that,' I said gravely, and he went on with the lesson. He showed me how to draw a square of protection around myself with sword and conjurations. Inside this, I – and anyone else – would be safe from intrusion. He also showed me how to achieve the converse: to confine a person, or people, within a warded area. 'They are not actually as much use as you'd think,' he warned. 'You can't make them too big, not much larger than this room, in fact. If you did, you'd be sick for a month. It takes health and strength to build wards. Moreover, protection wards for yourself only work if you stay within them, so you can't use them while travelling. They won't last forever, either; nor can you keep rebuilding them. You'd tire yourself out.' Nothing was done without a
price. Each time something was warded, each time conjurations were uttered, personal strength and sword strength were depleted, a depletion only time and rest would cure. Use magic too much and you could end up prone to illness, dying of anything from pneumonia to apoplexy.
'Tell me about healing power,' I asked him. 'How effective is it?' Can you save the life of someone who has a baby ripped from her?
'It's not as effective as we'd like,' he admitted. 'My mother has made it her speciality. She says that all we can do is heal something that has a chance of healing anyway. We make the chance a certainty. And we speed up the healing process.'
'No miracles?'
'No miracles.'
As the days went by, Garis progressed to more active uses of the sword. He taught me how to use it in a more conventional way, then how to supplement fighting strokes with its power. I learned how to send forth a narrow beam of cold light that could sear or melt anything in its path for three or four paces beyond the tip of the weapon, and I began to learn how to control the power so that it could be used for delicate tasks – such as breaking open a slave collar.
I was determined to learn it all. One day, I would put it to good use. If Pinar and others of the Magoroth thought I was going to be some kind of wall decoration, never act -ally doing anything except exist, they would have to rethink; I was going to be a power in this land.
In the meantime, I was glad to tire myself out. It helped me to sleep. It helped me to forget that somewhere out there the Mirage Makers might have an interest in my death because they coveted a child;
mat somewnere out mere was me Kavage, wnicn apparently loathed us all; that right here within the Maze, the man I loved was about to marry a woman who had tried to kill me.
And so I was grateful for those nights when I was so tired I would collapse onto my pallet and drop into an exhausted sleep that kept me insensible till dawn.
Inevitably, when I awoke in the first light of the day, it was to find a new room waiting for me. The Mirage Makers were trying everything in their repertoire – a whole gamut of humorous idiocies – to find something to drive away the hollowness inside me. I knew there was nothing that would help, but they went on trying. Far from making me happy, however, their attention sent shivers of dark fear through me. I remembered walking the Shiver Barrens; I remembered the visions. I touched the place where my child grew, and wondered if the Mirage Makers worked to please me because they wanted him healthy – for them to take. I tried to take comfort from knowing the Convenant forbade them to kill. In my more optimistic moments I thought perhaps they just wanted to show their benevolence so that I would never use my powers against them, never use my Magor sword to spill their lifeblood as one vision had shown.
I remembered it vividly. My hand clasping another that was the representation of the Mirage Makers. Then two images: one where the hands melted into one another in unity, the other where I severed the Mirage Maker's hand in a way that suggested I killed him. Them. Killed them all…
The future wasn't sure. I had a choice. I just had to work out which choice was best for me. For my son. The trouble was, how could I tell?
I saw little of Brand during those days. He had elected to join the troops the Magor were training,
¦¦ ¦*- -…._… if ¦..
troops to be used against Tyranian legions. The ordinary Kardis were enthusiastic soldiers, and Brand was an apt pupil even though he was coming to it relatively old. He was soon promoted to officer rank, and was a popular leader, inspiring loyalty in spite of his foreign blood.
He no longer had a problem with the language. Ever since we'd arrived in Kardiastan, he'd been building on what he'd already learned from Aemid and me over the years, improving every day until now he was fluent. He never lost his accent, but as far as I could see, most of the Kardi girls seemed to think that was part of his charm.
I wondered sometimes why he elected to become a soldier. Boredom? Or revenge? Perhaps a little of both. Tyrans had made him a slave, now here was a chance for him to fight the Exaltarchy and help bring about a nation's freedom. I wondered, too, why the Magor trusted him so much. I asked Garis that, and he laughed. 'Brand may be able to hide his feelings from you, Shirin, and sometimes from us too. But he can't hide lies. Temellin believes Brand is an honourable man.'
I watched the troops exercise one morning, and it was a revelation. Just to see his rapport with the men, the clever way he could manipulate the small squad under his command into doing better, and still have them admire him as a man. He wasn't like Temellin – he had none of Temellin's easy camaraderie – but he'd earned their respect and admiration in spite of being an outsider.
Yet as I watched, I felt sick inside. This man had been a slave for most of his life, deemed to be unworthy of my friendship, considered to be the property of others, with no recourse to the very laws
that Tyrans considered its finest achievements. For twenty years he'd had the same rights as an animal: none. I could have had him whipped, or sold, or starved, or killed. I could have given him away to one of my friends to bed.
In Tyr, we referred to our slaves not as men or women, but as 'speaking tools'.
And as I watched Brand, that memory made me sick with shame. Twenty years. What a Vortexdamned waste. And then another thought came, so obvious, yet revelatory nonetheless: how much untapped potential there was in Tyrans's thousands of slaves…
Now, at least, Brand seemed content enough, and had taken up with my maid, Caleh: a vivacious girl with a kind heart. She h
ad been badly abused during her time as a slave and had been man-shy, until Brand helped her, with infinite gentleness and complete lack of his usual cynicism, to forget.
Yet sometimes when he looked at me, even with his emotions shielded, I could tell his desire was as strong as ever.
The day before the scheduled wedding of the Mirager and his cousin, two incidents broke the routine of the previous days for me. The first occurred when I was alone in the training hall after Garis and I had been practising some swordplay. I put my weapon down on a bench and wiped my sweaty face and neck with a towel, thinking of a hot bath and a rest, trying not to think of the ceremony planned for the next day.
When I heard the sound of the door opening behind me I did not bother to turn, or even to reach out with my mind to see who it was – until a sudden pain shot into my hand from my cabochon.
I whirled to find Pinar standing there, smiling, her
left hand fitting tight around the hilt of my sword.
…– ¦-:¦¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦¦•:•, ¦*f -*¦ •-
'First rule of a wise Magor, Shirin. Keep your sword in its sheath at your belt.'
I felt like a lump of mountain ice on sale along Tyr's Marketwalk. She could have killed me, right then, and we both knew it. I said, 'I did not think I needed to do so here.'
'And I never thought I would need to protect myself by fitting my cabochon to another's hilt.'
'You have no need to fear me, Pinar. I would not hurt my brother's wife.' At least, I didn't think I would. Not if she behaved herself…
'You know the significance of what I have just done, I think. Your sword cannot harm me.'
'I am more concerned I cannot build a ward to keep you out,' I said and wrested the weapon from her hand. She didn't resist. I took a deep controlling breath and raised my eyes to her face, expecting to see her aglow with triumph at what she had done, but there was no exultation there. Only a wrenching anxiety.
'I can't make them see what you are -' she whispered. 'You're going to destroy us all, and I can't make them see it.' I think we both heard the unspoken words she could have added: and I can't make him love me. For a moment I was touched by her tragedy. Then she turned on her heel and walked out.
My anger died, but I still loathed the woman.
I made my way out of the practice room just as Selwith and his wife Markess, two of the original Ten, came in. They were followed by their students, an unruly group of Kardi youths about to have instruction in the art of swordplay. I brushed by them rudely, still feeling the warmth Pinar's hand had left on my sword hilt.
***
The second incident occurred that night, some time after I had fallen asleep. A sound awoke me and I opened my eyes, knowing someone had entered my room. My first thought was of Pinar, but an instant later I knew it was not the Magoria who stood just inside my door, no more than a black outline.
I did not speak and neither of us moved.
'All you have to do is say one word, Shirin,' he said finally. 'Give me hope.'
I wet my lips, but even so, my whisper was scarcely audible above the sound of my breathing. 'I can't!
He left without another word and the door closed silently behind him, yet the action was as final as the last breath of a dying man.
The formal bonding of Mirager-temellin and his cousin Magoria-pinar was not unlike similar Tyranian ceremonies. It was brief, a recital of legal vows rather than emotional pledges. The celebration was more in the feasting that followed; a jubilant night of eating, drinking and entertainment that seemed to be endless. All the Magor were there, and many ordinary Kardis as well, and I – who would have liked to have avoided it altogether – found myself seated next to my brother at the head table, on display with all my pain. Once again I was grateful for my Brotherhood training; I was damned if I would show any of them how much I cared. I listened to the music but never heard it, I watched the dancing but never saw it, I drank steadily, ate little, and was sure I must still be cold sober because the pain grew worse, not better, as the night wore on. My only satisfaction stemmed from the sight of Temellin beside me matching me drink for drink with more obvious results. By the time the wedding couple finally left the hall I doubted if he were in much of a state to serve his bride.
When I myself rose with the idea of wending my own way to my pallet, I discovered I wasn't as sober as
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I'd thought; in the end, I needed both Brand and Garis to escort me to my room – via the earth closet and some moments there that I later did not want to recall.
Halfway through the next day, when I finally awoke, I was none too sure it had all been worth it. Brand's expressionless face and the remedy he offered, a foul-tasting Kardi herb brew, did nothing to convince me, either.
Later, having decided I was certainly incapable of undertaking more training when I felt like a piece of storm-tossed flotsam thrown up on a beach, I decided to go for a walk. Never mind that my head was pounding, never mind that my stomach heaved, it was better to walk free of the Maze, free of the city, than to stay and know that somewhere under the same roof Temellin lay with Pinar in his arms.
I walked for hours, leaving the roads and heading out across the wilder parts of the Mirage. That day it happened to be mostly moorland covered with blue and white flowering grasses as far as the eye could see. It was hard to remain so savagely depressed in such surroundings, and by the time I headed back towards the city, I was feeling more at peace. By then, though, the sun was setting and as I walked in the growing darkness, with only the lights of the buildings to guide me, I remembered the Ravage. After that, I wasn't nearly as insouciant about strolling along in the dark.
I was glad to hit a road again, and even more cheered to sense and then hear the soft pad of a trotting howdah-shleth behind me. I stopped and waited by the roadside.
A man sat on the driver's seat of the howdah and he halted his animal as he drew level, peering at me through the gloom. 'Well met, lass,' he said. 'Want a ride to the city?'
I couldn't see him properly, either, but I had already sensed his amiable ordinariness. 'Gladly,' I said, and a few moments later I was seated in the howdah on top of a load of something pale and soft. 'What is all this that you're carrying?' I asked. I was half buried under billows of white fluff.
'Pallet-cotton. Comes out of the seed pods of a tree. Someone told me they'd seen a grove of them growing back up the road a bit, so I went out to get some before it disappears. What with all the new people coming in, we can always do with more pallets. Sometimes the Mirage Makers supply 'em already made up just like that, but we can't rely on it, more's the pity. Were you here when there wasn't a cake of soap to be had anywhere? Until we'd made up a batch big enough to last us for months, which is when the Mirage Makers dumped five hundred bars, each as large as a roof beam, in the city's main square?' He gave a sigh. 'Ah, lass, this is a right queer place. I'll be glad to leave it behind. We don't belong here. It's back in Kardiastan proper we ought to be, living our own lives, with the Mirager to rule us.'
A little later, as we approached the city, he pointed off into the darkness with his driving prod. 'Did you see there's a new patch of the Ravage over there somewhere? That's the closest it's ever come to us.' He shook his head worriedly. 'One day we'll wake up to find a swathe of it destroying the Maze like legionnaires on the rampage.'
I didn't like that thought. I lay back in the pallet-cotton as we trotted into the city streets, and wondered if I were wise to think of staying in the Mirage.
Temellin and Pinar left the Maze several days later.
Accompanied by many other of the Magor, they were on their way to another slave-rescue mission, this
time in Sandmurram and other southern towns. The city streets were lined with people to wish them luck as they rode out. 'Ah, fate willing,' I heard one woman say, 'next time the Mirager leaves, it will be at the head of an army, on its way to free our land, bless him.' Foolishly, I let him go without ever telling him w
ho I was. It was as though I wished to have my deception discovered and exposed, rather than have to confess.
By this time, I was learning to control my cabochon, finding it harder than the sword skills I had mastered. My ability to read emotions, to know a lie, to aid healing, to know the position of unseen people around me – all these skills stemmed from my cabochon magnifying inborn Magor talents.
'But there is much more you can learn,' Garis promised. He had stayed behind in order to tutor me, and we were walking back through the streets towards those strangely crumpled walls of the Maze after watching Temellin's departure. 'You must persevere witfi those exercises I showed you.'
'Just what more will I be able to do?' I asked, deftly sidestepping to avoid being sprayed with fresh chicken blood and green feathers as a woman strode by holding a headless but still flapping bird by the legs. 'I don't see much evidence of extraordinary abilities among the Magor here.'
'Oh, you'll see,' he said vaguely. 'Lots of things. You're already at Theuros level. But I can't teach you everything; I'm not advanced enough myself. And you don't see much happening because we don't have any reason to use our powers on the ordinary people here, and even less to use them among ourselves. It would be very bad manners, for a start.' He reached out and stealthily removed a bunch of small fruit from a loaded handcart without the owner noticing.
I shook my head as he offered me some and, following another train of thought that had been puzzling me, said, 'I still find it hard to understand how Tyrans was able to defeat you, er, us. If the Magor are so capable, a single act of treachery is hardly enough to explain such a devastating defeat. What did you say about it before -?'