by Glenda Larke
Oblivious, Ligea was saying, ‘Tem, Arrant needs help if he’s ever to learn to control whatever power he has, although I think it cannot be much. You’ve tried to teach him and seen how hard he finds it. Don’t be disappointed—’
‘Perhaps you’ve put too much pressure on him? Perhaps he just wants to please us too much, and tries too hard?’
‘Maybe. And if that’s the case, how much more imperative is it that he stay with you!’
‘Ligea—I don’t want him.’
The words slammed into Arrant, stark and uncompromising. They scythed through his mind, shredding his confidence, making a mockery of the happiness he’d found with his father. He wanted to be hugged, comforted, loved. Instead, he was betrayed.
Ligea frowned in puzzlement. ‘But—why ever not?’
‘He will come to me to get his Magor sword when he’s twelve or thereabouts. That’s soon enough. I’ll send someone back with you to help with his training. Pity Garis is not here, or I could send him. By the way, did Garis ever tell you why I sent him away from Kardiastan in the first place?’
She shook her head.
‘It was because I thought he would be safer. The Ravage developed the same sort of dislike for him as it had for you. I suppose because he was with you the day you gave Pinar’s baby to the Mirage Makers—’
‘You’re changing the subject!’
‘No, I’m not. Think about what I’m saying. Sarana, dear, I don’t want Arrant, and I think the reason is obvious. He goes back to Tyrans with you.’
‘But you are so good with him! Better than I am. You’re the kind of man who has—well, who has an affinity for small boys and an—an instinctive understanding of their minds. Both attributes I lack. I’ve always had to work hard at being a mother. Parenthood seems to come to you naturally. You’ve only known him a few days and already he adores you.’
‘I don’t want him.’
Arrant turned his silent cry of hurt inward. They still didn’t look up, still didn’t feel him. He turned and stumbled back to his pallet, his breath coming in uneven gasps of pain. Papa didn’t want him. His own father didn’t like him. He buried his head in his bolster, his misery swelling as a lump in his throat and spilling in tears. He loved Papa. Yet it wasn’t enough. He was the heir to the Mirager’s sword, and even that wasn’t enough. Temellin didn’t care enough to want him around.
It must be because he couldn’t control his cabochon. Because he made a muck of things when he tried to help. Because Ligea had asked for his aid on the ship and he’d failed her. He was a disappointment to everyone. He couldn’t tell when people lied. He couldn’t sense people when he wanted to. His powers vanished when he needed them, and came when he didn’t.
He refused to let his feelings seep away. He wouldn’t let them know how he felt. He wouldn’t let his father see him blubber, the great silent gulps heaving up from inside him. Wouldn’t let him feel that anguish welling up in the silent cry: Why can’t I do anything right?
And that was when he came again. The person who came into his head and looked out through his eyes. Only this time it was different. He spoke.
What are you doing?
The question slipped into his mind. The questioner wanted to know why Arrant was upset, but was also puzzled by the actual process of crying. And he—somehow Arrant knew the maleness of the intruder—was rummaging around in his mind trying to understand. There was no threat, just a friendly interest.
Arrant stopped weeping, breathtaking astonishment driving all thought of his distress from him.
Don’t you know what you were doing? The thoughts emerged just as if Arrant had thought them—but he knew he hadn’t.
He was indignant. ‘Of course I know what I was doing! I was crying!’ And then: ‘What are you doing inside my head?’
I don’t know, came the reply. I just came. All of a sudden. I think maybe because you felt so bad. I’ve been here before, you know. Once I came when there was all that fighting and you were frightened. And then again when you were scared on the boat—
‘I didn’t feel scared!’
Yes, you did so too! I can feel the way you feel. And you feel bad right now. But I can’t do what you were doing. Um, with water in your eyes. That weeping thing.
Arrant was diverted. ‘Why not?’
I s’pose cos I don’t have a body.
‘Everybody has a body,’ Arrant said, not trying to hide his scorn. ‘Who are you? What’s your name?’
I don’t have a name.
Arrant’s scorn increased. ‘Everybody has a name!’
Well, I don’t. And I don’t care if I don’t have a body, either. I can see out of your eyes. And I can hear with your ears. That’s fun. Anyway, I sort of see things and hear things all the time, even though I don’t have eyes and stuff. I listen to people speaking. That’s how I know words.
Somehow that frightened Arrant. ‘Go away!’ he shouted. ‘I don’t like you! Go away!’
His shouts brought his father running up from downstairs. Temellin picked him up in his arms, soothing him, asking him what the matter was. But his father’s rejection was still fresh, the hurt of it as raw as skinned knees and far more painful. He shook his head and shrank away from the comfort. The pain inside him clenched tight.
He’s your father? Why don’t you like him? the voice inside his head asked, interested. He’s my father too.
This time, when Arrant shouted, he did it within his mind. Liar! Liar! Liar!
I’m not lying. I never lie—why should I? He’s hurt you, hasn’t he? And made you angry, too. I can feel it. Never mind, if he’s your father, then we are brothers. And aren’t brothers usually friends? You can be my friend; I’ve always wanted a friend. Don’t feel so bad. You have me now.
Arrant blinked in surprise. A brother? The idea was foreign, yet enticing. He knew about brothers. He’d seen brothers in Prianus playing with one another.
Tendrils of concern and tentative affection spread through his thoughts, emotions that were not his. A brother who wanted to love him! The pain of his father’s betrayal faded a little.
‘Feel better now?’ Temellin asked, still holding him.
‘I’m all right,’ he mumbled, careful to keep his emotions closed up tight. Careful to shut his father out. All of a sudden, it was easy. ‘I can go back to sleep again now.’ Temellin went away, but the presence of his unknown brother stayed, not speaking but just there, comforting him with his concern until he fell asleep.
Downstairs Ligea stretched in front of the fire, sated, smug, happy. She hadn’t been this happy since…well, she wasn’t sure she could remember when.
After Temellin came downstairs again, she asked, ‘A nightmare?’
‘It seems so. He wouldn’t talk about it, though. He has his emotions shut up as tight as a rolled-up millipede—I can’t sense a thing.’
‘Yes, there are times when he is able to do that.’ She sighed. ‘In fact, I think it happens when he’s not trying, too. Sometimes he is so closed to me I have no idea he is even there. It’s…weird. I worry, Tem, about him. About his Magor abilities. About everything. It’s no kind of life for a boy, the one we’re leading. It’s dangerous. He sees things a child shouldn’t see. He would be better off with you, and I don’t understand why you can’t see that. You still haven’t explained why you don’t want him, not to my satisfaction.’
‘Don’t want him? Sweet cabochon, of course I want him! I want you both, more than I have the words to tell you.’
‘Yet you used those words.’
‘I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it.’
‘Well, what did you mean? With you, he could learn to be a Mirager. He needs to learn how to control his powers. With me, he is in constant danger.’
‘The dangers he faces in Tyr are things you can fight. But how do we fight the Ravage welling up beneath our feet?’ He reached out and touched the deforming gouge on her cheek. ‘Remember this? You were lucky to escape. Others die, more
and more often now. And I am afraid for Arrant more than any other. The Ravage will seek him out, him personally. Sarana, if I take him to the Mirage he will die. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Then let him stay here in Ordensa. Or with someone somewhere else. Someone who can train him better than I can. Narjemah will happily stay to give him some stability. She does not want to be parted from him.’
He thought about that. ‘It’s a possibility, but the risk is enormous. The Tyranian legionnaires conduct frequent searches for the Magor. Anyone with a cabochon—or a lump in the palm—is slaughtered the moment they are identified.’
‘No one of the Magor is helpless, Tem.’
‘No. And we usually kill a great many people before we die. But in the end we tire, and when that happens…’ He shrugged. ‘An arrow. A spear. A rip-disc from a whirlsling. He’s safer with you. More anonymous.’
‘Rubbish. I’m one of the most wanted people in all the Exaltarchy. So, the Brotherhood may not know I am Ligea Gayed yet, but they are looking for a Kardi with a scarred face. And Arrant is my weakness; if Rathrox or Bator Korbus get to know of his existence—and they have now met Merriam the midwife—then they will have a way to attack me.’
‘You will keep him safe.’
She stared at him, baffled. Then her face changed as realisation grew. ‘You’re doing this for me.’
For a moment she thought he would deny it, even knowing she would identify the denial as a lie, but he said, ‘Well, partly. You have no one. You are so alone…’
‘I have friends,’ she said defensively, but she was touched. The troubled concern in his gaze, the love that wafted her way, even sometimes when he tried to hide it. Vortex, she had forgotten what it was to be loved so…so utterly. The thought came to her, accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling in the region of her stomach, that now she’d been reminded she would have to learn to live without it all over again.
Never had she so regretted her decision to leave Kardiastan.
She said, trying to sound cheerfully unconcerned, ‘Narjemah looks after me like a broody hen. Gevenan watches over me too, although he’s more like a badtempered rooster defending his pile of grain. He thinks of me as a means to an end, and that end—revenge on Tyrans—is very precious to him, so he takes good care of me. But, Tem, the only person we should be thinking about here is Arrant.’
‘And you think he doesn’t need his mother?’
‘Or a father?’
‘He will come to me in time. For his sword. That is time enough.’
She took a deep, calming breath. ‘Goddess, there was a time when these decisions were so easy, so blithely made. But that was before he was born. It is—harder now.’
‘I know. Mirageless soul, I know.’
‘This is not settled, Tem. Not yet.’
At that, he pulled her into his arms, and they embraced, loving, hurting, grieving, yet celebrating their present joy in one another.
Not knowing what the future would bring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The nameless boy—whoever he was—came back every day. Arrant still wasn’t sure he wanted someone inside his head. He didn’t see how a being without a body could be a brother, either.
If Papa is your father, he said a couple of days after they’d met, then my mother must be your mother. He was seated at the kitchen table at the time, waiting for his supper, which he took earlier than his parents. He was getting good at this speaking in the head.
No, she’s not. You and me are half-brothers. My mother was a different lady, but she’s dead now. I remember her, but not alive.
Arrant tried to make sense of that. What do you mean?
I remember things the others saw.
What others?
Oh, the boy said vaguely, the others. The other part of me. We’re the Mirage Makers. I remember what they saw, even if I wasn’t born when they saw it. Your mother killed my mother, you know. While I was still inside her body.
‘That’s not true! You are such a liar.’ He said the words aloud and the Kardi cook, who was stirring the evening meal over the open fire, looked at him with raised eyebrows. He closed his mouth hurriedly. My mother killed yours? It can’t be true. Ligea doesn’t kill women. At least he didn’t think she did.
She did that time. The boy didn’t seem particularly upset. I don’t think she was an especially nice person, my mother. And she was sort of daft, too. She tried to murder your mother, but your mother killed her first. Then she cut me out of the body and gave me to the Mirage Makers so I wouldn’t die. That’s why I’m not a person like you.
Arrant reeled under the impact of all this, supper forgotten. A feeling that took some time for him to identify rippled through him: shame. His mother had killed his brother’s mother. Because of her, his brother was what he was. He didn’t have legs and arms and a body like him, because of Ligea. His brother couldn’t run and play the way he could.
He looked out of the open kitchen door to where Ligea stood talking to someone in the yard. He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. He shuddered, remembering blood and screams and the dying of men. How part of you was…gone when you died. Eyes looking but not seeing, so suddenly all cold marble statue.
It’s nothing, his brother said airily. I don’t mind.
But Arrant did. And his understanding changed something, although he wasn’t sure what it was. He began to speak of other things, too frightened to think about what the boy had told him. Why don’t you have a name?
I don’t know. I just haven’t.
Everybody has to have a name.
Well, I don’t.
Then I shall give you one. I shall call you Tarran.
That’s almost the same as yours.
Well, we’re brothers, aren’t we? He was desperate to make amends.
None of the other Mirage Makers has a name; at least, I don’t think so. Maybe a long time ago. I like it because it sounds like yours. Tarran. I’ve got a name!
Arrant felt his pleasure and grinned.
Arrant ached to have his father ask him to stay, longed to be wanted. He hung around his father with a woebegone expression on his face that exasperated Temellin because he didn’t know the reason for it and Arrant wouldn’t tell.
He didn’t know what to do to make his father like him. He knew Papa loved his mother; it was obvious from the way he looked at her. Yet when he looked at Arrant now, it was as if his mind blanked over at the sight of him. Arrant tried to tell himself that maybe his own Magor weakness was letting him down, that maybe the love was there but he just couldn’t feel it. Then he would remember those words, those tearing, horrible words: Ligea, I don’t want him.
It had to be his fault. His insides scrunched into a tight ball whenever he thought about it. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said to Tarran one day. He was outside at the time, sitting on the seawall watching one of the fishing boats unload. He swung his legs to and fro over the water. ‘Why doesn’t he want me here?’
Maybe he doesn’t like little boys? Tarran suggested helpfully. Then, when he realised that the remark hadn’t made Arrant any happier: You should listen to them more. When they don’t know you’re listening, I mean. That’s the way to find out interesting stuff. We listen to what people say all the time in the Mirage. How else would we understand anything? And even then, we get muddled.
‘That’s not polite. Do you live in the Mirage? That’s where Papa lives sometimes.’
I know. Go on, Arrant, try some far-hearing like the other Magor do.
‘I’m not very good at all that stuff. Most of the time, I can’t,’ he admitted miserably.
Go on. It can’t be such an awful thing to do, can it? I mean, we do it all the time. In fact, we sort of hear everything spoken in the Mirage whether we want to or not. Most of it’s awfully silly, though. And boring. Go on—try it now.
Arrant looked over his shoulder. He could see the house they were staying in and as far as he knew his parents were inside, w
ith several other of the Magor who had just arrived from the Mirage. One of the servants was sitting on the steps keeping an eye on him.
He sighed. ‘All right.’
He focused his hearing the way he had been taught, and for once everything happened the way it was supposed to. He heard the voices he wanted to. Ligea’s words came sharp and clear into his ear: ‘The Pythian rebels were grateful enough to agree to cooperate—’
Then Temellin: ‘I could send Garis there from Gala, together with Brand. They’ve been there before.’
I don’t really know Garis, but we remember him, Tarran said. He was always fun. Then the Ravage wanted to eat him. He had to ride for his life and we haven’t seen him since—
‘Hush, I want to listen,’ Arrant said.
‘If they can persuade the Pythian miners to withhold shipments of iron to Tyrans,’ Ligea was saying in answer to a question from one of the Magor, ‘the Exaltarch’s legions will have problems with weapons supply within a season.’
‘But you’re still talking another year before a full rebellion in Tyrans?’ someone else asked. ‘So long? Why not now, this summer? We here in Kardiastan don’t want to wait!’
‘What’s the point of being free if you are then drained by constant fighting and further legionnaire invasions?’ Temellin asked. ‘We’ve discussed all this before. A premature uprising could bring more problems than it solved.’
Ligea agreed. ‘The legions are the finest soldiers who ever lived and, thanks to the paveways and the naval galleys, they can be quickly mobilised. It’s no use winning the initial fight and then not having the means to keep the power thus gained. But I’m planning to change from quick forays and retreats—the kind of thing we’ve been doing for the past five years—to full-scale war once the snows melt after next year’s snow-season. That’s not a full year away.
‘My forces will attack from my five strongholds in the mountains. We will seize the paveways and the bridges and the garrisons of northern Tyrans first. Ideally, war should start everywhere at the same time. That way, the Exaltarch cannot concentrate his legions in any one trouble spot. Believe me, his forces are large—but they are still spread thin on the ground.’