The Heart of the Mirage (19 page)

‘Idiots?’ Garis smiled. ‘Among common folk perhaps, but not with us. In fact, it is encouraged as a source of strength.’

‘It’s—unnatural. Horrible!’ Some of my revulsion must have communicated itself to my mount because it shied nervously and flapped its feeding arms. It took me a moment to bring it under control again.

‘Why unnatural?’ Garis asked. ‘You are judging Kardis by Tyranian laws, but such rules are meaningless to us. To be able to reinforce sibling love with sexual love is considered a blessing among the Magor.’

I was silent, unable to find the words to convince him how wrong he was.

‘Derya, Temellin said I could explain to you anything to do with our customs or history, as long as I don’t tell you about how Magor powers work for us. You tell me what you don’t know, and I’ll try to explain so you can understand us better.’

Wary, I thought:
Even Temellin has his reservations…there are some things he doesn’t want me to know yet. Be careful, Ligea. The Mirager is no fool
. Aloud I said, ‘Anything you tell me will be new. Perhaps—tell me why Temellin is the Mirager. What makes a Mirager?’

‘His birth. The eldest child of the Mirager becomes the next Mirager or Miragerin when the Mirager dies. If there is no child, then it goes to the next in line, male or female. Temellin has been Mirager since he was a child, when the last Mirager, his uncle Solad, died during the Tyranian invasion. Naturally, a new Mirager has to be of the Magoroth.’

‘What happened to Temellin’s parents?’

‘The same thing that happened to all Magoroth adults during the invasion. They were killed. By a treachery we don’t really understand. Did you know
the Tyranians like to call those times the “Kardi Uprising”? As if their invasion of our soil was legitimate, and our defence of it was illegal!’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, it started with several different invasions. The first was turned back at the Rift. It was followed by various skirmishes over the next couple of years or so, one of which killed the heir to the Mirager—Solad’s only child. A cousin to both Temellin and Korden. But otherwise none of these small battles seemed particularly dangerous.’ He frowned, angry emotion ripping through his barriers in a cresting wave, even as his ire broke through in his words. ‘They were so stupid, our forebears, Derya! They were so sure of their powers that they failed to plan, failed to keep a proper watch on the coast, failed to train the ordinary Kardis as support troops and so on. Mirage be thanked, Temel has ten times the sense of his uncle, Mirager-solad. And he has learned by watching the legionnaires.

‘Anyway, one night, at the height of the Shimmer Festival—that was our major yearly celebration in those days—someone led a small band of the enemy into the heart of the Pavilions in Madrinya. This was about, oh, twenty-five, twenty-six years ago now. The Magoroth were seated in the main hall for the Shimmer Feast, all of the Magoroth gathered from all over Kardiastan. Tyranian archers shot them down from the gallery. Every wearer of the gold cabochon over the age of ten was killed. Archers have a greater range than cabochon magic, you see.’

Damn it,
I thought,
Rathrox must have known this! Why in all Acheron’s layers of hell didn’t he tell me?

But no matter how hard I tried to think of a rational reason, none came to mind. Rathrox had
always been secretive, but to send an agent out into the field with inadequate knowledge was foolhardy, and Rathrox was no fool. He’d done it deliberately…why? So that I’d fail? Be caught? Killed? Or did he think I’d succeed anyway, and the reason he hadn’t told me had something to do with my past history?

Garis hadn’t noticed my abstraction, and was still telling the story of the Shimmer Festival feast. ‘And none of the Magor were armed with weapons: it was customary not to bring weapons into the feasting hall. With the Magoroth dead, including the Mirager, Solad that is, the Exaltarchy was able to claim the land as theirs.’

‘And the younger Magoroth children?’

He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Pinar, Temellin, Korden, Miasa, Jessah, Jahan, Selwith, Berrin, Markess and Gretha. Ten of them. They were all somewhere between three and ten years old. They had been sent to the Mirage just before the Festival—on, well, training I suppose you could call it. They went with their Theuros and Illusos teachers. It’s strange they were away at the time of the Festival, and in retrospect no one can understand why Miragersolad sent them. Some people think he must have had a premonition. Anyway, it saved their lives. And mine too, perhaps, because I am the son of two of those teachers, although I was born much later.

‘Those wearers of the gold under three years old didn’t escape the massacres. They weren’t old enough to be sent away, so they were all in the palace for the festivities. They were killed in the nurseries by the legionnaires. They slaughtered all the babies, Derya. Every one.’ His rage whirled around him, unrestrained. ‘Someone betrayed those who attended the Festival. We have never found out who. It has
always seemed unbelievable, because the betrayer must have been one of the Magoroth. Only a Magoroth could have raised a ward around the feasting hall strong enough to hide the approach of legionnaires, only a Magoroth could have removed it to allow them entry.’ He shook his head in a mix of distress and rage. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out who now. By the time the legionnaires had finished, all the Magoroth in the Pavilions were dead.’

‘What’s a ward?’ I asked.

‘A kind of magical barrier. An invisible wall that can stop people, or even Magoroth power, from passing through.’

He stopped, obviously wondering if he’d said too much, so I changed the subject.

‘Did any of the lower-ranking Magor—the Illusos and the Theuros—did they escape?’

‘Oh, yes. Most of them. Most weren’t at the feast. But they don’t have Magoroth powers. They tried to resist Tyrans, but they weren’t powerful enough. Sporadic fighting occurred for years, but once the tradeways were built and the legions could ride from one end of the land to the other in a matter of days, there was little hope. Worse still, until Temellin grew up a bit, no newborn Magor children received their cabochons. Oh. Um, I guess I can’t explain about that just now, though.

‘Gradually the lower-ranking Magor gave up the fight and came to the Mirage for safety and to offer their services to teach the Magoroth all they knew. We have been trying to strengthen ourselves ever since, to make our powers even greater than those of our parents, until the time when we are strong enough to sweep the legions into the sea. For some time there have been those who have thought we have sufficient
power, but Temellin still won’t allow a full-scale insurgency. He says we have to ensure the next generation first, in case we are killed.’

‘But it is beginning, isn’t it, your rebellion?’ I asked. ‘Your aim is first to disrupt Tyranian society in Kardiastan. To make Tyranians uncertain, nervous.’

‘Exactly. Temellin says it is important to free slaves for just that reason.’

Not to mention the murder of legionnaire officers, the terrorising of those who used the trade routes, the disappearance of caravans.

He continued, ‘It brings the common folk to our side. After all, there is a whole generation of Kardis who have grown up having no first-hand knowledge of the people of the Magor. They had a right to feel abandoned by us. We have to dispel that feeling. Nothing Temellin does is without reason,’ he added, and there was no mistaking his pride in his Mirager.

‘But he hasn’t done much towards ensuring the next Magoroth generation if he himself hasn’t married,’ I replied. ‘Or has he been begetting bastards along the way?’

He laughed. ‘Perhaps. But not Magoroth ones. Although, to be honest, I don’t think that’s likely, either. Temellin takes his duties as Mirager too seriously to flaunt himself like that. Anyway, he was married at eighteen, like many of us. His wife was Miasa, one of the original Ten. She was, um, barren for many years. Then, when she did conceive, she had a difficult time. She died, with the baby unborn, just last year. It was an awful time for Temellin, but now it seems he will marry Pinar once the mourning period is up.’ Garis the romantic sighed, his eyes troubled. ‘He doesn’t have all that much choice. As Mirager, he should marry a Magoria and Pinar is the only one of
age who is not spoken for. I don’t think he likes her

that much, although she is his cousin. It is sad.’ ‘And the others all have children?’

‘Oh yes. Korden and Gretha have ten! And another on the way.’

‘All Magoroth.’

‘Of course. And we have been lucky, too, in the number of such children born to Theuras and Illusas. Altogether there are forty-eight Magoroth children in the Mirage. And many more of the lower ranks. So now Temellin feels the time has come to move against the Tyranian presence in our land.’ His tawny eyes danced at the prospect. ‘Temellin says the break-up of the whole Exaltarchy will start here, in Kardiastan.’

Goddess, the man had the gall of a gnat biting a gorclak! He didn’t really think it was possible to bring about the downfall of the greatest empire ever conceived, did he? The Exaltarchy stretched over half the known world…I decided to keep that thought to myself, and changed the subject. ‘What is the Mirage like, Garis?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Temellin says I shouldn’t tell you that.’

I hid a sigh. I thought perhaps I was going to become quite tired of hearing Garis say,
Temellin says…

He went on, ‘He’ll have time for you soon. The last of the other groups leaves us today. Then there will just be you and me and him and Brand. I think he wants to know you better before you see the secrets of the Shiver Barrens and the Mirage. We risk much to show you, if you are a traitor. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself soon.’

I gave an involuntary look at Temellin where he sat on his shleth at the head of a group of Kardi ex-slaves. He was smiling and I felt my throat tighten just at the
thought of him turning that smile on me. I forced my attention back to Garis, who was asking, ‘But won’t you tell me a little about Tyr? Does water really travel from the mountains along bridges? Do they really have public games where everyone is naked? Is it true the Exaltarch has orgies every night and has an insatiable appetite for slave women?’

‘Well, I know he has an appetite for women, yes,’ I said gravely, answering the last. ‘And wine too. But he made the Exaltarchy what it is; he extended it from a few tributary neighbours to all the nations bordering the Sea of Iss. He couldn’t have done that if he spent his time indulging in drunken orgies. The Exaltarch is an ex-soldier and he has a soldier’s discipline.’

He gave me a puzzled glance. ‘You sound almost admiring.’

‘I am. Only a fool would not respect what the Exaltarch has achieved.
Approving
of it is another matter.’

‘She’s right, Garis,’ a voice behind me said. I turned in the saddle to see Korden had ridden up. ‘But what we have to decide,’ he continued, addressing me, ‘is whether you are one of those who approves, as well as admires.’

‘Slaves do not usually approve of those who run the system that makes them slaves in the first place.’

‘One would think it illogical, wouldn’t one?’ Korden was nothing if not urbane. ‘And yet I have seen it happen with slaves who were raised in slavery. They know no other life. They are brought up to believe it is a just state of affairs. They may even love those who enslave them, giving up their lives for their owners if the situation arises.’ He considered me thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes people are irrational beings. I do not
distrust
you exactly, Derya, but you will have to prove
your loyalty before I give you my trust. I do not have Temellin’s faith in the blood running in your veins. Temellin is our Mirager, but he is not an absolute monarch. He rules by covenant and
must
listen to others of his kind. Be warned: there will be those who watch you and who will turn the power of the Magor on you if you prove faithless.’ With that, he switched his attention to Garis. ‘I came to say goodbye. This is where I leave with my group; I will see you on the other side of the Barrens.’ He stretched forth his left hand and Garis touched palms with him.

He made no such gesture to me.

We slept at night wrapped in woollen blankets, under the shelter of waxed sheeting strung up on poles to keep the dew off. After Pinar had left on the second day, I kept wondering if Temellin would come to me at night, but he never did. During the day, if anything, he avoided me. He didn’t have to try hard: there were always people claiming his attention, always problems to be solved concerning the ex-slaves. After Korden left on the fourth day, he didn’t have that excuse. There were only four of us left—Brand and Garis being the other two—but he only came to me the next morning.

He woke me just at first light. ‘Come,’ he whispered, ‘I have something to show you. A wild shleth.’

I rose and followed him, brushing the sleep from my eyes as I went. He led me out into the desert, using his sword for light, but keeping the glow of it subdued. ‘I thought you might like to have a look at this,’ he said, pointing to where a lone shleth was using its feeding arms and feet to excavate a deep hole in the sand. ‘It’s about to give birth.’

The beast finished its digging, and knelt down in the hole. Almost immediately it began to strain, and
within minutes it had passed a blood-streaked leathery sac about the size of a cat, oval in shape, into the hole. The shleth proceeded to cover up its newborn with sand.

‘What is it doing?’ I asked in astonishment.

‘They bury the sac in sand and promptly forget about it. It’s like a large, half-developed egg. When the young is fully developed, it uses its feeding arms to dig out to the surface where it can fend for itself.’

‘Shleths don’t feed their young?’

‘Kardis speak of shleth’s milk the same way Tyranians refer to hen’s teeth or Assorians talk about snake feathers. The young will grow up on the edges of the lake here, feeding on the grasses.’

He turned towards me. ‘We have tried to raise the young from the time they dig themselves out, but we’ve never had success. They survive best by themselves for a year or two. Which has a disadvantage for us—we have to catch and tame them later on.’ He reached out and drew me to him, kissing me gently on the lips. It wasn’t the kind of kiss I wanted from him. ‘It has been hard not to…’ he said, and made a vague gesture with his hand. ‘I want you so badly. Yet I shouldn’t be here with you now. It has no future.’

‘It doesn’t have to have a future, Tem. In fact, I am not in the habit of considering a future for my relationships.’

‘No, I don’t suppose slaves can. I find it hard to imagine what it must be like to be enslaved. But now? You can have a future, Derya. You can plan to have a husband, a family, lots of children…’

‘I can’t say children have figured much in my plans either.’ That was certainly true. I’d never considered having any, and had taken good care I wouldn’t. ‘What’s the matter with just here and now?’ At least
this time I was well fortified with gameez to prevent conception.

He didn’t need more of an invitation. The shleth had wandered away, but we stayed there on the sands and found something in each other’s arms as magical as the sword he carried.

And yet, later, lying in my blankets back in the camp, I wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake. When he clasped his palm to mine and we joined for that moment in time, we gave something to each other and gained something from each other that changed us both. We forged connections—in Magor magic, in physical loving. We fashioned bonds that lingered on afterwards in a way I’d never experienced before in any lustful coupling.

We forgot bonds could also be fetters.

‘That’s it?’ I asked Temellin. ‘That’s the Shiver Barrens?’

‘That’s it.’

The two of us pulled up our mounts on the top of a stony rise. A red-rock slope of a few hundred paces led down to an expanse of sand that appeared to stretch on forever. Beside us Garis and Brand also halted, and all conversation ceased.

After the initial question, I was speechless. Any words would have been too mundane to express the cascade of overwhelming emotions swamping me at that moment. Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t what I saw then—there had never been a place in my logical world for anything like this.

From a sky of unforgiving blue, unblemished by cloud, the sun screamed full-voiced down on the desert sands, relentless, scorching—
and the sands responded
. The grains rose up to greet the heat of the day and gyrated for the
sun god, as sensual as a seminaked dancing girl discarding her veils.

The Shiver Barrens danced…

They moved in patterns that wove and unravelled, formed and disintegrated in shimmers of light and dark, and as they danced they sang a whispering song of seduction. The whorls and streams of sand grains reached twice the height of a man, pouring through the air from the ground and back again like wraiths of mist in a wind. But there was no wind. The sand moved of its own volition, every particle selfpropelled, yet each obeying some cosmic law that orchestrated its movement into this tidal dance.

I watched in wonderment, and remembered being a child at our cliffside holiday villa on the Sea of Iss, watching schools of fish swimming in the ocean far below—the annual run of sardines along the coast. Sometimes the sharks would pierce the shoals in vicious thrusting stabs, and the fish would whirl away, turning and twisting in skeins of light and dark, each with a mind of its own, yet performing its part in perfect unison as the swarming mass split and rejoined.

Such were the dancing sands of the Shiver Barrens.

And as they flowed and re-formed, clustered and seethed, they sang. Not in words, but in soft sound just out of range of my understanding, half heard, like the far-off tinkle of wind chimes, the patter of raindrops on water, the soughing of a breeze through pine needles, the soft licking of a cat’s tongue on kitten fur.

In a dream, I urged my mount down to the edge of the Barrens, where rock gave way to dancing sand. I dismounted and leant forward to hold my hand out and catch up some of the grains bouncing in the air—but they couldn’t be captured. They jiggled away from me, teasing.

‘Try your left hand,’ Temellin said at my elbow. This time I caught them and they nestled in my cupped palm, twinkling at me, purple and silver and gold and grey…slivers of colour. They tickled my skin until I released them and they flew away, humming their song of joy.

‘What do you think?’ Temellin asked softly. But I refused to be drawn; I still had no words. He stood close behind and put his arms around me. ‘Can you hear it?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Only the Magor can hear the song…’

‘Does it mean anything? I keep thinking that if only I could listen a bit better, I’d be able to understand what it is saying.’

He was dismissive. ‘There’s nothing to understand. It’s just a meaningless melody.’

He believed what he said, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I was also painfully aware of his body against mine.
Remember, Ligea, you are a compeer.
‘Why can’t the legions cross?’

‘They don’t know the secret. They ride out, not knowing the further you ride, the deeper the dance becomes. At the edge, where we are now, the firm ground is just a pace down; the pain of the grains brushing your skin would be bearable.’ He waved a hand towards the horizon. ‘Out there the sand dances above your head. You breathe it into your nostrils, you gasp and it dances into your mouth. It fills your ears and abrades your skin. You start to bleed; just pinpricks to start with, then your mouth and nose and ears trickle blood and your skin is rasped raw and the pain maddens you and your mount. You try to return, but you cannot see which way safety lies. Your clothing is shredded and you yourself are flayed to a mass of
bleeding, skinless flesh. When the sand finally chokes you and you cease to breathe, it is the mercy you have prayed for. The Barrens are cruel to those who trespass in ignorance. Even to us, the Magor. For some reason, our—our abilities are limited here. The sands do not obey our magic.’

‘But there is a secret—’

‘Yes, and tonight you will discover it.’ His cheek rested against mine; his voice caressed, although his words were gravid with warning. ‘The Shiver Barrens are the Mirage’s protection from Kardiastan, just as the Alps are its protection on the western side, from Tyrans. And after today, you and Brand will both know the secret…’

He trailed fingers down the side of my neck to my breast, then swung me to face him. ‘Don’t betray us, Derya. Pinar and Korden think the legionnaires who were all around the safe house in Madrinya had something to do with either you or Brand.’ His hand still cupped my breast, tantalising me through the cloth. ‘I cannot believe that. Not when I have lain in your arms and felt your trueness, but I am not foolish enough to think I am always right. We all have the ability to hide our emotions from one another, although not our lies.’ He looked back to the top of the slope, where Brand stood staring at us both with an expressionless face.

‘I asked Brand about those legionnaries, and he refused to answer. He said if I doubt you, then I should talk to you, not him. He gave the same answer to Pinar. I wish he had been more…straightforward in his replies. Pinar and Korden are now convinced he won’t answer such questions plainly because he knows we’ll catch him out in a lie.’

‘It was Legata Ligea who ordered the legionnaires out in force,’ I said, with perfect truth. ‘She wants to
catch the Mirager. You. What else can either of us say? Ligea is not in the habit of talking to her handmaidens about the details of her plans. And as for Brand, he cares for me. He doesn’t like to see others distrust me, or treat me like some kind of criminal. He is angry with Pinar.’

He looked up at Brand again.

‘Is he your lover, Derya?’

‘He is a brother to me.’

‘That does not make any difference to a Magor.’

‘So I’ve been told. It does to me. A wealth of difference.’

‘He does not think of himself as your brother.’

‘No.’

He put his left palm to mine, reinforcing his words with his flow of emotions. ‘I have not had a woman other than you since the death of my wife. After she died, I desired no one until I put my arms around you and felt something so powerful it could not be resisted. I loved my wife, Derya. It hurts even now to think of her. And yet, she never made me feel the way you do. I wanted her, yet it never made me ache just to look at her, as I do when I look at you.’ He released me and stood back a little. ‘You have had time to think, Derya. Do you still want me on your pallet, knowing that’s all we’ll ever have?’

‘Yes.’ The word jerked out. I felt I was physically incapable of giving any other answer.

He nodded and leant forward to brush his lips against my forehead. ‘Warn Brand that if he thinks to leave the Mirage before he has gained my trust, I will kill him before he reaches the edge of the Shiver Barrens as surely as the sun rises. As I would
anyone
who would betray Kardiastan to Tyrans. And now we will set up camp here for the remainder of the day. We
will move only after sunset. We must rest; it will be a long ride tonight.’ He turned away, calling to Garis, giving orders, smiling his friendship and goodwill.

I wondered what had happened to his laughter while he had been speaking to me.

I went over to Brand and gave him Temellin’s warning.

‘Charming fellow,’ he said. ‘And how long have you been bedding this scorpion, my sweet?’

I bristled. ‘The slaking of my appetite is no business of yours, Brand.’

‘No, more’s the pity. But remember, scorpions have stings in the tail. It doesn’t pay to play with them.’ He grinned at me, but there was little humour in it.

I tried to sleep under the makeshift shelter they erected, but the heat was so intense it seemed to shrivel me, making my skin too small for my body, squeezing me into too small a space. The rock beneath my sleeping pelt seared as if I were meat basting over a fire. And the music from the Shiver Barrens teased, promising something just beyond my understanding. I still felt that if I could only concentrate, I would be able to comprehend the words and arrive at some eternal truth…but I could never quite hear. I rolled over to watch the dance, the endless movement that was colour and sound as well, and was again a moth fascinated by a flame. Could such beauty be deadly? I felt I could walk into the dance, be part of its glory—and emerge unscathed. Yet Temellin could not have been lying; I would have known. And the legionnaires who had set out to cross the sands had never returned.

Gradually the dancing slowed, as if the grains grew too heavy for the air, sinking lower and lower until their movement was stilled and the ground was quiet and purple under the last rays of the sun.

I slept.

When I awoke, the ground sparkled with frost. Once the warmth of the day was gone, no longer enticing the sand to dance, the Barrens were calm and virginal, a white-clad bride breathlessly awaiting the sweet violation of the wedding night.

Temellin and Garis were dismantling the camp. Brand passed food to me and I ate hurriedly, infected by the eagerness of the others to be away. ‘Why didn’t we start to cross at sunset?’ I asked Temellin. ‘We’d have had more time.’

‘There are patches of quicksand out there. Ride over one of those and our mounts would flounder and sink. We’d be mired. And once again the Barrens would have claimed the unwary. The ground has to be hard for us to cross.’

I understood then. We’d had to wait, wait until the temperature fell to freezing as it did each night under those cloudless Kardi skies. Until the sand grains were bound together with the sparkle of desert dew frost; until the ground was frozen beneath the feet of a mount.

Only then could we start our journey.

I rode with Temellin beside me, Garis and Brand and the pack shleth dropping away behind, each of us careful to make our own path across the crust. To have followed the tracks of another would have been to risk breaking through the surface. If I looked back, I could see the pawprints the shleths left behind, but when I looked ahead, Temellin and I could have been the only people ever to have crossed the Shiver Barrens, ever to have made a mark on that virgin white.