The Heart of the Mirage (24 page)

I said, ‘Damn you, Brand, you know I can’t. Maybe that compeer bitch, Ligea of Tyr, could have done it, but she doesn’t exist any more. He is my
brother
. My flesh and blood.’ I turned my face to the wall. It was
difficult to say the next words, to tell him what I had refused to think about since I had learned the truth of it under the Shiver Barrens. ‘He is the father of my son.’

He was stilled with shock. ‘You
can’t
know that you—’ he said after a long pause. ‘You’ve known him only a matter of what, ten days? How could you know that you are—?’

‘I know. Just as I know when people lie. I have a life growing in me, his son. His nephew.’ I gave a bitter laugh. ‘I shall be mother and aunt all in one.’ I rolled off the pallet and went to stand at the window. I had known my pregnancy in one split second when I was inside the Shiver Barrens. The knowledge had suddenly been there in my body, in my mind. And more than just that, I’d known his gender. A boy, conceived the first day when I had been so overwhelmed by the attraction of a Magoria to a Magori that I had cast all sense and precautions away in exchange for pleasure. The Goddess Melete—or fate, or whatever you like to call it—had made me pay for that moment of fervid passion.

Doubtless the knowledge of the child, my son, should have been the source of joy, of wonderment. But what joy could there be when I learned of him just moments after I was shown a vile vision of death? A vision of a nameless baby ripped from his nameless mother’s womb, to cause her demise—and for what? Some sick purpose of the Mirage Makers? What conclusion was I to derive from that, except the most obvious? And that was another thing I had spent days trying not to think about: I was being primed as a sacrifice, to supply an unborn child.

Yet now I wondered. Perhaps I had mistaken the meaning of the vision. Perhaps the Mirage Makers had
been telling me something slightly different: that the child was an abomination, seeded by a man who was his uncle as well as his father. That he had to be destroyed, even if it meant my death. Perhaps they didn’t like sibling pairing any more than I did. Yet if that was the case, why my child and not, say, Jahan and Jessah’s? They had children, I knew. Several of them. Why mine? Why
me
?

I covered my face with my hands, to hide my horror from Brand.

‘Let’s go back to Tyr, then,’ he said. For once, his calm had deserted him. His face was ashen with shock. ‘Tell Rathrox you failed. Resign. Live your own life.’

‘I cannot return to Tyrans. I would be accused of treason. No one leaves the Brotherhood without Rathrox’s consent. No one walks away from an assignment without being punished for their dereliction of duty.’

He was disbelieving. ‘Punished?
Treason?
You think they’d
burn
you?’

‘Oh no. Burning is for non-citizens. Citizen traitors are crucified.’

‘They wouldn’t dare! You are Gayed’s daughter. You are being melodramatic.’

Goddess, I wished I were. I could already feel the nails being driven into my hands, see the blood dribbling down my arms, hear the coarse mockery of men like Hargen Bivius. I said, ‘But there are other factors involved here, aren’t there?’

We stared at one another while he considered what I meant. ‘They set you up,’ he said softly. ‘The three of them. Korbus, Rathrox and Gayed. Your whole life was aimed at this moment. The moment you would be in a position to be an instrument of their revenge on Kardiastan.’

I nodded, nausea seeping through me like poison. Gayed.
I’d thought he loved me…
I forced myself to sound rational, reasoned, calm. ‘If I fail here, and go home with the task unfinished, their revenge will extend to my downfall. There would be some trumped-up charge, to make my dereliction seem truly traitorous. Would they stop short of crucifixion, do you think? I don’t think so. Anyway, at the very least, they will strip me of all I own, including my reputation and my respectability. My life wouldn’t be worth ten sestus.’
Tyr
, I thought. I had loved that city once.

‘Vortex
damn
them.’ His next words were said with an urgent passion. ‘We can go somewhere else, then. Leave them all behind: Kardis, Tyranians, the Brotherhood, escape all of them. Build a life for yourself somewhere else. In Altan perhaps. Or even outside the boundaries of the Exaltarchy.’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’

‘There’s nothing here to hold you back.’

I was silent a long while, looking out of the window at the conglomeration of crazy buildings, now just curious shapes in the darkness. I said finally, ‘It is his son too. He has a father’s rights…’

I heard the faint expelling of his breath: a sigh, acknowledging his acceptance that there was no gain for him in my loss.

‘Don’t tell Temellin about this pregnancy, Brand. I’ll tell him in my own way, in my own time.’

‘I won’t say anything to anyone. This is between the two of you.’

Oh, Goddess
, I thought.
If only it was
. But there were the Mirage Makers…Did they want the child in order to destroy an abomination? Or for some other reason? Did they need a child to bring them new blood, to rejuvenate whatever it was they were? A new Mirage
Maker to become one with them? I had never heard of a mother surviving the trauma of having a child and womb lifted from her body. The Magor had healing powers, I knew that, but I doubted they included the skill needed to save a woman from such a mutilation. What was it Garis had said? They were healers, not miracle workers.

And then there were the Magor. When it became known I was pregnant, and if it were true Solad had gained a sanctuary within the Mirage in exchange for a future unborn Magor child, then they might consider my life to be forfeit.

I wondered how many people knew about the required sacrifice. Temellin, certainly. I’d seen his face when he spoke of Solad’s bargain and his own responsibility to fulfil it. What was it he had said?
I believe we must pay, whatever the suffering it causes
. He was probably the only one the Mirage Makers had told, although he could well have passed on the knowledge to others. To Korden. To Pinar? After all, she had a right to know. She was going to marry Temellin, and the logical sacrifice would be a child of the Mirager. And the woman who carried it.

I shuddered. I was the outsider, the expendable one. Who would care? Temellin, when he believed the sacrifice was necessary and others called for my death, as they most certainly would? Pinar would actively pursue my murder, I had no doubt of that. Quite apart from the prompting of her jealousy, sacrificing me and my child might save her own hide if ever she conceived Temellin’s child.

I won’t do it
, I thought.
No one is going to kill me. I won’t let them. And I am not going to run away, either.

You are the Miragerin…
Words whispered in the sand. ‘There’s something that doesn’t quite—’ I
began, and then stopped. Could the Magoroth be wrong? Could I not be the other woman they had mentioned—Sarana? ‘I want to talk to—to Zerise would be best, I think. Can you get her for me, Brand?’

‘Certainly. If I don’t get lost, that is. Damn place has more passageways than a fish has scales.’

I continued to stand at the window after he had gone, but I wasn’t seeing the view. I was back in the Shiver Barrens, hearing the song of the Mirage Makers, trying to fan a spark of hope. Anything was better than the alternative.

An hour later, Brand entered with a heartfelt look at me indicating he had indeed managed to lose himself. He ushered Zerise in and then left us. The Illusa moved through the dimness of the room to the table and lit the candle there. I didn’t see what she did, but she used her cabochon to do it. When she spoke, her voice was gentle. ‘We didn’t understand at first,’ she said. ‘We all thought you would be glad. To be the sister of the Mirager—’

‘You knew he was also my lover?’

‘We do now. We do not feel your revulsion. Such unions are usually blessed with a lasting love. The children of sibling unions are also much blessed. You and Temellin are the children of such a union—’

‘Oh, sweet Melete help me! My
parents
?’ I wanted to be sick. I warred with my body to halt the reflex, to keep the food in my stomach. Inbred! And my son…the grandchild of siblings, the child of siblings, inbred to a point of insanity.

‘Temellin is the strongest Magori we have,’ Zerise said. ‘His powers are strong within him, as yours will be when you are taught how to use them. There is nothing wrong with such a union, Magoria-shirin. A marriage between you would be cause for great
happiness, and your children would be very, very special. Perhaps the greatest Magoroth ever born. Healthy, intelligent and Magor-strong.’

But I didn’t want to hear. I said, ‘This other Magoria, this Sarana—’

‘If she had lived she would be Miragerin, and Mirager-temellin would not hold the sword of the Mirager. She was your cousin, the only child of your oldest uncle, Mirager-solad. There were five siblings, you know: Solad who was the eldest, then a brother and a sister, Ebelar and Niloufar, who were Sarana’s and Temellin’s parents, then another brother who was Korden’s father, and finally another sister, who was Pinar’s mother. Sarana was the heir, but she died before the Madrinya Shimmer Festival massacre. The massacre was not the first attack on our people; it was just the worst.’

I was stilled, remembering the expression on Temellin’s face when he had thought I might be Sarana; remembering the emotion that had twisted his voice. He had almost hated me then. Wryly, I thought to myself that here was something else we shared besides a love of power: a marked reluctance to relinquish the power we had. I asked, ‘There is no possibility—?’

‘None.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘It was a terrible time, Magoria. The Mirager worshipped his daughter from the moment of her birth. Some said she was his obsession. Her mother, Magoria-wendia, thought so. She thought the Mirager was ruining their daughter to the point of idiocy, and I must say I agreed with her. Sarana was fast becoming an unpleasant little brat. Wendia decided to take the child and leave Madrinya. She wasn’t the Miragerin-consort—Solad wasn’t married—so it wasn’t all that hard for her to go. Unfortunately her howdah was ambushed and
everyone in her party was killed. I thought the Mirager might die with grief when he realised Sarana had died.’

I interrupted. ‘But if Wendia and Solad weren’t married, how could Sarana be the heir?’

‘The first-born child of the ruler is the heir, no matter who the other parent is, as long as the child is a Magoroth and as long as the ruling Mirager or Miragerin acknowledges the child as theirs. That is Magor law. We put no store by a child’s legitimacy as Tyranian law does.’ She snorted. ‘They try to tell us their laws are better, but we will never acknowledge their ways. Why should a child be robbed of his birthright because his parents did not marry?’

‘So if Sarana had lived, she would have become Miragerin. Is there anyone
else
who might use that title?’

‘Well, the official consort of the ruling Mirager. If you were to marry Mirager-temellin, you would be Miragerin-shirin, the Miragerin-consort. And then there is the mother of the heir. Even if she is not the consort, she is honoured with the title of Miragerin. And then finally there’s the mother of the Mirager. Your mother, yours and Temellin’s, would have been termed Miragerin-niloufar, had she lived.’

The mother of the heir.
Oh, Acheron’s hells
, I thought.
My son will be Mirager in this land
. I wasn’t Sarana, but I truly was Miragerin anyway, just as the Mirage Makers said. I was the mother to the heir, the unborn heir. They had known that…Then a new thought blasted me. Until the baby was born,
I was Temellin’s heir.
I was his younger sister, and the Kardis made no distinctions between the sexes where their ruler was concerned.

If Temellin died, Ligea Gayed, Legata Compeer of the Brotherhood, would be regarded by the Kardis as
their rightful ruler. I gave an ironic laugh that hiccupped into a sob. I should kill him. Then, as the Miragerin-ruler, I could bring the Magor down in ways they could never have dreamed of…and reap such glory in Tyr there would be statues of me built in the Forum Publicum. My success would be a legend handed down to the next generations. Was
this
the triumph Rathrox and Bator Korbus had schemed to achieve? They’d wanted me to kill or capture the Mirager. And then perhaps they’d planned to tell me who I was—and plant me, obedient and loyal Ligea, on the Kardis as their rightful ruler. A grateful vassal, to do as I was told by Tyr.

Goddessdamn. The Oracle. Of course. They’d aimed to give my future an apparent spiritual dimension, to seed me with a sense of destiny by sending me to the Oracle. How had the poem run?

‘All power in her wide embrace,

None will again deny

Ligea Gayed her rightful place.’

My rightful place. Miragerin of Kardiastan. Goddessdamn.

Zerise was watching me, mystified. ‘My child—why do you cause yourself so much grief? Your love for the Mirager is blessed. Accept it. Go gladly to his arms. Bear his children. Why cling to the laws of a land that was never really yours? You are Kardi; you are Magor; rejoice in it!’ Her voice had an edge to it now, an intensity matching the rest of her. She shot out a bony hand to grip my arm. ‘You have a duty to the Magor. We all have! Look at me, Magoria—I was a nurse, a children’s nurse—can you see that when you look at me now? I doubt it. I haven’t been a nurse
since I had to wade through children’s blood, carrying the only two babies I could save, both Theuros children, my own face smashed beyond repair. Now I fight. My cabochon will burn a legionnaire to ashes one day—I, who only wanted to care for my babies. Your duty comes before your wishes, Magoria.’

I swallowed bile and said, ‘Ask Brand to come in, will you, Illusa-zerise?’

She heard the dismissal and the fire damped down. Yet, just as she was on her way out, she turned back. She wanted to say something, started to say it, but changed her mind. A most extraordinary expression skittered across her face. It was so fleeting I wasn’t sure I’d seen it, yet I was left with the feeling I had glimpsed a dismay so profound it bordered on panic. Then she was gone.