The Heart of the Mirage (35 page)

‘So what if I am?’

‘By the Goddess, you’ve changed!’ He shook his head in a sort of bemused wonder and then drawled,
‘Do you realise that in a couple of months you have managed to change your name three times? Ligea—Derya—Shirin—Sarana. Aren’t you overdoing things a bit, my dear?’

As usual he managed to drag a reluctant chuckle out of me. I said, ‘Let’s gallop again. I really don’t want to confront Pinar.’ I slapped a hand down on the neck of my mount and, startled, it leapt away up the track.

As I rode, I wondered if Brand was right. I wasn’t sure I was as altruistic as he thought. True, I didn’t want to come to the position of ruler at Temellin’s expense, any more than Korden had. To strip the man I loved of everything he had been raised to believe was rightfully his would be to castrate him, to take away his reason for living. I loved him too much to do that to him. But there was a selfishness in my reluctance too. Once Temellin found out I hadn’t lied about the Stalwarts, there was always the possibility we could get together again, that he might forgive me my deception. I could tell him I had decided that being closely related to him didn’t matter after all…I was never one to close doors behind me if it were possible to leave them ajar.

On the other hand, if I took away Temellin’s mandate to rule, I would be slamming a door and probably locking it as well, because part of him would never be able to forgive me.

Besides, I wasn’t convinced I wanted to be Miragerin anyway. What joy would there be in ruling a country that didn’t want me? Especially when the seed of a much better idea was already rattling around in my thoughts…

That evening, when we pulled up to water our shleths at a roadside pond, Brand said, ‘We have to stop, Ligea.
These beasts are ready to drop and I’m not much better. Vortex only knows how you feel.’

‘Don’t coddle me, Brand.’ I smiled at him. ‘That’s one sin you’ve never been guilty of yet, so don’t you dare start now just because I’m having a baby. But I agree with you: we’ll stop here for the night. There’s plenty of grazing and water.’ I slid off my mount and started to unsaddle.

I had just finished hobbling my beast when a startled exclamation from Brand had me whirling, with my sword already halfway out of its scabbard. In the moments it had taken me to attend to the shleth, a building had appeared beside the pond. It was a solid structure of grey stone, three storeys high with several turrets and some pine trees on the roof.

‘Where in the name of the Goddess did that come from?’ Brand asked in consternation.

‘I imagine that’s a gift from the Mirage Makers for tired travellers,’ I replied, amused.

He gaped. ‘Isn’t it a mite, um,
large
for the two of us?’

‘I suspect the Mirage Makers have always been a little confused about the needs of humans. You only have to look at the Mirage City to see that.’ I picked up my saddlebags. ‘Shall we see if they have thought to supply any furniture? The idea of a pallet is very tempting.’ I rubbed my buttocks ruefully.‘Two months in prison doesn’t do much good to muscles.’

There were pallets, an abundance of them. There was also a surfeit of more trivial objects that weren’t of the slightest use: toys, candelabra (but no candles), a spinning wheel, a small boat, enough saddlery to outfit a legion. Brand shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Mad,’ he muttered. ‘Quite, quite mad.’ He turned his attention to preparing a meal, while I went outside to
ward the building. I could not keep Pinar out, but I could fix it so I would be warned the moment the Miragerin-consort entered, if indeed she came at all.

Later that night, it was the breaking of that ward that woke me, sending a searing pain through my hand from my cabochon. The stone had flared and was still glowing its alarm. Quickly I crossed to Brand on the other side of the room and shook him awake. ‘Someone’s here,’ I murmured.

I raised the cabochon to my ear, listened—and my heart sagged within me. It was Pinar.

Pinar was not alone; Garis was with her.

Brand wanted to sneak away immediately, but I disabused him of the notion such a feat was possible. ‘She already senses me,’ I said. ‘We move from here, and she’ll know. My only chance is to talk, to try to show her—’

‘
Talk?
Are you crazy? That woman is beyond reason!’

I turned from him, strapping on my sword, knowing the truth of his words, fearing I was going to die.

‘You can’t do this! Will you risk your life so casually?’ he raged at me. ‘
His
son—?’

‘The child will not die. He will live forever.’

‘As what? As some creature that is not human? Without body, without soul?’ He shuddered. ‘I would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy, Ligea.’

‘Who are we to say it would not be a better existence than the one we live? We have no concept of what it’s like to be a Mirage Maker, Brand. My son might save this land, might save these entities that are the Mirage, and the bond between Magor and Mirage
Makers will be strengthened. Do you think I
want
to do this?’

‘And what of you? Vortex, Ligea,
what of you
?’

I turned back to him. I wanted to scream at him, to say: I want her dead! Of course I do! I want her child sacrificed, not mine, not me! Oh, Goddess, Brand, I don’t want to die—I just don’t know how to save myself…

Instead, I said, ‘What of me? Perhaps this way of dying will give my life some meaning. And Garis could see that my son goes to the Mirage Makers. Tell him, Brand, if I don’t have the chance. And as for the Stalwarts, do what you can to persuade the Magor they are coming.’

He was incredulous. ‘Is this really you, Ligea? I never thought I’d ever listen to words of defeat from your lips. Fight the bitch!’ He took up his unsheathed sword.

‘Keep out of this, Brand,’ I warned. ‘You cannot fight anyone of the Magor. She will not harm you if you stay out of it.’

‘And what sort of a man do you think I will be if I stand aside and let the woman I love be killed, and then allow her body to be mutilated?’ he asked, enraged.

I had no time to reply. The door opened and Garis stepped into the room. His arm was no longer in a sling, its recovery hastened, I assumed, by the Magor ability to aid healing. He was followed by Pinar. The Magoria’s sword was already drawn and glowing, adding to the light I had coaxed out of my cabochon.

Garis spoke first, anxiously apologetic. ‘Sorry, Shirin. I couldn’t stop her.’

‘What do you intend, Pinar?’ I asked quietly. ‘I’m sure Garis has told you of the way my honesty was tested—’

‘A fraud!’ she snapped. ‘He’s a child, easily deceived by sleight of hand. And who’s to say the text was accurate anyway? I’ve never heard of such a test!’

Garis opened his mouth to make an indignant retort, but I stepped in first. ‘I’ll undergo the test again, if that will help you believe the truth.’ Even as I spoke, I knew Pinar would never acknowledge the truth, no matter how large it was written. I turned to Garis, although I knew it was useless to ask for his help. He would never be able to bring himself to raise a hand against Pinar, one of the original Ten and the consort of his Mirager. I said merely, ‘If I die here, Garis, it will be up to you to stop the Stalwarts. And there will be another task for you that Brand will explain.’

He gave a strangled gurgle. ‘Die? No one is going to die! Pinar just wants to take you back.’

Brand was scathing. ‘Look at her, you mash-brained witling! Does she look like someone about to act as an escort to the woman she considers her worst enemy?’

Garis took one look at Pinar’s face and said, ‘Miragerin, please think. Temellin will never forgive you if you harm Shirin—’

‘He’s never forgiven me anyway,’ she said venomously, ‘for not
being
her. She’s won against me every time. Even when she was warded, she went on winning. Well, this is one time
I’m
going to win. And this will be the time that counts.’

‘Murder me, and not only will you have to explain my death to Temellin,’ I said, ‘but you will have to explain why you also killed his son. I, too, am bearing his child, Pinar. Would you kill your child’s brother?’ I was gambling that she didn’t know about the details of Solad’s bargain, but it was a stupidity anyway; an appeal to a woman who was beyond appeal, a woman
whose mind was so fettered with jealousy nothing mattered except vengeance.

Even as I spoke, I knew I had lost. I didn’t need Brand’s wince, and his agonised, ‘Mistake, love, mistake,’ to tell me.

Rage boiled inside the Miragerin-consort. Her sword flared to white brilliance, spilling out of the blade.

‘Pinar!’ Garis cried, his anguish swamping us all, but it was Brand who moved to fling himself at her. He hit her with the impetus of his forward rush and knocked her off-balance. The beam of power she had been about to direct at me hit the ceiling, crumbling wood to splinters, and showering us all with wooddust. Garis shoved Brand aside and tugged at Pinar’s arm, shaking her. ‘Pinar, for Magor sake, don’t—’

‘Leave me be!’ she shouted, heaving him out of her way. She made a wild shot at me and I ducked and rolled. Several stones were blasted from the wall and fell to the ground outside.

Brand, blinking in the glare from Pinar’s weapon, launched himself at her from behind. In a fury, she slashed back with her sword, narrowly missing Garis. Brand flung himself flat as power poured from the end of her blade and cut a smoking swathe through walls and ceiling. Garis was hit by falling stone. He sagged as he fought his dizziness, then succumbed and fell unconscious. While Pinar was distracted with the others, I heaved a piece of stonework at her head. More by luck than skill, it connected and she collapsed, blood trickling down from a temple wound.

I drew my sword, then remembered its uselessness against her and dropped it to the floor where it still glowed—together with hers—to light the room. I focused my power into my cabochon instead and prepared it to kill.

There was nothing beautiful about the Miragerinconsort as she lay there in the broken remains of stone and wood. Her hair was tangled and sprinkled with dust, her face older than her years, the skin dry and slack. I felt once more the stirrings of pity. Pinar would have been a different woman had Temellin loved her…I raised my left palm and directed it at her throat. She had no defences against me; a small flare of power and she would be dead. I could give her child to the Mirage Makers, make myself safe.

Yet I paused.

‘Do it,’ Brand said, pulling himself to his feet. ‘She’s already stirring.’

I whispered, ‘She’s Temellin’s wife—’

‘Turd take it, Ligea, since when have you been squeamish? Kill the woman and put her out of her madness and pain, because if you don’t, she’ll have you and the Mirage will have your son.’ He turned, looking for his sword.

He was right, and I knew it. Yet I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her.

I don’t know just what kept me from murder. She was Temellin’s wife, she was pregnant, she was one of the Ten orphaned and exiled because of my father’s obsession for me, she was my cousin, she carried the child of a man I loved, my son’s sibling—they were all reasons enough to stay my hand.

‘Vortexdamn you! If you can’t, I certainly can.’ Brand groped around in the rubble for his sword, pulling it out from under some crumbled stone. It was slightly bent, but that hardly mattered. I was still hesitating, for the first time in my life unable to act decisively when a death was called for, unable to kill quickly and cleanly and without conscience.

And then Pinar grabbed her sword and erupted up
from the floor, swinging first at Brand. Taken utterly by surprise, he was felled by a flash of light and crashed back with his astonishment written in every line of his face, already beyond thought by the time his body hit the floor. Then his surprise and shock blinked out of existence.

I couldn’t sense him.
I couldn’t sense him.

I sent forth my cabochon power in protest and Pinar was hurled backwards, hitting the wall behind her with a clunking thud. Yet there was no change in her expression or her alertness. She smiled, warded herself and pointed her Magor sword at the centre of my chest.

She said, ‘I have you now.’ Brittle words of promise and I didn’t even notice.

Brand…
Please, not Brand.
It wasn’t possible. Yet that was his body there on the floor. Could any normal man take the brunt of a bolt from a Magor sword and live?

My fault.
I had broken every rule I ever learned about surviving a brawl and now my closest friend was dead. Because of my foolishness, my misplaced compassion. Another body to bury under my bloodied doorstep…What’s her unborn child to you, anyway? What about
your
unborn child?

Grief such as I had never known submerged me. Oh, Goddess, cabochon,
Brand
! The only true friend I’d ever had. Who had never doubted me, all through the years.

The hot pain of loss seared; unspilled tears turned to fury.

I called up the whirlwind, the storm. It came tinged with the potency of my anger and swept into the room, tearing at us all. I centred it on Pinar, trying to wrench the sword from her hand. A flash of energy
and light shot from her blade and met the wind in a whirl of gold and light and swirling rage. Power was flung out in random bolts, shattering more stones and shredding room furnishings. I myself was lashed with it, my clothes torn, my skin blasted with grit. Across the room Pinar screamed at me, but the wind brushed aside the words unheard.

Another bolt flared outwards in my direction. I raised my cabochon against it and the power of the two met, clashing in a maelstrom of spitting wrath and sparks. The strength of the sword was greater, and I felt my hold over the wind falter. Pinar’s wards protected her; my own—poor weak things made using a cabochon, not a sword—could have been cobwebs spun to impede the thrust of a gorclak charge for all the good they did. No ward I could raise would offer me a defence against her sword.

The whirlwind was now full of colour and spinning with misdirected power, a horrifying storm of destruction, yet still Pinar could keep it at bay and have her sword pour out its stream of puissance. I staggered behind the ineffective barriers of the wind and cabochon, feeling my strength slip away as Pinar’s power battered me, rammed me against the wall, pierced me with splinters of pain. I knew I could not withstand much more.

I concentrated on the whirlwind, tightening its circles, forcing it faster and faster into a smaller and smaller area until it was just a blur of dust and energy hardly the size of a man’s arm. I quenched my pain—it was a distraction I could do without—and coaxed the twist of air to do my bidding. And Pinar, alarmed, swung at it—

Her sword passed out of the protection of her warded area. Too late, she knew her mistake. The wind
plucked up the weapon, and whirled it away through the air.

But I had no more strength. I released my hold on the wind and it spat out in all directions, random and wild. The air was filled with grit and dust and spluttering power. I did not see what happened to Pinar’s sword. I fell to my knees, the last of my strength gone. And the more experienced Pinar was far from exhausted.

She came across to me, scooping her blade up out of the wreckage of the room, grinning her triumph. ‘You fool, Shirin,’ she said. ‘Did you think you could withstand a Magoria of my expertise when you didn’t even have a Magor sword you could use against me? I will have your life and that of your child. It will be
my
son who is heir to Kardiastan, not yours.’

There was no hesitation in her. She laid the tip of her sword to my chest and thrust down hard.

I toppled onto my back, the sword pinning me to the floor. I felt the path of the blade as a swathe of pain as it pierced me. I knew the way it took: straight into my heart…I wanted to weep at the waste, at the futility of my struggle, at the fate of my son. I thought of Temellin and longed to tell him how much I cared.

I felt my power drain from my cabochon—not outwards, but inwards, into my blood. I felt the rush of it through my body until it met the power of the sword blade, united with it in joyous recognition…and for a moment, in my befuddlement, nothing made sense.

‘Die, you Tyranian vermin,’ Pinar said. ‘You and your bastard.’

I saw the world with renewed clarity and felt unexpected grief. ‘Pinar,’ I said, my voice surprisingly calm and clear. ‘Pinar…what have you done?’

‘I’ve killed you, Ligea.’

‘I am Kardi…’

‘With a Tyranian soul.’

‘I am sorry…’

‘I’m not.’

‘Pinar…you don’t realise…Your child will not die. I swear it to you…he will be a Mirage Maker.’

She was mocking. ‘What do you dream of now? You are dying, Ligea!’ Then her hand—still on the hilt of the sword—began to shake and the shaking was carried over into her body.

I said in gentle pity, ‘You…hold…my sword in your hand, Pinar.’

She looked down in disbelief.

‘You picked up the wrong blade. You have tried to turn a Magor sword against its owner.’

‘No!’ The word ripped out of her, but the horror on her face said she recognised the truth. ‘You’ll die! The sword entered you—’

‘You gave it no chance to change direction.’ I shuddered, remembering Temellin’s weapon hurtling towards me.

Pinar struggled to release the blade, but her hand seemed welded to the hilt. She pulled and the blade slid free, renewing my pain.

Her shaking was so severe, she could not stand. Her knees bent under her and she slipped to a kneeling position. Her eyes were wide with the fear of death, echoing her raw emotion bleeding out into the air. ‘Shirin—help me. Help…’

‘Pinar…I don’t know how.’ It was true. My sword drained her of life because she had dared to use it against me. Only at her death would it release its hold on her. I crawled over to her side. ‘But I have made you a promise and I will keep it: your child
won’t die. He will live…and he will save the Mirage.’

But Pinar was past hearing. She fought against the sword, tearing at it with her right hand, raking her own flesh into bleeding tatters in her desperation to free herself, beating the hilt on the floor to break the clasp of her left hand, screaming her panic and anger and disbelief. With a howl of terror she rolled across the floor to where her own sword still lay, snatched it up and tried to bring it down on her left wrist.