The Heart of the mirage

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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. T 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, Tern. 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…'

T 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 semi-naked 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 self-propelled, 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

…. – ¦¦¦..-¦ – -. ¦¦'.' ¦ '•.' A. ¦

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.

As we rode, I realised why a horse or a gorclak could never have made that journey and lived. Their small feet would have broken through the surface. Only a

shleth could cross the Shiver Barrens. They spread out their pads to the size of serving plates and used a fast-walking gait that spread their weight evenly on three legs at a time. The constancy of the speed they maintained was impressive; a glance at the concentration on Temellin's face convinced me it was necessary. If we didn't reach the other side of the Barrens by dawn, we died..«• r

We rode in silence. Temellin travelled in a world of his own as if he listened to voices only he could hear, yet I did not regret the lack of conversation. I, too, wanted to listen. I wanted to listen to the song of my own body, to the sound of the footbeats of my mount, to the now-stilled music of the sands, echoes of which I still seemed to hear. Above, the purple softness of the sky with its blue points of light and swirls of Stardust; below, the sparkle of blue-frost and the crisp crunch of paws… No, there was no need of words. I was beyond them.

We had no time for rest. Safety was a night's ride away; the pace had to be steady and relentless. Occasionally Temellin would draw his sword and swing it in an arc in front of him. Each time, when it flamed briefly, he would make a slight adjustment to the direction of our ride.

When we passed a dozen silent frost-covered figures, half buried in the sand, half exposed in a naked tatter of bone and desiccated flesh, we did not stop. Temellin did not seem to notice them, but my, heart clenched painfully as recognition came. There could be no mistaking the lance still clutched in a fleshless hand, the clasp from a military cloak lodged in leathered skin, or the metal links caught on the white curve of ribs, gleaming in the starlight – all that remained of a cuirass. And beyond the men, the

skeletal remains of animals with pitted and pockmarked horns in the middle of bone-white skulls. Appalled, I averted my eyes.

In predawn light I had my first glimpse of the end of the Shiver Barrens: a dark silhouette across the horizon ahead, a continuous jagged line of a low ridge against the mauve of sky. Temellin spoke for the first time. 'That's the first Rake,' he said. 'That's safety.'

Dawn came: a shaft of light that shot across the plain from behind, sending our shadows racing ahead to touch the stone of the Rake, now coloured the ebony-red of newly shed blood. The shleths quickened pace, aware time was slipping away from them with the darkness.

'Don't worry,' Temellin said from beside me. 'We will make it.'

But soon I was doubting his words of reassurance. The crispness was gone from beneath the paws of our mounts. They were forced to slow as the crust broke slightly each time a foot landed. A little later, when I looked behind, I saw sand escaping from the confining surface wherever the crust had cracked. The grains weren't truly dancing as yet; the sand bubbled, broke and fell back only to bubble and burst again. Ahead, the white plain was white no longer; the frost had melted.

'Temellin -' I began. Fear and excitement mingled. I knew my eyes shone.

'Trust me.' He laughed and let loose his emotions. He was exhilarated, revelling in the race against time, the possibility of death, the joy he anticipated. 'I'll get you there. Believe me, there's no way I'll be cheated out of what I intend to have today.'

Yet by the time the Rake was within reach, the soft sound of the song of the Shiver Barrens murmured

›¦-¦-«_ ":m

anew. The shleths were floundering, almost wallowing as the grains rose up to batter at their legs. On their last desperate run to the rock ahead, they even unfolded their feeding arms and used the balled fingers as an extra pair of feet, anything to give them added purchase on the restless sand. Behind, our tracks were a ploughed furrow through a barren field.

And then we were safe. The rock was beneath us and our mounts halted, heads hanging low with fatigue.

Garis whooped and laughed. 'Wow – that was terrific!'

Brand shook his head and muttered something about youth and idiocy.

I looked around. The lengthwise red crease of the Rake, slashing across the sands in a seemingly endless ripple, was no more than ten minutes' ride widthways in the flatter places. But it wasn't often flat. It was a naturally carved flounce of curves and caves and fissures accentuated by light and shade. In the sun, the red was almost blinding; shadows cooled it to mahogany and rust. Such were the tortured convolutions of the rock that some niches and corners were always shadowed, and in these places pools collected the run-off of dew and frost.

All this I hardly noticed just then. I was looking across one of those flatter areas and seeing what was on the other side of the flounce – and in my fatigue, my heart plunged. All I could see was sand and more sand. The Shiver Barrens began again on the far side of the Rake, stretching as far as the eye could see.

With a speaking glance at Brand, I slid from my shleth.

Temellin dismounted beside me and came over, his eyes sympathetic. 'It takes five nights to cross the

Shiver Barrens, Derya,' he said. 'There are four stone ridges like this one, slicing through the desert from one side to the other. We must reach one before dawn of each day. As you can see, on a Rake there is shelter and water and shade and firm ground. Here we are safe. You can even bathe. There is no need to look so miserable.'

He grinned at me and suddenly I didn't feel so tired.

We found a shaded cave where we could water the animals and feed them the fodder cakes we had with us. Another recess carved into a cliff provided us with shade. However, after we'd eaten, Temellin disappeared. I sat waiting, and was not disappointed; when he returned it was to beckon me away from the others. I joined him out in the sun once more, wincing in the already savage heat. 'I have found a place,' he said. 'Come.'

He held out his left hand and instead of giving him my right in return, I reached across with my left. The touch of his cabochon to mine was the drug I needed to reassure myself that I was desirable – and desired.

He had found a cave for us, a hollow rounded and smoothed like a scooped-out melon half, just big enough for the sleeping pelts he had thrown down. A little lower, there was another rounded dip, also shaded, full of ice-cold water.

He took me in his arms and whispered, 'Your bath awaits, my lady.' But in the end, it was the bath that had to wait. Once we were naked and in each other's arms, we could not stop the flame of emotion demanding instant physical consummation. We were intoxicated with each other, drunk on the smell and taste and touch of each other; unbearably aroused by our desire, then inebriated with its satiation. At that

moment, the idea any action of mine could lead to the death of this man was utterly unthinkable.

Afterwards, lying side by side, I found myself crying with the wonder of it all. He lay there, naked, perfect – sculpted thighs, hard buttocks, taut length of muscular leg. Our left palms were still clamped together so we could feel every nuance of each other's emotion, or at least those we cared to share, but when I wondered how I would ever be satisfied again with a lesser lover, when I remembered I was supposed to betray him, I shielded my guilt from him. And there was, even then, a part of my brain thinking through possibilities. Like: if Tyrans wanted to prevent the Kardis from crossing the Shiver Barrens, then all they had to do was kill all the shleths. Or: the Stalwarts need not cross the Alps; they could commandeer shleths and cross the Shiver Barrens just as the Kardis did. They could wrench the Mirage from Kardi control, and that would wreak havoc on the Kardi heart and soul.

But I had no way to get that message to the Stalwarts in time. They would cross through one of the world's most treacherous mountain ranges, enduring horrors I could hardly imagine, in order to serve their country and their Exaltarchy. To bring peace to a warring nation and a people who could not accept the natural order of subservience to a superior culture…

We drowsed, then bathed together and made love again, this time with a more leisurely passion, although the culmination was as intense as ever. I fell asleep'naked in his arms and did not wake until it was dark.

Temellin had gone and I was already chilled.

It was Garis who had awoken me. He was shaking me by the foot, his voice full of laughter.

'Derya? Are you awake? Temellin says it's time to get

up:

I stirred and sat up. I was still naked.

'Now that's a sight I'd walk all night to see!' he exclaimed. He rolled his eyes and grinned. 'You are incomparable, Derya.'

I pulled the sleeping pelt up over my nakedness. 'Scat, Garis.'

'Killjoy,' he said, not moving.

'Scram, Garis!'

'I'm going, I'm going! Temellin wouldn't appreciate too much appreciation anyhow. But I'm glad for him, Derya. I really am.' This last was said without the banter, and then he was gone.

I was glad, too – for myself. For now.

We were on the fourth Rake.

I lay awake and watched the patterns of water reflections on the cave roof. A pretty dappling, a moving artwork. Beside me Temellin lay replete with lovemaking, his face young and contented in repose. I resisted the temptation to kiss him, and touched my cabochon to his instead. I felt his dreaming: pleasant dreams of contentment. I wished this journey could go on forever, that I would never have to face the decisions awaiting me on the other side of the Shiver Barrens, that I would never have to make a choice between desire and duty; between a man and an obligation; between Kardiastan and Tyrans, between the land of my birth and the land of my loyalties.

I turned my gaze back to the roof of the cave and tried not to listen to the song of the Barrens.

Something was moving the surface of the water outside to cause that dappling, and yet I'd felt no wind. Puzzled, I rose, dressed and stepped out into the blazing heat of the day. The tiny pool tucked away in among the rocks was as flat as oil in a lamp. I looked back at the cave roof: the dappling had vanished.