The Heart of the mirage

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I'd thought; in the end, I needed both Brand and Garis to escort me to my room – via the earth closet and some moments there that I later did not want to recall.

Halfway through the next day, when I finally awoke, I was none too sure it had all been worth it. Brand's expressionless face and the remedy he offered, a foul-tasting Kardi herb brew, did nothing to convince me, either.

Later, having decided I was certainly incapable of undertaking more training when I felt like a piece of storm-tossed flotsam thrown up on a beach, I decided to go for a walk. Never mind that my head was pounding, never mind that my stomach heaved, it was better to walk free of the Maze, free of the city, than to stay and know that somewhere under the same roof Temellin lay with Pinar in his arms.

I walked for hours, leaving the roads and heading out across the wilder parts of the Mirage. That day it happened to be mostly moorland covered with blue and white flowering grasses as far as the eye could see. It was hard to remain so savagely depressed in such surroundings, and by the time I headed back towards the city, I was feeling more at peace. By then, though, the sun was setting and as I walked in the growing darkness, with only the lights of the buildings to guide me, I remembered the Ravage. After that, I wasn't nearly as insouciant about strolling along in the dark.

I was glad to hit a road again, and even more cheered to sense and then hear the soft pad of a trotting howdah-shleth behind me. I stopped and waited by the roadside.

A man sat on the driver's seat of the howdah and he halted his animal as he drew level, peering at me through the gloom. 'Well met, lass,' he said. 'Want a ride to the city?'

I couldn't see him properly, either, but I had already sensed his amiable ordinariness. 'Gladly,' I said, and a few moments later I was seated in the howdah on top of a load of something pale and soft. 'What is all this that you're carrying?' I asked. I was half buried under billows of white fluff.

'Pallet-cotton. Comes out of the seed pods of a tree. Someone told me they'd seen a grove of them growing back up the road a bit, so I went out to get some before it disappears. What with all the new people coming in, we can always do with more pallets. Sometimes the Mirage Makers supply 'em already made up just like that, but we can't rely on it, more's the pity. Were you here when there wasn't a cake of soap to be had anywhere? Until we'd made up a batch big enough to last us for months, which is when the Mirage Makers dumped five hundred bars, each as large as a roof beam, in the city's main square?' He gave a sigh. 'Ah, lass, this is a right queer place. I'll be glad to leave it behind. We don't belong here. It's back in Kardiastan proper we ought to be, living our own lives, with the Mirager to rule us.'

A little later, as we approached the city, he pointed off into the darkness with his driving prod. 'Did you see there's a new patch of the Ravage over there somewhere? That's the closest it's ever come to us.' He shook his head worriedly. 'One day we'll wake up to find a swathe of it destroying the Maze like legionnaires on the rampage.'

I didn't like that thought. I lay back in the pallet-cotton as we trotted into the city streets, and wondered if I were wise to think of staying in the Mirage.

Temellin and Pinar left the Maze several days later.

Accompanied by many other of the Magor, they were on their way to another slave-rescue mission, this

time in Sandmurram and other southern towns. The city streets were lined with people to wish them luck as they rode out. 'Ah, fate willing,' I heard one woman say, 'next time the Mirager leaves, it will be at the head of an army, on its way to free our land, bless him.' Foolishly, I let him go without ever telling him who I was. It was as though I wished to have my deception discovered and exposed, rather than have to confess.

By this time, I was learning to control my cabochon, finding it harder than the sword skills I had mastered. My ability to read emotions, to know a lie, to aid healing, to know the position of unseen people around me – all these skills stemmed from my cabochon magnifying inborn Magor talents.

'But there is much more you can learn,' Garis promised. He had stayed behind in order to tutor me, and we were walking back through the streets towards those strangely crumpled walls of the Maze after watching Temellin's departure. 'You must persevere witfi those exercises I showed you.'

'Just what more will I be able to do?' I asked, deftly sidestepping to avoid being sprayed with fresh chicken blood and green feathers as a woman strode by holding a headless but still flapping bird by the legs. 'I don't see much evidence of extraordinary abilities among the Magor here.'

'Oh, you'll see,' he said vaguely. 'Lots of things. You're already at Theuros level. But I can't teach you everything; I'm not advanced enough myself. And you don't see much happening because we don't have any reason to use our powers on the ordinary people here, and even less to use them among ourselves. It would be very bad manners, for a start.' He reached out and stealthily removed a bunch of small fruit from a loaded handcart without the owner noticing.

I shook my head as he offered me some and, following another train of thought that had been puzzling me, said, 'I still find it hard to understand how Tyrans was able to defeat you, er, us. If the Magor are so capable, a single act of treachery is hardly enough to explain such a devastating defeat. What did you say about it before -?'

'I said the Magor in those days were stupid,' he said with a snort of contempt and popped several of the fruit into his mouth at once. 'They were so secure in their feelings of superiority they didn't bother to practise, to hone their skills. You can see how hard you've had to work to control your sword. They were so arrogant, they didn't bother. They knew the theory, but never put it into practice. They thought some of the things they could do – control storms, for example – were enough to keep them safe. Even so, most of the minor skirmishes with the legions were won by the Magor, you know. The one where the heir, Magoria-sarana, was killed was an exception. I suppose that's one reason why the Mirager-solad took it so badly. It must have seemed unfair: of all the people to die, it had to be the heir.'

He spat a fruit seed out with an accuracy that spoke of expertise, hitting a young and pretty Illusa on the rump. She whirled around indignantly, but Garis, straight-faced, walked on, saying, 'They underestimated Tyranian persistence and cunning and they died because they hadn't worked at all their skills. When they were caught without their weapons, they just didn't have enough control of their cabochons to defeat the archers.'

He couldn't resist a backward glance at the Illusa, and promptly received a rap on the nose from the same fruit seed. 'Illusa-jenka knows me too well, I think,' he said with a rueful grin as he rubbed his nose.

He gave the rest of his fruit to a boy sitting on a wall banging his heels to the detriment of his sandals, and continued, 'We will not make the same mistake as our parents' generation. Temellin or Korden or Pinar, any of the original Ten, there's no way they could be defeated like that. Even you and I – we would have felt the presence of intruders in the feasting hall.' He paused. 'Although we believe the traitor used a ward to prevent that… To tell the truth, we don't know too much about what happened there. The only account we have is from Zerise. None of the Magoroth survived. Anyway, you may not have known what you were doing back in Tyrans, but you must have been constantly practising to improve those skills you were aware of. Now you must practise even more.'

I gave him a heartfelt look. 'Practice can be very boring.'

He laughed. 'Why don't you take a break sometimes? Go for a ride? You can borrow a shleth from the stables, you know, any time you want.'

I hadn't known, but from then on I rode out almost every day, sometimes with Garis, sometimes alone. During those rides I was close to happy, perhaps because it was then I felt an affinity to the land itself; to the Mirage Makers who were the land. At those time's I certainly couldn't believe they would deliberately harm me in order to obtain my unborn child. Alone on my pallet at night, my thoughts tended to be less comforting.

The worst part of those rides was when I came across the sores of the Ravage eating away at the land, swallowing its beauty and its joyful absurdities in those creeping excrescences of foulness. I once made the mistake of dismounting near one of these abominations, gagging on its stench, to take a closer

look. I shut out its hatred with a deliberate mind-block, but even so I could feel the hammer blows of vicious dislike against my mental shield. If it wanted to terrorise me, it succeeded. It took every particle of courage I had just to approach it close enough to look down into its depths.

As I stared into its green-black slime and saw past its surface to the horrors below, I wished I had not come. The dimness beneath was full of writhing, bestial forms exuding pus and other fluids, stinking of gangrenous flesh. At first I thought they were true animals, managing to survive in putrescence. Strange deformed things, but just creatures.

Then one of them rose up through the slime to poke its head out into the air, to look at me. Its body resembled a bulging caterpillar, except it was the size of a hound. Its head had tearing feeding parts and large, voracious eyes. Its gaze enveloped me with gleeful, cruel hunger… and I was back in another time.

Tyr. Ligea on her first job for Rathrox. She wanted so much to please him because she knew he would be reporting to Gayed. She was sixteen years old, sitting in the Brotherhood's interrogation rooms, a bleak place inspiring fear even in the innocent.

It wasn't an important case. Rathrox was just testing her. He'd discovered she had a knack of identifying a lie, and he'd asked her to accompany him to interview a number of suspects. He asked the questions; all she had to do was listen, and make a sign when a lie was uttered. She didn't find it difficult, until the fourth man was brought in. He was arrogant, bumptious, sure of himself, confident no one would be able to find him guilty of anything, and indeed, the evidence was slim.

Ligea didn't like him. He could not hide his emotions., from her, and they were vile. Outwardly, he was '

ordinary enough. He was a boat builder, neatly dressed, but when his eyes lingered on her, his thoughts were viciously predatory. Behind the bland exterior, behind his smile, there lurked the sentiments of a sadistic killer. His mind slavered, his emotions were raw and unrestrained. He told the truth when he protested his innocence of the minor treason Rathrox accused him of, but there were crimes far darker smouldering inside him. He terrified Ligea. She had never met someone so dark. She had never been so sure of someone's criminality.

Rathrox questioned him, and to each answer she had to give the sign that said he spoke the truth.

She thought: What if he goes free? He smiled at her, his lips curling up to charm. His eyes twinkled. The blackness within darkened. She could not read his intentions, but the way he felt about her was akin to the emotions of a starving dog offered red meat. Given the chance, he would have devoured her.

And when the next question came, she turned her hand over, palm up, to indicate a lie.

They sent him to the Cages on the strength of that, while they hunted for evidence. He was dead of disease within a month, and the case was closed. Ligea knew she'd murdered him as effectively as if she'd slid a knife into his heart. She'd lied and killed her first man…

Worst of all, perhaps, I never felt the slightest guilt. For others that followed perhaps, dead for other reasons, but not for that one.

I lay on the grass a few paces away from the Ravage with no idea of how I had come to be there. One moment I had been engulfed in those savage eyes, then I'd been back in my childhood reliving something as a spectator, in every detail. I'd had to wrench myself away, as dreamers suffering nightmares pull memselves

by an effort of will from a treacherous sleep.

¦ – • • ¦ ¦ ¦. – ¦•» -. – •

Shaken, I stood. Something had happened that I did not understand. And I wanted to know. I had to know. If I didn't understand the Mirage Makers, then the chances I was going to die seemed high. Temellin could say the Ravage was too evil to be a part of the Mirage, that it caused pain to the Mirage Makers and therefore must be something else, but that was spurious logic. The Ravage existed within the Mirage and nowhere else.

Foolishly, I returned to the edge of the Ravage to seek answers.

And the same thing happened again. I met the eyes of another of the creatures and was once again caught up in the past…

A much older Ligea. Twenty-five, and making a name for herself within the Brotherhood.

In Tyr society, however, she was regarded as a little strange. She was too intellectual, too uninterested in temple, too masculine, too forthright, too independent. She was occasionally seen in odd places or in odd company. Rumours abounded. At her age, she should have been married, of course, but there hadn't been too many proposals, and now she had openly taken a legionnaire lover. It was one thing for a Tyranian matron – who had already presented her husband with sufficient progeny – to behave that way, it was quite another to see an unmarried woman be so shameless.

And then General Gayed and his wife Salacia both died, leaving their adopted daughter heir by default. Ligea suddenly became eminently eligible because she had money. The change both irritated and amused her, and she could be abrupt with those who so presumed to court her. One, charming and personably plausible, had been the most persistent and the most ardent, protesting his admiration for strong women and his affection for

her. His name was Casmodius, and she might have believed him if she hadn't been able to read lies and sense emotions. In reality he despised her and inwardly he ridiculed her. He was not the wealthy man he professed to be, but a gambler trying to hide his losses from his creditors and society, with an eye on her fortune.

His hypocrisy was so profound, his lies so blatant, she determined to punish him. In public she played the affectionate friend, in private she teased and smiled and stroked his ego, even as she spoke of her feelings for Favonius, away in Quyr at the time. She tormented him with her unpredictable behaviour and fluctuating affections. At the same time, she used her position in the Brotherhood to gather information about his debts. When he finally lied once too often, and with promises of undying love implored her to marry him, she showed the extent of his debts to all his creditors and spread the tale all over Tyr. Within days, the whole of the city was despising Casmodius for his deceptions, ridiculing him for being so publicly mocked by the woman he had courted. Hounded by his creditors, he came in desperation to Ligea. She sent him away, laughing at his naivety. When he went to others he had considered friends, they turned away in contempt.

Within a week, he had taken poison and died…

I had felt no remorse then, either.

I tore myself back into the present. Once again I was lying on the grass, closer to the Ravage this time. Or was it that the Ravage had moved?

I stood up and looked at the patch of slime. Fingers of liquid oozed out of the main body of the Ravage, each rivulet crawling in my direction. It was coming closer. Shit, I thought. This is personal. It's aiming at me.

And then I felt the appalling pain of the Mirage

Makers. They screamed with the agony of the cancer y

• -.T-¦…-.-. -, ¦ ¦.-",

eating deep into them in a hundred different locations, dissolving, corrupting, devouring their living flesh. Aghast, I remembered what Temellin had said about these sores having been present even when he was a child. How long then had the Mirage Makers suffered? Only then did I understand the strain there had been in Temellin's voice when he had spoken of the diseased land. He, too, had felt their pain.

I began to shake. Sickened, I was careful not to look into the slime again, but just as I was about to turn away, a bony limb shot out in my direction, jabbing at me, drawing the attention of the others.

I stumbled backwards in shock, thumping down on my backside. In one flash of rage and energy they had all turned on me, all those nightmarish creatures, rushing up out of the shadows of the depths in a mass of claws and talons and teeth, snapping, hacking, slashing, frothing, clawing at the edges in an attempt to lever themselves out of the slime…

I scrabbled away, still on my rump, my screams raw with terror. They flung themselves upwards, bloodying their jaws on each other in their efforts to reach me. They grunted and shrilled their need to rip into my flesh, then plopped back into the fester, their hate shredding my mind-block and slamming into my thoughts.

I got up and ran, incoherent with terror.

It was some time before I could think enough to acknowledge I wasn't hurt. In spite of their rabid desire to devour me, those creatures hadn't been able to leave the confines of the Ravage.

I was unhurt, but I had to walk back to the Mirage City in urine-wet trousers.

My shleth had long since fled.