Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

'Another full legion was sent from Tyrans after that, and General Gayed became High Commander for Kardiastan. A major battle took place, which Tyrans won this time. You see, with the death of so many of their highest nobility, the Kardis lost most of their military commanders and civil leadership. The war wasn't entirely over, but Gayed and Rathrox went home to Tyr anyway. Fighting continued in Kardiastan for a further five years. Just skirmishes mainly.' I turned to look out over the stern. A few seabirds with huge wingspans cruised effortlessly in our wake, clipping the wave crests with their wingtips. 'You know, it's strange – I hadn't realised both Rathrox and my father spent so long in Kardiastan. They must have been there all of four years. Neither of them ever told me that.'

Brand leant beside me as a small flotilla of fishing dhows dipped and wallowed their way out from the coast we had been following, their hide sails taut with the wind. The seabirds left us to follow them instead. 'Where do you fit into all this anyway?' he asked.

'I don't know the details. I was never told. I was just an orphaned Kardi child Gayed came across somewhere. As I said, he and Rathrox were recalled to Tyrans soon after the victory following the betrayal, and I went with them.'

'You are probably the child of one of those noble families.' He snorted. 'The Magister Officii and the General would have loved the irony of that.'

'I don't suppose for a minute my father knew who I was, or cared. In a war, children get separated from their parents all the time. They get orphaned and abandoned. And it certainly doesn't matter now. I am Tyranian, and glad of it.'

Brand looked back at me, expressionless. 'And now the Magister Officii wants you to put down the beginnings of a rebellion against Tyrans. One would almost think the ordinary people of Kardiastan are not grateful at being freed from the oppressive rule of their nobility.'

There was no inflection of mockery in his voice, but I stirred uneasily nonetheless. Suddenly nothing was as it had been; I was questioning things I had never questioned before: Aemid's love, Brand's loyalty, Tyrans's strength… I shivered and rubbed still harder at my palm.

'Legataf

I turned to see the Flying Windhover's seamaster trying to draw my attention to something from where he stood inside the wheelhouse.

'Sandmurram!'

I followed the line of his pointing finger and saw the brown blotches of a town against the dusky blue of the coastline. With an unexpected feeling of wonder, I realised this might have been the port I had sailed from some twenty-five years earlier. Perhaps I had

stood on the deck of a ship similar to this one and had seen this same scene recede just as I would now watch it approach.

In theory, I was coming home – but to Ligea Gayed, this had never been home, and never would be. Why then did I feel fear: not of Kardiastan, but of what it would tell me about myself?

Sandmurram: the main port of Kardiastan. A bay that was a natural harbour, with the port buildings tiered from its edge; a town on flatter land beyond. Flat-roofed, two-storeyed houses of brown adobe, unplastered, unpainted, squatting along the streets like cattle dozing in the sun.

I saw it all with the eyes of a stranger; I had no recollection of ever having seen it before. Beside me, Aemid gripped the rail and stared, her emotions and the avid hunger of her gaze so intense they startled me.

The seamaster flag-signalled my presence on his ship as soon as we approached the port, so I was met at the dockside by a legionnaire escort. The officer in charge offered me a litter ride to the Prefect's house, but I preferred to walk. I wanted to survey this land, not because it was the place of my birth, but because the hunter needed to know the haunts of her prey.

'See to the luggage,' I told Brand. 'And keep an eye on Aemid.'

He nodded, and I set off on foot with the officer.

My first impression was one of monotony. The streets were unpaved and narrow, the brown of their

earth a mirror reflection of the plain brown walls of the houses. Burnt-sienna brown everywhere, unrelieved by any other colour. No paint, no ornamentation; no grass even. Trees were misshapen gnomes with thick gnarled trunks, arthritic limbs and spindled leaves, growing only where the lanes swelled to become public well-squares – where, greedy for water, they could nestle up to the well itself.

The only flashes of colour were in the clothing of the local people, people who were always walking away, turning their backs, retreating into houses, closing doors. The brown streets with their brown houses were unnaturally quiet. There was no noise of hawkers, no whine of beggars, no litter carriers jostling for custom. Even the pack animals – strange, dull-brown creatures – padded along on soft unshod feet. Once or twice I did catch a glimpse of an inner courtyard, and had a brief impression of flowers, of laughter, of animation, of life – but then the view would be cut off, the life killed by the closing of a gate.

It was a while before I noticed the snakes. Then, once I'd seen one, I saw them all the time. They were also brown, blending into the ground as if they were made of the soil. They coiled themselves on house steps, draped themselves along gate tops, dozed lethargically in the sun at the edge of the wells. If we approached, they slid lazily away to the next patch of sunlight.

Goddess, I thought, what sort of place is this?

And even while I saw its strangeness with my eyes, I also felt its strangeness. The air brooded; malevolent, expectant. Never before had I been so aware of atmosphere. A confusion of overwhelming emotion rendered every breath an effort. I was made uneasy, troubled, tense, as though at any moment something

terrible was going to happen. Yet, when I tried to pinpoint the source of my unease, it slid away from me, as slippery as a half-remembered dream.

I even became accustomed to it. By the time I reached the Tyranian Prefect's house – built of white marble, thanks be! – and was received by the Prefect and his wife, I'd pushed the feeling of oppression into the background and was able to ignore it.

I'd read the Brotherhood intelligence report on the Prefect Martrinus, before I'd left Tyr. He'd risen through the ranks of the military magistrates, from a lowly position as a law court lictor to his present position, a change of status made possible by his judicious marriage into a highborn family from Getria. His first reaction on seeing me was predictable: he was taken aback to find I was a woman. I didn't blame him for that. I'd never heard of a legata before, either.

Once he recovered from his initial surprise, he bowed low over my hand in greeting, evidently deeming it prudent to show extravagant respect for a Brotherhood Legata even though he did outrank me. When he asked about my first impressions, I gave a casual answer. 'It's a strange land,' I said. 'Everything is so different. This is the first time I have been so far from Tyrans, you know. I am filled with wonder. The mud-brick houses with such thick walls, all the flat roofs – and what are those animals the Kardis use for carrying their goods?'

'They call them shleths,' the Prefect said. He was a thin man with shrewd watery eyes and a nervous habit of tapping his bent forefinger against whatever was to hand. 'A difficult word.'

His stylishly attired wife, the Prefecta Fabia, shuddered. I suspected she did a lot of shuddering in

Kardiastan. 'An unpronounceable name for impossible beasts,' she said, her distaste thick about her. 'There are three kinds, you know. The little ones that carry small packs, larger ones that people ride and the huge ones that are found further inland. On those, five or six people can ride in a howdah – but we are content with horses and gorclaks. These shleths are heathen beasts, vicious things of uncertain temper.'