Glenda Larke: The Heart of the mirage

in the Cages since you took on the important interrogations.'

'Lies come easily to the tongues of the tortured, Exalted. They will say anything to ease their pain. My way is better.'

'What is your way?'

'To assess each reply and use, what? A woman's intuition? I do not know, Exalted. It is just a knack I have. And if a man does not tell the truth – well, a lie can sometimes be equally revealing.'

He looked at me curiously, his attention finely focused. 'How long have you had this ability?'

'Since 1 was a child.' It had always been there, but I'd learned young to hide it. Adults didn't take kindly to having their untruths pointed out to them by a girl not even old enough to wear a wrap.

'A useful ability, I imagine. And we have a mission for you where your skills may be invaluable, Compeer Ligea. You are Kardiastan-born, I believe. Do you remember anything of that land?'

'Nothing, Exalted. I was barely three when my parents were killed in the Kardiastan Uprising and General Gayed took a liking to me and brought me here, to Tyr.'

'Yet I'm told you speak the language.'

'There was a Kardi slave-nurse in the General's household when I arrived. It pleased her to have me speak her tongue.' I thought, without knowing why I was so certain, And you already knew that.

He gave the faintest of cynical smiles and glanced briefly at Rathrox. The exchange was worrying, and contained a meaning from which I was deliberately excluded. Once again I sensed their shared amusement. Suspicion stiffened me. The Exaltarch sat up, reaching over to a side table to pour himself a

drink from a carafe of green onyx. The heady scent of moonflowers and musk was overpowering, catching in the back of my throat, and I had to subdue a desire to cough. The room was cool enough, yet sweat trickled down my neck and soaked the top edge of my wrap.

As the Exaltarch sipped his wine, I thought, Now. Now comes the whole point of this charade.

'We wish you to go to this land of your birth, Compeer Ligea,' he said. 'There is trouble there neither our Governor nor his Prefects nor our Military Commanders seem able to stem. It has its origins in rumour; we wish you to show this rumour to be a lie, trace it to its source and eradicate it.'

'And if it is true?' I asked mildly.

He snorted and reverted to the rougher speech of the soldier he had once been. 'It can hardly be true. Not unless the burned can rise from the ashes of the fire that consumed them. A man died at the stake in the port of Sandmurram, for treason. There is now a rebellious movement led by yet another traitorous bastard, who the superstitious say is the same man. He is known as Mir Ager. Some say that is his name, others believe it to be a title meaning lord, or leader. Still others think it has something to do with the area of Kardiastan called the Mirage. Perhaps he was born there.'

I inclined my head to indicate I was absorbing all this.

'As is so often the case where Kardiastan is concerned, there is confusion,' he added, his tone biting. T want you to find this – this sodding son of a bitch, bring him to justice, and discredit any claim that he is the same bastard as was executed in Sandmurram.'

I risked a puzzled glance in Rathrox's direction. All this was hardly a matter for my attention; still less

something the Exaltarch would involve himself in personally. I said, 'But surely, our intelligence in Kardiastan -?'

There was venom in the Exaltarch's eyes, whether for me or his incompetent underlings or the whole conquered land of Kardiastan I couldn't tell, but it was unmistakable. 'If it was possible for them to find this man, or to squash these rumours, they would have done so. This is a job needing a special person with special abilities. Magister Ligatan tells me you are that person. I bow to his judgement, although -' He allowed his glance to sweep over me, disparaging what he saw. 'Are you up to such a task, Compeer?'

His scepticism did not worry me; the thought of leaving Tyrans did, but I knew better than to allow any sign of my consternation to show on my face. 'I shall do my best to serve the Exaltarchy, as ever, Exalted.'

'Rathrox will tell you the details. You are both dismissed.'

A minute later, still blinking from the abrupt end to the audience, I was tying on my sandals at the entrance to the anteroom and wondering just what it was the Exaltarch had not told me. There was much that had been withheld, I felt sure.

I looked across at Rathrox who was just straightening from fastening his own sandal straps. In the muted light of the hall he appeared all grey; a grey, long-limbed, mantis-thin man, waiting for me. A man of prey. I said, 'Suppose you tell me what all this is about, Magister?'

'What is there to say? The Exaltarch asked me to choose someone to send to Kardiastan. When I mentioned you, he was a little surprised at my choice, and wished to meet you before giving his approval. He found it difficult to believe a woman could possess the – the necessary toughness for the job, even though I did tell him you have killed on Brotherhood business, just as all Brotherhood Compeers must at one time or another.' His face was immobile, as ever. As a mantis is without expression while it awaits its victim. Dedicated, pitiless, patient… so very patient, waiting for the right moment to strike. I did not like him, but he was my mentor and I admired and respected him for his commitment and cunning.

Honesty was not, however, one of his virtues. He was skirting the truth, reluctant to utter an outright lie, knowing I would identify it as such, but equally reluctant to be completely honest. There was something lacking in his explanation. I asked quietly, 'Why me? Why anyone? Why cannot those already in Kardiastan deal with this?'

He looked around. We had moved away from the imperial guards in the anteroom, but apparently not far enough for Rathrox. He took me by the elbow and guided me through an archway into the deserted hallway beyond. Even so, he dropped his voice. 'Ligea, the Exaltarchy is only as solid as the soil it is built on. The situation in Kardiastan is far worse than the public here is given to believe. There we have built on a cracked foundation and, unless something is done soon, those cracks will become canyons large enough to swallow both the legions and the civil administration. Worse still, cracks can spread.'

It was unlike Rathrox to be so frank, and even stranger for him to be so grim about the state of the Exaltarchy. I said, carefully picking my way through the conversational pitfalls of a chat with the Magister, who could be vicious when tetchy, T would hardly have thought Kardiastan mattered enough to arouse the personal concern of the Exaltarch. The place

produces nothing of essential commercial value to us. The only reason we ever felt the need to invade in the first place was because we feared Assoria might beat us to it, in order to gain ports along the Sea of Iss within striking distance of Tyrans. But we've tamed Assoria since then; it has been our vassal for, what? Twenty years?'

He interrupted. 'If a desert land inhabited by shabby, ill-trained peasants can make a mockery of our legions, how long will it be before other subject nations – such as Assoria – sharpen their spears? We must make an example of these Kardi insurgents.'

'Make a mockery of our legions? A few peasant rebels?' It all seemed rather unlikely. I recalled the Exaltarch's bitterness when he had spoken of Kardiastan. Rathrox's reason for involving me might be valid as far as it went, but it wasn't all; there was something I was not being told. 'And what about the Brotherhood?'

'There is no Brotherhood in Kardiastan.'

I stared at him in amazement. 'No Brotherhood?' I'd never had much to do directly with either the vassal states or the provinces, but every Brother knew we were responsible for security throughout the Exaltarchy, not just in Tyrans. It had never occurred to me there was any place where Tyr ruled that was free from the mandibles of the Brotherhood. 'Why ever not?'