Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

I saw my opportunity. I made a show of looking around to make sure no one else was listening. 'I have a problem,' I whispered. 'I don't know what to do.'

As I had intended, my secretive, conspiratorial tone immediately had her interested. 'What is it?'

'Parvana, listen, my owner was sent here from Tyr by the Brotherhood. Have you heard of the Brotherhood?' ',

She shook her head, her eyes already wide with wonder. She wasn't quite as jaded as the rest of her conversation had suggested.

'It's a secret, um, cabal of men – well, mostly men, working directly for the Magister Officii. My owner was sent here by the Exaltarch himself to find a man the Tyranians know only as Mir Ager.'

I had worded the latter sentence carefully and was rewarded by her breathless, 'The Mirager!'

I nodded. 'Yes. Parvana, I've been in Tyr. I don't know what has been happening here. I heard the Mirager was burnt alive in Sandmurram…'

She snorted. 'You don't want to believe what Tyranian sods say! Of course he's still alive.'

I endeavoured to look relieved. Inside, I was perplexed. Could the man really have survived? I said, 'I have something of the Mirager's that must be returned to him. Something left behind at the slave auction in Sandmurram. And I have to warn him of danger from the Brotherhood. I must talk to him, but I don't know how to contact him. What can I do?'

Parvana's air of world-weary disenchantment vanished fast. 'Don't worry – I don't know any of

those cold-arsed Magor bastards, but we all know how to pass a message – one that will get right to the balls at the top if need be. Will you be sent for water tomorrow?'

I both heard and felt her breathless awe and guessed she wasn't as disparaging of the Mirager as her vocabulary suggested. 'Yes,' I said, 'I will.'.' 'Then be here. I shall tell you what to do then.' She jumped down from the wall. 'It's my turn to get the water. I'll see you tomorrow.' She gave a happy smile and went to pick up her ewer, now at the head of the line because an obliging slave had been moving it along in front of his own.

That was easy, I thought. But the Mirager may well be a different matter… What sort of man survived his own execution?

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a thunder of hoofs. I turned my head to see two gorclaks being ridden at racing speed down a lane that disgorged into the square. The riders, both junior officers, were whipping their beasts and calling for a free way ahead. The people at the well scattered in fright as the animals ploughed into them. One older woman who wasn't quick enough was brushed aside, a child disappeared under churning legs, ewers were smashed. The first rider, laughing, brought his whip down on a Kardi man who shook his fist at the racing men. The other gave a whoop of delight and caught the awning over a fruit stall as he rode by, so that the whole stall collapsed in on itself, spilling produce.

Then they were gone and the silence they left behind them was deathly. The child, ripped open from throat to pelvis by a gorclak spur, lay in a widening pool of blood so thick it seemed black. A woman rose to her feet, looked around in a panic – and saw what

she didn t want to see. She sank down again, onto her knees this time, twisting her hands over and over as if she were participating in some strange ritual of cleansing, of absolution. Her mouth caverned open, but no sound came out.

The square was filled with hate and I found myself part of it, hating with a black hate, despising those laughing men for their casual murder, dreaming revenge.

The crowd closed in on the body and the grieving mother. I slipped down from the wall and went to fill my ewer, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

'I've written a message for the Military Commander,' I said harshly. 'See that he gets it, Brand.' I had removed my slave collar – unlike other such collars it snapped open – and I'd changed my clothing, but the atmosphere of the square was still acid in my mind.

Brand took the scroll I handed him and, after a nod from me, read it. He raised a sardonic eyebrow. 'Harsh words, Legata.'

'Officers, Brand! Behaving like that! Fortunately the gorclaks had their numbers newly painted; it should be easy enough for the Commander to have them identified and punished.'

'But will he bother? They only killed a Kardi child, after all.'

'That's what's the matter with this place,' I snapped, even though I knew he was deliberately baiting me. 'The standards that apply back home don't seem to apply here. How can we earn the loyalty of the people we rule if we behave like lawless ravagers ourselves?'

He gave a cynical snort. 'You won't change anything with this note. Haven't you learned yet that any society practising slavery is innately unjust? When you have

the power to make a free man a chattel to be bought and sold, then it is you – not the slave – who loses humanity; you who become a little less than what a man or a woman should be. The system is marginally less arbitrary in Tyrans simply because lesser men like those legionnaires are not at the top of the midden heap there; they are near the bottom.'

I wanted to deny what he was saying, to brush the words aside because I did not like them, but the scene in the well-square stayed with,me. And I knew at least one part of what he was saying was true: the system here was arbitrary; it was too dependent on the whims of. individuals. Back in Tyrans, power was divided up: the Exaltarch, the Brotherhood, the generals, the highborn, the moneymasters, the court praetors, the temple priestesses, the trademasters – everyone had his or her say. There were checks and balances even the Exaltarch had to obey. But here, in Kardiastan? The Governor, the Prefects – they relied on the legions to enforce the law and the only courts were military ones. It was a system, that could be easily abused; and in my heart I knew military men were notoriously unwilling to discipline their own kind for crimes committed against civilians, especially subjects who were not even citizens of Tyrans.

'I am sure other outposts of the Exaltarchy don't have a similar, um, anarchy as here,' I said in protest. 'Besides, we only enslave those who have committed a crime. Some would say that slavery is a preferable punishment to other forms. In Assoria they used to cut off the right hands of thieves. In Corsene they used to blind them. Nowadays, in all the Exaltarchy, thieves and other petty criminals have a chance to lead useful lives as slaves, well fed, clothed and housed. Society is therefore more stable. Crime is reduced. The punishment is more tolerable. Which is better?'

'Legata, enslavement was just as arbitrary in Altan, where I was born, as it appears to be here. Do you know why I was made a slave? No, of course you don't. You never bothered to ask. Well, now perhaps is the time for you to learn – my parents died. I was ten years old.'

'And -?' I prompted when he did not go on.

'That's it. I was ten and parentless. There was no one to protect me. No one to protect the property that was my father's. It was stolen and I was sold into slavery, with the open connivance of the legionnaires stationed in Altan. Where was the crime that justified the sale of a grieving ten-year-old boy into a lifetime of slavery? That is the truth of your Tyranian civilisation, Legata. Certainly we have peace – but at what price?'

I didn't want to think about what he was saying. I looked away from him to pick up the slave collar again and fiddle with it. It felt weighty, cumbersome, awkward in a way I hadn't even noticed when I was wearing it. Brand stood quietly, waiting for some acknowledgement of the truths he uttered. I should have scolded him. Chided him for criticising the Exaltarchy that ruled him, but the Altani and I had a – more complex relationship than that. I said finally, 'You've never spoken like this before, Brand. Why now?'