Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

In the seconds before death I remembered my mother, my real mother, bathed in gold and blood, giving the battle cry of the Magor. Words I must have understood then, and remembered now. My lips

formed the shape of that heartfelt cry: Fah-Ke-Cabochon-rez! Hail the power of the cabochon!

I fell face down in the sand, blood rushing through me to obey the renewed vigour of my heart. I lay there, gathering strength to me as if it were a tangible thing in the air, to be seized on and imbibed. Then warm strong hands were holding me, lifting me, hugging me to a muscled chest.

'Temellin?'

'Brand, damn you! Are you all right?'

'She wanted to kill me. She tried – what happened?'

'You flung her away from you.'

'I did? Where is she?'

'She picked herself up and ran. She saw me coming, I think. She was crying. Are you sure you're all right?'

I stood back from him. 'Yes, I think so.' Crying? Pinar? Thanks -' I took a deep breath. 'You followed me,' I accused, anything not to think about what had just happened.

He shook his head. 'Don't flatter yourself. I came out for a leak. And then I saw her, and wondered what she was up to. I saw you both, but I thought you were just talking. It was too dark – Goddessdamn, I almost let her kill you thinking you were having a conversation!'

'Never mind. I'm all right. Let's go back to the fire.' I leant against him, still weak. As we walked, I said, 'Brand, Temellin is the Mirager.'

'Yes, I know.'

'You knewV

'Yes, of course. That was obvious.' He turned his face to look at me in surprise. 'Li- Derya, you didn't knowV

I was silent, shamed by his surprise.

'You seem to have been uncharacteristically dense. And I'm surprised you let Pinar get within pissing distance of you, too. Couldn't you see the way she has been looking at you? She loathes everything you stand for and, unlike the rest of these gullible folk, she has a pretty good idea just what it is you represent. What worm has addled your wits?'

I did not answer. He was right to ask the question, though.

That night as I lay on my pallet of reeds, I tried to persuade myself that all I felt for Temellin was lust: easily satisfied, easily forgotten once satisfied – and knew I was fooling myself. When I looked at Temellin, I lusted – but I also saw, for the first time in my life, a man I recognised as being the mirror of myself. Temellin responded to power and responsibility and excitement the same way I did: he was stimulated. We fed on those things, the way most folk thrived on security and routine. Challenged, we came alive… We were two of a kind.

And that was, at best, intriguing, appealing, unsettling; at worst, worrying. A mirror image had the power to shatter a reflection.

Such a man had the means to bring me down.

The next day, I came face to face with Pinar as the morning meal was being doled out from the pots at the fire. She gazed at me, emotions safely corralled behind her eyes. Temellin and Garis and Korden were all within hearing, so she was scrupulously polite. 'Good morning, Derya,' she said. 'How are you feeling this morning? You looked as if you had some indigestion last night.'

'Indeed I did.' I held out my plate for my share of porridge. 'Must have come across something… rotten.'

'You should be more careful.'

'Oh, I will. In future.'

'Tell me, Derya, what sort of slave were you?'

I had been about to turn away, but her words halted me. All instincts alert, I wished I could feel through the barriers she erected. 'A reluctant one. Why?'

'Well, there are different kinds of slaves, are there not? Whores for the military brothels, for example. Pallet slaves for officers, that kind of thing. I couldn't help but notice your hair has been well cut, your hands are not roughened with hard work. So I wondered if

vmi wprp tfip T poata T iapa'c lnvp-Qlavp'

Temellin's voice cut across her questioning like a sword slash. 'Pinar, that's enough. It's none of our business.'

She turned to him. 'You are too trusting, Temel. If she was a love-slave, then perhaps it is foolish to trust her at all. Lovers can have loyalties to one another, rather than to the land of their birth.'

'That's true,' Korden agreed. 'Anyway, I'd like to know why she has said so little about this Ligea woman. I'd have thought Derya would have told us all sorts of things by now, without prompting. A Legata of the Brotherhood is surely a danger to us. We need to know what sort of person she is.'

'Derya was no pallet slave,' Brand said. He sounded offhand, but they must have all felt his honesty. He continued, 'The Legata's taste is for handsome males. Her present lover is one of the Stalwarts, an officer.' He smiled at me. 'And believe me, I wouldn't be hankering after Derya here if she preferred women on her pallet.'

Several people laughed at that, but I'd also felt the flare of suspicion from others like a slap in the face. I glared at Brand as I sat down by the fire to eat. Pinar and Temellin remained standing and the look they exchanged was full of meaning, although only they knew what. 'Let it rest, Pinar,' he said. 'Please.'

She went to get her breakfast, but I knew nothing had been laid to rest. Pinar hated me and if at any time she thought she might be able to get away with it, she would try to kill me. The irony was that she was right. I was bent on betrayal and she was the only one with the sense to see it. Korden's naturally suspicious character made him wary and distrustful, but he wasn't sure in the way Pinar was. She knew, although I suspected jealousy was her foundation, not evidence. Poor Pinar. I„could almost have felt sorry for her. At

least I would never have my thinking clouded by that kind of love and jealousy. This, I thought, is a battle I can win in spite of my Magor weakness.

Brand, curious, sat beside me and asked in a whisper if I were going to let Pinar get away with the attempt on my life. 'That would be most unlike you, Li- er, Derya,' he remarked.

'If I try to deal with her myself, who's to say I would win? I almost died last night,' I said. 'And if I did do away with her, who would get the blame for her death or disappearance?'

'Why must you always think in such extreme terms? You could just tell everyone what happened.'

That was true, and they'd have to believe me, too. But I wouldn't win any friends among the Magor by unmasking the murderous intent of one of their revered and cherished Ten. Better to let her make a fool of herself, all on her own. I was alerted now, and perhaps I could use her weaknesses to further my own ends. I said to Brand, T will deal with her in my own time. The woman tried to kill me. No one gets away with that.'

That morning Temellin asked me to ride alongside him. 'I want to talk to you while we ride,' he said. 'Korden is right. You should be able to tell us more about this Legata. How important is she to us? We have had little experience with the Brotherhood here, except when they tortured ordinary people for information about the Magor. But that was years ago. I think they finally realised it never got them anywhere because we never tell the non-Magor anything about our movements or where we hide. The freed slaves we take to the Mirage – they never return, you know. It is our price for their freedom. Anyway, after the Brotherhood tired of their fruitless interrogations of

the non-Magor, we didn't see too much of them for years. Until a couple of weeks back. That's when we heard the Tyranians were expecting a high-ranking compeer to arrive in Sandmurram from Tyr. That worried us. We sent someone to investigate, but they weren't able to find out much.'

I felt the familiar surge of intoxication. That piquant thrill that comes with playing a game of deception, pitting my wits against a worthy opponent. Even more delicious this time because he almost certainly had no idea there was a game… 'That would have been Legata Ligea,' I said. 'As far as I know there is no one else from the Brotherhood in Kardiastan at the moment. She has been complaining about that – about being on her own. Gossip in the slave quarters back in Tyr said her main value to the Brotherhood is her skill at interrogation.'