Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

'And what did you find out?' Temellin asked. His tone was cool, but the bleakness in his eyes was searing.

"This/ woman with me is the Legata Ligea's slave, Aemid. She has been with the Legata since she – the Legata – was brought to General Gayed's household in Tyr as a child. The woman we knew as Derya is the Legata Ligea. She is not and has never been a slave. She may be Kardi, she may be your sister, but she was raised a Tyranian citizen, an adopted daughter of the General. At sixteen she joined the Brotherhood as a novice, and by dint of her talents and ruthlessness she has risen to the rank of Legata Compeer. Her Magor skills have been

used to bring about the imprisonment and torture and

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enslavement of cabochon knows how many innocent people. Tern, she came here to betray us. She has Kardi blood but a Tyranian soul. The infamous Rathrox Ligatan sent her to Kardiastan specifically to bring about your death. Her full intention is to ensure our ruin, to ensure complete Tyranian control over all Kardiastan.'

The shock of those listening swept the room, buffeting us all. Magoria-jessah, Jahan's wife, started to cry.

Temellin stood motionless, his arms now limp by his sides. There was no expression on his face. He turned to Aemid. Ts this true?'

Aemid nodded. 'Magori, I am sorry,' she said. She looked at me. 'I raised this woman, but everything the Magoria-pinar says about her is true. She will destroy you all if you give her the opportunity.'

They felt Aemid's belief in her own words; so did I. It rolled over us as tangible as wind-ripples on a sand dune. A sigh of painful tension followed it. A split second later, I was blasted with the sentiments generated by a roomful of baleful Magor. My stomach roiled in response and I almost disposed of the meal I had just eaten.

The next words were Brand's. 'But Ligea has changed her mind,' he protested. He looked at Temellin. 'Surely you cannot doubt that! She's not the same person any more. She has told me the way she feels now; test my truth -'

'You guileless barbarian. Can't you see how she has fooled you?' Pinar asked, contemptuous of his apparent naivety. 'Your protestations are valueless.'

Temellin didn't appear to have heard Brand. He turned to walk to where I still sat motionless, and faced me across the table. Ts this true?' he asked quietly. 'Are you the Legata Ligea?'

I stood up, meeting his gaze. 'I was. Once.' It seems such a long time ago now…

'You were sent here to kill me?'

'To capture the man who was organising the Kardis and causing problems for Tyrans. And note you are still free, Temel. And alive.'

'Did you come to the Mirage with the intention of betrayal?'

'Temellin -'

He drew his sword and it was already glowing with the gold of its summoning. 'Did you?'

I was silent, knowing there was nothing I could say to lessen his anger, or his grief. He was thinking my love had all been a sham, that every moment I had spent in his arms had been a lie. His lack of faith tore wounds in my soul, adding to the hurt caused by Aemid's willingness to believe the worst of me.

'Did you?'

'Yes,' I whispered. 'Yes, I did, at first.'

Then with a cry of rage and pain he flung his weapon at my chest, as if he could not bear to have contact with its hilt when it impaled me.

There was no way he could miss. He was only a pace or two away across the table and he hurled the sword with all the strength of his anger. Yet I did not move. I could not move, not when it was he who wanted me dead. Just knowing his intention was death itself to me.

Only one person made any move to help: Brand. As the sword left Temellin's hand, he threw himself across the room, a cry of pain wrenched from him as he realised he would never make it in time. But even he was driven to a halt by the unexpectedness – the impossibility – of the sword's trajectory.

One moment the blade was hurtling directly at me and I knew I was going to die, the next it was quivering,

perpendicular, in the wood of the tabletop, its vibrations singing out over the room as it shivered there.

In shock, no one else moved or spoke.

Two tears slid down my cheeks.

In the end, I was the one who broke the uncomprehending silence to explain. 'I once fitted my cabochon to your sword hilt, Temellin. You will have to use someone else's blade.' I turned my head slightly to where Garis, his white face aghast, still sat with a half-filled spoon in his hand. 'Garis, give your weapon to theMirager.'

Garis did not move.

Temellin still stood before me, his face now a mixture of emotion: horror at what he had just done jostled with relief that he had not succeeded and guilt that he had tried – and it was all overlaid with biting, tearing anger. At me.

Pinar's voice spoke into the silence, adding yet another layer to the shock. 'Here – use my blade, Tern.'

But Temellin was already moving, brushing past his wife, thrusting Aemid aside to get to the door. He nodded to Korden as he went. 'Ward her,' he said. 'Him too,' he added, indicating Brand, and he was gone.

Garis looked up at me, his expression pleading to be told none of this had happened. I placed a hand on his shoulder and said softly, 'What Brand said was also true.' Then I started across the room towards Korden.

'Your sword,' he said.

I unsheathed it and handed it to him, hilt first. He took it, insolently placing his cabochon in the hollow of the hilt. ' 'Any cages here, Korden?' I asked wryly.

'Your room will do.' He was stiff with anger, but I had an idea not all of it was directed at me. At Pinar perhaps, for the crass, insensitive way she had broken

her news and hurt her husband? Or at Temellin for having trusted me in the first place? 'We are not the Brotherhood,' he added.

I inclined my head and shifted my gaze to Pinar, standing beside him. Her face was a twist of misery and bitter rage; in her victory, she had lost everything she had ever wanted, and she knew it. The revelation that – although she had been right, although she had been more perceptive than anyone else – she could still lose was such a shock to her that, for one brief moment, faced with the person she judged to have been the cause of her loss, her mind was bared in a flash of naked emotion. The moment was so brief I doubted if anyone else noticed, but I saw – and was appalled, for my senses glimpsed a jagged red crack across the face of her mind.

It was an effort to turn away, to touch Aemid on the arm and say, 'Aemid, you are not well. You should not have made this journey.' And, in fact, she did look ill; her complexion was grey, her eyes sunken and the skin loose on the bones of her face.

'It was necessary.'

I shook my head. 'You should have had more faith in Magor blood. It was not necessary.'

I walked on to the door.

They warded me in my own room, encircling it with their sword-spells, using conjurations I had not yet learned and did not know how to break. Then they left me.

I was so tired I slept immediately. The pain would only begin the next day, when I would see Temellin's face again and again as he hurled his sword, intending to bring about my death.

I woke in the morning to a different room. Tucked away in a cabinet that had not been there before was a practical and welcome addition: a bathroom. The Mirage Makers had evidently noticed my discomfort at having to use a pail supplied the night before by my jailers; I was touched by this sign of pragmatic thoughtfulness.

The other changes were less useful. There was a large hole in the outside wall as if the Mirage Makers wanted me to feel I was not actually imprisoned at all. I knew differendy. I could feel the warding and knew, hole or not, I was imprisoned as effectively as if I were chained. The other walls were now covered with drawings, all ridiculous: people with three eyes and lopsided faces, or with four arms and no legs, or who were half man, half insect. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them, all doing different things – standing on their heads, swimming in the sky, cutting their toenails with an axe, drinking soup from a sieve, birthing flowers from their breasts… If I had been in the mood for absurdities, I could have spent hours examining them, hunting out their riddles, laughing over their delights.