Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

'So I've noticed. But you haven't given me your answer: will you come to the Alps with me?'

He threw up his hands in capitulation. 'Ocrastes help me, yes, I'll come. But one of these days I'll either have you in my arms – or I'll break free of your spell and leave you.'

We both wrote letters before we left; Brand's was for Caleh, mine for Temellin. It was the hardest thing I'd ever had to write; it didn't say one-quarter of what I wanted to tell him, and it certainly didat come close to telling him all the truth.

Temellin, I began, by the time you read this, I shall be gone – out of your life, and out of Kardiastan – probably forever. I'm sorry I have brought you grief. Ironic, isn't it? It was originally my intention to bring about your death; now I worry because I have caused you pain… but perhaps you won't believe that.

I go to stop the Stalwarts – yes, they do come, whether you believe in them or not. I hope it won't come to a fight, but if it does, I have every intention of winning and none of dying. You see, I am carrying your child. Your son.

Nonetheless, it is not my intention to stay in Kardiastan. I will go on to Tyrans where I will bear the child and there I shall stay. I will send the boy to you so he can receive his cabochon. And I shall keep all your Magor secrets, never fear.

I suppose there is a chance I shall not live long enough to bear this child. The Mirage Makers showed me what it is they want from the Magoroth. I believe you know to what I refer. I will fight such a fate for myself and our child, but should I lose, then so be it. ^

/ don't regret a thing. At first I told myself all I felt was lust, soon quenched, but we know differently, don't we? Even when you meant to kill me, we both knew how much we loved.

Full life, Tern.

Your Shirin

Just before we left, I gave the letter to Garis, who looked at me uncertainly and said, 'I wish I could be sure you're doing the right thing.' He gave a wry smile. 'Impossible, I know. But how will you know what part of the Alps the Stalwarts will cross? You may miss them.'

'I won't miss them. The Mirage Makers will see to that,' I said with certainty. I swung myself up onto one of the shleths he had procured for us. 'Full life, Garis.'

He nodded unhappily and stood watching while Brand and I rode out of the Mirage City.

This time there was no cheering.

¦¦; ark

'This place gives me the spine-crawls,' Brand said, looking around uneasily. 'It's so unnatural.'

I shrugged. 'It's a mirage. I find it… entertaining.' Enjoying the view from the back of my shleth, I saw a landscape of green and blue boulders, of bushes scurrying along trying to hide behind one another like frightened furry animals, of pink and white lakes hovering in the distance, of tree blossoms tinkling in song or birds wafting past in perfumed flight or insects floating along streams in flower-petal boats.

Occasionally we saw something more commonplace: a Kardi with a cartioad of fruit on his way into the city, or a field of grain being hoed and weeded by people who waved as we rode by – sights that wouldn't have been out of place in a Kardi vale or along a Tyranian river, except they were set against a mauve sky studded with candleholders.

Brand regarded it all sourly. He indicated the grey and white brick paving we were following. 'And you think this road will lead us directly to the Stalwarts?'

'If the Mirage Makers have already seen the invaders, I think they will supply us with the path to

the place of their intrusion. I could be wrong, I suppose. Let me check…' Several women were digging pottery clay from a small pit beside the road. I pulled up beside them and asked diem how long the paving had been there.

'Ah, about ten minutes,' one of them said matter-of-factly, using a clay-smeared arm to push her hair away from her face, with interesting results. 'Nice one, isn't it? I hope it stays. It'll be much more convenient for us. The old road was much further east.'

I raised an eyebrow at Brand. 'Ten minutes. I'd say it was made for us, wouldn't you?'

Brand remarked it was convenient to be on such good terms with the Mirage Makers. As we rode on, he added, with less flippancy, 'You think we're being followed, don't you? You're not pressing these poor beasts of ours merely out of your eagerness to meet the Stalwarts.' The shleths were at that moment only ambling at a walk, but that was just because they needed the respite; they had been pushed hard for three days now. His animal reached back with a feeding arm to scratch absentmindedly at an itch, and connected with Brand's sandal instead. He knocked the offending limb away in annoyance.

I said, 'There is a possibility Pinar might take it into her head to come after us. I'm hoping Garis can persuade her not to; that's really why I wanted him to stay in the city.'

'But if he doesn't tell her where we've gone, surely she won't know where to find us.'

'Yes, she will. She has a certain, um, affinity with me, Brand. She has put her cabochon into the hollow on my sword hilt; that gives her some advantages, including the ability to follow the traces my sword leaves behind it as it passes, or so I have read. And no,'

I added, forestalling his next suggestion, I can t leave the sword behind. I need it.'

He frowned uncertainly, not liking the nature of the conversation, but persisting nonetheless. 'If these Mirage Makers can help us, then can't they hinder her? Stop her from following us? Couldn't they throw a lake across the landscape between her and us, or something?'

'I'm sure they could. But I'm not sure they will. She is Magor, so presumably the Mirage Makers think of her as an ally. There may be other considerations as well.'

He sighed. 'Ligea, I think you ought to tell me everything you know instead of just hinting at things. It is very irritating.'

I tried not to feel exasperated. His persistence was edging me towards the thing that had been skipping around the fringes of my mind for weeks; something I had been doing my unsuccessful best to stave off because I didn't want to think about it. I said, 'I'm not being deliberately obscure, Brand. It's just that I don't really know anything. I only guess. All those weeks we were imprisoned, I had time to do a lot of thinking. And I had access to a great many books about Kardiastan and the Magor. And then I have what the Mirage Makers have told me more directly…'

'And?'

I pointed at a black patch scoring a hillside with darkness. 'You've seen those diseased areas?'

'Of course. They are – foul.'

'Yes. Evil. I have come to believe they are a sort of physical manifestation of things we usually think of as abstracts: things like cruelty and hate. Just as a mirage can have solidity here, so can evil have a physical reality. Those patches are slowly and surely destroying ¦››¦ m /¦*. -•.«._¦'•

the Mirage. But I think the Mirage Makers know a way to make themselves strong enough to resist. I think they believe an infusion of humanity, of Magoroth humanity, will provide them with what they now lack.'

'Dubious reasoning,' he objected. 'Surely humanity is more usually known for committing evil than for combating it.'

'Perhaps those who are capable of committing evil are also the best at fighting it, for just that reason. And there are those who do combat it, especially among the Magor.' There was another hole in my reasoning, though, one that was harder to plug. I could be right about the nature of the Ravage, but where did it come from in the first place? Ravage patches predated the arrival of the Ten in the Mirage…

'What do you mean by an infusion anyway?'

'The Mirage Makers need a life. A Magoroth life to grow inside the Mirage, to become one of them, one of the immortal entities that comprise the Mirage. At least, that's what I have come to understand.'