Glenda Larke: The Heart of the mirage

I gagged, forced myself to return the fouled sword to my belt, then swung my legs up to lock my ankles over the rope.

'Ligea.' Brand's anguish hit me. 'The wall -/'

I was already moving, still slung below the rope, but I was only halfway across. At Brand's warning I looked back. The wall was heaving as the last of its foundations dissolved into the corruption. Cracks ripped through the stonework; blocks toppled.

I felt the triumph of the Ravage. I was not going to make it.

Snarling my frustration, I reached once more for my sword and slashed my connection to the wall.

Brand's howl of warning echoed in the air as I hit the surface of the Ravage. My actions were instinctive. I twisted the rope slack around my right wrist. My sword was fitted into my left hand, my cabochon in its,

place… The blade flared into a blaze of gold, bathing me in its light as I was sucked into the fester. I was still screaming the conjurations of self-warding as I was dragged under.

And even while I cried out the words, I knew the limitations of their value. Any movement of mine would negate such warding: the wards might still stand, but I wouldn't be inside them…

And so it was. First there was shock: the disbelief of a body struck by more agony than it was possible for a human being to bear. I was on fire. My skin screamed out its pain; my inner organs shrivelled with their burning; anguish tore my mind, shattering my knowledge of myself. My hands spasmed, tightening my hold on both sword and rope. My body convulsed, twisting me into a foetal travesty. I felt the core of my being, my soul, was touched by the Vortex of the Dead. I diverted as much power as I could to keep the pain at bay.

I slowed my heartbeat, slowed my breathing. I had to use power to push fluid away from my face in order to breathe at all. My sword still flamed to stave off the creatures homing in on me. Through blurred, uncomprehending eyes I saw them: twisted bodies of organic dross, twisted intelligences thriving on my suffering, watchful eyes shining with carnal glee. The beam of power from my blade sputtered ineffectually. Still, they were wary of it. Or perhaps it was the wards that held them off.

I looked upwards. As a fish might see a fisherman on the edge of a lake, I saw Brand: a dark, distorted figure, looking down. The light of my sword glowed beneath the surface, illuminating my agony for him. He was shouting to me, but the words were lost and I didn't have the strength left to enhance my hearing.

A moment later, I started to move and knew he was urging his shleth forward to pull me out. Slowly I began to roll through the foulness towards the edge. Yet as the rope dragged me one way, the Ravage sucked me down another, until I felt I was being torn in two.

It was well Brand did not understand how much pain he was bringing to me. Wave after wave of agony became a blaze that left my mind shrieking. I tried to build new wards. I tried to control my body's need for air. I tried to keep the power of my cabochon alive.

Around me the predators saw their prey being drawn away from them. They snarled and jostled, swooped down on me with claws and fangs bared, only to be turned away at the last moment by the force still glowing in my sword. The Ravage churned. And the blaze of my sword was dimming even as my body approached the edge and safety. The creatures closed in, crowing their anticipation.

One of them, its knobbed skin criss-crossed with sores, tore at my blouse with decayed yellow teeth and bit into my breast, fastening itself to me to suck my blood. In mind-blowing terror, I beat at it with my sword, but there was no strength there, nothing left to fight with. The curled mouth-parts of an obese worm ripped a piece out of my cheek and passed the flesh into its mouth. I was being eaten alive…

I wanted to scream and scream and scream.

But somewhere inside me I knew if I did, if I opened my mouth, the Ravage would enter my throat, burning, corrupting and killing. I kept my lips clamped closed.

Brand's roar of rage reached me, but meant little. I felt I was slipping away. I could see and hear, but movement was beyond me. The Ravage had long since _.

seeped through the remains of my warding; the creatures were now stronger than the power of my sword; the pain was more than I could bear.

I had come to the end of my endurance. I capitulated.

Beyond feeling, I let the rope slip free.

Brand howled his anguish once more and plunged his arm into the putrescence, groping blindly in the poison, refusing to feel the acid agony shrivelling his arm to irreparably cripple him. He managed to touch me, but his fingers slithered on my slime-covered skin, couldn't grasp me as I slid away from him. His weakened fingers skidded over my breast, my neck and the torn side of my face. I couldn't do anything to help him. I scarcely comprehended what he risked in his attempt to save me. Then, as I slipped away, he hooked fingers into the limb of the beast sucking at my breast and pulled it from me.

I fell to the bottom of the foulness, came in contact with the rock beneath the sore, felt myself enclosed in a cocoon of safety. The pain didn't disappear – there were too many raw and torn patches for that – but the agony reduced itself to a manageable level. Better still, I felt the comfort and love of the Mirage Makers. Rationality returned.

They piled concepts into my head, pictures, feelings. Concept: Time. Need. We can keep you safe here, but you cannot stay. You will soon need air. You

must have help. They offered me nothing more than a temporary security.

I said, There is no one.

That was when I saw Temellin in my head, his image startlingly clear.

Temellin? What could he have to do with this? He is too far away. I do not know where he is.

The next picture was of an embryo, and the urge I felt was a desperate desire to follow the child.

Follow the child? I assumed they referred to Pinar's son, and despaired. What kind of advice was that? I was doomed…

Another picture: this one showed me driving my sword tip into my cabochon. Garis had said something about that, hadn't he? But someone else had told me that if you cracked your cabochon, your life leaked away. None of this made sense! I beat down the panic once more.

I asked, remarkably calm, You wish me to die?

Emotion: Exasperation.

I don't know what you mean! Panic crept back, nibbling away the edges of my sanity.

They tried again: images of Temellin, of an unborn child, of a sword in my cabochon.

But for these beings, language was constricting, not liberating. Away from the Shiver Barrens, unable to use the sands, without a human form, how could they use words?

And yet they found a way. They used the only things available: the creatures of the Ravage. Goddess knows what pain it cost them, but the Mirage Makers forced the deformed jaws of those monsters to articulate laboriously formed words, spoken words, that I could hear.

'Shadow self. Your shade.' A grinding, scraping Ravage voice. Four words that chilled my soul.

And then, 'Release your essensa.'

I knew that word. Someone had said something once… Aemid? Temellin? The legions can never kill our essensa. All living things have a life-force we call the essensa. And the word had been in one of the books I'd read, too, but I couldn't remember the context.

'Put your sword through your cabochon. You will not die. We want to save you.' Kind words uttered in ugly rasping sounds, sentiments at variance with vicious teeth and foul breath and gleeful eyes.

Irresolute, I dithered. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it wasn't the Mirage Makers who spoke. And if it were them, I should still question their motives.

But I was dazed and in pain and tired of the struggle. I looked down at my hand, surprised to see I still clutched my sword. I swapped it to my right hand and looked at my cabochon. Barely any colour remained; my power was almost gone. A shade? It was the best offer I had. The only offer.